While I was out catching up with ex-colleagues in the Shida district, my mom took my three-year-old cousin up to the Sheraton’s lounge area for afternoon tea. Apparently, there was a double-decker glass tray with treats on top and wine glasses on the bottom shelf. Wanting to reach the M&M’s, my cousin climbed up on the bottom shelf, tipped the entire glass piece, and sent all the wine glasses crashing. Needless to say, a 5-star hotel lost an entire collection of quality wine glasses, and my mom had to pay an “軼事軼事” reimbursement. Meanwhile, I probably tipped the Jenga tower at its most vulnerable state.
photos taken by Joe two nights ago; Joe also wrote essays for four of my photos not long ago—future shooting buddy!
Despite giving up the idea of ever working in China, I’m still considering Taiwan. As with building a Jenga tower, I have to sacrifice its structural integrity for the sake of making the tower taller—growth. And just as my heart pounded as I watched my lens cap drop and roll towards the platform gap at an MRT station, I breathed a sigh of relief when it stopped 1mm away from doom and someone else kindly picked it up and handed it back to me…before someone else kicked it over the edge.
For me at least, every opportunity shows up when I least expect it to come, the doors stay open for a short period of time, and then the train takes off again while I’m left standing alone on the platform waiting for the next unscheduled ride. Last night, I was supposed to go down to Kaohsiung with my mom, aunt, and cousin, but having just talked to a book publisher regarding a potential project, I decided to stay in Taipei by myself to seriously reconsider my job prospects and talk to some more people.
I met the founder of SmartLifeLab over the summer (when SmartLifeLab did not yet exist) because our Living 3.0 Project Manager asked me to sit in a meeting of three (while I froze in place, mute and sweating profusely). Why one guy decided to hand me his business card is beyond my imagination, but we kept in contact, and just last night, he messaged me on GChat saying that he was on TV (perhaps because my status read “in Taipei!”). I took a chance and asked him if he knew of any industrial or interaction design opportunities, and this morning, I received the following email:
I’m visiting the Living 3.0 office later to talk to my past colleague, Una, about illustrating a book with me and to ask our PM if he could be one of my references. Yesterday, I ate lunch with the Senior Manager (Industrial Design Dept) of Compal Comm. and the Chief Creative Architect of Wistron (thanks to my mom’s awesome connections), and tomorrow, Una and I are eating lunch with my dad’s friend (who works at Wunan as the Assistant to the Chairman). If this book is really happening and if I could just land one or two internships, I have a pretty good reason to stay in Taipei. (Living 3.0 also really wants me back since they’re in desperate need of an English-speaking tour guide.) Assuming that I won’t be making anything though, I’m seriously considering teaching English to afford the average rent (10,000NT). Tina will probably give me more advice on Sunday.
From my conversations with other people in Taiwan before I left for China, it’s best for me to go back to school or work at an internationally-known company like Acer or Asus, if I want to stay here…but since I highly doubt that I can land a job at either with my limited Chinese comprehension skills and lack of experience, I hope to brush up on reading and writing Chinese while I build up my (possibly non-paid) experiences—it’s just a huge commitment to make. I’d need to find an affordable place to stay (and possibly a roommate or two), figure out how to wire money internationally, somehow end my iPhone contract prematurely and get another phone (which posed as a major problem last time since I don’t have a Taiwanese ID), figure out how I’m going to deal with insurance, prescription refills, etc.—and convince my relatives not to worry about me and seriously brainwash myself to let go of my friends and networks back home. Toughy.
