BMW Parking Lessons

See if you can do this. I saw some Chinese classes offered in BMW parking.

http://videobeijing.com/2006/07/24/park-bmw/

Miscellaneous Sights

Nothing new and exciting going on. Work is busy, AF preparing for mid-terms, BF finding good tailors and shops. We are winding down and getting ready to come back to the US for the Christmas Holiday.

So here is an interesting view at some of the Beijing sights:

http://videobeijing.com/2006/10/30/beijing-attractions-with-rock-music/

Rural Migrant Construction Workers

Rural migrant workers from the rural areas of China are a big part of the Beijing scene. This is played out all over urban areas in China as well. We see new migrant housing going up all the time near new building work sites. Here is a You Tube video concerning these people that I thought was interesting and wanted to share with you.

http://videobeijing.com/2006/10/31/beijing-construction-workers-life-off-the-clock/

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday evening at the home of a wonderful US family from Portland. We met some fantastic and interesting new people as well. A young doctor from Oman, Jordan; a consultant from the UK and his lovely wife who is a writer with a Beijing magazine from the US; and an electrician from Mississippi who is working on the new US Embassy; and a tennis pro who has lived all over the world and was moving to Desert Springs in CA on Tuesday.

The host family live in a fantastic apartment near Chaoyang Park. Getting there in a taxi was interesting since we had not been there before. It took us a few calls to make sure we were indeed at the right building and how to get into the new building.

The evening started with the journalist informing us that a couple of photographers would be coming over to take some photos for her magazine. They needed some material for an article on wine drinking in Beijing. BF and AF volunteered to be in the shoot. Should be interesting......

The meal was wonderful with all the traditional dishes (turkey, potatoes, cranberry, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, pumpkin pie, apple pie and pecan pie). It was a great feast. We all talked a little about what we were thankful for around the dinner table. Being in Beijing and having these new friends to celebrate Thanksgiving was certainly something to be thankful for. The doctor commented on how many of his patients (mostly English speaking expatriates) he has treated who are here alone and have no one to care for them while they are sick and recuperating.

Thanksgiving has so many memories for us. This one is a whole new chapter and will be remembered for years to come.

YouTube

If you have never seen you tube here is an interesting way to convey some of the interesting things we face or see in China. I will try to pick some good ones. Below is a pretty funny one on names. Some things that I can relate to in the video is how approachable the people are, then make sure you check out the very beginning with the man sharpening knives off of a stone on his bike (this is a real business on the street), the trash bike, the nose picker, and the men's summer shirt fashion. All real things we see all the time.

http://videobeijing.com/2006/07/21/sexy-beijing-lost-in-translatin/

Beijing Chocolate Scene

Just in case anyone was wondering if there is good chocolate in China, here is proof. Good Belgian chocolate is available here. So is all the other good stuff M&M and all.

Dining on the River

Bu shi (no in Mandarin)............we did not eat pizza on the "club and pizza boat".

There is a small stream that starts or ends by our apartment, depending on how you see it. You certainly could not tell where it starts by looking at the water flow since there is no moving green ooze. Oh, and people fish in this little stream.

The stream is under repair now and might be impacting this poor boat owners business. Although, we have never seen anyone eat at this boat even with it's beautiful lights on at night. Location is not the problem as it is in a very nice expat restaurant area. :)

Small World

We even get our US local news in the local Beijing newspaper. I guess Babaro is still big news around the world . . . . . . . .

Wedding Anniversary

We are celebrating our silver wedding anniversary in Beijing. BF and I love this time of year as it brings back so many memories. We have a tradition of going back to our home town for Thanksgiving to be with TF's family. We also celebrate our wedding anniversary by going to our favorite local restaurant, Pierce's. The great thing is that the restaurant is still there and we enjoy it so much.

Well this year neither thing happened. Thanksgiving is just another day normal activity. I went to work and AF went to school. BF had a nice chicken dinner for us on Thursday. Our other daughter and son who are in college in the US did make it back to TF's family for Thanksgiving. Boy, do we miss them and wish we could have been there.

We did celebrate our anniversary by going to a very nice restaurant in Beijing, the Astor Grille at the St. Regis. They have a great wine selection at very high prices. Silver Oak is 3000Rmb ($380). Needless to say we had a very nice Beringer for 800Rmb which still seems pricey to me. http://www.starwoodhotels.com/stregis/property/dining/attraction_detail.html?propertyID=110&attractionId=1000661826&back=-1When we arrived at the St. Regis we were pleasantly surprised by all the beautiful decorations. That evening there was even a tree lighting event at the outside courtyard. The hotel looks very beautiful and festive like a NY hotel. It helped us to realize how close the Christmas holiday is. This was the first time that I have seen any decorations this season. It just does not feel the same and you realize some of the familiar things you miss.We were also graced by the presence of our only other family member in Beijing, AF. She really was not looking forward to going. It was very nice to have her there.

Meal Time at Work

We have been doing a lot of exploring for meals at lunch outside the office. I don't know what we would do without our Chinese national co-workers. I suppose, we would probably be eating a lot of KFC or Pizza Hut.

We have a couple of favorite places that are very "down to earth" and boy do we get some looks when we come in (usually 8+ of us). The food is very cheap and usually does not cost more than $3-4 for a full family style sit down meal.

A couple of restaurants are in department stores of all places. I don't know how we actually find these places. So today we ate a Korean fast food restaurant. I just had to order the rice and dog. The dog meat looked and tasted a little like spicy shredded beef.

To top off the meal, I had mentioned that we were close by to a fast-food Chinese hamburger place. I wanted to stop by and pick one up and bring it back to the office for a taste. Below is what it looks like. It was not bad tasting...... a little salty.I had seen this place previously while out doing some bank branch research with a co-worker. The co-worker told me it was donkey meat used for the hamburger. I laughed and told her she must be kidding. She said donkey meat is very good and is highly regarded in China. She thought my reaction was odd. I had her ask the other American co-workers what they thought. As expected they gave the same reaction as I did.

So we had a further conversation with the rest of the team about this and why we thought it would be odd to eat donkey. The Chinese have a saying "eat dragon meat in heaven and donkey meat on earth". I guess it means that donkey meat is as good as it gets on earth. Maybe there are better cuts of donkey than what we ate in this hamburger. I think there were all sorts of parts in the shredded donkey. It did taste ok until I bit into a spicy pepper.

Comraderie

We have a small work group in China. We occassionally get out of the office for some team building. One of our favorite places is the Goose and Duck (a western pub near Chaoyang Park). Friendly competition is important for the type "a" crowd.

Xi'an

AF had a day off from school on Friday the 10th so we all decided to see a little more of Chinese history and culture by going to Xi'an. Xi'an was once the capital of China during the reign of 13 dynasties from 11th century BC to 900 AD. A great website resource for us in China to better educate us on what to see and do: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/xian.htm

BF has found a good travel agent for us in Beijing to help us with destinations. The agency took care of all our travel, accommodations, and local transportation and English speaking guides. The flight is around 2 hours to Xi'an in the Shaanxi province.

The most famous sight is the Museum of Qin Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses. This really put Xi'an on the map and as a major travel attraction. Tourism is really growing in this city and as a result more prosperity and growth. I think they get something like 8 million visitors a year. We visited some very ancient sites over the two days and had a very nice time. Our guide was extremely helpful and I could not imagine doing the trip without one. He was very knowledgeable about each of the places we visited.

We first did a city tour on day 1. We visited the Shaanxi History Museum, the City Wall, the Great Mosque, and the Forest of Stone Steles (tablets). The second day we visited the Terracotta warriors, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and Hua Qing Hot Springs. See webshots for all our photos:

Window Washing

Beijing is a very dirty, dusty, and polluted city. So to keep up with it there is a large work force cleaning streets, planting trees and plants and most important of all are the window washers. It seems like the windows are being washed on our apartment complex at least once a month. It is an amzing sight to see when the washers decend down the side of the 32 story building. I never seem to have my camera ready for this. Yesterday while we were out shopping I did catch this sight:

China clearly does not have th OSHA regulations like the US. Each of these washers is on a simple single rope and they decend while washing the windows like spiders.

Tailors

BF, a co-worker, and I are experimenting with clothing tailors. I went out last week and went for top-end and the low-end to experiment with differences in quality and price for a tailored suit. I went to Hanloon tailor http://www.hanloon.com/ in an expensive hotel to get a suit.

Then I thought I would see what the low-end would be like. So I went to the touristy Yashow Market on the 3rd floor, stall 3066 to get a suit made. I will report later on the results of my experiment as I have not yet gone in for my second and final fittings.

BF learned about 2 other tailors based on suggestions from her friends at the apartment building. One just set up shop in the lower floor of an embassy compound apartment near the St. Regis hotel. I don't know how we ever found the place on a Sunday but we did. The tailor had just started to set up shop so we made contact with her and said we would come back next week when she had some fabric and models to look at.

The other tailor was in a section of the city I had not spent much time in. The tailor was in a large store with fabrics. BF found an English speaking tailor in the back of the store and she helped BF to look at fabrics for a shirt and a pair of slacks. You first buy the fabrics and then get measured by the tailor.

Can't wait to see how this goes. We have hears some stories from expats that they still have not found tailors that they can rely on,

Fall Weather in Beijing

So far November weather in Beijing has been very transient but dry as usual. We are having problems contolling the internal temperature of our office space as the temperatures outside fluctuates. The temperatures have been for the most part on the warm side but there was a week where it cooled off and we could not get warm enough in our apartment or office. When the temperature is in the high 50's or low 60's and sunny we cannot turn on the air conditioning in our office. We resort to opening a few windows and bear the construction noise and pollution.

During the cold spell at the end of October, we found out how the government can influence our living conditions. We discovered that the government controls heat in China. Heating does not come on until November 15th for the northern part of China. People in the south (not sure where the dividing line is) like Shanghai have no heat all year. Trust me, Shanghai can be cold as I witnessed last February.

This rule does not seem to apply to western hotels, shopping centers, or restaurants and can vary by apartment building. I think our heat came on about a week ago and I know some co-workers had their heat on at the end of October and some are still waiting until Nov 15th.

The Chinese say this is why so many people get sick around this time of the year. They really believe in controlling the internal "body heat". Many people in China wear long underwear. Most of the people have the long underwear on already even though the temperatures are still in the 50's.

The leaves are still green for the most part in Beijing. When we do get rain and wind there are leaves everywhere from the trees in our neighborhood. The "street laborers" are out there in force with long rustic looking brooms in the wind trying to sweep up the leaves. It looks like a lost battle as leaves keep blowing in the wind. I guess it keeps the large number of people employed.

Learning Mandarin

So the family is now engaged in mandarin lessons. It is going slow for the Mom and Dad and we are slowing AF down. She is being patient with us and helps with our tones and vocabulary. We have lessons for an hour on Monday and Wednesday nights by a Chinese university student (Annie) who comes to our home. She is being patient with us. We have had 3 lessons so far.

I think the real frustrating part is even if you get the word right, the pronunciation of the tone could change the whole meaning of the word. For example, at work I was asking a person who only speaks Chinese if they wanted some "cha" which is tea. One of my Chinese co-workers chuckled and said it sounded like I was saying "to strangle or choke". There are 5 tones in Mandarin you need to remember.

Trying to pick out words we have learned in a Chinese conversation is also difficult. The only words I seem to pick out are numbers. Another oddity is that people rarely ever use the word "please or excuse me". Thank you and you are welcome are often used.

Maybe one reason for this is the Chinese people don't believe in queuing in a line. There seems to be no sense of order. I have never seen so many people just try and get in front of you in a bank line, a ticket line, or getting on public transportation. Driving on the roads is a whole other experience. Good thing that there is very little road rage in Beijing because the way people drive here certainly would set people off in any US town or city.

Culture Beyond China

It has really been a month since my last update?

I think BF has had more new experiences over the last month than I have. I will work with her to teach her how to blog some great stories she has on this site.

We are experiencing more than just the Chinese culture in Beijing. There have been two recent dates in November that are big to our Brit and Aussie neighbors.

The Brits celebrate Guy Fawkes day on November 5th. People out in the suburbs of China had a big bonfire party to celebrate. Co-workers went but the night was very cold and windy. Because of this celebration we did a little research and found it to be very interesting celebration. I can't imagine having a similar celebration in the US, especially being a Catholic. Check out the attached website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

On November 7th our Aussie friends were watching the Melbourne Cup on November 7th. "A day the nation stops". I was not at the apartment building during the day but BF told me people had planned a lot of celebrations around the event in and out of the apartment complex. When I came home from work people were dancing outside the bar in the apartment complex. They looked to be having a great time. http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/melbournecup/

You can see that our China experience is opening our eyes to other cultures as we share with each other in our multinational expatriate apartment complex. I had not thought about this aspect of living in China, A nice little extra.