So I'm Going To China

Comments now moderated...

2009-12-02T13:37:00.000-06:00

I know I don't post here anymore, but I left comments on because people do still read this and I like getting their reactions. However, since the 'spam' to 'real comment' ratio is now about 50/1, I'm turning on moderation. I'm also going to go in and clean up the posts, because many of the comments are actually interesting. So feel free to comment, but know it may take a while to show up. Thanks!

Live Action Left Turn: 2009 Beijing traffic

2009-07-29T15:31:00.003-05:00

OK, I know it's been two years, but I just found someone who was just in Beijing and filmed a left turn and gave a shout out to my post on the topic. See nationsbeglad's full post here, and thanks for the mention!

Oh, what the hey, one last traffic graphic...

2007-08-30T00:10:00.000-05:00

ADDENDUM, SEPT. 24, 2007: Thanks to everyone who has commented, I now know that this phenomenon is known as The Chinese Dragon, The Dragon, or The Car Dragon and is practiced in Taiwan (and probably other places as well.) I LOVE that this has a name. It just goes to prove, as poster gr82cu observed, that if everyone plays by the same rules, even things that look strange or even dangerous to foreign eyes are perfectly safe and logical.

Even knowing that people don't get killed doing this (as I presumed when I first saw The Car Dragon), I hope you enjoy the read!

ORIGINAL POST: OK, one last traffic post for old time’s sake. On one of my last days in Beijing, I saw this one which, as the great Dave Barry would say, I SWEAR I am not making up. I call it:

Synchronized Insanity

Setup:

Another left turn situation at a stoplight. Two lanes of traffic in each direction pass under a bridge. There are barriers separating opposing traffic, except under the bridge itself. Frontage roads run alongside the elevated highway, and the cars in column [A] want to get on this service road.

Step 1:

The light turns green – yay! Column [A] pulls forward, the lead car nosing a bit into the northbound lanes, sniffing for an opening. And they’re in luck – car [C] (not yet in the frame) has failed to adequately tailgate car [B], a near-mortal sin in the world of Beijing traffic.

Step 2:

The danse macabre begins. The lead car, [A¹], lurches in front of [C], who slams on his brakes, stopping the left northbound lane.

Step 3:

Like roller Rockettes, every car in the column that is past the inter-lane barrier, from [A²] to [A⁶], simultaneously takes a sharp left, filling the dead space behind [B] as he passes. Meanwhile, [A¹] has successfully blocked [D], stopping all northbound traffic and freeing him to complete the left turn.

Step 4:

With the precision of a drill team, [A²] to [A⁶] now turn right. [A⁷] follows as he passes the barrier – southbound cars are now starting their left turn a full 200 feet before the road they want to end up on.

Step 5:

But revenge is sweet. Since column [A] is now heading SOUTH in the far-right NORTHBOUND lane, [C] now has a clear shot up the left northbound lane, and his own band of minions eager to cut someone off. Column [C] accelerates, with opposing traffic whizzing by on both sides. And an impure element has infiltrated column [A]…

Step 6:

It’s car [E], who – and this is absolutely insane – actually wants to continue south. In the southbound lanes. Can you imagine? Anyway, this frees column [C] to exploit the opening and prevent any additional cars from column [A] from turning at the barrier.

Step 7:

The last cars from the lead [A] element are reaching the frontage road, but now have to drive quickly and carefully to avoid [D], who has crept forward in a fit of pique, a sort of slow-motion game of chicken. The following members of [A] follow [E] – the rule among Beijing drivers is ALWAYS do ANYTHING that gets you as close as possible to your final destination, even if it means –heaven forbid – staying in your own lane and not running anyone over.

Return to Step 1:

Lather, rinse, repeat.

A FEW LAST STATS:

As of this writing, since I started tracking stats on this site on June 6, there have been 4,056 visitors, who have accounted for 6,836 visits – a small group of regulars, and a lot of one-time visitors.
By far, the most popular single post has been Beijing Traffic Lesson: Left Turn, with 3,320 views. 2,194 of those visits have come since August 26^th, when the post was picked up by some China-centric blogs. Since then, it spread to many other blogs – as a web guy by profession, kinda cool to see.
The post has been translated into Cantonese, meaning I am now published in at least two languages around the world! (Thanks, 暗黑的卡夫卡!)
According to www.business-opportunities.biz, a site that has a cool feature that computes the value of web sites by simply entering the URL, my blog is worth $21,452.52. Whoever wants to give me that money, please write – I need to buy a new furnace and windows for the house.
My blog comes up #15 in a Google search for ‘Beijing traffic.’ In a search for ‘chubble,’ I’m number three.

So long for now! It’s been fun!

Travelogue Epilogue

2007-08-29T21:54:00.001-05:00

Wow. Time flies when you’re getting back into normal life. I’ve been home almost two weeks now, and today was my third day back in the office in Minneapolis. I’m right back in the mix – I’m out to LA for a presentation next Tuesday, have a pitch a week later, and I’m working on a site that’s in a ‘sprint’ process, which essentially means build and design on the fly and fix it later. We had a fair amount of turnover in the creative department – 4 departures, 5 hires, so a busy summer.

Took me about 5 days to get over my jet lag. Fortunately I had the week off, so I could kind of adjust naturally. Been reading a lot, doing some lawn care, long walks with the dog (she was very excited to see me), spending time with Shannon (I was very excited to see her), had a dripping faucet repair project quickly spiral into a three day crisis that involved replacing all but one pipe under the sink, went to a noon Twins game last Wednesday, and just generally got back into the swing of life stateside.

Of course, everyone has a ton of questions about China, and upon a little reflection and constant retelling, I can say this was one of my top experiences ever. I’m glad I got to go there, and I’m glad I got to go now. Beijing at this moment in time is unlike anything ever before or since; in 2 years, I would have a totally different experience.

I will miss and treasure the experience a LOT, but to be honest with myself I have to say I handle settled environments better. I can deal with crisis and fluid situations, but to be at my best I need to have traction, which is hard to gain in a shifting landscape. I really admire the people I met who can roll with the punches while jumping through hoops, an ability that comes in handy in Beijing.

I learned a ton about my industry and about myself, so I guess that makes it a successful exchange. I only hope the Beijing office and my new friends got as much out of me as I did out of them. I haven’t been good about writing since I got back, but I will keep in touch – thank you, instant messaging!

People ask what I missed, if it was tough to readjust. You know what? Not really. I didn’t come home craving anything except the ability to speak the language, but that quickly becomes routine. Driving is fun (it cost about $300 to get the car in shape – new tire, new battery and some engine tuneup.) The air is cleaner here, and I really notice that.

People ask about the Chinese government and what it’s like in a Communist country. To be honest, on the one hand, you can’t tell. People are basically the same the world over, and for the most part people are far more worried about everyday life than who’s in charge – sound familiar? – and as a rule people are decent, honest and hardworking. Jerks exist in about the same proportion wherever you go.

Nobody talks about the government, at least not to me. My family talked with some Chinese on their tour who said most older people are just happy for stability – live through a few revolutions and anyone who keeps the peace is A-OK. The younger generation, I surmise, knows opportunity when they see it, and they’re more than happy with a system that gives them access to everything they need, the creature comforts they want, and constant opportunity for advancement. And who can blame them? How many of us in America really look any deeper than that on a day to day basis?

On the other hand, yes, I could tell it was a different system. We complain about our media here in the U.S., but when you come from America and read Chinese official news, you can tell the difference. Good news is everywhere. Bad news is couched in the assurances that it isn’t THAT bad. Honest analysis is very hard to come by.

And the scary thing is, no matter how cynical you are, it’s easy to not notice what isn’t called to your attention. Just a lesson for y’all. A lot of ugly stuff comes with a fairly free press, but the alternative has its own issues.

I had to be on file with the local police. When I casually made conversation like ‘Have you been to [name of place outside China]?’ to local Chinese, there would be an awkward silence, then ‘Well, it’s not easy to leave.’ Even though the Chinese government isn’t omniscient, certain topics – Tiananmen, Taiwan and Tibet, in particular – only came up furtively and in places like moving cabs, and only with other expats. Little things like that say a lot.

In fact, I’m pretty sure this blog was read by officials (censors, maybe?) in Beijing – I watched the stats, and despite being blocked in China, I would get a couple people who would consistently visit from Beijing every few days. Must have been government to be outside the Great Firewall.

But this is not meant to be a critique. It’s a different system and certainly was the only way to get China where it is today as quickly as it’s grown. Will there be repercussions? Probably, but I’m not going to place ANY bets on what they will be.

Probably the number one thing people ask about is the food, and despite the fact that I enjoyed 90% of what I had, they only want to hear about the other 10% - the chicken feet, the cow stomach, the century eggs. Human nature, I suppose.

In the final analysis, I guess I can only speak for myself, and I can say I loved it and I hope to back someday. So take that for what it’s worth.

Thanks for reading along! It’s been fun! In a few days, I’ll probably reverse this blog so it reads from beginning to end. If you enjoyed this, check back every now and again – if I start a new blog abut my continuing adventures, I’ll link to it from the top of this one.

Until then: Zai Chien!

Safe at Home!

2007-08-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

I think I'll do a wrap-up post some time over the next few days, but for my coworkers and friends and family I wanted to say I got home safe and sound Thursday afternoon. Sorry I haven't been in touch - gonna be fighting jet lag for a few days, I think. But all is well. Hope the same is true for you!

So I'm Going To Minneapolis

2007-08-15T16:22:00.000-05:00

Goodbye, China! And to everyone back home, I'll be seeing you soon!

China +97: Last Hurrah

2007-08-15T06:40:00.000-05:00

Hurrah!

It's my last evening here in Beijing. I have had a full day of packing - I seriously don't know how I have this much stuff. I came over with two large suitcases, full, but certainly not bursting, and I'm going home with those same suitcases ripping at the seams (seriously - I think we need to buy some new luggage, Shannon - sorry!) and a duffel bag also overflowing, plus my computer bag and carry-on.

It took a lot of jiggering and rejiggering to make it work. Just as I was starting to get it under control, I got a call from work, telling me they were couriering a goodbye gift to me. Naturally, I'm flattered and grateful - but it turned out to be a glass-fronted shadowbox with miniature Beijing Opera masks in it, about two feet wide, 15 inches tall and five inches deep. Very cool, but I can't exactly put it in a pocket. So one bag got pulled apart, another got stuffed a little more, and I made it work - as my sister is fond of saying whenever we have to load a car or truck, "Always plenty of room!"

Right now I'm having dinner. I ordered in Annie's Italian, so I'm dining on chicken tortellini, a Caesar salad and garlic bread. In a little while I'm going to meet some friends for a drink at Frank's (only one - I have a VERY early day tomorrow) and then it's to bed for the last time in Beijing. I'll wake up at 4:30, shower, make my last blog post from Beijing and a car is picking me up at 5:45. Flight takes off at 9:05 local (8:05 pm on the 15th back in Minneapolis), and a mere 17 hours later I'll be home!

Mixed feelings, to be sure. I'll miss the energy and the feeling that I'm doing something adventurous. But I look forward to wife, family, friends, dog, clean air, driving and water I can drink from the tap. Oh, and HAVING A CLUE ABOUT WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON AROUND ME.

See you soon!

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS

2007-08-14T09:19:00.000-05:00

You know how horror movies always have the false ending? Where you think everything has wrapped up nicely, and all the conflicts are resolved, and then BAM! a knife-wielding clown bursts through the floorboards? That's a little how I'm feeling about lunch today.

During this trip, I have already eaten century eggs, chicken feet and eels, so I really didn't feel like I needed to prove myself any more. Sure, there's lots more scary stuff out there, but now that I've tried all those things I feel like I can just pass on certain things without feeling like a coward. And since today was my last day, it really seemed like I was past any risk of coming across anything too unusual.

My going-away lunch was attended by eight coworkers, including the executive creative director and the office managing director. We went to the same restaurant where I had the chicken feet (not a good sign), but it's a nice place, even if the decor is a little, as one coworker put it, "Country Kitchen."

The place specializes in spicy foods, so there were lots of peppers and lots of good hot food - tofu with pork, spicy green beans, noodles, chicken, fish soup, and the final dish was a whole grouper, including head and tail, that had been deep-fried.

That wasn't the scary bit.

The scary bit came when the managing director pushed one plate towards me and said I should try a bit. It was a beige sliced white meat that had a complex latticework of raised ridges on one side. My first thought was octopus tentacles, but I was trying to be a good sport so I tried a bit.

As I chewed thoughtfully on the rubbery, flavorless meat, it was revealed that no, thank goodness, it wasn't tentacles.

It was a cow's stomach.

My brain, thankfully, decided to protect itself by pretending it hadn't heard that, so my reply was a semi-interested "Hmm!" and I was able to finish the meal without incident, probably to the disappointment of my coworkers, who I noticed weren't exactly digging into the tripe themselves.

But at least that's another one I can scratch off the life checklist.

IN OTHER NEWS:

GOODBYE, BEIJING OFFICE:
Just generally a quiet, professional exit today. I cleaned my desk and computer, sent out my contact information to friends and walked around saying goodbye. No big speeches, no tearful hugs, but a lot of sincere goodbyes and hope-we-meet-agains. The account service group gave me a very nice gift - a cedar box containing a set of seven handmade ceramics representing the seven fortunes: happiness, inner-peace, prosperity, longevity, joy, health and contentment. It was actually very touching, very unexpected and very nice.

I went out for dinner with the executive creative director and one of my Singaporean friends. We went to a very upscale Korean barbecue, where they cook your food for you at the table over a charcoal pot. There had been talk of a crazy night, which wasn't what I wanted at this point, but fortunately both of them had to go back to the office to work after we finished eating at 9:30, so I was off the hook.

Tomorrow I pack, probably have one more dinner with my friends, and then I'm coming home. Two days and counting!

Regrets? I've had a few...

2007-08-13T06:40:00.000-05:00

...but then again,
too few to mention.
So why did I
Ev'n bring it up?
Must love the sound
Of myself speaking!

We are officially in the 'wind down' period of my trip. Tomorrow is my last work day, which will involve packing up papers, doing an exit interview, turning in my security card, making sure my paperwork is in order, cleaning the computer I've been using of any passwords and then going out for dinner with some coworkers.

Today, however, wasn't nearly so action-packed. So I will devote today's blog to my few regrets: the blog posts I wanted to do but never quite got around to writing. At the same time, I want to make sure I capture these things, because they did make an impact on me, even if that impact was limited to "Ha ha! Lookee there!"

So here they are - The Lost Blogs:

Bellies of Beijing: When the weather gets warm, men in Beijing make their ultimate fashion statement: They hitch their t-shirts up under their armpits and go struttin' down the street as if saying "Look at me! I have a large, sweaty stomach, and I'm PROUD! See how it glistens? Drink it in, people!" And for the record, these are generally not the lean, muscular Jet Li types. Not that I am, of course, but I DO keep my shirt down.

Why It Didn't Get Written: It's a visual thing, and there was really never an opportunity to get the kind of pictures that would do the phenomenon justice. It usually would strike like lightning - I'd be walking along, minding my own business, then turn a corner and GOOD LORD! HAVE YOU NO SHAME, SIR? There it would be. Hard to discreetly get the camera out and snap a picture.

The Great Wall Street: I've done enough economy-related posts to mark myself as a geek, but the Chinese stock market really is something to behold. It's increased in value by 80% in the last 7 1/2 months, which is Chubble if I've ever seen it. But what's even more remarkable is that it's driven by individual investors, not the huge institutional buyers you find in other markets.

I wanted to capture a snapshot of that. You see, every morning when I get to work at 9:30, I am nearly run over by retirees - the women in cotton print dresses and slippers, then men in shorts, tank tops, black socks and flip-flops, and most of them EASILY over 60 - shoving their way into the elevator with me, sometimes even pushing the 'close door' button in my face to avoid missing precious seconds that could be spent playing the market in the brokerage on the third floor of my building.

I've poked my head out, and it looks like an off-track betting parlor, right down to the grimy plastic chairs, the electronic ticker that everyone stares at, the overflowing ashtrays and the cashiers behind the counter, buying and selling shares of whatever with the life savings of these survivors of the Great Leap Forward.

My Scottish friend smirked when I mentioned that. "One big difference," he said, "is the people at betting parlors have some idea what they're doing." And that's not condescension - even the government agrees that the markets suffer from too many people chasing fortunes without proper planning, but they don't know how to shut it off without bursting it. They keep putting out warning signals, and the market crashes for a few days or a few weeks, but then they put their flip-flops back on and head to the third floor to get on the money train.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Again, a visual story, and I was too sheepish to walk around taking pictures of people, especially if they happened to be losing money that day.

The Alcoholympics: The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have three official beers plus an official wine ("Greatwall - the wine in a bottle that tastes like wine in a box!") Somehow that seems a bit excessive. I also liked that Greatwall's official title was 'Official Supplier' - as if the marathon stations would have water, Gatorade or a delightful dry Cabernet Sauvignon. I was thinking of maybe doing a taste test and review of all the official Olympic booze.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Well, for one thing, it seemed like kind of a one-note joke. And if there's one thing I INSIST upon, it's that my posts all have depth and poignancy. For another thing, publicly advertising that much drinking alone just seemed a little off.

The Olympic Green: On a more serious note, I really wanted to get onto the site of the Olympics and get some pictures of the buildings under construction close-up. My company has contacts high up with the Olympic hierarchy since several of our clients are major sponsors, and I was hoping that would help me get past the barricades.

Why It Didn't Get Written: There's only so many strings to pull, and only so much time, and it just didn't work out for me. But I will be watching the Games next year with great interest nonetheless.

What Has He Seen?: On a couple occasions, I saw people who just stopped me in my tracks for one reason or another. They tended to be old, with the kind of lined and care-worn faces that were made for arty black-and-white photography. The first one I remember clearly. He looked like he was about 90, and couldn't have weighed 100 pounds. He was pedalling an ancient bicycle slowly - I was walking, and he just barely got past me. Suddenly, like magic, the sidewalk was clear, and he started swerving back and forth, looping the bike from side to side, almost letting it tip before putting the handlebars hard the other way and swerving away. In short, he was having fun.

My first thought was, how charming and quaint! My second thought, and I have no idea where it came from, was, My God, what has that man seen in his life? Eighty years ago China was a chaotic republic. Seventy years ago the Japanese were bombing and burning cities and conquered much of the east coast. Sixty years ago was civil war. Fifty years ago it was the Great Leap Forward era of Mao's Stalinist dictatorship. Forty years ago was the Cultural Revolution, with its purges - tens of millions dead over those two decades. Thirty years ago China was opening to the west. Twenty years ago you had the democracy movement, and what came after. And in the past ten years it's basically become a capitalist consumer society at breakneck speed.

It just made me wonder, what has he lived through? What role did he play? What did he think when it was happening? I think that all the time when I see older people now. I wonder what they think of me, someone they probably were taught was the enemy a few decades ago, and now Beijing is crawling with laowai and their vices and their toys. Just makes you think.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Well, I guess it just did. But again, it would have been better if I could have gotten some arty black-and-white photos to go with it, and the opportunity never presented itself.

Playing Tourist: Summer Palace and Ming Tombs: Those were the two big tourist spots I never made it to. But if I had to trade, say, Gun Day in order to have people try to sell me postcards at those sites, I would take Gun Day every time.

Why It Didn't Get Written: Because I never went there. But Shannon did, so at least between the two of us we've got Beijing pretty well covered.

So there you have it: my list of regrets. But at least I can look back and say I experienced China... my way.

(Ba-dum BAM!)

The Laziest Man in Beijing

2007-08-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

So how did I spend my last weekend in this vast, fascinating, exotic land to which I may or may not ever have the opportunity to return?

Well, on Saturday I did some laundry, listened to the Twins get shelled by the Angels, talked to Shannon, watched some movies and an episode of LOST, tried to salvage the music library on my crashed iPod (quite annoyed about that - thank you SO bloody much for your fickle software, Steve Jobs!) and otherwise managed to not leave the apartment, even for a minute.

Today I was a little better - went downstairs to buy some water, ran 4 miles on the treadmill in the workout room, and went out for Singaporean food with my two Singaporean friends. It was fantastic, for the record - kind of an Indian/Chinese fusion. Then we went to Frank's Place for a couple pints of Guinness, and now here I am.

No regrets for the lazy weekend, either. It felt good to relax, and frankly, if this one weekend was the make-or-break point of my three-month stint in China, I'd probably have squandered the trip already.

Two work days left. If I can avoid spilling scalding coffee on the managing director, I'll probably get to call this a success. Wish me luck!

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS: Beijing Roast Duck

2007-08-10T08:52:00.000-05:00

(another Google image - not my actual meal)

Might be better known to some as 'Peking Duck,' but 'Beijing Roast Duck' is the full translation of the Chinese name. Needless to say, it's a bit of a specialty of the city, and Beijing Roast Duck restaurants abound.

I usually use 'breaking culinary news' to announce something upsetting or unusual, so this time I thought I'd give equal billing to what was an excellent meal.

Last week I mentioned to some friends that I hadn't yet had the dish, which is practically a crime for anyone who has spent more then 12 hours in the city. Neither of them had either, so we made plans with a couple of longer-term Beijing residents to go out for dinner tonight.

The restaurant itself, Li Qun, seems fairly authentic. It's an old, old courtyard house in a pretty battered looking hutong that must be a couple hundred years of age. From the piles of new bricks, the neighborhood looks like it may be in line for a renovation, but it certainly is REAL Beijing, from the tall grasses growing out of the roofs of the houses down to the kids playing in the street and the residents gathered in small clusters sitting on the sidewalks.

On the other hand, the restaurant is probably only 4-5 blocks southeast of Tienanmen Square, and I think it's become one of those 'authentic' places that gets 'discovered' and then fills up with 'tourists' as the 'prices' go through the 'roof.' This impression was borne out by the review my coworkers were reading during the hour cab ride to get there through rush hour - the phrase I recognized was 'laowai hen dwah hen dwah' - many, many white people.

There certainly were a lot of tourists, but hey, can't blame them. The ambiance was appropriately shabby (real Chinese restaurants don't spend much on atmosphere), and the kitchen, visible as we walked in, was doubtless set up to make one dish over and over and make it well.

I don't know if I ever had Peking Duck back home, but if I did, it certainly wasn't like this. It takes an hour to make (although here I'm sure they just keep pumping them out) and comes out whole, glazed to the point where it glows a radioactive orange and glistens like lacquer. For the five of us, we ordered two. The chef brought them out on a dented aluminum tray, showed it to us, then WHACK! Off with their heads. (I couldn't help but think of Daffy Duck saying "You realize, of course, that this means war!")

The chef then deftly cut the breast meat into thin slices maybe an inch square, making sure each piece had a bit of the glazed skin, which is the prize of the meal. Only the breast was served - the rest of the bird was whisked away.

Plates full of meat were put on the table along with a sweet, strong sauce, green onions cut into strips, small sliced cucumbers, a bowl of raw sugar and stacks of paper-thin pastry sheets maybe six inches across, like small thin tortillas. To eat it, you take a pastry, put a piece of duck dipped in sauce on it, add other toppings, and wrap it up like a tiny burrito. It was delicious. The sugar was surprisingly good, too - just a pinch really brightened up the flavor.

Also at the table was steamed broccoli (not normally my favorite, but I enjoyed it), scallops served on fried taro strips, and some excellent fois gras. I suppose the last makes sense - if there's one thing the place probably has a surplus of, it's duck's liver. I ate more than I should have, but hey, it's not like I eat it every day.

So I was enjoying the meal and thinking, "Hey, this is pretty darn good! And it's an authentic meal where I'm not picking out bones or worrying about what it is or anything!"

And then the remains of the ducks we had just eaten came back out of the kitchen, like duck zombies.

Imagine taking a whole duck, stuffing it full of firecrackers, dunking it in a deep-fat fryer and then exploding it. That's what the bowls set in front of us looked like. There were random bones, necks and blasted pieces of meat sticking out of it every which way. It actually smelled pretty good, and I was able to find a pebble of meat that wasn't seared to a bone and tried it - like all fried food, it was pretty tasty. But I've been here too long to have to prove myself, so I pronounced myself full and let it pass.

I was actually amused by this (if you haven't noticed by now, I'm easily amused.) Serving the meal this way is like them saying "And for you, monsieur, we serve ONLY the very FINEST parts of the duck. Oh, and then we serve you the rest of the duck."

There were plenty of leftovers from the Bowls 'o Duck Bits, which were unceremoniously dumped into a clear plastic bag for us to take home. I passed.

But at least I got to eat the Beijing specialty and have a last Friday night meal with my friends. Good times!

New Chinese Stereotypes

2007-08-09T07:30:00.001-05:00

I’m a sensitive liberal-arts-degree-holding kinda guy, so there’s nothing I hate more than the tired old stereotypes we hold about different groups of people. It’s insulting to the people being stereotyped, and it limits the thinking of those who buy into them, potentially closing off our minds to wonderful new experiences that blah blah blah.

That’s why I’ve come up with some exciting NEW stereotypes about Chinese people that you can use in your everyday lives!

1.) The Chinese are highly efficient sleepers. Almost every time I’ve been in a cab or on a bus with a Chinese person for a trip that would take more then 20 minutes, they’ve said “I’m going to close my eyes for a while,” then leaned their heads back and nodded off. At work, many people keep pillows at their desks (this is no joke; actually, it’s quite a good idea) and will just put their heads down on their desks for a 15-minute power nap over lunch. During the hottest part of the day, it’s not unusual to see people – including businesspeople - laying on park benches in the shade and taking naps. Being a hot city, I suppose it bears a lot in common with siestas in Mexico, Spain and other warm areas. Just didn’t know that was a Chinese thing too.

2.) Chinese look great in heavy black-rimmed glasses. Not everyone can pull this look off, but for some reason, the Chinese can.

3.) Chinese people move SLOOOOOOWWWW. This actually might be a Beijing thing and not a Chinese thing, and it’s far from universal, but more than once I’ve passed bicycles while walking briskly, and if I’m in a hurry, it always seems like everyone in Beijing is sleepwalking. I usually end up swerving in and out like a skier through a slalom, and I feel like I’m moving that fast, too. To illustrate this point, I’ve drawn this picture of me being run over by a glacier while trapped behind a crowd of Chinese.

IN OTHER NEWS:

MOVIE PACKAGE DESIGN 101:

I enjoyed what I assume to be a totally legal and legitimate copy of Die Hard 4.0 and was pleased to see that this movie wears its heart right on its sleeve:

Nothing like a prominently placed exploding helicopter to help you know exactly what kind of movie you’re in for.

I LIKES TO DRAW DRAWRINGS:

This should strike fear into the hearts of all of the designers I work with back home. It's a sample of some of the work I've been doing here. Now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t know if I can go back to being just a copywriter ever again.

WORK UPDATE:

Work has pretty much dried up after a long day yesterday (client call at 8:00 pm), and I don’t expect to see much more Beijing work (if any) before I leave. On the other hand, I’ve been getting some details about some work in Minneapolis, so I’ve spent some time pondering that.

The new business pitch I was working on was presented today (I wasn’t there – Chinese presentation) and apparently it went well. The farewell video I was working on was shown at the client’s farewell dinner last night, and apparently the honored guest enjoyed it very much, so that’s all good. (Oh, by the way, when I was at the American restaurant yesterday, I saw him having lunch. Probably a Yippie-Ki-Yay Burger or something. Kind of funny to recognize him from putting together the slideshow while he had NO IDEA who I was.)

America, Olé!

2007-08-07T07:17:00.000-05:00

Went out for lunch with my Scottish coworker today. He’s heading to Shanghai tomorrow and then on to Bangkok for a long weekend, so we wanted to catch a meal before I take off.

Since it was a special occasion, I simply HAD to go to the American-themed restaurant I’d heard about at Lido Place a mile or so away.

Two words: Cowboy hats.

To be fair, it fit the overall theme, which was really more Tex-Mex than straight-up American. But it was still a little strange seeing the entirely Chinese staff wearing cowboy hats, boots, checked shirts (fringed shirts for the women) and jeans. The walls were decorated with serapés and sombreros. The music was, I actually don’t know how to describe it, but maybe romantic Country? Very low energy and as bland as a doughy tortilla.

Speaking of which, the enchilada was a bit substandard – stringy beef in the aforementioned doughy tortilla, topped with – well, imagine if you could somehow melt a carton of cottage cheese. And I mean the WHOLE CARTON, plastic and all. Kinda like that, but greasier.

The salad bar was a bit odd, too. It was made to look like an old chuck wagon, and while it had iceburg lettuce and salad dressing, there wasn’t much else there with which to construct a salad. There was a pasta salad that had what looked like strips of luncheon ham in it (ran into that in some noodles once before here, too) and what I think they thought was potato salad.

Deconstructing it at the table, it seemed to consist of large chunks of potato, salad dressing, pickles, bacon bits and paprika. (“What the heck IS this?” I asked my friend. “You tell me, you’re the American,” he replied, as if it were some national delicacy of ours.)

So not exactly a four-star meal, but I was amused by the décor. (Would have gotten pictures, but hey, no camera left.) I have to say, I bet that when Chinese tourists eat at many Chinese restaurants in America, they probably have a similar reaction. (“And where were the bones? It just creeps me out!”)

Riceometer Check

2007-08-06T06:35:00.001-05:00

That's right, boys and girls. 90%. I have ten days remaining in Beijing (a little less when you consider my flight leaves early on the 16th.)

IN OTHER NEWS:

TRICKSY, TRICKSY THIEVESES WANTS MY PRECIOUSES
Take a look at the Riceometer picture. Does it look a little blurry to you? It should, thanks to the pickpocket who lifted my new Olympus camera out of my backpack yesterday, leaving me with just my low-resolution webcam as the last way I have to take pictures.

(Remember, my cameraphone was stolen after I forgot it in a cab in June. I say stolen because, while it was my own fault for forgetting it, when I called it moments later, the person who picked it up clearly knew it was forgotten, and knew they could answer it and perhaps get it to its rightful owner, but instead turned it off and took it. I accept some responsibility for that one, but I still say stolen.)

I'm not sure where it happened, but I suspect it was at the Silk Street Pearl Market, a six-story bazaar in central Beijing stuffed to the rafters with counterfeit bags, jeans, shoes, jewelry and more. I had gone out for the day shopping with two Singaporean coworkers. We went first to Panjiayuan, the huge antique market I visited twice in June, for some last-minute souvenirs, then to Silk Street for one of my coworkers to buy a bag.

Both are well-known for pickpockets, since they attract a lot of tourists, but in Silk Street we were constantly bumping people due to the narrow aisles, and the laowai are especially dense - like fish in a barrel.

I'm kicking myself, of course, because I knew better. I've been very careful about what I carry and where. As I was throwing my bag together for the day, I even looked at the camera in my hand and thought "I don't need this today." But then I think I got distracted and dropped it in an outside pocket with a water bottle.

Then I forgot about it. I remember feeling people bump me - at one point I even turned and asked a friend if I was still zipped - but I remember thinking "Well, if they want my water that bad, they can have it." Only later, when I realized it was gone, did I remember that I had brought it after all.

So yeah, I'm kicking myself - but I'd rather be kicking the thief who took it from me.

I will not miss sticking out as an obvious foreigner, and I will not miss the way foreigners are viewed by part of the population here as a source of easy money. There's the pickpocket, who probably also steals from Chinese but probably prefers to steal from foreigners because, even if I noticed, what do I do? I can't make myself understood. Then there was the vendor at Panjiayuan who gave my Singaporean (but ethnic Chinese) friend a starting price of 150 yuan for an item, then gave me a starting price of 280 when I asked about the same item a few minutes later. Or the panhandlers, who were especially on last night, following me and tapping my feet with their sticks for - seriously - at least 5 minutes (I was waiting for someone), totally ignoring the locals who walked by.

I know that's just sulky carping, and I know I should be more generous since they need it more than me, but I can't help feeling insulted. And I'm bitter about the camera.

Still, I'm talking about a tiny minority of the population in very specific places. I know perfectly well that every city has pickpockets and scam artists and panhandlers and worse - really I have never felt unsafe in Beijing, and I'm not going to let a little petty larceny ruin what has been a fabulous experience. I just don't like being marked as an outsider, but I guess knowing what that feels like is a valuable lesson in empathy for me.

As for the camera itself, at least I had moved almost all of the pictures to my computer (maybe a dozen were lost, nothing significant) and at least it happened after I had seen pretty much all of the tourist sites. And a replacement will cost less than $200 - a kick in the teeth, to be sure, but it's not like buying a new car.

So there you go! Sunshine and rainbows, everybody!

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE:
One thing I noticed at Silk Street was that, while many of the vendors don't speak English, they all know all the brand names. There's a large number of Chinese whose introduction to our language starts with "Louis Vitton," "Rolex," "Nike" and "Dolce & Gabbana."

I don't know why that struck me. Maybe because it seems so trivial, or because it's a shame that foreigners come to Beijing, and that's all they want to talk about.

(To be fair, the bags I saw carried a badge that said "Dolge & Gabbana," and every one of them, regardless of whether they were made of leather, canvas or vinyl, was marked "Genuine Denim.")

WORK UPDATE:
About a week left, and NOW they pile it on.

The farewell video saga continues, with rewrites coming in from various parties on the client side, requiring a re-recording. I had to rewrite and edit parts, but fortunately got to skip the studio because I was at a meeting for:

The new business pitch on Thursday. Myself and one of the Singaporeans presented three conceptual ideas with extensions in 4 media. A Chinese team presented 2 more. In the end, two of the ideas I worked on are moving forward. But since the presentation is in Chinese, I don't know what more I have to do.

Then there's the print campaign that was my first job here - I was told I'll be spending part of the week coming up with online extensions.

And as for the TV commercial that is being art-directed by about 40 people on 4 continents, the call Friday was as painful as I feared. Frankly, I'm keeping my head down, other than informal discussions with a couple people, because I don't want to get sucked into that with just a few days left.

Mostly, though, I just want everything to wrap up nice and quiet-like. I've made it this far without a serious meltdown or crisis, and (knock on wood) I'd just as soon keep it that way.

I'll see you all soon!

The One-Way Money Valve

2007-08-04T07:38:00.001-05:00

Today I am going to bore you.

As some of you may know, my roots are in business journalism, and I am fascinated by business and economics. Since getting here, I’ve read a lot about the Chinese economy and I’ve been trying to piece together some broader image of it in my head. Recently, I felt like I had a light-bulb moment where, at least to me, some chunks of the puzzle seemed to fit, and I thought that, since I’m here to learn about China, I might capture those thoughts here.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU: Nothing funny today. If you want humor, I suggest you try the official Family Circus web site and check back with me later.

DISCLAIMER: I am WAY out of my depth here and I freely admit it. I have never taken an economics course. I state the following as if I know it, but the truth is this is just how I’ve pieced it together from reading Chinese and American news stories on the subject. However, I think it’s worth taking this stab at it, even if I don’t know what I’m talking about, because:

1.) This is a blog, and if there’s one thing blogs are good at, it’s misinformed pontificating; and

2.) My blog tracking stats indicate that fewer people visit on Saturdays, so this is a good time to sneak a long, boring post in.

With that out of the way, here’s my macro-view of China’s One-Way Money Valve.

Grossly oversimplified, but I think it goes like this: Chinese products are sold overseas. Those dollars and euros and yen are converted to yuan as they enter China and distributed to the exporter, and from there down the chain to the company, the marketers, and eventually into people’s pockets. Yay! More money!

They go to spend it, but it’s expensive to buy foreign goods (the government keeps their currency cheap – I won’t delve into the politics, but it’s true.) So THEY buy mostly Chinese goods too, which is good, because that means more local manufacturing, more taxes collected, more salaries paid.

Companies want to spend too, but the government makes it hard to invest overseas (you can’t grow if all the money flows right back out; hence foreign firms “in” China are really minority owners of joint ventures that are Chinese controlled), so they make many of their investments in locally made equipment or real estate – and suddenly there’s a real estate boom, meaning more work, more salaries, more of everything.

So somehow everyone’s getting paid, and it all traces back to exports. But every time money gets changed coming into the country, they have to print more yuan, and relatively little of the existing yuan is leaving the country to pay for imports. And as long as exports outstrip imports, it’s a spiral, with more and more money stuffed into the system and more and more internal spending.

Adding cash to a closed system means more money for essentially the same number of people who all want the same things. So if I’m a merchant, I can raise prices as high as the market will bear – capitalism, right? And it’s not evil - it builds wealth for the merchant and the merchant’s employees, so yay, more money for everyone again! And there you have inflation – the same stuff costs more today than it did yesterday. As a result of the system I described, inflation is very high here, and it spikes easily when there are shortages, as has been happening with food lately.

The government tries to lower inflation by soaking up some of that ‘excess liquidity’ – their term for cash – by forcing banks to essentially lock up huge amounts of cash rather than lending or investing it (which would put it out for someone to spend it, worsening inflation), or by raising interest rates so people won’t borrow so much and will keep more in savings (also to keep it from being spent).

One interesting side effect of turning all that foreign export money into yuan is that the Chinese government ends up holding the foreign currency, to the tune of more than $1.2 TRILLION in foreign cash. They’re trying to find ways to use it - remember a month ago when Blackstone went public and China bought a chunk? That was $1.2 billion or so of their foreign exchange reserves leaving the country.

Interestingly, if I read this story right, they’re going to let Chinese people buy bonds backed by the foreign currency the government holds. If the Chinese government investments (like the one in Blackstone) make money, it will grow the wealth of investors. But better still, the investors buy these bonds with their yuan, which takes more cash off the streets to help curb inflation.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave….

Basically, my impression of the whole kit and kaboodle is that it’s like a balloon being tended by a very smart but very nervous man. The government wants the balloon to fill as quickly as possible, because with it comes a high standard of living, wealth and economic power, so they hooked it up to an air hose. But they’re also trying to keep it from popping. They don’t want to slow the airflow (which in my tortured metaphor represents money), so a pinhole here, a piece of tape there, maybe a rubber band to constrict it over there. All very nerve-wracking and very much sweaty-brow kind of work, because too much and too little interference are equally catastrophic.

In China, of course, these decisions are made by a small group of people. Governments set a lot of the structure everywhere in the world, but in a freer market economy, well, if the Japanese can make cars better and cheaper and take U.S. dollars back to Japan, too bad for GM and Ford. (Yes, I know it’s not that simple, but you get my point.) Here, on the largest scale, it’s not the decisions of consumers at the cash register that decides where money goes and when. (Not that we usually think about it at all, of course.) It’s decided by MBAs and PhDs of economics who are working to a plan.

None of this is stupid, and none of it is crazy. These are very smart people who I actually believe are trying to better the lives of an entire country as quickly as possible. But because it’s never been done, and because it involves not only the interlocking and inherently unstable global economy, but also the psychology of billions – well, obviously, no one knows how this will end.

Why does this matter? Of course, because it’s not just the Chinese. On the other end of that air hose feeding into the Chinese balloon are other balloons that are being squeezed by purchase-happy consumers – the American balloon in particular. And the American government is trying to use ITS pins and ITS tape and – if worst comes to worst – a tourniquet to keep its balloon properly inflated. We're connected, so if the Chinese balloon pops or deflates, it'll affect the air pressure on our side too.

(And with that that, my metaphor groans weakly, rolls on its side, curses the cruel and unfeeling fate that brought it into being, and dies.)

To anyone who knows economics, any facts I may accidentally have listed above are obvious, but this has been kind of a revelation for me. I think I KNEW some of this intellectually, but something about living here has brought it into focus. (At least I think it’s in focus. I welcome corrections of fact, though not of my opinions.)

Here endeth the lesson!

Front Page

2007-08-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

I wasn't entirely surprised to see a picture of the bridge collapse on the front page of the China Daily newspaper. After all, it is right now the number one story internationally (it's still leading CNN's Asia News report), doubtless because of the unbelievable nature of the disaster, the loss of life, the dramatic images and stories, the fact that it ties into deep-rooted fears of people, and let's face it, because even international media has something of a U.S. slant.

An expat coworker offered another perspective on why it's big news in China's state-run media: because they can point to America, supposedly the most advanced nation in the world, and say 'See? Their bridges fall down, too.'

That seems cynical, but he may be right. The media here does play a tit-for-tat game. When concerns about Chinese food imports were raging back home, the discovery of tainted pistachios and chicken feet from the U.S. by diligent Chinese inspectors, and a threaten to boycott the U.S.'s unsafe agricultural products, was front-page news the next day.

A quick look at the other headlines does seem to indicate that these are government proclamations as much as they are news:

Foreign Media Enjoy Greater Access [read: we have a free press]
Top US Economists Rap Protectionism [read: even Americans support China's economic policy]
Party Graft Busters Uncover 900 Cases [read: corruption is under control, thank you very much]

The last story you can't see below the fold is about the rescue of 69 miners who were trapped in a flooded mine. We get those kind of feel good stories too, of course; the difference here is there's no sidebar questioning mining practices or safety.

The economist story is quite typical. The Chinese press LOVES writing about Americans who side with the Chinese in disputes. It undercuts the American government position in what is presumably a fair and balanced way (See? It's not us saying it, it's them!) and I assume makes U.S. policy seem less sure of itself and less stable. Which would give credence to my co-worker's theory.

But it is just a theory. This is big news no matter what, and we don't question why it's on the front page of newspapers in other countries. But I thought it was worth sharing.

IN OTHER NEWS:

BRINGING YOU UP TO DATE:
Well, I have just seven work days remaining, and it seems like things are starting to wrap up a little. This week at work, I have:

Been involved in that software print campaign I was in the kickoff for my first day here and presented my second week; it's moving along but won't be in print for weeks or months.
Reviewed and given opinions on the online extensions of that campaign.
Developed a rough layout for a bilingual HR brochure about our agency mission and structure.
Sat in quietly on the presentation of the concepts for the TV commercial I took a crack at but really have no current role in since my ideas weren't used.
Started developing concepts for a new business pitch next Thursday. Kind of a rush job, and we'll see how it goes. Internal review is on Monday.

Right now, I'm waiting to dial into a 10 pm Beijing-time conference call with peers in London getting their feedback and the client's feedback from the TV commercial presentation. I saw their written comments, which were quite brutal, so I'm glad I'm a silent observer. Those close to me know how much I hate tension and uncomfortable conversations (Conflict makes me gassy!), so I may have to turn the volume down very low and do something else if it gets too awkward.

Hope your Friday night is better than mine!

Thinking of you in Minneapolis

2007-08-02T06:44:00.000-05:00

First off, to everyone back home, I just want to say I hope you are all safe, along with your family, friends and loved ones. I know many of you, like myself, crossed that bridge regularly. Please keep me posted.

This has been kind of a surreal day. When I woke up, the first thing I did, as always, was fire up the computer to talk to my wife and read the news. The web was down, which is very unusual. Since my computer is my phone here, I wasn’t able to call home. Then I got a text message from a coworker here, asking if I was watching CNN.

My first thought was that something quite bad had happened in Beijing. It was a punch to the gut to see disaster, ruin and flames back home, to see my city on the news – I haven’t even seen any images of home in months, of course – with Wolf Blitzer asking obviously shocked eyewitnesses, complete with the Minnesota accent, to describe the collapse.

I’ve spent the whole day in a little bit of a daze. I called Shannon on my cell, international rates be damned, and was glad to talk to her because, as went through all of YOUR minds, you just never know who ran an errand or took a different route or whatever. So I reassured myself that my family was safe, called my bosses back home to get news about coworkers (thank God for working overtime!) and checked in with friends.

To me, it’s been like a mini-9/11. (Not to diminish this disaster in any way by calling it 'mini', of course, but you know what I mean.) All day I’ve been reading everything I can and trying to imagine what it looks like. I’m combing my memory for the last time I went over the bridge and under it – going under it, especially, it always seemed like such an erector set, and the sound of the traffic always sounded like it was roaring out of a tin speaker.

Most surreal, of course, is that while I’m having these feelings, hardly anyone around me knows where I’m from, much less that something bad happened there. They’re acting the way I imagine all you acted when 500 Chinese died in mudslides last month, or how I acted a couple weeks ago after watching a report about a building collapse in India.

That’s no critique of them or you or me or even human nature, which after all is what I’m talking about. But it really has driven home to me that every disaster is a local disaster.

For my own sake, I wish I was home. But I am thinking about you, and I’m right there with you. Take care.

...and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!

2007-08-01T06:27:00.001-05:00

Actually, it might be my wife's new T-shirt (sure, I try on her clothes. What? What are you looking at?) I personally LOVE teal, coral and lavender, but it's a titch too small for me.

I'm still not quite sure why I bought this. Maybe the words 'Memorable Summer" jumped out at me - it certainly has been, after all! It's not the funniest Chinglish ever, but I think I liked the completely generic "Tropical Beach Style" coupled with the very unenthusiastic "Memorable Summer Vacation." It really doesn't sound like something you'd want to commemorate with a t-shirt.

Person 1: "So how was your tropical beach style vacation?"
Person 2: "Oh, memorable."

Some other shirts I'd like to see:

"Major City: You should really visit it once, just to say you've been."
"Music-Themed Bar & Restaurant: Same food you can get everywhere, but overpriced."
"Sports Team: Meh, it's a rebuilding year."

And if nothing else, whenever i see my wife wearing it, it will remind me of the memorable summer I spent in Beijing. (And I actually mean that in a good way - this wasn't exactly a vacation, so 'memorable' is a very fair adjective.)

ATTENTION JOURNALISTS & TREND-SETTERS

2007-07-30T06:36:00.000-05:00

*Ahem.*

(feedback)

Is this thing on?

Thank you for joining me today for this exciting unveiling.

As a marketer, it is my job to come up with catchy, slick branding to help products or concepts rise above the status of commodity.

It makes our lives better and richer. I mean, who wants carbonated food-coloring-and-sugar-water when you can have a Coke? And who would choose a hamburger sandwich and French-fried potaters when a Happy Meal is available? (It’s both happy AND a meal! I'm all over THAT action!) How can we possibly grasp the enormity of a whole generation or social strata without labels like Boomers, Gen X and Yuppies?

Well, I’ve been reading a lot of news lately, especially economic news, and it seems like we need a term for what’s happening in China. Sure, we’re regurgitating a lot of tired old phrases like ‘bubble economy’ and ‘Wild West’ – yawn! – but what we really need is something that captures China in all its crazed, frantic, optimistic, excess-liquidity, growing-pained, opulent, upwardly-mobile, occasionally corner-cutting glory. Something that’s easy to remember. Something that looks good on, say, the cover of Fortune or Time magazine.

Therefore, based on the depth of knowledge and expertise that can only come from spending 81 days in a sheltered existence in a foreign country, I have decided to brand this era of Chinese history. (No, no, that's OK, China, you can thank me later.) And you, lucky souls, are here to witness it.

Without further ado, I give you….

(drumroll)

(trumpet)

(parting curtain)

THE CHUBBLE.

Yes, the Chubble, or “China-Bubble,” is the wave of the future. In just two syllables, it captures the enormity of 1.4 billion people in the worlds 4^th (soon to be 3^rd) biggest economy, a construction boom soaking up half of the world’s heavy-lift construction cranes, and a stock market that can gain or lose 6% of its value in a single day (sometimes both) without anyone batting an eye.

Chubble is expressive. Chubble is poignant. Best of all, Chubble is inherently funny because it sounds kinda like ‘Chubby.’

Proper Usage of Chubble

‘Chubble’ should always be capitalized, since the ‘Ch’ stands in for the proper name ‘China.’
‘Chubble’ is applied only to the overall economic and political burgeoning of China in the early 2000’s; as such it is ‘the Chubble’ not ‘a Chubble.’ It is singular.
In certain circumstances, it can be used to modify another noun, as in “Another Chubble aftershock was felt on Wall Street today when…”

Best of all, Chubble is extremely flexible as a word, as you can see in these Suggested Headlines:

For the Wall Street Journal, the next time China dumps $100 billion in U.S. real estate or stocks: “More Chubble Cash Floods U.S. Markets.”
For the New York Post, should a crash ever occur: “Chubble Chursts.”

The Broader Context of Chubble

If you’re like most of the world, you’re asking yourself “What does this mean? How should I feel about China’s emerging strength internationally? Is China a threat, or an instrument of world prosperity? Are they a partner or usurper? How will their internal politics translate to the world stage? Is this sustainable? Can it possibly come to rest gently on an even keel, or must any wave that crests so high inevitably come crashing down? And if it does crash, will it be on our—“

At this point, I’ll say “Shhhh! It’s OK!” and pat you on the shoulder and give you a juice box. Later, when you’re laying on the couch with your feet up and a cold washcloth on your forehead, I’ll give you my best answer to all those questions:

Who knows? Who cares? That’s for historians to decide in 20 years or so. For now, just strap yourself into the roller coaster and enjoy the ride!

You probably can get a more thoughtful interpretation somewhere if you want one. As for me, I’m in marketing. Packaging and varnish. What’s inside is irrelevant. So I beseech you, help me make Chubble the best new word of 2007.

How Can You Participate in this Linguistic Revolution?

Simple. Use ‘Chubble’ in everyday conversation, and when people ask what it means, explain to them with an air of condescension and pity. They’ll feel foolish for not knowing about it, and will use it with THEIR friends so THEY can feel superior.

If you know any journalists, tell them to use the word liberally. Clay Chandler, Asia Editor of Fortune Magazine, you enjoyed my traffic diagram, so I’m SURE you’ll love ‘Chubble!’ Any friends of Mr. Chandler reading this? Send this to him and tell him I’ll give him $20 (or 150 renminbi) to use the word in his blog! Like any good marketer, I’m not above sweetening the pot a little.

Any Wikipedia nuts out there? See what you can’t do about getting Chubble listed. I did a Google search, and there are a few instances of the word ‘chubble’ out there, but they’re mostly unenlightened fat jokes – how juvenile!

Please. Help me raise ‘Chubble’ to the status and prominence it deserves. Thank you for your time.

China +80: Props Out

2007-07-29T06:52:00.000-05:00

It's my 80th day in China, so at this point I think it's safe to say I'm going to survive this experience. In recognition that my ability to survive on the other side of the world has probably been improved by some of the companies I have dealt with, I want to give the following unsolicited 'thumbs up' to some things that have made my life in China better and easier:

Skype: If there's a way to invest in Skype, I want in. It is the greatest thing ever. If you don't know about it, it's telephone software for your computer. I have a local U.S. phone number that anyone can call for free, and with my laptop and a headset, I have been able to chat with family, friends, and most of all my wife whenever I wanted for pennies. I actually spoke to my wife probably twice a day on average, and without that I would certainly have been a wreck.

BeijingExpat.com: If you're going to spend any length of time here, I can't recommend this community highly enough. Before getting here, I was able to get a sense of life as a foreigner in Beijing by reading the message boards, and as I was preparing I would post my questions and get the unvarnished answers I needed from people like me. After I got here they helped me find grocery stores, shopping etc. If you're coming here, join the community there first.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio: I didn't bring the receiver, but I do have a virtual 'tuner' on my computer, and I've been able to listen to all my favorite music while I've been here.

iTunes and iPod: I've even been able to buy new music, and with my iPod, I brought my entire music collection, plus every episode of my favorite TV shows, which I have watched religiously. It's a full entertainment center in my pocket, which takes on special significance when you're pretty much cut off from all normal sources of entertainment.

Dell Computer: As you can tell from the list above, my laptop has pretty much become the center of my life here. Every touchpoint I have with my life back in the States goes through this computer. It's my TV, DVD player, telephone, videophone, news source; I've been able to keep connected with my work in Minneapolis; I've been able to write this blog. I know people can travel long-term without all this technology, but it really, really makes it all so much better. And my computer has held up admirably.

AT&T Wireless: I was impressed with AT&T and how quick and easy it was to get ready for China. They unlocked my phone so I could buy a China Mobile card and have a local phone number, and set my wife up with international roaming so we knew we were in touch at all times when she was here. We payed dearly for the feature (a minute of talk time cost $2) but it was worth it when we needed it.

MLB.com: One slice of home I've enjoyed has been baseball. Several times a week, I'd listen to the game that had just finished back home while at work. Of course, the Twins haven't exactly made that a GOOD experience lately, but it's surprising how nice even a little thing like listening to a ballgame can be.

Of course, the biggest thank you goes to my wife, who is neither a company nor a product. She had to talk me off the ledge about a dozen times, plus picking up all the balls I dropped when I came here. So if you see her, give her a hug for me.

IN OTHER NEWS:

FOOD COMA:
Talk about indulgence. My Scottish colleague set up a Sunday brunch at the Intercontinental Financial Street Hotel on the west side of Beijing. Eight of us attended (as usual, going around the table read like a United Nations roll call) and feasted on... well, everything you can imagine. I was the odd man out in not being a fan of shellfish or sushi, but there was lobster, lamb, pork chops, omelets, fresh fruit, 20 feet of pastries, fish, pasta, a dessert spread with caramel flan, a chocolate fountain, cheesecake, ice cream and all the Verve Clicquot champagne you could drink.

Which, as it turned out, was quite a bit.

Afterwards we retired to the bar where some partook of cigars (I did not) and more champagne. Al told, we were there for more than 4 hours. The bill was astronomical by Beijing standards but in line with what you'd pay at a top-tier restaurant back home. But hey, how often am I going to be out for brunch at a five-star hotel in Beijing?

The Brands You Trust: Smoker's Edition

2007-07-28T07:18:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, a guy just needs a good smoke. If you're Chinese, 'sometimes' means 'all times.' This place is a smoker's paradise. You can smoke in restaurants, offices, on the street, pretty much everywhere. And so they do. I seriously don't think I know more than a couple people who don't smoke, and most of those who do are heavy smokers.

To be fair, it's hard to accuse them of fouling the air. Urban legend has it that breathing the air in Beijing is like smoking 2 packs a day, so they probably figure, why blow against the wind?

There are a number of good domestic brands (or so I hear), but sometimes what you really want is the richest, most satisfying smoke of all:

Smooth, satisfying Mardlero cigarettes. You can't read the small text in the logo on the left in this picture, but it makes a darn compelling argument: "Goods Smoking Gear."

IN OTHER NEWS:

OH, MY HEAD:
Towards the end of the day yesterday, my Scottish colleague in the media buying group stopped by my desk and asked if I wanted to go for a drink. I did. It was actually a little bit of a disappointing day - I got to see the TV scripts that are going to be presented next week and none of my ideas made it. I know I wasn't expected to have a script in the mix and I'm just here to learn, and I've never done a TV script before and shouldn't expect to be proficient the first time out of the gate, but still, that was a lot of time and effort.

So I gathered my stuff and we headed over to Franks for a couple pints of Guinness and some small cigars. We were soon joined by the office managing director, another coworker from India and his Taiwanese girlfriend. Pretty soon we settled in for dinner (a burger again - I know I've said it before, but Franks makes really good burgers) and more drinks, graduating to Jamesons whiskey.

It was a long, pleasant dinner out on the patio. We had a wide ranging conversation about my time in China, some of my experiences, movies, global politics, macroeconomics, tattoos and more. When it came time to break up the party, around 11, my Scottish friend asked if I was up for more.

Sure, why not? We went to Browns, a happening nightclub with railings mounted above the bar to help people climb up on it and dance. And dance they did:

The music was overwhelmingly American, and mostly at least a couple years old - Hollaback Girl (again with that song!), Mambo No. 5 and the like.

More Jamesons, Kilkenny, Guinness. Then we took a taxi to Maggies, one of the oldest expat bars in Beijing. Totally packed, and a similar scene to the one at Browns.

The one difference between clubs back home and here that I observed was that the average age of the foreigners at least was probably a little older than what you'd see in America. Makes sense though. By the time your job takes you to Beijing, or you have enough money to travel and go clubbing there, you're probably a little older. And if you're a foreigner alone in Beijing, you probably do seek out other people when you can.

Interesting night, but by this time it was 2 am and I was a little tipsy, so I cabbed back home and woke up with a headache this morning. Doh!

THE AMERICAN OFFICE WORKER IN HIS NATURAL HABITAT:
On Thursday I was at my desk at about 10 in the morning, one of the few people there that early, when the HR director led a tour of about 50 people (I assume advertising students) slowly past my desk. Since I was the only one working, and I do stick out a bit, they all stared at me as they slowly filed past. It was surreal, like being in a zoo.

WORST. HAIKU. EVER:
I bought another package of peanuts, though not Angry Shirtless Old Man Brand Peanuts, and found even more baffling text on it.

It's tiny little text that almost looks like a dot pattern, but when you look closely, you can read the following:

"Choiceness raw materiai with most up-to-date equipments and technique produced meticulous.
Taste-tempting best enjoyment suitable for men women and children give first choice.
Treasure produced meticulous best enjoyment quality guarantee.
Good taste the flavour remains healthy choice an excellent gift in all seasons help digest greasy food.
Good tastes for large masses series high foodstuff delicacies loved by all choiceness raw."

Oh, Feixiang Classics, you had me at 'Choiceness raw materiai!'

You Wanna Know Who Has The Power In China?

2007-07-25T06:41:00.000-05:00

The Commissioner of Putting In Manholes, that's who.

Even the lawns aren't safe...

(For the record, I was going to be more gender-neutral, but "The Commissioner of Putting In Sewer-Access Portals" wasn't nearly as funny.)

IN OTHER NEWS:

Literally 'in other news,' for once. I captured this headline and lead photo from a story on the ChinaDaily.cn web site. In case you can't read the headline, it says:

"Beijing tries to dispel rain for Olympic opening ceremony"

"You feelin' lucky, humidity?"

What The Man Says, Goes

2007-07-24T07:01:00.000-05:00

Hmmm. Feeling a little blue lately - probably a little homesick and a little run down. No big deal, because I know just the thing to cheer me up: A visit to my enthusiastic two-dimensional friend Nestle Coffee Poster Guy!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Seemingly overnight, almost all outdoor advertising appears to have disappeared from the neighborhood. This office park is ringed by the fence you see in the picture, and every 20 feet or so is a lightbox like this one. I easily walk past 30-40 of these along one block on my way to work, and now they're all empty.

The Makro Supermarket is bare too. Its 3-story exterior used to feature big billboards advertising some of the products they carry - now the building facade is bare concrete and mounting bolts trailing streamers of rust down the front of the building.

Yesterday I was riding back to the office from the recording studio with the client we were recording, and he filled me in: Apparently some official in the Beijing government decided they didn't like the look of all that advertising - not very OLYMPIC, you know - and ordered all businesses to remove their outdoor advertising. (I notice the bus kiosks still have it - maybe it's a city contract.)

So there you have it. Apparently these kinds of decisions can come down with no notice. Not that I'm in tune with the local news, but I never heard anything about it until it was done, and I work in an advertising agency. The client was a little annoyed, but nothing more: "Watch. In two weeks it'll all be back."

The funny thing is, I think this decision has made the area look WORSE. The Makro certainly looks worse for the wear, and all these empty advertising spots make it look more like a boarded-up ghost town than an ad-free paradise.

IN OTHER NEWS:

PURE WHITE:
I was about to leave the office tonight when I was literally blocked by a coworker - the same one I lied to about my birthday - and apparently he was in the mood to talk. His English is fair - certainly light years beyond my Chinese - but not always clear, and he has a habit of inserting the word 'maybe' at the beginning and end of sentences, and maybe a few places in between for good measure, so I always feel like he's asking me a question.

Anyway, we had a nice long conversation about (I think) my beard, the nature of art vs. advertising, the price of drinks in Hawaii, the difficulty of the work I'm doing right now, the World Beard Championships, things I should import from China, an idea that I should give away my beard as a gift to coworkers, and assorted other topics, some related to my beard.

Then he mentioned that he had seen me talking with the other American in the office yesterday. This other American (who also has a beard) is roughly my same height and has the same hair color (although I think I have about 20-30 pounds on him. BOO-yah!) So my coworker tells me "I see you over the cube wall, maybe, and I see two heads with yellow hair, and I think maybe this means you are pure white."

I'm not sure if this was a question, but I was sorely tempted to tell him, "Yes, we are. You should see us dance." But then I decided that would probably require far more explanation than the joke was worth.

Riceometer Check & Tiny Beijing

2007-07-23T06:33:00.000-05:00

OK, lots to cover today.

FIRST UP: THE RICEOMETER

That's right, folks! 75 percent... although optimists would say I have 25 percent remaining.

NEXT UP: THE URBAN PLANNING MUSEUM
Sometimes I wonder what you all think of me. I mean, sure, I've worked with many of you for years, and known others of you for decades. But do you really understand, deep down in my soul, what a complete and utter nerd I am?

Well, if not, I think I've got just the thing. On Sunday, I went to the Beijing Urban Planning Exhibition.

Now, before you picture some boring, empty place with exhibits on sewer infrastructure and insulating methods of the modern home... well, you're right about that part. But the place does have a redeeming factor in the form of its centerpiece exhibit: a massive scale-model reproduction of much of the city.

Where there aren't models, it's a giant aerial photograph. It's sort of a glimpse into the near future, with completed versions of the Olympic Village and their newest skyscrapers in addition to carefully arranged and minutely detailed versions of ancient landmarks.

Here's a view of the business district where many of the most recognizable towers are going:

And a look down the main east-west street. The funny thing is, I think this gets across the scale of the city almost better than any of the real pictures I've taken.

The dark rectangular building in the exact center of this photo is the Urban Planning museum itself. To the left and up is Tiananmen Square, and above that is the Forbidden City. To give you a sense of their attention to detail, inside the museum model is an even teenier, tinier city!

The Hou Hai neighborhood, northwest of the Forbidden City:

A detail of the new National Stadium, the showpiece of the Olympic Village, affectionately known as the 'Bird's Nest':

So how do I sum up the Urban Planning Exhibition? Quite simply, it is a fascinating perspective on the city, a humbling reminder of the great works which man can achieve, and a spectacular preview of the architectural marvel Beijing is fast becoming. Oh, and best of all, it lets you pretend to be Godzilla:

("But Godzilla is Japanese, not Chinese," some of you are exclaiming. I know that. So why don't you just lighten up and go back to saving baby seals or writing fan fiction for Ed Begley or whatever it is you do all day.)

IN OTHER NEWS:

A TRIP TO THE STUDIO:
This client farewell video continues to escalate. This morning, I went to a recording studio in the city to get voiceover tracks for the video, read by the client's marketing/communications director. He has an English accent, so of course it sounded good.

Despite never having done this before (I have recorded with my band, but not exactly the same thing) I was able to fake it pretty well, I think. I played the producer - "Let's try another take from paragraph two, OK? And try the emphasis on 'his' instead of 'has,' OK? Who loves ya, baby?" (OK, that's a bit far) - and I think it actually turned out quite well.

Eye of the tiger!

THE MOST AWESOMEST SOUVENIR IN THE WORLD:

This was in the gift shop at the Urban Planning museum. It's a small commemorative Olympic-branded baseball bat, which comes in its own carrying case shaped like a small commemorative Olympic-branded baseball bat.

I may need six of these.

Basketball Diaries

2007-07-21T04:34:00.000-05:00

Today I met up with three coworkers (including one new arrival from Singapore - he studied in Boston and is completely fluent in English, so it's nice to be able to chat) for lunch at the dumpling restaurant, then took a cab to a gymnasium in central Beijing to see our office team play a basketball game against a team from a competing agency.

The managing director had been subtly and not-so-subtly encouraging everyone in the office to show up and cheer. Even the leader of the Greater China region was going to be in town from Shanghai and attending the game. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but let's face it, it's not like I have much else to do!

I could tell I might have made a mistake as soon as I got there. When you're tall and American, people assume you can play basketball. Worse, the opposing team had three large Americans on THEIR team, so I think she was having a little laowai envy.

As a result, I had some variation of this same conversation with at least a dozen people, including high-ranking officials:

THEM: You should be out there!
ME: No, I'm big, but I'm slow and uncoordinated. I really don't play very well.
THEM: Doesn't matter! Just go out and stand there!

The managing director even pointed out that there were some spare uniforms in the corner. (I had actually been invited to join the team weeks ago, but had declined, as the team's practices and first game fell during my wife and family's visit.)

In reality, I haven't played a minute of basketball in probably three or four years. These guys are all five to ten years younger than me, and they obviously enjoy playing. They're clearly better off without me.

Well, let's watch the game...

35 seconds into the game, and the other team (in white) has scored first, leading 2-0. Well, someone has to score first. Not a big de--

Huh. OK, 2:46 into the game, the other team leads by a score of 8-2. They're out of the gate fast, but let's just regroup, slow down the game a little, and get back in--

Halftime. 54-8. I'm sensing that our team's strength isn't a 'shut-em down' type of defense. Nor is our strength on offense. Nor passing, ball-handling, blocking - actually, let's just say that the fundamentals appear to be an area of significant growth opportunity.

The other team, meanwhile, runs a solid perimeter game, with sharp no-look passes, pick-and-rolls, steals that turn into court-length breakaways, three-pointers and high speed give-and-gos straight to the basket.

Start of the fourth quarter and the other members of my party need to leave, so I don't know how this game ended. I'll be on pins and needles until Monday morning to find out if we pulled it out, though!

One bright spot, though, was the women's team. Both agencies fielded a women's team that played a 10 minute exhibition during halftime, and I'm proud to say our team won, 10-5.

It was more exciting than the score might suggest, because what the women lacked in basketball skills - they actually seemed to play more as a team and ran some plays, but there was still lots of two-handed dribbling, air balls, balls dribbled off the feet and ill-advised and oft-intercepted passes across the court - they made up for by playing VICIOUS.

You remember the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the evil high priest of the bad guys reaches into his prisoner's chest, rips out his heart and shows it to the terrified man, still beating, before lowering him screaming into the lava pit? In this game, that was a basic pick.

Seriously, the whole crowd was into it, because every rebound turned into a mass of thrown elbows, kicking, reaching in and an assortment of hard fouls. Our team gave better than they got, spelling the difference between defeat and a bloody victory.

IN OTHER NEWS:

SMALL WORLD:
One of the Americans on the other team turned out to be one of the guys I climbed to the wild section of the Great Wall with back in June, and his girlfriend, who was also on the trip, was there as a spectator. The women's game was on when we said hello, and she gave me a new stereotype about the Chinese to file away: "Chinese girls LOVE to fight," she said, as we watched a player from my team practically throw her opponent to the floor trying to rip the ball away.

TRICYCLE DUMPTRUCK!

I'm just fascinated by these. Does anyone know why this would be an advantageous design? Seems like a rollover waiting to happen to me.

Number of the Day

2007-07-20T06:54:00.000-05:00

Pretty much every day, we get an email with some statistic about China from someone in the company. It comes under the header 'Number of the Day' and is broken down by different categories - social, economy, media etc. It's a fabulous idea - it gets everyone's mind pondering some aspect of China, however briefly, at the same time every day. I'd like to see something like it in the U.S.

Anyway, today I'm feeling lazy, so I'm going to share a random selection of Numbers of the Day from the past few weeks. Enjoy:

Gender Imbalance
18 million more males than female amongst those aged 0 to 15 according to a poll by the China Youth Daily and QTick.com across 2,603 respondents from 29 provinces and municipalities.

Source : China Daily , 18th July 2007

Over 15% of respondents said many of their relatives and friends had used ultrasonic scanning to select the sex of their babies even though this is illegal in China.

Getting On Line
162 million netizens by end June 2007, according to the 20th report on the development of the Internet in China issued by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). 75% of them have broadband access.

Source : China Daily , 19th July 2007

The survey showed that 76% of Internet users got information from web news and search engines, and 70% utilized instant messaging and 55% sent e-mail. Online music was listened to by 69% of netizens, while 47% played games online.

Global Top 500
22 companies on the mainland are in the 2007 Fortune Global 500 List, three more than last year.

Source: Crienglish.com July 13, 2007

Most of them are state-owned enterprises in energy, steel, automotive, telecom and bank industries.

Double Income Homes
53% of all Shanghai children under the age of 3 were looked after mainly by their grandparents according to a survey conducted by Shanghai population and family planning committee.

Source: China Daily, 13th July 2007

Grandparent generally focused well fed and warmly dressed the babies or toddlers, not much on the emotional and sensory development. Children raised by grandparents have difficulties on learning and adjusting to their environment.

Subway
4 billion Yuan (US$526 million) has been spent on upgrading Beijing’s old subway system for Olympics. The average waiting time will be reduced to 2.5 minutes from current more than three minutes.

Source: XinhuaNews, 9th July 2007

Beijing now has four lines totaling 114 kilometers, carrying 2.1 million passengers a day. The city will have nine lines totaling 200 km by 2008, and 19 lines totaling 561.5 km by 2020.

Social Circle of Migrant Workers
Only 3.7% of the migrant workers claimed they had a social life outside their working site according to a survey conducted by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences across 5,000 construction workers.

Source : China Daily, 9th July 2007

Most of the migrant workers felt that they were “looked down on” by the urban residents.

IN OTHER NEWS:
A number of you sent me the article about cardboard dumplings, and I want to say, that was TOTALLY false. Everyone knows you need to use newspaper to get that good 'mouth feel.'

But I was interested to see the following headlines, in this order, on the homepage of the China Daily web site:

Fake cardboard bun story tarnishes image of Chinese media
China warns US against "smear attacks" on imports
China vows to improve food safety
White Rabbit denies 'contaminated candy' claim

So we've got denial, anger, bargaining... They're almost through the five stages of grief! Good for them!

So anyway, I'm going out for dinner. Later!

A Cell Phone Like This Will Get You Beat Up In Beijing

2007-07-19T08:03:00.001-05:00

I mean, LOOK at it! The screen's not even in COLOR!

Since my own phone disappeared into the night in the clutches of an evil taxi several weeks ago, I've been using a co-worker's first-generation RAZR. But then he had to take it back so his wife could use it, and I moved down the totem pole to this ancient Nokia, which another coworker had lying around, possibly found at an archaeological dig.

Next week I think I'm going to be issued a Motorola Brick with a whip antenna.

The Nokia does have one cool feature, though: You can field-strip it in about 2 seconds flat.

IN OTHER NEWS:

MOM, WILL YOU MAKE ME A SANDWICH:
When my family was here, I actually did come home for lunch one day to find that my mother had made me grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. It was delightful.

But they've all been gone for almost two weeks now, and I've been surviving on the stockpile of food they left behind (augmented by a few small purchases.) Last night, however, I came home and discovered my refrigerator contained the following:

Blueberry jam
Pickles
Soy sauce
Ketchup
Barbecue sauce
Butter
A small amount of cheese
Baking soda (to keep my pickles from tasting like blueberry jam)

I was even out of bread, so I couldn't do ketchup, cheese, soy sauce and pickle sandwiches. I was just about to order in from Annie's Italian when I got a text message from my coworker, asking if I wanted to join him and some other folks at a restaurant in 798.

So I found my way through the darkened art district/light industrial area, past the shirtless men sitting on the sidewalk trying to keep cool, past the crowd gathered outside a small store watching soccer on a TV that had been set on the stoop, and joined them at the AT Cafe. Once again, as my wife pointed out, it sounded like the setup of a joke: An Englishman, a Scotsman, two Americans and two Indians. And once again, the other American made me feel like an ignoramus: he spoke Thai, Cantonese, French and Spanish. ("But I don't do Germanic languages," he conceded, obviously disheartened.)

I ordered some Singapore noodles, which were tasty but interesting - they seemed to be made with fettuccine, and had strips of what appeared to be luncheon meat in them.

I'M LEGAL AGAIN:
Went back to the police station to get a new temporary residence permit, which will carry me through the conclusion of my stay. I believe that is my last bit encounter with government paperwork in China. And this time they even left my gender intact!

Angry Shirtless Old Man Brand Peanuts

2007-07-18T06:59:00.001-05:00

Picked up a package of peanuts at Jenny Lou's last week based primarily on the fact that they were cheap and salted (seriously, why import Planters Dry Roasted UNSALTED Peanuts? Nobody in China is watching their sodium. Have you ever tasted soy sauce?)

I was about to tear into it when I was stopped by the steely gaze of the angry old man on the package:

I'm not sure what he's doing there, and I'm not sure why he isn't wearing a shirt. But I am sure he's very disappointed in me. "You kids nowadays," he seems to be saying. "You think you know what suffering is. Bah! I didn't take a bullet in the kidney during the war just so YOU could go traipsing around the world with your cell phones and your phat pants and your wallet chains. Here, look at the scar! LOOK AT IT! Bah, I say! Oh, and enjoy your peanuts."

The rest of the package is more ambiguous, but also seems to be more upbeat:

"A present first choose best enjoyment
TASTE LIFE'S NATURAL
Balance. Have it, you'll have the world."

They mostly tasted peanutty, but I think there was a HINT of life's natural in there.

For the record, I think he looks a lot like John Locke from ABC's hit show "LOST." Maybe this is a clue! Let the theories begin.

WORK UPDATE:
Actually getting a bit busy. I have a first review of my TV commercial storyboard/script tomorrow, along with some print executions. I've been kicking these around off and on for six weeks, so I guess now it's showtime. The first client presentation is August 2, so we'll see if any of my ideas survive.

We're also making final revisions for some print ads for a software client. All the work is taking place in Chinese now, so my role is to polish the back-translation - the work has to be approved by English-speakers, so it has to strike the tone that THEY want to hear while still being true to the original Chinese. Interesting balancing act.

The client farewell video I mentioned yesterday has swelled into a surprisingly complex little undertaking. The client wants 126 photos in the slideshow, and originally wanted each one up for 5 seconds. I was ready to throw in the towel but the account people had me meet the client and present alternative ways to organize it, and unfortunately the client loved the ideas. (That's not ego - he really LOVED the idea. So much so that it was almost a little unnerving.) So now we need to do it.

Eye of the tiger, people! Eye of the tiger!

The celebration continues...

2007-07-17T08:25:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the International Date Line, it was still my birthday in Minnesota when I woke up this morning and received this picture from my wife:

So as you can see, my wife is handling my absence as well as I am. ;) (Just kidding, dear!)

IN OTHER NEWS:

WELCOME TO 1979:
So today I was asked to take on another weird little side project that I suspect no one else wanted, namely helping with a 'farewell' video for one of our clients here who is leaving China after running the business for almost a decade.

It's a little ill-defined, but basically it will be a slide show with music and a few video clips showcasing his time and accomplishments here. I guess I'm kind of coming up with a theme and structure for it, and may play a role in selecting the music, although the client is mandating the use of one particular song.

What song? I asked the account person in charge of the project.

It was a song she'd never heard of before. Something called "The Eye of the Tiger."

I can hardly wait to see the finished project.

DON'T YOU PEOPLE SLEEP:
I had to work late tonight. Someone called a general status meeting on one of the projects I've been involved with. At 7:00. But then delayed it until 7:30.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2007-07-16T08:44:00.000-05:00

Of course, I don't know exactly how to go about getting a birthday cake in Beijing, plus no one here knows its my birthday, so I made my own cake by frosting a balled-up plastic bag with shaving cream and sticking matches in it.

Just wanted to show you this to reassure all of you that my mental health in is FINE shape despite spending more than two months on the other side of the world!

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS: I've actually had a very nice birthday - the Intercontinental last night in Hong Kong was my official birthday dinner, and I even got to have cake and ice cream (well, technically a lemon meringue tart and ice cream, but I LOVE lemon.) I've been in touch with my family and even gotten some gifts remotely, so no need to pity me.

And whatever you do, if you're one of the people in touch with my employer in Beijing, DO NOT TELL THEM IT'S MY BIRTHDAY. I can't stress that enough. A couple reasons:

I intend to celebrate when I get home, and really don't want to create an awkward situation where acquaintances feel compelled to do something that doesn't come naturally.
Apparently the birthday boy is expected to pick up the tab for everyone else, and I'm a cheapskate.
They had the office birthday party for July last Friday, and I really don't want to be part of that - it's like a tub of live bait, and the celebrants had to play some complex game involving pictures of people and posters on the wall, and I just don't want to be included in the August party and embarrassed in front of 100 people I don't know while trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and lastly,
This is really juvenile, but I actually lied to a coworker about my birthday. He's a guy whose name I don't know, but we're on speaking terms, and at the party Friday he asked me when my birthday was, and I panicked because I didn't want to get dragged into whatever was happening, and I said March, and now if the truth came out, it would be really awkward.

So all I ask of you for my birthday, Lynn and Rachael and Laura and Tammy and anyone else with a line to Beijing, is your silence. Thank you! :)

IN OTHER NEWS:

HONG KONG IS AN AWESOME TOWN:
I had to leave today, but I really had a great time. After a half day with their transit system, I felt confident that I could get wherever I needed to go by myself - a stark contrast to how I often feel in sprawling, taxi-based Beijing. Of course, Hong Kong has the advantages of a head start and its compact and attractive geography. Beijing can't and shouldn't try to be Hong Kong, but I think as Beijing moves into its place as a world city, they can take some lessons from Hong Kong.

ME IN ANOTHER LIFE:
This morning, before leaving for Beijing, I got a chance to stop in the Hong Kong office of my employer, where I was shown around by J.K., originally from New York. He came to Hong Kong last summer on the same exchange program I'm on now and loved it so much that he got transferred there.

Great, smart guy, and it was cool to see another office in action. Like many businesses in Hong Kong, my agency does little local business, instead acting as a high-powered hub for the region, doing business in India, Indonesia, Australia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

STEREOTYPES ARE HURTFUL:
A shop across the street from my hotel in Hong Kong:

Personally, I think this stereotype the Chinese have of Americans as drycleaners is TOTALLY unfair.

Hong Kong, Day 2: A Ferry Tale

2007-07-15T11:03:00.000-05:00

You know, if more tourists could be satisfied with just riding public transportation, cities wouldn't have to TRY so hard.

Take me, for example. Today, my one full day in Hong Kong, I rode the subway 6 times and the ferry 5 times, and I had an excellent day.

It's late, so I'll spare you inconsequential details like my complimentary breakfast (eggs, rice, bacon, sliced pears, coffee and apple juice) and give you a rundown of some of the things I learned in Hong Kong today.

1. ) The Star Ferry is cool
It takes less than 10 minutes from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon, but you get awesome views, a little breeze and a unique cultural experience all in one.

2.) Hong Kong, on the other hand, is hot
You've heard the expression about giving blood, sweat and tears? Well, all Hong Kong wants is your sweat. It was close to 100 today and EXTREMELY steamy. I would have sweat running down my neck in streams just standing there. I actually brought a bandanna with me, which I would occasionally use to mop my forehead and neck while saying thing like "My LAWS, it certainly is hotter than when that nasty ol' General Sherman burned Great-Grandmamars house in Atlanta, wouldn't you agree, Jethro?" Which is why I tried to spend as much time as I could inside.

3.) The Hong Kong Museum of History is also cool (and air conditioned)
A suggestion from Rachael back home, and an excellent one. After taking the ferry to Kowloon, I walked about a mile to the museum (leaving giant moist footprints to follow home, like a perspiration-soaked Hansel and Gretel.) I spent about two and a half hours there, learning about everything from the formation of the island (it has something to do with geology) to its cultural heritage (mostly Asian) to the occupation by the Japanese in WWII (Hong Kong still seems a teeny tiny bit bitter - don't think they're alone in that one) to modern history (best part was the display of cheap plastic toys to demonstrate their dominance of the toy industry in the 70's and 80's -- I could have sent them to my parent's basement.)

They even built a replica of a 19th century Hong Kong street, complete with shops, houses, a schoolroom and more. I was entertained to note that one replica of a warehouse featured one particular food item rather prominently:

4.) Mong Kok: Everything you need, lots more things you're afraid to touch
If you're like me, you often need a $15,000 Rolex watch. At the same time, you also often need to buy whole, dried fish in bulk from a cardboard box. If only there was some place where you could take care of ALL your most important needs at once! Well, dream no more, my friend. I have found your Shangri La.

From the museum I went north to the Mong Kok district at the suggestion of my boss in Beijing to look at cell phones. It was insane. There were cell phone shops EVERYWHERE. At one point I walked through a door between two small cell phone shops, and it was like the wardrobe to Narnia -- if Narnia consisted entirely of tiny cell phone shops crammed cheek to jowel (which I think was C.S. Lewis' original vision - he was way ahead of his time.) Seriously, there were at least 30 shops selling all kinds of phones. I looked at a couple models I'm intrigued by (the new Sony Ericsson s500i looks really cool) but didn't buy anything.

I walked around a little more, and not only found the Rolex/dried fish area (they were literally 2 doors apart), but also a Chinese jewelry store chain that had opened stores on three of the four corners of one intersection, plus another one less than a block away (apparently they need jewelry like we need Starbucks) and another person selling what I HOPE was dried fish - they were these leathery-looking fillets, some in a box, some artfully displayed on top of a mailbox to catch the discerning dried-mystery-flesh shopper's eye.

5.) Ferry Quest: Note to self : check the map first
I got back to Hong Kong island (via ferry, natch) by 4:15 and decided to take a ferry to one of the outlying islands. I had just missed the ferry to Lantau, so I bought passage on the next ferry to anywhere.

Well, it turned out to be a little further than I thought. An hour later, after passing Gilligan's Island, the Island of Dr. Moreau and the island where the LOST survivors are, we finally pulled into port at Cheung Chau, which can't be ALL that remote, since it has both a Circle K and a 7-11:

I was in Cheung Chau long enough to develop this comprehensive walking tour:

STEP 1: Come down the ferry's exit ramp to the street and take a left (north) on the harbor road.

STEP 2: Walk about 20 feet.

POINT OF INTEREST: To your left will be a person selling newspapers.

STEP 3: Take a left (west) into the ferry terminal entrance.

The ferry departed for Hong Kong less than 5 minutes later.

6.) Dinner and a Show is a good way to wind up
After freshening up, I went to the Intercontinental Hotel on the Kowloon side for dinner and to watch the nightly light show they do here. The skyscrapers synchronize their light and lasers and basically turn the entire skyline into a giant Laser Zeppelin at the Planetarium type of show. The Intercontinental (another Rachael suggestion) is a great place to watch it as they built their lobby bar and restaurant with huge panoramic windows that give a view of the whole harbor.

The Intercontinental is nothing to sneeze at, either. There was a Lamborghini in the parking area, if that tells you anything. It was cavernous but plush, with dim lights, low modern furniture, a jazz quartet playing standards and bossanova (and pretty well at that), and white-coated servers at attention. It was filled with Chinese (of course), Japanese, Arabs, Americans, British and Germans. Not a cheap place by any stretch, but for one night I felt like a jet-set hipster.

Here's a little video. Sorry, the audio isn't so good:

Oh, and that guy at the end is bringing me my Jameson's, no ice. ;)

7.) Take lots of pictures
A day in the life of Hong Kong and Kowloon, in 10 pictures:

Hong Kong, Day 1: Standing in Line

2007-07-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Asia's self-declared World City!

I'm here for two nights as a result of China's visa system. For short-term visitors, visas are available for a maximum of 90 days at a stretch, but you can get visas that allow multiple entries. For people who are in China more than 90 days (like myself), the usual trick is to go on a quick turnaround trip to Hong Kong - it's a part of China now, but operates semi-autonomously, so going to Hong Kong counts as exiting China for visa purposes, so when I re-enter I'll get a fresh 90 days from China.

Not that I'll need 90 - I forgot to shoot a picture of the Riceometer before I left Beijing, but as of tonight I am officially 2/3 through my exchange - 33 days remaining.

Anyway, so far my Hong Kong adventure has consisted mostly of standing in line. I was up at 5 am and to the ariport by 6:15 for an 8:00 departure. I got to the counter pretty quickly (for some reason, the Beijing airport has customs before ticketing. I guess it doesn't matter that much, but I've never seen that before) and got stuck behind a couple of Americans who were apparently organizing their entire trip on the spot with the economy-class ticket agent. They also were going to Hong Kong, but they were also trying to talk the agent through connections on other airlines to LAX and Dallas.

After 15 minutes, I was quietly invited to the first class counter and checked in. Then I went to immigration - a long line snaking back and forth. Call it another half hour to get my exit stamp. Then the usual line to get on the plane.

I got an exit seat (yay!) but it had no window (boo!) But I did meet Daryl, an American-turned-Hong Konger, originally from Baltimore, and a professional DJ. He must be pretty good - someone flew him to Beijing for one night to spin at a fashion show. Fascinating guy - has a masters in engineering, has lived all over the world (of course) and just following his passion, and apparently making a decent living at it. He comped me into his show in Hong Kong tonight, but I was too tired to make it. I'm so lame!

But anyway, in Hong Kong it took almost an hour to get through immigration. There were probably 8 queues, each snaking over maybe 200 yards, and in the line I chose, the officials with the stamps apparently were reading every word in each passport, memorizing it, reciting it to a stenographer, then taking a quiet moment to reflect on the nature of beauracracy before finally stamping the person through.

So I got through that and got to the bus that took me to my hotel in Causeway Bay. Nice place. Small rooms and not much of a view (I'm only on the 18th floor, so not very high by Hong Kong standards) but very polished and modern and well appointed.

Hong Kong is really a beautiful city in a lot of ways. It's a huge, polished metropolis with gleaming skyscrapers, of course, but people forget that it's stunning geography as well. It's a series of small, steep islands and peninsulas connected by magnificent bridges. Hong Kong island itself is heavily developed, of course, but with a tall central peak, much of the land is too steep to build, so you get this skirt of skyscrapers around a green center.

After settling in and a very short rest, I went exploring. I took the subway to the Central district and wandered for a bit, then decided to take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak in the middle of Hong Kong island.

Beautiful, but more lines. The line to get up was about an hour (the tram ride itself takes 7 minutes) and a solid 50 minutes to come back down. But the tram is kinda cool - it's been in use since the 1880's and pretty much goes straight up the side of the mountain. It feels like the start of a roller coaster, with a 45 degree angle in places, but you're sitting in these rail cars.

After getting back down, I walked to the Lan Kwai Fong area in Central, which is packed with bars, restaurants and tourists. (It's actually where Daryl was playing, but 11:00 was too late.) I ate at an American-themed place called Al's Diner - overpriced, but at least the service was slow, so I couldn't order too much. Then subway home (the Hong Kong subway is EXCELLENT - clean, efficient, not too crowded, and easy to navigate even for a corn-fed Midwestern rube like me - "Subway, huh? How do you get the cattle in?") and laying low.

Sooooo verrry tired.

Anyway, here's some pictures and a video. More tomorrow!

Count the Green Guys

2007-07-12T07:34:00.000-05:00

China is home to some 1.3 billion people. Based on my personal observations over the last 2 months, I would have to estimate that about 350 million of them are employed by some outfit called Beijing Security - or, as I affectionately call them, the Green Guys (and occasionally Green Girls).

They are EVERYWHERE. Their uniforms are distinctly military-inspired - green trousers, shirts, shoulder boards, peaked caps or berets and sometimes Sam Browne belts that are worn over the shirt and strapped over one shoulder. They don't appear to be armed, although some have radios.

I'd put the average age somewhere between 'embryo' and 'prepubescent,' and I'm not sure exactly what they do - the ones in my apartment building are on duty 24 hours to open the door and occasionally deliver the water to the rooms (remember, you can't drink from the tap), and sometimes carry bags for residents.

Others man booths at the entrance of parking lots. They don't take the money, mind you - that's the Blue Guys' jobs. The Green Guys just watch. Still others stand at attention in vacant lots. My office has our own personal Green Guy who stands at the entrance (actually 2 or 3 - they take shifts), and I'm guessing every office in Beijing has at least one guard per floor.

They actually seem quite friendly - I'm on smile-and-nod terms with 6 of them who work in or near my apartment, and the afternoon guy at the office always hits the 'down' elevator button for me. But I cannot FATHOM how bored they must be 99% of the time.

I asked a coworker about it and he chuckled. "Don't let the uniforms fool you," he said. Apparently the Beijing Security Company, a private (or maybe semi-private) business, has contracts with all of these property owners to supply security. I'm not sure if the property owners WANT so many guards, or if the level of security is mandated somewhere, but whatever the reason, you can't swing one 15-year-old Green Guy without hitting three more.

So today, I played a little game called Count the Green Guys. This is absolutely no exaggeration - the way you play is, walk down the street, and count the Green Guys you actually SEE with minimal effort - no assuming that they're there, even when you know they are, and no going out of your normal path to get a better view into a lobby.

Here are today's results. My path, in red, is .45 miles, or .73 km, from my apartment (at top) to my office (at bottom).

Click to enlarge

The total for today is 32 Green Guys! A pretty good showing. I didn't even count the six Green Guys in the armored car waiting to empty the ATM on the first floor of my building - they carry guns and wear helmets and flak jackets, so they may be a different breed of Green Guy.

So let's do a little mathemagic. I walked 730 meters. Let's assume I could see 50 meters in every direction, so we add 50 meters to each end of my path for a total of 830 and multiply by 100 - so we're assuming I saw a swath of the city amounting to about 83,000 square meters. With 32 Green Guys in that area (a conservative estimate, mind you) that means an average of one Green Guy for every 2,593.75 square meters.

Beijing Municipality is about 16,800 square kilometers - or 16.8 million square meters. At one Green Guy per 2,593.75 square meters... let's see, carry the one... divide by pi...

As I suspected! There are 6,477,108 Green Guys in Beijing - about half the population.

Take THAT, unemployment!

(Fascinating sidenote - the large square white-roofed building just a little north of my office is the Makro Supermarket, where I had my banana-buying difficulties!)

Coming Soon to a Cheap Softside Suitcase Full of Pirated DVDs Sitting on a Battered Folding Chair On The Packed Dirt by the Side of the Road Near You!

2007-07-11T08:05:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, I wrote a blog about buying a copy of the movie Babel, during which I commented that my tastes normally run towards comedies and mindless big-budget action flicks.

Well, my dear friend Pat shortly thereafter was considerate/bored enough to whip up a cover design for the fictional movie I referenced:

Now how do I break it to Pat that it's already for sale on the street here for 32 cents a copy?

IN OTHER NEWS:

WORK UPDATE:
Well, after all that buildup yesterday, the Crazy Ad showdown was a bit anticlimactic. My boss gave the interactive team a brief chewing-out about following proper protocol, then I showed my idea, everyone bought off on it, a designer was assigned and I guess I'm done, unless the client comes back with changes. The good news (for me, at least) is that it's supposed to go live August 6, while I'm still here, so I hope to get a capture of my very first published Chinese ad!

Also, at 6:00 tonight, out of the blue I was told that the TV commercial I've been sitting on for weeks is a go, and the kickoff is in 2 minutes.

Most of the meeting was in Chinese, but I didn't need to speak the language to understand what my boss was shouting about when we got to the schedule: after waiting a month for approval of the brief, the schedule gave us 1 week to develop an integrated TV/print/outdoor/radio campaign that will launch in December.

I didn't get whether that was resolved, but even with an extension, I think things will be picking up. Which is good news.

What I Do All Day

2007-07-10T07:49:00.000-05:00

First lesson of big-budget, global client, integrated media campaigns: It be SLOW. I've been assigned to one client who is shooting a China-market TV commercial, and I've been getting ahead of the project by drawing up storyboards and concepts while waiting for approval of the creative brief.

Well, that's taking a lot longer than expected. It hasn't been changing the substance of what we're doing (at least, not yet) but until everybody from New York and Atlanta and London and Shanghai finishes dotting their e's and crossing their lower-case l's, we can't officially start work.

So things have been dwindling a little until finally, last week, I asked for and got permission to throw myself at the mercy of the entire office, doing whatever anybody needed.

So that's helped pick things up, and it's actually a great way to learn a lot - in many cases, I'm actually proofing English-language presentations, which is an easy way to get an overview of a lot of different clients and different aspects of our business.

I also was approached last week by some account people in the interactive division. One of our clients, a large computer component manufacturer, needed a special one-off interactive ad unit (for my coworkers back home, it's basically a 900x550 page-takeover, 8 seconds and 200k.) Back home we call it 'Rich Media;' here they call it 'Crazy Ad,' which I actually like better. I'd like us to use that terminology in the future, FYI.

Anyway, I showed them some ideas today, and they basically said "Great! We're presenting to the client Friday! What approvals do you need and who will be doing the design?"

Uhhhhhh...

So I stalled and went to my director. And guess what? I'm in the middle of a little spat! You see, my boss oversees all traditional media creative, but has to approve online, but the budget is handled by online, although the trafficking and scheduling goes through offline, and -- oh, let's go to the org chart for this one:

As you can clearly see, they did an end-around. Perhaps they did so because my status, which you will note is a little ill-defined. I am something of an ethereal being, more substantive and corporeal than a ghost, but less than, say, the office bird:

Anyway, I'm sure it will all work out. I'll keep you posted!

IN OTHER NEWS:

COLOR-FAST T-SHIRT, INDEED:
Guess which sock got thrown in with my new Chinese t-shirt? Go on, guess!

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD:
Actually had a high, clear blue sky today, the first I've seen in a couple weeks. Here's a picture for proof.

Hope it's as nice wherever you are!

More Bonus Features of My Apartment

2007-07-09T07:22:00.000-05:00

I know I can sometimes be a little sarcastic -- no, no, don't protest! I know it's true! -- and can sometimes be a little snide and snarky, as I was when I made the case that my apartment was trying to kill me.

So today, in celebration of the second wheel snapping off my office chair and skittering across the floor like it had something better to do, I am going to laud some of my apartment's more charming features.

1.) Easy Access Wiring
If you're like me, you are ALWAYS tinkering with electricity. But in our modern housing, it can be so difficult to get at the wiring, what with all the walls and plaster and whatnot. But not in my apartment! "Now, where do you think that wire is? Oh, yeah, it's STAPLED TO THE FLOOR!"

2.) Cupboard of Mystery
When I first got to the apartment, I thought "Wow! Lots of cupboard space in the kitchen!" I was half right. There are a lot of cupboard DOORS in the kitchen. Several of them, however, have no bottom - just easy access to the plumbing. But if I ever need to quickly dispose of something, I know where to go.

3.) Do-It-Yourself Wading Pool
Wet baths have become more popular in recent years. Rather than putting in a shower stall or tub, the idea is you tile everything and put a drain in the floor. Done correctly, it's a simple and elegant way to get the most out of a small bathroom space. It does, however, require one basic bit of engineering - the floor MUST be sloped towards the drain (at lower right of the sink in this picture.)

If it slopes the OTHER way, as we discovered when my family was staying here, the water runs to the two-inch-high stoop and fills the bathroom.

4.) 'E-Z Exit' Doors
Don't you hate the way you have to turn the doorknob to open a door? And don't get me started on locks! But that will never be a problem in my spare bedroom, as my wife and I discovered when we moved in there to let my parents have the master bedroom. The engineers thoughtfully made the door about 3 millimeters wider than the doorway, eliminating the chance of the door ever latching shut!

Runners-Up:

The needle-sharp tacks poking through the carpet by the kitchen, to make sure I'm fully awake.
The pre-split seams on the couch.
The ever-so-delicate dining room set, which seems sturdy until you apply the slightest pressure backwards, at which point the matchsticks and Elmer's glue holding it together start to give way. Imagine a $7.95 Ikea bookshelf, but without the attention to quality materials and durability.

From Polite to Pushy: How China Transformed My Family

2007-07-08T01:57:00.000-05:00

Editor's Note: This title is courtesy of my sister.

Sing along! "I'm so lonely...so lonely... so lonely and sadly alone!"

Yes, I am once again a bachelor. My parents and sister flew out two days ago, and my wife just left this morning, meaning I'm once available to regale you with my stories about purchasing fruit and crossing the street - a much better life than spending time in the company of loved ones!

But I'm happy to say everyone had a great time. I won't go through all the details, but today's post will feature a few stories from their trip.

DON'T MESS WITH THE BULL:
The second day my wife was here, I wrote that we had gone to the antique market and bought some things and I commented that we weren't very good negotiators. My wife read that last night and scoffed - over the past few weeks, China has hardened her into a VERY good negotiator.

Probably the best example came last Wednesday, the day after the got to my apartment. I come from a large family, and my parents wanted to bring back souvenirs for all of their grandchildren - all 27 of them.

They decided to buy Beijing 2008 Olympic baseball caps - gender neutral, relevant for the next year, and relatively easy to find. But then there were some difficulties - the shops in the hotels were grossly overpriced; the street vendors wouldn't have 27 at once; and low-quality knockoffs abound.

Near my apartment, though, is a small 2-story market where vendors sell, well, pretty much everything. Upstairs they found a t-shirt and hat shop with a good selection of decent quality Olympic hats. The bad news: they were priced at 85 yuan, more than $11.

Of course, everyone knows that's a joke. The way it works is, you walk into a shop, and whoever is there yells at you "HEY LADY! (or HEY MISTER!) YOU WANT(insert product here)? GOOD QUALITY!" In a market like the one we were at, you can have up to 6 people yelling at you at a time. The more aggressive merchants actually try to force something into your hands while yelling at you, or grab your arm to pull you in.

If you pause to look, you will be engaged. If you actually pick something UP, the dance begins.

First they ask how much you want to spend. You ask them to name a price. A large calculator appears and they punch in a number. "Just for you," they say. "Anyone else I charge twice as much."

Now you laugh at them - a deep, disbelieving laugh, as if they just asked for your liver and one kidney, plus $100. Say "Tie gway luh" - (too expensive) - take the calculator and punch in maybe 15% of what they entered. They laugh at you, and so it goes until you settle in the 40-55% range. Often you'll have to walk away more than once, and go through two or three rounds of 'best price, period' on both sides. But if all goes well - presto! - you're the proud owner of a non-color-fast t-shirt.

Except when Shannon's driving the calculator. I wasn't there, but apparently it was an epic battle, and when the dust cleared, my parents walked out with a garbage bag full of hats - for 12 yuan each, just 14% of asking.

When we visited again a few days later, at least 4 vendors recognized her.

MY MOTHER, HUMANITARIAN:
Now, keep in mind, my mother is the sweetest, most nurturing woman on the planet, and I'm not biased at all. But her constant smile and friendly temperament are like a siren's song to everyone looking for a buck. Vendors, beggars, everyone comes like moths to a light simply because she's too nice to say no. Or at least she was when she got here.

At one point on their tour, a girl came to my family's table with a tea mug and a toothpick holder and some kind words about what a nice family they were. "How nice!" my mother thought, even briefly assuming this might be a gift.

Well, of course it wasn't, and my mom didn't really want to buy anything, but she didn't want to be rude either. So they kept talking, which the vendor took to mean my mother wanted MORE cups and toothpick holders, which she would occasionally run back to grab. Round and round the conversation went, with more and more mugs and toothpick holders appearing, until the table looked like this:

Needless to say, my mother bought one, but the vendor had to have been disappointed.

But what finally turned my mother was the panhandlers. They are like the vendors, but ruder, louder, more persistent, and if you give to one, the others will hound you incessantly. They will chase you as long as they can, grab you, yell at you - one little boy even hit Shannon in the back when she looked through her pockets and came up with nothing (she really didn't have anything).

Now, before you write me snide ivory-tower comments about fat uncaring Americans, let me be clear: Yes, I know that I have so much by their standards. Yes, I know these people are probably desperate. No, I'm not making fun of poverty. And yes, I probably could give them my loose change and never miss it.

But the reality is that eventually, everyone living in Beijing develops that thousand-yard stare and ability to hold a conversation over the head of someone who is grabbing your belt with one hand and hitting you in the stomach with a cup in the other.

As we were leaving Franks on July 4, there was an older woman waiting for us. She had hit us up earlier in the day and was probably just doing her rounds of places foreigners go. We kept walking as she tried to get underfoot for me, yelling "MONEY! MONEY! MONEY! HELLO!" as loud as she could. Then she saw my mother walking parallel to me 10 feet to my right.

Like a flash, the panhandler charged my mother, making her case - "MONEY! LADY! HELLO! MONEY! MONEY!"

It was then I knew my mother had had enough. My mother actually broke into a run, jogging down the street, the panhandler chasing her for a full block until we got into a taxi.

USE YOUR ELBOWS:
We are Midwesterners. The only thing we hate more than uncomfortable encounters is physical contact. But China is a good cure for that.

Forming a line is still a strange concept to many Beijingers. The city actually will name a day "Waiting in Line Day," and on that day, observers will go to intersections and crowded public places and encourage people to wait their turn in line, rather than just make a beeline for the place they want to go.

My sister got a lesson in the old-fashioned way of getting places at the Summer Palace one day last week. The situation: Two people are walking side by side away from the observer down a long path. A four-foot tall grandmother is walking in the same direction but at a faster pace behind them.

She reaches the couple, places her left hand on the right hip of the person on the left, her right hand on the left hip of the person on the right...

...and pushes them apart...

...saving her from having to veer ever so slightly to one side.

By the time I saw my family, they were practically shoving old people out of the way like big, American snowplows.

..........

I know there are some other stories as well, but I'm still hoping Shannon will write a guest entry about her experiences with the transportation sector, and I don't want to spoil all the fun. So until next time, adios, amoebas!

Happy Birthday, America!

2007-07-04T08:54:00.000-05:00

Mmmm... Same meal my family and I have every Fourth of July in Beijing: Big ol' Franks Place 200 gram burgers with french fries, ketchup, milkshakes, margaritas and beer.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

Family In Beijing Update: Everyone moved in yesterday, and it's been going very well. I think they're just about toured out and shopped out. They have just wandered around my neighborhood Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, and tomorrow we've rented them a car with an English-speaking driver.

Might be a little slow blogging for a few more days, but I'll post when I can.

Playing Tourist: Hou Hai and Forbidden City

2007-07-02T08:01:00.001-05:00

Family in Beijing Countdown: T-minus 1 Day

Today was a typical work day for me, while my family concluded their tour with visits to the Great Wall, Ming Tombs and enjoyed a Beijing Duck (also known as Peking Duck) dinner. So I'll round out our day yesterday with some pictures.

First off, let it be known that while I say 'playing tourist,' I have a whole new respect for package tours after visiting yesterday. Not only for their quality - and the company my family went with was PHENOMENAL, by the way - but for the stamina required of tourists themselves. We have this snide image of tourists entombed in their buses, getting carted from gift shop to gift shop, but man, on a good tour? They work you!

I was exhausted at the end of the day, and I had seen more than I ever could on my own. So props out to the tourists who can do that, day in and day out, for 12 days in a row.

Anyway, after 'church,' we went to Hou Hai, a famous hutong northwest of the Forbidden City. A 'hutong' is technically the narrow alley that runs through these ancient neighborhoods, but it is often used to describe whole areas now. I had walked through this one once before, but this time we took the bicycle-rickshaw (still haven't looked up the name) and made three stops.

The first was at the house of Soong Ching Ling, an important woman in the formation of the People's Republic and a significant political and social figure in the country until her death in 1981. She was the only woman on the stage with Mao when he declared the founding of the PRC.

She was married to Dr. Sun Yatsen, a key architect of the PRC. One of her sisters, meanwhile, married Chiang Kai-Shek, the generalissimo of the Chinese Nationalists who the Communists drove off the mainland and onto Taiwan during the revolution; the other married one of the nation's richest men. Would have loved to attend their family reunions!

Then we were ridden to one of the ancient houses in the hutong, where we got to meet the family that lived there and ask them about life in 'old Beijing.' Very interesting. The man and his wife (both retired) as well as their two sons and granddaughter all live in the courtyard house. Each family has a set of 3-4 rooms, including a small kitchen, and all open into the courtyard, which is garden, social area and storage all in one. Their table has a canopy or grape vines with huge grapes, and there's even a small pomegranate tree apparently growing out of stone.

Lastly we went to an ancient garden that some prince or another had built. He apparently had a fascination with bats - they are everywhere in the decorations - and showed a fondness for the kind of small, rock-lined paths I found in Bei Hai park some weeks ago.

We also got to see a bit of daily life. Lots of small-scale construction going on. We stopped at a public park by the water, complete with public exercise machines - there were parallel bars, non-motorized eliptical machines, rowing machines, resistance machines - and people were out exercising on them. Cool to see.

Some pictures:

After that we went to the Forbidden City, but this time via the north gate, and we went down the eastern side (I had gone up the middle before) where many of the historical and art collections are. So I saw many things I hadn't seen before.

Absolutely stunning, or course. The Chinese aesthetic seems to be the anti-Swedish - the more ornate, complex, intricate, gilded, colored and detailed, the better. I have to say, it is some of the best eye candy I have ever seen.

IN OTHER NEWS

TRICYCLE DUMPTRUCK!

AVIAN FLU -- DELIVERED:
For some reason, there's a bird in the office. It's black with white wingtips, about the size of a large robin, and seems to be flightless. I saw one coworker watching and feeding it at her desk today, and saw assorted people stopping by to check it out.

Ooooooookay.

CAUTION! WATCH YOUR HEAD! BECAUSE I MIGHT BRAIN YOU WITH A HATCHET:

At least, that's what this sign says to me.

Holy China!

2007-07-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

Family in Beijing Countdown: T-minus 2 days

It may be odd to have the countdown, because my family is actually in Beijing now - I've actually spent the last 24 hours with them, and this post is about our adventures Sunday. The countdown is until their tour concludes and the come to stay with me on Tuesday. But first, for family and friends: My wife, parents and sister are having a wonderful time and are safe and healthy.

The tour has been even better then expected - for the most part, they ARE the tour. The four of them have been met at the airports with a private van, had their own personal English speaking guide, which allows them to go where they want when they want, had all meals taken care of, and are staying in fabulous 5-star hotels.

So they're on the Beijing leg of the tour, and last night I stayed at their hotel and - since it's just them - it was easy to pay a little to let me join them for their Sunday activities.

Oddly, though, the first thing on the itinerary was NOT part of the package they signed. We were going to church, the guide told us.

Is it a historic or significant church? they asked. (Beijing is actually home to some spectacular Roman Catholic cathedrals and churches built earlier in the century.)

The guide didn't think so. It was in an office building, she said.

Well, that didn't make sense. Was it Catholic? Was there some special ceremony?

She didn't know, she didn't know, she didn't know. All she knew was the tour company INSISTED this was part of our tour. No exceptions. We shrugged and got in the van.

I'll be darned if we didn't pull up at a nondescript office tower. No signage. Nothing to mark a church. We went to the fourth floor, and after wandering found a large room set up with probably 100 chairs (perhaps a dozen occupied by Americans) and some women singing at the front. Must be it. We filed into the third row.

Still, there was a little bit of a weird vibe, and one of the singing ladies was looking at me with an obvious question mark on her face. Our guide went up and talked to a woman playing on a keyboard.

I couldn't hear wheat was said, but I caught three little letters.

L.
D.
S.

CLICK.

I looked around. No alter, no crucifix, no cross - no iconography at all.

CLICK.

The people there were all in suits and ties and full length dresses (sharp contrast to our t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, fanny packs and backpacks.)

CLICK.

I leaned over.

"Shannon, I think we're at a Mormon service."

"What?" she asked.

"I heard 'LDS.' Latter Day Saints. I think--"

It was like a jump cut in a movie. One moment I'm talking to her face, the next her head is between her knees, her shoulders shaking with uncontrollable laughter. My sister asked and I told her. She started laughing. We asked the guide what she had been told. "I don't know," she said. "I think it's Catholic..."

Just then a man in a suit came up.

"Hi, I'm Brother Tom," he said, extending his hand.

We were introduced, he asked where we were from, and then my wife took the plunge and asked the denomination of the service.

Tom looked surprised. "It's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," he said. "The Mormons." He asked about us.

He looked confused when we said Catholic and Lutheran. "And... how did you come to be here?"

Simultaneously, five heads swivel to our guide, who looks back at us with a facial expression that can only be described as a bewildered "Wha?"

Tom continued. "Well, so you know, the service may be a little different than what you're used to. The first hour will be testimonials, where people stand and affirm what they believe--"

I heard a snort to my right. I looked over. My wife was hunched over, mid-cough, hand to her mouth - but was that a hint of a smile?

"Excuse me," she said, patting her chest.

Tom continued to describe the second hour, and then the third hour, where the men and women were separated--

Another snort/cough, this one with a distinct undertone of giggle.

"Oh, exCUSE me!" my wife (who it should be known is a wonderful, sensitive, considerate person who would never laugh to someone's face, especially not while they were describing the core tenets of their faith) apologized sincerely, when the "coughing fit" had died down. "I think I need to go to the bathroom."

"I think you should," my sister offered.

Do you remember the Six Million Dollar Man? Where he would jump vertically from a standstill, and there would be that cheesy stop-frame effect, and that sound - BADADADAdadadada! - and then you see him land effortlessly a great distance away? That was my wife. She rose four feet into the air, cleared my sister and the guide to her right, and landed, legs already spinning for the exit, in the aisle.

So it was left to me to continue the conversation with Tom. To be honest, I don't even remember what we talked about. All I know is I had to bite very hard on the inside of my cheeks and occasionally break eye contact, but somehow I did it until Tom lost interest and wandered away.

Now, keep in mind, this is NO comment on Mormonism. I believe everyone can worship or not worship as he or she sees fit, and I've had Mormon friends, all of whom have been fine people. So no beef there.

But the absurdity of the situation was too much for our juvenile selves. Here we were, a group of people who were almost certainly never going to be Mormons, sitting in an office building, about to witness a three hour ceremony that meant nothing to us, after traveling 10,000 miles to the other side of the world.

"I have to go to the bathroom," my dad said, and made for the aisle.

"Me too." My mother followed.

Freed of Tom's attention, my sister and I giggled in a very inappropriate manner. We told our guide that it was, indeed a Mormon ceremony.

"Is there a big difference?" she said. Fair question. She couldn't be expected to know the difference between two churches any more than most people in America could tell the difference between Sikhs and Zoroastrians.

After a moment or two more of the giggles, my sister looked around.

"Maybe we should... uh... pow-wow by the bathrooms."

"Hmmm," I replied, gathering my dad's hat and my wife's hastily forgotten bag.

Then it was a casual stand and stretch. Drift into the aisle. Casual stroll - but not TOO casual - to the door. And then meet the rest of our party and run for the elevator.

We were laughing like idiots as we piled back into the van. A phone call later, and our guide had arranged a delightful morning touring the Hou Hai hutong, driven around in pairs in what most Americans would call a bicycle rickshaw (it has another name here, but I'm too lazy to look it up), including a visit with a Beijing family that has lived in a 200+ year old courtyard house for their entire lives to get a view of the old Beijing that is getting lost, a historical tour of the house of Soong Ching Ling, a woman who was key in the formation of the People's Republic, another amazing garden, good lunch and a thorough trip through the art collections of the Forbidden City.

It was a great day, brilliantly sunny and hot, and only at dinner did it fall into place. A group of Americans came in whom my family recognized. They had seen them in Shanghai, on the boat, at Xi'an and now in Beijing. It was like they had the same itinerary...

Our guide and their guide met, and she reported back. This group was indeed on the same package, and were all part of a Mormon church group from Utah. Apparently this group had bought most of the berths on the tour, with my family getting the other four, and while they were here, they had arranged to keep their own worship schedule.

Someone had the foresight to siphon my family off and supply them with an amazing level of personal attention, including separate transport and guides, rather than mix them in with the church group. But somewhere the wires got crossed and my family's itinerary had been changed to match theirs.

Clearly Tom had been as baffled by us as we were by him, and I hope he and some of his friends had a good laugh about us later in the morning. But it was almost sad to find there was such a logical explanation for such a beautifully absurd morning.

COMING TOMORROW: I'll post pictures and more about our Hou Hai tour. Just couldn't wait to post our religious experience.

A Party at 798

2007-06-29T07:38:00.000-05:00

Family In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 4 days

Last night we had a shindig to mark the occasion of a one-day visit by the vice-chairman of our parent company, a distinguished and well-known international creative. It was actually very cool to meet him - he also happens to oversee the exchange program that brought me here, so my managing director made sure to introduce us.

We only exchanged a few words, but then I lingered on the edge of his conversation and heard some of his war stories. He's been doing this for 40 years on at least 4 continents, and I'm pretty sure I picked up some pearls of wisdom.

But what was more eye-opening was the party they put on for him. He was literally in Beijing for maybe 24 hours. But they rented a big art gallery space in 798 and hosted a whole evening's entertainment.

798 is Beijing's answer to SoHo in New York. It's an artists quarter filled with cheap housing, hip art spaces and galleries, neat little bars and restaurants and lots of active art studios. The area was factories during Mao's time, and the space we were in used to be an arms factory - the ceiling is still painted with slogans encouraging the workers to greater glory on behalf of Mao. I'll have to go back and get pictures.

For the party, they had installed a stage, a giant backdrop with a projection screen embedded, two huge buffet tables, an AV control area, and then put on a show with an honest-to-goodness hostess in a red sequined dress.

First up were the speeches by the managing director and then the guest. Then they played the Irish-jig welcome video (it should scare my coworkers at home that I did the storyboards. Get ready for Henry the Arteest when I get back!), then 12 dancing girls, then a bit of Sichuan opera, then the dancing girls again.

I asked about all this time and effort and expense, and got the impression it is a cultural norm to make a BIG fuss when superiors come to visit. (Not that they're ignored in the U.S., of course, but I don't remember many dance numbers.)

Anyway, it all went off very well. The bad news is that video has been my main function for the past week and I don't know what I'll do next...

IN OTHER NEWS

A SERIES OF FIRSTS:

This is by far the longest I've been out of Minnesota.
It has now been more than 50 days since I've driven a car, the longest stretch since I got my license.
I have completed 7 weeks in the Beijing office, more than twice as long as I lasted at a certain Minneapolis retail company a few years back.

NOW THEY'RE GETTING THE HANG OF A CONSUMER CULTURE:

SURREAL CHINA MOMENT OF THE WEEK:
I was at work, and somebody put on some Chinese soft rock song (there's a lot of it in the office) and I'm trying to ignore it until the chorus comes on. The chorus is the only part in English, and it goes "Lonely, lonely Christmas, Merry, Merry Christmas."

SO... COREY BREWER:
Please discuss.

Riceometer Check

2007-06-28T11:56:00.000-05:00

Family In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 5 days

The massive rice jug doesn't lie. This was day 49 of my 98 days in China.

WARNING: Boring Work-Related Post

2007-06-27T06:49:00.000-05:00

Family In Beijing Countdown: T-Minus 6 days

Today's post is dedicated to my coworkers back home, who are probably the only people who will care (except for Ron. Ron don't care about nuthin' but Ron.)

I guess I shouldn't lose sight of the fact that I'm here on a work-exchange program, not a holiday, so today's post is devoted to some of my observations and learnings from 7 weeks in a major Beijing ad agency.

Turnover: I made a joke about Banana's going-away email a few weeks ago, but she wasn't the only one. In a span of less than 2 weeks, there were 4 "this is my last day" emails in the creative department alone, which is about 30 people.

While the concentration might be a little high, the trend is not. I asked my boss and he said the annual turnover is about 30 percent. The causes: poaching from other agencies and burnout. It's a young industry, and for the local employees (as opposed to imports from Hong Kong, Singapore or elsewhere) I imagine there isn't yet much loyalty built up.

Or is there another reason? Let's look at the distribution of recent departures:

Hmmm. Maybe it's an odor.

Global Politics: I get the impression that global brands love China and want advertising troops on the ground in Beijing, but aren't yet ready to fully turn over the reins. These global brands tend to be based in Western countries, and their lead advertising office is there as well. Work done in Beijing often gets routed through San Francisco, New York, London or Paris - which, needless to say, means more cooks in the kitchen, and more time to come to agreement on things like creative briefs.

I've heard stories of overseas offices taking over partway through a project; or asking for their work to be faithfully translated (which often doesn't work when wordplay is concerned.)

I've also heard horror stories of satellite offices (not in my agency, natch!) creating local work that creates a full-blown scandal, so how quickly do you let a young office with less experience call the shots?

On the one hand we have local offices to create work relevant to their market. On the other we have global leads to ensure consistent quality. And I promise you this is not unique to my agency. I don't have the answer, but I can say there is some tension there, and maybe always will be.

Equality: One effect of China's past is that women, men, minorities, EVERYONE has always been expected to do their share, and everyone has to be treated the same. Now that the market has opened up, it seems to me that people are judged and promoted on merit in the sliver of upper-middle-class white-collar China I've seen.

Both in the agency and at the client, I don't see any substantial difference in the number of men or women in positions of authority. Nor, as we were told growing up, have I seen a dearth of women - I'd say my office is about 50/50. Describing race relations is difficult - there are many ethnicities in China, but 95% of them are Han Chinese, and foreigners who are here both want to be here and are wanted.

I realize I'm only seeing a miniscule sliver of China, and I don't fully understand what I'm seeing even then. But worth mentioning just the same.

Work/Life Balance: Little to be found! As I've said, people often work 10-12 hour days, and often weekends - not just occasionally, like I do, but consistently. That's not to say they don't grumble, but it's an entrenched way of doing business now.

Overwhelmingly, my coworkers are single and childless. As one coworker observed, it's hard to tell "if we work so much because we're single, or if we're single because we work so much."

Audience Segmentation: Sure, you have 1.3 billion people, but they range everywhere from agrarian nomads to high-powered high-tech billionaire capitalists. This, needless to say, poses challenges for advertising.

Take computers. If you buy media nationwide to sell your computer, in Tier 1 and 2 cities, you have to convince them that your processor is superior to the one they bought a year ago. In Tier 3 and 4 cities, you have to educate them why they should buy a computer.

The obvious solution is multiple tiered messages. The solution that often gets chosen for budget reasons is to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I think people find that very frustrating.

And online, where each site is purchased individually and sites report their own results - Good news! We hit our targets once again! - there is a lot of skepticism. I've only seen very rough media plans, but what I've seen seems to have been a 'wide net' strategy. Everyone reads news, so lets go to the news sites. Everyone uses search, so we'll buy search terms.

It's changing - DoubleClick just came to town - but since there aren't even common advertising formats from site to site, the efficiencies of scale and quantifiable results we enjoy back home are still coming.

SAME STORY, DIFFERENT CONTINENT
And lastly, this will be funny just to select people back home, especially to John and Ron:

There is a very high-ranking global leader from New York visiting tomorrow. Last week, the managing director asked me to get involved in producing a video that captures the spirit of Beijing and showcases our work.

Not my area of expertise in MANY ways, but I think it worked out all right. I created a theme, a tagline and a structure for the video, including crude storyboards, then my boss created a visual motif, then people filmed it, edited it together, blah blah blah.

But then the managing director said the music chosen was too slow. She wanted something upbeat, energetic - you know, cool music!

In putting together showcases of our work back home, I've often helped select the music. Heck, my iPod is full of songs, most of which probably haven't been heard here. I sat with my boss and he selected Cobrastyle, by the Teddybears, as one he wanted to try out. I got a copy to the video guy (who doesn't speak English).

Today we saw the almost-final cut. There had been some debate about the song, so I wasn't surprised to find that an executive decision had been made to use a different song.

They wanted something uptempo, with a strong beat, something unusual and modern that will sound good to Western ears. It was signed off on by everyone up to and including the managing director, despite my expressing some concern about this particular song.

Which is why, when this high official from New York arrives at his Beijing welcome dinner, he will see traditional Chinese motifs in a video featuring his Chinese counterparts - set to an Irish jig.

Where is my Chinglish? I was promised Chinglish!

2007-06-26T07:10:00.000-05:00

Family In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 1 week! (For those who don't know, my wife, parents and sister are touring China now, and will be coming to stay with me a few days when the tour is done.)

Chinglish, for the uninitiated, is the delightfully mistranslated English that one sometimes finds. It's a relative of Engrish, which is the same idea only in Japan.

I have to admit, I often find it quite amusing, but I feel a little guilty pointing it out - after all, the people who write Chinglish actually speak my language far better than I do theirs, so who am I to judge?

On the other hand, it has been in the news over the past couple months, so I would be negligent in my duty as an observer of life in China if I didn't mention it... right?

Anyway, Chinglish got worldwide attention recently when people started noticing that a lot of the English signs being put up for the Olympics were hysterically mistranslated. News agencies wrote about it - one of the most famous was "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty," which essentially meant 'Caution: Slippery' - then wrote about edicts from the Chinese government that they were going to stamp OUT Chinglish before it could embarrass them on a global scale.

Well, when the Chinese government says they're going to do something, it very often gets done. I have looked for Chinglish since getting here, and found very little - certainly nothing like the news articles had described.

I asked some people who had been here for a while, and they were almost wistful in remembering how it had been a few years ago. I get the impression that for English-speakers, it was one of those little touchstones that could unexpectedly make them smile.

I've been asked to keep my eyes open, and I will continue to do so, but for now I'll just share what few examples I have come across.

1.) The notebook I use at work:

On the one hand, I'm flattered, of course. On the other, the 'future technology' appears to be lined paper, so I'm not sure quite what Notebook considers an 'outstanding achiever.'

2.) A store I stopped at:

You know what? It really, really was.

3.) The tag from my strainer:

OK, first, I am really glad that my strainer is so concerned about both my physical safety and the image my business projects. Second, I bet every Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade nerd out there read "and grail will make you healthy" and thought some variation of the joke "...unless you choose -- POORLY."

ODDS & ENDS

SHE HAS LEARNED WELL:
A story from last week. My wife and I were going out for dinner last Thursday and noted that the intersection right by my building, which has been under construction since I got here, was moving along nicely.

(They don't stop work for anything here - recently they were putting down blacktop WITHOUT STOPPING TRAFFIC. It was the responsibility of the drivers not to get crushed by the steamroller. I was crossing the street and my shoes were sticking to the hot tar.)

Anyway, we returned an hour later - and found that while we were gone, they had finished work (this is at 10:00 at night) and opened part of the road. So some traffic was rerouted, and some wasn't, and some people knew it, and some didn't, and there's no signs, and smack-dab in the middle of this 6 lane, five way intersection (which narrows to one lane in one direction, by the way) is a free-standing traffic light.

This promised great entertainment, so we sat on the edge of a small walkway leading to the mall my building is atop to watch, with our backs to a small flower garden and narrow cobblestone sidewalk.

The show was as good as expected, when suddenly Shannon turned with a start.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I wanted to make sure a car wasn't coming up behind us," she replied.

As someone who has almost been run over on a sidewalk, I have to commend my wife for her rapid, instinctual survival skills.

WHAT TO BUY:
As I mentioned last week, I lost my Motorola RAZR. On the one hand, this is a bummer. On the other, an opportunity. I am in the cell phone capital of the world, and while phones actually aren't cheap here (there's no subsidies from the service providers like back home) they do have phones that aren't released in the US.

But I have no idea what to get! I'm not going to drop money on a RAZR because I can probably get one at home cheaper than here. So if I buy something, it has to be cool and something I can't get otherwise. I was thinking of a Sony Ericsson K790a (which I could get in the US, but not easily.)

Anyone else know of anything cool I should consider?

Terracotta Da Vida, Baby!

2007-06-24T05:44:00.001-05:00

Don't you know that I'll always kung fu?

---
Oh, wow... I can hear the groans from like 10,000 miles away!

Anyway, I was a total lazybones today, so I thought I'd just post this picture. It's actually the spare statues at the Great Wall at Juyongguan, where I went a little over a week ago. They are all lined up behind the gift shop, and I assume when the ones they have on the wall topple over and break - which they do - they come here for a replacement.

Other than that, I did laundry and dishes, bought some music online, watched a movie, and only left the apartment long enough to pick up a bag of chips.

One item of note - we had an honest-to-goodness thunderstorm in Beijing today. It's rained a few times, but this is the first true storm I've seen. Not much by Minnesota standards, but cool to see.

So that's all you're getting from me. Have a good one!

A Visit to Bobby Du

2007-06-23T08:10:00.000-05:00

Hair care in China is an outdoor activity. Walk through a hutong, or even a public park, and it's not uncommon to see a 'barbershop' consisting of a kitchen chair, a bedsheet and a tackle box of scissors.

I point this out because it's something that's been worrying me. There's only so long one can go without a haircut. I got mine cut just before leaving Minnesota, some seven weeks ago, and I wasn't sure exactly what my game plan would be.

I considered just ignoring it, and coming home with long, buttery, Fabio-like locks streaming behind me.

I considered walking into a barbershop, but was warned that some barbershops are actually fronts for a business that has nothing to do with cutting hair.

I considered asking one of my Chinese friends to come with me to translate. (FRIEND, IN CHINESE: "Yes, bald. Like a monkey's butt." ME: "What did you tell him?" FRIEND: "To take a little off the top.")

But ultimately I decided to do the smart thing: Go where other non-Chinese speakers go.

I was thus recommended to one Bobby "Hair" Du, chief stylist at Eric's Salon in Lido Place, a hotel-linked mall near my apartment and a favorite of expats.

Now, if you know me, you know I'm not exactly a 'chief stylist' kinda guy. I once attempted to cut my own hair with a beard trimmer, just for reference. And he was expensive (for me) even by US standards. In a city where a barber in an actual barbershop might charge 25 yuan, maybe $3.30, Bobby commands almost ten times that.

But he also speaks English, and my English-speaking friends have decent hair.

The salon was full-on haute couture. A pierced, tattooed Englishman with a black fauxhawk sat me down and brought me coffee while I waited. The place was all hardwood, black lacquer and textured glass, with international 'chill' music playing. I have to say, I kind of enjoyed the primping - I got a shampoo/scalp massage, then Bobby came and worked his magic.

He was a soft-spoken Chinese, all in black, with a goatee. I could tell he didn't like the way I wanted my hair cut, but went along with it. I thought he did an excellent job, and at the end he said "You know, maybe for your job you need to have it parted, but I like it better mussed up." And he put some product in my hair and did so.

You know what? I like it. You may be seeing a new Henry when I get home.

IN OTHER NEWS:

A WALK IN THE PARK:
Relaxing day today. I slept in, then went for a picnic in Chaoyang Park with some coworkers. I brought a chilled watermelon that cost 6 yuan, and everyone else brought food that, it turned out, averaged 100 yuan each. Doh! But we settled up, so I didn't feel like a total slacker.

The meal included roast chicken, a salad with bacon and cheese, wine, preserved duck's liver (yes, I ate it. Not bad...) bread and butter, salami, chips and other treats.

One coworker's fiance, an Australian (another 'came here and never left' story) who teaches Montassorri and is about to become principal of a small school, brought out a cricket bat and we played a little. We sat around and chatted, then cabbed back to their apartment where we played a little music, board games and chatted until it was time to go home.

Here's a building near our picnic spot:

And the random monument right by us. Even the Chinese had no idea what it's about. But for some reason it includes the word 'esperanto.'

Back in Blog! First up: Gun Day

2007-06-22T09:47:00.000-05:00

Hello, everybody! Long time no blog! This will probably be a long one as I recount several days worth of activity, but I’ll try to keep each bit short. However, to keep the promise I made before my hiatus, I start with last Saturday’s ‘Bachelor Day’ with my boss and another coworker.

It’s not uncommon for Hong Kongers to come to Beijing – lots of booming business, money to be made, career opportunities. But often, their families are quite settled in Hong Kong. Such is the case with my Executive Creative Director and an account director here, both of whom find themselves – like me – bachelors in a new city.

So we’ve taken to getting together many weekends. They are amusing themselves, and I get personal guides to parts of the city and activities I wouldn’t see otherwise.

Still, I wasn’t prepared to be asked: “Want to go shooting?”

Now THERE’S an experience off the beaten tourist path. I agreed.

We met for breakfast, then had a private driver take us an hour out of the city to a military R&D facility that also hosts a private firing range. Inside was a reception area – plenty of traffic on a Saturday morning – and a gift shop.

Opening off the reception area was a display room filled with guns in cases, everything from hunting rifles to military arms to non-lethal crowd-control guns. They weren’t just Chinese, either. There were guns from around the world and a variety of eras – Chinese-made AK-47s (called the Type 56 here), an American M-16, Israeli Uzis, a Steur AUG (my Counterstrike/TacOps gaming friends will know that one), revolvers, pistols, bolt-action rifles from WWII, even a display of heavier machine guns on bipods and tripods.

You go in, pick your guns, and an employee takes your order – Which gun? How many bullets? – and then leads you to the range itself. (Because of some connections my company has, it was arranged that we could choose some of the larger guns.)

Safety was well established. Each firing position was in its own room overlooking the outdoor range. Each room had a guide who loaded and mounted the rifles to a ring on the table so it couldn’t be swung around, then sent the target down. In the pistol rooms, the pistol is chained to the table, you reach through a small hole in a plexiglass partition and the gun is handed to you from the other side of the plexiglass, so you can’t pull it in or aim too far left or right.

I fired 30 rounds from a Chinese Type 56 (aka AK-47) rifle, 10 from a Russian sniper rifle, and 15 from a Chinese 9mm pistol. I did all right, including 99 out of a possible 100 with the sniper rifle, and did as well as I could have expected with the other two.

Mostly, though, it was a surreal experience. There were whole families with kids. One time I heard some huge belt-fed machine gun blast off 200 rounds in one continuous stream –BADADADADADADADADA!!! – then looked to see a grandmother turning in her chair away from the smoking gun, laughing hysterically along with her family as the completely unscathed target was reeled back in. One room had a small armored car built into it – you could climb into the turret and shoot the dual-machine guns at a target WAAAY downrange.

In China private gun ownership is only allowed in special circumstances in rural areas, so maybe firing guns is a novel occasion. In any case, it’s safe to say a fine time was had by all – myself included!

IN OTHER NEWS: THE WEEK THAT WAS

2007-06-22T08:15:00.000-05:00

I’m putting this in a separate post because it’s so dang long. Read at your own risk.

SATURDAY, JUNE 17:
After the guns but before Shannon arrived, my friends and I went to the Great Wall at Juyongguan. It was fabulous. The wall is restored, but very few people were around. Literally, 2 tour busses and maybe a dozen cars in a lot that could hold hundreds of vehicles. People who do go there go early, I was told, and even then most everyone goes to Badaling, the most famous part of the wall.

Partly it’s because Juyongguan is very steep – the entrance is in a valley, and the Wall rises steeply in both directions, an almost endless staircase that rises at more than 45 degrees in many places – almost more like a ladder. Unless you’re ready to climb, not much to do.

But what that meant for me was no crowds, no vendors hassling us – just us and the Wall. Visibility was good (see the pictures below) and we climbed to the first tower, where my friends decided the view was good enough. I climbed another 30 minutes to the next big tower, thinking it was the top – and just saw more Wall rising to ANOTHER, even HIGHER tower.

I wished I could have stayed, but had to cut myself off somewhere. This one is going in the memory bank, though.

SUNDAY, JUNE 18:
You already read about the store and the Dragon Fruit, but after that Shannon and I went to the antique market, where we managed to spend more money and learned we are not good negotiators. My best was getting to 55% of asking, my worst was 75%, in a market where 50% is the max you should pay. But hey, we may not get back, and we’re talking about a dollar here, a dollar there. Good fun.

Then we went to the Temple of Heaven – where our camera battery died. Got some shots on our cell phones, though. This is a Ming dynasty complex almost 700 years old that features the famous Temple of Prayers for Good Harvest and a raised platform that marks the center of the world. It was beautiful, but hot and medium-crowded. Amazing, though.

For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant called Annie’s for pasta. I hear they deliver…

MONDAY, JUNE 19:
During the week, I worked, and I’m sad to report Shannon worked some too while recovering from jetlag. But she did get to do some exploring on her own – I’ll let her write her adventures if she likes when she gets back in a week and a half – and we’d meet in the evening.

On Monday we went out to an Indian restaurant called Ganges. Good food. We ended up the only people sitting upstairs at a table surrounded by gauze curtains. Talk about atmosphere!

TUESDAY, JUNE 20:
We went to the Lao She Teahouse for a floor show and appetizers. It took an hour and a half to fight through Beijing traffic, and our driver got lost to boot.

The teahouse isn’t especially old, but it is a Beijing fixture. Foreign dignitaries come here on state visits for a show that includes magic, Beijing opera, acrobats, singing, dancing and more – sort of a Chinese cultural smorgasbord for people in a hurry.

It was very enjoyable. The snacks ranged from delicious to “interesting,” and the tea was all-you-can-drink. I have to say, Beijing Opera is almost indecipherable for an outsider, even accounting for the fact that I don’t speak the language. Here’s a YouTube clip to get the idea across (I did not shoot this):

Funniest part of the night was when easily a dozen coworkers plopped down RIGHT IN FRONT OF US with an assortment of VERY high-ranking clients from America whom they were entertaining. We moved up to say hi to a couple people sitting closest to us, but bailed before we could cause confusion for the clients.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21:
Wednesday night one of my coworkers took Shannon and myself to a good Chinese restaurant on the west side of the city. It was a cool place designed to mimic a forest glade – see the picture – and the food was spectacular. There was sesame chicken, sweet-batter-fried shrimp that tasted almost like kettle corn, cold noodles, vegetable wraps, egg rolls (we dipped them in vinegar – very tasty!), shaved beef, hot egg pastries and the obligatory Tsing Tao beer.

THURSDAY, JUNE 22:
Yesterday I went to concept testing from some ads I’ve been helping with. The client had a representative in from the U.S., and together with my coworkers, we sat behind the one-way mirror and watched people give their reactions to our work.

It was pretty enlightening – I’ve never done that with my work before – but I won’t bore you with the details. I prefer to bore you with my inane babbling.

Afterwards I joined the client and some other folks for a walk through a nearby hutong for some shopping. Then I caught a cab home – and forgot my cell phone in it.

AAAARRRGGH! In a normal city, you have a very slim chance of getting your lost cell phone back. In Beijing, with its robust informal economy and tens of thousands of cabs – no chance. We called the number. It rang the first time, and the second time the message said the phone had been turned off.

So to the driver or passenger who is enjoying their newly-acquired year-old Motorola Razr v3 – enjoy, you wiener. It got crappy reception anyway. And if any of you get a random call from someone in China – it had ALL of your numbers in it – politely ask if they would mind returning it to me in your very best Mandarin Chinese.

For dinner, we went to a Chinese dumpling shop. For about 13 dollars, we got a liter of Tsing Tao, fried pork dumplings, steamed vegetable dumplings, fried rice and a huge mound of sweet and spicy shrimp. Couldn’t even finish it, but I can tell you that when I get back, I MUST learn how to make pan-fried dumplings.

FRIDAY, JUNE 22:
And now today. Saw Shannon to her cab at noon today – she’s off to Shanghai to meet up with my parents and sister for a 12-day tour of Shanghai, the Yangtze (including Three Gorges), Xi’an and Beijing – we’ll all be together again on July 3, with my family heading home on the 6th and my wife on the 8th.

So I have twelve days as a bachelor again.

Two words: Dumplings and guns.

WHAT ARE YOU??!?!

2007-06-17T09:09:00.000-05:00

UPDATE (June 19): Thanks to KatieCW and alpha particle for identifying this as Dragon Fruit and passing along many interesting facts. We've put it in the fridge and will try some on Thursday. Remember, kids: Dragon fruit is an excellent source of dragon!

OK, so I make a big whoop-dee-do about how I won't have time to blog now that Shannon is here, and we immediately encounter something that we both agree needs to go in the blog.

We were in a grocery store (where and how we came upon this store is the second half of the story) and my wife, through no fault of her own, accidentally purchased this:

CAN ANYONE TELL US WHAT THIS IS AND HOW WE ARE SUPPOSED TO PREPARE AND EAT IT?

So you know, my vote is that IT is going to eat US.

PREQUEL OF THE ABOVE STORY: BANANAS REDUX

Perhaps those of you who have been reading this blog remember that when I first arrived, I was having a hard time getting settled. The only grocery stores I could find were wholly Chinese, meaning I wasn't sure how to eat half of what I saw, and I couldn't read the labels on the other half, so I ended up buying food based on texture and color of packaging.

You might also recall the frustrations I experienced for a full week trying to buy bananas.

In the end, it's all good. I've learned to adjust to new ways of doing things, had to problem-solve all kinds of unexpected obstacles, and ended up living very much as the Chinese in this area do - shop at the same stores, eat the same food, adjust my diet based on what was fresh or available.

So early this afternoon, Shannon and I are going out, and I invite her to look at the four-story shopping mall my building adjoins. I had explored it my first weekend and seen little reason to return; it was also the scene of a frustrating and embarrassing cell-phone transaction my first week (not documented here.)

Anyway, I wanted her to see it in case there was anything she wanted, and also to show her the AMAZINGLY low traffic there is in some of these new shopping centers; today, on a Sunday afternoon, most stores had far more staff than customers.

So we're looking around and I see a down escalator. Haven't been there... Let's check it out!

In the basement of the building where I have lived and scraped for more than a month, there is a big, beautiful, gleaming, hardwood-floored, fully stocked, foreign-oriented grocery store. Premium cuts of fresh meat in sanitary shrink-wrapped perfection laid out like jewels. Far and away the best, freshest, cleanest, most varied produce department I've seen in China. Imported cheese, German beer, American packaged goods, even European dairy.

And to make a final mockery of BeijingBananaQuest07, when I paused to look at the huge table of perfect, almost-ripe bananas, one of the dozen idle staffers (there were I'd say 8 customers in the store including us, tops) ran over, took the bunch from my hand, ran to the weighing station, weighed it, tagged it, then handed it back with a smile.

Unreal. Anyway, to bring this full circle, Shannon was stopped by the sight of these bizarre pink and green fruits about the size of a small cantaloupe and made the mistake of picking one up. Bang! Zip! Boom! It's tagged and in our basket.

Ah well. I guess Beijing just got easier. But it's a good thing I didn't find it earlier - what would I have blogged about?

WIFE IN BEIJING! Slow Blogging Ahead!

2007-06-16T07:14:00.000-05:00

UPDATE (SUNDAY AM, BEIJING TIME): Shannon is here and safe and had a very smooth trip, for any who are curious.

Hey folks!

Well, the big day is here! My wife will be landing in Beijing in about one hour, so I'm afraid I don't have time to write up today's adventures. Also, I anticipate having somewhat less time to blog over the next few days while she and I are out on the town in the evenings.

Please do check - I hope to post whenever I can, especially since I think we're going to be out and about seeing lots of new things. I just wanted you to know why if I miss a day or two or three. And to keep you checking, and keep you interested enough to come back next Friday when I GUARANTEE you a new entry, I leave you with this:

I guess I consider myself a mediocre shot with an AK-47 assault rifle.

Token

2007-06-15T07:35:00.000-05:00

Wife In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 1 day!

Yesterday afternoon, I was asked to fill in at the last minute for a media buying pitch to a major U.S. car brand that's looking to make a splash in China.

Now, my background is as a copywriter on the creative side, not media buying. But this coworker wanted me to just talk in general about the value and potential of online marketing and talk up some high-level strategic ideas they had developed. I know just enough to be dangerous, so I said sure, be glad to help.

But then I started to pick up on some things. For example, when this coworker (also Caucasian, by the way)introduced me to the woman leading the pitch, he did so by saying "As you can see, he's tall and white." This was a joke, but still...

I got the impression that the woman on the pitch wanted high-level people involved to show the potential client our depth and how serious we were. She asked about my title - Associate Creative Director - and how much experience I had in automotive or related fields - none. It was already understood that I am not a media buyer. Not too promising, right? But she came back a couple minutes later and said yes, we need you to come.

I met them at the potential client's office, and I could tell she was still not too sure about me - "Have you been in front of a client? In China?" Yes, I said I had. Later: "Just try to sound important." (Meant more in reference to position in the company, but still not a huge boost.)

We got in and set up. I had seen and made edits to the slides I would present, but I hadn't seen the rest of the presentation, other than over a shoulder, so I knew it was in English.

There was some conversation between my Chinese coworkers and the Chinese individuals we were presenting to. Our presentation leader leaned over to me.

"Change of plans," she said. "The man from America can't make the meeting. So we're doing it in Chinese."

Ahhhhh. Now it made sense. I was the token white guy, there to make the American comfortable. So I sat through the next hour and 27 minutes of the hour-and-a-half meeting not understanding a word (although I was able to read the slides, at least) and then had to do a VERY abbreviated version of my slides since everyone needed to leave at 10:30. All in all it was fine, just another new experience here in China!

IN OTHER NEWS

THEY'LL NEVER SUSPECT ME:
I was finally given access to the servers at work yesterday, and as I was looking around in one of the folders, I found this (the highlighting is actually as it appears on the network):

If you can't see that, it's a folder containing the Linkin Park album Minutes to Midnight, for which I mentioned some time ago a coworker of mine has great, ongoing, unabated enthusiasm.

And now I know where the files are hosted.

And they don't know I know.

What to do? Perhaps I should ask this little red-clad fellow with the pitchfork who is sitting on my left shoulder...

Happy Flag Day, Everybody!

2007-06-14T07:25:00.000-05:00

Wife In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 2 days!

My dinner tonight? The same meal I make every Flag Day in Beijing: my very own sesame pork fried rice with cashews, egg, onion and bell pepper stir fried in soy sauce, potato chips, pickles and a Yanjing Beer.

Oh, these are the days when it's hard to be away from home, all the way on the other side of the world in Beijing. The holidays, rich in tradition and happiness, when the lonely traveler's heart yearns for the simple warmth of treasured time among friends and family.

Why, right now, I'm sure you're all gathered around the Flag Day tree, watching with bemused delight as the children open their presents, their eyes lighting up with joy.

Later, family and friends will assemble for the time-honored Flag Day feast of turkey and candied yams. Once the dishes are cleared, I'm sure you'll all relax in front of the TV for the traditional Flag Day game on TV - Devil Rays/Rockies, of course! - or perhaps go out in the yard to look for gaily colored Flag Day eggs that the Flag Day bunny has left behind.

"Look at me!" says little Billy, proudly showing off his Flag Day costume. Later he'll go Flag or Treating with the other children in the neighborhood, coming home with his treasures, and then staying up past his bedtime to watch the traditional Flag Day fireworks.

He'll try to stay up 'til midnight to watch the flag drop in times square, but the poor little guy is tuckered out from all the Flag Day festivities. As you tuck him in, looking for all the world like the classic Norman Rockwell Flag Day painting, he'll stir briefly and say:

"This was the best Flag Day ever!"

Happy Flag Day from Beijing, and God bless us, every one!

IN OTHER NEWS

BANANAS, BANANAS EVERYWHERE:
One of the designers had her last day in the office today, and when she sent around her good-bye email, I noticed that the English name she had taken - not making this up - was Banana.

Good bye, Banana! I'm sure you are a very good person, but since I never met you, the only tribute I can pay is to make fun of your name.

And besides, what IS it with me and bananas?

TRAVEL UPDATE:
Looks like I'm going to Hong Kong July 14-16. I'm actually really looking forward to that.

NEVER, EVER BUY THAT BRAND OF SESAME OIL:
I don't know what brand because it was in Chinese, but it clearly said Sesame Oil. Or perhaps it was a mislabeled bottle of goat bile. In any case, I had to pull the skillet off the range and give it a quick wash and go back to the olive oil (!) I've been using here for my "Chinese" cooking.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

2007-06-13T07:36:00.000-05:00

Wife In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 3 days!

Not much to report today, so I think I'll rest a little in anticipation of my wife's arrival on Saturday (yay!) So today's post is just some interesting statistics and observations I've come across lately.

I've been following economic stories quite a bit since getting here, and on CNN today I saw a few points of interest in the crawl: Inflation in China was up something like 3.5% last month, mostly driven by rising food prices. Eggs are up, and so is pork - there's been some kind of disease in the hog population here.

In my building, the price of the breakfast buffet has gone from 30 yuan when I got here up to 38 yuan - don't know if that's a result of inflation, but interesting nonetheless. As China's economy becomes less and less controlled, it will be interesting to see what kind of effect rising prices for base necessities like food will have on a consumer culture like the one China is trying to develop.

Another interesting statistic that was sent around at work - the average Chinese woman spends 1/4 of her income on hair and makeup.

At the same time, the Shanghai stock market, which lost like 15% of its value last week, has been skyrocketing again, up almost 2.5% today alone, and is back within a couple hundred points of its record high from 2 weeks ago. (BTW, I'm going from memory here because I'm too lazy too look it up, so I won't swear by these numbers - but I am estimating conservatively.) Western economists say (and some coworkers confirm) that it is driven by individual investors, like the U.S. market in the late 90's.

Savings rates are down, especially among the young, so they spend more and invest heavily in stocks. (Although when you consider that China's savings rate is among the highest in the world, pushing 40%, I think, they have some room to give - especially compared with Americans.)

At the same time, companies are growing like gangbusters, and salaries are rising with it almost unrestricted - again, reminds me of my Web economy days in the early 2000's. One coworker said average raises are 10% or more a year, with promotions and new jobs often bringing in 25% to 50% salary jumps - in Beijing, anyway.

I know I'm making allusions beneath the surface here, and yeah, I'm thinking it seems crazy. But I make no prognostications - for one thing, I lack the education and the smarts to draw ANY kind of conclusion. For another, there's never been a country like China, never been this kind of growth in this short a time anywhere in the world, certainly not under a government as hands-on yet savvy as China's seems to be.

The one thing I DO know from my business-reporting days is that, individually, every number I've mentioned in this post is astounding, and they all are happening now.

One way or another, gonna be a heck of a ride.

So now it's off to dinner - mac and cheese tonight! (I was able to find some New Zealand butter and milk that said 'pasteurized' in English at Jenny Lou's.)

Riceometer Check

2007-06-12T06:49:00.000-05:00

Wife In Beijing Countdown: T-minus 4 days

How long have I been here? Hmmmm, let's check the trusty ol' Riceometer...

Let's see... convert from metric... carry the 2... divide by pi... Yup! Looks like I've been here 33 days-- 1/3 of the program.

See you all in another 6 pounds or so!

A Trip to the Grocery Store

2007-06-11T07:48:00.000-05:00

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG Wife In Beijing Countdown: T-Minus 5 Days! :D

Now back to your regularly scheduled twaddle.

Here are things I have purchased an eaten since getting to Beijing.

1.) Primary Flavor Milk Candy

Gotta say, the sentence intrigued me. What exactly IS a primary flavor? Whatever it is, it's delicious. They're like creamy Tootsie Rolls, but a little smaller and softer.

2.) Watermelon Soda

OK, see if you can wrap your tiny mind around THIS! It's SODA-- but it tastes like WATERMELON!

OK, that was pretty boring. But I like the packaging. It gives me seizures.

3.) Spicy Fried Chicken Flavored Bugles(R) Brand Snacks

This one was accidental. I had been surprised by a randomly-grabbed bag of Bugles before when it turned out to be yellow curry-flavored, so I deliberately looked for the bag whose color and layout said 'corn.' I opened the bag, ate one and -- what the HECK is THAT flavor?

Eventually I found the flavor written in English small on the back, and I guess now the picture in the lower right makes more sense. However, with retrospect, maybe I should be more worried that this packaging promotes last February's NBA All-Star Game.

4.) Bag of Meat

One of my coworkers urged me to try this. I think it's Korean. It was just a non-refrigerated bag with a semi-soft lump in it as far as I could tell - NOT the sort of thing I would choose on my own. But he insisted that it was tasty, safe and would spice up the instant noodles I eat once or twice a week.

You know what? He was right. Inside the bag was a vacuum-sealed pack, and inside that was a lump of quite flavorful roasted beef that I slice thin and stir into my noodles.

(Needless to say, refrigerate after opening.)

Sanlitun Night Fever

2007-06-10T05:15:00.000-05:00

Another Saturday night, and I ain't got nobody (but my wife will be here in 1 week! YAAAAYYY!), so I decided to get out of my immediate neighborhood and check out the Beijing scene in the heart of the city.

Now, when I say "the Beijing scene" I mean "the Beijing scene that a noob like myself could easily find, and where I can melt into the background and not feel totally uncomfortable." I am sure there are the hip places that real Beijingers go to, but for me, it was off to find a cab to Sanlitun Bar Street.

Sanlitun is in western Chaoyang district (I am in northeastern Chaoyang), so it's maybe 20 minutes by cab. Sanlitun is one of the two main embassy districts in the city, which means it has attractions and nightlife that cater to foreigners, including Westerners. The Canadian, Australian, German, French and Italian embassies are nearby. (The U.S., U.K and other embassies are a couple miles south, in the Chaowai and Jianwai neighborhoods.)

And the best known part of Sanlitun is the Bar Street, a mile-long gauntlet of discos, bars, restaurants and shops (a less gracious guest might also mention pimps, "girl bars" and beggars). As you walk up the street, each establishment has people working the sidewalk, trying to coax you in, even maneuvering you to a seat before you realize what is happening.

Luckily for me, I had a destination, recommended by the guidebook my wife had bought me. It's called The Tree, a well-known but hard-to-find bar and restaurant built into an old building several turns down the random alleys that branch off of Bar Street. It specializes in wood-fired pizzas and Belgian beer (40 varieties of Belgian beer alone.)

I found it with a little difficulty, but was glad I did. It had an easy, warm atmosphere, was buzzing with conversation, and featured a big bar (I prefer to sit at bars - somehow, sitting alone at a bar seems less sad than sitting alone at a table, because at least you can strike up a conversation at a bar.)

I found one open seat and took it. The bartender spoke good English and, seeing I was alone, did what all good bartenders do - talked to me. He asked where I was from, what I was doing etc. I asked him a little about Beijing and ordered a Hawaiian pizza, a Jamesons and had him pick his favorite beer for me (it was Belgian, of course, but not too dark and a little sweet - I really liked it.)

It turned out I had taken the seat of a member of the Chinese party to my left, so when I saw them searching for a barstool, I quickly apologized and moved to another part of the bar where some seats had opened up, and was soon joined by two people in town for the weekend.

He was from Boston, originally, now a long-time resident of Bangkok, and his coworker was Thai. They work at the Bangkok office of a large international insurance firm. We had a nice long conversation about living in Asia, differences between China and Thailand (I played the role of the China 'expert:' "Well, this may shock you, but there are more than ONE MEEEEELLION people in China"), politics of the region, economics, and of course sports. ("The Timberwolves are the worst team in the NBA!" "No, the Celtics are the worst team in the NBA!")

They were great people and I was glad to have met them. Like many of the Americans I've met in Asia, he came for a short stint and never left. He now speaks and writes fluent Thai (am I the ONLY American with terrible language skills? I thought we were supposed to be boorish ignoramuses! Lets get on the ball, people! You're making me look bad!) and has no intention of going back - same story I've heard from at least a half-dozen Westerners I've met in the last month.

All in all a delightful evening. We left The Tree in search of another beer, and eventually wandered into a blaring disco/bar. It was interesting. Maybe half Chinese, half foreign, all blinded by the random lasers firing from the ceiling, all deafened by American music ("'Cause I ain't no hollaback girl! This place is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" -- wait a minute, why does it ALWAYS come back to bananas with me?) and only a few (probably drunk) people awkwardly dancing.

Most of the people (myself included) were dazzled by the lights, nursing their beers, trying to look like we belonged here while curiously glancing around, waiting to see what would happen next.

Might be my best metaphor yet for China.

IN OTHER NEWS

PROPS TO CHASING THE DRAGON:
Hello to any of you who found this through the Chasing the Dragon blog at Fortune.com! It's really funny: I'm here to learn about marketing in China, so, as a former business reporter, I spent a lot of time reading about the MARKET in China. One blog I frequent is chasingthedragon.blogs.fortune.com, written by Fortune Magazine's Asia editor Clay Chandler.

It's a terrific perspective on China's economy and trends. I went to look at it yesterday and found that his most recent post referenced and linked to my Beijing Traffic Lesson of a few days ago! Unbelievable!

Clay, thank you for the kind words and the reference. And to my coworkers back home, if you are interested in learning more about China, bookmark his blog. He also obviously has a terrific eye for quality based on his link to me, so I urge you to immediately sink your life's savings into anything he mentions, even in passing.

PLAYING TOURIST: THE CHINESE MILITARY MUSEUM:
Earlier Saturday, my coworker Michael and I met for breakfast, then took a cab to the Chinese Military Museum. I am a bit of a Cold War freak, and Michael is interested in armaments, so we thought it would be a fun way to spend a couple hours. The People's Liberation Army is very influential in China, so I was sure it would be pretty spectacular.

Also, I wanted to see some of the stories I knew told from a different perspective, and it was clear from the sign outside the museum that this would be the case:

So we bought our tickets, went through the gate, and...

Oh good. Renovation.

Like most older things in Beijing, the museum is undergoing a massive improvement project. It's 5 stories tall and I'd say 3/4 of it was gutted and emptied. In a few places, huge bronze statues were sitting in hallways with ropes under them, clearly just dragged out of the way. Most of the wings were dusty construction zones.

But there were some ancient exhibits, and some modern exhibits, and the main hall with its tanks, planes and huge missile was still open, as was an outside courtyard.

Just one observation: The museum is part relics of China's past, part trophy room with captured equipment from various conflicts. I was struck by how many nations had their arms displayed both as weapons China had used, and weapons China had captured. ("This U.S. tank was given to China to aid their fight in World War II. And THIS U.S. tank was captured in Korea. This Soviet tank was given to China by Stalin. And THIS Soviet tank was captured during a border conflict in the 1960's. This flying saucer was sold to the Chinese by the Lizard People of Planet Zornicron 6...")

My takeaway: China has a verrrry interesting history.

Anyway, some pictures. Rollover for captions, click to see the Photobucket album with more.

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS: FISH HEADS, FISH HEADS, EAT THEM UP, YUM:
Remember the Bass-O-Matic in that old SNL commercial? Well, Michael and I went out for lunch after the museum to a shop near my place that sells nice, simple, reliable Chinese food. We had steamed and fried dumplings and some fish soup.

It was all very tasty - the broth had a salty and sour flavor, and the fish meat was tender and didn't have any bones that I found - but it looked like some fish had been dropped in a Bass-O-Matic with dull blades and then just 'pulsed' maybe two or three times.

My favorite part: a pair of heads and tails sticking out of the bowl on each end.

Wow, long one today. Hope all is well!

Today's Lunch With My Boss: A Picture Story

2007-06-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

True story. It was like I had bravely jumped on a Kung Pao grenade.

IN OTHER NEWS

SO... YOU LIKE CHINA, THEN:
The CEO of my immediate employer (as opposed to the various levels of holding companies, parent companies, grandparent companies etc.) is in Beijing at the moment. Today he gave a speech to my Beijing counterparts, and as work is a little slow right now, I sat in.

Some highlights: "Greater China is the key strategic focus of [the company]. And Beijing is the key to China." "We're 1000% focused on you." "Every day in New York, we know what's going on in Beijing."

Now, I believe in it's customary to play to your crowd (Lead Singer: "Nobody rocks harder than Des Moines!" Des Moines crowd: "WHOOOOOOOO!!!"), but I have to say, I've never heard anything quite like that directed at Minneapolis. Apparently they hold our lack of 10,000% year-over-year growth against us.

MYSTERY SOLVED... KINDA:
I made a comment to my German acquaintance about the carpet-of-the-day in the building elevators.

"Yes," he said. "That's how they prove they change them every day."

Ah.

So I can't trust the date on the chicken at the supermarket, but I KNOW there's a fresh rug in the elevator. Thank God.

The Brands You Trust

2007-06-07T07:26:00.000-05:00

Phew! That post yesterday took a lot out of me. So today's is short and sweet.

My refrigerator smelled bad the other day, which was inexplicable to me as it contains a 2 liter of Pepsi, a jar of pickles, some soy sauce and 5 cans of beer, but I needed to do something about it. So I went to Jenny Lou's, a store that caters to foreigners by carrying brands we recognize, to pick up a box of baking soda.

When I got home, I looked at it a little closer:

Ah, Arm & Hatchet. When you care enough to choose something that closely resembles the very best.

IN OTHER NEWS

I GUESS THEY DON'T THINK MUCH OF ME MENTALLY:
I was amused to realize that the elevators in my building have a different carpet that they put down for each day of the week:

"Man, what did I DRINK last night? I don't even know what day of the week it-- Oh! Thank you, elevator floor!"

On the other hand, I've been here about a month and only just noticed, so maybe they're on to something...

ME WANTEE!
I want one of these. I would be the coolest guy in Minneapolis.

Beijing Traffic Lesson: Left Turn

2007-06-06T07:08:00.000-05:00

As I may have mentioned before, traffic in Beijing is its own art form. The city is adding thousands of cars per - I don't even know, week? Which means you have a healthy mix of people who have never driven before interspersed with people who should never have been driving in the first place.

To introduce you to the intricacies of Beijing driving, I will start with a relatively simple concept: the left turn.

STEP 1:

We see here a typical intersection. The light has just turned green for the east-west streets, and car [A], an enormous black Lexus with pitch black windows, wants to make a left turn into the southbound lanes. Pedestrians wait on each corner. (For purposes of this demonstration, we'll assume no one is running the north-south red light, and no one is jaywalking - a rather large assumption.)

STEP 2:

To make a left turn, it is VITAL that [A] cut off all eastbound traffic as soon as possible. The first few brave or foolish legitimate pedestrians step off the curb; this is of no concern. [A] makes his move.

STEP 3:

NO! Too slow! [A] has managed to partially block [B], a brand new purple and yellow Hyundai taxi, but [A] has only achieved what Beijing drivers would consider a 'weak' blocking position.

STEP 4:

In this detail, we can see why: [A] has only inserted his left bumper and cannot move forward without contact. [B], on the other hand, is in the dominant position - by putting his wheel hard to the right and flooring it, he can fully block [A].

STEP 5:

[B] proceeds to swerve right, cutting off [C], a tiny red Peugeot with a gold plastic dragon hood ornament, spoiler and assorted knobs glued on. Since [B] is just accelerating, and [C] is now decelerating, this has created a low-density 'dead space' in the intersection. [D], a strange blue tricycle dumptruck carrying what appear to be 40 of the world's oldest propane tanks, sees this and makes a move.

STEP 6:

DENIED! [E], an old red taxi with its name sloppily stenciled in white on its doors, has boldly cut across two lanes of traffic, behind [D], and then swerved right, driving [D] into an extremely weak position behind [A]. Meanwhile, [B] and [C] are still fighting for position, with [C] muscling his way into the crosswalk. The only thing between [E] and a successful left turn is a few lawful pedestrians. [E] steps on the gas...

STEP 7:

...and is cut off by [F], an elderly man pedaling his tricycle verrrryyy slooooowwwly with a 15-foot-diameter sphere of empty plastic cooking oil bottles bungee-corded haphazardly to the cargo area. He was part of the lawful pedestrians, but seeing the stalled traffic, decided to cut diagonally across the intersection. Not only has [F] blocked [E], he is headed straight at [B], giving [C] the edge he needs.

STEP 8:

[B] concedes to [C], who drives in the crosswalk behind [F] and blocks [E]. Meanwhile, [G], a herd of about 20 bicycles, mopeds, pedestrians and wheelbarrows, sensing weakness in the eastbound lane and seeing that much of the westbound traffic is blocked behind [D], breaks north against the light. [F] pedals doggedly onward at about 2 miles per hour, his face like chiseled marble.

STEP 9:

Now things get interesting. [C] has broken free and, as the first vehicle to get where he was going, wins. [E] makes a move to block [B] but, like [A] at the start of the left turn, only gains a 'weak' block. [A] has cleverly let [F] pass and guns into a crowd of [G], which both moves [A] forward and drives some [G] stragglers into the path of [D], clearing [A]'s flanks. Little now stands between [A] and a strong second-place finish.

STEP 10:

Except for public bus [H], one of those double buses with the accordion-thing connector. [H] has been screaming unnoticed along the eastbound sidewalk and now careens dangerously into a U-turn. This doesn't appear to concern the 112 people packed inside and pressed against the windows (although that could be due to a lack of oxygen.) [H] completely blocks both [A] and [D]. On the other side of the intersection, [B] has swerved into the lawful pedestrians (who aren't important enough to warrant a letter) and has gained position on [E].

[E] has forgotten the face of his father: He was so focused on his battle with [B] that he lost sight of the ultimate goal and is now hopelessly out of position.

This clears the path for dark horse [I], a blue Buick Lacrosse, to cut all the way across behind [H] and become the second vehicle to get where he was going (and the first to complete a left turn), since [F] has changed his mind again and is now gradually drifting north into the southbound lanes. But everyone better hurry, because the light is about to change...

STEP 11:

STEP 12:

And we're ready to start over.

Well, it's a PRETTY good wall... I GUESS...

2007-06-05T06:32:00.000-05:00

So Saturday night, after shopping, I decided I would go down to the travel desk and just book a seat on a bus tour to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. I know it's touristy, and I'd rather see what the locals call the "Wild Wall," but hey - touristy is part of Beijing, too!

I got down there, but the clerk had left for the night. No big deal, I thought. I'll just do it next week.

No sooner do I get to my apartment than my phone rings. It's a woman at my company, though we've never been introduced. She is a friend of my main contact here, and wanted to know if I wanted to go on a hike to a remote part of the Wall on Sunday with a bunch of her friends.

Old Henry would have hesitated - a long car ride with a bunch of strangers, then a long walk to who knows where out in the middle of nowhere? But New Henry has no such inhibitions. He has eaten chicken feet and eels. He has pantomimed a taxi from Point A to Point C. He has purchased bananas all by himself. He... well, frankly, he doesn't KNOW anybody, so what else is he going to do?

If I was worried about sticking out like a sore thumb, I needn't have. We met at Starbucks (no, not THAT Starbucks... The one across the street. No, the one on the OTHER corner across the street)... and pretty much every laowai ("Old Whitey") who came in was part of our group. In fact, the only Chinese were the woman who called me and our driver.

My coworker's husband is from Jersey; he sells English books to International School libraries. Then there were sisters from New York, both in the art business. One of them brought her beau, from San Francisco, I think. Another coworker from Germany - very smart, very nice guy; we had a long conversation on the ride out. And an English language teacher from... I don't remember, but her boyfriend (not present) was from Edina, Minnesota.

They were all professional risk-takers. All had lived in Beijing for years, all spoke excellent Chinese, few had any intention of moving home, most had lived in more than one other country.

So I guess I stuck out a little, but I smoothed it over with my witty, urbane banter, such as "Gawrsh! I seen a Chinese guy at the circus once, but there's BUNCHES of 'em over here!" and "Why, these places is OLD!" and "Sure could go fer some REAL food 'bout now! Like a Chalupa!"

Anyway, after an hour and a half driving outside of Beijing (and up some super narrow and twisting roads) we pulled into a dirt parking lot at the edge of a small village. There was just a dirt track leading into the hills, and only a few other cars in the lot.

The hike was pretty intense - probably an hour climb through jungle, with lots of steep switchbacks and slippery, rocky bits where you had to use your hands to steady yourself.

It didn't feel that dangerous since there were lots of trees to grab onto, but it was a good hard hike. I was huffing and puffing pretty good when, through the trees...

The wall runs along a steep ridge. We came up from below and entered through a ruined archway.

We climbed up on top. It really is a wild ruin - the trees have grown up all around it, and in one direction half of the wall's width had eroded away.

As you can see, the weather was poor; otherwise, I was told, I would have been able to see 10-15 towers in the distance. As it was, the fog was cool - it was like movie fog, where you could see distinct tendrils wrapping around your legs - but not picturesque. Worse, the German got a call from his girlfriend warning of rain, so we had a quick picnic lunch and headed back down, not wanting to get trapped on the steep, muddy slopes.

I'm sure I'll see the wall again - apparently hiking is a popular weekend activity here - and I probably will go to the touristy, restored wall at some point too. But even for a short visit in the fog, it was very impressive.

(Click to enlarge for more detail)

IN OTHER NEWS

NOTE TO SELF: THE CHINESE LIKE LOUD THINGS:
Even though we were one of maybe three groups on the mountain, we could hear Chinese yelling to each other.

On the drive back down, we stopped at a peaceful inn and sat at tables beside a still, green pond and had some beers and snacks - all the while listening to whole families setting off box after box of firecrackers and those little poppers for no reason whatsoever.

Then I get dropped off and I'm walking back to my apartment, and I hear more noise. This time it's some adults who have somehow gotten hold of an enormous balloon bouquet and are now merrily jumping in it.

UMMMMMMM... I CAN WAIT. THANK YOU SO MUCH:

RACE JOKES, CHINESE STYLE:
My Chinese coworker and her American husband were talking about their marriage, and he made a joke about how he has a Chinese soul. "Yes," she said. "He's like a cooked egg." They contrasted that with a friend of theirs who is Chinese but prefers to live Western-style - this person, they said, was a "banana."

Our Musical Guest: Chairman Mao!

2007-06-02T06:35:00.000-05:00

This is a long distance dedication not only, but ESPECIALLY for my buds from the former Sam Scratch. So Matt, Pat and Mike, get ready to sing along with the soulful sounds of Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolutions!

IN OTHER NEWS

SLOW AND STEADY WINS YOU SQUAT:
Note: This turtle tank is NOT in the pet department.

SHOPPER'S HELLIDISE:
My coworkers Andrew (my creative director) and Michael (an account guy) let me tag along on a day of shopping at the [somethingsomething] Wet Market, a giant free-for-all bazaar.

For reference, take the idea of the Minneapolis Farmer's Market and make it ten times larger and insane. Each aisle is probably 100 yards long, with a walkspace maybe five feet wide, and on each side are booths anywhere from 4-8 feet across. Call it 60 booths per aisle, maybe more, times 15 or more aisles, plus people who have set up shop in open areas - sometimes just setting stuff on newspaper on the sidewalk.

A lot of it is meant to look antique. Some shops specialize - Mao posters here, fans and chopsticks there, calligraphy scrolls, modern Chinese art. Others have what's supposed to look like a random collection of treasures - copper swords green with age, bits of jade, pottery that's been carefully dirtied to look ancient, and maybe one top-drawer watch sitting amongst the antiques, just looking for the sucker who thinks maybe that vendor doesn't know what he has.

"Just think of it as toys," said Michael, examining his 18 karat gold (HA!) Swiss-made (HA!) genuine Petak Philippe (HA!) watch that he bought for 250 yuan - about $20. "You'd spend this much on toys. I'm not going to spend $10,000 on a new watch. It looks good, yeah? Look at the detail!"

You haggle for EVERYTHING, and let me tell you, the Chinese are master hagglers. Andrew and Michael would laugh, argue, walk away, walk back, argue more, scoff at the counteroffer, shake their heads, walk away again, then go back and buy it for half or less of the asking price, which is exactly what everyone knew would happen from the start.

Now, I'm Minnesotan, so my idea of haggling is to passive-aggressively leave a 14.9% tip when I'm unhappy with service. So fortunately Andrew and Michael handled that for me.

It's easy to go a little overboard, especially with two pros telling you what you should get - what am I going to do with a set of 5 foot long crimson calligraphy scrolls? - but I spent a grand total of $67 U.S. and I got some cool souvenirs, some gifts and one-of-a-kind mementos that actually reflect some of China's culture.

And after all that? Pork chops at The Sizzler!

What a country.

A PHOTO OF THE MARKET:

AND A VIDEO:

Frank's Place Part II: Prince, Chinese Style

2007-06-01T10:37:00.000-05:00

It's Friday night again, which seems to happen about once a week here, so I went back over to Franks Place for another delicious burger and a little baseball (they seem to show a replay of an MLB game at 9:30 p.m. local time). Today it was Giants-Mets in New York, and I got to see Barry Bonds pop up weakly to the third baseman.

I also noticed a soundcheck happening out on the patio. So after I finished my burger, I took my Tsingtao (if you're ever here, be sure to pronounce it "Shing-doe" or the waitress will laugh at you) and went out to the patio.

It was raining, so I was one of maybe 7 people listening (still better than the Sam Scratch gig in Fargo, am I right?). I took a table under the umbrella and soaked in some American blues and funk.

The band was led by an African-American on lead vox and guitar, with a Chinese drummer and bass player - the bassist was named Wen (he had painted a giant 'W' on his cabinet grille) and played what may have been an authentic Fender P-bass.

So I'm just chillin', feet up, and they launch into a song I'm sure we can all enjoy:

[EDIT: June 6 - I've been censored! Not by who you'd think. The following was an ultra-poor quality 8-second snippet of a band covering Prince's song "Kiss," and I now see that when I click on it, I get the following message:

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Universal Music Publishing Group"

Well done, gentlemen. I hope you feel the $250 an hour your lawyers charged you to kill my little funny was well spent.]

(Sorry for the quality. My phone can only take 8 seconds of video at low resolution.)

Ah. A slice of home.

IN OTHER NEWS

DANG RIGHT I'M CINDERELLA! NOW BRING ME THE DING-DANG PRINCE!
As you may know, the company was kind enough to fly me to Beijing first class. My wife was amused when I called her from the plane on May 10 and was interrupted by a flight attendant handing me slippers and a wine list, something that rarely happens in coach, where I normally sit.

Anyway, as a cheapskate, I kept the slippers and have used them in Beijing. But they got ratty and torn (they are essentially disposable), so I decided to switch to the complimentary slippers the building supplies with each apartment.

I might as well have been putting on Audrey Hepburn's 5th grade ballet slippers.

IT'S ALMOST HARVEST TIME IN THE CRANE ORCHARDS:
The crane farmers have nurtured and fertilized them all year, and these cranes are almost ripe!

Soon it will be time to harvest them, pack them in ice and ship them off to construction-deprived nations, like the U.S.!

WORK IN PROGRESS:
Beijing is nuts, as you may have gathered. There are probably 40-50 skyscrapers under construction right now, many of them designed and built as though money were no object.

One of the most famous buildings under construction is the new CCTV (China Cable Television) headquarters, which will look like this (watch for it in your local Olympics '08 broadcast!):

Here's what it looks like now:

MEANWHILE, IN REAL BEIJING:
Just for the curious, here's a typical street scene one block from my work building:

And that's all I got for today. Beijing OOT!

Best. Movie packaging. Ever.

2007-05-31T07:22:00.000-05:00

OK, so you all know, as a marketing person serving a large software client, I have to take a hard line on piracy. Remember kids: Just Say No!

That said, I had to buy a pirated movie today. Not because I really want to watch it - it's "Babel", which I hear is good, but I rarely come home from a long day at work and say "I really need to watch a deep, complex film filled with emotional distress." More often, it's something like "Earnest Gets Stupider II" or "Exploding Helicopter: The Movie." (Props out to Pat!)

In this case, however, I had to shell out the 5 yuan (63 cents)just for the packaging. It's a cheap tri-fold knockoff of the real packaging, all cardboard, complete with the Cannes logo and a cutline from Rex Reed - "A Genuine Masterpiece!" - on the cover.

But on the back, the package designer decided to provide a little counterpoint:

I almost busted a gut.

Now, this HAS to be deliberate. It's a real review - I looked it up. Maybe an English-speaking designer thought it would be funny and most people wouldn't get it or care, or maybe he didn't like the movie, or maybe he counted on suckers like me actually going out of their way to buy it because it amused us and, at 63 cents, I've already gotten my entertainment value out of it.

In any case, it will have a special place in my collection when I get home.

My Apartment was Designed to Kill Me

2007-05-30T07:40:00.000-05:00

Now that I've been here 20 days, I have my doubts about whether the Chinese really like me. Oh sure, they're extremely polite and friendly to my face, but then they put me in an apartment that is a veritable Pit and Pendulum of ways to main and kill myself. Let's take a tour.

1.) Trip Inducing Doorways:

Most of the doorways, including the front, have a threshold that's a couple inches high. Apparently this is an architectural relic of superstition, which said that evil spirits couldn't make it over these. Large, clumsy, bleary-eyed Americans who just need to use the bathroom, for crying out loud, may have some trouble with them as well.

2.) Razor Sharp Doorknobs:

The doorknobs are made of flat pieces of metal, and the corners are slightly undercut, meaning that each of the four corners has a razor sharp edge that could bring down a boar, if said boar happened to be walking by the door with his arm swinging freely by his side.

3.) Convenient Electrified Showers:

Sure, they could have actually put the outlet UNDER the shower head, but where's the sport in that?

4.) Do-It-Yourself Defenestration Kit:

In the states, you rarely have free-opening windows in a high-rise building. At least theres a screen to help break my fall if I-- oh.

5.) Super-Secret Window Features:

Let's see, I just turn this handle ALL the way up, and--

--

--the window NOW tips into the room the long way, causing me to lose my balance and fall backwards through the screen shown previously.

After all that, I don't even want to know what the mysterious, unmarked, unmentioned shiny red button located above my bed - right next to the light switch, where I reach without looking every night when I go to sleep - does.

Happy Memorial Day, slackers!

2007-05-28T10:18:00.000-05:00

While you're still dragging your lazy selves out of bed on a day off, I've already put in a full day at the office. Gave a good part of a creative presentation to a global software client today - felt like it went very well. I like presentations, and for once the fact that I spoke English was an asset.

Besides which, the creative thinking in the Beijing office is very good, which makes it easy to present. They do nice, clean, direct concepts that really deliver on the client objectives. Very thoughtfully done, too.

Anyway, after that I came home and had the traditional meal I make every Memorial Day in Beijing:

It's a stir-fry of chicken, onion, cashews and sesame seeds in soy sauce served over rice noodles, with potato chips, dill pickles and a crisp, refreshing Yanjing Beer, well known for their catchy slogan "Yanjing Beer? How much? And how much for the Heineken? Really? OK, I'll take the Yanjing Beer."

(OK, for you advertising sticklers out there, that's more of a Perception Shifting Case coupled with a Desired Consumer Outcome rather than a slogan.)

Anyway, have a good safe holiday back home. Talk to you later!

Where are my cheap DVDs? I was promised cheap DVDs!

2007-05-27T05:29:00.000-05:00

From reading the newspapers back home, you would think that China is literally awash in pirated software, movies, music and the like, with vast turbulent seas of Spiderman III and Star Wars DVDs and the occasional whirlpool of movies by the Wayans brothers, and all around would be people with buckets flinging pirated material this way and that yelling "Please, Mr. American! Please save us from all these movies! Just take them!"

So I wasn't entirely surprised when, in the first few days there, I saw small 10-foot wide storefronts with hand-lettered signs offering DVDs for 10 yuan (about $1.25) each.

I WAS surprised the next day when I walked by the same store, and it was just a pile of broken shelving.

A couple days later I went to my local Vanguard store (kind of a small Target plus a grocery store) and discovered that their DVD section had just been replaced with an enormous toilet paper display.

There's been news about China cracking down on pirated stuff, and maybe it's just a drop in the bucket, but I was surprised to see such changes so quickly. It might really be happening this time - with the Olympics coming, and piracy so common, they probably need to get a head start.

That's not to say you can't find DVDs in Beijing. A coworker showed me a store one evening after work. It was like a speakeasy - you had to know the right door and the right stairs, and suddenly you emerge in a large, well-lit room bursting with videos, tourists and office workers.

As an upstanding citizen, needless to say I was morally outraged. After loudly berating the staff for taking money out of the mouths of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, I went directly to the U.S. Ambassador and members of the U.S. trade commission to lodge a complaint.

(They were in aisle 2, buying copies of LOST Season 3 and arguing over whether the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie was just guilty fun or a sign of what's wrong with Hollywood today.)

ODDS & ENDS:
I can't form a coherent story to save my life. It may be that I had poured so much of myself into BeijingBananaQuest '07 that now that it's over, I need a new focus. Or maybe it's that case of 24-hour Avian Influenza I've got. ("Here, handle some dead chickens," he said. What was I thinking?)

In any case, here's a bunch of little stuff that's been going on.

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS
I ate eels yesterday. I had to go into the office on Saturday to proof some work for a presentation Monday, so my boss suggested we go out for lunch first. We went to a Chinese restaurant and I let him order, although I did ask for nothing with too many bones.

(Admittedly, the Boney Bone Pudding with Bone Sauce did have some bones.)

Seriously, though, another excellent meal. There was spicy stir-fried beef, two kinds of duck including one famous kind in which they take duck and egg yolks and apparently make some kind of loaf out of it, then slice it thin, a soy and tofu dish that almost had the texture of wheat bread, a rice and bean concoction, tea - and a big ole' bowl of eels.

Photo chosen for dramatic effect. Mine weren't this fresh.

"It's just spaghetti with heads," I whispered to myself. "Just spaghetti with heads."

And you know what? They weren't too bad. They had been stir fried with soy sauce and garlic, and they really tasted like soy sauce and garlic. Texture is a little weird, I admit, and I didn't go back for fourths, but after the chicken feet, a pleasant surprise.

WHAT'S CHINESE FOR 'BJOONGLHOOVEORN'
After the DVD store, I joined my coworker on a trip to IKEA in Beijing. He needed to buy some household stuff, and we also had dinner (mmmm! Swedish meatballs!)

It was the exact same stuff we buy. With the same ridiculous, unpronounceable meaningless names. And the store was just as much of a maddening cattle chute as any in the States. Apparently the Swedes have figured out this 'global economy' thing.

PLAYING TOURIST
I've been a little unsure what to see and how much effort I want to expend on weekends, especially since I am working full time. I had almost talked myself into spending the day watching movies - and then the 'How often will you be in Beijing' voice started going through my head. (Actually, through my headphones. I was talking with my wife, who fully supported my laziness but planted a seed to take some action.)

So I took a cab to Bei Hai Park, northwest of the Forbidden City.

It used to be a private playground for the Khan and rulers who lived in the Forbidden City. They dredged out a large lake, used the dirt to build a steep island, and did it all in a similar style to the Forbidden City. But it has more little staircases and rock gardens and these neat little lanes that have rock piled up on each side so you can find privacy and quiet for a few minutes. It also has a huge promenade along the lake and little buildings tucked against the side of the hill. Very neat.

(To the south is the new 'Forbidden City': The southern 2/3 of what used to be the park was converted into the residences of the Party leadership, according to the guidebook.)

From the island I walked north through a more modern park area, kind of like a smaller Central Park. Lots of people out and enjoying the day or out on the lake in small rented boats. For me, it was nice to see so much green again.

From there I went northeast through a touristy hutong (an old neighborhood of narrow alleys - probably a little lower-income, certainly a little run down, but the area I stuck to was along a lake and more open) to the Drum Tower, a 700 year old building that was used to keep time.

After that I walked down a street of small shops, poking my head in and looking around here and there until I got tired and took a cab home.

Anyway, here's some pictures:

SPEAKING OF 'LOST'...
OK, this is either really nerdy or too too precious, but my wife and I made a 'date' last night. We both downloaded the season finale of LOST from iTunes, then got on an audio-chat and watched it together.

HOLY SMOKES! That was a heck of an episode. Fellow LOST fanatics, we will have much to discuss when I get home.

I have more little stuff, but I think I've rambled long enough. Later!

China +15 days

2007-05-25T10:09:00.001-05:00

U-S-A! U-S-A! BOO-yah!

The Office

2007-05-24T09:08:00.001-05:00

Just a quick one today. I've heard from ABSOLUTELY NONE of you that you want to hear more about my workplace. Well, you're not going to get off that easy.

First, the building. I work on the 9th floor.

Elevator etiquette calls for you to cram in as tightly as possible, and on each floor where the door opens, try to punch the 'door close' button before the person getting off can clear the threshold.

This is the creative area:

I know! It looks like an office! Amazing!

There's about 30 people in the creative group, three of whom speak English (the creative director, the secretary and one peer.) Of the remaining 27, at least one of them LOVES Kelly Clarkson and Linkin Park.

Here's my cube:

Now THAT monitor has seen some hard use.

The view from my window:

The buildings are walk-up apartments, between 4 and 7 stories, and they extend for many blocks. The look to have about 30 years of hard use behind them, a sharp contrast to the 2-3 year old office buildings on my side of the street. Those colorful squares are tiny shops, each maybe 10 feet wide. Haven't been in them, but there's one just out of range of this picture offering a 'full body massage' for 48 yuan, about $6. Talk about value!

My daily coffee ritual:

Eat your heart out, Starbucks!

And lastly, the view from the office:

So's you knows, I'm pretty sure that ain't fog.

IN OTHER NEWS:

A SCOTSMAN, A PAKISTANI AND AN AMERICAN WALK INTO THIS JAPANESE RESTAURANT...
...and proceed to have a very nice meal that doesn't involve any gross or upsetting food. I went to lunch with a couple fellow expats who have been in Beijing for some time. Good to meet more friendly faces.

Chinese Advertising Review: Nestle Coffee Posters -- plus, Banana Baby Steps

2007-05-23T08:19:00.000-05:00

Today, as an advertising 'expert,' I'm going to take an in-depth look at the world of Chinese marketing. I'm going to start with the kilometer-long stretch of Nestle posters that line my walk to and from work each day, partly because I'm lazy, and partly because one of them has become a daily touchpoint for me.

So you understand, Nestle is EVERYWHERE in China. My apartment has a 5 gallon Nestle water dispenser. I drink Nescafe from a machine at work (Secret recipe: First, a cup of what comes out when I press the Latte button, then I sip it to make room, then a shot of what comes out when I press the Espresso button), and they have some wafer-cookie-chocolate thing with a shark on the package that I quite enjoy.

I also happen to live next to Nestle's headquarters in Beijing, and not surprisingly they have backlit posters along the entire front of their property.

Each day, for some reason, my eye was drawn to this guy:

I like him. I like what I presume to be his sunny, optimistic, can-do attitude and his improbably perfect hair. I might be having a rough day because I don't speak the language, I hold no currency, I am a foreign man, I am surrounded by the sounds, the sounds of Hyundai taxis and bicycle bells, and here this guy is, and he says "You hang in there, champ! Life is a jewel, just sitting there waiting for you to SEIZE it! Yeah! Want some coffee?" And somehow everything is better. He's who I would like to be if I were younger and more Chinese.

Now, contrast his earnest, almost violent optimism with this ad just down the road:

Now, she's just trying too hard. I don't buy the whole "I am so cute! Tee hee! Buy my coffee!" act. No ma'am, it's a fine product, but your siren's song has fallen on deaf, stupid American ears! Fie on you, Jezebel! Fie!

And that there is pretty much all you need to know about advertising in China.

IN OTHER NEWS:

AFTER THE CHICKEN FEET, I NOW KNOW MY FOOD LIMITS
A coworker from Hong Kong took me to lunch today and showed me some more shopping nearby. We went to a Japanese buffet with some blessedly safe-looking food. As we went down the line, we got to the fish, and my coworker pointed out some small, whole fish, maybe 4 inches long. "These are very good. Just small bones. You can eat them whole."

"Really?" I said brightly, and helped myself to some salmon and Soba noodles.

AND FINALLY... BABY-STEPS TOWARDS BANANAS
One nice thing about this place was it had plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. I've been craving them given my difficulties buying them and the fact that they don't do as much frozen vegetables as we do at home, so I served myself some broccoli, corn, some kind of green, melon and peaches. They also had small bowls of premade salad, so I grabbed one of those.

It seemed pretty ordinary, but was good to have something leafy. It was lettuce and what seemed to be shredded cabbage with a dressing that resembled Thousand Island. I was digging in and found something strange... could it be...? Yes! Banana slices!

No idea what they were doing there, but I take it as a good omen. In the next few days, I'm going in for bananas of my own!

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS

2007-05-21T06:40:00.000-05:00

I ate chicken feet today.

Well, technically, I ate part of a chicken FOOT, then politely shoved the rest to the side of the plate.

I went to a Sichuan (we call it Sezhuan, Seczhuan, Sechzuan and Szerbiak back home) restaurant with the ladies from HR who have been helping me. They were extremely gracious and even allowed me to say if there was anything I didn't want. I said no.

I specifically requested chicken as part of the meal, to make sure there was something safe. Actually, almost everything was great. There was spicy shredded chicken, stir fried greens, some kind of bean/noodle dish, tofu soup, fried potatoes, and a sweet fruity juice-like drink. I grabbed some of everything, including little pieces of what looked like popcorn chicken. I picked one up and put it in my mouth.

Oh sweet mother of mercy. Keep in mind, if you've ever looked at chicken feet, there isn't much meat there. It's mostly gristle and bone, and that's EXACTLY what the texture was like. (Please note: This is NOT an indictment of Chinese cuisine, which I have found delightful and much more varied and subtle than it is in the States. We probably eat many things that they would find upsetting. This just happens to be one that goes the other way.)

I tried eating around the bones, but, to quote some famous woman I can't think of now, there wasn't much THERE there. Like a total buffoon, I ended up picking most of it out of my mouth in probably the classiest Asiatic dining room move since President Bush Sr. lost his lunch on the Japanese prime minister.

The Chief Learning Officer, who has done so much for me, suggested I could swallow the bones.

"Really?" I said brightly, as if I intended to.

So I ditched the rest of them, feeling quite foolish. This is probably one of those cultural things I just won't be able to work around.

I also tried some fish which somehow actually seemed to have EXTRA bones in it. I was trying to do all this with chopsticks, and it was just a dismal failure. I have never had dexterous teeth - I have a hard time eating around cherry pits, for crying out loud. By the time I was done I had eaten about three bites of fish, and my plate looked like I had made a big pile of food in the center, then done my best impersonation of the pie-eating scene in 'Stand By Me.'

Everyone was very nice and pretended not to notice what a rube I was. But I can tell you one thing: I am going to be very selective from now on. Just mound after mound of century eggs.

China +10: Playing Tourist

2007-05-20T01:35:00.000-05:00

Today is officially my 10th day in China, and just yesterday I got to do my first touristy thing: I took a cab into the heart of the city and spent a couple hours at Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City.

First, Tian An Men Square: You may not have gotten this from the name, but it is a very large public square! If you like enormous, unshaded open spaces, this HAS to top your must-see list!

OK, in seriousness, there are a few impressive sights in the square: a huge monument, Mao's tomb (closed for repairs right now)and the ancient gate at the south end, but mostly it's open space and vendors. I had to keep moving because if I paused, three or four people would descend on me with Mao watches, kites, hats, little red books, postcards and books.

Then there were the scammers: I had read about these in advance, but if you ever visit (assuming you stand out like I do) be ready to be approached about every 3-4 minutes by an 'English student' who wants to practice or an 'art student' who would like you to see their exhibition. Neither scam will kill you - they try to get you into a position where you are compelled to buy grossly overpriced goods - but there's no reason to be stupid, either. Thanks to the wide open square, you can see them coming a mile away, too! I just walked fast and played the ugly American - try to ignore them, say no thanks, no eye contact, keep moving.

The 'English students' seem to have the square itself, while the 'art students' seem to dominate the area leading up to the Forbidden City. But once you pay your 60 yuan and get inside, it is a much more pleasant experience.

I got there at 4, as they were letting the last people in, and the City closes at 5, so I was feeling rushed. Some of the most famous and largest buildings were closed and shrouded in scaffolding and netting, getting cleaned up before the Olympics next year.

So I walked along, looking at red buildings and gilded archways - all very impressive - and then I came to the Imperial Gardens.

Now THAT was worth the price of admission. It's ancient, gorgeous, huge and intimate at the same time, and it was shady and cool. Absolutely spectacular.

By this time many of the people had cleared out, and as I randomly wandered, more and more often I would find myself all alone in some sunlit little courtyard with a tree and another ancient building and nothing else. The temperature had dropped, there was a breeze and that terrific late-afternoon light.

Soon I had to leave and elbow my way through the vendors who had formed a dense crowd around the exit. On my way out I bought some postcards - negotiated from 10 yuan down to 5 (she was annoyed when she saw I had more money in my wallet and angrily thrust the cards at me, but I got the feeling that was for show) - walked several blocks to a cabstand, the last 45 minutes having made the whole thing worthwhile.

Unfortunately, it was only on the last 'art student' of the day that I realized what I should have been saying to them all along:

"Sprechen zie Deutsch?"

IN OTHER NEWS:

EVIAN SPELLED BACKWARDS IS NAIVE:
That's an old saying, but still true. At one point I had left the area and went into an upscale Western shopping mall several blocks away. I wanted water, but places that sell Rolexes and Cartier are short on convenience stores, so I went into a Starbucks and bought two bottles of Evian (the only bottled water in sight) for 20 yuan each, about $2.50 each. That'd be a mild extravagance in the States, but even more so here, where I have a water dispenser in my kitchen, and each 5 gallon refill costs - you guessed it - 20 yuan.

A RARE PHOTO OF THE IMPERIAL CIRCUIT BREAKER BOX AND MOP STORAGE PAVILION:

I like the image of some ancient emperor standing here throwing switches and yelling 'Is it on now?'

Seriously, though, I think this shows one of the differences between ancient cultures and America. You take this exact same pavilion, centuries old, with its history as part of the Imperium, and drop it in America, and we'd build a park around it. Here in China, you can't swing a Mao watch without hitting something 1,000 years old, so they looked at this and... well, those brooms have to go SOMEWHERE.

NO BANANAS TODAY:
I did go to the store, but the weighing station looked like one of those raised islands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during a crash, so I passed for the day.

Frank's Place

2007-05-18T09:17:00.000-05:00

Nothing exciting or especially funny today, but I did do something new. After another longish day at work, I got back to my apartment and I thought: No noodles tonight.

So I went outside, hailed a cab and went about a mile to Frank's Place, a local expatriate bar and restaurant.

I had a burger and fries with the watery ketchup they serve here and some Tsing Tao beer. All was excellent. I got to watch a cricket match and caught some MLB scores from last night/this morning on ESPN Hong Kong (I still have NO IDEA how Cricket works, but England seemed to be winning 346-4 over someone.)

Didn't actually speak to anyone, but it was a cool environment. I bet there were places that were the equivalent of this in newly opened cities throughout history. Shanghai in the 1920's, Cairo in the 1890's, Bombay in the 1850's -- heck, maybe even St. Louis felt like this at one time. Anyplace there's new money to be made, you've got this flood of outsiders looking to capitalize, but they always want a place that serves familiar food and beer.

With all the different languages, the nerd in me who wants things to be dramatic imagined it with a kind of Indiana Jones feel - the American and his British sidekick confronting Germans in the bar in Cairo.

There was the Englishman who spoke perfect Mandarin, the Chinese man in a T-shirt that said 'Las Vegas' and was covered in American flags, a group of Americans in linen shirts and Bermuda shorts playing pool and hitting on Chinese women, an Indian couple watching Cricket, proper-looking older German gentlemen with shaved heads and perfectly trimmed silver goatees, and a group of crop-haired, muscular, dangerous-looking men in baseball caps, jeans and muscle shirts who seemed to alternate between Australian-accented English and German.

Their lives are probably all as mundane as mine -- but darn if it doesn't FEEL cool.

IN OTHER NEWS:
I went back to the market again, and while I succeeded in buying vegetables, I ONCE AGAIN was relieved of my bananas. I thought I did it right - I had them weighed and stickered, but I think the sticker tore, and the cashier couldn't scan it, so she threw them under the register.

These bananas are to me what the rock was to Sisyphus.

I also bought the very smallest package of rice I could find:

4.5 kg, or about 10 pounds.

COMING SOON: I try to figure out how the rice cooker the room came with works.

Emasculated by The Man

2007-05-17T06:56:00.000-05:00

I got my temporary residence permit today, and it almost cost me my gender.

If you're going to live in China for any length of time (and I believe this applies to the Chinese as well) you need to be on file at the local police station. Not sure what the minimum stay to apply is, but my three months counts, so a coworker agreed to take a few hours to help me get the paperwork sorted out.

First we had to go back to my apartment to get my passport, then go to the building management, give them my passport, and get a letter stating that yes, I did reside here. Then we took a taxi to the JiuXianQaio police station, where fortunately my coworker did all the talking. My passport and visa were scanned and filed with the letter, my form was filled out and we were on our way within 10 minutes.

Back at the office, when it seemed like all was done, my coworker gasped. "There is a mistake!" she said, pointing at a Chinese character. "They said you are a woman!"

For the record, I wear the dress STRICTLY as a comfort thing, and since when is it a crime to accentuate one's cheekbones and eye color?

I don't know what it says about me that I was seriously a moment from asking her, "Is that a big deal? Do we just let it slide?" But she was already on her way out the door to get a corrected form.

It's a lot of bureaucracy, yes, but it is efficient bureaucracy. Within 45 minutes she was back with a corrected form, as you can clearly see here:

Of course, there were a few other errors that I decided not to bother with. So when I get back in 2016, my name will be Miguel Sanchez, and I will live in Nuevo Laredo.

Just better to let it slide.

The Chinternet

2007-05-16T07:27:00.000-05:00

OK, I heard from a couple of you wondering what the century eggs tasted like, so today I'll tell a story that at least incorporates that information.

I met today with Jason C., the managing director for the Asia-Pacific region for my company's Web development division, and the creative director of the division's Beijing office. (While in Beijing, I'm working for the traditional ad agency - TV, print etc. - but I am interested in the Web as rule, and was glad to make a connection with a counterpart.)

It was a social call, and a chance to talk a little, but we did talk a little business while he ate a late lunch. I asked how much of their Web work was banner/rich media advertising.

He was somewhat dismissive and said it really doesn't work in China.

Sensing my surprise, he explained that it wasn't a shortcoming of the medium or the creative. Rather, it's a matter of how the Web is used in China.

"Imagine your favorite portal site," he said. "I bet it's pretty customizable, pretty efficient, pretty clean. Now let's look at a Chinese portal site:"

(To all my user experience friends: NOW my concepts don't look so busy, eh?)

He's right. Unless we find a way to actually set the user on fire, there is NO WAY to get anyone's attention with a Web ad.

Anyway, the conversation then turned to food. I mentioned that I had eaten century eggs, and he asked what I thought of them with a smirk.

"Not nearly as bad as they looked to me," I said. "The yolk part tasted kind of like egg yolk, and the rest of it was just kind of indistinct." I could have added that it was maybe a little sour, a little cheesy, but not real strong.

He raised his eyebrows for a moment, then returned his attention to his salad and salmon ravioli in tomato-cream sauce.

"Ooookay," he said.

Maybe I got a bum one.

BREAKING CULINARY NEWS! and odds & ends

2007-05-15T08:24:00.000-05:00

Today I went for lunch with my CD and three coworkers. I'm trying to be very open-minded, so I let them order for me. "Very authentic," my boss stressed.

First out were rubbery, shriveled slices of mushrooms, a plate of bean curd strings and some stir-fried leafy greens in peanut sauce. I ate all and enjoyed. The main course was a purplish rice-based porridge/soup/stew with grapes, lotus seeds, nuts and [miscellaneous/other]. Not bad, but not quite my cup of tea (sunflower tea, BTW, which I really enjoy.) Then something shredded and grean, some meat-pie things, and... oh good lord... it isn't... it IS!...

...a plate of cheerfully-arranged Century Egg wedges. (See my T-Minus 10 Days post for more on this little slice of heaven.)

"You know of this?" my boss asked.

"Yes," I gulped.

"You don't have to try it," he said.

But I couldn't appear weak now, in front of the Chinese. In 20 years, when they're the superpower and I'm writing my mortgage check to the Bank of China, I want them to remember me as a strong, proud man with intestinal fortitude who really is a worthy person.

I went in with the chopsticks.

"You want to take the dark one," a coworker helpfully offered, pointing to one where the congealed egg white had turned from the normal amber to more of a gelatinous mahogany, as if he was letting me have the drumstick at Thanksgiving dinner.

"Is it better?" I asked.

He shrugged.

So anyway, after all that buildup, I ate two.

When China decides to let America off the hook at some point in the future, just remember to thank me.

IN OTHER NEWS:
A few things I hadn't yet posted:

THE VIEW FROM MY APARTMENT:

AN OBSERVATION:
The air in Beijing is THICK this week. We keep our windows open at the office because the government decides when the air conditioning can be turned on (usually a fixed date in June, rather than based on actual temperature) and I sit by a window. By the end of the day, I was watching the beige sun slide down a taupe sky and feeling a little nauseous, when I realized that the low, dark-gray cloud to the southwest - towards the center of the city - WASN'T MOVING.

Unbelievable.

BEIJING: WHERE SHOPPING IS A BAFFLING ORDEAL:
That's a line I stole from The Simpsons, but it also happens to be my life. I tried buying fruits and veggies at a supermarket, but failed to get them weighed in the produce department, which annoyed the hell out of the cashier. He literally took them away from me and threw them under the register, then clearly made fun of me to the other people in line with bemused contempt. Sheepishly, I took my chicken and went home.

(At least I think it was chicken. It had a cartoon of a chicken on it. But for all I know, the label said "Captain Happy Chicken Brand Rat Fillets.")

Well, gotta go. Beijing OOT!

P.S.: Now, all of a sudden, I CAN see Blogspot locally. Just thought I'd let you know.

1 down, 60-some to go

2007-05-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

Had my first day at the office today, and overall it went very well! I showed up at the office at 9:00 in my gray suit with the green and gold tie... and waited.

First person in was the creative group secretary at about 9:15. She spoke good English and got me to my seat. The rest of the office trickled in by 10:00 or so as I was shown around.

I was BADLY overdressed, to the point that the office managing director asked if I wanted to go home and change. Jeans, sneakers and urban hipster printed t-shirts were the norm; one art director wore a sleeveless undershirt to show off his upper arm tattoos.

My first meeting was to kick off a creative campaign for a certain software company. The room was full of creatives and account people, and I can now officially report that the following phenomena are shared in agencies overseas:
* There isn't enough time.
* There isn't enough money.
* The creatives think the account people are unreasonable.
* The account people think the creatives need to suck it up.

There. I hope it was worth sending me halfway around the world at great expense to the shareholders to learn that.

After that my creative director took me out to lunch, which was very nice. I was successful with the chopsticks (look down a few posts to see my secret method) and only spilled a little on my shirt and tie. They had green tea with daisies floating in it that was delicious, shrimp and mushroom, salad, fried vegetable rice and some fat spicy noodles.

In the afternoon I was taken to a commercial shoot for another client, a major shipping company. The commercial starred a Chinese celebrity, an actor known for his role in 'Farewell My Concubine', which will be known to all you chick-flick afficianados out there

I managed to surreptitiously get a shot of the setup of one scene: The stunt man (top, in the white suit) is about to jump onto a trampoline held by several delivery men:

Then I learned an interesting fact about TV commercial shoots: they are BORING.

I stood around for three hours while they got the shots they needed, trying to stay out of the way and talking when I could with a few other people.

We got back to the office at 9:30 to discover that -- TA-DA -- all the creatives were still there working.

Oh, that doesn't bode well...

Well, I've survived a day...

2007-05-12T07:21:00.000-05:00

A little disorienting, but so far so good.

Here's a funny thing: I actually can't access my blog in China. Apparently blogspot.com addresses don't come through, even though I can manage my posts from the Chinese language page I posted yesterday.

Fortunately, I have a workaround, so keep posting comments!

Anyway, the flight was pretty uneventful except for getting into Tokyo late and having to run to make the connection to Beijing. Once I landed, there was a driver to take me to the apartment.

At this point, I had been on the go for something like 23 hours, including airport time in Minneapolis, so I pretty much did everything the apartment receptionist indicated, including handing over 500 yuan ($60-$70, I guess) as a deposit for something I still don't understand - the receipt was all in Chinese.

The apartment is nice - very spacious, lots of windows and very close to work. I had a serious panic attack when I was unable to get on the Internet and couldn't figure out the phones, but once I calmed down and called the front desk, they did something to make the Internet work - which was amazing, because I wasn't sure either of us understood each other.

I've managed to destroy two things since getting here. The office chair that came with the desk was apparently not designed for someone of my generous proportions, because when I sat one of the wheels popped right off. I also thought I was being clever by bringing a power strip, which I plugged into a converter, at which point it exploded. (OK, maybe not into pieces, but it popped and scorched and gave off smoke.)

Other than that, today was about getting oriented and not starving. I went for a few walks, found a grocery/other stuff store where I bought an alarm clock, iron, and enough ramen to last me a few days (I can't read the packaging, so I chose them based on the colors). For dinner, I located a KFC - sue me, I wanted something I could recognize!

So far it's feeling a bit "Lost in Translation"-ish - very few foreigners that I can see, and while many people know a little English, between that and my poor Chinese, there's a lot of smiling and shrugging going on (except the doorman at my apartment, who apparently has been shown the Western art of hand-shaking, which he demonstrates by charging at me grinning with his arm extended straight out whenever he sees me.)

But I'm getting by, and I'm sure it will get easier. I've been able to talk to Shannon several times, and I successfully ordered bottled water for my room entirely in Chinese. I've found an ATM (it works just fine) made a couple transactions and fed myself (hunger is a great motivator to get me to interact with people.)

I guess I start work on Monday, so hopefully I'll start meeting people who can show me the ropes a bit. Until then, I just need to get my body adjusted.

Speaking of which, it's time for bed. Sorry for the rambling message!

China +1: We have landed!

2007-05-11T11:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to write something REALLY funny for today, but instead I think I'll just let y'all know that I'm here and safe and doing fine as far as I can tell.

I'll write more tomorrow about the 500 yuan I paid for something I don't quite understand, the panic attack when I was unable to connect to the Internet and how thirsty you get when you CAN'T DRINK THE WATER!

Hopefully posting will go smoothly: Below is what blogger.com looked like when I logged in...

T-Minus 0 Days: See You In Beijing!

2007-05-10T12:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't had time to post. Been really busy, as you can imagine. My flight leaves in 3 hours, so the next time you hear from me I'll be in Beijing! Keep an eye out for a post sometime Friday or Saturday!

T-Minus 4 Days: Thanks for the party!

2007-05-06T22:54:00.000-05:00

Just a quick thank you to everyone who attended my send-off last night at O'Gara's! And a HUGE thanks to my lovely wife for setting it up. It was great to see so many friends and family together in one place, and I hope you all had as good a time as I did.

Honestly, the hardest part of this trip will be leaving everyone behind, and it's been so hard to see many of you lately as everything has been so crazy. So it was great to have one chance to get together - and hey, any excuse for a party, right?

T-Minus 6 Days: Gentlemen, Start Your Panic! (Part 2)

2007-05-04T09:51:00.000-05:00

OK, resuming our countdown of top 10 things I still need to do before going to China:

5.) Adjust My Sleep Schedule: This may surprise you, but China is VERY far away. Imagine how far it is to walk a mile. Pretty far, right? Well, China is WAY further!

It's so far, in fact, that the rules of time and space are torn just getting there, kind of like going through a black hole, only instead of getting compressed into an infinitely small singularity, you come out on the other side and are offered chicken feet as a "snack," which is actually a little harder to wrap my head around.

Anyway, on the other side of space/time in China our 'night' is actually their 'day,' and thanks to the International Date Line, I will take off on Thursday, May 10th and land three weeks ago. To prepare myself for this discombobulation, I am trying to tweak my sleep schedule by forgoing it altogether and drinking a bottle of Absinthe.

4.) Invent Something Brilliant that 1% of China Would Give Me $1 Each For: This is pure genius. There are so many people in China that just getting 1% of them to give me a dollar would set me up for life.

Let's go to the Whiteboard-O-Vision for my business plan:

As you can see, it's almost foolproof. Three of the four components of the plan - myself, the people of China, and their money - are already in place. I will accept investment proposals at this time.

3.) Learn To Use Chopsticks Better: I thought I was pretty good at this, but my coworkers took me out to eat Chinese yesterday, and I complained of a soreness in my hand, and they suggested maybe I was doing something wrong. I don't think so, but I'm open to critiques:

Step 1: Interlace the RIGHT chopstick with the fingers of your RIGHT hand, using the thumb on the tip to steer it. (Make sure it's the RIGHT chopstick. Reversing them is a common newbie mistake.)

Step 2: Stick the LEFT chopstick under the band of your watch so it sticks straight out when you bend your wrist back, kind of like Spider-Man shooting a web.

Step 3: Enjoy your meal!

2.) Pack:

No problem here...

1.) Get on a plane to China. For real. In less than a week:

Oh pickles. I think I'm going to be sick...

T-Minus 10 Days: Gentlemen, Start Your Panic! (Part 1)

2007-04-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

In honor of entering single digits in days until my departure, here are the Top 10 Things I Still Need To Do:

10.) Learn to enjoy Century Eggs: Haven't heard about these? A century egg is a raw egg that is wrapped in clay and lime and oh God, I don't know what else, and buried for a month, and when it comes out it looks like this:

(Credit to Wikipedia for this image)

Just remember: Someone, some time in the past, dug something like this out of the ground and thought "Oh, yeah! That looks GREAT! It looks like the devil himself barfed up the pit of evil from his soul, then wrapped it in lime and clay and buried it for a month! I'm SO getting me some of that!"

9. Get adapters for my electronics: I'm bringing a computer, iPod, various shaving implements, and a few other odds and ends. Now, they are from America, so they run on 120 volt alternating current, while China runs on the pure can-do dynamic energy of 1.3 billion people building what will soon be the world's largest economy. The adapter looks something like this:

8.) Adapt to the traffic:

By 'Adapt' I mean 'Avoid.' And remember, this video is of the drive-thru of a mid-sized McDonalds!

(Credit to wiser2001 for this video)

7.) Take up smoking: Apparently everyone in China smokes. I expect this practice was adopted as a little 'breath freshener' after eating century eggs.

6.) Give Mr. Chen something to eat: My wife and I have been listening to Pimsleur's Mandarin Chinese I audio program (great program, by the way, I highly recommend it), and just lately they've had us repeating a sentence that phonetically sounds something like "Chen Shienshung shien tsai sheung chir ee deeyar dongshee." Translated, it means "Mr. Chen would like to eat something now."

I just wish the lazy jerk would order his own darn food so I don't have to try to decipher that sentence again.

Numbers 5 through 1 coming soon!

How much will you give me...

2007-04-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

...if I show up for my first day at work in Beijing wearing this?

"This is the traditional dress of my people. And now the formal ceremony of thanks: Please raise your Big Gulp of Diet Mountain Dew and your Twinkie..."