July 1, 2007

So a lot has happened this whole week. A lot has changed in China since I've last been here. First of all, the flight here was great, even though I was on coach. What I never really understood about ANA - the airline's acronym for All Nippon Airways - was that they would not allow me to pay for an upgrade of my ticket to business class because of my ticket type. I got to say though the food was great, especially the seafood. When we stopped in Narito Airport for a flight change in Tokyo, Japan, I got a great taste of the Japanese life. I was able to eat some expensive airport food that was really good. I was able to use their bathrooms, which I gotta tell you is super cool. One of the toilets in each bathroom had a toilet that washed your butt crack after you did a number 2. I purposely held it on the plane to try it. When I tried it, nothing special. It felt a little weird, but I actually found it didn't do anything but make it harder to wipe myself since it made it wet. Wet butt and water, do the math. It's surprising how efficient Japanese people are. I tell you it was great. Also, on the way from Tokyo to Beijing, the plane had a crazy screen that showed you the runway and bottom view of the plane when you took off and landed. I gotta tell you that was pretty cool.

In Beijing, I never really realized how bad my Chinese was until now. And also, I never really realized how different Shanghainese is different from mandarin. Sometimes when I say some Shanghainese like thank you in my dialect, people look at me all funny. I also learned how difficult it is to get some things done in China. When we first got here, the temperature was about triple digits and we had no AC. Combined with the humidity, that was not great. It took about 3 days to get them to fix it. It took me about 4 days to get internet in my apartment. And we had to pay for a freaking toilet seat that immediatley broke when we got in. I also realized how poorly designed the apartment was since outlets were placed in the oddest spots and the bathroom flooded even though we had drains. From how I see it, this is the way it is, since the Chinese just built the building as fast as possible to meet demand. Like from what I see is Chinese mentality, quantity versus quality.

Despite all these faults, there are some cool things here. First, the public toilets, including work. Instead of toilets for you to take a nunber 2 in for men and both for women, you had to crouch. Although this might seem gross, it's surprising how efficient this was. Talking to my roommate Ryan, we both agree that crouching allows you to spread your butt cheeks, making it easier to clean yourself since there is less contact of your skin with your feces when it exits you. Also, you know how in the US you sometimes read a magazine while on the toilet to kill time or something like that, since you crouch you can't really do that. So you can't really spend time on the toilet, making you efficient time wise. Also, I got to tell you, being in China has made me super cheap. With exchange rate at about 7.6 rmb for 1 US dollar, My average meal is about 3-11 rmb. Do the math. For me, anything over 15 rmb is too expensive for me. haha Like take into example how I went to this Thai restaurant where celebrities go, and it was freaking good. But it was expensive. It was freaking 49 RMB for me! To me that was a lot, but if you translate that to US dollars, that's $7 US dollars. Wow I'm cheap. haha Yet, the food is great I got to tell you.

Something scary about China is that the drivers are crazy. I enjoy driving in the US and consider myself a pretty good driver, but I refuse to drive here, since it's so scary here. Every time you walk across the street you have to look across the street, or you might die. I tell you, you just have to be here to see it. Everyone freaking jaywalks in what you would consider lets say an expressway and just stand in the middle of the road while cars pass you by.
Oh dude, there's a freaking WalMart here. Honestly, I boycott WalMart, and many of you I think probably knows why. But here, it's completely different. It was pretty nice. And they had everything!

At work, people are pretty dang cool. I've noticed how people take 30 min. naps in my office after office. When I first saw it, I was thinking about how unproductive they were, but I learned from my unclie in Beijing that it was custom. Also, I was always thinking how quiet it was in there, but I realized that they communicate to each other through MSN messenger.
The other three guys that I'm working with are pretty cool. We've been hanging out a lot. Since yesterday, we've been playing Mah Jiang with each other each night. Pretty funny; we come here to China to play Mah Jiang. haha

Well I think that's it. There will probably be a lot more and things I'm missing.