I Gotta Pack

Diego and I are getting up at 4:50 am, China time. Lucky we're not from China, or this would be a very difficult task. For us it will a leisurely stroll out of bed around 2 pm. We're going to the World Expo! Woohoo!

Friday was a pretty good day. Breakfast. Love it. [See picture.] I turned in the project I have worked on for the past couple of days. It was received well, both of my bosses liked it, and they said they were impressed I was able to turn out such a professional-looking report in so short a time.

Today I built a bike frame in Solidworks to celebrate finishing my report. I had been trying to make one while at USC, but I failed. Today, I learned a new feature which made it much easier. Woohoo! Now I can design a fork, and tires, and a little Solidworks man, and make it animated, and have so much 3D modeling fun! If only I were joking. I'll probably do it, and I'll probably have fun. It's times like these which tell me I am indeed an engineer.


We stopped off at our favorite Chinese-Italian restaurant for dinner. I got a pizza for three dollars, followed by a bowl of rice and shrimp for two dollars and an Oreo milkshake for another three dollars. By now you must be thinking, three dollars for an Oreo milkshake! That's Silk Road robbery! (Like highway robbery, only in China.) I think it costs a lot to import the Oreo on top.

Diego and I went to the gym at Nanjing University tonight. On the way there we felt a tiny drizzle and Diego wanted to go back and grab an umbrella. I mocked him accordingly, and he opted instead to just choose a path covered by trees. On our way out of the gym, the rain had gotten slightly worse. And as we walked, it got A LOT worse. So that we were regularly stepping through puddles. We arrived back at the hotel soaked through. There was a large crowd of Chinese outside the hotel. They did not smile. And that made us smile.


Tonight we wanted to get three laundry bags for the next three days of laundry, so we wouldn't miss out on our allotted two pieces of laundry per day. Diego just got it cleared up, after about an hour of confusion. First there was a giggling young Chinese lady in our room, who summoned an older grumpy Chinese lady. They played their respective parts well. The younger lady giggled and the older lady grumbled in Chinese. Neither of them understood our predicament in English (even when we said it to them really loud like four times, geez), so Diego had to go down to the front desk and he got it all sorted.

We're going to Shanghai tomorrow! And I Gotta Pack!!!!! (This is like the part in lame movies or books, or blogs I guess, where the main character says the title of the show or book or blog post and everybody goes, 'Oh, I get it, that's the title,' but really they're just annoyed. I'm glad we could share this moment.)

Fourth Day of Work

A pattern is forming; not only in the titles of my last three blog posts (which skips the third day. The Chinese consider 3 unlucky. ...No that's not true). My days are also beginning to resemble each other in a way which only a monotonous 40-hour week can inspire.

Diego and I wake up a little after 6 am, China time. He wakes up a little before me to go in and use the bathroom before I take my shower. I get out of bed grumpily, because our beds are very comfortable. I do some stuff in the bathroom for awhile and get dressed. When I get out of the bathroom, it's usually around 6:32 am, China time. Breakfast starts at 6:30, so we head down to the 3rd floor and bid the waitresses 'Nihao' before taking our seats. This is the best part of the day, because breakfast is awesome. I've been having a plateful of fruit (a banana, pineapple, watermelon, an apple), a plateful of breaded goods (banana bread, wheat bread, muffins) with butter, maybe some cereal (Chinese Cocoa Pebbles, Chinese Cheerios, Chinese Rice Crispies, etc.), and a plate of sausage, scrambled eggs 'German-style Potatos,' as the placard reads. Two to three glasses of orange juice.


We finish eating by 6:55 am China time and head for the door. We walk to our bus stop, standing behind the mini road on the sidewalk where all the bikes and mopeds ride. Our bus arrives, and we struggle to cross the sea of bikes and mopeds before the bus leaves. The bus leaves. We are on the bus. We leave with the bus. We ride the bus to our place of work. Diego puts his head down and tries to imagine he is not on the bus, because he gets carsick as the driver swerves and jerks the steering wheel to avoid hitting other buses. I read a book.


We arrive at work. We get off the bus. We walk to our office, which is behind the main office. But enough of that, it's lunchtime.

Diego and I meet up and walk to the cafeteria, which is all the way on the other side of the factory. We take our time. When we arrive at the 'canteen,' we see prototypes of the three meals offered for the day. It is Chinese food. Real Chinese food. At least one is grossly unappealing. The other two usually offer things we've seen before, such as rice or vegetables. They also offer smatterings of fish or duck. I had some duck today. A bone splinter nearly broke my tooth. We enter the lunchroom and proceed to the line appropriated to our particular meal choice. On our way we are intercepted by a lunchroom worker who forces cans of Coke Zero into our hands. We are honored guests, so we receive Coke Zero. Neither Diego nor I drink soda, so the cans remain unopened. But we accept the kind offering.

We eat our lunch, sometimes with friends in the company. We have made friends with two ladies, Eva and Lily. They are very kind. But today we ate alone. We try most of our meal, but stay away from some things. Everything is covered thickly with oil, though the meals have more vegetables than a typical American meal. We finish our meal and sit for awhile. Eventually we pick up our trays and carry them to the cleaners on the way back to work.

We walk back around the building, taking our time again. Many people stare at us. We are two of perhaps six Western faces at the factory of about one thousand workers. We get stared at everywhere we go by curious Chinese people. We go back to our respective desks. I work for four more hours on the important work I have been given. At 4:23 pm, I put my computer away and gather up my things to go home. I go downstairs and meet Diego, and we walk around the building and board the number 3 bus which will take us back downtown where we live. Diego sits with his head in his hands again. I read again. When we arrive at our stop, we get off and begin our adventure. It is 5:30 pm and we have four and one half hours before bedtime. But we need dinner. Our homesick selves have eaten dinner for three of the past four nights at an 'Italian' restaurant with a picture menu. They serve just about everything, and some of it tastes just like normal. Today I had two scoops of ice cream followed by deep-fried bananas served with another scoop of ice cream, followed by meat lasagna. Diego ate chicken drumsticks, a plate of pasta and deep-fried shrimp. Our food cost 98 yuan: about 13 dollars. This is our only expense for the day.



After dinner, we went to a music store I wanted to visit and played with the instruments for awhile. I want to buy one, but the one I want is 400 yuan, or about 57 dollars. It's a Chinese clarinet, sort of. They also have beautiful bamboo Chinese flutes, but I've never succeeded in making sound issue from a flute. I may buy one for the chance to try.

We walked to another music store to compare prices and look at their instruments, then we walked home. Diego exercised and I came down to join him just in time to accompany him back to the room. We tried for the fourth time to find the sauna, but the massage place in the basement, called Hot Springs, has been giving us the runaround. It is a very weird place. I think it must be a rampant sex massage parlor.

Now it's bedtime again. I'll probably read some more. I'm reading a book about Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and now I really really want to travel there. Hopefully we can get a week off of work or something. This weekend we're going to the Shanghai expo. We are paying 500 yuan for a bus trip there and back, three-day tickets to the expo, two dinners and two nights in a fancy hotel. The expo tickets alone cost 400 yuan, so the company is giving us a great deal. There is no doubt they are treating us well. But I know with certainty from my partial week of work that I do not want to work at a desk. My eyes hurt from staring at my computer, and my back hurts because the chair is awful, and I feel like an old man when I get up. Not a spry old man either.

We're both excited to see the Shanghai expo this weekend. I'll be sure to tell you all about it. Grandma Rosemary said I had to see it with the hundred dollars she gave me, and I'll be doing it with money to spare. Woohoo!

Second Day of Work

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Yesterday was real bad. I didn't want to go back to work. And not because it was hard. Because I felt like I was just in the way. Like I wasn't needed. Like I was imposing. I felt I was in a place I didn't belong, and I was just wasting everyone's time. The feeling was familiar. I had grappled with the same issues four fortnights ago, when I joined the USC football team....

It was a hot March evening, and I had to go to the bathroom. I and the other twenty-two potential walkons were told to show up at 5 pm, and we had been standing on the sidelines for over an hour, waiting for practice to end so we could take the field and prove our worth as D1 football players. Most of our time was spent puffing out our chests and checking each other out. 'Ya, I could take that guy,' was on everybody's mind as we each looked at our fellow walkons, and it was only true for half of us. Statistically.

Finally, the time came and we trotted onto the field. We ran down to the far end and did some quick drills to warm up our legs. Some of the guys were really getting into it, hoping to impress the coaches by getting SO WARMED UP! I took my time, going through the drills hard, but trying not to look like an idiot.

We finished warming up and the coach in charge told us all to line up on the endline. Specialty players (running backs and wide receivers) were up first; all other positions were second. We were running 110-yard sprints. The first group needed to make it in under 15 seconds; the second, under 17. And we started running.

I was in the second group, of course. Although I cannot pinpoint the exact position I would assume on a D1 football field, I can state with absolute certainty that it would be in the 'other positions' category. A broad category which contains positions as yet uncreated, for which the ideal candidate would be a tall, gawky engineer whose knees were in pain from the marathon he ran nine days ago. On second thought, maybe that is more of a specialty position. At any rate, I went with the slower group. And oh boy did I go. During the first sprint, I was near the end of my group. I'm not really fast. But as we kept running, I moved closer and closer to the lead. We ended up running ten of the sprints, and for the last three I finished either first or second, and I finished under 17 seconds every time.

The coaches gathered us up. We all thought we were going to go run 40-yard dashes, or catch some footballs, or at least sign some autographs in order to prove ourselves. But one of them just asked whether we could make it to a 7 pm meeting on the following day, and dismissed us, saying they would email those of us who made the team.

I was confused about the nature of the tryout, but I went home satisfied. I fulfilled my quixotic dream of trying out for a real football team, and I held my own. Hell, I thought with a chuckle, I might even make it. And with that frightening thought in my mind, I fell softly asleep....Actually, that's not how it happened. I'm getting carried away with the story telling. In reality, they emailed us at about 10 pm that night. I had been checking my email like a madman. I expected them to accept about three guys, five at the most. And I thought I might just be in that exclusive group. So when I saw the list of the fifteen recipients of the email, I was surprised, and even more confused. Maybe I hadn't made the team yet. Maybe the meeting was a consolation meeting for those of us who suck. Who knows?

I do, because I went to the meeting. I did indeed make the USC football team. What the hell? I never wanted to make the team. Whose idea was this? Anyway, the coaches told us what time to show up for practice each week, and gave us some forms and sent us on our way. Naturally, I had class during two of the three practices. I talked to the coach, who, surprisingly, did not offer to reschedule practice to fit around my classes. So I went home with a choice to make. After talking to my appointed athletic advisors, I chose to rearrange my classes and join the football team. Sure, I would be stretching myself pretty thin, but this was the USC football team! Given the chance to join, I had to at least try it.

So I went to practice the next day. I was nervous. All the walkons were. The players (which included me, for this brief time) showed up at 2:15 and met in an auditorium, where we talked about special teams, and the drills we would run that day during practice. After special teams, Coach Kiffin talked to us about the team in general. Then we split up into offense and defense. Being, obviously, a DIVISION ONE COLLEGE FOOTBALL LINEBACKER, I went with the defense. Next, we split into position meetings, so the linebacker coach Joe Barry talked just to us division one college football linebackers. After all these meetings, we went to pick up our gear for the team. They gave us literally everything we needed to practice and workout. Cleats, socks, underwear, shorts, a shirt, pants with pads, shoulder pads, a jersey and a helmet. IT WAS AWESOME.

I quickly went to put on all my stuff and rushed out onto the practice field. Adoring fans lined the way. No joke. I got into the practice field and milled around for awhile as the real players went over formations and defensive assignments. Then the team all gathered up and stretched together and did skips. After warming up, we moved right into the special teams game: Lions and Gazelles.

The first day was the only day I would participate in a special teams game. Granted, I was only on the team for three practices, but still. I watched for awhile to get the feel of the game. Basically it was a foot race with a little bit of agility thrown in at the end. Cool, I thought. I got it. I jumped in (or was thrown in, I can't remember which) against another white kid and readied myself. Because that's what you do when you're about to compete against a D1 athlete. You ready yourself.

The coach shouted go and we started. I turned and sprinted for the cones and watched in horror as my gazelle breezed past me as if I were standing still. I lost, painfully. The next time around, I was paired up with the same guy. His name is Jordan Cameron, I think he's a tight end. He's about my size, a little bit bigger. Way faster. This time he embarrassed me even worse, shoving me onto my butt at the end of the drill. It was part of the game, and he helped me up, but it was pretty bad. All the other guys were laughing and one of the other players told me I should probably just go and stand with the fans. (Yes, USC football practices have fans, and lots of them. Ridiculous.)

I spent one week on the team. I wasn't publicly embarrassed again, but this was only because I went to great lengths to avoid these situations. It wasn't the same game I played in high school. Not only were the players better, but I didn't know anybody. I wasn't part of the team. Add in the time I wasted during team meetings and in practice while I watched from the sidelines as the other players scrimmaged, and the resulting stresses on my classes and homework, and the bottom line was that I wasn't having fun.

So I quit. It was a tough decision, but it was the right one. When I told the coach, he didn't seem very surprised. He told me I could give my gear to the guys downstairs, and he gave me a firm handshake. I didn't give him any excuses, and he didn't ask for any. I just told him I was quitting, and I think he understood there were reasons enough. I turned in my stuff (they didn't let me keep anything!) and that was the end of my time on the football team.

Wait a minute, what was I talking about? Aren't I in China? Sorry, I guess I lost my train of thought. Back to the present. Today was much better. Granted, I spent four hours before lunch proofreading a company history booklet they gave me, convinced I could do a better job (and I can, and will), but after lunch, I asked for and was given some real live engineering work to do! One of the engineers gave me a part to model, and now I'm building it on the computer. I don't really understand how they made the part without a computer model though. It's possible they just gave me something to do to make me happy. But it worked, so I'm happy.

I spent over an hour downstairs in the gym, lifting weights with Diego and riding the bicycle and swimming. I think it did me a lot of good. We've been looking for a good place to do pullups, and today we experimented with placing the weight bar on a door-frame type place and doing pullups from the bar. The Chinese attendant in the gym didn't like this idea one bit and tried to explain to us why it wasn't safe. But we opted to show him it was safe by doing it anyway. I think it worked.

I want to thank everyone who reads this blog and has given me encouraging words over the past few days. I have great friends and a great family, and appreciate both immensely.

LOVE,
KEVIN

First Day of Work

I've figured out why the meat over here bothers me. It's because it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what part of the animal your meal is coming from. Whether its a funny bone, or some well-placed fat, or some feathers, or a beak, or horns, there are always some clues to help you grasp the fact that you're eating another flesh-and-blood animal.

Today was our first day of work. We caught a shuttle bus to the office outside of our hotel at 7:10 this morning which took us to the headquarters, which is located about 25 km away. We met our advisor and he explained a little about the company and its position in the Chinese market. He also asked us what we were interested in doing. There is a huge factory, 400,000 square feet, where they produce the water heaters all the way from basic sheet metal. We finished our tour by peeking into all the offices. At the call center, employees receive 4000 calls and make 5000 calls daily. He also showed us the engineering division where Diego and I will be helping out.

We still didn't have cell phones, and when one of our hosts asked us if we needed help with anything, we brought this up. She left for ten minutes and returned with two cell phones for us to use during our stay here. We were also given company laptops on which to do all our important work. The company is treating us very well. We get free lunch there every day also, which means we will have two meals provided every weekday here in Nanjing.

During the afternoon, Diego and I joined our respective engineering divisions. Neither of us had much to do this afternoon though. I think we'll need to be very proactive in finding work if we want to be useful to the company.

This blog's not very funny, I can tell. I'm sorry. I'm tired. Of China. No, not really. But China's tough. Got me on the ropes. I'm excited about the possibility of travel though. Our boss asked if we might want to take a little time off to travel. If it's possible, I would love to go to Tibet. I love big mountains, and I've read a lot about the area. It could be a little expensive, but I might not have another chance. So maybe I'll take a couple/few/eight weeks off and go to Tibet. More on this later.

Presidential Palace

Salvation, thy name is breakfast. Diego and I were immensely relieved this morning on discovering that the hotel breakfast which USC has arranged for us every morning is quite to our liking. It is huge, and offers everything two foreigners could ask for. I mean, they even had banana bread. And considering that hardly any breakfast places in America will even serve you banana bread, you should have some idea what this place is like. It is buffet-style. We were curious how much we would have to pay for lunch and dinner at this restaurant: 120 and 180 yuan, respectively, or roughly 18 and 26 dollars. That's a lot of money, especially over here. But we get breakfast for free, so we'll just load our pockets with pork fried rice and go on our merry way.

I'm pretty tired. But I want to share some pictures from the Presidential Palace, which we toured today with our guides, Cheryl and Vicky. (Those aren't their real names. We can't pronounce their real names.) Nanjing is famous for two things, as I've ascertained: most notably, as the site of the worst aggression during the Japanese occupation of the Second World War, and secondly, as the birthplace of capitalism in China. Born in 1912, capitalism grew happily into its mid-thirties before being put to bed by Mao Tse-tung in 1949. Nanjing was the capital of China until that point, when Mao moved the capital to Beijing. Anyway, the Presidential Palace was the main government place when Nanjing was the cat's pajamas in China. No dogs allowed. Even cute cartoon dogs.

The palace was nice. Still very few foreigners though. It seems strange to see a Chinese tourist location filled with Chinese people, though I can't figure out why. It's their country. And it's huge, with tons of people. At any rate, the Presidential Palace contained one Westerner, other than Diego and myself, today.

There were ladies in rubber gloves rubbing insecticide on individual clovers in the grass. I found it a bit strange, and so did the Chinese tourists.


We got some more Chinese food after going to the Presidential Palace. All four of us shared some soup, dumplings, chicken, pork, vegetables and rice, and most of it was very delicious. I suppose I can survive here after all. We paid under 20 dollars for everything, and had plenty of food left over.

On our way back to the hotel, I talked to Cheryl and tried to learn some more Chinese. She taught me yes (shida, pronounced like a bad word, but with da at the end), no (boo) and how much is it (duosho qian. qian sounds kinda like tsien. Cheryl kept telling me to use my nose to say it, which confused me until we figured out she meant teeth.) Coupled with some basic things USC taught us before we left, I...still have absolutely no idea how to speak Chinese.

Bedtime. Work tomorrow.

The Beginning

Dude, China's all up in my face.

I've been here for one day and I'm hopelessly overwhelmed. I was doing pretty good for the whole plane journey, even though one of our flights was delayed and we were given some weird Chinese food as a compensation/punishment. (It was very weird. They gave us a goopy brown egg wrapped in plastic, and these super-enriched fake bread things which probably provided my body with enough preservatives to stick around until the sun explodes.) The sights and sounds of this city are not overwhelming. True, the smog makes it difficult to see the tops of buildings, and the drivers must navigate with only one hand, as the other is reserved always for honking. But what has amazed me and my friend Diego are the smells. It seems impossible to escape the lurking smell of feces on the streets of Nanjing. It's worst in the underground tunnels which lead pedestrians between subways and sidewalks, where the smell seems to have no source, but seeps from the walls where it has made its home for decades and into the nostrils of every passerby. It's a hard smell to describe, and I fear it may be even harder to accept.

Worse still is the addition of cooking smells to the mix. There are many fast food restaurants in the underground tunnels, and when the odor of barbecued duck meets the stench of stale human decay, it takes a strong stomach indeed to bear it. It was evidence enough that the two extremes of the digestive system should remain extremely far apart. I had a meal in the underground, and neither I nor Diego enjoyed it much. The tastes were just so foreign, as if they had discovered a spice which had never made it over to America. I suspect the real cause of the pervading sense of foreign taste may have been due to the water used to prepare the meal, because even the rice didn't taste like rice I'd eaten before.

Naturally, the difficulties of today have only strengthened my resolve to understand and embrace this place. During the first flight, I sat next to another Westerner whom I quickly learned had lived and worked in Beijing for the past several months. She seemed determined to tell me something about myself, so I settled down and listened as she told me the four stages my trip would assume. First would be the honeymoon, which occurs during the first day or two after arriving, during which I would fall in love with all things Chinese. Check. Second, disaster would strike! I would grow homesick and sad, and angry at the Chinese for not embracing my Western way of life. And thirdly would come something else, I don't know, the Rapture or something, where I learn that to live in China, I had to live as the Chinese lived and respect their ways, not trying to impose my way of life on their culture....Did I say there were four steps? Damn, if only there were a way to go back and fix my mistake, but alas...don't want to.

Anyway, the point is that I don't like to be told who I am by strange women with gaudy jewelry, so I've decided I'm just going to skip to the last step (which would be the third...or fourth?...) I realize the foolishness of trying to embrace a culture while living in a five-star hotel which provides every accommodation to its patrons, but I'm going to try nonetheless.

It was comforting, in a horrifying kind of way, to find Wal-Mart over here. We went inside and stocked up on cheap merchandise, probably made in China. We were afforded a special opportunity, as one of the workers made a point to try to sell us specific products, one after another, with breathtaking testimonials and demonstrations. We ended up buying something other than her recommendation every time, but I appreciated her effort. It takes a strong person to remain cheerful while wearing a Wal-Mart uniform.

Our hosts have been really amazing, picking us up from the airport and helping us find our way around this huge city. We would both be lost and dead and penniless and dead without them. This evening we went on a long walk and ended up in Nanjing University, where both our hosts attend school. It was really nice to be on a college campus again, no matter how far away from home. Diego and I asked a lot of questions about how they did things, and received a lot of interesting answers. We popped our heads in on a concert of Chinese folk music, which really interested me. I want to buy a Chinese instrument here and learn how to play it.

There's much more I could write, but my minutes of consciousness as I write right now are as limited as yours while you try to read this nonsense, so I better hang it up for the night. This city is special, and offers us a special opportunity. Walking around today, I must have seen at least five thousand faces, and no more than five of them were of Western origin. We're foreigners in a foreign land, and I'm eager to learn how to be a local.

Interim

Between March 21 and the end of school, I did some stuff. I joined the football team for awhile, but I quit because they weren't my style, you know, always winning and whatnot. I got accepted to the Global Fellows program which sends USC kids to China (for free!) to work in internships for Chinese companies, and I'll be working with a water heater company during the summer (aka now). Then I took some finals and drove home in my rusty old car and it didn't explode, which is always a notable achievement.