Long Day of Business-ness

Zao! (short for good morning!)
I am slowly learning a bit of Mandarin as we go along. I’ve become quite proficient at “thank-you” which is “cheah cheah.” After I say that they go on to something I’m assuming is ‘you’re welcome’ but I haven’t gotten that far. I just smile, nod, and walk away at that point. Mama ho ho is ‘so-so.’ I cant remember good/ poor so when someone asks me how I am the response is always so-so. Ha.
Today’s events weren’t very good. We had a double feature lecture at Renmin University about the Chinese consumer. The professor was VERY hard to understand and strayed off topic VERY often.
Lunch was much improved over yesterday. Same setup with the lazy susan but the rice was actually flavored, we had sweet and sour pork, chicken in vegetables and quite a few other dishes. I did not try the fish, which was presented whole, or the sliced pig ears, which I was told were real gross. Good call me.
The afternoon entailed a meeting which lasted two hours with one of the top commercial law firms in Beijing. We learned of the 170,000 licensed attorneys in China only about 3,000 of them are competent. Awesome China. We also learned more about the judicial system of China which really is lacking, to put it lightly. Apparently even if you end up winning a case, it goes to an enforcing part of the judicial system, and they may be so corrupt that your verdict may not even end up being enforced. Made me appreciate what we have in the U.S, which not be perfect but it sure is better than a lot of alternatives.
We were supposed to see the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube from the Olympics but traffic and the delay at the law firm caused us to move right to the evenings events, which was a reception and dinner held with UB alumni. There were some impressively successful people to network with including the past CEO of Microsoft China, a Samsung executive, Cisco exec, head of Bayer China, head of Volkswagon China and a few others, all UB alumni. Lots of good food including PASTA (Italian style) aand CHEESECAKE! Very exciting, believe me. A calligrapher was brought in to make our professor a painting or whatever you call a finished work of calligraphy. Professor Thomas has been involved in UB-China relations for quite a while and apparently was the Dean of the school of management back in the day. They also gave him a sweet plaque. We got flip calendars. Everybody won.
The humidifier last night worked wonders. I was actually able to breathe for half the day today. Definitely running it again currently for tonight.
Good night and Happy New Years Eve!
Great Wall tomorrow, many pictures to follow!
-R-
Pictured are:
Sidewalk parking only! What I was talking about the other day…cars literally drive onto the sidewalk in order to get to their parking spaces, and the pedestrians are just like, “whatever”
Three wheel flintstone carts
Lunch!
Some sweet Beijing buildings, Beijing skyline from the law firm’s window, and as far as the smog will allow you to see. Its all the city.
A “pharmayc”
Calligrapher man

Clean Clothes, McDs, and Kung Fu Fighting!

My luggage finally came! We’ll still be getting compensation since the bags weren’t here for 24 hours. I think we can push for extra since it was more than a day and a half, but we’ll see.
Tuesday the group had its first day of official business…of sorts. The morning entailed of two lectures from professors at the University of Renmin (sp?). The first was on the financial structure of China and the second was about the cultural influence on Chinese business. The financial lecture gave a good overview of the banking systems but had erroneous lies from the government (ex: China has low unemployment….riiiiight). The cultural lecture was somewhat interesting….the way the Chinese versus west approach interactions, etc. I called her out on their policy of having the government choose top business people instead of allowing the market to do so. She skirted the question as both professors did of all the questions.
For lunch we went to a ‘sitron’ type restaurant…sitron being one of the four types of Chinese food. If you ask me the four types are slimy, chewy, spicy, and noodly. Not all inclusive. We had a table that included a turn table that they called a lazy susan, and were given about 10 different dishes to pass around. They included white rice (of course), tofu, random vegetables x4, other stuff and fish soup…which only after I had tried the fish (and taken out the bones myself) that I discovered the head of the fish was included in the bowl, yum! I was not pleased with having the clean shrimp myself. Frank said we could just eat them as is and the shell would break down as we chewed but I would have none of that. Its been about 10 hours (2 teeth brushings, another meal, and 2 pieces of gum) since lunch and I can still taste some of the spices from the dishes. Yum.
After lunch we headed to the “Dragon Label” winery. They gave us a tour that emphasized their “high quality” and “100 year history” the tour guide repeated those two phrases probably about 25 times each. We tasted some cabernet sauvignon (gross) and chardonnay (yummy). Apparently the chardonnay had been bottled the day before. We learned their grape fields were about 80 km from the site we were at in Beijing. This was due to the ‘excellent soil’ and climate in the area. IE it is away from the nasty Beijing smog. Today’s smog wasn’t too bad, as it was windy so the pollution was blown away. (Watch out Cali!)
I lasted about 48 hours before succumbing to the need for Mc’Ds...thats like 6 straight meals of real Chinese food, so don’t judge. Apparently sweet and sour sauce is in the southeast, not so much in Beijing. I tried to get some last night and it was an epic fail, partly due to language barrier and probably because its just not available. The McDs fries were just like in the U.S. but my hamburger was inedible due to the excessive amount of pepper on it. Luckily I wasn’t that hungry due to the excessive amount of white rice I consume at other meals, and the delicious continental breakfast our hotel provides. I’m hoping the pepper incident was just a fluke, as I’m sure I’ll need another fix of real food in a few days. Apparently there’s a pizza hut nearby and that is going to be SO necessary real soon. We did find a supermarket, at which I bought chips ahoy. and Gatorade. Serious staples.
After ‘dinner’ we went to see ‘The Legend of Kungfu,’ which was highly recommended by our tour guide. He set us up with VIP tickets so we were sitting in the third row at the Red Theatre. The show was pretty cool, with lots of action. They did their Kungfu fighting, broke some things over their heads, and even had some sort of plot in the story. I sort of fell asleep at some point. But they hit some drums so that fixed that problem.
Now heading to bed, as we have another early morning of lectures tomorrow. Jon and I have the pot boiling water next to our beds as a make-shift humidifier. Our lungs are taking a bit of a beating between the pollution and cold. One of the guys has a sinus infection so he went to the pharmacy I found the other day and they just gave him antibiotics. He said you could live video conference with a doctor if needed so that was cool. I would like to see more of their healthcare system while I’m here.
Random thoughts from today…Beijing’s main streets are ENORMOUS…like 6 lanes each way within the city. Which I suppose isn’t so impressive compared to NYC but they are wider or something like that. Their parking laws seem nonexistent…people actually drive onto sidewalks in order to access spots. I’ll have to get a picture or else you won’t really understand it. People basically just park wherever they want….No one seems to pay attention to the police. I’ve seen police cars with lights on, but have yet to see anyone yield for them in an intersection or pull over on the street. Hmm…..Awkwardly enough what we thought was Tian’anmen square was actually the entrance to the forbidden city. Ignorant Americans, Whoops! We actually circled the square yesterday without realizing it. Now that we know what it is it is much more impressive. Apparently it’s the largest square in the world. China seems to think its got the best of everything. The winery claimed to have ‘the best wine’, the lecturers were very fist-pumping as well.
Allrighty that’s about all I’ve got.
tata!
-R-
These are couple of pictures from the Kungfu show and we drove by Tian’anmen square to see it all lit up. I don’t have anything from the day because I left my memory card (but not my camera) in the hotel room. Fail.

come see the art!

Today (Monday) the four of us had our exploratory time all on our own, as the rest of the group won’t be in until tonight. After consulting the concierge, we decided to try a shopping-type district south of the hotel. It didn’t seem too far so walked so we could see other things along the way. It turned out to be quite a walk, and the map of Beijing was somewhat terrible, so we ended up a little lost but found it eventually.
Last night Frank warned us about people wanting us to come see ‘their art shows’ or something like that, and indeed we encountered about three groups that were very friendly and helped us find our way, but also asked us to come with them. We gratefully declined. We also went down a sidestreet that looked like it had some good merchandise. BIG mistake. The merchants basically just yelled at us to look at their stuff. One woman grabbed my sleeve and tried pulling me toward her area, and I would have none of that. We left quickly.
On the way to the shops we stopped in at Tian’anmen square, but didn’t stay long since we’ll be going there later on. We saw the “Great Hall of People” (i.e. Government building) and “The National Museum of China” as well as some monuments and such.
The shopping district wasn’t all that great, just a lot of antique shops mixed in with eateries. We walked through some neighborhoods that were somewhat slum-looking, but the people coming out of the houses were well dressed/seemed like American middle class. Quite the anomaly. Another anomaly being all the nice cars, yet people in hut-like houses selling small food items on the streets. Yay communism!
We attempted to warm up in a tea shop, which turned out to be a mix of tea set retailer and business meeting-type-rooms. The rooms were 100 ¥ per hour just to sit and tea was something like 280¥.
I ate sweet and sour chicken for lunch, with a gigantic coke. I don’t think they normally drink pop, as the only size available was 1.25 liters. Definitely no fountain drinks anywhere. We were told to forego cheap food for nicer restaurants due to cleanliness, but honestly everything seems the same wherever we go. We have yet to find any sort of supermarket that provides American staples (milk, bread, wegmans freshly made chocolate chip cookies)…definitely lacking in the sweets department overall. The cookies mom made me take are coming up clutch. Thanks Mom!
Beijiing hasn’t been that thrilling, just seems like a big city with Mandarin writing everywhere and people who are predominantly Asian. It doesn’t even have the hustle and bustle or crowds of Manhattan. We did learn from the concierge that the inner most part of the city where we were was demolished many years back and replaced with modern buildings like the hotels and such. Apparently what was here before was ancient and much cooler. He said had the government not done that tourism would be much greater, which I would definitely agree with.
I have liked how clean the city is. We were trying to figure out if no one litters, or if they have people who clean all the time. We finally did see someone walking the streets with a garbage-picker-upper.
We took a cab back to the hotel (18 ¥ or $3…which should have been about a $20/$25 ride in most cities) . We almost ran over approximately 8 pedestrians, 3 cyclists and another car. We quickly learned that pedestrians do not have the right of way, despite traffic signals that indicate ‘walk or do not walk’ in green/red signage.
The fact that no one speaks English has been terrifically horrible. People pretty much just laugh when we try to talk to them. Its funny, but pretty inefficient.
The smog is unbelievable. There were no clouds in the sky today and I could stare at the sun without it hurting my eyes. I’ve noticed a little bit of breathing difficulties, but that could be because of the cold (just under freezing today) which also made for fun walking around the city.
Our baggage is apparently on its way from Tokyo. Don’t worry, I’ve showered three times already. It may be here tonight. Emphasis on the MAYBE. So glad I need my suit for a business meeting in the morning. Apparently Continental is going to be giving us 400 ¥ to buy clothes with, which certainly isn’t going to buy me a suit. I don’t know why it didn’t come over on the same flight as the one we took Saturday like they said but who knows. At least we’re here safe!
Happy Monday!
-R-

Pictured are:

Outside of Tian’anmen square

A car the size of a bike

Soliders marchin through the capital

Slums (for lack of better word)

An electricians nightmare

Gigantic coke

Beijing-ing

Sunday's Blog:
After quite the arduous journey the first group of us finally arrived in Beijing today!I’m starting to develop a flying curse. Our flight from Buffalo to Newark was delayed about two hours because apparently they had the wrong plane on the Newark to Buffalo trip and had to switch it before leaving. That two hours was almost exactly the time of our layover in Newark before boarding for Beijing. We ended up taking off at Buffalo about 11:15 (instead of 8:40, and our flight to Beijing was set to begin boarding at 11:25, but we were assured in Buffalo “there would be no problems.”) At about 11:55 one of the kindly flight attendants told us unless we landed by 12 we weren’t going to make it (and we were 15 minutes away). Hurray for Continental’s “no wait” policy. They will be receiving a very strongly worded letter.After having to wait for incompetent grounds crews to pull the gate up to the plane, we ran to the gate for Beijing (luckily right across the hall), arriving at 12:32 with really no hope for getting on, only to find that the plane had been delayed 20 minutes and was set to leave the terminal at 12:35, phew! They quickly checked us in and we got on the plane only to find some punk kids had taken our seats so we didn’t even get to sit together, but at least we got there.

The flight was LONG, but not horrible. I watched 4 movies, 3 sitcoms, abandoned one impossible Sudoku and began reading my top 100 drug interaction book. Holler!Naturally because of the quick off and on of the planes Continental was not able to get our checked luggage on the plane to China. Hopefully we’ll get them tomorrow!After arriving in Beijing we were greeted by our tour guide, Frank, and brought to the Crowne Royal Beijing where we’ll stay all week. Frank told us all sorts of history and facts about the city on the way but I was really not paying attention because I was very tired, and much more interested by the buildings that changed colors. Something about pollution, and earthquakes, and the Olympics. Blah blah blahWe dropped our bags (carry-ons only of course) and set out to explore the immediate area. Well actually the plan was to find food and a department store that sold bathing suits in the middle of Winter because we really wanted to use the hotel’s Jacuzzi/spa. I also accomplished one of my few goals for the trip, which was to find a Chinese pharmacy. (Pictured below) It was awesome. They had sea horses and lots of dead creatures and it smelled like odd spices. They had all the medications in glass counters like a jewelry store, and sadly I could recognize some of them based on packaging despite the fact the names were in Mandarin. I tried telling them that I worked in a pharmacy and can I ask them questions about it. But in doing so I pointed to my chest, so they whipped out this laminated sheet with tussin and all sorts of cough and cold medications listed on it. Hurray language barrier!

We found bathing suits after about the 10th floor, but meanwhile did find some high class shopping malls to be tackled later. Surprisingly the part of Beijing we are in is very very clean. I was being very picky about where we ate but finally found a place that was very good as well as cheap. The entire meal (which was quite large) cost four of us 70 rmys…or yuans…or whatever their money is. IE it was less than $15 total.

My favorite part so far is how NO ONE that we’ve come into contact with besides our tour guide speaks English. It has made for some excellent discourse (or lack thereof)

With both missions accomplished we returned to the hotel, enjoyed the Jacuzzi, relaxed a bit and went to bed. Its Monday morning now and just had our 9am wakeup call so we can enjoy the day. Planning on trying out the public transport and see a bit more of the city.This would have been posted for your Sunday morning but apparently the blog portion of google is blocked in China (hurray censorship!) so I won’t be able to post these myself. Steph is going to sign in as me and post them every couple days unless I can get that resolved. Ta ta for now.

-R-

The pictures are: Snapshots of the nifty flight tracker continental provided…We went over Greenland, the north pole area, as well as Russia. Neat!

The Pharmacy I found. I think they could donate some help to Wegmans Alberta Dr!!!!Sarah and Jon in front of the really really long outdoor market (yes there were scorpions, no I did not try them)

Me being adorable in front of this neat Christmas tree and light up building in what seems to be their version of NYC Times Square.

And me eating ,my first legit Chinese meal. WITH CHOPSTICKS.

One more week!

hello friends,

welcome to my blog! i thought it would be cool to update everyone with whats happening on the other side of the globe so here goes! i'm checking into internet capability at the hotels, but i will have my computer with me so may be able to find internet cafes if needed. i'll post daily events if possible and photo previews will hopefully be available as well! This is a bit of a test, as i've never used a blog before, mostly because usually my life is not very interesting. so I will start updating for real probably the 26th/27th....until then au revoir, and Merry Christmas!

-R-

p.s. i hope you enjoy the name of the blog, and yes i think i am incredibly witty