We Love Rachel!

During our time in Shanghai, we've met some amazing friends. One of our favorite people, Wu TingTing, or as we like to call her, Rachel, has recently embarked on her own overseas adventure. In February, Rachel decided to move to Poland to work for a firm in Poznan. Oddly enough, Poznan is my grandmother's home town, where she lived until she met my grandfather after the war and moved to the US. We were very sad to see Rachel leave Shanghai, but at the same time, it has been such an exciting opportunity for her. During the past few months, she's gotten to try skiing and ice fishing for the first time, and visit places like Krakow and Germany. We've also enjoyed her stories and observations about what it's like to be a foreigner in a new country.

We've noticed a lot of her reactions to a different culture and customs have been similar to our own during our time in China. Here are just a few observations she's shared with us:

What I feel is Poznan is a nice, small city with blue sky and a lots of mini forests like a village. The people here are polite and friendly. -Rachel

I hope I will survive eating bread three times a day :-) -Rachel
(I have to say, I felt the same way about rice!)

Do you know Easter holiday? I never have this holiday in China but Easter is such a biggest holiday in Poland, just like Christmas. As i know Jesus died at 14th of April, after three days he have a renascence and every body celebrate it. before this holiday i painted some eggs for the Easter.

Yesterday, It's my boss mom's name's day, a lot people celebrate for her, it was a big party until today keep have guests coming. In Poland people think Name's day (the feast day of the saint for whom you are named) is bigger then Birthday, on the calendar each day has a several names on it. This is very fresh for me, I don't know any other country in Europe like here. -Rachel

And one thing very interesting for me, here boys and girls going to beauty parlor, pay a lot money to get suntan and some people are crazy with this, they going to this kind of place several time per week. Can you image that! in China i guess only have people pay for get white. Actually i have hear about this before but i thought only in the movie. This just really funny for me, difficult place people have totally diffident opinion or maybe i am just confused :-) -Rachel
(I reassured Rachel that she was not confused, that Westerners do spend a lot of time and money to get tan. I also told her I was just as shocked to find the amount of money Chinese women spend on whitening creams, and how prized a 'Casper' like complexion is in China.)

While we miss Rachel terribly, we're so proud she's decided to take on the challenge of moving to a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language. It's nice to know Zach and I aren't the only ones crazy enough to do something like that!

Journey to Unself-consciousness

Is "unself-consciousness" a word? Oh well. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but the Chinese are incredible in their ability to not care at all about how they conduct themselves in public. It's like with children, who run and scream without any concept of censoring thought or action. Only it's not as cute when a 50 year old man picks his nose, hacks up what sounds like a furball and spits it at your feet without second thought. Regardless, the Chinese are seemingly impossible to embarrass. I think it's an admirable quality, and I'm trying to learn from them. You know, like trying not to care so much about what other people might think of me if I'm wearing knockoff Versace or Ferragamo. Hey, it's not easy!

So the other day one of our office "ayi's" (Chinese word for cleaning lady) was cleaning the men's bathroom when I walked in. I was trying to ask her how much longer she would be (she was laughing at the apparently unintelligible stream of Chinese coming from what looked to be a Chinese boy), and then another guy from my office just walked right by us and strolled into a stall, closing the door as he lit up his cigarette (the men's bathroom is like a smoke-filled bar sometimes). I stopped mid-noncomprehensible Chinese-sentence and thought to myself, "Now see! In China no one gets embarassed about going to the bathroom. Everyone does it of course, what's the big deal?" and further psyched myself up with, "If he can do it, I can do it! Learn from the Chinese..." and I, with false confidence, also strolled casually into the other stall and closed the door. I sort of assumed that the ayi would quickly get the drift (hah! sorry that's awful) and finish up and leave. But what I didn't anticipate was the fact that if we weren't bashful, then why should she be? She pulls out her mop and starts mopping the floor for the next two hours- which wasn't really two hours and probably only about two minutes but seemed like two hours since I was now trapped in a stall with my pants down feeling very vulnerable to the mop-wielding ayi close by and only Smoky Joe in the other stall to back me up. The mop swooped dangerously close to my feet a couple of times and I was terrified that she would yank open my door and finish mopping around my stall. But she didn't, and I waited until well after she'd left. Finally, with Smoky halfway into his second pack, I burst out of my stall, quickly washed my hands and ran out.

After that terrible experience, what did I learn? I am a looooooooong ways away from living like a native. And I'm perfectly happy about it. (p.s. there are no pictures to go along with this entry, and I'm sure you'll all agree that was for the best.)

One Piece of Watermelon

One of the most enjoyable aspects about my job in Shanghai is managing 3 local Shanghainese girls. They are all such good workers and act as wonderful translators and negotiators with our suppliers to guarantee we get the 'China price' on services, instead of the 'American price' which I assume would be 10X more expensive. Usually I provide them with daily entertainment with my strange behaviors. For example, when someone sneezes in our office, I of course always say 'God bless you', which is met by a round of giggles. They also get a kick out of my 'baby mandarin', as I like to call it, and love hearing me test out new vocabulary. The girls are pretty laid back, which is why today I was so surprised to be copied on an email sent from my assistant to our HR team regarding the daily 'free lunch' that our staff employees receives. Apparently, there was an incident at lunch that got her very worked up and I had to share the email because it just cracked me up. The email sent from my assistant to an HR manager has since triggered an investigation into our company's 'fruit policy' (no joke). It also provides a valuable lesson to all, if a Chinese woman asks you for a second piece of watermelon, you better give it to her!


Subject: One Piece of Watermelon

Dear Dick (HR manager),

I just would like to know if I can get one more piece of watermelon in the staff dining room. If we changed our policy, shanghai centre staff only can have one fruit in the dining room. That's ok. If we don't change it (the policy), why the guy called Calvin in the cafeteria refuse me to get one more piece of watermelon? At that time, I am just like a beggar only for one piece of watermelon. I do think his attitude has some problems.

Would you please give me some feedback about “one piece of watermelon”? Thank you.

Best Regards

Elian Zhang
Marketing Assistant

Freedom and Farming

So besides the usual day-to-day differences in what is considered edible and what passes for traffic law, Tiffany and I have an ongoing discussion regarding living in a communist versus capitalist society. It's a lot more interesting now seeing it, than when we studied it in high school and college. And I've probably learned more about the pros and cons of communism in six months of living here than I did in my entire academic career. (Which granted, isn't saying much, since my scholarly pursuits consisted mainly of mastering concepts like "getting by", "bare minimum", and "cram sessions", and watching "Doogie Howser" and "Magnum P.I." reruns.)

I tend to agree with the saying that the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know, so I won't presume to make any judgement on communism or capitalism. But every now and then we get little reminders that we ain't in Kansas anymore. (And that's just a saying, too. I've never really been to Kansas, but Tiffany did just finish reading the book "What's Wrong With Kansas", and I'm not sure Kansas is the appropriate barometer for capitalism.)

Anyway, let me cut myself off and get to the point. I read the article below and found it amusing and interesting and cut it out to share with Tiffany and the blog. (Ever supportive, Tiffany had the courtesy to painstakingly change every "e" in Chen to an "a" before returning the article to me.) My thoughts on the article were 1) this would/could never happen in the US, 2) I can think of many people/reasons why this should happen in the US (paging Terrell Owens!) and 3) table tennis is the most watched sport in China?! Enjoy!

Chen pays price for losing cool
Shanghai Daily 2006-05-18

CHINESE Olympic champion Chen Qi says he feels like a "new person" after serving his latest punishment for losing his temper in an international competition.

The 21-year-old had apologized, drilled in a military boot camp and handed out an undisclosed amount as fine for his televised tantrum two months ago. He said he repented almost immediately after he flung the ball to the ground and kicked a chair after losing the Asian Cup final to teammate Wang Hao in Japan on March 5. The chain of punishments was suspended as Chen Qi helped the Chinese team defend the world team championship in Bremen, Germany, earlier this month and but team discipline was resumed once he returned.

Chen, the 2004 Olympic doubles gold medalist, was sent to do farm work in Pantao village in the northern province of Hebei. After a week of hard labor, Chen says he is now a changed man. "I am truly sorry for my action," he said on Tuesday. "I should never disgrace the Chinese table tennis team. Working in the fields is a good re-education process for me." Yet Chen, a prospect groomed for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, is still smarting from his Asian Cup loss. "It was the second straight final I lost in a month. That was really frustrating. I was so angry and disappointed that I lost my cool."

On Monday, Chen was seen weeding in a wheat field. He was clumsy with the hoe and wiped forehead sweat with the sleeve of his national team jersey. A throng of curious local farmers and several reporters watched the paddler do the work he had never done before. "On the first day, Chen wasn't able to do anything," said Pantao village chief Wang Haijiang. "But he is clever and a quick learner. He plucked cucumbers, weeded and irrigated the fields, fed pigs and leveled the dirt." Chen declined autograph requests from locals, saying he was a farmer not a sports star.

Table tennis is the most watched sport in China and it has won far more Olympic and world titles than any other sport. Therefore, the Chinese national team is expected to meet the highest standards of personal behavior. Chen's teammate Qiu Yike was banned for a year from the national team for his late-night drinking binge in February. In 2004, four national team members were thrown out for dating teammates and were accused of impeding preparations for the Athens Olympic Games. "The Chinese team is the most disciplined team in the world, that's why it has become so strong," said Yang Ying, a former player now a TV commentator. Yang too had served punishment during his playing days for reporting two hours late.

Chen won't be the last player to be sent to the countryside. Other players may likely see similar days. Liu Guoliang, the Chinese men's team head coach, says he is considering sending the whole team for "education."