Save The World, Consider 1 Simple Way

Note: I am posting as part of the Blog Action Day movement. This blog is one of thousands of blogs talking about the environment on October 15, 2007.

My post may be almost late, as it's just a few minutes and Blog Action Day movement is over. So I'm going to make straight and simple. I got nothing much to write anyway, but I may make an outrageous claim.

Save The Planet. It's everywhere. You'll see and read in every form of multitude of mass media. To me though, it's quite simple: Consume less of everything. Quick and simple.

Outrageous? Not so. In anything that we consume, there has to be some resources spent and used, and in more than 1 way, some waste is pumped in our environment. Even the smallest of things you consume, it does not come as is. If we focus on the necessities only, it would do our planet a whole lot more.

That's all folks, you don't really need to understand about all the technical aspects of global warming. Let's leave to the experts. It's real, it's happening.

So, let's do our part: consume less of everything. That's it. Avoid things you can do without. Simple.

In parting, this site: Running The Numbers, by an American artist may just give you a bit of information of just how much we are hurting our environment with everything we consume.

Re: maximum working years

We've learned that 9 years maximum working stay of foreign workers, commulative, is already in effect starting July 11, 2007.

The effectivity of 9 years will have 2 fold effect, both desirable and not. Those who have exhausted their 6 years, they have 3 more years (of course). First timers will surely be sidelined for a while, since Taiwan companies will most likely opt to recall their old employees, taking advantage of immediate work deployment. Cheers to the "returnees", goodluck to new applicants.

Re: maximum working years

We've learned that 9 years maximum working stay of foreign workers is already in effect starting July 11, 2007.

The effectivity of 9 years will have 2 fold effect, both desirable and not. First, those who have exhausted their 6 years, they have 3 more years (of course). First timers will surely be sidelined for a while, since Taiwan companies will most likely opt to recall their old employees, taking advantage of immediate work deployment. Cheers to the "returnees", goodluck to new applicants.

New Alien Residence Certificate (ARC)

Starting next month, July 1, 2007, Alien Residence Certificate (ARC) will be issued in a card with embedded microchip. Taiwan's National Immigration Agency (NIA) will implement moving to new ARC in two phases.

In phase 1, all renewal and new applications of ARC will be issued with the card with embedded microchip. It will be effective from July 1 to Dec 31, 2007. Phase 2 will be implemented the whole year of 2008, all old ARC will be replaced.

So, to those whose ARC's are not going to expire before Dec.31 this year, you're going to have it next year, but you'd have to hang on with that paper based ARC card for at least 6 months. It will be worth the wait, saves you NT$1000 renewal cost just in case you forget your ARC in your pocket and you did the washing unless you break it (the new ARCs will still cost you NT$1000 to renew).

I got some concerns though. The current ARC is made of paper, and the dates of expiration and address are written in there. There are also other personal informations written, but I found that expiration date and address are the 2 most common information asked about your ARC. The expiration date attest to your eligibility of stay (in Taiwan), and the address is replaced when you change address (often, new address is written at the back).

If the new ARC uses embedded microchip, will the address and expiration date still be printed on the ARC? If not, then there has to be a card reader or something, like those used for credit cards. The police should have it (including those police who randomly check ARCs on the roads), government institutions, employers, and even remittance agencies for that matter. It would surely change the way we transact. But I doubt ordinary foreigners will have personal card readers. Then how would we know our ARC is about to expire? We'd also lose the convenience of having a print of our address (in Chinese) everytime. Talk about telling your address to a taxi driver who don't speak English...if you got your ARC, I mean the old ones we have now, just show it to him, and simply sit pretty and relax knowing you're going to get home.

If the new ARC looks simply like a credit card, or the Taiwan Health Card with only your name and some numbers on it, it means we've got to keep some sheets or some equivalent to jut expiration date, and address in Chinese. I figure I could make use of my phone just in case. But maybe it's too early to think of it, anyway we'd need to wait until next week only.

CALL FOR SAMPLE: If you already got the new ARC, please email me a photo (taiwanpinoy@yahoo.com). If you don't mind, please send photo of its 2 sides. Thanks!

Re: maximum working years

Quick update here.

I've been scouring the news of the past few days and I can't seem to find update of the 9 yr maximum working years. However, I was told by some manager who employs Filipino workers in their factory that the law isn't effective yet. It was just approved by the CLA, but haven't been signed yet by "upper" officials of the Taiwan government. I was also told reassuringly that it will sure take effect very soon this coming few months. I'm quite sure the managers I spoke with are as eager as I am about this new law taking effect, so I reckon they surely know and we could trust what they said.

I'll keep you posted.

Maximum working years in Taiwan is now 9 years!

Again, I've been in hibernation lately. Now we're back with a good news!

On May 30,2007, the maximum working limit for foreign workers in Taiwan has been extended to 9 years from the previous 6 years limit.

It is said that it is a compromise to the request of some 15,000 companies in Taiwan to totally remove the working-length limit. The 9 years limit is approved by the Legislative Yuan over opposition from the CLA (Council of Labor Affairs). The CLA has cited questions on social and economic impacts of longer stay of guest workers, like rights of foreign workers to claim retirement pensions, and demand to bring family members to Taiwan.

The case of Germany's immigration issues has been brought as an example as to why stay of migrant workers has to be limited. The CLA's position is understandable, because an influx of migrant workers is tough and complex issue to handle, particulary if guest workers fails to integrate well with their local population. But evidently, Taiwan needs guest workers to serve it's economy. Even with the government concerns that unemployment in Taiwan is growing, there are sectors in their multitude of industries with serious labor shortages. That explains the approval of the new limit.

I'm quite sure this news bring smiles and high hopes to many. Cheers!

Lost in blogger.com

Days pass so quickly. I barely noticed it, it has been a month since my last post, and I haven't written anything eversince.

Actually, I got lost, inside blogger.com itself.

Few days after my last post, I intend to write again. But when I logged-in to blogger, everything is in Chinese! I can mutter a few Mandarin when I need to, and somehow decode about 200 Chinese character just enough so I don't get lost on the roads, but find my way around a website in Chinese I'm totally lost. Totally. Plus, I can't seem to remember what change I did to my computer that everything changed to Chinese. Accept it or not, I have to deal with it.

I know somewhere there has to be some setting to change language back to English. Somewhere. But just knowing there is, somewhere, isn't helping. It just make sense there must be, but who knows where?



So off to google some help. But search isn't quite easy. I have to vary my search keywords to get the information I need. Well, always - the way you key-in your keywords affects the quality of search tremendously.

Fast-forward to after many google searching, I stumbled to this webpage : http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-change-language-if-you-are.html, and what a relief!

There are people out there like me living in foreign countries whose writing they don't understand. In my case, I'm living in Taiwan and Chinese writings always looks like graffiti to me. I believe there are also a lot of Pinoys living here in Taiwan, and probably many got lost in blogger too.

The link above helps, well, to some extent. As you see the sample shown is in English; and of course the "Change Language" link there is really clear. If you are adept in English, and wanting to change to your mother tounge, it's a quick solve. But if you were default to non-English language, that "Change Language" link is also non-English, and you want to change to English, you are still lost!

In my case, I was default to Chinese after I logged in, and even if I'm staring at my profile already, no way that I knew the 3rd link down from my photo is the one elusive help I'm looking for, because it's in Chinese also! It looks like this:

I wrote a moment above that the link helps to some extent. I wrote so because you'd need to correlate the sample in the link I wrote above, and your "foreign-language-profile" - match link's positions that is. To some eyes out there not specially trained doing so, including mine, you'd probably squint a few times before figuring it out. Mind you, squinting gives you headache.

Now I'm off writing again!

---

Alternate solution:

I thought there could be other way to change blogger.com language without using the help (re: link ) I used, and of effectively avoiding link's position comparison that's sure to strain your eyes. I found another method on my own. Do this:

1. Login to blogger.com ( I prefer not to use www.blogger.com as is, I use a surefire-english-start-page. Your choice).

2. Go to www2.blogger.com/language.g. There you will be given language selection. Be sure to "Save Settings".

3. Sign out. The signout link is the link on the upper-rightmost link in the page after you login to blogger.

4. Re-login, use any of the links in #1, above. Everything should be in English now.

Cheers!

Still Alive

How's everyone? Apologies for not posting for quite some time. I have been reassigned to a new job and it took me sometime to catch up. I have been spending up to midnight at work, and when I'm home, I simply have to sleep to work again the next day.

Anyway, I was able to cover some events in Taipei recently (Lantern Festival, and Yanmingshan Flower Festival). Yanmingshan Flower Festival runs until 3rd week of March, you have ample time if you want to get a glimpse of the event. Here are sample pics from the two events:

Yanmingshan Flower Festival 2007

Taipei Lantern Festival 2007

New in 2007

The 1st week of 2007 is over, and we have quite a few interesting things. Some are exciting, and we have a little disappointing one.

First, we took part of the revelry in Taipei 101 for the 2007 New Year Countdown; second, THSRC is now finally in commercial operation. Third, and one that does not look like a good news, the release of visa for OFW coming to Taiwan is still slow.

Each of these news needs a lengthy writing on each own so I'm only writing a summary of each for now. In the coming days, I will deal fully on each.

Taipei 101 2007 New Year Countdown

We were in Taipei 101 during the 2007 New Year Countdown, we're part of about 500,000 people who attended the celebration. We took photos of the spectacular fireworks, and it is in TaiwanPinoy pages now. See it here!

It was an awesome experience. Among the 500K people or so, we're sure many has wrote their experience attending the revelry. But I'm going to write our own experience and own impression of the whole event.


THSRC Is Now Open To The Public

THSRC has started commercial operation on the 1st week of Jan.2007. The Taipei Main Station is still closed though, only Panchiao Station is open. That means commuters leaving Taipei has to get a ride to Panchiao to board the THSR; and those coming to Taipei has to get a separate ride from Panchiao to Taipei Main. It is however convenient to catch a train ride from Panchiao to Taipei main, or the other way around. If you're riding from Taipei, you could buy THSR ticket from Taipei Main Station before proceeding to Panchiao.

THSRC offers 50% discount until Jan.19, 2006. Taipei to Kaoshiung (Choying) economy class ticket will only cost you NT$800 instead of NT$1400.


Release Of Visa Is Still Slow

We're informed that release of Visa for OFWs bound to Taiwan hasn't changed eversince Oct.2006, when Taiwan's CLA/TECO imposed further verifications for veracity of documents. White Collar (or Professional, or Economic) Visa are also on hold. Looks grim eh.


That's all for now, more in coming days.