No, I'm not back in China, but I thought I'd check in anyway. This is picture of the driveway to my work location here in San Jose, CA. I won't be traveling to China again until after the first of the year and no definite plans for that yet. Take care. Have a nice Christmas holiday.

It's been a while since I posted something here. I haven't been back to China since August. I saw this article (see below) on how bad the air quality is in Beijing this week. It brought back some not so fond memories. I mean, I grew up in LA in the 70s and it was never THIS bad. The picture here is of Tianenmen on a particularly bad day. You can barely make out the Forbidden City in the background.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101119/ap_on_re_as/as_china_pollution

Here's a 10-minute video on food in Beijing. It has everything, touristy stuff, food, history, and, of course...Chinese rap!

Beijing Food

Electric bicycles are great. The only problem is you can't hearing them coming. Add that to the fact that they are ridden in any direction in any place in complete ignorance of traffic laws. I've had a few close calls, but luckily never been hit by one.

So, in this picture, how many safety violations can you count? Let's see...no helmet for driver or passenger. Riding through a plaza where children are playing....

I've seen a whole family on a moped or e-bike this size before, none wearing a helmet, of course.

Sometimes you just have to wince and look away.

Books on China

I've recently read a few good books on China. The most recent is 'Dreaming in Chinese' by Deborah Fallows. It is the first-hand account of an American linguist trying to overcome the difficulties of learning Chinese while living in Shanghai and Beijing. It is a light read full of all kinds of insights into the words, writing, history, and culture of the Chinese language. I learned a lot from it. Here are a few others you might like to read if you are interested:

China Road, by Rob Gifford

Lost on Planet China, by J.M. Troost

What Does China Think?, Mark Leonard

The Man Who Loved China, by Simon Winchester

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, by Gilman

The experiences the author had upon his first trip to Beijing in 'Lost on Planet China' were very much like my own. It is a fun and irreverent book, if not a bit exaggerated.

Shekou, Shenshen

After being in Beijing for 2 weeks, I flew down to Shenzhen in southern China, near Hong Kong. This time I stayed in a part of Shenzhen I hadn't been in before: Shekou. This is more of an "expat" area. I stayed at Fraser Place Apartments and had a large, 1 bedroom apartment with a dining area, kitchen, laundry room, living room, a DVD player, 2 TVs, etc. Very nice.

I also realized that I'd been eating Chinese food for 2 weeks and when I saw the Irish pub there I thought, "Fish and Chips really sounds good." And it was. I met an American woman there, too, who was with her husband and 2 twin baby boys. She gave me a good recommendation on a massage place. Over the course of the week I was in Shenzhen I had German food, Mexican food, and pizza. We ate at the same restaurant for lunch every day. It is a Hunnan place right next to our factory. You can see it and other pictures from Shenzhen at the link below.

Shenzhen Photos

Team Lunch

The last day in Beijing I took my work team out for lunch. I'd been to this restaurant, Hung Mao, before and really liked it. They specialize in 'jiao zi,' or dumplings a type of what we'd call 'dim sum.' We had a private dining room and lots of great food. Some of these people I've known for 2 years now, some I just met this trip.

See a few more pictures of the food here.

Dancer in Bei Hai Park

Below is a link to a video I shot of a dancer and musicians in Bei Hai Park, my favorite Beijing park so far. After I uploaded this to YouTube, I realized there are lots of similar videos posted there so take a look at those too.

These are amateurs. They aren't asking for money. You will see lots of groups of dancers, musicians, martial "artists," etc. all getting together to do there stuff in public in the parks on the weekends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDx0ZzsnyhY

A Day in My Life

So, here is a typical day staying at the Pullman hotel in Beijing and working at our factory. After I've gotten over jetlag with the help of melatonin, I get up about 6:30 or so. I go down to the pool on the bottom floor and swim laps for about a half an hour. Go back upstairs, take a shower, check my messages and see if there is time to get a few emails in before breakfast [it is about 4PM in CA so I can work with people in San Jose (SJ) at that time.] I go down to the breakfast buffet. They have a good selection of European and Asian food for breakfast and pretty good coffee. Sometimes I even run into collegues from Sweden or the US who I didn't know were going to be there; we all use the same hotel because it is close to the factory. I go back upstairs and pack my bag for work.

The walk to the factory takes about 15 minutes. Even at 9AM it's already hot and I'm sweating by the time I get there. There are food carts selling a sort of flat bread with onions that looks pretty good, but I am always way too full from breakfast to try any. The Business Development Area (BDA) is a very large industrial park outside of downtown Beijing (BJ). This is where I work. If you know what a modern industrial park in Europe looks like, that's pretty close.

It's nice to come to a place in another country where you already know people. I know a lot of people in the factory; managers and engineers, but there are always new faces. We have some "black taxis" that hang out in the front of the building in case we need them. I know one of the drivers. Jon always has a warm greeting and a smile though he doesn't speak much English. He was the one who picked me up at the airport when I arrived this trip. I told him I didn't have any Chinese money yet, but I'd pay him the next day. "Mei guanxi," he said, "don't worry about it."

I set up my laptop at the "guest" desk and get to work. I can plug into the company network and access my files just like I'm in SJ, or Stockholm, for that matter. I work on my projects with other team members, have meetings, go to the factory floor and work on manufacturing setups and such. [Sorry I can post pictures here of the factory, but if anyone's interested, I can show you some offline]

About 11:45 I go to lunch in the cafeteria with one of the engineers. The food isn't bad, not great, but edible. All the factory workers get a lunch ticket for every shift they work. Sometimes we go out to eat and there are some great restaurants - which you wouldn't expect it in the BDA.

So, the rest of the day is work until about 5. At some time along there, Sweden comes on line and I sometimes work with colleagues there via email and the network. We also have an in-house IM system that allows voice and texting. I walk back to the hotel. Sometimes I eat in the hotel or take the cab ride into town and do some exploring, get something to eat, then back to the hotel. TV is pretty limited in BJ, but sometimes I have DVDs I can buy cheap there.

On this most recent trip, a colleague from Sweden showed me a shopping area with lots of restaurants right in the BDA. Definitely no tourists there! It was extremely hot and humid when we were there, but we had Hunnan food (everything has red chilis in it) anyway. The was a huge supermarket there and even a massage place. He showed me his favorite Halal restaurant there, too.

Well, that's a typical work day in Beijing.

Dragonfly

The first weekend I was in Beijing I went with some new friends to a small village in the mountains. Here's a link to the slideshow. http://picasaweb.google.com/104196247008740226494/Cuandixia?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvCwfCP5ZGgoQE&feat=directlink

The second day we hiked up Double Dragon Gorge. Although we didn't see any dragons, we did see these beautiful iridescent blue dragonflies with black wings. Dragonfly is "qingting" in Mandarin. That word appears in various sayings:

Qingting dian shui: The dragonfly touches the water lightly (a metaphor for superficial contact).
[Sorry I can't seem to paste the pinyin with tones marks or the Chinese characters in this blog; still learning]

Dancing in the Park

This is in the Temple of Heaven Park (Tiantan) in Beijing. On the weekends, in good weather, people get together for a variety of activities. This picture is of a small group of people who were dancing. They might have been learning or just ...dancing. I've seen formal ballroom dance instruction, hackysack players, spike fiddle players (all playing separate songs together), harmonica ensembles, martial arts demos and classes, singers, and many others.

Beijing Traffic

You've problably heard about the huge traffic jam outside of Beijing that is now in it's....I don't know...15th day or something like that. Well, this was nothing like that, but it seems to me that the traffic was a lot worse than the last time I'd been there in June 2009.

Where I am staying and working is far from the city center. I have to take a taxi into town if I want to visit anything of interest. I usually take a taxi to the nearest subway stop and then the subway from there in order to avoid the traffic in the center. Even that took longer than usual; one time it took almost an hour. One night I took a taxi all the way to the center to meet a friend for dinner. It took an hour and a half.

The good news is that they are extending the subway/train system out to the BDA where I work so I will be able to walk to the station and take the train all the way to the city center. I've heard various estimates, but it seems it should open by the end of 2010. In the summer of 2009 they had only the supports for the elevated track done. Now, they have the tracks completed and are running test trains on it. It might be open the next time I visit. Things like this happen fast in China.

Arrrrrgh!

I created this blog before I left on my most recent trip to China in July. The idea was to make some short posts from time to time during my trip with pictures. When I got to China, I found out that all blogs, including this one are blocked. I couldn't access this blog to post anything.

So, I will be posting some pictures and observations that I remember from my trip. I will also post links to some slideshows I've created.

We're All The Same

At any given moment, 756,043 Chinese are checking their cellphones. Cellphones are called "Shou ji," which literally means "hand machines."

:: picture on the Beijing subway ::

Beijing Shoe Survey

Yes folks, I will be heading to China soon and be able to participate in many interesting and enriching activities such as my famous China Shoe Survey.

Welcome: First Post

Hello Everyone,

This is just a test post to see how it works.

Here is an image I am adding at as test. It is the factory where I work when I am in Beijing as see from the hotel I usually stay in, the Pullman Beijing South, in what is fondly refered to as the "BDA," or Business Development Area. As you can see it is a short walk to work in the morning.