In Chinese, the word Fu2 means “Fortune”. That’s pronounced “Foo” with an ascending tone (tone 2). When you say Fu2 dao4 le, you’re saying that “fortune has arrived”. All around China, especially on the doors to peoples home, you can see a Fu character displayed upsided down. Huh? Why upside down? The reason is because the word for “upside down” is dao4, pronounced with a strong downward tone (tone 4). It just so happens that the Chinese word for “upside down” shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for “arrived”. So, literally turning the character Fu upside-down is a play on words that implies that fortune has arrived. Neat, eh?

This is Fu rightside up:

福

If you’re on a laptop, please turn it over right now. Maybe comments on my blog will start working. OK, now I feel strangely superstitious. Here’s a photo of my front door (yes, an upside down Fu):

My colleage Daryl arrived in Shenzhen on Wednesday. That same day, I woke up with a Chinese flu! What began about 18 hours before as a scratchy cough, that I attributed to bad air quality, had rapidly transformed into dizziness, a splitting headache (that required me to hold my head tightly together when I coughed), and muscle soreness. There was no way I was coming into work. By Friday, surprisingly, I’d made a quick recovery. It wasn’t complete; I only worked a short day due to fatigue, but at least it was fast. On Saturday I felt good enough to brave Shenzhen, so we headed out around town together for food, talk, exploration, mobile phone purchases, and massages. At the Mao Jia restaurant, we mistook shreds of bull stomach for calamari. Trying to be noble, I did pick a few small bites, but the chewiness just wasn’t enjoyable enough.

Later in Hua Qiang Bei, I helped Daryl buy a mobile phone. Despite colleagues suggesting we go there, others raised an eyebrow when I mentioned where we got it. “Yeah, but it’s new. See the box and instructions that it came with?”, I said, naively defending the purchase. Sure enough, the charger didn’t work when Daryl got back to the hotel. The following day, he went back solo for the exchange. I have to admire Daryl for his ability to get things done in China knowing only the words for “hello” and “thank you”. He was successful in getting his money back, but got the shopkeeper mad at him, a funny story itself. Anyway, since he’ll be coming back to China every couple of months for a cupla weeks, we just picked out an el cheapo – $32. After that, we went in search of a convenience store or a newspaper stand to supply the SIM card which bestows the number and minutes (you pay extra for lucky numbers). There are no idiotic two-year plans here. It’s a great system.

(above) We didn’t purchase one of the phones that these bored-looking girls and Chinese rabbits were peddling. After getting his money back from the original salesman the next day, Daryl went to a different counter and bought a more slightly pricier one. Still working, Daryl?

By the way, it’s been freezing in Shenzhen for five or six days now. Around Thursday, a drizzle moved in and added to the discomfort. Most people here don’t have heat. And that goes for a lot of China, even places quite far north which are certainly colder than here. When I realized that was indeed the truth (after asking several folks), I stopped complaining so much about my lack of heat and just put on some more layers.

Back to the main story, the weekend before was absolutely stunning, but this one was just the opposite. We both wanted to buy a little more insulation (I was already wearing my cold weather climbing liners) so we headed over to Dong Men for clothing and exploration. Daryl couldn’t find a fleece, but I found a handmade knitted cap that was perfect. We also discovered a small area that brought some of the Da Fen Cun artwork to Shenzhen proper to sell. I was a little disappointed in the variety though, but the prices were great. Down in the basement was an awesome furniture featuring beautiful and expensive handmade furniture.

After a lot of wandering, we decided to try our hand at a bike ride over to Di Wang. This wasn’t us renting bikes, but rather hitching a ride with some of the folks for hire who’ve installed small seats on the backs of their bikes. Before we could start any serious negotiations, all of them (about 5-7) suddenly sprung away into the traffic like scared rabbits. Daryl and I turned around to see a group of policemen moving on to the scene. Oh right…the whole “You don’t have a license” thing. Reminded me of the times I’ve seen the street food salesmen have their portable charcoal grills kicked over by the cops, only to quietly recover their strewn-about equipment and rebuild the mini restaurant after The Man had left. Well, there will be no bike ride this time.

After that excitement, we headed over to Xiang Mi Hu for a great foot massage place and some food. After the great foot massage, the girls asked if we’d like a regular massage. We declined because we were pretty hungry at this point. I was surprised when one of them suggested that we just order out some spicy noodles and eat here. “OK, great idea!”

(l-r) Peace through massage (actually, she means “Victory!”), “Gimme two niu rou la mian!” (beef spicy noodle!)

Our noodles ended up coming very late so we decided to start the massage. My massage girl said that she had a technique that could help my flu recovery. It was these heated cups that are placed on your back… I’d tried these before with Tiffany before accupuncture to help with some tightness in my shoulderblade after a climb. She’d only used three which were localized along the base of my left shoulderblade. Tiffany’s weren’t the heated glass cups either, but small glass suction cups. These were bonafide heated glass cups. She used a small torch (really – a stick with some sort of cotton fiber material to fuel the flame) placed inside the cup to burn off the air and create suction and then slapped them on my back. Daryl was thinking of having them too. But, when the first one went on and he exclaimed something like, “Oh my GOD, no, I don’t want that! No!”   I thought he was just teasing – trying to make me nervous. He then whipped out his camera and started taking pictures from his nearby massage table. When he said, “Oh man, you should see how your skin is bubbling up!”, I started to get worried too. It was indeed uncomfortable, I can’t say it was legitimately painful, and when I protested a bit like a little sissy, the massage girl just replied, “Oh it’s not!” (in Chinese). Basically, she wouldnt’ take them off no matter how much I protested. Eighteen cups and a few minutes later, they finally came off. I now have eighteen purple circles on my back that should last a week or so. My flu is way better, but is this just a case of this rock also “keeping away tigers”? I don’t know. It also wasn’t painful at all when she rubbed down the welts, so no big deal…but those pictures are a little creepy. Have a look:

(above) Freak! Bubbles!

As always, the massage ended too soon. But, the hot noodles then came and we were content to slurp away. They were awesome; the perfect food for a cold and dank day.

There was one DVD that I’d been looking forward to: Dragon Wars, one of the funniest bad movies of the year. Indeed, it was a classic awful movie, definitely worth a watch. But what’s arguable more entertaining is the packaging work on the back of the DVD here in China. Now, keep in mind that when you create packaging for anything, you create it so that the item will be appealing to consumers, right? Am I missing anything here? Check it out:

Hilarious! Did you notice that Ian McKellan’s quote about the movie wasn’t even about Dragon Wars at all? Now, how did this text actually arrive on the back of the DVD artwork? The best guess I’ve heard is that the underground packaging supplier just pulled a review off of an English movie review site somewhere and stuck it on the back of the DVD packaging without bothering to see if it’s even correct. At least it’s intelligible English. Some of them have obviously been run through Chinese to English translation software a la Prison Break.

“Dragon Wars” makes a great gift for family and friends!

My new apartment is so-so. The good is: it’s not badly priced, it’s got a great view, and the landlords are great. I guess these are pretty important, especially the last one. Having lousy landlords could make it miserable.   Mine are indeed very nice and responsive and like to drink tea with me. I guess I’ve just had a lot of maintenance issues with it.

When I first moved in, I plugged in my desktop computer. About an hour later, there was a loud POP and the power went dead in the bedroom soon followed by the smell of smoke behind the walls. Uh, was that my computer’s fault? Thinking that it was, I set out more than once to look for transformers. I wasn’t well educated on electrical systems before, but having dealt with this, I at least have better working knowledge. I eventually was told by my neighbor Peter that it wasn’t my computer’s fault and that I didn’t need to buy a special power supply for my computer. OK, that’s good news.

A few days later, not one, not two, but three leaks suddenly sprung.   One of the toilets leaked.   The shower had quite a big leak, but at least it drained.   And there was a mystery leak inside the walls.   I discovered that by the pools of water in the hallway.   I followed the wetness to the walls and could see the waterstain seeping through the walls along a pipe.

Fixin’ the leak.

The landlord was great though and fixed those problems right away.   Other difficulties include silly stuff like not having sheet rock, which makes hanging up pictures hard.   Hmmm…now I have to go back and figure out the right tools for hanging up pictures on these mortar (I guess) walls.   There are numerous annoyances like this.   For example, the washer/dryer is totally mysterious.   Sometimes it takes forever, sometimes it’s really fast.   At least I’m now starting to figure out it’s peculiar personality traits.   Hanging up clothes can be tricky.   If the pollution moves in, you better pull them down fast or they’ll stink.   Gosh, so many other wierd little things like that that I know I’m forgetting to mention (seems like every day I have an “oh I have to write about that in the blog!” thought).

Oh yeah, then there’s the sink with a fetid odor emerging from it. Half the time I go into the bathroom it stinks and I need to turn on the fan and open the windows.   Sometimes it’s fine.   But, I found the culprit:   a simple lack of a large curve in the drainage from the sink.   The large curve (I at least knew this) “traps” water inside which prevents the stink from seeping out of the sink.   How hard would it have been to install this to begin with?   Anyway, they’re coming to fix that, thankfully.   Now, I just have to figure out why the rent didn’t hit my landlord’s account.   Time to bring along a colleague to the bank for translation, call up the Xiao Liu for the car, wait in line, figure out what’s up, etc. etc.   Time, time, time…

Aside from the maintenance, I like the location of my old place better. I miss being able to leave the building and have restaurants right there. I’m at least closer to work here.   Also, here, in Hua Qiao Cheng (or “Overseas Chinese Town”, the location where I’m currently living), I need to walk about 10 minutes to decent restaurants. And while they are still cheap by US standards, they’re still pushing twice the price of Futian.   And the quality isn’t as nearly as good…especially for the Hunan food!

Check out this cool car. You see this sort of extravagant display of wealth frequently in Shenzhen. Xiao Liu and I took the time to pose next to it for pics. Maybe we should petition the company to buy one of these for motoring around in.   Whaddya think?   A special Olympics license plate too:

Oh, I guess I didn’t get a pic of the emblem.   It’s a Ferrari.

I finally went on a “real” hike this weekend, taking the number 65 bus to the end of the line at “Xian Hu”, or “Fairy Lake”, a small resort much like Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia. It features a large lake with paddle boats, a small beach, lots of trails through gardens, a Buddhist monestary, and a cupla cool little pagodas. It’s also surrounded by some decent hiking opportunities…the best I’ve done yet. Our group ended up hiking along the ridge to Xiao Wu Tong Shan, or the smaller version of Wu Tong Mountain (I don’t know what “Wu Tong” means or which tones each word is). There’s a large TV tower or something on the very top which makes it a prominent landmark in Shenzhen on clear days. The hike was actually quite long with some decent elevation. With the various false summits, it was probably 2000 feet of elevation at least. It felt more like 3000, but I’m out of shape. As usual, the trail was a sidewalk and all of the uphill, save the very end, was stairs. Many of the steep sections were demanding and some of my fellow hikers set a nice “stairmaster set on…OK, moderate psycho” pace, more than I could comfortably keep up with.

(l-r) The top of Xiao Wu Tong Shan, The Endless Stairway…slow down!, Great view of Fairy Lake from high up (See the cool pagoda? Of course you do!)

The higher we went, the more people we passed because there was an intersection about 400 feet below the summit that led down to the monestary. Some of these poor folks ascended from that steep side, but it would be the perfect way to get back down to the lake for us. Some of the people commented that a “foreigner” was on the way, and when they realized I understood them, they just giggled.

There are water salesmen that haul bottles of water up for poor-planning hikers. They jack up the price five times to about 80 cents a bottle. A peasant who was collecting discarded bottles (in the trash bins for the most part!) for extra money, exclaimed “gui lao!” as I approached some of the water stations announcing that a foreigner was on the way. Apparently, that used to be a derogatory term for foreigner (“old ghost”,basically) and I can’t quite get a straight answer if it’s still considered a little rude. Some say yes, some say no. Maybe he wanted them to jack the price up 10 times.

(l-r) Getting close, Me on da top, The Han Hoarde

We didn’t stay on top that long. It was already in the afternoon and we wanted to visit the monestary, the pagoda, and the lake before dark.

(above) Wu Tong Shan in the distance. See over on the righthand ridge of the large mountain in the distance what looks like a dirt road going straight up the mountain…two tire tracks and all. That’s actually a set of double staircases. One for going up, one for going down. Have a look from space here.

It was the steep descent to the Buddhist monestary that really punished my calves and made them sore for the next few days.

(left) Naw man, China’s not that crowded. (right) Me sitting on a very steep part of the stairs with the monestary in the distance.

The monestary was pretty cool. It was teeming with people. I saw the only other foreigners down at the entrance negotiating for a ride back to the park entrance. The fragrant odor of incense covered up the usual reek of kiddie pee. At the top of the stairs at the entrance was a large cauldron filled with incense sticks standing erect in ash. The monestary is large and features several small shrines where folks were letting their troubles vanish away in incense smoke. I enjoyed a high perch looking down into the courtyards and watching the worshippers.

(above) Just inside the entrance

(l-r) Don’t mess with homes, Looking down into the courtyard

We followed a stone walkway through a smelly creek drainage that led to the lake. Beyond that, we went to the pagoda and climbed the stairs, my legs were starting to ache at this point. The views weren’t that good anyway, but it was nice to at least said you’ve done it. Wheee! Back down, we wandered some, consulting the confusing map and eventually figuring the way back to the bus. Quality day. I want to go back to Wu Tong Shan and hike up that. Gotta stop being so lazy!

The big DVD store in Dong Men is now selling HD and Blue Ray DVDs. There’s a whole row of Blue Ray DVDs. In fact, they’re starting to jam the shelves tighter than ever before. I guess business is good and the periodic crackdowns are just a mere nuisance. The HD and Blue Ray DVDs are the same price as the regular DVDs – 10RMB, about $1.38. Of course, that’s double the street rate because you’re ostensibly paying for better quality and better packaging. However, they’re quality has been pretty bad lately; maybe one in four DVDs end up hanging somewhere in the movie. They’ll at least let you bring them back and pick out a new copy of the same movie. Or, if the current movie isn’t in stock (they move the stock often, especially in music and old movies), you can pick a different movie. But, getting your money back…don’t even try.

My new favorite restaurant is a small, hole-in-the-wall on the side of the street, alongside many other hole-in-the-wall eateries, featuring my favorite cuisine: food from the Hunan province. The menu is dirt cheap and as such many of my Chinese colleagues are afraid it’s not very hygienic. Can you believe it? Some of them are afraid to try it, but I will. So, what am I supposed to do? The office cafeteria in the basement is foul. I’ve sworn it off since I’ve been unable to polish off my last three lunches due to slimy eggplants, oily bony chicken, or a disgusting dirt gravy and beef. Believe it or not, it is tastier than the second floor cafeteria in the old building, but that’s not saying much. At least that place was cheap. A simple meal at this the new building cafeteria runs about $1.09. A pricey one pushes two bucks. Both are pretty bad. Anyway, the Hunan restaurant is about the same price. We each eat lunch for about a dollar and it’s mighty tasty and spicy. I haven’t gotten sick yet. I hope they’re not putting anything strange and bizarre into the food to make it taste better, I’m sure it’s not quite as clean as it could be, but what’s a foreigner to do?

Enjoy the pic:

And here’s a movie.

My cat, Georgia, is now a real traveler having successfully made the trip from Seattle to Shenzhen. Bringing her was a hard decision actually because everyone who has a pet can imagine the difficulty of traveling with them. Kris tells me that it’s not as bad as Kris traveling alone with two toddlers, but I believe each has it’s own challenges. Preparing the logistics for this trip was what made this so challenging. The actual journey, however, though a little tough for both of us, wasn’t all that bad. I know Georgia couldn’t have been comfortable cooped up in the travel bag, and I was on edge most of the time knowing that she might unleash cat urine. That would have been almost unrecoverable, for if she’d done that in, say, my lap when I took her out of the bag in Tokyo, I would have probably either had to buy new pants in the airport (good luck trying to find a Westerner’s size that quickly in Japan) or just made the final leg in my underwear. Fortunately, the only time she decided she had to “use the restroom” was, in fact, on my lap when I secretly took her out of her travel bag in a dark corner of the Northwest Lounge in Tokyo. Thankfully, it wasn’t cat urine. That simple mess was easy to surreptitiously dispose of and both of us were happier.

Three months earlier: I first had to find out what I needed from the US to board an international flight: A domestic health certificate, an international health certificate signed by the US Department of Agriculture APHIS division, and certificates of rabies and feline leukemia. The trick with the certificates was that they could only done within certain time frames, like no older than ten and thirty days. To get the health certificate signed, most folks just FedEx it down to Olympia, WA, but because of my schedule, I had to drive (thanks, Pavan, for letting me use your car after mine sold!). That part was easily solved; the US government, for all of our complaints, is at least consistent in the requirements.

Speaking of consistency, let’s talk about China now. I could not get a straight answer or information anywhere. I got conflicting information from Chinese websites and even my relocation company. To quarantine or not to quarantine? Many resources said, yes, China has a 30-day quarantine, others said no. What vaccinations were required? There were all sorts of different lists. Then there was Hong Kong. I received information from the relocation company (the same one I had hard time communicating with) that indicated bringing in pets was done through Hong Kong and there was a well-established though draconian policy: 1) pets must fly as cargo, 2) pets must be accompanied by a quarantine officer to the border, 3) there’s a ton of paperwork so the relocation company offered to outsource the paperwork for…$700!

Well, having to fly a pet as cargo was the deal breaker but the $700 seemed exhorbitant. I asked one of the relocation representatives why it was so expensive and he just said something like, “Oh. There are many many papers. Many papers. Very difficult.”

So, after more digging and realizing that Hong Kong just wasn’t going to work, I asked, “Well, what if I didn’t go to Hong Kong? What if I fly to Shenzhen or Guangzhou? What’s the policy?”

“Oh, China is very easy. No quarantine, no paperwork.”

Baahh!!! Why didn’t you tell me this about a month ago when I was confused and concerned about the entire notion of bringing my cat through Hong Kong?! Well, at least I’d asked so I started concentrating on finding out the rules about China. In this regard, the relocation company was pretty accurate. They said that there was no quarantine and had a simple list of vaccinations required. However, there were other sources that I was given that said that I should get my certificates translated (forget that…I’ll just play dumb), make photocopies of my passport (done), and other small requirements. Still others said that there was a quarantine or that it depended on which city you landed in. In Beijing, there was a quarantine sometimes, in Shanghai there wasn’t, in Guangzhou, who knows? I never got a straight answer on the vaccines. I just decided to get what the US suggested and go with that.

So, having settle on flying direclty to China, I got my ticket from Seattle to San Francisco to Beijing to Shenzhen, but then, just a few days before I was to travel, someone in China Southern Airlines shut down my idea of traveling from Beijing to Shenzhen with Georgia in the cabin with me. OK, dealbreaker. No way am I trusting her to Chinese baggage handlers. So, I changed my ticket to Northwest flying from Seattle to Tokyo to Guangzhou (about 1.5 hours from Shenzhen by car). But suddenly, Northwest tried to kill the deal saying that I couldnt’ bring Georgia on board the cabin in business class from Seattle to Tokyo. “Why is that?”, I asked the cantankerous US Northwest operator. “Because people who pay that kind of money don’t want to put up with cats or children! Don’t get me started on traveling with pets!” Uh huh. Well, what about the people who pay good money to travel business not to mention the children I’ve seen in business class? Well, some minutes later she came back and said that it was because of the airplane make, an Airbus, that they did not allow pets in business class – there’s not enough space under the seats, apparently. “BS”, I thought and I asked my US relocation agent (not to be confused with the incompetent Chinese one) to go ahead and book the ticket and I’ll risk it. If I have to downgrade my ticket to coach, so be it, but I thought I could make it work. (It turns out this is mostly true – some of the business class seats have what looks like a metal suitcase in the middle of the seat in front of you, so putting a bag “under the seat in front of you” is not possible. The seats along the wings, however, do have room!)

Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that the pet with the travel bag must not exceed 15 pounds. At her checkup, Georgia checked in at 13.6 pounds (she’s gotten fat…and is now on a diet). So, that cemented my idea of buying a lightweight flexible travel bag and not a plastic “kennel”. Also, I thought that that would give me a little more leverage since I didn’t have an “alternative” kennel available. Out of curiousity, when Pavan and I were at the airport, we weighed her on our own with the travel bag at one of the unattended check in counters. I removed the shoulder strap for good measure. The weight came in at exactly 15 pounds. Time to board the plane.

Well, that’s the story. Though I had it, NO ONE asked me once for any documentation. I basically smuggled a cat into China.

Oh! One more thing: when I was on the final leg from Tokyo to Guangzhou, I got a bit of a jolt of worry when the purser announced that all pets had to be quarantined in Guangzhou for 30 days or risk a 50,000 RMB fine. Because I wanted to forgo a ridiculous $700 fee, I could just see myself getting busted in Guangzhou (no way was I going to allow her to be quarantined after the relocation company said there was no quarantine) and paying seven THOUSAND dollars in fines. Well, I decided to go up and speak to the purser who simply replied, “Oh, I have to say that. They don’t care.” OK, well, time to put my trust in the flaky relocation company and hope for the best.

I waited forever to get my bags: my guitar and little suitcase. When they came, I started walking casually towards customs (I have no poker face; I’m sure I looked pretty guilty). I handed in my customs declaration that indeed declared I had a pet, but offered up no more information. I was thankful that the travel bag was black because it was hard to notice that there was an animal inside unless you looked closely at the mesh. I continued on, making no eye contact, and walking slowly. Within a few moments, I saw Xiao Liu waiting for me to the left. So I kept walking. No one stopped me.

(above) Georgia on the window sill of the 19th floor of San Dong Jia Ri Wan.