Service? No Service? Good Service?

USA! USA! USA!

One of the most significant innovation from the land of the free is none other than the drive-through point of sales. How wonderful would no service be! Indeed! Here, the drive-through concept has been taken to a whole new level. Quick and hassle free hair cut in 10 minutes for US$3 only!!!

Actually, I think this started in Japan. You know how their vending machine culture is like….

So here’s how this works.

You walk up to this coin machine, dropped the right amount of cash into it and it gives you a ticket. You wait outside the booth until it’s your turn. When it’s your turn, you go in, sit down, tell the stylist some quick instruction and in 10 minutes, you are all done. The stylists will se a vacuum cleaner to suck your hair clean. No water needed, no hassle and you are on your way in 10 quick minutes. It’s not a neighbourhood barber shop where the retired spend their entire morning either getting their beard shaved or just sitting around laughing at buddies getting their beards shaved. It’s also not your fancy $300 hair salon that not only takes care of your hair, but your nails and your poodle’s nails. It’s also not a place where you sit by your BFFs to gossip about the neighbour’s bitchy wife or mistresses. This is the McDonald’s of the hair styling industry. It’s high tech, efficient and effective. It’s AWESOME for people like me who can’t be bothered to waste money on cutting hair, which will eventually grow back asking for more attention, and time wasted on hair washing or telling the stylist how my shitty day went.

Lot's of business!!!

So this brings me to my hair cutting experience around the world, since this is all about traveling. When I was in Singapore as a student, the school had strict rules for hair style, like no ear-touching hair, hair can’t touch the eye brows etc. Getting a hair cut is more like a chore but a necessity. Otherwise, I would be served with detention. A typical hair cut would cost about $7~$12, and I always try to seek out the cheapo ones, usually not the most guaranteed ones as well.

Then when I was in Detroit, it just felt more secured to go to an Asian stylist even though all I want is to trim like the way it already is. $15 it was, then plus tips. It’s was another “as long as my hair length doesn’t bother me” type of deal. Very low expectations, but necessary when my hair gets in the way of my eye sight when I am trying to pump through 20 marker renderings in the middle of the night.

When I moved to Atlanta, I was very lucky to find many Asian salons. Many of which are operated by Vietnamese immigrants, which is pretty nice because they have fancy deco to rival the ones in Asia, young and well trained Asian stylists, and of course attractive Asian girls cutting your hair. Most importantly (what can be more important than young attractive hair stylists?????), it’s also $15 after all these extra perks!!!

Then to South Florida, where everything is expensive and where I have the most to complain about. It was hard to find a decent stylist. Remember, all I want is trim! All of a sudden, I was paying $25 plus tips for bad hair cuts.

So, what’s really a good customer experience? Service? No service? Of course, it depends on your intention of going to a salon. For me, I can deal with a robot.

辦桌 Ban Dou, the Taiwanese style street banquet

Now this is a Taiwan classic all over!

There is one thing that is unique to Taiwan. I am not sure if people practice this in mainland China, but certainly not in Singapore or Malaysia. What is it???

We call it Ban Dou, which is in Taiwanese dialect and means a banquet on the street. You see, space in Taiwan is limited. In the past when people have more space, they have banquets and dinners right outside of their house because there’s usually a court yard. In the city, there is no space like that, but people still prefer to hold banquets right outside of their apartments, so what do they do? They block off half the already narrow street and put a big tent over it, lay dining tables and invite their guests over. They will hire catering service who will set up a make shift kitchen on the spot to serve the guests, and woah lah! There you go! So when do people have banquets like this?

Wedding, religious celebrations and funerals. So basically, anything!

Today, we were invited to one. It’s a temple celebration of the temple’s worshiped divine spirit’s birthday. Just like the one I wrote about in 2007, this has a puppet show playing for three days as a gift to the spirit, and the banquet is a part of it. So what do I have to do with this temple or the spirit? Nothing, I am just crashing the party!!!!

Just waiting to get started.

Puppet show stage.

Food ready to be served.

The incredible simple mobile kitchen set up managed by three ladies.

It’s been a looooong time since I last been to a street banquet like this. Actually, this isn’t bad at all because we are not on the road. We are still on the pedestrian side walk, so there is no worry of getting hit by a car. While everyone is waiting and after paying respect to the divine spirit, I headed over to the cooking corner to see what it’s all about. So basically, there is a big steamer to keep food warm and a bunch of already prepared food. What they do is they have a lot of pre-prepared dishes that just need warming and final touches before they can be served. Typically, between these three ladies, they have to serve 10 courses from appetizers to desserts. Actually, there were several courses of desserts, two soups, steam whole fish, chicken, pork dish and a bunch of other tasty classics.

Around the table, well, it’s kan bei time! Toasts were thrown repeatedly from table to table. Friends and family greet each other with alcohol. It’s loud, it’s chaotic, it’s energetic! Soon, it doesn’t matter where your seat is, because you will be traveling between tables with your little plastic cup to toast to whoever you see, and soon, you lose track of where you are. Fun times! So not me.

"Hey, what are you doing? You should be drinking!!!"

Then, story time. The family who’s hosting the banquet owns the temple, therefore worships and supports the divine spirit. So what is this divine spirit? You see, there are tens of thousands of temples in Taipei alone, small temples like this that have a small group of followers. In my opinion, this is not really a religion because there is no set rule or practice. It’s basically an idol that you choose to follow. Taiwanese love to fulfill their insecurity through fortune telling. Asking god for advice is pretty rooted within the Taiwanese culture. Therefore there is no shortage for the demand for temples because people always have doubts and questions about their lives that they want to seek advice on. So they go to these temples, bring some offerings like fruits, meat or flowers and ask the spirit questions. The spirit will give them the advice in various ways, offering either warning or instructions. So that settles the reason why people do it in the first place.

Why do they keep coming back? Does it really work? Apparently so! Well, many believe that when they practice the instructions offered by the divine spirits, they work, so they keep coming back. Do I believe this? I do, because I have experience it. I don’t want to get into the details here, but I start to realize the world that is beyond mine.

When it comes to gods and divine spirits, regardless of religions or cultures, people usually think these idols are holy spirits who are absolutely perfect, so perfect that they are beyond human’s ability to understand fully. Of course, I believe that some of these figures are holy and perfect, but the way I understand about these local divine spirits are a little different. They are as human as we are. They like to be famous, honored and worshiped. They like to have as many followers to show their status. They communicate with other divine spirits and they can be quite fun to hang out with.

The people who own the temples like this usually are people who also hold the position as “Dang Gi”. Which means, folks who have the right combination of body and mind that makes it easy for the divine spirit to attach to him. This is when the spirit takes over the body of the person and use this method to how its powers and communicate with the rest of the people. This is when the person appears to become someone else entirely, but represents the spirit. When the spirit leaves his physical body, he “wakes” up and return to the normal state.

More shots of the mobile kitchen.

Today's menu!

Is the spirit feared? Absolutely, but rather “feared”, I think it’s more like respect. The spirit protects its followers from other bad stuffs, like bad spirits that are trying to get you into trouble, or try to discourage you from bad habits like excessive drinking, as in the case of the person who invited us. Apparently, the spirit told him to drink less. Once, his drinking buddy came over for a drink, and the spirit attached onto the buddy’s body and made him hit his head against the table several times, telling him to stay away from this guy. From then on, no one dares to come to his house for a drink.

I think what’s attractive about the spirit is his humanistic side. The side that human beings can relate to. It is the emotional aspect that makes him believable. He’s after all a humanistic idol, guardian of the good values and virtues that its human followers hold dearly onto. To me, the divine spirit are just the perfect human, all the good traits that make us strong, but tough enough to be our moral gate keeper.

Perhaps they are the so-called “angels” that westerners refer to.

Neighbouring Temple, much bigger and established.

鶯歌 Ying Ge the Ceramic Town

I live in the town of Tu Cheng, which is a part of “New Taipei City”. When people ask me where I am from, especially non-Taiwanese, I just say Taipei for convenience sake. Actually, “New Taipei City” is not really Taipei, because Taipei is the capitol and New Taipei City is the outskirt city that surrounds Taipei. Regional wise, I am from Taipei, but not from the real Taipei.

New Taipei City is huge, too big I think. It’s like calling all of Tokyo’s suburb as one city. That’s lazy. Taipei itself is surrounded by mountains forming a basin and Taipei sits right in the basin. That’s why the pollution in the air gets trapped and never disperses despite its proximity to the ocean. Tu Cheng sits against the south eastern side of the basin, but it’s not the furthest town in New Taipei City. The town of Ying Ge is the most southern town of New Taipei City, and it’s famous for its ceramic industry.

(Note: All of the stores do not allow photography so I did not take photo of any ceramic piece)

Ying Ge WAS a ceramic town. It used to have hundreds of chimneys towering the city scape, each representing a kiln, which represents a ceramic factory. I don’t even know if there is any chimney left now. However, Ying Ge’s ceramic industry tried hard to survive, finding ways to stay innovative, stay relevant. Years ago, they decided to turn the town into a memory lane. Tourism that is. They revamped the old main street, close it off for pedestrian only and set up a ceramic shopping district. They also built a very nice ceramic museum to show case the industry’s history as well as many contemporary works. The modernization of the mentality of the industry, from a traditional industry to one that is diverse and lively has creates space for young contemporary ceramic artists and designers to have a stage to stretch their arms. The industry no longer go for the mass production model just to serve the lowest common denominator. It now caters for limited edition, highly intricate elegant pieces for all kinds of price points, as well as innovative but practical contemporary design pieces. For many years, I came here to be pleasantly surprised. People who know me know that I am not easily impressed and I won’t spend money unless I am absolutely convinced too. Well, I did find a few very nice tea sets for incredible prices. They were the perfect gifts, one I would offer to friends as worthy pieces of art work.

So this week was the Ying Ge Ceramic Festival and there is no reason why I am not there.

I can’t really remember when was the last time I was here, perhaps two years ago. One thing hasn’t changed. The parking! It’s terrible, almost impossible. Well, let’s try…. Illegal parking on the street and walk back to the site. Nothing is really illegal in Taiwan. Laws are just references.

Immediately there was a big crowd. I am not sure if they get this many people on regular weekends, but it definitely has become a destination. Since it’s a “festival”, there’s one thing that Taiwanese will not leave out. FOOD!!!! And EATING!!!! Yeap, more food stalls and yummy treats.

It didn’t take long before I realize that this isn’t the best time to come here for good ceramic pieces, because the festival means crowd, which means it’s the best time for the galleries to bring out left over pieces that they can put on sale. The galleries were over crowded with stuffs. The shelves are definitely over populated and even the floor was stacked with show pieces. What a shame!

In general, I was a little disappointed from the stand point of seeing good work, but hey, there’s food!

Then there’s something else, something that I should already have gotten used to. Being in the states, there are no shortages of two things/people. Street performers and beggars. Here, I saw a combination of both. I don’t know, I felt kinda of depressed. There was a young girl, probably 15~16, playing violin. She was playing a popular piece which is the sound track of the animation Valley in the Wind by Miyasaki. It has a graceful but sad tune. The outstanding technique and saturated quality of the violin stood out in the chaotic scene, but the tune was an absolute mismatch with the supposedly festive atmosphere. Suddenly, it was not a festival anymore, it was a girl playing for her own school fees. She had a coin box with a sign in front of her asking for kind donations. She has a sad face. She doesn’t belong here. Actually, she doesn’t belong to the situation she is in at all. She should not have to perform on the street on a national holiday ( let along the 100^th anniversary of the nation’s birthday!) and she should not have to worry about her right to be educated.

Then down the street, there was a clown on stilts. This is no ordinary clown. He has a walking stick, a make shift one, just like the ones used by visually impaired folks except his is much longer. He also has a loud speaker, a box hung from his neck and two boards tied to his chest. So what is this all about? Well, he speaks to the crowd explaining to them that he is scared to be on the stilts because he cannot see well, but he has to do this because he is disabled and can’t find a proper job, so he’s here to beg, asking people to put kind donations into the box hung on his neck, and the two boards are crudely made bill boards of the official ID of his two kids, still in school, still need him to support. Again, a awakard presence, an intersection of circumstances out of despiration. Who ever wants to put himself in a crowd of celebration when you are there to ask for help in a desperate situation? Not me.