IT-stories. Part 2
Computex over
Taipei; 06 June 2004
In fact, there are three "Chinas" in the world. They all differ from one another like the sun, stars, and the moon - Taiwan, Hong Hong, and Great China. The continental China has already got its hands on Hong Kong, but left everything as is - hordes of continental Chinese have not yet smashed that financial oasis only because the border is still there as before. The authorities of Great China are not idiots to kill the goose that lays golden eggs because Hong Kong is the financial center of the whole South East Asia and its principal sea port. The difference is that now they no longer pay taxes to the "cap crown" (the way Canadians still call the British queen), but to Beijing.
Formally, Canadians still go on living under the British crown, and all the legal proceedings are still administered on its behalf, but Americans still call them their 51st state - there is no border between the USA and Canada. How wonderful this world is.
I remember Ksenia Polyanina saying on her return from Shanghai to Taipei: "I will no longer call Taiwanese as Chinese. Shanghai is such a garbage can!" What's the point of comparing these? In Taiwan, as per the local laws, the minimum salary is 700$ a month, whereas in China it is 50-100$ of the country's monthly average. But measuring salary versus China is like "the hospital's patients' average temperature" - somebody is dead in the mortuary's freezer, others are in fever and are on the way to the freezer.
"China" - photo by Ksenia Polyanina
Abit held the final of its traditional Acon in Shanghai, China. A month before that, the Chinese authorities had changed their attitude towards computer games to the colder side, so in fact the final was held in semi-legal conditions. The timetable was made in such a way that members of the Russian delegation to Computex were to fly over to Shanghai from Taipei to stay for three days and return. I flatly refused to miss even a single expo day and stayed in Taiwan, but Pavel Sinyakov (Ferra) and Ksenia Polyanina (Computer Press) left for China having dropped their things into my hotel apartment. They had no place to come back.
The bad trick was in that during the expo the whole press is living in Taiwan for free- CETRA (TAITRA) pays for the accommodation of all the invited mass media representatives from all over the world at the Agora Garden hotel which is 100 meters away from the pavilions - but only the expo days. A day or two off the expo - pay for these yourself.
That is, they had to spend a night somewhere before the flight to Moscow on return from Shanghai. I suggested they left their things at my second hotel where I had spent a fortnight before the start of Computex and was going to live there after it was over.
During the expo, I moved to Agora together with our Alex Mitrofanov (aka Starter) who was sent by 3DNews over here for the first time. I was lazy to carry all those trunks, boxes and numerous rigs from hotel to hotel, didn't turn the room over and disappeared. By the way, four days of my complete disappearance did not passed unnoticed, the owner was informed, so he was really agitated and taking the heart to call the police: - "a guest has disappeared!"... But that very time we are coming up with our numerous luggage items. The room then turned into a Gypsy camp, with the luggage all piled in a heap in every corner.
Then I disappeared again for 2 nights and returned with Starter and his things - his plane was to leave in two days after Computex was over, so we had to spend a night in my room like brothers.
The administration was keeping an eye on that room with growing astonishment and even stopped doing it up since all the floor was bestrewn with suitcases. But the worst was still to come...
Computex is over, and the exhausted people are taking their time idling with pleasure, awaiting for their flights. Somebody is to depart today, somebody next day, with the remaining on the day after tomorrow. Even to the best of the local efforts, you can't send all the hundreds of thousands of expo visitors off the island within 24 hours. In an hour, the last battle at Acon is over, and the results will be announced. We are sitting in a "ball" waiting for the verdict.
A phone call from China - "Russia has won, the first prize at ACON is ours!!!"
No sooner had we shouted to our hearts' content, scared the locals and ordered some tequila than a second call rang up - "Sorry, we took the second place." Even the second place was also super, but after ten minutes of triumphant euphoria the impression was blurred. Irina Zhukova (SK-Press) is trying to cheer up the company - she is a resilient optimist for life.
Starter, Vika, Irina
The mood has been slightly spoilt. We are moving to my hotel to digest the semi-victory/semi-defeat and listen to the latest U2 album.
The next day,Misha Vakhterev (Auramedia) popped into my room with his things and 12-year-old son. They were to fly to Moscow that evening together with Starter, and nobody has cancelled the 12:00 check-out. All the day throughout, our crowd was sitting at small cafes and walking around the city, sweating in the heat. In the end, Starter escaped to the hotel room nearer to the air-conditioner, and Misha with his son proved truly untiring. Late in the evening, I ordered a taxi and sent them all to the airport with their trunks - I was too exhausted to see them off. They aren't minors in the end - will find their own ways, especially the flight is direct to Moscow without a change in Hong Kong.
For the whole hectic Computex week that was the first evening I was able spending calmly and quietly - no parties, drinking-bouts, no lardheads, no urgent typing, page making or posting reviews. That's always the way with CeBIT and Computex - you wait for them for a whole year like celebration or a show. New meetings, contacts, new hardware rigs, presentations, parties... A real hectic week without a spare minute to relax - even no time for sleep! But the holiday is over, you feel tired and empty.
The next morning I made a couple of phone calls to companies, but it turned out their attitude to life proved the same as mine. It was Vika who dotted the i's. I call her asking a usual question:
- Well, what are you doing today?
- Sleeping!
I didn't' feel like working at all, but my mood did get better after such an answer, so until my last couple of guests - Pavel and Ksenia - flew back from China I was able scribbling something on videos enjoying and playing the fool immensely... I wrote three times more than was finally posted online - I gathered such a momentum with analogies and digressions that later I had to castrate the article as much as I could to revert to the subject and remove all the immoderation. Online readers are not much into reading long texts.
When the sweet couple popped into the room, all had been posted on the web site, and I was lolling about on the bed listening to Elvis Presley whose melodies are abundant in my notebook PC.
With "Viva Las Vegas" playing, my guests were sharing their impressions of the travel. The well-bred Ksenia Polyanina was trying to explain what the Great China was with her regular lexicon, but Pavel was more short-spoken: "That's a real shit!" Then came Vika who had had a good sleep, so we all went off to the restaurant to celebrate their departure home.
We'll omit the intimate details from the life of a Swedish family - three persons asleep on a double-bed, but when the porter who was summoned in the middle of the night to repair broken Internet knocked at the door of my room, he startled beyond speech! That moment I only cared for the bill - whether they would charge me for these extra persons in my room, the other didn't matter at all. No, they didn't charge me. I love Taiwanese :-)
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- Page 1 - All was invented by Madame Chang Kai-Shi
- Page 2 - Computex over
- Page 3 - These shy Taiwanese
- Page 4 - Taiwan: everyday life
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Page 5 - Friederike is a lady's name
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