The End of March

2238 3/31/10

End of March whoo!! That’s about as exciting as today was.

Pretty much spun my wheels at work today. The information is there, I’m sure of it, I’m just having to crawl through tons of websites, most of which are not in English and try and find this small tidbit of info that I need. So I got a little bit done, just not as much as I had wanted.

Ate lunch with the Frenchies at the Mao, all fun and Frenchy, and my bum got wet cause the ground was still a little moist from yesterday… ya that’s about it.

O so fun story. Toilet has been clogged for about… o maybe a week and half to two weeks now. I’ve broken two plungers thus far, and the good one I finally bought hasn’t done the trick. Not only that but they sent someone out about four days ago who temporarily fixed it but it was back to being clogged the next day.
So today I had it and went down to once again see if they could get it fixed.

An hour later I had a very angry Chinese guy yelling at me. But on the bright side I solved the mystery of the missing tea filter mesh that disappeared from one of my water bottles. Apparently I had been cleaning it and it somehow found its way into the toilet where it got flushed. How this all happened, I have no idea. Anyways now my toilet is happy, and mysteries have been solved, I think Scooby and the gang would be proud.

Tokkie sent me the contact information for my language partner, her name is Ye and we’ve conversed mostly via e-mail today. I think we’ll probably get together sometime around Sunday. She seems very sweet, and her English is pretty good. She’s a native Shanghainess so hopefully she’ll be able to show me some cool place around Shanghai, if nothing else it’ll be nice to just have someone to talk to about the city with.

Yerim and I got to chat today, which was nice. We’ve both be a little gloomy recently and it was comforting to talk with each other. In a lot of way we’re really similar and yet very different at the same time. But she seems very sweet and hopefully she’ll turn out to be a good friend.

Last thing on my list to talk about today is this awesome e-mail I just got from my boss.

“Dear Kevin,
I think it would be a good idea if we got the entire executive management team of the company together to discuss your research, when will you be able to present?
Your boss.”

As much as this freaks me out I’m actually really excited. I asked to have the meeting this Friday, which gives me all tomorrow to prepare. I think I just like the fact that I finally have something to challenge me, and I’ll either come out shining like a star or covered in poo. During my walk tonight I got a lot of it worked out and I think I’m going to go ahead and do this power point presentation and everything. Up until now I’ve been super chill when it comes to talking with my boss and the CEO but this actually gives me a good opportunity to be put in front of new faces and really show off my more professional side.

With that I’m off to bed, I’m going to need to roll up my sleeves tomorrow in order to get this thing done.

Eh

2212 3/30/10

Eh… I wish I could just leave it at that.

Let me put it this way I’m currently listening to “Summer of 69 (dan winter remix)” by Topmodelz and that is the best thing to happen today.

Work went ok, I’m now down to 12 potential markets, but the internet was so slow that I feel like I mostly just sat at a webpage trying to load the whole day. Not to mention the information I’m now trying to find a cool rock in a gravel pit to finding a diamond in a desert. O well hopefully I building valuable… research skills? I don’t know I’ll need to find a better way to market that.

Anyways after work I realized that I had been tricked by the decent weather and I quickly found out that I would be walking in the rain. The rain is not healthy for most laptops, and I assumed mine was no different so I ended up stuffing my entire backpack under my hoodie (so glad I bought one that was slightly to big). A girl on the subway made me really sad though. I was sitting across from one that was pretty but in that kind of “I spend a long time on making myself look good” kind of way, which just eh doesn’t do much for me. Then this girl (we’re call her Girl2) sat down that kind of had this girl next door look going for her., pretty but in kind of a more natural carefree way, kind of like saying “ya I take care of myself but honestly there are more important things in life that I focus on.”

Soon my mind had moved on to the day’s events and trying to figure out what else I needed today until I noticed Girl2 had just pulled out something from her purse and was brushing it with what looked like eyeliner. Suddenly she stuck a fake eyebrow on her face!! I was mortified, in one fell swoop this girl just destroyed everything I had liked about her. Ughh *sad face*

So I got off at a stop I normally don’t get off at to meet this guy from PartiesInChina.com because apparently I had one this prize from them when I was at Club Guandi (it’s a yoga lesson, whoo). But I was way early so I shopped around the local area and found some Nuttella that I knew the Frenchies would like so I picked it up. So I’m in line and suddenly a couple of high school girls come up and ask me to fill out this form, it was some sort of school project, asked for my nationality, and had various situational questions “if I was in an earthquake what would I do,” “if someone tried to rob me what would I do” , and one of the last questions was “If a stranger asked you for money what would you do.” Which is kind of a weird question for me, usually I have a strict “don’t give money to beggars” policy, but I was thinking that I would in fact offer money to people say if someone was like 5RMB short on groceries in the line ahead of me. So I circled I would give them money if I knew what their situation was.

Alright well that’s all well and good, I got my groceries, checked out, and left. I was no more than about 8 meters or so (have you noticed I’ve started trying to use the metric system?), and suddenly two girls who looked about the high school age but didn’t have on uniforms came up and asked if I spoke Chinese. Well of course I tried to explain that I didn’t, but they seemed insistent on trying to communicate to me so I called up this hotline that they have here in Shanghai for the expo which will basically help you translate. Well the operator told me that she wanted to ask for directions.

If the situation wasn’t strange enough having two Chinese girls come up to a white person in the middle of Shanghai to ask for directions pushed it over the edge. Well I try to explain to them as best as I can that I have no idea about what’s in this area but eventually she came up with the phrase “looking for food.” … We’re literally surrounded by a grocery store and several little restaurants. So I point around and try to show that they’re surrounded by food. “No money… *sad face*” And it all suddenly clicked.

Now they could have actually been hungry, and they could have been actually asking for help, etc. But for them to single me out, certainly not the richest looking person in this high end food area, right after I answered a survey question from girls there same age about giving money to strangers, and the cynical being that lives inside of me suddenly was shouting at the top of his lunges.

Now anyone that knows psychology will be well aware of the forces at work here. Essentially human beings practically starve to be consistent, and it’s one of the reasons why hypocrisy is so looked down upon. If we say we do something, or we’ve recently answered a question it is greatly disturbing to us subconsciously to violate those past actions. Now I’ve vastly summarized the whole thing, and I realize that on the surface (and we’re assuming at this point that the girls are all in league with each other) the high school age girls probably are not fully away of the actual experiment they’re conducting but that was what was actually happening.

Luckily I’m a real asshole ( ^_^ ) and simply told them I had to go (and it was true I was suppose to meet this guy at 17:45 and it was 17:43). But still I thought the whole thing was super strange. Now honestly I could have, and maybe should have gone with them and bought them like 10RMB worth of food (which is like maybe a $1.50) but I was so bewildered, and even amused by the whole thing that my natural fear of being late to a meeting over road any other courses of action.

I know that sounds super weird but that’s what happened and that’s how I felt as close as I can explain it.
So then I went home and got to walk in the rain some more. The Frenchies were excited to get some Nuttella, and by excited I mean one girl screamed and Ping Pong jumped around in her underwear. Anywho we split it and they asked if I wanted to go with them to the bar tonight but I just didn’t feel like it. I mean I started to think why I would actually go. If I it was to hang out with them I could just as easily do it here for free, if it was to drink I could just as easily do it here for MUCH cheaper, if it was to try and pick up other girls at the bar well… I just don’t, and they explain that it wasn’t really a place to dance so I just decided to stay here. I was pretty tired by this point and kind of in a funk anyways.

So now I just hung out on my balcony and watched and episode of Family Guy. Talked with Yerim a little bit, surfed the internet, and now I’ve wrote this blog post.

This pretty much puts me at the stage where I tell yall good night.

…night

eh

Cleaning day and Carrefour

2030 3/29/10

I really don’t want to give intimate details in my cleaning process and so… well I won’t.

• I essentially reorganized things, stuffing a lot of it into my drawers underneath my bed.
• I washed a lot of clothes as well as towels and such.
• Mopped… a lot
• Cleaned the hookah

This consumed much of my day. Afterwards I ate lunch with Clement, Sandra, and Nina on the Mao (kind of our name for the area all around the giant Chairman Mao statue, which includes a giant lawn that a lot of people hang out at).

At 13:30 Clement, Sandra, and I met up once again to go to a Carrefour they found. For those you not in the know (I sure as hell missed it) Carrefour is like the French Walmart, and it’s one of the world’s largest store chains. So we headed down two stations South of our school to this magical wonderland that is Carrefour.

Our reason for going? Simple, nutella. Now I have actually heard of nutella before this point in time but I’ve never actually tried it, though I know you can find it at most American grocery stores. If you happen to see it pick it up, it’s quite scrumptious on bread. It’s kind of like a nice peanut butter and chocolate mix, though supposedly it’s healthier, who knows. I also picked up a bunch of little things like washing detergent, conditioner (try finding a conditioner for curly hair in China, do it, I dare you), honey, and also some new type of tea.

There’s an important note here I want to make, in general things you NEED in China are super cheap, this includes food in general, water, cups, soap, toothpaste, etc. But things that are things you WANT are actually more expensive, such as mouth wash, high end electronics (cameras, etc.), make up, designer clothes, etc. So essentially if I could live in Shanghai, receive an American salary but occasionally travel back to the US to pick up a few things, I would be living pretty.

As far as this tea goes it’s actually my favorite thus far. Not as good as the Arabian tea I have back home, but good none the less, and what’s weirder is that it seems to consist mostly of flowers. Anyways you throw some honey in it and you have a nice mild tea, that you can reuse a few times.

Now I’m trying to decide what to do for the rest of the night, it’s kind of a tossup between watching a movie, walking around outside, or smoking on the balcony. I guess it kind of depends, sadly Clement and Sandra bailed because of homework, and Yeirm hasn’t answered yet so I’m leaning away from watching a movie alone. Hookah sounds nice, but it’s a little too cool outside, and honestly I think my lunges would appreciate me choosing walking instead. Anyways if something particularly awesome happens I might post an update, but I think I’m just going to go walking around and then call it a night.

Have a good one, thanks for reading.

Classroom Experiment and Shaddy Tobacco Purchase

1930 3/28/10 Location: Balcony

Today was one of the most interesting days in Shanghai thus far, though maybe only to me.

Sundays start off with our Business Ethics class, which has always kind frustrated me because I really like discussing these kinds of things (I see a close correlation between ethics, politics, and religion) but not many other people in the class seem to want to discuss these highly debatable topics. For those that know me I’m sure you can image me in such a class, constantly talking… ok maybe that’s just in any class but especially in this one.

So my first thought, when I wasn’t getting the discussion in class that I wanted was to just shut up. I would let one interesting topic slip by, then another, but on one would really say anything with the exception of maybe a comment from one of the Frenchies. Which is fine, but who I really want to hear from is the Chinese students. Today I was determined to change that.

Here’s what happened as best as I can remember:
So we read a story about oil companies going in and striking a deal with a local government. Essentially the oil companies would get 80% of the profits from the oil and the government would get 20% even though it was actually the government running the oil rigs. The normal arrangement for this type of contract would be a 50/50 split. But in this case the top government officials were actually keeping the money for themselves and none of it was “trickling down” to the population who was deep in poverty. The local leaders wouldn’t have made the deal if they didn’t get to keep the profit though. The oil companies countered any human rights protest by saying that they were personally donating millions to local hospitals, schools, etc.

Valentine noted that regardless of the trivial donations the oil companies had a moral obligation to not do business with an obviously corrupt group of individuals. I then decided I would counter that by saying that it wasn’t a company’s obligation at all and that they should solely focus on bringing profit to their shareholders. If they hadn’t struck the deal with the local government then the deal would never had been made at all and nobody would have benefited a single bit, which is basically taking a pure utilitarian stance. And then I waited… silence, and the teacher moved on.

I couldn’t help it, at this point I had become desperate, and I immediately shot my hand up. Addressing the class I explained that how could one possibly agree with that, clearly the oil companies are in the wrong here by helping spread corruption in a clearly fragile nation. They had a moral obligation to make sure their business partners were behaving in a correct manner. On top of that their contributions that they were making would actually worsen the local situation once the oil was gone from the area. Throwing up hospitals was great but they’ll staff them with their own people, and because they’re essentially giving away the service they’ll put any local form of care out of business, then when they pull out there will be no one to truly fill the void. I later made the analogy that this was like if you got a paper cut and in order to alleviate the pain I gave large amounts of morphine. Sure your pain goes away but I’ve now addicted you to an insanely powerful drug.

I then tried to bring it home as best I could and told them listen the US and China are extremely close business partners, and we are in fact business people. That means more than likely we’ll being doing business with each other at some point in the future in some form. This was there one chance of really affecting their potential business partner and how could they possibly want to do business with someone that says it’s clearly ok for a company to go in and rape a country?

Now I finally started getting the reactions I was looking for. In fact I got an excellent story from the girl whose comments I had liked from a previous class. She recalled a story from her work where her western boss was getting frustrated because he wasn’t getting feedback from his employees. He kept sending out e-mails and wasn’t really getting any responses back from the company. He decided to address them as a whole and tell them that they must start giving a response. So the next e-mail he sent out he got a response, “We’re thinking…” Wonderful, this was the kind of thing that I wanted a look at how Chinese people handle conflict and process and respond to information.

I also got a bunch of other useful bits of information:
• They weren’t use to this type of topic and discussion
• If they agree they’re not going to say so
• But if they don’t agree they’re also going to keep silent because they’re processing and thinking about the problem, not merely responding.
• They don’t know me and therefore they feel uncomfortable challenging my ideas.

So we bantered back and forth a little bit about differences in learning styles but the class was already close to ending at this point so the teacher had to end it. But anyways I’ve let them know I would really like to receive their input and we’ll see if this actually leads to more classroom discussion.

After class another interesting discussion popped up between Clement and I. I’m summarizing here and he might have meant something entirely different but this is how I took his position. His way of learning about the Chinese culture is to sit back and watch and observe, where he sees my approach as more intrusive and asking them to behave in a manner that clearly isn’t aligned with their culture. And frankly I agree.

My thought process on the whole thing is this: I have four more classes, two of which we’ll have test on, to learn as much about the Chinese perspective on ethics as I possibly can, and the students in the classroom are my conduit to that knowledge. Thus far I haven’t received as much knowledge as I want and my time is running up. If the whole thing fails what have I lost? They’ll simply continue to behave as they would normally and the whole thing will be merely as if I had said nothing. Or real class discussion might start happening and
I’ll get what I want, to put it bluntly.

But for both of us I think we agree that the verdict as to whether or not my approach was the correct one to make is still out. Quite frankly I think I could have gotten the same message across better by engaging the kids outside of class, but it wasn’t till I got their reaction did I realize that this might have been a better approach. From what I’ve observed in America (where I’ve had similar problems with students not wanting to talk during class, though not as much) this stance wouldn’t have worked because in general we don’t want to talk about class once we’re done with it. But I didn’t know that it might work here, and if I’ve learned nothing else but understanding that that is a different approach to take, then I’ve learned something valuable while I’ve been here.

It’s also important to know that this will also has huge implications to how I’ll change my style when doing business, so the implications of this affect me in more ways than just classroom engagement.

We’ll just have to see how the next class goes. I know this whole thing sounds strange but I’m really excited to see the results.

Then I picked up on my quest for Hookah tobacco which leads me to a small store in an alley about half way between the Weining Road and Loushanguan Road stop. There I was hoping I might find a decent deal, but in fact it was the exact same price as the one I received in Suzhou, 50RMB for 50g, which is simply way too much.

I had one last card up my sleeve, a sketchy posting I found on the internet. I had contacted the guy via e-mail and he gave me a price of 120RMB for 250g, which is 75% more than I would pay for it via the internet back home, and no most companies will NOT in fact ship to China. But he doesn’t have a store he simply sold it from his home, now in America I would be on HIGH ALERT but here it seemed a much more plausible way of doing business because the property prices are so high. It should also be noted that apartments are not as shady as they are in America, nobody here actually owns a house, and so everyone lives in some form of an apartment. So what the hell I sent him a text that said if he was willing to see it to me for 100RMB I would buy three boxes and if not I’ll just buy one for 120RMB. He agreed to the 100RMB price, and sent me directions to his apartment.

Have you ever tried to find an apartment in the massive sky scrapers that are the Shanghai apartment complexes? Good luck, but here’s a hint the numbers are actually posted on the back of the buildings. Luckily his apartments looked nice enough, and they were right next to Zhongshan Park which is a pretty nice area so it wasn’t like I was heading into the slums. That being said once I got to his floor I checked all of the exits and made sure they were open and made sure I had some sort of escape route.

“Paranoid much? “

Yes in fact, super sketchy drug like dealings (though I wouldn't know actually, I'm assuming they go down something like this, maybe there's an official shop but I doubt it) put me on edge, but hey I’m here to have an adventure.  And what's an adventure with out some shady characters to spice it up?

Anyways this guy, Vincent, actually was nice enough, and he was French, the irony of which did not escape me. Any who apparently one of his friends had visited and left him with a crap ton and he didn’t want to use it. All of the boxes were shrink-wrapped and it seemed legit enough so I went ahead and made the purchase. If it’s crap well then I’m out $40, and honestly the laws here are so strict that this guy would likely face a death-like sentence if it was poisonous.

O fireworks are going off outside!!

Anyways so the whole things made me think of some weird drug deal, but whatever I’m just happy to finally have found some tobacco that’s not insanely overpriced. Could I have been jumped and had my money stolen? Sure, I realize that, but random violence like that just statistically doesn’t happen here and an internet posting selling shisha tobacco is just a weird way of going about doing it. Anyways, it all worked out ok and I got a story out of it.

On another note I finally went down stairs and communicated (telling someone something really isn’t an accurate description of what happens) that my toilet was clogged. By this time I had broken one plunger and bought another all to no avail. Once they were done it looked liked there had been an epic sea battle in my bathroom, but the toilet flushed and that was all that mattered.

O I also successfully used my hookah, and the experience was pretty epic. There’s a great view from my balcony, the air was nice and cool, and I wrote half of this blog outside just enjoying the night. All in my entire hookah journey has taken me over half of Shanghai and parts of Suzhou, and so it gave me a purpose for venturing out. Now I feel like I need a new crusade to call my own. Maybe I’ll try and find a Chinese girlfriend… kidding… maybe not… I think it’s time to stop writing now.

I updated my last blog post to include at least one picture from Suzhou, I’ll try and add more later, but the internet is so slow it’s taking forever to upload them.

Nighty night

Suzhou

I just want to go to sleep but it’s 21:38 3/27/10 and I’m writing this blog.

Well let me start off where I stopped last night. After I posted the blog we went out to this jazz/lounge club were you could pay 100RMB ($14.60) for unlimited drinks. I actually really liked the place because you could snag a table for free and just sit down and hang out and there was even a little place up at the front to dance. My only complaint was that there music choice was superb and it was a little loud to actually be able to hold a conversation. The club was odd in another since tho as well, there was a disproportionate number of hot girls there, almost all expats ranging in age from 17-24 (though I could be off). By no means is this a complaint but merely an observation.

I will say I felt really bad for Yerim who is this very sweet little Korean girl that came with us. She was pretty much swamped with male attention that I think made her feel a little uncomfortable. For my part in the equation (that knowing me I’m sure I played) I’m sorry, it sucks being likable doesn’t it? :^P Yes I know it’s awkward to talk about this, but I’ve never really cared and it’s important to me to record these kinds of things during my trip.

I also met a nice Saudi Arabian guy (who for the life of me I can’t remember his name, typical I know) who helped me find Hookah/Shisha tobacco but even with his help the cheapest I could find it was for like 180RMB for 250g. And just for a price comparison in the US the same amount would cost you about 68.5RMB. Price differences across countries is just strange, o well I guess that’s just capitalism.

Alright club story over and no I don’t remember the name of it but I’ll probably be back so I’ll tell you then.
Today the morning came pretty early because we had to catch the bus at 7:50 in order to get out to Suzhou (it's kind of pronounced Sue-Joe, if that helps). Other people were able to sleep but I kept Clement up by swapping stories about our college, family, etc. Luckily the bus ride was only about an hour and half.

Once we were there we were able to locate the local bus we needed to take to Tiger Hill. This was my first time riding one of the local buses in China and let me tell you it was quite a journey. Stop and go traffic when you’re standing up is like driving through your Physics 101 class. You throw in screaming Chinese trying to make their way from one place to another and you have an Experience.

The park itself was nice enough, kind of combining this old and tourism, like most places like that in the world. Though there were a few spots that you could find that were actually quite peaceful. For lunch we grabbed spaghetti of all things. And I bought some post cards!! O and I also got a custom made stamp… thing which I’ll probably use to start stamping the crap out of my homework, mail, etc. O by the way it’s made out of “jade,” much like the moon is made out of a cheese.

From there we took a taxi downtown and spent the rest of the day wondering the streets. Poor Clement go this crazy Chinese Warrior costume put on him and then found out that he had to pay for using it in a photo! At that point we played the dumb foreigner card, but we couldn’t escape without giving at least 10RMB, luckily we got some great photos and some of the Chinese also go pictures with Clement. I love the fact that we (not me in the instance but I’ve been part of a few other at different points in time) get to be a part of someone else’s memories through their photos.

We saw some nifty things, avoiding most of the main touristy stuff, we hung out by the canals and watched the boats go by and listened to the … “drivers” as they sang songs. We also found what seemed to be the local CP (Communist Party) HQ. We wanted to go in because it looked pretty spiffy but the guard said we weren’t allowed. At some point in the back of my mind I really wanted to dash in and just start taking pictures of everything which really would have freaked the whole building out (it’s well known that the CP does NOT like you taking pictures of their buildings or military bases). Somewhere at the front of my mind I thought better of it.

Here I also stumbled across a restaurant that has hookahs (I’m starting to think that restaurants are really one of the few places to actually buy it) but they wanted to charge me 100RMB for 50g, which is 500RMB for 250g!! I may have a vice but it seems price will be my anti-bad habit here.

Umm that’s pretty much it, the only other thing of note is that a nice Chinese girl helped us order our dinner, and we exchanged information with her because she actually lives in Shanghai, we’ll see if she actually contacts me. Having business cards is very handy here.

Alright now it’s like 22:21 and I’m super tired. Later everyone.

First phase of research is completed

2001 3-26-10

Alright kiddies I have to write this one sooner than normal because we’re going out tonight, and then waking up super early tomorrow.

So today actually went much better than I had expected. I made good progress on my research and my presentation to the CEO and my boss went well. I now get to start “making” (in reality I’m suggesting but we’ll just ignore that) strategic decisions about which markets to enter into. So I’m taking all the work I’m doing and then not even using most of it, that’s just how it goes.

Anyways so I finally start get to start doing real strategy and I’m really excited because this is the stuff I truly love to do. Is this market large enough to support our product? How many do we need to implement in order to break even? Do we have any competition in the market? Is it even legal to do this in that country? Is this a cash or credit society? Etc.

So that was my day mostly. Oh! I guy from work brought in an Xbox360 to set up in the conference room for “after work hours.” I could literally feel my productivity slipping down the drain. Such are the temptations of life.

So now I’m about to take off and go to the bar when a few friends. When I get back from our trip tomorrow I’ll let ya know if anything interesting happened.

“What trip?”

O that’s right, around 8:00 we’re meeting downstairs and we’re going to hope on a bus for some small city near Shanghai. We’re just going for the day and it only cost me 40RMB so I decided to go. Hopefully we won’t be out to late, but I have a feeling it’ll be a long bus ride.

Hope everyone is doing well, if you haven’t talked to me in a while you should definitely e-mail or comment on the blog.  I feel like I talk to some people all the time and others I haven't heard from in ages.

Holy Crap This Marketing Project Just Got a Lot Harder

2300 3/25/10 and I should have skipped the blog today cause I really need the sleep, but I know if I do it’ll be easier to skip the next time as well.

Do you realize how many transit systems exist in the world? A lot, and by a lot I mean I’m just trying to focus on the top ones and that list is 136; which doesn’t sound so bad until you start looking for a very specific, not very useful to anyone else, piece of information. The information may exist somewhere but the real question is does it exist in English. Needless to say the marketing research has now become quite daunting.

I sit down with the CEO tomorrow to talk about my research and receive my next assignment. FML

I’ll talk about that tomorrow, maybe. My friends want to go out to the club tomorrow so I might just pass out once I get back.

After work I decided to meet up with Antoine to go shoe shopping at a fake market, which I thought was one that was more… well less white. Well turns out he was talking about going to the one that the group had already gone to and that I loathed. Sadly I didn’t find this out till I was already at people’s square and I didn’t want to get all the way out there and then not at least do something. So instead I went out exploring. Nothing special, I just walked around the square for a bit, saw a street that lacked white people and turned down it.
The walk was kind of nice actually, cool but not miserable. And Shanghai’s beauty really comes out at night. The street was also nice, kind of like the accompanying Chinese neighborhood next to the square that obviously was not meant for the normal tourist. I thought about poking around a bit more, but I knew I needed to get back so I just walked and enjoyed the sights.

I also got to try out my “new” MP3 player, and this one is so much better than the last. And by that I mean it’s the exact same player, it just happens to work. I guess the last one was defective, and we’ll see if I can still listen to music on this one once a month goes by.

Note to Booz: Piece of advice, always wear headphones, even if they’re not actually connected to a player. It’s so convenient to just be able to pretend to ignore people simply because they’ll assume you can’t hear them.

After I got back I tried out my hookah for the first time, went ok… except the foil I was able to find is super thin so the tobacco burned, but at least the thing works as expected and it’ll just take some fine tuning on my part to make it enjoyable. Having to get the coals though is a bit of a trick. I’ve got to go to the kitchen, turn on their gas stoves, hold the charcoal over it, get them going, and then make the trek back to my room. We’ll see how long this’ll last before I have a landlord pounding at my door. But the view from my balcony is very nice, and it’s just really nice way to relax at the end of the day. In short the “risk” is less than the reward.

Afterwards I hung out in the hall with the German kids and Clement. Our topics ranged from New Orleans, to French people being genetically born wine experts, how hard becoming a doctor is compared to an engineer, and “hey doesn’t this wine taste more like juice?”

Night.

Got My Hookah and Failed at Work

1:20 3/25/10 (again posted on the 24th for record keeping)

Sometimes writing a daily blog is kind of… pain, writing after spending most of the day working, out exploring Shanghai, a long dinner, and several hours at a bar is one of those times. But I do it for the fans… ok so maybe that consists of like three people, but I digress.

I do have an announcement though: my epic quest for a hookah/shisha is finally OVER!!!! But that’s at the end of the blog.

Until then I’ll tell you about my epic failure as an intern.

So today I turned in the first phase of my market research and come to find out my search wasn’t broad enough. I interpreted there instructions as “give us a list of large transit markets that also use stored value smart cards” (which included extra data such as daily ridership, card name, etc) what they really wanted was “give us a list of ALL global transit systems that use stored value smart cards and if you don’t include a transit system then please have a written and documented reason why”.

The list I created had about 35 cities on them, but the list they’re looking for is probably closer to 75-100. Whoops. And quite honestly it’s my fault, I originally heard from the CEO that he wanted a general list of some markets to possibly move into that have over five million residing in the metroplex. My boss on the other had over road this at three times by asking for various other things. Looking back on it I think I had just already framed the assignment in my head and I was reluctant to move away from that.

Lessoned learned, I need to adjust to how they do business and I can’t let this happen again.

After that failure I went with Nathan to go replace my MP3 player and look for a hookah. Come to find out the electronic district was his old stomping grounds last time he went to school in Shanghai so he was really happy when he realized where we were. And they replaced my MP3 player with no problem, and in fact they found a problem with it (something to do with the screen) that I hadn’t even seen which was good cause we were having a hard time communicating to them that the hard drive was corrupted, and o ya I had tried to reformat it but it got half way through and would complete the reformat… whoops.

Then we began our journey for the hookah. Google maps was kind enough to give me the exact location but when I clicked on the “print” button it then decided to move our marker about 4km away… so we decided to check the first location which was pretty close from the stop and then we would just try again some other time if it was the one that was far away. Well once the first spot was a bust we just hailed a cab and decided to go for the other location as well.

We wound up at a pharmacy. Which I guess was good for Nathan cause he scored some cough syrup (that kind of tasted like a robotusen with the consistency of honey) and condoms. I seriously thought about holding his hand as he asked for the condoms but just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

At this point we’re like 8km from any given train stop, which meant there weren’t any foreigners in sight, we were in the “real” part of Shanghai. Which I must say was a much more realistic picture of Shanghai then the expat glamour of other parts of the city. It wasn’t like scary or anything but it felt much more like “people live and work here” as oppose to people just “being” here. I know that’s kind of a weird distinction, but it’s the best I can do. I really want to go back cause there looked like there was some good exploring needing to be done in the area. Clement said he wanted to go exploring on Saturday so maybe we’ll try to find a similar place on Saturday.

We did stop in a local grocery store where I got pick up an epic plunger for my toilet (water pressure sucks here) and some tea, which I have yet to be able to make a good batch of but it’s loose leaf so I fell at least a little bit more authentic when I buy it.

Once we got back the group decided it was dinner time and we were soon off to an all you can eat Chinese buffet which costs 58RMB, not too bad. We had fun and they really enjoyed the all you could drink beer (I’m not a beer person so I just had their odd tasting Pepsi). I did learn something about Chinese behavior. When the manager comes and asks how you liked the food, and whether you enjoyed the beer, the past tense he’s using is their way of saying “get the hell out we’re trying to close.” Duly noted.

Afterwards we headed out to some expat bar which I don’t remember the name of. It was pretty typical, the drinks were overpriced (though not as bad as some places) and there were nothing but expats, old expats in fact. BUT THEY HAD HOOKAHS!! O finally a night where I could just chill have a little something to drink and just relax…. What? That’s exactly what I did. Though I got on the bar and danced at the end of the night just to appease my friends, thank you lesbians who were making out next to me, you made the night a little sexier.

But wait we were leaving and what’s this, they were selling hookahs outside!! Well I kind of dismissed this, selling anything outside of place full of white people means the prices will be on the far side of outrageous. But hey it was the first place we’ve found so Nathan went ahead and asked the price. In the end I walked away with a nice size hookah, plastic tops, two boxes of good tobacco, and charcoal for 350 RMB. That’s $51 and in America the Hookah alone would cost you anywhere from 60-80, even if I could have haggled it down a bit I’m perfectly happy with that price. Now we’ll just see if it actually works…

Something strange happened afterwards though. So I’m walking away with my purchase and we come around this other shop (the bar was kind of tucked away in this gated area and this shop was located next to it right before you exited the area and got back onto the street), and suddenly three guys with the classic body guard ear pieces started questioning about where I got what I was carrying, did I have a recipe and o we need to go talk to the guys you bought it from. Who was the puzzled little white kid? O that would be me. In the end everything checked out but the whole situation was just really strange. In the end we had no problems getting home, and now I’ve just tried to make another batch of tea and I’m heading to bed.

Night everyone, mission has been accomplished, but I need to do better at work.

Here Comes the Rain Again

2145 3/23/10

Well the clouds have once more descended back on Shanghai, though the rain gods were kind enough to allow me dry passage to and from work, the rest of the day it rained. At work we finalized the design for the data sheet, it was already pretty much set but we just change some minor presentation things (this shouldn’t be italicized, let’s get this picture of a phone to be facing the same way as all the others, change the font here, etc). Other than that the day was consumed by my research into global transit markets.

Fun stuff, but man is it tough to find information on how many people use a bus system. For example there are 20 independent bus companies that run Shanghai. Finding a public figure on how many total passengers they have all combined would require me to contact every single one of them, or finding the elusive Chinese department that magically runs the show, though whether they even know is questionable. I then have over 30 cities on my list; each one is in a near similar situation… super.

I did have an interesting discussion with Niko (my boss) on current events in the US, Google redirecting their Chinese page to Hong Kong hence getting around Chinese law, the local situations in China, odd traffic things here, etc. The average driver has had their licenses for about 5 years… I don’t think you get it yet, well over 3 million drivers on the road with ONLY 5 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE! On the flip side it makes walking around so much more interesting, and drivers pay a lot more attention to what they’re doing. You hardly ever see anyone driving that isn’t fully focused on the road, no texting, no cell phones, no messing with the baby in the back, FULL ATTENTION. Kind of a nice change, now if only they cared that there was a pedestrian in front of them… I guess nothings perfect.

On the way home I tried to find the Hookah (or Shisha as they call it) Shop but by the time I got there they had closed, luckily there seems to be another one on the way to the electronics’ mall where I’m going to take my MP3 player anyways, so maybe I’ll have better luck then. When I got back I met up with the Frenchies for dinner. Sandra seems to be doing better, though I think she’s hanging on by the morphine. Anyways they wanted to go out tonight, and I had originally planned on going with them but as I sat there listening to their French I just started getting more and more tired. In the end I just went back to my room and chilled for the evening. I might even watch a movie after I post this, I know, just going crazy wild in Shanghai.


O well skipping one party isn’t going to kill me, and it’s not like saving the money hurts either. They tend to want to take a taxi every time to the club/bar, while I prefer to take the subway (at least while it’s open). Of course the girls have to worry about high heels, and I have yet to adopt that fashion accessory. I’m just cheap I guess.

I need to start branching out a little bit as far as my friends go, there are two Korean girls that we went to the club with who seem super nice maybe I’ll ask them if they want to go with me tomorrow. I also have a Chinese friend who I need to go out to lunch with. I’ll have to put that on my too do list.

O ya my cough is pretty much gone, but I’m still drinking tea like nobodies business.

I feel bad I hadn't put up as many funny pictures as I had promised I would.  So in recognition of Obama's victory I'll just lay that this one out there.  Beck, Hanity, Palin, have derailed and pushed the Republican party off the deep end; step up and say no to extremism.

Sandra's is Sick :(

21:48 3/22/10

Well today was "interesting" if nothing else, though having nothing to do with Shanghai.

Started off normal enough, really just cleaning for most of the morning, my cough was much better (and still is though it’s started to come back about an hour ago). I went out and bought another computer mouse cause the one I got with Shane was just driving me crazy because the middle scroll wheel was spastic <--- Like what I did there? I thought it was clever.

I also picked up some candy for our cleaning lady, there are just certain people that are good to have on your side, the lady that cleans up after you is one of those people. Plus she works super hard.  She might have hated the candy I gave her but hopefully "it's the thought that counts" crosses cultural boundaries.

After lunch I went back to the electronic mall to get them to fix my MP3 player… they just stuck a pin it and reset it, there are times I fail as a geek. BUT not to worry I got home it really freaked out on my and now the hard drive is corrupted. My job here is done. On Wednesday I’ll have to go back and return it, joy.

Once I got back I talked to Trang for a bit, who got me thinking about old lovers in a way that I hadn’t pondered in ages. It was good to reflect upon, and I tried to pass on what little advice I had gathered from my encounters to her. It’s nice to see that Booz and Trang seem to have a healthy relationship, I wish them the best.

While that was going on the House passed the national health care reform, now all that’s left is for Obama to decide whether or not to sign it into law, HMMMMMMMMMM I wonder what he’ll do?? :P Honestly I’ve kind of stayed out of the Healthcare arena, I don’t really know the playing field, nor how the system really works, and at the moment it has little affect on my day to day life. In other words all I have is a belief and not a opinion, and I try to keep beliefs to myself. I will say this though; I wish people would stop bringing up trivial or fictional bullshit. Death panels, flag pins, birth certificates, notes on your hand, reading your speeches, funny names, etc. all slow down and reduce productive political dialoged (…ok that might be a stretch, but still) into inane crap that sidelines real discussion. People should care more about debating the issue, and less about “winning at all costs.” If you honestly can’t understand the other side’s point of view, and at least in some way see how they could possibly be right, then please shut up, and listen you might just learn something. This crosses political aisles, stopping thinking "o ya those other guys do this all the time" your party is just as guilty, man up and squash those people in your own party.

From here on out my day got kind of depressing. Sandra is pretty sick. We’ve all been sick a little bit, some worse than others, kind of to be expected, massive changes in diet, environment, and weather will do that to you, Sandra just had some preexisting conditions that were compounded upon. I won’t go into real details but she’s afflicted by multiple illnesses, but no matter how many times we asked her what we could do for her she always refused. So in short none of us knew just how bad she had gotten. Well it all came crashing down when she went to the doctor, she finally made it back ok but we were pretty worried. There was even talk of her going home, but the doctor gave her medicine that should allow her to stay until she can get back to France and get the real treatment that she needs.

I'm kind of mad that she never accepted my offer for help and even lied to me about eating.  One thing that I don’t handle well is feeling helpless when one of my friends is in need, but in this situation I’m in the least position to help her. She has plenty of friends that understand her situation better than I do, can relate and empathize better than I can, closer to her than I am and can also better communicate with her better than I can. This frustrates me to no end. (I came close to teaching you a Chinese cuss word, but thought better of it, maybe I am changing… nah just tired)

Anyways I’m off to bed, I’ve been sulking for awhile, and it has become just pathetic.

Update: Was making tea right before bed (in case I got thirsty or started coughing during the night) and in the process I sterilized my left thumb with boiling water.  FML

Bought an MP3 Player

2133 3/21/2010

Today was my Business Ethics class, which went well enough. Actually discussed the foundation of Libertarianism which I was happy about, sadly no one really wanted to discuss it, but o well. The class discussion is currently dominated by Clement, Louie, and I with a few Chinese kids piping up every once in awhile, which makes me kind of said cause I didn’t really come here to hear a western comments, but even when I just sat there and waited for new people to talk it never happened. Maybe as the class goes on I’ll eventually find a button to push and can force some debate.

There was one girl who talked who I thought was very intelligent and worked in the HR department. After class she walked by and I stopped her to tell her I liked what she said and for her to please talk more. She looked really startled but said something along the lines of “o ok I will thanks.” So I think it went over well. But Clement said that I’m really good at making people feel awkward. *cha ching* It’s a gift, and I don’t mind saying I rather enjoy it.

Side note my tea bag just broke *sad face* luckily the wire mesh on my cup should protect me but we’ll see.
So then we grabbed lunch and sat at the Mao (there’s a giant statue of Chairman Mao and a large grassy area) to eat. I left though to go see if I can get my electricity turned back on. O ya, I seemed to have blown a fuse this morning. Something about having my computer on, having my bathroom, main room, refrigerator, and hot water heater on at the same time just didn’t quite agree with the circuit breaker. But there’s was no one home on the 11th floor where our landlord lady lives. So instead I left to go exploring again.

Well not really exploring I guess, this time I went to the big electronics district in search of the elusive camera, and I've been in the area a few times. I found out though that cameras are actually more expensive here than in the states which sucks. I know Newegg.com ships to China and they might have a better deal. Instead I switched gears and started looking for an MP3 player.

For some reason though I just impulsively bought one, which is rather unusual, but I got a Teclast, which is some sort of Chinese brand, along with two pairs of headphones, and a MP3… sock like thing.

“Why did you buy two pairs of headphones!?”

Well… you know you over paid when the clerks is willing to give you one of the boxes she has for another player with needed wiring and all that, along with a free MP3 sock, AND she forgets to take out the headphones that she said she was going to switch out for the ones I bought. I only paid 320RMB ($46) and the internet said that was better than the going rate so who knows, maybe I hold a copy in my possession.

About that… it’s currently broken. I was fiddling with it, plugging it in to my computer, unplugging it from my computer, syncing it with some of my software, etc. When all of a sudden when I pulled it out the device locked onto the “Plugged into the USB cable” screen, and there really isn’t a way to force it to turn off. So I’m going to leave it there and hopefully it’ll go off and then I can plug it back in and get it to work. If not tomorrow is my day off and I’ll just run up there and put on my sad face. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

On a more positive note my electricity is back on, AND the woman called a mechanic to fix my bathroom door, happy days!

So another weird thing today I learned, my left hand is more sensitive to heat then my right hand…

O ya I forgot I went to the store with Antoine to pick up some more supplies, a large quantity of toilet paper (why not?), some Iron Buddha Tea, honey, and a water heater. Fun stuff.

So I got sent some questions which I figured I would go ahead and answer on here:

How many students are in your class? Does your professor have a strong NY accent?

In my marketing there was around… 20-35 students and no my teacher had almost no accident, probably because he’s lived and worked almost all around the world. He did have a interesting way of talking, he would kind of add in his own emotional responses to what he was saying. Rather hard to explain, sorry.

Do you eat breakfast at the school? Does it have a student cafeteria?

The closest thing I normally have to breakfast is a large roll of raisin almond wheat bread on the way to work, I simply just don’t wake up early enough, and I have a lot things to do in the morning. Yes there are about 4 or 5 cantinas (cafeteria seems to be an American word, go figure).

How many people share a bathroom?

…I have my own bathroom, but there are giant public showers for most of the students on campus which means you'll often times see trekking around campus with soap and a towel in their hands, and it seems that each floor has their own bathrooms. The international dorms are much better than the normal student dorms.

What does Dr. McDaniel do at Hendrix?

Dr. McDaniel is a philosophy/religion professor at Hendrix, he focuses a lot on Asia.

How is your cough? What is the weather like there now?

Cough is… better, but my lymph nodes are swollen. I have no idea how to really diagnose myself, but my throat feels swollen near the lymph node area, thus concluding my observation that my lymph nodes are probably swollen. I’m treating it at the moment by lots of tea and honey. If the problem continues after next week I’ll probably go see a doctor, but I think it’s largely just due to the massive weather changes. Yester day it was around 70, and today it was in the 50s. Weather seems to be a constant change here, but it’s suppose to be warming up this week.

Are you learning any Chinese? Have you gone to the movies there?

I am in fact learning, pretty much no Chinese, which I find to be very sad. I’m picking up pieces here and there but retention is a problem as always. I simply can’t go to Chinese class and do my internship at the same time. I almost went to the movies today but me and Chris (I’ll get to him next) walked in right as it ended. The movie was on campus and was open to everyone.

After dinner Christ (the Chinese student who we ate dinner with yesterday) asked if I wanted to come check out the Chinese dorms. Of course having never been into the other dorms before I thought this was a great idea. Holy crap, it’s hard to complain about your room when the guys down the block live six to a room. I did have fun though and Chris and I talked about studying abroad, American Idol, and general costs of living. I found out that most kids that come out of a bachelors program can expect to make around $5500 yearly, a good number to keep in mind.

Alright I’m pretty bushed and tomorrow is cleaning day along with some more traveling so… zai jian.

Exploring with a Sushi Ending

22:30 3/20/10

I went to bed at 05:00, I was awake by 8 and got out of bed by 9. As soon as I have the money I’m seriously investing in a sleep therapist. Luckily that means I was able to finally get my text book, but still sleep would have been better.

Anyways I piddled away the morning and eventually around noon I decided that I didn’t come here to chill in my room and the city was just waiting to be investigated. Sadly I couldn’t find anyone else to go with me, either they were asleep or didn’t want to go out cause it might rain this afternoon. So alone but upbeat I set off.

My destination would be Zhongshan Park, which is a transfer station that I use every time I go to work. I had always gone there but never really got out and looked around. An hour later and I was going through a tunnel from the subway and found myself in a giant mall, we’re talking 9 floors of glory here people.
Starting at the top I find a treasure trove of kid toys and clothes. I actually poked around here for a bit because I was thinking of getting something for my room, you know nothing says professional adult like a badass action figure. My main goal was some cool Legos that I could play with but I didn’t really find any that struck my fancy.

And frankly neither did anything else in the mall. I guess I’m just picky when it comes to what I buy and I can’t bring myself to just buy stuff frivolously unless I know I really want it. In other words I’m not much of a spontaneous buyer.

So I’m working my way down the floor and suddenly I get to the bottom, well there I find another section of the mall that seems to go “outside” the area of the rest of the mall. I soon find myself wandering around for an hour in this semi-labyrinth of shops. There I found a little charm for my cell phone (for those who care and know it’s the emblem of Cloud from FF7, his wolf door knocker). It cost 28RMB ($4) so… ok well maybe I’m not thrifty I just don’t buy a lot.

Looks similar to this but a dirty gold color:
http://www.myimportstore.com/store/images/Accessories/FF7CloudyWolfNecklacSilverS.jpg

So this lasted till about 16:00 or so and I decided to call it a day, which at that point my feet were wholeheartedly agreeing with me. Around 19:30 I met up with most of the gang and a Chinese guy named “Chris”, who they had met on Friday while I was at work *sad face*, he was really cool and was a great addition to the group; anyways we went out and got SUSHI!! Whooo…. I hate fish. It was all fine though, they had some meat I could order and I got some great steak with NO BONES (meat without bones is super rare hear), I also ordered a small bowl of “roman” but instead of the normal awesome broth it was in this weird milky looking liquid. O I also shared a giant ice cream fruit sunday with Sandra and it was super yummy.

What did actually suck was the service. First off it would take like 15 – 20 minutes to get our food, and it’s not like you’re actually cook anything, yes yes I understand sushi is an art and all that jazz but honestly I also know it doesn’t take that long. But was the worse was the cluster f---k that was our bill. I didn’t time it but it had to be close to 45 minutes to get our bill all sorted out and then they didn’t have enough change for everyone so we had to settle it amongst ourselves. Honestly if we’re going to pay for your over priced food (and my meal alone was 80RMB + which is really expensive).

Anyways it was still a lot of fun hanging out with everyone but now I’m super tired and I off to b—ZZZZzzzzZZzzzz…

Done With First Project and Out to Club Sky

While this is posted on the blog as the 19th it’s really 0348 3/20/10

So today I had to wait to go to work till I could ask the library to print me a text book. That’s right we don’t buy text books here, we make copies. It’s legit. Of course when Clement went to pick it up for me (much appreciated) they had copied the wrong book, but he talked them into having it ready by tomorrow so hopefully it’ll be right this time.

After that little party I went to work, where we rolled out the new webpage for the product I was on. Basically this webpage was my baby:
http://bluebamboo.com/products/show.asp?id=23

I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s the first one I’ve ever done. Let me clarify that, I didn’t do the HTML I just provided the content for the page with my boss Niko as the editor. Also the datasheet that you should be able to download at the bottom of the page (might not be available till Monday) is also mine. Anyways so that projects done, and the rest of the day was spent doing market research for our big project that we’re rolling out. I’m pretty much done with phase one of the research and I’m just waiting for some e-mail to be answered and organizing my data.

After work I met up with Dr. McDaniel from Hendrix College who was here giving a speech. He took me out to dinner where we talked about what I had been doing etc. He seemed pretty happy with how things were turning out and he might even be reading this right now (hello!).

Then the gang, minus Sandra whose foot was hurting, went out to the club. Sadly the club was like the other one we visited that had almost all tables. BUT this one did have a small stage and as the night went on they started move tables so people could dance. I had actually left because I just was so bored, and didn’t really want to just stand around and drink. I found the subway (which I was thinking about taking home) but it had closed which prompts me to wonder when their exact time it is that they actually close (handy bit of info).
So instead I hung out outside of this club which had some chairs to lounge on and just people watched. I found it super funny when these kids who couldn’t have been more then maybe 14-16 tried to get into the club and the door guards immediately turned them away. They were trying so hard to just play it off that I started laughing super hard.  Something makes me think they didn't appreciate that.

Eventually Clement sent me a text saying that it had picked up and I should come back in. Glad he did because it had finally livened up a bit and we shook our booties for about 3 1/2. We of course stole this pedestal where we climbed up and dance in front of everyone. Attention whores? Yes a bit.

I also observed these two girls; one of them was being constantly hit on by this guy with her friend running interference between them. Well I like to think of myself as the protective type and so I thought this was super sweet and instead of the usual “Golly gosh I think your pretty” cliché I figured I would just simply tell her I thought it was sweet and leave it at that. So I typed it up on my phone and handed it to her, then took it back, and my friends decided it was time to leave once I rejoined them. So we did.

We did see them once more in the store cause Sophie needed some water but she seemed to be really embarrassed (or disgusted, you know those two feelings are very similar) and she kind of hid behind the isles. I firmly believe the world would be a better place if we gave more sincere compliments to others, and tonight I did my part.

…end of story.

Feel kind of bad, all my stories are really anti-climatic.

Surfing the Internet

2110 3-18-10

Man what did happen today? Felt like I just sat around all day doing research, scrolling through internet pages looking for very specific pieces of information.

I did sleep in a little (till like 7:30) but was rudely awaked by what sounded like somebody carpet bombing Shanghai! In ended up being only a massive amount of fireworks going off like a mile away but still, what the hell, who sets off a ton of fireworks in the morning and you could literally see a cloud forming from all the smoke drifting across the city.

Met up with most of the gang for lunch at least and had Sandra, Clement, and Cam over for a little R&R before they had to get back to studying and I had hit the internet again in search of those little nuggets of information. Later in the afternoon Clement and I went out walking and picked up basic supplies. Stuff I merely got some coke and some cinnamon clip thingys.

Before dinner we watched a video of Sandra’s sexy dancing on stage from last night! Needless to say it was awesome. Then after dinner Sandra got me the boiler so that I could boil water in order to help my coughing, thanks a bunch I’m enjoying some hot water as I write.

Anyways tomorrow I actually go into the office which means I won’t get to join the others when they go shopping which really sucks. O well I’ll join them in the evening before we go out and party. Something tells me when I get back to Hendrix I’m going to be bored out of my mind. Price to pay it seems.

Night

Nothing to Do With St. Patty's Day

Starting this at 0057 3/18/10 but the events all take place on the 17th

Well today I worked from home and got quite a bit done. The datasheet has been submitted but for some reason Niko hasn’t sent back an edited version so I don’t know what else needs to be done. I’ve now started market research for the next project which I’m super excited about. On top of that I washed my sheets!

Then the Frenchies and I took off for some sort of “fake market” where they sell a bunch of fake merchandise. Quite honestly it was kind of… well sad. First off there were only white people shopping, and believe me, that’s a sure sign that the place is crap. There’s 20 million Chinese living in Shanghai, if you walk into a store dominated by white people then warning signs should start going off. The sellers were aggressive to say the least and the buyers weren’t much better.

We were even in a store talking to one of the merchants when two middle aged women tried to bargain with the seller to get some electronic item for two dollars, and they got mad when the seller told them no. Listen when you’re in China please don’t try and use dollars, take 5min to learn the local exchange rate and then exchange your currency, and don’t try to buy an expensive electronic gadget for some absurdly low price. Bargaining is one thing, but you need to be careful that you don’t throw a figure out that’s just insulting. Quite honestly the whole thing was just embarrassing because it was just so… just typical ignorance of the local culture. I will say it was fun to watch Nathan (the only other American on campus) haggle because his Chinese is pretty good and shop keepers really like talking to him.

Anyways we walked around for a bit but Clement, Sandra, and I quickly split from the group headed out. Which I must say was an excellent choice. First we popped into McDonalds, I wish we could have chosen place different but we need a rest, McDonalds was close, and I will admit I like their fries.

Soon we were off again and exploring. We passed by this big brown building that looked like something you would see in New York and Clement mentioned how he wondered if we could get to the top. Only one way to find out so I made a beeline for the door and pretty soon we were at a couple of floors from the top look out over a great view from an empty restaurant (it was like early afternoon and I don’t think the place was even technically opened yet). After that we went to the famous Radisson with its massive saucer on top (which is actually a restaurant) and o man the view was gorgeous. It was a clear day and we were just a little bit taller than the rest of the buildings and you could see for miles. Let me make this clear, Shanghai is MASSIVE, we’re talking 8+ story buildings as far as the eye can see. We also made plans to come back in May for Sandra’s birthday. All in all I say we make a pretty good trio.

Once we were back on campus we rested for a couple of hours and then it was off to the Brown Sugar, a jazz club. The club was so much better than the last one, though I’m hesitant to really call it “jazz” more like classic rock songs with a jazz vibe. Anyways we were right up front next to the stage and we just danced for several hours. Sandra even was invited to go up on stage and shake her booty! It was a great night, though I really need to go to bed, and I just ran out of water. :( Sadly my cough is still around and that means not having water is going to be really bad tonight when I start coughing. I’ll have to wake up and go get some water from the local store pronto, not being able to drink tap water can be a real pain.

Night everyone.

Picture of most of the gang from the club, sadly Luc got hidden

Expats on the Sub, Trang Evil and Marketing Final

2133 3-16-10

So today going to work I decided to take Line 3 -> Line 2, instead of taking Line 1 -> Line 4 -> Line 2, even though it’s technically longer to do it this way it saved me about 30min of travel time… my life is average.

But on top of that I worked on website design for the whole day, the project is going very well and we should be finished ahead of schedule. Which compared to my last internship is like Santa coming to visit me, having an Alzheimer moment and coming back to give me a 2nd round of presents! Tomorrow I’ll finish up the data sheet, and with any luck begin the next research project the following day.

I got side tracked though for about an hour by Booz’s diabolical girlfriend Trang. She was like, “Hello” and that was just the tip of her evil manipulative iceberg. In the end I think she threatened to physically harm me at least twice. I also found out that she is super easy to make fun of, three rounds of presents in the same day, hazzah!!

I also want to say that I’m very disappointed in Booz at the moment. Trang merely mentioned to me that Booz told her I was “touchy.” Touchy good sir, TOUCHY!? If you can’t at least describe me as “lecherous” then I owe you an apology, I have failed you as a friend.

But moving on.

I had to leave work early to get back to study for the marketing final today, but on the way back I saw a stunning number of expats (about 6 or so), which is rare because my work is quite a bit outside of main Shanghai. One I know was English because he had a pretty good accent and I enjoyed hearing him talk on the phone.

Once I got back on campus I studied for a bit and then got some dinner with the Frenchies. The test wasn’t really that bad, my main problem in the class has been I’m thinking from a strategic business point of view and not really from a “marketing” point of view. There were 4 questions and he said I did really well on two, but not as well on the others. Not too worried though because a large portion of our grades comes from class participation, which I think I did fairly well on. We’ll just have to see.

Sadly my cough is still persistent. I feel perfectly find, I just cough a lot. My temperature is consistently staying in the 98F range so I’m not worried, just annoying more than anything else.

Any ways that’s all for today.

Problems with Serge, and a New Hoodie

Not sure why I’m putting a time stamp anymore since I have internet but o well, 1938 3-15-10

So today was the first day I didn’t have any work or classes!! I’m so happy to actually be able to take some time to get some things done.

Moved some furniture around to leave more room for walking, moped the floors with my brand new mop like swiffer thingy, and I also went out and bought some bread, body wash and tape. But upon walking out of my room I became very sad. The guy at the beginning of our hall had left a huge mess in the cigarette ash tray thingy, and had left tons of beer bottles all around the hall. It was insanely disgusting. Now I understand people are allowed to smoke indoors here, that’s fine, but having a MOUNTAIN of cigarette butts lying around and on the floor was just too much.

When I came back the poor cleaning lady had to clean it all up and wash the trashcan. I got so mad that I went back to my room and typed out a really nasty letter. And by nasty I mean I crammed so many cusswords into the document that the little Microsoft Paperclip guy popped up and said “Damn son you need to chill out.” After Antoine and Clement had translated I went and posted it to his door. I knew it might not change anything but at least I felt better about it. It should be noted for those people that don’t know me very well that this is very against my nature, I’m hardly ever confrontational, but when someone shows such disrespect for others my temper flares. There’s also been some other… problems with him and some of the girls but we’ll leave that for another time. So basically you combine lack of respect and messing with my friends and even I will get a little hot headed.

We’ll come back to that later.

Well after studying Marketing for a couple of hours (we have a test tomorrow) the group called me up and we went to eat at a new canteen. Let’s just say I stuck with the rice. Also got a call from the people that hosted the party at the club we went to last weekend, apparently I won free yoga lessons… whoopee! I’ll offer it to one of the girls.

Of course afterward it was tea time! A nifty invention I must say. But anyways I had popped up to my room to drop off my stuff and get my glass and found a note attached to Antoine’s door. Well it was written on the reminisce of my note I had left Mr. Chain Smoker Who Leaves His Trash Everywhere So That The Poor Overworked Chinese Woman Can Clean Up It Up. Whatwoo.

Apparently since I had the note translated to French (which is his native language, hey know one said I hadn’t been culturally considerate) he thought one of the French kids had posted it and apparently Antoine was his prime suspect. The note apparently was about as adequately put as mine was and directed at Antoine. While I had meant to invoke a response, I certainly didn’t want it directed towards Antoine.

I went up to my room and wrote a new note telling him that it wasn’t Antoine and that even though my note had been a little too harsh all we really wanted was for him to show some respect for us and the people that worked here. But when I asked Clement to translate, he advised me too talk to him in person, and that the situation was in danger of over escalating. Well I like to think that I am man enough to admit when I am wrong and this seemed to be one of those times. So I agreed to talk to him but he wasn’t in his room.

It’ll continue in a moment.

In the mean time I went with Cam and joined Nina, Ping Pong, and Sophie (French, haven’t seen the Chinese girl since the club) clothes shopping. I really wasn’t interested in the shopping truth be told but I figured I would at least go cause the only other thing I had to do was just sit in front of my computer and quite honestly I think I’ve done enough of that in my life and I certainly don’t need to be doing it in Shanghai. Over all I was glad that I went, the girls are fun to be with and they asked my opinion from time to time. I also was able to pick up a much needed rug and I finally got a hoodie! I had fun haggling for it too. I started with 35, she was like NO 120, I then countered with 50 and she said “100 low price” and then handed her the hoodie took back my calculator and left. She was then like “ok ok 80!” I was like “no no 100 LOW price!!” She just laughed awkwardly and I pondered for a bit and then eventually said 70 and it was agreed, which translates to about $10.20. Which hey, for a hoodie I’m happy with that. Quite honestly though, she still probably got the better end of the bargain, but I’m just beginning and she’s a haggling expert.

At this point I’ve realized I haven’t posted any Engrish which is a huge let down I’m sure well the tag on my hoodie is just a beautiful example:

“feries of quick regular bus leisure dress
Product of quick regular bus system
dress in Guangdong
Very the you thank producting make
choice of purchase our company, for m
ake the product more perfect,
such as to the product or the service
of our company contain any opinion,
and please contact with our company.”

That’s a direct quote in its exact format. Pure awesome. The photos of what I bought are at the end of this post.

After grabbing some dinner and learning the phrase “Megabite a faim” which umm well it means I’m hungry… sort of. O and I also vowed I would teach Cam how to belch the ABCs (all of the girls are pretty awesome). Sandra and I also shared a meal of dumplings and rice which was a lot of fun, if a bit messy but was way too much food. Clement and I went back to our floor and low behold the trash guy was home.

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!!!

With Clements help translating I apologized for writing such a harsh note and took full responsibility, he explained why he had so much trash (people over or some bull shit) which I took as a “I’m so sorry how irresponsible of me I’ll make sure I never do it again.” He’ll do it again, I’m almost sure of it, but at least peace has been restored for the moment and Antoine is no longer involved. Some might also say that I pussyed out and eh, that might be true but you have to realize that the rift now no longer just was between the guy and me.  It now included my friends and they politely asked me to settle it, as I saw it peace and respecting my friends far out weighed my personal pride and the desire to teach this guy a lesson.  Anyways it went over well enough and I’m glad Clement is better at conflict management then I am.

Later tonight I might go see a movie with the Frenchies, depends on whether or not they get their homework done or not. I also better go tell Antoine what happened (he’s been at work since after I gave him the counter-note, and I wouldn’t want another conflict arising just because I didn’t tell him what had happened).

Life lessons being learned.

Pictures of the things I bought today:

The logo is also on the back and larger.

First Day of Ethics Class and Slippery Floors

Let’s get this started say around … 2113, 10-14-10

Woke up in the fog this morning, like not mentally, but literally in the midst of some serious fog, my room is so far up that visibility was pretty close to 0.

Today was also my first Ethics class, which for some reason they decided should overlap with our Marketing class, so what you have to do is skip one marketing class and one ethics class. I thought the class was actually pretty decent. I’m a little worried that because the class is half Chinese and half Westerners, that we’ll tend to start talking about “eastern” and “western” points of views, which has already happened a couple of times in class. While this is of course a practical summation of view points for a class that only has about 20 students I think we should instead be able to focus on an individual’s views. If we tend to lump all the westerns into the “Western Thought” category and vice versa with the eastern I think it’ll really dampen our discussions. But like I said over all it seems to be a good class.

Marketing was by far the most interesting class though. We were given an hour to choose a business idea, define a target market, and implement a marketing strategy for a Massage/Spa business. What stunned me though was one of the people in the class raised an objection that was like “I don’t want to do this one, it doesn’t interest me.” The marketing professor was pretty mad (and rightly so), he was like “as a marketing consultant you don’t just get to choose which business you want to market or not, your client wants to start a massage business, what are you going to say ‘o I don’t think that’s interest’. Do you have an idea that’s better?” They were like “Ya I do! Uhh uhh uhh, the environment!” I of course at this point was livid that this student was behaving like a prissy little baby and shot my hand up and said their idea didn't interest me.

Needless to say the person ended up doing the exercise just like everyone else. It just stunned me that someone that’s in an MBA class, and is supposedly in marketing would object to an exercise because “that doesn’t interest me.” I couldn’t help but ask the teacher mid-way through the exercise “I don’t like marketing, can we do something else?” He at least got it and thought it was pretty funny and said something along the lines of “Ya there’s always some asshole in every class.” I'm just happy that for once it wasn't me!!

Now don’t get me wrong I don’t think you should just go along and agree with the teacher. In fact just the opposite but objecting to pointless things for some trivial reason is just embarrassing and disgraceful. In the end though out of eight groups he said ours had one of the best answers so I was happy about that.

Let’s see…

O ya Sandra, Louis, Nathan and I went out for dinner, first going to the super market where I got some shampoo (but forgot the body wash) and mop to clean my room. After that we went to Pizza Hut, cause we were all craving some normal pizza. Lots of fun.

Mother sent me an e-mail, basically said: glad you finally shaved your face like I’ve been wanting you to do for years, relationship advice, and o ya your great grandmother is probably going to die soon so please send her a post card. :( Love you mom, just made me sad.  I'll try to find a way to mail something tomorrow since I have the day off.

All of the floors now are super slippery because of the fog hovering around our windows (they keep all the windows open all the time) so Nathan and I have had a lot of fun sliding around on the floors.

Anyways I’m off, probably going to try and go to bed a little early tonight.

Peace, Kevin

Marketing, Pizza, and a New Face

2213 3/13/10 The rest of the day.

So the day was basically filled with marketing, from 8:30 till 16:30, which is pretty intense. All in all it was a good class, though now that I my voice has changed due to my cough my laugh must sound even weirder cause the teacher mentioned how sexy one of the Chinese girls said her name (I like this teacher a lot) which made me start laughing and all the Chinese kids looked at me and started mimicking my laugh. O well lots of fun.

It was even better though when the teacher put up a nude ad to show the class. His Chinese helper was trying to not show it on the over head and slightly cover it up and Gogatz was like “no no no show the entire add” and all of the Chinese guys eyes were like popping out of their skulls. Pretty damn funny.

Sadly I got the marketing question wrong, I had suggested that they change the name of their stout from Murphy’s Stout to Heineken Stout but he said that as a marketing director I didn’t have that much power and Heineken wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize their brand label (duh I'm mad at myself for not realizing that) and the correct answer to the whole thing was “find a new job” cause basically the goal handed down from the parent company was unreasonable, and in the mean time just try to expand the UK market. Kind of one of those “o I could of thought of that” but in reality I didn’t which is all that matters.

Afterwards we hung out in Cam’s room and had tea and coffee and just listened to music and chatted (in French, but it was nice to just relax all the same). Then off to a pizza/western styled restaurant. It was fine but honestly I wish we just had their bread with our ingredients. O ya note to self, don’t say how good another countries bread is around French students, they get kind of riled up about it :P (love yall).

O ya I shaved…. just fyi

Here are some pics from last night (a professional photographer was there taking random pictures of people) and of my new face (sorry it sucks I don’t do self photos or photos in general very often).  I should probably upload these to the post I made this morning but just lazy at this point.

Clubbin at Guandi's

This is a morning post at 730 3/13/2010

I wanted to post this before I got to eight hours of marketing which would promptly fry my brain.
So Nina, Cam, Luc and I went out clubbing last night at Guandi’s White Love Party. We met up with Sophie (a Chinese girl from my marketing class, she’s very sweet), some other Chinese guy who I never was really introduce too, and our Marketing Professor! Needless to say it was kind of… awkwardly awesome.

Anyways this was probably the most poorly designed club in the world. The entire place was almost nothing but lounges (which of course you had to pay extra money for) which left you nowhere to dance, but they played the music so loud that you couldn’t talk to the people you were sitting with even if you wanted to. Needless to say it wasn't really my kind of place.

BUT we made the best of it. There happened to be this stage at the front and early in the night (around 10ish) we just decided to go up there and shake our booty. I mean why not? No one else was dancing, and it was just getting boring standing around while people tried to get by you. So we all (including the Marketing professor) got up on the stage and danced for like 30 mins. We even had two cute Chinese girls join us. We had photographers come and take pictures of us (as soon as I can find them I’ll post them here). So even though it was kind of embarrassing being in front of the entire club, we at least had fun.

Sadly though we got tired and just decided to take a break. Well as soon as we did they put a guard at the entrance of the stage and forbid us to do it again. Typical, your customers are begging to dance (and by the end of the night there were a lot of people just trying to dance in the aisle) and they choose to ignore them. They should take out the first two rows of tables of open a little dance floor. But hey that’s just my opinion; I won’t be going back there so I guess it doesn’t matter.

I also learned a valuable lesson, do not accept help from the staff in the bathroom, they then insist that you tip and just wanting to get out of there I threw down the lowest bill I had, a 50RMB, which is like $7.30 so no big deal, but still. I walked Sophie (I need to learn how to spell her name because one of the French girls is also named Sophie and it could get really confusing) home at the end of the night, she seems really cool and hopefully she’ll join our group.

Off to marketing!

Written around 1830 or so on 3/12/10. Hope everyone is doing swell on this fine day.

To thy internet,

The weather was gorgeous today, really sad I spent most of it indoors.  Sadly it showed off how much smog was in the air, but still two days ago it was snowing, now it's like 65F (29C or something like that).

Man the subway was rough today, especially line one. Three trains had to go before I was able to cram myself into one. Honestly if I had let out a good fart we probably would be facing a third world war at that point. But you know, for the most part people don’t get indecent about it. In the US we would be cussing and screaming at each but here’s it just the way it is and you make the most of it.

I want to give a quick salute to two people today:

1. To the cute Asian girl with a green hoodie on that had skull and bones on the back, caring a weed whacker and a fashion bag. You know cute, with the punk vibe going is all good, but you throw a weed whacker into the mix and man you’ve got something special there.

2. To the little kid peeing pants-less off the side of the bridge. Way to rock out.

I just wanted to say thanks for making Shanghai that much more interesting.

So I wish I could be a little bit more detailed about work today. Sadly I can’t really mention too much because of the whole “gag document” but my current project has been trimmed and they want me to finish it in two weeks. After words I move on to market research for their highest priority project. I seem to be insanely lucky with my last two internships.

I also just finished my marketing homework, not really sure what’s he’s looking for, I know he wants a super simple solution but I don’t see how you can gain 20% of the world market on anything without a multipronged approach. Maybe I’ll look at it tomorrow morning and cut a few off.

So tonight we’re heading out to party, shouldn’t be out to late, but I figured I would post this anyways just to make sure I could get to bed and sleep before class. 8:30 class on Saturday and Sunday sucks.

Your dearest admirer,
Kevin aka Megabite

Honestly wouldn't the world be a better place with more of these running around: