Wow... just about the time I had 'a lot' of stuff to write about and a barrage of new pictures, there was a massive earthquake in Taiwan that wiped out Internet connections to any sites outside of China. [I think someone is trying to tell me something].
They say that the connection(s) will be down for maintenance for at least 3 weeks... so, sorry if the blog is lacking in new content. Jen and I can not access our emails, personal or company, and are cut-off from our other online accounts as well. Hmmmm = not happy.
We will follow-up with new blog updates and pictures as soon as we have access....
Merry X-Mas and Happy New Year from the East.
:)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Zhengzhou, our new Ayi and Shaolin Warriors
This is a reminder post to myself to tell the story of our trip to Zhengzhou, Henan Province, the hiring of our Ayi and the Shaolin Temple Warriors.
So much to write so little time to do it.....
So much to write so little time to do it.....
Monday, December 18, 2006
More Xuzhou artifacts pictures....
Chinese sarcophagus made entirely of jade.
Chinese mummy made entirely of jade.
Miniature replica pagoda water fountain.
Replica dancing figurines for entrance of tomb - funeral ceremony and celebration.
More little mini-statues.
Places I've been recently...
This is the National Museum in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China. The city is known for several Emperors from multiple Dynasties in Chinese history.
It contains artifacts dating back to over 5000 B.C.
This is a three legged pouring vase that was used to distribute wine from.
This was a vase made to look like a duck - 500 B.C.
Solid gold stamp - Chinese prince.
Mark the stamp would leave on a signed letter from this prince.
Hybernation mode and China travels....
Sorry it has taken me so long for a new post / update, but I've been traveling with clients here in China this past week.
Totally NEW information:
a) Jen stole a topic from me while I was on the road, so I'll skip mentioning the steel cranes as China's #1 bird... so on to #2
b) Txt Msging vs. Voicemail - It is very uncommon to find people here that have the "voicemail" option attached to their phone / plan. 99.9% of people here rely on text messaging to convey thoughts if said person is not immediately available. As a matter of fact, I think that text messaging is the preferred method of communication here. Seems like everywhere I go there are 50 or 100 people all frantically typing away at their phone keypads. I've only recently noticed this because I fell directly into the habit as well and spend most of my time with my face buried in my phone msg than looking around me.... I think the last trip I took on the subway here I saw maybe a total of 12 people... there were multiple stops and several hundred people transitioning on and off the train. Hmmm... am I starting to assimilate and not even know it?
c) GM, Chrysler and Ford [some of the Asian Big 3 (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) as well] - Lost the car war a long long time ago... although Buick is still regarded as a highly envied brand, VW took over this market twenty years ago. I would venture to say that 1 in 3 cars here are Volkswagens. The "upper end" vehicles are comprised of Audi A6s/8s, BMW 5 & 7 series and of course the world renowned Mercedes Benz. There are several significantly smaller players here from France and some other domestic Chinese brands, but when you boil it all down the money spent in vehicles here ended-up in Germany.
d) Pen Ink Thicknesses - It's no big secret that Chinese characters are complex in visual style and method of scribe. Simplified Chinese, which is what the Main Land primarily writes not speaks, (we'll get into that later), is significantly different that Traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese is simply that... people took Traditional Chinese and eliminated a large portion of the complexity, additional strokes, accent marks, etc. to create a language that was easier to read and write. This being said, thousands of years of Chinese history and evolutionary development has imprinted the ideas of accuracy and legibility on the population. Simply put: people try very very hard to be precise in their writing due to the complexity and the commonality of 50,000+ characters. WHICH means that people like to use extremely fine tip writing instruments. The finer the better when you are creating complex characters on sometimes small pieces of paper - or maybe just trying to condense written text to less than 3000 pages for a newspaper article. Being from the U.S. I've grown extremely fond of using pen thicknesses of no less than 0.7, sometimes I like 1.0, but usually 0.7 will do it for me... here the standard (which is also the maximum) is 0.5 - and often times people use 0.38. All in all what that means for me is that my penmanship - that was once so nice and neat and professional - now looks like I just graduated from 3rd grade with a D- in Language Arts [that was true, but I've passed that class since then].
e) Casinos - How do they say: fuhgettaboutit - Feels like I'm quoting Joe Pesci or DeNiro or even Ray Liotta from any number of gangster movies they've put out in their collective careers. Nevertheless - gambling is STRICTLY prohibited by the government. Which I originally thought, "yeah, gambling in the U.S. is illegal too" - but there are the 'exception' states like Las Vegas, Nevada that pretty much organize and control it in a legal manner with gaming commissions and all... and there would be something at least similar to that structure here: illegal everywhere, except in some government controlled or government regulated location or something. Not so. Some island off of Hong Kong has gambling or casinos or something of the like, but definitely no where else in China. People are also very reluctant to talk about it, so it gives me the impression that it is somewhat of a taboo topic - which means I don't ask anymore.
f) Money - Money here is a funny thing... everything is based on the RMB or Yuan, pronounced U-ON (close enough). Interestingly the notes are in primary denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 1 - very similar to the U.S. only that each note is a different color and a different size. 100's are large and pink, 50's are medium and green, 20's are medium and brown, 10's are smaller and white with blue writing / pictures, 5's are even smaller and purple and 1's are super small and are usually green. There are also 1 Yuan coins that look like U.S. quarters and they also have nickles, dimes and pennies that are different metal materials and vary in size. Every time I pull a wad of these out of my pocket, it always seems like I've just robbed the banker in the game of Monopoly. What is also weird is that with the current exchange rate 100 Yuan bills are about $12.90 USD. So it is funny when I pull a gangster roll [this is about 100 - 200 bills thick with a rubber band around it] out to pay for lunch and I have to sort and organize this huge pile of money to accomplish anything. Makes me feel like I'm getting ready to buy a car or a house CASH but then I get a plate of mixed rice and vegetables. I'm starting to put all of this in a frame of reference... but, I'll be the first to tell you that I haven't figured out money here.
g) Popcorn - If you know me, you know that I love popcorn - as a matter of fact, I've considered that I have truly mastered that art and like my popcorn exactly the way I like to make it. A substitute worth honorable mention is movie popcorn - usually has too much butter and the wrong type of salt - heck, the wrong type of corn for that matter, but, all in all it is edible and enjoyable when going to the theater. HERE - they don't do popcorn. The popcorn they serve in the theaters is white, so they got that part right, it's not cooked in the right oil and worst of all it is DRENCHED in some type of sugar glaze very similar to carmel corn, only less by volume. I'm not one to overly complain, but this is the worst thing I've experienced since I've been here.... my next return trip to the U.S. will be to package and box all of the John Specific foods and spices into a box and airdrop it at my building in Shanghai. Ugh.... I can see me booking a flight back to the States just to make this happen. :)
I'm going to attach some pix from my most recent trip around the country... and for my cousin Katie I'm attaching pictures of our place here.
Totally NEW information:
a) Jen stole a topic from me while I was on the road, so I'll skip mentioning the steel cranes as China's #1 bird... so on to #2
b) Txt Msging vs. Voicemail - It is very uncommon to find people here that have the "voicemail" option attached to their phone / plan. 99.9% of people here rely on text messaging to convey thoughts if said person is not immediately available. As a matter of fact, I think that text messaging is the preferred method of communication here. Seems like everywhere I go there are 50 or 100 people all frantically typing away at their phone keypads. I've only recently noticed this because I fell directly into the habit as well and spend most of my time with my face buried in my phone msg than looking around me.... I think the last trip I took on the subway here I saw maybe a total of 12 people... there were multiple stops and several hundred people transitioning on and off the train. Hmmm... am I starting to assimilate and not even know it?
c) GM, Chrysler and Ford [some of the Asian Big 3 (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) as well] - Lost the car war a long long time ago... although Buick is still regarded as a highly envied brand, VW took over this market twenty years ago. I would venture to say that 1 in 3 cars here are Volkswagens. The "upper end" vehicles are comprised of Audi A6s/8s, BMW 5 & 7 series and of course the world renowned Mercedes Benz. There are several significantly smaller players here from France and some other domestic Chinese brands, but when you boil it all down the money spent in vehicles here ended-up in Germany.
d) Pen Ink Thicknesses - It's no big secret that Chinese characters are complex in visual style and method of scribe. Simplified Chinese, which is what the Main Land primarily writes not speaks, (we'll get into that later), is significantly different that Traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese is simply that... people took Traditional Chinese and eliminated a large portion of the complexity, additional strokes, accent marks, etc. to create a language that was easier to read and write. This being said, thousands of years of Chinese history and evolutionary development has imprinted the ideas of accuracy and legibility on the population. Simply put: people try very very hard to be precise in their writing due to the complexity and the commonality of 50,000+ characters. WHICH means that people like to use extremely fine tip writing instruments. The finer the better when you are creating complex characters on sometimes small pieces of paper - or maybe just trying to condense written text to less than 3000 pages for a newspaper article. Being from the U.S. I've grown extremely fond of using pen thicknesses of no less than 0.7, sometimes I like 1.0, but usually 0.7 will do it for me... here the standard (which is also the maximum) is 0.5 - and often times people use 0.38. All in all what that means for me is that my penmanship - that was once so nice and neat and professional - now looks like I just graduated from 3rd grade with a D- in Language Arts [that was true, but I've passed that class since then].
e) Casinos - How do they say: fuhgettaboutit - Feels like I'm quoting Joe Pesci or DeNiro or even Ray Liotta from any number of gangster movies they've put out in their collective careers. Nevertheless - gambling is STRICTLY prohibited by the government. Which I originally thought, "yeah, gambling in the U.S. is illegal too" - but there are the 'exception' states like Las Vegas, Nevada that pretty much organize and control it in a legal manner with gaming commissions and all... and there would be something at least similar to that structure here: illegal everywhere, except in some government controlled or government regulated location or something. Not so. Some island off of Hong Kong has gambling or casinos or something of the like, but definitely no where else in China. People are also very reluctant to talk about it, so it gives me the impression that it is somewhat of a taboo topic - which means I don't ask anymore.
f) Money - Money here is a funny thing... everything is based on the RMB or Yuan, pronounced U-ON (close enough). Interestingly the notes are in primary denominations of 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 1 - very similar to the U.S. only that each note is a different color and a different size. 100's are large and pink, 50's are medium and green, 20's are medium and brown, 10's are smaller and white with blue writing / pictures, 5's are even smaller and purple and 1's are super small and are usually green. There are also 1 Yuan coins that look like U.S. quarters and they also have nickles, dimes and pennies that are different metal materials and vary in size. Every time I pull a wad of these out of my pocket, it always seems like I've just robbed the banker in the game of Monopoly. What is also weird is that with the current exchange rate 100 Yuan bills are about $12.90 USD. So it is funny when I pull a gangster roll [this is about 100 - 200 bills thick with a rubber band around it] out to pay for lunch and I have to sort and organize this huge pile of money to accomplish anything. Makes me feel like I'm getting ready to buy a car or a house CASH but then I get a plate of mixed rice and vegetables. I'm starting to put all of this in a frame of reference... but, I'll be the first to tell you that I haven't figured out money here.
g) Popcorn - If you know me, you know that I love popcorn - as a matter of fact, I've considered that I have truly mastered that art and like my popcorn exactly the way I like to make it. A substitute worth honorable mention is movie popcorn - usually has too much butter and the wrong type of salt - heck, the wrong type of corn for that matter, but, all in all it is edible and enjoyable when going to the theater. HERE - they don't do popcorn. The popcorn they serve in the theaters is white, so they got that part right, it's not cooked in the right oil and worst of all it is DRENCHED in some type of sugar glaze very similar to carmel corn, only less by volume. I'm not one to overly complain, but this is the worst thing I've experienced since I've been here.... my next return trip to the U.S. will be to package and box all of the John Specific foods and spices into a box and airdrop it at my building in Shanghai. Ugh.... I can see me booking a flight back to the States just to make this happen. :)
I'm going to attach some pix from my most recent trip around the country... and for my cousin Katie I'm attaching pictures of our place here.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
The Pace of Change
If you haven't already heard, Beijing is rumored to complete one skyscrapper every day. While that pace of construction is certainly accelerated for Olympic preparation, change here is still very very rapid. China's national bird is fondly joked to be the crane...as in building crane. Supposedly, half of the world's building cranes reside here in Shanghai.
I was witness to this speed of change today. Yesterday morning, I was standing by the window when I noticed a group of workers begin construction on the roof of a neighboring building. While this building is not comparable to the size of Wal-mart, it is nonetheless a sizable structure. That is why I was so shocked to find the roof completely finished by the time I awoke the next morning. And when I say completely finished, I mean completely. There were no straggling workers, no materials left surrounding the ground. It was as if I had imagined the building to be roofless to begin with!
I was witness to this speed of change today. Yesterday morning, I was standing by the window when I noticed a group of workers begin construction on the roof of a neighboring building. While this building is not comparable to the size of Wal-mart, it is nonetheless a sizable structure. That is why I was so shocked to find the roof completely finished by the time I awoke the next morning. And when I say completely finished, I mean completely. There were no straggling workers, no materials left surrounding the ground. It was as if I had imagined the building to be roofless to begin with!
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Hotels And The People Who Live In Them...
Since moving to China, our residence has varied from week to week. The one similarity between these locals, is that they are all hotels. Whenever I meet someone who like me, has been living in a hotel, I think of a line from the movie, "Two Weeks Notice". I can't recall it verbatim, but the gist of it is...I live in a hotel that I own, so my life is very much like Monopoly. I'm not sure why I think of this, but almost immediately after I do, I joke to myself, that me and these hotel residents are the unfortunate players who accidentally landed on Park Place . The worst part? We don't own the hotels...
Meeting people who live in hotels is like reading the teaser on the back of a New York Times Bestseller. Invariably, their lives are fascinating (though almost always in a superficial sense) and the introduction never ends with, "where are you from?" In fact, that is most likely the beginning of their story. In any case, the reason this is delightful for a socially incompetent person, such as myself, is that it is extremely easy to keep the conversation going. It is nearly impossible to run out of questions. Better yet, people like this are invaluable resources, because they have traveled the world 3 times over and know the insides and outs to ever city imaginable.
Tonight, as I mingled with the residents of our current hotel, it dawned upon me that I was definitely the most inexperienced person in the room. This came as quite a shock, because when compared to my peers, this is not generally how I feel. However, when the room is filled with company founders, successful commodity traders, etc who spend 300 days out of the year traveling and living in hotels, it is to be expected. Fortunately for me, expat communities (at least here in Shanghai), are generally a tight knit group. That is, when your resources are limited, you can't be too choosy, and from my vantage point, it is a good thing. >_<
Meeting people who live in hotels is like reading the teaser on the back of a New York Times Bestseller. Invariably, their lives are fascinating (though almost always in a superficial sense) and the introduction never ends with, "where are you from?" In fact, that is most likely the beginning of their story. In any case, the reason this is delightful for a socially incompetent person, such as myself, is that it is extremely easy to keep the conversation going. It is nearly impossible to run out of questions. Better yet, people like this are invaluable resources, because they have traveled the world 3 times over and know the insides and outs to ever city imaginable.
Tonight, as I mingled with the residents of our current hotel, it dawned upon me that I was definitely the most inexperienced person in the room. This came as quite a shock, because when compared to my peers, this is not generally how I feel. However, when the room is filled with company founders, successful commodity traders, etc who spend 300 days out of the year traveling and living in hotels, it is to be expected. Fortunately for me, expat communities (at least here in Shanghai), are generally a tight knit group. That is, when your resources are limited, you can't be too choosy, and from my vantage point, it is a good thing. >_<
Friday, December 8, 2006
Oops!
Reading John's posts is as entertaining for me as it is for anyone else. His first impressions are comical, mainly because they remind me of how I felt the first go around. Of course, when you move somewhere with so many differences, where so many things are counter intuitive, somethings are bound to go wrong. Luckily, John finds many of these occurrences comical. Without that sense of humor, things here would be much harder.
Milk, like John mentioned, tastes a bit different. I'm unsure of what causes this difference, but it has been rumored that China used to add paint powder to help preserve the milk, making its shelf life longer. While such practices have supposedly been abandoned, the strange taste lingers. The first time we went grocery shopping, we wanted to buy a gallon of milk. So, being the opportunist that I am, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to practice my Chinese. I scanned the refrigerated section, for the symbols, "cow milk". When I found it, I happily raced back and dropped it into our cart. When we got home, I poured myself a glass of ice cold....yogurt?! Enter annoyance & confusion. Turns out, I am not as detailed oriented as I thought. Before the symbols for "cow milk" there was another symbol, which I did not know and simply ignored. After looking it up in the dictionary, I found that this symbol meant, "sour" and when combined with "cow milk", the three symbols mean, yogurt. Why Chinese sell yogurt in gallon jugs is beyond me, but on our second trip to the grocery store, my Chinese-English dictionary was tucked carefully away in my purse.
As you may have read in one of John's previous posts, his new favorite past time is to say, "see you in the morning!!!" to all the Xiao Jies (little miss), who invite patrons into their respective stores (see referenced post for more details). Typically, this yields nothing but laughter and good will, mostly because they haven't the slightest clue of what he is saying. He had repeated this exercise over and over with an 100% success rate, which is why it came as such a surprise when finally, the conversation did not go as planned. On one recent occasion, the Xiao Jie, who called the hotel elevator for us gave him a confused stare and replied, OK, see you tomorrow?? I don't know who was more confused...John, because someone had actually understood him, or the xiao jie, trying desperately to figure out what this strange man had meant by his greeting. In any case, my point to this story, is that you never know who is listening here. It is not acceptable to assume that all Asian looking people can only understand Chinese and that all Caucasian looking people can only understand English. When John and I first arrived in China, we were overcome with a sense of power, because it seemed that we could talk about whatever, whomever, and wherever we wanted. No one would be the wiser, right? WRONG. After being here for some time, we've realized that you really have to watch what you say, regardless of what language you say it in. The population here is so diverse, that you never know who is standing next to you.
P.S. There is a rumor going around town that a lao wai (foreigner) broke the moving escalator at Carrefour and I know who did it! Don't worry mushu, your secret is safe with me. ;)
Milk, like John mentioned, tastes a bit different. I'm unsure of what causes this difference, but it has been rumored that China used to add paint powder to help preserve the milk, making its shelf life longer. While such practices have supposedly been abandoned, the strange taste lingers. The first time we went grocery shopping, we wanted to buy a gallon of milk. So, being the opportunist that I am, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to practice my Chinese. I scanned the refrigerated section, for the symbols, "cow milk". When I found it, I happily raced back and dropped it into our cart. When we got home, I poured myself a glass of ice cold....yogurt?! Enter annoyance & confusion. Turns out, I am not as detailed oriented as I thought. Before the symbols for "cow milk" there was another symbol, which I did not know and simply ignored. After looking it up in the dictionary, I found that this symbol meant, "sour" and when combined with "cow milk", the three symbols mean, yogurt. Why Chinese sell yogurt in gallon jugs is beyond me, but on our second trip to the grocery store, my Chinese-English dictionary was tucked carefully away in my purse.
As you may have read in one of John's previous posts, his new favorite past time is to say, "see you in the morning!!!" to all the Xiao Jies (little miss), who invite patrons into their respective stores (see referenced post for more details). Typically, this yields nothing but laughter and good will, mostly because they haven't the slightest clue of what he is saying. He had repeated this exercise over and over with an 100% success rate, which is why it came as such a surprise when finally, the conversation did not go as planned. On one recent occasion, the Xiao Jie, who called the hotel elevator for us gave him a confused stare and replied, OK, see you tomorrow?? I don't know who was more confused...John, because someone had actually understood him, or the xiao jie, trying desperately to figure out what this strange man had meant by his greeting. In any case, my point to this story, is that you never know who is listening here. It is not acceptable to assume that all Asian looking people can only understand Chinese and that all Caucasian looking people can only understand English. When John and I first arrived in China, we were overcome with a sense of power, because it seemed that we could talk about whatever, whomever, and wherever we wanted. No one would be the wiser, right? WRONG. After being here for some time, we've realized that you really have to watch what you say, regardless of what language you say it in. The population here is so diverse, that you never know who is standing next to you.
P.S. There is a rumor going around town that a lao wai (foreigner) broke the moving escalator at Carrefour and I know who did it! Don't worry mushu, your secret is safe with me. ;)
Thursday, December 7, 2006
List of Differences....
I'm going to start doing lists - first b/c I'm OCD, but secondly b/c they will compress 20 min. of my text rambling into half of a half of a paragraph.
Differences:
a. Condiments - Places like McDonald's here serve cucumbers on their sandwiches instead of pickles... don't know if someone just got the recipe wrong, or they are catering to the local market. [also, McD, Pizza Hut and KFC (which is the undisputed KING of western restaurants here) are almost the only one's here... no Taco Bell, no BK, no Wendy's, etc.] Starbucks is here though - every corner just like in the U.S. And, it is normal practice here to eat ketchup on chicken mcnuggets.... hmmmm.
b. Milk - tastes weird, even super super fresh milk straight from the supermarket - straight from the container, tastes like it is either blended with coconut milk, has some sort of preservative or additive in it [or worse is not really cow milk like the label says].
c. Two Tone Hair - in the U.S. women / girls would get laughed out of the country for two tone hair, but here it is THE fashion trend. LOTS of girls have 3 to 5 inch black roots, some 8 to 10 inches and the other color is a funny looking orange. But, to their defense, in a country where EVERYONE has the exact same hair color - anything else seems to break up the monotony.
d. Karaoke aka: KTV - EVERYONE in China is a rock super star... you could fill the state of Texas, twice, with the number of people here that think they belong on the next season of Idol or Star Search or American Band Stand (trying to bridge all generations with that one). Everywhere you look, especially on TV or at bars / clubs in the evening (doesn't matter if it is a school night or people have to work early) you will find people with a mic in their hands reading teleprompters for lyrics. LOVE to sing and perform... wow.
e. Department Store Layouts - usually in the U.S. when you go to large or small stores there is one centralized place within that establishment that "groups" like items together - it's called organization or order. Here each store is made up of ten thousand or more "mini" stores within that one large store... and each one of these "mini" stores (some the size of your closet, most the size of your bathroom) contain different items.... So, for example if you were going to buy a new toothbrush you might have to visit eight or ten of these places before you found the toothbrush you were actually looking to buy.... even though four of those mini stores stocked them, those four stores do not have the same inventory. Literally amazing people can find things here.... but, I CAN say this... you can find ANYTHING you are looking for, from anywhere in the world if you are patient enough to keep looking. It's here somewhere. It's all a matter of how much energy you are willing to expend to get it.
f. Gold Waving Cat - a sub-topic to e. several of these places have a little gold plated (seated upright) cat that mechanically waves it's right arm. Jen says it is a good luck thing... but you see it everywhere. It would be the equivalent of the gumball machine in every restaurant in the States, just here the cat is in every store, not just the ones that serve food.
g. Bumps on Sidewalk Bricks - I can't remember when I was in Chicago or Miami or San Fran last.... or if those larger type cities did this or not [or if they've ever even heard of something like this before], BUT, here several of the city side walks have bricks laid in patterns within the walk that are special bricks. These special bricks have raised geometric patterns or shapes on them... usually either small / short cylinders or sometimes elongated ovals [think: racetrack]. Not sure what these things are exactly for, but Jen seems to thing that they were placed there to stimulate the bloodflow in peoples' feet as they walk across them. My opinion: they are there to make your feet hurt to force you to ride in taxis, which pay money in taxes. :)
h. Law Enforcement [or should I say the 'lack' thereof] - Interesting thing about "law enforcement" here is that there are essentially three layers of 'officers' with power. At the bottom of the heap are the 'assistants' these people are usually dressed in some off-olive drab colored uniform [looks like a painters outfit] donned with a reflective vest, hat whistle, etc. These people, although commonly found at intersections and street corners, are what I like to refer to as the 'herders' - they control the flow of people when things start getting out of hand or at a high pedestrian traffic flow time [rush hour in the beginning of the day, lunch, rush hour at the end of the day and dinner]. I haven't seen any of these people give out any tickets for violators or arrest anyone, but people tend to obey them routinely; this is probably b/c they are connected or linked to the next layer of 'officers', which I like to call the actual 'police'. These guys have all the gear, the blue uniform, the hat, the utility belt w/ all kinds of gadgets - but rarely a sidearm / gun. If I'm not mistaken there is a 'sub-level' within this organization, b/c I see some blue police officers that have a weapon and those that don't. Both wear the exact same uniform and display the large POLICE lettering on the rear of their shirt / jacket. 99% of these guys are very tolerant of things that if done in the U.S. you would be in Jail in 10 minutes flat. These guys demand an even higher level of respect - and are regularly seen issuing tickets and settling disputes. Something that you don't see here are people getting pulled over like you do in the States. No need here... the cops just pick a place and sit and watch - they see violations and just corral the people that are breaking that particular rule and citations are issued. Something that is COMPLETELY out of this world is this: these same blue police officers drive marked vehicles with their logos and all, the Chinese version of the "black and white" [i.e. cop car], and travel around ALL THE TIME with their lights running. Interesting thing - no matter where you are, busy city street, highway, whatever - NO ONE gets out of the way for these guys and, even better, no one PULLS OVER for them either. It's like they've got somewhere important to be or are chasing someone and everyone else just keeps on doing whatever they want regardless of these guys. Jen and I were in a cab going to dinner and sat a traffic light with a cop car behind us with it's lights on for three cycles of the light [b/c of thick traffic] and when we finally did start to move the cab just kept driving like he didn't have a care in the world. AMAZING. People overtake them on the highways like they were standing still and cut them off in traffic routinely. The last group of 'officers' here in the country is the army [I think that is what they are called] or the military. The red army is literally everywhere and 99% of these guys do carry sidearms - all green outfits, red should insignias, green hat w/ red star. Some of them carry modified versions of the AK47 assault rifle - with extra clips. I can tell that when they are around NOBODY messes with them or what they tell you to do... you just do it. I've been told that they are NOT the people you want to piss off here. They command an extremely high level of respect everywhere they go... which they do in groups of no less than 5 to 10. Funny thing though, for all the power that these guys have, I've never seen them do anything out of the ordinary. They patrol around and are in front of important places like government buildings [of course] and banks, etc. But, 99% of the time these guys are really relaxed and seemingly patient with everything that is going on around them. Which I guess all this brings me to crime - for a population, and shear density for that matter, I've never been anywhere [with the exception of Whistler in Canada] that feels safer. There is very little to no crime here. Sure the occasional pick pocket or some small scam or something... but for the most part, you never see anything worth making the 6 o'clock news here. Just doesn't seem like people here are like that... sure there are all the other pinnings of large city life, but in the area of crime - virtually none. In fact, you see young women walking the streets late at night alone - no problems. It is a really nice safe feeling all the time.... and no one ever really gets mad either. For someone from the U.S., this is like living in the twilight zone.
i. Laundry - one of two things is true here, either 1. it's too expensive or 2. people just don't believe in it - no one drys their clothes in a "dryer"... everyone hangs their clothes either outside [which is everywhere] or in a glass enclosed 'sun room' to dry. The majority, 80+ percent, do it this way.... it is no strange thing to walk down the street, look up and see peoples pants, shirts, underwear, etc. hanging from huge poles and racks out of their windows. This is the quintessential method of decorating the exterior of any home here.
j. Moving Sidewalk - anyone who's been to Chicago Intl. Airport aka: OHare has probably seen the moving sidewalk from one terminal to the next... lot's of big airports have them, I think Atlanta does, anyway... the grocery stores (and Walmart) have them here - but instead of taking people long distances they travel between floors. Exactly like an escalator, only flat and at an angle. One more thing... they've produced shopping carts with special wheels that fit into grooves on this moving 'ramp' that does not allow the cart to roll... so, you can come in, ride the ramp down to the store, shop and when your ready - the opposite ramp takes you back up to the main floor with your cart. It's really neat.
That's all for this go around.... more to come, plus more pix [I swear].
Differences:
a. Condiments - Places like McDonald's here serve cucumbers on their sandwiches instead of pickles... don't know if someone just got the recipe wrong, or they are catering to the local market. [also, McD, Pizza Hut and KFC (which is the undisputed KING of western restaurants here) are almost the only one's here... no Taco Bell, no BK, no Wendy's, etc.] Starbucks is here though - every corner just like in the U.S. And, it is normal practice here to eat ketchup on chicken mcnuggets.... hmmmm.
b. Milk - tastes weird, even super super fresh milk straight from the supermarket - straight from the container, tastes like it is either blended with coconut milk, has some sort of preservative or additive in it [or worse is not really cow milk like the label says].
c. Two Tone Hair - in the U.S. women / girls would get laughed out of the country for two tone hair, but here it is THE fashion trend. LOTS of girls have 3 to 5 inch black roots, some 8 to 10 inches and the other color is a funny looking orange. But, to their defense, in a country where EVERYONE has the exact same hair color - anything else seems to break up the monotony.
d. Karaoke aka: KTV - EVERYONE in China is a rock super star... you could fill the state of Texas, twice, with the number of people here that think they belong on the next season of Idol or Star Search or American Band Stand (trying to bridge all generations with that one). Everywhere you look, especially on TV or at bars / clubs in the evening (doesn't matter if it is a school night or people have to work early) you will find people with a mic in their hands reading teleprompters for lyrics. LOVE to sing and perform... wow.
e. Department Store Layouts - usually in the U.S. when you go to large or small stores there is one centralized place within that establishment that "groups" like items together - it's called organization or order. Here each store is made up of ten thousand or more "mini" stores within that one large store... and each one of these "mini" stores (some the size of your closet, most the size of your bathroom) contain different items.... So, for example if you were going to buy a new toothbrush you might have to visit eight or ten of these places before you found the toothbrush you were actually looking to buy.... even though four of those mini stores stocked them, those four stores do not have the same inventory. Literally amazing people can find things here.... but, I CAN say this... you can find ANYTHING you are looking for, from anywhere in the world if you are patient enough to keep looking. It's here somewhere. It's all a matter of how much energy you are willing to expend to get it.
f. Gold Waving Cat - a sub-topic to e. several of these places have a little gold plated (seated upright) cat that mechanically waves it's right arm. Jen says it is a good luck thing... but you see it everywhere. It would be the equivalent of the gumball machine in every restaurant in the States, just here the cat is in every store, not just the ones that serve food.
g. Bumps on Sidewalk Bricks - I can't remember when I was in Chicago or Miami or San Fran last.... or if those larger type cities did this or not [or if they've ever even heard of something like this before], BUT, here several of the city side walks have bricks laid in patterns within the walk that are special bricks. These special bricks have raised geometric patterns or shapes on them... usually either small / short cylinders or sometimes elongated ovals [think: racetrack]. Not sure what these things are exactly for, but Jen seems to thing that they were placed there to stimulate the bloodflow in peoples' feet as they walk across them. My opinion: they are there to make your feet hurt to force you to ride in taxis, which pay money in taxes. :)
h. Law Enforcement [or should I say the 'lack' thereof] - Interesting thing about "law enforcement" here is that there are essentially three layers of 'officers' with power. At the bottom of the heap are the 'assistants' these people are usually dressed in some off-olive drab colored uniform [looks like a painters outfit] donned with a reflective vest, hat whistle, etc. These people, although commonly found at intersections and street corners, are what I like to refer to as the 'herders' - they control the flow of people when things start getting out of hand or at a high pedestrian traffic flow time [rush hour in the beginning of the day, lunch, rush hour at the end of the day and dinner]. I haven't seen any of these people give out any tickets for violators or arrest anyone, but people tend to obey them routinely; this is probably b/c they are connected or linked to the next layer of 'officers', which I like to call the actual 'police'. These guys have all the gear, the blue uniform, the hat, the utility belt w/ all kinds of gadgets - but rarely a sidearm / gun. If I'm not mistaken there is a 'sub-level' within this organization, b/c I see some blue police officers that have a weapon and those that don't. Both wear the exact same uniform and display the large POLICE lettering on the rear of their shirt / jacket. 99% of these guys are very tolerant of things that if done in the U.S. you would be in Jail in 10 minutes flat. These guys demand an even higher level of respect - and are regularly seen issuing tickets and settling disputes. Something that you don't see here are people getting pulled over like you do in the States. No need here... the cops just pick a place and sit and watch - they see violations and just corral the people that are breaking that particular rule and citations are issued. Something that is COMPLETELY out of this world is this: these same blue police officers drive marked vehicles with their logos and all, the Chinese version of the "black and white" [i.e. cop car], and travel around ALL THE TIME with their lights running. Interesting thing - no matter where you are, busy city street, highway, whatever - NO ONE gets out of the way for these guys and, even better, no one PULLS OVER for them either. It's like they've got somewhere important to be or are chasing someone and everyone else just keeps on doing whatever they want regardless of these guys. Jen and I were in a cab going to dinner and sat a traffic light with a cop car behind us with it's lights on for three cycles of the light [b/c of thick traffic] and when we finally did start to move the cab just kept driving like he didn't have a care in the world. AMAZING. People overtake them on the highways like they were standing still and cut them off in traffic routinely. The last group of 'officers' here in the country is the army [I think that is what they are called] or the military. The red army is literally everywhere and 99% of these guys do carry sidearms - all green outfits, red should insignias, green hat w/ red star. Some of them carry modified versions of the AK47 assault rifle - with extra clips. I can tell that when they are around NOBODY messes with them or what they tell you to do... you just do it. I've been told that they are NOT the people you want to piss off here. They command an extremely high level of respect everywhere they go... which they do in groups of no less than 5 to 10. Funny thing though, for all the power that these guys have, I've never seen them do anything out of the ordinary. They patrol around and are in front of important places like government buildings [of course] and banks, etc. But, 99% of the time these guys are really relaxed and seemingly patient with everything that is going on around them. Which I guess all this brings me to crime - for a population, and shear density for that matter, I've never been anywhere [with the exception of Whistler in Canada] that feels safer. There is very little to no crime here. Sure the occasional pick pocket or some small scam or something... but for the most part, you never see anything worth making the 6 o'clock news here. Just doesn't seem like people here are like that... sure there are all the other pinnings of large city life, but in the area of crime - virtually none. In fact, you see young women walking the streets late at night alone - no problems. It is a really nice safe feeling all the time.... and no one ever really gets mad either. For someone from the U.S., this is like living in the twilight zone.
i. Laundry - one of two things is true here, either 1. it's too expensive or 2. people just don't believe in it - no one drys their clothes in a "dryer"... everyone hangs their clothes either outside [which is everywhere] or in a glass enclosed 'sun room' to dry. The majority, 80+ percent, do it this way.... it is no strange thing to walk down the street, look up and see peoples pants, shirts, underwear, etc. hanging from huge poles and racks out of their windows. This is the quintessential method of decorating the exterior of any home here.
j. Moving Sidewalk - anyone who's been to Chicago Intl. Airport aka: OHare has probably seen the moving sidewalk from one terminal to the next... lot's of big airports have them, I think Atlanta does, anyway... the grocery stores (and Walmart) have them here - but instead of taking people long distances they travel between floors. Exactly like an escalator, only flat and at an angle. One more thing... they've produced shopping carts with special wheels that fit into grooves on this moving 'ramp' that does not allow the cart to roll... so, you can come in, ride the ramp down to the store, shop and when your ready - the opposite ramp takes you back up to the main floor with your cart. It's really neat.
That's all for this go around.... more to come, plus more pix [I swear].
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Some stuff I forgot to mention....
So one last thing about toilet paper... [then I'm done] -
In addition to not being provided in public places or otherwise, people also do not throw the paper [once used] away in the toilet. They put it all in small trash cans inside the stalls.... very different, very hard to get used to. I'm waiting for the day I stop the sewer systems with too many converted trees.
People driving cars and "stops" or "stopping" -
EVERY time people stop at stop lights or in traffic when things come to a stand-still - people either put the parking brake on, or shift the car out of drive and into park. Strangest thing I've ever seen... EVERY light, EVERY stop. Not sure exactly why they do it, but nevertheless everywhere you go all you hear is click click click click click up.... light turns green or traffic starts to move, and click click click click down. Weirdest thing.... over and over and over again.
Blinking city streets -
If you think Vegas has a lot of lights, you haven't seen Shanghai on a week-day-night. I finally figured out where all the money goes in this country: to light it up at night, wow. Talk about an awesome display of colors and sequencing. Almost every large structure has tens-of-thousands of either neon or LED lighting attached to it. During the daytime everything looks like a typical sky-line in a super large city... come night, the light show begins at 7pm sharp and turns off at 10pm - but between those hours blinkity blinkity blink blink blink. Even the most modest of structures like government buildings and banks [the guys that like to "keep" all our money] light it up like a Fourth of July fireworks show in Wash. DC Impressive, it's hard to concentrate on what you are doing when there are so many lights blinking and turning different colors.
Buildings and structures -
To my great surprise [well, maybe not that much of a surprise], not "all" of China is some huge barren desert with trillions of little huts and lots of guy running around in rickshaws [miniature manpowered carts / buggies with two wheels and a bench in the back and some guy with poles in front]. Quite the contrary China's larger cities are nothing short of civil engineering marvels... one of the veterans of our parent company told us that Beijing COMPLETES the construction of an ENTIRE skyscraper at a rate of one a day. Can you imagine.... one per day, everyday. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what that really means. Something else about the architecture here too is that a vast majority of the buildings here are very well designed. Maybe not the absolute top of the line "materials" used to build it, but unbelievable shapes, sizes and shear complexity. Shanghai is what NYC will look like 20 or 30 years into the future... AND that's not where the infrastructure stops. There are entire networks of highways and buildings and schools and neighborhoods built 5 years in advance.... then when a place starts to become overpopulated or worn-down - the government opens up the new area and boom, overnight a new division of a city is created almost instantaneously. There are several structures in the U.S. that are noteworthy, Empire State Building, Sears Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, etc. - here every-other building is like one of those and they go up from there. [pictures to follow - again]
Next?
In addition to not being provided in public places or otherwise, people also do not throw the paper [once used] away in the toilet. They put it all in small trash cans inside the stalls.... very different, very hard to get used to. I'm waiting for the day I stop the sewer systems with too many converted trees.
People driving cars and "stops" or "stopping" -
EVERY time people stop at stop lights or in traffic when things come to a stand-still - people either put the parking brake on, or shift the car out of drive and into park. Strangest thing I've ever seen... EVERY light, EVERY stop. Not sure exactly why they do it, but nevertheless everywhere you go all you hear is click click click click click up.... light turns green or traffic starts to move, and click click click click down. Weirdest thing.... over and over and over again.
Blinking city streets -
If you think Vegas has a lot of lights, you haven't seen Shanghai on a week-day-night. I finally figured out where all the money goes in this country: to light it up at night, wow. Talk about an awesome display of colors and sequencing. Almost every large structure has tens-of-thousands of either neon or LED lighting attached to it. During the daytime everything looks like a typical sky-line in a super large city... come night, the light show begins at 7pm sharp and turns off at 10pm - but between those hours blinkity blinkity blink blink blink. Even the most modest of structures like government buildings and banks [the guys that like to "keep" all our money] light it up like a Fourth of July fireworks show in Wash. DC Impressive, it's hard to concentrate on what you are doing when there are so many lights blinking and turning different colors.
Buildings and structures -
To my great surprise [well, maybe not that much of a surprise], not "all" of China is some huge barren desert with trillions of little huts and lots of guy running around in rickshaws [miniature manpowered carts / buggies with two wheels and a bench in the back and some guy with poles in front]. Quite the contrary China's larger cities are nothing short of civil engineering marvels... one of the veterans of our parent company told us that Beijing COMPLETES the construction of an ENTIRE skyscraper at a rate of one a day. Can you imagine.... one per day, everyday. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what that really means. Something else about the architecture here too is that a vast majority of the buildings here are very well designed. Maybe not the absolute top of the line "materials" used to build it, but unbelievable shapes, sizes and shear complexity. Shanghai is what NYC will look like 20 or 30 years into the future... AND that's not where the infrastructure stops. There are entire networks of highways and buildings and schools and neighborhoods built 5 years in advance.... then when a place starts to become overpopulated or worn-down - the government opens up the new area and boom, overnight a new division of a city is created almost instantaneously. There are several structures in the U.S. that are noteworthy, Empire State Building, Sears Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, etc. - here every-other building is like one of those and they go up from there. [pictures to follow - again]
Next?
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
So what else.....
Oh yeah... people... we are currently living in Shanghai and have been to Beijing and another nice place called: Qingdao [which is pronounced: CHING DOW]. Let's talk about people for just a moment or two... Qingdao is considered a "small / smaller" city in China. The registered population of this place is about 7 million people... which puts it on the scale of probably, Chicago in the U.S.
AND after being in Shanghai, which has a population of about 17-20+ million people, yes Qingdao is small...
TANGENT: Qingdao is a really cool place to be... people from the U.S. call it the San Diego of China, but after being here for a while, I would probably call it the San Francisco - without the large gay population. It sits on water, has hilly roads and is back-dropped by mountains. The air here is cleaner, as well as the water, people are nicer and things seem to be very 'western' accommodating.
Shanghai on the other hand is busy busy busy - louder, slightly dirtier: although, clean for a city of it's size... which is on an order of magnitude of about 3X the size of NYC. The city literally goes on and on and on and on... you can drive from one "side" or municipality to another for what seems like hours and still you are buried in all directions with monstrous sky-scrapers and people people people. The point of where this pre-emptive description is going is this: there are people for everything.... literally. Example: when we go to our building, there are usually no less than 8 - 10 employees in the lobby that are bell hops and "greeters". Then there is always one or two people that stand at the entrance of the elevators to summon the 'lift' for you.... i.e. push the button and put their hand and arm in between the doors until you've boarded the elevator. At breakfast there are 20+ people, from the hostesses, to the person that puts your napkin in your lap, there is a different person that puts your silverware out and yet even a different person that is the "dish president".... funny, as soon as you dirty anything, cup, dish, plate, fork, etc. This person's purpose is to IMMEDIATELY present you with a new one and take the dirty one to the kitchen for cleaning.... I've gone thru 14 plates at one sitting before. So, like I said people people people... people for everything and THEN SOME.
Traffic -
I guess the next logical discussion should center around traffic since we are talking about the shear masses of people here.... Traffic here would drive some people in the U.S. to either road rage in the first three minutes of driving or serious bodily injury - crash. The first few times in cabs here, you get the helpless feeling that you are at the mercy of some elementary school educated drop-out hopped up on meth - but...... NO ONE here pays any real attention to several things, one of those things is law... Susan would have a coronary if she saw what happens here on a minute by minute basis. No obedience to law whatsoever.... none. That being said, you would think that there would be an alarming rate of accidents and injuries - but there's not. In fact, people here are engaged in some type of "understood harmony" of utter chaos. Example: if a guy cuts you off, that is fine, you just let him in front of you no problem.. reason: because where he's coming from might get you to where you want to go a little faster by creating a hole from where he's transitioning from. It's kinda like an evolving organism that people cut you off and blatantly disregard street signs and signals, but when you want to get from one lane to another or thru the masses to somewhere else, the people that you are cutting off to do so are gain advantage to go the other direction or where they want to..... it is literally UNREAL, you need to experience it for an extended time - then the chaos doesn't seem so erratic and it actually starts to resemble some sort of a Ballard / harmony. If people from here drove in the U.S. this way, they'd be dead in under a week... but here it works. I thought people here were crazy for the way they drove until I started paying closer attention, then I realized I was EXACTLY like them - and had a suitcase full of parking, speeding and other moving violations from the U.S. to prove it. Maybe one day I will get my chance to 'integrate' into this dance of the vehicles.... for which I can honestly say I really miss driving. Don't get me wrong, being chauffeured is really nice, but I miss the freedom - of course. I'll discuss the 'layers' of whom yields to whom and the unspoken rules of the road...
OH YEAH....
Tipping -
As in the amount of money you give your server, waiter or waitress when he or she busts their butt to serve you hand and foot at a restaurant. In the U.S. if you didn't tip, the next time you ate at that restaurant you might find some unpleasant and unwanted surprises in your food the next go around. Here: patrons DON'T TIP... the employees view it as somewhat of an insult??? Not sure why. But, when you try to give them money they always say: Just come back and eat there again. Which I'm not exactly sure how that financially benefits them at all... since they are being paid a "standard hourly wage"... which I've been told amounts to anywhere between 4RMB and 8RMB an hour.... the RMB is the Chinese dollar, NOT the Yen, that is Japanese and the Chinese take great offense to confusing the two. Just for reference 1 USD = 8 RMB. But, with all inflated / deflated currency exchanges things "cost" more... i.e. a coke in a restaurant is usually 8RMB which is 1 US Dollar.... many many things are much cheaper here. But, anything imported or authentic [i.e. not knock-off] is relatively expensive. I'll give examples later...
One other thing about the waiters / greeters is that every time you enter a building, either a restaurant or hotel or something like that, people say: Huan Ying Guang Ling (pronounced: HWAN ING GWANG LING) means: Welcome!!! (extravagantly) Nevertheless, when the people say this really fast and slurred, it almost sounds like they are saying: See You In The Morning!!! So, now I have a new thing that when we go places and people say that to us, I reply with: see you in the morning!!! I have no idea what they are really saying and by the expressions on peoples' faces they really have no idea what I'm saying either.... but, what is really cool is the immediate laughter and smiling that always follows. Four or five people, in unison, saying this and then after my reply they all look at each other and bust out laughing. It's great.
Lot's more to blog... just thinking of the best way to organize it.
AND after being in Shanghai, which has a population of about 17-20+ million people, yes Qingdao is small...
TANGENT: Qingdao is a really cool place to be... people from the U.S. call it the San Diego of China, but after being here for a while, I would probably call it the San Francisco - without the large gay population. It sits on water, has hilly roads and is back-dropped by mountains. The air here is cleaner, as well as the water, people are nicer and things seem to be very 'western' accommodating.
Shanghai on the other hand is busy busy busy - louder, slightly dirtier: although, clean for a city of it's size... which is on an order of magnitude of about 3X the size of NYC. The city literally goes on and on and on and on... you can drive from one "side" or municipality to another for what seems like hours and still you are buried in all directions with monstrous sky-scrapers and people people people. The point of where this pre-emptive description is going is this: there are people for everything.... literally. Example: when we go to our building, there are usually no less than 8 - 10 employees in the lobby that are bell hops and "greeters". Then there is always one or two people that stand at the entrance of the elevators to summon the 'lift' for you.... i.e. push the button and put their hand and arm in between the doors until you've boarded the elevator. At breakfast there are 20+ people, from the hostesses, to the person that puts your napkin in your lap, there is a different person that puts your silverware out and yet even a different person that is the "dish president".... funny, as soon as you dirty anything, cup, dish, plate, fork, etc. This person's purpose is to IMMEDIATELY present you with a new one and take the dirty one to the kitchen for cleaning.... I've gone thru 14 plates at one sitting before. So, like I said people people people... people for everything and THEN SOME.
Traffic -
I guess the next logical discussion should center around traffic since we are talking about the shear masses of people here.... Traffic here would drive some people in the U.S. to either road rage in the first three minutes of driving or serious bodily injury - crash. The first few times in cabs here, you get the helpless feeling that you are at the mercy of some elementary school educated drop-out hopped up on meth - but...... NO ONE here pays any real attention to several things, one of those things is law... Susan would have a coronary if she saw what happens here on a minute by minute basis. No obedience to law whatsoever.... none. That being said, you would think that there would be an alarming rate of accidents and injuries - but there's not. In fact, people here are engaged in some type of "understood harmony" of utter chaos. Example: if a guy cuts you off, that is fine, you just let him in front of you no problem.. reason: because where he's coming from might get you to where you want to go a little faster by creating a hole from where he's transitioning from. It's kinda like an evolving organism that people cut you off and blatantly disregard street signs and signals, but when you want to get from one lane to another or thru the masses to somewhere else, the people that you are cutting off to do so are gain advantage to go the other direction or where they want to..... it is literally UNREAL, you need to experience it for an extended time - then the chaos doesn't seem so erratic and it actually starts to resemble some sort of a Ballard / harmony. If people from here drove in the U.S. this way, they'd be dead in under a week... but here it works. I thought people here were crazy for the way they drove until I started paying closer attention, then I realized I was EXACTLY like them - and had a suitcase full of parking, speeding and other moving violations from the U.S. to prove it. Maybe one day I will get my chance to 'integrate' into this dance of the vehicles.... for which I can honestly say I really miss driving. Don't get me wrong, being chauffeured is really nice, but I miss the freedom - of course. I'll discuss the 'layers' of whom yields to whom and the unspoken rules of the road...
OH YEAH....
Tipping -
As in the amount of money you give your server, waiter or waitress when he or she busts their butt to serve you hand and foot at a restaurant. In the U.S. if you didn't tip, the next time you ate at that restaurant you might find some unpleasant and unwanted surprises in your food the next go around. Here: patrons DON'T TIP... the employees view it as somewhat of an insult??? Not sure why. But, when you try to give them money they always say: Just come back and eat there again. Which I'm not exactly sure how that financially benefits them at all... since they are being paid a "standard hourly wage"... which I've been told amounts to anywhere between 4RMB and 8RMB an hour.... the RMB is the Chinese dollar, NOT the Yen, that is Japanese and the Chinese take great offense to confusing the two. Just for reference 1 USD = 8 RMB. But, with all inflated / deflated currency exchanges things "cost" more... i.e. a coke in a restaurant is usually 8RMB which is 1 US Dollar.... many many things are much cheaper here. But, anything imported or authentic [i.e. not knock-off] is relatively expensive. I'll give examples later...
One other thing about the waiters / greeters is that every time you enter a building, either a restaurant or hotel or something like that, people say: Huan Ying Guang Ling (pronounced: HWAN ING GWANG LING) means: Welcome!!! (extravagantly) Nevertheless, when the people say this really fast and slurred, it almost sounds like they are saying: See You In The Morning!!! So, now I have a new thing that when we go places and people say that to us, I reply with: see you in the morning!!! I have no idea what they are really saying and by the expressions on peoples' faces they really have no idea what I'm saying either.... but, what is really cool is the immediate laughter and smiling that always follows. Four or five people, in unison, saying this and then after my reply they all look at each other and bust out laughing. It's great.
Lot's more to blog... just thinking of the best way to organize it.
NEXT.....
So... where was I, oh yeah, next part of the sequenced day...
Food - [important topic]
There isn't enough server space and memory in all of the computers in the U.S. to contain what could be said about food here... but, what I can tell you is this: there are not solid portions of any one particular thing, ever. The Chinese like to chop everything into super-small chunks, then blend it all together. It is this way with everything - fried rice [of course], soups, meats, "side dishes" - which are exactly like the main dish, only next to it and chopped-up as well (which, in turn, forced me to ask the question: then which one is the 'main' dish?? and how does one tell... answer: well, either one can be main dish and either one can be side dish - just depends on what you like to eat and how much of it - the thing you eat the most of becomes the main dish.) Hmmmmm.... Another thing is that "Chinese" food in the U.S. isn't really Chinese food - it is the Americanized version of Chinese food [like Taco Bell is the Americanized version of Mexican food]. Obviously if you went to Mexico and tried to tell the natives there how Taco Bell is good "Mexican" food - you'd get laughed out of their country - same is true here. Which is interesting because you can't really find the 'typical' Sweet-and-Sour Chicken or Kung-Pow Chicken, even the fried rice is different and I have yet to see egg rolls in any real mass quantity anywhere. Interesting thing about rice here - when you say "fried rice" they will ask you which kind? To my surprise there are 12 to 15 different types of fried rice.... I was always under the impression that there was the white kind and the fried kind, and that the fried kind had some egg and a few vegetables and soy in it or something like that - and was brown. Here fried rice comes with so many different 'additive' options that it would make your head spin, examples: shrimp, egg, ham, beef, various seafood's, plain fried, pork, vegetables I can't even begin to pronounce, etc. There are more options for different variant forms of fried rice on menus here than there are drink options.
WHICH brings me to my next sub-topic of food.... most people here, and I'm assuming other places outside the U.S., like to drink their beverages at room temperature. Being a native U.S.'er I come from the land of 64 oz. big gulps, packed to the brim with ice. Here: a 3 oz. portion [which is a large shot glass back in the States] and half of a single ice cube is the standard. Interestingly enough, several places offer drinks right out of the can - GOD bless Coca-Cola, Sprite and Evian for conquering this market. AND for obvious westerners, aka: laowai (pronounced: LAUW WHY = foreigners) they keep these drinks in a super-cold refrigerator. Which makes washing down the various un-identified objects on my daily plate much much easier. I have developed a new found liking to hot teas... they are surprisingly good here. At breakfast on the fifth floor of our building after the first day of repeated refills of my shot glass I finally decided to expedite this process by obtaining 5 of these little guys and lining them up at the top of my breakfast plate. In shear stunning amazement - the wait staff all stared and pointed as I downed glass after glass in the first round - only to return for refills of all five glasses. I'm sure I was the talk of the kitchen for days to come.
Something else about food here - like the central theme in the first and this post - is the differences. Sure they have pork, but Asian pork. And, sure they have sausage, but it is Asian sausage. Etc. Most of the stuff is pretty good, but still there are "differences" in the taste of the meat and other food. You can distinguish when you are eating beef from Australia from eating beef from the Main Land. One thing they do have here is impressive bacon - I've never had bacon this good, anywhere. Not much fat on it and HUGE slices of it - which goes against the main food ideology here, chopped little chunks [which makes me suspect that it, or the idea of it, was imported from somewhere]. Nevertheless, I don't care who was responsible for it - they did an outstanding job with the bacon.
Street Food -
As in the U.S. and other places, in big cities, there are people that always try to sell you food directly off the streets. In the U.S. these people are called: street vendors, aka: hotdog stand guy, etc. Here, I have no idea what these people are called... and WOW there are a lot of them. Everyone makes something a little different too. After a few day spat with some serious stomach ails and eating in 5 star establishments, I avoided these people like the Black Plague or the equivalent. After I "adjusted" slightly... (still a little lingering biological conditioning going on inside) Jen and I finally made our way down to enjoy some of this Authentic Chinese Cuisine. And let me be the first to tell you - yes, it is unbelievably good food. Because of my first go around with high-end restaurant food that didn't sit well - I stayed mostly to the deep-fried 400+ degree oil foods [germ killer processes at work there]. Really good dumplings and little pork and beef deep-fried rolls?? Anyway, they were tasty. Then a night or two later, Jen and I ventured down and picked some things from the meat cart: I had lamb on a stick, seasoned, and Jen prefers the calamari / squid... both were excellent in taste and preparation. A day or two after that, I found DIRECT PROOF that the myths are true... upon becoming more adventurous and less sick, I wanted to start sampling a greater variety of meats from said vendors, since the lamb experience was sooooo impressive. Which is when the vendor began to explain to Jen that there was: beef, pork, fish, shell-fish, vegetables, chicken, various fowl (different bird species) and then he said it..... Jen did a double take and all this was going on in Mandarin, she turns to me and points at the last grouping of meats on this large cart and says: "That stuff is the DOG". Right then and there I could feel my insides starting to turn [I had not eaten any of this stuff, nor will I ever], but just the thought of it made me feel ill. I talked to a guy from Holland that didn't know he was eating dog on a stick and he actually said it tasted pretty good - although he avoids it at all cost, since he is a pet lover.
I'll post some pictures of the vendors up on the site when we get back to Shanghai so you know what I'm talking about.
Enough about food for now... more to follow sometime again, I'm sure of it.
Food - [important topic]
There isn't enough server space and memory in all of the computers in the U.S. to contain what could be said about food here... but, what I can tell you is this: there are not solid portions of any one particular thing, ever. The Chinese like to chop everything into super-small chunks, then blend it all together. It is this way with everything - fried rice [of course], soups, meats, "side dishes" - which are exactly like the main dish, only next to it and chopped-up as well (which, in turn, forced me to ask the question: then which one is the 'main' dish?? and how does one tell... answer: well, either one can be main dish and either one can be side dish - just depends on what you like to eat and how much of it - the thing you eat the most of becomes the main dish.) Hmmmmm.... Another thing is that "Chinese" food in the U.S. isn't really Chinese food - it is the Americanized version of Chinese food [like Taco Bell is the Americanized version of Mexican food]. Obviously if you went to Mexico and tried to tell the natives there how Taco Bell is good "Mexican" food - you'd get laughed out of their country - same is true here. Which is interesting because you can't really find the 'typical' Sweet-and-Sour Chicken or Kung-Pow Chicken, even the fried rice is different and I have yet to see egg rolls in any real mass quantity anywhere. Interesting thing about rice here - when you say "fried rice" they will ask you which kind? To my surprise there are 12 to 15 different types of fried rice.... I was always under the impression that there was the white kind and the fried kind, and that the fried kind had some egg and a few vegetables and soy in it or something like that - and was brown. Here fried rice comes with so many different 'additive' options that it would make your head spin, examples: shrimp, egg, ham, beef, various seafood's, plain fried, pork, vegetables I can't even begin to pronounce, etc. There are more options for different variant forms of fried rice on menus here than there are drink options.
WHICH brings me to my next sub-topic of food.... most people here, and I'm assuming other places outside the U.S., like to drink their beverages at room temperature. Being a native U.S.'er I come from the land of 64 oz. big gulps, packed to the brim with ice. Here: a 3 oz. portion [which is a large shot glass back in the States] and half of a single ice cube is the standard. Interestingly enough, several places offer drinks right out of the can - GOD bless Coca-Cola, Sprite and Evian for conquering this market. AND for obvious westerners, aka: laowai (pronounced: LAUW WHY = foreigners) they keep these drinks in a super-cold refrigerator. Which makes washing down the various un-identified objects on my daily plate much much easier. I have developed a new found liking to hot teas... they are surprisingly good here. At breakfast on the fifth floor of our building after the first day of repeated refills of my shot glass I finally decided to expedite this process by obtaining 5 of these little guys and lining them up at the top of my breakfast plate. In shear stunning amazement - the wait staff all stared and pointed as I downed glass after glass in the first round - only to return for refills of all five glasses. I'm sure I was the talk of the kitchen for days to come.
Something else about food here - like the central theme in the first and this post - is the differences. Sure they have pork, but Asian pork. And, sure they have sausage, but it is Asian sausage. Etc. Most of the stuff is pretty good, but still there are "differences" in the taste of the meat and other food. You can distinguish when you are eating beef from Australia from eating beef from the Main Land. One thing they do have here is impressive bacon - I've never had bacon this good, anywhere. Not much fat on it and HUGE slices of it - which goes against the main food ideology here, chopped little chunks [which makes me suspect that it, or the idea of it, was imported from somewhere]. Nevertheless, I don't care who was responsible for it - they did an outstanding job with the bacon.
Street Food -
As in the U.S. and other places, in big cities, there are people that always try to sell you food directly off the streets. In the U.S. these people are called: street vendors, aka: hotdog stand guy, etc. Here, I have no idea what these people are called... and WOW there are a lot of them. Everyone makes something a little different too. After a few day spat with some serious stomach ails and eating in 5 star establishments, I avoided these people like the Black Plague or the equivalent. After I "adjusted" slightly... (still a little lingering biological conditioning going on inside) Jen and I finally made our way down to enjoy some of this Authentic Chinese Cuisine. And let me be the first to tell you - yes, it is unbelievably good food. Because of my first go around with high-end restaurant food that didn't sit well - I stayed mostly to the deep-fried 400+ degree oil foods [germ killer processes at work there]. Really good dumplings and little pork and beef deep-fried rolls?? Anyway, they were tasty. Then a night or two later, Jen and I ventured down and picked some things from the meat cart: I had lamb on a stick, seasoned, and Jen prefers the calamari / squid... both were excellent in taste and preparation. A day or two after that, I found DIRECT PROOF that the myths are true... upon becoming more adventurous and less sick, I wanted to start sampling a greater variety of meats from said vendors, since the lamb experience was sooooo impressive. Which is when the vendor began to explain to Jen that there was: beef, pork, fish, shell-fish, vegetables, chicken, various fowl (different bird species) and then he said it..... Jen did a double take and all this was going on in Mandarin, she turns to me and points at the last grouping of meats on this large cart and says: "That stuff is the DOG". Right then and there I could feel my insides starting to turn [I had not eaten any of this stuff, nor will I ever], but just the thought of it made me feel ill. I talked to a guy from Holland that didn't know he was eating dog on a stick and he actually said it tasted pretty good - although he avoids it at all cost, since he is a pet lover.
I'll post some pictures of the vendors up on the site when we get back to Shanghai so you know what I'm talking about.
Enough about food for now... more to follow sometime again, I'm sure of it.
They always say....
that the differences are in the details, and that couldn't be more true here in China. Where to start, where to start.... I'll explain some overwhelming / glaring differences between east and west in a typical day:
Sleeping:
The Chinese believe that boulders and slabs of forged hardened beds provide better health than not... I can assure you that my back [and body for that matter] does not agree. Imagine sleeping on just your box springs or a "deluxe" bed are sets of box springs with bamboo layering [similar to plywood sheeting] with cotton sheets over them / it. Hmmm... if you compare it to taking the sheet off the beds and sleeping directly on the concrete, then YES, they are more comfortable by a factor of .0000000000001 - otherwise, who are we really kidding here?
As my dad would call it: ch!t, shower and shaving...
Something that I found arbitrarily weird when I met with the health department back in the States [getting shots and medicine before coming over] was when they warned of getting water in my mouth during showering and not to do it. This is b/c of the millions upon millions of bacteria and viruses [Steph interject any time here] that are lurking within the water and further downstream - food supply. Although years of conditioning for these types of "bugs" does the body wonders on one side of the planet - on the other - well, let's just say that you are at a disadvantage right out of the gate. Interestingly enough - it is hard not to get water in your mouth, eyes, ears, etc. when showering - something that you don't necessarily pay attention to b/c you take it for granted in daily life, but difficult nonetheless. After some serious 'bathroom' time, my system is starting to finally adjust to the micro-attacks upon it.
Insert: when you are doing your showering and shaving, etc. you typically use multiple hygiene products that may or may not be readily available here. Although there are suitable substitutes for everything here - like I said earlier, it's the details that comprise the differences [more on this later].
Insert: this leaves one difficult subject in the morning routine yet to be discussed, I'll call it chitting for lack of a better PC term. In SOME places this is not a big deal - but, in several (more common than not, even at "high-end" establishments: restaurants / bars / etc.) places there is what is referred to as the Eastern Toilet. To dispel any myths that this is simply just a hole in the ground - it actually looks like a western toilet that has been cut off at the seat level and formed into the ground (pictures to follow). Most of these are very nicely constructed with porcelain, tiles and modern plumbing. But the only difference is that it is 2 inches from the ground.... so, the question becomes: "how does one use such a device?" Well, the basic operation is the same in the U.S. with the exception that when you "sit" you are actually "squatting". Your pants are dropped and the back of your legs: hamstrings are resting simply on your calves. I had the pleasure of my first Eastern toilet experience in a shopping mall - too far from home to make the trip for the impending nature call. Nevertheless... success without any problems with the exception that my legs were pumping battery acid for blood by the time I stood up. Talk about a physical feat... first objective: do your business, second objective: don't get messy, third objective: balance yourself ever-so-delicately to achieve obj. #1 and obj. #2. I DO NOT SEE how the elderly or the handicap accomplish this w/o greater degrees of difficulty than they do. If the 60+'ers in the U.S. tried to start doing this on a regular basis a LOT of hip-replacement doctors would be cashing in and retiring EARLY.
Which brings me to the "ending" of said experience... NO WHERE in China do public or restaurant like establishments 'provide' toilet paper. It is a BYOTP (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper) event. Every time, everywhere. Western hotels - exception. One or two other places, MAYBE. Which you don't consider that big of a deal, since these little Kleenex dispensing blocks / bricks of paper are available at certain convenience stores or shops. BUT, interestingly if you somehow "forget" to have some with you [at ALL times outside of the home] - you have just signed-on for an interesting adventure. EVERYONE carries such said paper with them, but image trying to coerce someones personal life vest from them as you are sinking on the Titanic in public - AIN'T gonna happen people. So, now it is one of the essential items in the repertoire. Money - check, I.D. - check, house / door keys - check, poop paper - check. Weird, but let me reassure you: essential to survival here.
On to better subjects....
Next 5 posts - stay tuned.
Sleeping:
The Chinese believe that boulders and slabs of forged hardened beds provide better health than not... I can assure you that my back [and body for that matter] does not agree. Imagine sleeping on just your box springs or a "deluxe" bed are sets of box springs with bamboo layering [similar to plywood sheeting] with cotton sheets over them / it. Hmmm... if you compare it to taking the sheet off the beds and sleeping directly on the concrete, then YES, they are more comfortable by a factor of .0000000000001 - otherwise, who are we really kidding here?
As my dad would call it: ch!t, shower and shaving...
Something that I found arbitrarily weird when I met with the health department back in the States [getting shots and medicine before coming over] was when they warned of getting water in my mouth during showering and not to do it. This is b/c of the millions upon millions of bacteria and viruses [Steph interject any time here] that are lurking within the water and further downstream - food supply. Although years of conditioning for these types of "bugs" does the body wonders on one side of the planet - on the other - well, let's just say that you are at a disadvantage right out of the gate. Interestingly enough - it is hard not to get water in your mouth, eyes, ears, etc. when showering - something that you don't necessarily pay attention to b/c you take it for granted in daily life, but difficult nonetheless. After some serious 'bathroom' time, my system is starting to finally adjust to the micro-attacks upon it.
Insert: when you are doing your showering and shaving, etc. you typically use multiple hygiene products that may or may not be readily available here. Although there are suitable substitutes for everything here - like I said earlier, it's the details that comprise the differences [more on this later].
Insert: this leaves one difficult subject in the morning routine yet to be discussed, I'll call it chitting for lack of a better PC term. In SOME places this is not a big deal - but, in several (more common than not, even at "high-end" establishments: restaurants / bars / etc.) places there is what is referred to as the Eastern Toilet. To dispel any myths that this is simply just a hole in the ground - it actually looks like a western toilet that has been cut off at the seat level and formed into the ground (pictures to follow). Most of these are very nicely constructed with porcelain, tiles and modern plumbing. But the only difference is that it is 2 inches from the ground.... so, the question becomes: "how does one use such a device?" Well, the basic operation is the same in the U.S. with the exception that when you "sit" you are actually "squatting". Your pants are dropped and the back of your legs: hamstrings are resting simply on your calves. I had the pleasure of my first Eastern toilet experience in a shopping mall - too far from home to make the trip for the impending nature call. Nevertheless... success without any problems with the exception that my legs were pumping battery acid for blood by the time I stood up. Talk about a physical feat... first objective: do your business, second objective: don't get messy, third objective: balance yourself ever-so-delicately to achieve obj. #1 and obj. #2. I DO NOT SEE how the elderly or the handicap accomplish this w/o greater degrees of difficulty than they do. If the 60+'ers in the U.S. tried to start doing this on a regular basis a LOT of hip-replacement doctors would be cashing in and retiring EARLY.
Which brings me to the "ending" of said experience... NO WHERE in China do public or restaurant like establishments 'provide' toilet paper. It is a BYOTP (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper) event. Every time, everywhere. Western hotels - exception. One or two other places, MAYBE. Which you don't consider that big of a deal, since these little Kleenex dispensing blocks / bricks of paper are available at certain convenience stores or shops. BUT, interestingly if you somehow "forget" to have some with you [at ALL times outside of the home] - you have just signed-on for an interesting adventure. EVERYONE carries such said paper with them, but image trying to coerce someones personal life vest from them as you are sinking on the Titanic in public - AIN'T gonna happen people. So, now it is one of the essential items in the repertoire. Money - check, I.D. - check, house / door keys - check, poop paper - check. Weird, but let me reassure you: essential to survival here.
On to better subjects....
Next 5 posts - stay tuned.
Rough start - Qingdao
Our adventure to Qingdao had a rough start. Our initial flight, #4664, was set to leave from the Shanghai Hongqiao airport at 2:05 PM. Somewhere between booking our flight via elong.com and boarding our airplane, our reservations were arbitrarily changed from flight #4664 to #4662. Whether someone attempted to pass along this information is unclear. To further the confusion, we were issued a ticket and a boarding pass with conflicting information. Our ticket read flight #4664 and our boarding pass, which we did not read (of course @_@) read #4662. Flight #4662 left before #4664...
So, when we attempted to board #4664, the airline Gods frowned upon us and worse, denied us boarding. This led to some excitement as the Chinese passengers found it both fascinating and hilarious that a westerner (aka John) had just tried to board the wrong plane, as his plane had left 40 min. prior. Of course, it was not his fault....we found out later that at times, if you check-in early, the airline will automatically bump you to the next available flight to your destination.
We were instructed to exit the terminal, go back past security and rebook. This would have been fine and dandy, had the next flight to Qingdao not left at 10:30 PM. Without any other options, we rebooked, went back through security, and staked out the most comfortable looking metal seats we could find. We counted ourselves lucky, as our luggage had been pulled from flight #4662. Unfortunately, that luck was short lived. On account of poor weather conditions in Qingdao, we did not board our new flight until quarter past midnight. By the time we reached our hotel, it was close to 3AM.
In China, there are two types of hotels (and toilets, food...), Western and Chinese. We had booked ourselves in a "five star" Chinese hotel, which only ran 500 RMB a night (approx $65 USD). What we didn't remember, is that most Chinese sleep on rock hard beds (its good for the back). Needless to say, after a day of being stuck in an airport, concrete-like beds didn't sound too appealing. :) But, we toughed it out...
The next morning, we checked out, and moved to the Shangri-la. :P Since then, things have smoothed out substantially. The city is beautiful and has a lot to offer when compared to Shanghai. Cleaner air & water, nicer people, and beautiful scenery...if given the option, we would definitely like to live here. For those of you unfamiliar with Qingdao, it was formally a German colony (until 1929?) and lies in a bay in between Beijing and Shanghai. Its official residents are about 7 million. Because of the city's roots, its architecture has quite a bit of European influence. The city is well known for its beer, Tsingtao, which was another parting gift from its previous occupants. It will also host the sailing portion of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Saturday night, we attended the annual Expat Charity Ball, which was a really great function (in purpose and entertainment value.) We met some really interesting people and spent the night socializing in English, which was a refreshing change (especially for John) Since then, we have focused mainly on business and plan to return back to Shanghai early tomorrow morning.
So, when we attempted to board #4664, the airline Gods frowned upon us and worse, denied us boarding. This led to some excitement as the Chinese passengers found it both fascinating and hilarious that a westerner (aka John) had just tried to board the wrong plane, as his plane had left 40 min. prior. Of course, it was not his fault....we found out later that at times, if you check-in early, the airline will automatically bump you to the next available flight to your destination.
We were instructed to exit the terminal, go back past security and rebook. This would have been fine and dandy, had the next flight to Qingdao not left at 10:30 PM. Without any other options, we rebooked, went back through security, and staked out the most comfortable looking metal seats we could find. We counted ourselves lucky, as our luggage had been pulled from flight #4662. Unfortunately, that luck was short lived. On account of poor weather conditions in Qingdao, we did not board our new flight until quarter past midnight. By the time we reached our hotel, it was close to 3AM.
In China, there are two types of hotels (and toilets, food...), Western and Chinese. We had booked ourselves in a "five star" Chinese hotel, which only ran 500 RMB a night (approx $65 USD). What we didn't remember, is that most Chinese sleep on rock hard beds (its good for the back). Needless to say, after a day of being stuck in an airport, concrete-like beds didn't sound too appealing. :) But, we toughed it out...
The next morning, we checked out, and moved to the Shangri-la. :P Since then, things have smoothed out substantially. The city is beautiful and has a lot to offer when compared to Shanghai. Cleaner air & water, nicer people, and beautiful scenery...if given the option, we would definitely like to live here. For those of you unfamiliar with Qingdao, it was formally a German colony (until 1929?) and lies in a bay in between Beijing and Shanghai. Its official residents are about 7 million. Because of the city's roots, its architecture has quite a bit of European influence. The city is well known for its beer, Tsingtao, which was another parting gift from its previous occupants. It will also host the sailing portion of the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Saturday night, we attended the annual Expat Charity Ball, which was a really great function (in purpose and entertainment value.) We met some really interesting people and spent the night socializing in English, which was a refreshing change (especially for John) Since then, we have focused mainly on business and plan to return back to Shanghai early tomorrow morning.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
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