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.
Monday, July 19, 2010
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.
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