2 weeks in China, and I have already had a boatload of new experiences. 

1. I hired an Ayi (domestic helper) for the first time on Monday.  I was more nervous than she was!  She found it quite funny that I store clothes in the kitchen and don't cook (the apartment is a little small), and that I have more clothes in my temporary luggage than her usual clients have in total.
2. I spent 2.5 hours buying a cellphone and sim card in a "China Mobile" office that resembled the DMV.  They could have sold me one in 5 minutes, but I needed a "fapiao" (receipt) and so had to go through legitimate channels.
3. I'm at work for the 7th day in a row, and will be working my 8th tomorrow.  All of China has a national holiday on May 1-7, which means that April 23-30 are working days.  They aren't kidding when they say workdays either no "Working from Home."
4. I'm apartment shopping and have seen so many interesting apartments.
   1.  Brand new studios that barely fit a queen sized bed for RMB2800 (approx $360/month). 
   2. Soviet bloc style houses, with 6 stories and identical courtyards with the little "bike houses."
   3. Apartments on the 4th floor, which cost 10% less than those on the 8th floor.
   4. Really ratty looking apartment entry ways with nice well kept apartments in them.

All in all I'm a little intimidated about the whole affair, but I remind myself: streeeeetch the comfort zone :)

 

Beijing is awesome for shopping when you don’t have a firm idea of what you want. There is tons of items, attractively priced, and people eager and willing to sell them to you. However, for a non-native Chinese speaker with a specific shopping list, things can be a bit trying.

On Sunday Cody and I went to Hailong Market, a ginormous 6-story building filled with cameras, PCs, cell phones, MP3 players, monitors, digital translators, GPS devices, and any other electronic gadget you can think of. We had 2 things on our list:

• Wireless Router
• An adaptor that would take a 220 volt socket and convert it to a 110 socket.

To get us started we tried to translate the items into Pinyin and Chinese – approximately.

 

We got in a cab, and headed towards the market. Immediately, as we stepped in people started shouting “Sir! Sir!” at Cody: extremely excited to see a tall blonde big-spender.

 

Finally through pointing drawing pictures, talking very slowly, and a lot of “zai shuo yi zi” (say it again) we communicated to merchant on the 4th floor what we wanted. We were a little surprised that instead of rummaging behind his storefront he ran away at an immense clip. He was back, a few minutes later with a wireless router that he bought from another store; that he was willing to sell to us at the low, low price of 220 Yuan. After a bit of bargaining and a 10% price reduction we closed the deal and went on to look for the adapter.  

The hunt for the adapter was exactly the same. The shopkeeper we ran away, went and bought it, and then brought it back to us suitably marked up. More bargaining ensued.

After consulting with my co-worker Weibin, we found that we hadn’t been ripped off too badly, which made me think:

Hey, I'm not a laowai!

Bizarrable.  That’s the word I will use to describe today’s  “All Hands” meeting. 

The Office here in Beijing is growing, and as is inevitable in large organizations, a sub-org broke off into its own unit, and now reports through a different leader. 

The somewhat older, grandfatherly gentleman giving the talk said that this transition that the new organization was making was similar to marrying off his daughter to a good family.  The new leadership then said that it was wonderful to have such a beautiful daughter marry into the family.  Even KurtD (a VP up in the organization) visiting from Home Base said that he was delighted to be the “Grandfather” of the marriage.  I can’t imagine anything like that going on in America, but it was both bizarre and adorable.  Bizarrable.

News Flash!  I now live in Beijing, China, its been a whirlwind of a week, and I'm finally ready to start blogging again.

 

The cutest thing happened.

I come into work and open my inbox to see an email titled

 

 

Apparently two of my coworkers left after work on Wednesday (and work here ends at 8PM) and got married.  Then came to work the next day! 

 

There are 2 culturally shocking things about this:

1) Getting married after work relatively late at night, on a school night

2) The man sent the blissful "We're Married" email to the whole office! 

 

When we were discussing the marraige, my colleague had only one thing to say: "Welcome to the New China!"

 

I'm happy for them.  Below is a pic of the happy couple.

 

I love my new city, and will love it especially more when the spitting moratorium is enforced:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/asia/17manners.html?em&ex=1177041600&en=95c25c162ed63e15&ei=5087%0A 

 

Cody mentioned that spitting is one of the ways China reminds him of rural Nebraska, except that the women spit too!