365 Days of Pork

It’s official, we’ve finished the Year of the Dog and have entered the Year of the Pig. To welcome in the New Year, it’s common for most companies to have their annual New Year parties. These events are similar to the traditional office Christmas Party in some ways, lots of food and alcohol are served, bonuses are distributed, senior management gives annual performance speeches, etc. But the Chinese version of the annual party is almost like a combination of a a night at a karaoke lounge and a work version of American Idol.


Many of the departments spent countless weekends honing their routines or working on costumes. Our HR team recreated the ever popular Riverdance routine, and the only guy in the department was nominated to become the Chinese version of Michael Flately, Lord of the Dance. They went so far as to hire a professional coach to teach them the moves. Out of respect for the time and effort expended by the group, I will restrain from commenting on the performance.








Housekeeping went out of their way on the costume front.














For those departments less musically inclined, ‘embarrass the laowai (foreigner)’ games were created. I was brought up on stage to reenact different times of day on a human clock…..







And then, in a game I still don’t fully understand, we were blindfolded and lead around the stage. Apparently, we were quite entertaining, as the crowd went wild.






After attending two of these dinners back to back, Zach and I fled Shanghai, and what was sure to be a firecracker filled week, and headed to Malaysia. We’ll update you on that trip soon, but if you’re interested in seeing some of our pictures, check out www.flickr.com/photos/tiffandzach.

Happy Valentine's Day!- Take 1

In the ever constant exportation of American everything to the rest of the world, Valentine's Day is not left out. In fact, it seems that Chinese do Valentine's day bigger than Americans, or at least they do it more often. Apparently, the Chinese celebrate not only the traditional February 14, but also a separate, Chinese Valentine's day, which is the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar New Year (sometime in August). And due to some sort of leap month in 2006, it was celebrated 3 times last year. Valentine's Day is celebrated quite traditionally here. As expected, florists are doing mad business, the day price of roses is exorbitant, and restaurants pull out all the stops with romantic, overpriced, set 'love menus'. What struck me as a little odd, but not surprising is the lengths guys have to go through on the holiday(s), at least in Shanghai.

To give some background, Shanghainese woman are renowned for wearing the pants in the family. It's standard protocol for Shanghainese women to collect their husband's checks and issue 'allowances' back to him, and Zach and I have seen on more than one occasion a Shanghainese woman yelling at her boyfriend/husband on the street, only to have the boyfriend/husband resort to a submissive, crying mess. In fact, our Chinese teacher validated this positioning, by telling us her parents were a very traditional Shanghainese couple, her father did all the cooking and cleaning, and when it came to family decisions, her mother made the decision and her father would listen to and agree with her mother. As a disclaimer, this female dominated arrangement is only popular in Shanghai, and according to Chinese friends, does not carry to other cities or provinces. Due to the unique nature of the Shanghainese relationship dynamics, it apparently makes Shanghainese men a hot commodity for other Chinese women who are looking for husbands.

This relationship is apparent on Valentine's Day. Last year, Zach and I were out and about walking the streets of Shanghai, and saw dozens of Shanghainese women being lovingly followed by their boyfriends, each struggling with gigantic bouquets of flowers, to what we assume was to an expensive 'love feast'. And bucking tradition this year, I decided to surprise Zach by sending flowers to his office. When I told my assistant my plan, she laughed at me and responded 'That is so interesting', which her token phrase for most things I do and loosely translates to 'you Americans are so funny and strange'. After leaving my office, I could hear her telling the other girls in the office, which sent them into fits of giggles. Zach's office reacted similarly, in fact, you can see his office 'ayi' in the right of the photo giving him and his bouquet the stare-down. When he called me to thank me for the flowers, I heard fits of laughter in the background, and he said they did not believe the flowers could have been from me, but must be from some secret admirer! Either way, we seem to continue to perpetuate the belief that Americans are unpredictable and strange.

Frosty Harbin

Tiffany and I visited Harbin last weekend, one of China’s northernmost cities and very near the Russian border. It is famous for the annual snow and ice festival, and famous for its freezing temperatures. The snow and ice festivals were monumental displays of precision sculpture, and distinctly Chinese. That is, the Chinese seem to have a flair for the melodramatic, or tacky, to someone less generous. Tiffany and I were hugely entertained, in fact, the gaudier and more outrageous the better. After all, what’s the fun in experiencing a different culture if there are no differences? Suffice to say, we were not disappointed.






We started with the snow festival, where some famous sculptures were remade in snow, like “Crane Kick Squirrel” and “Mao the Mouse”, or whatever that animal is. Buddhas showed up everywhere, of course.

















Even on the streets the Harbin locals got into the spirit of the festival.






One motto of the city seemed to be, “We get one tourist event a year, so milk those lao wai (foreigners) for all they’re worth.” Everywhere we went there were opportunities to spend money. This beautiful snow castle had inner tube slides that you could pay to ride down. Here’s Tiffany flying down a similar slide. I have to say, the speed and lack of any safety equipment whatsoever made for quite an exhilarating ride!




You could rent an ice sled to push yourself around, or even bikes on ice.











Of course, Tiffany’s favorite was the dog sled ride. This 6 minute lap around the ice rink cost us $25. And with a dog that cute, how could we refuse?


Here I am taking a nice nap in a snowy hammock.

There was an entire “main street” carved in snow, with little shops you could actually enter and buy hot tea and souvenirs.














We randomly saw this Harbin local taking his daily backward walk, wearing an Oakland A’s cap. I tried to ask him what he thought about this year’s team, but there was some disconnect. Either that, or he was just too disgusted by their draft to comment.




After the snow festival we were hounded by a street salesman to come into his restaurant and have some tea. So we ended up making a nice contribution to the Harbin Street Sellers after receiving the bill of $15 for our tea and peanuts. We knew we’d been ripped off, but this poor guy was standing out in the cold all day, and his restaurant was empty, so we didn’t feel so bad.

We stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut and witnessed the Crafty Chinese Woman at her finest. Apparently taking time off from constructing snow and ice sculptures, this woman literally spent 20 minutes at the “One serving only” salad bar, piling coleslaw in layers, and using cucumber slices to stabilize her structure. Like I said, everywhere we went we saw very impressive building creations.




As night fell, Harbin turned into a disco. Or at least it felt like it. Colored lights flashed across the city and lit our way like a Chinese kaleidoscope.











A quick stop at Starbucks, oh wait, no that’s “USAbucks”. Knockoff coffee?









We got to the ice festival and it was spectacular, a rainbow spectrum of neon, backed by bass-thumping techno music blaring throughout the park. Believe it or not, all these fluorescent monuments were constructed with blocks of ice, and carved to a meticulous finish.










After taking a horse drawn carriage tour of the festival to get our bearings, and handing over the required tip to our driver (actually he asked in Chinese for a “toll” charge), we wandered around the mammoth ice structures.

Ice mazes, ice tunnels, ice cathedrals, ice replicas of the Forbidden City, there was something for everyone.










I even found a tank sitting in the courtyard.










Of course, Tiffany found some dog/fox-like creature that she paid to cuddle with. She had to return the animal, but got to keep the fleas.
The next day, before we had to leave, we got to take a nice long stroll through Harbin. It is a vast, snowy, frozen tundra of a city, and we had a great time experiencing it!

A Slow and Cinematic Start to 2007

After a very eventful and exciting holiday trip to Chicago and San Francisco, Tiffany and Zach have taken the first two weeks of the month to recover from jet lag and the flu, as well as catch up on all the Oscar contending movies that are now flooding the pirated DVD stores. While it is slightly annoying to have 'For Award Consideration Only' running at the bottom of the screen during the likes of 'The Departed', 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'Borat', you can't beat the price: $1 per DVD.

And what's even better is the innovative, local competition. So much for subtle marketing, within weeks of 'Movie World' opening on our block, their rival, titled 'Even Better Than Movie World' opened directly across the street. Needless to say, with the current discounts, we've been able to catch up on all the new flicks for next to nothing, and entertaining ourselves as we recuperate.

There's one person who has not been happy about Zach and Tiffany's 'recovery month'. After returning home early one day due to a splitting headache, Tiffany entered the apartment with thoughts of curling up on the couch and watching one of the blockbusters acquired from 'Even Better Than Movie Store'. Her plans were foiled when she ran into the 'ayi', Chinese name for maid. Granted, labor is cheap, and 'ayis' can be secured for $1/hour (we've tried to pay ours in pre-watched DVDs, but she didn't seem to like that idea), but poor Tiffany learned that a positive attitude isn't included. Instead of a friendly hello, the ayi literally, in a loud and chiding voice, bellowed (translation) WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WHY ARE YOU RETURNING AT THIS TIME? Tiffany had half a mind to ask who actually paid rent on the apartment, but unfortunately, hasn't gotten that far in her Chinese class. So a mere shrug and a smile had to do, as she shuffled off to sequester herself in the bedroom, hiding from the bulldog that is our ayi. Poor Zach ran into the same attitude when returning early from a business trip due to the flu. While a negative attitude is never fun to deal with when you're sick, we figure it's a small price to pay for clean floors and ironed clothing!

The Making of the Card

Tiff and I had so much fun dressing up for Halloween we just couldn't stop. Our friends Marc and Meredith had heard about this place where you could do a glamorous photo shoot in traditional Chinese costume. Of course we signed right up! As you can see, Marc and I carefully examined the racks of clothing for the ultimate in imperial fashion.

After much debate, we decided on one Tang Dynasty costume set, and one "classic" Shanghai set. We were going for that classic, 1920's and 30's "Paris of the East" look.




Marc realizes the costumes were not made with tall white guys in mind.....










Tiffany with her blond tresses looks more Rapunzel than Zhang Ziyi, but don't worry, these guys were pros, and soon had her fixed up appropriately...

With the proper hair extensions, wigs and makeup, Tiffany was soon transformed into a vision of Middle Kingdom majesty...








You can barely tell Meredith and Tiffany aren't just two local Chinese village girls made good!








Here I am getting pretty for the big photo shoot. There's nothing like a little man makeup to make your eyes pop.

I wanted them to add some bushy eyebrows to give me that scowling emperor disdainful-of-his-minions overtone, but somehow that didn't translate...







It's amazing how traditional Tang dynasty wear and Tang dynasty-esque hair extensions can convert two blonds.

Local Shanghainese who walked into the photo shoot quickly dropped into deep kow-towing in fear of these feudal empresses.








The royal couple all made up and ready to go! Unfortunately, as the photographers were soon to scold us, Chinese dynastic imperials do NOT smile.









A group photo with Marc, Meredith Tiffany and me. Every time we started cracking up laughing (about every 4 seconds or so), the photographer would yell at us to stop smiling. Our job was to master the oh-so-slight curl of the lip smile, which would exude mystery and enhance our powerful mystique, as if the all the secrets in China were locked up tightly behind those lips. Or something like that...




Here is one of Tiffany and me, elite members of Shanghai's roaring 20's upper crust, out for a quiet Sunday stroll with the timeless 'sun umbrella'.

Other artistic shots...

All in all, the day was incredible fun and great inspiration for our holiday cards (see below). As Tiffany and I jet off with man makeup and black extensions in tow to celebrate Christmas in the US, we'd like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!