Do I need to send back my membership card? Is everything on the internet true?

I am uncomfortable... Seriously uncomfortable.

I became a Republican when I could first vote - the presidential election of 1992. I grew up watching Ronald Reagan on TV and seeing the rather uninspiring candidates the Democrats offered up. I was young and wanted to grow up and study business and make money and keep it (and those darned Democrats wanted to take it away). I was too young to worry about education, too young to understand the complexities of issues like abortion, and had never been a citizen during a war. George Bush 'the first' seemed like a solid guy... and he said 'read my lips, no new taxes' (even if he did have to go back on that 1988 campaign promise). I did not yet have a job, or a retirement account, so the recession the US was in wasn't impacting me.

As I have gotten older I have educated myself (and been educated by my wife and friends) on a broader set of issues, and learned about them with a little more depth. I am by no means a policy wonk, and I can't say that I really know the details of what every policy would cost, the implications and ramifications domestic and abroad... I just have my opinion, like 250 million other Americans.

I have taken 3 of these on-line 'candidate selector' quizzes this evening. This is after surfing the web for a while to try to figure out exactly what the difference is between 'marriage' and 'civil union' and 'domestic partnership'. This is also after reading up on candidates positions on universal health care, plans for exiting Iraq, and what the hell do we do with the whack-o running Iran?

What came back in these quizzes surprised me a little, didn't surprise my wife one bit, and has me wondering if I am required by some internet quiz law to return my RNC Membership card.

I have long held that I am socially liberal, and fiscally conservative. When my wife says I am really a Democrat in denial, I correct her and explain that I am a moderate Republican. One friend back in Oregon told me after I explained this odd amalgamation of beliefs that I was a Libertarian and that he was one as well, and that I could start attending some meetings with him. I politely (at least I thought it was polite, since I tried to make it a joke) explained to him that I liked winning too much to be a Libertarian.

So, I took these 3 on-line quizzes. Here were the results in the order I took them...

Quiz #1
1) John McCain - a moderate republican, so I was OK with this, but don't think he'll get the Republican nomination, despite being the most qualified GOP candidate - in my opinion
Here's where it got interesting...
Tied at #2 and #3 were Obama and Hillary Clinton

I just don't like Hillary... I can't put my finger on it... but I don't like her. I don't think it's the woman thing... I was raised by a strong woman who was a single mom... I married a strong woman... I would have been every bit as likely to vote for Elizabeth Dole as Bob Dole... I just don't know what it is about this woman.

Obama I kind of like, but mostly 'cause he's fresh and engergetic, and new, and because he's not Hillary... Oh yeah, and 'cause of Oprah (just kidding).

The next one I took looked like this:
1) Bill Richardson - moderate Democrat... This threw me a little - the life long (as long as I could vote) Republican was a little shaken, but...
2) At #2 was Rudy... a Republican that was pro-life... this might be my guy... but he's a proponent of staying in Iraq... below I have a summary of my personal positions on issues... Iraq is one place we don't align well.
3) Damn it, Hillary again!

So I took this one again... I eliminated any 'neutral' answers, forcing myself to agree to some extent or disagree to some extent on the issues... she moved up to #2... so I did what any rational person would do... left that quiz and went onto another one... hoping she would go away.

Quiz #3:
1) Chris Dodd... someone I honestly had barely heard of... On the Democratic side, I had only paid attention to Obama, Clinton and Edwards.
2) Damn you Hillary... you are like that bad Chinese Mexican food - you just won't go away!
3) John Edwards

So here I am... I went from Quiz #1 - a Republican at #1 with 2 Democrats behind, to Quiz #2 with a Democrat at #1, but a Republican at number 2 (and another Democrat at #3), to the last Quiz, which had all top 3 candidates Democrats, as well as Hillary moving up to be alone in second place...

I chickened out and refused to take anymore quizzes... Had I taken another quiz, I am convinced I would have seen Hillary's name at the top of my list... which means I would head to bed feeling miserable... and my wife would never let me forget it.

I went ahead and listed the basic positions I have that lead to these results... Only read on if you are a political junkie like me, or you are extremely bored!

Cheers,
Joe

Here are the areas where I align with traditionally conservative and traditionally liberal positions - some of you will disagree somewhat or greatly with these positions - here's hoping it doesn't ruin friendships (or marriages). :)

Conservative Positions:

• I still want to keep my money, which means lower taxes
• I think illegal aliens, by definition are not here legally and should be sent home - there are legal ways to come to the US, please use them
• If there is no better way to stop the passage of illegal aliens and drugs into the US from Mexico, build the wall
• Smaller government is better than bigger government, let States decide on as many issues as possible
• Social Security as it exists today is a ticking time bomb... Allow for a portion of the money in my account to be directed to the stock market, which over any 10 year period has never returned less than 8% (past performance is no indication of future results, blah, blah, blah... I'll take my chances)
• I just can't see how we can afford universal health care... See bullet #1 where I want to keep my money... Cover ALL children. Cover them until they turn 18, or 21. But universal is hard to pay for. Incentivize businesses to provide coverage and partially fund coverage.
• The second amendment - right to keep and bear arms. I do believe that this was meant in the context of a well armed militia, but it has been interpreted to mean any Tom, Dick or Harriet who wants to own a gun, should be able to... I am OK with this, and own a number of firearms myself. I imagine every framer of the constitution owned a firearm, regardless of their plans of being in the military of the time... I think this is a constitutional right that should be protected. However, if you look at my liberal positions below, you'll see I break with conservatives slightly.
  

Liberal Positions:

• I can't tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body. Personally, I hope that my family never has to make a decision about terminating a pregnancy... And if we did, I pray we are strong enough to carry any baby to term and love that child regardless of the circumstances... but until I am faced with that situation, I can not honestly say what I would advocate. I feel like Roe vs. Wade is a decent compromise - until the fetus is viable outside the womb (as defined at the time) a woman is free to choose what she does with her body.
• Marriage, Civil Unions, Domestic Parterships... What do I care? If two people of the same sex want to get married and get the same benefits that I do as a heterosexual married couple, great. It is not for me to define who is allowed to love who, and if two people love each other, then let them get married... and let them deal with each other's families, and let them deal with each other and all the challenges and all the greatness that comes with that. I can't get behind the religious right who says that the bible forbids homosexual relationships... the bible also says you can sell your daughter into slavery... we don't do that... it also says wives should be subserviant to their husbands.... OK, maybe that one is a good one... I'll have to talk with Steph about it... Anyhow, I do believe the bible is the word of God... I also believe that God was not necessarily being literal in every passage in the bible... there are parts of the bible that are allegorical.
  
• Stem cell research should be federally funded... even if the 'life begins at embryo' belief were one that I held, as I understand the data, the majority of the research is done on embryos that would be discarded otherwise... so we can throw them in the trash can, but we can't learn how to eradicate diseases with them? This makes no sense to me.
• Gun Control - by all means the 2nd amendment should be protected, but I can't be a strict constitutionalist on this topic. Guns are OK with limits. Background checks should be OK. Bans or regulation on assault weapons should be OK. The unchecked ability for people to procure whatever harbinger of death they choose seems silly to me... can't we agree on some middle ground? Can't we agree that automatic assault weapons are a reasonable place to draw the line? Evidently not.
• Iraq - get out. Be more diplomatic. Fire whoever told you there were WMDs. If they didn't tell you that and you manufactured it, shame on you. I can't agree with setting a specific deadline - I have to agree that telling the enemy the day you are leaving is not good strategy (philosophically, since I have no military experience whatsoever)... but put a phased plan in place with our allies and get out... if they can't run the country themselves in 6 months, with all the damned oil money they have... what makes us think they will be able to do so in 12 months? 24? 36?
  

A little slice of Christmas

As Christmas approaches, we decided somewhat on a whim to host a holiday party at our apartment last weekend. We knew we were going to lose some potential attendees with the proximity to the holiday (some people traveling early) and the late notice (some people had other holiday parties already scheduled).

I think part of our interest in hosting the party was to try to make it feel a little more like Christmas. The tree is up and trimmed, we downloaded a ton of Christmas music, and Steph did a great job of decorating the apartment, but it still does not quite feel like Christmas. It's cold - which is better than my boss who's an expat in Malaysia where it's 80+ degrees every day! But it still doesn't feel much like Christmas. I guess I should not be surprised, given being in China.

We made the decision not to go home for Christmas. Intel only pays for 1 home leave trip a year, so we decided to use it this coming summer, when Olivia is out of school. We thought briefly about paying to head home ourselves, but the tickets would have been roughly $6K, and our travel budget is already earmarked for the Chinese New Year trip to New Zealand.

So that being said, we decided to manufacture a little Christmas cheer by hosting a holiday gathering. We provided drinks, and asked everyone to bring their favorite holiday dessert. We targeted a late start time, to allow for all the attendees (and us) to take care of kids before coming. We set up the girls at a friends house with their daughter - a regular babysitter of ours - and at 8:00pm we had the lights turned low, and with Christmas music on iTunes we were ready to receive guests.

We had roughly 25 people attend, which was great. Not too many folks, but a great mix of people we had met from our different areas of life in Shanghai. Some friends from work, some friends from my basketball team, and a number of other expats we have met either in our complex or through Olivia's school.

The most popular drink of the night was not a very 'holiday' drink. The popular drink, at least with the women in attendance was a Cosmopolitan. It was popular enough that I ran out of cranberry juice before midnight! Seeing as this was my first ever attempt at this drink, I was happy that I didn't ruin them!

By midnight we were down to a core group of friends from here in our complex. Dwayne and Dana were ready to head home, and our kids were asleep in their bed, so we had to close the party down around 1:00am. Our friend Patrick was jokingly complaining about this being the first time he had been kicked out of a party early... He looked at Steph and said with a straight face 'Lovely party, we won't be coming next year'. I guess we'll learn not to give the McStravick's the boot early!

We gathered up our kids at the Canfield's and brought them home and snuggled them into their beds.

It was a great night... It still doesn't feel like Christmas, but a holiday party made it a little more bearable!

Hoops in China... For real this time...

Fresh off my Intercultural Training, and being the newly culturally sensitive guy I am, let me be sure to start with a disclaimer that any references to Chinese people playing basketball are specific only to the people with which I have played to this point, and is in no way meant to be a blanket statement on the skill or playing style of all Chinese pick up basketball players... Legal disclaimer out of the way, here we go....

I have been a gym rat most of my life... After college, I played in city leagues, rec leagues, open gym at high schools. The year I traveled around the country working for my Fraternity I played on college campuses in rec games all over the country.

I found a group of expat guys to play with here in China. It was been a great time. The competition varies from week to week, and from night to night, depending on the fate of free throw shooting to determine teams. We play every Wednesday night at one of the International Schools, that luckily is only a few blocks from our apartment, so I can ride my bike over and back.

There are a few things that have been especially fun about playing with these guys. For one, they are all in a similar situation, from somewhere else, living in China. Some of them are on year 1 (like me), some of them have been here for 3 or more years. There are 2 guys that have lived in Asia for decades, but still hail from the USA.

Also, they are fundamentally a good group of guys. They are all fairly competative, but they also seem to put the pick up games in the right perspective - all of us are using this as a means to get into a little bit better shape. (Speaking of, I am glad to report that I am down to about 210 pounds - from my China arrival weight of roughly 230 pounds! The goal is to get down to sub-200, someplace I have not consistently been since high school).

We play full court, 5 on 5, on the main court, or play on the cross court (sightly smaller) floors, which allows 2 games at one time if we get enough guys. The competition is decent.

In addition to this Wednesday night game, one of the guys (who is the varsity boys basketball coach at the high school we play at) organized about 15 of us to play in a local league/tournament. He had a big roster (15) since so many of us travel, we needed to account for spotty attendance.

As it turns out, there are no other expat teams in this league. It's all local teams. Before I describe the league, I'll explain about the local pick up game I played with the Chinese guys tonight.

I had heard from one of the guys on the team that the gym I belong to has a pick up game on Tuesday nights. Since I am stull pushing towards my sub-200 goal, another night of pick up hoops could not hurt. I got the OK from Steph and headed off to the gym.

I assumed going in that basketball is basketball, and really didn't think my not speaking Chinese would be that big a deal. This was not entirely true. First I had to figure out how to actually get into the game. In most gyms in the US, or on playgrounds, you talk to the guys sitting out and determine 'who's got next' - meaning which of the players sitting out is going to challenge the winners. If they have their full team, you find 'who's got next after them' and if no one does, you announce 'I've got next' and as new players show up, or losing teams come off the floor, you pick up players.

Imagine trying to manage that in China with no language skills... Luckily these guys saw me show up in my gear and saw me sitting out and motioned me into the 2nd game after I arrived.

They were playing 5 on 5, so I felt comfortable with that - recognizing my team mates was a little hard since they don't go shirts or skins or lights and darks. Also, I was surprised to notice, that even though they had the full court, they were only playing half court. Also, the games were only to 5 points. Quick games, and only half court... I was concerned about potentially having to play until 10:00pm to get a good work out in!

As it turns out, they play lots of quick games, so if you go hard you can get a decent work out in - nothing like when you run full court, but better than sitting in front of the PC rambling on about basketball experiences from 10 years ago (sorry if you got caught up in that last post).

I also realized after the games why the half court and short games might be preferred. When I walked out of the gym, at least 1/2 of the guys involved were standing outside the gym smoking cigarettes. No wonder they are limiting their activity - they are probably struggling for breath!

It was decent fun, and a little interesting picking up on the quirks of the Chinese pick up game - some of them are listed below, and if you play pick up hoops you might notice some of the differences. It seems to be an interesting mix of 'real game rules' and 'pick up rules'.
1) half court, not full
2) games to 5 points - the previous shortest pick up games I have played in have been 7, but usually 11
3) fouls and balls out of bounds are inbounded from the baseline or sidelines, as opposed to checked in from the top of the key

The language barrier was a little more impact than I expected. I have always been coached to talk when you play - call out screens for team mates, let them know when people are cutting, call 'shot' when someone shoots, etc... I was doing these things, but not getting any expected reaction from my team mates... which could be that they don't understand the English words I am using, or they are just not good enough to know how to react. Could be either, but I am betting on 'no English'.

Some things that are the same everywhere is when a bunch of guys are out to have a good time and play a little hoops, with the right set of attitudes, the games can be pretty funny... when guys dribble off their feet (which included me once) everyone belly laughs... when one guy blocks another guys shot, everyone 'oohs' and teases the 'blockee'... when you lose a close one, everyone walks off the court dejected. That makes you feel like hoops is hoops, be it in China, or in Portland, OR.

So back to the local league we are playing in. Our Wednesday night games are more competitive than what I played in tonight. Some of the locals that were there tonight are in our league.

We learned after our first couple of games that the local guys are not in as good of shape as we are... which surprised us, since outside of a couple of guys, we don't think of ourselves as particularly 'in shape'. But we really take over in the second halves of these games. 5 of our 7 wins to this point have been by 25 or more points.

There are 8 teams in the league, and we have played 7 of them, running our record to 7-0. Our biggest problem to this point has been ourselves. We loaded the team with lots of bodies to insure against travel, but guys have not been traveling that much, so every game we have lots of bodies to try to get into the game, and that means short playing spurts, which means it's hard for guys to 'get a feel'. Just about the time you are warming up, you are getting subbed out!

There are 2 teams that kept it pretty close against us. One was about a 10 point game and last week's game was about 8. Last week we were actually down about 10 at half time - which surprised the heck out of us, but the smokers lung kicked in the second half, I had the guys cut down on the number of subs in the second half so players could get a little more comfortable on the floor and play a little better before coming out, and we pulled away.

We have 1 more league game after the holidays as a tune up to the championship game on the 19th of January. I expect that it will be a good championship game - either of the teams that played us close have a chance to beat us (we already clinched a spot in that game) if they shoot well, and get into any kind of shape between now and then... but the cigarettes won't help!

There was a funny thing with one team we played - the Yao Ming influence. Their team name was the Rockets - they commissioned Houston Rockets replica uniforms (jerseys and shorts). For those of you not familiar, the #1 export from China is not lead based paint toys, or electric appliances - it is the franchise known as Yao Ming, who plays in the NBA for the Houston Rockets. They love the guy over here. He played for the Shanghai Sharks and the Chinese National Team before being exported to Houston. These guys don't play like Ming, but they look like Ming... Reminds me of the Gatoraid commericals in the US when Jordan was popular 'If I could be like Mike'. They may not play like Yao, but they can look like him in their Rockets uniforms!

Cheers,
Joe

P.S. We beat the 'Jin Qiao Rockets' by 42... They could have used Yao! :)

This was supposed to be about basketball in China... something went awry...

This started as a post about playing hoops here in China... and something went hinky... I left the post as it was... The next one will be about hoops in China.

Fresh off my Intercultural Training, and being the newly culturally sensitive guy I am, let me be sure to start with a disclaimer that any references to Chinese people playing basketball are specific only to the people with which I have played to this point, and is in no way meant to be a blanket statement on the skill or playing style of all Chinese pick up basketball players... Legal disclaimer out of the way, here we go....

I no longer have a complex about the fact that Stephanie's blog is better than mine... I have simply accepted this as fact... A fact I continue to bring up every so often... but really, I am over it! She has better material, and was a Communications major in college for goodness sake! So I am left to babble on with little skill and poor material - neither being any fault of my own! :)

So as many of you know, I am a bit of a gym rat. I fell in love with basketball in the driveway of my grandparents house on the farm in Zanesville, Ohio. There was an old hoop in the driveway that was well under 10' tall. I actually credit my jump shot to that hoop being too low. It allowed me to grow up with proper form, not having to always heave the ball up to a 10' tall hoop. I took that love of hoops to Wyoming, where I played my first organized basketball in both a YMCA league and at Holy Name Elementary School. Then onto Sacred Heart and St. Mary's in Medford, Oregon (which included a great layup at the wrong basket), finishing up my organized 'career' (if you can really call it that) at Linfield College in McMinville, Oregon.

At the conclusion of my second year of playing Junior Varsity basketball for the Wildcats, I knew that I was not destined to see much playing time beyond that. The 'formula' (if you will) that got me through high school basketball didn't translate to the college game. I always showed up to practice on day 1 out of shape in high school... This was OK since our high school coach had to run off about 1/2 the guys who came out for the team anyway - so the first few weeks were nothing but a track meet... and then every drill we ran was full out full court... so within a month, you were well into 'basketball shape'.

I showed up to my freshman year of college basketball and weighed in on day 1 at 220 pounds. This was after playing at about 195 pounds (on a 6 foot frame) my senior year in high school. I didn't play much that summer after I graduated high school and showed up at college with very little in the way of good eating habits or exercise habits. I could eat whatever I wanted in high school - I played multiple sports year round, and that was my exercise routine. Freshman year of college I discovered a few new things... Beer being the primary downfall of my 'playing shape'. What little discipline I had was used up studying (although my mom might question the discipline that delivered a lowly 2.86 GPA my first semester).

And in college, the expectation is that you show up basically in shape. Practice time is spent on offensive and defensive schemes, plays, repetition of new skills being drilled into players. There was little time or energy for 'getting players into shape' that had not bothered to take care of themselves. I might have been able to change the course of my basketball direction had I made a commitment right then to being more disciplined... Unfortunately, I did not... Fraternity, girls, studies (not in that order mom, really) were distractions I let get in the way.

Anyhow, I knew after my second season with the 'Cats that if I was kept in the program, it would likely be either as a Junior on the JV team, or as the last guy off the bench on the Varsity - only likely to see playing time as a part of the 20-20 team (up 20 or down 20). And although I still hesitate to admit it, there was always the chance that I got cut altogether.

I walked into Larry Doty's office after my second season finished up and ate my pride and told him that I didn't want to take up a roster spot from someone who might help the program more. I know I was coachable, good attitude, always in the right place at the right time, but I knew my athletic limitations, and I was making the decision to hang up my sneakers. I was asking for an opportunity to stay involved with the program. I set my sights low and asked if I could manage the team or keep stats, anything he needed help with really. What happened next shocked me really... And set me on the course for 2 of the most enjoyable years of my life to that point.

Larry said that he had a coach leaving the staff. And that if I was willing to, he would ask the athletic director to extend me a contract as a paid coach for the college. I was floored. I loved the game, I loved the program, I loved the college, and now I had a chance to coach? I can't tell you how excited I was.

Now remember, Linfield is a Division III program at a 1500 student liberal arts college in McMinnville, OR. So it's not like I was a GA (Grad Assistant) at Duke. And the money was next to nothing... seriously next to nothing. But it was a contract with the college, it was the chance to learn more about the game I loved, and as it turned out... it was a chance for me to discover my passion.

My first season on staff my role was primarily dedicated to 2 things. First and foremost recruiting - which the entire staff took part in. We divvied up the local kids we wanted to recruit and a couple of nights a week, off we went to see high school basketball games and talk to kids and parents afterwards. I enjoyed this quite a bit. I got to learn how to evaluate talent. How to look at how a kid played, what his strengths and weaknesses were, how he carried himself on the floor (with his team mates, against the competition and with the officials). Then I would talk to the parents and the kids about the school and the program and occasionally give tours of the facilities and the campus.

The other responsibility I had was scouting upcoming opponents. I spent a lot of other time in the gyms of other opponents sitting high up in the bleachers writing down tendencies of individual players (must force left - has no left hand; must not lose him in transition - finishes well at the basket; can help of this guy on defense, can't hit water falling out of a boat), as well as documenting specific plays (out of bounds plays and set offensive plays). My job was to take this information and put together a skeleton of a game plan for Dotes to review before he made final decisions on game plans consulting with the coaches on staff. The way I saw it my job - which I took very seriously - was to put they guys on the floor in the best position to be competitive - to prepare them to compete. Execution was up to them (thank goodness given my lack of vertical leap and lateral speed), but I could do my part by trying to insure they knew what to expect. I ended up doing most of the scouting since many of the games we needed to scout were on the same night the varsity was playing, so I would be working while they were playing.

My last responsibility that first season was as assistant coach for the junior varsity team. I was assisting Jeff Autencio, and assisting meant everything from insuring that the pre-game meals were arranged, to insuring the vans were ready for road trips, to occasionally putting the gear on and practicing with the team when we were short handed players... whatever Jeff needed, I did... and I was happy to do so. I was loving it.

At the end of the first season, I was exhausted. I had been to probably 100 high school and/or college games, assisted in 20+ JV games, assisted in a handful of varsity games, reviewed game film of opponents and our players, and all for a few bucks.... but I was hooked. I loved every minute of it.

Now I can't end the description of the first season without giving proper recognition to my wife. She and I had just started dating that year. I can't tell you the number of 'dates' we had on Friday or Saturday nights that involved us going to see a high school basketball game in Salem, or Dayton, or Sherwood, where she had to sit around afterwards alone while I went to talk to an athlete or his parents. Or going to Willamette to scout the team on Friday night that we were going to play on Saturday. Hot dog dinners with popcorn side dishes, and a Twix for dessert. All the time I am scribbling furiously in a notepad and explaining to her this would all work much easier if we just talked during timeouts and half time. I look back at it and can't believe she still married me!

I learned the most from this coaching experience at Linfield in my second and last year on staff. Larry felt comfortable enough to trust me with the Junior Varsity team on my own... I was a head coach for the first time, and in only my second year of coaching. I reality, what happened was that he really needed Jeff's attention and focus on the varsity squad. With the teaching, coaching, scouting and recruiting that Larry still did, plus his own kids sporting events, he needed a full time assistant coach at the varsity level... There were only 3 full time coaches - Larry, Jeff and I. So Larry and Jeff focused on the varsity team, and I had my first team.

I won't bore you with the details of that entire season - although I remember them like yesterday, these 10 years later. I will just summarize a few things I remember learning that have stuck with me, and that I use today as a leader (program manager, manager) at Intel.

First, I love coaching. I love being responsible for putting people in a position to be successful. Whether that's on the basketball court, or in the confines of my business group at Intel. The methodology - what I do to try to put them in a position to be successful is slightly different, but also slightly the same. One thing that is different is the motivational time frame. In basketball, I was motivating kids in short bursts - 2 to 3 hour practices, and 40 minute games. In the corporate world, I am motivating people over longer periods of time - the 9+ months to deliver a project like the one I am on now, or the 13 weeks it took us to deliver motherboards when I was managing a validation team. What's similar is my responsibilities as a coach or leader: Making sure there is a clear plan (game plan in hoops, project plan in a program, group objectives in managing a team), making sure people understand and can get behind that plan, recognizing good performance and rewarding that, recognizing bad performance and correcting that, and insuring that there is a process for documenting and focusing on delivering improvement season over season or product generation over product generation.

One of my good friends once told me when I was struggling at Intel in my first management job, "you are never as good a manager as you think you are, and you are never as bad a manager as you think you are". I think that he was right. I think back to coaching at Linfield that second year, and I remember 2 things really vividly - 2 pieces of feedback that I had to take and make changes to my coaching style immediately.

One was when I took the Junior Varsity team to an away game at a community college in Washington. These guys were big. And athletic. Many of them went to a JuCo for 2 years to address grade issues or discipline issues to get themselves in a position to play DI or DII basketball. These guys were manhandling us. They were bigger than my kids, more aggressive than my kids and more physical than my kids. I thought we were getting beat up pretty badly and the refs were letting it happen. I was all over them. Every trip up and down the floor was another missed call I could be pissed about and let loose with a smart assed remark. To their credit, not only did they not give me a technical, one of them gave me a piece of advice. He said 'hey coach, why don't you spend more time coaching your kids and less time yelling at me'. I had let myself get wrapped up in the officiating of the game, thinking that I was defending my kids - protecting my kids. What I was really doing was abandoning them. They were getting killed physically, and I was abandoning them emotionally, since all of my emotion was directed at the officials. We lost that game badly - but I learned a lesson. One I try to use to this day - control what I can control, stay focused on that. Acknowledge what I can't control, but when I realize it really can't be impacted, it is indeed immovable, forget about it, and figure out the next plan or strategy.

The second thing I learned was via a kid to a parent through my wife. We were at a road game. We played OK, and won a tight game. I talked to the kids after the game (can't remember a thing I said), and released them to talk to parents and friends, shower and meet for the ride back to school in an hour. Steph was in the stands as one of the kids was having a conversation with their parent. The parent was congratulating them on a good game, and asking them more specifically about some comment they made (that Steph did not hear). The kid explained that the win was great, but they weren't having a lot of fun. That coach was always real serious and more or less a slave driver. OUCH.

Looking back now, with the advantage of a decade more experience, up to that point, I think he was right. I was still only 21 or 22 years old and fairly immature. As far as I was concerned, these guys were talented, and they had a chance to win most of the games they played in. And foolishly, I assumed that 'fun' was dictated almost completely be whether you won or lost. I made a real effort at that point to lighten and loosen up and try to let these guys have fun, but keep a certain amount of pressure on them to continue to improve and stay focused. This was not, afterall, the NBA, or an NCAA DI Conference, or even the varsity team... This was what amounted to a DIII developmental league!

This is also something I took with me to leading and managing at Intel... It can't all be about accomplishing 'deliverables' or 'milestones' or 'tasks'. Some people inherently feel success and enjoyment from that (see: my wife), but some people have to enjoy how they got there. Especially in the pressure cooker that is sports, or a high pressure corporate environment - slave driver managers turn their team over for the sake of accomplishing short term deliverables... we see it all the time. They are effective at getting short term results, but not efficient or effective over the long term. Many people probably read this and said 'duh, people need to enjoy their work, you idiot', but I had to learn that that hard way... I had to learn that my idea of fun was different than theirs - and to keep them motivated, I had to learn how their fun and my job could co-exist.

That team that was my JV squad ended up winning a conference championship a couple of years later, once I was on to working in 'corporate America'. Who knows what, if any, impact I had on their development and their eventually reaching that goal. Like I said, they were a talented bunch of kids. What I do know, is that I probably wasn't as good a coach as I thought I was, but I probably wasn't as bad either... much like today.

Anyhow, this post was a complete indulgence on my part... nothing to do with China afterall... I got started on hoops, and my experience, and could not get off of it... if you made it this far, my apologies... I'll really post about playing basketball in China in the next one... I promise!

Cheers,
Joe

The Welsh Chinese Christmas Tree - Pictures!

Tree - $70 USD, made in China

Ornaments - Steph won't tell me what she spent, but made in China

Kids being convinced Santa comes to China - Priceless!

The crooked tree arrives.

The crooked tree is 'straightened'.

The girls decorate... Note the well spread out application of ornaments!














The star goes on the tree!

The final product!

Grab a couple of things at Home Depot on your way home...

Thursday night was Chirstmas tree night. Stephanie found what a friend of our calls 'a proper Christmas tree' from a company here in Shanghai. I have to admit it's better than the local trees, and an artifical tree is just so hard for us coming from the Northwest where we cut down our own tree, and before that, growing up in Ohio, we always had a real tree that my grandad hauled out of the woods. All that being said, it was still almost $70 USD! Another proof point that in Shanghai, you can find everything you can find anywhere else, just at a price!

So the $70 investment made, we were set to trim the Christmas tree. Just one problem - many of the ornaments that we bought since we arrived did not have hooks. And Steph needed some tape to put some things up, and we agree to hang some lights in the girls bedroom, requiring some nails, or fastening mechanism of some sort.

No problem, there is a B&Q, which is the Chinese version of Home Depot, just a couple of blocks away... I should have no problem picking up what we needed.

As with most blog posts about China, when I open with 'should be no problem'... well you can imagine.

Luckily I brought the Chinese/English dictionary with me. I knew no one at B&Q speaks English, and we needed to get this tree trimmed in time for the girls to get to bed at a decent hour!

I walk up to the first person I see and already having plotted out my strategy, I show him the word from the dictionary for 'wire'. The plan is to buy some metal wire and make my own hooks for the ornaments. Unfortunately he takes me to the 'electrical wire section'. When I try to explain in English that this isn't what I am looking for, he decides to take out a piece of paper and write it in Chinese characters! I am always amazed and a little frustrated at this... if I can't speak Chinese, you think I can read it? But then I imagine this guy thinking, if you know I can't speak English and you are using a dictionary, when it's the wrong thing, you expect me to understand English when you try to describe it in more detail?

So I then am struck with a stroke of genuis - I look up the word for 'metal' and 'string' thinking that 'metal string' will surely explain perfectly what I am looking for! He nods his head and takes me to a section with string and rope. I show him the words again, emphasizing 'metal'. He nods his head more vigourously this time and marches off in another direction... Surely we are making progress! He takes me right to the chain section. I kind of laugh, thinking "well, this is pretty close to 'metal string'".

Giving up on the 'metal string' I decide to ask him about tape - asking being me looking it up in the dictonary and pointing. Since he was originally convinced that I was looking for something electrical, he takes me to electrical tape. Not quite what I was looking for! I tried to look up the work for 'clear' or 'scotch' to add to tape (since that worked so well with 'metal string') but couldn't get it right... so I gave up. Luckily I happened to walk by some packing tape - by complete accident, which is what Steph was looking for.

I was able to 'save Christmas' by stopping by the sports store and getting fishing line to use in place of hooks on the ornaments.

Much of being in China is accepting that everything takes longer to do than you expect, and at the end of the day, you have to get creative and compromise!

Here is the finished product.

My first Ohio State - Michigan Game in China

Overcoming technical difficulties with Slingbox, I was able to watch the game! It kicked off at 1:00am here in Shanghai, and through the amazing technology that is SlingMedia's Slingbox, I was able to watch the game 'live'. I put 'live' in quotes, since I was chatting with a friend on IM while the game was on, and it seemed that I actually saw everything on about a 13 second delay. Not bad considering the box on my friend in Seattle's TV is grabbing video and 'slinging' it across the internet to my PC in China!

I watched the entire game, and drug myself off to bed at 4:30am. Steph took pity on me (she just doesn't understand my passion for college football and the Ohio State Buckeyes) and let me sleep in a little... Not too much because we had a walking tour of an area of Shanghai at 8:00am the next morning. You can read about that amazing tour here: www.swelsh73.blogspot.com

That wake up call was rough, but not as rough as it might have been had we not dispatched the Wolverines in fine fashion 14-3.

Next up for the Bucks: BCS National Championship Game versus LSU. Luckily that game is an 8:00pm start in the US (Eastern Time), so it'll be a 9:00am game here! Much more manageable.

Go Bucks!

Halloween in China

So the last couple of years I have taken the kids around trick or treating, and Steph has manned the front door and given out candy. This year she called dibs on heading out with the girls and trick or treating, whilst I do the distribution of sugar.

I always complain that she has such better material for blogging than I do – and I expect tonight will be no different, but out first trick or treaters find themselves in my latest blog – I should have mentioned it to the mother… but actually I think that would have mortified her!

So first, I have to explain that Trick or Treating is a very American thing. The local Chinese don’t do it, the closest thing they have is what loosely translates to ‘The Ogre Festival’. ‘The Ogre Festival’ is a day that there are invisible ogres running around causing trouble. So the Chinese go home early, and all stay inside with red lanterns and incense burning outside to keep the ogres away. Pretty funny and cool if you ask me. This explanation came from Steph’s Chinese tutor Jessie. She’s the same one who saw our couple of decorations and asked if we were decorating for ‘The Evil Festival’. That cracked me up.

So the reason I say that Halloween is an American thing, is that even our new British friends (Emma and Graham) say that Halloween is not celebrated in the UK either. They were walking around their complex looking at all the Halloween decorations and Graham was saying ‘this is so American, I can’t believe we are walking around to look at this’.

So if you are in an Expat compound, there is trick or treating. The complex asks you to sign up if you are going to give out candy. Then everyone who wants one, can pick up a list at the clubhouse and ‘make the rounds’. I’ll provide you some of the funnier encounters, but the first one was classic.

The doorbell rings, so I grab the bucket of candy and answer the door. I look at the kids expectantly – there are 3 of them, probably between the ages of 4 ½ and 7. They don’t really say anything and the boy (probably age 5-6 just walks right into the apartment. While he’s walking in, his mom is saying ‘what do you guys… Oscar, get out here, what are you doing’. Then Oscar walks back out of the apartment, and she explains in her British accent, ‘we’ve never done this before, I am sorry’. She finishes her initial sentence which was ‘what do you guys say’, and they responded by looking at me and saying ‘trick or treat’. Of course in the middle of this ‘what do you say’ and response, the oldest – a girl, probably about age 7 – is digging into the bucket grabbing candy. So then the mother is telling this one ‘no, don’t do that, he’ll hand it to you’, so she puts the 3 pieces of candy back in the bucket (but doesn’t return the pieces she successfully snatched while her brother distracted everyone by walking into the apartment!). So as I am handing out 3 pieces of candy (choosing not to cut off the sneak who has some of my candy already in her bag) the boy says ‘no, I want that one’… the mother starts to say something like ‘you take what you are given’, but stops short almost giving up… I bail her out with a smile and say ‘it’s OK, no problem’. Then as they are waiting on the elevator, I hear the youngest say ‘why did we only get 1 piece’. To which the exasperated British mother looks at me pleadingly saying ‘I’m sorry, thank you so much’. Poor woman, I just smiled and say no problem, good luck’. It was all I could do not to laugh.

The next two-some to show up at the door are two American girls, probably 12 or 13 years old. They say ‘trick or treat’, and I put some candy in their bags, asking them how they are doing tonight. Both respond with ‘well we are too old to be doing this’. I tell them that I would still be trick or treating if I could get away with it, so keep it up. I think they might be expat kids just clinging to some piece of home… this maybe me reading too much into it, but that’s what it seemed like to me.

Then a couple of young asian girls with a weak attempt at costumes. It was funny since when I opened the door they both said in unison, in a very sing-songy asian accent ‘trick or treat’… it was in stereo. Then when I gave them candy, they said in a the same sing-song voices ‘thank you’ – again in perfect unison.

The next funny two-some was a couple of 10-12 year old boys, with NO attempt at costumes. They said ‘trick or treat’ which was nice, since they were obviously just cruising for free candy. They had me put the candy for both of them in one of the boys hats. I realized as I dropped the candy in that this was the only attempt at a costume – it was a witches hat, which they had to use for gathering candy as they had no bag between them – I nick named them ‘the planners’.

Then there was the girl who explained to me I needed to make it quick, they had the elevator waiting. When I purposely looked at her and frowned and slowed down, she said it in Chinese, like I would understand that better? Come to think of it, I know so little Chinese, I have no idea what she said to me!

I’ll post what I have now, and update it throughout the evening if there is anything else of note that presents itself.

Take care,
Joe

Update: 7:56pm
I wonder if some of the Asian kids don't completely understand Halloween and think that costumes are optional? That maybe this odd American 'festival' is just about knowing the secret password that get you candy? I know there are many kids in the US that show up sans-costume, but I have had 5 different sets of asian kids show up with NO attempt at custumes... perfectly nice kids, 'trick or treat' and 'thank you', but no costumes?

Update: 8:04pm
As I am putting a couple of pieces of candy in a girls bag, she bends her head over and sneezes directly on my hand... wet sneeze too, required a trip to the bathroom. That has nothing to do with being in China, but WOW, GROSS.

Firsts - Trip Home, Car Accident, Golf

Tomorrow marks 3 months in China! I can’t believe it… 3 months down, and 21 left to go… OK, so I’m not really counting… just weird to put it in perspective.

So, 3 months into it and I finally accomplished some things that I did not expect would have taken this long and one that I thought I would have to wait almost a year for.

Trip Home
I was getting pretty homesick. I had gotten sick over the Chinese ‘October Holiday’ – their ‘National Holiday’. I had a rough patch at work dealing with the politics, working through the cultural issues with my new Chinese co-workers, and the high level of complexity involved in the way we have structured delivering this program. I was not sleeping well, and was really missing home. Steph said this usually happened around 3 months (she read it someplace). It hit me a little early – about 8 weeks. Then, one random Tuesday I came into the office and saw an e-mail from the GM of the product line I am working on that said ‘we are having a face to face meeting over a few days in Oregon, please come’. I literally said a little prayer right there on the spot.

Part of me felt ashamed – Steph is having to navigate China everyday, take care of the kids while I am on business trips (3 in the first 3 months, and another one next week), having to actually use the Chinese she has managed to learn so far (which far exceeds mine), grocery shopping when there is very little English available to help match up recipes from the book to ingredients in the store, keeping the family moving forward while I work 10-12 hour days (with some extra e-mail in the evenings). And here I was headed home… I felt like if anyone deserved the break from China it was her. But to her credit, she seems to be doing so well with the change. While there are sure moments of genuine frustration with being here (like the groceries), she has done an amazing job of acclimating to our new life in China.

Off I went to Oregon the 3rd week in October. And honestly, it was great. I flew in on Monday, was in F2F meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday and had more meetings on Thursday and Friday. I was able to Sherpa home a bunch of stuff for our family as well as other expat families… Although a HUGE thank you has to go out to Lisa Wing, who did all the shopping for us, since I was working all week.

I was able to do a lot of things I had been missing – eat American food, watch live college football that wasn’t grainy and small on the computer, meet with colleagues in the US face to face, drive by the house and insure the people who rented it hadn’t burned it to the ground in the 6 weeks they had been living there.
I was able to meet our good friend Karmen for dinner on Thursday night, as she was in Portland, from Seattle, for meetings at OHSU.

Probably the best part of the trip was getting to go to dinner with our old dinner club… They moved the date to accommodate my travel schedule. They even let me pick the place – Jake’s Famous Crawfish downtown… Scrummy! Everyone except one person was able to make it, which was great… good food, good wine, outstanding company.

I did miss Steph and the kids… not China but them. I was looking forward to coming ‘home’ to China. Some of my friends in Oregon mentioned how weird it was to hear me saying ‘home as in China’. It didn’t feel weird anymore. And I haven’t really been homesick since coming back… Part of it is having gotten a taste of home, part of it is being busy, part of it is being focused outside of work on our upcoming vacation to New Zealand.

Car Accident
The next ‘first’ – traffic accident. This is one of the things I was surprised took this long. On the way to work one morning last week, my driver was trying to pry our minivan into a space between a moving car (in front) and a moving truck behind. The space was probably not large enough for a Mini Cooper, let alone a minivan… but this is normal occurrence during our hour long drives to my office. Well this particular morning Daniel was looking intently at the rearview mirror to insure that the large truck behind us didn’t actually drive through us – not paying much attention to the car in front of us. Unfortunately, the car in front of us stopped sooner than Daniel expected and – you guessed it – right into the other car’s rear end we went.

The other driver got out of the car on the spot, our minivan stradding both lanes, blocking both lanes of traffic… Immediately the horns of the vehicles trapped behind us started blaring. Daniel told the guy to pull off on the next side street and we would follow him… He must have trusted us (and heard the horns of about 50 vehicles behind us) and followed Daniel’s advice. So we pull off the road behind the guy, and Daniel gets out and the 2 of them survey the damage. This was a VERY low speed impact – enough that from my seat in the 2nd row of the van, I could not see as much as a scratch on the guys rear bumper. I also can’t see much of any impact to our van. The two of them are talking in raised voices (Shanghainese are known for ‘yelling’ at each other, which is actually just the way they talk to each other here), and Daniel comes back to the van and grabs his wallet. He extracted a undisclosed number of 100 RMB notes, handed them over, and we were on our way. No exchanging insurance information, no getting estimates, just an on the spot negotiation and cash changing hands… An efficient market!

When Daniel came back to the van, I asked him ‘Everything alright?’ He responded simply, ‘yes, alright, I just pay money’. And we were on our way – as he pulled across 4 lanes of moving traffic and nearly hit, or nearly missed, the same car who was also pulling across the same 4 lanes of moving traffic.

Golf
And the other ‘first’… Golf! I was planning on playing over the October Holiday, but got really sick and could not play.
One of our neighbors (they live on the floor above us in our apartment building) is another expat couple with a daughter Olivia’s age (and 2 older kids). So Steph and the wife (Ai Chen) have struck up a friendship, and the girls are playmates. As it happens Ai Chen’s husband is a golfer, and invited me out to join him for a round of golf at a ‘nearby’ golf course. We headed out on Sunday morning for a 7:00am tee time. Now I put ‘nearby’ in quotation marks, because the course is about an hour’s drive away! So we left the apartment at 5:30am to get there in time for our tee time.

The golf club complex was huge. Large building with a restaurant and bar, huge locker rooms, and a large Pro Shop. The driving range was interesting – it was hitting into a lake with floating ‘greens’ that were small docks with Astroturf and flags to mark distances.

Since the golf courses around Shanghai are mostly all well outside of town, and the weather in the summer is so hot, most people I know who golf make a day of it. Head out to the course, put your change of clothes in your locker, hit some balls, play golf, shower and eat lunch before heading home. This is what the clubhouse is built to support.

Whye Seng is similar to me, with kids, he’s not interested in investing a whole day, so he plays early so that he can still grab a shower, maybe a snack in the restaurant or bar before heading home to try to be back to the family by 12:00p-1:00pm. So this was our plan.

We got to the course with no time to hit balls (he missed an exit on the way to the course as I was describing playing at Bandon Dunes – he’s from Vancouver, BC and is very interested in making it down to play at Bandon some time). I was concerned about not being able to hit balls since I had not played golf in almost 3 months! But off we were to the first tee shortly after checking in.

We teed off in our 2 some right around 7am. The course was nice. Decent length from the blue tees, and pretty manageable from the white tees that we played. I was definitely rusty – it only took to my second shot to know I was not looking at a round in the 70s like my last round in Oregon. The course was at least as nice (layout and conditions) as any standard public course in the Portland area. The greens were in good shape and rolled well.

Golf in China is expensive… there are 3 different fees when you play golf in China. The greens fee, the facility fee (which covers your locker, shower, towels, shower sandals, etc), and caddie fee. Caddies are required. On a weekend, most places will cost you around $120 USD to play – and these are not GREAT courses – they are like decent public courses in the US. During the week they’ll cost between $40 USD and $60 USD.

So back to the caddies – 90% of them are women – girls really. It’s a pretty weird experience, since it’s not like any caddie you’ve had elsewhere or see on TV. They push your bag around in a pushcart – which is great, by the way… it’s great to be able to just walk the golf course and not heft your bag around (this is the part where Steph asks me how you can call golf a sport). Anyhow, the oddest thing about the caddies is when you get to the green. They bring your putter and hand it to you, then they mark your ball, they clean it, they read the green, and then replace your ball… so theoretically, you don’t even have to bend over!

Unfortunately, anyone who has played golf will tell you that part of the game is muscle memory and habit. And there is something about reading the green yourself (with input from caddie or partner), placing the ball just how you are comfortable seeing it, and then hitting your putt. So after the first hole, I had to explain to her that I would mark my own ball and hand it to her, she could clean it, and hand it back to me while I read the putt, then I would retrieve my own ball from the cup. Explanation of that process in Chinglish and charades took far longer than I expected, and soon wished I would have just asked Whye Seng to explain it to her. It took her 2 more holes to really get the process down – she was just so used to how they do it for the other players – hard habit for her to break.

At the end of the day, when we tallied up the scores, I shot 45, 44 for 89. Not bad for 10 weeks off. The weather was nice, Whye Seng was a great guy to spend a round with, and the score wasn’t horrible. The club offers ‘memberships’ – which are really discount programs. You pay a couple hundred bucks for a year, and you get a discount everytime you play. Big discount if you can manage to play during the week, and a reasonable discount if you play on the weekend. I went ahead and signed up, since it would only take me playing about 4 times to pay off the ‘membership fee’ and still be getting the discount. Steph supports my playing a couple of times a month since it is one of the ways I can really relieve stress and forget about work. I am hoping to get out at least one more time before the weather gets too bad! Then play a few times in the spring.

Hope this post finds you all well and good… Cheers!
Joe

The strangest night out with friends...

So we met friends of our out for drinks last Saturday night. It was something we were really looking forward to. They live in the building next to ours, and the husband, Kurt, set me up with a pick up basketball game at a local International School. I don’t even hold it against him that he’s from Michigan!

We met them as they were finishing up dinner at a tapas restaurant that we are definently going to try out ourselves. After finishing up a drink there, we headed to a local German bar, called ‘Paulaner’. They have German beer on tap and, per Martha, Kurt’s wife, a great band. We got there and the place was packed with local Chinese – a good first sign. The band was decent. The strange part of the night was when I realized, we are sitting in a German bar listening to a Philippino band, playing music in Spanish (La Bamba by Richie Valens), surrounded by local Chinese in Shanghai! Just crazy.

We tried out another place – an American styled bar called ‘Malone’s’. They were also supposed to have a good band… and the band was good… just that it happened to be 50’s night at Malones, so now we are in a bar that is primarily expats, with a Philippino band dressed in poodle skirts, hair in 50’s style hairstyles, playing things like ‘Runaround Sue’. Again, just crazy.

Last stop of the evening for the Welsh family (we are always the first to leave these things, given the fact that our kids are 6:30am wake up calls) was a bar called Manhattan. This place had, what I believe was 2 Chinese gals singing… there was a good thing and a bad thing about this… the bad – they were not very good… the good – they ended early! The place played decent dance music after that, but the weird thing about this place was seeing all the working girls file into the place. Steph and I don’t go out a tremendous amount in the US (remember the 6:30am wake up call) so I can’t say for 100% certain I have ever seen a working girl… Not the case anymore. They come in, usually in packs, and congregate in one area of the bar… It’s like they want to stick out so that you know for sure where to find them… then one peels off every so often after making eye contact with a single guy at the bar by himself… or a single white guy walks up to the crowd of girls, picks one by dancing with them for a couple of songs, then – poof – they disappear. The last thing that was crazy about Manhattan was that at some point I turned around to pick up my drink off the bar, where I had set it down, and much to my surprise, there was a woman in her underwear dancing on the bar. This gal is evidently an employee of the bar. This is when we noticed the poles running from the bar to the ceiling. Looking at our friends quizzically, their response was, ‘welcome to Asia, this is normal’. Yet again, our friend Dwayne’s patented phrase rings true – ‘China, it’s just different here.’

Typhoon ‘Whimper’ and World Cup Soccer

It has been weeks, months even, since my last post… Mostly my life has become the uninteresting grind of work. Hard to post about getting up every morning, driving one hour to work, working all day, then returning the 1 hour drive to home, dinner with wife and kids, followed by a little more work, or as I have been able to accommodate recently, a couple of hours at the gym. Held up against Stephanie’s hilarious stories about everything from getting lost on her bike, to the stories of the kids and their mis-adventures in Shanghai, mine seems a pretty boring set of experiences to share!

That being said, there has been a string of interesting things over the last couple of weeks… the arrival of Typhoon Wipha (Thia for ‘woman’), and the US Women’s World Cup soccer match versus Nigeria. They are related by the fact that the typhoon and the soccer match were scheduled on the same day!

Weeks ago when we found out that the US women would be playing in Shanghai, we decided to get tickets. A little bit of home 6 weeks into our time in China seemed like a great idea… Even for me, who has never really been a fan of soccer. Tickets purchased, and babysitter lined up, we were looking forward to the match on Tuesday, September 18^th. That’s when things got a little complicated… Typhoon Wipha was headed straight towards Shanghai. The local weather services were indicating that this was likely to be the strongest storm to hit Shanghai in 10 years… So, what to do? The World Cup match was quickly approaching, and as was the typhoon. FIFA (not sure what it stands for, but it is the organizing body for World Cup soccer) was watching the weather forecasts as closely as we were, and had decided to push the Wednesday, September 19^th games out 1 day to accommodate the typhoon’s arrival. They were holding firm on the Tuesday games. At the same time that the Chinese government was evacuating between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people from costal and low lying areas, FIFA was planning on playing World Cup soccer.

Steph decided not to risk going out into the Typhoon, and I headed out to meet our friends Tom and Donna for dinner, then head to the stadium. As it turns out, the typhoon lost speed as it hit land south east of Shanghai, so the time it was expected to hit Shanghai pushed out to sometime Wednesday. The soccer match was played in front of 6,100 people (stadium capacity 35,000), in weather that ranged from classic Oregon fall and winter mist to mid-west thunderstorm (minus the thunder and lightning). The US women scored about 57 seconds into the match, and the next 89 minutes passed without another goal. The US women won 1-nil. I was actually surprised at how enjoyable a soccer match is in person, especially when you are rooting for your country’s team. The women made a point after the match of walking around the pitch to the different parts of the stadium with packs of US fans and waving and saying ‘thank you’ for the support. It was a really enjoyable evening.

The next day the scheduled arrival of 'Wipha' kept getting pushed out - it having lost speed as it hit land... Then it turns out it didn't hit Shanghai at all... It moved west of Shanghai, then perfectly around the city and back out to sea towards Korea, where it was downgraded to a tropical storm. I don't want to discount the damage it must have had on the areas it did hit, or the impact to the familes in those areas, but I couldn't help but feeling like I was back in Oregon in the winter, when the local news is dominated by 'Storm Watch 2006' explaining in detail how bad the winter snow storm is going to be... only to wake up in the morning to a sprinkling of snow, which is melted by 10:30am. One of my co-workers was on a call with me Wednesday morning asking about the typhoon, and that's when I nicknamed it 'Typhoon Wimper'. Lots of build up in the media, and no action!

Back to the 'football': Steph is the real soccer fan in the family, having played in high school, and their team having been good, usually making the state tournament. I felt bad that she didn’t get to see the match, so I made arrangements to get 2 tickets to the World Cup finals. The match is Sunday, September 30^th – just a week away. The nice thing is that the tickets are for the 3^rd/4^th place game and the championship game, so even if the US Women lose their next match, and don’t make the finals, we would still be guaranteed to see them play.

No doubt I’ll post about the match and the experience of being there in person next week… stay tuned.

Family Matters

This is the last entry in the ‘interesting things we learned in the first week in China’ series….

Family Matters

I have heard that the Chinese concept of family is different that ours in the US, but there are a couple of examples that I thought were interesting… one is interesting, and one is sad.

Interesting: Our landlord Nancy was talking about how long they would stay in Shanghai. She commented that they would stay until their son, George, went to University in the US, then they would go live wherever he is going to college. Her comment was that she needed to take care of him until he found a wife. I think we – in the US – have the same general concept, but the veracity with which the 2 cultures apply the concept of ‘taking care of’ seems to differ.

Sad: This is one of those situations that we in the US would feel sad about, but was told to us so matter of factly, that you wonder if the person telling you feels it’s a situation worth being sad about at all. A mother was telling us that she and her husband had an 18 month old son. They live and work in Shanghai, and the son is staying with her mother in law in Nanjing – a 2 hour train ride, or 3 hour car ride away. They get to see each other once per month. Stephanie and I could just not imagine this… It seemed that these people both made a decent wage – both were college educated. When we talked with her in a little more detail, she explained that Shanghai is an expensive city, so supporting the child in the city and paying for daycare is unreasonable. The other interesting thing, was this woman’s (and I assume the whole families) concept of her mother-in-law’s job. It was first to raise her child, then it was to take care of him until he was married, and then it was to take care of his children (or in reality, ‘child’ given current Chinese law). What a great concept of family support, just too bad your little boy is 2-3 hours away.

Don't Shop On Sunday

This is a continuation in the series of ‘interesting things that we learned in our first week in China’….

Don’t shop on Sunday

Steph and I ventured to Carrefour Sunday afternoon to try to finish off the shopping we had started on Saturday but had given up part way through -between the kids and the heat and the Chinese characters, just couldn’t finish on Saturday … this was another one of our bad ideas… right up there with wanting to buy furniture instead of letting the landlord pick it out.

Sunday night is the night at least a large % of the local population decides to go shopping. Carrefour was NUTS. This was the first time I really felt like the people who told me ‘there are a lot of people in Shanghai’ were actually right. We have not spent much time on the Puxi side of the river, which I understand is more crowded, but it could not have been much more crowded than this grocery store… And when I say grocery store, imagine a Fred Meyer, or Kroger on steroids.

Slight diversion: Insert near death experience here…. Just about driven off the road by a bus that decided for no apparent reason it just had to change lanes, ignoring the fact that our minivan was occupying the current location of its desire. Holy Crap!

Now back to our regularly scheduled program… Joe will be changing his underpants immediately upon arrival at home…

Evidently the only thing that surpasses the crush of people in Carrefour on the weekend is on the third Tuesday of the month, which is ‘fresh egg Tuesday’. One of the people we have met says that the local Chinese people will line up out the door for their chance to buy fresh eggs.

The Health Check

The next few posts are a series of interesting things that happened to us, or we learned over the first week in China… Interesting can be funny, weird, sad, or all 3… Here’s the first in the series…

The Health Check

Thank god for coming to China with a large multi-national company that contracts with a local immigration company to assist with the process of ‘dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to allow us to remain in China and not get un-ceremonially tossed out on our American kiesters (Microsoft does not recognize this as a word? Really?).

To get our shipment of goods from the US, we need to have our Work Permit. To get our Work Permit, we have to have our Residence Permit. To get our Residence Permit we have to have our Health Check, to have our Health Check we have to have our Temporary Residence Permit, and to get our temporary residence permit, we had to be in China. It sounds a little like those ‘If you give a Moose a Muffin’ stories for kids but there it is.

Deloitte is Intel’s contracted Immigration expert in Shanghai. Before I left the US, they contacted me and let me know they would be helping me with the ‘first this, then that’ listed above. The first step they asked me to complete was getting a temporary residence permit from the management company where I live, or from the local police station. This was easy since the Relo company here in Shanghai met us at the apartment and took care of that.

So Deloitte meets us at the hotel and we get in a cab – all 6 of us (taxi driver, Deloitte contact, Steph, Joe and 2 kids) and take a 40 minute cab ride – sans car seats – to the government health clinic. When we got there, we were among about 6 other people being ‘processed’. As inappropriate a word as that sounds, it’s exactly what was happening. Deloitte greased the skids for a lot of this, but here’s what I think went down:

• Check in with the staff, fill out paperwork on Steph and me
• Move to a waiting area where we get a number assigned for moving to the next step
• When our number is called, we move to a room where one woman insures our paperwork is filled out correctly
• When she OKs our paperwork we move to a gentlemen sitting directly across from her, who checks the same paperwork, and then provides the stickers that will travel with our blood samples - the previous woman could not have done both?
• We move to the changing area – this is, by the way, where I met the only person in China in 5 days that was not perfectly pleasant… I guess if you job was to tell people to strip from the waste up and put on a robe that doesn’t fit, you might not be pleasant either? (Side note – the robe provided had a string on either side, apparently for tying… but there seemed to be no way to use the ties to actually get the roes to close… thus, the men walked around with the robes open (remember, we were asked to only remove clothing from the waste up), and women walked around with one hand constantly holding he robe closed... Side Note #2: Our friend Tom, who is roughly 6’3 and has probably size 12 shoes made the comment that it didn’t matter how he tried to put the booties over his shoes, they just wouldn’t fit!)
• From the changing area, the next stop for everyone seemed to be getting your blood sample taken. This was a little daunting, as you are not 100% sold on the quality of the people involved in this government assembly line of health, and things are done just slightly differently here (iodine instead of alcohol, everyone getting blood drawn in the same room, at the same exact spot, on the same pillow by the same nurse)… it was quick and painless – thank goodness
• The next step is where things got comical… there were roughly 6 different medical checks that had to happen to get ‘released’ and they were in 6 different rooms off the same long hallway; as you came out of the room you just finished a little gal looked at your sheet to see what you were missing and guided you to the next room, and you were constantly passing the same 6-8 other people being bounced among these rooms
• Chest x-rays – where you basically hugged the X-ray machine
• EKG – with these metal clamps for wrists and ankles, and tin foil covered suction cups for your chest
• Ultrasound – seemingly checking your kidneys for kidney stones?
• General check up – ‘you ever break bones’? ‘you healthy’? Then a very cursory check of the abdomen and glands… seriously, this guys touch was so light, he was either a shaman of sorts, or just phoning it in… not that I minded ‘less invasive’ over ‘more invasive’
• Eye exam – all the letters were either M or W or the number 3… and it was taken with eye glasses and/or contacts in, so really at the end of the day, I think what they did was confirm I have the right prescription?
• Steph had to have a breast exam, and despite how out of shape I am, my breasts must just be small enough to have exempted me from that one :)
  
  When we finished, the guy from Deloitte said, “let me go pay and make express check out”… Sure enough in about 40 seconds he got us out of a room full of people waiting to pay and get final processing complete. More than one person looked a little perturbed that we seemingly 'skipped a step'.
  
  On our way out we noticed the waiting room had filled to the brim with people. At least 20-25 people had just walked in, and were starting off the process (my guess is a batch of teachers coming in for one of the Int’l Schools – timing is right and they all spoke English). This is another key benefit of coming with a big company that contracts with a local company to help you manage through this process… He knew the right time of day to schedule this thing as to avoid the crowd.
  
  So you can judge for yourself… was the health check focused on insuring the people coming to China are healthy and not carrying diseases? Is it to insure that people coming to China feel the appropriate amount of ‘the government is in charge’? Is it to keep some of the population in jobs? Or is it a service designed to insure the US Ophthalmologists are assigning the right prescriptions?

Hospitality and Generosity

Steph has been doing a diligent job of posting to her blog about our first few days in Shanghai, and I’ll apologize in advance for any duplication of stories and observations in mine… Legal disclaimer complete, here we go…

I am on my way to work… weird to think about, but I will have roughly 1 hour worth of work time on both the way to and the way from the office. Daniel, our driver, who as you might know from Steph’s blog (www.swelsh73.blogspot.com), speaks some English (which is rare, and makes life so much easier), is piloting our standard issue Buick minivan the roughly 1 hour drive south and west to Intel’s Zizhu campus… I joke that Zizhu is Mandarin for ‘middle of no where’.

So this morning, my first morning driving to Zizhu, I decided to use to do an update to my Blog. Most mornings this will be time used to get through the mountains of e-mail generated by the program I am assigned to manage, or occasionally I will be calling into meetings with the US (where it is 15 hours earlier).

The focus of this morning’s conversation (albeit one way) is the hospitality and generosity of the Chinese people.

Our experience to this point has been great. We spent 3 days in temp housing – which was 2 connecting rooms at the Four Points by Sheraton in Pudong. The kids did well, although they were awake EARLY all 3 mornings (2am on day 1, 4am on day 2 and 5 am on day 3). They are still not completely normal on their sleep patterns, but last night was the closest thing we have to ‘back on schedule’ with them going to bed at nearly 8pm, and getting up sometime just after 6am. If we can get into that schedule permanently, we will be in fine shape.

I mentioned Daniel, our driver. His job, as crazy as this may seem given his title, is to drive us around. That’s really the complete scope of his job. Be where he says he’s going to be, when he says he is going to be there, and drive. Consistent with just about everyone we have met in China, he’s been willing to help out the poor Americans far beyond the scope of his job. He worked diligently to get our 47,000 pounds of luggage into the minivan in 100 degree heat and 90% humidity when we arrived, he helps load and unload our groceries, and today, when I contacted the driver of an expat that returned to Oregon a month ago about picking up some stuff the expat had left for us, he offered to drop me off at work, and go pick the stuff up for me while I was working. Now maybe this keeps him from being bored waiting for me to finish work, or waiting for Steph to need to go someplace, but per his job, he could have just sat there and waited… read the paper, talked on the phone, napped,.. but instead he offers to go run an errand for me, so that things will be just a little easier.

The apartment is great, but that is less of a comment about the apartment itself, and more of a comment about the experience. The landlord met us at the apartment with the leasing agent from the complex, and 2 people from the relocation company with which Intel contracts… Add in Steph and I and the 2 kids, and I’m glad the apartment is as big as it is.

The landlord (Nancy) is a great person. She and her husband are US citizens, having lived in the US for 20 years, until they moved back to Shanghai 4 years ago. They lived in this apartment with Nancy’s mother, and moved to a townhouse about 10 minutes away that affords them more space.

Nancy and her son, George, walked us through the apartment, and more importantly all the Chinese characters on all the appliances and electronics. Nancy said at least a half a dozen times ‘you need anything, you just call George, he’ll come right over’. George didn’t seem to mind… What a great kid! He even created an 'answer sheet/key’ with all the appliances/electronics and the English translations of all of their function keys.

Nancy then apologized for her husband, who was working, and could not be there to meet us and welcome us, and he instructed her to take us out to lunch – his way of apologizing for not being able to welcome us himself. This small gesture of hospitality is very consistent with everyone we have come into contact with to this point in China… With the possible exception of the woman who tells you to strip down and get into the hospital gown at the Government Health Check… That’s a story for later. Lunch was finished, and Nancy provided a little driving tour of the area surrounding our apartment complex, complete with recommendations on where to go for good Chinese food in the area.

Another example of the hospitality and generosity of the Chinese people we have met: We decided when we provided the list of items we wanted furnished in the apartment, that we wanted to pick out a couple of things ourselves, asking Nancy in the up front negotiations to just reimburse us for these. This was a bad decision made months before we arrived in China, not thinking that just feeding our children and buying milk were going to be hard enough… We thought navigating a city of 20 million people, speaking no mandarin, and trying to buy furniture was a good idea? Again, bad idea… As if to explain to us how foolish we were, but do so in the most polite manner possible, Nancy enlisted her friend, Rebecca, who was the leasing agent for the apartment complex that showed us the apartment when we were here originally. She insured us that Rebecca would be happy to 'help us shop for furniture'.

Rebecca took us to what can only be described as the world’s largest mall dedicated to nothing but furniture. Seriously, this place was probably 7 stories or more tall, with 20 stores per floor. All the couches, beds, chairs, kitchen and bath, flooring, and office furniture you could imagine… Amazing. For those of you with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that are noticing discrepancies between Steph’s blog and mine, which might be highlighted in the description of the world’s largest furniture mall: When noticing slight discrepancies, always default to mine being the truth… I am hardly ever wrong… hardly.

Rebecca was fabulous. She translated, negotiated, and was patient as Steph and I disagreed on what ‘we’ wanted. She insured we took advantage of the ‘promotions’ that were going on, that included cash back if you purchased over a certain value of items at one store. Although, at one point I think one of the stores took some liberty with income reporting law, as they took cash for an office chair and noted that part of the discounted price was that we would not get an ‘official government receipt’, only a receipt from the store. Rebecca assured us this was fine… so we offered up the cash and the chair should get delivered today.

We have found the people here to be amazing… now this is based off a less than complete data set – 5 days into a 730 day assignment – but until proved otherwise, this becomes the ‘pre-conceived notion’ we enter into each interaction with.

Looking forward to catching up with you all on e-mail, Skype, comments on our blogs, or our deepest hope – an actual trip by friends and family to Shanghai!

Cheers!

It's a sign... Of what I don't know...

Here it is, Sunday afternoon just a couple of short days before we board a plane to China, and as relatively calm as we have been as the move approaches, both Stephanie and I are starting to get nervous... Butterflies in the tummy for the first time since we agreed to start this crazy adventure.

So I'll get to the 'signs topic' in a few short minutes (honest, this will not be one of my marathon posts), but first I have to comment on what a wonderful 'last weekend' in Portland we are having.

Friday night we had a fabulous dinner out with our friends Val and Matt Kress, Chris and Jean Pal-Freeman and Mike and Karmen Trzupek (I'll have to follow up with a post someday about our theory on how you list a couple - who gets first billing - i.e. Val and Matt Kress vs. Matt and Val Kress... It will be fascinating, I am sure). This group of friends has gotten together for years - birthday parties, sporting events and barbecues - but always with the kids. Sometimes one of the couples will babysit for another one of the couples allowing 2 or even 3 of the couples to go out together, but never all four couples out for dinner at one time.

So this Friday was different! Mike and Karmen's part time nanny and a friend of hers graciously agreed to babysit all 6 kids (ages 6, 5, 5, 4, 2, and 2) so that the parents could have an adult night out together. We had a wonderful dinner at Merriweather's in NW Portland (we were seated just to the left of the fireplace in the picture below).


It was an amazing evening of cocktails, good Pinot Noir, great food and special friends. It was great way to enjoy Portland's excellent food scene and say goodbye to the city and this amazing group of friends... people that have become a support network such that you really begin to blur the line between friends and family. Saturday morning, when we picked up the kids, Jean and I were both crystal clear on one thing - neither of us really needed that last beer.

If you can't tell by now, I lied about this being a short post. I should stop promising that... I start typing and... Well, anyway, Sorry... Honest mistake on my part... And I still haven't gotten to 'the sign' yet... so bear with me... no reading ahead.

Saturday our plans to let the kids play in the pool all morning was thwarted by a morning of clouds, fog and mist that hung around until almost 2:00pm. We met our new friends from Shanghai (The Canfields, also Intel expats from Portland, home for a few weeks this summer) for lunch at a local pub so our kids could meet each other. Their oldest, a daughter named Maddie, has a little babysitting business in Shanghai, and since we are only 2 buildings away in our apartment complex, we plan on using her quite often.

Saturday afternoon was the PEO picnic. PEO is a women's organization Stephanie belongs to which raises money for women's scholarships in addition to being a social and support network for each other. They meet 1/month for regular chapter business in addition to their fund raising and social events. The husbands believe PEO stands for 'Papa Eats Out', which is what we usually do when Mom is gone on Tuesday nights... I am sure some of the men may actually cook for their families, but I know PEO night usually means 'Spaghetti Factory' in the Welsh house.

The picnic is always great, and this year it was hosted by our good friends Brian and Lisa Wing. So not only did Stephanie get a chance to see and say goodbye to some of her PEO sisters, we got to see the Wing's and their kids one last time before we go. It was one of the classic Brian and Lisa BBQs - the kids run around playing, actually leaving the parents alone for the most part, burgers and dogs flying off the grill, all the beer and soda and water you can handle, and just great company. Oh, and my favorite snack food in the world - Lisa Wing's 7 layer dip... If there was a reliable way to mail 7 layer dip from Oregon to Shanghai, I would pay whatever it took.

When we got back to the hotel, the kids were filthy and over tired... last night it seemed like a complete pain, but looking back on it the next day... that's probably the top 2 symptoms of a great BBQ - filthy and overtired kids.

This morning was a busy morning... Nonnie is up in Portland for the weekend to see us one last time, and Olivia's little girlfriends are having a 'going away party' for her. It's my good friend Mike Trzupek's birthday, and they are down for the weekend from Seattle, so for his birthday he wanted to play golf. I was a little concerned about playing so close to heading out, but given that all our stuff was moved this week (shipment to China went out Wednesday, and storage truck was filled on Friday - house is empty), and the girl's would be at the 'going away party' for Olivia, Steph and I thought it could be squeezed in.

My clubs are in a cargo container headed to China. So are my golf balls, tees, golf glove, etc. etc. I held out one pair of golf shoes from the shipment, that I'll leave here with Mike, and he loaned me a glove and let me use some of his golf balls. This along with a set of rental clubs, and I was ready to go. Mike recruited one of his old Intel finance friends (Larry Fox) who is retired now, and we teed off at Langdon Farms Golf Club right around 7am.

Mind you, I didn't have high hopes for this round. I've played pretty infrequently in the last couple of years, and I was playing with a hodge podge of equipment, and had to get up at 5:30am to 'squeeze it in'.

When I was playing golf regularly, Stephanie really dreaded the 15-20 minutes immediately after I returned home from the round. She would innocently ask 'how was your round' and I would launch into a hole by hole explanation of how it unfolded... usually explaining how 'I was only 1 (or 2 strokes) over par until - '.... what came after 'until' was sometimes 'the 8th hole', occasionally 'the 12th hole', and once even 'the 18th hole'... but there was always something after 'until' that meant I took what could have been a great round and with some stupid mistake, or series of bad swings, turned it into a 'good round' or 'decent round' or worse. Of course what Stephanie was looking for when she asked 'how was your round' was: 'fine, I shot 82' or 'I didn't shoot well, but the weather was great and we really enjoyed each other's company'.

When I got home today Stephanie and the girls are still with Nonnie at the party, so for the viewing public, I offer my hole by hole review of the round.... OK, just kidding. As if my posts don't already resemble the unabridged version of 'War and Peace'.

This is where I am not sure how to interpret the sign delivered to me today in the form of my best round of golf ever. That's right - EVER. I shot 74. Rented clubs and borrowed glove and... 74. 3 over par on a par 71 layout. Now we played the white tees, so it's not like this is the same spot Tiger tees the ball up, but for your average recreational golfer, and compared to my past performance, this was freakin' amazing!

The day could not have been better; this is what it's like when commentators might say 'the conditions are perfect'... It was cloudy and cool, but with very little wind, and not so cool you needed a windbreaker or jacket; Golf shirts and shorts were perfect. The company was great - although Mike hadn't played in 9 months, he had very low expectations, and was so relaxed that he shot an 82 - a phenomenal score for 9 months removed from swinging a club. We didn't really keep score for Larry, this was really just about him getting to catch up with Mike since the Trzupek's moved to Seattle.

The course, which historically plays very slowly, was not very busy, and we never really waited on any group in front of us and were never pushed from behind. We had time to tell stories and enjoy the company, and enjoy what really is a pretty course.

So now, my confusion over signs... What sign is being sent to me in the form of my best round of golf ever? Part of me thinks 'my last 2 rounds of golf have been 78 and 74, just as I am heading to China to a job where I'll be working 70 hours a week and won't be playing golf for a year or so... what are the golf gods doing to me?"

But really, I look at it and realize... This was a perfect part, of a perfect weekend. We have been surrounded by our closest and best friends in Portland, doing the things we love to do... eating good food, drinking good wine, spending time remembering stories from the past, and talking about the exciting future that lies ahead... And playing golf, a game I love, with good company, at a good course, and shooting a good score... I think the golf gods threw me a bone...

To the golf gods, and all our friends that made this an amazing weekend, I say 'Thank You'.