Crouching Tiger - Ambling Sheep

Live in China Forever?

2007-07-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

I have been asked on many occasions "So, are you going to live in China forever or are you going to come back to the UK?"

I don't believe it's an either or, but there certainly is an answer which is "I'm not going to live in China forever"

"Why?", I can hear both of my loyal readers ask. Well, it's not the people, the politics, the traffic, the noise, the spitting, the lack of queuing, etc., etc.

It's this.

Curse of the Spam Filter?

2007-07-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

So, is it me, or is it Spam Filtering?

Being a decent (ahem) individual, I came across three instances recently where I saw that people had issues with their websites and contacted them:

www.marine-audio.com - they had a sponsored link on a Google page for a product I was interested in, but the link didn't actually work. I emailed them out of kindness (oh alright and a 'completer finisher' personality trait) and they fixed the link.

www.scribble.co.uk - hand written greeting card company. My complaint was that whilst in China I got a message from their card processor Netbanx saying that I couldn't pay because of the country I was located in. Trying from Singapore met the same result so I emailed them to suggest that expats might actually find that their service was quite useful so they might want to change card processors. Currently their site says they're 'undergoing site maintenance for several weeks' so they may have bigger fish to try.

www.vault.com - This is a service that I actually pay to subscribe to - every time I go in, it popped up a 'Go to Vault China' link which didn't work. I emailed them. They fixed it.

So, it is me? Is it spam filtering? Is it the death of common courtesy? In all three cases there was a business benefit to them following up on my email (and in one case I am a real, live paying customer) and yet no-one thought to flash me a 'Thanks for your email'. For shame.

It's Getting Warm

2007-07-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, Hangzhou in the summer. These lazy, hazy summer days.

They certainly can be hazy but you need to understand they're not lazy because you're not doing anything, just that you'd have a heart attack and die if you tried to move at a faster pace.

The car, admittedly parked in the full sun, estimated the outside temperature to be 45 degrees Celcius this afternoon (113 F to save, er, older English people from looking it up) although I'm certain the driver's seat was hotter than that.

Right now Weather.com reckons it's 34 (feels like 39) whereas tomorrow is going to be an even sunnier 37 (feels like 43 - gotta love that humidity).

Don't you wish you were in Hangzhou right now?

DIY Diary

2007-07-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

I used to own a Page-a-day diary which came preprinted with a whole year's worth of pages already for filling in appointments and stuff. It was a bit bulky but did the job of keeping track of future appointments and allowing me to plan.

One thing I've noticed in China is that a lot of people use books that look like diaries but, in practice, only have a space at the top for you to write the date in.

On the current day, that's easy enough. I could simply write '2007/07/14' at the top and away I go. But what would I do with a request for a meeting in a month's time. Choices are obviously, 1) Fill in all the dates for the next month in advance or 2) Not record the meeting in the diary at all.

If it was me, I'd go with option 1) (actually I'd go with option '0' which is to buy a preprinted diary) but I'd want to make sure that I didn't forget my important appointment but my guess is that many government officials go with option 2).

One of the joys of Chinese Business Life is that of emergency appointments. My explanation for this is that, thanks to these diaries, appointments simply don't exist until they're written into the diary but, as people only work on the current and the following day, that appointments only come into being a maximum of 24 hours before they take place.

Recently the new head of our local government zone requested a meeting with us, specifically at 2pm on the following day, and would like, after his reception, a presentation - in Chinese - of our company. We don't actually have that as all our clients happen to be overseas so a full day's productivity is magically lost from a variety of management and admin staff preparing for this.

And now, just as I'm writing about American Cowboys I get a message saying could I please attend a meeting on Monday with some visitors from overseas who are coming to the our local government zone. A reply of 'I'm actually quite busy, can you please tell me who the visitors are so I can decide' was met with 'actually we don't know who they are'. My guess is this would have been written down some time ago if only it wasn't for the DIY diaries. Sigh.

Cowboys

2007-07-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

So, you want to send a small amount of money to someone in the Philippines who needs the cash immediately and has no bank account. What do you do? Your mind may turn to Western Union - self-advertised as "a fast, reliable and convenient money transfer".

You determine that the recipient has a convenient Western Union location to receive the money and go online to www.westerunion.co.uk (because the UK is where your credit card was issued) - reassured by the statement of that you can "send money overseas in minutes*".

You are offered a choice of currencies so enter 3000 PHP (about 30 GBP) and are told "Maximum amount is 500 GBP" - some fine coding there. Enter 30 GBP. The first attempt gets rejected with a message stating "There is a problem".
You try again with another card and get "In order to provide final approval for your transaction, we need additional information". You're curoius now - it's 30 GBP so can't have fallen foul of any "money laundering" processes (the transaction fee is 12 GBP so it's unlikely any money launderers would break their payments up into such small payments unless they own a lot of Western Union shares). There's a hotline number but it's in Ireland and it's closed! The person in the Philippines is already waiting to collect the money so what do you do.

You search for another number of the site and find the US 24 hour hotline. Success. You ring and listen to a long message telling you that despite it being an 800 number it's not free (wondering all that time if you're already paying to listen to the message) before you arrive in Automated Response Hell.

Press 1 to do something unrelated
Press 2 to do something unrelated

Down to option 7 by which point you can't remember which option was most appropriate and there was no "or hold the line to speak to a representative"

You start again and pick one that offers you a choice of "Send a new transfer or check fees". You try this but only get a submenu which offers a choice of "check domestic fees" or "check international fees" - no send a new transfer, damn, you can't get through to a person! You hang up and start again. This time cursing the "it's not free" message and simply mashing the keypad with your palm until you hear a human on the line.

You explain, carefully, that you have commenced an online transfer but have received a message asking for more information.

The highly-trained, American, customer services representative leaps into action. Tired of poor customer service in China you know that the Americans have this part down to an art:

"OK sir, so you want to create a new transfer to send money overseas".

You re-explain, carefully, everything you've already said.

"Ah! You want to know the fees for sending money overseas!"

You bite your tongue and explain, using the shortest possible words and speaking slowly in case Chad can't comprehend English the way it's supposed to be spoken.

"Ah! I can't help you with that. I'll put you through to the credit card department"

This sounds like a minor success and you are momentarily pleased. You're paying by credit. The credit card department sounds like they might be the right people. You wait expectantly.

"Good evening Tammy speaking. How may I help you".

You explain, for the fourth time, in monosyllables and get the reply you're half expecting...

"Sorry sir, I can't help you with that. I can put you through to the international department."

Customer Services drone 3 comes on the line. You begin to wonder if this call from China to the USA has already cost you more than the 30 GBP you were trying to send in the first place. You explain. Again.

"Sorry sir, I can't help you with that. Can I take your transfer number and I can pass the details over to someone else who can help you.".

This sounds promising so you comply. And wait.

"Good evening Western Union. This is Charlene. How may I help you?"

You grimace and explain the whole story again only for her to say "Is that Mr.B?". You assume that she did, in fact, get all of the details from drone 3 but was just prolonging your "customer service experience". You confirm it is, assuming that you're finally getting somewhere. Alas.

"Sorry Sir, I can't help you with that. I'll put you through to someone who can help" your cry of "But..." drifts away on the wind.

Drone 5 comes online. You begin to notice that each time they transfer you the call gets quieter. You aren't surprised when you discover that drone 5 neither received any details from Charlene, nor is she able to assist so on to drone 6.

Drone 6 is barely audible. You ask him to speak up. He doesn't. You ask, very loudly (in case you're equally quiet) for him to speak up. He doesn't. Then he hangs up.

Once you've retrieved your phone from where it landed and reassembled it you wonder what to do next. The bank! You ring your bank (who have a charming, helpful, 24 hour customer service (God bless you HSBC Premier Team) who not only confirm that the transaction has cleared but they look up a UK 24-hour telephone number for Western Union for you.

You ring and explain that you've been trying to "send money overseas in minutes*" for over an hour now. You are, however, told:

"Oh, that's an online transaction. You need to ring this number. It's open 7am-11pm UK time"

You patiently explain that you're in China and it's in the middle of the day here and, after all, it's only 30 quid! Hang on, you remember that when you rang this number it said you could send money over the phone, so you ask "So, can I do a new transaction over the phone and forget the online transaction".

"Yes sir, you can. But you've just told me you're in China and you can only do it from the UK so sorry, sir, I can't help you".

Thwarted at every turn you give up, dejected, and conclude you're going to have to wait 4 hours until 7am UK time.

The appointed hour arrives and you ring. By now, you're in the office so you can use the phone system to route your call to a UK office and then on to their hotline, hoping the call looks like it originates in the UK.

"Hello..... Western.. Union" - clearly the online team have just come out of hibernation. You explain. Finally you're talking to the team of experts. They'll be able to fix this in a jiffy.

"What?"

Nervously you explain again. Surely to God these people can help. He asks the question you were expecting.

"Where are you calling from?"

"Liverpool. I'm calling from my office in Liverpool. I'm Scouse me. Eh, eh!" (quickly muting the call you start to cough from your performance).

"Hold the line"

Minutes pass and he returns explaining that your transaction looks suspicious.

"You tried three times to do this transaction using two different credit cards".

You explain, trying oh, so hard, to avoid sarcasm, that it was only 30 GBP and that the messages were so vague that you had no idea what was going on.

More minutes pass and success. Your transaction goes through!

Only 5 hours after you started to "Send money overseas in minutes*". So, apparently the '*' is to cover up the fact that it's really "Send money overseas in 300 minutes".

Transfer amount: 30 GBP
Their fee: 12 GBP
Many, varied, lengthy international phone calls: God knows but no doubt more than 42 GBP
The catharsis from being able to blog about it and share your customer service experience with the world: Priceless

(with apologies to Mastercard for using their strapline - your part in this went OK!).

A fast, reliable and convenient way to send money abroad.

Indeed.

Frankie Update

2007-07-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Frankie Magazine Cover, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

So, it's been a while since I wrote about little Frankie... Hard to believe that she's getting on for 8 months now...

The photos we had done at 4 months are everywhere - as you can see - apparently there's even a wall full of then in the HangzhouDasha department store. Frankie's even been on TV several times (something everyone appears to have seen here) after YY rang the local government hotline over our plight in trying to get Frankie registered here (that's been ongoing for months - more about this if/when it's ever resolved).

She is very rapidly moving out of the phase where I guess a lot of guys would describe as "Very nice... but what does it do?" to being a little person. Within the last two weeks she has learned to clap, can finally wave 'bye-bye' and, if you hold her up, dance to music.

I fear the guilt-o-meter has just been turned up another notch - particularly as I'm going overseas for 6 weeks in a couple of weeks...

Frankie Boss-eyed, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

They've Got Me

2007-07-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

After modest pressure from Chickie and Pete I've decided that I am, in all probability, capable of running a half marathon.

I did a couple of 12k runs recently, one near my new apartment along the banks of the Qiantang River which was nice as it's completely flat, and another run to the office (also 12k but certainly not flat) and I'm convinced 21k isn't that much further to be a huge problem (obviously a full marathon is a different prospect!).

I am going to be (hopefully) signed up for the Singapore Half Marathon shortly and am currently waiting to find out the date of the Hangzhou Half Marathon (as I can't run if it clashes with an MBA weekend). Unfortunately no sooner do I make the decision to train for a half marathon than I fall sick with two colds one immediately after the other.

It's worth a quick plug for my (on my last three runs anyway) new running companion, Podrunner. Whilst Dance music isn't naturally my thing (my previously oft-used running music was Linkin Park), running to a constant beat stops me from keep changing my pace when the music changes pace. Just need them to be a bit longer (like 2.5 hours) to get a half marathon done without having to fiddle with the iPod.

At this rate I'll be joining the newly formed Hangzhou Hash House Harriers before you know it.

What the...?

2007-06-30T08:44:00.001-07:00

Untversal Talk Jig, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

OK, sorry - this is a cheap gag because I haven't had time to post anything meaningful in ages but... what the hell is this? Answers on a comment please.

I actually bought it (just so that I could photograph it) for 6 RMB but I can't imagine what it's actually supposed to do.

Knowing that it can 'jig' up to 10kg of 'tood' a total distance of 360mm really doesn't help...

Untversal Talk Jig, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

Updated 2007/07/07

Well, Megan might be right but you'd need fingers of steel to hold 10kg of tood up with this thing, otherwise you'd just be nursing your bloody stumps.

Tufty Club for Grown-Ups

2007-06-23T02:20:00.002-07:00

OK, you probably have to be 'of a certain' age, and British, to know the Tufty Club but it's from an age when the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (no, really!) decided that small children needed to know more about road safety and that, obviously, a small animated squirrel and his weaselly mate were the best way forward.

Clearly we're not the only foreign company in China to have fallen foul of the less than perfect situation that exists on China's roads as the EU Chamber of Commerce (thanks to Danwei) have hit upon the true consequence of Tufty's non-existence in this market. They are organising road safety seminars because "Road accidents represent not only a human drama, but also a very important economic cost for the company, as the majority of victims of car accidents are between 25 to 55 years old. For a company, traffic accidents represent a significant part of their statistics for industrial accidents, and can affect their overall economic performance".

And here was I thinking that the main reason you wouldn't want your employees to be killed is because of a desire to preserve human life. Apparently not. Then again, that's clearly not the primary concern of a lot of road users (truck, bus, car, taxi, bike or foot) either in China.

舍不得

2007-06-10T04:33:00.000-07:00

This story will probably resonate with most foreigners who have a Chinese spouse.

The phenomenon is "舍不得" (shě bu de), literally "to hate to part with". The fact that there's such a snappy phrase should be a clue to its popularity. It may be a small thing (such as I bought a 3RMB vacuum flask which was awful and I've never used, we still have it though) or a large thing (I narrowly avoided having to move my awful 55inch RPTV to my new flat despite the fact that we had already purchased a (lovely) 52 inch Sony Bravia X Series full-HD LCD TV, but only because we managed to cram it into my sister-in-law's apartment).

We have just, thanks to the limited wardrobe space in my new place been faced with a storage crisis. This is compounded by the fact that I have more clothes now than I have ever had at any point in my life, partly due to 'panic buying' (they just don't sell clothes my size here - well, they didn't...) and partly due to having dropped 12 inches off my waist, 8 off my chest, 2 off my collar size and having gone from XXL thru XL and L before arriving at (mostly) M.

Twice now I've sorted out the clothes I simply can't wear only to find them hidden somewhere. When I say that I can't wear them it's because they're quite large, witness my winter coat - like I'm going to wear that (on my own...):

So, with much reluctance, YY has finally conceded that our 衣服山 has to go. Impressive, isn't it. I'm not quite sure where it's going to go, mind. The whole 'Charity Shop' concept seemed a bit confusing and exactly where they're going to find too many Chinese folks who need a jacket with a 48 inch chest or shirts with a 17.5 inch collar I'm not sure.

Great Firewall Fiddle Faddle

2007-06-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

Akin to some of the other things I've mentioned, the Great Firewall seems to serve only one purpose and that is to denigrate China itself.

Expats rail about the fact that sites displeasing to someone (assumed to be one of the reported 10s if not 100s of thousands of young adults hired to 'protect' the other inhabitants of China) cause them to be blocked but it seems odd that no-one in the other echelons might have this thought...

"You know, I can cope with the fact that we permanently block access to loads of sites because they've displeased us (BBC news is permanently blocked although more newspapers and other news sites from the UK are permanently open), but this inconsistent blocking and unblocking of other sites (blogspot, typepad, wordpress, wikipedia, google, flickr (why Flickr?)) has no rhyme or reason to it. Perhaps we should just block them permanently or stop blocking them at all as the start/stop nature of the blocking makes us look like incompetent idiots."

The blocking is, quite frankly, pointless anyway as there can't be anyone out there that doesn't know ways to get over, round or through the blocks therefore the only result of the blocking is to irritate people. It doesn't prevent anyone access anything that they 'shouldn't' and the act of the blocking serves to make internet access of international sites as slow as they were in 56k dial-up days.

I'm sure they could undo the firewall in the time it takes to say 'death bus' and the internet wouldn't be all slow and crappy. Oh, and the international media wouldn't lambast China for its lack of freedom to information which, given that anyone can freely access any information that's on the internet anyway, would seem to be a good thing.

It's Happened Again!

2007-05-31T06:35:00.001-07:00

It's Happened Again!, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

No sooner has her granny gone back to England than the clippers come out again. Not a bad thing for the summer but unfortunately it makes poor little Francesca look like a little boy again...

Foreigner Police Registration Madness

2007-05-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

I've just been informed of a new and exciting government regulation.

Apparently all foreigners, even long term residents with a residents permit and a work permit, will have to register with at their local police station within 24 hours of entering China having been abroad.

Every time.

During office hours.

I plan to go overseas 20 times this year. That will mean 20 half-days lost to mad bureaucracy. This seems crazy given the fact that the local police station won't ever know that I've been out of the country and the fact that the immigration bureau has computer records of all of this information that they could share.

I really, really hope this is just one mad policeman that thinks this as, we're told the fine for not doing so is 50 RMB per day that you're not registered.

Moving Soon

2007-05-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm finally moving to my new apartment at the weekend. As a recap, this is the apartment that I bought in 2004, received ownership in 2006 and have been fitting it out, slowly, since October last year. Yes, it's all the same apartment.

We've been through a number of tribulations.

1) The gas fitter would only connect up two parts of the three part hob, saying it would be dangerous. The kitchen company came back and connected up all three parts but now the top drawer underneath won't open.

2) The bath was beautifully installed and tiled round, but it was back-to-front so it all had to be ripped out again.

3) The installers were told to leave sufficient space to grout round the ceramic floor tiles (not standard Chinese practice). They were shown what to do and they wrote it into the contract. On visiting the apartment after the installation I was told 'You don't grout round floor tiles, so we did it like this'. Up they came and were put down properly.

4) They nicely tiled the balcony with black tiles then tiled round the edges with the cream tiles left over from the bathroom because they'd run out of the black ones.

5) They measured up my hifi units, speakers, speaker stands, plotted the floorplan on a chart and installed the (not cheap) speaker cable in the floor, returning 20 metres spare cable to me, before cementing over it and installing the real wood flooring. The wires are all 10cm too short to connect to the hifi.

6) The light switches are all randomly assigned and connected to a computer control system so the same switch does different things at different times for no apparent reason.

7) The electrically operated blind on my study window was installed 20cm too short. The proposed solution? Install a 20cm-wide blind in the gap.

I think I've only discovered one last biggy (I'm sure others will surface):

8) The oven doesn't work (yes, an oven, in China!). The reason is, apparently, that they installed a gas oven (even though I specified electric) and that there's no gas to connect it to (although there is an electric point). But... the fitters didn't tell anyone so it was left up to me trialling the appliances to discover it.

Don't be surprised if the apartment burns down (or the entire building) before too long!

True Love

2007-05-15T01:20:00.000-07:00

Chinese traditions and family pressures lead to all sorts of odd marital situations, people disappearing back to their home town to get married to someone they've never met (always distressing when it's my employees that are resigning because their parents have pressured them to come home...), but this article in Ananova is particularly weird.

Ah, it's that age old romantic tale:

Boy meets girl
Boy marries girl
Girl dies horrible death
Boys parents meet new girl and pressure boy to marry new girl
Boy agrees because new girl slightly resembles original girl
Boy asks new girl to undergo plastic surgery so that she fully resembles old girl
New girl bizarrely accedes to boy's request
And they all live happily ever after

It's not so much a match made in heaven as a match made in the Twilight Zone.

Maotai gets worse!

2007-05-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

Unbelievably the evil fire-water beloved of politicians of all levels is under threat from pollution in its water source. The source of the pollution, 39 drinks factories that have 'appeared' upstream from the Maotai plant on the Chishui River in Guizhou province. Presumably many of those factories will have appeared on the tacit approval of local officals and celebrated with banquets and the odd glass of Maotai.

Accept for the moment that I'm not much of a spirit drinker and that Baijiu of any form is, in my mind, listed at the number 2 vilest alcoholic beverage (the Scotch Whisky Lagavulin making it to number 1 - tastes of peat? Apparently peat tastes pretty damned foul) but it's hard for me to imagine that anything could harm Maotai and make it less palatable.

I always assumed that Maotai drinkers survived largely because it killed any micro-organisms in the drinkers body, kind-of an antidote to the food served at some banquets, so whatever they're afraid of in the river water it must be pretty bad...

Mexican Excitement

2007-05-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

At last! Apparently Hangzhou is now home to it's first ever Mexican restaurant. Also apparently owned and run by Mexicans.

Pancho's
441 Xixi road
西溪路441号

Even better, it's open at lunchtimes and it's easy walking distance from the office!

A review will definitely be taking place shortly!

To the UK and Back

2007-05-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

A fleeting trip to the UK and I'm back already, filled of course with guilt at the coursework I've not been doing, daughter I've not seen, etc.

I've mentioned before that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book 'Watching the English' by Kate Fox. Whilst I'm still fairly hopeless at social interactions, I now understand myself a lot more and that does give you an element of control, if you want it.

One conversation I had on the plane with a fellow brit went like this. I sat down at the bar (yes, OK, it was Virgin Atlantic's superb Upper Class service - once you've had your first Deep Vein Thrombosis you won't want to fly any other way) next to two guys who were clearly colleagues and were talking openly about their company, a certain car manufacturer. After a while, the guy furthest from me returned to his seat leaving me sitting next to the other guy.

As you might expect (if you're British) a period of silence ensued. Running through obvious topic lists (we're on a plane - there is no weather) drew a blank. Talking about the motor industry would appear rude as it would be obvious I'd been listening to their conversation - although the fact that we were the only three passengers at the bar which only seats three people would seem to make it fairly obvious that I couldn't have avoided hearing but, even so, it took the intervention of a member of cabin crew to open the door to conversation.

The interaction that followed was indeed to the letter of the book. He explained that he worked for "A car company" despite the fact that I already knew which one from the earlier conversation and, 20 minutes later when turbulence ended the conversation, the name of said company had only just been revealed to me. After 20 minutes of conversation, I knew his employer and he knew I lived in Hangzhou and worked in IT. I'm pretty sure that was it. As the book says, it is actually fairly common to assume that exchanging names is far too personal for a first conversation like this. I certainly wasn't ready for it.

No wonder Americans think Brits are standoffish and Brits think Americans are (I can't narrow it down to a single adjective). I've been in the States and in many a social setting been faced with this sort of interraction:

Stranger: Hi, I'm Bob!
Me: Er, hello

I don't know who the hell Bob is, and I certainly don't want someone like that stalking me so my natural reaction is to recoil and adopt a defensive position.

No wonder I find it so hard to give presentations. Simply standing up in front of people is like giving away part of your soul.

Lard

2007-05-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

According to the Economist Shanghai is now home to China's fattest children. A recent survey revealed that of Shanghai’s 8m+ schoolchildren, 15% of the boys and 9.2% of the girls are obese. Both figures were about four percentage points higher than the national averages.

Presumably the combination of a rapidly increasing Fast Food Culture combined with Little Emperor Syndrome
is going to conspire to create a nation of incapable and unhealthy adults.

Yes, but Why?

2007-05-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

Drat. It seemed so simple. Go back to the UK, meet up with family and friends and show them a few photos. And then, when we were looking at pictures of some Chinese buildings, the question.

"Just why do Chinese buildings have curved roofs?"

Seems simple doesn't it. Some research on the web confirms (!) that they do indeed have curved roofs (e.g. "The roof of a typical Chinese building is curved") but no-one seems fit to put forward a theory as to why that actually would be.

It's annoying because it's a simple question and apart from a vague attempt at "something to ward off evil spirits" I had to admit defeat.

Any ideas out there?

Phones on Planes

2007-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

When will airlines face the facts that this stuff about mobile phones interfering with aircraft navigation systems is a load of old toot?

Think about it. On the average flight there is almost certainly someone who forgets to switch off their phone or Blackberry. On the average flight in China that number almost certainly increases as the number of people who follow the announced instructions is distinctly lower than elsewhere.

So, if we assume that every commercial flight that has, say, one active mobile phone on it and there are, let's guess, 100,000 flights per day worldwide (extrapolating from this article that says there are about 29,000 flights per day in the USA alone), and that we'll just focus on the time period since 2000 as mobile phones were commonplace and Blackberry's coming into regular usage. That would mean that 7*365*100,000 or 292,000,000 commercial flights.

To my knowledge, there have been no crashes attributed to mobile phone usage and 0 out of 292,000,000 would seem to imply a fairly low risk. Other opinions seem to be divided (here, here and here).

So, it looks like phones are pretty safe and they have transmitters built into them. This would seem to me to indicate that the insistence on making me stop using my iPod 20 minutes before we land (I've wiped it and resynced it so I have more music now) would seem to be completely unnecessary.

iPod Woes

2007-04-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

My iPod suffered badly during its last syncronisation and seems to have deleted loads of tracks which it can no longer play. Oddly it seems to have done this by artist so (as I've collected lots of music over the years) I'm left with a very strange 'Shuffle' playlist consisting only of:

Cindy Lauper
Killswitch Engage
Spineshank
Cher
Aerosmith
Rush
Rammstein
Abba
Slipknot
Silverchair
REM
Stabbing Westward
Sum41
Depeche Mode

It's quite weird to listen to it going from one to the other as you imagine. And 'Cher', what was I thinking?

Hmm

2007-04-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

You know, I've got this sneaking feeling that my recently acquired copy of Battlestar Galactica just might not be genuine...

Outward Ho!

2007-04-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

So our recent "Outward Bound" weekend was a success in terms of the goals I was trying to hit, although there were some interesting facets doing it in China compared to the UK.

The trip there - I had elected to drive but the majority went by bus. Where the place is (青山湖) there is a pristine highway linking it to Hangzhou that was only recently completed. Underneath the highway is the old 'road', except that it's now mostly sand and gravel after the construction of the massive elevated road. The training company elected to make the bus drive along the windy, bumpy, single-track old road with a cry of 'but it would have cost 100RMB (6 GBP) to use the new road!'.

The training company is based in the grounds of a three-star hotel but quite clearly it had seen better days. The meals sucked big-style and the staff weren't particularly helpful.

Me: I'd like a beer please
Waitress: No
Me: What?
Waitress: You can't have beer
Me: Why? There's beer in that fridge. Cold beer. I have money.
Waitress: You're not allowed
Me: Says who?
Waitress: The training company

Aha. A representative arrived and negotiations ensued. An allowance of 2 bottles of beer (And 2.1% proof beer to boot!) was offered which eventually turned into 5. I understand that they don't want people partying all night but this did seem to me to be a fundamental difference in approach as to how to break down some barriers and get people talking. Last Outward Bound I did in the UK, people got to actually know each other far more in the bar (at least that hotel had a bar, unlike this one) at the end of the day then they did while we were abseiling or potholing.

Breakfast was by far the worst meal of the day because even the things I might have eaten (pork buns, for example), were horrible. I don't believe anyone would come up with the catchphrase "Go to work on a 满头" but that was pretty much the only edible food, largely because they (that's steamed buns by the way) don't really taste of anything.

Asking for a coffee, I was told "There's hot soy milk" - and that was that. No alternative.

What made me sag slightly was when I realised that on the wall was a huge colour picture of a country cottage kitchen table and upon said table were plates and cups with scrambled eggs, bacon, some lightly buttered toast, croissant, orange juice and coffee. Posterlicious. Sadly, not one of those things were available in the hotel.

Breakfast, and indeed most of the meals, had a habit of reappearing (no, not like that) - lunch, for example, contained several types of "vegetable with pieces of fried breakfast products". Yum.

The training was actually pretty good and most of the negatives surrounding it are really directed at the hotel. Note if I ever do this again is simply to bring enough food and drink that I'm completely self-sufficient.

One of our first exercises was to be divided into teams and go through an exercise, part of which was to create a team song with the advice that taking an existing tune and changing the words to the song would be ok, except the Chinese National Anthem which would have been illegal. It sounded pretty serious as it was repeated a number of times.

The exercises themselves were interesting mix of physical and mental activities and worked fairly well at getting people mixing and communicating.

This one, which I call "falling onto a group of people who are significantly smaller than me" was a bit of a worry. Before anyone writes any witty suggestions, the trainer on the platform with me was simply making sure people fell in a straight line... The saving grace was that I was one of three Laowai in my group so we could at least take turns in the key (posterior catching) position. On the flip side, I imagine from the point of view of "having someone significantly larger than I am fall on me" probably wasn't much fun either.

All-in-all, I don't think some of the exercises would be possible in the UK and certainly not the US from a Health-and-safety point of view (getting everyone over a 4-meter high wall certainly had its moments) but no-one died, good fun was had and, a bunch of my staff now have a nice shared-experience.

There are more photos of people undergoing derring dos training company's website.

And on the way back, we even managed to persuade the training company to send the bus on the new, fast, smooth road so, improved communication skills at work!

On Guilt

2007-04-04T04:23:00.000-07:00

The current combination of incredibly hectic job (oh that I could safely blog about the goings-on at the moment), EMBA, family and ongoing house fit-out (I'm beginning to understand what Petrocelli used to go through) means that I'm constantly wracked with guilt.

Whatever it is I'm doing (such as writing this blog entry, eating, or playing the odd game of Desktop Tower Defence (many thanks to John Biesnecker for that little time-eater) or taking Frankie (NB - new photos on Flickr) to Gymboree) I'm wracked with guilt that I should be doing one of the other things. If I change to doing the thing I'm feeling guilty about, the guilt just shifts to one of the other things.

My mother arrives tomorrow, I have 2 essays to write, was just presented with 1500 pages of new material for the next course module in 15 days time, I have over 50 people to recruit at work, I have to spend more time with YY and Frankie and I must get back down the gym (failed miserably to run 5km without stopping for breathers yesterday and I'm 3kg heavier than the start of the year).

I can safely say that I also feel guilty about reading virtually nothing except my course materials (which isn't very good value for money with the books I have and subscriptions to the Economist, ft.com and HBR) and about not having the time to do the follow-up reading after the courses are complete...

I'm glad I'm not religious.

Customer Service Experience

2007-03-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, customer service is not a forte of many Chinese businesses. That said, some service industries way outstrip anything that British businesses can do.

Good customer service experiences can be had from and in-call service. For example, my Internet connection died over Chinese New Year. I can guess what the experience might have been in the UK during Christmas.
1. Depending on your ISP (and whether they've outsourced the call centre to Bangalore) you might just get a recorded message suggesting that everyone is partying and will get to you at some point.
2. If you do get through and they determine that its not a configuration problem and you need an engineer they will make an appointment for an engineer from another company to come, quite possibly for a hefty fee. Being a public holiday though, you'll be without service for several days until everyone's back to work and the backlog is cleared.

Compare that to the China experience.
1. Place call which is answered promptly. Determine that it is not an accounts receivable problem on their part and they will despatch an engineer to site, even though it's a public holiday.
2. 10 minutes later, receive call from engineer to say he's outside and to reconfirm address. Engineer arrives, fixes problem (which he says was caused by my wireless router and not their equipment) at no cost and leaves.

The China scenario would simply be unbelievable in the UK. It just couldn't be done.

Sadly, my experience in B&Q (a British DIY chain) was more like the UK experience.
1. Take purchase to check-out (it was very early so I avoided the normal 'joining the shorter of 2 queues only to find that the person in front of me has 12 items they wil have to look up in the pricing book - I always wondered if the name 'Be and Queue' was deliberately ironic).
2. Locate checkout staff who are mysteriously absent.
3. They scan your 3 purchases and 1 of them doesn't have a price in the computer.
4. Staff go to rush to the aisle where the item came from. I tell them they're 1.29 each. They go anyway.
5. Staff return and huddle round the computerised till and proudly state 'we don't sell these - they're not in the computer'.
6. I counter with 'you're a shop, you have goods, you know the price, I have money'
7. They 'mei banfa' me and that's that.

An attempt to suggest that their manager would probably like them to sell me the goods, take my money and reconcile it later al seems too complicated so I give up and leave.

So, at least a British firm in China can uphold its core customer service values...

Drill Instructors vs Starbucks

2007-03-28T02:31:00.001-07:00

Drill Instructors vs Starbucks, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

An, er, unique part of China life is watching a ragtag bunch of retail employees being put through their paces. Here the staff of a local department store were marching back and forth whilst the security guards barked orders at them.

Looking at the casually dressed yoofs lolloping about, it didn't appear to be of much value given that the barista confirmed that they go through this every day.

I've seen people from the local foot massage place running in unison round the block and waitresses and busboys all in a line receiving the daily lecture (which, I believe, is typically the same lecture every single day). I've suggested to my employees that we might do the same but oddly they don't seem too keen.

On Branding

2007-03-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

The subject of product branding is much newer and more controversial in China than it is in the 'West'. Advertising is fairly immature, brand loyalty is limited and protection for intellectual property is still poor.

There often seems to be little effort put into actual brand creation before companies embark on the production of packaging, fitting out of premises and mass advertising and this seems to make little sense at first.

I accept, of course, that a lot of these brands are designed for internal consumption therefore the 'English name' of the company or product is there to make the product look and feel more international. This leads to various nonsense such as kitchen manufacturers Soilm internationalisation cupboard. Some might have been OK if they had been spelled correctly (such as clothing range Flangship riob.rava) and others are grammatically and syntactically sound but still don't work for me (a Taiwanese baby food brand called Baby Enzymes puts me in mind of a factory with a conveyor belt full of babies and an industrial blender) and bathroom fittings brand C Standard (for situations where A standard or B standard would seem to be going over the top? Possibly the people that came up with this have reinterpreted the name American Standard...?)

To be fair, branding is obviously a fine art. I've wondered before whilst in China if the thing I'm looking at is a 'real' brand or not. For example, I don't think I'd come across Ermenigildo Zegna before I came to China and was surprised to learn it had been going since 1892.

So I don't really know how to tell if, for example, if something is a 'real' brand or not.

I tried coming up with simple rules but they're not always applicable:

1) Silly names are probably not 'real' brands - FALSE. OK, I think I can rule out Senda Woman by this rule but apparently not Vasto (link doesn't work in Firefox) and Wanko which seem to be real brands.

2) Brands which try to sound like another brand to leach off a major brand's poplarity are probably not 'real' brands - I think this one is mostly TRUE. Lots of examples here: YCC and YQQ zip manufacturers (clearly trying to leach off YKK), Agosdantum (even with the Aquascutum logo), Dancôme T-shirt manufacturer. One example of a company that has 'become' a real brand is Li-ning (sports good manufacturer - now a large, well established company who I initially took as a fake brand because of its logo).

3) Blatant rip-offs of another brand. TRUE.
I accept that House of Lords might feel a bit threatened by his Tonyness' attempts to reform it and possibly this is a way to make a bit of cash to mount a defence but somehow I don't think so.

Of course, from a retail customer perspective, even if there are brands I recognise it's not necessarily that clear that the goods are genuine. In a nearby department store, the signage in the menswear section all appears to have been made by hand (would you pay full price from something that purports to be the "Pierr eCardin" section?). My natural assumption is that companies are normally very defensive of their brand image and would never allow the sort of brand impact that hand-made signage would create but is that true?

On Branston Pickle

2007-03-16T23:54:00.001-07:00

Branston Pickle, originally uploaded by mick y.

Woe. The Branston has run out.

I am, sadly, one of those expats who likes their 'old country' food too much to live without it in regular doses. The oft aforementioned City Shopper service does us proud for many items - Oxo cubes, Paxo, Colmans Mustard, Sharwoods Curry Sauces and Basmati Rice but... no Branston Pickle.

Branston Pickle is a food that seems to unite the British expats here for their fondness of it (we even felt the national twinge when the Branston factory burned down in 2004).

I don't know how long Branston pickle has remained an oversight to the expat shopping service. The services (and there are lots of them) that will ship British goods to hungry expats all stock Branston and for a markup of only 1000% to cover postage and packaging will ship worldwide.

So, British expats, time for the rallying cry.... "Bring out the Branston! Bring out the Branston!"

As Billy Connolly Said

2007-03-15T06:50:00.000-07:00

I remember watching the Big Yin himself saying that he didn't know what was going to happen as he got older but his ears seemed to be preparing for something big given the volume of hair they had started sprouting.

Well, I'm more intrigued how my nose happened to know that it was my 40th birthday just last month.

With the sort of military timing normally reserved for the 366th day after purchase of a complex household appliance for which no extended warranty has been purchased, I've started growing, er, a little moustache but slightly above my top lip.

Alas, it appears that with advancing age I will no longer be able to mock Victor Kyam and all of the other old fellas that need specialised trimmers. For shame.

If any of my older readers have any tips about other depressing fates lined up for me over the next 10 years please let me know.

On receiving a package

2007-03-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

Footwear is a perennial problem for the average expat and given that my feet are beyond average even in my home country, I've decided to mail-order some running shoes.

I feel a bit silly ordering running shoes from the US, given that the majority of them are manufactured here in China but as the average shop here thinks that size 43 is huge beyond belief, then I've got no chance.

However, getting hold of ones shoes is now even harder than ever. Fedex just rang to say my shoes were in Shanghai (only ordered two days ago from California so kudos to Running Warehouse for their excellent shipping service), however because of the "high value" of my shipment (a whole US$125) there were new customs clearance formalities which basically consist of sending them:

A copy of my passport info page
A copy of my visa
A copy of every stamp in my passport for 2007

Colour me suspicious but why would I have to prove to customs (apparently it's mandatory) that I'm in China to receive my package? What does my whereabouts or my status as a resident or the countries I have visited got to do with collecting duty on an inbound package?

Do they need this information to charge me duty? Clearly not.

Clearly then one is left with two possibilities:

1) Incompetence - they're not sure what they want so they ask for everything they can think of even though they don't have a good use for it. At least that way when someone starts asking questions, they can be sure to have lots of angles covered. And it keeps people gainfully employed processing unnecessary information.
2) Skullduggery - the information is being gathered for a use other than that for which it is purportedly being collected.

My money's on 1).

Cyborg

2007-02-28T05:20:00.000-08:00

It appears that China has just successfully developed the first Cyborg - the dictionary lean towards a cyborg being part human but it simply defined from cybernetic and organism so I think this counts.

Behold, China has created the first cybernetic... pigeon.

According to this article in Danwei the hapless pigeon can be made to take of and fly round in circles by remote control.

Could this explain strange sightings in the turkey farms of Norfolk just before the H5N1 outbreak?

Surprise!

2007-02-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

I'll let the picture below explain the relevance of today's posting...

Er, yes. Well - actually no - it's tomorrow but, never mind, that day has arrived.

Life begins (hopefully) or as YY puts it (dolefully)
四十岁的男人是一朵花,四十岁的女人是豆腐渣

As recently as 4 years ago, I had never been to Asia and didn't know a single word of Chinese (beyond Chicken Foo Young). The idea that I would becelebrating my 40th birthday in Hangzhou, married to YY, have an (almost) three month old baby and be running a Chinese company wasn't really where I saw myself going. Still - it's all good. Really, really good in fact.

I also (and the reason this post is a day early) never imagined that I would be spending my 40th birthday by getting up at 5am so I could catch an 8am flight to Hong Kong with the express purpose of spending the rest of the day studying Financial Accounting.

Funny the tangled webs we weave.

CNY Fireworks

2007-02-17T18:33:00.001-08:00

CNY Fireworks, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

Just to give you a hint of the amount of rubbish generated by the Chinese New Year fireworks this is a shot I took last night (bathed in the light of the fireworks themselves at this was some time after midnight).

At a guess 250 people live in my apartment complex. 6.8 million people live in Hangzhou. The celebration goes on for 15 days.

Chinese New Year is bad for the environment. Discuss.

Judose

2007-02-17T04:44:00.000-08:00

I don't normally watch a lot of CCTV-5, the home of sport on Chinese national TV, largely because of its tremendous focus on NBA basketball and the English Premier League and a corresponding lack of Rugby action.

Today, however, I got to watch something new and, er, different. Judose.

If I've got the rules right ( I was watching from a treadmill in the gym so I couldn't hear the commentary) the two combatants enter the field of battle at which point they inexplicably grab one of their feet with a hand and then hop into battle with their opponents. It appears that you lose if you let go of your foot, fall over, hop out of bounds or use your free hand to steady yourself by grabbing your opponent.

I'm sure it's probably quite difficult and very tiring but I couldn't quite see the point. It's not like wrestling or boxing which might simulate an actual fight. This, not so much ("I'm going to duff you up behind the bike sheds Kevin, just remember to keep hold of your own foot").

It would be interesting to see a Judose specialist enter the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I can see, for example, ju-jitsu expert taking on a boxer, but if you're relying on your opponent to hop on one foot, it may put you at quite a disadvantage if he doesn't.

It's probably worth waiting to see if it develops before they get too excited about the television coverage as it may just well go the way of kabaddi.

'Tis the Season

2007-02-16T23:49:00.000-08:00

If Christmas is the Season to be Jolly, Chinese New Year is pretty much the season to be filled with unrepentant invective.

Chinese New Year is pretty much up there with Stinky Tofu and Bai Jiu as one of those things that Westerners cannot get their heads round. Even the mild mannered (by China blogging standards) Sinosplice is unable to avoid some steam-venting around this particular time of year.

Two years ago at CNY I was in my wife's home town in Gansu province enduring repeated shocks to the system as firework vendors hurled hand-grenade equivalent fireworks into the traffic as the means to advertise their wares (although typical small-time marketing practices that exist in China dictated that all street vendors were selling the same selection of fireworks as every other street vendor at the same prices). I also nearly because immobilised in the aging sofa of a relative (possibly a shu-shu - I got intoduced to so many shu-shus, ge-ges and at least one di-di that I immediately lost track) after being served the 9th full cooked meal of the day.

The high-point of new-year's day for me was watching the family playing with the baby (again, not entirely sure whose baby but definitely some relative). Over the course of half an hour the baby had been given to play with; a box of matches, a small spiky pendant, the screw cap off a bottle of spirits and, his favourite toy, an apple peeler. Fortunately none of these people are going to be anywhere near my baby this New Year so I can relax...

I was also told on New Year's Eve I would be treated to the best television that would be shown all year. Again, Sinosplice's definition covers this nicely:

The Chinese New Year craptacular (春节联欢晚会) is the mother of all Chinese craptaculars.

How true. Sadly, Chinese television is so monotonous, that there is a strong possibility that both of these statements are true. Chinese television does actually make American television appear to be a broad-brush, free from bias expression of a wide range of people's personal interests in comparison. I guess it's possible that people's personal interests in China only stretch as far as an interest in the life and times of former emperors, how badly the Japanese treated China and the state of the modern police force (with minority interests such as the 'cat stuck in a tumble-drier' din that is Beijing opera) being hived off onto their own channel.

I guess it's not all rosy in the UK (this headline from the FT ("Crowded trains ‘to leave 130,000 standing’" actually refers to London's lack of train capacity not, as I thought to China at New Year) but I'm sure it's both quieter and tastier.

If anyone is thinking "What a great time they must be having with several days off for Chinese New Year" just bear in mind that the fireworks go off for 15 days straight, that there's a small baby in the house and that I found this on the kitchen floor the other day. Apparently it's been taken up to the roof of our building because it hadn't absorbed enough pollution. I fear that it will feature on the menu over the next couple of days (hopefully there will be some left over for my mother to enjoy when she comes over in April).

Er, Happy New Year

Scale in China

2007-02-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

If you ever forget the scale of any problems which might present them in China, CER reports that 97,260 officials were caught in a corruption probe in 2006 alone. Simply staggering - particularly if you have a quick think about just how many people didn't get caught!

Transliterations of Names

2007-02-12T17:54:00.000-08:00

Translation of names between Chinese and other languages is always going to be a hit and miss affair. There are so many combinations of letters that simply cannot be accurately represented using Chinese characters, and that's just with English. Bring into the mix the fact that different languages that use the alphabet pronounce them differently and the Chinese translations can be as clear as mud (anyone know the Chinese for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?)

Several things about transliteration leave me cold, however.

The first - you see it a lot in sports like volleyball (very popular on TV here) where people will wear shirts that say their name on the back in the form X.Y.Zhang. With Chinese characters, there is absolutely no concept of initials (in this sense) so why do it at all? OK, the team may have several Zhangs or Wangs but it makes no sense to Chinese people.

Second - use of Pinyin. No-one reads Pinyin. No-one publishes books in Pinyin. It's not a language it's a teaching aid. Signs in Pinyin always remind me an episode of the British TV show Challenge Anneka where the host, Anneka Rice ran into the grounds of a school for the blind and loudly shouted "Is there anyone here who speaks Braille".

So who, therefore, are signs in Pinyin intended before. Most Chinese people I know could not quickly read a sign that says "Xiao shan gui ji ji chang" (and wouldn't bother when the Chinese characters are just above it) and then most non-Chinese can't either - similarly road workers in Hangzhou are given high-visibility vests (amazing in itself) that proudly say "JIAOTONG" - presumably someone tells them what it says when they're first given them.

Finally - mixed names. I can understand that for most people here calling a certain footballer "Ronaldo" is much harder to remember/pronounce than 罗纳尔多 but who decided to translate AC Milan as "AC米兰"?

I think the CCP's Sprilitual Civilization Steering Committee has let these travesties slide...

Hoopoe

2007-02-08T16:52:00.001-08:00

POUPA, originally uploaded by Pinto Moreira.

There are some spectacular bird photos out there on Flickr.

This has to be one of the best bird photos I've seen (certainly amongst those photos that don't have "All Rights Reserved".

Clearly there's more to this photography malarkey than just equipment and technique and, whatever it is, I'm believe that some people have it and I don't. Which is a shame. It's not even worth linking to my recent Hoopoe photo (taken in Jurong Bird Park in Singapore so I didn't even have to try very hard to find the thing!) because this one is simply several orders of magnitudes better.

In the deep midwinter

2007-02-07T05:56:00.001-08:00

Francesca at West Lake, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

Brrr.

Well, not quite. It was 25 degrees Celcius today. Thanks to a 4:30am start for an 8am meeting in Shanghai, I didn't feel at all guilty popping out for a walk round West Lake with YY and Frankie for the first time in the early afternoon to take advantage of the unseasonal weather.

Hopefully the fact that we've hardly had anything approaching a typical winter this year doesn't bode for a scorching summer and an extreme typhoon season as the year rolls on.

Gag!

2007-02-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned my fondness for hotpot on many occasions and particularly for Chuan Wei Guan (川味观) hotpot restaurant.

That's all changed now thanks to this expose (in Chinese) about a recent health inspection that uncovered that the used oil from the hotpots (delightfully "口水"油 or saliva oil) was being filtered and reused.

Apparently the local manager has appeared on the 1818 reality news show appealing to customers to come back because everything's OK, now. Apparently this isn't working at the moment though which, given that it's the incredibly busy Chinese New Year season coming up, will no doubt cost the silly, silly man a small fortune.

Like Rats to a Sticky Box

2007-02-03T02:57:00.000-08:00

I pity the rat that comes into our office.

I should add a link that I was prompted by Reluctant Nomad's recent series of posts here, here and here about various vermin dispatching incidents.

Rats don't normally get a lot of sympathy from me... like most things that breathe or move, they are considered edible in some places here. I have to say that the idea of eating a rat doesn't seem too unpleasant, as long as one knows where the rat came from in the first place. Cage-farmed seems a lot more palatable than sewer-caught...

I realised that the Chinese rat got short shrift when I walked to our local cafe one day and passed a couple of fellows who had a rat in a cage and a pellet gun. Clearly the pellet gun was a feeble affair and repeated shootings probably served only to enrage, and possibly blind, the rat. A little while later and P, with whom I was dining shouted 'Oh my God!' followed slightly too late with 'Don't look now!' as I turned to see the caged rat as it was, having just been covered in an accelerant, set on fire.

So, probably a result of recent restaurant refurbishments in our building, we have a rat problem. I have heard one run the length of the office across the ceiling tiles and that was enough to get the exterminators in.

Now I understand that in an office it's not a great idea to use poison. In your back garden it's probably OK as the nearly-departed rat will probably disappear into a drain never to be seen again, but an office has lots of places to die and then it falls to your nose to find out where that is. One rat that seemed to get stuck behind a desk perished where he was and by the time the 'decomp' was evident, at least half of the rat had dissolved into the surrounding carpet.

So, if poisoning isn't the answer, apparently trapping is. Given the two choices I was aware of - humane (i.e. a baited cage that allows you to take the rat away live - presumably so you can incinerate it on the pavement outside) and deadly (i.e. large versions of the humble mousetrap) I was surprised to see that the pest controllers offered a third trap option - glue.

I'm slightly surprised, as I surf, to find Glue Traps available in the US and UK as I could only imagine that they work by sticking the rat to the glue and it then bleeds to death after it gnaws its own legs off. This seems contrary to the laws requiring humane treatment of, well, pretty much anything in those countries.

As much as I want the rats out of my office, I'm rather uncomfortable with the idea of them stuck in a box in the ceiling bleeding/starving to death. The swift blow of a spring-loaded trap seems a lot more reasonable when you look at the alternatives.

In case one gets complacent

2007-02-01T03:56:00.000-08:00

About the 'underdeveloped' legal system in China and how stupid things happen regularly and make the news, here are the latest winners of the long-running 'Stella Awards' from the Home of the Free.

The 2006 True Stella Awards

Issued 31 January 2007

(Click here to confirm these are legitimate.)

#5: Marcy Meckler. While shopping at a mall, Meckler stepped outside and was "attacked" by a squirrel that lived among the trees and bushes. And "while frantically attempting to escape from the squirrel and detach it from her leg, [Meckler] fell and suffered severe injuries," her resulting lawsuit says.
That's the mall's fault, the lawsuit claims, demanding in excess of $50,000, based on the mall's "failure to warn" her that squirrels live outside.

#4: Ron and Kristie Simmons. The couple's 4-year-old son, Justin, was killed in a tragic lawnmower accident in a licensed daycare facility, and the death was clearly the result of negligence by the daycare providers. The providers were clearly deserving of being sued, yet when the Simmons's discovered the daycare only had $100,000 in insurance, they dropped the case against them and instead sued the manufacturer of the 16-year-old lawn mower because the mower didn't have a safety device that 1) had not been invented at the time of the mower's manufacture, and 2) no safety agency had even suggested needed to be invented. A sympathetic jury still awarded the family $2 million.

#3: Robert Clymer. An FBI agent working a high-profile case in Las Vegas, Clymer allegedly created a disturbance, lost the magazine from his pistol, then crashed his pickup truck in a drunken stupor -- his blood-alcohol level was 0.306 percent, more than three times the legal limit for driving in Nevada.
He pled guilty to drunk driving because, his lawyer explained, "With public officials, we expect them to own up to their mistakes and correct them." Yet Clymer had the gall to sue the manufacturer of his pickup truck, and the dealer he bought it from, because he "somehow lost consciousness" and the truck "somehow produced a heavy smoke that filled the passenger cab." Yep: the drunk-driving accident wasn't his fault, but the truck's fault. Just the kind of guy you want carrying a gun in the name of the law.

#2: KinderStart.com. The specialty search engine says Google should be forced to include the KinderStart site in its listings, reveal how its "Page Rank" system works, and pay them lots of money because they're a competitor. They claim by not being ranked higher in Google, Google is somehow infringing KinderStart's Constitutional right to free speech. Even if by some stretch they were a competitor of Google, why in the world would they think it's Google's responsibility to help them succeed?
And if Google's "review" of their site is negative, wouldn't a government court order forcing them to change it infringe on Google's Constitutional right to free speech?

And the winner of the 2006 True Stella Award: Allen Ray Heckard. Even though Heckard is 3 inches shorter, 25 pounds lighter, and 8 years older than former basketball star Michael Jordan, the Portland, Oregon, man says he looks a lot like Jordan, and is often confused for him -- and thus he deserves
$52 million "for defamation and permanent injury" -- plus $364 million in "punitive damage for emotional pain and suffering", plus the SAME amount from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, for a grand total of $832 million. He dropped the suit after Nike's lawyers chatted with him, where they presumably explained how they'd counter-sue if he pressed on.

On procrastination

2007-01-31T16:48:00.000-08:00

I often think, rightly or wrongly, of Chinese as lacking in the infinite subtlety of English. This largely centres on the vast number of ways that I might answer a question in English compared to the comparatively fewer options you hear in Chinese.

For example an Englishperson's response to a 'how are you?' question at the end of a tough day might be:

I'm tired/worn out/run down/sleepy/exhausted/knackered/fatigued/whacked/beat/ready to drop/etc., etc.

The Chinese equivalent from my experience would typically be represented by a respresented by

累 or, if they were really tired 好累.

Like I say, it's may well be a case that the act of observation means that the result is affected (i.e. people use simple vocabulary because I'm there). I'll let you know in 30 years when I've finally started to approach fluency.

It is nice, however, to come across phrases which are completely different from anything you'd say in English and add a lovely touch of colour to the language. On that note, today's Phrase of the Day is:

懒驴上磨屎尿多
lǎn lǘ shàng mò shǐ niào duō

This is a proverb which means: A lazy person will find many excuses to delay working

The literal translation however is: When a lazy donkey is turning a grindstone, it takes a lot of time off for peeing and pooing

On that note, I must get on...

I've excelled myself...

2007-01-29T20:58:00.000-08:00

I don't really know what has come over me in the last couple of weeks but I really have been pushing the envelope with regard to foods...

I've always been a fussy eater and was a vegetarian for many years before coming to China. Since ceasing to be veggie I've eaten pork, beef, chicken and lamb and, pretty much nothing else animal-wise.

I don't know what made me change this but it started when I got a free lobster tail with some roast beef that I'd ordered. In the last two weeks I have deliberately eaten:

Lobster
Scallops
Shrimp
Garoupa
Ostrich
Deer
Cuttlefish
Fish roe
Crab

I have to say that the seafood didn't excite me at all, nor did it particularly put me off. The lobster tasted pretty much only of butter so I really can't see what the fuss is there.

I'll let you know when I eat my first frog and turtle...

Week One, Done

2007-01-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Wow.

That was a pretty intense experience. I thought my introduction to academia after 20 years was going to be tough and I wasn't wrong. A typical day had about 17.5 hours of 'work', less than 5 hours asleep and the rest eating and talking.

It was actually quite easy to keep going because of the intensity, the only day that was tough was the very last day because the pressure was easing off (no forthcoming homework) and the fatigue beginning to kick in after 6 strenuous days.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of learning, connecting with others in the same boat, and the feeling that I've made a good choice to 'improve' myself. In terms of learning, its very clear that a primary method is to extract the experiences of the students and facilitate the sharing of these to the others. We are a fairly experienced group of people so there is a lot of scope for this.

Having dabbled with the idea of an 'online MBA' for the last few years I think this is one of the things I can't imagine them being able to replicate.

One interesting fact is the average length of time people remain in their current position post this MBA is less than 18 months.

LibraryThing

2007-01-29T04:12:00.000-08:00

I've been cataloguing the books I have on various management topics on LibraryThing (you can take a look at them if you like) and was checking out its recommendations. One recommendation, based on my library is, for example:

Managing transitions : making the most of change by William Bridges

52 copies. 1 reviews. Average rating 4.25.
Because you own: Leading Change, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (Harper & Row Management Library)

So, probably not entirely unreasonable that other people who own the book about leading change might be intersted in transition management.

The most peculiar one has to be this:

Writing Erotic Fiction: And Getting Published (Teach Yourself) by Mike Bailey

7 copies.
Because you own: Cold Calling Techniques: That Really Work! (Cold Calling Techniques)

Now I'm not a salesperson and only bought the book to get a better insight into the process but assuming that a lot of the other owners of this book are salespeople, does this mean that a career in sales is a likely precursor to a career in writing erotic fiction?

Goddamned Chinese Bureacracy (again)

2007-01-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from an email...:

"Hangzhou PSB (the police force - ed) told me that if a child born of at least one Chinese parent was born in China, then the child is considered to be Chinese. Though you have registered her birth through the consulate and applied for her British passport, she could not exit from China without going through the following step 1 & step 2 first.

1) Her Chinese Hukou needs to be registered in the Police Station in Gansu where her mother's is located. (that's 2000km away from where we live). The Hangzhou official told me that the details requirements could be very different in different cities.

2) After Francesca’s Hukou is registered, she needs to apply for a single-use Chinese travel document in Gansu PSB to allow her to leave China.

3) After she leaves China and arrives in the UK, she can go to a Chinese embassy and apply for a visa to come to China. "

Crap.

And we're off

2007-01-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

So here I am, another day another taxi, off to university for the first time in 19 years. Classically underprepared (I think - I haven't made it through all 400 pages of material I received in December yet) trying to convince myself that it seems very unlikely I'll be the least prepared person in class.

Hopefully everyone is in the same boat of worrying about what this experience is going to be like. To be honest I am fairly nervous for fear of letting myself down. Clearly need to allocate my time better to avoid feeling under-prepared though.

Undoubtedly there's going to be a bunch of smart people in the room but it seems very unlikely that they're all more capable than me at everything. So why can't I chill out?

On Leaving Singapore

2007-01-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

Singapore is "Heaven on Earth" - sorry Hangzhou, you're nice but Marco Polo had clearly never been to Singapore. Then again various theories say he never came to Hangzhou either.

Singapore is clean and green, virtually free from serious crime, warm all year round, stable government, good business environment, etc., etc.

Even the airline is fantastic. Just flown for the first time in Singapore Airline's new First Class cabin. Big widescreen TV, superb menu and a seat wide enough to fit me, YY and Frankie side-by-side (not that they were there but you get my drift)..

Possibly the only downside from relocating there at some point would be that Frankie would probably end up having to do National Service. Clearly I'm much too old for anyone to even try that with me.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, is cold, drab, polluted (ok, I accept it's not entirely their own fault).

Taxi drivers are also much less likely to speak English (although the driver of the one I'm in right now can speak putong(ish)hua so that helps. Still, doing an MBA in Hong Kong would seem to be the ideal time to try to pick up some Cantonese on the side.

One slight irritant is that this is the first year that the HK authorities have insisted that the EMBA students need student visas. With a British passport I could enter Hong Kong for 6 months. With my student visa applied, that's reduced to 7 days. Aside from the fact that processing my entry took 4 times longer than before, the 'Student' entry stamp is so big they will only get one per page - not good as I need to come 20 times this year!

Singapore is not China

2007-01-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

Despite a large percentage of the population (over 70%, apparently) being ethnically Chinese, Singapore bears absolutely no resemblance to China.

OK, there are a lot of people that speak Mandarin (or possibly Manglish – it’s much more likely to have English strewn at various points in the sentences) but they absolutely do not think of themselves as “Chinese”.

To that end, there is a survey in the (Singapore) Sunday Times that reflects Singaporeans views of Mainland Chinese workers.

1. Hardworking
2. Rude
3. Greedy

(it’s not a very scientific survey but they could have picked honest, intelligent, selfish, condescending or sophisticated. By contrast Indian and Filipino migrant workers are Hardworking, Intelligent and Honest).

Chinese Talent (it doesn’t define the distinction but I can safely say that “worker = blue collar, talent = white collar) doesn’t fare much better as they are perceived of as:
1. Hardworking
2. Intelligent
3. Rude
3. Greedy

So, more intelligent but otherwise unrefined.

The article does then go on to interview someone to justify why these perceptions are too harsh and suggests that if you ask a Chinese worker what salary they are looking for they may say “The more the better” when what they’re really saying is “If it can be just a bit higher than the market rate that would be great” and that “with greater business dealings and cultural exchanges between Singapore and China, the misconception will surely disappear over time”.

To suggest that the idea that some Chinese people are not ‘greedy’ or ‘rude’ and that this is a misconception would seem to be reaching realms of fantasy.

A lot of the characteristics people harp on about (spitting, constantly trying to rip people off, not caring if you live-or-die) of the older, less-educated, less well travelled people must serve to embarrass the younger, more professional types. I’ve had many a conversation over the last few years with Chinese of all ages who hate the pushing and shoving rather than queueing, the spitting, the complete disregard for others and the attempt to rip people off.

Obviously this survey is creating a gross generalisation here. A similar survey right now might suggest that "working class" people in the UK are all foul-mouthed, ignorant, ill-educated, ill-mannered racists who can't pronounce "Shilpa". But the point of gross generalisations is, of course, that you notice the people who have these characteristics more than you don't (for example, you can't miss the people that spit but you don't pay attention to the 10 other people that don't).

Yet again, it is another PR problem. People don’t necessarily know who the ‘Chinese’ talent are (apart from the fact they probably speak slightly more standard English without the Singlish sentence structures) but people can spot a gang of Chinese construction workers easily enough. That way the perception quickly comes that ‘all Chinese people are…’.

I don’t think that increased business dealings and international exchanges can change people’s perceptions because it is a fact that some Chinese people have these characteristics. Just like the recently published guide for Chinese tourists acknowledges that some behaviours have damaged "the image of China as a civilized country". Hopefully business dealings and international exchanges can change people’s actions to prevent these perceptions coming about in the first place.

So, what about us Europeans? What do Singaporeans think of us? Apparently we're

1. Intelligent
2. Creative
3. Condescending

Ah, OK. I guess given the character traits of the average expat in the business community, that's probably about right...

Nokia N73 Dissapoints

2007-01-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

The Nokia N73 phone has a fantastic specification list and on that note meets all of my requirements:

Phone with handsfree
Long talk time
Good battery life
3.1 megapixel camera
English/Chinese dictionary
Syncs with Outlook
Able to access Gmail easily

Unfortunately it has one massive drawback that let's down all of the above and that is that the processor speed is simply inadequate for the task.

The whole point of a camera in a phone is for those opportunities where you chance upon something unexpected, where you are unlikely to have a camera on you and that's where it disappoints.

For example - from the back of the taxi you get the 'what's that? That's interesting. Grab phone. Slide camera cover open. Wait. Wait. Wait. Damn the taxi's set off again'.

I guess on a phone that has a button marked 'clock' on the main menu that takes 3 full seconds to display the time is, inevitably, going to be more complicated with something like a camera but, it's still rubbish.

Verdict: 4/10. Great phone, ruined.

The Pace of Change

2007-01-07T03:51:00.000-08:00

China's Beaureaucratic Machine is certainly not a well-oiled one at the moment. In the space of the last few weeks, we have been struck twice by examples of the inability for one part of the machine to communicate with another and twice again by complete bolts from the blue.

1) Personal Taxation: In Early November I received this update from PwC that highlights new requirements for the personal declaration of Individual Income Tax. The regulations introduced in November apply to 2006 and require that I (and an awful lot of other people) now have to file a personal tax return. Previously that was done by one's employer but this has to be done in addition. So far the deadline (March 31st 2007) is quite clear but, as the PwC article points out, exactly what is, or isn't, in scope for expatriates is as yet unclear. Contacting my local tax bureau reveals that they appear to be just as surprised as we are by the introduction of this new rule so, despite the looming deadline, they don't know what we need to report, or how.

2) Street Names: We arrived in China just after three roads (文一, 文二 and 文三) had their western names renamed to something completely different causing no end of fuss because the taxi drivers didn't know where 文新 road (formerly West 文二) was. No sooner did they get the hang of it when they were all renamed again to (文一西, 文二西 and 文三西) roads (西 meaning West).

Well, it's happened again. I missed the turn for one of our offices because I was looking out for the road name on the street signs. It was only after I realised I'd passed the office and had to turn round that I realised that the name of the road has been changed. Raising this with my admin staff to check the facts, they assure me that they have contacted the post office who are adamant that 伟业路, the new name that's on the signs right outside of our office, is in fact in a completely different part of town. I guess we don't need to change our stationery as long as the post office thinks the name hasn't changed but it might deter our clients from calling.

3)Housing Benefit - This is a popular employment benefit for most staff where employers can contribute up to 15% of salary (which is free of tax, thus popular) to the 'housing fund'. This, the employees can use to buy a house, pay mortgage payments, etc. The employee has to contribute a matching portion, again, tax free.
The government has suddenly announced a very significant drop in the amount that can be paid in to the housing fund. It seems very likely that this will lead to employee dissatifaction with the employer (rather than the government) unless the employer does something to compensate but, giving the cash instead of the benefit will still result in a significant net loss to the employee as it will all become taxable. This leaves the employer in the irritating position to be faced with either significant staff dissatisfaction or significant extra cost.

4) Local Medical Taxes - Another sudden introduction in December starting Jan 1st. All Chinese staff suddenly find their compulsory government medical insurance taxes increasing by, wait for it, 4300%. OK, it's only 4RMB/month now but increasing it to 88 RMB in one go is quite a leap. At the same time, the employer contribution increases from 0 to 2.5% of salary, increasing the misery of the housing benefit change.

As an employer, this is one of the great irritants of doing business in China - it's not that the employment landscape changes but, like much of Chinese business life, everything happens suddenly and often in completely incomprehensible ways.

It is very difficult to get a complete picture of the landscape any point in time, let alone keep up with the changes. When we first came to China we asked everyone we could find about all of the benefits, taxes, fees, surcharges and miscellaneous laws that would cost us money and people told us all sorts of things. Despite knowing about pension contributions, housing benefit, income tax, corporation tax, sales tax, VAT, birth insurance and the like, no-one mentioned that we would have to pay stamp tax (on every contract we sign), water conservancy tax, a fine for not having any disabled staff (effectively a tax)... and that was just the position on October 1st 2003.

I think this only happens in China

2007-01-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

I know I'm no expert at baby wrangling but I'm sure I'd have heard about this if it happened in the UK and I'm sure it doesn't.

Just before the turn of the year, Frankie and YY concluded 满月 during which time the neither of them are technically allowed to leave the apartment or terrible ills will befall them. This is not, you understand, in the form of a curse, more an extension of hyperchondria. YY getting a cold a week or so ago was, apparently, because she'd taken a shower a week after getting home from the hospital. Any suggestion that she was nice and warm in the shower and that we'd cranked up the aircon so the bedroom was also nice and warm was dismissed.

Note: You get plenty of free advice when you have a baby in China.

One popular practice is to 剃头发, that is to shave your baby's head, as a means of ensuring healthy hair growth so, that meant a trip to "Being Mate Love World" - a shop I was mystified as to its nature on my first trip to Hangzhou but, it turns out, it's just like Mothercare on methamphetamines.

The growing numbers of wealthy middle class parents with, typically, one child on which to lavish their attention are clearly a ripe target for extracting large quantities of cash on 'things you only get to do once to show your love for your child' so, as well as getting a haircut, Frankie was also booked in for a photoshoot before and after the shave.

By shave, I really do mean shave as the photos will prove:

1) Deep in thought. Apparently not really sure about this.
2) Not sure this Mao Zedong appreciation society is really for me.
3) Nothing compares 2 U

After the shave the hard sell really kicks in. I thought we were going to get a few photos but when it is ever that easy (witness my 17 hour wedding photography ordeal). We ended up ordering a glass ornament inscribed with Frankie's birth details and a stamp of her right hand a foot (a palaver in itself) and a paint brush made from her hair.

Next stop was swimming or at least, floating with a rubber ring round your neck.

It does seem like it would be good exercise and might help with development but, does this go on elsewhere? Shops with large glass tanks full of babies? People might mistake them for menu items.

So, tagged eh?

2006-12-29T06:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks(!) to J at the Granite Studio for tagging me. There are an awful lot of China blogs out there now and, most of them have more readers than this one so it's nice to think that I've managed to make someone chuckle...

The assignment was "7 successes in 2006" or "5 things most people don't know about you". I was already working on the successes as a round up of 2006 so that's probably too easy so I'm going to take on both tasks at once.

7 Successes

1) This one's too easy - that has to be the birth of Frankie. OK, one could argue that my part in the whole process was very straightforward compared to the part YY had to play in the overall process but one can hardly list ones successes and miss off one's first born child.

2) Likewise, the fact that I am, as of today, again (darn you Christmas) technically no longer overweight. In addition to 24th December this is only the second day of my adult life that I'm not, technically overweight. Ironically I also managed to stumble across this article which implies that by dropping my BMI just below 25 my risk of Parkinsons disease actually increased.

3) A related success is the fact that I can run 10km. Not quickly I'll grant you but most importantly, I can run 10km. You can't do that when you weigh 290 pounds. Or, at least, I couldn't.

4) I have driven 7255km, in China, without doubt the country with the poorest average standard of driving that I've had the misfortune to drive in. I have (reaches for the nearest bit of wood) managed this without so much as a scratch on the car whereas I'd always imagined that I would have a trail of mangled bicycles, wheelbarrows and pedestrians in my wake.

5) I got accepted onto an EMBA course that the FT ranked #3 in the world this year.

6) I've participated in the winning of two sporting trophies (Softball and 10-pin Bowling). To my recollection that makes my lifetime total, er, two.

7) I hope I've managed to wean myself off television in record time. In only 8 days since I've realised the true extent of my upcoming time dilemma I've simply gone cold turkey and, I don't miss it at all.

So, onto 5 things you don't know about me.

1) I've always blamed Charles M. Shultz for the reason that I stopped playing the piano when I was a child. Something that I eternally regret. Lucy made a comment to Linus about her liking "Bach's Toccata and Fugue in Asia Minor" and, being too young to get it, I tried to show interest in my subject by using what I thought was a clever reference, only for her to be completely bemused. It was shortly afterwards that I realised the gaffe on my part and somehow never regained my composure.

2) I really, really don't understand poetry. I might, in the past, have said that I've enjoyed some poems. In reality, that's a lie.

3) There is a drawer in my kitchen that, for some reason (probably relating to the fact that it's China), contains a small ball bearing. Every time I open the drawer, the ball bearing rolls to the front of the drawer and makes me jump, thinking there's some horrible creepy-crawly in the drawer. When I'm done, I shut the drawer without removing and discarding the ball-bearing.

4) The mere sight of capers makes me feel nauseous.

5) Despite the fact that my favourite music includes such illustrious metal bands as Rammstein, Metallica and Linkin Park, I have an inexplicable soft spot for the musical Oklahoma. Not only is it the only musical that I enjoy but I deplore all others.

So, time to spread the joy.

Argy Bargey - As my small band of regular readers will know JP was knocked down by a bus recently and has been on blogging hiatus since then. Hopefully with a quick tag he will spring back into action.

Troubled Diva - One of the most interesting, witty, and long established, bloggers I know.

Anchored Nomad - By her own admission, a bit of a mommy blog over the last few weeks but who hasn't posted a fair bit about the birth of their first born daugher, ahem. I've been a regular reader since this post.

Reluctant Nomad - Because I like nomads

Triviality - Far for me to come up with a list with no China related content...

You're it.

Oh, and a special mention should be made to Magnús who appeared recently in my comments about Getting Married in Lanzhou. Magnús, I don't know if you blog or not, as your profile is private, but, if you are, I for one would like to read how you're getting on.

How do you make a 3 day holiday?

2006-12-27T20:54:00.000-08:00

If you had to decide how best to implement a three day holiday out of a weekend (December 30th and 31st 2006) and a public holiday Monday (January 1st 2007), how would you do it?

Me, I'd think, "That's handy, the holiday is right next to the weekend so all I have to do is leave well alone".

Sadly like, er, almost everything in China, Nature is not being allowed to take its course. No wonder baiji never stood a chance.

Instead of working 5 days (Mon-Fri) this week, having the weekend and bank holiday off and working 4 days next week, the government has stipulated that the holiday is actually Jan 1st-3rd this year so most Chinese-Chinese companies (i.e. not ours) are working 7 days this week, including Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st, and then having Monday to Wednesday off next week.

It's completely mad. So, perfectly normal then.

Cool Yule

2006-12-24T05:41:00.001-08:00

My Family, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

Merry Christmas everyone. Well, of course it's only Christmas Eve but, tomorrow is a working day here in China (and will presumably continue to be one for a long time).

As the only British person over the age of 1 in my house, it fell to me to prepare Christmas dinner which took a fair bit of planning. As expected, I'm pretty sure the only person who really enjoyed the meal was me but I think the others fared reasonably well. About the only thing missing were crackers but you can't have everything.

Despite being in China, with the help of the City Supermarket in Shanghai and two hotels I managed to put on a fair imitation of Christmas dinner. I do have an oven but only as part of a combination Microwave so I can only cook one thing at a time, as long as its small but the biggest limitation was the size and design of the average kitchen in China so that I have a two-ring hob and four square feet of ultra-low (back-breaking) worktop to work on. As, rather than preparing one-dish-at-a-time Chinese cuisine, I was aiming for the simultaneous presentation of...

Turkey (OK, this came from a hotel as per previous article)
Sausages wrapped in bacon
Roast Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts with bacon
Turkey Gravy
Bread Sauce (made from bread that I baked)
Cranberry Sauce
Garlic and Chilli Mushrooms
Sage and Onion Stuffing
Chestnut Stuffing

As you can imagine, this leads to an awful lot of juggling of plates, cooking and reheating and, at the end of the day, it all kinda worked out.

Everything was done properly - full use of tablecloths, the entire set of cutlery, and napkins. I even managed to persuade everyone that it was the ideal time to turn the TV off and listen to some light music. The whole thing was all very Christmassy - we even had trifle for dessert. Shame Frankie doesn't know what's going on yet, but next Christmas should be more fun!.

Probably the greatest irony of this Christmas is that I finally arrived at my target weight - 87.7kg - yesterday and was, officially, no longer overweight. Shame that.

Happy Bloomin' Christmas, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

MBA

2006-12-21T01:47:00.000-08:00

So I've mentioned that I'm going to start an EMBA in the new year (I have just 4 weeks of 'freedom') left and have been working on ideas and approaches to get me through. Obvious thoughts are:

1) I am part of a study group (6 others plus myself) spread across parts of Asia and appear to be 'The IT Person' in the group. There is, therefore, some onus on me to propose the use of tools. What I'm thinking we need are:

An instant messaging solution of some sort which facilitates team communications (for my sins I use MSN messenger for friends/family but with 7 people talking at once, questions posted by one person will disappear off the screen and it will be pretty ugly trying to follow the threads).
Web-based collaborative tools to facilitate study and sharing
Repository
Other tools that I haven't really thought through yet (an example might be a bibliography manager but I think it's too early to tell).

None of the tools I currently use seem to fit the bill for these so there's a fair amount of work to be done to evaluate, test, propose and implement some of these tools.

2) I'm trying to organise myself better for the upcoming 'second job' that I will have to do and am working with David Allen's "Getting Things Done" to try to improve my ability to capture everything that's going on around me. P is on a similar path and has me intrigued with tiddlywikis as a means to capture everything.

The idea of capturing 'everything' that I have outstanding is extremely appealing. I do suffer from the 'ooh' realisation that I've forgotten something and just remembered it (sometimes in time, sometimes not) all too often. It sounds like a very cathartic process!

3) I do of course need to find the time to do all of these things. So, some sacrifices are called for. Things in scope for sacrifice are:

TV - I don't know why I bother some times. These days I mostly watch DVDs of TV shows but even ones I enjoy (for example CSI, Alias, Stargate SG-1) aren't exactly a good use of my time.
Blogging - clearly going to take a bit of a back seat
Browsing the web - slightly at odds with 1) but a 'quick look for something specific can easily turn down a myriad of side roads (as the 23 open tabs in Firefox would indicate)
Chinese Lessons - still debating this one - I spend 3 hours a week doing this and I find it interesting and rewarding but it can probably wait for 14 months
Working from home - I don't mean in the 9-5 sense, I mean the fact that I will all-too-often combine TV and 'keeping on top of my email' in the evening. Doubly so because I'm in China working for a UK company so all my UK colleagues start work at 5pm my time.

Things out of scope are:

Family - YY and Frankie - obviously
Exercise - I've simply worked too hard this year to let it all go
Sleep
Listening to Podcasts - OK, at the moment this is typically restricted to time whilst I'm cycling but it is all useful stuff, mainly Radio4, the excellent Manager Tools, and other factual casts.

This is going to take a fair amount of discipline to break out of old habits, but probably what I need to be more effective.

Any of my readers with any suggestions/contributions to how to achieve any or all of the above are most welcome.

Our Office Toilets

2006-12-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

Our Office Toilets, originally uploaded by Ambling Sheep.

I mentioned before that our building management were refurbing all of our toilets. Well.

Because our company now occupies the entire floor they had simply declined to refurbish ours with the argument that 'all of the other toilets were shared but our floor is just for us'. Arguing that we're one of their biggest tenants and pay the same management charge per sq.m. as everyone else has resulted in this.

I got back from paternity leave to discover that the building were proposing this 'compromise'. They have stripped out the old toilets. That's it. They've saved us the strip-out expense. They expect us to refit the new toilets at our expense and, in the mean time, they killed our toilets.

This is rather like the time I asked our builder for a quote to replace an external door. Two days later I came to work and the door and half of the wall were missing. Two days after that the quote for the new door came through. It's a good way of ensuring the business.

Am I the only one?

2006-12-15T00:24:00.000-08:00

Who thinks that this fine fellow (Lǐ Yǒng - a very popular television presenter who is here advertising floorboards) looks like a vampire?

When is a Turkey not a Turkey...?

2006-12-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

So, Christmas is coming and I live in China which means, amongst other things, life without an oven. My lovely new apartment will have one capable of cooking a turkey but as of right now, that's not the case.

So I contact a friend of mine who works in the nearby 5 star hotel who assures me that I can order hot, fresh-cooked turkeys through their main bar. Approaching the bar I was greeted in English so tried asking if I could order a turkey. Reply was 'No'.

So, switching to Chinese I asked the same question. Turkey in Chinese is 火鸡 (huǒ jī - literally fire chicken - don't ask me how that came about!) to which I thought I heard a reply of "啊,大火鸡" (ā, dà huǒ jī = Ah, big turkey!) and started fishing around under the bar, looking for the order forms I assumed.

Not being a smoker, I didn't know the vocabulary 打火机 (dǎ huǒ jī) - cigarette lighter - so was surprised when she reappeared with a box of matches. D'oh!

You come across people who won't listen to you because you're foreign (to whit, I parked in my local Carrefour supermarket and to get free parking you're supposed to tell your licence plate number to the attendant when you arrive (don't ask why he can't just read it off the car when you drive past him). I waited while the two people in front told him their numbers and he wrote them down. I then told him my number. And then again. He looked at me as if I was speaking in tongues and then shoved the piece of paper in front of me and gave me the age-old 'jabby finger' to write my own number down. This in trickier than it sounds because it begins with '浙' - one of the many, many characters I can read but not write. So I have to argue with him to write it down - at some point during this process, he obviously realises I was speaking Chinese and acquiesces.

Other people treat you as if you're simply senile or retarded. I purchased a kettle in the local InTime department store and the assistant carried out the whole transaction as if she were a mime. I did, to be fair, let her continue to do so by not speaking to her until the end as it was quite amusing. My favourite bit as she unboxed the kettle was that she got the instruction booklet out and then pointed to part of a page that was all in Chinese that explained that there was a two year guarantee on the product. I had to chuckle that she's not said a word on the assumption that I can't speak Chinese but then assumes that I can read it.

I guess you need the odd "Turkey=Cigarette Lighter" incident to remind you that you're not easy to understand after all.

Cordyceps Sinensis

2006-12-13T17:32:00.000-08:00

I have seen boxes of Cordyceps in the "Expensive Chinese Medicines Boxed as Gifts" section of the supermarkets here (that is, a tiny amount of Chinese medicine in a huge, otherwise empty, box - it's not the value of a gift that counts here, size is important) but I'd never really paid much attention.

One of my colleagues recently received (and hastily returned) a box of Corsyceps Sinensis. I've been intrigued as to what they are exactly as they look a lot like a dried caterpillar with a stick up its arse. I don't know why I was surprised to find out that that's pretty much what it is, only even more sinister.

The Chinese name on the box was 冬虫夏草, that is Winter Insect Summer Grass. Doesn't sound too bad does it.

Wikipedia puts it like this: ... the fungus infects the caterpillar... Once inside the fungus mycelium ramifies through the host tissue, eventually completely consuming it and replacing the caterpillar body with fungal tissue. At this stage, the fungus grows a usually columnar fruiting body that reaches the surface and releases spores.

So, the medicine is actually the shell of a caterpillar that has been consumed by a flesh eating fungus. Sounds tasty. If you're contemplating eating some, perhaps you might like to watch this video about Cordyceps first. Yum.

One Country, Two Airport Systems

2006-12-07T20:09:00.001-08:00

It would be lovely to think that one of the things that might have come from Hong Kong's return to China in 1997 would be some of the best practices.

There's no wonder that Hong Kong airport keeps winning 'World's Best Airport' awards - it's certainly in my top 3 along with Singapore and Copenhagen.

Chinese airports, and not just the airport but the entire system, is far from ideal. The levels of pointless bureucracy and lack of inter-agency cooperation serve to make the life of the international traveller more miserable than necessary. That's before we get to the issue of the airports themselves being amongst the most tedious airports in the world.

Hangzhou airport is miles outside of town. I'm sure there were good reasons to choose farmer's fields that they did to build the airport on, rather than the farmers fields that you drive past for a full 25 minutes before you arrive at the airport.

Arriving at the airport this morning we couldn't get up the 'departures' ramp because of a taxi slowly discharging its passenger, the cacphony of car horns failing to disturb the two adjacent policemen from the chat.

Then the outbound paperwork. You have to fill out the customs declaration - in theory you fill out two identical copies if you're taking valuables (laptops are specifically mentioned) out of China that you intend to bring back. This morning, I had to explain to the customs officials that they're supposed to stamp one and give it back for use when I return as they merely tried to relieve me of both copies. Invariably, if I fill in one copy I get the 'jabby finger' that points to the fact that I should have filled in two.

That done, there's the departure card and (from time to time when they feel like it) there's an outbound medical questionnaire.

Return is the same - customs declaration, arrivals card and this time definitely a medical questionaire. You can't help but wonder as you sit down and write your name, address and passport number down for the umpteenth time, just why the relevant departments can't at least cooperate and give you one form for all 3 purposes. What on earth do they do with them all anyway?

Hong Kong manages to get away with a single form - with built-in carbon so you don't have to fill in your personal details twice.

I sail through immigration with my 'Frequent Visitor Card' (a far cry from arriving in Pudong airport where all the European flights arrive almost simultaneously so you just have to join the herd), bag on the conveyor by the time I get there and straight onto the waiting airport express train.

Please, Hangzhou and Pudong airport officials. Go to Hong Kong. Watch. Learn.

Woohoo!

2006-12-06T22:24:00.000-08:00

5km in 30 minutes. Must be a lifetime PB.

Speaking Foreign

2006-12-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is that divides the polyglot from us mere mortals, but I don't really understand how people can cope with a working knowledge of multiple languages.

I used to be able to speak German. Not fluently, you understand, but I was quite comfortable with speaking and comprehending German.

These days I believe I can comprehend German almost as well as before. I can still read spoken German aloud and know how to pronounce it. But, I can't "Speak German" to save my life.

This morning, I walked past some Germans speaking German which prompted me to wonder if they could speak English and, if not, if they could speak Chinese. I tried, simply for the fun of it, to produce in my head the German for the phrase "I can understand some German but find speaking German difficult". The phrase I came up with (at the first pass) was "Ich verstehe yi dian dian Deutsch dan shi ich juede spreche Deutsche sehr nan". Hmm. That's not going to fool anyone.

I'm convinced for the non-polyglots amongst us our brains tend to have 'native language' and 'foreign language' sections and that doing something like moving to China having studied German for years at school and evening classes simply leads to the 'foreign' section becoming overwritten. I definitely had some of this problem when I was at school trying to deal with French and German side by side but the virtual non-use of German for the last 4 years (apart from singing along with Rammstein tracks) has left my German ability corrupt and unusable.

The supporting evidence for the 'native' and 'foreign' brain components is also quite ably seen. I know I do this myself but have evidence from others that the act of being 'abroad' switches on the 'foreign' component, even when you don't want it to (e.g. pete saying 谢谢 to people who opened doors for him in Osaka, and basil asking the hotel receptionist about 'le petit dejeuner' when we were in Bologna).

It may well be that this afflicts British people quite badly as we are generally not reknowned for our superior language skills, instead typically relying on other people to be able to speak English but it is jolly irritating.

Roller Coaster

2006-12-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

Even with the (sort of, curse you Blogger) live blogging, I don't think I fully captured the range of emotions I went through whilst in 'The Vacuum' that is birth via surgery taking place in a foreign country in such a way that you can't see what's going on and you have no information.

Honestly, you can't help it after a while. I admit that I was pretty upset the first time that YY disappeared downstairs and it was a relief that she briefly came back so that I could at least say what I wanted to say before she went for surgery.

I do, as is probably clear from my blog, tend to 'overthink' things. This meant the following:

Hour 1:
Trying not to worry about it - all perfectly normal at this point. They do this sort of thing all the time. Etc.

Hour 2:
Surely they should be back any minute. Didn't the people in the next bed say it took just over an hour? Does this mean there's a problem? What if there's a problem with the baby? Will they just bring the baby back and tell me bluntly? What if there's a problem with the operation.

End of hour 2:
My baby's arrived. It's a girl! Knew that ultrasound couldn't be trusted. But, where's YY. How can I enjoy this when I don't know if my wife is alive or dead. There must be hundreds of cases where the baby is delivered OK and then there are complications with the woman.
I'm sure that having my brand new baby here should be fantastic and exciting and it is but... how can I possibly enjoy it not knowing if my wife is alive or dead. When would they tell me if there was a problem. Argh!

End of hour 3:
She's back. They're both back! Floods of relief. More so than happiness at the new baby is the joy that everyone's alive and well.

Everyone came home on Saturday so we've been settling in and slowly getting back to normal. Obviously, this is the 'new' normal that includes Frankie as she didn't really appear in the 'old' normal.

Anyone following the Flickr links will be able to follow the veritable fashion parade that Frankie's been going through, including this little ensemble. Well, the doctors did say it was going to be a boy...

Getting Married in Lanzhou

2006-11-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

I don't normally take requests... but as Magnús asked so nicely so here (to the best of my recollection) is a guide for a British person marrying a Chinese person with a Hukou of Lanzhou.

Clearly the whole business of getting married is the subject of much confusion. To my wife’s family, the part in Lanzhou where we obtained the marriage certificate was a mere formality (and one that most villagers might see as an unnecessary expense) but, clearly to the British Consulate, the fact that we’d had a big banquet whilst dressed in new, red clothes wasn’t quite formal enough.

There is information on the British Embassy website that was of use to me but that seems to have been simplified over the last year. This being China, it would seem likely that the It also wouldn't surprise me if the rules in China didn't change regularly, and for that matter, be interpreted differently by different officials. Amongst the things that we produced (based on warnings posted on various websites) that were not needed were:

A set of translations of every single document we had
A document from the British Consulate confirming the nationality of my ex-wife

A quick trawl of the web also reveals all sorts of documents that we didn’t need:

To actually get married in the Lanzhou 民政厅 we just needed the following:

Cash: not sure how much but it’s not a huge amount
Photos of the two of us - actually a single, wide photo of the two of us side-by-side. The photo shop in Hangzhou we went into knew what was required. At least three photos (one for the marriage bureau and one for each of the two marriage certificates - you get one each!)
ID: Passport, ID Card, Hukou booklet - you will need photocopies of these so take copies of every page with personal info on it. We didn't and, despite the presence of a photocopier in the room next door to the marriage bureau, we had to go out in the street and find a shop with a photocopier (if you fall foul of this, come out of the Lanzhou marriage bureau building and turn right. There's a little signwriter's just after a small road junction with a photocopier.
Letters of eligibility to marry. YY obtained hers from the PSB office in her home village and it was just a hand written note. I had to obtain mine from the British Consulate in Shanghai (although it would have been doable via a registry office in the UK). The process is slightly complicated that you (just the British Citizen) need to attend the Consulate or Embassy after you have been in China for at least 21 consecutive days, then you need to wait for 21 days before they will issue the certificate (although you may leave China during the 21 days after application). A quick look at the US embassy website implies that this process is peculiar to British law as there’s no mention of waiting for 21 days.

What you need to apply in the British Consulate (it would seem likely to be similar at
other consulates) is:

Your full name and place of residence.
Your partner's full name and address in English.
Chinese partner's name and full address in Chinese characters.
Details of your marital status, i.e. bachelor / spinster / divorced.
If you have been previously married or you are a widower, we need to see an original divorce decree or death certificate.

This will clearly be different if you apply in your home country and, unlike the consulate, they won’t produce a version of the certificate in Chinese so you will need to take the certificate you your local Chinese embassy or consulate for translation and notarisation.

With all of that, there’s not really much to it. Fill in a form or two when you’re there, wait in a soulless little grey office and then without any ceremony of any sort, you get your marriage certificates and your done. Seems very matter-of-fact for such an important life event.

Correct Answer

2006-11-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

(note: to prevent any confusion - this post is referring to my car. Sorry History Elephant...)

5. There's something wrong with the air intake which, thankfully, took 15 minutes to diagnose and fix.

Kangaroo Tucson

2006-11-29T19:13:00.001-08:00

Q: When is a Hyundai Tucson not a Hyundai Tucson?

A: When it's a kangaroo.

Firstly, however, the important news... YY and Frankie continue to do well. YY's struggling a bit now the anaesthetic is all out of her system but is making good progress. Poor little Frankie got bitten by her first mosquito yesterday but is still a lovely little thing. I am finding it to be difficult to be as happy as I thought I would be simply because YY is in a lot of pain at times.

Last night the car decided that it wanted to impersonate a kangaroo and hop away every time it started off from stationary. Aside from the unpleasant feeling it leaves in the stomach, it seemed likely that this was a precursor to something worse.

Research on the web came up with nothing for kangarooing automatic cars. I have so far assumed that likely problems are:

1. Low quality fuel

2. Clutch problem

3. Gearbox problem

I have just arrived at the car dealer where I bought the car where I have been presented with a new option:

4. I'm an idiot and can't drive an automatic

Now, I might have accepted this were it not the fact that I was perfectly capable of driving an automatic yesterday morning and at all other times over the course of the preceeding year and don't believe that I simply forgot last night.

Fuel quality doesn't seem that likely to me as I drove about 200km since I refuelled on Friday without incident and adding more fuel seems pointless as I still have half a tank.

The idea of breaking down with Frankie in the back in the increasingly cold weather (down to 10 degrees C yesterday) seems an extremely unpleasant one.

Signing Off

2006-11-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

Well, what a day. I'm back at home and YY and Francesca are settling in for the night in the hospital.

I'm afraid Blogger turned out to be a fairly useless product for live blogging from a Blackberry and I'm a bit disappointed that this entry (done through the Blogger interface) will appear long before the last three or four entries that I emailed to Blogger.

Suffice to say that Francesca was born in good health by Caesarian section. YY eventually was returned from the Operating Room and appears in good health and good spirits, albeit absolutely knackered and with no feeling in her legs.

Thanks for the well wishes received thus far and apologies to anyone who didn't get an email or a text thus far.

We Are 3!

2006-11-28T06:04:00.000-08:00

At last, YY is back, Francesca is where she should be and we are one, small happy family.

At times like this life really is sweet.

She's Still Not Back

2006-11-28T05:36:00.000-08:00

It's 3 hours since she went for the op but YY hasn't yet returned. A doctor has, thankfully, appeared and said everything's OK but I'll be only able to relax when I can see her for myself.

Our daughter (see pics on Flickr) has barely stopped crying since she turned up an hour or so ago. Hopefully that's not an omen for the future.

It's a Girl!

2006-11-28T04:32:00.000-08:00

So much for ultrasound.

8 pounds 2 ounces.

Information Vacuum

2006-11-28T04:06:00.000-08:00

8pm and all's, er, well I have no idea. We have no information at all.

No, Really

2006-11-28T03:35:00.000-08:00

There's going to be a big groove in the floor before much longer! 7.30pm and no sign.

The suspense is killing me

2006-11-28T03:11:00.000-08:00

And The She Was Gone. Again.

2006-11-28T02:21:00.000-08:00

Done properly this time.

6.20pm

And Then She Was Back!

2006-11-28T02:06:00.000-08:00

No sooner had I finished my previous lament then she was back. No, I'm not that slow a typer, she was kicked off the operating table to make room for an emergency. Apparently the other person was screaming the place down so it was probably a good call.

Not that I'm complaining. At least I can do it properly next time.

FYI, it has just turned 6pm here. The date and time on the entries are not this timezone but, presumably that of Blogspot HQ, in turn presumably in California.

And Then She Was Gone

2006-11-28T01:55:00.000-08:00

Heartless bastards.

I had nipped to the loo only to find YY on a trolley being wheeled away. I managed to catch up with her just as the lift doors were closing only for the nurse who had wheeled her in to block our (me and YW, YY's sister) and say "You can't come". And the doors closed completely.

I didn't manage a "Good Luck", "be brave" or an "I love you" before she went. For such an important life event, the 'lack of care for the feelings of the others' that is often shown in China really sucks.

Damned French Fries

2006-11-28T01:06:00.000-08:00

The doctor has just been in and said that YY can do the operation now but... The OR was booked for 2.30 and now they're all full.

Time ticks by. YY has suggested that to avoid me getting too tired, I should go home now and come back and see my child tomorrow. In this respect, there should be a picture of her in the dictionary under the definition of 'stoic'.

The same can't be said of her stomach, the emptiness of which is troubling her to the point of distraction. I swear that the Chinese could have taken over the world centuries ago if they didn't have to stop every 6 hours for a hot, cooked meal.

Still Waiting

2006-11-28T00:27:00.000-08:00

One similarity of hospitals everywhere I guess. They tell you a time. You wait until that time and then. Nothing.

Waiting

2006-11-27T22:42:00.000-08:00

Argh. YY managed to steal two French Fries, unbeknown to anyone else, but has just admitted it to the nurse. To be safe, they're delaying the op until 4pm (now 2:30).

Contractions are increasing in frequency and intensity so its happening today one way or the other!

What is it about eating and anaesthesia? Is it just the risk of puking or does the anaestetic actually affect the anaesthesia? Is it the same for all anaesthesia (I can imagine it might have an effect for gaseous anaesthetic, but an epidural?)

Pre-op

2006-11-27T21:55:00.000-08:00

OK, now we're in ECG while YY gets a pre-operative check.

As with many administrative functions in institutions throughout China we're waiting for the one working operative to come free. Of the other 5 staff members present, 2 are fiddling with a computer, one is sending text messages and the other two are braiding each other's hair. The idea that time has a value has yet to come to China!

Well, not quite

2006-11-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

Back at the hospital and YY's been tested for allergy to the epidural anaesthetic and is just waiting, witing, waiting.

Of course, as lunchtime rolled by she fully engaged the Pavlovian reflex of so many here and became absolutely starving - a problem which is now 'worse than the pain of the contractions'.

I'm told that there's no chance I'll be allowed to attend the C-section, which is a bit irritating, but she's perfectly happy with that so I don't want to force the issue and cause her any more stress. I will, of course, be on tenterhooks if anything seems to going wrong and noone tells me anything or, worse, as I can't see what's going on if people babble excitedly in Chinese so I can't understand what they're saying.

Nearly there

2006-11-27T19:47:00.000-08:00

Well, actually I'm in KFC at time of writing getting some sustinance for the events to come. After numerous tests, a Caesarian section has been scheduled for 2.30pm local time. It's getting quite exciting!

Babywatch T+3

2006-11-27T16:45:00.001-08:00

Well, the book (Pregnancy for Dummies - we're a bit short of English language bookshops here) warned it's not necessarily a sudden and obvious process.

The floodgates haven't opened, she hasn't given birth in the car on the way to the hospital but, it looks like things are moving. Having no frame of reference we've been relying on the "How to tell if it's false labour" section and it doesn't seem like it is. So we're in the waiting room now.

As Chinese hospitals don't ban the use of mobile phones (the doctors all use them) some degree of 'live blogging' may occur.

Thanks to the wonders of the lovely Nokia N73 and Flickr, I can upload directly into Flickr from my phone. Any photos will be accessible via the Flickr link on the right hand side of the blog. The Flickr badge shows the last 3 photos I uploaded so if you see pictures of a baby that's probably good news!

Unless this is false labour in which case I'll be back at work shortly...

Babywatch T+2

2006-11-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Well, this is proving to be a bit of a damp squib...

It's 2 days past the due date and all is well but, still no sign of a baby. Whilst it's a bit anticlimactic, I guess I should be grateful that I've already had 2 more nights of decent sleep than I anticipated.

New Ayi, New Danger

2006-11-26T19:02:00.000-08:00

Xiao Hu, for all her faults, had one saving grace for me, in that she had her own home so for more than 12 hours every day, she wasn't in mine.

Zhou Ayi, on the other hand, doesn't. She's moved into our spare room/nursery - only for the next 6 weeks or so until we've established a routine as, frankly, I know as much about baby rearing as one would be know about how to disassemble and reassemble a Mark III Cortina having read the Haynes* manual and I'm not sure YY knows much more.

Now, I normally find cooking to be quite a pleasurable experience. Starting from recipe and ingredient selection, preparation, cooking, eating (of course) and then clearing up. Unfortunately it very rarely works like that here. I don't think people have the same concept of cooking for the sake of cooking any more than people understand that I like going cycling for its own sake, rather than because I'm at point a and need to get to point b.

If ever I try to cook (which hasn't been that often as the kitchen setup makes it fairly unenjoyable) then I always get offers of 'help' from the ayi. Fending off offers of help with whatever I'm doing just leads to her getting on with something else (ok, you don't want me to chop the veg, I'll wash up the implements that you've used...) rather than simply going away.

This morning was the first time this has happened to me over breakfast and, whilst it's a fairly simple affair, breakfast has more significance to me in that it really is my 'me time'. I potter about the flat, 5 days a week, from 6 o'clock on. Sometimes leaving for work at 6:45, sometimes not until 8. Sometimes YY will get up, other times not. It's all good.

This morning I was faced with Zhou Ayi and her determination to 'help me' by trying to wrestle me away from my simmering oats and not-quite warmed up espresso machine. We settled on a draw in that she made the coffee and I carried on the oats to completion, but inside I know I lost.

I hope she's going to be kept occupied when the baby comes because I don't want to go through this battle every morning. I think whatever I do, I'm going to end up losing face because cookery, after all, isn't "a man's work".

*Actually - the Haynes manual crack isn't as silly as it sounds as looking for the hyperlink I see there is a Haynes manual for baby rearing...

Babywatch. T+1

2006-11-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

Still nothing.

Babywatch T-0

2006-11-25T08:57:00.001-08:00

The countdown today reached zero. Nothing happened. More news live, as it happens.

Who Ate All The Pies?

2006-11-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

I spotted an article in the BBC News Magazine the other day about the use of the BMI measurement to determine people's status about whether they are; underweight, normal, overweight or obese.

The reporter found some 'men on the street' who were on the fat side and weighed them. Most were 'surprised' to learn that they were obese and gave a series of tired old excuses that they were either 'a good size for their height' or 'big boned' or the old chestnut 'well, muscle's heavier than fat'. All this is, of course, rubbish. Even scarier, there were a number of reader comments backing up these claims and saying that the men looked just fine.

Its not really a surprise to me. As I've mentioned before, as I'm sure others have, when you live in China and return home to the UK everyone (ok, not everyone - there are a large number of shapely Eastern European immigrants) appears enormous.

If the survey is anything to go by, the main problem with obesity in the UK is that people are accustomed to flab. Everyone else is fat so you don't feel fat and convince yourself that the scales are misleading and the BMI scale inapplicable.

This is, clearly, a particularly vicious circle. As people get fatter, fatness becomes more socially acceptable so the pressure to lose weight fades. And the queues at the diabetes clinics get longer and longer.

In order to lose weight, I can recommend a low carb, calorie controlled diet with lots of excercise.

In order to get it into your head that you're not actually 'a good size' but are, in fact, 'fat as a pig' I recommend you move to China.

However, you'd better hurry. Globalisation brings with it KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut and a correspondingly high carb diet. Its only a matter of time before "Fat Camp for Kids" starts screening here.

Fortunately I got here just in time. Today marks a loss of 40kg since this time last year. With a BMI of 25.9 I have 4kg to go to reach the top end of a 'normal' weight. It's notable that people here are just beginning to say 'You should stop losing weight or you'll look too thin'. When I was 16kg heavier in July, people in the UK were saying the same thing.

An Ayi for an Ayi

2006-11-24T04:22:00.001-08:00

Today I came home to find Zhou Ayi settling in to the spare room which was a bit of a surprise.

Xiao Hu has been with us for about 2 years now. She is somewhat bereft of common sense but has, over the years, picked up the ability to cook Chili-con-carne, Spag Bol, Chicken Tikka Masala and Fajitas which, at the end of the day, has stopped us replacing her until now.

Unfortunately for Xiao Hu, we don't have faith in her child rearing skills to want to let her loose with the new baby. I don't know what she knows about babies but as I only just learnt that her daughter, who is 15 now, has been living in a flat on her own in Sichuan province, 1000 miles away, since Xiao Hu moved to Hangzhou 3 years ago, her childcare skills are in doubt.

Ayis, like imortals, seem to follow 'there can be only one' maxim. I'm sitting typing this in the living room while one hovers in and out of the spare room and the other in and out of the kitchen. If they think about coming out at the same time they repel like magnets. The tension is palpable.

As the time drew close, I'm kind of reluctant to let Xiao Hu go but I can't live with this tension for long. Hopefully the handover will be smooth and swift.

Extreme Water

2006-11-24T01:57:00.000-08:00

James Randi's website contains a lovely critique of Xooma X2O extreme water. I couldn't help noticing that, as Mr Randi points out, the list of elements includes Cadmium and Thallium:

Cadmium, according to Wikipedia: "has no constructive purpose in the human body. This element and solutions of its compounds are toxic even in low concentrations, and will bioaccumulate in organisms and ecosystems."

Thallium. In the news a lot lately as a suspect in the the recent poisoning in the UK of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. According to the venerable BBC Thallium can "...attack the nervous system and internal organs... also cause hair loss, vomiting, and diarrhoea."

A Xooma website (Xooma does very much appear as a 'get rich quick from home' kinda organisation so pinning down the real home of Xooma isn't that straight forward) says their product has these qualities:

Cleanse the kidneys, intestines, and liver
Protect your body from free radical cell damage

I can't help thinking that there's something a bit odd about the marketing strategy for a product that lists two known toxins in the ingredients list for a health product. OK, I'm sure lots of products contain all sorts of toxins in tiny amounts that can't be eliminated, much like the fact that many products contain insect parts which are virtually impossible to eliminate. The key difference is you don't see "contains 36 insect parts per 100g" as part of the advertising!

Bigfoot?

2006-11-23T01:24:00.000-08:00

Oh dear. I fear my child will be in line for footwear trouble in future life...

YY had a scan yesterday during which the doctor said that the baby's feet seemed unusually long. As I'm no stranger to this phenomenon myself (taking a UK 14/US 15/Eur 49.5 shoe) this should probably not be a surprise but as YY takes a Eur 36 I was hoping my child would be spared the pain of not being able to find shoes.

It's bad enough in the UK where you're considered a freak if you go over a size 11 but in China, where most of my shoes are manufactured, it is virtually impossible. As reported in the local newspaper, a local Nike goods distributors said "Why would be stock anything over a size 47 when there's no market for the shoes".

The doc refused to comment this time on whether it was a boy or girl so we are still in limbo. Anyway, we expect to know for sure within the week as the due date is only 2 days away!

Blogspot Unblocked?

2006-11-22T00:11:00.000-08:00

From my site statistics, it looks like access to blogspot blogs has been unblocked, again.

I wish they'd make up their damned minds at the "Great Firewall" HQ as I've just shelled out the money for 12 months web hosting to move my blog away from 'blogspot.com'

Piss

2006-11-20T17:15:00.000-08:00

There was a thread of this title on the, now late-lamented, TalkTalkChina. In it people reeled off tales of terrible toilets (of which China has many). God knows, the public toilets in our building are particularly rank and malodorous.

When my boss visited China, one of the best things to happen was for him to see the public toilets "swimming with piss" (his words) and to let me build some private toilets for our company. Our toilets have cleanliness, translucent windows rather than transparent, aircon, hot water and soap to wash your hands with, and paper towels. The public loos have none of these.

I had thought the public loos were typically fairly bad - there is at least one guy on our floor (not one of ours) - I don't know why he bothers even standing in front of the urinal because he then proceeds to unload directly onto the floor so that it runs backwards between his feet (nice slope for drainage) all the way across the room and into the floor drain.

Faced with that, it's hard to imagine that things could get much worse but... They're refurbishing the toilets at the moment and this weekend they were on our floor replacing the pipework in the ceiling of our toilets that serve the floor above. You might imagine that they'd have drained said pipework before they started but...

I've just popped into the loos on the floor below ours and went quickly through "wow, the stench is worse than normal", "how can anyone pee onto the top of the urinal?", "hang on, there's pee on top of all the urinals", "uh-oh - it's not just pee".

Looking up at the ceiling all I could see were hundreds of liquid droplets, all poised to fall. One has never finished one's business so hurriedly...

If there's an outbreak of Cholera on the second floor, at least we'll know why.

Cool School Transport

2006-11-20T07:13:00.000-08:00

How cool would it be to have gone to school like this! You even get to do your homework on the way!

Time

2006-11-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

Life. Don't talk to me about Life. Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to insert pretty much anything I had to do this week with regard to work. Call that job satisfaction? 'Cause I don't."

Everything, and I mean everything, is a bit nuts at the moment - hence the lack of posting this last month.

1) Work - I'm sure it's not an actual conspiracy but, I'm short-handed in the world of management at the moment so the wierdest combination of events has inevitably transpired in a time-sucking, head-in-hands kind of way. Managing a company in China really can seem like herding cats at times.

2) Apartment - Fitout of my apartment is pressing on. I'm not on top of it as I'd like and, given the expense, I'm conscious that if doesn't end up how I'd like it I'm going to be very unhappy. The few visits I've made to my apartment aren't particularly helpful because the work that's going on is so chaotic, I've no idea how it's going to end up. For example, witness my living room from a couple of weeks ago. If you count carefully, there are 8 people just in this room!

3) Baby! In theory there's just over a week to go! It still seems unreal that I'm going to be a dad in just over a week (or a couple of hours - the uncertainty adds to the excitement). We're accumulating a large number of baby items that only time will tell whether they are, or are not, useful - no thanks to "The ultimate shopping experience for new and expectant parents" as they style themselves, who have singularly failed to impress me in any way with their approach to getting the stuff I've already paid for from the UK to China.

4) The car has transpired to go a bit wonky - slight problem with the steering which thankfully has been fixed now and only stole half a day of my time. Driving continues to be a slow and frustrating experience, such as the picture below - one of the cars up ahead has dinged the bumper of another so we sit, and sit, and sit, until the policeman (pictured, thankfully) releases the scene.

5) My Neighbours are definitely conspiring to deny me a satisfying night's sleep at the weekends. It's Saturday and I'd like just a little bit more sleep than usual, but no. The apartment above mine actually houses a company which supplies greeters, girls that stand by the door of shops and events wearing a qipao. This morning at about 6:30 a gaggle of greeters arrived and proceeded to run back and forth across our bedroom ceiling wearing high-heeled shoes. Going and complaining gave us about 5 minutes of respite before they started again...

6) I've just been accepted to an Executive MBA programme, which is fantastic but does mean from January I'll have less spare moments than ever! There will be more on this later, I'm sure.

7) Fitness regime continues. I am, again, lighter today than any day in the last 20 years. I'm working with a personal trainer at the gym, getting out on my new road bike at least twice a week (although winter is fast approaching...) and managed to run 2 miles in 20 mins twice this week. Whilst not a huge feat for a vast number of people, I'm really not convinced that I have ever run that far, that fast. If proof were needed that I've pushed myself further than ever I had, what I realised (unfortunately - did take the edge off it a bit) that I was experiencing a state of euphoria shortly after the first run. Still - 38kg down, 5.9kg to go!

8) Blogspot has been blocked again (surely it can't all be the fault of Chinabounder) so I'm in the process of setting up Ambling Sheep as its own site and off of Blogspot. Apologies to anyone trying to go to ambling-sheep.com as there will be a brief delay as my chosen hosting service neglected to mention that in order to set up, they had to post you an activation code. Seems a bit mad to me that an internet company has to send a piece of paper half way round the world before they can give me service! I'll look forward to hours trying to get that to work.

Sorry for the long "What I did in the last two weeks" diary entry - it seemed more interesting in my head. Normal service at some point...

First Night

2006-11-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

As you know, JP was hit by a bus. Fortunately (!) it was right outside our office so people at our company knew about it straight away.

Apparently the ambulance was delayed getting to the scene enabling journalists to arrive there first. This, obviously, made the Hangzhou Bus Company very nervous because they committed to having someone from their company present at the hospital at all times and to foot the bill for any treatment.

JP did go to the Tongde hospital where (contrary to the newspaper article) he did not undergo surgery, only a CT scan, and was rapidly moved to the Zhejiang #2 Hospital which is larger and apparently where the Bus Company send all their top officials. By the time I got there, they were going to take him for a new CT scan.

So, we went with him (on a trolley, his head and hands covered in blood) to the CT room which involved going up two floors in a lift. Which stopped 2 inches higher than the floor so thud went the trolley and 'Ow!' went JP. Bizarrely we then had to go down a steep ramp and hope JP wouldn't slide off the trolley.

In the CT scan room, there was one attendant who told us that we'd have to move him onto the CT machine ourselves as he couldn't do it so, trained IT staff and bus company officials that we were, we carried out the move. As they'd installed a drip (it's a default reaction in Chinese hospitals - you've got an injury, they put you on a drip - you've got a cold, they put you on a drip - etc.) they just left one of our staff in the room holding the bottle and ran away themselves to avoid the x-rays.

The really exciting part happened when the results came back and the neurosurgeon came to review them. He said "There's definitely bleeding in the skull and contusion to the brain which is causing swelling. It might be best to wait a few hours and repeat the CT but there is a risk if the bleeding continues. Alternatively it might be best to operate now to relieve the pressure but there's obviously risks associated with operating on his brain. What do you want me to do?"

The straightforwardness of that question simply stunned me. So, the consultant neurosurgeon says "It might be a good idea to operate, or it might be a good idea to wait" and then says we (a bunch of his colleagues) are expected to make the decision, without him expressing any opinion as to which way this should go. We protest that a) we're not his family, so it's not our decision to make, b) we're a bunch of IT people and aren't equipped to make that decision and would expect him as a brain surgeon to make a recommendation.

He refused, several more times, to even hint as to which direction the decision should go. JY, a Chinese colleague explained that obviously this is a terrible dilemma and we shouldn't be in this position, but the neurosurgeon is in fear of his career because the press already knew about this 'story' so if anything went wrong his career could be over. I explained that in my opinion, if the Neurosurgeon wouldn't make a recommendation, I believe that, in itself, would be an act of gross negligence on his part.

Fortunately we had a backup plan - what a wonderful investment the insurance was. We were very quickly put in touch with a Dr. Vargus based in Beijing and were able to photograph the CT scans which I emailed to Dr. V.

It was a breath fresh air to get the call saying "I've reviewed the CT scans and there's no need to operate immediately - wait and get another CT done in the morning" - not only was it the voice of common sense (accepting responsibility for the decision) but also the result we were hoping for as we still hadn't tracked down any of JP's family by that point.

My biggest question in all this is, if this happened to me, and if I was in some random part of the city where my family and colleagues didn't know I'd been injured, would the bus company officials be the ones making the "Should we operate or not?" decision and, more worryingly, would they actually do so?

JP is Back!

2006-11-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

To everyone's relief, JP is back in the UK and even back at work (in case you don't know what I'm talking about, read this first).

I have refrained up to this point for blogging more about what was happening as:
a) The outcome wasn't clear so it all seemed rather morbid
b) Friends of JP read my blog and what I had to say would probably have worried them silly
c) I wasn't clear whether JP would be happy with me writing about him in such detail

Happily, now he's back and has said "Write what you like" then I shall. More shortly.