Weiya time

It's a fact of life for employees in Taiwan, and depending on the company you work for and/or your personality type, it's something either to be dreaded or anticipated with relish.

It's the Weiya.

Literally translated, weiya means "tail tooth", but it's better translated as "year-end party." It corresponds roughly to the office Christmas party in the West.

A weiya is generally a banquet that all employees are urged to attend. In many ways, a Weiya can resemble a Chinese wedding banquet, in which everyone is seated at round tables for ten, given a multiple-course meal of MSG-laden seafood variations, and the top dogs make the rounds from table to table toasting the guests. While the bride and groom and their close rellies do the toasting at a wedding banquet, at a weiya, it's the top executives who do the toasting, thanking the employees for their toil over the year.

The potential bad part of a weiya is that there are often endless speeches by various executives and other speakers. On top of that, there may be karaoke. Both of these make it difficult to chat with the people at your table, especially because the organizers have a tendency to crank the speakers up to 11. The food may be bad (for Westerners at least) - sea cucumbers, greasy pigs feet, bony fish, oily soup with barely any salt: standard fare at a cheap Chinese banquet. But the most dreaded aspect of all is the fact that you, yes you, may be compelled to take part in some skit and make a fool of yourself.

The good part of it that traditionally there's a prize drawing. I suspect that part of the reason they have the drawings is make people less likely to sneak out early. I won NT$1200 in Shin Kong Mitsukoshi gift certificates at the GIO weiya last week. It made it worth the three hours I had to be there (but admittedly, the people at my table were great).

The company I do most of my work for, Hafo, does excellent weiyas. For the last three years, the boss has selected superb buffet dinners, and there are no speeches, skits or karaoke. There's a lot of chatting and feasting, and this is exactly what I like. This time it was at a quality Japanese buffet restaurant.

A new colleague, Mike, asked me the other day if I was planning to attend. He was concerned it might be like the more typical weiya. I assured him it was not.

Rise and shine - Taiwan style

In Taiwan, most people live in small apartments, very close to their neighbors. And one fact of life here is that no matter where you live, at any time some neighbor within hearing distance is remodeling their apartment.

Now it so happens that the place just across the alley outside our bedroom window is being remodeled.

Usually this process starts out with a couple weeks of jackhammering. It starts bright and early, at 8:30 a.m. (probably due to some city noise ordinance). Noise just outside the window. After the jackhammering comes the sawing. Just an hour ago I was woken up by the charming sound of metal rods being cut by a table saw. Then there's the nail guns, the loud conversations in Taiwanese, and the singing. Oh, the singing...thank gawd I have earplugs.

They've been at it for nearly a month. Enough is enough, fellas! Hurry up and finish the apartment! I need some sleep!

Overwhelmed

Sorry folks. It being the peak of peak season, I'm drowning in work. I have a backlog to catch up on and am working Saturdays. So not much to talk about lately. I'll try for a better update in a few days' time.

Inundated

Sorry I haven't updated my blog lately, but I've been overwhelmed with work. I'm even working Saturdays. The good thing is that I'm making good money; the bad thing is I have precious little time.

I'll try to post about last weekend's trip to the zoo soon.

New Year's Eve

Monday, December 31, 2007

For New Years, we got together once again with Robert and Patty, and drove to Taoyuan to party once again with Brian and Glory. We had a tasty dinner of spicy hotpot and pizza.


During dinner, Glory went forward with the time-honored Festivus tradition called the Airing of Grievances, giving Robert an earful:


But the incident ended amiably:


The remainder of the night consisted of talking, drinking, and for some who overindulged, puking.


We welcomed the New Year with champagne, and stayed up till around 5am. We slept there, and drove back to Taipei in the morning.

Ramble in Beitou

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Today we got together with Tom and Molly, two friends we don't see very often. They live in Beitou, Taipei's northwestern-most district. We met them at the MRT stop and then took a nice long stroll through the Guandu Plain, the only significant expanse of farmland remaining within the city limits of Taipei. It had an old-time feel to it.

Afterwards, we went to one of the many hot springs that Beitou is famous for. The water is pungent and acidic, piped in from sulfur springs on the mountainside.