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Profile: Ron Sim – Chairman of OSIM International Ltd

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You can see them everywhere… They look scary… But they are popular and expensive. What are they?

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Massage Chairs of course. This ad is running on Taiwan’s site advertising a chair for Mother’s Day, though it is quite pricey. Since this video is not available on YouTube, I find the video is a little choppy. You can watch a three-minute interview with the chairman of Osim, Ron Sim who worked his way up from selling noodles on the street to a company with nearly $400 million dollars in annual revenue which sells healthy-lifestyle products all over the world.

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“Sim is my surname, and the O is actually the globe.” — Ron Sim
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I can’t embed the video, but it’s worth watching.

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For more about the company, read the brief introduction on CNN. And there’s an excellent article on StoneForest that describes his success story, his origins and challenges. His motivation to succeed transcends hunger, failure, hard circumstances, and much more!

Harley Davidson Launches in Taiwan

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All week on TV we’ve been treated to a Harley Davidson Ad that says “We’re coming to Taiwan”. I first came to Taiwan in 1992 and I can remember there being a special squad of police officers who rode Harley’s. They were the only guys in Taiwan who were legally allowed to ride ‘big bikes’.

After Taiwan joined WTO, the importation regulations were relaxed and you can now regularly see many BIG bikes on the roads, they all have the distinctive RED license plates to differentiate them from the two-stroke lawnmower engine sized bikes that are common here. And they are accorded different privileges than regular bikes.

When we went to 101 today, little did we know that we’d be walking by all of these fantastic bikes at today’s launch!

Outside the venue…

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Oh, no where are the bikes… I can’t see any…

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and…

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This is my favorite here bike!

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And of course, my favorite of the day…

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A kind gentleman who had a far more environmentally friendly way to get around Taipei. He was quite happy to pose for a photo-opp. Oh, and those booth-babes… Well, I got some pictures on the video… I’ve already uploaded it to YouTube. But it’s processing, and I have to go to bed! So I’ll add it tomorrow.

Have fun! Have a Harley weekend!

(ed. I updated the post with a video, but I can’t convert the original video to AVI to edit it yet…:( )

Drive in Taiwan – if you DARE!

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Would you dare… if you saw this on the road?

I was just chatting to some new friends who live in the same building as we do. They just came to Taiwan a few months ago, and we were comparing how we did the driving tests (esp. the written paper!). In Taiwan, if you don’t bring an international driving license with you, if you are not from a small group of countries, to drive here you need to resit your test.

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Check out more posts about blogging, tech and money from a blogger who DARES to live and drive in Taiwan… subscribe to the RSS feed or email newsletter. There’s a lot more in the Random Walk to Wealth on InvestorBlogger dot com.
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It’s quite fine to do this and not much of a problem if you already drive, and it’s available in a number of languages online! This is a great convenience to the hundreds of thousands of visitors and foreigners living here who need to take the test but can’t wait long enough to learn to read Chinese. Try it yourself!

The motorcycle test is similar but today I was watching the news when I saw this fascinating video taken on a small phone camera: watch then comment! It’s amazing. You have to watch the entire video of this woman driving her motorcycle at night… it’s freaking awesome… She did end up in hospital though!

This is just one example of the craziness on the roads of Taiwan! I just wish I had one of those new Flip Camera’s that John is blogging about:

The main reason the Flip is so popular is because it’s so inexpensive. The 2GB unit, which can record an hour of video at 640×480x30fps, can be had for less than $150. That makes the Flip pretty much an impulse purchase.

I’m sure I could get some excellent videos of drivers in Taiwan with it! Or at least my co-pilot could! My hands are superglued to the steering wheel most of the time!

Now, of course, if the rider had a Flip, she could make a blog of her own to highlihght some of her techniques and tips!