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.

After some navigation snafus, Ricardo and I finally found each other and were lost for things to do. We walked by a huge bank and he remembered that he needed to get a cash advance on his credit card, so we stopped inside. Unfortunately, they were closed for lunch, so we crossed the street (always a harrowing experience) to a China Mobile store where I attempted to sort out my phone issues for the umpteenth time (I can receive calls/texts and send texts but I can't make calls). After finding out that my SIM card was registered to my mentor's name and that I wouldn't be able to do anything without him there (which actually didn't come as a huge surprise or inconvenience, as we were planning to go to a China Mobile store tonight) I was approached by a man and three or four ladies from China Mobile. They asked if I would appear in a video they were producing for their customer service training competition (I learned the purpose of the video after the fact, at the time I thought it was going to be a commercial) and I said sure; Ricardo and I had an hour to kill anyway. Shooting the video took about half and hour, largely because the camera man gave me directions in Chinese that had to be translated by the director so that I could understand. It actually ended up being a lot of fun, although I think Ricardo enjoyed it more than I did. He captured almost the entire process on video, giggling the entire time. After we finished the video, they brought Ricardo and I a pair of nice tea sets (despite Ricardo spending the entire video watching me and laughing) that I rather appreciated (although there was a mysterious blue box that we thought might be a gift to me. WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!?!). Even though starring in a customer service video for a Chinese Telecom was not something I was expecting to do on Sunday (or ever, really), I rather enjoyed it and the people from China Mobile were very nice.

After my moment in the spotlight, Ricardo and I met our friend Phil and we decided to go to a movie theater to see a western movie. We ended up seeing Knight and Day because the word on the street is that Toy Story 3 is quite depressing. Chinese theater etiquette is very different from American theater etiquette. At least six different people took phone calls during the movie and most of them lasted a few minutes. This was just one of many things I've noticed about Chinese general etiquette that I disagree with. It seems that disregard for others (or the environment) is the predominant feature of Chinese culture that permeates from the way Chinese people act in movie theaters to the way they wait for public transportation to the lack of environmental safety controls. My theory is that this personality is reactionary to the extreme size of the country and the seemingly constant fight to get to the top of the heap. But what do I know? I'm just an armchair sociologist.

Following the movie, we went for a walk to dinner. We debated what kind of food to have, but settled on Western food due to constant badgering (haaaa) [this is funny because Phil's last name is Badger]. We tried to find a New York expat's place called Angelo's, but I failed to find it for the second time (I looked it up when I got home and we missed it by less than 100m), so we ended up going to a place called Reggae Bar. It's a little odd to eat American food prepared by Chinese people pretending to be Jamaican, but the food wasn't half bad. The drink selection was rather disappointing, however, as they were out of almost every beer they had advertised in their menu and didn't have a single beer on tap. If someone else wanted to go to Reggae Bar, I would probably go, but I don't think I'd go there again of my own accord. Phil and Ricardo and I had a very interesting conversation covering just about everything under the sun from ex-girlfriends to cultural identity. It's these kinds of conversations that have been my favorite part of the China trip.

Me with the camera man, director(?) and lady who spent the entire time standing no more than 5 feet from the director.	The tea set they gave me as a gift for participating in their video