One night Steve and I went out to dinner with the Formica people from the plant in Hsinchu. Jimmy Liu is the plant manager. He's the one talking in the middle. Jimmy is a good friend of mine. I first met him in China back in August when I first moved to Thailand. He is super friendly. Then he came to a meeting in Bangkok. And now, here I am in his home country. When I met his secretary, Candy, she said that Jimmy told her that I was a "shinning light". Sweet! The man sitting next to Steve on the left is Ignathio, he's from Spain, but he will tell you he is from the Basque country!! Very proud of that!
Some more guys from the plant. I can't remember their names, except the guy on the left. His name is Michael. He is from the Formica plant in mainland China. He is a very aggressive and loud talker. Much different from the Taiwanese at the table. They seemed much more reserved and polite.
This is Candy, Jimmy's secretary. She was really sweet. On the last day in town she took me to the lantern festival which I will show you in pictures. I asked how she got her name. She said that when she was first studying English, her teacher said that she seemed very sweet, so he named her Candy, and that when she got older she could always change her name to Candace. She never did.
During dinner Jimmy asked if we liked the Taiwanese beer. We said that we did. He told us that the first 2 Chinese characters say Taiwan. There was a pause in the conversation. So I piped up and said, "Oh, and Jimmy, I think those last 2 characters say 'Beer', right?" He said, "Yes!, how did you know?" Everyone laughed when we showed him the bottle where it said the English words right under the Chinese lettering. I felt very smart though!!!
This sign was across the street from our restaurant. If you didn't know it, you might think you were in Reno! I know I have seen this cowboy there before!!
This is the Lantern Festival that Candy took me to. She said that it just happened to be in Hsinchu this year. They have the festival in different counties every year so that everyone gets a chance to enjoy it.
Here is Candy in front of the lantern that represents Thailand and Peace. It was so beautiful I just had to take a picture of it.
I wish I could have gotten this more in focus. I was trying to discretely take pictures of small Taiwanese children, but they were so quick that each time I was ready to take their picture, they moved, like this one. But she's still cute!
That's all from Hsinchu. Tomorrow's blog will be about Taipei.
Sawadii Kaa!!
Linda
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