Recognize the inside of this restaurant?

Look like anything in the US? Sure it does, it looks like a fairly high-end restaurant, right? This is actually a Pizza Hut! A more appropriate name would be Pizza Palace. Pizza Hut is pretty ghetto in the US, as is McDonalds and KFC – all popular (and fancy) restaurants in China. OK, well McDonalds is not that much nicer here in China, but some KFCs are pretty sweet inside (makes sense since KFC and Pizza Hut are owned by the same company). Pizza Hut takes the prize though for opulence. The prices are about 80% of what they are in the US, and the food is generally much better. The pizza is roughly the same (though toppings like shrimp and squid are more common), but better cooked. There are also fancier appetizers to choose from like Calamari and nice soups.

The salad bar is something fun to watch. In China, the all-you-can-eat doesn’t really exist in the same form. It’s all-you-can-eat, but you only get one trip. So, you see people building architectural wonders of food. The first time I went (with Bill and his wife during my first weekend) I saw someone building a small salad in the middle of the plate with columns of cucumbers and honeydew on the outside to support a second story of food. The funny thing is that some of the waitresses will help build the food skyscraper.

Here’s a shot from the outside:

The restaurant is so high end because, relative to Chinese food, it’s quite expensive. I still haven’t figured out the disparity of prices in food in China (probably similar to the disparity of incomes). A meal at Pizza Hut is 2-3 times or more (sometimes much more) than other restaurants. Well, for example, I went to a Hunan restaurant the other night w/ a friend and the meal came to 51 RMB, about $6.50. This was excellent food too, nice and spicy, and plenty of it. Then we went for a dessert at Haagen Daaz and got one serving of the smallest cup of ice cream, one little scoop – 25 RMB. Half the price of the entire meal!

The most common building in Shenzhen is the apartment building (“gong yu”). There are so many apartment high rises in every direction. Makes sense; a city of 12-14 million in its metropolitan area needs to have places for people to live. Here’s a shot of a mid to lower end apartment:

What you see here is quite common: the bars over the windows to prevent mischief from outsiders, little shops underneath and outside, and clothes – clothes are always hanging on every porch! Shenzhen is a humid place too so it’s hard for clothes to dry, probably contributes to the ubiquitous clothes line. Seriously, you see clothes hanging on 9 out of 10 windows, especially in these sorts of apartments (the higher end ones have dryers). Even more stunning are the dormatories at the factories and the construction sites. Companies provide very cheap and rudimentary housing for low-skilled workers. These usually consist of little more than a sleeping area. I know that there are common eating area; I don’t know about bathrooms. But, there are always clothes hanging out of each and every window of these dormatories.

Here’s a shot of higher end apartments, right next to where the shot above was taken:

For the high-end ones, check out my “Tian qi” post.   I really like this next shot. It’s from the 30th floor of a building looking down on to a sea of low-end apartments:

I always wondered what fake DVDs from China looked like. Well, here are some. These are actually the higher quality variety. Some of the low end ones contain the same packaging, but have tons of data compressed onto a single DVD. For example, the entire first season of “Prison Break” is frequently jammed onto two DVDs. You can sometimes see compression artifacts and some of the episodes might be of lower quality. For example, the audio might not perfectly sync up or the aspect ratio isn’t quite right.   Totally tolerable though for about a buck and a quarter as evidenced by the huge quantity of pirated DVDs that are bought and sold each day.   And, this is the exception, rather than the rule. Shoppers from Hong Kong (“Honkeys”) love coming to Dong Men to visit the DVD stores.

Even some TV series that haven’t finished yet are out on DVD. For example, I’ve seen Season 6 of 24 sitting on the shelves or sitting in a box of a street corner salesman. I’m pretty sure this is only the episodes that have aired, but still it’s a pretty impressive business. The DVDs on the street will run about 60 cents, the higher quality ones in Dong Men (hard to distinguish from the real thing) will run maybe twice that. The *real* DVDs are probably half of the US prices.

How is it possible to have such rampant piracy?   The government pretends to not notice.   It’s a reasonable way for some folks to make a living.   And those people who are making a living this way are not a burden on the government.

Pirated DVDs:

Stay tuned for a fake clothing report. I guess I’ll have to break down and buy a fake Polo shirt one day. They are quite easy to spot.

We had another fun party at work. This one was for one of the managers, PT, an insightful nice fellow from Vietnam. He’s heading back to the US in a week. Again, the party featured plenty of good food, loud music, caturwauling and shrieking karaoke, games, speeches, and even me playing some guitar. Oh yes, and I can’t leave out the belly dancing. I have to hand it to the Chinese and their ability to throw and enjoy a good party. Each of these parties features more good cheer and team spirit than any one I’ve been to in the US. Somehow, everyone is able to drop many barriers and feel comfortable and open with coworkers. Actually, I think some of my observations about the Chinese may help explain this: The Chinese at work place a high value on belonging to groups, which makes them great team players. The emotional connection that’s fostered well by good managers can form good loyalty and openess to teamwork. These parties help to reinforce the sense of belonging.

(l-r) Getting ready for a performance, Louis is playing a Chinese violin (I don’t recall the official name), Michael is the Master of Ceremonies

I’m still impressed with the effort that people go through to have a good time at these parties. Michael wrote a funny script for a video we put together for PT that poked fun in various ways. Also, again I have to mention the openness that the Chinese have at performing at parties, regardless of the ability level. Western folks, especially me, are much more cautious about performing in public unless they are very comfortable and prepared. In fact, for me, I feel more comfortable singing Karaoke in front of a group (I sang a duet of “Auld Lang Syne” at the end of the evening), than I do performing on the guitar. Why is that? Here are some theories: Music is so personal for me that performing it makes me anxious, all of the guitar music that I write isn’t easy to play (I generally never strum simple chords in original music), and I haven’t had much experience recently playing in front of a big group. Anyway, numerous people asked me to play, so, knowing the culture, there’s no way I could say “no” again. Even though Frozen Taco isn’t really the type of music played at an evening of saturnalia, what the heck, I chose to play Simplicity, the acoustic version. The performance went fine (though I had to lean the guitar into the microphone). Would have been great to have an extra guitar and Matt on vocals. The performance may have been up to my own standards then.

Me w/ my old beat-up guitar (like my fake Italian shirt?):

PT later gave an entertaining speech, much of it not up to HR standards in the US. Funny how a Communist country with restrictions on freedom of speech allows for some forms of more open speech than in the US. Obviously, you don’t need explicit laws to curtail expression.

One of the awesome, funny, entertaining, and more creative of performances was belly dancing. Cherie, one of our secretaries (in the center), spent an hour each Monday evening for few weeks teaching coworkers how to belly dance. They put together a long dance set to jungle toms and bongos. The two guys in the back (Ramon and Robin) cracked me up. Check out the fancy costumes:

Here are some photos of the belly dancing practice sessions in the office (from a couple of weeks before):

At the end of the evening, we took a group picture. Here’s a large part of the group, not everyone(below). You can see my head popping up in the back on the left. Jimmy (in pink) and PT (in the green/black stripes) are in the middle.

Tian qi hen hao. Translated: “What a nice day!” or “It’s a nice day today.” Here are some shots of probably the best day that I’ve seen in Shenzhen, or in all of China for that matter. It was a little windy the day before, maybe the pollution was blown away for a while. But, this day was indeed stunning – blue sky actually peeking through the clouds, perfect temperature, and very little humidity.

See the pinkish-red buildings with the pointy roofs? These are apartment buildings that are apparently haunted. They are painted red because apparently the color red has either a pacifying or suppressing effect on the restless spirits. Still, even though the protections are in place, this place is apparently pretty cheap.   The law of supply and demand, you know.   Lots of gui lao ren (a slighly rude way to refer to foreigners, which ironically translates to “ghosts”) rent rooms from this building.

After finishing all of the interviews in Wuhan, we went out for a good dinner at a huge restaurant (three floors) in downtown Wuhan. The food was excellent. Looking at the menu, though, I was worried.   I hoped we wouldn’t try some of the more “realistic” dishes.   We didn’t, but I had a great time looking like a tourist snapping pics of the dishes.

Check out some of these crazy dishes. My favorite title is “Crystal Snakehead Slice”. It’s kinda freaky when you’re in the mood for “Roasted Lamb” then you actually get the entire lamb roasted, complete with roasted eyes staring off into space. The third picture is some sort of insect cocoon…maybe a cicada?   I don’t know.   Ack.   Also, would you like to eat the jaws of a duck? I guess it’s just me.

Here are some shots of more conservative food that we ate. (left) Tasty sticky rice meatballs with Mingjie and Sally in the background.   (right) This is a little sweet corn dumpling thing with a bit of meat inside.

I had the opportunity to take a business trip to some city called “Wuhan”, in the Hubei province, just above the Hunan province, where some really spicy food comes from (OK, that’s how I relate the location of this new city in China. It’s actually located roughly in eastern central China). I had never even heard of this city until I realized I was going there for a recruiting trip at one of the local universities. Turns out this city is three times the size of Shenzhen, with a metropolitan population of thirty million. Jeez.

Inside the Shenzhen airport:

Three colleagues and I (two Chinese and two American) went to the Shenzhen airport around 12:30 to catch an hour and a half flight to Wuhan. Being as busy as I’ve been at work, I had no time to grab lunch, so it was fortunate that there was a McDonalds in the airport (as little as I like McDonalds, it’s a big relief from constant Chinese food). I bought a cucumber burger and the boned equivalent of Chicken McNuggets (when you order chicken anywhere, you can be assured there are bones included). Tasty.

On the flight, I remember looking at the heads of all the passengers in front of me. That sight particularly struck me for some reason – lots of homogenous heads of black hair. The flight was simple enough and upon arriving, we met the friends of one my colleagues who kindly offered to drive us to the university where our hotel was located. The flight was only an hour and a half, but the drive into the city is about the same amount of time. On top of that, the friends weren’t exactly sure the best way to get out, so we ended up driving about two hours to get to the hotel.

I liked this billboard: Chinese business men reach new heights of success (check out the “Beijing 2008″ insignia):

The drive was entertaining. The weather was Seattle-esque this time of year – cold, rainy, and foggy. We were on a modern highway in the sticks. After an hour, I began wondering just where this city was. We passed several small villages with tightly packed brown brick-and-mortar houses connected with narrow dirt paths. There were a few yaks hanging outside of a few houses. Slowly, the villages seemed to connect together as we approached the outskirts of the city. I found this part fascinating. The scene was abject – completely colorless except for brown, people standing around little stoves, or squatting and smoking, and trash. Occasionally, I’d get a glimpse deeper into the back streets and could only see more of the same. It was hard to get some decent pictures being in a moving car, but here are some:

Of course, again, the traffic was entertaining as well. My experiences as a passenger with my college roommate helped prepare me for China. More than one time, I’d hear the blaring horn of an approaching vehicle. I’d turn my head and look out the front window to see a huge bus barreling towards us…in our lane. The horn basically meant, “I’m here and in your lane so watch out.” We’d just calmly move slightly right as the bus narrowly missed us, all the time the bus driver was still leaning on the horn.

The buildings slowly grew taller and appeared more frequently.   I then noticed in front of us was a huge suspension bridge that we were approaching.   Then I realized, we were about to go over the Yangtze river.   I felt a strange sense of awe crossing such a large and famous river.   I wanted to take a picture but never had a good opportunity.

Finally at the hotel, we met Sally, the HR girl in charge of organizing the recruiting events. She’d had some food waiting for us. It was basic, but welcomed:

Here’s the food…I’m holding a fried meat popsicle:

A few moments later we were on our way to the auditorium. There were maybe three hundred students here. Matt gave a presentation on our office and each of us talked briefly about our roles. After a Q&A, we collected resumes and headed back to the hotel to go through them and pick out the ones that we wanted to talk to the following day. This took us until about 11:30PM. Sally then had to schedule and contact the students.

The next day, we met with the students in our hotel rooms. Interviewing Chinese people is so different from people in the US. I’ve done lots of observing and note taking here, but to summarize, they are very smart but express few original thoughts or desires. I spent about 30 or 40 minutes on each interview. Sally weeded out about half of them based on their ability or inability to speak English. At the end, I probably talked to eight candidates.

One of the girls who was hired for the day to manage the schedule and candidates was especially interesting. She approached me in between interviews and confessed to being nervous having never spoken to a native English speaker before. What really struck me was when she told me she didn’t like her English name, “Lily”, and she asked me if I would choose another name for her that was “more complicated” but still began with the letter “L”. Well, I felt honored. I still need to do that; I got her email address. No idea what I’ll pick.

(l-r) The student audience, the first cuts (going through resumes):

I’m finally starting to get semi-decent at ordering my own food at restaurants. I’m almost always with someone else who speaks Chinese who orders. When we’re at Chinese restaurants, I can never read the menu, so when I’m asked about what I want, I usually just say something vague like “How about some spicy beef?” or “I’ll eat anything; just order whatever you like”. The latter statement has potential to yield something interesting. Anyway, I found a noodle dish at TCL (my favorite lunch restaurant) that I really enjoy called “Yi Ping Mien”, or “First Class Noodle”. It’s a tasty spicy bowl of noodles with fillings of beef, pork, egg, and select vegetables.

(l-r) Yi ping mien, Michael and Judy at TCL:

One thing that’s hard to get used to is the lack of a cold drink at meals.   Of course, I guess I could order one, but I always just drink what ever one else does:   either a tiny cup of tea or, in the picture above, a bowl of green liquid, which is basically the residue of a soup.   The Chinese are amazingly efficient at using every part of the vegetable or meat and this is an example.

Here’s a traffic oddity in China.   First of all, the traffic lights are a little different.   There are three arrows (left, right, and straight), very short yellow lights, flashing green lights that serve as yellow lights, mixed red lights and green arrows.   The various states seem overly complex for a place like China, but they make sense after a while.   But…if you’ve got a red light, you’re not allowed to turn right on red.   OK, that’s not a huge cultural difference or anything, but what is so strange is that drivers seem to obey that (and anything that the traffic light indicates) without question, while at the same time making their own rules anywhere else on the road.   There may be no one coming, the right turn may be free and clear, but I almost never see anyone breaking that rule.   There’s a particular intersection that I’ve started watching every day where a right turn is so simple, but I never see anyone make the turn while the light is red.   When driving though, it’s common (as in every day) to see three lanes of traffic form where two are meant to be, people walking between lanes of moving traffic, cars stacking up vertically (essentially forming about five or six lanes when there are only two) to make a left turn, and even cars sometimes driving against traffic on major roads.   So, even though the “right on red” turn is a small arbitrary optimization in the US, no one even seems to consider it here.