Vivid moments

Sydney hosts an annual winter festival of lights called Vivid. As part of this spectacular event more than a hundred artistic light installations are on display for 23 days throughout the central city. This year’s festival, the 14th since its inception in 2009, includes stunning drone shows, a techno train and regular fireworks displays.

Yesterday Garry and I caught up with a couple of old friends, Danny and Aggie, who were in town to see a new production of Death of Salesman that opened last week. We met them at the Verandah Bar on for a drink and a light meal before they headed for the theatre.

Afterwards Garry and I decided to venture down to Circular Quay and catch a few Vivid highlights. We walked as far as the Opera House before grabbing tickets to wander through the Royal Botanic Gardens and experience the impressive Lightscape event. I’ll let my photos tell the story!

Entrepreneurial excursions

Last weekend my EO Forum spent four days on retreat in the Hobart region. As a group we go away together twice a year, once for an extended period and once overnight. I organised last year’s event in Wellington where we meet inspiring business people and speakers offering unique life perspectives.

This year we flew into Hobart from Sydney early Thursday morning. Our first day was primarily a boardroom session focused personal and professional challenges. We then took a walking tour of the harbour side district, learning about the colourful characters and historic events that shaped Tasmania’s early years.

Dinner that evening was booked at Aloft, a restaurant located on the upper floor of Brooke Street Pier. The venue delivered a stunning view across Hobart harbour, accompanied by an awesome degustation menu.

The following morning we drove north to scenic Coles Bay. Here we met with Declan Brown, the owner of Oyster Bay Tours, a family business offering tours of the acclaimed Freycinet Marine Farm. Declan and his wife established their tour business six years ago.

At the time the farm was receiving regular enquiries from people seeking to experience the exclusive oyster farm tour offered by Saffire. Garry and I enjoyed one of these behind the scene tours in 2013. Declan had previously worked as a private tour guide for this exclusive resort.

Declan shared with us the experience of establishing and building his own business, before taking into the water to harvest fresh oysters straight from the water. We then learnt to shuck an oyster, a skill that’s always eluded me. We also sampled freshly cooked mussels from the farm’s nearby ocean concession.

We stayed the night in cabins at Freycinet Lodge, enjoying a hearty meal at the lodge’s Bay restaurant. Afterwards we sweet talked an unsuspecting staff member into opening the reception gift store so that we could raid its ice cream freezer.

The following morning we rose before dawn to hike up to the Wineglass Bay lookout in Freycinet National Park. The view was just as spectacular as I recall it a decade ago. We then made our way back to Hobart, stopping briefly at the Killara Distillery for a whiskey testing. The distillery owner, Kristy Booth-Lark, later joined us for dinner and shared her entrepreneurial story in establishing a business it a traditionally male dominated industry. 

We finished our day with a couple of hours at MONA before heading back into town for dinner at Franks on the waterfront. The following morning the rest of the group headed for the airport while I caught the high speed catamaran back to MONA.

I’d decided weeks earlier, I’d like to revisit MONA as it’s always been one Tasmanian venue that Garry steadfastly refuses to visit whenever we’re in Hobart. I booked tickets for two of its new mind-bending visual and auditory exhibits. Both were phenomenal experiences. I particularly enjoyed Event Horizon, by James Turrell, a pulsating light exhibit projected in an enormous white auditorium with seamless, curving walls. 

Badaling in the snow

Time for another retrospective post. Over the years I’ve visited the Great Wall of China many times, including visits in Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each season offers its own unique perspective of this magnificent structure, surrounded by lush summer greenery, golden Autumn foliage, or shrouded in a blanket of snow.

Here is a retrospective post about my visit during the depth of Winter in January 2003. At the time, I was in Beijing for a global board meeting. My company, Text 100 had just opened its first office in Mainland China, an important strategic expansion of its global reach. As Regional Director for Asia Pacific, I hosted the board for its regular bi-annual meeting, along with the team from our new outpost.

Our formal agenda was scheduled to kick off on Monday, 27 January. To facilitate some team bonding, the Board flew in early so we could spend the weekend exploring Beijing together. This included a tour of the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs and, of course, the Great Wall of China.

I vividly recall my early evening flight into Beijing. It was snowing as we came into land. As the plane descended through heavy clouds, the airport finally appeared just a few hundred metres above the ground. All around us snow was falling, the ground was white and snow ploughs were frantically clearing a nearby taxiway. 

As an Antipodean citizen, raised in a temperate climate, the experience of landing on a snow-clad runway was completely new. I’ve enjoyed numerous snowy landings in the years since, especially while living in London. However, I’ll always remember this first experience.

Snow continued to fall for several days. As a result, when the board visited Badaling on Saturday, 25 January, the Great Wall was smothered in inches of fresh snow, with more continuing to fall. Much to my delight, the poor weather worked in our favour. Tourists were few and far between. As a result, we enjoyed sections of the wall almost completely alone – an experience unheard of for Badaling.

Badaling is the traditional destination for visitors to the wall. It’s relatively close to Beijing, less than 80 km northwest, and has plenty of handy tourism infrastructure including cable cars and gondolas. In Summer, Badaling’s daily visitor count is limited by ticket to 65,000 people. In fact, before the ticketing system was introduced in 2019, the count occasionally exceeded 80,000 in a single day.

 

The conditions proved suitably treacherous. At times, we gingerly made our way down the wall's sloping ramparts by tightly gripping handrails installed along its length. In one of the images above, you'll see a couple of tourists performing this death-defying act in the background.

More than once, we lost our footing on the wall’s icy cobblestone paving. More than one board member took an impressive downhill slide on their butt. I’m sure the site would have been closed to visitors had we been in any other country. However, despite the risk, the sight of a snow-bound wall and its surroundings was simply breathtaking. I consider myself lucky to have experienced it.

Afterwards, the group made its way to the Ming Tombs where we enjoyed another almost tourist-free tour of this iconic tourist sight.

Death on our doorstep

Six people were murdered, and a dozen more seriously injured, in a manic stabbing frenzy at Bondi Junction Westfield on 13 April. The attack has sent shockwaves around Australia. It is also uncomfortably close to home.

Bondi Junction Westfield is a massive complex. It contains 445 retailers and services including a gym, two supermarkets, two department stores, a major discount department store and outlets for many of the world’s prestige brands including Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

It’s one of Australia’s largest shopping malls, filling several city blocks, some linked by a multi-level aerial glass-walled walkway. It’s also our closest retail centre. As a result, like so many in the area, Garry and I regularly visit this sprawling mall to shop or use its multi-level parking garage when attending medical and dental appointments.

This particular Saturday began like any other. While thousands went shopping, Garry and I drove north to spend the afternoon enjoying lunch with his parents. As we dined, a 40-year-old man, Joel Cauchi, walked into Bondi Junction Westfield carrying what onlookers described as a 30-centimetre-long hunting knife and began a deadly rampage.

As the attack unfolded panicked shoppers and staff barricaded themselves in storerooms and others hid in change rooms, while shops locked their doors and pulled down shutters. Alerted to the carnage by fleeing shoppers, a lone female police officer Inspector Amy Scott, entered the complex. Terrified bystanders directed her to the attacker on level five. She sprinted up the building until she encountered Cauchi. She ordered him to drop the weapon. He lunged towards her. She shot him dead.

Garry and I didn’t hear of the day’s tragic events until we headed home. Rhonda called to share the news as we drove away. The rest of our journey was spent listening to live radio broadcasts outside the mall. The victims, a classic cross-section of cosmopolitan Sydney, included migrants, a tourist, the daughter of a wealthy well-known Sydney figure, a grandmother and a young, first-time mother.

Investigators have learned that the killer suffers from schizophrenia. His father told the police he’d recently stopped taking his medication. It appears Cauchi may have been experiencing some sort of manic psychotic episode. Tragically, in the weeks since two more mentally ill men have made headlines in separate stabbing incidents. However, unlike the Bondi Junction killer, these two men appear to have been radicalized by online content. 

The first frenzied attack took place as evangelical Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was live-streaming a weekly sermon. The attack put the bishop and another priest at the Christ the Good Shepherd Church in hospital. Fifty-one police officers were subsequently hurt in an ensuing riot outside the church while the rampaging teen attacker sustained a severed finger during the stabbing.

Then, last week, a teenager was shot dead by police after he’d stabbed a shopper in the car park of a Perth Bunnings store. These incidents are tragic and incredibly traumatic for those impacted. Like many Australians, I struggle to understand why individuals with serious mental health problems are falling through the cracks in our nation’s health system?

Five days in Taipei

Working for a global company has its merits. Over the years, as my executive roles became increasingly offshore-focused, I was privileged to visit an ever-growing list of countries and territories. My time in Taiwan was one such experience.

I spent four nights in Taipei in 2004. At the time I was visiting our new Taiwanese licensed partner. After several days in Hong Kong, I flew to Taiwan with Cathay Pacific on Saturday 29 May. My flight landed shortly after 2:00pm. As expected, our licensed partner pulled out all the stops to impress me. A town car collected me from the airport and sped me into the central city where I checked into the Grand Hyatt Taipei.

The hotel was totally over the top. It was considered Taipei’s first truly international luxury hotel after it opened in 1990. Over the years I’ve learned that Asian business partners will always err on the side of caution when managing your itinerary. As a result, I’ve stayed in some lavish hotels and been entertained in some incredibly opulent venues. On this occasion, my room was a spacious suite on a high floor with an uninterrupted view of the central city.

I rose early on Sunday to enjoy a self-guided walking tour of the central city. My first stop was Longshan Temple in Wanhau. It was easy to reach via the city’s underground metro, requiring one simple transfer. The temple was founded in 1738 by Han immigrants from Fujian. Over the years it’s served as a municipal, guild and self-defence centre, in addition to being a house of worship.

Longshan is dedicated to the bodhisattva of mercy, Guanyin. However, in true Taiwanese style, more than 100 other gods and goddesses are worshipped in the rear and side halls. To quote the Lonely Planet Guide, "Matsu, the goddess of the sea, is enshrined in the back centre; Wenchang Dijun, the god of literature, to the far right (he’s particularly popular during student exam time); red-faced Guan Gong, the god of war and patron of police and gangsters is enshrined to the far left; and in front of that is the Old Man Under the Moon, known as the Matchmaker or the Chinese Cupid."

The temple itself is wonderfully colourful and ornate. Its gilded cross beams are colourfully decorated, and its roof is festooned with swirling blue and red oriental dragons and other mythical figures. There's even a spectacular waterfall greeting visitors inside the entrance gate. With so much to see, I spent almost an hour exploring this surprisingly compact complex. Incredibly much of what’s on display is a reconstruction. In its time the temple has battled earthquakes, typhoons and a bombing in the final days of WWII.

A short ten-minute walk brought me to my next stop, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park, now known as Liberty Square. This expansive plaza is home to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a dramatic white edifice framed on either side by two identical ochre and vermilion buildings, the National Concert Hall and National Theatre Hall. Understandably, this striking complex is considered Taiwan’s national showpiece.

The heavens opened briefly as I reached the square, one of several passing showers that day. However, the sodden weather delivered an unexpected bonus. As you can see above, a dark, moody sky created a stunning photogenic backdrop for the square's iridescent white memorial hall and ceremonial gateway.

The hall is a grandiose monument to authoritarian leader Chiang Kai-shek. Visitors reach it via 89 marble steps (Chiang's age when he died). Inside the cavernous hall is an artefact museum paying tribute to Chiang. This includes his two Cadillacs, various documents, and mundane articles from daily life. 

The main hall is dominated by an imposing statue of a seated Chiang. An honour guard, in white uniform, stands watch at its base. Without a doubt, the statue has been modelled on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Once every hour, the honour guard changes. I stopped long enough to witness this slick ceremony unfold.

This imposing, awe-inspiring autocratic spectacle is a sage reminder that Taiwan’s democracy is relatively young. It’s easy to forget that its first free presidential election was held in March 1996, barely eight years earlier. However, the next stop on my walking tour highlighted its more ignominious past.

Nearby Jieshou Park and the oddly named 228 Peace Memorial Park bring some of Taiwan’s dark past to life. Jieshou Park is a simple plaza dominated by two memorials. The first is a prominent stature of former president Lin Sen, erected atop an elevated white plinth. At first, I thought the figure depicted was a famous Buddhist monk. However, Lin led the Republic of China for 12 years until he died in 1943.

A more modest memorial, a white marble wall, commemorates the Victims of the White Terror, a draconian response to uprisings that took place when martial law was imposed in 1949. The events of this era are immortalized and remembered in more detail in the neighbouring 228 Peace Memorial Park.

The park’s name refers to the date of a major uprising on February 28, 1947. On this day, a protest over the high-handed and frequently corrupt conduct of Kuomintang (KMT) officials turned violent. As the uprising spread, the local KMT-installed governor called for military reinforcements, and the uprising was violently put down by the National Revolutionary Army. An estimated 18,000 and 28,000 were killed during this incident and in the years that followed.

The park is a peaceful place of elaborate gardens, ponds, bridges, and stunning multi-tiered oriental vermillion pavilions. Opposite one end of the park stands the impressive red and white colonial facade of the Presidential Office Building. At the opposing end is the Taiwan National Museum. A second museum inside the park recounts the 228 uprising and its aftermath.

The weather lifted a little while I was in the park. As a result, I made a last-minute detour and headed to the Shin Kong Life Tower. At the time it was the second tallest building in Taipei and home to a popular observatory on its 48th floor. The photo above, taken from the observatory, shows 228 Peace Memorial Park in all its glory. It also neatly encapsulates my Sunday walking tour. Liberty Park appears on the top left, while the Presidential Office Building is on the far right. Longshan Temple is just out of frame in the upper right.

I hadn't planned to visit the Shin Kong Life Tower when I arrived in Taipei. Instead, on my first afternoon in town, I'd walked to Taipei 101, to try out its new observatory. This 508-metre-high teal-green skyscraper had been officially opened just five months earlier. At the time, it was the world’s tallest building, a title it held until the Burj Khalifa topped out in 2009. Its name reflects the number of occupied floors in the building.

However, I was disappointed to discover that Taipei 101's uppermost levels were still under construction. As a result, the observation deck on its 101st floor wasn't accessible. Instead, I was greeted by hoardings that promised a stunning view at some future point. The observatory was finally unveiled in January of the following year. Unsurprisingly, it instantly became Taiwan’s number one tourist destination. 

My Sunday walking tour finished with a visit to the nearby Shandao Temple. This is an understated, contemporary Buddhist temple building housing three large golden Buddha statues in a slick and shiny shrine. You gain entry to the complex via a bold mustard gateway. However, the main building itself is rather austere. In fact, at first glance, it looks more like a modestly trimmed high-rise building. It’s not until you walk inside that its religious trappings become evident.

With a healthy 5km walk under my belt, I returned to my hotel.  However, I had one final stop to make. On the way back, I made a short side trip to capture Taipei 101 in all its glory. This magnificent tower was just a block from my hotel making for a quick and easy photoshoot.

The next three days in Taiwan were filled with business meetings. I also conducted several training sessions with our licensed partner’s staff. I recall an interesting cross-cultural moment during one of these sessions. We discussed difficult clients who revise their brief, or change the KPI goalposts, mid-campaign. When asked how I’d handle this dilemma I said I’d politely call them out on their unfair conduct.

The sharp, audible gasp from the room immediately alerted me to my cultural faux pas. My audience was stunned that I’d let a client “lose face” in a business negotiation. I cannot recall a more visceral reaction to my counsel in the years I've worked in Asia. It was undoubtedly a teaching moment for me rather than my audience!

On my final afternoon in Taipei, I visited Computex, a major trade show underway in the central city. By chance, my trip had coincided with this event. At the time, it was the world’s second-largest technology industry trade show. It filled four massive exhibition halls conveniently located next to my hotel. The image above was published online by one of its 1240 exhibitors.

Wandering the Computex halls was an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at the IT industry’s plumbing. Entire zones within the halls were dedicated to motherboards, semiconductor foundries, and all manner of computer components. I recall being astounded by stand after stand offering an OEM version of almost every digital camera on the market.

On Wednesday 2 June, I returned to the airport, flew to Hong Kong, and transferred onto an overnight flight back to Sydney. If I ever return to Taiwan, I plan to see the scenic Taroko Gorge Road that crosses the island south of Taipei.  

I'll leave you with the following conundrum. While visiting Liberty Square I saw silkworms in one of its buildings. Despite plenty of Google research, I've yet to work out why they were there and what purpose they served. I vaguely recollect being told something about them replenishing silk thread for an artwork in the foyer or memorial artefact but the details escape me.