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.

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 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.

Germany 2006

We were in Berlin during the quarterfinals of the World Cup 2006. While Germany was playing. In Berlin. The city was insanely packed, but insanely fun. We went to the World Cup fanfest in the city's central park with a million of our (new) closest (literally) friends. We also saw some cultural things, but that was less fun.

Checkpoint Charlie, the old border checkpoint between East and West Berlin. Sadly, it is now a privately owned tourist trap.




At the fanfest during the Germany/Argentina quarterfinal match. Official tally, 1 million people in the park.