I spent the week with my family on the Kona side of Hawaii getting SCUBA certified at Jack's Dive Locker in Kailua. It was a pretty good trip, although diving isn't the easiest thing to pick up initially, especially breath control, but I passed and got my Open Water Diver certification. Diving in the tropics is pretty nice as you don't need to wear nearly as thick a wet suit and the fish life is much more vibrant.
(This post was written well after the fact. I got my Advanced Open Water certification in August 2011 in Monterey, CA. The water was significantly colder, but not as cold as I expected. And I rather enjoyed diving in the kelp forests. I think cold water diving has much more interesting plant life whereas warm water diving has much more interesting fish life)
Friday, December 24, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
China - Day 88 - China Retrospective
Wow, I made it. There were times that I seriously doubted whether I would last here, but I did. I don't know how I could write something cohesive about my experiences in China, so I'm going to resort to bullet points:
Things I'm going to miss:
Things I'm not going to miss:
Things I might miss or might not:
Things I'm going to miss:
- Being able to find milk tea everywhere
- Food being inexpensive and tasty
- The very impressive workshop at Allied
- Being good at basketball
- Exploring the city with my friends as an isolated group in a huge city
- The Shanghai Metro System and high-speed rail to Hangzhou
- Baozi and jiaozi. It's going to be hard to go back to eating Ling Ling
- Very kind and generous personal interactions
Things I'm not going to miss:
- Being stared at all the time everywhere I go
- Having to debone meat as I eat it
- Everyone smoking everywhere all the time
- Littering, spitting, people urinating everywhere
- The lack of personal space
- Monsoon weather
- Only having instant or overpriced coffee to drink
- Chinese "Beer" - an insult to beer
- Being functionally illiterate
- Not being able to drink tap water
- Everyone's lack of concern for safety
- Everyone's general disdain for strangers
- Getting the run around from my company when it's time to get paid
- Not being able to get a straight answer out of anyone
- Feeling like I'm risking my life every time I cross the street
Things I might miss or might not:
- People pushing/cutting in line - It's incredibly rude, but I'm good at it
- Never having to pay for a meal - Never being allowed to pay for yourself does get a bit insulting after a while
- Grocery Stores - They have some delicious surprises and some of the most foul "food" I've ever seen
- People watching - People act very differently in public than they do back home
- Chinese fashion - everyone tries to stand out and ends up looking silly
- Chinese ambition - People seem much more ambitious, but less creative here
- Strangers telling me I'm handsome - On one hand, it's very flattering. On the other, it's a very creepy way to start a conversation on the bus (which happened to me twice).
China - Day 87 - Going going back back to Cali Cali
Of course, the travel gods of China would make it difficult for me to leave. After Dr. Sun generously offered one of the company cars to drive me to my hotel in Shanghai, it was an hour and a half late. Why, you may ask? Because the street outside my apartment had flooded. After we finally hit the road, about an hour into the drive, we hear some knocking and have to pull off the road to check it out. I was worried that I wasn't going to make it to Shanghai, but the problem turned out to just be the under-engine plate guard, not a major problem. We fixed it with some rope and continued on to the hotel.
The hotel turned out to be in the boonies, nothing like the area around airports in the states. I think it qualified as the Chinese suburbs. Either way, I was kinda disappointed. I checked into the hotel and I actually had a pretty nice room (free internet even). However, I didn't see any other guests there, which was a bit disconcerting (I later heard them having an argument later that night). I wandered around the area looking for dinner (eschewing hotel restaurants, which was a good idea in hindsight), but the pickings were slim. I grabbed some modest street food and retired to my room to watch far much more TV than is probably healthy for me.
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| The flooding in front of my apartment building. I wasn't kidding. | While we were getting the car checked out I played with the mechanic's dog. Playing with dogs is the same in any language |
The hotel turned out to be in the boonies, nothing like the area around airports in the states. I think it qualified as the Chinese suburbs. Either way, I was kinda disappointed. I checked into the hotel and I actually had a pretty nice room (free internet even). However, I didn't see any other guests there, which was a bit disconcerting (I later heard them having an argument later that night). I wandered around the area looking for dinner (eschewing hotel restaurants, which was a good idea in hindsight), but the pickings were slim. I grabbed some modest street food and retired to my room to watch far much more TV than is probably healthy for me.
 | My glorious 11 kuai (about $1.50) dinner. |
Friday, September 10, 2010
China - Day 85 - Goodbye Xiasha
I wish I could say it was a tearful goodbye, but frankly, I'm glad to get out of here. My last day at work was a pretty good encapsulation of my summer and my experience in China. I spent most of the morning watching the Canadian contractors working on a test workpiece and chatting with them as the machines worked. When it came time to change fixtures we learned that the pallet changing vehicle had been fooled with, rendering it inoperable, so the rest of the day was shot. Later, I went to collect my final salary and was met with a number that was significantly lower than what I expected to be paid. The company had included a number of charges on my salary that shouldn't have been based on my contract, but it took a call to Denise, the program coordinator, to get them removed. I had accepted the fact that I wouldn't be making much money this summer, but to be nickeled and dimed like that really left a bad taste in my mouth. In an about face, I had dinner with the president of the company where I had a surprisingly nice steak and a nice conversation. These conflicting treatments by the company are a perfect example of the duality of my experience in China. And the cherry on top of the sundae of today: the power was out in my apartment when I got home (It was turned back on 15 minutes later after an annoyed phone call).
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
China - Day 83 - When it Rains, it Pours
Miraculously, I'm not talking about the weather, but rather basketball. After waiting 11 weeks for my company to finally play a basketball game, I get two in four days. We finally played the police and they were far and away the best team we played all summer. They were much more physical and organized than anyone else we played (this seemed painfully obvious in hindsight). For once we were actually the smaller team, and we got positively worked. It seemed like I was the only one of our players who could actually hold his own in the key, but I was pretty useless there when 3 guys would collapse on me (due to their very effective 2-3 zone). It did frustrate me that they played dirty (ironic), but I got over it (my bruises are still holding a grudge). We ended up losing, but the loss didn't sting, strangely. Probably due to my surreal "last week in China" feelings.
Work is... strange right now. I've been trying to self-teach about CNC milling in practice and helping to finish the set-up of the 1816 line. I come and go as I please; the autonomy feels strange in this type of internship, but I'm just trying to learn as much useful information as I can while not getting in the way. Actually, not getting in the way is kind of a problem because there are about 10 guys from Allied who watch the Canadian contractors setting up and running the machining, so it gets pretty crowded. Oh well, they'll be here after I'm gone, so I shouldn't feel too bad.
Work is... strange right now. I've been trying to self-teach about CNC milling in practice and helping to finish the set-up of the 1816 line. I come and go as I please; the autonomy feels strange in this type of internship, but I'm just trying to learn as much useful information as I can while not getting in the way. Actually, not getting in the way is kind of a problem because there are about 10 guys from Allied who watch the Canadian contractors setting up and running the machining, so it gets pretty crowded. Oh well, they'll be here after I'm gone, so I shouldn't feel too bad.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
China - Day 80 - Once more around the lake
September 3
Friday, we finally had the company basketball game that I've been looking forward to all summer. The game went pretty well for my team (we won by about 30) and I had a good game; I think I ended up with more steals than points, which was strange, although not that surprising given my ballhawking and the lack of hustle by most of the players. It was a lot of fun to get out there and play for a team again. I think we might have another game on Tuesday, but that's still up in the air.
After the game, as per usual, we went out to dinner as a team. The meal was rather uneventful, but it seemed to drag on for hours as the guys kept drinking and smoking and talking. I could tell that they were occasionally talking about me because they kept using a few of the words I can pick-up in spoken Chinese: "Tang Mu" (my name), "laowai" (foreigner), "meiguo" (American), "ta" (him, accompanied by a nod or a point). After about an hour and half (and two beers, which was enough for me) I told Michael to stop ordering me beer because I was full, which is a sign that he usually understand means I'm ready to go. The drinking and the smoking continued and my mood deteriorated. I didn't want to be rude and cause a scene, so I went along with it, accepting a third (and fourth) beer and going along with all of the toasts and trying to follow the conversation that completely eluded me. I gave every non-verbal signal I could signifying that I was ready to call it a night: bored expression, staring into the distance, pretending to sleep, but nothing worked. I had to repeatedly shoot down offers of a "massage" (offered with a wink and pronounced "mah-sah-gee," which confused me for about a minute). It felt like I was being held hostage. After another hour (2.5 hours into dinner at this point, after all the other customers had left the restaurant and the management had turned off the lights), I firmly told Michael that I wanted to go home. Thirty minutes after that, we finally left. I was angry (in addition to being sore from the basketball game), so I wasn't very talkative. Michael seemed surprised that I was unhappy and was cautiously trying to make me feel better to no avail because the time for that was hours ago.
September 4
I went to work today, but I'm not sure why. When I try to find something to do, I'm told we have to keep waiting for a part to come in or there is nothing to do. Even my desire to teach myself CAD skills has deteriorated due to the amount of self-teaching I've done this summer. It's going to be an (un)interesting last week.
September 5
First things first, Stanford football. Other than my family (and one particularly resilient Volvo), nothing has been in my life longer, which made it especially painful that I was missing my first home game in 5 years. But, thanks to the aforementioned smallness of the planet, I was able to listen to the game on the KZSU website. We won big over Sacramento State, but I still wish I was there. Hearing the train whistle in the background didn't make me any less homesick.
Friday, we finally had the company basketball game that I've been looking forward to all summer. The game went pretty well for my team (we won by about 30) and I had a good game; I think I ended up with more steals than points, which was strange, although not that surprising given my ballhawking and the lack of hustle by most of the players. It was a lot of fun to get out there and play for a team again. I think we might have another game on Tuesday, but that's still up in the air.
After the game, as per usual, we went out to dinner as a team. The meal was rather uneventful, but it seemed to drag on for hours as the guys kept drinking and smoking and talking. I could tell that they were occasionally talking about me because they kept using a few of the words I can pick-up in spoken Chinese: "Tang Mu" (my name), "laowai" (foreigner), "meiguo" (American), "ta" (him, accompanied by a nod or a point). After about an hour and half (and two beers, which was enough for me) I told Michael to stop ordering me beer because I was full, which is a sign that he usually understand means I'm ready to go. The drinking and the smoking continued and my mood deteriorated. I didn't want to be rude and cause a scene, so I went along with it, accepting a third (and fourth) beer and going along with all of the toasts and trying to follow the conversation that completely eluded me. I gave every non-verbal signal I could signifying that I was ready to call it a night: bored expression, staring into the distance, pretending to sleep, but nothing worked. I had to repeatedly shoot down offers of a "massage" (offered with a wink and pronounced "mah-sah-gee," which confused me for about a minute). It felt like I was being held hostage. After another hour (2.5 hours into dinner at this point, after all the other customers had left the restaurant and the management had turned off the lights), I firmly told Michael that I wanted to go home. Thirty minutes after that, we finally left. I was angry (in addition to being sore from the basketball game), so I wasn't very talkative. Michael seemed surprised that I was unhappy and was cautiously trying to make me feel better to no avail because the time for that was hours ago.
September 4
I went to work today, but I'm not sure why. When I try to find something to do, I'm told we have to keep waiting for a part to come in or there is nothing to do. Even my desire to teach myself CAD skills has deteriorated due to the amount of self-teaching I've done this summer. It's going to be an (un)interesting last week.
September 5
First things first, Stanford football. Other than my family (and one particularly resilient Volvo), nothing has been in my life longer, which made it especially painful that I was missing my first home game in 5 years. But, thanks to the aforementioned smallness of the planet, I was able to listen to the game on the KZSU website. We won big over Sacramento State, but I still wish I was there. Hearing the train whistle in the background didn't make me any less homesick.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
China - Day 77 - Begin the Countdown
Wow, I'm leaving China in 10 days. It's hard to believe I've been here for almost three months, I'm actually starting to get used to it, but at the same time I'm anxious to return home to the life I led for 21 years before these last 3 months. It's going to be nice to go back to a place that I speak the language, but I'm not quite there yet.
Things have been excruciatingly slow at work this week. There are delays on the machining line set-up as we have to keep waiting for control parts. It's frustrating because I understand the problem, but not enough to help fix it, so I'm just waiting for parts to come in.
The good news is that our company basketball game looks like it's actually going to happen. We're scheduled to play tomorrow at 5, so hopefully nothing else goes wrong and I can actually play in the game I've been looking forward to all summer. We apparently have another game scheduled for Tuesday, so I might get two games in. I'm excited
The less good news is that the weather has been absolutely miserable for the last week and there are no indications of it letting up any time soon. There are currently 3 typhoons in the South China Sea that are dumping rain on Eastern China. Apparently they closed middle schools in Shanghai, it's that bad. Even though we're about 100 miles inland, we're still getting rained on. Woo.
Things have been excruciatingly slow at work this week. There are delays on the machining line set-up as we have to keep waiting for control parts. It's frustrating because I understand the problem, but not enough to help fix it, so I'm just waiting for parts to come in.
The good news is that our company basketball game looks like it's actually going to happen. We're scheduled to play tomorrow at 5, so hopefully nothing else goes wrong and I can actually play in the game I've been looking forward to all summer. We apparently have another game scheduled for Tuesday, so I might get two games in. I'm excited
The less good news is that the weather has been absolutely miserable for the last week and there are no indications of it letting up any time soon. There are currently 3 typhoons in the South China Sea that are dumping rain on Eastern China. Apparently they closed middle schools in Shanghai, it's that bad. Even though we're about 100 miles inland, we're still getting rained on. Woo.
Monday, August 30, 2010
China - Day 74 - It's funny how time speeds up
It's a strange feeling, time seems to be passing more quickly as I approach the end of my time in China. Perhaps it's my desire to return to the familiar world back home. Perhaps it's me becoming more accustomed to my surroundings. Perhaps it's just a side effect of aging. At the same time, I'm feeling less and less desire to write updates. Maybe I'm just doing less interesting stuff now or perhaps I've run out of interesting "firsts" to write about, but I find myself without much to say on a day to day basis. Although, I can always complain about the weather. After six weeks of relatively dry, if hot, weather, the rains have returned and they are miserable. The commuting gods have frown upon me, as torrential downpours have coincided with my walk home for the better part of the last week. If I've learned anything from this internship it's that I am never going to allow myself to live somewhere that could be described as a "monsoon zone."
My training with Allied seems to be more or less wrapped up and I've started assisting on the implementation of the new CNC line set-up, which is causing more hassles than I expected. It seems that the problem is that they left a job for IT guys to a couple of machine operators. My experience made me somewhat useful, but I couldn't get the job done, so they're going to fly in someone from Luxembourg (really, I couldn't have come up with this if I'd tried). Right now there are 3 teams working on the CNC line: 1) The team from the machine manufacturer (based out of Shanghai), 2) The team from the contracted customer who are helping to set-up the outsourced work (based out of Toronto), 3) The team from Allied learning to run the line (the team is pretty much just my mentor Michael). With this many people, we have a tendency to step on each other's toes, which leads to a lot of waiting time, which I usually spend talking to the guys from Canada, learning about what they do and telling stories. One of them, Marcin, told me stories of living in Poland during Communist rule when he was about my age, it did not sound like fun.
I took of Friday to go on a tour of Alibaba that was set-up by our program director Denise. I read up a little bit on the company beforehand and expected it to be somewhat like a cross between eBay and Amazon, which was pretty accurate. I was kind of disappointed when they deflected a number of my questions, but they did have good coffee, which surprised me. It was nice to hang out with my Stanford friends again this weekend. We searched out a number places we'd been planning to try in Hangzhou, including a Mexican restaurant (Pancho's). I ordered the Burrito al Pastor, but what I got looked like BBQ Pork fried rice wrapped in a tortilla. I didn't even know where to begin tearing this place down, so I'm not going to. Just two more weeks until I can have real Mexican again. After the debacle that was this Mexican restaurant, we went out for drinks at the other Mexican restaurant in Hangzhou (Maya Bar), which was much better (probably because it's harder to screw up a margarita than a burrito). We learned some fun Chinese drinking games and I have a new goal, find 20 dice and 4 cups in a market. Hopefully it will go better than my last shopping trip, when I attempted 3 times to haggle with a grandmotherly woman who promptly shot me down each time. That kind of killed my shopping mojo for the weekend.
Oh, and other good news. I found out that the basketball game that I've been waiting for all summer is supposed to happen tomorrow or Wednesday, so that should be fun. I'll try to get someone to take pictures for all of your derisive pleasure.
My training with Allied seems to be more or less wrapped up and I've started assisting on the implementation of the new CNC line set-up, which is causing more hassles than I expected. It seems that the problem is that they left a job for IT guys to a couple of machine operators. My experience made me somewhat useful, but I couldn't get the job done, so they're going to fly in someone from Luxembourg (really, I couldn't have come up with this if I'd tried). Right now there are 3 teams working on the CNC line: 1) The team from the machine manufacturer (based out of Shanghai), 2) The team from the contracted customer who are helping to set-up the outsourced work (based out of Toronto), 3) The team from Allied learning to run the line (the team is pretty much just my mentor Michael). With this many people, we have a tendency to step on each other's toes, which leads to a lot of waiting time, which I usually spend talking to the guys from Canada, learning about what they do and telling stories. One of them, Marcin, told me stories of living in Poland during Communist rule when he was about my age, it did not sound like fun.
I took of Friday to go on a tour of Alibaba that was set-up by our program director Denise. I read up a little bit on the company beforehand and expected it to be somewhat like a cross between eBay and Amazon, which was pretty accurate. I was kind of disappointed when they deflected a number of my questions, but they did have good coffee, which surprised me. It was nice to hang out with my Stanford friends again this weekend. We searched out a number places we'd been planning to try in Hangzhou, including a Mexican restaurant (Pancho's). I ordered the Burrito al Pastor, but what I got looked like BBQ Pork fried rice wrapped in a tortilla. I didn't even know where to begin tearing this place down, so I'm not going to. Just two more weeks until I can have real Mexican again. After the debacle that was this Mexican restaurant, we went out for drinks at the other Mexican restaurant in Hangzhou (Maya Bar), which was much better (probably because it's harder to screw up a margarita than a burrito). We learned some fun Chinese drinking games and I have a new goal, find 20 dice and 4 cups in a market. Hopefully it will go better than my last shopping trip, when I attempted 3 times to haggle with a grandmotherly woman who promptly shot me down each time. That kind of killed my shopping mojo for the weekend.
Oh, and other good news. I found out that the basketball game that I've been waiting for all summer is supposed to happen tomorrow or Wednesday, so that should be fun. I'll try to get someone to take pictures for all of your derisive pleasure.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
China - Day 66 - An uneventful week
The work weeks was fair uneventful. The one big thing that happened was the arrival of the guys from Husky Canada to teach Allied about the new CNC machines. It's been nice to talk to them to get a different view of industrial production. I'm finding that the manufacturing industry is much easier to understand from their perspective than from Allied's perspective. I guess I'm not doing a very good job of integrating myself into this company/country.
In other news of the week, I went back to running during the week after having played basketball for the better part of the last month. It was difficult, to say the least. I could barely make 5k without stopping for a breather, which is sad because I made it to 7k in July before I stopped running. My joints were incredibly sore this weekend, I'm thinking that the running on the concrete here is not the best thing in the world, I think I'm going to return to playing basketball.
The weekend was fun, I finally went on the shopping spree I'd been planning for the last month (had to wait until I got my second paycheck). As I was getting off the bus at Wulin Square I noticed that the guy sitting across the aisle from me was wearing a Stanford Football shirt. If I had more time or a better understanding of Chinese I would have asked him about his shirt, but I didn't want to miss my stop. Small world, huh. The shopping went well (my reconnaissance trips on previous weekends definitely paid off), but I did notice some strange behavior. As I wandered through the countless malls of downtown Hangzhou I wore my headphones, which I thought was the universal "Leave me alone" signal, but that didn't stop dozens of salesmen from trying to entice me into their stores, strange. While I was standing in line to check out at H&M this Chinese woman would not stop bumping into my back, I think at one point she starting leaning on me. It seems that the concept of personal space is a purely Western construct, but I definitely miss it. After a while she tried to maneuver around me, but I moved my leg quickly and gave her a look that said "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" That stopped her shenanigans.
After I finished my shopping I had a few hours to kill before meeting Michael for dinner, so I decided to take up residence in a Starbucks, where I could get a coffee and continue reading my book. I got my coffee and found an comfortable chair (finding a good chair in a coffee shop is pure luck, no matter where you are) and proceeded to read and people-watch for the next two hours. The coffee I had was burnt, like almost every brewed coffee I've ever had from Starbucks, but it reminded me of home. Burnt, fresh coffee is still a step up from the instant coffee I've been drinking.
Michael and I went to a restaurant that serves traditional Hangzhou dishes along the famous Hefang shopping street. The food was quite good; I even willing ordered Xihu Xia (West Lake Shrimp). Eating with Michael has given me a fair good understanding of Hangzhou food. After dinner we walked around Hefang for a little while and I stopped at a street vendor to buy deep fried ice cream balls that my friend Susan described as "deliciously disgusting," which was incredibly accurate. The taste was a combination about sweet and cold and fried and slimy. It could have totally passed for the state fair. In a little shop I found a fan that I thought would make a good decoration for my room. I reached for my wallet to buy it, but Michael insisted that he pay for it, as a gift to me. Combining this with the numerous dinners he's bought me (including this one), I'm starting to feel guilty for all of the hospitality that I've been receiving in China. I'm used to the expectation that I'll be allowed to pay once and a while, even as the guest. I suppose I should be enjoying it while I can. It's strange how hospitable people in China are when they get to know you, because it seems that the Chinese have a general antipathy towards strangers, as evidenced by the lack of personal space and rampant littering/spitting/smoking. I think I need to get over my reservations and just enjoy Michael's hospitality.
In other news of the week, I went back to running during the week after having played basketball for the better part of the last month. It was difficult, to say the least. I could barely make 5k without stopping for a breather, which is sad because I made it to 7k in July before I stopped running. My joints were incredibly sore this weekend, I'm thinking that the running on the concrete here is not the best thing in the world, I think I'm going to return to playing basketball.
The weekend was fun, I finally went on the shopping spree I'd been planning for the last month (had to wait until I got my second paycheck). As I was getting off the bus at Wulin Square I noticed that the guy sitting across the aisle from me was wearing a Stanford Football shirt. If I had more time or a better understanding of Chinese I would have asked him about his shirt, but I didn't want to miss my stop. Small world, huh. The shopping went well (my reconnaissance trips on previous weekends definitely paid off), but I did notice some strange behavior. As I wandered through the countless malls of downtown Hangzhou I wore my headphones, which I thought was the universal "Leave me alone" signal, but that didn't stop dozens of salesmen from trying to entice me into their stores, strange. While I was standing in line to check out at H&M this Chinese woman would not stop bumping into my back, I think at one point she starting leaning on me. It seems that the concept of personal space is a purely Western construct, but I definitely miss it. After a while she tried to maneuver around me, but I moved my leg quickly and gave her a look that said "What in the hell do you think you're doing?" That stopped her shenanigans.
After I finished my shopping I had a few hours to kill before meeting Michael for dinner, so I decided to take up residence in a Starbucks, where I could get a coffee and continue reading my book. I got my coffee and found an comfortable chair (finding a good chair in a coffee shop is pure luck, no matter where you are) and proceeded to read and people-watch for the next two hours. The coffee I had was burnt, like almost every brewed coffee I've ever had from Starbucks, but it reminded me of home. Burnt, fresh coffee is still a step up from the instant coffee I've been drinking.
Michael and I went to a restaurant that serves traditional Hangzhou dishes along the famous Hefang shopping street. The food was quite good; I even willing ordered Xihu Xia (West Lake Shrimp). Eating with Michael has given me a fair good understanding of Hangzhou food. After dinner we walked around Hefang for a little while and I stopped at a street vendor to buy deep fried ice cream balls that my friend Susan described as "deliciously disgusting," which was incredibly accurate. The taste was a combination about sweet and cold and fried and slimy. It could have totally passed for the state fair. In a little shop I found a fan that I thought would make a good decoration for my room. I reached for my wallet to buy it, but Michael insisted that he pay for it, as a gift to me. Combining this with the numerous dinners he's bought me (including this one), I'm starting to feel guilty for all of the hospitality that I've been receiving in China. I'm used to the expectation that I'll be allowed to pay once and a while, even as the guest. I suppose I should be enjoying it while I can. It's strange how hospitable people in China are when they get to know you, because it seems that the Chinese have a general antipathy towards strangers, as evidenced by the lack of personal space and rampant littering/spitting/smoking. I think I need to get over my reservations and just enjoy Michael's hospitality.
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| I went shopping during the week and bought these Blueberry flavored potato chips. They are supposed to be "Cool and Refreshing," and they actually are, kind of. | A startlingly accurate description of fashion in China. There are a lot of stores selling genuine luxury goods, but many, many more selling fakes. |
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| They're still selling Lebron Cavaliers jerseys in Hangzhou. I guess they didn't hear about The Decision | Rather than a public thermometer, they have a public decibel meter. Yep, China is loud. |
Sunday, August 15, 2010
China - Day 59 - The Expo and my best weekend yet
This was a positively fantastic weekend, the most fun and most entertaining weekend I've had in China. This weekend perfectly encapsulated the travelling/expat experience I wanted to have this summer; I'm very happy that I got to and very thankful to those that helped make it happen. Now, on to a more detailed recap.
August 13
Picking up from my last post, I got into Shanghai fairly late by my standards (around 10:30PM. The difference between my standards of time and Shanghai's standard of time would be a recurring theme of my time here), but thankfully the metro was still working. As much as I love the Shanghai Metro system (I think it might be my favorite in the world), the one thing that I absolutely can't stand about it is that it shuts down so early; external lines start closing around 9PM, central lines stay open until 10:30-11PM. This means that anyone trying to have any semblance of a nightlife has to take cabs everywhere (not that it's an issue to find cabs, but I'm a huge believer in the use of subways and subways are much easier to use when you don't really speak the language). While I was on the train I spoke to my friends Alex and Chris about our accommodations for the weekend; apparently their friends Rachel and Cindy were staying in a huge apartment in Shanghai and Alex and Chris suggested that we cancel our hostel reservation to stay with the girls. When I got to the apartment (an adventure in and of itself, as no cabbie had apparently ever heard of the street it's located on) we realized that "huge" was a relative term and that it was time for us to grovel our way back into the hostel (which we did, thankfully). As much as I appreciated Rachel and Cindy's hospitality, one of us would have had to sleep on the dining room table and another in the bathtub, which was just not happening.
After getting settled at the hostel, we headed out to begin our nightlife at 12:15AM. I'm used to seeing things begin to wind down around this time, but the energy of the group was infectious and I just went with it. After a few false starts (at clubs that were rejected for one reason or another) and one very tense argument with a cabbie, we ended up at a club called Muse where we proceeded to party and dance until 3:30, which is when things apparently begin to wind down in Shanghai. Either way, I was just thankful for sleep at that point.
August 13
Picking up from my last post, I got into Shanghai fairly late by my standards (around 10:30PM. The difference between my standards of time and Shanghai's standard of time would be a recurring theme of my time here), but thankfully the metro was still working. As much as I love the Shanghai Metro system (I think it might be my favorite in the world), the one thing that I absolutely can't stand about it is that it shuts down so early; external lines start closing around 9PM, central lines stay open until 10:30-11PM. This means that anyone trying to have any semblance of a nightlife has to take cabs everywhere (not that it's an issue to find cabs, but I'm a huge believer in the use of subways and subways are much easier to use when you don't really speak the language). While I was on the train I spoke to my friends Alex and Chris about our accommodations for the weekend; apparently their friends Rachel and Cindy were staying in a huge apartment in Shanghai and Alex and Chris suggested that we cancel our hostel reservation to stay with the girls. When I got to the apartment (an adventure in and of itself, as no cabbie had apparently ever heard of the street it's located on) we realized that "huge" was a relative term and that it was time for us to grovel our way back into the hostel (which we did, thankfully). As much as I appreciated Rachel and Cindy's hospitality, one of us would have had to sleep on the dining room table and another in the bathtub, which was just not happening.
After getting settled at the hostel, we headed out to begin our nightlife at 12:15AM. I'm used to seeing things begin to wind down around this time, but the energy of the group was infectious and I just went with it. After a few false starts (at clubs that were rejected for one reason or another) and one very tense argument with a cabbie, we ended up at a club called Muse where we proceeded to party and dance until 3:30, which is when things apparently begin to wind down in Shanghai. Either way, I was just thankful for sleep at that point.
 |  |
| The beds in our hostel room. It's a good thing none of us suffer from night terrors because I very well could have punched Chris in the face as we slept. | The bathroom in our room. While it was a very efficient use of space it was a complete and utter design disaster. I ended up locking myself in there by placing my backpack in the wrong place and blocking the sliding glass door. |
Friday, August 13, 2010
China - Day 57 - Beginning the Home Stretch
Huh, I've been in China for 8 weeks now and I will be here for 30 more days. It's strange how time flies once you get over the initial shock of adapting to a new location.
This week at work has actually been the most engaging week I've had. Michael gave me a project to take a 2D CAD diagram and to recreate it as a 3D CAD model, in both casted and finished forms and to then simulate the machining on the 3D model. This has been the most independent work I've done here and probably the most fulfilling. This week I also met the president's son who is visiting from America and is going to be applying to college next year. It's funny, even though his parents are Chinese, he was raised in America and his reaction to China was very much like my initial reaction; I guess that gives some credence to nurture over nature. He's considering Stanford and I gave him the sales pitch, but he wants to study business, which could be a problem. Only time (and the admissions office) will tell.
I'm excited for today because 1) it's payday and 2) I'm going to Shanghai today. I'm getting paid for the second time, which is good because I've spent all the cash from my first paycheck. This money will be quite useful for the shopping trip I did reconnaissance for last week and for my trip to Shanghai. I'm leaving Hangzhou tonight to meet some friends in Shanghai where we'll stay in a hostel and go visit the Expo. I'm excited to finally do this because it was one of the things that I thought I really couldn't miss while I was in China. I hope it lives up to my (hopefully not too lofty) expectations
Update: The power went out at the factory, so I got sent home early. I'm currently sitting at home killing 5 hours until I head over to the train station, where I will still need to kill an hour. It's strange, the only other time the power went out at work was the last time I went to Shanghai. I'm starting to sense a pattern here...
This week at work has actually been the most engaging week I've had. Michael gave me a project to take a 2D CAD diagram and to recreate it as a 3D CAD model, in both casted and finished forms and to then simulate the machining on the 3D model. This has been the most independent work I've done here and probably the most fulfilling. This week I also met the president's son who is visiting from America and is going to be applying to college next year. It's funny, even though his parents are Chinese, he was raised in America and his reaction to China was very much like my initial reaction; I guess that gives some credence to nurture over nature. He's considering Stanford and I gave him the sales pitch, but he wants to study business, which could be a problem. Only time (and the admissions office) will tell.
I'm excited for today because 1) it's payday and 2) I'm going to Shanghai today. I'm getting paid for the second time, which is good because I've spent all the cash from my first paycheck. This money will be quite useful for the shopping trip I did reconnaissance for last week and for my trip to Shanghai. I'm leaving Hangzhou tonight to meet some friends in Shanghai where we'll stay in a hostel and go visit the Expo. I'm excited to finally do this because it was one of the things that I thought I really couldn't miss while I was in China. I hope it lives up to my (hopefully not too lofty) expectations
Update: The power went out at the factory, so I got sent home early. I'm currently sitting at home killing 5 hours until I head over to the train station, where I will still need to kill an hour. It's strange, the only other time the power went out at work was the last time I went to Shanghai. I'm starting to sense a pattern here...
Monday, August 9, 2010
China - Day 53 - Window shopping is the same in any language
August 8
One can only walk around the West Lake so many times before it starts to lose its glimmer, so I spent this Sunday doing some window shopping (and I ended up doing some actual shopping too) at Hangzhou's many, many, many stores. I must have checked at least three dozen stores, but I ended up only liking three: one Spanish, one British and one Chinese retailer. My original plan was to do reconnaissance for a shopping trip after I get my next paycheck, but I ended up buying a jacket at Zara (the Spanish store) because I was worried it would be cycled out before I returned (a concern legitimized by the changes in their store since I had visited the previous week). I was a little disappointed that there was so few clothes I enjoyed at Chinese stores; the only one I intend to buy is a pair of jeans at Jasonwood. The issue I had with Chinese styles were that they were so garish that I could never see myself actually wearing the clothing. It seemed that Chinese retailers didn't see any t-shirt that didn't have a huge graphic (usually of a Transformer or cartoon character) or any button up shirt that was made entirely from the same fabric (most shirts were a combination of solids, stripes and plaids). I talked to my friend Ricardo about it and we came to the belief that these were fashionable because they provided a way for Chinese people to stand out within the huge sea of people that is China. I'm starting to notice that a lot of my theories about China go back to the concept of Chinese people trying to differentiate themselves in such a large country.
One can only walk around the West Lake so many times before it starts to lose its glimmer, so I spent this Sunday doing some window shopping (and I ended up doing some actual shopping too) at Hangzhou's many, many, many stores. I must have checked at least three dozen stores, but I ended up only liking three: one Spanish, one British and one Chinese retailer. My original plan was to do reconnaissance for a shopping trip after I get my next paycheck, but I ended up buying a jacket at Zara (the Spanish store) because I was worried it would be cycled out before I returned (a concern legitimized by the changes in their store since I had visited the previous week). I was a little disappointed that there was so few clothes I enjoyed at Chinese stores; the only one I intend to buy is a pair of jeans at Jasonwood. The issue I had with Chinese styles were that they were so garish that I could never see myself actually wearing the clothing. It seemed that Chinese retailers didn't see any t-shirt that didn't have a huge graphic (usually of a Transformer or cartoon character) or any button up shirt that was made entirely from the same fabric (most shirts were a combination of solids, stripes and plaids). I talked to my friend Ricardo about it and we came to the belief that these were fashionable because they provided a way for Chinese people to stand out within the huge sea of people that is China. I'm starting to notice that a lot of my theories about China go back to the concept of Chinese people trying to differentiate themselves in such a large country.
 | These tri-color jeans were probably the single most ridiculous thing we saw on Sunday. I debated buying them for the sheer joke quality, but gawked at the price they wanted for these crimes against cotton |
Saturday, August 7, 2010
China - Day 51 - Machismo is Alive and Well
The theme of this week seems to be battle the laowai; I've had Chinese guys trying to show me up all week. The biggest place they've been battling me has been on the basketball court. I've started playing pick-up games 3 or 4 times a week (it's a lot more fun than running) at my apartment complex and the games are very much the same as they are in America; however, there always seem to be match-up issues, despite the fact that most of the guys here are around the same size. It seems to always end up with me guarding the other team's best player (because he will inevitably guard me, because I'm an American I must be good), which usually ends up with me (a natural 5, but I can play a 4) guarding a 2/3 and being blown past on the dribble with some frequency. Unfortunately, this match-up continues to be frustrating on offense because they abuse me inside and I usually draw a double team. I'm pretty dominant inside, especially on the boards, but battling inside gets tiring and unfortunately I can't rely on the outside shooting of my teammates. Such is the reality of pick-up games.
Elsewhere on the machismo front, drinking is treated very differently in China. My experience so far has been "Let's get the laowai drunk" every time I'm within 10 feet of a beer. The first time I experienced this, after my company's basketball practice a few weeks ago, I went with it because I wanted to give a good first impression and I ended up drinking 6 beers (600mL, 3%ABV). After that performance (and a misinterpreted claim that I could drink 12 beers over the course of an evening, which they thought I said I could drink in one sitting), Chinese guys try to force me to drink 12 bottles every time I eat with them. They don't seem to grasp the notion of drinking in moderation, despite my protests. I think they are trying to haze me, to prove that they are the drinkers that they think they are, but I am not going to play that game. Last night it got so bad that I just left the table when they wouldn't stop (I had drunk about 2L of beer and eaten 3 medium sized dishes at dinner, I felt like I was about to explode). I understand the concept of not causing them to lose face, but I'm not going to force this upon myself to save their egos.
Work has been somewhat slow lately. I've been trying to learn AutoCAD, but the program is in Chinese and I can't get it set to English, which is making it exceedingly difficult as I have to rely solely on the toolbar icons. I'm sort of getting the hang of it, but I still think I prefer Unigraphics and Pro/E. It is nice to have learned to use 3 CAD programs; however, I'm a little disappointed that I only really learned to use 1 of them in depth. Right now, Michael has me working on a project to assemble an Excel spreadsheet/database of tools used in various machining programs and the spindle speed/feedrate used for each one in each program instance. It requires a lot of data mining from machine code, which is tedious but not terribly difficult. I have conflicting opinions about this project because it's a rather basic task, but probably the most useful project I've worked on so far. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks when the engineers from Husky come to Allied from America/Canada to teach the company how to use the new automated machining line.
Elsewhere on the machismo front, drinking is treated very differently in China. My experience so far has been "Let's get the laowai drunk" every time I'm within 10 feet of a beer. The first time I experienced this, after my company's basketball practice a few weeks ago, I went with it because I wanted to give a good first impression and I ended up drinking 6 beers (600mL, 3%ABV). After that performance (and a misinterpreted claim that I could drink 12 beers over the course of an evening, which they thought I said I could drink in one sitting), Chinese guys try to force me to drink 12 bottles every time I eat with them. They don't seem to grasp the notion of drinking in moderation, despite my protests. I think they are trying to haze me, to prove that they are the drinkers that they think they are, but I am not going to play that game. Last night it got so bad that I just left the table when they wouldn't stop (I had drunk about 2L of beer and eaten 3 medium sized dishes at dinner, I felt like I was about to explode). I understand the concept of not causing them to lose face, but I'm not going to force this upon myself to save their egos.
Work has been somewhat slow lately. I've been trying to learn AutoCAD, but the program is in Chinese and I can't get it set to English, which is making it exceedingly difficult as I have to rely solely on the toolbar icons. I'm sort of getting the hang of it, but I still think I prefer Unigraphics and Pro/E. It is nice to have learned to use 3 CAD programs; however, I'm a little disappointed that I only really learned to use 1 of them in depth. Right now, Michael has me working on a project to assemble an Excel spreadsheet/database of tools used in various machining programs and the spindle speed/feedrate used for each one in each program instance. It requires a lot of data mining from machine code, which is tedious but not terribly difficult. I have conflicting opinions about this project because it's a rather basic task, but probably the most useful project I've worked on so far. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks when the engineers from Husky come to Allied from America/Canada to teach the company how to use the new automated machining line.
Monday, August 2, 2010
China - Day 46 - A (tourism) star is born
July 31
When my boss's boss asked me to give a speech about American college, I said sure, figuring that it would be more like a conversation with some Chinese college students, like the conversation I had with ZheDa students a month ago. Well, I was kinda wrong. I realized it wasn't exactly what I expected when I saw the note posted on the company billboard advertising it to the entire company. After a few powerpoint missteps (it's funny to see that those presentation issues are universal), I got started with the speech, but things got tripped up pretty quickly when I realized that most of the audience didn't speak English and I had to pause for my boss to translate the speech. There were about 25 assorted people from the company there and I'm not sure how much of the speech translated, but they did laugh occasionally, so I think it went fine. When we got to the Q and A session, I was expecting questions about American colleges, but I ended up getting many more personal questions. Apparently everyone has to ask for themselves if I have a girlfriend. Following the speech, we went to a hotel restaurant in Xiasha that I'm sure was the classiest restaurant in Xiasha (which isn't saying much). The food was fine, although it was buffet, so it was rather tepid. Overall, a strange but somewhat fulfilling day.
When my boss's boss asked me to give a speech about American college, I said sure, figuring that it would be more like a conversation with some Chinese college students, like the conversation I had with ZheDa students a month ago. Well, I was kinda wrong. I realized it wasn't exactly what I expected when I saw the note posted on the company billboard advertising it to the entire company. After a few powerpoint missteps (it's funny to see that those presentation issues are universal), I got started with the speech, but things got tripped up pretty quickly when I realized that most of the audience didn't speak English and I had to pause for my boss to translate the speech. There were about 25 assorted people from the company there and I'm not sure how much of the speech translated, but they did laugh occasionally, so I think it went fine. When we got to the Q and A session, I was expecting questions about American colleges, but I ended up getting many more personal questions. Apparently everyone has to ask for themselves if I have a girlfriend. Following the speech, we went to a hotel restaurant in Xiasha that I'm sure was the classiest restaurant in Xiasha (which isn't saying much). The food was fine, although it was buffet, so it was rather tepid. Overall, a strange but somewhat fulfilling day.
Friday, July 30, 2010
China - Day 43 - It's all downhill from here
Wow, today is the halfway point of my time in China. It seems like as good a time as any to reflect on how my experiences in China have differed from my expectations. I think the single biggest surprise has been the fact that working on Saturdays is expected, which has limited my ability to travel around China. However, given my experiences going between Hangzhou and Shanghai, that might not be the worst thing. Traveling around China is hectic, especially when you don't speak the language well and I think I would have significant trouble navigating it by myself. As much as I would like to see all over southeastern China, I think most of the sights would be lost on me due to my lack of understanding of Chinese history. One of the things I love about visiting cities is comparing the differences between any two cities; however, I've found Chinese cities to be sufficiently foreign to me that I'm having difficulty formulating different impressions of them, which is softening the sting of not visiting many cities. A large limiting factor of my travel has been the payroll system of my company, whereby they pay me two weeks after the end of the month, which has left me relatively strapped for cash (as I am trying to minimize the amount of money I pull from my bank account). I think my biggest regret is going to be not seeing the Great Wall or the Forbidden City; however, if my experience with tour groups in Shanghai and Hangzhou is any indicator, I would probably be frustrated by the crowds. I am planning to make one or two more trips to Shanghai before I leave and I fully intend to see the Expo, so I think I will try to get to know Shanghai and Hangzhou before I go. I'm facing the dilemma between breadth and depth and it appears that I've chosen depth. Well, depth has led me to the best hamburger in Hangzhou.
I also think it would be a good time to recognize the people who have made my time in China survivable. First and foremost, Michael my mentor from Allied. He has been with me almost every day I've been here, he's taken me shopping every time I needed things for my apartment and he's been my de facto translator. I couldn't have done this without him. Second, Denise Chu has been my Chinese mother making sure that I'm okay and that I'm enjoying myself and that I'm making sure to thank people properly. Last and certainly not least, the other interns. Phil and Ricardo for hanging out with me almost every weekend and looking out for me with their superior Chinese speaking skills. Susan, Alex and Chris for showing me fun times in Shanghai and Hangzhou and planning more to come. I'm excited to visit the Expo with y'all and I'm grateful for all the money I've saved by crashing with y'all.
Now, a recap of the work week
I also think it would be a good time to recognize the people who have made my time in China survivable. First and foremost, Michael my mentor from Allied. He has been with me almost every day I've been here, he's taken me shopping every time I needed things for my apartment and he's been my de facto translator. I couldn't have done this without him. Second, Denise Chu has been my Chinese mother making sure that I'm okay and that I'm enjoying myself and that I'm making sure to thank people properly. Last and certainly not least, the other interns. Phil and Ricardo for hanging out with me almost every weekend and looking out for me with their superior Chinese speaking skills. Susan, Alex and Chris for showing me fun times in Shanghai and Hangzhou and planning more to come. I'm excited to visit the Expo with y'all and I'm grateful for all the money I've saved by crashing with y'all.
Now, a recap of the work week
Monday, July 26, 2010
China - Day 39 - Finally made it around the West Lake
July 24
I worked a half day today because my friends were coming to Hangzhou from Shanghai for the weekend and I wanted to hang out with them. I've been working on my own little project for a while now without direction, but this is a purely personal project. Once I wrap this up (this being a complete manufacturing plan for a piece including fixturing and tool paths), I'm going to see what Michael has for me to do next.
I met my friends while they were having lunch at a place called Grandma's, which is not a little hole in the wall place as the name might imply, but rather a two story restaurant that is only accessible from the street by elevator. The food there was pretty standard for Hangzhou, but they ordered an awesome dessert that they offered me a portion of. It was blended mango with ice and condensed milk, kinda like mango ice cream. It was delicious. After lunch we walked around the West Lake for a while, taking in the sights and being sights ourselves as a relatively large grouping of laowai. We happened upon a few temples that were pretty, but would have likely been beautiful in a cleaner setting. The air and water pollution took a toll on the flora and fauna, which was less than impressive (in contrast to the picture they had posted of the same locations in better times). Around the West Lake, nature seems to be beautiful from afar, but disappointing up close.
The next stop on the great touristy trip of Hangzhou was to a famous shopping street that I completely forgot the name of, but it was a huge shopping street. It ran for the better part of a mile with a fairly consistent repetition of tea shops, food stalls and craft sellers. Unfortunately, most of the stuff there looked like it wouldn't survive the plane ride back to California, so I opted not to buy anything, but I was sorely tempted to buy that great Chinese souvenir, the dreamcatcher (seriously, they were everywhere with pictures of American Indians on them). I almost bought some deep fried ice cream (who knew China and the Texas state fair would have so much in common?) before being reminded of my friend Phil's story of getting salmonella from eating street food. I ended up chickening out. We went to dinner at a place called Angelo's that I had attempted to find twice previously, but had struck out. The restaurant is fairly well hidden on an alleyway off of a main road, not at all where you expect to find an expat hang out. Once we got there, it was marvelous. The food was fantastic and they had an impressive selection of different expat cuisine, including the best hamburger in Hangzhou (actually, one of the best I've ever had). I think we are definitely going to have to make a return trip here.
I worked a half day today because my friends were coming to Hangzhou from Shanghai for the weekend and I wanted to hang out with them. I've been working on my own little project for a while now without direction, but this is a purely personal project. Once I wrap this up (this being a complete manufacturing plan for a piece including fixturing and tool paths), I'm going to see what Michael has for me to do next.
I met my friends while they were having lunch at a place called Grandma's, which is not a little hole in the wall place as the name might imply, but rather a two story restaurant that is only accessible from the street by elevator. The food there was pretty standard for Hangzhou, but they ordered an awesome dessert that they offered me a portion of. It was blended mango with ice and condensed milk, kinda like mango ice cream. It was delicious. After lunch we walked around the West Lake for a while, taking in the sights and being sights ourselves as a relatively large grouping of laowai. We happened upon a few temples that were pretty, but would have likely been beautiful in a cleaner setting. The air and water pollution took a toll on the flora and fauna, which was less than impressive (in contrast to the picture they had posted of the same locations in better times). Around the West Lake, nature seems to be beautiful from afar, but disappointing up close.
The next stop on the great touristy trip of Hangzhou was to a famous shopping street that I completely forgot the name of, but it was a huge shopping street. It ran for the better part of a mile with a fairly consistent repetition of tea shops, food stalls and craft sellers. Unfortunately, most of the stuff there looked like it wouldn't survive the plane ride back to California, so I opted not to buy anything, but I was sorely tempted to buy that great Chinese souvenir, the dreamcatcher (seriously, they were everywhere with pictures of American Indians on them). I almost bought some deep fried ice cream (who knew China and the Texas state fair would have so much in common?) before being reminded of my friend Phil's story of getting salmonella from eating street food. I ended up chickening out. We went to dinner at a place called Angelo's that I had attempted to find twice previously, but had struck out. The restaurant is fairly well hidden on an alleyway off of a main road, not at all where you expect to find an expat hang out. Once we got there, it was marvelous. The food was fantastic and they had an impressive selection of different expat cuisine, including the best hamburger in Hangzhou (actually, one of the best I've ever had). I think we are definitely going to have to make a return trip here.
 |  |
| On the third try, I finally made it to Angelo's. It didn't disappoint. This restaurant would not be out of place in North Beach or along University Ave (except it cost about half as much). | One of the dishes we ordered was the Beijing Duck Pizza. My friend Alex said it wasn't a terribly good representation of Beijing Duck, but I didn't know the difference. Either way, it was delicious and perfectly passable as Italian pizza (surprise, Angelo is Italian) |
Friday, July 23, 2010
China - Day 36 - A (basketball) star is born
Work was not terribly interesting today, but after work was a lot of fun. The Allied basketball team had a practice today before our game against the police and apparently people have been talking up my basketball skills. I didn't want to disappoint, and in this crowd, I didn't. Even though I'm a mediocre at best basketball player at home, I'm pretty good here, definitely good enough to start on the company team. I tried to keep my own stats, but lost track around halfway through. If I had to guess, I think I ended up with about 24 points, 15 rebounds, 5 blocks and a steal in 90 minutes. I think I represented American basketball quite well; I was able to play a power game and run over guys all night. Baseline dribble penetration worked really well for me and I surprised them by hitting a few from the elbow after dominating the glass for the better part of the game. It's somewhat strange, the Chinese are positively obsessed with the NBA, but they don't play particularly good basketball, at least at the rec league level. I think the reason for that is that they grow up watching the NBA and try to emulate the things they see NBA players do without working on the fundamentals, which underlie American youth basketball. For the most part, the guys I played with were very sloppy. There were tons of dropped passes, fumbled hand offs and chasing the ball on the floor; I felt like Tim Duncan (The Big Fundamental) out there. However, what the Chinese lack in fundamentals, they make up for in energy. I've never seen the fast break run so many times in my life. I had to sub myself halfway through the first quarter to catch my breath and to let some of the other guys get in the game. I noticed that the Chinese guys would only go off when they were about to pass out tired which said two things to me: 1) These guys are very committed to the game 2) They hate to be on the bench even if it means half-assing it on the court.
After the game we went out to dinner with the team, which is actually the first time I've been taken out to dinner by the company. I've been told to expect a few things when being taken out to a dinner by your coworkers: strange food, lots of drinking and fascination with me, the laowai. All of these expectations came true. Strange food got off to an impressive start with chicken feet, the classic weird Chinese dish. Following my policy of trying everything, I had it and I was disappointed. It was basically chicken skin over very small bones and had no taste whatsoever. The Hundred Year Egg was a bit more off-putting, it looked and smelled like death, but it tasted and still had the texture of a boiled egg (not my favorite). I tried to follow the conversation, but it mostly went right past me, although I did pick up on a few words that I think they were using to describe me (meiguo, laowai). One of the things they were curious about that my mentor translated for me was a question of how many beers I could drink (note: in China, beer is generally served in 600mL bottles (about 22 oz) and is 3.1 percent ABV) and I said twelve, which I could probably drink over the course of an evening. I don't think that last part translated well and it seemed that everyone at the table took that to mean that I would have twelve of those bottle by the end of the meal and they accepted that challenge by toasting me every 5 minutes (ganbei - empty the cup). I ended up going through five and half bottles by the end of the meal and was still able to walk out not drunk (tipsy, sure, but not drunk). I think I did a good job representing American basketball and drinking today.
After the game we went out to dinner with the team, which is actually the first time I've been taken out to dinner by the company. I've been told to expect a few things when being taken out to a dinner by your coworkers: strange food, lots of drinking and fascination with me, the laowai. All of these expectations came true. Strange food got off to an impressive start with chicken feet, the classic weird Chinese dish. Following my policy of trying everything, I had it and I was disappointed. It was basically chicken skin over very small bones and had no taste whatsoever. The Hundred Year Egg was a bit more off-putting, it looked and smelled like death, but it tasted and still had the texture of a boiled egg (not my favorite). I tried to follow the conversation, but it mostly went right past me, although I did pick up on a few words that I think they were using to describe me (meiguo, laowai). One of the things they were curious about that my mentor translated for me was a question of how many beers I could drink (note: in China, beer is generally served in 600mL bottles (about 22 oz) and is 3.1 percent ABV) and I said twelve, which I could probably drink over the course of an evening. I don't think that last part translated well and it seemed that everyone at the table took that to mean that I would have twelve of those bottle by the end of the meal and they accepted that challenge by toasting me every 5 minutes (ganbei - empty the cup). I ended up going through five and half bottles by the end of the meal and was still able to walk out not drunk (tipsy, sure, but not drunk). I think I did a good job representing American basketball and drinking today.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
China - Day 35 - Phone issues finally resolved
What's been going on this week? Not much. I finally got the issues with my phone resolved. I could receive text messages and phone calls, but I couldn't make them. I visited a China Mobile store 3 times to try to resolve the issue, but I was unsuccessful and frustrated each time. Whenever I tried to make a call there was a message telling me that I needed to register for international calling, which I thought must be an error in my account that wouldn't let me make calls. Well, I was wrong. It turns out that there is a setting on the Blackberry 9700 for "smart dialing" that automatically appends a +1 and area code to any phone number that doesn't already have one. Well, I didn't know about this, so it looked like every call I tried to make to China was attempting to be routed to California, hence the failure. After figuring this out, I felt like a jackass for being so stubborn with China Mobile, but I'm glad I didn't raise my voice at any one or cause a scene, so I can save at least some face.
In less embarrassing news, my company is going to be playing a basketball game against the Xiasha police next week and I've been drafted to play. Our team has a practice tonight at some middle school. I'm not sure how good I'll be in practice if we're running drills, but if we just play 5 on 5, I'll be fine. There are some things that need no translation and basketball is one of them. In other work related news, I've spent the better part of the last week manually writing machine code for milling operations. It's incredibly tedious, but I understand why Michael is having me do it. Although I will admit that the tedium makes it difficult for me to motivate myself to do it, knowing that it will not be read by anyone or used in production. Michael said that we'd be machining the fixture for this workpiece either this Saturday or Monday, so I'm excited to see that happen. I hope they let me help set it up, even if it's just attaching fixturing.
In less embarrassing news, my company is going to be playing a basketball game against the Xiasha police next week and I've been drafted to play. Our team has a practice tonight at some middle school. I'm not sure how good I'll be in practice if we're running drills, but if we just play 5 on 5, I'll be fine. There are some things that need no translation and basketball is one of them. In other work related news, I've spent the better part of the last week manually writing machine code for milling operations. It's incredibly tedious, but I understand why Michael is having me do it. Although I will admit that the tedium makes it difficult for me to motivate myself to do it, knowing that it will not be read by anyone or used in production. Michael said that we'd be machining the fixture for this workpiece either this Saturday or Monday, so I'm excited to see that happen. I hope they let me help set it up, even if it's just attaching fixturing.
Monday, July 19, 2010
China - Day 31 - A Star is born
The end of last week at work was not terribly interesting. I spent the entirety of it working in CAD, although I did branch out and begin to learn Pro/E in addition to Unigraphics (thanks to an online course from Carnegie Mellon), which is good because I understand that Pro/E is the industry standard in CAD, but I could be wrong. I think I've covered every possibly machining angle of the workpiece and fixture Michael assigned me, so now I need something else to work on. Thursday was payday, which was nice; however I was disappointed to find out that I would be getting paid for just June and that I wouldn't get my July paycheck until August 15. This development means that it would make the most sense to travel near the end of summer, although I might be able to get an advance on my salary if an early trip comes up. I will say, however, that I'm kind of annoyed that I will end up with a large amount of cash shortly before I leave China. I think there are ATMs where you can make deposits in China, but I haven't confirmed that yet. I ended up working on Saturday because I'm trying to build up good will so that I can take some time off near the end of my internship to travel (hopefully I'll make it up to Beijing and go to Shanghai again).
Sunday, however, was much more fun. I got to sleep in, which was fantastic, and then I made my way over to downtown Hangzhou where I planned to meet my friend Ricardo to hang out/return the iPod he left in Shanghai last weekend. Before we were planning to meet I went to a coffee shop for lunch (another 85C, I'm starting to get addicted to their sea salt coffee). While I was drinking my coffee, I heard a familiar song come over the PA system, Waving Flag by K'naan, but there was something off about it. It took me about a minute to realize that the song was alternatively being sung in English and Chinese, which is not a particularly dulcet combination.
Sunday, however, was much more fun. I got to sleep in, which was fantastic, and then I made my way over to downtown Hangzhou where I planned to meet my friend Ricardo to hang out/return the iPod he left in Shanghai last weekend. Before we were planning to meet I went to a coffee shop for lunch (another 85C, I'm starting to get addicted to their sea salt coffee). While I was drinking my coffee, I heard a familiar song come over the PA system, Waving Flag by K'naan, but there was something off about it. It took me about a minute to realize that the song was alternatively being sung in English and Chinese, which is not a particularly dulcet combination.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
China - Day 26 - Monsoon season sucks
Last couple days have run together, so they don't get differentiated. It has been raining for the better part of the last week and I'm rather not enjoying it. The monsoon season is one of the things that I definitely did not anticipate about China, but it is a reality that I've had to deal with. I have to walk about a mile to work every day; my usual route is completely uncovered, but on days it's raining pretty hard I'll walk under the elevated highway that runs right next to my apartment complex, which keeps me pretty dry. From the looks of it, I'm in for at least another month of monsoon season (Damn you El Niño).
On the work front, things are changing up, which is good because I felt like they were stagnating. I finished the fixture and the machining plans for the fixture and the workpiece, which took much longer than anticipated, but I was glad to be done with the same fixture I'd been working on for two weeks. Today I got to edit a production fixture that had to be readjusted due to casting issues, but I fixed it pretty quickly, so I decided to play around in Pro/E a little bit and it is very different from NX6 (less intuitive in my opinion). Perhaps it is a more powerful tool, but I've barely scratched the surface.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but my company has a basketball team that occasionally plays games against the teams of other companies (because basketball's very popular in China). Anyway, my mentor told me today that we have a game coming up against the police (of Xiasha, not Sting) and that they want me to play. I've only played basketball twice in China, but I've done alright thanks to my willingness to play rough in the post and being six inches taller than the next tallest guy. I'm not sure if those tactics will work against the police though. Hopefully the team won't be relying on me because my game is pretty rusty. Oh, and I found out that we have company jerseys, which means that they take this seriously. No pressure, I just have to live up to their expectations of my entire country
On a completely unrelated note, I want to talk about the food over here; it isn't exactly what we would consider to be Chinese food in America. I'm living in Zhejiang province, which has it's own distinct style of food that can be very different from the food in the next province over (like the difference between French food and German food). I do most of my eating at the company canteen because I live in an industrial district where there aren't many options for food (there are only 2 restaurants and a convenience store within a 1 mile radius). The cooks in the company canteen are from Anhui province which has food similar to Zhejiang that tends to be salty and somewhat bland, compared to other provinces. This style of food is very different from the Chinese food I'm used to at home (mostly Hunan and Sichuan/Szechwan). Vegetables are featured very prominently and meat is used sparingly. There is an important distinction between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese food: in Northern China they grow wheat, which means they use noodles as their primary starch. In Southern China they grow rice, which means rice is used as the primary starch and that most noodles are rice noodles (which I happen to hate). As someone who loves chao mian, this has been quite frustrating, although it does make going out on the weekends more enjoyable because I have the option to eat Western food or food from other provinces.
On the work front, things are changing up, which is good because I felt like they were stagnating. I finished the fixture and the machining plans for the fixture and the workpiece, which took much longer than anticipated, but I was glad to be done with the same fixture I'd been working on for two weeks. Today I got to edit a production fixture that had to be readjusted due to casting issues, but I fixed it pretty quickly, so I decided to play around in Pro/E a little bit and it is very different from NX6 (less intuitive in my opinion). Perhaps it is a more powerful tool, but I've barely scratched the surface.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but my company has a basketball team that occasionally plays games against the teams of other companies (because basketball's very popular in China). Anyway, my mentor told me today that we have a game coming up against the police (of Xiasha, not Sting) and that they want me to play. I've only played basketball twice in China, but I've done alright thanks to my willingness to play rough in the post and being six inches taller than the next tallest guy. I'm not sure if those tactics will work against the police though. Hopefully the team won't be relying on me because my game is pretty rusty. Oh, and I found out that we have company jerseys, which means that they take this seriously. No pressure, I just have to live up to their expectations of my entire country
On a completely unrelated note, I want to talk about the food over here; it isn't exactly what we would consider to be Chinese food in America. I'm living in Zhejiang province, which has it's own distinct style of food that can be very different from the food in the next province over (like the difference between French food and German food). I do most of my eating at the company canteen because I live in an industrial district where there aren't many options for food (there are only 2 restaurants and a convenience store within a 1 mile radius). The cooks in the company canteen are from Anhui province which has food similar to Zhejiang that tends to be salty and somewhat bland, compared to other provinces. This style of food is very different from the Chinese food I'm used to at home (mostly Hunan and Sichuan/Szechwan). Vegetables are featured very prominently and meat is used sparingly. There is an important distinction between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese food: in Northern China they grow wheat, which means they use noodles as their primary starch. In Southern China they grow rice, which means rice is used as the primary starch and that most noodles are rice noodles (which I happen to hate). As someone who loves chao mian, this has been quite frustrating, although it does make going out on the weekends more enjoyable because I have the option to eat Western food or food from other provinces.
Monday, July 12, 2010
China - Day 24 - The return of Shanghai
I had a nice long weekend: the office was closed on Friday because they were upgrading the building's connection to the electrical grid, so there was no power and they gave us the day off. I'd previously planned to go to Shanghai Friday night to Sunday night. However, when the company wanted to switch Friday's work day to Sunday, I couldn't do it because I'd already bought the train ticket for Sunday, so I ended up with a three day weekend.
July 9
With no work on Friday and having a train ticket at 9PM (bought when I expected to go to work on Friday) I was lost for things to do, so I decided to sleep in (which was a great decision as I appear to be battling sleep debt). After a late wake up I watched some TV and went for a run. I'm really, really glad I decided to bring my running stuff because it has been a wonderful way for me to get away from my apartment complex/office and I'm glad that I have a way to expend excess energy that would otherwise drive me stir crazy.
After my run and a little bit (okay, a lot) more TV I started to make my way to Hangzhou city from Xiasha. I waited for the K865 bus outside my apartment for about 15 minutes before one of the guys I work with, Hart, came by and we started chatting. He told me that the bus only comes by about once an hour and that I was better off taking a taxi, which I ended up doing. I got off at No. 3 Road and No. 6 Road, where I expected to catch the K525 bus straight to the Hangzhou Railway Station, but the bus stop was nowhere to be seen. I walked a block in every direction, but kept striking out. After about 45 minutes of fruitless searching I gave up and walked about a mile to the B1 stop (B1 seems to be the only bus I can consistently take in Xiasha), where I boarded the next bus and made my way to downtown Hangzhou.
When I got off the B1 at Wulin Square I did the same thing I've done every time I've been to Hangzhou city, walked down Yan'an Road for awhile and then cut over to the West Lake. I decided to have a late lunch at the French bakery Phil and I stopped at last weekend and then get a coffee to kill time until the train (I still had about 4 hours to kill). After only being able to muster an hour and half from a single cup of coffee I opted to leave and take another look around the West Lake. Today it was absolutely gorgeous, unlike the other times I'd visited. There was almost no haze in the sky and the clouds were uncharacteristically cooperative. I could see all the way across the lake for the first time, where I saw some beautiful mountains I didn't know existed. When night fell (after I stopped at a second coffee shop to slowly sip a coffee and enjoy their comfortable chairs and air conditioning while I read), I walked over to the West Lake again and it was even more gorgeous than it was in the afternoon (albeit, more difficult to photograph. Starting to appreciate the beauty of Hangzhou, I made my way over to the railway station to meet my friends and ride the well maintained, if slightly boring, train to Shanghai.
When we got to Shanghai I was utterly amazed at the sheer scale to the main railway station. It is a sleek, modern building, but above all it is huge and the crowds are some how even bigger. After passing by what seemed like 100,000 people, we got to the metro station to ride to our friend Susan's apartment. In addition to being fantastically crowded, the Shanghai metro is incredibly clean and well planned and technologically advanced (although transferring between two lines takes at least 15 minutes due lines being at least 1km apart). The Shanghai Metro is making a very strong case for my favorite metro.
Once we met at Susan's apartment, we decided to go clubbing (I had mentioned that I'd like to see some nightlife, which is sorely lacking in Xiasha). We ended up at a club called Ricky's (or possibly Richy's, that is still being debated) that was utterly packed (elbow to elbow for the entire floor space of the club). Ordering drinks at a club is not easy, regardless of whether you speak the language. Not only do you have to fight the crowds to get to the bar and get the bartender's attention, you have to fight the internal contradiction about paying for one drink the amount that would buy you an entire bottle somewhere else. Perhaps you are paying for the lifestyle, but it just reminded me why that is not my scene. With some liquid courage, we hit the dance floor to clear out some space for ourselves and show how Americans party (side note: the entire club seemed to be smoking. The stench hung thick in the air and, later, I could smell it on all my clothes. It's a miracle that I made it out of there without any singed clothing or flesh). I don't know how it happened, but we ended up staying until 4am, when we finally realized the absurd hour it was and that we had to be up at 7:30 the next day.
July 9
With no work on Friday and having a train ticket at 9PM (bought when I expected to go to work on Friday) I was lost for things to do, so I decided to sleep in (which was a great decision as I appear to be battling sleep debt). After a late wake up I watched some TV and went for a run. I'm really, really glad I decided to bring my running stuff because it has been a wonderful way for me to get away from my apartment complex/office and I'm glad that I have a way to expend excess energy that would otherwise drive me stir crazy.
After my run and a little bit (okay, a lot) more TV I started to make my way to Hangzhou city from Xiasha. I waited for the K865 bus outside my apartment for about 15 minutes before one of the guys I work with, Hart, came by and we started chatting. He told me that the bus only comes by about once an hour and that I was better off taking a taxi, which I ended up doing. I got off at No. 3 Road and No. 6 Road, where I expected to catch the K525 bus straight to the Hangzhou Railway Station, but the bus stop was nowhere to be seen. I walked a block in every direction, but kept striking out. After about 45 minutes of fruitless searching I gave up and walked about a mile to the B1 stop (B1 seems to be the only bus I can consistently take in Xiasha), where I boarded the next bus and made my way to downtown Hangzhou.
When I got off the B1 at Wulin Square I did the same thing I've done every time I've been to Hangzhou city, walked down Yan'an Road for awhile and then cut over to the West Lake. I decided to have a late lunch at the French bakery Phil and I stopped at last weekend and then get a coffee to kill time until the train (I still had about 4 hours to kill). After only being able to muster an hour and half from a single cup of coffee I opted to leave and take another look around the West Lake. Today it was absolutely gorgeous, unlike the other times I'd visited. There was almost no haze in the sky and the clouds were uncharacteristically cooperative. I could see all the way across the lake for the first time, where I saw some beautiful mountains I didn't know existed. When night fell (after I stopped at a second coffee shop to slowly sip a coffee and enjoy their comfortable chairs and air conditioning while I read), I walked over to the West Lake again and it was even more gorgeous than it was in the afternoon (albeit, more difficult to photograph. Starting to appreciate the beauty of Hangzhou, I made my way over to the railway station to meet my friends and ride the well maintained, if slightly boring, train to Shanghai.
 |  |
| The West Lake during the day on Friday. It was gorgeous, I could see across the lake and I saw those mountains for the first time. | The West Lake at night on Friday. It was beautiful, but the pictures did not turn out as well, unfortunately. |
When we got to Shanghai I was utterly amazed at the sheer scale to the main railway station. It is a sleek, modern building, but above all it is huge and the crowds are some how even bigger. After passing by what seemed like 100,000 people, we got to the metro station to ride to our friend Susan's apartment. In addition to being fantastically crowded, the Shanghai metro is incredibly clean and well planned and technologically advanced (although transferring between two lines takes at least 15 minutes due lines being at least 1km apart). The Shanghai Metro is making a very strong case for my favorite metro.
 |  |
| Almost every station I saw on the Shanghai metro (and I saw a lot of them for just one weekend) was designed like this and they were all this clean. The door style reminded me of the Jubilee line in the London Metro | One of the many, many underpasses I walked through to transfer between lines in the Shanghai Metro. I think there might be more mileage covered in these tunnels than inthe system itself. This reminded me of the underpasses connecting terminals at O'Hare |
Once we met at Susan's apartment, we decided to go clubbing (I had mentioned that I'd like to see some nightlife, which is sorely lacking in Xiasha). We ended up at a club called Ricky's (or possibly Richy's, that is still being debated) that was utterly packed (elbow to elbow for the entire floor space of the club). Ordering drinks at a club is not easy, regardless of whether you speak the language. Not only do you have to fight the crowds to get to the bar and get the bartender's attention, you have to fight the internal contradiction about paying for one drink the amount that would buy you an entire bottle somewhere else. Perhaps you are paying for the lifestyle, but it just reminded me why that is not my scene. With some liquid courage, we hit the dance floor to clear out some space for ourselves and show how Americans party (side note: the entire club seemed to be smoking. The stench hung thick in the air and, later, I could smell it on all my clothes. It's a miracle that I made it out of there without any singed clothing or flesh). I don't know how it happened, but we ended up staying until 4am, when we finally realized the absurd hour it was and that we had to be up at 7:30 the next day.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
China - Day 20 - (Insert clever tagline)
Yeah, so the last three days have been so uneventful that they don't merit a breakdown by date. I'm still working on fixturing and now I'm creating a primary machining fixture (the first one I created was actually a secondary machining fixture, so now I'm backtracking). I should hopefully finish this up soon and move on to another project, but little things keep popping up and I make little mistakes due to a lack of direction. This is getting a little frustrating, but I'm looking forward to finishing up with this fixture soon. Hopefully I'll get a chance to teach myself some Pro/E soon (since I figured out how to change the language of that program to English). Tomorrow, however, will not be that day as there is a scheduled power outage from 7:30 to 15:30 while they upgrade the factory's connection to the power grid. I'm not sure if I need to come into work, we'll see.
On the fun front, I'm going to Shanghai this weekend. I'm leaving on Friday after work and coming back Sunday night; I'll be staying with my friend Susan (although there are at least 3 of us crashing with her, so I'll probably be sleeping on the floor, couch if I'm lucky). On Saturday we're going to get a tour of Google Shanghai and a meet and greet with some of their interns from Chinese universities. I'm going to try to swing by the Apple Store that's opening in Shanghai on Saturday that isn't too far from Google, although we'll see how the day goes. We aren't going to try to go to the Expo; we're going to put that off until later in the summer when the crowds have hopefully subsided.
Because things have been so slow lately, I'm going to delve into two topics that have crept into my mind over the last 3 weeks: corporate paternalism and children in public.
On the fun front, I'm going to Shanghai this weekend. I'm leaving on Friday after work and coming back Sunday night; I'll be staying with my friend Susan (although there are at least 3 of us crashing with her, so I'll probably be sleeping on the floor, couch if I'm lucky). On Saturday we're going to get a tour of Google Shanghai and a meet and greet with some of their interns from Chinese universities. I'm going to try to swing by the Apple Store that's opening in Shanghai on Saturday that isn't too far from Google, although we'll see how the day goes. We aren't going to try to go to the Expo; we're going to put that off until later in the summer when the crowds have hopefully subsided.
Because things have been so slow lately, I'm going to delve into two topics that have crept into my mind over the last 3 weeks: corporate paternalism and children in public.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
China - Day 16 - The Grind Begins
I want to wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July. I'm quite sad to be spending my second favorite American holiday (the first being Thanksgiving) in a country that is rather indifferent to it, but such is life. This is the second time I've been out of the country for the Fourth of July, the last time was in 2006 when I was in Vienna. Curiously, it was also during the World Cup. I wonder where I'll be July 4, 2014?
Anyway, as the title suggests, things have started to slow down around here. Work has gotten more interesting, thankfully, but a lot of my initial excitement for being here has also worn off. Rather than seeing things that Chinese people do differently than Americans as quirky, I'm starting to look for underlying reasons for those differences. I'm probably going to comment more on that now (although I think I'm also going to cover what I work on so that I don't forget).
July 1
I'm working on creating a fixture to hold a workpiece to be machined in a CNC mill. I'm taking multi-faceted drawings from AutoCAD and recreating them in Unigraphics NX6 as 3D models that we can then use the integrated capabilities of NX6 to generate tool paths and code to machine the fixture. I think they might even let me help machine one of these work pieces eventually. Michael has also given me a second workpiece to look at with the assignment to take an NX6 model of the casting for that part, modify it to final specifications in NX6, generate tool paths for that machining and then to create a fixture to hold that piece. I'm excited that I'm getting exposure to this sort of work, but it is a bit daunting to be handed two projects at the same time. And I'm still having trouble with the tool path generation because the method I use to create them in UG generates paths that Michael doesn't like, so tweaking UG has been frustrating/useless. I wish I had a UG manual to walk me through this, but I don't. Oh well, no one said working in a foreign country would be easy.
On the homefront, I needed to get a power converter to charge my electric toothbrush (yes, I'm spoiled). I tried to convey the sense of an voltage converter to Michael, but he didn't seem to get it (perhaps they don't teach breadth in Chinese engineering, but I was glad to have E40 under my belt), but he understood it when I told him I needed it to charge my camera (a little white lie, but I didn't want to convey myself as terribly spoiled). So, we went to the Xiasha Trade Center (XTC, an acronym too awesome to pass up) to see his friend who runs an electronics dealer, along with about 100 other dealers, in a mega-mall with hundreds, if not thousands, of stores. Actually, stores is an overstatement, the shops there are more like 3-sided rooms stacked to the ceiling with merchandise, open to a common hallway. It is an assault on the senses. Luckily there is some semblance of organization and the electronics dealers and separated from the clothing dealers. The electronics dealers are an odd bunch, they sell all sorts of things, but mostly small computers and things like cell phones. But what I think is really strange is that almost everyone there smokes like a chimney, which surely can't be good for the electronics (or their health). Anyway, getting to the point, we find Michael's friend, who doesn't have the low wattage power converter I need, but he can order one and have it for us tomorrow. So I'm feeling a little dejected, Michael tells me that we should try upstairs, and I figure "Hey, let's give this a shot."
But it turns out the upstairs is not more electronics dealers, but instead is an arcade. For about 3 dollars we play video games for over an hour, mostly the little basketball shooting game. I have quite an advantage at this because I'm taller than the average Chinese person, who the game appears to be designed for. My personal best was 696; however, that was assisted by 5 60 second rounds and a rather touchy sensor that would trigger whenever the rim was hit, regardless of whether the ball went in. Overall, it was quite the fun night, although I was a little sad to not get a chance to go for a run like I was hoping to.
Anyway, as the title suggests, things have started to slow down around here. Work has gotten more interesting, thankfully, but a lot of my initial excitement for being here has also worn off. Rather than seeing things that Chinese people do differently than Americans as quirky, I'm starting to look for underlying reasons for those differences. I'm probably going to comment more on that now (although I think I'm also going to cover what I work on so that I don't forget).
July 1
I'm working on creating a fixture to hold a workpiece to be machined in a CNC mill. I'm taking multi-faceted drawings from AutoCAD and recreating them in Unigraphics NX6 as 3D models that we can then use the integrated capabilities of NX6 to generate tool paths and code to machine the fixture. I think they might even let me help machine one of these work pieces eventually. Michael has also given me a second workpiece to look at with the assignment to take an NX6 model of the casting for that part, modify it to final specifications in NX6, generate tool paths for that machining and then to create a fixture to hold that piece. I'm excited that I'm getting exposure to this sort of work, but it is a bit daunting to be handed two projects at the same time. And I'm still having trouble with the tool path generation because the method I use to create them in UG generates paths that Michael doesn't like, so tweaking UG has been frustrating/useless. I wish I had a UG manual to walk me through this, but I don't. Oh well, no one said working in a foreign country would be easy.
On the homefront, I needed to get a power converter to charge my electric toothbrush (yes, I'm spoiled). I tried to convey the sense of an voltage converter to Michael, but he didn't seem to get it (perhaps they don't teach breadth in Chinese engineering, but I was glad to have E40 under my belt), but he understood it when I told him I needed it to charge my camera (a little white lie, but I didn't want to convey myself as terribly spoiled). So, we went to the Xiasha Trade Center (XTC, an acronym too awesome to pass up) to see his friend who runs an electronics dealer, along with about 100 other dealers, in a mega-mall with hundreds, if not thousands, of stores. Actually, stores is an overstatement, the shops there are more like 3-sided rooms stacked to the ceiling with merchandise, open to a common hallway. It is an assault on the senses. Luckily there is some semblance of organization and the electronics dealers and separated from the clothing dealers. The electronics dealers are an odd bunch, they sell all sorts of things, but mostly small computers and things like cell phones. But what I think is really strange is that almost everyone there smokes like a chimney, which surely can't be good for the electronics (or their health). Anyway, getting to the point, we find Michael's friend, who doesn't have the low wattage power converter I need, but he can order one and have it for us tomorrow. So I'm feeling a little dejected, Michael tells me that we should try upstairs, and I figure "Hey, let's give this a shot."
But it turns out the upstairs is not more electronics dealers, but instead is an arcade. For about 3 dollars we play video games for over an hour, mostly the little basketball shooting game. I have quite an advantage at this because I'm taller than the average Chinese person, who the game appears to be designed for. My personal best was 696; however, that was assisted by 5 60 second rounds and a rather touchy sensor that would trigger whenever the rim was hit, regardless of whether the ball went in. Overall, it was quite the fun night, although I was a little sad to not get a chance to go for a run like I was hoping to.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
China - Day 12 - Work's picking up
The last two days have been kinda boring in terms of stuff actually happening, oh well, here goes nothing.
June 29
Not much happened at work today. I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to stay on top of Michael so that I have enough work to do. It's strange to be in the position of self-driving my own internship, but I guess it's necessary here. What I've gathered from Chinese students and other assorted sources is that internships are a relatively new phenomenon in China and it seems that Allied is not experienced at having interns. I think I might be their first intern ever, much less their first foreign intern. I've started to get more persistent with Michael, which I think is going to help me get more work to do, although I am definitely disadvantaged by my inability to communicate with the majority of the company. The fact that I don't speak very good Chinese means that Michael is pretty much my only conduit of information and, as I've noted earlier, getting a straight answer out of him can be difficult.
Conservation is one aspect of China that rather perplexes me. On one hand, there are power switches for all the appliances in my room and they seem to take energy conservation very seriously. On the other hand, there are a huge amount of disposable packaging/chopsticks used, which surely isn't environmentally friendly. I'm not sure I've thought of a good reason for this dichotomy yet, but it is curious in the face of the pollution that grips the city and, from what I can tell, the better part of the country. I would think there would be more environmental activism, but perhaps that gets to the difference between American and Chinese culture.
On an unrelated note, I went for a run tonight and it was nice to see a different part of the town. Running through an industrial district after hours is a weird feeling, kinda like running through a ghost town. There were times I would have a 4 lane road all to myself, which was slightly disconcerting. Also disconcerting was the lightning that was firing in the distance in front of me. I tried to count the time between the flash and the thunder, but I forgot whether every 5 seconds you counted corresponded to the lightning being a mile away, or if it was 2 seconds. Either way, I didn't get hit by lightning, which is a good thing.
June 29
Not much happened at work today. I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to stay on top of Michael so that I have enough work to do. It's strange to be in the position of self-driving my own internship, but I guess it's necessary here. What I've gathered from Chinese students and other assorted sources is that internships are a relatively new phenomenon in China and it seems that Allied is not experienced at having interns. I think I might be their first intern ever, much less their first foreign intern. I've started to get more persistent with Michael, which I think is going to help me get more work to do, although I am definitely disadvantaged by my inability to communicate with the majority of the company. The fact that I don't speak very good Chinese means that Michael is pretty much my only conduit of information and, as I've noted earlier, getting a straight answer out of him can be difficult.
Conservation is one aspect of China that rather perplexes me. On one hand, there are power switches for all the appliances in my room and they seem to take energy conservation very seriously. On the other hand, there are a huge amount of disposable packaging/chopsticks used, which surely isn't environmentally friendly. I'm not sure I've thought of a good reason for this dichotomy yet, but it is curious in the face of the pollution that grips the city and, from what I can tell, the better part of the country. I would think there would be more environmental activism, but perhaps that gets to the difference between American and Chinese culture.
On an unrelated note, I went for a run tonight and it was nice to see a different part of the town. Running through an industrial district after hours is a weird feeling, kinda like running through a ghost town. There were times I would have a 4 lane road all to myself, which was slightly disconcerting. Also disconcerting was the lightning that was firing in the distance in front of me. I tried to count the time between the flash and the thunder, but I forgot whether every 5 seconds you counted corresponded to the lightning being a mile away, or if it was 2 seconds. Either way, I didn't get hit by lightning, which is a good thing.
Monday, June 28, 2010
China - Day 10 - Big City, Smoggy Lights
I'm starting to think that the permanent haze the permeates Xiasha and Hangzhou is smog and not exceptionally bad weather. That isn't to say that the weather is good, it's actually rained quite a bit since I've been here, but the haze is too constant for that to be the case.
June 26
Working on Saturday feels weird, but at least it's giving me something to do, otherwise I would have probably holed up in my apartment watching Firefly all day. It was strange to be at work without my mentor Michael (he was out apartment hunting for his little brother, who's also coming to work in Xiasha) because he's been giving me cues on what to do all week. I spent most of the day sitting at my computer and trying to look busy, although I'm not sure how well I pulled that off.
On the homefront, I washed my laundry last night and hung it out to dry on my balcony. I hope it dries in one day, although given the humidity/chance of rain, I'm not sure if it will. When I got home from work today, I saw little child relieving himself in the middle of the apartment courtyard while his parents (and possibly grandparents), looked on. I'm not sure if this is normal in China, but I'm expecting that it is. Almost every small child I see is wearing what more or less boil down to terry-cloth chaps. That was a huge shock to my Western, puritanical sensibilities; I know that that sort of thing would never fly in America.
On a more sporting note, I played basketball with Michael and our neighbors today. I have to say, Chinese pick-up basketball is very different from American pick-up basketball (this could have just been a function of the people I was playing with, but having watched other pick-up games and made similar observations, I'm going to assume this is a cultural difference). For one, their game is much more frantic and finesse based. Guys are running every which way and passing the ball seems to be very popular, if not slightly erratic. Turn overs are very common in both directions and not many guys have pretty jump shots (although, as someone with an atrocious jump shot, I can commiserate). The Chinese game also seems to shirk away from contact. Coming into the game playing the way I play in America, I was able to physically dominate the paint. Yes, I had 7 inches and 30 pounds on everyone in the first game, but in the second, a guy about my size (probably 4-5 inches shorter, though) came in, and I was able to back him down all the way from the elbow to the bucket. He was very surprised when I made driving contact with my shoulder and hips. If not for the paint on the court and the residue of the previous day's rain, I probably could have driven the lane all day. The one thing that really bothered me for some stupid reason was the way they played dead balls. Whenever a ball would go out of bounds, or someone scored or someone got fouled, they would always throw the ball in from off court. It's been 7 years since I last played organized basketball, which is probably why that felt so weird. I guess I'm used to checking it with the defense.
I went to bed relatively early that night to get up at 2am to watch the US play Ghana. Needless to say, I was disappointed, but I don't want to dwell on it.
June 26
Working on Saturday feels weird, but at least it's giving me something to do, otherwise I would have probably holed up in my apartment watching Firefly all day. It was strange to be at work without my mentor Michael (he was out apartment hunting for his little brother, who's also coming to work in Xiasha) because he's been giving me cues on what to do all week. I spent most of the day sitting at my computer and trying to look busy, although I'm not sure how well I pulled that off.
On the homefront, I washed my laundry last night and hung it out to dry on my balcony. I hope it dries in one day, although given the humidity/chance of rain, I'm not sure if it will. When I got home from work today, I saw little child relieving himself in the middle of the apartment courtyard while his parents (and possibly grandparents), looked on. I'm not sure if this is normal in China, but I'm expecting that it is. Almost every small child I see is wearing what more or less boil down to terry-cloth chaps. That was a huge shock to my Western, puritanical sensibilities; I know that that sort of thing would never fly in America.
On a more sporting note, I played basketball with Michael and our neighbors today. I have to say, Chinese pick-up basketball is very different from American pick-up basketball (this could have just been a function of the people I was playing with, but having watched other pick-up games and made similar observations, I'm going to assume this is a cultural difference). For one, their game is much more frantic and finesse based. Guys are running every which way and passing the ball seems to be very popular, if not slightly erratic. Turn overs are very common in both directions and not many guys have pretty jump shots (although, as someone with an atrocious jump shot, I can commiserate). The Chinese game also seems to shirk away from contact. Coming into the game playing the way I play in America, I was able to physically dominate the paint. Yes, I had 7 inches and 30 pounds on everyone in the first game, but in the second, a guy about my size (probably 4-5 inches shorter, though) came in, and I was able to back him down all the way from the elbow to the bucket. He was very surprised when I made driving contact with my shoulder and hips. If not for the paint on the court and the residue of the previous day's rain, I probably could have driven the lane all day. The one thing that really bothered me for some stupid reason was the way they played dead balls. Whenever a ball would go out of bounds, or someone scored or someone got fouled, they would always throw the ball in from off court. It's been 7 years since I last played organized basketball, which is probably why that felt so weird. I guess I'm used to checking it with the defense.
I went to bed relatively early that night to get up at 2am to watch the US play Ghana. Needless to say, I was disappointed, but I don't want to dwell on it.
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| The basketball court (with puddles from a rainstorm) | Another view of the apartment complex. There are ten buildings with six floors and about 18 rooms per floor with an average of three people per room. For those of you keeping score at home, that about 3000 people living in my apartment complex. |
Friday, June 25, 2010
China - Day 7 - Crisis Averted
June 25
Today's been pretty slow at work. I spent the first half of the day reading a technical manual about a measurement probe and it's application in a number of different CNC mills. Now I'm going to review some parts that were machined out of spec and have been rejected by the customer. Wooooooo . After lunch, Michael brought me my company shoes that I need to wear whenever I go out on the workshop floor (they tried to give me a pair on my first day, but those were 3 sizes too small). These shoes are huge, they feel like boats on my feet. Actually, I'm pretty sure they are steel-toed, which is kinda cool. And now I have dedicated work shoes from now until when these things fall apart (which will probably be judgement day, based on how they are built)
Things are looking better on the home front. I just got handed a key to my new apartment, which will be in the same building, just one floor lower and at the other end of the hall (so it won't be the one directly below mine, which I assume is equally water logged). I also straightened things out about my internet situation. The company is apparently purchasing a wireless card from China Mobile that they are going to give to me so that I can access the internet wirelessly. I really hope it is a 3G card (actually, I don't know if Xiasha has 3G service). However, this means I won't have wireless in the new apartment until after they get the card to me. Hopefully it will be today or tomorrow (which definitely gives me an incentive to come to work on Saturday, as is apparently the norm for Allied). More info to come after I see the new apartment.
Today's been pretty slow at work. I spent the first half of the day reading a technical manual about a measurement probe and it's application in a number of different CNC mills. Now I'm going to review some parts that were machined out of spec and have been rejected by the customer.
Things are looking better on the home front. I just got handed a key to my new apartment, which will be in the same building, just one floor lower and at the other end of the hall (so it won't be the one directly below mine, which I assume is equally water logged). I also straightened things out about my internet situation. The company is apparently purchasing a wireless card from China Mobile that they are going to give to me so that I can access the internet wirelessly. I really hope it is a 3G card (actually, I don't know if Xiasha has 3G service). However, this means I won't have wireless in the new apartment until after they get the card to me. Hopefully it will be today or tomorrow (which definitely gives me an incentive to come to work on Saturday, as is apparently the norm for Allied). More info to come after I see the new apartment.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
China - Day 6 - Time to get to work
June 22
It's my second day at work and it's going very much like the first. I'm having the second safety training session; however, the person giving the training doesn't speak very good English (and I certainly don't speak Chinese well enough to take safety training), so I have to guess at what he's trying to convey. Probably not the best situation for safety training, but I'm going to be spending most of my time in the office and I think I got the general gist of the training (Don't touch anything). After safety training they take me out to another warehouse for more training, but this time it is training to use a five ton crane. That is way more fun than anything else I've been doing, and I start to get the hang of it pretty quickly. It's pretty much a pendulum game, albeit with a 500 kg pendulum. As we walk back to the office, Michael tells me that his boss thinks I "walk lazy." I'm confused, so I press for information. Apparently, the way I walk with my weight behind be, not walking with urgency, makes me appear lazy. I resolve to walk like purpose, to use my "city walk," around the office.
After lunch I finally get my own computer after two days of prodding (and spending the first half of the day studying engineering drawings out of context got grating). The only problem, it's in Chinese and there is no way to change the operating system language to English without buying an English version of Windows. Oh, and the software I'm going to be using (Unigraphics NX6) is also in Chinese. Excellent. After an hour or so of my fruitless searching, Michael comes and changes the language of NX6 to English in 3 minutes. Oh well, I have my own access to the outside world (Internet is spotty at best in my apartment) and something to keep myself entertained at work. I went for a run after work and I got a lot of strange looks, like I'm the first person to run in the history of Xiasha. Oh well, it is nice to get some exercise in.
It's my second day at work and it's going very much like the first. I'm having the second safety training session; however, the person giving the training doesn't speak very good English (and I certainly don't speak Chinese well enough to take safety training), so I have to guess at what he's trying to convey. Probably not the best situation for safety training, but I'm going to be spending most of my time in the office and I think I got the general gist of the training (Don't touch anything). After safety training they take me out to another warehouse for more training, but this time it is training to use a five ton crane. That is way more fun than anything else I've been doing, and I start to get the hang of it pretty quickly. It's pretty much a pendulum game, albeit with a 500 kg pendulum. As we walk back to the office, Michael tells me that his boss thinks I "walk lazy." I'm confused, so I press for information. Apparently, the way I walk with my weight behind be, not walking with urgency, makes me appear lazy. I resolve to walk like purpose, to use my "city walk," around the office.
After lunch I finally get my own computer after two days of prodding (and spending the first half of the day studying engineering drawings out of context got grating). The only problem, it's in Chinese and there is no way to change the operating system language to English without buying an English version of Windows. Oh, and the software I'm going to be using (Unigraphics NX6) is also in Chinese. Excellent. After an hour or so of my fruitless searching, Michael comes and changes the language of NX6 to English in 3 minutes. Oh well, I have my own access to the outside world (Internet is spotty at best in my apartment) and something to keep myself entertained at work. I went for a run after work and I got a lot of strange looks, like I'm the first person to run in the history of Xiasha. Oh well, it is nice to get some exercise in.
Monday, June 21, 2010
China - Day 3 - Welcome to Hangzhou, no wait, Xiasha
June 20
The next night after touching down in Shanghai, we got up for orientation which primarily consisted of a luncheon with alumni. The food served was Shanghaiese (aka Shanghai specialties), including a fantastic pork belly dish (no idea what it was called), jellyfish, eel and a number of less interesting dishes. I figured "When in Rome..." and tried the jellyfish and eel. The eel was quite tasty, but heavily masked with spices. The jellyfish was something else all together. It was a lot crunchier than I expected jellyfish to taste, kinda like hard jello. After the luncheon, we returned to our hotel to get our bags and head to the train station for the train to Hangzhou. This was the second time I seriously regretted bringing so much stuff. We got to the train station (Shanghai South) and it was a mess. There must have been easily five thousand people. After a number of false starts, we got to the right gate where we waited with 500 hundred of our newest friends for the train. While we waited, I went to find a water fountain because I was quite parched after running all over the train station for the past half hour. However, I didn't find a drinking fountain like I expected. Instead I found a hot water dispenser. Over the next couple of days it finally dawned on me that cold drinks are not really normal in China. It seems that the Chinese prefer their drinks warm, or at coolest, room temperature.
The next night after touching down in Shanghai, we got up for orientation which primarily consisted of a luncheon with alumni. The food served was Shanghaiese (aka Shanghai specialties), including a fantastic pork belly dish (no idea what it was called), jellyfish, eel and a number of less interesting dishes. I figured "When in Rome..." and tried the jellyfish and eel. The eel was quite tasty, but heavily masked with spices. The jellyfish was something else all together. It was a lot crunchier than I expected jellyfish to taste, kinda like hard jello. After the luncheon, we returned to our hotel to get our bags and head to the train station for the train to Hangzhou. This was the second time I seriously regretted bringing so much stuff. We got to the train station (Shanghai South) and it was a mess. There must have been easily five thousand people. After a number of false starts, we got to the right gate where we waited with 500 hundred of our newest friends for the train. While we waited, I went to find a water fountain because I was quite parched after running all over the train station for the past half hour. However, I didn't find a drinking fountain like I expected. Instead I found a hot water dispenser. Over the next couple of days it finally dawned on me that cold drinks are not really normal in China. It seems that the Chinese prefer their drinks warm, or at coolest, room temperature.
 | Jellyfish on the left, eel on the right |
Saturday, June 19, 2010
China - Day 1 - Whelp, I'm in Asia now
Wow, where to begin?
June 19
Let's start with the flights. I left SFO on June 18 on United flying to Incheon where I would catch a connecting flight to Shanghai on China Eastern Airlines. I was lucky enough to be upgraded to business class for the SFO-ICN flight (thank you mom and dad's frequent flier miles) and I have to say, it was exquisite. They served me three glasses of champagne before we even left the gate (one I had when I first sat down, the second when my seat mate [an anthropology professor from Harvard] joined me and the third when the flight attendants had to finish off the bottle before take off [I guess we looked like we would oblige another drink]).
June 19
Let's start with the flights. I left SFO on June 18 on United flying to Incheon where I would catch a connecting flight to Shanghai on China Eastern Airlines. I was lucky enough to be upgraded to business class for the SFO-ICN flight (thank you mom and dad's frequent flier miles) and I have to say, it was exquisite. They served me three glasses of champagne before we even left the gate (one I had when I first sat down, the second when my seat mate [an anthropology professor from Harvard] joined me and the third when the flight attendants had to finish off the bottle before take off [I guess we looked like we would oblige another drink]).
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| 747-400's at SFO. I think one of them was mine | A little pre-flight champagne |
Friday, June 18, 2010
China - Day 0 - Leaving on a jet plane...
June 18
Today is the day. I can't tell if my feelings are nervousness or the coffee in my veins, but I'm giddy. I'm currently sitting in the United Red Carpet Club at SFO (thank you to Jordan and Sylvie for driving me to the airport at this ungodly hour), and I have mixed feeling about this place. On one hand, it is nice to have a quiet place to relax before the flight and I'm enjoying the complimentary wifi (I turned down the two complementary drink tickets, although given my nerves I'm thinking that may have been a mistake). On the other hand, the ambiance here is like a motel lobby and the lounge does not appear to have been particularly well maintained. Both power plugs at my seat don't work, but luckily the guy sitting across from me was kind enough to offer one of his ports. I board in 50 minutes; I'm scared and excited and ready to do this.
Today is the day. I can't tell if my feelings are nervousness or the coffee in my veins, but I'm giddy. I'm currently sitting in the United Red Carpet Club at SFO (thank you to Jordan and Sylvie for driving me to the airport at this ungodly hour), and I have mixed feeling about this place. On one hand, it is nice to have a quiet place to relax before the flight and I'm enjoying the complimentary wifi (I turned down the two complementary drink tickets, although given my nerves I'm thinking that may have been a mistake). On the other hand, the ambiance here is like a motel lobby and the lounge does not appear to have been particularly well maintained. Both power plugs at my seat don't work, but luckily the guy sitting across from me was kind enough to offer one of his ports. I board in 50 minutes; I'm scared and excited and ready to do this.
 Here's the entrance on the first floor. Probably the nicest part of the Red Carpet Lounge. |  The view from the departure lounge. A classic San Francisco summer morning. |
Thursday, June 17, 2010
China - Day -1 - It's getting to be about that time, eh chaps?
June 17
I leave for China tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I hope I'm bringing enough stuff. I'm excited because this is going to be the first time I've flown out of SFO's International terminal, although, I will admit that I was not terribly impressed arriving at the international terminal. Well, I'm leaving my house in less than 12 hours, time to commence freaking out.
I leave for China tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I hope I'm bringing enough stuff. I'm excited because this is going to be the first time I've flown out of SFO's International terminal, although, I will admit that I was not terribly impressed arriving at the international terminal. Well, I'm leaving my house in less than 12 hours, time to commence freaking out.
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Friday, April 2, 2010
Summer in Hangzhou China
It looks like I'm going to spend the summer working in Hangzhou, China. This will be interesting. More details to follow.
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