It has been more than 6 months since my last post (I'm really getting bad at this!).
Actually, the truth is that I haven't had many entirely new experiences that people would enjoy reading about. Life has been filled with grad school applications and projects at work punctuated by weekends of fun with friends and a brief trip back to the US for Christmas.
However, I recently received some news that is worth sharing!
After applying to three schools and being accepted by only one, the decision has been made (by the powers that be) that I will be attending the University of Chicago beginning in September of 2009! I have currently been accepted to the MBA program there and am still awaiting a decision from the law school. If I'm accepted to both, I'll likely complete both degrees.
Though my nearly three years working here in China have been amazing, I'm excited to get back to the States to start studying again. I'm also happy to sit on the sidelines for a couple of years while the economy works its way back to normalcy.
Life between now and September will steadily slow down until I jump in to the intense academic world again. Currently, I am working out a succession plan with my company to determine who will manage each of my team members after my departure. I have planned to leave the company on June 12th and spend about 2 months traveling through China and southeast Asia. If anybody would like to join for any of those travels, let me know soon (my parents have already called the first two weeks, though).
Sabine is also winding down as she prepares to go back to France (in late June). She is still planning to apply for school in Chicago and hopes to enroll for the Spring semester. She's getting a bit nervous, but after she scored so well on her TOEFL, I'm confident that she'll be accepted at her target university (DePaul).
I'm excited already as I think about being back in the States, especially since I am going back to the Midwest. It will be great to have an extended period of time close to family and old friends (though I'll certainly miss my friends here).
Anywhoo, I think I'll wrap this post up. I doubt that I will be writing much between now and June, but once I begin my travels, I should be writing more regularly about the new and interesting experiences I have during my travels!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Sunday, August 24, 2008
The Olympics!!!!
Before I get into the details of the Opening Ceremonies, here is a brief update:
My girl is back. She's got the new citizenship; she's got the visa; and she's got a job. We're finally set for a year without bureaucratic interruption. Hurray for that!
My good friend Sarah came to visit me (with her friend Jamie) several weeks ago. It was, of course, wonderful to have them in town. I only wish that I wouldn't have been so busy at work so that I could have spent more time with them.
I was recently offered a managerial position at work. Though the increase in responsibility and span of influence is nice, having subordinates and being responsible for their work proves to be extremely stressful. Each day is a constant struggle to discover each individual's strengths and weaknesses and then to arrange people to accomplish the maximum amount of high quality work. I haven't decided yet if the output is worth the effort to me personally. In September, I and the top managers will have to make the decision about whether or not I remain a manager, so I'll need to clarify my feelings and desires pretty soon.
Now on to the big news (and a long post): the 2008 Beijing Olympics, starting with the Opening Ceremony.
I watched the ceremonies on the rooftop of my friend's apartment building, which is located near the central north-south axis of Beijing. He had rigged up a projector to project the television broadcast onto a 8' by 6' piece of wall. In ascending order, the best places to watch the ceremonies would have been:
Sabine said, "It's beautiful."
My response: "It's terrifying."
The following performance was a series of firework blasts resembling footsteps that began in Tiananmen Square and continued up the north-south axis of the city finishing with a spectacular mini-finale at the National Stadium. My rating of our location as the 5th best in the world for viewing is due mostly to the fact that we were able to see the entire fireworks display from the southernmost starting point to the National Stadium in real-time.
What followed was a seeming attempt to give "the best performance in history" 7 times in a row. I'm not sure if the performers succeeded, but they may have come close.
Since most people probably already saw the ceremonies and because the event was 2 weeks ago, my description will end here. But here are my comments.
Why it was terrifying - Talking to my dad the weekend after the event, he summed up nicely the feeling that 10,000 people performing in unison expresses: "The power of China is her people." The power of China is indeed her people, and thousands of people moving together in perfect harmony is a beautiful sight. However, it was also eerily military in its style, enough so that it made me feel . . . unsettled (here is a nice summary that mirrors my trepidation from an Asia Society scholar).
What I thought of the content - My mother thought that the event was very creative. I respectfully disagree because it's been 2 weeks since the opening, and I can still name the key performance content.
Don't believe me? Watch:
Drumming, tai chi, ancient Chinese painting, calligraphy (of ancient Chinese characters), Peking Opera, puppets, weird percussion that sounds like pots and pans, the world, and the lighting of the torch (okay, 3 others were moderately original . . . the human pin-sculpture, the oars and the weird LED suits performance). In case you're wondering: No, I did not look at an online recount of the event.
I may have missed one or two, but the reason that I can recite so many of the performances from memory is because the first 5 that I mentioned are the first 5 things that every (yes EVERY EVERY EVERY) Beijinger will recite to you as the key elements of Chinese culture (along with the regional foods and Chinese architecture). After 2 years of living here, I've heard about each of those things more times than I care to count. The remaining two, "The World" and "the lighting of the torch," are Olympic necessities. The other three, as I mentioned, were alright.
Summary: Beautiful but lacking true inspiration.
Relevance to China today? - I'm not going to belabor this point, but while the performance did showcase a few of the remnants of ancient Chinese culture, the content and presentation scores a D-minus in the "relevance to day-to-day life in China in the year 2008."
Notice I did not give an "F," and with good reason. There is one notable exception that makes the performance relevant to today, but one needs to read between the lines to see it. Here is the one redeeming factor (keep in mind that I am generalizing): China and the Chinese, in general, will put on a perfect face when somebody else who they consider to be important is watching.
Read into that what you will. I don't want to go into it further.
The highlight of the whole Olympic period, though, was actually attending the games. I was fortunate enough to have received two tickets to track and field finals during the first round of the ticket lottery. In retrospect, I should have put in a bid for all the tickets that I could get my hands on, but thinking at the time that I would be forever a poor recently graduated college student, I bid for too few.
First, the broad overview of the “Olympic experience.” The only way to get to the main Olympic Green is to take the new subway. And in order to get onto the new subway, you have to pass through security. This means that the security checkpoint is located nearly a half-mile away from the Olympic venues. I will say two things about this fact:
mpic attendee to their brands. The first building that you see is . . . The Coca-Cola experience center. Followed by the Samsung concert venue, followed by Lenovo, Bank of China, etc. Basically, there is no way to avoid the sponsors' beautiful showcases. Moreover, all of the soft-drinks sold are Coke products, all of the beer Budweiser (or its subsidiaries'), and the line outside of the single McDonald’s was (no lie) probably 500 people long. But enough about that; a few advertisements seem a fair price to pay for an international celebration of human physical achievement every 4 years.
After spending an hour or so in the advertising area looking for good ideas, it was off to the National Stadium (picture above and movie below) for some competitions. And the competitions (both days) were simply amazing.
Clearly it was fun for me to watch the USA winning events (and I saw 2 USA victories at the stadium – more on those in a minute), but what was truly amazing was watching athletes who were vying for Olympic and world records.
Let me set the stage for you: Prior to each event, all of the athletes are introduced then the world record and Olympic for the event is introduced. So we know if our own country is competing, and we know the current known limits of worldwide achievement. In a normal competition, each country cheers lightly for the overall field and cheers extra hard for their own country’s athlete. Fair enough. However, when any athlete is within reach of a world reco
rd, the geographic and political boundaries don’t matter anymore. Everybody is on their feet, screaming, cheering, and yelling (the shot at the right is me right before the men's 1500 meter race).
I’m not sure of the exact motivation for each individual that makes them temporarily disregard their nationality and cheer, but I assume that it is some combination of the pride that comes with the ability to say “I was there,” and the amazement that you feel knowing you may actually witness one person proving that he (or she) is the fastest, strongest, or best in history. I prefer to think that most people were excited for the latter reason.
But anyway, I am sad to say that I did not witness any world records. However, I did witness 3 Olympic records, one in the men’s javelin throw, one in the men’s 5000m race, and one in the men’s 4x400m race. Each was as amazing as the last (though the 4x400 was probably the sweetest since the American team set it and simultaneously won gold), and each drew deafening cheers from the whole crowd, regardless of nationality.
Despite the wonder of seeing an Olympic record in progress, I am still partial to America . . . and to a close finish. The Men’s 4x400m was awesome because the USA set an Olympic record and won gold, but my favorite event was, in fact, the Women’s 4x400m race.
Why?
Russia (our Cold War nemesis, of all countries – is it weird that I think of that fact during races?), took the lead for the first 3 laps. They were dominating. But in the last 30 meters, in front of thousands of cheering fans who are all on their feet, our anchor leg overtook the Russian and won by less than 3/10th of a second.
Wow.
The Olympics rock.
My girl is back. She's got the new citizenship; she's got the visa; and she's got a job. We're finally set for a year without bureaucratic interruption. Hurray for that!
My good friend Sarah came to visit me (with her friend Jamie) several weeks ago. It was, of course, wonderful to have them in town. I only wish that I wouldn't have been so busy at work so that I could have spent more time with them.
I was recently offered a managerial position at work. Though the increase in responsibility and span of influence is nice, having subordinates and being responsible for their work proves to be extremely stressful. Each day is a constant struggle to discover each individual's strengths and weaknesses and then to arrange people to accomplish the maximum amount of high quality work. I haven't decided yet if the output is worth the effort to me personally. In September, I and the top managers will have to make the decision about whether or not I remain a manager, so I'll need to clarify my feelings and desires pretty soon.
Now on to the big news (and a long post): the 2008 Beijing Olympics, starting with the Opening Ceremony.
I watched the ceremonies on the rooftop of my friend's apartment building, which is located near the central north-south axis of Beijing. He had rigged up a projector to project the television broadcast onto a 8' by 6' piece of wall. In ascending order, the best places to watch the ceremonies would have been:
- At the National Stadium itself,
- In an airplane flying over the city (though this was, and always will be, illegal),
- On a rooftop overlooking the Olympic Green,
- Overlooking Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City, and
- At our location.
Sabine said, "It's beautiful."
My response: "It's terrifying."
The following performance was a series of firework blasts resembling footsteps that began in Tiananmen Square and continued up the north-south axis of the city finishing with a spectacular mini-finale at the National Stadium. My rating of our location as the 5th best in the world for viewing is due mostly to the fact that we were able to see the entire fireworks display from the southernmost starting point to the National Stadium in real-time.
What followed was a seeming attempt to give "the best performance in history" 7 times in a row. I'm not sure if the performers succeeded, but they may have come close.
Since most people probably already saw the ceremonies and because the event was 2 weeks ago, my description will end here. But here are my comments.
Why it was terrifying - Talking to my dad the weekend after the event, he summed up nicely the feeling that 10,000 people performing in unison expresses: "The power of China is her people." The power of China is indeed her people, and thousands of people moving together in perfect harmony is a beautiful sight. However, it was also eerily military in its style, enough so that it made me feel . . . unsettled (here is a nice summary that mirrors my trepidation from an Asia Society scholar).
What I thought of the content - My mother thought that the event was very creative. I respectfully disagree because it's been 2 weeks since the opening, and I can still name the key performance content.
Don't believe me? Watch:
Drumming, tai chi, ancient Chinese painting, calligraphy (of ancient Chinese characters), Peking Opera, puppets, weird percussion that sounds like pots and pans, the world, and the lighting of the torch (okay, 3 others were moderately original . . . the human pin-sculpture, the oars and the weird LED suits performance). In case you're wondering: No, I did not look at an online recount of the event.
I may have missed one or two, but the reason that I can recite so many of the performances from memory is because the first 5 that I mentioned are the first 5 things that every (yes EVERY EVERY EVERY) Beijinger will recite to you as the key elements of Chinese culture (along with the regional foods and Chinese architecture). After 2 years of living here, I've heard about each of those things more times than I care to count. The remaining two, "The World" and "the lighting of the torch," are Olympic necessities. The other three, as I mentioned, were alright.
Summary: Beautiful but lacking true inspiration.
Relevance to China today? - I'm not going to belabor this point, but while the performance did showcase a few of the remnants of ancient Chinese culture, the content and presentation scores a D-minus in the "relevance to day-to-day life in China in the year 2008."
Notice I did not give an "F," and with good reason. There is one notable exception that makes the performance relevant to today, but one needs to read between the lines to see it. Here is the one redeeming factor (keep in mind that I am generalizing): China and the Chinese, in general, will put on a perfect face when somebody else who they consider to be important is watching.
Read into that what you will. I don't want to go into it further.
The highlight of the whole Olympic period, though, was actually attending the games. I was fortunate enough to have received two tickets to track and field finals during the first round of the ticket lottery. In retrospect, I should have put in a bid for all the tickets that I could get my hands on, but thinking at the time that I would be forever a poor recently graduated college student, I bid for too few.
First, the broad overview of the “Olympic experience.” The only way to get to the main Olympic Green is to take the new subway. And in order to get onto the new subway, you have to pass through security. This means that the security checkpoint is located nearly a half-mile away from the Olympic venues. I will say two things about this fact:
- It is a massively confusing experience when there thousands of individuals from numerous worldwide countries all trying to make their way through a checkpoint when they are nowhere near their final destination (it would be the ideal location to learn how to say “What the hell?” in 169 languages), and
- When one gets over the confusion, one comes to the comforting realization that a checkpoint located 1/2 a mile from the Olympic Green renders the Green one of the safest places on earth, so I guess it’s worth it.
mpic attendee to their brands. The first building that you see is . . . The Coca-Cola experience center. Followed by the Samsung concert venue, followed by Lenovo, Bank of China, etc. Basically, there is no way to avoid the sponsors' beautiful showcases. Moreover, all of the soft-drinks sold are Coke products, all of the beer Budweiser (or its subsidiaries'), and the line outside of the single McDonald’s was (no lie) probably 500 people long. But enough about that; a few advertisements seem a fair price to pay for an international celebration of human physical achievement every 4 years.After spending an hour or so in the advertising area looking for good ideas, it was off to the National Stadium (picture above and movie below) for some competitions. And the competitions (both days) were simply amazing.
Let me set the stage for you: Prior to each event, all of the athletes are introduced then the world record and Olympic for the event is introduced. So we know if our own country is competing, and we know the current known limits of worldwide achievement. In a normal competition, each country cheers lightly for the overall field and cheers extra hard for their own country’s athlete. Fair enough. However, when any athlete is within reach of a world reco
rd, the geographic and political boundaries don’t matter anymore. Everybody is on their feet, screaming, cheering, and yelling (the shot at the right is me right before the men's 1500 meter race).I’m not sure of the exact motivation for each individual that makes them temporarily disregard their nationality and cheer, but I assume that it is some combination of the pride that comes with the ability to say “I was there,” and the amazement that you feel knowing you may actually witness one person proving that he (or she) is the fastest, strongest, or best in history. I prefer to think that most people were excited for the latter reason.
But anyway, I am sad to say that I did not witness any world records. However, I did witness 3 Olympic records, one in the men’s javelin throw, one in the men’s 5000m race, and one in the men’s 4x400m race. Each was as amazing as the last (though the 4x400 was probably the sweetest since the American team set it and simultaneously won gold), and each drew deafening cheers from the whole crowd, regardless of nationality.
Despite the wonder of seeing an Olympic record in progress, I am still partial to America . . . and to a close finish. The Men’s 4x400m was awesome because the USA set an Olympic record and won gold, but my favorite event was, in fact, the Women’s 4x400m race.
Why?
Russia (our Cold War nemesis, of all countries – is it weird that I think of that fact during races?), took the lead for the first 3 laps. They were dominating. But in the last 30 meters, in front of thousands of cheering fans who are all on their feet, our anchor leg overtook the Russian and won by less than 3/10th of a second.
Wow.
The Olympics rock.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Chinese New Year Video (I know, it's been too long)
Hello all! I've finally gotten around to getting the videos from Chinese New Year. Here's the good one . . .
Pretty cool huh?
Pretty cool huh?
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Freaking China
I'm back, and it's been less than a month since my last post! I'm as amazed as you may (or may not) be.
The driving force behind this post was an experience that I had last Thursday that was quintessentially Chinese. I have talked at length with my parents (and others) about the astoundingly counterproductive competitiveness of the average Chinese. In general (and yes, this is a broad generalization), we're not talking regular "I want to beat you in a race" competitiveness. Rather, we're talking "I would kill my own mother to be first in the line at McDonald's right now" competitiveness. It's crazy.
Now with the vivid picture of a Chinese man stabbing his mother in the back to save five minutes ordering a Big Mac (not a quarter pounder, for some reason those don't exist in China . . . maybe because it would have to be called a 0.113398093 kilo burger due to the use of the metric system. Not nearly as catchy, but I digress . . . ), we move on to my Thursday predicament.
So here is the plain layout of the situation: Ultra-competitiveness + broken traffic lights at a major intersection = ?
That's right. Mayhem. But more descriptively, a really time consuming and irritating jigsaw puzzle of cars.
You see, rather than taking turns yielding right-of-way (as I assume would be the proper course of action in a small midwestern city), Chinese drivers make this situation into a race. A race to the center of the intersection. It does not matter if they can actually pass through the entire intersection or if there is an unmoving line of cars blocking their forward progress. They just go. The inevitable result is a situation where nobody is moving.
For example, when my cab passed into the intersection, I realized that our path was blocked by a bus whose path was blocked by a line of cars who were blocked by a van turning left whose path was blocked by a line of cars whose path was blocked by the same line of cars that was blocking the bus that was blocking my path. Confusing, yes, but it suffices to say that we were not going anywhere unless a number of people went into reverse . . . and that tends not to happen.
My solution: pay the cab driver, get out, and walk.
Worked like a charm.
The driving force behind this post was an experience that I had last Thursday that was quintessentially Chinese. I have talked at length with my parents (and others) about the astoundingly counterproductive competitiveness of the average Chinese. In general (and yes, this is a broad generalization), we're not talking regular "I want to beat you in a race" competitiveness. Rather, we're talking "I would kill my own mother to be first in the line at McDonald's right now" competitiveness. It's crazy.
Now with the vivid picture of a Chinese man stabbing his mother in the back to save five minutes ordering a Big Mac (not a quarter pounder, for some reason those don't exist in China . . . maybe because it would have to be called a 0.113398093 kilo burger due to the use of the metric system. Not nearly as catchy, but I digress . . . ), we move on to my Thursday predicament.
So here is the plain layout of the situation: Ultra-competitiveness + broken traffic lights at a major intersection = ?
That's right. Mayhem. But more descriptively, a really time consuming and irritating jigsaw puzzle of cars.
You see, rather than taking turns yielding right-of-way (as I assume would be the proper course of action in a small midwestern city), Chinese drivers make this situation into a race. A race to the center of the intersection. It does not matter if they can actually pass through the entire intersection or if there is an unmoving line of cars blocking their forward progress. They just go. The inevitable result is a situation where nobody is moving.
For example, when my cab passed into the intersection, I realized that our path was blocked by a bus whose path was blocked by a line of cars who were blocked by a van turning left whose path was blocked by a line of cars whose path was blocked by the same line of cars that was blocking the bus that was blocking my path. Confusing, yes, but it suffices to say that we were not going anywhere unless a number of people went into reverse . . . and that tends not to happen.
My solution: pay the cab driver, get out, and walk.
Worked like a charm.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Chinese New Year!
Well it's been quite some time since my last post. I could say that it's because nothing interesting has happened, but I'd be lying. I've just been busy and lazy; a bad combination if you want to get some blog posts done.
Anywhoo, here's the abridged version of the past several months:
I went home for Christmas. If you were in the Madison or Milwaukee areas, you know that, and you saw me, so I don't know why I'm talking to you about it. If you weren't, now you know. It was delightful to see everybody, and I wish that I could come home more often, but it's 太贵了！
Sabine (that would be my girlfriend in case it's been so long since you've heard from me that this knowledge has shriveled up and passed away with your other memories of me) is in France getting her citizenship. We're still not sure when she'll be back here in Beijing, but it shouldn't be too much longer.
Got a promotion at work. No new title, but I'm a strategic adviser to the CEO. Been doing a little bit of everything at work. Proposal writing, HR policy writing, interviews, reading, creating, recruiting, etc. Funny that none of these things involve math . . . maybe they should throw some accounting and finance at me as well, just to round things out.
Got a guitar. This is actually a big deal for me because I rarely buy things for myself, but seeing as today is my birthday, I decided to treat myself. Turns out that I should've made the purchase much earlier because a guitar, stand, carrying case, picks, capo, and strings together only set me back about $95 . . . I was kinda expecting to spend somewhere in the $200-$400 range, so you can imagine my delight.
Now onto the feature of the post. Chinese New Year. Last year I was in Thailand with Mike during this holiday, so I had no idea what it was like. But here's the background: Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, so the dates change every year. This year the new year happened to fall on my birthday exactly, which is completely awesome because it means that I don't have to work. This holiday also happens to be the most important and widely celebrated holiday in China. This fact should've tipped me off that it is pretty cool to be in China during the event, but for some reason (mostly because my friends just talk about how terrifying this week is, rather than saying how cool it is) I didn't really expect that it would be very interesting.
Wow was I wrong. Chinese New Year in Beijing is, without a doubt, one of the top 5 experiences that I've had in my life.
(Aside: Currently the plan is for me to stay until August of 2009, so if you are looking for a vacation in January or February of 2009 - I'm not sure of the dates for next year's celebration - consider making a trip to Beijing during the New Year. It will be slightly more expensive, but very worth it.)
So, here is my Chinese New Year story: I left my apartment at about 7:30pm to meet my friend Erica and find a restaurant for our friends on Ghost Street - a very popular dining area in Beijing's Northeast. I walk downstairs, step outside and see that the ground is covered with wrappers and remnants of firecrackers. Not too surprising because I've been hearing sounds of explosions all day.
I hail a cab and tell him where I'm headed, and the driver takes off and makes a right onto Chunxiu lu, a medium-sized city street. The street looks like a gauntlet of fireworks that we must pass through in order to reach the prize of food at the end, but the cab driver doesn't take any time to assess the situation. He just plunges on ahead as roman candles, firecrackers and huge fourth-of-July style fireworks shoot off all around us.
Since nobody has a yard, all of the fireworks are lit in the center of the street. Thus, my cab driver just swerves around the fountains and firecrackers that are exploding and burning. He doesn't even bat an eye when firecrackers are flung at my passenger door and explode close enough that I can hear the casing hitting the cab. All he says to me is "在北京过春节是最好! (Celebrating Chinese New Year in Beijing is the best!)"
He takes me to where I'm going to meet my friend, and the madness continues. The roads are scary enough that a Beijinger riding his bike stops next to me to ask my opinion on whether it is safe for him to try and ride on the street or not. I tell him I think it's ok and he takes off trying to avoid being burned.
Soon after Erica arrives and explains that she just avoided a very close encounter with flaming balls coming from a roman candle thanks to a kind man who warned her not to wait for a moment before crossing into the fireworks' trajectory. As this is her 3rd year in Beijing for the New Year, the "awe factor" has worn off for her and she's just hoping that she can avoid burning or explosions for another 14 days.
So we walk on to our restaurant, trying to notice and avoid the firecrackers that have been placed in our paths (since the Chinese don't do a good job of warning you when you're walking into an area that's about to explode - I think that they just find it funny when foreigners freak out as things explode under their feet). We finally arrive, meet our friends, sit down and eat.
After dinner (in a room where the still drying wall-paper glue got most of us a little high, I think), we went to Houhai, and chilled at a bar until about 11:30. Then the cool stuff happened.
Beijing is a big city. About 14 million people big. Fireworks are not regulated during Chinese New Year, so I conservatively estimate that 2 million people buy fireworks (one in 7 sounds reasonable right?). And the vast majority of the fireworks set off by these 2 million people are set off the one hour between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am.
Hence, at 11:30 my friends and I walked out into the middle of Houhai lake which is surrounded by the City of Beijing, and we just watched. Imagine the largest fireworks display that you have ever seen. Now imagine that that same display is going on in front of you, behind you, to your left, to your right, basically 360 degrees around you. If you can imagine it, you have an idea of what the fireworks on Chinese New Year are like. I wish that the little video that my friend Fleur took would do it justice, but I know it won't. I'll still try to post it though, so you can get a feeling for it.
After an hour of standing and watching, the frequency of explosions finally began to slow, and we went back inside and relaxed for the rest of the evening until my eventual return home.
I hear that the fireworks will continue tonight, so we'll have to see. Either way, I'm excited. This was cool. If you ever get the chance to be in Beijing for Chinese New Year, don't pass it up.
Anywhoo, here's the abridged version of the past several months:
I went home for Christmas. If you were in the Madison or Milwaukee areas, you know that, and you saw me, so I don't know why I'm talking to you about it. If you weren't, now you know. It was delightful to see everybody, and I wish that I could come home more often, but it's 太贵了！
Sabine (that would be my girlfriend in case it's been so long since you've heard from me that this knowledge has shriveled up and passed away with your other memories of me) is in France getting her citizenship. We're still not sure when she'll be back here in Beijing, but it shouldn't be too much longer.
Got a promotion at work. No new title, but I'm a strategic adviser to the CEO. Been doing a little bit of everything at work. Proposal writing, HR policy writing, interviews, reading, creating, recruiting, etc. Funny that none of these things involve math . . . maybe they should throw some accounting and finance at me as well, just to round things out.
Got a guitar. This is actually a big deal for me because I rarely buy things for myself, but seeing as today is my birthday, I decided to treat myself. Turns out that I should've made the purchase much earlier because a guitar, stand, carrying case, picks, capo, and strings together only set me back about $95 . . . I was kinda expecting to spend somewhere in the $200-$400 range, so you can imagine my delight.
Now onto the feature of the post. Chinese New Year. Last year I was in Thailand with Mike during this holiday, so I had no idea what it was like. But here's the background: Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, so the dates change every year. This year the new year happened to fall on my birthday exactly, which is completely awesome because it means that I don't have to work. This holiday also happens to be the most important and widely celebrated holiday in China. This fact should've tipped me off that it is pretty cool to be in China during the event, but for some reason (mostly because my friends just talk about how terrifying this week is, rather than saying how cool it is) I didn't really expect that it would be very interesting.
Wow was I wrong. Chinese New Year in Beijing is, without a doubt, one of the top 5 experiences that I've had in my life.
(Aside: Currently the plan is for me to stay until August of 2009, so if you are looking for a vacation in January or February of 2009 - I'm not sure of the dates for next year's celebration - consider making a trip to Beijing during the New Year. It will be slightly more expensive, but very worth it.)
So, here is my Chinese New Year story: I left my apartment at about 7:30pm to meet my friend Erica and find a restaurant for our friends on Ghost Street - a very popular dining area in Beijing's Northeast. I walk downstairs, step outside and see that the ground is covered with wrappers and remnants of firecrackers. Not too surprising because I've been hearing sounds of explosions all day.
I hail a cab and tell him where I'm headed, and the driver takes off and makes a right onto Chunxiu lu, a medium-sized city street. The street looks like a gauntlet of fireworks that we must pass through in order to reach the prize of food at the end, but the cab driver doesn't take any time to assess the situation. He just plunges on ahead as roman candles, firecrackers and huge fourth-of-July style fireworks shoot off all around us.
Since nobody has a yard, all of the fireworks are lit in the center of the street. Thus, my cab driver just swerves around the fountains and firecrackers that are exploding and burning. He doesn't even bat an eye when firecrackers are flung at my passenger door and explode close enough that I can hear the casing hitting the cab. All he says to me is "在北京过春节是最好! (Celebrating Chinese New Year in Beijing is the best!)"
He takes me to where I'm going to meet my friend, and the madness continues. The roads are scary enough that a Beijinger riding his bike stops next to me to ask my opinion on whether it is safe for him to try and ride on the street or not. I tell him I think it's ok and he takes off trying to avoid being burned.
Soon after Erica arrives and explains that she just avoided a very close encounter with flaming balls coming from a roman candle thanks to a kind man who warned her not to wait for a moment before crossing into the fireworks' trajectory. As this is her 3rd year in Beijing for the New Year, the "awe factor" has worn off for her and she's just hoping that she can avoid burning or explosions for another 14 days.
So we walk on to our restaurant, trying to notice and avoid the firecrackers that have been placed in our paths (since the Chinese don't do a good job of warning you when you're walking into an area that's about to explode - I think that they just find it funny when foreigners freak out as things explode under their feet). We finally arrive, meet our friends, sit down and eat.
After dinner (in a room where the still drying wall-paper glue got most of us a little high, I think), we went to Houhai, and chilled at a bar until about 11:30. Then the cool stuff happened.
Beijing is a big city. About 14 million people big. Fireworks are not regulated during Chinese New Year, so I conservatively estimate that 2 million people buy fireworks (one in 7 sounds reasonable right?). And the vast majority of the fireworks set off by these 2 million people are set off the one hour between 11:30 pm and 12:30 am.
Hence, at 11:30 my friends and I walked out into the middle of Houhai lake which is surrounded by the City of Beijing, and we just watched. Imagine the largest fireworks display that you have ever seen. Now imagine that that same display is going on in front of you, behind you, to your left, to your right, basically 360 degrees around you. If you can imagine it, you have an idea of what the fireworks on Chinese New Year are like. I wish that the little video that my friend Fleur took would do it justice, but I know it won't. I'll still try to post it though, so you can get a feeling for it.
After an hour of standing and watching, the frequency of explosions finally began to slow, and we went back inside and relaxed for the rest of the evening until my eventual return home.
I hear that the fireworks will continue tonight, so we'll have to see. Either way, I'm excited. This was cool. If you ever get the chance to be in Beijing for Chinese New Year, don't pass it up.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Coming Home for the Holidays!
Hello all! Just wanted to give a quick update about my trip back to the States for the Holiday Season.
So here's the deal:
Dates Home: December 20th to December 29th, 2007
Current Tentative Plans:
Trip to Milwaukee: December 21-22
Early Christmas Celebration: December 23
Other than that, I'm free. I'll be spending my time in the Madison and Milwaukee areas, so if you want me to stop by and say hello, drop me an email. See many of you soon!
So here's the deal:
Dates Home: December 20th to December 29th, 2007
Current Tentative Plans:
Trip to Milwaukee: December 21-22
Early Christmas Celebration: December 23
Other than that, I'm free. I'll be spending my time in the Madison and Milwaukee areas, so if you want me to stop by and say hello, drop me an email. See many of you soon!
Monday, November 19, 2007
New Photos from China!
Hey all. I'm back from my trip to Yangshuo and Shanghai, and I've put up three new photo albums! You can access them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ngpinger.
Happy looking! (I have a couple of videos too, but I have to figure out how to display them properly -- maybe YouTube!? I'll let you know when they go up.)
Happy looking! (I have a couple of videos too, but I have to figure out how to display them properly -- maybe YouTube!? I'll let you know when they go up.)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Yangshuo
Hello again! I'm taking a brief break from the beautiful scenery here in Yangshuo (located in the south of China) to give a quick update about how things have been going.
Pre-Yangshuo: not too much interesting stuff was going on. Sabine had to take a trip back to France to get her French citizenship (and she's still there), so I've been back to the work, sleep, eat, party lifestyle for a while.
Yangshuo: Dan and Elliott (two good friends of mine) arrived in Beijing on Friday and we left the next day for Yangshuo. It's basically a small (though I'm not sure of the exact population - it may be quite big compared to may small American towns) town in the South of China located near the more-popular city Guilin. It's known for beautiful scenery: rice paddies, rivers, and most notably, large limestone karsks. From what I hear, this type of scenery exists only in two places in the world: here and in Thailand. I won't go through too much description because I will be posting photos (and hopefully videos) as soon as I return to Beijing. I'll be certain to post again to let you know when that happens.
Anyways, since the scenery is so beautiful, the majority of the activities here in Yangshuo are located outdoors. Dan, Elliott and I have been doing quite a bit of walking through the town, both on the main tourist street, XiJie (or West street), but also quite a bit in the less touristed areas. In addition, we've spent two days biking through the rice paddies surrounded by limestone karsks in the country side, and Dan and Elliott took a little kayak trip down the Li River yesterday (as I recovered from a "rough night").
We've also met some very nice people here. The rough night was instigated by an Italian fellow named Mauro who was quite worried about, "De kids with too much moneys." However, even though Elliott and I might have fit into that category (we didn't test the waters), we had a wonderful time laughing and joking with him and his wife, Marta, in a strange (and somewhat slurred, later in the evening) mixture of Italian, English and Spanish.
Today at lunch we also met a very nice French couple (though we didn't catch their names). Turned out, however, that the husband had done quite a bit of business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin early in his career and absolutely loved the people with whom he worked during that time. Hence, he was immediately very warm with the three Wisconsinites that happened to be traveling through China at the same time that he was. I personally found his life pretty fascinating: grew up in France and educated as an engineer; decided to take a job in sales instead of engineering; moved to the USA to work; moved to South Korea to work; worked some other places for different companies; now manages three auto parts plants in south and east Asia. Gotta love traveling . . .
Not much else to say at this point. We take off for Shanghai tomorrow to visit my now ex-boss, Alex. Should be a fast-paced, whirlwind tour of Shanghai for Dan and Elliott. I'll just be along for the ride.
More posts to come as more interesting things happen and pictures become available.
Pre-Yangshuo: not too much interesting stuff was going on. Sabine had to take a trip back to France to get her French citizenship (and she's still there), so I've been back to the work, sleep, eat, party lifestyle for a while.
Yangshuo: Dan and Elliott (two good friends of mine) arrived in Beijing on Friday and we left the next day for Yangshuo. It's basically a small (though I'm not sure of the exact population - it may be quite big compared to may small American towns) town in the South of China located near the more-popular city Guilin. It's known for beautiful scenery: rice paddies, rivers, and most notably, large limestone karsks. From what I hear, this type of scenery exists only in two places in the world: here and in Thailand. I won't go through too much description because I will be posting photos (and hopefully videos) as soon as I return to Beijing. I'll be certain to post again to let you know when that happens.
Anyways, since the scenery is so beautiful, the majority of the activities here in Yangshuo are located outdoors. Dan, Elliott and I have been doing quite a bit of walking through the town, both on the main tourist street, XiJie (or West street), but also quite a bit in the less touristed areas. In addition, we've spent two days biking through the rice paddies surrounded by limestone karsks in the country side, and Dan and Elliott took a little kayak trip down the Li River yesterday (as I recovered from a "rough night").
We've also met some very nice people here. The rough night was instigated by an Italian fellow named Mauro who was quite worried about, "De kids with too much moneys." However, even though Elliott and I might have fit into that category (we didn't test the waters), we had a wonderful time laughing and joking with him and his wife, Marta, in a strange (and somewhat slurred, later in the evening) mixture of Italian, English and Spanish.
Today at lunch we also met a very nice French couple (though we didn't catch their names). Turned out, however, that the husband had done quite a bit of business in Milwaukee, Wisconsin early in his career and absolutely loved the people with whom he worked during that time. Hence, he was immediately very warm with the three Wisconsinites that happened to be traveling through China at the same time that he was. I personally found his life pretty fascinating: grew up in France and educated as an engineer; decided to take a job in sales instead of engineering; moved to the USA to work; moved to South Korea to work; worked some other places for different companies; now manages three auto parts plants in south and east Asia. Gotta love traveling . . .
Not much else to say at this point. We take off for Shanghai tomorrow to visit my now ex-boss, Alex. Should be a fast-paced, whirlwind tour of Shanghai for Dan and Elliott. I'll just be along for the ride.
More posts to come as more interesting things happen and pictures become available.
Monday, October 29, 2007
New Photos!
Hey all. So I've finally taken the time to put some new photos up. However, I'm making the transition away from Webshots to Picassa, so the only photos that will be up in the gallery are the new ones (but who wants to look at old photos anyways?).
So here's the new stuff: http://picasaweb.google.com/ngpinger
Enjoy!
So here's the new stuff: http://picasaweb.google.com/ngpinger
Enjoy!
Friday, October 12, 2007
A Somewhat Funny, But More Interesting Summary of Cultural Differences
Hey all!
I've been doing a lot of writing in my other blog, about cultural differences, but I thought that this little link (open it in a second window . . . you'll see why later) was better suited for the personal blog. I've been dealing with this stuff a lot, and yes. I understand these. I'll give you a little overview:
Now let's run through the pictures (email/my blog on the left - other blog on the right, if you care about my opinion):
My favorites are:
Contacts
Queues
Parties
Definition of Beauty
Handling Problems
Moods and Weather
The Boss
What's Trendy
The Child
Perceptions of Each Others' Culture (though the Germans forgot the fortune cookie - which, by the way, doesn't exist here)
I disagree with:
Way of Life (Chinese will cheat each other until they're all broke - they view it as, "If your'e stupid enough to let me cheat you, then you deserve to be cheated")
Anger/Displeasure (They whine just as much as westerners)
View of Myself (Partially - the elderly may be as described, but ever hear of the "little emperor syndrome")
Life of the Elderly (Old people in China LOVE dogs! They just have grandkids and dogs.)
The others are true, but didn't strike me as particularly funny.
Don't get some of them? Don't worry, and feel free to email me to ask for clarification :-).
I've been doing a lot of writing in my other blog, about cultural differences, but I thought that this little link (open it in a second window . . . you'll see why later) was better suited for the personal blog. I've been dealing with this stuff a lot, and yes. I understand these. I'll give you a little overview:
Now let's run through the pictures (email/my blog on the left - other blog on the right, if you care about my opinion):
My favorites are:
Contacts
Queues
Parties
Definition of Beauty
Handling Problems
Moods and Weather
The Boss
What's Trendy
The Child
Perceptions of Each Others' Culture (though the Germans forgot the fortune cookie - which, by the way, doesn't exist here)
I disagree with:
Way of Life (Chinese will cheat each other until they're all broke - they view it as, "If your'e stupid enough to let me cheat you, then you deserve to be cheated")
Anger/Displeasure (They whine just as much as westerners)
View of Myself (Partially - the elderly may be as described, but ever hear of the "little emperor syndrome")
Life of the Elderly (Old people in China LOVE dogs! They just have grandkids and dogs.)
The others are true, but didn't strike me as particularly funny.
Don't get some of them? Don't worry, and feel free to email me to ask for clarification :-).
Monday, October 08, 2007
New Blog Going Up
Hey everybody. So I'm planning to keep writing in this blog as sporadically as I was before, but I wanted to inform you that I'm starting up a new blog (which I have a feeling that only about 5 of you will actually enjoy).
However, if you feel like checking it out, I'll give you an idea of its premise. First of all, it will be much less personal (which, ironically, probably means that I'll write in it more, since I don't like talking about myself as much as I like talking about other things). Second, it'll be quite a bit more analytical, but hopefully still very accessible. It will be mostly business oriented, so anybody who loves marketing, technology, general business trends and consumer psychology as much as I do will be pleasantly surprised. Anybody else will probably read one or two posts and then get bored :-).
So, without further adieu, it can be accessed here: http://nathanpinger.blogspot.com (or you can link to it from my blog directly). If you want to get fancy about it, you can subscribe to the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/nathanpinger (if you have no idea what an RSS feed is, then perhaps you can bite the bullet and jump into the digital reading world with my new blog as a starting point . . . or not). Enjoy!
However, if you feel like checking it out, I'll give you an idea of its premise. First of all, it will be much less personal (which, ironically, probably means that I'll write in it more, since I don't like talking about myself as much as I like talking about other things). Second, it'll be quite a bit more analytical, but hopefully still very accessible. It will be mostly business oriented, so anybody who loves marketing, technology, general business trends and consumer psychology as much as I do will be pleasantly surprised. Anybody else will probably read one or two posts and then get bored :-).
So, without further adieu, it can be accessed here: http://nathanpinger.blogspot.com (or you can link to it from my blog directly). If you want to get fancy about it, you can subscribe to the RSS feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/nathanpinger (if you have no idea what an RSS feed is, then perhaps you can bite the bullet and jump into the digital reading world with my new blog as a starting point . . . or not). Enjoy!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Long Time No Post
Hey all. So since I've been doing a TERRIBLE job of keeping people updated on my life, here is an abridged summary of my last 4 months:
First, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Sabine, and she was born in China (so yes, I am nearly as lame as every other white guy in China who is dating a Chinese girl, but not quite as lame because she . . . ), grew up in France, and now she's back in China. We met at a friend's barbecue, but she thought I was strange because I am a vegetarian. However, she gave me a second chance and now we've been dating for about four months. She's awesome, and she shares a birthday with one of my favorite people, Ryan Resch, and with one of my least favorite people, Paris Hilton.
Second, I still work a lot. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Third, Jason (my younger brother) just came to visit. We partied a lot and visited some cool places: the Beijing art district, the Olympic Green, JingShan Park (which overlooks the forbidden city), Houhai (a nice lake area), etc. It was good times all around, but yesterday he continued his trek around the world by skipping off to Hong Kong.
Fourth, I'm considering an MBA or going back to Madison to get a better feel for the family business by working with my dad. The MBA would be cool because then I would supposedly be a "Business Master," but it costs a lot of money so I would also be broke. Working with dad would be cool because I would get to work a nine-to-five and be able to golf a lot.
That's really about all that's happened. I may have some fun stuff upcoming: October Holiday, Trip to Tibet, Home for Christmas, Something Random for Spring Festival, etc. We'll see how it goes and how motivated I am to write!
First, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Sabine, and she was born in China (so yes, I am nearly as lame as every other white guy in China who is dating a Chinese girl, but not quite as lame because she . . . ), grew up in France, and now she's back in China. We met at a friend's barbecue, but she thought I was strange because I am a vegetarian. However, she gave me a second chance and now we've been dating for about four months. She's awesome, and she shares a birthday with one of my favorite people, Ryan Resch, and with one of my least favorite people, Paris Hilton.
Second, I still work a lot. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Third, Jason (my younger brother) just came to visit. We partied a lot and visited some cool places: the Beijing art district, the Olympic Green, JingShan Park (which overlooks the forbidden city), Houhai (a nice lake area), etc. It was good times all around, but yesterday he continued his trek around the world by skipping off to Hong Kong.
Fourth, I'm considering an MBA or going back to Madison to get a better feel for the family business by working with my dad. The MBA would be cool because then I would supposedly be a "Business Master," but it costs a lot of money so I would also be broke. Working with dad would be cool because I would get to work a nine-to-five and be able to golf a lot.
That's really about all that's happened. I may have some fun stuff upcoming: October Holiday, Trip to Tibet, Home for Christmas, Something Random for Spring Festival, etc. We'll see how it goes and how motivated I am to write!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Concerts and Crowd Control
So as you have probably noticed, and a few have pointed out, my blog posts have been coming less and less frequently. My apologies to those of you who like to keep tabs on my life and a big "You're welcome!" to those of you who don't, but in the spirit of sporadically keeping one fourth of you content, one fourth of you annoyed and affecting half of you in no way whatsoever (estimates only), I've decided to add another small chapter to my mini Beijing chronicle.
The story begins last Friday, June 15th when I was asked to help out as a "client interface" for the Samsung Olympic sponsorship announcement concert which was to take place the next day. While "client interfacing" certainly sounds like an important role, it ends up involving a whole lot of sitting-around-and-doing-nothing when the client (who in this case was actually a PR firm, and not Samsung itself) is so busy with his/her own work that he/she doesn't really care about talking to other people. So I spend the most of the day sitting around due to the busyness of my clients, and was only called in when crisis struck and people needed to recharge their phone or needed to get a package from one side of Beijing to the other side in less than 30 minutes (which, I must note, is an impossible feat considering the density of traffic in Beijing - I made it in 45). So anywhoo, Friday was a pretty uneventful day, until the stars came.
By stars, I'm referring to Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong pop singers (6 total). Friday was just a warm-up and "test out the microphones" day, but it was pretty cool to sit right up front with about 50 of my co-workers in a park that was made to seat 6,000 plus people while we got a private show from some of the big name pop stars from the east. However, after two of the six had practiced, crowds began to form just outside of the park, so we had to disperse and keep these fans (or just people with nothing better to do) from trying to come in to get a closer look. There weren't really any issues. Nobody got out of control, but when the Korean boy-band (I think the lead singer's name was Konta) hit the stage, there was a bit of excitement amongst the Chinese teenie boppers. Nothing too crazy, but it was kind of funny to see the line of taxis waiting for his band to leave the venue so that they could follow him back to his hotel. Funnier still was listening to my co-worker Brian relay to me the planning of Konta's escape route that he was hearing via walkie talkie. I don't know how it turned out, but Konta did turn up the next day for his performance safe and sound.
Saturday was the actual day of the event. The morning involved a lot of nothing, and the afternoon was filled with me following around the client with whom I was interfacing in order to make sure that everything was perfect and set for the event, which was to open at 5:30 and begin at 6:45.
The beginning of the event went off without a hitch. The crowds were relatively orderly, and we only had to do a little bit of work trying to make people sit where they were supposed to sit (seating was arranged based on how soon people arrived, best seats going first - colored wristbands were given to people in order to designate the sections where they were supposed to be, within sections, general seating was the rule). It was almost comical how many people in the red section (the best seats) magically seemed to "lose" their wristbands. Here is an example of the generic conversation that I must have had 10 times:
Me: "Can I see your wristband"
Person A: "I lost my wrist band"
Me: "Oh, I'm sorry, but you have to have a red wristband to sit in this area"
Person A: "My wristband was red; I lost it"
Person A's Friend: "Yeah, she (95% of them were female) lost it"
Me: "I'm sorry to hear that. If that's the case, you have to go back up front and get a new one"
Person A (excited): "Oh, so I can tell them that I lost my red band and they'll give me a new one?"
Me: "No, they will give you whatever color they are giving out now. If you wanted to sit here, you shouldn't have lost your red wrist band in the first place."
Person A (angry): "But I HAD a red one before! Why can't they give me a new one!?"
Me: "We are all out of red ones. If you don't have a wristband at all, I'll have to ask you to leave. Could you please go get a new one because I don't want you to have to leave . . ."
Person A (throws a small hissy fit and leaves, only to come back to the same seat 5 minutes later as I watch her . . . I walk back, and the conversation begins anew and then I escort her to get a new wristband after seating people wearing red wristbands in her - and her other friends' who also lost their wristbands - seats).
Wow, that was fun. My other favorite excuses for being in the wrong section (and my immediate thoughts after hearing the comments in italics):
"I'm a Journalist" (Then why are you stuck with a wristband while all of the other journalists get VIP seating?)
"I'm a photographer" (Then why do you not have a big sign on your back that says "PHOTOGRAPHER" like the other photographers?)
"My friend is meeting me here . . . Just let me call her. When she comes, I'll go back to my section" (Ummmm . . . DUH! You have a cell phone! Call or text your friend and tell her to meet you in your section next to the big flag that is the same color as your wristband!)
Ok, that's enough ranting about the silly, unoriginal excuses that I heard and the unnecessary amount of effort that was required in order to convince people that they were not, in fact, journalists, photographers, or more important than everybody else. On to the concert . . .
It was very cool! . . . until Konta came on stage. At which point about 1,000 Chinese girls (and a few of the girls' boyfriends . . . WEIRD!?!?!) rushed the stage. Security was completely unprepared, so I had to play blocker as the girls tried to rush past (good thing Chinese girls are very small). A couple of my co-workers had to do the same thing. One got a black eye from a girl punching him in the face; one got socked in the stomach; I just had my "Event Staff" badge ripped off. Luckily my co-worker picked it up before somebody ran off with it. Otherwise I would have been stuck in the red section without identification or a wristband (EEEK!). Eventually security formed a line and the girls couldn't get through. Whew!
Konta did his things while girls screamed, took pictures and cried (it reminded me of those videos of girls at Beatles concerts that I've seen). Then he left the stage and the crazed fans bolted for the exit, presumably hoping to hop in a taxi and wait for him to leave like the day before. Poor girls . . . so naive . . . I didn't have the time (because of their hurry to sprint to the cars) or the heart to tell them that he had an encore performance at the very end of the show.
The rest of the performance was rather uneventful as far as storming the stage goes. "Photographers" and "journalists" came and went, but didn't put up much fuss when I politely asked them to return to their seats. The singers were cool to watch, especially in the encore performance when all six stars returned to sing "One World, One Dream" the 2008 Olympic theme song.
And that was that! After, I had a quick celebratory beer with one of my co-workers who was working F&B (food and beverage), and went out for a night of KTV. Yeehaw!
The story begins last Friday, June 15th when I was asked to help out as a "client interface" for the Samsung Olympic sponsorship announcement concert which was to take place the next day. While "client interfacing" certainly sounds like an important role, it ends up involving a whole lot of sitting-around-and-doing-nothing when the client (who in this case was actually a PR firm, and not Samsung itself) is so busy with his/her own work that he/she doesn't really care about talking to other people. So I spend the most of the day sitting around due to the busyness of my clients, and was only called in when crisis struck and people needed to recharge their phone or needed to get a package from one side of Beijing to the other side in less than 30 minutes (which, I must note, is an impossible feat considering the density of traffic in Beijing - I made it in 45). So anywhoo, Friday was a pretty uneventful day, until the stars came.
By stars, I'm referring to Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong pop singers (6 total). Friday was just a warm-up and "test out the microphones" day, but it was pretty cool to sit right up front with about 50 of my co-workers in a park that was made to seat 6,000 plus people while we got a private show from some of the big name pop stars from the east. However, after two of the six had practiced, crowds began to form just outside of the park, so we had to disperse and keep these fans (or just people with nothing better to do) from trying to come in to get a closer look. There weren't really any issues. Nobody got out of control, but when the Korean boy-band (I think the lead singer's name was Konta) hit the stage, there was a bit of excitement amongst the Chinese teenie boppers. Nothing too crazy, but it was kind of funny to see the line of taxis waiting for his band to leave the venue so that they could follow him back to his hotel. Funnier still was listening to my co-worker Brian relay to me the planning of Konta's escape route that he was hearing via walkie talkie. I don't know how it turned out, but Konta did turn up the next day for his performance safe and sound.
Saturday was the actual day of the event. The morning involved a lot of nothing, and the afternoon was filled with me following around the client with whom I was interfacing in order to make sure that everything was perfect and set for the event, which was to open at 5:30 and begin at 6:45.
The beginning of the event went off without a hitch. The crowds were relatively orderly, and we only had to do a little bit of work trying to make people sit where they were supposed to sit (seating was arranged based on how soon people arrived, best seats going first - colored wristbands were given to people in order to designate the sections where they were supposed to be, within sections, general seating was the rule). It was almost comical how many people in the red section (the best seats) magically seemed to "lose" their wristbands. Here is an example of the generic conversation that I must have had 10 times:
Me: "Can I see your wristband"
Person A: "I lost my wrist band"
Me: "Oh, I'm sorry, but you have to have a red wristband to sit in this area"
Person A: "My wristband was red; I lost it"
Person A's Friend: "Yeah, she (95% of them were female) lost it"
Me: "I'm sorry to hear that. If that's the case, you have to go back up front and get a new one"
Person A (excited): "Oh, so I can tell them that I lost my red band and they'll give me a new one?"
Me: "No, they will give you whatever color they are giving out now. If you wanted to sit here, you shouldn't have lost your red wrist band in the first place."
Person A (angry): "But I HAD a red one before! Why can't they give me a new one!?"
Me: "We are all out of red ones. If you don't have a wristband at all, I'll have to ask you to leave. Could you please go get a new one because I don't want you to have to leave . . ."
Person A (throws a small hissy fit and leaves, only to come back to the same seat 5 minutes later as I watch her . . . I walk back, and the conversation begins anew and then I escort her to get a new wristband after seating people wearing red wristbands in her - and her other friends' who also lost their wristbands - seats).
Wow, that was fun. My other favorite excuses for being in the wrong section (and my immediate thoughts after hearing the comments in italics):
"I'm a Journalist" (Then why are you stuck with a wristband while all of the other journalists get VIP seating?)
"I'm a photographer" (Then why do you not have a big sign on your back that says "PHOTOGRAPHER" like the other photographers?)
"My friend is meeting me here . . . Just let me call her. When she comes, I'll go back to my section" (Ummmm . . . DUH! You have a cell phone! Call or text your friend and tell her to meet you in your section next to the big flag that is the same color as your wristband!)
Ok, that's enough ranting about the silly, unoriginal excuses that I heard and the unnecessary amount of effort that was required in order to convince people that they were not, in fact, journalists, photographers, or more important than everybody else. On to the concert . . .
It was very cool! . . . until Konta came on stage. At which point about 1,000 Chinese girls (and a few of the girls' boyfriends . . . WEIRD!?!?!) rushed the stage. Security was completely unprepared, so I had to play blocker as the girls tried to rush past (good thing Chinese girls are very small). A couple of my co-workers had to do the same thing. One got a black eye from a girl punching him in the face; one got socked in the stomach; I just had my "Event Staff" badge ripped off. Luckily my co-worker picked it up before somebody ran off with it. Otherwise I would have been stuck in the red section without identification or a wristband (EEEK!). Eventually security formed a line and the girls couldn't get through. Whew!
Konta did his things while girls screamed, took pictures and cried (it reminded me of those videos of girls at Beatles concerts that I've seen). Then he left the stage and the crazed fans bolted for the exit, presumably hoping to hop in a taxi and wait for him to leave like the day before. Poor girls . . . so naive . . . I didn't have the time (because of their hurry to sprint to the cars) or the heart to tell them that he had an encore performance at the very end of the show.
The rest of the performance was rather uneventful as far as storming the stage goes. "Photographers" and "journalists" came and went, but didn't put up much fuss when I politely asked them to return to their seats. The singers were cool to watch, especially in the encore performance when all six stars returned to sing "One World, One Dream" the 2008 Olympic theme song.
And that was that! After, I had a quick celebratory beer with one of my co-workers who was working F&B (food and beverage), and went out for a night of KTV. Yeehaw!
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
May Holiday
Hi everybody! It's been quite a while since my last post, so I'll try to fill you in on some stuff that's happened recently.
A couple of weeks ago (prior to the weekend of April 21st), Anna Rose - my pseudo little sister - came to visit. If you read her mass emails then you can skip this section, because it will be repeat info. While she was here, both of our schedules were packed with stuff to do. Mine was full of work, going to the bars, showing Anna around various spots in Beijing, and volunteering for the Special Olympics Sneaker Ball (a charity dinner and dance to raise money for the Special Olympics in Asia), while hers was full of massages, going to the bars, being shown around Beijing and volunteering. In addition to that business, that weekend was my friend Ralph's last weekend in Beijing. So we had to give him a nice set of goodbye celebrations, which basically consisted of watching South Park, going to the bars, and carrying him home :-P. It was a lot of fun though, even though I was very sad to see him go.
The following week marked the beginning of May Holiday. In case you haven't heard about the oddities of Chinese holidays, the rule is that you get the same dates off each year and you can't have more than 7 days in a row off. For example, May holiday lasts from May 1-7 of every year. Since May 1 fell on a Tuesday, we had to work an 8 day work week the preceding week (yes, we had to work Saturday, Sunday and Monday leading up to the break). Then we took our vacation from May 1-7, and I have a 4 day work week this week. It's all very illogical, just like many other things in China.
So how did I fill my break? Well there was a lot of relaxing that went on; I needed some time to recharge from all of the work that I had been doing.
However, on the 2nd of May, Mike and Jamie (two college friends) came up to visit me from Shanghai after Jamie arrived from New York. They arrived around 11 pm on Wednesday and we immediately went out drinking and dancing. We stayed out until about 4, came home, went to sleep, and woke up at 8 am for our trip to the Great Wall at JinShanLing. As you can imagine, we were all very tired, but naps in the car while traveling around helped to take the edge off of that, and we had an absolutely beautiful day to visit the great wall. It was sunny, clear and comfortable (maybe even a little bit hot at some points). After spending a couple of hours on the wall and Jamie and another of Mike's friends, named Coline, almost getting sick from the previous night's activities, we took the trip back to Beijing.
Once we returned to Beijing, we had some dinner and went out again! This time we started with some KTV (karaoke) and then proceeded to the bars. Didn't stay out quite as long as the night before, but we still had a good time.
The next day Mike and Jamie were going to do all of the touristy stuff (Forbidden City, Tiananmen, etc.) so I decided to sleep in and they left. About 2 hours after they left, they showed up back at my apartment and I was a little confused (it's pretty much impossible to see the tourist spots in Beijing that quickly). Turns out that there was some food trouble . . . probably from the previous night's shrimp ball consumption, and the kids wanted to make sure that their systems were ok before they went out for the sight seeing. As a result, I was fully awake by the time they started feeling better and we went out to all of the wonderful, heavily touristed historical sites together. While we were there we did awesome hippie dances to "Love Generation" and took video of it (which I hope to make into a large video if I ever get the raw footage from Mike), and it was awesome.
After making wonderful videos, we took a hike around Beijing and made our way to Houhai (a nice lake area that I've probably mentioned in previous posts), had some dinner there at Hutong Pizza (to settle the kids' stomachs with some western food) and then made our way back to my apartment. At this point, everybody was so tired from the previous two days that we spent Mike and Jamie's last hours in Beijing watching House M.D. and lapsing into and out of REM cycles.
The next morning the others woke up bright and early and headed back to Shanghai, and I was left to my normal life of parting with one small exception: I played golf.
Golf in China is like golf in the U.S. except that you are automatically given a caddy. Even the Chinese words for golfing terms are just phonetic rip-offs of English (with the exception of common words like "Ball" and "Hole"). But "tee" is called a "ti" and a "green" is a "ga-ling" so I got those words down pretty quickly. I played with my friend Sophie who I met several months prior at a friend's bar. I had to rent clubs so it took a little while to get used to them. As a result, the front nine sucked and the back nine was pretty good (57 and 49 were my scores for anybody who is a golfer). All in all, though, I had a good time.
After that, Sophie and I went to a BBQ at the friend's bar, ate some good food, played some Chinese drinking games (though I stuck with water), and then I went home and slept.
Life since then has been pretty much as usual. Friends have been coming and going (Saturday was the last night in Beijing for one of my friends named Rene), so we had a nice little set of going-away festivities for her in the previous days. Work continues as usual; I work a lot, rest on weekends (most of the time), etc. And that's about it.
As far as plans go, there's one thing worth mentioning, I guess. Mike and I are planning a trip to Qingdao coming up at the start of June. For those of you who don't know, Qingdao is an old German port city in the east of China and home to wonderful seafood, Haier refrigerators, and most notably the TsingTao Brewery! It promises to be good times!
That's it for now! Hope life is well for everybody!
A couple of weeks ago (prior to the weekend of April 21st), Anna Rose - my pseudo little sister - came to visit. If you read her mass emails then you can skip this section, because it will be repeat info. While she was here, both of our schedules were packed with stuff to do. Mine was full of work, going to the bars, showing Anna around various spots in Beijing, and volunteering for the Special Olympics Sneaker Ball (a charity dinner and dance to raise money for the Special Olympics in Asia), while hers was full of massages, going to the bars, being shown around Beijing and volunteering. In addition to that business, that weekend was my friend Ralph's last weekend in Beijing. So we had to give him a nice set of goodbye celebrations, which basically consisted of watching South Park, going to the bars, and carrying him home :-P. It was a lot of fun though, even though I was very sad to see him go.
The following week marked the beginning of May Holiday. In case you haven't heard about the oddities of Chinese holidays, the rule is that you get the same dates off each year and you can't have more than 7 days in a row off. For example, May holiday lasts from May 1-7 of every year. Since May 1 fell on a Tuesday, we had to work an 8 day work week the preceding week (yes, we had to work Saturday, Sunday and Monday leading up to the break). Then we took our vacation from May 1-7, and I have a 4 day work week this week. It's all very illogical, just like many other things in China.
So how did I fill my break? Well there was a lot of relaxing that went on; I needed some time to recharge from all of the work that I had been doing.
However, on the 2nd of May, Mike and Jamie (two college friends) came up to visit me from Shanghai after Jamie arrived from New York. They arrived around 11 pm on Wednesday and we immediately went out drinking and dancing. We stayed out until about 4, came home, went to sleep, and woke up at 8 am for our trip to the Great Wall at JinShanLing. As you can imagine, we were all very tired, but naps in the car while traveling around helped to take the edge off of that, and we had an absolutely beautiful day to visit the great wall. It was sunny, clear and comfortable (maybe even a little bit hot at some points). After spending a couple of hours on the wall and Jamie and another of Mike's friends, named Coline, almost getting sick from the previous night's activities, we took the trip back to Beijing.
Once we returned to Beijing, we had some dinner and went out again! This time we started with some KTV (karaoke) and then proceeded to the bars. Didn't stay out quite as long as the night before, but we still had a good time.
The next day Mike and Jamie were going to do all of the touristy stuff (Forbidden City, Tiananmen, etc.) so I decided to sleep in and they left. About 2 hours after they left, they showed up back at my apartment and I was a little confused (it's pretty much impossible to see the tourist spots in Beijing that quickly). Turns out that there was some food trouble . . . probably from the previous night's shrimp ball consumption, and the kids wanted to make sure that their systems were ok before they went out for the sight seeing. As a result, I was fully awake by the time they started feeling better and we went out to all of the wonderful, heavily touristed historical sites together. While we were there we did awesome hippie dances to "Love Generation" and took video of it (which I hope to make into a large video if I ever get the raw footage from Mike), and it was awesome.
After making wonderful videos, we took a hike around Beijing and made our way to Houhai (a nice lake area that I've probably mentioned in previous posts), had some dinner there at Hutong Pizza (to settle the kids' stomachs with some western food) and then made our way back to my apartment. At this point, everybody was so tired from the previous two days that we spent Mike and Jamie's last hours in Beijing watching House M.D. and lapsing into and out of REM cycles.
The next morning the others woke up bright and early and headed back to Shanghai, and I was left to my normal life of parting with one small exception: I played golf.
Golf in China is like golf in the U.S. except that you are automatically given a caddy. Even the Chinese words for golfing terms are just phonetic rip-offs of English (with the exception of common words like "Ball" and "Hole"). But "tee" is called a "ti" and a "green" is a "ga-ling" so I got those words down pretty quickly. I played with my friend Sophie who I met several months prior at a friend's bar. I had to rent clubs so it took a little while to get used to them. As a result, the front nine sucked and the back nine was pretty good (57 and 49 were my scores for anybody who is a golfer). All in all, though, I had a good time.
After that, Sophie and I went to a BBQ at the friend's bar, ate some good food, played some Chinese drinking games (though I stuck with water), and then I went home and slept.
Life since then has been pretty much as usual. Friends have been coming and going (Saturday was the last night in Beijing for one of my friends named Rene), so we had a nice little set of going-away festivities for her in the previous days. Work continues as usual; I work a lot, rest on weekends (most of the time), etc. And that's about it.
As far as plans go, there's one thing worth mentioning, I guess. Mike and I are planning a trip to Qingdao coming up at the start of June. For those of you who don't know, Qingdao is an old German port city in the east of China and home to wonderful seafood, Haier refrigerators, and most notably the TsingTao Brewery! It promises to be good times!
That's it for now! Hope life is well for everybody!
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Work and Fun
Hello all. My apologies for the extreme delay in my posts; I realize it's been nearly a month since my last post, but I've basically been really, really busy with work. Hence I didn't have much time to write and I didn't have much fun stuff to write about. Here's a quick recap of what's been going on:
Work has been busy. I've been shifting my role. Now the major part of my job is developing questionnaires to measure whether or not we have successful events and then using statistics to figure out ways to improve events, etc. based on the responses to the questionnaires. It's alright; requires a lot of thought, though. I just wrote my first full report earlier this week, and the client was quite impressed with the findings we can present based on a 10 question survey.
My other major role is quality control. As we get more and more foreign (mostly American) clients, we want to write reports so that they can be understood. So I get put in charge of making sure that the everything is clear, understandable and complete when we write proposals. So voila, you have my two major jobs.
Social life is good as well. This weekend has been especially fun. Last night I went to a bbq at my co-worker's house. He's French-Chinese and has a very nice mix of friends. We spent the evening eating, drinking, talking, and so forth. His apartment is also quite nice. There are three balconies at his apartment, and on a clear day (like yesterday) you can see the mountains to the West of Beijing from them.
Today I will be heading to an Easter potlatch with a couple of my other friends. Don't know what food I will be bringing yet, but I'll figure it out, and it should be lots of fun.
Don't have any new photos to add yet, unfortunately. I'll try to take some over the next couple of weeks so I can update you all in a more visual way.
That's about it for now. I will try to write again soon! But of course it'll all depend on the schedule :-).
Work has been busy. I've been shifting my role. Now the major part of my job is developing questionnaires to measure whether or not we have successful events and then using statistics to figure out ways to improve events, etc. based on the responses to the questionnaires. It's alright; requires a lot of thought, though. I just wrote my first full report earlier this week, and the client was quite impressed with the findings we can present based on a 10 question survey.
My other major role is quality control. As we get more and more foreign (mostly American) clients, we want to write reports so that they can be understood. So I get put in charge of making sure that the everything is clear, understandable and complete when we write proposals. So voila, you have my two major jobs.
Social life is good as well. This weekend has been especially fun. Last night I went to a bbq at my co-worker's house. He's French-Chinese and has a very nice mix of friends. We spent the evening eating, drinking, talking, and so forth. His apartment is also quite nice. There are three balconies at his apartment, and on a clear day (like yesterday) you can see the mountains to the West of Beijing from them.
Today I will be heading to an Easter potlatch with a couple of my other friends. Don't know what food I will be bringing yet, but I'll figure it out, and it should be lots of fun.
Don't have any new photos to add yet, unfortunately. I'll try to take some over the next couple of weeks so I can update you all in a more visual way.
That's about it for now. I will try to write again soon! But of course it'll all depend on the schedule :-).
Monday, March 12, 2007
China Marketing . . . For Those of you Native English Speakers Looking for a Laugh
So, in case any of you were wondering what I do for my work, I thought I'd share with you an example. I have recently been given a more concrete job. In addition to my work in ROI (Return On Investment) work, and writing corporate overviews and such, I have been designated as the English language cunsultant for the whole company.
Today at 10:50 am, I was given the following text; a speech to be given at an upcoming event. I have changed the name of the product and the company so that I can't get into any trouble for posting it. My instructions were essentially, though actually given in broken English by a Chinese associate: "Read this and correct the English so it sounds like it is coming from a native speaker by 11:00 am (10 minutes after I received it) . . . can you do that?" I said "maybe," and set to work.
Actual text as I received it (with the above-mentioned edits for confidentiality):
"19:30-19:35 MC Opening
Today at 10:50 am, I was given the following text; a speech to be given at an upcoming event. I have changed the name of the product and the company so that I can't get into any trouble for posting it. My instructions were essentially, though actually given in broken English by a Chinese associate: "Read this and correct the English so it sounds like it is coming from a native speaker by 11:00 am (10 minutes after I received it) . . . can you do that?" I said "maybe," and set to work.
Actual text as I received it (with the above-mentioned edits for confidentiality):
"19:30-19:35 MC Opening
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for attending the launch of “[Chinese name of product]”. Here, our colleagues of Brand A
Brand A represent the fine and immutability of style, this is the lifestyle of succeed human being. Brand A symbolize the extremely conceited, also it’s indicate the dream comes true!
Let’s give a warm welcome to the representative of enterprise：XXX
（Staff lead to stage）
Next let’s welcome XXX to give us the welcome speech.
19:35-19:40 The welcome speech of XXX.
（Speech Over，Back to Seat）
19:40-19:42 [Chinese]
Thank you very much for the great speech. There is someone often ask: What is Brand A brand likes? Actually, not matter where, Brand A keeps it’s characterizes. Next let us to appreciate this brand
19: XX-19: XX Brand Video Show
XX: XX-XX: XX [Chinese]
After watching Brand A video, I believe everyone have some knowledge of Brand A. Many people who are well-know Brand A [Model Name] is classics motorcycle (Note: it was actually a car) type. BRAND A [Model Name] is a design originally from
work of art. The pursuit of beauty and life, Is also has elegant, sports and features of exclusive.
Today BRAND A company present new [Model Name] CEO Series automatic transmission modes——BRAND A [Model Name] Automatic. The brand new series provides a new 6-speed automatic transmission, a brand new body color and two-color seating, also provides more variety of choice for the owners.
Ladies and Gentlemen, next let give warm welcome to our guest to inaugurate. Representative of EnterpriseXXXX and local retailer general manager to stage
XX: XX-XX: XX New Car Launch
XX: XX-XX: XX MC [Chinese Name]
How arouse feeling moment, so charm. Let us remember this moment. After Brand A [Model Name] Executive Series before in our eyes, May I present you a show, let us appreciate this moment again.
XX: XX-XX: XX New Car Video Show
XX: XX-XX: XX Q&A串场
I guarantee everyone has some question to Brand A [Model Name] Executive Series after appreciation. Now I will present Mr.XXXX and Mr.XXX explained why this car is so charm and how they are so special and different with other cars.
XX: XX-XX: XX Q&A Finish
Thank you giving us a brilliant explanation.
However I think this simple explanation is not enough to you understand. Therefore have to personal experience Brand A Executive Series automatic transmission models, we will arrange test driving for everyone lately. Our staff will arrange test driving for everyone here during the party time.
Well, there is enough explanation. I think everyone must want to see Brand A Executive Series engine right away. Now, Let us welcome Mr.XXXX and Mr. XXX to open engine top, and show us the heart of Brand A Executive Series.
XX: XX-XX: XX Open Show Car Engine Top
XX: XX-XX: XX MC [Chinese Name]
By the way, today all the attendee to test driving will get a present from Brand A. This present is a Brand A hand mud making by yourself. After you make appointment of test driving, we will invite you to make your hand mud, and processing after party finish, also this hand mud is with the autograph of [Name Deleted] Brand A Chinese general manager. When you participate in the test driving, we will give you this hand mud. This special hand mud is not only representing the friendship between you and Brand A, meanwhile only attendees have this present, which is good value of collection.
Well, next I will past to our music band, I wish everyone enjoy this party and Brand A launch
XX: XX-XX: XX MC Ending Speech
Ladies and Gentlemen, Here,“[Chinese name of product]”is going to be finish really soon, Exciting moment always really short, but leave many wonderful memories to us. We appreciate Brand A [Model Name] executive series automatic transmission models, and spend a full of passion, beautiful, unforgettable night, at this moment, we have to say goodbye. On behalf of all my colleagues in the Brand A again thanks to the arrival of the distinguished guests, and I wish everyone success, healthy and a happiness! We expect meet again in the Brand A [Model Name] Executive Series automatic transmission models testing drive..."
Fun Huh? I finished at 11:25 am. I figure that was pretty quick.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Second Half of Thailand
So I’m back in Beijing after the Trip to Thailand. And let me tell you, Thailand really picked up after the last short blog post. I completely fell in love with it.
Why is Thailand so awesome? Well, it starts with the people. If you’ve spent any extended time with the Thai’s themselves, Spaniards, or drunken Wisconsinites when the Packers are winning, then you have some idea of what I’m talking about. With the exception of a couple of Taxi drivers and swindlers hanging out at tourist spots in Bangkok, everybody seemed to be extremely genuine, always smiling, and always willing to have fun.
In Ao Nang, I met several excellent Thai people. Our (all plurals refer to Mike and me, unless otherwise inferred or stated) crazy stoned boat guide named Him (photos of him to be posted when Mike sends me his photos), our mellow stoned driver that took mike and me to the elephant trek, the wonderfully pleasant ladies who worked at the internet café and tourist office, and a group of people who worked at what became my favorite bar.
I have to admit that I was a little biased at the bar since one of the waitresses there, named Um (pronounced ahm), was phenomenally beautiful and we took a liking to each other (enough that I plan to take a trip back to travel with her for a while – yes, I know I’m crazy, but if you have a problem with it, just hop a flight to China and try to stop me . . . haha). But back to the point, she was wonderful, her friends (even, and perhaps especially, her ladyboy friends) were fun, our guides were excellent, and the Thai people in general just made life simple and great!
Anywhoo, the first thing that Mike and I did after the last post was slept, but then we woke up for an Elephant Trek! It was unlike what I expected. A pretty smooth ride, just rocking back and forth. Not exhilarating whatsoever. The elephants were really gentle; one was driven by a 7ish year old kid. Our elephant was mentally challenged. We wouldn’t have known from riding him, but when people tried to feed him bananas, he couldn’t seem to find his mouth, whereas the elephant next to him seemed like his trunk was a rubber band that snapped directly back into his mouth. Our elephant would curl up the trunk and miss his mouth to the left or right and try unsuccessfully a couple more times before finally hitting the mark. After the elephant rides (during which Mike was almost killed by a huge spider – not really, but we almost ran into it, and it was about the size of my hand), we went to a cave for a little bit. Alright, but not amazing.
That afternoon we laid on the beach and Mike got sunburned and lazy. After some dinner and a failed attempt at playing darts due to a power outage, we decided to sleep . . . at 8 pm. Well, the power came back on and I decided that sleeping that early was lame, so I went out to try and meet people while Mike slept and whined about his sunburn (sorry Mike, you deserve to be chastised a little). So I went to this bar where these two girls tried to get us to come the night before by luring us in with free pool. I got a beer and took to flirting with one of the girls and eventually ended up asking her out to dinner on her night off (can you guess who this girl is?). She agreed, so I considered my night a success and went to bed because I had an early boat ride in the morning.
The next day was a boat trip to islands around Ao Nang. Swimming, snorkeling, eating “yummy yummy” as our stoned boat guide called it, and so forth. It was beautiful, and there are lots of pictures from this portion on my webshots site (http://community.webshots.com/user/ngpinger). After that, Mike and I went back to my favorite bar, played some pool, and then went home to bed.
The remainder of our days in Ao Nang was composed of lots of dancing very late into the night, sleeping late in the day, and an occasional meal. The club that we found (where the young people hang out) was a total meat market, and I was thankful that I had decided to focus my attention on dancing with Um. Mike, on the other hand wasn’t (or was?) so lucky, and was swarmed by a mix of western girls, Thai girls, and ladyboys. It was very funny to watch since he is generally so shy unless he’s around people that he knows, but he eventually got used to it. He was also lucky that Um had some very nice ladyboy friends who would protect him when the more aggressive ladyboys attacked.
But like all good things, that expensive and physically taxing lifestyle had to come to an end, and we had to leave. Hence, we caught a ridiculously uncomfortable night bus back to Bangkok. Bangkok the second time was very relaxed. Mike and I shopped a little. Mike went home. I studied Chinese a little since I had free time. And then I went home. And that was that.
Now I’m back in Beijing and have been immersed back into the fast-paced, work-driven, quite rude Chinese lifestyle (my cab driver on the way home from the Airport kept yelling at me about how he had been driving for 10 hours . . . I should have pretended that I didn’t speak Chinese . . . it wasn’t cool), and I miss Thailand already. However, as I mentioned before, I do plan to go back! If I like it as much as I did the first time I was there, maybe I’ll take the country up as my next residence and anybody who wants to can come to visit me in a tropical paradise!
I’ll leave the post off there, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to write anymore about NYC, LA, Las Vegas and Wisco; my life is moving too quickly, and most of it was work anyways. However, I do have some photos posted from those places. Be sure to check them out here! I’ll send out an email when I’ve posted the ones that I receive from Mike.
Why is Thailand so awesome? Well, it starts with the people. If you’ve spent any extended time with the Thai’s themselves, Spaniards, or drunken Wisconsinites when the Packers are winning, then you have some idea of what I’m talking about. With the exception of a couple of Taxi drivers and swindlers hanging out at tourist spots in Bangkok, everybody seemed to be extremely genuine, always smiling, and always willing to have fun.
In Ao Nang, I met several excellent Thai people. Our (all plurals refer to Mike and me, unless otherwise inferred or stated) crazy stoned boat guide named Him (photos of him to be posted when Mike sends me his photos), our mellow stoned driver that took mike and me to the elephant trek, the wonderfully pleasant ladies who worked at the internet café and tourist office, and a group of people who worked at what became my favorite bar.
I have to admit that I was a little biased at the bar since one of the waitresses there, named Um (pronounced ahm), was phenomenally beautiful and we took a liking to each other (enough that I plan to take a trip back to travel with her for a while – yes, I know I’m crazy, but if you have a problem with it, just hop a flight to China and try to stop me . . . haha). But back to the point, she was wonderful, her friends (even, and perhaps especially, her ladyboy friends) were fun, our guides were excellent, and the Thai people in general just made life simple and great!
Anywhoo, the first thing that Mike and I did after the last post was slept, but then we woke up for an Elephant Trek! It was unlike what I expected. A pretty smooth ride, just rocking back and forth. Not exhilarating whatsoever. The elephants were really gentle; one was driven by a 7ish year old kid. Our elephant was mentally challenged. We wouldn’t have known from riding him, but when people tried to feed him bananas, he couldn’t seem to find his mouth, whereas the elephant next to him seemed like his trunk was a rubber band that snapped directly back into his mouth. Our elephant would curl up the trunk and miss his mouth to the left or right and try unsuccessfully a couple more times before finally hitting the mark. After the elephant rides (during which Mike was almost killed by a huge spider – not really, but we almost ran into it, and it was about the size of my hand), we went to a cave for a little bit. Alright, but not amazing.
That afternoon we laid on the beach and Mike got sunburned and lazy. After some dinner and a failed attempt at playing darts due to a power outage, we decided to sleep . . . at 8 pm. Well, the power came back on and I decided that sleeping that early was lame, so I went out to try and meet people while Mike slept and whined about his sunburn (sorry Mike, you deserve to be chastised a little). So I went to this bar where these two girls tried to get us to come the night before by luring us in with free pool. I got a beer and took to flirting with one of the girls and eventually ended up asking her out to dinner on her night off (can you guess who this girl is?). She agreed, so I considered my night a success and went to bed because I had an early boat ride in the morning.
The next day was a boat trip to islands around Ao Nang. Swimming, snorkeling, eating “yummy yummy” as our stoned boat guide called it, and so forth. It was beautiful, and there are lots of pictures from this portion on my webshots site (http://community.webshots.com/user/ngpinger). After that, Mike and I went back to my favorite bar, played some pool, and then went home to bed.
The remainder of our days in Ao Nang was composed of lots of dancing very late into the night, sleeping late in the day, and an occasional meal. The club that we found (where the young people hang out) was a total meat market, and I was thankful that I had decided to focus my attention on dancing with Um. Mike, on the other hand wasn’t (or was?) so lucky, and was swarmed by a mix of western girls, Thai girls, and ladyboys. It was very funny to watch since he is generally so shy unless he’s around people that he knows, but he eventually got used to it. He was also lucky that Um had some very nice ladyboy friends who would protect him when the more aggressive ladyboys attacked.
But like all good things, that expensive and physically taxing lifestyle had to come to an end, and we had to leave. Hence, we caught a ridiculously uncomfortable night bus back to Bangkok. Bangkok the second time was very relaxed. Mike and I shopped a little. Mike went home. I studied Chinese a little since I had free time. And then I went home. And that was that.
Now I’m back in Beijing and have been immersed back into the fast-paced, work-driven, quite rude Chinese lifestyle (my cab driver on the way home from the Airport kept yelling at me about how he had been driving for 10 hours . . . I should have pretended that I didn’t speak Chinese . . . it wasn’t cool), and I miss Thailand already. However, as I mentioned before, I do plan to go back! If I like it as much as I did the first time I was there, maybe I’ll take the country up as my next residence and anybody who wants to can come to visit me in a tropical paradise!
I’ll leave the post off there, and I’ve decided that I’m not going to write anymore about NYC, LA, Las Vegas and Wisco; my life is moving too quickly, and most of it was work anyways. However, I do have some photos posted from those places. Be sure to check them out here! I’ll send out an email when I’ve posted the ones that I receive from Mike.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
In Thailand with Mike
Hey all! Sorry for the huge delay in posts. I've been crazy busy traveling to the states, doing work once I got back and so forth.
This is just going to be a quick post since I have to pay for internet here, but I thought I'd update.
After my trips to NYC, LA and Las Vegas, I did a little trip back to Madison, Wisconsin to see the family and some friends. Everything was a blast, and I'll probably write a little more about it in a later post, but for now there is too much to say.
For the past 5 days or so, I've been traveling through Thailand with Mike Neuenfeldt. I landed in Bangkok late on Monday Night. Tuesday Mike and I toured the city, saw a pretty cool palace, etc. That night we saw a Thai Boxing match (Muay Thai), and made a little trip to the Redlight district. Needless to say, both were pretty crazy!
The next day, we caught a night bus down to the south of Thailand. We've spent the last few days in a town called Ao Nang. It's a real relaxed place, but it's hot and we're both fighting sunburn because of some bogus sunscreen. Since we've been here, we've mostly been laying on the beach, but we did take a day where we rented some scooters and drove all over the place.
Over the next few days we plan to do an elephant trek, a boat trip to multiple islands around Ao Nang, more laying on the beach and a trip or two to surrounding communities. The scenery so far has been pretty gorgeous. Basically everywhere you go along the beach looks like a picture from a postcard. Cool little rocky islands covered in forest are all over the place in the bays, and on the mainland limestone cliffs lead nearly all the way to the ocean with just a little strip of sand separating them from the water (at low tide).
I'll try to write more about the trip when I return to Beijing, but I already know that I'm going to be insanely busy with work for the first week or so because I took off an extra week to come down here. Also, there will be photos coming soon including shots from New York, LA, and Thailand.
That's it for now! Hope life is going well for everybody!
This is just going to be a quick post since I have to pay for internet here, but I thought I'd update.
After my trips to NYC, LA and Las Vegas, I did a little trip back to Madison, Wisconsin to see the family and some friends. Everything was a blast, and I'll probably write a little more about it in a later post, but for now there is too much to say.
For the past 5 days or so, I've been traveling through Thailand with Mike Neuenfeldt. I landed in Bangkok late on Monday Night. Tuesday Mike and I toured the city, saw a pretty cool palace, etc. That night we saw a Thai Boxing match (Muay Thai), and made a little trip to the Redlight district. Needless to say, both were pretty crazy!
The next day, we caught a night bus down to the south of Thailand. We've spent the last few days in a town called Ao Nang. It's a real relaxed place, but it's hot and we're both fighting sunburn because of some bogus sunscreen. Since we've been here, we've mostly been laying on the beach, but we did take a day where we rented some scooters and drove all over the place.
Over the next few days we plan to do an elephant trek, a boat trip to multiple islands around Ao Nang, more laying on the beach and a trip or two to surrounding communities. The scenery so far has been pretty gorgeous. Basically everywhere you go along the beach looks like a picture from a postcard. Cool little rocky islands covered in forest are all over the place in the bays, and on the mainland limestone cliffs lead nearly all the way to the ocean with just a little strip of sand separating them from the water (at low tide).
I'll try to write more about the trip when I return to Beijing, but I already know that I'm going to be insanely busy with work for the first week or so because I took off an extra week to come down here. Also, there will be photos coming soon including shots from New York, LA, and Thailand.
That's it for now! Hope life is going well for everybody!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Happy New Year!
Hey all! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and so forth; I certainly did.
The day before New Year’s Eve, I had my little date with Jeri, the girl that I met while dancing. It went quite well; dinner then met up with some of my friends at the bars to chat for a while. Altogether it was quite wholesome, and I expect to see her again sometime soon (perhaps this afternoon even).
New Year’s celebration was quite fun. I spend the first half of the night with some co-workers. We ate dinner at a gorgeous restaurant, then hopped from bar to bar for a while before I split off to meet up with my friends to prepare for the countdown. We went to a bar called Black Sun where we had a very American-style new years celebration which involved more drinking, a nice loud countdown, and playing darts. It was quite fun, and I ended up staying out until 5:00 am.
Yesterday, therefore, was a recovery day. I woke up at about 2:00 pm, and met up with some friends for a TV series marathon. I brought House M.D., my buddy Ralph brought Prison Break, Kit brought Chappelle Show, and his girlfriend Fleur brought a
I know that I’ve been feeling like my Chinese has been coming along pretty slowly, but last night made me realize how much I’ve actually learned. The thing is that I’m usually hanging out with a bunch of people who have studied Chinese for 4 years +, so my Chinese is pretty mediocre compared to them, but yesterday I was the “Expert” at the dinner table and had to do all of the ordering. To make things more fun, the restaurant didn’t have an English language menu. No bother, we got all the food that we needed (I just wish that Chinese were a little more logical, for example: broccoli is literally translated as “Western blue flower,” as opposed to the more logical “Western green flower.” What’s up with that!? It led to a little confusion.).
Anywhoo, today I planned to be in the office working on a game for the upcoming trip to the US, but as it turns out, my conference call that was scheduled for today at 8pm got pushed back to Thursday night, so I have a free afternoon, which I will either spend with Jeri or watching Prison Break. Oh, I’ll also have to find a little time to collect some information for Mike and Barone’s upcoming visit this Friday!
Alrighty, I think I’ll leave off here. To all of you people on vacation, enjoy it because vacations are awesome! Also, don’t look too carefully for a blog post in the next several weeks. I’ll be busy entertaining from Friday to Wednesday when I leave for the
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Merry Christmas!
Hello everybody! It’s been quite some time since my last post, and a lot has happened since then, so I’ll try to remember the important details, but I’m sure that I’ll forget some.
Two weekends ago: A good friend, Jon, decided two weeks ago that he would be leaving
Last week: The work week last week involved a lot of research and the creation of an economic game that will be played at an upcoming conference with a bunch of Marketing CEOs. My boss, Alex, will be presenting the game which is essentially created to show the benefits of choosing not to compete based on price. For anybody who has taken economics (or anybody who has access to Wikipedia and is curious), the game is based on the “Prisoners’ Dilemma” format. Because economics tends to be boring unless you’re actually watching it in action, I won’t go further into the game.
This past weekend: The only interesting thing that happened last weekend was on Saturday. Weekends tend to be my recharge time, where I just lay around the house and store up energy for the upcoming week. Saturday, however, I went out with a group of friends to the Hohai area to enjoy some nice drinks and conversation. After that, a French friend of mine, Jean, and I went to a club near my apartment to do some dancing. It was quite a blast: mostly American music, lots of people, just good all-around fun. After dancing for a little while I noticed that a very pretty girl was looking over my way, but sadly, she seemed to be with a boy. Since we kept catching each-others’ eyes, though, I decided to try and beckon her over. No success. Convinced that I had no game, I just continued dancing for a while with one of Jean’s friends (actually his Chinese teacher) that we met up with. Later on, though, I ended up next to the original girl and this time, she was willing to dance. To answer the obvious questions: No, I did not go home with her (what kind of guy do you take me for?), and yes, I did get her phone number. To answer the next questions, yes I have called her and yes we will hopefully be meeting up later this week. We shall see how that goes. So anyways, I went home at 4:30 am, and was awoken the next morning by a phone call from my family and my other family (the Tomaros).
Christmas was yesterday, and I had to work. Too bad, I know, but since everybody in
And now for the big surprise news! I will be home in
That’s it for now. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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