Phil's Random Observations and Commentary on China

Just in case you're planning your first trip to Beijing, here is what to expect.

• Yes, there are young men who play guitar and sing for money in Chinese subway stations.
• I heard that approximately 40% of the worlds concrete and steel are being consumed by China’s construction boom.
• China is not producing dull, boring, utilitarian new buildings. The stadiums being built for the 2008 Summer Olympics are extremely modern and unusual looking. One technology park building catering to software companies features a UFO-looking structure covering the open space between buildings.
• There are churches in China but they are supposed to be registered with the Bureau of Religious Affairs. Registered Protestant churches are called the “Three Self Partriotic Movement “
• You are expected to bargin with shop keepers and street vendors. There is no bargining at Government operated shops, however.
• The Chinese will still line up to view Chairman Mao’s body and leave flowers.
• Thousands of bus drivers, taxi drivers, and people with other tourist-facing jobs are studying English to prepare for the many tourists coming for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
• The new money in town can buy million dollar American-like luxury homes in gated communities with golf courses.
• Hyandai cars are very common but I also saw many VW Jetta’s, a few Buicks, a Jaguar, a few Mercedes Benz, a few mini-van looking vehicles, and a couple of SUV-type vehicles.
• The technology workers coming and going from the new technology parks in the northern suburbs seem very young and are high educated
• You do see people who appear to be squatting on property on the side of the highway in shacks made of whatever material they could find.
• There are some beggars on the streets.
• I was approached to see if I wanted to buy bootleg copies of pornography DVD’s.
• Aggressive entrepreneurs will try to sell you watches with the image of Chairman Mao, copies of Mao’s Little Red Book, and Red Army Hats.
• The air is quite polluted. The air pollution hangs like a fog on winter nights.
• The Chinese carry fancy cell phones.
• The mens restroom in large buildings will often have both a western-style toilet and the hole-in-the-floor type.
• Well educated and otherwise brilliant Chinese professionals really do eat duck feet but they are de-boned first. They also eat duck tongues, farm-raised bullfrog, eel, and more.
• There are enough Muslims in the Beijing area that it is common for company cafeterias to have a separate line for their Muslim workers. I believe this is so they have meal options which do not include pork.
• You can buy cigarettes from the same vending machine as Coke and candy bars.
• It appears that most vending machines take one yuan coins, five yuan bills, and ten yuan bills. Why do they not take the one yaun bills?
• Every restaurant I stopped at had either regular Coke or regular Pepsi. Almost none of them had Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi available.
• When I ordered a pizza in an Italian restaurant in my hotel (which caters to western business travelers), the waitress brought me a bottle of traditional American Tobasco Sauce from the McIlhenny Company, Avery Island, LA to go with it. I've never eaten Tobasco Sauce on pizza but there it was.
• Paper napkins are usually small.
• "Hole in the wall" restaurants that locals frequent seem to cook a portion of their food on grills on the sidewalk out in front of the restaurant.
• You can get bread in Chinese restaurants much like the bread in Indian restaurants back in the US.
• Bicycle mechanics will set up shop on the sidewalk along busy streets.
  

Life Outside the 5th Ring

0701170009
Originally uploaded by gville_architect.

Outside the 5th ring (highway loop) around Beijing, China there is construction everywhere. Most of the vehicles on the roads out here seem to be trucks carrying construction materials. China is making a huge investment.

The Most Capitalist of Purposes

0701180047-1
Originally uploaded by gville_architect.

Chairman Mao's image is now on souviniers aggressively hawked by Chinese entrepreneurs. These were available from a street bazaar but I was also followed down the street as I walked in front of Tiananmen who just wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

Me at Tiananmen

0701180032-1
Originally uploaded by gville_architect.

I was in China 3 days before I saw the first picture of Chairman Mao.

UFO Over Beijing

0701170027-2
Originally uploaded by gville_architect.

Just an example of the dull, boring buildings being produced by the Chinese economy outside the 5th ring of Beijing in the northern suburbs. Is this really a communist country?

China Day #2

I was in a meeting this morning in a conference room at my client. We had some interesting discussion (in English) about various software issues then suddenly one of my clients switched over to Chinese. Within seconds, there were about three different conversations going on between the client and my co-workers who are all Chinese living in the US or Canada. Suddenly it dawned on me... I was the only non-Chinese speaker in the room. I didn't interrupt as it seemed the client knew the topic of discussion was important and it was just easier to discuss in their native language. I got an update later from my co-workers. It was probably the fastest way to get the issues settled.

I decided to eat in the hotel tonight and tried the hotel's Dragon Court Chinese restaurant. It was a little early for dinner in China and when the hostess seated me, it looked like I was the only one in the restaurant. I was quickly surrounded by four pretty young waitresses in traditional Chinese silk jackets. They all looked to be maybe 18 to 22 years old. They didn't seem to understand my English as well as the front desk staff. The menu had both English and Chinese but the familiar Chinese dishes I was used to back home were nowhere to be found. I asked about Kung Pao Chicken and got a quizzical look. "Chicken and peanuts?" I settled on a friend prawn dish with some steamed rice. The girl looked puzzled, took the order, and went away. Shortly later she returned to tell me that this was "only one prawn" and "I don't think that is enough food for you." I didn't remember seeing the word "appetizer" anywhere but apparently that is what I ordered. I looked for another chicken dish and ordered some more food.

They brought my appetizer which resembled a work of art. It was both tasty and crunchy.

Then they brought my chicken dish still sizzling in a covered clay pot. It smelled great and looked. When I started trying to eat it I realized the chicken was not boneless. In fact, it was made from the ends of chicken wing bones. Each bite of chicken contained a joint between two bones in the wing. It tasted good but it there wasn't much meat around the bones. It was hard to separate the meat from the bone with a knife and fork. I one point I gave up on trying to be neat. I figured the Chinese eating with chopsticks would have to put the whole piece in their mouth and separate the meat from the bone with their teeth and tougne and spit out the bones. It was a lot of work to eat and I only ate about half of it.

I turned on the television in my hotel room for the first time. There are a couple of English language news shows available such as CNN. While channel surfing I found the "Charlie's Angels" movie with Chinese voice overs and Chinese subtitles.

My First 24 Hours in China

I arrived in China at the Beijing airport. I made a "pit stop" at the mens restroom right after getting off the plane and when I got ready to wash my hands I could find no paper towel to dry my hands. There was a tall young man in a uniform whose job I surmise was to keep the mens restroom clean. He came to me with a paper towel and when done, it was not obvious even where to throw it away. He held out his hand that he would take it from me which he did. He then motioned to me that he wanted a tip. I just got off the plane and had not exchanged any currency yet so I told him "I only have American money." (I had emptied my pockets of American pocket change to get by the metal detectors.) He then told me in broken English "one dollar." This I had and I decided I could part with one dollar for the guy whose job it was to keep my restroom clean.

Clearing customs/immigration was uneventful. There was a question on one of the forms about whether I was bringing a radio transmitter or radio receiver into the country. I was carrying a cell phone. I was pretty sure a cell phone didn't count so I answered "no" and put a note at the bottom "cell phone." When I turned this form in the guy almost didn't look at it. When he did there was an immediate puzzled look on his face. I pointed at my cell phone and he smiled as if to say "Oh... is that what you meant" and he waved me on. I noticed a mural of the Great Wall of China on the wall.



American companies were advertizing all over the airport as I noted in my previous post

I exchanged some dollars for Chinese currency.


I needed a cab to my hotel and luckily, my client had given me a card with the address and driving instructions writen in Chinese. I showed this to the driver and the airport employee matching newly arrived passengers with cabs. The two of them together figured out where I wanted to go.


I was amazed at how many big, dirty trucks were on the road at 10 PM. I guess they all must deliver construction materials to construction sites. There was obviously construction going on all over the place. There was some traffic jam in which it appeared the police were pulling over trucks about the same time a stalled vehicle was blocking the right hand lane. My taxis driver was pretty aggressive with his horn and managed to dart around and get through the traffic jam without to much wasted time.


There was basically no scenary along the route from the airport to the hotel at 10 PM. Just a big, wide, interstate-like highway with exits and signs I couldn't read. There did seem to be a haze around all the bright streetlights and spotlights. I don't think it was fog. It must have been pollution, smoke, or dust (or all three).


My client can sure pick a great hotel, the Loong Palace Hotel & Resort.

The bellman, desk clerk, and everyone I talked to spoke pretty decent English. My impression was that they were all very handsome or pretty and perky as if the upscale hotel where I was staying could be pretty picky about who they hire. The broadband internet connection from my room was pretty slow, however. I noticed that rather than a flat rate like most hotels in the US, the hotel charged by the minute for broadband connectivity... up to a maximum of 80 minutes.

I am pleased to report that I checked with Verizon Wireless prior to my departure and they assured me that if they enabled my international roaming and I did a *228 and selected option 2 to update my roaming after they did their magic... that my CDMA phone would indeed work in Beijing. (Meaning I did not have to have a GSM phone like used commonly in Asia and Europe.) For anybody who cares, I have an LG-VX8300 phone. They also told me to do a *228 when I arrived in China but that did not seem to work. However, when I dialed 00-1-area code-number I connected with the number I dialed in the US with crystal clear clarity. It sounded just like I was around my home town. There was no voice delay either so it had to be traveling to the US via fiber optic cable and not satellite. All this wonderful communications for what they promised me was $1.29 / minute in international roaming charges. (I haven't gotten a bill yet though.)

I hooked up with three of my co-workers, all of whom spoke Chinese. I had a free buffet breakfast at the hotel. I had my first taste of dragon fruit. My co-worker told me it was not native to China but came from Thailand. The restaurant staff all spoke enough English.

The weather was bright and sunny but not nearly as cold as I expected. Nothing was green on this January day. My co-worker told me Beijing is very dry in the winter.


The four of us took a cab to the office. The cab was small and crowded with our group of four and the driver. I wasn't complaining though as I'd rather get around town with three friendly Chinese speaking co-workers than venture out on my own. We pulled up to a set of very modernistic buildings. There was a huge line of taxis cabs waiting for clients out front. The heat was running full blast in our conference room. The internet connection was locked down pretty tight. I did manage to get into my work email via my employer's VPN, but the connection was even slower than the hotel. My co-worker told me he thought a recent earthquake had ruined a key undersea fiber optic cable and affected much of Asia's available internet bandwidth and that might be the problem.


Later in the day we decided to go another building for a meeting we heard about. Since there was a big line of taxis out front, we had no problem just walking up to the first one we came to. We drove over to another modern looking technology building. The network connectivity was much better there.


The four of us then took a taxis to get something to eat for lunch because our meeting took us past the time the building's cafeteria closed. We wound up a small "hole in the wall" type place which probably did not get many Americans. My friends helped me order and I wound up with a huge bowl of tasty beef and noodles, a couple of spicy chicken wings, and some bread which reminded me of the bread I get in Indian restaurants back home but with spicy seasoning sprinkled over it. The bread was cooked on a grill outside the front door on the sidewalk. One of my co-workers pointed out that the family that ran the restaurants were Muslims. I noticed a tapistry of a Mosque on the wall. I remarked that I didn't know China had a Muslim population and he told me there were 60 million Muslims in China. A couple of the waiters who brought our food looked to be 12-year old boys. I wondered how many years kids were required to attend school.


We walked from lunch to the original building we went to this morning.


We had a key person we wanted to meet with who could not meet with us in the afternoon until 4 PM. We wound up talking until well after 6 PM. When we went outside, the long line of waiting taxis cabs was gone. It took a few minutes to get a cab as the driver was dropping someone else off at our location.

We got back to the hotel and by this time the jet lag was getting to me. I decided to eat in at the hotel rather than go out with my co-workers. I shot a couple of emails and then walked down to the Italian restaurant of my fancy hotel. I had penne fettichini. I almost knodded off waiting for my food.

After dinner, I felt more awake and decided to return to my room. For some reason I decided to bang out this post and try to go to bed a little later so I don't wake up too early tomorrow. I wonder if anybody will read it and will enjoy it enough to leave me an encouraging comment? :-)

Capitalism Alive and Well in Beijing, China

I arrived on my first trip to China at the Beijing airport Monday night. Look at the American corporations that greeted me: The United Parcel Service (UPS) Coke, Starbucks, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I have not seen a single picture of Chairman Mao yet. I've been very well treated and enjoying my first trip to China. Luckily, I have several co-workers who speak Chinese!