The Rest of Us Get Here.

August 17, 2008
By AndrewWe (Eric, I, and my dad) arrived on August 15th, and surprises ran rampant. At the airport, there were security guards everywhere! We got through easily enough (my Dad providing more than a few headaches) and, after meeting up with my mom, made our way to our apartment, Xiang Mei Gardens.




My dad sleeping

On our way there, my Dad spotted a Chinese guy who, in the rain, had stopped his vehicle on the side of the road to pee. Naturally, this became our joke. Whenever we see something different, we ask if it's been peed on.

Anyway, our apartment is on the 35th floor. Because the numeral “four “ is considered bad luck in the Chinese culture it is not used in the numbering of the floors, e.g. 4th, 14th, 24th, 4oth, etc. So we will actually be living on the 30th floor of our tower (13th floor is excluded also). We were noting these numerical exclusions in the elevator when Dad pointed something out to me: my number in football for seven years has been 44. He said that if I tried to use my number in China, no one would want me on their team. Hmmmmm.... quite the observation, dad!

Never the less, the apartment is awesome. It has a great view of the Pudong area. Looking to the East, we overlook Century Park, the largest city park in Shanghai.

The building itself is easy to find from a distance. Just look for the balls on sticks.

Anyway, It's going well. The food here is really weird, and it's entertaining to watch Dad use chopsticks. It's really fun.

It's really nice, and my brother and I got our own rooms! Very important.

Mass of Stuff

8/13/08

If you’ve been reading my other posts you’ve heard me vent, rant and rave (you get the picture) about finding housing. In my last post I mentioned that I have my keys. We’ll today was “move” day from my service apartment that HP has been leasing a couple of years. In addition to me moving, I also am responsible for closing down the service apartment. Well, like any good home, the longer a person lives there; the “mass of stuff” accumulates.

Humm, so here goes, let me explain the process. Last night (Wednesday), Ava my admin assistant from work came to my apartment with me and we reviewed the “furnishings list”. This is the list that the landlord and leasee sign that identifies what belongs to the landlord. We began to discover that a lot of stuff didn’t belong to the landlord and instead had been furnished over time by HP employees to make it their home away from home more comfortable. Upon discovering the “mass of stuff” we decided to ask Zhang, my driver to come up to the apartment and Ava asked him how to move the “mass of stuff”? As she walked him around and showed him everything, it became pretty clear by the excitement and laughter in their voices that we were clearly in over our heads. At this point Ava turns to me and says, “Zhang suggests calling some movers.” You can imagine my thought process at this point, A) Oh man, too much crap, maybe I’ll just dump it off the balcony, it’s 29 stories up. B) Humm, ok I need some of the “mass of stuff” for my apartment. I opted for B, although A would have been very entertaining. One more catch, did I tell you I don’t speak Chinese and how in the world would I find movers? Zhang must have been reading my mind because at that precise moment he picks up the phone and starts making calls, keep in mind I can’t understand anything that’s being said. About 10 minutes later Zhang comes and tells Ava the options, she translates to English, I chose pack and move everything for 600cny (about $90). Zhang calls the company back, says 10 Chinese words, hangs up, then turns around and says “10:30 tomorrow.”

It’s now 9:50am today (Thursday) and the movers are here. I had been up since 5:00am working with folks in Boise and I had just barely gotten out of the shower. I answer the door and there are 5 movers standing there and they start talking to me in Chinese. I show them 10:30 on my cell phone text message and one guy says, “oh ok ok!” which in China is universal for “I understand”. I even catch myself saying “oh ok ok!” At 10:30 I let the movers in and they feverishly start packing. Ironically, one of the movers made sign language to tape a box and I ended up providing tape from the apartment. Five men can pack fast, including dishes and glasses. They started to set them in the box without any packing material. At that point I decided to say something because I need the dishes and was afraid they were going to break. Within an hour everything was packed up and everything was moved down to the 1st floor.

Then the rain came down like cats and dogs and the movers couldn’t load the truck so they just sat down by the elevators and waited. Once it let up, they moved everything to the truck. Zhang gave them directions to my apartment and off we went, almost…. The streets were flooded (up to 1 foot in some areas) and we had to make a lot of detours or sometimes just drove through it along with the scooters and bicycles. It took about a ½ hour instead of 15 minutes.

I opened the door to the apartment and within 15 minutes they were done unloading the “mass of stuff”. There is no OSHA, no contracts to sign, just get it done. What an experience!

Tomorrow my family arrives! Whoo Hoo!

08-08-08

Wow, the Olympics are here!
I can't begin to tell you how important the Olympics are to China. Not only do they want to make a great showing in sports, but they are on the world stage and everyone is watching. This is their chance to stand up and show that they can play with the other 'big countries'. And based upon the opening ceremonies, I have to say they are doing a fantastic job! I just happen to be typing this blog post on 8/10 and watching the USA and China men's basketball game. It's almost the end of the 1st quarter and it's only 16-16, both teams seem to be nervous and playing a little "tight".

Friday afternoon, my HP team had a small celebration. Roman, a Boise engineer living in Shanghai for two years organized the party. It consisted of pizza and drinks for lunch and we watched "Witless Protection" with Larry the Cable Guy. It was fun trying to figure out how an English slang blurb was translated to Mandarin. Roman did make the disclaimer prior to the movie that the local engineers "should not use this movie to learn English". Then we had a Foosball tournament. Let me tell you, these guys/gals are really good and take it very seriously. The winners, Justin and Sophia (their English names), were awarded matching shirts.

On Saturday (8/9) I went with one of my co-workers, Hernan, and his family to Yiwu (eewoo), a city about 250 miles southwest of Shanghai. We rode the "bullet train" and it only took about 2 hours to arrive in Yiwu. It is one of the commercial capitals of China, meaning, if you own a business and need to import goods from China, there's a strong chance it could have come from Yiwu. You can get any kind of goods, from jewelry to tires to clothes to toys. Now I didn't say they were the best quality, but hey, were in China!

Hernan and his wife, Alejandra, are native to Guadaljara Mexico. They have three incredible children ages 9, 6, and almost 3. I must tell you, our little family of 6 (including me) must have looked quite interesting to the Chinese. When I pushed the stroller I would get the funniest looks from the locals. I'm sure they were thinking, "That little girl doesn't look anything like her. A blonde woman pushing a stroller with a brown eyed, black hair little girl. " I am very greatful that Hernan's family took me with them, they are truly wonderful people, "la familia"!

On the way to my new apartment today, it started to rain really hard. It's hard to describe what I mean by "really hard", something like your in the shower and you can't turn it off. An umbrella doesn't do much. My driver, John and I were sitting at a stop light waiting to turn and we saw a big flash of light then quickly followed by a very very loud bang. Yup, lightening and thunder. It startled both of us and we started to laugh which is always good (icebreaker), since my Mandarin is lousy and his English is better than my Mandarin, but not by much. Remember earlier in this paragraph I mentioned "new apartment"? Well, I finally have the keys! I'll start moving in tomorrow once they finish cleaning, install phone, Internet and satellite TV. The apartment is on the 35th floor of the Xiang Mei Gardens complex and has a fantastic view of Century Park.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family, only 5 more days!