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!

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 :-).

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!

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!

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!

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!

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 :-).

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

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for attending the launch of “[Chinese name of product]”. Here, our colleagues of Brand A China are thanks everyone to be here for this great moment! Meanwhile, thank you for your concern of Brand A always.

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 [Country] by [Name]. It is like a

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.

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.

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!

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 New Zealand movie called Once Were Warriors. So from 3:00 or so until 1:00 am we vegged out on the couch, taking a brief break for dinner.

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 US. In the US, I’ll be very busy, but on the bright side, many of you will be able to see me!

Happy New Year!

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 Beijing. As a result, we wanted to show him an excellent last weekend in Beijing. Since Saturday and Sunday were reserved for his girlfriend, Friday night was our only available night, so we made the most of it. The night started with some Beruit (a wonderful game involving ping-pong balls cups – into which you throw the ping-pong balls – and lots of beer). After that, it was “Friday Night Fights,” or so Jon thought. We lined him up to box with another of my friends, Ralph, but when they were getting ready to start sparing, we tackled him, taped up his arms and legs, blindfolded him, and carried him to an undisclosed location. It was essentially a fraternity-style abduction, based on the fact that my group of American friends considers themselves something of a fraternity (Alpha Beijing Nu is the name). So yes, I made it through college without joining a fraternity, but it seems that I have unwittingly joined one here; I’m not too upset about it, though. Anyways, after the abduction and a brief hazing/exit ritual for Jon, we went back to play some more Beirut. After that it was off to Party World for some karaoke! Because we were slow getting out of the door, our initial reservation was cancelled and we had to head to another location to sing. Long story short, we sang our hearts out until about four in the morning and then went home for some sleep.

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 China works on Christmas, I really didn’t notice it much. Not too much interesting to say about Christmas day. Sorry :-P.

And now for the big surprise news! I will be home in Madison from January 20^th to the 23^rd. I probably should have put this information at the start of the post so that people will actually read it, but my college friends are on break now (so you can’t complain about schoolwork making you too busy to read my blog), and my family already knows that I’m coming. Anywhoo, one of those nights will be reserved for the family (or for family and friends who love my family). The other two nights, I will be open to whatever people want to do. I just hope that I get a chance to see everybody!!! Hence, if you want to hang out with me, clear your calendar for at least one of the days and let me know what day you want to see me and I’ll try to make everything work.

That’s it for now. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I'm still alive and kicking . . .

Hey all. Sorry for the lack of an entry last week; I've just been too busy. This week you get one, but it's going to be short.

So this week was pretty mad with activity. I had a proposal to write, a commercial to write, and a looming VIP tour that I had to give on Friday. Hence, I was a busy-body. The proposal is almost done as of today, the commercial is done (though not perfect, but it's going to stay that way), and the VIP tour went quite well.

Actually, I'm just realizing that since I was so busy with all of the work stuff, I really don't have any interesting stories to relate, so it's alright that this blog entry will be very short.

Next week should be a little less hectic, so I'll probably be able to do some interesting things and come up with some good stories for next week's post, but we shall see. For now, I will leave off. I hope life is going well for everybody!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So it’s been a very busy week. Recently, I was assigned to a new project working with some Ferrari dealerships throughout China. Hence, much of this week was spent meeting with people who work for Ferrari, meeting with people who work for the dealership, and partying with them.

Monday night I was up until 4:00 am at a crazy night of Karaoke with the President of HighTeam, some other co-workers and a bunch of Ferrari people. By the way, Karaoke is HUGE here, and I probably go once every two to three weeks.

Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with more meetings and some research, but that’s not fun to write about, so lets move on to Thanksgiving. Erica (an American co-worker of mine) and I took off work early on Thursday. We were able to do this because our boss put us into a television commercial for the 600 days until the Beijing Olympics celebration that is going on in December. I’ll try to get a tape of it, since I’ll be standing there looking like a freak speaking Spanish on Beijing television. It’ll be something to show the kids. But anyways, back to thanksgiving. We took off early, because we felt it was only fair that we should get some time off for being subjected to humiliation in front of all of Beijing, and went to our friend Ralph’s parents’ house.

Once there, we began cooking, watching movies (Thank You For Smoking, Euro Trip and The Big Lebowski), and so forth. We did it potlatch style, so everybody brought a dish that is popular in their birth-location. I brought cheese bread. It was delicious.

After everybody arrived (about 20 people, in all), we got together and played a very intense game of kickball. It was awesomely sweet. I forgot entirely how much I love that game! The pollution made breathing a little bit difficult, but we had an excellent time anyways. And people really, really got into it. There were several excellent dives to try and prevent getting tagged out, and one dive (read “trip”) and crawl due to running in heeled shoes. The only negative part of the intensity was that I was ragingly sore on Friday, but I still feel that fun was worth the pain.

After that, dinner time. We had a turkey, two roast ducks, stuffing (my personal favorite of the food), salads, sweet and regular potatoes, beans, cranberry sauce, wine, beer, and multiple deserts. Holy cow was it delicious. Perhaps too delicious, actually, since I definitely ate enough to put myself into a pretty severe food coma. Once my photos are posted on web-shots, you may be able to tell when that was, since I took probably 6 or 7 pictures from the same spot on the same couch where I laid down to digest my food. That series of photos pretty much sums up the rest of the night. Everybody just sat, talked, digested food, etc. and then we went home. I know that my description doesn’t do it justice, but Thursday was probably the best day that I’ve had in Beijing since I arrived.

Friday was a fun day of work. Since I’ve been doing this Ferrari thing, one of the guys who we work with got some tickets to the Beijing International Auto Show for a couple of co-workers and me, so we took a trip over there for some research. It was pretty cool seeing all of the new concept cars and the interesting floor setups that the various companies created. Probably the coolest thing that I saw, though, was the dancing robot that Honda made. It was totally sweet! It could walk, dance, stand on one foot, and it almost seemed human. I have a video of it that I’ll try to post on Webshots, but we’ll see how that turns out.

The other interesting part of the auto show was the exotic cars area. Maseratis, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Porches, and, of course, Ferraris were all there. The co-workers and I even got to go into the VIP areas of the Maserati and Ferrari areas. If anybody strikes it rich and wants to buy me a Ferrari (since I won’t be buying one even if I happen to strike it rich . . . they’re too expensive), the 612 is my choice. I have a picture of me standing next to it in the photo page.

Other than these little anecdotes, nothing too interesting is going on. I’m continuing to learn Chinese, I’m hooked on the TV show Scrubs, I like to read when I have spare time, etc. It’s a decent life.

I hope that everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I look forward to hearing from anybody who wants to write!

Here's the photo site again for people who haven't yet bookmarked it (I'll post the photos in a couple of days): http://community.webshots.com/user/ngpinger

Mike and I Cross Paths

So Thursday the 9^th, I took a little trip to Shanghai. Almost missed my flight due to waking up 17 minutes after I planned to leave the apartment to catch my cab to the apartment, but no big deal, I ended up making it on time (thank God that there weren’t any traffic jams on the way J).

Anywhoo . . . the first day and a half of the trip was spent working. I went to observe an event and sub-event that we were throwing to get some ideas for new things to start researching. It was interesting stuff and I had some new ideas come to mind for Consumer Relationship Management (CRM) stuff that we’re working on, but it’s probably not interesting for anybody reading this, so I’ll skip it.

Thursday night, after my first ever trip to Hooters (with four of the big bosses in HighTeam), I met up with Mike. The first night was basically just chill-time. Catching up, chatting, walking around Shanghai, etc.; nice and relaxing. Friday after I finished working we traveled around Shanghai to the Bund, Peoples Square, a history museum, etc. During that time I learned that Shanghai is a completely different world from Beijing. In the very commercial, touristy areas, we couldn’t walk for more than five minutes without being asked if we wanted a “lady massage,” or being approached by “art students” who wanted to show us some of the work they were exhibiting. Also, the cab drivers were terrible! They weren’t any crazier on the road than Beijing drivers, but they would do anything to rip off westerners (or “big noses” as the Shanghainese seem to like to call us). I’ve had one bad cab experience in Beijing in the whole three months that I’ve been here. But in four days in Shanghai, three cab drivers tried to rip me off. After a certain amount of yelling, though, I was able to work the second two back to a reasonable fare (for the first one, I was just too lazy and tired to bother).

Saturday, Mike had to work for a while so I met up with a Shanghainese friend of mine named Orlando. He did an internship in Madison in the summer of ’05. With him and a buddy of his, Benny, we went to a couple of commercial/tourist areas and just walked around; I didn’t really care to buy anything since almost all of the same stuff exists in Beijing (and often at lower prices, DVDs being the exception). We then temporarily parted ways so that Orlando could go home for dinner with some relatives, but not before planning to meet up for some awesome bar-time that night.

So, after freshening up, meeting up with Mike, having some dinner, and drinking three nice sized bottles of beer while watching Underworld Revolutions (we made a rule that we had to take a drink whenever Kate Beckinsale looked hot . . . good game), it was off to enjoy the Shanghai nightlife. We went to club DKD, and again had a bad encounter with a cab driver who dropped us off about three blocks from our destination and pointed vaguely in the direction that we were supposed to go. After several calls to Orlando, though we eventually made our way to the club and began the fun.

Johnny Walker Black and green tea is a drink of choice for the Chinese, but I personally find it disgusting. So I was stuck with Johnny Walker on the rocks . . . mmm. After a little bit of that and a wonderful dice game, we (meaning I, Mike, Orlando, and some of Orlando’s friends) hit the dance floor. It was a good time. The DJ was good, the music was decent, and dancing was fun. Too bad none of us had any game, so after a couple of hours of that we went to McDonalds for some late-night food.

The game that we (we now being Mike, Orlando and I) played on the way there was the “Try to get Mike to say funny things in Chinese” game. So that provided plenty of entertainment for Orlando and me. I don’t know if the actually phrases or Mike’s wacky drunken pronunciation were funnier . . . some combination of them kept us giggling like freaks the whole way to McDonalds, though.

At McDonalds, Mike started insisting that he could speak Chinese with the best of em, and proceeded to push us out of the way to order for everybody. Apparently he got his point across, even though the cashier kept laughing whenever Mike turned around to show us that he could order, because we got our food. And man was it delicious.

After that, it was time to head home so the three of us caught a cab. Mike insisted on us dropping Orlando off first even though he was 30 minutes in the opposite direction of my hotel and Mike’s apartment. We kept telling him that it didn’t make any sense, but Mike was the only one who knew where he and I had to go (so now he really did know the most important Chinese phrase as far as I and Orlando were concerned). However, Orlando, being the crafty guy that he is, agreed to go towards his home so we could drop him of there, and then promptly direct the cab driver in the general direction of my hotel. After about a 10 minute drive, he stopped and got out leaving Mike dumbfounded and with no choice other than to direct the cab driver to head towards my hotel. So I got home at the reasonable hour of 4am.

The next day I had my flight home at 2pm, so I gave Mike a call around 10:45am to grab some lunch before I left, but he was too tired. Lame, but whatever . . . we had a fun time. So I grabbed some lunch and headed back to Beijing!

This past week has been another relatively normal one at work. I’m now working as a strategic consultant on a year-long marketing plan for four Ferrari and Maserati dealerships in China. We give our initial ideas next Friday, and we’ll see where the project goes from there!

P.S. more photos will be up soon at http://community.webshots.com/user/ngpinger.

P.P.S John Tucker Must Die wasn't as bad as the previews made it out to be, exept for the ending, and Scrubs may be the greatest show ever.

"Ya know . . . this is a Great Wall . . . "

Written on November 7, 2006

Contrary to popular knowledge, or though my email would have me believe is popular knowledge, I am not dead. Rather, I have been experiencing technical difficulties with computer access outside of work. It all started with my apple power sending out a bright little display of sparks and then sizzling slowly until the indicator light that tells when the computer is being charged went dead. I debated long and hard about whether I should just use the company computer or whether I should buy a replacement charger since I knew that the apple sales people would gouge the crap out of me if I tried to buy one here in China. After getting a sore back lugging home the late 1990s size laptop in my man-bag once or twice, I broke down and decided to buy the charger. And it only cost me $120 . . . a 75% markup from US prices . . . freaking shipping costs . . .

So as of Saturday, I had a charged home computer. And since I would also have a charged home computer on Sunday, I decided to relax Saturday afternoon knowing that I could tell you all how I was doing on Sunday. Boy was that a miscalculation. Saturday night I decided to take a little trip out to the bars (now I know what you’re thinking . . . he must have drank too much and gotten a massive hangover . . . but just you wait and see) and, realizing that I had work to do on Sunday and that I really, really wanted to let you all know how I was doing via a blog post, I decided to take it easy on the drinking. After a measly three beers in two hours at the bar, I packed it up and headed home at the socially unacceptable time of 12:30 am. For those of you still on Madison Standard Drinking Time, that would be 1.5 hours before bar time. In Beijing, where there is no bar time, it’s just plain pathetic. But I was feeling very prudent. And what did I get for all of my forethought and responsibility? YES! A migraine AND a headcold! So Sunday did not prove to be the productive day of work and blogging that I had planned. Instead, it was a mixture of me moaning, because for some reason the sound of my own discomfort rather effectively took my mind off the pain in my head, and blowing my nose. So that was fun . . .

On to Monday: I went to work, feeling much better I might add, and had a very productive day. Work finished, on to Chinese class. Chinese class finishes, time to go home and write some blog entries. Get home, start up the computer, and a happy little message greets me: “Cannot find PPPoE server.” Hurray! Now my internet is down, though I haven’t yet paid a bill, so I can take some blame for this problem. Anywhoo, after crying like a little girl for several hours, I decided that I was too depressed to write last night.

Today, however, I am a new man! And here I am to relate to you everything wonderful about China (but you won’t get it until tomorrow, because my internet is still down and I’m writing this in a Word document).

First things first: the Great Wall. Not last Friday, but the Friday before that, I went to the Great Wall. Actually I went to the Great Wall twice in one day, for work research. The first place that I went to was rather dull: a touristy area by a big dam on a run-down portion of the wall. The highlight of the trip to that portion of the wall was the local Chinese yelling when I took off my shirt because my friend Carolyn was trying to take a picture of me and said my jacket was too dark and didn’t stand out enough against the dark hills in the background so I took of my shirt because I’m really pale and, sure enough, you can see me in the picture (even though that sentence was a major run-on, or maybe because it was a major run-on, it was really fun to write . . . I’m in a weird mood . . . ). So yeah, boring part of the wall. If you come to visit me, I will not take you there.

The second part of the wall, though, was really, really cool. There were 10 kilometers or so of completely restored wall. Pictures are the best way to get a feel for it, so go look at them! The only bad part about this portion of the wall was that it was about 4 hours away by car. And this is 4 hours with an insane driver. Let me tell a little story about her . . .

Pardon my French, and cover your kids’ eyes if they’re reading, but this lady had BALLS OF STEEL. I mean, I’ve encountered people who I thought were fearless before, but wow! The car ride up wasn’t so bad. It just involved an average disregard for signs, lanes, etc. that were created to keep drivers and passengers safe. On the way home though, if I had to give a rough estimate for the amount of time that we spent in a lane that did not contain oncoming traffic, I’d guess it was somewhere around 65%. Further breakdown follows: About 30% of the time, we were the party that would have been liable had an accident occurred since we were on the wrong side of the road taking on not only other mid-size sedans, but big freaking gravel trucks that would’ve squashed us like little bugs if they would’ve hit us, in an exhilarating game of chicken. Another 5% of the time some jerk was in our lane trying to cheat death in a similar manner. The remaining 65% of the time, as I mentioned, we were safe.

So that was the Great Wall trip. After that little expedition, I was supposed to watch scary movies with a friend of mine (whose name I should totally give out so that you can send her hate mail on Facebook) since it was Halloween weekend and all, but she backed out so I was forced to watch When A Stranger Calls all by myself. It was a scary movie in theory, but I just couldn’t relate to the main character. I mean I’ve never babysat for such a rich family and my boy troubles just aren’t . . . ok this joke is already going to far.

Sorry folks, all this sarcasm is making me tired. I’m going to go get a massage (I don’t have anything that can compete with the driver-lady for entertainment anyways). Toodles!

Computer Troubles . . .

I give my appologies for not writing in a couple of weeks, but the power adapter for my apartment's computer is broken and I haven't been able to do any writing at home. Since I'm writing at work, I'll keep this post short and let you know that more info on my life will be coming soon!

Things to look forward to . . .

1) New project; I'm going to Shanghai
2) Going away party for my friend Jess
3) A day trip to two sections of the Great Wall

Soon enough there will be text, pictures and possibly video!!!!

Back to Work

Not too much to write about this week. Work started again on Sunday after the week-long break. I was a little sad to go back because I was enjoying all of the free time, but this past week wasn't very stressful at all.

I've had a lot of down-time since the end of the Urban Safari so I've basically been doing a lot of research. At this point, most of the Chinese workers in the company have little to no formal business education so my work is pretty basic. I read American business educational material and summarize the parts that are most important to understand when working for HighTeam. Then I present the info to the other members of my R & D Team. It's pretty easy work and I'm learning a lot, which is quite nice. Over the past week I read 3 books on marketing and got paid to do so. I love learning, at this point I'm basically being paid to do something that I would have liked to do anyways.

In addition to that reading, I'm reading a couple of books at home. The first is Wild Swans, an amazing history of 3 generations of Chinese women growing up through the 19th century. If anybody plans to come and visit me, I would recommend that he or she picks up that book from their local library and gives it a read before coming by. There are lots of references to Beijing because it is the political capital of China, so I've seen many of the places mentioned in the book; pretty cool. I'm also starting The Pride and The Prejudice just for kicks. I bought a membership at a place called The Bookworm, which is essentially an English language library that charges membership fees. I haven't really gotten into it yet because I want to finish Wild Swans first.

Back to work. They are seriously running out of structured things for me to do, since most of the proposal writing that is going on right now is in Chinese. Hence, I've started to define my own projects. The company in the past has been a loose association of very talented and driven people who each built their own mini-businesses in HighTeam, and when they left, they took their work with them. So the company doesn't have a lot of base knowledge which everybody can access. So my first self-created project is to profile the major industries that HighTeam services. Right now Erica and I are profiling the high-end auto industry. Basically we're preparing the company for any type of project that they would need to do by breaking the industry down into manageable sub-industries (eg. we look at all of the high-end luxury sedans, find the different cars that are competitors based on price and style, and then determine the relative international positions of the cars in the international market. i.e. Volvo is a "safety" positioned brand; they sell based on the fact that their cars are very sturdy and safe, whereas Jaguar is a youthful image-based company; they sell to a crowd that is younger in age and enjoys nightlife, and is very concerned with style). All-in-all the project is very ambitious, but the project managers that I have talked to up to this point have been very excited about the possibility of centralizing some of the knowledge in the company. One told me that it would be "great not to have to stay up to 3:00 a.m. writing proposals anymore because of repeat work."

So that's my life right now. I enjoy the researching more than the event management for two reasons. First, it's far less stressful. I get to work at 9:00 a.m. and I leave at 5:00 p.m. Then I don't have to worry about whether I have taken care of all of the details in the project, because I set the level of detail. Second, I'm much better at it. I have always enjoyed and been good at working with very abstract problems which require me to synthesize large amounts of information into something more simple that gives people insights into what they should do in the future. So I like it. Still don't think I could do it for the rest of my life, but I like it.

My Apartment Location

Hey all. If anybody was wondering where my apartment is located in Beijing, feel free to check out Google Earth online. Worker's Stadium is just northeast (more east than north) of the forbidden city (a big square in the middle of Beijing). Worker's Stadum is also a tough landmark to miss if you know where to look since it is a big, round stadium-looking thing. This picture is a blown up view of my area of Beijing with some major roads and Worker's Stadium labeled. I don't know how big the picture is online (I can't read my own posts), but you can click on it to see the full size.

Photos!

So I don't have too much to write about today. I was planning on taking a trip to the Great Wall this morning, but apparently I ate something that didn't agree with me and I was up all last night with major stomach pains, and I didn't feel like leaving for the Great Wall at 8:00 am in that condition. Luckily, the pain has since subsided substantially.

The main purpose of this post is to link you up to my new webshots account. Click here to get to the site that contains my albums. I should be updating with new photos every once in a while, so feel free to bookmark (Don't become a member, though, unless you have an email address that you don't check often; Webshots does send some spam. If you need an extra email address, just get a Hotmail one; it's free and completely useless compared to Gmail!)

That's about all I have for now. I head back to work on Sunday . . . the holiday calendar here is a little odd compared to the U.S., but whatever. I'm just going to make the most of the free time that I have.