Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Westerners

I left early morning (5am) from Beijing to head to Xi'an, home of the Terracotta Warriors. I was exhausted from lack of sleep from the week, so I was planning on crashing once I arrived before heading out. I got there and got to my hotel, where the manager's name was "Jim Beam" (his english name). He was SOOOO funny , spoke excellent English, got me set on a tour, and is my point man for getting a visa to get into Tibet (you need special goverment permissions).

So after a quick nap I was out on the town. I hopped on a bus and headed to the Muslim district. Xi'an is known for having a large muslim population. When I arrived, I saw a couple cool sites, the Bell Tower, and the Drum Tower. The bells signal sunrise, and the drums signal sunset (Xi'an people were famous for music and architecture, but apparently not their eyesight). In the Bell Tower there was a performance by some traditionally clad women, who played several songs on this large set of bells. If you bought a drink, you could sit in these comfy chairs, so i decided to sit down and have a beer. I asked for one, and the woman looked at me, said something back I didn't understand, and came back a bit later with some tea. Almost like a beer. It was pretty good though. There were lots of Chinese people trying to cheat the system and sit down without buying a drink. A man sitting next to me was asked to leave by the waitress. A Chinese woman with 4 children sat down, and they asked her to leave too, but she was having lots of troubles holding 2 children at once. She eventually ordered a drink, which I heard. So when they brought the beer, I asked how much it was, they responded (in chinese) "this wasn't mine", but I didn't believe them, so I paid for it when i coaxed the price out of them. Turns out I paid for her drink! Everyone kept telling me how nice I was when I completely did this by accident. Sorry Rachel, I'm hitting on women with 4 kids. They also said before one of the songs it was an english song, and they played jingle bells!

I wandered into the muslim district, where I found a stand selling something which i can only describe as peanut butter covered rice cake with fruit filling. It was SOOOO good. I have no idea exactly what it was, but it was yummy (and only 12 cents). I bought one, then found some yummy lamb that I got (with a beer finally). The food was SO spicy, thank God for the beer. I wandered to the grand Mosque which was amazing. So beautiful and peaceful inside. I took a bus from there to the Small Goose Pagoda, which was interesting. Climbed up 15 stories. I went on to the big goose pagoda which was much more fun. It is next to a park, where there was a water show that had a couple thousand people watching. It was so much fun to people watch. Often times, you find yourself in contrived cultural situations as a tourist (ancient costume and dance that they'd never do if it weren'ta tourist attraction) so finding actual events is always fun.

After watching the show, I sat and read for a bit. After a short while, some students came up to me and wanted to talk. We talked in Chinese and English for a while, they were having lots of fun. They taught me to say "I have friends in Xi'an." I also held several babies. No idea why I became such a popular attraction there (though I didn't see any other foreigners)

The next day, I went with a tour group to see Terracotta warriors. When we first arrived, and they show you the pit, it's pretty damn amazing. There are SOOO many soldiers there. The unfortunate bit is you don't get to go down in them, which I had imagined. The next 2 pits they show you are underwhelming. Each soldier looks different, they are all life sized, and apparently the Emperor who had them made spent 1/3 of China's tax money for 40 years constructing the site. I was a little blown away by that, and wondered what you'd get spending that amount of the US's tax money for that long (maybe a military that's stretched too thin and overworked?)

We went to lunch where I had some terrible beef dish. I got to know the other tour people, there was a french couple, a dutch couple, two girls from Norway, and a German guy. It was a great group, we had a lot of fun together. Hello everyone if you read this! The rest of the sites we saw were kinda boring and underwhelming after terra cotta, though we did see a hotsprings where they used to have a palace that was home to the famed Xi'an incident (Chang Kai Shek's capture).

Now I'm back in Beijing, time for another week of work!

Chinese Culture Day

I apologize in advance for all the work talk, bu this should be interesting to all. So this Wednesday there was a press conference that we were invited to. Todd Warren, one of the VP's of my group, was in town to announce Microsoft's Mobility Technology Center, a center for working on our mobile phones here in China.

We went to what is supposed to be the nicest hotel in Beijing, perhaps in China, the St. Regis. We all were told to wear suits. I definitely had not brought one with me, so I threw together an ensemble that was purchased a couple days before from the Silk Market. The place was super swank, we had lunch then got to the event. The amount of press was amazing. The number of cameras, taking footage and still shots of everyone was pretty incredible. I was told that there are relatively few items that the press are given the green light to report anything and everything about here, and this was relatively big news in the Chinese technology news. So here we all were, feeling like rockstars.

I say this is China culture day because I think I learned a ton about contemporary culture, much more real culture than you'd see at staged tourist presentations of traditional dances and performances. The VP's were led around by these stunningly gorgeous Chinese women dressed in identical Asian looking dresses. During all the presentations, they stood quietly at the sides as decorations. After everyones' speeches, our 2 VP's, and a couple from China Unicom and China Mobile (cell phone companies here) all got up on the center of the stage. They each put their hand on a lecturn that was shaped like a Pocket PC power button, which lit up when they all touched it.

I could barely contain myself at what happened next. When they each pressed it, lights and music went off. The press conference felt like a multicolored flashing dance hall. Music and lights were everywhere. It felt like a video game. I was just waiting for Ya-Qin to announce "And I'll form the head!", turning into the last part of Voltron before the 4 conjoined VP's flew off to fight intergalactic threats, like Nokia.

Work peoples, I really am sorry I didn't bring a camera. I'm trying to track down photos of all this.

St. Patty's Day Weekend

Went out to an amazing Japanese dinner with Eden and Bennett, where we met a bunch of Bennetts friends. Several Chinese girls who spoke English as well as I do, which was amazing. They had never been to the US, but worked for Intel in marketing. We followed up dinner with a trip to an Irish pub. Some of Eden's friends invited us out there. We arrived realizing that, oh yeah, it was St. Patricks day. I have never seen so many white people anywhere in Asia. The place was packed with students, tourists, and ex-pats.

We went out to another bar after a few beers and Irish car bombs, at which point my recollection of the night becomes a bit hazy. I spent a very lazy day recovering Saturday, then went out again. I went to a Japanese place where I met several Italian girls. They were shocked that an American could speak Italian, and I hadn't had that much practice with my Italian in a long while. Ended up going back to their place for Italian coffee afterwards. They are students at the local language university.

Sunday was my Tibetan day. I went to the largest Tibetan monastery outside of Tibet. It was amazing. A stunning, HUGE buddha there. Loads of tourists, though most were Chinese. My favorite part was observing Chinese praying at the shrines, mixing tourism and religion. Everyone purchased incense to give as offerings to the Buddhas, and the place was lined with pads for you to get on your knees and pray.

I unfortunately brought my camera with no battery. I'm sure with the host of visitors I have coming, that I will be back. Pictures will come then.

I went to buy more clothes, following my "new clothes are cheaper than laundry" philosophy. I followed my shopping up with dinner at a great Tibetan restaurant, where I ate a first course of yak steak covered in orange juice. Orange juice turned out to be an orange sauce. It was okay, but I think there's a reason yak has yet to infiltrate American menus. This was followed up with a lamb and beef dish which was nothing short of incredible. I wish I'd ordered two of it instead. Nothing too exciting that night, I was getting ready for a busy week. Highlight to come: MS Press conference.

Laundry Days

Will post last weekend soon here, sorry I'm running behind, but a quick note.
I got my apartment today! It's a nice 2 bedroom 1b, a little oldish though, but nice new floors. My address in case you want to mail me anything is:



1001, Tower B, Sigma Apartment
No. 49, Zhichun Road, Haidian District
Beijing 1008
China



The best news of all is that I can now do laundry, as I have a washer but no drier (they are very uncommon in China). Up till now, instead of doing laundry I've been buying new clothes. In China that's actually possible, when you can buy 6 pairs of socks for $1. My hotel charges more than $1 to launder pairs of socks, and $8 (all US) for shirts (that's per shirt)! So far it's been far more economical to buy new clothes rather than wash them.

Shocking

For some reason, whenever I walk around my workplace here I get charged up with a lot of static electricity. I get hurt everytime I touch my computer. It makes me feel like a rat in an experiment trying to determine how long it will take me to go home and not touch computers.

Last night I pulled my first late work night, wrapping stuff up. I was here till 4 am, and I definitely was not alone. The guys here all were shocked, they tend to think americans are lazy.

Best Business Idea Ever

Jess decided to go check out the Summer Palace, a retreat for old emperors of China to the northwest of Beijing. He so enjoyed our scrape with no money the previous day he set out to the Silk Market, purchased a lot of goods to take back with him to Mongolia, leaving himself only 65 cents to make it back to my hotel. It can be done, but you have to be very careful which train ticket you buy, and I’m still mystified as to how he communicated that he wanted the combo ticket. Had he not, he would have been walking back to the hotel.

So now it’s Thursday night, and my brothers last night. He flies out in the morning, so we decided we needed to go out. He had been suggesting throughout the trip that he wanted to go eat American food. I kept scoffing at this, having only been here a few days and wanting to try all the Chinese food I could. I then started thinking that he had been away for almost a year, so I’d cut him some slack.

We went to an Outback steakhouse where he got to load up on so many American foods and drinks he had been missing. Chicken is very rare in Mongolia, as is cheese. We drank and ate good food (at American prices). The place was filled with foreigners too, not a single Chinese.

We drank plenty then moved on to what is probably the best business idea in the history of the world. I still am not doing it justice with that statement. Surrounded by bars is a bar / archery range, open till late (we got there after 11 and stayed for over an hour). We shot arrows at targets, and chatted. They sold beer and catered to the drunk crowds coming out of the bars. When I get back, (you still reading Robert ;) ?), I will have to quit Microsoft and open up my own bar / archery range. The only trick will be getting someone to insure it…

We shot arrows till about 12:30 then headed back. Wow was that fun. Drunken archery.

The next morning my brother left for Mongolia again. It was a very fun week with him around, and I can’t wait till I have time to go up to Mongolia to go visit him.

More pics of Jess and I's Great Wall trip

The Great Wall
From the Spirit Road

Shots from the Great Wall

Wednesday at the Great Wall

I took Wednesday off so I could spend a bit of time with my brother, who was leaving on Friday. We headed to the Great Wall. There are 4 different sections that are pretty accessible from Beijing. The closer you get to Beijing, the more tourists there are as well as people trying to sell them things. Also, the most touristy section is completely restored, so you get to see the wall as it was long ago. Some of the further a field sections are very damaged with time. We went to the Badaling portion, which is the closest and most touristy. It’s also completely restored (and they added handrails).

We decided to go via public bus, which in itself was a bit of adventure finding it. It was not too hard. We’d thought to hire a car to begin with, but that would have been ~$100 US, or going on a canned tour through the hotel which would have been about the same, but we decided to go at it on our own on public transportation for $1 US.

We hiked to one end, which was uphill (steep) about ¾ of a mile. Hiking it was fun, but there were loads of tourists around. We kept hearing “Hello, want to buy t-shirt for your mommy hello?” Hello is a very popular word over here. When we got to the end, we saw a guardhouse that looked empty, but the second we got there, out of the hidden portions jumped several vendors, trying to sell us cheap crap. After taking some amazing shots of the crumbling wall and what we’d walked already, we moved on.

My brother and I agreed that the most amazing part of the wall isn’t its length. It’s the fact that as it snakes along, it’s built at the highest point of every hill it’s on. It was built as a defensible structure, so that makes a lot of sense. Still, we in the US are used to freeways that avoid hills, construction that takes the easy way through.

We began our trek to the other side. It was about a 4 mile hike to the other end. As we walked further and further away from the starting point, the crowds thinned out significantly, as did the vendors. Pretty soon, we were alone walking the Great Wall. The sights were incredible, it was so much fun, so beautiful. We had purchased some rice crackers to eat, as we were starving. When we finally got to the other end, we sat down and snacked. Our legs were killing us. The Great Wall is very steep in parts, a very hard climb.

Next after coming back to the base, we were surprised to see sun crested bears (bears with gold spots on their chests, I had just seen at Woodland park Zoo before leaving) in pens that people were feeding apples. We were still tired, so we bought some beers and hung out with the bears for a while.

We decided to head to the Ming tombs, which were supposedly very close according to one guidebook. We were over 30 miles from Beijing, and the tombs were probably 15 miles away from us. We bargained with a man standing around the bears, and we settled on a ride for $20.

Jess and I failed to comprehend exactly how far apart each of the tombs was. We were dropped off to the entrance to all the tombs, which was about 4 miles from the first tomb. The entrance has a pathway called “Spirit Way”, which is a beautiful walkway full of amazing statues and the like. When we got to the end of this, we had no way of getting either back to Beijing, or to the next tomb. There weren’t very many tourists here, but there were a few vendors. We bargained with a vendor to take us to the first (and most impressive) of the tombs.

Soon we were packing into the back of his van that was full of his wares, and on our way. When we got to the next attraction, we saw admission was 20 yuan each. We had a total of 80 yuan (10 US dollars) left between the two of us. We decided that if we were gonna get stuck out here, 20 some miles from Beijing, we might as well see all the sights while we were there. So we went in, checked out some pretty cool statues, realized we couldn’t even afford to put change in the offering to the dead emperor, then headed out. We found a bus back to Beijing, and managed to make it all the way back with money to spare.

We had not eaten since breakfast, and it was coming on 6 pm after a long day of hiking. While transferring from the bus to the subway, we passed a street vendor cooking up some of the yummiest smelling chicken you could believe. Faster than you could say “avian bird flu”, we had bought several items, and ate some of the spiciest, delicious, hygienically dubious food we’d ever had.

Short post, but Tuesday night for dinner we went to a MASSIVE restaurant. The waiters and waitresses were running around, taking orders on Windows Mobile Pocket PC's, which were transmitting orders back to the kitchen wirelessly.

Go Windows Mobile!

I started my first day of work on Monday. I have to hop the same fence to get to work as I do to get to the train station. Vincent (Yongcheng), my native host, met me in the lobby and walked me to MS. The Microsoft building is quite big, and I was shocked to find that my badge worked on the door here too.

I set up in a cubicle, shared with 3 interns (it’s bigger than it sounds, I have a lot of space). Went to my first meeting, it was conducted in English. I was shocked at the number of buzz words they dropped during the meeting (“let’s take this offline” and “who owns the experience?”. It felt a lot like Redmond from that regard.

Lunch was in the basement, where they have 3 restaurants and a cafeteria. The cafeteria is almost like Redmond’s, where the food is bad just not over priced. The restaurants however are very good. Also in the basement is laundry service, a grocery store, a hair salon, and a sports club. They try to make it easy to never have to leave the office here.

After work, we picked up my brother and went out to some of the most delicious, spicy food I’ve had. My brother and I both love spicy food, but I was not prepared for just how spicy they eat here in China. It’s incredible. My brother is very tired of the bland Mongolian cuisine (Mongolian bbq places in the US are most definitely NOT authentic), so he was very excited for the spice. We had to drink a lot of beer to wash the food down.

One other funny point: I was asked by several of the people if I had been bored all weekend. I asked what they meant, and they said, well, since it’s hard for foreigners to get around, I must have been trapped in my hotel room the whole time. When I explained what I had been up to, they were shocked to find that I knew the subway system, had explored Tianamen, hutongs, the markets, and had eaten very well with no guide at all. It is VERY hard communicating with most people here, as English is very hard for Chinese to learn (just as Chinese is very hard for English speakers to learn).

First Weekend in Beijing

I arrived in China Friday at midnight. Customs was very easy, which surprised me. I was sick coming here, and the customs forms sounded like they were going to do a full physical.

This is the first time I’ve had someone with a sign waiting for me. The driver picked me up, and he spoke no English at all. I used about all the Chinese I could come up with at midnight after 16 hours of flying, which was basic introductions and where I wanted to go. Checked into the hotel, which is quite nice. Free internet!

The next day I decided to go exploring. I asked the concierge how to take the subway to Tianamen Square. He gave me rough directions as to where it was. On my way there, I walked by a hair salon and decided to buy some hair stuff I’d forgotten. I asked how much this hair gunk was. The woman told me a price that was $25 US. In China, you bargain for EVERYTHING. You should end up paying 10% of what they tell you, generally. I forgot this, and forgot math, so I accepted the first price. It wasn’t until walking down the street that I realized how badly I got ripped off.
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I wanted to buy a SIM for my phone, so I asked directions to the nearest place to buy a SIM. I walked over, purchasing a pre-paid SIM card. It was pretty hard as my Chinese is really bad, and it took me a while to realize you have to buy the SIM, THEN buy something to charge it with.

Speaking of which, if you’d like to call me, my cell in China is: 0118613261711349. Of course, I’m on email and that will be the easiest way to contact me by far.

After buying a SIM card for my phone I was off to the subway station. I followed the directions but I ended up coming to what looked like the wrong way. There were railroad tracks crossing the road, and fences to prevent you from going on them. However, there were dozens of people climbing the fence and crossing the railroad tracks. I asked a couple people where the subway station was, and they pointed n the tracks, so I decided to join all these people and scale the fence. It turned out to be the correct way to get to the subway station. Apparently the American Disability Act hasn’t inspired any similar accessibility legislation around here :).

After getting my ticket and figuring out how to get there, I hopped on the subway. Apparently, little kids often have holes in their pants so they can easily go to the bathroom wherever they may need to. I won’t provide further details.

At the transfer station, I was looking around for the train I wanted, figured it out, then started waiting. Two Chinese guys were arguing over some sign on the wall, and as I wandered over, one of them turned to me and switch from Chinese to a New Zealander accent in English and said “G’day mate”. Turns out he was from New Zealand. We started chatting, and he was studying here with the other guy he was with at the university. The other guy was American. They were off to the Silk Market to buy clothes. I thought what the hell, I’ll tag along.

It was unbelievable this market was 4 stories tall, and FULL of knockoff goods. The Chinese are so good at counterfeiting, it’s incredible. My first experience bargaining there, I saw some nice Diesel shoes. I asked how much. She told me $100 (US). The two guys I was with told me never pay more than $7 for shoes. I really couldn’t believe it, as they were real leather, and looked completely real. Bargaining ensued, and I ended up paying $8 after walking away and her grabbing my arm and being drug half way across the store before she relented and gave me my price.

I was shocked by the fact that here was a permanent building, a permanent shopping mall, selling illegal goods. I had wondered why the police don’t ever come. When shopping the 4th floor in the watches section, I quickly saw why. Everyone started whispering in a hurried manner, and all sorts of goods were being stowed away, as the police ended up “raiding” the place, which consisted of them walking by and inspecting stands. I was curious and asked for a Rolex right about then, and everyone frowned at me and said no they didn’t carry them.

Everything you buy looks so real, it’s incredible. There are subtle differences (and sometimes not so subtle). After having worn my Diesel shoes, they feel like those Aquasox shoes we wore as kids in lakes. They have done an exact imitation, but the sole is just a very solid, uncomfortable, rubber. AmyG (the Nike shoe engineer), you might want to buy some of these fake Nike shoes while over here and dissect them.

After shopping, we wandered over to Tianamen Square. Gigantic doesn’t begin to describe it. It’s the largest square in the world, at the north side it faces the Forbidden City. The entrance to the Forbidden city has a HUGE oil painting of Mao hanging over it. The closer you get the more amazed you are by the size of it.

We watched the lowering of the flag, which had a huge number of people out for the ceremony. Troops marched from the Forbidden City, took it down, and marched back in. You can see me here joining the troops with my New Zealander friend.
Jess (my brother) came into town today!! I’m excited as it’s been a long while since I’ve seen him. For the readers who don’t know, he’s in the Peace Corps stationed in western Mongolia. He’s a long, long ways away from home, and is living in a ger (tent, kinda like a yurt). He was looking to get away to warmer climes (he frequently experiences weather at -20 C and colder out there.

So I took a cab out to pick him up from the airport. Our mom was shocked that we didn’t plan a place to meet at all, I only had his flight info. If I didn’t get there as he came out of the gate, I figured he’d await me in the Starbucks, which is the first thing you see upon arriving in Beijing leaving customs (really).

We dropped off his stuff and decided to wander. We went south of Tianamen and took a bike ride through a bunch of hutongs, traditional communal housing in which a courtyard is in the middle of several families. Often times they will share some facilities amongst all the families (such as the kitchen).

We went up and saw Tianamen again, got more pictures. Jess and I decided to go have some very delicious Peking duck. A restaurant that was recommended to us by our guide book had the word “Roast” misspelled on the sign in English, but there were no white people in the restaurant so we decided it must be good. We had a delicious meal, buying a whole duck and drinking it down with beers. Food in China is very cheap, our whole meal was only $10.

We came back and I was still jet lagged at this point, so we crashed.