The trip back to America, the country that was home to me for over 12 years, started the very first day when I left her on 9/21/2010. I decided to move back to Taiwan in such a hurry that I practically left all my stuff in a storage room. Just like what both General MacArthur and Arnold Schwarzenegger had said before, I told myself and all my American friends: I WILL BE BACK. So back I was, after one and half years of chilling and serving in the air force and working on my new job, I finally got the chance to go back to the states over Chinese New Year holiday. After 16 hrs of painful flight from Taiwan to L.A to DFW, the first thing that greeted me in Dallas was a 635 screwed up by construction. I took the local road all the way into Richardson and got myself a box of Church’s Fried Chicken and a cup of sweet tea. By the time I got back to my aunt’s house in Plano (after a short stop by Wal-Mart), it was 11PM already. I slept for 3 hrs and got up bright and up (3:30 AM) and went straight to work on my storage room after another short stop by McDonald’s.

China Airline flight 06 the plane that took me back to sweet home tx

Sausage and Egg McGriddles. The best breakfast a man can possibly have

A storage room full of clothes and stuff, I had to come by the very first day I left for this

The rest of trip was pretty much the same: eating junk food, drinking De. Pepper, hanging out with friends and eating more junk food. From Vietnamese Pho to Philly Cheese Steak sandwich with extra large curly fries, you name it, I ate it. Food was important, but friendship was definitely invaluable. Other than the 100 friends I saw over the week, I went down to Waco to watch No.3 Baylor playing No. 5 Missouri at Waco with Steve and York, my old roommates from Dallas. We first stopped by Vitek’s, a great Baylor pre-game tradition that serves you nothing that’s good for your health. We got the Gut Pak with pulled pork nachos and BBQ rip and Dr. Pepper (it was probably only 1,000 calories right there). Then we went to see Baylor losing a frustrating and infuriating game by 1 point to Missouri.

Gut Pak. This thing will DESTORY your health

Work it, Kai

Great to be back home to my belovd Baylor Bears

It was awesome to be back at Farewell Center, where I started my first year orientation and also had my graduation ceremony.

To me, that was the highlight of the trip (other than going down to Houston, seeing my professors on campus, buying a brand new set of golf clubs, eating 10 burgers in 5 days and gaining 5 pounds in 10 days….). I saw so many friends and did so many things that it would take more than 10 posts to write them all. So I would let the pictures do the talking about my trip. Happy New Year of Dragon to you all!

Kai

I LOVE Arby's!!

In-n-Out burger with chocolate milk shake. yummy...

Five Guys burger. For every one day I spent in the states, I effectively cut my own life span by one week

The last thing I ate in DFW before I flew out. I am helpless. I know

Taipei metro is always crowded at rush hours, especially Friday evening. But yesterday was out of control. There were so many people in the station that It took me 10 minutes just to get on the platform. I couldn’t board the first two trains because they were just too crowded. After I finally fought my way to Taipei Grand Central Station, things there weren’t any better either. Every train of Taiwan High Speed Rail leaving Taipei was packed, and many people were forced to stand in the aisle for an hour. It seemed like everybody in Taipei was in a mad rush to get out. Not just people in Taipei. The whole island of Taiwan was on the move. There were 154 direct cross-strait flights from China to Taiwan, a record high. Railroad system and buses were overloaded. More than 200,000 Taiwanese traveled back home to their cities, towns and villages just to vote.

On the High Speed Rail Road: Taiwanese people rushed to go home to vote

Yes, just to vote.

The idea of enduring hours of pain and hassle just to vote would seem foreign and absurd to many Americans. But in Taiwan, election has always been a big deal, especially in a hotly-contested election like this one. Although I also have American citizenship, I actually have never voted in the states during my 12 years of living there. So I myself was very excited about getting to vote for the first time knowing that my vote would count at a close election.

But didn’t turn out that way.

Despite large turnout of 73% of voting rate, to my and many people’s surprises, President Ma easily defeated Tsai Ing-wen with a large margin of almost 800,000 votes. Although I am not a big fan of politics, I’d offer my 2 cents on this.

1. Ma didn’t defeat Tsai, but Tsai’s own China policy and Taiwanese entrepreneurs did. Armed with a S.J.D from Harvard Law School, handsome features and sparkling clean image, Ma always has widespread popular support. However, in the past 4 years, despite enjoying a supermajority in Legislative Yuan, his own mild manner and indecisiveness failed to push through any major reforms in Taiwan. He did make significant progress with stabilizing Taiwan’s relationship with China and won the hearts of Beijing administration and most of Taiwanese entrepreneurs alike. On the hand, Tsai ‘s anti-China policy and ambiguous stance has rendered her vulnerable to opponent’s charges that cross-strait relationship with China would suffer greatly if she was elected. With Taiwan export-oriented economy struggling, people were very concerned that Tsai’s election prospect would deal a double whammy to the economy.

Ma Ying-jeou, unfortunately, his look is better than his decision making ability

2. Although I did vote for Ma, I am not excited about the prospect of any major reforms, and frankly, I have been disappointed by Ma’s track record. Even I still hope that he would continue to push new measures on various issues, especially tax on property transaction, I am not sure if he and KMT have the backbone to get it done.

Tsai Ing-wen, the chairwoman of DPP

3. Chen Chih-Chung, the son of former president Chen Shui-bian, suffered a humiliating defeat for his bid for Legislative Yuan. Despite charges of money laundry, frauds and buying prostitutes (rumor has it, his favorite prostitute is “Nicole”), Chen managed to secure a landslide victory in Kaohsiung city congress last year. Fortunately, Kaohsiung citizens eventually realized that they didn’t want to send a guy like this to national legislative branch.

Mr. Chen Chih-Chung pondering if he should call Nicole again

All right, that’s all for my political 2 cents. I hate politics, especially Taiwanese politics. Taiwanese people have long desired a strong and effective leader, however, their own short-sighted decision making ability have deprived themselves of a leader like this. Well, that’s another story for next post.

2011 marked a turbulent year for financial market: the full-blown liquidity crisis in Greece, the terrible tsunami in Japan, the wild ride of commodity, and the drastic slow down of China economy..But all these are financial market related developments, you may say, how about you, Kai? What was your most memorable moment for 2011? Well, 2011 was definitely a transitional year for me as I became a full-time air force sergeant, only to be discharged this past November and now a senior equity analyst in Taipei. I definitely had my ups and downs for the year, but God really was good to me since I was honored with the nickname “Sergeant Goodtime” (which just says so much about my easy life in military) and military, God again provided me a high paying job when economy is really struggling all over the world.

To put things in perspective, I look at the five most memorable New Years in my life:
1. New Year in South Africa (2010): I saw the bright full moon and fireworks over the great African Plain. Jeffrey, the best South African friend you can possibly have in this life, showed me all the hospitability in the world and we danced into the New Year of 2011.
Also see the link from New Year in South Africa

All the fireworks Jeff bought. big or small, everything must blow before next year

nice bright full moon for the last night of 2009

Tshikhudos danced and partied into the New Year

2. New Year in High Desert (2004): The most lonesome but awesome New Year I had in my life as I just graduated from Baylor and struggled to find direction for my future. I drove 11 hrs by myself to Big Bend National Park and spent a night under the amazing starry night and Milky Way.

The desert in Big Bend

Stunning View of canyon in Big Bend

The last sunset of 2003

3. New Year in Taipei (2008): After being gone from home for 5 years, I finally got to go back for Christmas at the end of 2007. I travelled all over Taiwan with my family and visited friends from Kaohsiung to Taipei. The famous fireworks at Taipei 101 definitely made it memorable as what happened after I returned to the states completely rocked my world.

Fireworks at 101

2008, here it comes!

4. New Year at Boot Camp (2011): The most uneventful but crowded New Year in my life. Two weeks into my basic training at Boot Camp, I celebrated the New Year with men from my company, all 74 of us. The master sergeant let us watch TV, eat sneakers and hang out as much as we wanted in that cold December night in Tainan County (no picture, just memories).

5. New Year in the office (2007): That’s right. This got to be THE HIGHLIGHT of my career as a hedge fund analyst. To complete the portfolio manager ranking and performance attribution project for Highland Capital. I worked EVERY SINGLE DAY from Christmas Even to New Year Eve. I was going to WORK all the way into 2007, until my friend Jaron called to get me home for the New Year party. I got home just fifteen minutes before 2006 ended. Man, that was good time because I actually got a 50% yearend bonus t and 25% salary rise, but still quit my job to join Ned and SunTx. Well, that was another story.

The notorious Highland Capital, my home for 20 months of endless hard works

The 24 kitchen of Highland. Always stacked with food and drinks. Great place to get fat and paid, at least back in the bull market

My cubicle at Highland with 20 Red Bull cans lying around anytime

These are my five most memorable New Years. So, did I do anything funfor 2012? No, just hanging out with my friends from church and watched the fireworks in Kaohsiung (as much I hate my life in Taipie, I leave this place with any excuse I can find). Anyway, Happy New Year to all of you and may God save us all from a total disaster in Euro Zone (please, don’t let Euro blow up).

From the last episode of my blog, I left an open ending about the possibility of coming back to the wonderful world of investment. Well, that possibility is now a reality and back in the investment industry I am. The very next day I was discharged from the air force. I called a boutique investment firm in Taipei that had been searching for a senior equity analyst with CFA charter for a while. Initially, I contacted them in early October and was told to check with them again when I finished my air force thing. So, I woke up from my nap that Friday afternoon and just called them to say that I was still interested in the job if they were still hiring. I was told by Jason, the project manager who is also an American that they would reach out to me before Chinese New Year, which was still two months away. Therefore, I called it a day, picked up my golf clubs and headed to the driving range.

Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, is my new home

To my surprise, Matt, the head of research department who is also an American called when I was hitting golf balls all over the driving range. So I had a long 45 minutes phone interview with a 7 iron in my hand right there in the driving range. At the end of phone interview, Matt asked for some references from the people I used to work for in Dallas and told me that he would try to schedule an interview with me next week. By the following Tuesday morning, Matt has heard back from Brian, my previous boss at Highland Capital, and Matt was eager to bring me in for the interview that very day. By Tuesday afternoon, I was in the office already, talking with Jason, Matt and Mr. Tran, the president of the firm. Then, the rest is history.

One of Taipei Metro Transportation stations. It's a 25 minutes metro ride for me every day into the office

Always a crowed, fun ride into the office every day

I moved to Taipei on Nov 30th, the day before I started my job and quickly settled in to the role of senior equity analyst covering property sector. I soon realized that, other than Matt, my boss, I am the most senior guy with the LEAST direct experiences in equity research. They hired me because my strong credentials (CFA and CPA), solid working experience in investment (almost 4 years in hedge fund and private equity) and simply expect great things out me. One week into my new job, I’ve produced NOTHING in term of research paper or industry comments, because I didn’t know A DARN THING about property markets in Taiwan and China. So what can I do? People are expecting All-Star level of production from me as a pitcher (in the sell-side of investment) but I have been a hitter all my life (in the buy-side of investment). The only thing I could do is working my ass off, doing just about everything to educate myself about the market and companies. And of course, pray to God every night that I will still get my pay check next month.

So how will things turn out for me? Will I get to keep my job? Will I ever become the next star Matt expected me to be in Taiwanese investment industry? Stay tune and find out.

China's property market has been red hot over the years. Soft landing or crush course ahead? That would be the million dollar question that I will try to answer

I knew from the beginning that this was going to happen, that my mandatory military service would come to an end and life would be back to normal for me as a civilian. So it happened, as of yesterday, I officially completed my tour with Air Force and boarded the last shuttle bus to leave my beloved summer resort for good. Was I happy just to leave the boring military life behind? After all, the service is mandatory and few young Taiwanese men would ever want to leave their girl friends behind (and get cheated while they are away) just to spend 1 year of their most productive years doing meaningless PTs and idiotic stuff.

At elevation of 9,800 ft, the Majesty Da-Wu Mountain and her mountain range was my favorite scenery every morning at the radar station

Cloud pouring down over the mountain range like waterwall at dust

But my tour at a radar station was different from the very beginning. I served in the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited in the world and frankly, I HAD A HELL OF TIME up in the mountain. Just consider the following facts and judge for yourself how easy my life was as a staff sergeant who was in charge of training and development courses in the mountain.

1. The most strenuous physical training I ever had to endure was the whole afternoon of pickup basketball games followed by 2 hrs of ping-pong and pool. That was rough.

2. The most prudent military advice I ever had to give to enlisted officers and master drill sergeants was how to bid on MLB sports lottery based on the starting pitchers and lineup strength. However, my expertise quickly became useless as baseball season ended, NBA is on strike and now, they have to bid on NHL games.

3. While doing graveyard shift at the security surveillance desk one right, I managed to beat “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” on the veteran difficulty level in 4 hrs on Xbox. It was definitely more fun than staring at the live images from 24 security surveillance cameras all night. There was nothing to watch at night anyway.

4. After boot camp, I actually gained 6 pounds just by eating all kinds of junk food in my bedroom while watching movies with my pals.

5. My life was so good that the army and navy guys stationed with us called me “Sergeant Goodtime”.

Da-Wu Mountain at dust in the summer

The full moon over Taiwan strait and the city light of Kaohsiung, my hometown

It’s not that I was lazy or not diligent doing my job. For a CPA and CFA, typing and pushing paper around was just too easy. If I really wanted to, I could have easily finished one full month of workload in one week and write poetry and watch movies the rest of month. To make sure that I had things to do every day, I had to go watch sunrise and sunset, play hoop and ping pong, read newspaper, watch TV, take afternoon nap, and try creative writing for at least 8 hrs a day just not to get bored.

Of course, there were times that we had to put up with some idiotic commands from senior officers such as waxing the whole dining hall before we tore it down. But those days were long gone and life had mostly been good for me. To be fair, my service was more like an all-inclusive, paid vacation thanks to the courtesy of Air Force and I am deeply grateful for that.

So what’s next for me? Going back to the states? Landing another j-o-b in the investment? I would leave that for my next post.

Sunrise over the "sea of cloud"

Another shot of sunrise

Wait a second, has Taiwan really existed as an independent sovereign nation for 100 years already? Is Taiwan an independent country despite what the people from PRC (People’s Republic of China) say about us? If you are as perplexed about the political status and national identity of Taiwan as most of people in the world are, you should definitely keep reading this blog because I am NOT going to discuss ANYTHING political at all.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Father of ROC

Not that I don’t care about Taiwan’s future (otherwise, I wouldn’t have moved back from the U.S. just to serve in the Taiwanese Air Force instead of working in Dallas and watching my beloved RG3 setting Big 12 on fire). What I do know and what most of people in the world (including the most hardcore Communist party members from PRC) would agree on is that, 100 years ago, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the Founding Father of modern China successfully overthrew Qing Dynasty, the last empirical dynasty of China. Prior the revolution in 1911, Qing Dynasty had ruled China for almost 3 centuries. However, it had become too weak and too corrupted in the late 19th century. Civil unrests such as Taiping Rebellion left many parts of China devastated and about 20 to 30 million Chinese died during 15 years of warfare. Seeing China as the next Africa ready to be exploited and armed with modern firearms and gunships, Western countries also prey on China and forced Qing Empire into a series of humiliating treaties.

Boxer rebellion, which Chinese mobs openly attacked and murdered Western ambassadors, missionaries and merchants under Qing Empire’s permission only infuriated Western countries. To avenge for the losses of their citizens’ lives and properties, Eight-Nation Alliance marched straight into Beijing, cleaned up the treasures of Forbidden City and forced Qing royal families into exile. Separately, Japan defeated Qing Empire during First Sino-Japanese War and Qing ceded Taiwan in full sovereignty to Japan in 1895 and Taiwan would be colonized by Japan for the next 5 decades.

Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of China

Finally, a group of young Chinese who were educated overseas and heavily influenced by liberty and democracy long practiced in most of Western cultures decided that enough was enough for the Qing Empire. They wanted a revolution to end more than 2,000 years of empirical ruling in China. After having failed 10 times, Dr. Sun Yat-sen (according to some U.S. documentation, he also had a U.S. citizenship) successfully overthrew Qing Empire on October 10th, 1911.

The movie trailer of Chinese Revolution of 1911 feacturing Jackie Chan and 100 other Chinese celebrities

Ok, so the first people’s republic in East Asia was born, but what the hell does that have to do with Taiwan? After World War II ended, China quickly descended into an all-out civil war between Communist Party led by Mao Zedong and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek. Meanwhile, since Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allies to end World War II, Japan was to return Taiwan back to the Chinese government which was still controlled by Chiang Kai-shek and KMT in 1945. So guess what? When Chiang and his men got their ass kicked by Chairman Mao, they got Taiwan to go as their last resort.

Chiang Kai-shek, somebody who clearly had sense of reality about international politics by claiming to rule the whole China from Taipei

Still considering themselves as the only legitimate governing regime over the WHOLE CHINA, Chiang Kai-shek and his family would rule Taiwan for the next 40 years under the name “Republic of China” despite the fact that they never set their feet again in China. So here we go: There are two governments who used to claim to be the only legitimate Chinese governing regime (ROC now only claims to the regime over Taiwan). PRC is legitimate, no question about it. What other ROC in Taiwan? Having her own military and central government, shouldn’t she also be considered as an independent sovereign nation by the rest of the world? That, my friends, is out of scope of this post.

The grand firework show at Taipei to celebrate the 100th birthday of ROC

All I know is this, I was born and raised in Taiwan. No matter how the rest of world thinks of it politically. Taiwan is my home and my country and I am proud to serve as a part of Taiwanese Air Force on the 100th anniversary of my country. But that is about to change very soon and that would be the story of my next post.

RGIII for president. Yes, I would vote for him to be the first Afican American president in Taiwan

Last Saturday, I got out of my summer mountain resort just in time to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with my family. Chinese people have been celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival for more than 3,000 years. It all started as a myth about moon worshipping and over the years, has became one of the three most celebrated festivals alone with Chinese New Year and Duanwu Festival. Growing up, I LOVED Mid-Autumn Festival and I could honestly care less about who the heck ancient Chinese people were worshipping. To all the kids in Taiwan, Mid-Autumn Festival means three things: Moon Cakes, fireworks and BBQ. However, these three things have absolutely nothing to do with each other whatsoever. First, Moon Cakes are pastries filled with all kinds of strange stuff from lotus seed paste to salty egg yolks. When I was at Baylor, one of my American friends simply refused to eat it when offered to her (but I love it). The legend has it, Han Chinese used Moon Cakes to conceal a secret message to overthrow the Mongolians who once ruled China back in the 14th century. Very few people these days actually know where the moon cakes came from, but only care about how many new flavors of moon cakes just come out this year.

Traditional Moon Cakes. There are probably a thousand different flavors out there these days. They are all yummy with calories way over 500 each

Second, it’s the firework. Every single kid in Taiwan looks forward to Mid-Autumn Festival, when they can legally shoot fireworks like there is no tomorrow. Again, nobody knows how shooting fireworks has become a part of celebration. The only thing I knew was that, my aunt would buy a dozen different kinds of fireworks for us to shoot in the backyard of my grandpa’s house. The most popular fireworks are sparklers which can be held at kids’ hands and bottle rockets which literally are little rocket that can be launched toward the sky. When I was 9 years old, my cousin, my brother and I decided to do something exciting with our little rockets so they wouldn’t always be shot toward the night sky and exploded. My cousin simply held it in his hand and shot it as he was shooting dart from the third floor balcony. BIG MISTAKE. We saw the rocket flew into somebody’s front yard and heard someone screaming. “Sh*t, I think we hit somebody”. Three of us quickly went into the house and hid. Then we started hearing angry people gathering around my grandpa’s house and yelling at us to come out because they wanted to kick our little asses. Within a few mins, my grandpa came to our rescue and took us to their house to apologize. Fortunately, the kid who got injured by our little rocket wasn’t really hurt, just suffered a minor burn on his face, but that’s enough for us to stop shooting little rocket at any direction but toward sky the rest of our lives. Yesterday, my cousin brought his 9 years old nephew to my grandpa’s house to shoot little rockets. Needless to say, I made sure that my cousin’s little adventure with the little rocket would be well known to the next generation.

May the Force of sparkler be with you

Third, the most absurd one is BBQ. Nowhere in textbook or traditions is BBQ even mentioned as a part of festival celebration. While we were having dinner last night, my uncle said he vaguely remembers when BBQ became THE thing to do for Mid-Autumn Festival about 30 years ago. Since people probably get hungry while watching the moon which appears to be brightest and fullest on the Festival day, they may as well start cooking out. Now, during the festival, literally every household in Taiwan is cooking out. When I was riding my bike around the neighborhood last night, I saw smoke arising from everywhere with fireworks exploding in the sky. That’s quite a scene to see.

Firework show at Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan

These past few days have been stormy, for both people in East Coast in the states and in Taiwan. As hurricane Irene pounded massive areas from North Carolina to Vermont with heavy rain and left behind a trail of destruction, super typhoon Nanmadol found her way to Taiwan this past Sunday. Before Nanmadol hit us, the air force summer resort I serve at was going to host the annual family visiting day inviting our parents to the base to enjoy the beautiful scenery. However, as typhoon approached Taiwan, I figured things going to be pretty ugly and my family didn’t have to endure three hour of treacherous car ride to the mountain only to get soaking wet. Coincidentally, the rotating drum of office printer broke and my captain decided that we needed to send somebody to pick up a new part from the store. Conveniently, the store just happens to be 5 blocks away from my house. So I found myself a perfect excuse to get the hell of mountain way before they executed everybody, and needless to say, the family visiting day was canceled and only a few angry and bitter individuals got left behind in the base.

Typhoon Nanmadol. Looks beautiful, but deadly

It rains, it rains and it rains some more

Unlike all previous 10 typhoons that threatened Taiwan this year but only barely missed it, Nanmadol was tricky to predict. Moving at a speed only 5 miles per hour, Nanmadol made a last minute turn away from Pacific and directly into the east coast of Taiwan. To make things worse, due to its slow speed, it brings tremendous amount of rain over a prolonged period of time. Actually, it started raining heavily since Sunday evening and all the schools and businesses had to be shut down on Monday and in some areas, it pours down more than 3 ft of rain already. National Defense Department has also mobilized thousands of troops stationed near disaster affected areas to evacuate over 7,000 people living there. I am embarrassed to say that, while my fellow Taiwanese servicemen (almost all of them being army and marine corps) working their ass off evacuating people and helping the needy, I am sitting in my house watching movies and playing college football on PS3. With golf driving range being shut down by rain, frankly, I am getting bored. However, with road to the mountain cut off by mudslide and rain, it seems like I would have to watch more movies for now.

Call of Duty for Taiwanese armed servicemen: disaster relief and cleanup efforts and it sure ain't a pleasant job

A while ago, Rachel, an American friend of mine now living in Kaohsiung asked me if I’ve ever checked out E-Da World, a Greek theme amusement park with luxury hotel and huge outlet mall recently developed by Lin Yi-Shou, a self-made Taiwanese billionaire who only graduated from elementary school. “It’s just like Vegas”, Rachel said. Well, I don’t know if Rachel, a missionary here in Taiwan, has ever visited Vegas, but having been in Vegas for several times myself, I know how crazy it could get in Vegas, and frankly, I just don’t see how Kaohsiung can ever put up with the chaos and sinful (and fun) lifestyle of Vegas. After all, casinos are ILLEGAL in Taiwan.

The high end residential town houses with Yi-Shou University in the background

The lobby of Crowne Plaza in E-Da World with a huge chandelier

Despite that fact that E-Da World doesn’t have a casino and there is neither strip club nor legalized prostitution there, Taiwanese still flock to E-Da World every weekend. However, E-Da World has also made news headline several times with a bad safety record of their amusement park rides. From rollercoaster to drop tower, pretty much every ride that can break down has already broken down once or twice. As a frequent visitor to Six Flags over Texas, I have no desire to ride a small rollercoaster that I have no idea when it’s going break down in Taiwan. But to celebrate my dad’s 60 years old birthday, my family still decided to go to E-Da World to have Saturday brunch.
Although I am not a big fan of Mr. Lin who is the biggest client of China Steel Corporation, the company in which my dad serves as a senior executive, I really have to admire his vision to transform a massive barren wasteland into a spectacular development project featuring a large theme park, a 5 stars InterContinental hotel, the largest outlet mall in South East Asia and a university named after himself. As a successful businessman, Mr. Lin was able to leverage his relationship with Taiwanese banks and borrowed heavily to fund his ambitious development project. Over time, the business has steadily picked up for E-Da World and occupancy rate in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, E-Da World’s flagship high end hotel, has been high.

Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Ferris Wheel

Actually, when I called the Hotel to make a reservation at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, I was told that it was fully booked out. So my dad called up one of his many friends within the business community and got us a table in the VIP section. The Hotel is really nice with 5 fine dining restaurants in it, and buffet restaurant we ate at serves a variety of awesome food from prime rib, sushi to exotic seafood. After lunch, we walked around the whole place for two hours. Although E-Da World is no Vegas, it has attracted many high end retail stores such as Giorgio Armani and Brooks Brothers. It’s absolutely amazing that how one man can single-handedly change the whole southern Taiwan tourism landscape with sheer will and of course, LOTS OF CASH.

It's got a skating ring, too. It's Galleria in Dallas all over again for me

New Year Eve firework show in E-Da World. This does kind of look like Vegas to me

I have been thinking about my life as an active service solider enlisted in Taiwanese military for a while. I often wonder about what’s like to be a “real” solider who has to undergo strenuous physical training, adopt to strict discipline, and constantly endure the tortures and mocking from senior officers. When I was a kid, my dad always told me how tough his two years tour with the army was, and how many sleepless nights and endless marches he had to go through. Almost 40 years later, his first born is now also serving in the Taiwanese military, but in a totally different way.

Forty years ago, the military threats from China were real and imminent and Taiwan was in the state of emergency under the military dictatorship of Chiang-Kai Shek. Back then, Taiwan had an active military of well over 600,000 men and was ready to go to war with China in any given minute. 40 years later, the size of Taiwanese military has dwindled down to 270,000 from 600,000 and it would only get smaller in the future, the required service length has also shortened from 2 years to 1. And peace, not war with China is the future and desire of all Taiwanese people.

We would leave the endless physical training and drills to the brave men of army. The few, proud air force at mountain radar station just want to chill

But again, men in Taiwan still have to serve as soldiers, right? Well, we do, just in totally different ways and capacities. Over the years, to better utilize the talents and skills of the young men who are about to go into active duty for their country, the National Defense Department has improvised a range of creative options from working at large corporations to serving with Taiwanese Peace Corp overseas for these young men to substitute their regular military duty with alternative services. The catch? You need to meet the requirements of alternative services and apply at the annual deadline in early spring. Since I was in Uganda last year and couldn’t get back to Taiwan to apply, I automatically disqualified from the alternative services, and had to do the real military.

However, I still wonder about how “real” my military experience has been. My typical day (and this is going to make hell lot of Taiwanese soliders and jealous) is as follows:

1. First Call (Wake-up) call at 5:50 AM for physical training: 2 minutes of push-ups and sit-ups

2. Have breakfast at 6 AM in the cafeteria (usually Chinese congee, milk tea and Chinese omelets) while watching morning news on TV (that’s when I usually check the daily closes of U.S. and European stock markets)

3. Sweep the floor for 5 mins for cleaning duty, then watch live Major League Baseball on ESPN before I take my beauty nap (no, I am not kidding. I take nap before I go to work every day).

Formosa TV station in Taiwan shows 5 Yankees games a week, so we got to watch Sir Jeter and A-Rod doing their things pretty much every day. Also imporant part of my military duty

4. Show up at my desk by 8 AM in the Training and Combat Management office and start doing boring paper works on the computer (usually prepare meaningless training materials and expense reports)

5. Go to lunch at 11 AM then read the daily newspaper which just gets here, then take ANOTHER NAP.

6. Be back at work at 1:30 PM. If there is not much to do, I would just go to the Office of Supply Management to see what movie is showing on TV.

7. If the weather is nice enough and I don’t have to work overtime passed 4 PM, I usually get the hell out of office and play hoop with the army and navy guys who are also stationed in the mountain until we all get hungry.

8. After enjoying a nice dinner (unusually consisting of 4 items: poultry, veggies, and sometimes beef stew, hot pot or and fried pork chop, and soup and dessert), I join my buddies for some intense Xbox 360 actions or playing ping pong or poll.

Also part of my shooting drill: Halo on Xbox

9. Lights-out at 10 PM and everybody is supposed to be on the bed, so no more Xbox, playing poll or ping pong, but all other kinds of activities in our room are still allowed (as long as we don’t get caught): hanging out, gossiping, watching DVDs, reading comedy books, playing cards, cooking ramen noodles (drinking used to be widely popular, but not anymore).

On the weekends, people usually only work in the mornings then it’s all play and no works. Last weekend, I watched Matrix Reloaded, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Meet the Fockers, and 2 MLB games on TV and listened to a Jazz radio show on ICRT in my room. I also managed to logon 6 hours of quality time in front of Xbox with my air force comrades. Again, I don’t know how other fellow Taiwanese soldiers live their daily lives, but as far as I am concerned, life ain’t too shabby.

Now, there are more and more hotties and cutties serving this great nation, too, and it's probably the only thing I am missing in my atypical military life