If you’re ever in Shenzhen, I would highly a recommend a visit to the electronics market. There are thousands of people and millions of cell phones, mp3 players, etc… being sold there - it felt like what I think the New York stock exchange must feel like. Business on, game on, all the time. I made a few contacts for OEM parts and PCB fab, and also found a micro SD card and USB adapter for my phone, so I now have access to pictures on the road. The 1GB SD card cost 80 RmB ($10 USD) and the USB SD reader cost 10 RmB ($1.20 USD).
Before I set out, I got some local fare and learned the word for potatoes - tu3 dou4.
OK, I am chuckling to myself as I write this because I think that most people think that they are a good driver - myself included - regardless of their actual skill. I mean, it is cross cultural. However, in my estimation, I have found that the Taiwanese taxi drivers are the best I’ve come across. I have heard good things about India, but I’ve never been, so can’t say. Please don’t take offense at the broad generalizations I’ve made below.
I’m still recovering from an all-weekend soccer tournament in Taiwan’s “second city” - Kaohsiung (pronounced something like “Gow Shung” - unlike the Reuter’s reporter saying “Kayoo Seeoong”). The team I played for, Compass (sponsored by http://www.taiwanfun.com/central/compass/compass.htm), came in 5th place out of 16, although we did have the distinction for never losing in regulation play. We lost only one game in a penalty kick shoot out and had only one goal scored against us in six games (we won the game 2-1 in which the other team scored). The team we lost to in penalty kicks went on to the finals and they lost in the second overtime period to a questionable penalty kick call in the last minute of play.
In all, a very fun time. There is another tournament in April coming up in Tainan, where we hope to set the record straight and take it straight to the cup.
If you’re reading this and you’re in Taiwan looking to play some soccer, check out http://english.tccg.gov.tw/living.php?page=living_day_01&id=86&pid=55 for a link to the folks that head up the Compass team.
Of all things to leave in the states, we left our camera charger there. So, sorry about the lack of photos of Taiwan. Our radical friends Paul and Trilby are sending us the charger soon though, so expect to see some pictures up soon.
In other news: we had an open house at the apartment tonight - tons of friends and acquaintances honored us by stopping by and spending time to catch up etc… We’ll be here for such a short time this go around, so we value every interaction and event that we are part of.
Speaking of events - I got to play a soccer game today and just had a great time. A friend Doug has a team he invited me to play for - we have a tournament next weekend in Kaosiung - 18 teams from around the island play.
Quick post to note something I finally understand that has always puzzled me about Chinese.
The term “chen mien” means _in front of_. As in the driver sits in the front of the car. The term “ho mien” means _in back of_, as in the yard is in back of the house.
The interesting thing is that the terms “chen” and “ho” are also used to qualify times. For example, “ho tien” means two days in the future, and “chen tien” means two days in the past. Something like _in two years_ is signified by “liang nian yi ho” where as _two years ago_ is “liang nian yi chen.” To be clear, the term for “in back of” is used to signify times in the future, whereas the term for “in front of” is used to signify times in the past.
I asked a Chinese friend about this and they responded by saying “well, when a thing is in front of us, we can see it. this is also the case with the past - we can see it clearly. When a thing is in back of us, it is out of our sight. this is also the case with the future - it is unseen and unknowable.” Interesting to me that my western-trained thinking would always put future events in the forward direction - or in front, and past events in the backwards direction - or in back.
Quick post to let everyone know we made it to Taiwan safe and sound. We are setup in a great apartment that has room for Hans’ office, rooms for the kids and a great living room that could host a Bible study or alpha course.
The kids are amped about being here - the first day after we got here, Malachi said “ok, I think I’d like to live here now.” The community of local and expat believers have truly been family to us - with their welcoming smiles and consistent desire to help us get settled in - thanks all!
One of the things that both Lana and I have remarked about after one week here is that everyone we have talked to from overseas (wai guo de) is here on faith - they felt that God had them come here and are following His lead in their daily life to understand the further revelation of His will for their lives.
Just updated the website. Used the same type of color scheme, but added a few more pages and a few pictures. We should be able to add onto this structure fairly easily for postings/data in the future.
If anyone has any comments, feel free to add them. I am by no means a web developer, and the layout/info/etc… may not be what folks are looking for or can easily navigate. Main thing I still have to add is an easy way for Lana to get volumes of pictures posted.
