Meanwhile, back in the U.S....

I have fallen behind in our weekly blogress, and forgot to report my vacation!

I (Zach) went home to the US for a week in June, for my high school friend Dan's wedding.

It was a beautiful wedding at a northern California winery. I swear, when I flew in from China, the first thing I noticed was how deliciously fragrant the air was back in my hometown of Piedmont. According to my parents, the air is pretty much the same as it always was, so I'm thinking it may be that the air here in China isn't exactly pristine... Anyway, you can see that Dan and his new wife, Carol could not have asked for a nicer day.

The wedding was beautiful, conducted by friends and family, I cried (I think the long hair is making me more sensitive), and then we ate, drank and were merry! In a particularly humbling moment, I was challenged to a "dance off" contest by a 7-year old girl, who then proceeded to embarrass me thoroughly on the dance floor. Yes, that's me trying to do the splits... I think I managed to sprain every muscle in my body.

Also, that week I got to meet my friends Mike and Becky's son, Dylan, who was born in September, after Tiffany and I had already left for China. Here is the proud papa with his adorable and super happy boy! Dylan is always ready with a quick smile and laugh - very cute!

I also went to dinner with my family to celebrate my brother Aaron's birthday, saw my extended family at a Father's Day luncheon, filled a major burrito craving (at El Farolito on 24th and Mission in San Fran), and squeezed in an overnight trip to Las Vegas.

In a brilliantly aggressive bit of planning, I flew with my friends Cali and Parag to Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, gambled all night, and took a 7am flight out Thursday morning. Let me tell you that all-nighters at 30-something are definitely not as easy as they were in our 20's. Mentally we are still in 20's mode (which isn't exactly a positive comment on our maturity...), but physically we are definitely in our 30's. So Thursday we hit the proverbial "wall" -- and the wall won.





All in all it was a great week. Exhausting, but it was tons of fun to see everyone again. I still need to talk about Tiffany's big 30th birthday celebration, but I have to go now. We are heading out to see Mission Impossible III - which they finally released here in China. Apparently Chinese officials were grumbling about the film's portrayal of China. There is reportedly footage of old people playing mah jong and laundry hanging out in the street. Really? We had NO idea!!!

Acrobats, Knock-Offs and A Little Cigarette Ash!

We welcomed our next set of visitors last week, one of my Georgetown friends, Deb, and her friend Niki! We had a blast showing them around and exposing them to our life of infringing on Intellectual Property Rights by introducing them to the $1 pirated DVD and XiangYang Market – home of the $5 knock-off (insert luxury brand name here) bag/belt/sunglasses/jewelry. Unfortunately for all of our future guests, XiangYang closed the day after Deb and Niki discovered it, but I am sure there will be plenty of copycat markets popping up in the near future.

When we weren’t tainting our guests with the opportunity to buy pirated goods, we took them to see the Shanghai Centre acrobats do a myriad of freakish things with their what must be jointless bodies. We were in the second row, which was exciting at first, but got a little scary when we realized that we were in prime position for becoming landing pads, as the acrobats did stunts that would require major harnesses in the U.S., but in OSHA-free China, go unprotected. Fortunately for us, the acrobats were on their game that night and no one was injured.

We also threw a ‘1st of July’ party in honor of our guests and the upcoming US holiday. And who better to invite back than the $75 chef from our last party! It still amazes us that for just $75 you can get a Chinese chef to bring over all the ingredients to cook a 20 course meal of some of the tastiest Chinese food we’ve ever eaten. After arriving with just a few bags and pulling out food from nowhere in true Mary-Poppins-ish fashion, we had a party full of well-fed guests, leftovers for a week, and a spotless kitchen! So we really can't complain when he insists on smoking for 75% of the cooking time. We figure a little cigarette ash never hurt anyone, especially when you can't taste it!

A few more party highlights.......

Zach's summer intern, Cyrus, from Washington University in St. Louis.

"Cyrus the Virus", as Zach likes to call him, was given one task by Zach to help with the party - find a keg. He failed. And now Zach and Bing will taunt him for the rest of his internship. Splendid role models, aren't they?

Zach's work partner, Bingdong, who managed to go home with quite a few phone numbers at the end of the night! Zach was jealous.......

...until his karaoke duet with pre-KFed Britney

Zach's hair is so long, it's french braidable!

All in all, it was a great week, thanks Deb and Niki for visiting us, we can't wait for your next trip!

What a Year! Relive the Magic.

Today Tiffany and I celebrate our first anniversary in marriage, and what an amazing year it's been! We just went to dinner and talked and laughed about what a great time we had in Chicago that weekend with all of our friends and family around. It was such a special time for us to be able to see everyone together like that; we will always remember it with a smile and a laugh.

But, don't think it was 'perfect', oh no, it was far from 'perfect'. Time for the "Did You Know?" portion of the evening....

Did You Know:
1) Zach was incredibly stressed out the entire pre-wedding all the way until he and Tiff finished their dance.

"That was the most stressed out I'd ever seen Zach," recalls Tiffany.

"It was the pressure of the dance; the debut of the choreographer's brainchild, the purest expression of the artist's mind, not to be taken lightly, you know," responds Zach.

"Whatever. Freak."

2) The DJ played the wrong song for Tiffany as she walked down the aisle for the ceremony! The instrumental of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" was the song designated for the bridesmaids as well as Tiffany's walk down the aisle with her father. Unfortunately the DJ thought Tiffany should have her own song, and fast forwarded to the next song, which was Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together", which was supposed to be Zach and Tiffany's exit song. That explains why Zach was desperately whistling at the DJ from the front to cut the music.

"It was perfect," comments Tiffany, "I was so nervous to walk down the aisle with my father that when the wrong music came on, I just started laughing and instantly relaxed."

3) There were some casualties prior to the wedding. Tiffany's mom, Paula, generously offered up her dining room as a pre-wedding staging area, and we housed about 20 fish bowls and 20 small containers holding the beta fish. Well one sleepless night prior to the wedding, Zach went to check on his fish, and lo and behold...

"We had a jumper..." said Zach with a grimace. "some crazy beta fish with fins and a dream. He had leapt out of his cup onto the dining room table. When I ran to Tiffany screaming for help, she laughed and reminded me whose idea the fish had been. Then when I went back, the fish had jumped from the table down onto the floor. And, certain he was dead, I dropped him into the toilet and flushed, only to see him start wiggling around again just as he started swirling down. That was one tough fish. Disney should make a movie about the little fella."

4) Finally, Did You Know that the reception was only supposed to be beer and wine?!? It remains a mystery to us how it was that all the other alcohol began flowing, but once it started, people were downing it like a bunch of breakaway Mormons.

Anyway, the point is that Tiffany and I were lucky enough to have all of you there to celebrate with us, and whatever else happened, planned or unplanned, only served to add to the color of our wedding. So thanks again to all of our family and friends, we love you and miss you!

And now, in a shameless gesture of self-promotion, here is the link to our wedding dance. And before I take all the credit, thank you Kimmy for helping us so much with the dance up at the cottage!

http://mindobserver.com/tiffzach/TheDance.htm

p.s. here we are one year later, valiantly attempting a self photo in the mirror of our Shanghai apartment. A little fuzzy, but you get the idea!

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."