Life in Hangzhou
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "ddewey" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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11:54 am
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Two Car Accidents in Three Days
Well, it's been a long time since I've posted in this journal. China is blocking Live Journal now, so if I want to post I have to go through Tor. Tor hasn't been working very well either, and takes forever to find connections, so maybe they are trying to block that too now. Or maybe the Tor network just isn't as good as it used to be. If anyone has a better option for getting around the Great Firewall of China, let me know.
Xiujuan and I have had a busy year. In September we did a bunch of traveling, visiting customers in Honolulu, Los Angeles, Orlando, and Miami, and visiting our office in Fort Collins, CO. Xiujuan really enjoyed this second trip to the US. She got to see lots of new things, and experience some warm weather and beaches this time. It was really tiring for me though, because I had to do a ton of driving. I was glad to have an opportunity to visit a lot of our customers though, some of them for the first time.
We also made a trip back to Port Townsend to visit my family for Christmas at the end of 2007. I think the best part of the trip for Xiujuan was snowshoeing in the the Olympic Mountains, where there was well over a meter of snow on the ground, and huge plumes of fresh snow on the trees. She thought the landscape looked like something out of a fairy tale, and excitedly took lots of photos.
Xiujuan liked the food too, but she would get full much too quickly because American food is so high-protein and high-fat. Thus she wasn't able to eat very much, and lost about 5 pounds during the trip. I on the other hand gained a ton of weight, and am now losing it again now that I'm back in China where delicious food is much harder to come by.
Business is going well, and we are in the final stages of setting up our own small factory. We've purchased three injection molding machines that are highly customized so we can shoot much higher quality parts than typical Chinese factories can produce. We've also remodeled the building to be super clean and shiny, as one of the biggest problems with molding products in China is the lack of cleanliness of the factories here.
Having our own factory will give us the opportunity to reduce the number of other suppliers we use, which is great. Driving from factory to factory is always a huge annoyance for me, as the traffic is so terrible. I've been in several accidents in the one year that I've had a car here. Fortunately insurance always covers the damage to my vehicle, but dealing with the insurance companies each time is always a nightmare. You have to make dozens of phone calls and run around all over the city before finally getting a payment from them. They intentionally don't provide complete documents the first few times you go, just to make it hard to complete the claim.
Recently I got in two accidents in the space of only three days. First I got in a very small scrape with a car that pulled out in front of me. The police, based on the positions of the vehicles, said it was my fault, which I protested a little, but finally accepted, since either way the insurance pays for all the damages. In China insurance costs do not go up, even if you get in a lot of accidents that are your fault (this probably explains why Chinese people drive so recklessly).
A few days later we met with the other party to exchange documentation from our insurance companies. We met at a small body shop where the other party was getting his vehicle repaired. Our insurance company requires photos of the damage, but he didn't have the photos ready yet; they were still in the digital camera. The shop owner demanded payment for the repairs right away, even before starting on them, but I wanted to get the photos before giving him any money. After all, if he went ahead with repairs but there was some problem with getting the photos, then it would be too late to take new photos of the damage.
We argued with the body shop owner for about two hours, but couldn't come to an agreement, so we decided to just leave. I got in my car and tried to drive away, but the employees of the body shop all stood in front of my car to prevent me from driving out.
Finally I was able to inch out into the driveway and was about to pull into the street and drive off, but the owner of the body shop got in his big Great Wall SUV and backed up into my car, bashing in my headlight and bending the grill way out. So I had to get major repairs done on my vehicle after that. This time the police said I was not at fault though. A month later I'm still trying to get payment from the guy's insurance company, but it will probably take another hundred phone calls and several more trips before it happens.
Current Mood:  drained
Tags: accident, car, great firewall of china, insurance, olympic mountains, port townsend, snowshoeing, tor
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11:09 am
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Exploring Limestone Caves in Hangzhou
Today Zhang Fengping and I visited some caves in one of the many limestone mountains near Zhoupu. These were much bigger than any other caves I've visited in my life, with hundred-foot high ceilings and stalagmites bigger than Greyhound buses. Zhang Fengping and I were the only cave visitors, since everyone is at home today celebrating the holiday.
I was disappointed at the amount of destruction to the cave environment caused by opening it to visitors. The floors were paved over, the water artificially channeled and muddied, noisy polluting generators installed inside, and many cave formations badly damaged. The natural splendor of the cave was ruined by fake concrete stalactites and other artificial structures, electric fountains, and carnival-style games. Most caves here in Hangzhou are always full of bats, and you'd expect a cave so big to have millions of them, but I only saw a couple bats the whole time I was inside.
There wasn't a single bit of information available on the natural history or biology of the caves, or on cave conservation. There were no guides, and the only employees there just harassed us constantly trying to sell us photos or souvenirs. If they want to attract more visitors to the caves they should educate people about them and present the natural features of the caves, not man-made gimmicks. Otherwise Chinese people just see a bunch of weird-shaped rocks and don't realize that they took millions of years to form.
Also, they really should have guides to go with people to prevent them from damaging the delicate cave environment and disturbing cave animals. The graffiti carved all over the stalagmites and other formations will probably take thousands of years to heal, and the trash people throw can easily float to far reaches of the cave where it may remain for thousands of years or more.
The city of Hangzhou claims to care about environmental protection, but I say they fail miserably. They really only care about getting the most tourist revenue possible. They are definitely successful in attracting tens of millions of Chinese tourists every year, but maybe if they did a better job of protecting the environment here they could also attract more higher-paying foreign tourists in the future.
Really I should be glad these caves still exist at all. Other large limestone mountains all around the Zhoupu area and all over Zhejiang province have been blasted away completely and fed to cement plants. I guess it's better to have a half-destroyed cave than to lose the entire mountain and have no cave at all.
China has enormous quantities of limestone, and new caves are being discovered here all the time. Let's hope effort is made to protect some of these newly discovered caves before irreversible damage is done. That way cave formations and cave critters will be protected and future generations can enjoy the caves in the natural state.
Current Mood: disappointed
Tags: caves, china, environment, hangzhou, limestone
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02:56 am
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Xiujuan's First Visit to the USA, Dec. 19 to Jan. 2
Xiujuan and I spent two weeks in the US for Christmas and New Years, visiting my family in Port Townsend, WA. We also had a small reception there to celebrate our recent marriage, and I got to see lots of old friends. The best part of the trip was spending Christmas day with my whole family and my new wife and feeling that she's an essential part of the family now.
I made sure to have Xiujuan enjoy plenty of new experiences while we were there and eat all kinds of new foods, such as turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, ice cream, steak, pizza, lasagna, paninis, crab, salmon, various cheeses, pancakes, waffles, raspberries, and blackberries. It's true that some of these foods exist in China, but in very different forms. A lot of foods, such pizza and crab for example, she never really liked much in China, but really loved the versions we have in the US.
She especially enjoyed taking the ferries to Seattle, Edmonds, and Keystone, snowshoeing on two-meter deep snow in the Olympic mountains, and doing a 13-mile hike in the Elwah River valley, where we saw elk and other animals. All the clean air and water and abundant wildlife was quite a new experience for her.
Xiujuan got along great with my family, especially my mom. She liked how friendly and polite people are in the US, and how much easier life is for most people compared to China. Now she even says she wants to move there eventually. Her parents have been annoying her lately, and she thinks the pressure will be less if she lives as far away from them as possible.
I'm still set on living in China for at least several more years though, because I think it's important for the business. However, I probably will make more and more frequent trips to the US and other countries in order to meet with customers and attend trade fairs, and will bring her along when possible. I think it would be great to visit the US with her during the summer when the weather is warm and we can do more things.
Current Mood:  happy
Tags: christmas, food, trip, usa, xiujuan
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12:30 am
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Buying a New Car in China
The ChinaForge Hangzhou office finally purchased a car. We got a brand new Ford Focus hatchback. I'm really happy with the car because it drives really nice, can fit plenty of cargo in the back, and looks larger and more expensive than it is, which is really helpful for doing business in China, because of the "face" it gives you. We ended up spending about USD $18,500 once you add in all the taxes, insurance, registration, license plates, and road maintenance fees. There sure are a lot of extra fees involved when you buy a car in China.
I drove from Hangzhou to Yuyao and Cixi and back today, a round-trip distance of 320 kilometers. It worked out great and I only got lost a few times despite Chinese road systems being so confusing and illogically designed.
Current Mood: pleased
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11:30 am
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Xiujuan Got Her US Visa!
Great news, my wife Xiujuan and I will be visiting the US soon. She got her visa in the mail today, which was really quick considering she only just had her interview at the Shanghai US consulate yesterday. One day is astoundingly fast visa service, especially for a US visa!
I'm amazed how easy the visa process was, since I've heard so many stories about it being really difficult. It probably helped that we prepared a mountain of documentation, probably about 200 pages altogether, including personal information and records for both of us, financial information, ChinaForge company documents, my dad's invitation, and detailed trip plans. Also, she was lucky to get a really friendly consular officer to interview her. Actually he only looked at my information, my dad's letter, and our company information, and didn't even bother to look at the mountain of documents Xiujuan had included about herself before approving her application. I guess being married to an American really helped her.
We were both relieved that the visa interview was allowed to be completely in Chinese, because Xiujuan's English is quite rusty. Xiujuan said her interviewer spoke fluent Mandarin, even though he was an American and a white guy. She said his Mandarin wasn't as good as mine though :)
We plan to visit the US in mid February, and hopefully will have a chance to see everyone while we're there. That includes Mom and Dad in Port Townsend, my brother at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, Alex Quinn at University of Maryland, Linn in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Ryan, wherever he 's going to be at the time. We will have to work really hard to save up enough money for the trip, however, since we'll be doing so much traveling all over the country.
Current Mood: excited
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11:27 am
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Got Married Yesterday
Xiujuan and I finally got married yesterday. It was a pretty simple process. Before hand we went to the US Consulate in Shanghai to obtain a certificate of marriageability. To get this document we had to fill out a form and present my passport and Xiujuan's passport, proof of residence (hukou), and identity card. Then they interviewed us separately, Xiujuan first, to make sure we had a real relationship.
Xiujuan was pretty nervous about the interview because she thought it would be in English. However, she told them that we always speak Chinese together, so they interviewed us both in Chinese. This worked out well because my Chinese is fluent, but her English isn't quite there yet. They asked us questions such as how we first met, if we've met the other's parents, what work we do, what schools we graduated from, etc. All were easy questions, and we had all the same answers. After the interview they prepared the certificate within a few minutes and charged me a 400 RMB fee.
The next step was to get photos taken together for our marriage registration in Hangzhou. This was a simple process that cost 28 RMB.
Finally we got married on Nov 02, 2006. We had to go to a special office in Hangzhou that processes marriages and divorces between Chinese citizens and foreigners. Marriages are handled in the morning, and divorces in the afternoon. We each signed a statement and read it out loud, and they sealed our photos in our marriage certificate booklets. This simple process cost 9 RMB and took half an hour. It would have been quicker, but we had to cut our photos down to fit the space provided, and the official registering our marriage also had trouble fitting all characters in my full name in the space provided in the database. Most Chinese people only have two or three characters in their full name, but if you count spaces my full name has twenty characters.
Now that we are married we would like to make a short trip to the US to celebrate our marriage with my family. I'm worried that getting a visa for Xiujuan will be a very complicated and time consuming process however. Anyway, I will be patient and just enjoy living here in China with the most kind, loving, intelligent, and pretty wife in the whole world.
Current Mood: happy
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02:36 am
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Driving in China
Well, I finally decided to get my Chinese driver's license. I still think traffic is really scary and dangerous here, but it was getting to inconvenient not to have one. We often make long trips to visit factories that require a whole day of driving, so I want to be able to take turns with our driver so he doesn't get too tired.
The process turned out to be easy beyond all expectation. I just had to show them my Washington State driver's license, take vision and hearing tests, and pass a simple computerized exam. The exam can be taken in English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, or Korean. The questions are about half multiple choice (A, B, and C) and half True-False. It is easy because all 200 possible test questions and answers are available to study ahead of time from an exam prep booklet you can
purchase. Besides, most answers are extremely obvious to anyone with half a brain. Others, like #30 below, don't make any sense and just have to be memorized. Here are some example test questions, copied from the exam booklet:
5. Applying for registry of the motor vehicle, the applicant should make application to A :
A. traffic control department of public security organ
B. transportation administration of Ministry of Communication
C. municipal construction department
16. While driving a motor vehicle, a motorist shall be abide by the A :
A. right-hand driving principle
B. left-hand driving principle
C. middle driving principle
30. If a passenger vehicle has reached its utmost capacity limit, it is a rule that the number of children free of charge must not exceed C of that limit.
A. 30%
B. 20%
C. 10%
61. Before driving the motor vehicle, the driver B :
A. can drink only a little wine
B. mustn't drink any
C. can only drink beer
73. If there are children playing on the road, you should B .
A. speed up and pass quickly
B. slow down in advance, if necessary, stop to give way.
C. warn by pressing the horn and pass as usual
87. If there are too many injured needed to be sent to hospital in critical accidents, you should send C to hospital first.
A. those whose wounds are bigger
B. those who has been fractured
C. those who are under the state of coma, hemorrhage, hard in breathing, and those whose internal organs, such as intestines, etc. have been deviated.
88 T or F: The beginning of learning driving or going into driving is a critical period for the development of the driver's professional morality: T
The test was easy, thanks to being able to memorize all the answers from the exam booklet, and I passed with a perfect score. Actually driving in China is not so easy though, as I found out last week when I drove about 100 km from Cixi to Hangzhou. The freeway part was not bad but when I got into the city it was rush hour and the traffic was CRAZY. The cars on the road were all over the place, not drivng in any particular lane. Pedestrians and bicycles would dart out in front at random. It was really tiring. I guess I'll just have to get used to it though.
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11:32 pm
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Proposing to Xiujuan
Yesterday, June 21, I proposed to Xiujuan. It was the third anniversary of the day I first met her, so it seemed like a good time as any. It's always best to try and have multiple special events on the same day of the same month, to make important dates easier to remember. Girls always expect you to remember their birthday, the day you first met her, the day you first kissed her, the day you first had sex with her, the day she became your girlfriend, the day you proposed, the day you got married, etc. It's much easier if you try to arrange it so multiple such events happen exactly integer numbers of years apart.
I baked Xiujuan a huge chocolate cake with lots of frosting and Chinese bayberry syrup between layers (yeah, there are still a ton of bayberries left even though we've been eating practically nothing else three meals a day). On top of the cake I wrote "Xiujuan Mo, Marry Me" in Chinese characters made of frosting. I'd never decorated a cake before, and it is harder than it looks, especially without proper tools. I couldn't find the proper cake decorating tools in China, so I used a 10-ml medical syringe, which I had laying around because I used to carry them in case of emergency when backpacking in remote parts of China. It was really hard getting the frosting into the syringe tube and I had to fill it up three times before I finished the six Chinese characters and other decoration.
The cake turned out really yummy and Xiujuan was very impressed at my baking skills, which despite being poor are impressive to her since Chinese people never bake anything. We are not sure exactly when we are going to get married yet, but probably pretty soon so we can work on getting Xuijuan a visa and she can visit the US. Xiujuan is already 25 years old, but has never traveled outside of China, never seen the ocean or even a beach, and never flown on a plane. We will have to remedy that soon.
Current Mood: accomplished
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10:53 am
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Baking Yangmei Pie
Yesterday Xiujuan and I went to the town of Cixi, Zhejiang to inspect a factory for ChinaForge. As it happened to be Yangmei Festival in Cixi, we went into the mountains to pick yangmei after the inspection.
"Yangmei" is the Chinese word for Myrica rubra, also known as red bayberry or Chinese bayberry, a juicy red fruit native to southern China. Every year in mid June people in Zhejiang province eat tons and tons of red bayberries.
Yesterday Xiujuan and I picked four bucketfuls of bayberries in about one hour, and stuffed our stomachs with many more. So now we need to find uses for all of them. Last night I baked a huge red bayberry pie, but that only used up about an eighth of them. Another eighth I chopped all the pits out and froze. I guess the rest we will have to devour quickly, or maybe use to make another pie. The first pie came out delicious, so I think I just might make a few more.
Before making my yangmei pie I Googled for a yangmei pie recipe, but absolutely no results came up for the search terms "yangmei pie", "red bayberry pie", or even just "bayberry pie". However, since I have made many kinds of berry pies in the past I was able to come up with my own recipe. Here it is:
- 5 cups red bayberries, pits chopped out
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 6 tablespoons cornstarch
- Double pie crust made however you like it
- Mix sugar and cornstarch.
- Combine with berries.
- Put bottom crust in large pie pan and pour berry mixture on top.
- Place crisscrossed strips of pie crust on top.
- Cover with aluminum foil to prevent crust from getting too dry and bake for 25 minutes at 375 F (190 C).
- Remove aluminum foil and continue baking for 30 minutes or until crust turns golden.
- Remove from oven and let cool completely before eating.
Current Mood: full
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11:39 pm
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Mom and Joey Visit Hangzhou
Here in China we just finished the week-long labor vacation. During the vacation my Mom came to visit me from Port Townsend, WA, staying for two weeks. I also met Joey, an awesome guy from Fujian province who stayed in Hangzhou for three days and did a lot of hiking with me, my Mom, and Xiujuan in the mountains and parks around Hangzhou. Joey is not your typical Chinese guy. I guess you could call him a dissident. Anyway, he's a super nice guy and it was really fun hanging out with him for a few days. I hope I have a chance to meet him again sometime.
Joey is a prolific blogger, unlike me. Here's a link to Joey's blog.
Current Mood:  tired
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01:37 am
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Long Overdue Entry on Chinese New Year
Lots of people have been wondering about how things have been going lately with Xiujuan's parents. I never did write about visiting them for Chinese New Year. Sorry for the delay!
I spent the Chinese New Year at Xiujuan's parents' home in Huzhou, Zhejiang, and with her extended family in the countryside near Huzhou. That was quite an experience, and was full of surprises. The first day we arrived I accompanied Xiujuan's Mom on a shopping trip, and said and did all the things that Xiujuan had taught me, such as helping her mom cross the street, helping her carry things, and offering to pay (which of course was refused). It worked out marvelously and Xiujuan's mom really showed signs of starting to like me more.
Xiujuan's dad started to warm up to me more as well, as I complimented him on his cooking frequently, helped wash dishes, and tried having simple conversations with him. I was really nervous talking to him though, but that wasn't necessarily all bad because Xiujuan said my nervousness showed him I respected him.
Xiujuan's parents ended up letting Xiujuan and I sleep together while we stayed at their place, which was quite unexpected. This was a violation of tradition, but Xiujuan said it didn't matter as long as the extended family didn't know about it, which would cause Xiujuan's parents to lose face and become the subject of endless gossip.
In the end Xiujuan's parents decided that they still weren't sure about me, and wouldn't allow me to meet the extended family in the countryside. Xiujuan would go, and I would be sent back to Hangzhou early. However, on the morning of departure Xiujuan's parents caught a glimpse of Xiujuan and I talking together. She happened to be helping me get something out of my eye at the time, and Xiujuan's parents thought I was teary-eyed about being informed that I wouldn't be allowed to go with them to the countryside. So they felt sorry for me, and invited me to go after all.
The countryside was pretty crazy. The fields and canals and roadsides are these peoples' garbage dumps. Everywhere I looked were piles of human feces, used sanitary napkins, empty pesticide bottles, mountains of plastic bags, and every imaginable form of trash. Apparently there is no garbage service out here, so all trash is either burned or thrown any old place outside.
Safety isn't a big priority to these people. When we were walking down a small country road I was startled by an explosion of sparks and smoke coming from an electrical junction box located open and exposed right at eye level on the side of a power pole. In the kitchen I found that they heat water for tea over open coals, with no stovepipe or chimney. The fumes just enter the room and someone has to remember to keep a window open to prevent people from dying of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The New Year's firecrackers are crazy in Huzhou. You hear huge bangs and booms pretty much all day long, sometimes accompanied by shaking and even sounds of shattering windows. But after 11:00 at night on the eve of the New Year the firecracker sounds grow to a continuous thundering roar. For two hours straight there are so many firecrackers being set off that you can't even discern the sounds of the individual explosions. It's deafening, and pretty scary. Then you get about five hours of sleep before the firecrackers start up again at the first hint of morning twilight. Xiujuan surmises that a lot of older people are unable to stay up until midnight, so they wake up early in the morning to set of their New Years firecrackers. But I think the Chinese just like to set off firecrackers at every possible opportunity, because there are pretty much incessant firecrackers going off for three or four weeks around the New Year. It gets really annoying.
Xiujuan's extended family seemed to like me quite well, so Xiujuan's parents' worrying was for nothing. However, Xiujuan's grandpa had some reservations about me. I was wearing a brand new pair of blue jeans, but they had a weathered look, and Xiujuan's grandpa thought I was wearing really old pants, like some kind of bum. Also, he said that foreigners don't get assigned to work units by the government, so there would be no way for me to earn money in China. Xiujuan tried to explain to him that people no longer need to be assigned to work units by the government, but he was still skeptical.
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Update: My mom is currently visiting Hangzhou from the States for two weeks. She's loving all the parks, and traditional markets, and interesting food here, but just like me she really gets pissed at the reckless, rude drivers.
We had planned to have Xiujuan's parents visit Hangzhou and meet my mom, but Xiujuan's mom is getting pretty negative about me again and doesn't want to come to Hangzhou. She doesn't want to meet my mom unless it is in order to discuss "terms". The "terms" she has in mind are ridiculous things like making my mom buy us a house and car in Hangzhou if Xiujuan marries me. She doesn't understand that my mom is not rich, and that Americans are completely independent at my age and don't expect their parents to still be taking care of them like little kids.
Current Mood: sleepy
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01:31 pm
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Crazy Bus Driver
Yesterday Xiujuan and I were riding the 310 bus back from Xiaoheshan after inspecting an injection molding factory making our customer's product. There were about 100 people on the bus, crammed in like sardines. The bus driver was going really fast and swerving back and forth. Crazy driving is common in China, even for public bus drivers, but this guy was pushing it.
Someone on the bus started complaining about the driver's crazy driving. The driver must have been in a bad mood that day, because he screeched the bus to a halt, stood up, and started yelling. "If anyone thinks they can do a better job driving, then come up and take my place!".
"Fine, I will!"
"Good, come on up and drive!"
The young man began to step forward, although there wasn't really any way to move to the front with all the people crammed in shoulder to shoulder. Passengers started yelling at the bus driver to get moving again, but he refused. They threatened to report him to the bus company, but he didn't care.
"If you don't like the way I drive, then you can all get off!"
"What about our fares?"
"Come up and take them back!"
This was obviously impossible since fares fall into a locked metal box.
Finally several people started calling the bus company on their cell phones to report the bus driver. The driver grudgingly set back down again and started the bus.
The bus was on a fast highway, but the driver was now driving at a halting, walking-speed pace. After 10 minutes we hadn't gone much distance at all and people were getting frustrated again. Everyone was calling the bus company on their cellphones now and yelling at the driver.
Suddenly the driver slammed on the brakes, knocking some people over. He refused to go anymore, and opened the doors to let people out. I was starting to get afraid for our safety, so I dragged Xiujuan off the bus immediately. The next 310 bus had caught up by now, and it wasn't as packed either, so we took that.
Current Mood: amused
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10:33 pm
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Meet the Parents
I have been dating Xiujuan for almost two and a half years, but I have never met her parents and she's never told them she has a boyfriend. This is because her parents would be horrified by the fact that she is dating an American. Xiujuan's mother dislikes foreigners so much that she turns off the TV when she sees one on the screen.
Xiujuan had broken off contact with her parents for over a month because whenever she calls she gets into big arguments with them. Her parents always want her to date a rich Chinese man that they choose, whereas Xiujuan wants to choose a guy because of love. In order to escape the incessant arguments Xiujuan changed her phone number so her parents couldn't reach her. Her parents have thought all along that she was off teaching in Beijing, when really she's been in Hangzhou with me, just two hours from her parents' residence in Huzhou.
Somehow about a week ago, Xiujuan's parents got a hold of her number. However, whenever they called Xiujuan she would recognize the ID of the incoming call and never answer. But yesterday Xiujuan was in the bathroom when her mobile phone rang and I picked it up thinking it might be important business. The man on the line seemed confused to hear my voice, so I asked if he would like to speak to Mrs. Mo Xiujuan and he said yes, please let me speak to Mo Xiujuan.
As it turned out, the phone call was from Xiujuan's father. Xiujuan told him the truth that she had a boyfriend and was living in Hangzhou. She said she would bring her boyfriend to visit the next day. Xiujuan's father seemed very relieved, probably mistaking me for a Chinese man because of my flawless Mandarin pronunciation. He told Xiujuan he would get started immediately on cooking food for our visit. Considering that we wouldn't be arriving for another 16 hours, this seemed to indicate that they planned to give us a very warm welcome.
The next morning we woke up early to prepare for the trip. Because Xiujuan's parents are so traditional we had to follow the local customs and purchase many expensive presents for the family. It is only acceptable according to local custom to give an even number of presents, so we bought six items, not five or seven. Also, we tried to purchase things with large packaging, because her parents judge the value of a gift mostly on size alone. Furthermore, we tried to purchase items in red packaging if possible, and avoided any white. The least expensive gift we purchased was two bottles of red wine in a large red box, but Xiujuan insisted her parents' would like this gift the most because of the large size and red color. Besides the wine we also purchased a blood pressure test machine for Xiujuan's mother, toys for Xiujuan's niece, cosmetics for Xiujuan's mother, a fruit basket, and baby clothes for a newborn daughter of Xiujuan's cousin.
Xiujuan wouldn't have bothered to make me bring gifts, but she knew her parents well enough to know that not bringing gifts would be hazardous. Once she brought her classmate at Beijing Normal University to visit her family and her classmate didn't bring anything. Her parents greatly disliked that girl. On another occasion she brought another girl to visit her parents, and this girl brought gifts. Her parents liked the second girl very much.
Before leaving for Huzhou Xiujuan made me change into my best suit. Her parents mostly judge people's worth by the clothes they wear, and wearing informal clothing the first time I met them would result in them thinking I was a bum or a criminal or something worse.
Furthermore, Xiujuan instructed me that I must do as much as possible to help out, such as clearing dishes, etc. Otherwise they might think I was lazy.
We got to Huzhou after a two hour bus ride. Xiujuan told me to expect the worse: Her family might decide to desert the house for the day in order to not have to see her boyfriend at all, or they might chase me off with a broom, then try to lock Xiujuan inside to keep her from returning with me to Hangzhou. Thus I was quite nervous when we knocked on the door.
As it turned out, Xiujuan's parents were much more welcoming than we expected, although they did have fairly sour looks on their faces for the first few minutes after finding out that Xiujuan's boyfriend was a foreigner after all. Xiujuan's mother started to get cups of tea for us, but I insisted on preparing them myself, which seemed to make an instant impression, making her less sour. I also tried to keep calling them "Aunt" and "Uncle", as Xiujuan had instructed me, and demonstrated to them how to use the blood pressure machine. By this time Xiujuan's mother seemed to be a bit happier, although her father still seemed a bit grumpy.
During lunch I complemented her father on the cooking and tried to act like I enjoyed everything served. Xiujuan had said before that if her mother helped me put food in my bowl that that was a good sign. Her mother did in fact put food in my bowl several times, which really surprised Xiujuan.
Xiujuan's father still seemed a bit sour and left the table quite early in the meal, apparently not too happy about having to sit down to dine with a foreigner. However, he brightened up a lot after I helped clear the table and offered to do the dishes. He even insisted that we stay for dinner.
I spent the afternoon playing with Xiujuan's little niece. That she liked me was a blessing, because her mother says she sometimes is afraid of strangers. Xiujuan expected that she would fear me, having never seen a foreigner before, but she seemed to like me OK, maybe because I brought her so many fun toys.
So everything went better than I expected, but Xiujuan thinks signs are still not great. When we departed her parents didn't say I should come again and didn't say I should come for Chinese New Year, which is only a little over a week away. According to her this is very unwelcoming behavior, and indicates that they were just being nice to me for her sake, because they were glad to see her again after over a month of not being able to reach her or knowing where she was. If not for Xiujuan's avoiding them for so long, they probably wouldn't have been willing to tolerate me at all. Xiujuan plans to go back by herself for New Years, and only invite me to join her if it seems safe.
Current Mood: exhausted
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12:23 am
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Earthquake
Saturday morning I woke up when my alarm went off at 8:45. I laid in bed for a few minutes waiting to come fully to my senses so I could get up and get dressed. Suddenly I felt my bed rocking slightly from side to side. Thinking I must be dizzy with tiredness, I jumped up and looked out the window. It wasn't dizziness; my building was clearly swaying back and forth in relation to objects on the ground 16 stories below.
Later I read the news that there had been a 5.7 magnitude Earthquake near Ruichang, Jiangxi province at 8:49 Saturday morning. The BBC news states that it was felt in places up to 190 miles away from the epicenter. But I live almost 500 miles from the epicenter. So why was my building shaking? I don't think I want to be in this crappy building when an earthquake hits close by.
Apparently this wimpy 5.7 magnitude earthquake knocked down lots and lots of buildings in Hubei and Jiangxi provinces and it's likely that a lot of people were killed. If such a small earthquake does so much damage, what is a big earthquake going to do? What if it hits a big city center like Hangzhou? When it happens millions could die thanks to the extremely lax construction techniques used in China.
Current Mood:  nervous
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06:36 pm
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Idiotic Foreign Investment Meeting
Today I was invited to a foreign investment meeting organized by the Hangzhou city government. It consisted of various Hangzhou government officials, including the vice mayor, making speeches in badly broken Chinese with no English translation. They mostly went on and on about how wonderful Hangzhou is, and listed a whole bunch of foreign companies who have invested millions of US dollars here. Before the meeting they gave every attendee a set of eight really cheap plastic cartoon figures, including knockoffs of Disney characters such as Micky Mouse. The message I got from the whole thing was basically: "Sorry, we don't understand English and we barely even know Chinese, but please, spend millions of dollars here and we'll be sure to steal your intellectual property and rip off your products with extremely low quality imitations."
Current Mood:  nauseated
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03:32 pm
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Weird Icecream Flavors
I recently took a short trip to Osaka to visit my friend Alex and get a new visa at the Chinese consulate. The most interesting part of the trip was the strange ice cream from all over Japan that we got at the Osaka Ice Cream Expo. The seaweed ice cream was the most interesting, and actually tasted very good. The cactus ice cream was pretty weird, as was the chicken wing ice cream. Alex ate oyster ice cream, and also bought a container of beef tongue ice cream, although he hadn't eaten it by the time I left. Some more normal and very delicious varieties I tried include black tea ice cream, honey ice cream, and chai ice cream. I was greatly disappointed that the garlic ice cream was sold out, so I didn't get a chance to try it. Maybe next summer.
Current Mood:  stressed
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03:20 am
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Dubbing an Advertisement
I just got back from Shanghai where I spent the day dubbing an advertisement over in English for a Chinese pharmaceutical company. I did this not for the money but because it sounded interesting. However, I didn't expect it to take up so much of my time. I left home at 5:30 a.m. this morning and didn't get back until almost 2:00 a.m., so I was away for over 20 hours.
The reason I had to leave so early is that there are only two trains to Shanghai Meilong Station in the morning, and the later one would have caused me to miss my 12:30 appointment. Thus I had to take the early train and got to Shanghai much earlier than necessary. Traveling between Hangzhou and Shanghai is always a pain in the ass.
The reason I got back so late was that the dubbing itself took much longer than expected. We had to keep trimming the English down to make it fit in the same space as the Chinese. English always requires much more time to say the same amount of stuff. I was originally told I would be finished in only three hours, but the process actually took six hours. Maybe this was party my fault because I would often make small errors and have to start over again at the beginning of a paragraph. This problem got worse and worse as my throat got numb and my brain got tired from all the endless repetition. Anyway, it was an interesting experience, but sitting in a sound-proof room all day does get pretty boring.
I found that my voice sounds much better when recorded in a recording studio on professional recording equipment than it does in real life. My voice kind of sounds wimpy and nerdy in real life, but it sounded pretty normal in the dubbed television commercial. Maybe it's because they cut out the frequencies that don't sound good using that giant mixer board with all the thousands of knobs and buttons.
On the trip back to Hangzhou I rode in one of those really old, rusty trains that don't have air conditioning and are full of peasants. It's a good thing it was late at night so it wasn't too hot. Also, all the windows were wide open, so there was a tremendous blast of wind in my face the whole way. The train was headed to Ningbo and Hangzhou was just a stop along the way, so I forced myself not to fall asleep. I didn't want to miss my station.
Current Mood: exhausted
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11:00 am
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Trip to Hengdian
I met a recruiter from the Hengdian Group and he invited me to go to Hengdian to interview for a job. He told me a lot about the Hengdian Group and the movie studio it owns. They make a lot of famous Chinese movies, for example Hero. It sounded interesting so I agreed to go and check it out.
The Hengdian Group is China's third largest private enterprise. It's located in Hengdian, Zhejiang province. The bus to Hengdian from Hangzhou took three hours each way. It turns out Hengdian is a very remote city, located way down south in the middle of Zhejiang province. There's basically nothing there but a small city, many factories, and a huge movie and TV studio. The air is fairly polluted there from all the factory chimneys and things look a bit run down.
I talked to the vice president, then was shown around the place in a car. First we drove up a mountain and saw some animals that I guess are used in movies. I got to pet a couple of tigers and also a lioness and blackbear. The tigers growled when I scratched their heads. I guess I don't blame them, I'd be upset too if I was stuck in a little cage most of the time.
Hengdian has a full-sized reconstruction of the Forbidden City in Beijing, used as a set for movies. They told me it cost 100 million USD to construct. They had to move a mountain out of the way to make room for it. With a phone call to the president my driver was able to get permission to drive right though the Forbidden City in the car. This was a good thing, because I only had a short amount of time before I had to catch the bus back to Hangzhou and it would take forever to walk through such a vast complex on foot. Inside the place looks pretty much like the real Forbidden City, except most of the buildings are empty since they use them as sets. We saw a TV series being filmed inside. There were a lot of actors wearing weird costumes to make them look like they were from ancient China and some of them had swords.
All in all my trip to Hengdian was quite interesting and I was treated extremely well by my hosts. So thanks!
Current Mood: sleepy
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12:09 pm
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My Birthday
Today, June 16, 2005, is my 26th birthday. I was woken up today at precisely 6:00 a.m. by the sound of fireworks. Why do Chinese think they need to set off fireworks at all hours of the day? Yeah, I know most Chinese like to get up early and line up to do calisthenics, but not me!
I tried to get back to sleep, but at 6:30 a.m. the phone rang two or three times, then went silent, ruining my chances for any more sleep this morning. Probably a wrong number. Fifteen minutes later Xiujuan woke up. She needed to get back to her school to start work. I took her to catch her bus at 7:00 a.m., and bought a daily newspaper on the way. I got it not because I expected to find any really interesting news inside, but because reading newspapers helps me improve my Chinese.
Here's something that happened yesterday morning right at the intersection where I live: A driver was in his Buick waiting at a red light when a group of five guys came up to his car. One man tapped on the window and the driver rolled it down. The men immediately reached in and unlocked the door, then pulled the driver out of the car, got in and drove away, saying not a word other than "Where's the money you owe our company?". At first the driver thought they were carjackers, but after reporting the incident to the police it turned out that they were from the car dealership where the car had been purchased. Apparently the man had failed to make payments owed on the car. I guess this is the way companies deal with debtors in a country with a completely broken court system.
After reading the paper I went out to buy some packing tape and pens and to make a withdrawal at an ATM. I survived that journey despite near misses from speeding bicyclists weaving through the pedestrians on the sidewalk. There are hundreds of them, hordes of them every morning and every evening. Unlike in Beijing many of the bicycles are electric powered, and also unlike in Beijing, many of Hangzhou's main streets do not have separate places for people and bicycles. It's pretty dangerous both for the riders and the pedestrians.
I got back home around 9:20 a.m. and called FedEx. I needed to ship some small plastic parts to the US and Hong Kong for a customer. Since the customer's order was so small (4200 units, 2 grams per unit), using FedEx is a cost-effective method of shipment. I think it's wonderful that manufacturing in China allows anyone to produce quality, custom parts in fairly small run sizes for really cheap. It should spur a lot of new innovative niche products, probably often sold online to avoid overhead. In the future you'll be able to purchase just about anything online, not just the mass market stuff you can find in a mall or supermarket. This seems like a great thing to me. It depends on search engines like Google getting better and smarter at finding what we're looking for though, because it doesn't help if some unique product is available online but you can't find it amid the refuse.
Ok, I just got done sending the packages and writing this, and now it's 12:00 p.m., time for lunch. Maybe I'll add more later today...
Current Mood: hopeful
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04:16 pm
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Black Smoke
This morning when I woke up I looked out my window and saw plumes of hellish inky black smoke spewing out of the chimney of the nearest power plant. In the past the color of the smoke has always been gray or white, so why is it suddenly all black today? I've heard that coal burning power plants tend to make a lot of extra pollution for the first six hours or so of operation, so maybe the plant was shut down for maintenance last night and then restarted. But it's already been much longer than six hours since I woke up and I haven't seen any change in the color or quantity of the smoke. I hope they haven't done something stupid like disable the scrubbers to save money.
I don't know why anyone would be so stupid as to put a polluting power plant in the middle of a big city in the first place. My business had better be very successful or I'm going to be pissed that I wasted years of my life and destroyed my health by living in such a filthy country.
In my last post I mentioned the sewer spewing sewage at Liuhe Road. That problem thankfully has finally been fixed.
Current Mood: pissed off
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