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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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.