The Way We Were, Or Never Will Be Ever, Again

My birthday in Toronto, September 2006 was woeful.
My birthday in Taichung, September 2007 was non-existent.
My birthday in Taipei, September 2008 will be my 30th.

This year I've decided to do a series aptly titled 'On Approaching 30'. It is a special number. Whether we pay attention to it or not, that big hyphenated 3-0 evades our life cycle and clearly stakes a claim as a noted marker of one's life.

The idea of turning 30, turns some people off. Stereotypically, women fear it as the slippery slide to old age and lost attraction to the opposite sex. The end of one's golden youth and beauty is a frightening thought indeed. But deeper than that, isn't it also a loss of one's confidence and perhaps also a look back a youthful life misspent with nothing but drunken memories and hardly forgotten regrets? It is a miserable time indeed.

But surely there's another way of looking at this. I've been aware of this phenomenon, this natural tendency dread the inevitable passing of time that this attitude just simply won't do for me. Father Time keeps on marching and we shall march in step with him! So instead of bemoaning the big 3-0, welcome it. Why worry about turning 30 when there's 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 to think about. And more if you're lucky. Are you going to get more depressed with each decade or look forward to each anniversary as a chance for a big fabulous party?

In the grand, grand scale of human years turning 30 is just a drop in the ocean these days. Turning 30 should be a happy celebration of having gained some wisdom from those stupid 20s years, possibly jumping from one job to another not knowing how to establish a career, perhaps having serious relationships that only faultered in end because your two lives only soared in two different directions.

After fooling around in your 20s, you come to know what you want in your 30s. And you know what you need to do to get it. You breathe a sigh of relief that you've had the benefit of hindsight and now can figure out the better if not best solution for your problems.

I say all of this because I am approaching 30. I am single, I have no assets, I am starting out again on my career path. Now can you see why I have to be so damn positive?

Kicking Up A Stink

One thing I can't get used to the idea of is how garbage from your house is collected in Taiwan.

In Australia, UK and Canada, one places garbage in one's garbage bin, leave said garbage bin outside one's residence on the designated day of the week and fabulously, it gets collected while you are conveniently at work. A wonderful system one happily gives credit, thanks and taxes to one's local council.

Not so in Taiwan. If you are not fortunate enough to live in a "maintained" apartment/condo then garbage, my friend, becomes quite literally a dirty word.

Instead of the delighted ease of "taking the garbage out the night before", denizums of Taiwan must prepare to dash, garbage bags full 'o goodies, out onto the streets at the sound of an approaching garbage truck in the evening to dispose their household refuse directly into the stinky rear end of the trucks themselves.

It can become quite an irksome ritual as you can imagine. Street corner neighbourhood watch meetings could take place impromtu as one can usually count on a representative of each household to gather at said street corner at said time at said day of week. Or perhaps housewives would look forward to a time out of home to meet and chat with fellow wives for their weekly gossips. Too bad though if you have to work late one night o' poor bachelor or bachelorette. You miss the boat and your garbage piles up for another seven days. And to endure the tut-tut-tutting of beady-eyed housewives for not keeping a clean enough house the following week.

So how does one know for certain a garbage truck is on its wafty way to your street? Cleverly an on-board sound system emitting a half melody on repeative loop alert you of its approaching presence. And the tune? Why, Greensleeves of course. Played in digital ring-tone like quality. For me, it took strips off my happy childhood. To hear Greensleeves in the warm distance, generating excitement, grabbing a handful of pocket change in my hot little hands to run down the street to discover it was just a fucking garbage truck.

No Standing Please

I love walking, I have nothing against it and find it a great invigorating activity, especially if you live close to everything.

So many people despise it like it's a show of poor evolution. Humans are suppose to have evolved so much that we only can only move from one locale to another with the aid of technology. Be it car, bus, train, truck, tractor, bicycle, tram, ferry, subway... In Taiwan, two forms of people moving technology are worth noting:

The Scooter and The Bullet Train

I haven't researched this, but I'll bet you scooters outnumber people on this island. Or that they cover every inch of this land like ants. Motorised ants. It scares me a bit to be on the back of one of those things, zooming down a main street with a billion other motorised ants carrying FAMILIES on their two-wheeled backs. The most I've seen on one was a mum, a dad and three little ones wedged here and there. As if that wasn't flying in the face of danger, the kids didn't have safety helmets either. There's a running joke that if you see a family on a scooter and figure there's still room for more, then you've been in Taiwan too long.

I've been here six months and I've witnessed five accidents. Not fatal ones, not even broken bones were involved. Somehow people here know how to ride their scooters to avoid major injuries. It's a skill. Or the miracle of Mazu, the Goddess Protector of Taiwan. What's even more amazing is that I've seen an almost head-on crash between two scooters where one guy swung out of the way at the last minute, crashing his scooter sideways while his body fell and slid a few metres the opposite direction. His counterpart stopped and watched him stand up, walk over to his scooter, pick up the scooter and then ride off without a word or even a look at his potential face-plant mate. It was as if near crashes are so commonplace that no expression of incredulousness is needed at the other driver's inept motoring ability. It was simply an accepted fact of Taiwanese road culture. Accidents, much like shit, happens. What are you going to do about it?

Now for a small small island like Taiwan, the size of half a Tasmania, from tip to toe about the distance from London to Manchester, where about only half of its surface is actually commutable (much of it is very mountainous terrain), we have a modern, expedient Bullet Train/High Speed Rail system.

How many countries out there have high speed capabilities? France (think Eurostar), Japan (think Shinkansen), Germany (practically their entire train network - they're Germans), China, Russia and others. It seems practical that high speed rail exists there. But in little teeny tiny Taiwan? High speed rail is classed at speeds of 200km/hr and more. The Taiwanese one shuttles folks back and forth at around 300km/hr. You'll have to be careful not to speed off the end of the island a minute after take off. Just kidding.

It is a marvel of human ingenuity to be fair. The procarious balancing of different sized family members on the smallest motor vehicle that is. And yes too, being able to hurtle along at break-neck speeds, a privilege known only to a handful of first world countries in this world. Hoorah for Taiwan.

Autobiography of an Over Abundant Quantity

"Tina T's Countdown" was always a record of events and thoughts passing through time, to the eventual goal of leaving some place and arriving back home to Australia.

But after what happened today, I won't be counting down no more.

It was a whirlwind weekend. My mind has been a complete mess. Decisions were made then unmade. Then made again before changing my mind for the umpteenth time.

Finally this morning when it came to crunch time, I made a call that is potentially the end of life as I once knew. No, I'm not going into the nunnery. I've taken a job in the realm of the industry I once worked, once perceived as one where I could excel in despite smaller pools of opportunities and possible years of really hard work but really, seemed to have been advancing towards in various ways and on roundabout paths to, since Year 10 Work Experience.

One Mr Bryce Courtenay, Australia's best selling author set me on that path. He had worked for many years at the top advertising agencies in Sydney. So inspired by his writing was I that in Year 10 when proposed with the task of arranging two week's of work experience, it was the easiest choice in the world to seek out Mr Courtenay's agency and ask for a week there. To be up front and clear, stalking was NOT one of my motivations. Bryce wasn't there at the time, apparently away on publicity tour of yet another new book but I wasn't disappointed. I would have another run-in with him a couple of years later (that's another story) and even a fan letter was written years after that.

The point was, I understood what I needed to do to get into advertising from then on. I shall become a graphic designer! Except everybody wanted to be a graphic designer that year in 1996 when I was in Year 12 and took my HSC where your marks either got you in, or in my case, out of your First Preference for university course. I took Interior Design as a consolation.

I am NOT an Interior Designer today.

Having spent four years hitting my head against a brickwall (interior design never came to me) I did graduate with a BA Design (Int.) with second class honours, but I knew something else beckoned. I enrolled in night school (I love saying that, it's so American like Grease the movie; it was technically a part time course at TAFE, government-run vocational training centres; for the life of me I can't remember what TAFE stands for) where I studies Film and Video Design, building upon my lessons at uni where I had taken Film and Television Design subjects.

It was with luck and timing on my side that I would meet a girl at TAFE who told me about the job opening. Her company was looking for a video tape librarian and it was the perfect entry level position I needed. They were in Post Production. A complete unknown to me. Who has ever heard of post production and what the heck did a post production company do anyway? I applied for the job nevertheless and was offered it after being interviewed three times. It's probably the most intensive interview process I've ever went through incidentally.

I would loosely infer that I received the most education I've ever received in my life at that place. When I left there, I left only to go to another post production company. When I left the second company, I went to London looking for something similar. I ended up in Broadcast Services, which was still in the same family so to speak. My one year in Toronto was a departure work-wise, but always knew at the back of my head that it was only a short detour and that my goal remained the same, for over the years, a seed was planted and it grew. It grows only if I keep working in the Media Content Creation world. I believe the fruits of my labour would be sweet only if I remained focused and toiled endlessly for it. If I chose to abandon it, what will I have? Only a wilted dream.

Taiwan was never meant to by my final stop in my travels. I was on my way back to Australia when "Taiwan" happened. It was out of sheer morbid curiosity that I decided to throw a couple of Post Production companies my resume, to see what would happen and to facilitate my fantasies of escaping the life of a Bored Secretary, something I had horribly disfigured into in the last three months which I vehemently detested.

Then I received a call. And I attended an interview. Then I received another call and a job was on offer.

It was a Computer Animations company but that is beside the point as it has Post Prodution facilities. It was a Post Production company with a focus in Computer Animations. It was suddenly very likely that my nomadian existence could come to an abrupt end, even before I was to reach my Holy Land. The last three days and three nights would have found useful an enlightened intervention. But curse me none was forthcoming. Only in the final hours did I eventually stop my hand-wringing for a moment to make that call and committed myself to realistically, a miniumm of a few years of working in Taiwan. But here's the real kick to the balls: it's less pay than being a Bored Secretary.

On route to career goal, but in less than desirable social/cultural/economic/political setting AND less pay.

I'm a Luddite Who Loves Robots.

Things don't make sense here. But amusing they better damn will be, cause it looks like we'll be here for a while.

Your Computer Ain't Broke

想試試看我有沒有能力只用中文寫一篇文章...

And the answer is no.

However I've been pretty amazed at myself that for someone who left Taiwan at the age of 8 and never again took up further schoolings in the Chinese language, my speaking, reading, listening and writing skills have all vastly improved in the last six months.

This leads me to think - if I can do it, then anyone can! For sure the Candyman can.

I'm going mad it would seem. Giddy on the highs of a job offer. That's right, you've heard it first here. I've been offered a job. THIS is what I was alluding to in my previous post (phew Dave, it wasn't your's after all).

After two and a bit months of white collar slavery, I've found another beast to call thine master. I shall unsheath my shackles at my current employ and ride the fortunes of another. T'is a luminate dawn in mine sights; may you all keep well my favoured friends, and foes, alike.