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.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
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.
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?
Sunday, August 5, 2007
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!
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!
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