Almost every single day, on the front page, is a story about how serious China is about the environment. I wonder how much of this is propoganda from the government. Anyway, I find it curious. The growth rate in China is pushing 10% which is scary. I still play the game with myself where I turn my head in some direction and try to find a construction crane. I almost always can. So, how serious are they about the environment when the economy is ripping along, almost at a dangerous level? Dunno, I’ll keep watching.

FYI, I’ll be going dark for a while. I’m taking a trip to Guilin for about 4 days. Keep a lookout for some stunning photos in a few days. It’s the Spring Festival holiday; I got the full week off, except I need to be back at work on Sunday.

The very first place I ate at in my neighborhood is one that I frequent often now. It’s called “Caffe di Roma” and is a simple little Italian eatery with very friendly staff. I usually eat Chinese food for lunch and then balance it out with a western style dinner. On my first night in China, I was trying to find a place. I wandered up the promenade and this Chinese man came up to me speaking in perfect English. This was Sandro, the owner. He’d picked the name “Sandro” from living in Italy fairly recently for three years. He’s a former IT professional turned Italian food and cappuchino afficionado and now has his own restaurant. I’ve become a loyal customer due to his and the staff’s friendliness, not to mention the excellent pizza, my favorite dish there.

Here’s a shot of me n’ Sandro. He frequently comes out and sits w/ the customers. I’ve been wearing this shirt a lot. It just so happens to be a very lucky shirt this time of year – red with yellow stripes, you know?

There’s also a tiny staff of four waitresses, usually only two at once. Of the four, only one, Pearl, can speak decent English, and she’s quite good. I’ve learned a good bit from her. She was the one who taught me the subtle difference between “to eat” and “to go”. I recall having a hard time with the two verbs, but it’s much easier now. I guess there is some progress. The chef, who’s name I don’t recall, is a funny guy who looks the role. He comes up to me and talks a lot but I almost never understand him. He seems to think I’m fluent in Chinese ’cause I can say a couple of phrases. I reckon all the girls help me speak to one extent or another, but the chef just sends words flying into one ear and out the other. He and Sandro often can be found playing Chinese Chess. Here they are:

I usually carry around a raggedy piece of paper for impromptu lessons. When I hear a significant new word, I have the person write it out in PinYin, the English phonetic language for Chinese. Here’s a shot of Pearl writing down something for me (I do this multiple times a day, every day):

A typical sheet of paper of mine w/ PinYin and English:

A little dog w/ another party at the caffe:

On the day I took these pictures and wrote up this post, I actually hung around the caffe for two meals: breakfast and lunch. Activities in between: writing emails or blog posts, learning Chinese, showing the folks various pictures from the US. Because it was the first day of the Zhu nian (“Year of the pig”), folks take it easy. So, even though I have a lot of work to do (tomorrow), I’m taking it easy today. Also, it feels like a little cold, flu, or something has been trying to grab hold of me the past two days. So, I’m going to take it very easy today and focus on staying healthy.

Here’s some pics from another hike. This one, Da Nanshan, was much better than the first, but still nothing close to a wilderness experience. The views were great. The trail wasn’t a road, but still a cement path…alternating between stairs and winding walkways. There were small little shelters located in strategic spots for good views. I went with one of my Chinese teachers, Helen.

Here’s a shot of the mountain from Shekou below. We ran the entire ridge from right to left:

This hike was similar to the hike of Icicle Ridge that Aidan, Michael, and I did back in 2003. This was much easier though, about 1/4th the elevation and distance. Still the steep stairs that led to the top had me sweating pretty hard. We vowed not to stop until we got to the top, so we paced ourselves. Along the way, I learned the best phrases when riding in a taxi, especially when the driver doesn’t know where he’s going (which is common).

Some more views:

I can see myself coming back here for a workout. It can be done pretty quickly when you’re in shape. Maybe you can run the whole ridge in an hour and a half? Maybe less. Hard for me to tell ’cause we stopped so much and checked out the views. Once you climb up the opening ridge it’s pretty easy. Best not to hurry down; the stairs are steep and it wouldn’t be pleasant to trip.

Some differences in culture make sense to me; others do not. Here’s one. I see this all the time. Pedestrians, bikes, and whatever other form of defenseless vehicle insisting on using the street rather than sidewalks. I’ve seen some people that appear to just stand out in the middle of the road for the heck of it. What? Check out this picture: I took this from the back of the taxi. Here’s what to notice:

• There’s a big ole SUV in the righthand land going pretty fast
• There’s a bike with two people on it in front of both the taxi and the SUV (also, having this sort of passenger on your bike is quite common. The passenger never straddles the bike for some reason…easy exit, I reckon)
• My taxi is in the lefthand lane and this is a two-way road.
• There’s plenty of room on the sidewalk on the right side!

I went with my friend, Zhao SiSi, to one of the prominent landmarks in Shenzhen, the tallest building in town, the Shun Hing Square Tower, and the fourth highest in China (the 8th in the world according to the website referenced). I’d seen this skyscraper during my first weekend here while visiting “Mix City”:

They charge 60 Yuan to go to the top – about $7.75. Of course, there’s an observation area, but it’s all behind glass – boo! There are also a few funny “attractions”. One reminded me of these ancient silly shows at amusement parks where they project faces onto whites busts so it appears they’re speaking and various pieces of the set animate. This was some sort of story of pirates in Hong Kong harbor. Not really sure.

There was another little exhibit with animated monkeys, fish, and crabs that talked about the environmental damage…this was curious (more in a future post).

We spent most of the time looking out the window trying to find landmarks we knew. Because it was at night, and because the Chinese love their neon lights, it was quite a visual treat. The cherry on the sundae was a green laser on the very top of the building that swung across the fringes of the city. I’d never seen such a big laser…very cool. I wonder if this is the spotlight that I see every night from my apartment. I had to laugh recalling the stories in the US of airline pilots complaining about people with little pen lasers pointing them up at planes (maybe this was actually an article from The Onion) and here in China was this huge green laser firing and arching across the sky. I snapped a cupla pictures (check out the laser beam):

Here’s a picture of only the second cat I’ve seen. Mao = cat. Mao mi = kitty. I saw him on the way to get some breakfast. He looked a little ragged so I figured it was best if I didn’t try to pet him (‘specially before I ate). So, I just sat down and listened to him meow…loudly. He flopped down like he wanted to be pet, but when I got up, he skittered off into the plants.

I went to my first Toastmasters meeting in Shenzhen. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up joining for my duration here. I had my driver take me there, though next time I’ll take the subway ’cause that way he won’t have to wait for me. Anyway, I called someone in the club and had her talk to my driver to make sure I had the right place. Pretty soon a guy with a bunch of roses approached me. “No, no roses”, I was thinking as I was shaking my head. “No, I’m not selling roses! Are you looking for Toastmasters??” “Shi!” and we jogged to the back of the building where the meeting was about 2 minutes away from starting. I signed in. In front of me was an Englishman (the only other “man of the west”) that I spoke to briefly. I then took a seat.

I was surprised at how similar the meeting was to the Kirkland Eclectics – lots of enthusiasm, support, and laughter. They had no word of the week, but did add an um counter. I supposed it was wise in this case to have an um counter when the majority of these people didn’t speak English as a first language. They also had a section called “Development Section”. I’m not really sure what the point was, but it was a good idea. A young fella named Vincent came up to the front with a violin and gave a long inspirational speech on his love of the violin and music. He also played three pieces, one of them being the Meditation from “Thais” by Massenet. He did a great job and I wanted to speak to him afterwards, but didn’t get the chance. Maybe next time.

Another interesting thing was the quantity of young people. For once, I was one of the older attendees. There were many people who were still in college. There is immense competition among young people, especially about to graduate, to get every edge they can so that they can land a decent job, which still pays peanuts compared to the salaries in the US. I wish more young folks in the US would join clubs like Toastmasters, most are out hitting the bars. That’s fine, I guess; there’s plenty of that here, but there is more of a hunger here, way more, than in the US. That’s a nice segue for a plug of The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and an article I just saw (haven’t read it yet) in Business Week titled, “They’re Smart. They’re Hungry. And They Want Your Customers. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.” The cover shows a shot of the globe that’s focused on China and Southeast Asia.

(l-r) Toastmaster of the evening (don’t recall her name), Hameed (TableTopics Master), Greg (Guest from Hong Kong)

Here’s another example of people and their cell phones. People adore cell phones here. I need to do a full report on this, but here’s one example. Here’s a shot of the Grammarian (the guy who approached me holding the roses) playing with his cell phone. Now, he should be paying attention to the speech going on, but instead he’s taking pictures and talking with the Table Topics Master, an Indian man living in Hong Kong. I suppose I can’t really criticize him, he delivered a good, if not extremely long-winded (Timer?) report. He even pointed out some good feedback to me: “Americans use ‘very’ a lot!” Arrr! Sorry, Jim!

Cell phone distractions:

The General Evaluator (she likes to cry while watching Titanic):

The meeting went on way too long. 15 minutes overdue and the Toastmaster was still talking. For all her enthusiasm and excellent speaking skills (quite the typical Toastmaster), she did not know how to be concise and not grope for things to say. I started feeling bad about Xiao Liu waiting for me outside, so I excused myself and left. I was planning on taking better pictures at the end of the meeting, but obviously never got the chance. I’ll come back tho’.