A Few Random Thoughts

I think you may have figured out by now that Sandra's entries start with some type of "quote" where as I just jump into a ramble of thoughts until I run out of time. I've been on a semi-dry spell lately in terms of blogging, but it has been a good two to three weeks of adjusting to church, work and life in Taipei. In many ways, it feels like we're a lot less busy than we were in Toronto because we haven't signed-up or committed to too many things. Our experience to date at Grace Baptist Church in Taipei has been really good. More on our church experience another time, but its funny looking at how "involved" people are at church with activities almost daily. I'm sure people had the same impression of our schedules in Toronto. Right now, we're easing into the community by getting to know people and building relationships one at a time. For the time being, we have decided to attend the bilingual Saturday evening fellowship (for those of you who understand, its has a distinct "CCFish" familiarity) and Sunday English service. During the week we've been attending Tuesday night prayer meeting, but looking at opportunities to get involved to help kick off a small group ministry or participate in Alpha program. Practically all of Taiwan is off on a nine-day long (including weekends) Chinese New Year holiday. We come back to work for Monday / Tuesday Feb 26 / 27 and then we get Feb 28th off (Taiwan Peace Day)! We're hosting our first "bigger" event at our apartment on the 28th... some people from the fellowship will be organizing some type of "outing" and then back to our place for the holiday.

The other thought that's been on my mind is that time can pass by really quickly. While we're cautious about committing to too much until we have more visibility to what opportunities and commitments we will have, we don't want to be too slow to get off the ground either (e.g. I still haven't enrolled in structured Chinese language lessons!). In terms of evolving "circles of relationships" here in Taiwan, the obvious ones we are tracking so far are: 1) relationships with each other and God; 2) relationships with Ray's coworkers; 3) relationships with Sandra's coworkers and the MCA missionary community; 4) relationships with friends from church (many who aren't Christians); and 5) relationship with other local friends like our landlady SF and her family and V from the hotel.

Work has been going well. I only had one short trip to HK (only 1 hour away) during these first few weeks of transition. There's a lot to do, but I've been able to manage my own schedule so that allows me to start work a little earlier and make it home for dinner. The home office also facilitates some more effective work for evening conference calls, etc. The goal in the first few weeks has been to get to know my team and our local office environment.

There have been a LOT of ups and downs. Our office has some very unique politics and challenges. One thing I've realized in the few months I've been working here in Asia is that relationships and "substance" really matters. You have to really deliver and have depth in your recommendation, conversation, product, etc. If you skim on the surface or avoid the issue, it's not going to work. There are times where its frustrating because politics or personal history might get in the way of a good solution. I've realized that I take a very methodological, analytical and hopefully logical approach to issue resolution... but that doesn't always work here! Lots to learn.

The other challenge has been English language. Our office has an extremely low level of English language proficiency - at all levels. This is an issue my group will be addressing over the next couple of years (for global competitiveness, etc.). From a personal perspective, it makes it difficult to build casual relationships because you don't really know who wants to talk to you because they want to learn English and who literally will be afraid of you if you don't speak Mandarin! The first thing we do when we return from our trip to Mainland China is to enroll in Mandarin studies!

The good news with both our transition to church and to work is that there are the familiar universal needs - primarily for relationships and for a listening ear. While there have been small successes and seemingly bigger setbacks for my function overall here in the Taiwan office, one on one conversations in the last few days have validated a need to be here and that a small light can go a long way in a dark place. Like many other audit groups around the world, the teams at our office are in the middle of their "busy season". Often not for work, I've had the need to drop by the office at odd hours to pick-up stuff lately - 10pm Friday night, Sunday afternoon, etc. The "bullpen" (staff seating area) has been completely full at these odd hours.

I've been working with a project with HR where we've set-up mentor / menteee relationships with certain people who are applying for short-term work assignments in the US. I offered my name to whoever wanted to sit down and go over their resume and application as well as share my own experiences (selfishly this is a good way for me to understand the issues facing our auditors today). I sat down with one of our audit managers on Friday afternoon. I intended to start our informal meeting with mutual introductions of ourselves. Not two minutes into her sharing of her own background (and in response to my reassurance that our conversation would be off the record) and she broke down crying! Yes, yes.. I have made the first person cry in the office! She was explaining to me that she has been working everyday (that would be 7 days a week) since January first and often to 10 or 11pm at night. A lot of people in our office are under immense pressures and feel suffocated in their situation. Today I had lunch with a slightly more senior (experienced) person and while no crying, the nature of the conversation was about the same.

For those of you non-accountants out there, this might not make too much sense to you... but its a scene that is quite familiar to those who have worked in public accounting firms. While maybe not always so extreme, I believe the stress is a nature of the profession that we're in.

There are no easy answers or solutions to what people are feeling in the office today. While I have some ideas and a reasonable understanding of the pressure points, I don't pretend to think that these issues can be solved quickly. However, these two intimate encounters with my colleagues has reminded me of some of the professional and personal contributions that are possible here in Taiwan. Being in a newly created position, the full extent of my role is still largely undefined. It's these situations that remind me that there are significant reasons to continue to press on in what I've been hired to do here. I won't get into all the technical details here, but its been a good reality check the past few days.

I also want to quickly mention here that I've also been inspired to think about whether I'm putting 100% into building my team here in Taiwan by being a part of Sandra's interview process. I've been inspired by the passion, integrity and drive that Sandra and her co-workers (teachers) put into their work. Sandra and her co-workers talk about their students and their work like they would their own students. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices as they share about their work. Sandra left a great group of coworkers and friends back at JPS in Toronto. This is why it was so significant that Sandra has found a school where she can build something similar. We're looking forward to meeting more of the staff in the MCA community. Through the interview process, we've realized (and are impressed) that MCA has set a very high standard for the teachers that they hire and train. Most of these teachers have left their home countries for short to long-term periods to commit to what this school has set out to do. MCA's compensation philosophy is based on compensating their teacher's as part of the missionary community. While the compensation is designed to support the families during their time here, monetary incentive is certainly not the reason these teacher's have come all the way to Taiwan. These teachers are here to make a difference!

Through a few new projects we've kicked off, I'm slowly getting to know the English speakers in the office (or at least those who would like to learn English). Its a nice arrangement where they have the desire to practice English and I have the desire to practice Mandarin. More importantly, I'm learning a lot about the perspective and worldview of this handful of people who have been selected by our office to apply for this global exchange opportunity. It's been fascinating to hear about their life and their reasons for wanting to go overseas (and return in two years time). It's also humbling and convicting to know that I've been placed in a position and circumstance to support these individuals.

It's Chinese New Year (or Spring Fesival in Chinese 春節) this weekend - the most important holiday of the Chinese calendar (in Taiwan, Christmas isn't even a statutory holiday). A common practice is for married couples to give these red envelope / red pocket to children. I realized today that there is also a practice in the office for managers to give their staff red pockets as well (these are Chinese red envelopes with money / cash in them). I've talked to a few people around the office about this and to be honest, struggling a little bit with this. Here's what I've gathered so far - its primarily a symbol of granting "luck" and "good wishes" to the person.

I have no problem with the monetary aspect, whether its in the form of cash or the form my treating my team to a nice lunch (although from a North American perspective, I'm more comfortable with buying an expensive lunch). I can also see parallels to the North American practice of purchasing gifts, gift certificates or writing cards at "Christmas" or the "Holiday" season. However, as a Christian, I struggle a little bit with participating in this traditional that suggests that I believe I'm passing some "luck" through this process. This practice is quite common (and I'm learning expected) in Chinese culture. If anything, I think people would think more about my actions if I didn't participate as opposed to participate... However... I'm still on the fence about this. Any comments or thoughts?? Comments would be appreciated. I'll sort out the "how much" question through local friends here... :)

Sandra and I are off to mainland China this Thursday (via HK and Shenzhen). It seems like we just got here and now we're leaving for a ten day vacation! We don't really know where we're going or what we'll be doing. We basically purchased a one-way flight from Shenzhen to Chengdu! We've been to mainland China enough times to know that there will be an adventure awaiting us whereever we go. We'll let our spirit and our stomaches guide the way through Sichuan until we decide on our means and timing of transportation to make it back to Shenzhen to visit with some friends from Toronto. Our decision to go there was based primarily on a desire to be in mainland China for the holidays... some cursury reading on history, pandas and spicy food... but in reality it was also a bit of let's spin the "China map" and see where elong.com will take us for a reasonable price! So, out come the backpacks and the warmest clothing we have for our adventure!