Ching's Weblog 敬.網.誌 (2004~2005)

aichi expo photos

aichi_expo 187,
originally uploaded by Ching Chiao.

Click here to see more!

Aichi Expo: What a show!

There's definitely a lot for me to say about my experiences in Aichi Expo in Japan. I plan to spend times on writing in good quality.

Click here for my Aichi-Kyoto flickr album

I am amazed again how Japanese organized this huge event and take care of small details. I so much enjoyed the new central international airport and the rapid train linking the nagoya city and the airport. More photoes and stories to be uploaded soon. I've got to get back to work now ...-_-

BTW, I stayed in Kariya city this time (around 20 mins by express train from Nagoya). Very nice little town. Missed the Mando festival...a pity.

Some interesting photoes first:

Typo: Picky-Picky. But found one at the entrance of Spanish Pavilion. They failed to print out the Japanese character "100 million" (see that "?") on one of the flags. I highly recommend all visiters to the Aichi Expo should make a stop there! The building itself is a piece of art!

WSIS Education: In the Tunisia Pavilion, they provide a booth for information about WSIS, or World Summit on the Information Society. So I took this opportunity to educate my kids about how important WSIS is! They did pay attention to me for 2 seconds. Later my kids told me "WSIS" sounds like a flying bug that never goes away. It does not, my sons!

Waiting for the robot: Toyota Pavilion is definitely the best. But we wait. I mean we wait....for 3 hours to get the admission ticket. Only 650x3 seats available, but more than like 3000 people lined up for the show. We are lucky / early enough to get 4 seats. The show itself has been famous by various introductions on TV or magazines. But no picture during show. I tried but was seized by the staff :-P. Basically the robot is alive, but everyone in the show became robot-like audience...We were instructed when to applause, when to be surprised, and when to hurray. Nevertheless, it was definitely the highlight of the entire Expo!

(click to enlarge the photo)....so it took 140 minutes to see Germany, only 20 minutes to see Italy. Is it an issue on efficiency or attractiveness? :-P

Ray and Mom on Apple Daily

My dear wife Ange and son Ray Chiao appear on today's Apple Daily (蘋果日報). They did this for Green Giant to promote corn can (綠巨人玉米罐頭) in Taiwan. The story was actually done a month ago but released until today after the typhoon (good strategy). Ray really loves corn, as you can see. But does Ange really know those corn recipes? There shall be a personal follow-up report on this :-P

Mushiking

My son is crazy about Mushiking, a Card + Animation game developed by SEGA. SEGA set up hundreds of game machines / kiosks in mostly every toy-floor of department store in Taiwan, Japan and Singapore. Kids between 6~12 are all so into this game. Mushiking is basically a paper-scissor-stone game, with fighters (the beetles) loaded different level of fighting skills. So there are cards for beetles, and cards for skills. Kids pay for the cards, printed with bar-code to represent different types of beetles and skills. The cards are also becoming collectible / trad-able among kids, and plays an important part in their small social circles. As a parent, although I had exactly same life experience 20 years ago, I don't want my kid to spend too much time and too much money on this but as a marketer, I can't help applausing for SEGA. 

Skin Patterns

Ange took the boys for dermatoglyphics analysis (zh-tw 皮指紋分析) couple weeks ago (what's that?). Today the final report came out.

~~I am so impressed. Yes I am.

Persuaded as well, that dermatoglyphics,  or skin patterns is a science. It's kind of a hundred-year-old statistical analysis of hand and foot prints in relations to one's personality, health issues, learning trend, etc. I was told that the company's database contains +200,000x4 Chinese people palms and foot prints...and its customers varies from the new-born (usually w/ anxious parents like us), celebrities, politicians, to even monks and nuns.

Obviously it's not like I-Ching, but somehow similar to face-reading or palm-reading with scientific figures and facts.
(zh-tw 我想通常一般人也不會輕意分享自己的手相或面相...天機不可洩漏阿!)

At Least I Tried

這是有關喬琥的國文考卷.

小犬喬琥成功通過期末國文測驗. 92分. 其中最後一題考到唐朝李白的"床前明月光"那首詩.

當天他回家告訴我說, 考試卷有一題他看不懂(~~原因是當天早上我太晚送他去學校, 以致於他沒有複習到)沒把握, 但是他說他寫寫看,希望老師可以給他一些分數. 他堅定地說, "At Lease I Tried".

請按下圖欣賞小犬之大作!!

. 我對小犬的表現感到無比驕傲, 也確實感受到他對我的一片真心, 流下了兩行熱淚(其實是笑到不行.....)

Family Quick Note

My younger brother Chuck who has been in the States and Canada for more than a decade will move back next week. I am just SO HAPPY for him and I think two of us will have some awesome time together before he is called to serve the country (military service).

Mom's face getting better, faster than I expect. Ange was diagnosed with fibroid :-( . Hu's got average score on his first Chu-Yin (Chinese alphabets for character pronunciation, only teach in Taiwan) exam at school. (zh-tw)這小子還是英語思考, 在學校還糾正老師英語發音... 但他搞不懂單位詞, 如一"架"飛機, 一"朵"花, 一"頭"牛, 一"杯"水...等等. 他問我, 爸, 上課ㄈㄚ 一ㄢˊ要舉手--"發言"是不是因為眼睛痛"發炎", 所以要舉手...@#$% 中文真難為他了!  Ray Chiao, the junior, will still play reindeer for this year's Christmas show. Recently he thinks he can become a magician after watching the Las Vegas Great Magicians DVD series.

I found myself not blogging as often as last 2 months ago. Only 5 posts this month. I think I am just tired dealing with work (3rd TWING Camp is coming, ENUM, TWNIC broaband suvey, TWIX project wrap-up, although escaping from ICANN Cape Town meetings is a big relief...), career planning (or "change management" if I may say so), family business, etc., etc. Sometimes it's not easy for me to get hold of the right feeling or moment of writing, organizing, presenting in the way that a blogger should (one good excuse...) . I now encourage myself to do that.

Meanwhile, with helping hands generously given by J--F and M--K (the gents reserve their right of name disclosure), I setup a site called www.callmeno1.com. It's for the losers who dedicate themselves in Taiwan's upcoming Congressional election on mid-December. Just for fun, pure entertainment, good democracy over Internet!!

Mom falled

Last night around 9pm,  Ange picked up the boys from my mother's house. Hu and Ray were excited to see Ange's car so they ran to it (not the first time they did it). Mom ran after them, she was always worried about them for being out of her control. But she stepped on the uneven iron board on the sidewalk--then she falled directly toward to the brick road without too much protection or support from her hands, her upper-right face, both palms and some fingers were injured. Brain and bones seem ok. Dad carried her to the nearest clinic for disinfection. This morning for some in-depth check. Mom has been the beauty-queen-like lady and it's really shocked and sad for me to see her look that way. I hope that Mom will recover soon. She's 60 now and falling isn't good for her at all. I spent another 30 mins talking with the boys with straight face....

Old Chiang's Ford

老蔣的福特

(zh-tw)週末我開了將近六個小時的車, 從台北到了梨山附近的福壽山農場, 發現了這台停在農場裡, 蔣公行館前的老福特(註: 路徑為台北--北一高--台二線--宜蘭--台七線--台七甲線, 回程相同, 還可經礁溪泡溫泉).
Last weekend I drove about 6 hours, from Taipei to Fushou Mountain Farm (near Lishan), and found this old Ford which belonged to General Chiang Kai-Shek, the late President of Taiwan's dictatorial era.

(zh-tw)門沒鎖, 所以進去坐著過癮.
The door was unlocked (by me!!), so I sat in and pretty much enjoyed the moment--Get on, Old Chiang, let's have some fun together...

Here are some photoes about Fushou Mountain Farm.

If Taiwan is like a shape of your left palm, Fushou Mountain is right in the bottom of your middle finger (don't get me wrong...). The height is about 2,500 meters, and the famous farm produce is apple (my sons stole some for us...good job??), pear, cabbage, etc. The temperature is about 10-c in the early morning and late evening during this time of the year, but rising to 25-c during lunch time. It's still a government-owned farm and not over developed, but tourist has to be prepared for the BUREAUCRATIC HOSPITALITY...

It's just too great to be able to spend some restful time out there with my lovely family :-)

Dad

My dad, smart and sharp business man, owns a small sales agency for big stuff like dredgers and power generators.

My memory of dad starts from age 5. He just came back from Saudi Arabia from a three-year construction project. Chuck, my younger brother, and I used to hang out with him in the construction sites all over Taiwan and played with bulldozer or excavator (and mud-fighting of course). That was FUN!

Dad once worked for a non-profit government-own organization, spent 1 year in Japan, and then was recruited by Caterpillar Inc., the company which manufacturered most of the excavators at that time.

Couple years later he took over this sales agency. For over 20 years, Dad and the sales agency has been THE generator to our family. Without him (and the company), we would never enjoy the good life and the opportunity to study abroad as we have done.

Now I am a dad, too. My two little monsters, Hu and Ray, enjoy hanging out with grand dad, exactly like Chuck and me. There is always a lot of laughing when I pick them up from work.

There is an old Taiwanese saying--Dad is like a mountain (zh-tw阿爸親像山). I watched, climbed, and shall be it....