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. |
June 27
Ah, my first weekend. After sleeping in a bit, I set off for Hangzhou city to meet some of the other Stanford interns in Hangzhou, my Stanford alumni mentor and some students from Zhejiang University for coffee. I left my apartment around 11 and headed out front of the complex to take a bus; however, the bus would not come in a reasonable fashion, so I hopped in a cab. Unfortunately, my Chinese is not very good and I could not verbally convey where I wanted to go (the corner of 1st and 6th street, where the B1 bus stop is) to the driver, so I had to pull out my map. Luckily, we got it straightened out after he recognized the name of the bus I'd written down. I got to the bus stop just in time to catch the bus to downtown Hangzhou. It took about 30 minutes (less than I expected), and I finally arrived in the big city.
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| The West Lake Cultural Center in downtown Hangzhou. I didn't go inside because I can't read Chinese, so the displays would have meant nothing to me. | Now I understand why they warned me to not swim in the rivers, even the fish get sick. This really drove home the state of pollution in Chinese cities |
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| Buildings in downtown Hangzhou in the background, park and bridge to West Lake Cultural Center in the foreground. It's nice to see China making some commitment to preserving nature in an urban environment | A lot of the big intersections in Hangzhou had walkways running above or below the streets to prevent pedestrians from interfering. Given the suicidal way pedestrians treat traffic in China, this is probably a good thing. This walkway stood out to me because it looks like it belongs in the Jetsons and has a 200 foot moving sidewalk, which seems silly to me. |
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| This is Wulin Square, which I expected to be a park, but appears to be a parking lot. I think that building is some kind of headquarters, but not being able to read hanzi, I don't know. | This photo really sums up my impression of China so far. It's a constant struggle between history and modernity, between beauty and functionality. |
Upon arrival at Wulin Square, I set off for Yan'an Road, which is famous for it's shopping and also happens to lead directly to the coffee shop I'd be meeting the other interns at. Along this walk I kept my eye out for a place to buy a pair of jeans (I only brought one pair with me and it appears that I should be wearing jeans to work every day rather than the khakis I brought with me). I looked through the first couple of malls (yes, there were multiple malls in downtown Hangzhou) for a reasonably priced pair of jeans, but couldn't find one for less than 700RMB (~$100). Then, I stumbled across an H&M, where I found a pair I rather liked for 250RMB. I also made a momentous discovery in this H&M, a second person taller than me. Better yet, he was actually Chinese and not a tourist. Based on his clothes, shoes and pure height, I figured he was a basketball player (and he appeared to be led around by his, presumably, girlfriend). After buying my rather reasonably priced jeans, I continued my walk to the West Lake and then XiHu Tiandi, the shopping center with the Starbucks where we would be meeting.
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| Construction seems to be everywhere in Hangzhou. Actually, construction seems to be everywhere in China. | Public rent-a-bikes like in Vienna. I didn't ride one because I don't have a deathwish |
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| The West Lake. Unfortunately the view is marred by smog/overcast weather, but I can definitely see why people think it is one of the most beautiful places in China. Just not today. | Hangzhou has a preposterous number of high end stores, it's just like the Stanford Mall. I must have seen 50-100 luxury stores in my 6 hours in downtown Hangzhou. |
Talking to the ZheDa students was fantastic and enlightening. I have a much better understanding of cultural differences between American and Chinese colleges, but even more so between the overall cultures of the two nations. It appears that there is a significant amount of antipathy on the part of the Chinese middle class who see the central government not caring about them and they, in turn, do not care about the government, leading to a sizable exodus of talented workers to places like the United States and Australia. When things shifted to politics, it got rather interesting, especially because we talked about the subject in a very engineering way. We debated the merits of the single-party system in China and the multi-party system in the United States. It appeared that the single-party system allowed the Chinese government to make significantly more progress in the ways of public works and development (which is how we thought of it as engineers), but it didn't have the public face that the American system does. We (the Stanford interns) lamented the slow rate that things get done in the United States and that bad governance and corruption were still problems (Sarah Palin, Meg Whitman/Carly Fiorina and the California High-Speed Rail came up), but we were made to appreciate the fact that all these things happen in the open, rather than having these decisions made be behind closed doors. It was quite refreshing (and informative) that we could have a frank discussion about these rather sensitive issues without offending anyone's sensibilities.
On a more college focused note, we discussed the differences between American higher education and Chinese higher education. The major difference seems to be American universities stressing understanding and critical thinking about subjects, while Chinese universities stress rote memorization. This allows Chinese universities to cover more advanced material in the same time period, but it stymies creativity in Chinese students and instills them with the notion that they only need to do well enough to get an A or to get published, not the idea that they should finish a project to completion, even if it takes a number of iterations. This was actually somewhat heartening to hear because I had always felt self-conscious about being outpaced in material covered. This actually transitioned well to an anecdote shared by my alumni mentor, Alex, that he had heard at a conference. There was a man at the conference who could tell which university an engineer was from just by his interaction with the audience. If the presenter turned his back to the audience and started writing equations on the board, he was an MIT grad. If the presenter had an accent, he was a UC Berkeley grad. And if the audience was laughing along with the presenter (despite some material potentially being wrong), he was a Stanford grad (I guess PWR2 pays off). This led to another discussion about Stanford engineering, which was kind of shocking, but kind of unsurprising at the same time. Alex said that MIT and UC Berkeley trained engineers to work in engineering directly out of college with a lot of hands on experience, whereas Stanford engineers are not great as engineers directly out of college, but rather are situated better for management. I thought about it and have to say, I agree with Alex's assertion, for the most part. I think that Stanford does put a lot more emphasis on theory and general skills than on hard engineering. And, while I have considered engineering management as a career, I somewhat resent the notion that I'm not qualified to be an engineer.
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| The shopping center where I met with the other interns, my mentor and the ZheDa students. It reminded me of Hawaii. | A (fake) lotus blossom in the shopping center fountain. |
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| The group of assembled interns, mentor and ZheDa students. From left to right, Ricardo (Stanford intern), Alex (ZheDa student), me (Stanford intern), Chris (ZheDa student), Alex (my Stanford alumni mentor), Victor (ZheDa student and Communist Party member), Phil (Stanford intern). | A group of people gathered around the West Lake (XiHu) to embarrass us. The ZheDa students (and Alex my mentor) thought it would be hilarious to try to entice people to pay money to take their picture with three laowai (white guys). Phil, Ricardo and I played along. In half an hour we made 5RMB (about 70 cents), but we gathered a large group of people laughing at us. |
After coffee, we went out to dinner, where we continued the discussion. We came to the conclusion that the biggest issue facing US-China relations is not political or economic, but rather is cultural. After a long time discussing serious issues, it was time to have some fun/do some touristy things, so we went to walk along the West Lake. As we were walking, we got quite a number of stares for having 3 laowai (foreigners/white guys) in a group together. This was apparently quite the sight; however, having been stared at all week, I wasn't that surprised. I've had children come up and gawk at me more times than I can count. Our friends from ZheDa thought it would be hilarious to try to get people to pay money to take their picture with us, so we went along with it. Unfortunately, we only got one woman to take her picture with us, but about 100 people stopped to stare at us while we were carrying on this spectacle. Oh well, a little public embarrassment's good for the soul.
Getting home was a bit more difficult than getting to Hangzhou city. I got on the wrong B1 bus, so I ended up about 5km from where I expected to get off. Rather than catching the K865 bus like I was expecting to, I hailed a cab to get home. I had difficulty conveying where I wanted to go to the cab driver. I must have said my apartment complex's name 10 times, but he wasn't getting it, and he couldn't read the map because it was in English (why he couldn't recognize the roads like the other cabbie is a mystery). Eventually, I got the name of the apartment complex right (my tones were off, surprise surprise) and I got home. Total cost for transportation that day (2 cab rides and 2 cross town buses), 24RMB (~$3.50), or half the cost of a CalTrain ticket to SF.
June 28
Back at work on Monday. Nothing too interesting going on. Michael showed me how to use a tool measuring machine to catalog tools for a new CNC mill they are setting up, but that is kinda boring and tedious. Later we talk about future plans and I ask him if he wants to be a manager. He says that he doesn't now because "I get fired if I say I want to be boss," which doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence. It's unfortunate that he could be treated that way by the company, but perhaps that's a business cultural difference. In the US you're expected to talk about your future aspirations, but it seems that you have to play those close to the vest in China so that you aren't cut down before you can get there.
I talked to the president of the company later today and he said that they were going to get me started on a new project for Husky, which hopefully means that things will begin to pick up around here pretty soon, after they finish dealing with the customer who is currently visiting the plant and taking up the majority of Michael's time. Well, I'm hopeful. This should be fun.
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| Me in my workshirt. Yes, I am crouching to get my head in the mirror. | My giant steel-toed work shoes. |
Count of people (I've seen in China) taller than me: 2 (a Chinese basketball player in H&M)
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