family hike

So yesterday we decided to be eco-tourists here in Phuket. We wanted to go hiking in the jungle and try and find a trail to one of the peaks on the island (about 400 meters high). Everyone we talked to said you couldn't walk through the jungle because there were no trails and the woman at our hotel looked at us like we were from mars when we said we wanted to walk up the mountain. She strongly discouraged it.

In the end, it worked out amazingly well. We walked along the road looking for an entrance into the woods behind the hotels. (We even asked a few people for directions and they all gave us the same 'no, you're crazy for even asking' look). Finally, Jonathan noticed a little road heading toward the jungle and said we should take it. We didn't have any better ideas so we went with it. The road turned narrow and then turned into a path and then a 2 track and then a single track. Along the way, we ran into a Thai gentlemen on his little scooter bike who asked where we were going (we were clearly lost if we were on this path). He got off his bike and drew a trail map in the dirt of where the different trails could take us.
In the end, we made our way all the way to the peak (where there is a 50m tall buddha statue). It was about a 10 mile hike and all the kids (and mom and dad) were pretty knackered by the time we got back to our hotel.

Near the top we noticed the sign in the picture. It seemed like a simple little advertisement for food and drink. Then you read it again and you think 'did that say bombs, fuses, and batteries?' So the Chinese create crazy signs by choosing strange words and then misspelling them. The Thai just write crazy things with pretty good spelling that you just don't understand.

Final disconnected story. At dinner yesterday we were talking about something irrelevent and Nathan seemed lost in his thoughts. After a bit, he enters the conversation by asking 'what is the holiday where we give up wearing underwear for awhile?' There was a bit of a prolonged pause as Dee and I tried to figure out if we misheard our son or whether we've just done a bad job parenting him. My first thought was that maybe this was something his teacher at school had mentioned. This may seem like a strange accusation of a parent toward a teacher, but it made sense to me. Nathan's teacher is not a christian and thinks the christmas celebration is just another example of american cultural imperialism. To fight back against the American Christmas tyranny, she has instituted the concept of festivus: a holiday for the rest of us.' Complete with the 'airing of the grievances' ceremony with all the 5th graders. (if none of this sounds familiar, you need to watch more seinfeld) So if it makes sense to get 10 year olds to 'air their grievances' (it took us awhile to explain to nathan what a grievance is and why you might want to air them) then maybe there was some type of celebration where underwear was sworn off.

So after snapping back into the moment, we asked Nathan what he was talking about. He said, 'you know the time in the church when you give stuff up'. 'So you mean Lent'. 'Yeah, Lent'. And all I can think is what have we done. But then I was consoled by the thought that if giving up wearing underwear is an act of piety, than Jonathan is the holiest 7 year old I know.

Thailand

So we've had spotty internet coverage in Thailand, so we haven't kept up with friends real well. Sorry about that.

So a quick 'thought of the day'. We went for a 60 minute elephant ride this afternoon. Pretty cool time. nathan and emily both got to 'drive' the elephants for most of the trip as the guide walked behind us. They got to sit on the elephant's head and hold on to its ears as we hiked up and down some pretty steep terrain. Pretty cool stuff.

On the way back to our hotel, we rode on a courtesy van. In the window, there was the customary instruction stickers. Do not smoke. A cigarette with a circle and a slash. No music in the van. A radio with a circle and a slash. You get the point. There were like 10 stickers and being the old guy who has seen it all, you just glance at them and say 'oh, they don't want me to use a firearm in the van. Got it'. My youngest is not so jaded. He wants to go through every one. 'Hey dad, I think this sticker is telling us not to use bombs in the van. This sticker is saying. . . '

Then you get to the 'Dad, what does this sticker mean? Is this telling us not to wrestle in the van?' This has to pique your interest. I look over and take a closer look at the stickers. There was a sticker with 2 people having sex with a circle and a slash through it. Not sure why you need a sticker to tell you to not have sex in a courtesy van, but there it was, and now Jonathan was determeined to figure out what that sticker was telling him what not to do.

A better father may have used this opportunity to introduce the topic of sexuality with his 7 year old son. I stalled. This technique led Jonathan to come up with a new theory regarding the picture - that it actually meant not to change a baby's daiper in the van. I'm not sure how a silouette of 2 people having sex turned into a diaper change, but after he said it I convinced myself that he might be right.

stuff

The stories have been piling up, so here goes. . .

When I came to China in June, I was assigned a car and driver by the company. We had him for 5 months without too much trouble, and then the wheels started to come off the wagon.

It started about a month ago. We have our driver pick up our tutors and bring them to our house 2 nights a week for our Chinese lessons (yes we need 4 tutors for 2 hours every week to teach us how to say ‘hello’ and ‘excuse me’. Chinese is hard). After the lessons, the driver takes them home and he goes home for the night. Well, one night the tutoring company owner wanted to take our family out for dinner after our lessons (I think she felt guilty about becoming a wealthy Chinese woman solely based on the revenue generated by our family). So she took our family to the restaurant while the driver took the tutors home and they told the driver to pick us up at the restaurant.

Well, he made it to the restaurant about 20 minutes after us. He came into the restaurant, walked into our little private room, spit on the floor and walked out. Now I’m no cultural anthropologist, but I’m pretty sure in most cultures this is not considered a sign of affection. Then the driver called my translator and told her that he wasn’t feeling well so he needed to go home and that our family would have to take a taxi home.

The next week, I had a little heart to heart with the driver and told him that where I come from, spitting on the floor is considered slightly rude. He listened politely and explained that he doesn’t make a lot of money and we should pay him more if we would want him to work longer hours.

So we struck a deal (nice little psychology experiment). I would pay him an extra $15 every week, and he would do whatever we needed him to do. He would be nice to people, not complain about anything, and drive whomever we wanted wherever we wanted. So basically he needed to become someone he wasn’t for money.

As you might expect, this little experiment went according to the textbooks. He gets his money for a couple weeks and acts like a perfect gentleman. Then after 3-4 weeks the true colors start coming out. A tutor called him to arrange a pick up and he told her that he wouldn’t pick her up. When we confront him on his breaking of our little covenant, he calls the tutor back to a) apologize b) share some quality recipes c) yell at her and tell her that she is the reason he’s going to get fired. You’ll have to send me an e-mail to get the correct answer.

So we were done with 2nd chances at that point. We called HR to get a new driver. Turns out my boss is relocating back to Germany so his driver was going to be free. We worked out a little swap. I wasn’t sure exactly how the switch would go, but since our driver was an angry little man, I assumed it wouldn’t go smoothly. I’m not always right, but sometimes I am.

The switch was supposed to be on for Saturday morning. Friday afternoon, our driver gets wind of the switch. He asks for a meeting with HR and me and I manage to defer. He had to take my wife and 2 other wives to meet at a dinner where we were finishing our recruiting of a German engineer to backfill my role. So our driver took the 3 women to a hotel, but then decided he was done and took off. The 3 women had to find a taxi to come to the dinner. This was a good orientation for the German couple to realize that in China, not everything goes as planned.

So Saturday morning, I get a call from the translator saying that they didn’t know who would pick up our family that day. The old driver had not returned the minivan and the new driver had been using a sedan. So we got picked up by the new driver in a loaner minivan. We met up with another couple for a visit to an orphanage, and our van was there at the meeting place. We get out of the loaner van and shake hands with the owner of the car company that rents the cars to JCI. He said he had 'taken care of the situation' and that our old minivan was ready for us to use.

Now I’m not sure what it means ‘to take of a situation’ in China, but I don’t think I will be asking any questions about what happens to a guy who strands 3 foreign women in the middle of the city and then steals the car of his employer. I know he’s unemployed now, but I’m curious if he still has all his digits and limbs. I’m guessing I will never know.

My wife wants to add an editorial correction: The last paragraph was written in jest and mostly to add humorous content to this blog post. We don't believe anyone was harmed in the making of the this blog post.

forgot one thing

So in the US, I always thought we were a bit punitive on the whole smoking crowd by making them go outside to smoke. I think we even make them stand 50 yards away from any entrance to make sure us non-smokers never have to actually come within striking distance of those pesky little smokers.

Then I saw how the germans handle it. Don't make em go outside. Just create a small little public cubicle with no ventilation. You can smoke if you want, just step into this thick cloud of smoke in here and smoke away.

The best part is they make the walls all transparent so us non-smokers can walk by and sneer at the caged animals killing themselves in their smoky filth. I felt very superior as a human being.

trip to germany

So I had to go Wolfsburg Germany for a little over a week. Kind of funny how your body reacts when you go to a western country after being in China for a few months. The first thing you do is look for the sun, which of course I never saw in my 9 days. Rainy and 35 every day. Come on Germany, you can do better.
Then there's the breakfast. Oh sweet love. Fresh bread. Real cheese made from cow's milk. Coffee. cereal. Meats. Coffee. I was late for work every day as I thought it would be in my best interest to have just one more roll with nutella before I left.
Then there was the dinners. Meat and potatoes. And beer. And sour cream, which also came from a real cow. Had to attach the baked potato on my first night. It was like a shrine to the sour cream gods. I was eating the sour cream plain for the first 5 or 6 bites and thought I might need to slow down. I couldn't finish all the sour cream and it made me a little sad knowing what my wife would have done for just a spoonful of the yummy creamy stuff.

As a side note, I went out for dinner with my chinese customer one night. I asked them how they liked Germany. They said they hated it. I asked them why, besides the obvious answer that Germans live there. They had two complaints. 1) Everything is closed on Sunday. They work all day every day and then take off Sunday. The one day they don't work is the one day they can't do anything in town so they have to just sit in their rooms or walk around their little town. OK. I'll give em that one. 2) The food. 'really?' I say. 'for sure' they say. 'So when you go back home, what is the first food you have to have when you get off the plane?' I ask. Chinese guy #1: 'Noodles'. Huh. Chinese guy #2: 'Tofu'. OK, I'm not a cultural imperialist, but tofu? It seems to me that maybe the west has something more to offer than tofu.

I also thought while I was walking around downtown wolfsburg that I've been poking at the chinese for a couple months now. But there I was in the heart of cultured Europe in the alt stadt where they were getting ready for the Weinachtsmarkt and there it was. The 'al bundy shuh outlet'. Including the picture of the bundy family in case you didn't get the allusion to the really bad TV program from the 90's. I got to hand it to them for knowing their obscure TV trivia as Al bundy was a shoe salesman on the show, but do you really build a business franchise on that tidbit. Maybe all of our cultures are just a bit crazier than we like to admit and we just choose to overlook the nutty things that happen right under our noses every day. So here's to the Al Bundy Shuh outlet in Germany for opening my eyes and teaching me a lesson.

There was also the strange little russian theme park just north of town. It had these big russian architecture buildings right on the side of the road. Then there were windmills. Everywhere. It was a strange little town, but we were only a few miles from the old DDR border. I just assumed there was some cultural exchanges that took place after the wall came down. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I couldn't come with any kind of explanation and I can't read german well enough to know any better.

So here's to praying for a peaceful resolution on the korean peninsula. This has become a bit more important to us as a family as our present location is just slightly further than a nine iron from the border. Our school also has a lot of kids from korea so its quite the point of conversation with them. Strange world.

videos of the music festival

amateur music night in Changchun

Friday night we went to a little music festival at Changchun university Some thoughts.

You gotta love the guy who came up with the chinese language. They didn't bother coming up with crazy complex words for things. They just put together little words and call it good. The word for school is 'xue xiao' (pronounced shoe-eh she-ow if you're curious). So when it came time to come up with the word for college or university they thought about it and went with 'big school', da xue. Don't make things more complicated than they need to be

A classmate of Emily's was in the show so we went to check it out. She was the bassist in her little VanTrap family band. Her older bro does lead guitar/vocals/writing and her younger brother plays the drums. Seeing an 8 year old french kid on the drums was a pretty big hit for the chinese crowd. It was tough to get quality video, but I did my best.

My personal favorite was the russian kid rapping in English to a chinese crowd. I couldn't understand a word he said, so I'm guessing the locals probably didn't catch much either. It's not everyday you see a russian guy in leopard skin pants and a darth vader t-shirt rapping in English in a remote ciy in China. You never know

The craziest bit was a deal where 20 people got dressed up in pokemon-like costumes and pranced around on-stage. I'm not entirely sure what the point was, but Nathan was pretty fired up about the girl who was dressed up as the pokemon character 'hussy' (in the white fur bikini) I don't think she made it onto the video which is probably ok.

The Frenchies

So I got invited to go biking with a group of folks (3 French guys and a Brit) around moon lake on Sunday morning at 8:30 am. I was excited to find a group of folks who would want to go mountain biking and the thought that there might be trails that we could ride on without dodging cars, buses, and pedestrians.

Turns out the Frenchies like to ride hard. 35 km on the trail and then another 20 km ride home on the road and I was pretty knackered. I haven't spent 4 hours in the saddle in awhile and had a hard time walking for the rest of the day.

This made for a great experience for me, but hardly blog worthy except for 2 little details.

1) When we get to the top of the hill, the frenchies turned into movie stars with chinese women flocking all around them. Not sure what those french guys do, but they drive women crazy all over the world. Someone needs to explain this to me.

2) The luge run. In the middle of the park they have a little bunny hill ski run with a small ski lift. If you're not into skiiing as much, they have the alternate entertainment of little luge cars riding on steel rails at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, they had a cable across the rails that I couldn't figure out how to dismantle or else it would have been go time.

called out

So we got to go to another wedding reception yesterday. I was told that when folks get married, they have to have a ceremony in the bride's parents hometown, the groom's parents hometown, and then finally in the townwhere they are living. It makes for a lot of parties, but I think they make some pretty good cash on the deal as meals are pretty cheap here in China and every guest brings a cash gift. Which you have to appreciate the directness of the Chinese. Don't screw around with registering for gifts and all that. Just keep it simple. We all want cash. You all have cash. Just drop your dough off in the slot and call it good. And while we're at it, lets skip the bouquet toss, cake cutting, and any other ridiculous ceremony. Lets just eat together.

So at this reception, they actually had sweet and sour pork as one of the entrees. The lazy susan couldn't quite go the full 360 degrees before that stuff was gone. Turns out the chinese food we always get in the US is not the chinese food they eat in NE China. So when this little goody showed up, my four kids went to work. Lucky for us there were a couple Chinese folks at the table who could ask the waitress to bring another round so the non-stouts at the table could give it a try.

Another strange thing happened at this reception. Our table was chatting away when we realized that we were the only ones in the room. 2 minutes before there were 150 folks eating away. Now, just a solitary table of 10 white folks. It was like a bad B-movie (the disappearing Chinese zombie movie). I asked a guy later what had happened. He said 'Chinese folks go to wedding receptions to eat. When the eating is done, no one knows what to do so we get uncomfortable and leave.' Apparently 90 minutes is how long it takes for every Chinese man, woman and child to eat at a wedding reception. At 7:29 the place is full. At 7:30, empty.

In the end, we decide maybe we should go as well (since it was already super late at 7:45). As we are getting ready to leave, Nathan asks why we always leave so much food on the table when we go out to eat and we have to finish our plates when we eat at home. I told him that in Chinese culture it would be considered bad manners to only bring enough food to the table that folks wanted to eat and that leaving food on the table was a way of saying 'you served us so much food we couldn't even finish it all'. He didn't say anything, turned to the chinese woman next to me and said 'so what's the real reason why everyone leaves so much food on the table at restaurants'. He was genuinely surprised when she said, 'it's like your dad said'.

From here, Nathan had to ask the next logical question. 'If there is all this food left over on every table, what keeps us from picking out the sweet and sour pork from every table and taking it home with us?' Dee explained to him that this wouldn't be a good idea because it would make us look 'desperate'. This required Dee to explain what being desperate is, which is a surprisingly difficult word to explain to a 10 year old. In the end he came up with 'so we aren't taking the pork home because we don't want people to think bad things about us'. Dee said 'yeah that's pretty much it'. He ended the conversation with 'huh, that's not very normal for us.'

Out of the mouths of babes. . .

the flight back

So I realized that I begin most of my stories with 'so, . . .) I'm just having a moment of self realization.

So I came back from a whirlwind trip to the US last weekend. My brother got married to a wonderful woman in Petoskey and I had a chance to be part of the festivities. It was great to see the family again and to see Robert in a great place.

The return home was a little less enjoyable. The eternal flights, the jet lag, and all that. It didn't help that I was carrying about 300 pounds of food contraband in my carry-on luggage (turns out you have to pay if your checked luggage is over 50 pounds, but they never weigh your 2 allowed carry-ons.) I took this loophole to its ridiculously logical conclusion and had the world's heaviest roller-bag/backpack combo in history. A stewardess wanted to help me get my bag in the overhead compartment at one point and I tried to warn her that this might not be a good idea. I think she's alright by now.

So in the GR airport I get flagged by the security checkin. I'm thinking they are going to tell me that the little conveyor belt can't handle bags this heavy. Instead they tell me that I'm not allowed to have liquids in my bag. Of course I knew this which is why all my liquids were in the checked luggage. That's when I was informed that gels and pastes are considered liquids. Turns out that Nutella is considered a paste. All 25 pounds of it. I start to panic at the thought of throwing 25 pounds of Nutella away. The guard suggested that I should just move the nutella to my checked baggage (he obviously was unaware of my packing genius which got both of my checked bags to exactly 50 pounds and no extra room to squeeze in anything new.)

As a side note, the box of velveeta cheese that I had packed was not considered a liquid, gel, or paste. Which begs the question, what exactly would the authorities call it? It's clearly not a solid, but it is oh so yummy.

So I go back to the front counter with my nutella cases to try and get my checked bags back off the plane. I figured it would be worth the $100 penalty to be overweight on my checked luggage in order to have nutella in China. Oddly, when I walked up to the counter the woman asked if I was Jeff Stout. (this happens to me a lot so I didn't think too much of it). I said 'yes'. She said 'come with me'. I said 'Uh oh'.

Turns out my luggage never made it onto the plane. It was sitting open next to the giant scanning equipment. She asked me what I was thinking sending this stuff through the scanner. I said 'my wife wanted me to bring a couple of things back to china with me, but I didn't think it would be an issue'. At that point she held up a small bottle of bike chain lube and asked me if I knew what it was. I said 'bike chain grease'. She said I was wrong. In her world it was an extremely flammable liquid that could be used to make a bomb. She then asked why I lied when the checker inner lady asked me if any of my bags had any explosives packed in them. I said 'because I thought it was just chain grease'. Apparently she thought my smile at the thought of this ridiculous situation was inappropriate to the gravity of the situation. She made me give her my passport so she could make a photocopy and send a report immeidately to the fbi. I would be on a watch list for a good long time. I'm not sure what this means, but she was pretty excited about finally putting somebody on that list.

To complete the 'am I in america or china right now' madness, she ended with the question 'and what are you hiding in the gallon jug of syrup'. You can probably see where this is going, but I said 'syrup'. She said 'why do you need to bring a gallon of syrup anywhere and why is that thing setting off all kinds of alarms in our system'? I said 'my kids like syrup? and maybe your machine is a racist?' She didn't think that was funny at all.

In the end, Aunt jemimah and the bike grease got thrown in the trash. This nicely made room for my nutella (turns out one gallon of syrup weighs 25 pounds. A pleasant coincidence) The bag was repacked, checked and I went back through the security checkout and had a delightly short conversation with the original security guard about how my nutella made it into my checked luggage safe and sound.

I made it home and celebrated christmas in october with my wife and kids tearing up over granola bars, crystal light, chex mix, hot chocolate mix, and yes big beautiful jars of nutella.

potpourri

So it’s been a bit since we've posted. I think the problem is that after the driving day post, you keep waiting for the 'crazier than that' day to come and life provides daily doses of craziness but nothing to top that. So here's a collection of thoughts/pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Signs: You just have to laugh at the signs. I don't always get my camera out fast enough to catch them, but every once in awhile you have to snap the photo.

Shanghai Airport. Somebody needs to explain to the Chinese that when English people put 'you are here' on a sign, it’s part of a map as in ‘you are located here relative to these other landmarks’. In china, they want to be like the west. So they have signs that tell you where you are. ‘You are here’. ‘ Oh, thanks for the info’. From an epistemological perspective, you can't really argue with them. They get extra points for delivering unequivocal truth in advertising. I am indeed here.

Shanghai hotel. So I landed in shanghai at like 11:30 pm. I was tired and just wanted a hotel. I walked out of the airport and stood under the sign that said ‘buses to all hotels’ for about 20 minutes and realized that just maybe there wouldn’t be any buses coming this way. So I just started walking toward the ‘airport hotel’ sign. The hotel was only like $80 a night for some reason (no smart alec comment coming explaining why the hotel was so cheap. It just was a cheap hotel attached to an airport). So they gave me my key and told me I was in room 8713. I took the elevator up to the 8th floor only to realize there was no room 713. Turns out at this particular hotel the room number was room 13 on the 7th floor of an 8 floor hotel. 8713. I’m not sure why I would have thought anything else. I discovered that obviously intuitive solutions probably depend on the intuition of the person being asked to use the product. So the picture of the hotel room is with the round bed. Kind of a cool room with a ridiculously uncomfortable bed.

Shoe shopping. So right next to our apartment is a little ‘industrial park’. In china, this means little shops on the street where work is done in the shop and on the sidewalk. Heavy on the manual labor. I think I mentioned before that the corner shop makes HVAC ducting. By hand. Dudes with sheet after sheet of galvanized steel bending sheets on a brake press and then drilling/riveting ducts. Great big industrial ducts, little tiny adapter ducts, and the occasional flower watering pot. 7 days a week these guys are getting after it. I’m guessing they make peanuts, but they are committed. So next to the duct makers is a cell phone store. Our Chinese friend took us into the cell phone shop and then out the back of the shop. Behind all the store fronts is a large cafeteria with steps leading upstairs to a clothing store. Not sure how anyone finds this place for the first time, but we were in. This was clearly where the Chinese buy cheap Chinese junk. They had thousands of square feet dedicated to shoes. All types. All brands. All cheap. I’m not sure, but I have a hunch that the 29 RMB Adidas’ are not really made by Adidas (29 RMB=$4). I was also surprised to see that Nike, with all their work developing their brand recognition would be so sloppy as to manufacture one of their shoes with a backwards N. I guess Nike is not as tight a ship as we all thought they were.

Another airport photo. Changchun airport. Capitalism and marketing has not penetrated all of china. Yet. If you’re going to sell this and that at the airport, what would you call your shop. Why ‘the generic shop’ of course. Simple. Elegant. To the point. We’re not selling anything special here. Nothing to write home about. No niche products. Just everyday junk that you might want. Or you might not. Whatever. I don’t own the place, the government does.

Last story that I don’t have any pictures for. We were playing soccer again as a family at our local neighborhood soccer field (the one with the new slit in the fence every time the last slit gets re-wired). In the middle of our game, we saw some college kids coming over to the open grass field behind the soccer pitch to practice throwing discus. After playing for awhile, I couldn’t help but notice that the discuses were landing pretty close to the fence, but didn’t think much of it. Until one of the discs hit one of our bikes. Then I got mad. Turns out when you live in a country where you can’t express yourself and somebody does something to tick you off, you just kind of snap. I slipped through the slit in the fence, grabbed the discus and walked over to where the folks were standing. I yelled at them for awhile figuring that if they couldn’t understand any of my words, maybe a prolonged look at the vein on the side of my neck about to pop might get the point across. Of course I went back through the slit and they started throwing shot put as close to our bikes as they could (let’s see if the cracker will snap again. Hee Hee). We ended the soccer game shortly after that and got the bikes out of there before there was an international incident. My wife fears that I may have reinforced their stereotypes of Americans as hot headed nut jobs. I resented that.

Til next time. . .

driving day videos

parking lot pictures/videos

A day in the parking lot

I really like words. I like to talk. I like to write. I like to describe situations. Up to this point in my life, words have generally not failed me (you could make a pretty good case for me using too many words, but rarely too few). Now as I sit here, I'm not sure that I will be able to do justice to 'car safety day' here at JCI China. I can't imagine that words could possibly capture what happened last saturday, but here goes. . .
So 5 years ago nobody in Changchun had a car or a drivers license. You could argue they weren't real great at riding bikes since they seem to go where ever their bike and their little hearts desire. Now a small percentage of folks drive, but a small percentate of 8M people is a pretty big number. JCI has decided it would be good for everyone then to provide a safe environment to learn some driving skills.
HR planned a perfect day of for driver skill devlopment by having everyone who has a car at JCI(I think the number was 16 out of 3500 employees) spend the day doing races through obstacle courses with their own car. To keep it interesting, we would learn safe driving by getting timed driving through obstacle courses as fast as we could. One could argue that we would be learning reckless driving on this day, but you have to start somewhere.
So the day began with a review of the prizes. First place would be a 12 volt dust buster that you could use to keep your car clean. 2nd place was a feather wand that everyone here uses to ‘dust’ their car (reference earlier blog post about pollution). 3rd place was a tool box to keep your cleaning supplies. The consolation prize was 2 gallons of radiator fluid. As a frightening side note, at the end of the day, everyone poured one of their 2 gallons of coolant into their radiators. Not sure how all 16 cars at JCI simultaneously needed a gallon of coolant added, but it was clearly the thing to do.
Then it was time for the practice rounds. Since I didn’t have a car, I was offered another guys car to use. I’m not sure what kind of car it was, but the owner used it to race once per month in this parking lot going through these same obstacles. He apparently had been one of the organizers for the day. So it was a 20 year old car with a 1.3l engine. But it had sweet racing seats with4 point harnesses and significant lateral support on the seat. It was small, but it was used to the course so I thought it would work fine. We walked through the 3 obstacle courses on foot to begin, because you don’t want to rush right in and start driving. The organizer explained how pylons worked and how to move from the outside of a lane to the inside as you pass through corners. I’m not sure anyone was listening.
The course:
Race 1: Basically a counter clockwise track with significant hair pin turns and a slalom course through 3 flags.
Race 2: Seashell shaped course with reducing concentric circles until you reach the middle. 3 point turn around and then drive back out.
Race 3: Figure 8 course with a plate of ping pong balls in the back seat. Go to fast and get penalized for losing the balls. Go to slow and lose the race.
After the first practice round in the morning, my chariot was nowhere to be seen. I ended up have to use another JCI car for the rest of the warm-ups. At lunch the owner of the ‘race car’ told me his car would be unavailable for me to drive. I asked him why and he said 2nd gear didn’t work anymore. He said that his car was Chinese and it was not built to survive the way I drove it. Still not sure what I should have said to him at that point. I settled on “huh. Bummer dude”.
Lunch was when things started going from strange to crazy. First the dancing girls. I’m not sure who’s idea this was, but there they were. Portable stereo system and all. Sequin blouse/pant combos. And doing some sort of half cheerleading, half belly dancing routine. There’s only women who work in HR and they put this program together. How they thought it would be a good idea to hire dancing girls as entertainment escapes me. The other strange thing is that no one thought this was strange but me. I told a few people that we don’t normally have dancing girls at our work outings in Holland. They all looked at me the same way (you know the look: “what world do you live in white man”) and said something like “huh, why not?”.
To add to the ‘did I drop acid on my way to work this morning’ feeling, they also had 2 adult stuffed animal mascots walking around. I think they were both mice but I’m not sure. They never really did much, but they definitely added to the atmosphere.
After the dancing, it was time for the driving competition to fire up in earnest. This particular Saturday was a working day (this is a long story that will require a different post) so all the important people couldn’t come to driver safety until after lunch. So the VW CC and the Audi Q5 were not part of the morning training runs. What followed can only be classified as bizarre. Like twilight zone bizarre. I literally pinched myself a couple times and asked out loud ‘am I really awake. Is this really happening?”
People were ‘driving’ through the courses. Some were going painfully slow. Some were running over pylons, and some were going ‘so fast’ that they couldn’t keep the car in between the pylons. The 3 point turn around was a highlight for me. Forward. Stop. Wait. Reverse. Stop. Wait. Forward. Stop. Wait. Etc. . . “Look mom, I’m racin’”.
Needless to say I fared pretty well in the prize department. It felt a little awkward taking 3 of the 4 first place prizes. It would have been 4/4 except my driver insisted that I use his minivan for the final race through the obstacle course. The Audi Q5 beat me 44.5 to 44 seconds. This was probably good for my career as beating the general manager in his $75,000 car with my chevy venture could have been career limiting.
The day ended with one more dance from the girls and the mice, everyone filling up their radiators, and then everyone picking up the pylons and going home. I’m still not convinced this day actually happened except for all the dust busters in the apartment and the pictures on my laptop. Kinda wonder what JCI is going to be doing next month.

air pollution

So we were wrapping up dinner tonight and Nathan noticed (Nathan is the most perceptive person in our family. That includes mom and dad.) some small clouds of stuff floating around our light fixture. He asked what we all thought it was. We had never noticed this haze of particulates floating around in our apartment before. Then we noticed that we had left the window open for the last couple hours to help the clothes dry on the drying rack.
Kind of a scary feeling looking up at your ceiling and wondering how you had never noticed the thin, wispy clouds of pollution swirtling around. When we looked at the light in the living room, we could even see some there too. We weren't too sure what to think about this or what to do to 'fix' it. Our only thought was how much worse it would get once winter hit and the coal fired power plants all fired up and belched all new streams of sulfer into our air.
That was when Nathan, the perceptive, pointed out that maybe the smokey stuff wasn't pollution after all and that maybe it was just the same smoke that was coming out of our toaster. We all turned and looked at the toaster. Sure enough, there was a really black piece of bread poking out. And yes the toaster was only a few feet away from our table. And yes we should have noticed it. I guess this falls into the category of your brain's power to hold onto a theory you're convinced must be true and ignore the data around you that refutes that theory. We were all convinced it was pollution, so there was no need to look for any other reason why we would have a cloud of smoke layering our ceiling.
So, it turns out we're just a group of knuckle draggers. China may still have a pollution problem, but its also got a problem with at least one family of dim witted foreigners.

corn pops

Our shipment of goods came a week ago. And with it came some luxuries from the US. Spices, gravy, flavored oatmeal, and cereal. So it was with much anticipation that I fired up my first bowl of corn pops in several months. It was an unopened box that we had bought only a few months before. It was going to be fresh. We had bought bags of milk just a few days earlier so I knew these would be good and cold. Nothing could go wrong with this delightful little moment of American nestalgia (can you be nestalgic after 3 months?)

Of course I wouldn't be taking the time to write this down if things had gone as planned. Turns out they make all kinds of different flavored milk here in China. They're usually pretty subtle (I've had grape milk and wheat milk and they weren't bad). Turns out this morning I got the citrus fruit flavored milk. When you take a nice big bite of sweet corn pops with super tart milk, your taste buds get a little twisted around. I still had to finish the bowl, but it was tough getting through it.

I've decided to grow from this experience and always start with small bites until I'm 100% certain what's about to assault my taste buds.

I've fallen behind on the blog

So much happens every day, that if you go a couple days without an update, you feel like you need to set aside 2 hours to cover everything. So I don't have 2 hours, but I figured I could try and bite off little bites here and there when I can.
So I had to go on a work trip saturday morning to a molding trial in Ningbo. I really have no idea where this is as I've just been going where people tell me to. I think it might be near shanghai.
We've been working late every night trying to get some tools running properly. but we still get to go out for dinner. We must be near the sea because last nights dinner was a collection of fish that I had to choose from before we sat down. I pointed at a few things and I'm pretty sure none of them ended up on our table (except for the crab, which was tasty but hard to get at without tools).
At one point I pointed at a doughnut looking thing and I was told I didn't want that b/c it was fried ice cream. I reassured them that was exactly what I wanted. Turns out fried ice cream is whisker different in china. they get the fried part right, but the ice cream (if there ever was any) by the time it gets to your table is just a trace residue of some creamy stuff. still tasty, just not quite the beltline bar.
You should also be leery of any presentation that begins, 'you need to try this, its a local specialty'. this usually means it tastes really bad but they keep serving it because it's 'special'. Ended up having to suck the head off a fish due to my lack of preparedness for the 'must try, local specialty' appeal.
Breakfast at the hotel was also interesting. They had cocoa crispies. Come on. Or at least they looked like cocoa crispies. Problem is, since no one in china eats cereal, it could very well have been last years box. It was a bit chewey. It also turns out that there was a cold milk dispenser and a hot milk dispenser. This is an important point to be aware of before shoving a giant spoonful of old gooey cocao crispies in your mouth. I had such high hopes for that bite.
Finally, the pictures are from a clothing store that was on our way back to the hotel from dinner. I love the one t-shirt. They started at the top with such promise. Very. They got it right. Then haughty. I think they were going for naughty, but I'm not sure. They the wheels start to come off the spelling wagon and they start making up words. By the time you get to the bottom, they've given up any pretense of spelling an english word and are just happy to be stringing random letters together. You gotta know they were thinking people wouldn't know the difference anyway. why waste our time looking for a vowel.
Finally, finally. People do a lot of standing for their jobs here. All the security guards stand. The hostesses all stand. They never move. They just stand there all day. I'm not sure why this shocks me so much, but you see folks there for hours just smiling and happy to help. Or not. either way is fine. I have a job. I get to stand still all day and get paid. Life is good. Just seems odd to me.
Anyway, enough for now. Try again tomorrow. Peace out.

weekend with the family

Friday night we went to another wedding reception as a family. Two more JCI engineers getting married to each other. I guess that's what happens when you have a bunch of 25 year old co-eds working together every day. The reception was cool and the kids were a big hit (as they always are wherever they go). Kind of funny that whenever they have a ceremony, they expect the most senior people in the crowd to make toasts. In this case Wim Jacobs (my boss) was the most senior, so he got asked to step up and make a toast. A little funny to see a guy get blindsided by a toast request in front of 100 people in a foreign country where you can't speak the language. He handled it well. "Are you serious you want me to give a toast? Are you really serious?" The best was when he said they would be very happy together and then everyone laughed after the translation. The translator sitting next to us said the translator for Wim said he was encouraging them to have a baby as soon as possible. Which is what I've always suspected about using a translator in meetings. Pretty cool tradition with trying to toast each other by drinking wine with your arm wrapping around the other persons neck. Hard to describe, so just check out the video. Saturday was a trip to the soccer field down the street (2 miles). We snuck through a crack in the fence and played a little 3 on 3. We didn't want to play on a full field, so we had to drag the goal from the sideline onto the middle of the field. This was a bit heavier than we anticipated. So when we got it into place we had to flip it 90 degrees to get it right side up. When we did, Nathan held onto the cross bar and it flipped him up in the air until his head stopped his momentum by hitting the cross bar. Then came the unfortunate ending where he rotated, let go of the bar, and fell 6 feet onto his back. It was a funniest videos kind of moment except he wasn't laughing. We had a good game though and that makes all the pain go away. On Sunday, I took my bike to the grocery store. Turns out sunday is shopping day in china. Also turns out when 8 million people all go shopping at the same time, the stores get a whisker busy. Being busy, however, did not keep me from a couple of impulse buys. I came across a bag of cereal while I was buying my oatmeal. The picture on the bag looked exactly like corn flakes. I thought it was worth the risk to see what was inside that bag. The chinese have learned the power of marketing. I bought a giant bag of babyfood that actually looked like, well, baby food because it had a sweet picture on the outside. Hope springs eternal. This afternoon we went to church for the first time. We met some of the usual gang and went out for dinner afterwards. The kids didn't much care for any of the food. It might have been the bowl of blood pudding, cow stomach, and cow tendons. Not sure. There was a new guy at church. Phillipe. He's from Mexico as well. Kind of funny the number of Mexicans we're meeting in Changchun. He invited us to a "Mexican independence' party on 9/16. Not sure what a Mexican independence party looks like in China, but we're definitely going. He also said he would be willing to play soccer next week after church. Our kids will get their eyes opened seeing mexican men play soccer instead of their dad. We also got our slingbox working this weekend. Just in time to watch some quality UM football. (not so great watching MSU beat up on the broncos of WMU) Pretty amazing that we only had 5 channels when we lived on Francis. Now we have 1000 american channels now that we live in china. I'm not sure what to do with 6 ESPN's, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

pictures of weekend at Changbai mountain

weekend at Changbai mountain

Wrote this entry in word 5 days ago. Just getting around to posting it:

So our first weekend in China as a family. . . Where to even start.

So a group of JCI folks were going to go down to Changbai mountain for the weekend. I assumed we would not join since we just landed in China a few days ago, but Dee felt like a little weekend getaway might be a good distraction from day to day life. Even though it was a 5 hour bus ride starting at 5:40 am on Saturday, we decided to give it a shot.
Turns out nothing is ever as it seems in China. The 5 hour bus ride turned out to be a 9 hour bus ride. That’s a lot of time to be sitting in a bus 3 days after spending 24 hours in planes. We at least got to get out of the bus when the bus had to drive over a river bridge made of 4x6 planks of wood. It was good to stretch our legs (and not wonder if we would be dropping to our certain deaths).
It also turned out that we were going to make a 2 hour stop for anyone who wanted to go white water rafting (or drifting as they call it here). Since no one told us this ahead of time, we had no swimsuits and decided to pass on the drifting. So we sat and waited downriver for the handful of drifters on our bus to make it to the landing. We passed the time skipping stones until Jonathan let a rock fly into the back of the boat catcher guy. Turns out Chinese guys get just as mad as anyone else when some little kid chucks a rock in their back.
After we collected everybody we headed to dinner (12 hours after our trip began). The meal was already prepared and on the table when we arrived. I would like to say what was on the table but I could only identify 3-4 items. There was rice of course and a potato and chicken dish. Then there was fried little fish (think Chinese goldfish) that Dee liked and tofu that she didn’t. Some seaweed dish. Some candied pears on ice (we think). A pile of grey goo. A plate of bean sprouts and a giant bowl of tomato soup. The kids ate the rice.
After dinner we went to our deluxe accommodations down the street. It turns out that deluxe accommodations in rural china takes on a slightly different meaning. The boys and I shared a room with 4 single beds and Dee and Emily shared a room with one queen bed. When we were all settled in, we played the game ‘if you could improve one thing at this hotel what would it be’ game. We started with having a room key. Then we thought mattresses would be a nice touch. Nathan thought the walls could use some paint instead of being all white. Jonathan thought the water stains under the radiator could get cleaned up. Dee thought maybe having toilet paper would b e a nice touch. Emily really stretched and thought a western toilet would be great. No one mentioned wanting a shower. Not sure if this was an oversight or the thought of what that shower might look like in this particular hotel scared the thought out of our heads. Then we all giggled thinking about yesterday when we were debating whether we should bring our swimsuits in case the hotel had a pool. Our expectations might have been a bit high on that one.
When it was time to say goodnight, my wife informed me that she expected a little more out of me in celebrating her 40th birthday. Ouch. That’s not something I thought about in my 12 hours of time on a bus with nothing to think about. Huh. You’d think that would have crossed my mind. Not sure when this failure begins to fade. I’m hoping by birthday 41. Or by the time I doing some serious celebration make-up work.
After waking up at 5 am to catch a breakfast of rice soup (ta mi zhou) which no one seemed to care for (in our family anyway), we were off to the mountain. This involved another hour busride. At the main entrance, we had to wait for our tickets which gave the other Chinese tourists a chance to take photographs with our kids. This is a strange feeling having people treat your kids like superstars and/or circus animals but the experience was pretty consistent the whole time we were at the mountain. I don’t think it will be hard for the boys to meet Chinese girls (of any age).
Once we were in the park, we got to get on another bus to take us from the entrance to the foot of the volcanoe where we would climb 1200 steps to get to the top . If we were lucky, we would be able to see the lake in the mouth of the volcano. We were lucky for about 7 seconds. The guide told us we had to be back at the bus in 1 hour. I think I might have sworn to myself at this point. “We’ve been traveling in a bus for approximately 15 hours to this point and we have one hour to climb these steps, take a picture, and then come back to get back on the bus. Really?”
So the steps were a great moment of Chinese safety precautions. There were old stone steps that were being augmented with wooden steps. We were hiking up the wooden steps. They were in the middle of building the wooden steps. Apparently hiking next to drilling, cutting, and welding soldiers is not unusual in china. Neither is walking across balance beam wide boards spanning open spaces in the steps. OSHA would go nuts in china.
Once we were at the top, the picture taking of the kids really fired up in earnest. The wind was whipping over the top, but it was pretty cool. The thousand or so Chinese folks were all mulling about. My JCI colleague informed us that on a clear day you can see the N Korean soldiers on the other side of the lake. “I’m sorry” I said. “Soldiers? N Korea?”. Apparently this volcano was the border. OK.
This little curiousity was bumping around in my brain when we were suddenly getting herded back to the steps. I asked what was going on and they said that we actually had accidentally crossed into NK when we went right at the top of the steps instead of left and the two angry men were NK soldiers trying to get 300 or so Chinese folks herded back into their country. My mind began to race a little bit. I was guessing that the NK soldiers might be more sensitive to the Chinese tourist than they would be to the American family. I decided not to test this theory.
When we got back to the steps, all the Chinese were getting their pictures taken next to the sign that said, ‘danger. You’re on the border with NK. Don’t turn right’ with a rope blocking the way. Everybody thought this was good fun. I asked why no one bothered to translate this sign for the Americans. The JCI folks said they hadn’t noticed it on the way up. I think I would have noticed and I’m not a super observant guy.
After the Volcano came a bus ride to a river view. Then a bus ride to a different bus ride to go for a 1 mile boardwalk walk along a canyon. Then a bus ride back to base camp. Then a 7 hour bus ride back home interrupted by an hour for us to go souvenir shopping at a store that sold roots for $200 each. Apparently you can make a nice tea with these roots. We didn’t buy one, but some others did.

By my count, we spent about 24 hours on buses this weekend and about 3 hours in changbai mountain. That seemed like a bit of a tough travel to sightseeing ratio, but none of the Chinese seemed to mind. They were all cool with it. Not sure that I have the patience to be a Chinese guy.

Third Day in Changchun

So the family is back in Changchun. I've taken a bit of a break from writing in the blog which is unfortunate cuz every day is an adventure in this place. So, here's to Friday. I got to go the local police station this morning to get forms for releasing our shipment of goods from customs when it arrives (no one knows when that will be). Yes, you need to go to the police station to sign a form in order for them to give you the form to fill out. The one officer who can approve handing out the form was not there and the woman behind his desk playing spider solitaire was not authorized to give us the form. So we waited. I asked my guy how often this happens and he said every time. He told me I should be happy that we would only be delayed a few hours. Sometimes the official goes away on 'training' for a week and no forms are issued. Apparently commmunism has not quite perfected the process of form handing out. I wanted to take a picture of the spider solitaire woman, but I thought taking a picture of a comuputer screen in a police station of a communist country might not be seen as the humorous moment I was taking it to be. In the afternoon I got an e-mail that I would need another 2 passport sized photos of everyone in our family. This would make the 5th time I have had to do this. I'm not sure why everyone needs 2 pictures of everyone in our family, but apparently every agency in China would like 2 pictures of every stout in the country. At night we went out for a work dinner with the whole family and 3 JCI colleagues to the hot pot. This is a restaurant where you get a little separate room with a giant table (we bring 6 to any party which makes the need for the table to be large) with a giant lazy susan. Everyone gets their own pot of water with spices over a bunson burner and then you start ordering stuff to dunk in the pot. We passed on the black fungus and sea cucumbers. And the spinal chord. We went with the pork, beef, and lamb along with potatoes, tofu, and salmon. It was all very good. Two odd things: #1 the Chinese do not seem to have any type of normal cadence to a meal. In the US it seems normal to sit and chat over a glass of water/wine/soft drink while looking at the menu until everyone is set to order. Then the food all comes and you eat. In China, as soon as you sit down the menu is put in front of you and you need to start ordering. I tried to tell the waitress that we should wait for the 3 other members of our party, but she either didn't understand me or didn't care. So Dee and I are ordering stuff without having a clue for what we're going to do with it when it comes. By the time the 3 guys arrive, we already have food on the table and we're trying to decipher exactly what is in the little sauce bowls in front of us. Then food continued to come willy nilly until it was done. (someone ordered raw beef that didn't go in the hot pot. Odd, but tasty) #2 There is always something that catches you unaware. On the menu there was a special page devoted to 'noodle man'. The waitress asked us how many servings we wanted so we said 6. 30 minutes later in walks the noodle man. He starts with a short, thick strip of noodle and proceeds to do his dance with the noodle in order to thin it out. After doing his dance, he dumps it in the persons hot pot to cook. Then he repeats the process 5 more times. I can tell that I have not been in China too long as I am still surprised when a grown man comes to my table and does a noodle dance.

another day in paradise, china style

So I just typed for 20 minutes and it all just got deleted randomly. Blogs suck. This will now be the abbreviated version.

Sunday morning. Woke up early and had some pancakes. Turns out you don’t need as much batter for just me as you do for my whole family. I now know.
9:30 bike ride: On the way out of the apartment there was a huge traffic jam. The folks who live below us were celebrating a wedding. Turns out when you only have one kid, you got to go big. So in this case big turns out to be renting 2 Hummer H1’s and 1 H1 stretch limo. Turns out Changchun city planners did not have Hummers in mind when they laid out the streets. So the stretch H1 is trying to make a right hand turn down a narrow alley. After a gazillion tries, he finally ‘goes American’ and punches runs up the 10” curb, runs over a few shrubs, and goes on his way. This is what it looks like to go from a 3rd world country to being a global superpower.
The bike ride took me to the capital G ghetto. I wasn’t completely lost; I just didn’t know where I was. Turns out china knows how to do ghettos that are way more ghetto than American ghettos. Lots of shacks and lots of trash, but all the people seemed just as happy as could be.
So they’re putting a freeway through the ghetto. The one picture has a mom and her small daughter picking up sticks in the foreground while cranes are working the grounds where I’m assuming there used to be houses. The next picture shows the 2 walking away with their haul of sticks. I’m afraid they won’t get a lot of money for those sticks but they spent a lot of time collecting them
There was also a dude using a pickaxe to tear up a gravel road. He was doing about 1 in2/minute. He was on a road that was 30 feet wide and ½ mile long. He was by himself. I’m thinking if he works 7 days a week, he could be done by about 2035. Maybe. Or he could talk his buddy in the crane 50 yards away to give him a hand and he would be done tomorrow. China is a crazy place.
Went to church again today. Kind of interesting. It’s an hour service and the sermon/homily is like 5 minutes. The Catholic Church loves liturgy. Stand up, sit down, recite, pray, sing, recite, repeat. Takes a little getting used to.
So after the service I met a delightful couple and their 3 young children. They moved to Changchun 3 weeks ago. He works for Siemens-VDO right down the street from jci. They lived in Mexico, then Germany, then Alabama, and now China. It was all great right up until she asked where our kids would be going to school. When I told her she said, ‘oh that will be great. I’m working there starting this fall as their counselor’. I wonder if Dee would have wanted me to punch her for taking the job she had applied for or not. Life is not without its twists and turns.
After church, went to a Chinese restaurant with the priest and the Chinese philosopher with the Greek name that I can understand when he says it. The reason I knew it was a Chinese restaurant was because a) it had all of 4 tables, 3 of which had chairs. B) It had one window in the back looking out on a nice panorama of slum apartments with laundry and trash being the primary visual delights C) There was donkey on the menu.
Now some might have steered clear of the donkey. But since I’ve had boiled cabbage and tofu, I didn’t think donkey could be worse. Turns out it tasted just like roast beef. They shaved it nice and thin and it seemed like you should put it on a sandwich. You can see it in one of the pictures.
Ended the evening watching a movie. It was Chinese with English subtitles. It had Jet Li and one of the dudes from matrix reloaded. Pretty impressive cast. The director’s list of credits was little spottier with ‘Jason meets Freddie’ and ‘Chuckie’s marriage’ being the 2 top-tier movies in his portfolio. I guess you have to start somewhere.
Finally, I found out the word for mouse and rat is the same in Chinese. I got into an argument with the Chinese friend who didn’t understand why Americans always want to split hairs with our words. They were basically the same so they should be called the same thing (he took issue with the English words ‘rabbit’ and ‘hare’ as his primary argument). I ended up winning the argument though because the Chinese had to come up with a new word for your computer mouse because nobody wanted to use the cursor manipulating tool called ‘your rat’.