Back from Shenzhen and Taipei

Stuck here at the airport waiting for my flight back to HK from Taipei so I thought I'd try to write a bit for the blog rather than fall asleep! I think my last blog entry was about my routine in HK. The past seven days has been full of adventure and new experiences and I'm exhausted! I can't believe its has only been a week since I left HK, about this time (6pm Saturday). The week has been filled with so many new experiences. It's been good to be on the road again, I haven't done this in a while and it's been good.

Shenzhen

I didn't make it to Shenzhen in time to go shopping or get any shirts made. I ended up working last Saturday right up until about 6pm and then jumped on the train to Shenzhen. I had a good dinner with my old coworker SL who is now with another Big Four accounting firm in Shenzhen. It was interesting comparing notes and sharing our respective stories. I was telling SL how happy I was to finally eat yummy Chinese food – not knowing the kind of week I had in store for me! For those of you following previous blogs, I was going to say that my time in HK has resulted in some healthy weight loss. The portions in HK are smaller than what we (or specifically I) each in Canada, but not small enough to order two. So the combination of smaller portions and lots of walking up and down HK Island has been a very nice feeling. All this is obsolete news! Before we started eating SL asked if I wanted to pray first. It was a little unexpected on my part, but it was certainly an appreciated gesture. Moving over here outside of our normal surroundings has been good to share new ideas and thoughts. I hope that Sandra and I can continue to meet up with old and new friends wherever we go.

Entering into mainland China on my new multiple entry visa (which allows basically unlimited entries to China) was symbolic for me. It reminded me of some of the reasons we're here and also reminded me that I was entering into a land were I don't know the language, but crave so much to learn. HK, as we expected, has not been a cultural or linguistically challenge at all. I made it to T&M's alone! I think every other time they've insisted on picking me up. It was a good chance to spend some time with them, watching them pack, going to church with them for the last time, eating too much with T, etc. It was good times of memories. T & I had some good talks about some of the struggles and temptations ahead in Asia. T&M have been away from Toronto pretty much since we’ve graduated, but business and vacation has given us a chance to catch-up almost at least once per year.

We met a new friend at church. It's one of those “it's such a small world” experiences. This new friend J was working on a project in SZ and made his way to this church pretty much by himself. He ended up knowing a good friend of ours from Waterloo – not only knowing him, but renting a house to him! We ended up talking quite a bit about our respective journeys of moving to Asia and moving back to North America. He's praying about whether God has further plans for him out here somewhere in Asia. I'll leave out some of the details… but suffice to say, the weekend was full of neat conversations with old and new friends. There were resonating themes of transition, sharing accountability and remembering that God has plans for us beyond our own (surrendering). Monday morning as T and I were packing and sharing our last dim sum lunch, it seemed like God wanted to deliver the icing on the cake for this great weekend by passing on news of friends accepting Christ. It was an overwhelming feeling just bringing us to prayer. What a blessing… and what am appropriate blessing that this was happening completely outside of our control on the other side of the world. The Kingdom of God is powerful and real. I'm thankful that we have the privilege of being able to witness just some of what God is doing.

For those of you in Toronto, I really encourage you to see what a neat and fruitful ministry and opportunity there is in Toronto right now. I pray that God will open our eyes to see people as Christ would. It seems like weekly there are opportunities to share God's love with newcomers!

Taipei

I left SZ for Taipei Monday afternoon arriving in Taipei around 7pm. I was a little bit nervous about this first official trip to Taipei as an employee of the firm! Was a little uncertain about how people would be now that I'm on board, meeting the new team members and of course, navigating this city without Sandra! The overall theme of the week was Taiwanese hospitality! We’ve heard people talk about Taiwanese hospitality before, but this week I really experienced it!

The team at the office arranged for a car to pick me up from the airport to the hotel. I went from little taxi's in disorientated Shenzhen to much more orderly driving in Taipei (in a S-class Mercedes!) The Grand Hyatt where we usually stay beside the office was full, so I stayed down the street at a local Taiwan business hotel. The hotel was just as good as the Hyatt and on top of SYS Memorial MRT station – very close to one of the areas that we were considering living in. I subsequently learned from people at the office that there was a common believe that the Grand Hyatt was “haunted” (being the site of a previous execution site!) We'll have to get used to some of the beliefs in TW!

From a work perspective, I was playing more of an Area role than really spending time on my Learning & Development work, but the two really go hand in hand. This was the first week where I've really had intense work. For those of you EY types, we were basically meeting with the PPD team to understand and map local audit regulations with GAM (don't worry if you didn't understand any of that sentence!). In short, it was three full days of meetings with various people in the office and doing some internal consulting type work. As geeky as it sounds, I'm feeling very happy that all of the technical background seemed to just come back and we were able to forge full speed ahead on some of the ideas and solutions. It was a very productive three days and I think we established some positive credibility with the Taiwan office. Similarly for my “other job”, it was really good getting to know my team a little better. Right now, the full time team consists of a manager instructor, an assistant manager, a course coordinator and an administrative assistant / organizer (4 people) and I. One of my first tasks will be to build up a network of about 25-30 people from around Taiwan who will help us teach courses and do coaching for local teams. There's a good foundation here, but lots of work to do. I'm actually very excited about the work ahead and I think people are willing to give new things a try.

From a language perspective, I'm also looking forward to learning Mandarin. This week we functioned in English during our business meetings. There's a small group of people who speak English. The others are able to, but lack confidence. They have this “shyness” or “fear” if you try speaking to them in English. I need to learn Mandarin quickly so that we can build up relationships. It will be a little confusing in the beginning. The people in the office speak: 1) Mandarin, 2) Taiwanese and 3) Taiwanese / Mandarin! Of course, my Mandarin isn't strong enough to really tell the difference for some words. The comforting news is that we've taken on a few more expats – some returning from short secondments to the US, another Caucasian guy who is married to a Taiwanese girl. We'll get a chance to learn together.

Nobody minds that I don't speak Mandarin so far. Its more that I'm embarrassed that I can't even do basic things like set-up my own cell phone! Taiwan is a bit behind in English so even though they have automated menus in English a lot of their printed materials are all in Chinese. I asked my assistant to help me with the mobile phone and she came right away with another person who has stronger English to help me! It terrible, my own assistant is scared of me!

We basically worked every night except for Friday night. YP (another Area colleague based out of Malaysia) and I and two other people from the office when to Shi-Lin night market. Its been a good week of getting to know new coworkers from a professional as well as personal level. YP and I had a really good chat about charities, my experience with Habitat, his trip to work with an orphanage, etc.

Food. Every day has been full of 5-8 course meals or all you can eat buffets! The highlight of the week was driving to the north part of the city for shark's fin soup lunch. We had a six course meal, with the main entry being shark's fin. My experience with shark's fin has been with various grades of shark's fin soup at wedding banquets. At this restaurant, each of us were given a large bowl of soup (about the size of a small Pho bowl) with one large intact piece of shark's fin each. The size of this shark's fin was a little bigger than the size of my hand (palm and fingers!) I think I had more shark's fin in that one bowl of soup than I've had in my life! The rest of the week was filled with dumplings, Shanghai food, Japanese food, sashimi, oysters, etc. etc. One afternoon the office even dropped off bubble tea from the most famous bubble tea place in Taipei as an afternoon treat!

I purposely booked a later flight today (Saturday) so that I could explore the city a bit more. I looked up the Costco and big box store area and decided to walk (about an hour)? I think Sandra and I will have to have some further discussions about where we want to live. Our understanding of Taipei was, and still is, quite limited and there are a lot of options out there. I think we're hesitating to live out in the “suburbs” because we're not sure where our routine / life will be. Lots of considerations.

Going to this area in Nei-hu was really good. I went to one of the big box supermarkets (think Walmart and Loblaws combined), Costco, a furniture store (similar to Leon's), and the local B&Q (Home Depot). I'm satisfied that I now have a decent understanding of the prices of most common items in TW. Some items are very affordable while others are similar to prices back home. The Costco in Taipei has more selection that most of the Costcos I've been to in Canada or the US. They must have the same procurement channels as the US. I’ve very impressed. Lots of USDA Black Angus Beef (basically we won’t have to worry about not finding a good steak out here), lots of unique Asian food and produce items as well as your usual “American Costco” stuff that we see back home – spices, cream puffs, Kirkland branded stuff, baking materials, etc. I feel a lot more comfortable about our transition here and what we need to bring or not bring. For the most part, I can see us spending a whole day, hiring someone with a truck and going on a huge one day shopping spree to set-up our home!

I'm feeling exhausted from the work week and all of the walking today. I should get back to my place in HK by 9pm today and hit the sack earlier. The plans for this coming week are still a little up in the air. Was hoping to make it to Beijing for the later half of the week (and secretly stay for the weekend), but might need to do some work with the Philippians. Heading to ECC for church tomorrow morning and then meeting up with JS and her friends for dinner.

I'm still feeling a little lonely at times, but this week has been a really good week for me to be reassured that God will provide for our physical, spiritual and emotional needs out here. Sandra and I are looking forward to January where we can experience more of these things together. She's getting a little tired and burnt out with finishing off things in Toronto.

I'll end off the rambling here for anybody who is still reading. I didn't take many pictures this past week. It was difficult to pull the camera out in most situations. I couldn't resist taking this picture at Costco for Ryan and Nicholas. It's a toddler Thomas bed! Good thing its too big to bring on the plane otherwise Kai-yah would have bought it for you guys!