Xin Qi San, Qi Yue 30

Wednesday, July 30

            Today my dad took me out to see the city. After working within the hotel ever since I got here, it was really nice to get out and see Beijing. My favorite part by far, though, was shopping.

Ever since I found out that I was going to Beijing, I have been waiting for this day to come! Here in Beijing, its not like the American shopping. At the markets, there are just floors and floors of stalls that each have about whole store of merchandise stuffed into a 5 foot by 5 foot cubicle.

In one market, they had things from electronics to clothes to sunglasses to purses and bags… and almost anything else you can imagine. There are so many knock-off designer name brands, but if you look hard, you can find some pretty good fakes.

Being a foreigner, when I walk through the stalls, everyone just yells at me and sticks various items in front of my face yelling the few words in English that they have learned… “a bag for you today mam? You like these shoes? How about this shirt? Would you like to have a look?”… all at the same time and all in the same, broken English accent. If I would stop walking at anytime, the person’s stall I stopped at would just go crazy to offer me the best thing that they had.

After about 10 minutes of strolling through the clothes section, I found a really cute tank topish shirt. I asked the price, but of course, you never agree to what they originally say. With 7 kwai equaling one dollar, the lady originally said 120 kwai! After much bargaining and sweet-talking to her… and of course, walking away acting as if I didn’t want it, she finally agreed with 30 kwai! That coming out to be about 4 dollars for a nice, well made shirt that would cost at least 25$ in the US. As with all the places in the markets, if you don’t bargain, you will end up paying an outrageous price for something that is worth about 5 dollars or so. If you ask people, they advise you to take off 70% of the first price that they give you.

One thing I found highly interesting is another way that everyone does their business in the market. If they think that you are worth it (trust me, I have no clue how they figure if you are worthy) they will offer you to have a look at their very special items. Sometimes, the vendor will show you a piece of paper with pictures on it, lets say of purses. You could then pick out the purse you like from the picture and someone will run away, back through hallways and into closets to retrieve your requests. Almost every stall does this, and all with various items. Its just so different from the way stores sell items in the US, but I guess that’s just the way China works.

Xin Qi Er, Qi Yue 29

Tuesday, July 29

Today, my Dad flew in for a two-day work trip, and I got to go out to dinner with him! This was one of the few times that I have been out of the hotel, and it was exciting! We went to this district in Beijing called Hou Hai. This is the older part of town where Chairman Mao’s workers lived. It was convenient because this district is located just North of the Forbidden City, where Mao lived.

It is kind of a little town with old buildings that has been converted into shops and restaurants. There is also a lake in the middle of the district.

My dad and I were standing in line to rent a boat to cruse throughout the city on the lake, when these two sisters in front of us started talking to us… one of them spoke a little bit of English, and I spoke my Chinese to them. They were also waiting for a boat, and asked if we wanted to come with them.

They were both with their boyfriends, and were all between 20 and 23. They were from Fujian, which is in the southeast part of China. They came to Beijing to work in the factories making clothing. I found it really interesting to see how they act and what they like here in China.

I found it to be just about the same as American teenagers, surprising enough! Half way around the world, the only thing that was slightly different was the food that they ate.

When we first got on the boat, they opened a whole bag full of their Chinese snacks. It was nori paper, leachy nut jello, and some sort of things that were kinda like cheetos only they were prawn flavor. Although these seem very exoctic to an average American, the snacks were actually delicious, and different, but in a good way!

For dinner, just my dad and I went to this place called No Name. This resturant also has no address! But with the recommendation from numerous people, we somehow found the right spot! It was in the back alleys near the Hutongs.

Hutongs are the old places where people still live today. It is like an alley doorway that leads to a courtyard, and from the courtyard, about 4 families live in separate houses. In these places, people remain neighbors for many generations. It was really interesting to see this. Also, about each corner, there was a little family run general store about the size of a closet, and this was for each of the neighbors that lived on that specific block. Although it was almost 11 at night, people were still sitting in front of their shops playing ancient Chinese games, like Majong and just hanging out. I got this sense of a family communitly when I walked by… which was really powerful, since we were in the back allies in the middle of nowhere that we knew, yet, it was welcoming to be there.

Xin Qi Yi, Qi Yue 28

Monday, July 28

Today was the first day that we met some of the local staff. They came in early (before orientation) to help out with the amenities. In this program, there are like 30 managers that manage each department from guest services to transportation, and of course, food and beverage! Amenities is part of this.

Each manager is also assigned team of local staff. Since the amenities include staff uniforms, this team came in early to get all the staff uniforms packaged and set up to hand out a orientation.

With 200 bags to stuff with three shirts, two pants, one shorts, three socks, a jacket and a hat, you would expect it to take at least two days. These Chinese local staff, though, completed it easily in one!

I worked with them and we even inventoried every item before and afterwards and personalized the bags for each person! Although we did have 7 hands working busily, I believe that if we weren’t in China, this couldn’t have happened.

The culture that they are raised teaches them to always work as a team. If they are going to get something, they go together, if they are moving a box, they move it together, and if they are organizing things, they do it together. When you are watching, it may seem like several people are just standing around doing nothing, but somehow, everything gets done faster this way.

Working with them, I fell into this routine of theirs. Working this way made it seem like I was doing half of the work and it was so much easier, let alone, much more fun! After realizing this, I can see how their ancestors were able to complete the feat of building the Great Wall!

Sunday, July 27

Today we went to the Great Wall. And let me say, it really is a great wall! Just imagine, over 1,000,000 Chinese men laboring throughout their life to build around 4000 miles of wall. And this wall isn’t in the easiest terrain.

After hiking about one mile, all of our legs ached and our bodies were drenched in sweat. As you walk along the wall, it’s not just an easy, level stroll. It’s climbing up and down stairs… and hundreds at a time. Each stair is a different size and some of them are almost three feet tall!

Despite the rugged terrain, the sight is just unbelievable… the endless wall meandering through the lush, green mountains. It’s mind boggling how beautiful and peaceful it is up on the wall, yet there are hundreds of tourists walking it, and the bustling city of Beijing is just an hour away!

Where we went to the wall, Mutainyu, there was a little village at the bottom and then you took a gondola up to the wall. Then, after walking about a mile, you could take a bobsled like thing down. It was just a metal half tube that you rode down on a plastic sled thing. You could get flying on this thing; whipping around the hair-pin turns and with the wind blasting in your face… it was a perfect way to end you journey at the Great Wall.

At the bottom of this, there was a village that was totally dependent off the tourists. It was amazing to see how the village really relied on the tourists. Their whole life is the way it is because of this business. They sell artwork, fruit, shirts, souvenirs, and all sorts of traditional Chinese items. One person even had a camel that they had people pay to take pictures with. Although it appeared like their life was pretty poor, we heard that they were one of the better off villages. Just one mile away, the people were living off of almost nothing! It really made me realize how well off people really are in America.

Saturday, July 26

Xin Qi Liu, Qi Yue 26

What a hectic way to start off my trip in China. These first few days have been so exhausting! Let’s see, many things have been done these past four days.

Wednesday. This was the day that I got assigned to go out to the warehouse with the Administration Manager. Our job was to see what had actually made it to the warehouse out of all the shipments that were sent. The items shipped ranged from pants to watches to signage and even photo albums. Once we got in the cab, we suddenly realized that the assignment was much harder than it sounded. With a non-English speaking cab driver (as they nearly all are), we ended up at the wrong destination and couldn’t figure out how to explain to him the correct place to be.

Finally arriving at the warehouse, we encountered the 121 pallets of boxes to be sorted through and inventoried. Just because things can never be as easy as they sound, we ended up having to open most of the boxes to figure out what was in them. after about four hours of opening, labeling and moving boxes, my hands no longer appeared to be skin color and our bodies were drenched in sweat (due to the hot, muggy non-air conditioned environment). When going to most public restrooms, one from Boulder would usually assume there to be paper towels, or at least toilet paper! In this warehouse, you would be proven wrong. There was no paper to be found, and even the workers had no clue where any paper products existed!

With this assignment luckily complete, we moved on to ordering the office supplies. In America, going to staples means going to the big store with a huge red staples sign above it. Well, in China, that is nowhere near the description of where we went. We got dropped off by the taxi at an office building where, inside, there was an office space called Unicube, and here, a lady sat with a catalog in all Chinese from Staples when we were checking on the order, we also discover the absence of many items in Chinese culture, including tabs, like on dividers, cross cutting shredders, manila folders and three ring binders. Instead of three rind binders, they have two ring binders that come with the rings detached from the cardboard. Looking through this catalog, I realized how name-brand reliant Americans really are. We were looking for post-it notes, which only existed as sticky pads. This whole experience of just ordering office supplies really gave me a good outlook on the differences between Chinese and American culture.

Thursday. This was the day of Cell phones… and a lot of them! For the staff that works with my mom, each one of them receives a cell phone. This sounds like such a simple task to complete, yet, it took, all day of continual work. I guess with 200 phones to open, put a sim card in, turn it on and change the language to English, figure out the sim card number, find the name who it belongs to, write the name on the box, and print a label of the number to stick on the phone, I can begin to understand how it could consume a few hours of work. This was just intriguing to me how much work and time actually goes into preparing for the staff to arrive and all of the simple things that make a huge difference in the whole realm of things.

Friday. This was the day of computer work. So in order to go to Opening Ceremonies, the Chinese government is requiring every ticket to have a photo id showing the passport and all the information about the ticket holder. In order to complete this, millions of forms go into use. And with saying a million… I’m not even exaggerating! My job was to enter all of the forms for the guest and staff in alphabetical order into the database.

You probably are wondering exactly how this works, and it goes like this. There is a database for the company with a list of all of the people that have anything to do with the program. Each person has a profile of when they’re arriving, when they’re leaving, their status as a quest, their room requests and so on. Within their profiles, I went in and checked off that they had their forms. I also entered quite a few peoples complete information. I know this sounds like nothing, but again, once you multiply it by about 400, your hands start to grow tired and your eyes weary.

Saturday. Today. Today was a fun day… to sum it up. Well first off, I got to finish up the computer work with the Opening Ceremony tickets. After this, I helped inventory our shipments that came in from the warehouse with all for the staff items. I would have to say that I have now mastered he art of counting… with my repetitive practice of counting and sorting 600 socks, 300 women’s pants, 300 men’s pants and a few other articles of clothing here and there.

The real excitement of the day, however, came at lunch time. Expect for the 5 meter walk from the warehouse to the cab on Wednesday, I had not been out side since I arrived! One of the managers, the one that I inventoried with, and I decided to take a stroll to the market just around the corner to grab a bite to eat. In the just the 2-block walk, the air out side was already thick in my lungs. It felt like I had a film around my body making it hard to breath, see and even move. It was just so differently shocking from Boulder’s fresh, clean air. I don’t know how people could exercise in these conditions, let alone compete.

Well, once we survived our walk to the market, it was really exciting. The girl that I was with bought a cute shirt like we would buy in the states and it was only two dollars! She also bought a beer for 50 cents and an instant noodle bowls for 50 cents each. Despite the extremely cheap prices, this everyday market had some very interesting things. I found cucumber Lays chips (which are actually really good!), something that is like chocolate covered raisins, but with strawberry inside, octopus tentacles, and even live fish and prawn! It was just so intriguing that in everyday life, people in China eat these foods as if they were just another peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

When we were checking out of the market, the language barrier came into place. With my knowledge of a few sentences in Chinese, I was not able to figure out what exactly I the cash register was trying to ask me. I had given her the correct amount of money, she had given me the change, yet she still was determined to get an answer out of me. An answer to a question that I couldn’t even begin to understand. After about two minutes of confused looks from me and the person I was with, the rest of the people in line chimed in with the inquiring. Finally, after someone realized that we didn’t actually speak the language, they held up the object they were asking about. Let alone, it was a bag! All this just to ask if we wanted a bag! Well, just to complicate things more, at the store, you have to pay for the bags! Each one cost about 50 cents each, so we settled that problem and payed for it. But who would have thought that you had to pay specifically for a bag to put your items in once you already bought your goods! Well, I guess only in China!

Tuesday, July 22

Xin Qi Er, Qi Yue 22

After months of anticipating this life adventure in Beijing, I just can’t believe that it is actually happening. Days on end of packing, school shopping in July, and on-and-off Chinese lessons have finally showed their reasons to take place. When my mom and I landed in Beijing yesterday afternoon around 2:30pm, we hit the ground running… to say the least.

When you land in the Beijing airport, signs and posters of the Olympics cover every wall and practically every billboard. Along with this, as you drive into the city, the streets are lined with banners and there are even Olympic lanes on the highway for all credited vehicles. With the anticipation of heavy traffic, the government has limited the cars from driving every day. Depending on the last digit of your license plate, you alternate days driving. If the date is even, then even numbered license plated cars drive, and if the date is an odd number, the cars ending in odd numbers are allowed to drive. Despite this, however, compared to American cities, the traffic was still considered congested. Just driving during a non-commute hour was like driving during a heavy traffic hour from Boulder to Denver.

On our way to the hotel, we made a two-hour stop at the Olympic Green, or OG as it is commonly referred to. This is where the Birds Nest, the Water Cube and other main venues for the Olympics are located in the Central Green. Accompanying these sights here are the Corporate Sponsor Hospitality tents. Here, I got my first sight of my mom’s work. She met with various people who have taken a part in the planning and build out phases and will work on site with her during games time operations. At the Sponsor tents, there will be refreshments and accommodating lounges for the guests to stop in to cool off and grab a refreshment before and after the events they attend. With the Olympics creeping up in less than twenty days, one might expect the construction to be complete. However, the workers were still going strong. Lugging things, cleaning things, setting up things, and list just went on and on. Yet, I have no doubt, (after watching them work for two hours) that they will be able to complete the job in time, considering what they accomplished in the little time I was there today.

While I tried to pre-adjust myself to the time zone here which is 14 hours ahead of Colorado, I still couldn’t sleep through the night. Before I left, I pulled almost an all-nighter until we left our house at 3 in the morning to fly to San Francisco. While it was night here in Beijing while we flew through the day in America, I slept, trying to act like I was in China already. After the 14-hour flight to Beijing, I arrived here still feeling a bit sleepy. Forcing myself to stay up as long as possible, I went to bed around 11pm Beijing time. This was with the hopes of sleeping through the night. Yet, I still woke up at 4:30am, since it was mid-afternoon back home.

With my crash course of Chinese on the plane, (I listened to Chinese tapes downloaded on my Ipod), I could barely communicate at all with the locals. However, I still felt the warm welcome they extended towards us upon arrival. Everyone here is just so excited about their role for the Olympic games… and, of course, are working long hours to show the world that China is truly the Middle Kingdom which is what Zhong Guo translates to in English.I have no doubt we are in for a spectacular Opening Ceremonies beginning on 8 - 08 - 2008 at 8:08PM!