Tom in China

12/24 Tuesday - Home!

2007-12-24T19:18:00.002-08:00

Phew.

I'm now in New Hampshire for the week with my family and am finally in a condition to write. I spent the entire weekend with what I only imagine was a badger living in my lower digestive tract. The badger finally died of asphyxiation and as a result I can eat solid foods again. Not a day too late either because tomorrow is waffels with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast and then turkey for dinner.

I'm happy to be back and sleeping in a soft bed again. Last night I slept through the entire night without encountering a mosquito. And my mom assured me that we won't be eating any frog this entire week. But I'll miss things. The food was mostly incredible, I made some good friends, and a guy gets very used to being saluted every morning.

The above photo is me eating raw sugar cane on my last day.

Thanks for reading!

12/20 Thrusday - Waiting in San Fran

2007-12-24T19:18:00.001-08:00

Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored.

12/20 Thursday - Final Judgement

2007-12-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

It's upon me because I'm in Hell already. The Air China customer service rep told me, as far as I could understand, to go fuck myself. Then the flight attendants all started yelling at me in Chinese when I made one last attempt to plead my case. The guy whose lens I broke was an old dude from China. So I gave him a hundred bucks which is what some photog on the plane said the lens is worth.

To make matters worse, not 10 minutes later I had a massive quantity of yak jerky seized by US Customs because apparently it's not ok to bring in Chinese yak meat. That one really ticks me off because I brought that back as gifts to all my friends.

I was really pissed off and am glad I held of writing this until I ate half an Italian sausage pizza and watched an episode of scrubs. That helped my mood considerably.

Now more waiting. My next flight is 4 hours from now.

12/20 Thursday - Disaster over the pacific

2007-12-24T19:09:00.000-08:00

The flight started off great. I have a window seat and have no one sitting next to me. But 60 minutes into the flight we had an accident. Flash back to when the plane was done boarding and about to taxi... A flight attendant came by with a carry-on bag, opened the already full overhead storage containing my bag, shuffled things around, put the new bag in, and then crammed the door shut. Back to the accident now... I got up to retrieve my bag from the overhead storage so I can watch Snakes on a Plane on my laptop (good in flight movie I figured). On grabbing my bag from the overhead, a precariously perched camera bag that I didn't see came tumbling out and crashed on the floor. On being yelled at by a Chinese guy that doesn't speak English I immediately deduced that it was his camera that just took the fall. I passed him the bag and after inspecting things, he concluded that two lenses were now broken. We called a flight attendant and I explained what happened. I don't know how much got through though because I could tell she was having a hard time understanding me. Then the Chinese guy explained his side of things and they, along with some other flight attendants, spoke at length for the next 15 minutes about presumably the resolution to this issue. The flight attendant then told me I should pay him $100 for the broken parts. On explaining that I don't have that much cash with me she then tried getting a credit card number from me. At that point I decided it's best to resolve this properly so I requested a customer service agent on reaching San Francisco. I have nearly 5 hours to kill so that's as good a way to spend the time as any.

First off, I don't think this guy should have to pay for his camera equipment. But I do think that Air China should just cough up the money since they were the ones that repacked the overhead bin and crammed too much stuff in there anyway. If Air China won't do that, then I will arrange to pay him for the damaged lenses and announce to Air China that I will be boycotting their airline from here out. Past boycotts include Tia Liu's (in progress), the Microsoft cafeteria (in progress), and the karaoke guy at the Comet (smashing success - he got fired). So Air China better watch out becasue I will make them pay...

Random Thought 6 - Stupid Bejing airport

2007-12-24T19:07:00.002-08:00

To the laptop owner looking to charge up this place is a nightmare. They very clearly (for whatever reason) don't want people drawing power in the airport. It took me literally 15 minutes of wandering around the terminal to find a power outlet that was available and worked. Finding the outlets is a hard enough job as it is. And then any outlets without anything plugged in have been turned off. I developed a good system though. I walk around looking for vending machines and then see what they're plugged into. I'm currently sitting next to a soda machine and an "Intelligent Card Dispenser" that are plugged into a power strip with one open spot. That spot, it appears, was heavily covered with electrical tape until some enterprising young travelor liberated it. To him I give my thanks.

The Beijing airport is hella expensive by the way. Prices here for food and drinks are about seven times what I was paying in Shenzhen. Rip off. Even though it's corporate money I'm spending I still resent getting a bad deal. Our shareholders would be pleased to know that.

Time to walk around and stretch my legs before the big trip.

Random Thought 5 - Treasure found!

2007-12-24T19:07:00.001-08:00

Bag located! And I was, maybe, the fourth bag off the carousel. That has to be some kind of record. I was so convinced that the airlines always dump out fifty or so dummy bags first to give people hope while the real bags are in reality still being unloaded off the plane.

Random Thought 4 - Purgatory

2007-12-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

I wrote about this as I waited in the L.A. airport a week and a half ago. As I continue to sit in the Shenzhen airport it's clear I'm back. But that's not quite right. It actually feels more like I've never left and am still awaiting judgment. I've never quite felt at ease on this trip like I have visiting other countries. One reason is that I've often been quite helpless. The different character set of their written language presents challenges that don't exist in other countries in the Western world, even where I can't speak the language. All of a sudden street signs are useless and it becomes trivially easy to get lost. In restaurants I can't recognize a single word and just ordering food becomes a challenge. If I need to take a cab somewhere by myself I can't tell the cabbie where to go because I can't pronounce place names properly. I'm not complaining, mind you - these challenges are what make traveling fun. But for this trip having someone else with me would have made the maddening experiences easier (and more fun) to handle.

Throughout all of this I've had the occasional glimpses of life at home through emails or chats with friends and family back in the states. That has me wondering if perhaps my plane to L.A. went down last week and I am in fact in Limbo. My occasional contact with the world I know through the internet is merely me being channeled through our generation's Whoopi Goldberg.

Random Thought 3 - Traffic revisited

2007-12-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

I know I've written quite a bit about the traffic and I promise this will be my last treatise on the topic. But today I noticed something as my cab driver weaved through the morning highway traffic at an uncomfortably fast speed. Though seemingly haphazard, the drivers here are in fact following some sort of code. They do use their turn signals and drive with a certain civility as they put both their own and the lives of their passengers in jeopardy. It's as if they are British officers inviting the opposing generals to tea before waging war.

Crazy traffic sight of the say: a very large truck making a U-Turn on our side of an eight lane highway so he could get back to the exit he just missed.

Random Thought 2 - Electric bikes

2007-12-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

These things friggin rock. They are anywhere and everywhere. Businessmen, students, mothers with babies, and delivery guys all ride these things. They're quick, silent, and cheap. You plug it in at night and the next day you can ride 50km on it - without ever having to pedal. Start pedalling and you can get some serious speed and range. Connie and I did some investigation and the top of the line model (pictured above) costs only 1500RMB. That's only 1500 moist towelettes for those keeping track - or $200USD for those that can't convert moist towelettes in their heads. In America we get the stupid Segway which no sane individual would actually purchase. These things, as seen by their popularity, have a much bigger chance of revolutionizing cities and personal transportation. I'm going to get one.

By the way, the Chinese are suicidal on these. The regularly ride against traffic, take them on the highways, and generally control them like Johnson on a bike in Fremont after a few pitchers of beer.

No helmets here either - they're for wusses.

Random Thought 1 - Dried, squashed animals

2007-12-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

The grocery store in Shenzhen near my apartment rocks. I already wrote about the seemingly edible beasts of the sea. (I write 'seemingly' because the frog barely But they also have a wide variety of seemingly edible beasts of the land and air. Pictured above are two particularly fine specimen: dried, squashed chicken and dried, squashed pig head. There was also dried, squashed duck but that thing was in such bad shape that I didn't think it was dignified to take pictures of it. Also, if customs searches my laptop I don't want them to think I'm making duck snuff films.

Random Thought 0 - Random thoughts

2007-12-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

As I sit here in the airport waiting for the first plane of my 28 hour trip home, a lot of things are running through my head that I would like to write down before I forget. First off is that I have no idea where my checked bag is going. Beijing, San Francisco, and Seattle are all equally probable destinations. At least I have four hours in the Beijing airport to track it down. Who doesn't like a good treasure hunt?

December 20 Thursday - Airport breakfast

2007-12-24T18:27:00.000-08:00

Ok, what the hell was that? I've heard of getting nickel and dimed, but that's just ridiculous. My breakfast was 42RMB ($6) but then they charged me an additional 1RMB just for a napkin. WTF?!? Granted is was a wetnap but still... Up until now the hardest place I know to get extra napkins id Subway, but even there the first one is free!

Napkin bullshit aside, the conji I had was excellent. It's a porridge like substance w/ fixings dumped in. Mine was with "eggs and 1000 year old pork." I'm hoping that the "1000 year old pork" is referring to the recipe and not the actual pork itself. If the latter is the case both myself and my fellow passengers are in for a long flight across the Pacific.

12/19 Wednesday - Last day

2007-12-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

What a long, long day. All work, no play - start to finish without a break other than to eat. And a disappointing food day it was made all the more disappointing that today was my last day here. Breakfast was the buffet at the hotel across the street, unremarkable and overpriced. Lunch was the first day I chose something myself rather than let Connie or Fred pick for me. Blah. Dinner was a pizza bagel thing, fake pringles, and fake tang.

Leaving work I said goodbye to everyone I was working with. The Chinese apparently aren't ones for long goodbyes but I made them get in a picture with me anyway. They were fantastic hosts and I'm looking forward to my next trip back here.

I'm all packed up but still need to clean up the apartment before I go. It's midnight and I have to get up at 6.

Sorry I'm too tired to be funny right now.

Here's something though. I think (through no fault of my own nor through unprofessional behavior) I may have somehow ended up with a Chinese girlfriend. I'm not exactly sure. Quite a few details were lost in translation. I hope she doesn't think we're exclusive.

12/18 Tuesday - My kicks revealed

2007-12-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

There have been some requests to see my sweet new Chinese shoes. Well, here they are. Any negative comments will be deleted.

12/18 Tuesday - The Ride Home

2007-12-18T04:16:00.000-08:00

I'd like to tell you about my driver. Every day he is there for me, driving me back and forth from the hotel and factory. He is one cool customer from his knock off Members Only jacket to the way he cranks the horn at the elderly and slow. Quiet and unassuming, he is not to toyed with. His eyes are calculating and his heart is fearless. I know not his name but I have seen him drive through Hell and back. He maneuvers our van like a car half its size. He never hesitates as he swerves headfirst into two lanes of oncoming traffic. I wouldn't say I like him, but dammit I respect him. I'd like to think he feels the same for me that's not the case. He knows I wouldn't last a minute on these streets.

12/17 Monday - The bookstore

2007-12-17T04:19:00.000-08:00

This evening I hit up a bookstore for the 2nd time on the trip in hopes of finding something interesting to read for the flight home. No luck finding anything in English. The closest thing I found was this book and CD set on Crazy Business English. I don't know what that is but it really made me want to learn it.

On the way back from the bookstore I decided that I'd watch a bootleg DVD tonight. I passed a 7-Eleven so I popped inside to buy some bootleg pringles and bootleg Tang. Cost of those items: 16 RMB (2.15 USD). Cost of Connie's and my casual dinner tonight: 20 RMB. If I moved here I could retire.

12/17 Monday - Lunch

2007-12-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

As usual, lunch today was tasty and the quantity came up a little short. This one wasn't a lack of ordering enough food though. Our last course, pigs feet, never showed up at our table. On learning it was pigs feet that we were waiting for my first reaction was of relief because I'm still a little gun shy after yesterday's generous helping of frog. But the relief soon turned to regret because I don't have any good pigs feet stories and there's a reasonable chance that I would have gotten one today.

Above is the sizzling platter or pork short ribs that was delicious and I would order again. The only problem is that, in this guy's opinion, that chopsticks are not the proper utensils for eating ribs.

12/17 Monday - Traffic

2007-12-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to comment on this for a while. Riding in cars here is awesome. At first I was terrified but now I find it exhilarating. I swear the drivers here exist at a higher level of consciousness. Traffic signals, lane lines, opposing traffic, and especially pedestrians are all essentially ignored by the skilled Chinese drivers. Left turns through crowded intersections are particularly fun. Here's how it works from what I can tell...

As you oppose an intersection you give a cursory glance to see if an immediate left turn would cause a collision. If there's a chance that it won't then you immediately start careening left into the oncoming traffic. Once you've made the left turn and are driving down the wrong lane into traffic you honk your horn. That's an indication to the bike riders and other cars that you are coming back to the correct side of the road regardless of what they do. It is then the responsibility of the other drivers and bikers to avoid you. While an extremely chaotic system and fantastic spectacle to behold, it seems to be accepted as the proper form of driving by everyone. I haven't seen any drivers get pissed at us nor have our drivers cursed out anyone else. I did see one mild fender bender but that seems to be the exception to the rule. I bet if I was driving over here people would curse me and then chalk it up to DWA - driving while American.

12/16 Sunday - Food!

2007-12-16T05:08:00.000-08:00

The food here has been an adventure. By and large it's been really good. Above is perhaps the best bowl of soup I've ever had. The only things I've had that I didn't really care fore were the Chinese burrito filled with some weird noodles and spinach and the Chinese calzone filled with the same weird noodles and spinach. Everything else I've had has been good, sometimes in unfamiliar ways. That is until today.

At the grocery store today I walked through the awesomest (most awesome?) seafood section ever. They had these white, dried fish that looked like they were exhumed from an Egyptian tomb. There was a pile three feet high of anchovy fish. But the live seafood was even cooler. They had perhaps 20 different ginormous tupperware bins housing various (presumably) edible sea creatures. There was the normal stuff: shrimp, fish, and clams. But then there was the renegade seafood, the stuff that is better not to see alive before you eat it. There were eels and sea snakes desperately trying to jump out of their tupperware containers. There were turtles tragically waddling around as if waiting for a kid to bring them home for his terrarium. And then there were the frogs. Two giant bins housed perhaps 50 frogs piled up, legs splayed out in a fashion that says anything but "eat me!"

After buying lunch (pork and pepper sandwich, potato omelet, and a coke) and more yak jerky, I headed home to watch a movie. After the movie (Planet Terror) I met Connie and Alina (friend of Connie and project manager from the factory) for a rousing game of badminton. I don't know if they are badminton specialists or what, but they friggin ran me all over the place. We worked up quite an appetite playing and then headed to a random Hunan style restaurant for dinner. After falling in love with our waitress, I made the mistake of telling Connie that I saw frogs in the grocery store. Her English is pretty good but apparently something was lost in translation. She interpreted my mentioning frogs as a strong desire to eat frogs. So we had a wonderful frog-filled dish that was quite extravagant by Chinese standards. I did my best to chow them down but a fan of frog I apparently am not. You see the problem with Hunan style frog (or perhaps it's greatest quality) is that every chunk of frog is different. Some have no bones, some have a lot of bones. Some chunks very much look like little frog heads while other chunks resemble something from the leg area. It's very hard to enjoy frog when with each bite my brain is involuntarily trying to determine which of Kermit's organs I am chewing at that particular instant.

My only other gripe with the food here is the green beans. There's not actually anything wrong with them and in fact I find them extremely tasty. The problem is that every single restaurant meal I've had has featured a green bean dish. In fact, the same green bean dish. It's green beans, fried in this tasty sauce with a ton of dried chili peppers on top. Tonight's dinner was even worse. We had two dishes that featured green beans and chili peppers, the only difference being the sauce. Just my luck to show up right in the middle of bean season.

12/15 Saturday - Contraband

2007-12-15T06:11:00.000-08:00

Wusham Bei - simply indescribable. Though I will now describe it. An electronic den of iniquity, a technological pirate cove, a futuristic land where USB thumb drives and fake iPods rain from the heavens - it is all of these things, yet none of them. It exists between a series of legitimate storefronts and is completely unrecognizable to the trained eye. But to a local up its steps lies a world where DVDs cost $1.25, Microsoft Windows exists without product keys, and fake Rolex's reflect the light like a disco ball at the roller skate rink. It's set up like a large indoor flea market (again with the fleas!). My first purchase was a copy of a popular computer game. Retail cost in the USA: $40-50. Cost in China: $7. If I shopped around I probably could have gotten a better price. But as they say, "No time for love, Dr. Jones!" Connie was also in the market for some DVDs so she took me to her favorite DVD seller, a sweet old lady that sells fake iPods. Connie brings all her out of town guests to this lady and in return the lady gives us very good prices. So we snuck around and sat on the floor behind the counter going through a large tupperware container of DVDs. My purchases: National Treasure, 12 Monkeys, Fay Grimm, Snakes on a Plane, and Rambo I, II, and III. I know, most of those are terrible movies but they should make for great plane ride home viewing. After that, I picked up a couple of fake watches. They actually appear to be quite nice though I don't know the slightest thing about watches. Connie loves haggling and talked them down from $100 to $40 for the pair. I still suspect that I got the raw end of that deal but I've never had a Rolex before. And now I do. After that we wandered around searching for noise cancelling headphones but there was nothing to be found. Damn.

By the way, what's got two thumbs and now owns the coolest pair of kicks ever produced in China? Answer in my next post.

12/15 Saturday - Mystery of the fleas

2007-12-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

It's already come to my attention that I haven't informed you, the reader, of why I'm relieved to not have fleas. But that's a silly question. Wouldn't you, if you thought you might have fleas, be relieved to find out you don't have them?

This all started a couple days ago. I was in the factory bathroom (which just aboumt met my expectations of a factory bathroom) and when washing my hands I looked up in the mirror and noticed some weird red spots on my face. When I got home I did a little more investigating and found those red spots on my shoulders and back as well. I shrugged them off, took an extra shower for good measure, went about my business, and then called it a night. The next morning I found more of the red spots and became a bit concerned. I've never had fleas before and didn't know what their bites looked like, but because of a Seinfeld episode I had recently watched I had the suspicion that fleas were responsible for my condition.

I found this prospect must unsettling. One, I had to go to work with little bite marks on me. Secondly, I wasn't sure of the proper manner in which to inform, you, the reader that I had somehow been infested with fleas while over here (which makes a fine story but also me the butt of many jokes upon my return.) Though my biggest fear was facing those smug Canadians in the minivan. I could already picture their words, "What are those? Flea bites? That's a bitch. No fleas in our hotel. You're a startup though, so I guess I kinda understand. Sit in the front seat if you don't mind." And that's the real reason why I gave them SARS.

Our apartment has two bedrooms. Last night I slept in the other bedroom in an attempt to outsmart the fleas. The other bed, if possible, is even harder than the first. However, that rock solid bed turned out to be just the stroke of luck I needed to crack the flea case wide open. At about 3am, as I was tossing and turning, I heard what I consider to be the absolute worst sound in the entire known universe - the shrill of a mosquito in my ear. I shooed it away and before long it was back, with friends. My mosquito rage started building when it dawned on me that these mosquitos, rather than fleas, are in fact responsible for the bites on me.

My only question now. Was I supposed to get any shots before I came over here?

12/15 Saturday - Early Morning

2007-12-14T16:39:00.000-08:00

I have no idea when the last time I was voluntarily up at 6am on a Saturday morning before. I would think it probably was a Christmas morning from back in my childhood. The rule was that we couldn't get into our stockings until the sun was up enough that we could see without flashlights. That rule didn't really work though. The night before we would take notice of precisely where our stockings hung above the fire and then the next morning we'd be out there at 5am groping our way through the dark like headless zombies.

Anyway, I digress. I was up early to call my mom because today is her birthday. My siblings are in trouble because my mom wasn't expecting a call with me in China. I am surely back atop the inheritance list at this point.

Connie just called and she is taking me out for lunch today to her favorite restaurant. Then we're going shopping for the manliest of items: counterfeit electronics, watches, and DVDs. Is it legal to bring this stuff back in the country?

Just tried some yak jerky. Those Chinese I tell you, they can make a damn fine yak.

Oh yeah, good news. I don't have fleas.

12/14 Friday - Notes from the street

2007-12-14T16:27:00.001-08:00

These kids were awesome. I came across them on my way to buy an air mattress for the Bed from Hell. They had this crazy futuro Chinese music playing and the kids did this elaborately choreographed dance routine that I am sure I could never learn. They looked like little space men in those outfits. Pretty sweet.

While watching their routine form the back of the crowd all of a sudden a sense of euphoria washed over me. I realized that I, all 5'8" of me (though sometimes I lie and say 5'9"), was nearly the tallest person in the crowd. For the first time in my life, while standing in the back of a large group of people my view wasn't obstructed. I love this country.

As I continued on my trek to find an air mattress I started to realize some other things. Other than perhaps Germany and Canada, I've never blended in particularly well when traveling. I'm about as white as you can get and tend to get pegged as a tourist pretty quickly. As such I've dealt extensively with the usual tourist harassment: "Taxi! Taxi! You need taxi?" Or "Come inside, many girls!" That kind of thing. Not so here. Walking around I realized that in Shenzhen I am, perhaps, the only non-Chinese person roaming the streets. I'd seen the occasional white guy leaving the Hong Feng hotel (and not to mention the two Canadians with SARS), but just walking down the streets I haven't seen a single person, not one, that didn't appear to be Chinese. Since foreigners are so rare (at least in this part of town), I haven't been approached or bothered even once. I get stared at quite often but that's it.

A buddy of mine warned me to watch out for the tea-girls scam. In such a scam, two cute girls will approach an American or British guy and ask him for help practicing their English. They lead him to a tea house where they practice their English and then the tea house hits him with a $300 tab which he can't get out of. It doesn't appear that such a scam exists here.

12/14 Friday - The Line

2007-12-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

Progress continues! Here's our actual line running though I actually didn't care to watch them work on our stuff. It gave me an unsettling feeling like I was presiding over my serfdom. On the factory floor there aren't a lot of smiling faces. It must be a really crappy job even though there doesn't seem to be a lack of people willing to do it. I had an idea once, and that is to include a small stack of pennies in our bill of materials (that is, the parts necessary to assemble one unit). Then for each unit produced, every assembly line employee that that worked on our product takes one of the pennies. It would cost us only like 10 cents a unit yet would raise their pay substantially. I'm sure that wouldn't work in practice though.

12/15 Friday - The Bao Bao

2007-12-14T01:45:00.000-08:00

Production is in progress! A small team of tiny fingers are busy soldering away and assembling our tuners. I can't believe the work they are capable of - much better than what I can do myself. Lunch was bountiful and I treated my hosts today. We ate at the Bao Bao restaurant (pictured above) which doesn't even compare to the Mao Tse-Tung restaurant of last night. The price was right though. Lunch for 3 of us cost 68RMB, or $9.32. Not too shabby.

We're headed back over the to the production line in a few minutes. I have a guitar all ready and we're going to test some units out to make sure they actually work. My laptop battery is nearly dead. If it goes before the shuttle bus gets here then I'm going to have a very tough time looking busy. Maybe I'll just keep typing away and say that I don't like having my screen too bright.

12/14 Friday - Fun with SARS

2007-12-13T17:48:00.000-08:00

The way I get to the factory each morning is via a minivan that picks me up in front of the Hong Feng Hotel. Being on a shoe string budget, I'm not actually staying at that hotel but just take advantage of its pleasant lobby and carpeted walkway. The last two mornings it has also picked up two Canadians whose company is also doing business with our factory. These two fellows seemed friendly enough but have this condescending attitude that pervades everything that comes out of their mouths. From their comments about my choice of lodging to the airline and route I flew here on, they just have a dickish quality about them. They also ripped on my water heater. Not cool. Only I can rip on my water heater.

So this morning on the walk to the hotel I was silently wishing the Canadians would contract SARS and not be in the car today. Lo and behold, they weren't there. While I rode in blissful silence to the factory today, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt that I called down SARS upon these two guys whose only real crime was annoying me. I'm going to check the Ottawa papers over the next few days to see if there are any infectious disease outbreaks.

In just a few minutes I'm headed to see our assembly line in progress. I can't wait!

12/14 Friday - The bed from Hell

2007-12-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

The apartment I'm staying in has some peculiarities. For example, the gas powered water heater is located in the shower mere inches from where I bathe. It makes a 'whoosh' sound (not unlike a jet engine) which is primarily due to the large blue (exposed) flames it produces. Once back in the day I went skinny dipping with some people I had essentially never met (long story). I didn't feel nearly as exposed then as I do next to this damn water heater. So if I disappear and never come home, the investigation should probably start in the shower.

My bigger gripe is the @#&%ing bed I sleep on. I don't know what kind of sadist designed this thing but it is, without doubt, the hardest actual bed that anyone has slept on in the history of humanity. I think I could get a better night's sleep on a pile of dry wall for chrissake. The last three mornings I've gotten up at the following times: 4:35am, 5:15am, 5:00am. And this is coming from the guy that generally can't pry himself up before 9. I know, I know, it's the time change you say. Bullshit. It's the friggin rock hard mattress. I'm going to tear it apart later to see if the apartment super shoved a piece of plywood in there to play a joke on the only white guy in the building.

12/13 Thursday evening - A full belly at last

2007-12-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

Just got home after a long afternoon at work and then dinner with Connie at the Mao Tse-Tung restaurant. She can eat! But on the recent advice of a friend I didn't tell her that even though I would have meant it as a compliment. I'm such an idiot for not having my camera with me because the food looked (and tasted) incredible. We had green beans covered in chopped up chili peppers, Szechuan ribs, some kind of weird root thing, and these fried pastries. My mouth was on fire but thankfully I had a cup of hot tea to cool off with. I don't know enough about Chairman Mao to comment on his political legacy but his restaurant does him justice. Still no leftovers though.

Backtrack to this afternoon... Our circuit boards were sent through the SMT machine. All the machine component placement and soldering completed without any serious issues. The boards came out great and I was beaming like a proud parent. Only downside is that my angel of the SMT machine was assigned to a different station this afternoon. I think management caught wind of things and has forbidden our love. She did give me a parting wave as I left today. But then again, so did about 20 people so maybe that doesn't mean too much.

On another note, I think I'm developing a rapport with the factory security personnel. They've started saluting me.

12/13 Thursday afternoon - Saitek meeting room

2007-12-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

So much to write about I don't know where to start! First off: the food. Incredible (with the exception of the bad Chinese burrito I had last night. Noodles and spinach do not a burrito make.) Some of the factory management have taken Connie and I out to lunch the past two days. Yesterday we had perhaps the greatest Cantonese food to ever be created. One problem though. I eat too damn much. Lunch is my favorite meal (and time) of the day. Hitting lunch on a long work day is like finding an oasis in the Sahara. But I digress - back to eating too much. I've found that our factory primarily hires diminutive people (I think because it's a way to get the small fingers of children without hiring actual children per se). That's a problem with a family style lunch though. I ate at what I considered a dignified pace and they all ended up finishing way before me (small people also means small stomachs). So rather than extend my feasting (I didn't eat breakfast!) beyond what I considered an acceptable limit I simply called it a lunch. Though I did vow to pick up the pace today to avoid leaving lunch hungry again.

While a good plan in theory it failed miserably. Today they took me to a Western style restaurant in a thoughtful gesture. But the lack of family style eating meant that my chances of leaving lunch hungry increased dramatically. Even though "Stand By Your Man" was playing over the loudspeakers, I still ordered something from the Chinese section of the menu, spicy chicken and rice (though the "American Cowboy Steak" looked pretty good). My last experience with spicy chicken and rice was a teriyaki joint in Redmond which delivers a full pound and a half of food. Not the case at the Western Cafe. Actually I don't know that because my order was screwed up and instead I was served rice, beef, peppers, and brown gravy. While scrumptious, it's now only 30 minutes past lunch and I'm already hungry again. Tomorrow I'm taking them out. Maybe my luck will be better if I'm paying.

Something I just realized. In the U.S., any time you go out for Chinese food, there is ALWAYS leftovers. In China, never. I just blew my mind.

I'm excited. In 30 minutes we're heading over to the SMT room to see our first 100 units entering production. I'm also excited because I'm in love with the SMT machine technician I met this morning. Maybe it was the clicking of the pick-and-place machine, the spinning of the component reels, the reflection of the light off her clean suit, or even just the buzz I had off of chemical fumes, but I swear that we shared a moment.

12/13 Wednesday morning - My couch

2007-12-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

Success! Through the miracles of modern technology I have managed to get this blog online. The Great Firewall of China has been most troublesome.

I'm right on my way out the door for day 2 at the factory. I will have a full writeup on the factory later today. The short version is that despite my best efforts I didn't find any gross human rights violations. Woohoo!

12/12 Wednesday morning - Shenzhen Apartment

2007-12-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

It took two days to show up here. Yet Seattle is a day behind me at this point. That's going to blow my mind the whole trip.

I'm not sure what that sign is telling us. Maybe they had a problem with roving trumpet players in that neighborhood.

Anyway, I'm here! I was intending to write this yesterday but I passed out for something like 14 hours and didn't wake up until 4:30 this morning. My internal clock is going to be so screwed. In Seattle I was staying up until 2am regularly. Now I'm going to be getting up hella early. Oh well.

Anyway, the trip here was long. It was something like a 13 hour flight I had from Los Angeles to Beijing. One of the flight attendants made that leg of the trip quite endurable. She either had a crush on me or pitied me because I was nearly the only white guy on the plane. Either way was fine with me because as soon as I finished my apple juice she was there offering me more. Beijing airport was uneventful. It took me all of 5 minutes to clear customs and they either didn't notice or care about the duffle full of peculiar electronics I was toting. The airport did have plentiful power outlets near my gate for my next flight to Shenzhen which allowed me to watch Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Leaving the Shenzhen airport (at noon yesterday) was a bit scary. I didn't have any Chinese money because the currency exchange in Beijing was closed and there wasn't one in the Shenzhen airport. Thanks to a coworker, I have a Chinese cell phone for the trip so I called Connie, our assistant who lives here, to help me. She gave directions to a cabbie and negotiated a price for the ride to our apartment here. The cabbies are crazy by the way. He was running lights and generally ignoring all traffic signals and devices as a rule. I tried to put my seat belt on and he hollered something at me which I took to mean that I shouldn't wear a seat belt. He didn't have his on. Maybe it makes them feel alive - aware of their own mortality. So when in Rome...

So, yeah, we have an apartment here. Connie found us a two bedroom apartment which we've paid the rent on for the next 6 months. Total cost of rent: 1800 USD. That's total - for 6 freaking months. Our manufacturing consultant was already out here for 3 weeks so we've already crushed the cost of a hotel. We're essentially freerolling it from here out. I wonder if I can meet enough people to have a party here this weekend...

Yesterday afternoon I went grocery shopping, came back to the apartment, and crashed. I'm heading to our factory in just a few minutes to check it out. I have my fingers crossed that I won't see any kids working or toxic chemicals getting poured down the drain.

12/9 Sunday - LAX

2007-12-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

I didn't want to start this with a nerd rant. But that's what I'm going to do because the asshats at Microsoft just screwed me again. I'm currently sitting in the international terminal of LAX and was trying to get some work done. To conserve battery life on my laptop I disabled the the firewire port, ethernet adapter, and wireless network adapter. I then fired up Excel which blasted me with a warning that it has detected my computer hardware has changed and needs to reactivate before I'm allowed to do anything with it. Outlook gives me the same infuriating warning and won't allow me to draft any emails. I need to move to a new terminal in a few minutes so I'm not going to pay for wireless access just to reactive the software that I already paid for. So instead, I'm writing this in notepad. Microsoft, this is totally unacceptable. I swear I will never pay for any of your crippleware again and will encourage those I know to do the same.

So since I can't work I decided to document my trip. As I said, I'm sitting in the international terminal - entering hour two of of my six hour layover. This place is friggin Thunderdome I swear. The lines to check in are nuts and cutters are dealt with harshly. I always thought that if Purgatory existed it would something like the DMV. I was wrong - this is it. Maybe my plane from Seattle to here actually went down and now I'm awaiting judgment. One good thing about purgatory: the meatloaf isn't bad.