A China Tale

Last night I had a series of rather violent dreams. The first of which involved something of a perverted bully that was making young children do unspeakable things and a blindfolded ematiated and discoloured young woman bleeding from various locations and moving in an eerie fashion. I think that set closed with the bully getting bitten ‘you know where’ by one of the children he was abusing – spitting on the kid then knocking over the blindfolded girl and preparing to do well … you can do the math. 

Then there was a long dream in which I was essentially irate the whole time and was yelling at my mother to tell the truth about who my father was. In my anger I left the world of normal behavioral constraints (I remember deciding this internally) and yelled “I’ll smash this fucking chair I don’t even care anymore – it doesn’t matter” then I grabbed this chair (I actually kind of liked it – was a wooden folding chair) and proceeded to ask her how she’d like me to destroy it. Receiving no reply I smashed it on the brick and placed it on a small pile of burning wood that was in the immediate area (don’t ask I have no idea why). I think this vision died out with Dan Akroid in a fireman’s suit getting dragged up a snowy slope away from his wrecked firetruck. I think I punched him at some point for not admitting something. If I had to guess I would say about being my father. 

The tone of the entire episode was emotionally exhuasting and I actually woke up in the middle of the night with a sizeable amount of pain in my chest. 

Sorry there isn’t a sexier way of entitling this part but that is pretty much what I spent Mon and Tues of this week doing. A client of a client (lovely how straightforwarded some of these business relationship is isn’t it?) who is in the business of producing GPS cards joined me and my collegue to venture out to inspect 3 chinese PCB factories. This type of arrangement is atypical as we usually only deal with our customer that in turn deals with his customers, but the circumstances were such that this particular client of a client needed to see our customers chinese operations first hand. Get all that? 

This was at first unnerving as this typically exposes us to some risk in that unless this GPS card producer is a solid fellow of principal he could very well make moves to try and cut us out of the picture and go directly to our suppliers. This is the usual fear when dealing with any kind of CM (contract manufacturer) directly. For clarification on the Offshore Procurment Office Solutions we provide for PCB Manufacturers in the East take a look at our website. That should give those of you interested an idea of the business I am in.

Anyway the trip wasn’t too exciting, company paid breakfast, lunch and dinner interspersed with long car rides and factory visits. Watching chinese sales staff use their very best english to communicate with my GPS card producing business associate. Along the way I was exposed to the usual PCB jargon which I’m becoming more familiar with as well as some gems of insight – bestowed upon me by said GPS card producer. An experience well worth the time invested. When time permits I’ll create a more detailed report of these event on a blog I tend to target that industry with.

Haven’t cracked the book since Day 2 so I’m unfortunately a little bit behind (sad face) I’ll begin tackling this puppy again later today time permitting.

So I made a new friend over the past couple weeks! Later I’ll be sure to give myself a cookie and complementary gold star for the accomplishment. An interesting girl who hails from China and spent 6 years in France going to school and learning the local language. So why would I bother reporting this you might ask. Well its quite simple really – she happens to read this blog and will probably be giggling/get red when she reads this and I’m sure I’ll have to be properly repremanded for the infraction – a mutually beneficial act of retribution. Glorious!

Glorious! Just you wait ’till I get a chance to tear up the streets of Shenzhen with this little puppy. I’m going to make 20mph look good. Adding this little baby to my two sets of roller blades and bike I can now accomodate a total of 4 people on my weekend rides. I suppose that means I’ll need to recruit another friend…. a minor chore to attend to when I find some time.

Yesterday marks the 1st day of teaching english to young children for me. It was highlighted by one of my young Chinese students drawing a picture of me with a dunce hat on and the kids paying more attention to a balloon than to me the entire time. On the positive side the one and only girl I have in my class seems to be particularly studious… at least for a 9 year old. Fear not young ones I will find the courage and tenacity to tame you for your educational benefit soon enough! Let no man say that teaching children between the ages of 5 and 18 is an easy task – it is anything but.

Well I went and did a very man-like thing this past Saturday. I completely forgot that it was valentine’s day. I did manage to figure it out when my girl began crying a bit on the way to my friend’s place in Futian – on the bus – when I passed a rather large sign @ window of the world that said “Happy Valentine’s Day.” The bulb lit, the connection was made and all too quickly everything made sense; the excessive swearing over the phone at my friend by aforementioned female (which I mistook as sarcasm and bullshit for laughs), the knives of negative energy flying off of her in all directions paired up with the silent treatment as we made our way out from my apt that morning, and a few other things where are really none of your business . 

I found it funny as last year I had gone to great lengths to ensure my hunny buns was well taken care of and felt like a princess all day. Flowers in the apartment before she got home, dinner reservations at one of her favorite restaurants as well as your standard “Honey you look beautiful!” behavioral and responce patterns (genuine? but of course!) Interesting how one can change so much in so little time. The shift to China was one of priorities as well as geography and the new emotional/interpersonal landscape is not without its pitfalls. 

Last night I got home around 1:30 am and decided to watch “TCCoBB.” I thought it would be a nice capper to a weekend filled with Diablo II and an upset girlfriend (your “fuzzy” math may lead you to a different solution). I was… taken a little offguard by the flick, not just because the cover listed playtime (1hr 20min) was completely wrong (I’ve learned to expect such things from 10RMB DVD’s sold on 3-wheel bike carts), but also by the nature of the film itself and its thematic implications. They struck a cord within me that has been touched before by other “life story” movies such as “Legends of the Fall” and “The Notebook” (shut up…) I know brad pitt being in 2/3 of those flicks isn’t helping my case much either.

Anyway the point of the matter is that after watching it I was left in an uncomfortable spot of reflection. Initially it was near unbearable to assume the true position of either of the main characters in the film – then its implications to my own journey struck me a little off-balance. A man on a journey backwards biologically bound to a world moving forward, at the end forgetting everything as a child in the arms of a lover at her end as an old lady. Thoughts brought me to what I beleive is a big “why” that those of younger generations have trouble dealing with their elders. They represent an eventuality that we have no interest in dealing with before we have to. It is a shameful loss to both parties – the value of their experience is lost in our neglectance. It is something I should challenge in myself when the opporunity arises.

That night I dreamt something of an oddity – I agreed to marry a woman, a very pretty woman who seemed to be in a very peculiar position. A man lived with her in the apartment next to mine where I also would be welcome to stay with her (and do naughty things, an offer I refused repeatedly). The man was a cook, apparently a very good one, but also seemed to have some sort of arrangement with the woman which I was unable to decern. Her dog also had AIDS (any freudians out there with insight into this?). Those are the big peices that I remember – sorry I couldn’t get to a keyboard sooner after I awoke. Anyway that nature of the dream was enough to make me sleep through my alarm – as sometimes my emotionally taxing dreams do. 

Having mastered the art & science of marketing in Day 1 *hahaha* today I must venture into the world of Ethics. I find the book thus far useful if not a bit overzealous in its claim as a “step-by-step guide to mastering the skills taught in America’s top business schools” Don’t get me wrong it does seem to have all the fundamental concepts present however it does not provide or grant you access to the experience and practice that are vitally necessary to “mastering” the 9 core MBA disciplines. I’ll be sure to give my 2 cents upon completion of the book – which with any luck will be the 21st of February. *make appropriate thinking face* Perhaps an online database of examples of the various processes as well as some well thought out exercises would do the book some good. Never underestimate the value of doing good homework in any matter of life. For those of you that haven’t I highly recommend reading from about “II” to the paragraph beginning with “Books are the best of things, well used” of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar” it sums up my thoughts on the usage/value of books pretty well. By the by you really ought to take some time to go through another of his works entitled “Self-Reliance” I don’t think there is an employer on the planet who wouldn’t think more of you for having read it, not to mention 

It would seem that my english skills are of in some demand here – to date I have two tentative arrangements to do some part time work tutoring chinese students in the ways of american english – not to be confused with the “cheeky” british english that is typically force fed to them throughout their formal education. I can’t think of a single time when I’ve even heard of an english speaking person refer to a truck as a “dolly” or a bloody stroller as a “pram”. I found this amusing British Life and Culture site while googling – you may want to reference lest you never know what I mean when I call you a “ruddy ploughman eating pillock” 

Chinese Cultural Frustrations – How Increadibly Inconsiderate!

You can bet that if you spend any reasonable amount of time in urban developed (or more accurately put developing) China you will find yourself in many instances breathing in 2nd hand smoke in areas you would normally assume a degree of courtesty would be exercised. Now let me first acknowledge that I in particular have a healthy distain for smoking – and an even greater intensity of that feeling towards those that act without concern for others whilst smoking. That said the last time I was in the elevator a gentleman (a**h@le muthafu#*a) *cough* thought it prudent to enter the elevator with a lit butt and puff away in the small confines of our vertical community transport. He maintained the all too familiar distantanced demeanor as he went about his motions. It seemed all degrees of intensity of my cold stare went unnoticed – my release culminated with the raising of my middle finger in his general direction as he walked out of the building, this also went unnoticed. I suppose the act was done purely to satisfy my rage, not much else I can do – that is until my Chinese is at a level where I can tactfully express my opinion to those inconsiderate folk. 

This is another peice of the puzzle you will come to know in time should you venture long here – derived from the peoples historic experience – their lingering tendancy to distance themselves from the moments and realities they are existing in. The tendancies potency seems to have a direct correlation to the social position of the person (ie the poorer / harder the life the more distanced). Of course take a nice big grain of salt with that as it is a generalization. However this phenomenon I tend to sympathize with – their are parts of their social history which haven’t exactly been supportive of individualism and were so unbareable distancing was necessary to get by. Google the cultural revolution if your unfamiliar – much to be learned from one of Chairman Mao’s last tragic gifts to the Chinese people. Just kidding I love you Chairman Mao – *smile for the nice chinese secret service man.

So after my little trip to HK the day before I ventured out to a little place called Zhao Qing about 3 hours west of Shenzhen still inside GuangDong province. You can see a map here for clarification. I started off with a stop at a little restaurant which sported such features as “walls” and “running water” beside a small pond where they got their flagship dish a good sized freshwater fish. You can see some of these poor bastards flapping around in this quick video I took. All and all a pretty decent meal – who can complain with 16lbs of fish on the table .

After the meal I ventured over for a quick tour of my ancestoral village where I took the liberty of filming a tour through the allyways to one of my uncles dwellings. It was indeed a humbling experience to see how those that came before me lived – though I’m sure it was more appealing in years past it can’t have been too much better, their wasn’t much potential to build on. That aside the people I met were festive and warm all around – I suppose thats because I’m related to them and I’ve seen them o… once before in my life probably a few months off my mommas milk. 

The highlight of my trip came the next day when the Wedding took place. The traditional Chinese wedding customs are not without their charms – I found them endlessly entertaining. The fun part basically works like this: The bride is placed in the home (in this case a traditional old brick home in the village) and all the women related to her rush into the house and lock the door behind them. The groom and his posse then come to the entryway demanding to have the woman – the women inside fend them off with words and other means (in our case silly string and fire crackers). I managed to get myself in the house with all the chicks – thought I’d give them something to look at while they went about their duty. *high five… anyone*  What! what do you mean they’re all related to me… buzzkill… -_- 

Anyway after much arguing and the groom passing plenty of money through windows or whathaveyou to the women they let the groom and his men in to claim the wife. Thereafter there is some sort of walk together after which the entire entorage makes their way to the wife’s family’s house to have a meal.  You can view a quick vid of the women arguing with the men from the rooftop (the one on the left in pink is my cousin Yuki – she keeps asking for 999 money, a lucky amount which is typically asked for at these sorts of things), or watch the women hold the door closed, or the final break in to the house here.

It was good to see some of my cousins again and make new ties to old family that I’ve never met. From time to time I think its important to try and honor those that came before you and keep some tie to those that share your blood – though I must say that task has varying degrees of difficulty dependant upon which cultural/ethinic group you descend from. Until next time……. *cue theme music