Amused by Rick

I get asked this alot. Or it’s replaced the staple hallway greeting, so instead of “How’s it going?” I get “How was China?”

It’s hard to tell when people really want to know how the China experience really was, so I typically say “it’s different.” If I get ribbed for details, I say..

• emergency isn’t “911″ it’s “119″
• cell phones have no voicemail
• the smog is so thick you can’t see past 2 city blocks
• there is no tipping (but the Chinese will certainly take your money if you offer it for nothing)
• people really do ride bikes everywhere
• McDonalds doesn’t taste the same
• everyone wears Prada, Gucci, Coach, etc. but it’s all fake
• there is a channel dedicated to Yao Ming
• everywhere you look, there are 200 chinese people looking back at you. everywhere.
• media is censored, but equally as useless as the over-sensationalized press we have stateside
• internet porn is fiercely censored but you can get laid in almost any barber shop in Beijing (they are fronts for brothels)
• in most public bathrooms, toilets are built into the ground. you have to squat
• many bathrooms are unisex — there’s a common wash basin but men or women can go into the stalls
• “tea” smells “clean” (like “pine” for westerners), so bathrooms reek of a nasty tea smell when, in reality, they are spotlessly clean
• it’s only official if it has a red stamp on it, the more stamps, the better
• there’s a puddle of grease beneath almost every Chinese dish
• fine wine is not served in fine restaraunts (at least, the ones that I went to)
• there’s a 15 hour time lag, as opposed to 8 for most of Europe
• China is a day ahead of CA
• the bacon at the Kuntai is the best bacon, ever
• the driving is unexplicably crazy, yet organized and sophisticated
• utilities are paid in advance through a card and cannot be refreshed until a lower threshold is reached, so you may be running to the convenience store to recharge your electric bill when your fridge turns off
• refrigeration is a rare concept
• fish served in restaurants are alive in tanks, get caught, cooked and served on demand. fine restaurants will ask you to visually approve the fish beforehand.
• doorways are slightly shorter, especially for people over 6′ tall
• cop cars drive with their lights on all the time, and noone moves over for them
• police don’t pull people over in their cars, they stand in the street and point at cars to pull over
• it’s ok to yell at a cop
• receipts are given in currency denominations, not on a single slip of paper. for example, a receipt for 175 would be one for each 100, 50, 25.
• receipts have scratch off “lottery” style games that could result in cash winnings, which encourages people to ask for receipts which businesses have to buy from the government
• credit cards as a method of payment are typically rare
• service is terrible in restaurants, but tolerable enough to enjoy the absence of tipping
• diet coke is rare, regular coke is the norm. pepsi is almost non-existent.
• there isn’t as much flag-waving as you’d think there’d be in a communist country.
• most major intersections have underground walkways for pedestrians
• Beijing feels very safe, at least in the areas I went to, crime is rare
• people smoke everywhere
• table tennis is a staple in most parks
• authorities do not carry guns. the only gun-carrying people I ever saw were guards at high-level government buildings and foreign embassies.
• for a number of reasons, the mix of cars on the road is totally bizzare: Volkswagen, Cherry, Buick, Shaghai GM, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Citroen with light sprinklings of Japanese cars mixed in.
• the Buick Regal is considered a high-line luxury car
• air conditioning, even on hot days, is rare in most places. even our very own corporate office.
• there are almost no motorcycles, they were banned several years ago.

So that’s my answer, as many as I can remember.

But beyond all that, the ultimate culture shock in Beijing was being asked where I was from.

“Los Angeles”

confused look.

“Hollywood?”

blank stare.

“California?”

losing interest.

“United States”

Oh! United ah States!

It’s weird to go to a place so uninfluenced by the West that they wouldn’t even recognize iconic names from SoCal. Perhaps that’s geocentric of me, but in all my travels “Los Angeles” answers the question just fine. Not in China. China definitely has it’s own groove, it’s different.

My little blog has suddenly ascended the Great Firewall of China, on a whim I checked my RSS feed and results came back.  I was able to log in and now here I am posting.. in Beijing!  It didn’t function all of the last trip in April and most of this one.  So on to it then..

Given Bill’s controversial height here in China (he regularly gets requests for group photos with people he doesn’t know), I thought it’d be fun to play Where’s Bildo.

Yesterday we ascended the other wall in China at Badaling, from the very bottom to the highest tower.  It was a tough hike, Debra raced me most of the way.  She won, but she cheated.

I had a chance to ride a bike from the office to dinner the other night, it was  a blast!

Just how bad is the air pollution in Beijing?  This photo was taken a day before it rained.  This photo was taken a day after.  Most of our time here has looked like the first photo.   You can barely see past a couple city blocks, no kidding.

They’ve just installed a Table Tennis table in the office, it’s been great.  I’ve managed to hold my own against the local color.

I really like this photo.

Here are the rest.

Chinese food is treating me poorly, but between the western style breakfasts in the hotel, an Outback steakhouse around the corner and the McDonalds in the hotel, I am doing ok. Halfway through the trip, I’m having a good time, getting alot done at work but miss my family and can’t wait to get home.

Oh, and I have a new name for Bill: Fun-chu (crazy pig).