If you're not familiar with my new home away from home this spring, allow me to introduce Taiwan. I mean Republic of China..er..Chinese Taipei? It's a bit confusing. When the communists took over mainland China in the 1940's, the democratic government fled to the island of Taiwan along with some folks who weren't too keen on the whole socialism thing. As I understand it, both the PRC (communist mainland China) and the ROC (democratic Taiwan) consider themselves to be the real Chinese government. The US government recognizes the PRC now and not the ROC. Luckily all three countries have a great relationship now thanks to our collective respect for humanity. Wait, check that, I meant to say "boatloads of cash". Taiwan has a booming high tech manufacturing economy. The odds are that your electronic devices were built in China, but the guts of them were made in Taiwan.
I work for a company that designs the guts of electronic devices, integrated circuits. The company headquarters are in Taiwan. I'm going to spend a couple months over there working with colleagues that I usually only get to see on a videoconference.
Other things you should know: The official language is Mandarin Chinese. The guys tell me that the most popular sport is baseball. Former Yankee ace (Current Washington National...yeesh) Chien-Ming Wang is from Taiwan. Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world until they finished the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
More to come when I get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment