Thursday, March 29, 2007
A Face That Could Launch A Thousand ____________.
I'll let you all fill in the blank. It'll be like an online game of Mad Libs. Try to be nice though - it's hard to defend myself when I'm thousands of miles away.

Well, after seeing John Mayer find his celebrity look-alike (The irony is not lost on me. And, by the way, he only matched himself by about 52%), I decided to try it myself.

Lo and behold, the results from the magic computer:

Who Rachel Would Be If She Were Rich, Famous, And Not Planning A "Responsible" Career




I'm pretty happy with my matches. I like that one of them is East Asian. It confirms my belief that the Chinese government does indeed have a plan to slowly assimilate EVERYONE IN THE WORLD. Just kidding, guys! I thought the government censors would get a kick out of that...
posted by Rachel @ 9:56 AM  
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Spitting Image

I read this in a news article earlier today and it piqued my interest particularly after some of the harrowing, uncivilized experiences I have lived to tell the tale of:

In a survey of 770 local Chinese living in Beijing, the majority stated that "spitting is what they hate most about living in the city, among the multitude of anti-social behavior to be witnessed on a daily basis. Following close behind spitting is parents' allowing their children to publicly urinate or otherwise excrete."

That? Bothersome? And perhaps at least a little gross? You don't say.
Spitting is so prevalent in Beijing and, at the same time, so unseemly that the city has created a new campaign charging a 40RMB fine for those caught spitting in public, with the goal of stamping out the spitting habit before the Olympics in 2008.

I only wish they could charge more than 40RMB. If you charged someone 150 kuai every time they spit on the street, I could finally walk with my head held high - not only with pride for the city which is my temporary home. But I mean literally walk with my head held high facing forward. Instead of staring at the ground constantly to avoid stepping on mounds of mucous, et cetera (I'll leave the et cetera to your imagination). Lovely, no?
posted by Rachel @ 5:38 PM  
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Ziggy-field Follies, Part Deux


So I went with my friend Martha last night to the Ziggy Marley concert and it was absolutely incredible! They rocked everything from Jammin' to Justice to Son of a Rasta, though the night's highlight for sure: encore #2's rousing rendition of No Woman, No Cry. It was all music with no filler, no opener - just Ziggy and the Melody Makers for two and half straight hours and two encores. Of course, the whole experience was that much more amazing since we got the front section tickets for free. Anyway, since pictures speak louder than words (and are worth a whole lot more of them too), I'll let them do the metaphorical talking.










posted by Rachel @ 10:14 AM  
Monday, March 26, 2007
The Ziggy-field Follies

This past week, I was combing through City Weekend Online (a webzine geared toward expats living in Beijing) and came across a post of interest. Ziggy Marley (reggae singer extraordinaire and son of the great Bob Marley) would be coming to Beijing on Monday, March 26th followed by a performance in Shanghai on the 27th.


Now, not only is it rare enough that international acts come to perform in China (they go to Japan, Australia, and even Korea frequently enough, but the Chinese government keeps stringent standards for acts that come here - case in point, Jay Z's cancelled concert last year due to use of obscene language and references to violence). But it is even rarer so that they come to Beijing. There is a much larger international community in Shanghai and they therefore attract more international acts (like in my earlier post about Eric Clapton). Often, Beijingers miss out because singers and bands feel they will not be able to bring in enough bodies here. However, Ziggy was on his way and City Weekend had a contest that went something like this:


If Ziggy Marley was a Chinese superhero, what would his superpower be? The person who writes the best comment wins front row tickets to see Ziggy Marley!


Now, I like all kinds of music, though I have no particular affinity for reggae. I like a dash of everything. But wouldn't it be cool to go see Ziggy? And what does it cost to try. Nothing, right? I read through the other comments written, and they all seemed so somber and deep. So I placed a comment that was a little more Rachel-style:


Mr. T, Step Aside!
Ziggy - along with the rest of the Melody Makers - would create a newly formed superhero super-squad known as the Regg"A"e-Team who would then proceed to pity the fools who don't spread love and joy, and harmonize them into submission with his soulful sound and poignant lyrics. And his magical dreads would make him fly (dreads with superpowers seemed to be a running theme here...).


And though I have always contended that I never win ANYTHING, guess where yours truly is going tonight?


To see Ziggy Marley. Here in Beijing. With a friend. For free.


That's just how I roll.
posted by Rachel @ 3:37 PM  
The Times They Are A-Changin'
First off, I have to thank everyone for turning up their international APBs after my blogging sort of disappeared these past several weeks. No, I have not fallen off the face of the planet, and I assure you I am safe and (at least relatively) well. There have been some major alterations in the cloth of my China adventure and they have kept me running around like a chicken with my head cut off (not much unlike those in the bucket at the Laiwu market). The situation goes something like this:

I decided, after three months of working at IMD, the Chinese consulting firm, that the experience was not quite challenging enough and wasn't teaching me enough about the fields of business that I am interested in. I sat down with my boss and negotiated a deal that would have me staying here through the end of the month to finish out my current projects, after which time I would be released out into the Beijing jungle to seek new work as I pleased. However, leaving the consulting firm was not quite as easy as it sounds. Several hurdles had to be cleared first:
1) Leaving my current apartment, which is leased in the company's name and would thus have to be vacated upon moving to my new position.

2) Dodging the heaping dose of Chinese guilt thrown my way (and let me tell you they're almost as good at it as we are). I was leaving three months into a six month commitment and, while not contractually obligated to stay on a piece of paper, we had an "understanding." Plus, I generally prefer to leave my bridges intact, as opposed to dousing them with lighter fluid and setting them aflame, never looking back, for fear of turning into a pillar of MSG (salt is just not that common here).

3) Finding a new job may not be so difficult, but when you have to deal with visas and work permits, it gets a bit more sticky.
Now, to get into the specifics (that was the short version, so if you're just checking in to make sure I'm still alive, you are officially dismissed).

First, the apartment issue. I've learned some very interesting things about myself and this wonderful city I temporarily call "home" these past couple weeks. The first is that if you're Chinese, everything is cheaper. If you're a foreigner, it's more expensive. And if you're a foreigner who speaks Chinese, you might be able to bridge the gap, provided you yell loudly enough.

When I started looking for apartments, I was browsing around That'sBeijing.com and CityWeekend.com and even CraigslistBeijing. But somehow, every apartment I looked at was twice as expensive as the one I was living in now, with less space, and no improvement in location.

Most of the apartments that would've been in the district where I am working (Beijing's northwestern district, Haidian) were all up by Beijing and Tsinghua Universities. To give you an idea, Beijing consists of four concentric rings. (The innermost ring is actually known as the second ring rather than the first. There is no first ring anymore - it existed where the old Emperor's palace walls used to be. To give you some perspective, the second ring is now the number two line of the subway.) The apartments on the aforementioned sites were all out by the fifth ring (and still quite expensive) and I was working at the third ring - a good thirty to forty minute commute in normal traffic.

Rather than live far away in the middle of nowheresville, I decided it would be fun to live closer to the international community in Beijing (if I was going to have to commute to work anyway). As for how expensive it was, I figured there had to be some catch. Then, I received an email from a friend with some advertisements she found for apartments. They, unlike the websites named above, were in Chinese and were listed on a site called Zhantai.com. Just like with everything else, the Chinese had literally "knocked off" Craigslist. Megapixel by megapixel.

But I noticed the prices first. On the other sites, a one-bedroom apartment could be as expensive as 3500RMB per month. Here, they had two-bedroom apartments for 2500. I found several in the area I was looking to live in and went to explore, figuring that if the apartments were going to come that cheaply, they had to be in horrible condition or the size of a closet. But when I arrived, I found nice, spacious apartments in what were obviously Chinese buildings (owned by Chinese landlords and not designed in Western fashion). But they were still fairly well-kept and their locations were fantastic.

Tip: When looking for an apartment in a foreign city in which the main language is not English, look through advertisements in the native language. In a city of a billion people, only a handful of whom speak English, your odds are just plain better. Seems obvious, no? But you'd be surprised. And I can see why it would be intimidating. This past week I had to jump through the daunting hoops of signing a lease and figuring out the rent, fees, and permits for the apartment - all in Chinese! Talk about language boot camp - try yelling at a landlord about charging too much for management and service fees!

Very long story short (I know - too late, right?), I found a cute little apartment on the fourteenth floor of a building directly facing the Canadian embassy (Hey neighbors! Can I borrow a cup of sugar, eh?). It's a one bedroom just off one of the main drags, near all the international centers, two bus stations, and the subway line. I'll be officially moved in by this weekend.

Now onto numero dos. The Chinese guilt. Growing up, I always thought my own people did it best. Especially Jewish mothers. And grandmothers. But when I told my company I wanted to move on, it was like I was playing tug-of-war with their heartstrings and they were not about to let me win. Bear in mind that the challenge of my work had been declining daily for the past month or so. And yet somehow, my leaving was like America kicking off the Brits for taxing their tea. And I say, NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION FOR ME! I'm a Yank for life! I must roam free! (I sound like Dr. Seuss...Oh, the places I will go...)

I stood my ground firmly in the conversations with both my supervisor and boss. Though my supervisor was supportive, my boss ran the gamut - he was everything from grateful for my bringing up my issues with him to angry and refusing to give me any sort of future recommendation and all the emotions in between. It was as though he was going through the stages of grief. Except nobody died. And they've only known me since January. To put it bluntly, they were beating a lost cause and clinging to the dead horse's corpse (that one's kind of a jumble). But as much as I love me my lattes, no amount of Starbucks caffeine-laden meetings could buy my ambition away from me and after four days of "negotiations," they finally had to concede defeat. Because I always win. ALWAYS.

Now the third thing. Looking for a new job (which had actually begun before I announced my intention to leave) was quite a fun process because I could choose to pursue anything, preferably something completely new and international in scope. I could move to another city or try something totally wild. But there was one hitch (as there always is): my work visa.

My visa was changed to an F (business) visa when living in Laiwu and would expire on the 27th of March. Yes, like tomorrow. Now here was the very sticky reasoning behind why this was going to be tough: with the aforementioned emotional volatility of my boss, I could not entrust my visa status to their organization. I could use the new company to apply, but first I had to find a new job. And once I did that, I had to very quickly find a new place to live because in order to apply for a visa or extension, one must have a residence permit (which I did not have before because my company owned the apartment). But the main thing was, I couldn't get either document until I had confirmed acceptance of a new job. Of course, I did not want to rush the process but I had to balance my desire for my dream job with the urgency of the situation.

On the very day that I announced to my boss that I would be leaving my current position, I received the following email message from Emily, who I had been working for part-time on the (earlier mentioned) Chinese Savvy web forum:

"I'm writing to thank you for organising our event for tonight, and to apologize that I am not going to join you. Actually, I've wanted to ask you about the possibility of working with us full time. I can see clearly how much you could add to our team and our project. I hope it can be a meaningful experience for you as well. I admire your positive attitude and excellent communication skills. For that reason too, I hope you will be playing a more important role in our project. "

If ever there was such a thing as fate, this would have to be it. And upon receipt of the letter my gut was telling me it was good. So there it was. I will be starting April 2nd working for Chinese Savvy, a company that - going beyond the scope of my earlier website work - is expanding into the communications and multimedia markets (you can check out our current site at www.ChineseSavvy.com). Though, once again, I will be the only foreigner working at the company, it is a young, vibrant group of smart and energetic Chinese. I can already see so many great things up ahead and will have the amazing opportunity to start on the ground floor and help build a company from its inception, forward.

The above chaos, the last of which has just today been finally ironed out, is why I have not posted on the blog in quite some time. I hope you will forgive this oversight and continue to drop by occasionally. I appreciate everyone's support and will be posting all the new exploits to come.
posted by Rachel @ 2:20 PM  
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Beijing In The Spring (Or Enhanced Greenhouse Effected Winter)
As you may have read from earlier posts, several weeks ago, we celebrated the Chinese New Year - also known as the Spring Festival. This is usually the time when real spring weather emerges. But here, I have seen no such thing - not even a hint. I know temperatures all over the world have gone beyond "unusual," but this season in Beijing is not just strange, it's frustrating as hell. With major daily fluctuations and no visible end in sight to the alternating snow and slush, one must wonder how much more Mother Nature is going to dish out before she reins it all in and allows spring sunshine to emerge.

The first thing that came to mind was "global warming," which I was soon to learn was not exactly the right term. In an attempt to research the topic further, I came across this article. JunkScience is a fantastic and reputable site and, after reading the way they present the facts, I wanted to pass it along to all of you:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Have fun and be knowledgeable!
posted by Rachel @ 10:35 AM  
Getting A Little Personal
I work in an office with mostly female bosses and co-workers, so when there's not much going on, things tend to degenerate into 2nd-grade schoolgirl antics (despite the fact that, at 21, I'm the youngest person here). I'd noticed that three of the "girls" were sitting at the computer, reading and laughing. So, naturally, I wanted to know what was going on. It turns out they were reading personal ads posted looking for Chinese women both from within and without China. After reading some of them myself, I find themamazing in their range from the profound to the plain ridiculous. It spans the whole human spectrum. From men who just want to be paid for marrying a girl in return for a U.S. visa, to men who are truly seeking soul mates - and everything in between. It's phenomenal. If you're ever bored or need a pick-me-up, I highly recommend reading the personals on Thatsbj.com, Cityweekend.com.cn, and Craigslist - China (among others). It's sure to provide twice the cross-cultural entertainment of your run-of-the-mill singles classifieds ad with half the fat!
posted by Rachel @ 10:25 AM  
A Dip In The Stock Pool
Everyone I talked to this week has been wondering about the "stock market snafu" that occurred this past week. I continue to call it that because that's all it was. No cause for alarm, folks. In order to kill several birds with one very witty stone, I will now publicly answer the three main questions I have been asked:

1) No, the currency did not significantly fluctuate as a result. And yes, I can still buy a week's worth of groceries for $30. The day that changes, well let's just hope it doesn't change...

2) No, people did not run around the streets outside the stock exchange waving their arms around, throwing papers in the air, and screaming in a chaotic blur. The Blob has not come to attack Beijing, for goodness' sake! And no - so far as I know, NO ONE has jumped out of any windows. Though we may have persuaded China to replace inner strength and robustness of character with Louis Vuitton knock-offs and McDonald's franchises, human defenestration is not one of those Western quirks that China cares to adopt as its own.

3) It's business as usual, literally. Though some people took a small hit in investment, there was an immediate and sizeable springboard recovery. One rural Chinese newspaper did interviews with farmers who had invested in the market. A very sage elderly woman told them, "[the stock market] goes up and down. That is its nature. I don't worry about it because it will balance."

Eloquent and point on. She said it better than many of the industry insiders. And she's never even taken Econ 101.
posted by Rachel @ 9:51 AM  
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THE WILD WILD EAST: Everything you never knew you didn't know about life on the other side.
In China, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The Chinese, who call this land "home," and the expats who migrate here. My name is Rachel. I am an expat. These are my stories.
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Despite the trivial nature of my random daily (sometimes weekly) musings, I hope you enjoy your stay at my site. If there is anything you need, don't hesitate to ring up the concierge, because I just travel in style like that. Have a pleasant stay and I hope that you will come see us again soon!

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