|
I'll be in Taiwan with my wife and three of our friends April 7 - 20 if a goonmeet wants to happen then!
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2012 21:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 05:46 |
|
|
We should just start hitting some bars as the weather warms up. A night at Carnegies would be hilarious, Wax for all-you-can-drink some night, maybe Barcode or Room 18 or LAVA or etc. if you feel like spending a lot of money on some drinks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2012 21:24
|
|
|
Cargnegies or Wax would be the most awful things ever for everyone around us. I'm down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 01:22
|
|
|
DontAskKant posted:What about with technical writing? I have some journalism experience as well, but if the hours are Asian hours is it really worth it? There are also several patent shops in Taipei that hire foreigners with said degrees to assist in writing US patent applications. There is one in younghe called NAIPC. They have a web site. Last I heard, pay is better than teaching. Whem I worked there it was quite decent. I used to see ads for these positions in the taipei times. Edit: I cannot recommend the patent job enough. The pay is good and the work interesting. Just avoid the local company politics. sirormadman fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Mar 7, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 02:12
|
|
|
Haraksha posted:Cargnegies or Wax would be the most awful things ever for everyone around us. Both of these places are terrible. I went to Carnegies once, and it's the whitest place I've seen in Taiwan. Had an old man that looked exactly like John Hammond from Jurassic Park hitting on my 20something year old Taiwanese friend nonstop, with tons of other weird old dudes going after Taiwanese girls that could be their granddaughters. It felt sad that all these people needed a white bubble in Taiwan to hide in. Never going back. Wax is just lovely because it gets incredibly crowded so you can't move anywhere, it's essentially a dirty basement, and they'll have 2 bartenders on staff at a time, which means your endless drinks are endless, as long as you wait 30 minutes in line for that drink. If you want to get drunk, you just get your drink, then loop back in line. Not too fun.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 04:18
|
|
|
Ravendas posted:Both of these places are terrible. After my 1st year in Taiwan I came to hate almost every foreigner friendly bar in Taichung (this was before they all shut down). For basically these reasons, though with less old men most likely. It's like this largish bubble of foreign white-guys who are desperately trying to bang as many Asian girls at possible. Except they never go anywhere except the same 1-2 bars. So they only meet the girls who go to those places. And the only girls that go to them (that don't already have boyfriends) are often slightly dysfunctional girls who are so convinced a white boyfriend is the solution to all of life's problems they end up sleeping with every other new face who walks through the door hoping that he isn't the fat alcoholic white rear end in a top hat he appears to be. Only to find that of course he is. And round and round they all go in some horribly depressing incestuous circle.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 04:44
|
|
|
sirormadman posted:Keep in mind this is 5 year old info. The tech writing jobs are mainly in hsinchu and neihu. Basically writing and editing product manuals. It's mostly piece work, as far as I can tell, so you get paid for production, as opposed to working silly hours. You definitly need a technical degree so they can hire you legally. Engineering, physics, hard science. What are the positions usually named for the patent shops?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 04:59
|
|
|
Ravendas posted:Never going back. Oh, I'm totally aware of all of that. These are terrible, awful bars. I think the reason they were even suggested is because of how bottom rung they are for places to go out to. I think we were picking places ironically. If we really want to get plastered, then there are definitely more appropriate places for it. But I think the goal was to get as drunk as possible around people who would prefer that we weren't anywhere near them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 05:16
|
|
|
Haraksha posted:Oh, I'm totally aware of all of that. These are terrible, awful bars. I think the reason they were even suggested is because of how bottom rung they are for places to go out to. I think we were picking places ironically.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 05:42
|
|
|
Haraksha posted:Oh, I'm totally aware of all of that. These are terrible, awful bars. I think the reason they were even suggested is because of how bottom rung they are for places to go out to. I think we were picking places ironically. The only good thing about Wax is it's walking distance from my apartment. Carnegies is kinda annoying to get to. Edit /\/\ Roxy99 has a church directly above it. I always wonder how many drunks they have to sweep off their porch every Sunday morning Ravendas fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Mar 7, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 05:45
|
|
|
duckfarts posted:Well that's easy; just buy some Tunnel 88 and drink in a church. Sounds basically like a homeless shelter in Wisconsin. Or the more that I think about it, really just any church in Wisconsin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 06:57
|
|
|
HappyHelmet posted:It's like this largish bubble of foreign white-guys who are desperately trying to bang as many Asian girls at possible. Except they never go anywhere except the same 1-2 bars. So they only meet the girls who go to those places. And the only girls that go to them (that don't already have boyfriends) are often slightly dysfunctional girls who are so convinced a white boyfriend is the solution to all of life's problems they end up sleeping with every other new face who walks through the door hoping that he isn't the fat alcoholic white rear end in a top hat he appears to be. Only to find that of course he is. And round and round they all go in some horribly depressing incestuous circle.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 07:06
|
|
|
Hey Taiwan goons. Savage mainlander checking in here. As soon as my contact is up in Beijing, I might defect to Taiwan as it seems like a better place to live. I'm a teacher, FYI. Any thoughts on which international schools in Taiwan with I.B or AP courses have the best packages/lifestyle?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 08:07
|
|
|
Man you don't go to Carnegies OR Wax if you want to have a high class do for chirssakes. You go there to get plastered, possibly make out with a hooker and make fun of all the people who go there because they think its good. Last time I was at Carnegies I saw a girl get dragged out of the front kicking and screaming and thrown into the street for reasons that I am to this day totally unaware of. If we want to go hang out at a good all-you-can-drink bar PASoul has pretty quick lines (last time I was there, haven't been since they reopened.) Wax is a good place to get your bed warmed for the evening or meet interesting degenerates. And if the line's too long at any point just pop out to the local seven and drink with the waiguos on the corner for a bit. Also if anyone's interested a friend of mine is playing with his band at Revolver on Thursday (I probably won't go) and Underworld on saturday (I will probably go) Underworld is at least in Shi Da night market, so again plenty of opportunity to get wasted in the street with the other foreigners. I don't exactly need a foreigner "bubble" or whatever, but if you can't have fun hanging out with degenerates at a shithole bar, you may need to go back to fun school. Edit: Oh! We should also book a table at Strike! sometime, it's a bar AND a bowling alley!
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 09:50
|
|
|
Are the bowling pins hookers?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 09:54
|
|
|
Apparently facebook informs me that there is also a this, which should be awesome:
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 09:58
|
|
|
T-bone is a friend of mine and an amazing guitarist. You should go see him play
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 10:06
|
|
|
It's difficult to guess why Bubble Bomb got the early slot there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 11:35
|
|
|
I got into a fight with some gangsters in Pasoul 4 years ago. Haven't gone back since.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 12:51
|
|
|
HappyHelmet posted:It's like this largish bubble of foreign white-guys who are desperately trying to bang as many Asian girls at possible. Except they never go anywhere except the same 1-2 bars. So they only meet the girls who go to those places. And the only girls that go to them (that don't already have boyfriends) are often slightly dysfunctional girls who are so convinced a white boyfriend is the solution to all of life's problems they end up sleeping with every other new face who walks through the door hoping that he isn't the fat alcoholic white rear end in a top hat he appears to be. Only to find that of course he is. And round and round they all go in some horribly depressing incestuous circle. Yep. I've yet to have an enjoyable experience in 18TC. It just sucks my soul out of me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 13:37
|
|
|
https://www.facebook.com/events/330820180302729/?ref=notif¬if_t=event_invite St. Patty's day festivities at Speakeasy (a good bar) quote:
Don't be that guy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 14:41
|
|
|
GoutPatrol posted:Yep. I've yet to have an enjoyable experience in 18TC. It just sucks my soul out of me. Funny part about that is that 18tc isn't really that bad. Its just your typical Taiwanese club with nothing special about it what-so-ever. No the places I was talking about were all shut down after the fire. Off the top of my head Fubar, Amici (the bar not the restaurant), and 18K. Fubar and Amici were the worst offenders. Fubar is still open though, and from what I hear one of the old regulars now rents a house across the street and when Fubar closes all the drunks go over there afterwards to continue getting shitfaced. The only other place to go out here is the place in Dakun. Which is a 30-40 minute scooter ride away, and where all the foreigners go to smoke pot. Yippee!
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 14:45
|
|
|
DontAskKant posted:Tech degree for technical writing? Sure it makes sense in that sentence I just typed, but surely the department in a university that teaches technical writing would be a little better, no? If it's a requirement then I can't do my usual selling of a philosophy degree as actually being very applicable to this kind of writing. The other job title is "patent engineer." I think the tech degree may be a little more firm as a requirement for this job. But honestly, I can't say for certain. It wouldn't hurt to look. The company I mentioned before is actually https://www.naipo.com.tw (The O got changed to C or even dropped somewhere along the way.) There are a couple of others as well, but their names escape me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 15:53
|
|
|
DontAskKant posted:Tech degree for technical writing? Sure it makes sense in that sentence I just typed, but surely the department in a university that teaches technical writing would be a little better, no? If it's a requirement then I can't do my usual selling of a philosophy degree as actually being very applicable to this kind of writing. Engineers do a hell of a lot of report writing, test case reports, and even patent application forms. They know how to write pretty decently. Your main problem in this type of job will probably lie in translating the Chinese/Broken English terms and phrases for technical ideas into real English. But really, it's worth a shot. A buddy of mine is doing the same kind of thing for detailed financial reports over here in the mainland, despite his history degree.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 16:46
|
|
|
Engineer requirements(which tech writing falls into) are 4-year university degree + 2 years experience in a related field, high school diploma + 5 years experience in a related field(not 100% sure on this one), or a PhD + who cares years experience in a related field, last I remember. The "related field" could be something like tech support or repair, or maybe a newspaper job; a lot of different jobs could possibly count as related experience so long as the position wasn't something like "sandwich artist". ^^^ For the companies I worked with so far, there is no translation; English is the source language for documentation, and any translation comes from that document, including Chinese.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 18:51
|
|
|
Spanish Matlock posted:
Didn't realize there was a 'that guy' for that kind of thing. This was... actually 5 years ago now, back when I didn't know any white people here, and went clubbing with a bunch of Taiwanese people to their typical places. At that time, Pasoul was 99% Taiwanese patrons, and some gangster types (literally, a friend there recognized some from her gangster boyfriend) took umbrage at me dancing too close to their table. Or something. I really have no idea specifically why I got targeted, besides being the only white dude in the club. One guy dragged me over and then punched me in the back of the head after offering me a drink. I pushed them off of me and the bouncers flew in as if they were expecting something to happen. One of my friends and I got escorted out by some bouncers, who asked if I was ok, and held back the other group while we made our escape. Fun times! Up until that moment though, Pasoul was A++ would go to again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 18:58
|
|
|
duckfarts posted:Engineer requirements(which tech writing falls into) are 4-year university degree + 2 years experience in a related field, high school diploma + 5 years experience in a related field(not 100% sure on this one), or a PhD + who cares years experience in a related field, last I remember. The "related field" could be something like tech support or repair, or maybe a newspaper job; a lot of different jobs could possibly count as related experience so long as the position wasn't something like "sandwich artist". e: Thanks vvv DontAskKant fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Mar 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 19:03
|
|
|
DontAskKant posted:I can document plenty of experience for that as long as they don't need really famous names. What is the pay range for technical writing? I have heard crazy ranges from $20-$50+ an hour. Here's one for D-Link: http://www.taiwanted.com/viewlisting.php?view=45 And, IBM: https://jobs3.netmedia1.com/cp/job_summary.jsp?job_id=STG-0468177
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2012 20:09
|
|
|
We could always do another goon meet at someone's place. I have a couple of fake guitars and a fake piano. Does someone have some fake drums and a mic?
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 08:05
|
|
|
Haraksha posted:We could always do another goon meet at someone's place. I have a couple of fake guitars and a fake piano. Does someone have some fake drums and a mic? I do in fact. PS3 ones, from Rockband2.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 12:05
|
|
|
Ravendas posted:I do in fact. PS3 ones, from Rockband2. Sorry, mine are all XBox.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 13:14
|
|
|
Is it possible to order all of the normal crap from Amazon in Taiwan or would I need to look elsewhere for online ordering while I am there?
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 13:56
|
|
|
OrangeGuy posted:Is it possible to order all of the normal crap from Amazon in Taiwan or would I need to look elsewhere for online ordering while I am there? You can, but I think it get prohibitively expensive when you factor in the extra shipping. Unless there is something really unique you want off of there plan on buying things locally.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 14:42
|
|
|
HappyHelmet posted:You can, but I think it get prohibitively expensive when you factor in the extra shipping. Unless there is something really unique you want off of there plan on buying things locally. Alright, is there an alternative to Amazon, then? Also, are the things that this blogger complains about Hess true?: http://teachingenglishathesstaiwan.blogspot.com/ If so, why does nobody talk about this kind of bullshit (that she's making it out to be)? Are non-Hess schools less lovely? Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Mar 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 15:02
|
|
|
OrangeGuy posted:Alright, is there an alternative to Amazon, then? No matter what company you work for, things are going to be very different from branch to branch. I've worked for HESS for almost a year now (holy crap I've almost been here a whole year!) and I haven't had any problems. My branch is super chill, there's no surprises, I get the exact amount of hours I want, and there's a real sense that the staff is looking out for us, the foreign teachers. I'm re-signing for another year and I can see myself staying at this branch even longer than that. But one person from my training group was hit with a lot of the things that person talks about in their blog: super long work hours, unhelpful staff, no communication, etc. She quit after only a few months and never looked back. You will hear the phrase "your mileage my vary" a lot if you start asking "is x school better or worse than y school," and it's never not true. Moon Slayer fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Mar 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 15:17
|
|
|
OrangeGuy posted:Alright, is there an alternative to Amazon, then? To your first question. I think so, but I've never tried. Taiwanese people love shopping, and bargain hunting. Its all about going to markets, and wandering from stall to stall trying to find the best deal. It takes some getting used to, but at least everything you need is available too you for a good price once you know where to look. As for that Hess blog I've never worked at HESS so I'll leave someone else to comment on that. I will say a lot of her complaints are things that are just part of the job here. The special events and what-not are fairly common with many schools in Taiwan, not the school I'm at thank god, but many. It also sounds like the person was very outwardly hostile about her job when things didn't immediately go the way she wanted. Which is never a good thing here. Especially if she mouthed off even a little bit to the boss.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 15:29
|
|
|
OrangeGuy posted:Alright, is there an alternative to Amazon, then? Reading through these posts, it sounds like she didn't understand how much "unpaid" work any teacher does. They came into a job expecting it to be a vacation that just happens to have teaching. No, I'm not saying that every branch will be great, but I don't think I could have a better group of people that I'm working with right now. HESS has been nothing but awesome for me. Even if I did have two different kids cry in my classes today.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 16:06
|
|
|
Sounds like she just got the lovely newbie schedule that lots of people get. Morning kindy plus evening buxiban, with a long break in the middle (UGH UNPAID WORK[no, go home you idiot]). My schedule is essentially Mon-Fri, 2 classes a day, 2-4,4:40-6:40. So I get there at 1:20 or so to prep and grade homework, and leave at 6:40 when the bell rings. 5 hours and 20 minutes for 4 hours of pay. So I basically teach 20 hours a week, and am at the branch for 26ish hours. Fulltime kindy at Hess is morning kindy (9-11:30, aka 2.5 hours), and then afternoon kindy (1:30-4, another 2.5 hours). Sure, it's 7 hours with 5 hours of pay, but you get a 'normal' work schedule with evenings off, and you get a big fat 2 hour break in the middle to leave and do whatever you want. My branch does have little events sometimes, but they're completely optional for NSTs, and when we do choose to go, we have no part in setting anything up. Go to the nice restaurant, eat, maybe win a prize, and go home.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 16:27
|
|
|
I think a lot of people don't realize the hours that English teachers work. There are very very few jobs that are 9 to 5 or something. My schedule is M - F 8:30-12:00 1:55-4:20 5:30-8:45 2 nights only until 7:05 but the idea is that it's a whole day of working with a couple hours of break. If I were to stay at the school during those breaks I guess that's unpaid work time?
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 16:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 05:46 |
|
|
Yeah, the unpaid work. In Korea I am working about 40+ a week once you factor in all the grading. Are you NETs allowed to take privates? Our visa here in Korea forbids us from receiving any other pay or doing any other work. Sometimes even volunteer.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2012 16:51
|
|