Shipping to Taiwan

What to do if you need to ship from the United States to Taiwan, but the size of your shipment is more than your luggage can accommodate yet less than an entire freight crate/container?

My first trip to Taiwan 16 years ago, I mailed  a few boxes via the U.S. Postal Service. Back then it was affordable. A few years later, I shipped a pallet stacked with sealed boxes via a freight company (sorry, I don’t remember which one). Six years ago I learned the U.S. Postal Service was no longer making international sea shipments. So I carried two over-sized suitcases on the airplane. This past January, in need of shipping once again, I learned of another more affordable option which Taiwanese students use when they return to Taiwan from studying in the United States:

Charlene Enterprise Inc.

http://www.charlene-transport.com/

The end of January we wrapped our boxes in plastic and sent them off. I shipped three boxes around 18 in * 18 in * 24 inches each, as well as a fourth smaller lighter box (57 lbs. + 62.4 +54.6 + 20 lbs. = 194 pounds). The cost to ship to Taiwan came out to  US $250.00.

Unfortunately, unless you plan a few weeks ahead when you are visiting your friends in New York City and can drop your boxes off yourself at Charlene Enterprise’s Woodside, Queens location (which I unfortunately did not!), you’ll also have to pay for UPS to ship your boxes to NY. In my case, the domestic shipping cost for the four boxes cost an additional $154.47, raising the grand total to over 400 bucks (local delivery in Taiwan is included in what you pay to Charlene). In spite of the UPS shipment cost,  I found the overall expenses to be reasonable since I was not interested in shipping anything more.

We waited almost exactly two months before receiving our shipment, which was a few weeks longer than we hoped. Still, being on the long end of the time wait boundary was reasonable considering that the company waits until they have enough other packages going to Taiwan so they can bundle them all together in the same shipment

In our case, the boxes had not been unwrapped or opened by customs either. Nothing was taxed (we carried most of that in our carry-ons). Nor was anything damaged. So I would recommend the service. Please let me know though if you find something cheaper or quicker!

My Old Neighbor Mr. Ding on TV

Today this noon I sat down to watch pre-downloaded news video using the Miro application. To my surprise whom should I see but my old neighbor from when I used to live in Yunlin, Mr. Ding! 加油丁宗華！

Life in the Kitchen Part 3: Bullying Little Animals

Here at the restaurant are 5 birds which I raised from the time they were babies. They attract quite a bit of attention from some of the customers. Two of the birds garner more attention than the others, but I’m still somewhat attached to four of them. While I was away in the US, this place became their home.

This past week, then, it made me angry to pass by the cages and either catch in-the-act or after-the-fact children 欺負小動物 “bullying the little animals” by poking them with sticks and even kicking the cages. They tried feeding them inedible items ranging from tree leaves to raw coffee beans. 很沒有規矩！

Sadly, in some cases, the children were only following in the footsteps of their adult parents. On two separate days I found cigarette butts in the cages, as well as betel nut 檳榔。These would have come from the so-called adults.

Speaking of the adults, this afternoon, the last day of winter vacation before children go back to school, I picked up 78 cigarette butts from the adjacent restaurant parking lot (about 12 spaces). I’m sure I could have found more if I had kept looking! And a few days ago while driving back up after having running errands, it seemed the car in front of me was throwing a different piece of garbage out of the window every 20-30 seconds. What classless lowlife. Hopefully, the litterbugs/bullies/gangster types only constituted a small fraction of the customers who visited over the Chinese New Year.

Life in the Kitchen: Temporary Restaurant Workers

I’m here as a volunteer part-time dishwasher to help keep things going over the busy Chinese New Year rush. In order to get most of the rest of the work done, the restaurant hired 3 students (and the little sister of one of them, who although not a “hire” has been helping). Here’s their breakdown:

1. One gal, a 15 year old high school student, comes from a single parent home. In Taiwan, after a divorce, it’s usual for the kids to live with the father. That is the case here. Unfortunately, however, this young lady’s dad is the hospital living out his final days with liver cancer exacerbated by drinking to excess. He could pass away any time now I’m told.

2. The oldest student, a third year high-schooler, comes from a home where the father drinks and sometimes beats him. His mom is a foreign bride from Indonesia (as is the mother of the other two girls). After the young man accidentally got burned by some spilled hot water earlier in the week, I wound up taking him on two different days to the hospital to get his arm wrapped. I was surprised that on the first day when I took him to the emergency room, when he presented his medical insurance card they collected less than USD $1 for the payment. The second visit, they didn’t collect anything. I learned for the first time that for low income families medical costs are drastically reduced.

I believe these grassroots, working class peoples, and especially their children, hold a special place in God’s heart. Jesus loves the little (and not so little) children. May He bless and continue to provide for them and their families.

Life in the Kitchen Part 2

I awoke another night last week around 1:30 to look up and see something flash quickly from left to right across my chest. Not wearing my glasses, I couldn’t focus clearly, but I thought I saw two little bulging eyes. I yelped, waking my wife. Both of us then heard the pitter-patter of rapidly moving feet. A rat! (here in Taiwan known as a money rat). It had just leaped off my chest.

We pulled out the luggage and boxes underneath the bed where the rat had ran, but found nothing. Then we saw a small crack we assumed he had slipped into. We went back to sleep.

A few minutes later we heard the pitter-patter again. We turned on the lights to see the rat looking down at us from atop a tall shelf. As we watched and tried to swat at it in vain, it was apparent it had absolutely no fear for us. It ran back into a crack we couldn’t reach.

Living in a remote location in the middle of the night, going for a rat trap was impossible. So I put out some peanut butter on a piece of paper and waited to smack it if/when it came out. However, I was unprepared for the rat’s sheer speed as it zoomed out, grabbed the peanut butter before my eyes, turned around and whisked back to shelter all in a split second. All before my hands could begin the downward motion with the weapon I was carrying.

We then prepared a trap using fly paper on a piece of cardboard and went back to bed. Within minutes the rat was caught in the fly paper, but before we could react it had ripped the sticky paper taped to the cardboard away, and taken it back with him on its run back to shelter. Just minutes after that, we looked up to see the rat staring down at us from atop the coffee maker.

Around 5 we gave up and I opened the door in the hope it would simply leave the room. It must have eventually, because we didn’t hear it again. The next day I rode into down and came back with some sticky traps. In five days it hasn’t come back to the room, although I did catch a glimpse of it in the shed outside.