I am starting to work on some recording projects and need a working amplifier.  I had MS ship over my studio guitar amplifier, a very nice one, from the US, but, silly me who didn’t even think about the power requirements, the amp has no internal transformer like a laptop and can only work with 110 volts.  But, I had a brilliant idea:  I can go to Hua Qiang Bei, the electronics capital of Shenzhen, and China, and I guess the world.

I got a tip from Davide to visit some stores in the area that sold mixing boards and microphones and ask there.  I was successful at step one:  locating these stores.  The salespeople though weren’t selling what I was looking for, but they directed me to “Electronics World” across the street, which is yet another of these 4-5 story enclosures which comprise hundreds of independent shops.  I asked one of the guards where they sold transformers (bian4 ya1 qi1).  I couldn’t understand his response, but he gestured off in a certain direction, so I pretended to understand and thanked him.  After walking down one corridor of mini stores and eyeing the wares, I began to notice a lot of power supplies and plugs.  Perhaps this was the place.

And it was.  The nice woman showed me two heavy transformers, about the size of a shoebox.  After explaining what I was looking for and showing her a picture of the back of my amp, we settled on the 600 watt transformer.  I walked back outside and to the bus-stop, quite pleased with myself.  But, as I should have known, when I got home and plugged it in.  It turned on briefly, made a horrible noise, and shut off.  Dead.  Reality set back in and I cursed at the idea of having to go back to Hua Qiang Bei.

I went the next day and the nice lady switched out the fuse.  Oh, it was that simple?  Just an old fuse or something?  She gave me a couple of extras and we tested it.  It seemed to work fine.

Back at home, I plugged it in and turned it on again.  This time, it made a horrible loud buzzing, but didn’t shut off.  Now, why didn’t I hear this loud buzzing when I was in the store.  Oh wait, it was Hua Qiang Bei which is perpetually full of multitudes of screaming people.  Makes sense.  Well, back to reality again, I though, “How in the heck am I supposed to record with this awful buzzing in the background?”  There was no reasonable answer, but I decided to at least try the amp.  I plugged it in, turned on the power…BOOM!  Fuse blown again.

OK, I give up.  I could always have someone replace the transformer, I guess, but I do plan to go back to the US someday and don’t want to have to change it back again.  Besides, there is zero guarantee that the electrician will do a good job.  I could end up burning the whole apartment complex down.  Forget it; I’ll just buy a new amp, a little cheapo studio one.  That’ll be fine, I’ve got a nice effect rack.  It’ll work.  The next day, I learned about “Music Heaven” in Shenzhen and checked it out.  Not bad!  It’s another collection of stores, about 3 stories worth.  The owner of the place that I tried out is a big fan of Paul Gilbert and had his picture playing guitar with him proudly displayed, so I thought that was fitting.

I’ve got an extremely heavy paperweight now, my shoebox-sized transformer, unless someone wants to take this thing off my hands.  Return it to the store?  Forget it.  Welcome to Hua Qiang Bei.

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As part of the apartment negotiation, the landlord decided to buy an AC for the main room.  How this room was inhabitable before an AC was installed is beyond me, but that’s my sissy western comforts talking.  At first they couldn’t install on Sundays because of the rules of the apartment, they weren’t available on Monday, so Tuesday was the day.

When they showed up, I could barely understand these two characters.  For one, my Chinese is two months stale and I’m still in Spanish mode, and two, they spoke so fast and with such an accent that it probably would have been impossible anyway.  So, I made phone calls as necessary.

But, the real reason I wanted to add this post is to describe the safety measures they adhered to.  Let me back up, in China, most apartments have single AC units per room.  While it’s not nearly as nice as central air-conditioning, it is nicer than the single units in the US.  In China, the AC units have the condenser and the blower separated.  The condenser sits outside on a platform and there’s an insulated tube that runs to the remote-controlled blower inside.  Well, the blower was easy enough, but I couldn’t see how they’d get the condenser into place.  The window, which you can push out and to the right, blocked access to the platform where the condenser had to be placed.

To my shock, one of the workers put on a shaggy chest harness, clipped a rusty caribeaner to the hinge of the window and stepped out ten floors above the street below.  What’s worse, he ended up sitting on the edge of the window while putting the condenser into place which was lowered from the roof by the other worker.  Now that window hinge is metal, about six inches long and maybe a half an inch wide.  In the end, of course, there were no accidents.

In the end, the cost of installation:  $20.

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As you may likely know, youtube has been banned again here in China.  Check it out, I even have the “banned” screenshot to prove it.  The banned sites always either result in “Network Timeout” or “Connection Interrupted”.  At least we’ve had Wikipedia for a while.  I am also looking into network tunneling and other fun nerdy concepts to bypass all this silliness.  I have friends here who have successfully implemented it and have even reported faster surfing in addition to more internet freedom.

A common and popular street snack in China is a type of sugar that has had it’s skin stripped off. In Chinese, the cane is called “Gan1 Zhe”, or ?? if you can read Chinese characters on your computer). There are basically two ways to enjoy it:

1. Have the vendor strip off the skin and gnaw gently into the meat.  Suck the juice out and then spit the dried pulp onto the street.  Be careful when you arrive at the joint of the cane.  You can really hurt your teeth if your not careful.  Chew at an angle to bite off the joint so you can continue to enjoy the next section.
2. Have the vendor put the can through a juice extractor and just drink the juice.  It’s funny; I just saw a bunch of vendors selling this juice to people through the fence bordering a popular park.  They’d set up their mobile juice extracting units on their bikes just on the other side of the fences and people would make paths through the bushes to buy the juice from them.  I guess they saved on park vendor fees or something.

I tired it not long ago and it’s not bad, though I can’t really see myself going for the perpetual spitting required.  You’ll enjoy it if you have a sweet tooth; it’s got to be the sweetest natural drink I’ve ever had.  I’m surprised that Chinese people like it so much.  Vendors typically sell a 1.5′ section of cane for 1 RMB, about 14 cents.

Some pics for you:

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Another Chinese New Year upon us!  That means: time to travel.  I can’t believe this is my third Chinese New Year spent in Asia.  My first trip was to Guilin and environs.  My second was to the Yunnan Province.  This year, well, though there is still plenty to see in China, it was time to leave the country.  The Plan:  Cambodia, a place that I’d wanted to visit ever since I was a kid.  Reliable Li Zhen was my traveling partner again and he booked the air tickets to go.  Because there was no direct flight to Siem Reap from Shenzhen, we connected through Kuala Lumpur.  Because Li Zhen told me that our layover would be overnight, I lobbied for us to spend two nights and see the city.  Good call.  Kuala Lumpur, like Cambodia, had a certain exotic ring to it, which was why I was so interested in a vist.  For some reason, the creepy opening scenes of the one of the early seasons of 24, set in Kuala Lumpur, is what sticks in my mind most.

However, this trip was far from creep.  We stayed in a posh hotel, the Traders in KLCC, in Kuala Lumpur (or “KL” as the locals like to call it) while Cambodia was much more lower end (but still quite comfortable).  The hotel is very affordable though and the view of the Petronas Towers is unbeatable.  Kuala Lumpur is a very easy city to get around in for English speakers, way easier than China.  I mean there’s not even any comparison.  English is widely spoken.  I only encountered a few people who could speak any English, and yet there was always someone nearby to help out.  So, want an easy taste of Southeast Asia?  Try here.

However, make sure you enjoy oppressive tropical heat.  In January, it was hot and humid with temperatures pushing into the 90′s.

After dropping off our bags, we headed out.  Our first stop was to find some food and we settled on a sit down Lebanese place.  Later on we found the highly-sought-after food street and made our eating home here for the rest of the trip.  The food was cheap (do I daresay cheaper than China?) and tasty.  It’s a nice blend of many Asian cuisines.  Same for the tropical drinks; they were numerous, cheap, and refreshing.  My favorite was some sort of coconut drink with a sweet tangy brown substance that you mixed up.  Also, as is popular in Asia, was some sort of green tapioca substance which you could suck up through the straw.  Weird stuff, never tasted anything like it before, but it was good.

It seems I’ve been visiting various tall towers of the world lately, Shanghai being the latest – and best, so I felt we needed to go up into the Petronas Tower, but this was a big waste. I knew that we were only allowed to go up into the Skybridge, but this might be cool, right?!  “NO!”  It’s not that high up, and getting the stupid tickets is absurd.  They’re free, but you have to wait in line.  And I’m shocked at how long I waited in line with hoardes of other people to get them.  And yes, they did “sell out” for the day after I got our tickets.  But, before you go up, you get to watch a movie.  Pretty cool, right?  “NO!” again.  It’s a long propaganda film about how great the Malaysian Petronas company, an oil and gas company by the way, is.  Then, we go up in the Skybridge and take a few pics.  Li Zhen summed it up well when he asked, “Is that all?”

Fortunately, we got our good view shots from the hotel and from the KL Tower, a tall telecommunications tower which affords the best views of the city.  We did this at night, and by the end of this day, we had marched over a large section of Kuala Lumpur (it’s really not that big) and were beat.  We picked a relatively expensive “executive cab” to take us back to the hotel.

We spent much of the next day wandering around a large park/garden area just north of KL Central station.  We took the train to get to KL Central, then, against the advice of a security guard, opted to walk our way to the gardens.  It was quite convoluted, crossing major roads, going through a museum exhibit of ancient weapons, and a tunnel before we arrived.  A neat thing about the city is that there are various places that monkeys run wild, and the garden, of course, is a great place for them to hang out.  We ended up finding our way to both the bird pavilion and butterfly pavilion, both of which were fun tourist destinations.  The bird pavilion boasts that it is the largest walk-through bird park in the world.  Maybe it is; we were there quite a while.  The butterfly pavilion is much smaller, but a densely packed tropical enclosure with butterflies.  I still don’t think it was as good as Callaway Garden’s butterfly conservatory, but they had a collection of BUGS that was awesome – and disgusting.  They had plenty of displays of pinned down monstrous bugs, including some abominations that I thought, until now, only were found in movies like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, but they had some live specimens too:  foot long brutes that fortunately were labeled as “rare”.

After the gardens, we hopped a cheap taxi to go over to China town.  Strangely enough, I couldn’t find much native Malaysian food outside of China town, but I did find some within China town.  We didn’t wander too long there.  Much of it was quite similar to parts of China, although the salesmen all spoke English.

We decided to turn in early since Li Zhen had booked us super early departure tickets for Siem Reap.  Because it was a 7am departure, we had to get up at 3:30am in order to be at the airport in time to catch the flight.  The distance from the city center to the airport is absurd.  And you thought the Denver airport was bad.  The Kuala Lumpur airport is at least three times as far away.  And the strange thing is that there seems to be a grid of highways that we cross over to get there.  Not sure where all those roads go to, but we sure did get on and off a lot of exit and entry ramps.

By the way, do you know how to pronounce:  “Kuala Lumpur”?  No, it isn’t Koala Lumpur, as in Koala bear.  The “Kua” sound is one syllable and sounds like “Kwah”.  Everything else is how it’s written.

Oh yes, and I need to thank Robert for his various tips on Kuala Lumpur.  He told me about the “Nasilama” food (see pictures), the big gardens, and various time saving tips.

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I just love showing simple office cultural differences between China and the US.  In some ways, the US is more stiff, in some ways China.  The office party has always been fun to observe.  I can’t endure the stuffy boring parties in the US, so China was a relief.  However, have a look at this wonderful dance presented by some of my coworkers.  Put yourself in their shoes and answer my poll!

Robert and I planned to spend three days in Shanghai before flying off to our respective destinations (me to the US, Robert to Kuala Lumpur and beyond).  My former colleague, biz contact, and friend Peter graciously offered up his apartment during our stay.  Getting the key was a little tricky, since his roommate had also decided to visit the US, but with the help of the aiyi’s (maid) phone number at the last minute (after we’d arrived in Shanghai), we were able to meet up and get the key.  OK, we were now set.

But, before we’d successfully rendezvoused to get the key, before we even had contact with Peter, we thought we’d go to a popular subway stop in the hopes of finding a Starbucks so that we could use their wireless internet connection and hopefully connect with Peter.  Well, we never found the Starbucks, but we did get our first glimpse at the new and very impressive sharp-chisel-touching-the-sky-of-a-building Shanghai World Financial Center, the second tallest in the world, though we didn’t know that was it at the time.  We had chosen “Century Plaza” (on the right side of this map) because it had numerous intersections.  But, it proved to be fruitless.  We boarded the subway and tried again.  Then Peter called.

Flash forward to us with the keys; now we had the freedom to go anywhere.  This was the second time I’d been to Shanghai, the first being with my parents and some friends of ours on an official tour the year before.  This time, I was completely in charge, and no Chinese local to help out.  However, it was quite easy; my Chinese has progressed enough to get by.  And, unlike Shenzhen, there is a good bit more English.  In fact, our first stop was “People’s Square”, a great place to begin the tour since it leads to Nanjing Street, a long pedestrian street filled with restaurants and shops.  As we were orienting ourselves and the map in People’s Square, we were approached by three Chinese tourists, or so they said, who struck up a quick conversation with us.  Eventually, they invited us to a “tea show” which we declined because we were starving.  We had finished packing around 1:30am the night before, were up at 5:00am to go by my office and pick up something I had forgotten and then took the same taxi out to the airport.  Anyway, we would see this same triumverate tomorrow in the same spot talking to different foreigners; I’ll let Robert finish the story to explain why.  It is quite a good story.

I was surprised at how aggressive the wandering salesmen were on Nanjing Road.  They were approaching the style of the “Merchants of LuoHu” (wow, one of my first posts).  I teased around with some of them.  Usually, this is OK, but some didn’t get the message.  One lady, selling strap on flashing roller skates almost wouldn’t take no for an answer; she cut her prices nearly six times before she finally gave up.  We spotted several restaurants and got Robert some overdue coffee, but eventually opted to move off the main drag for something a little more…traditional.

We found a delicious, cheap, filthy, delightful, hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we bought fried rice, a thing broth.  We also brought in sort of a fried dumpling filled with meat and milk tea to supplement the food.  It was a satisfying lunch.  We returned to this same area late another night for dinner.  We were the last in the restaurant, enjoying a fried rice dish with meat in a hot skillet.  I noticed that the owners were beginning to close up show.  Obviously, other residents of the restaurant expected this as well when a LARGE RAT began crawling down a black wire hanging behind Robert.  By the time I remembered the word for “rat” in Chinese and shouted to the owners, who seemed not to mind, he had descended and vanished somewhere along a crack in the wall.  Robert’s response was most memorable:  “Aweeeesome!  This is great!  Real China!”  I couldn’t agree more.

After our day trip to Suzhou, we returned to the Pudong area (that’s where are the really cool modern buildings are…oh yeah, and they’re putting in a super tall skyscraper which will dwarf the current highest tower by nearly 150 meters!) to have dinner in the Jin Mao Tower, in the Hyatt up on the 60th floor or so.  This was a huge departure from our two dollar rat meal from the day before, but we were in a mood to celebrate.  But first, we took a visit to the Shanghai World Financial Center for a commanding view of the city.  The building is so impressive.  Very modern on the inside and sleek on the outside.  Taking the elevator up was a treat too.  You could barely feel the acceleration and there was also a delightful light show on the ceiling to enjoy.  The top of the tower is surprisingly thin, and, in Feng Shui tradition (or at least as much as I understand it), the bridge at the top of the large gap in the the tower is a glass skybride and observatory.  As you can imagine, the views are great.

Later, we enjoyed a wonderful Italian dinner in the Jin Mao Tower Hyatt.  We were again the last party to leave as they were closing up.  Alex, a friend of Peter’s roommate (who later had given us an extra key so we could return the original one to the aiyi…) and a busy man in the world of business consulting, met up with us after work (!!) and helped finish off the wine.  We all then retired up to the club on the top floor to the “Cloud 9 Lounge” for more drinks.  Sitting so high up and looking out onto the city was an experience by itself.  It was just such a great moment to savor and enjoy:  a wonderful view, good drinks, and superb company.

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Part of our trip to Shanghai was spent as a day trip to Suzhou, one of the many canal cities to the west of Shanghai.  I’d wanted to see one of these towns ever since seeing the end scenes from Mission Impossible III.  True to the warnings of the guidebook and some locals, the scenic spots did take some effort to find; much of the old town is surrounded by ugly, smell, or industrial parts.

Buying the train ticket was easy and cheap.  And, we were happy to discover that our $4 fare was for the comfortable and spacious first class cabin.  Not bad.  Approximately one hour later, we pulled in to Suzhou, then began a long walk to the scenic parts of town.  First we crossed a stinking stagnant canal on a bridge crowded with street merchants.  After a couple of wrong turns into the ugly parts of town, we steered in the right direction and found the first guidebook landmark – the silk museum, which, from nearly being over run by vines and creepers, appeared to not have had a visitor in years.  I was worried that the rest of the city might look no better.  But it didn’t; eventually we found some good stuff:  The Temple of Mystery, The Twin Pagodas, and even some quality canal views, though they were nothing close to what can be seen in the city of Li Jiang in the Yunnan province.  I especially enjoyed the food.  We never sat down for a meal, but instead dined on street snacks, the favorite being sort of a Chinese pizza – a crust with ground meat and spices on top.  It was delicious and only 3 RMB (under 50 cents).  There was plenty of milk tea stands, much like Shanghai, to choose from as well.

We ended up hitting all major sections of the city, ending the day in the southwest corner.  After so much walking, we opted to use a rickshaw to make our way back to the center of town.  Unfortunately, we suddenly realized that we only had a few minutes to catch the train back to Shanghai.  We ran to the busiest street, caught a cab to the train station, ran through the gate, and boarded with two minutes to spare.  The nap on the ride back to Shanghai was a perfect ending.

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The afternoon I arrived in Shenzhen, we caught a bus which was jam-packed with people, with no regard for the safety regulations about which we are so strict in the US: people were standing in the aisle, in the door-wells, and I was pressed up against the very front of the bus, such that, when new passengers somehow squeezed on board, they would have to pass their metro cards forward, then I would swipe them and pass them back. Theron and I, as fairly rare foreigners here, get lots of stares. It’s like being a celebrity. And these people are not shy about it: they will fix their gaze on you unapologetically for minutes.

A real adventure ensued on Saturday night (December 13) when we went in search of DVD knock-offs. The main market for these–also one of the world’s largest markets for imitation electronic products (i-Pods, i-Phones and more)–is a wide and winding alley among a series of six-to-eight-story buildings, all plastered with neon signs, like Times Square on crack. The crowds are thick and the noise is intensified by hip, young vendors in Santa hats barking their wares in microphones accompanied by hip-hop or techno beats. McDonald’s (which they call MaDaNa) is situated at the center under some towers made to look like old-fashioned pagodas, the only nominal tip of the hat to old China. Also very prevalent here is KFC! Since the Colonel is pictured here as in the US, only from the collar up, the locals refer to this chain as “Old Head.”

We perused the impressive contents of one DVD store which had beautiful packaging (though still fake) and a wide selection. (“Frost/Nixon” is already available here.) Theron went to another store and, not finding what we were after (TV shows), consulted a 16-ish shop girl, stylishly dressed in something like “swindler-chic” and possessed of a certain whimsically sly demeanor. She then beckoned us to follow her. So we did. Off into the crowds we went, dodging random people who approached and, in broken English, offered “electronic,” “DVD,” “Rolex,” and, best of all, “Sexy DVD.” Occasionally, it was hard for me to keep up with Theron and our guide because of the number of people and the chaos of their movements. Several blocks away, we entered a building full of more vendors and more stalls of fake merchandise. Rows and rows and shelves and shelves of cell phones, cameras, i-Pods, etc. The sheer amount of items is staggering. We jammed into a packed elevator and went up a few flights, being thoroughly checked out by the locals. Continuing in our guide’s footsteps, we exited the elevator and followed a corridor which took turns at odd angles. It seemed that we were coming to the back of the mall, the place where one might find restrooms (you don’t want to imagine what these would have been like in this place), security (which was not at all in evidence) and administrative offices. At the end of an especially blank segment, a fellow who may have been some kind of maintenance man was washing something in a kind of wet-room. As we passed along the blank, dirty-white walls, our guide casually knocked along a shallow recess that might have been a shop window at one time, now closed over with something like dry-wall. She continued knocking on the wall as she approached an equally blank and seemingly sealed doorway with no knob or handle. She paused at it for a second before it was opened from the inside by another teenager. We were ushered in through a curtain to a secret DVD store, the walls of which were lined with fake DVDs, including a collection of [D]ruce Lee [sic] films (which I just had to get as a laugh for a friend), copies of “Lost” (our guide pointed to it as I held it and said, “very good, very good”), “Rome,” “The Simpsons,” “Pushing Up Daisies,” “Dexter,” you name it. I even found a complete set of my beloved “Arrested Development.” If nothing else, the English subtitles will be a riot. A couple of nights before, we had bought a copy of “Burn After Reading” which had hilariously erroneous English subtitles, e.g. whenever the actors spoke the f-word, “mama” was inexplicably given in the subtitles. On the floor of the shop, a kid was stuffing packages with new DVDs and stacking them to be shelved. It was a thrilling glimpse of the underground industry.

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Of course, the question arises: why should some shops be able to sell what are obviously illegal copies openly, while another has to keep a secret shop? Theron’s friend Coco suggested that perhaps it’s due to “guan xi,” the somewhat mysterious, unwritten, unofficial good-business relations that are necessary to thrive in the Chinese market. Perhaps the secret store had not cultivated good “guan xi,” Coco suggested.

There was another little adventure that night. We had just left the secret room and emerged in the streets again. Sure enough, people started walking up to us saying, “Sexy DVD! Sexy DVD!” One slight, middle-aged woman came up to us and would not go away. Usually Theron and I are good about ignoring these people, but this woman would not give up. She kept saying “DVD 5 RMB! DVD 5 RMB!” 5RMB being about half what you normally pay for fake DVDs. So Theron gave in, and we followed her across the crowded plaza, into an indoor market that was very seedy and run-down (a whole set of escalators sat dormant) into another open market and then she told us to wait. She came back with a big notebook of DVD labels. Theron selected two. When I expressed the slightest interest or amusement in any, she assumed I wanted them. Finally, we clarified that Theron only wanted 2. She went away again, and we waited a few minutes. She returned accompanied by a guy who looked somewhat official (blue uniform shirt, or so it appeared); she seemed annoyed with him, and so we got a little nervous. Nevertheless, at her insistent beckoning, we followed the two of them as they crossed to one end of the open market and then darted behind a clothes or fabric booth. We couldn’t figure out why they were being so secretive. Oddly, at the back of the fabric booth, a lady slumped face-down on a pile of samples, presumably sleeping. Our peddler gave Theron his two DVDs; he checked them out and gave them two 5-RMB bills. The lady protested, saying that the bills had tears in them and were no good. The tears were insignificant.  It all seemed fishy.  Theron said the deal was off and asked for his money back, but she wouldn’t give it to him. He tried to give back the discs, but she wouldn’t take them. She asked him to pay with a 50- or 100-RMB note, and they would give us change. The man opened his wallet to reveal a ton of 10-yuan notes. Theron was suspicious of this from stories he had heard and asked me for a 10. Fortunately, I had a 10-RMB note which we gave it to them.  At last, the deal was done, somewhat to the dealers’ disappointment. In retrospect, we realized they were trying to get us to give them a big note (100 or 50) so they could give us back change…in counterfeit bills!!! Apparently this is a common scam! So glad we were wise to it! All in a night’s adventure.

Of course, there will be points that I will inadverdently omit from previous “Savoring China” posts, or new items that I learn and wish to add.  Well, here are a couple, mostly related to leaning in towards the table.  Interesting stuff.

Eating Chinese food has the potential to be a messy affair, especially by a novice, a Western novice at that.  When I learned my American Table Manners, I learned that it was proper and polite to sit up straight and, using a fork or spoon, bring the food from the plate or bowl to my mouth.  In China, this is not so practical.  Chopsticks being what they are and dishes often served with richly-colored savory sauces makes for splashing inevitable, except for the most skilled.  How is this managed?  By leaning in towards the food, minimizing the travel distance from bowl to mouth and reducing the surface area of your clean shirt to splash.  I can’t tell you how many times I splashed something directly onto my shirt and had to spend time in the bathroom washing it out.  But, those instances have been decreasing.

So, when people lean into the table to eat, this frees up space in the back of the chair.  This is where many people, ladies in particular, will store their bags.  Thievery is the most common crime in Shenzhen (probably all of China), so this serves as a fairly safe place to keep your things while eating.  Some of the nicer restaurants will bring large sleeves which fit over the back of the chair and contain your bag..  At first, I thought this was to protect your bags from splashes (so why not hand out bibs too?).  Not so, it’s to make it much harder for theives to grab your bag and run.