Go Ahead and Run with Scissors

Swilkins and I recently had a conversation about how Americans today are raised to be sissy-girls while Asians, in general, still raise their children with a little more recklessness. American parents are too afraid of hurting their children or scarring them emotionally to let them have any real, somewhat-dangerous fun. It's like American moms and dads won't let their kids bowl without bumpers. It extends beyond the children, too. USA has become a country of wusses in the past couple of decades. When you can sue McDonald's because you spilled your coffee all over your own lap, you know something is wrong. But things are very different here in China. As Will put it, “if some guy walks into power lines that are down being repaired, people don't blame the workers who left the lines down; they blame the dumbass who walked into downed power lines.” Although I like having a little more freedom over here, sometimes things can go just a little too far. Just watch the way cab drivers whiz around hundreds of pedestrians on a crowded Shanghai street and you'll know exactly what I mean. It was this kind of laissez-faire attitude towards danger that got me involved in the craziest, most ridiculous show of recklessness towards children's safety I have ever seen. Allow me to explain.

The new school I am helping start up has been recruiting kids left and right since it opened. We passed our month's quota for sign-ups and deposits in the first weekend that we opened our doors. So Tracy, the Center Manager, CM or “head-honcho of all things business” of my school, decided that it would be great for our retention rates if we had a Halloween party for all the kids who have signed up or are thinking about signing up. I figure this is a good idea, so I help decorate the building and make a powerpoint with some scary Halloween pictures and a history of the holiday. Tracy also tells me we will be having a pumpkin carving contest as well, so I throw in some slides explaining how to carve one. A day or two before the party, it dawns on me that you might have to search pretty hard over here to find those “safety knives” they have at every supermarket in America throughout the whole of October. I mention this to Tracy, and she assures me, “oh, don't worry. We have it all worked out.” So I didn't worry about it. This was a mistake.

I arrive the day of the party and help put some finishing touches on the school. Things are looking good, so I find some free spooky music to play over the speakers and set up my powerpoint presentation. Kids start filing in and we are all ready to begin. Burcu, my DOS, and I start giving our little speech/story about Halloween and the kids are eating it up. We are in a room that's about 25 feet by 20 feet and there are about 20 kids all at desks. It was a bit crowded, but it still was manageable between the two of us and the local staff. After we gave our talk, Tracy comes in and tells everyone it is time for the pumpkin carving contest. This is when she dumps a container full of box-cutters and razor blades onto the table in the center of the room and beckoned all of the 5-10 year old children to come and pick up their knives. My boss decided that the best idea for this Halloween party was to give 20 or so five to ten year old children sharp razor blades. In America, parents freak out because they are afraid an apple may have a hidden razor blade in it, but here the head of a school hands them out to waiting children like they are the candy. I honestly could not believe, looking around the room, that I was seeing 2 dozen children playing with knives at the behest of my school's manager. I walk over to Burcu and tell her that this is a horrible idea and that there is a 100% chance that someone is going to get cut. She nervously laughs but then at least has the sense to invite all of the parents back into the room to help out with the carving. Parents shuffle in and seem to have absolutely no problem with all of their tiny children each having a box cutter or switchblade-like razor. Having them all join us winds up being a double-edged sword, however. Not all of the the parents were still outside, but those who did come in made it so crowded that you were literally bumping into people trying to get from one side of the room to the other. It was impossible to keep my eyes on all 3 or 4 of the groups of kids who didn't have a parent with them, and as I am frantically pacing around I am bumping into kids trying to delicately slice into pumpkins. Kids are hacking away at these pumpkins with their switchblade razors and box cutters, and the parents aren't really doing things any safer. I'm trying my hardest to keep people from slicing their hands and fingers open, but it's proving to be quite difficult. There are two kinds of razors, like I mentioned before: the standard box-cutter kind, which were less problematic, and these swinging hinge razor blades, which were kind of like a 3 inch version of a barber's razor but with a pointed, sharp edge. The problem with the swing blade ones is that the little kids were gripping them with their fists around the handles, so when they stuck them into the pumpkins at the wrong angle the blade would fold right onto their fingers! After one kid cut himself while standing right next to me, I helped him clean up his wound as quickly as I could so I could immediately confiscate all of the remaining swinging razors.

My heart was racing as I tried to make sure no one else cut themselves. I really, really wanted to just end this charade, repeatedly telling my DOS and CM this was a terrible idea, but they both seemed to think that just letting them finish and saving face was better than stopping mid-session and admitting defeat. By the end of the pumpkin carving contest, three children, one parent, and one of our local staff had all cut their fingers or hands! And one of the kids was cut bad enough to still be bleeding at the end!! And it was all because we gave young kids sharp knives to cut open pumpkins!!! And inappropriate knives for the task too!!!! This was ridiculous enough on its own, but the craziest part was that the parents didn't seem to think it was such a big deal. When things were all wrapped up, my CM asked me how I thought it went, so I told her the truth: that I felt panicked the whole time because I thought it was a horrible idea which I wanted to stop the second it had started. She agreed that it was a bad idea to use the knives, but that this is not such a terrible thing in China. She also mentioned that the parents all agreed that it was great and fun, because their children were having fun, but that they also agreed that we should not use razors next time. I'm running around, freaking out because I think kids are going to lose fingers as razors are cutting up hands all over the place, and the parents are thinking, “wow, this is nice. It would be cool if they got better knives, though.” Only in China. I don't know if I'm going to make it back home before I have a heart attack.

The Day the Internet Stood Still

The day she arrived in China, Nora and I decided we basically can’t live without internet in our apartment. This might make us sound a little overly-dependent on the web, but you have to realize: the internet for you all in the USA isn’t of the same importance as it is for us ex-pats in Shanghai. I don’t “need” the internet to check my email everyday and read up on the newest celebrity gossip, even though I know I’ll do that anyways. I need the internet because it is the only affordable form of contact with the outside world, outside of postal mail. Overseas phone calls are ludicrously expensive and my only other option would be to visit an internet bar every time I hoped to catch my family on Skype. That and having AIM keeps me in touch with my US buddies while MSN does the same for my Chinese and ex-pat friends. So now that you understand why it was necessary to have internet in our apartment, let me tell you about the hell involved in getting internet in my apartment.
If some function is run by the government in China, you can expect any interaction with it to involve waiting in line for a very lengthy amount of time before being yelled at by an angry, state-employed worker. And also, there will be security guards who consistently yell at you while policing the lines. And everyone in the line will be yelling into their phones or having loud conversations. The China Telecomm office handles all of the internet, mobiles, and land lines for all of China, so you can imagine how crowded their offices might be. Nora and I were lucky enough to have our English-speaking Chinese boss, Benson, accompany us to work out all of the kinks, so we figured that would save us a good deal of time. We arrive and the place is packed to capacity due to the fact that we came on the last business day before the Golden Week, a national holiday when about 70% of the whole nation gets a whole week off from work. We bite the bullet, grab a ticket, and sit down to wait our turn. When we got there they were up to number 16 and it was about 15 minutes before they got to number 20. We had ticket number 76. Realizing we had at least an hour and a half of wait time, we just walked across the street to a Papa John’s Pizza, and Nora and I got our first Shanghai-American Pizza since we arrived. Although it was an embarrassment to real NY Pizza, it still was scrumptious considering how hungry we were. That foray took us about an hour total, so we headed back into China Telecomm. They were now at number 50 or so. In total, it took about 2, maybe 2 and a half hours before our number came up. I just read a book most of the time, so I wasn’t really that annoyed. This is China, here. But then we got to talk to the teller.
Dealing with the teller was a supreme pain-in-the-ass even with a near-perfect Chinese translator, our boss, there with us. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if Nora and I were to try it alone. It would probably have ended up with me in a Chinese prison somewhere, as I imagine the police don’t take kindly to foreigners trying to kill every last worker in a very crowded Telecomm office. But back to the internet. We had to figure out which type of internet we wanted, which speed we were willing to pay for, and whether we wanted a month-to-month or year-long contract. Working out all the kinks via Benson took around a full hour, maybe an hour and a half. We finally have all of the papers printed out, I sign my name about 15 times, and we are all ready to pay up. The Telecomm worker then asks us when we would be available to have the service installed, and we tell her as soon as they can send someone over. She says, “OK,” and starts to type away at the computer. We assume she is trying to figure out when they have a field-worker free to come and put in our modem. We are kind-of right about this. She starts to say something in Chinese to Benson, but I catch enough to find out that there is something wrong. Even if I spoke no Chinese, after living here for even this long I could have assumed that something had gone wrong. Something always goes wrong. Benson tells us that she says there is a problem with congestion in our area, and there is already a wait-list for people who want internet. They can’t install anyone’s until they add new servers, or ground wires, or something. That part was lost in translation. We find this out only AFTER we spend 2 and half hours in line and 1 and a half hours working out the details about the internet we can’t get. Two weeks ago I might have flipped my lid over this, but getting an apartment in China has taught me a kind of serenity I have never known before. So I calmly start asking some questions in Chinese, trying to gauge the situation.
“So how many people are on the list before us?”
“Around 100.”
“And how long will it take for them to be taken care of and for us to get internet?”
“The shortest time could be about 3 days.”
“And the longest time?”
“Around 3 months.”
“Wait, when will you be able to tell me if it’s three days or three months?”
“I can’t know for sure. Give us your phone number and we’ll call you sometime in the next 3 days to next three months.”
Needless to say, Nora and I are heartbroken. At the time we had no idea if there was even an alternative to the China Telecomm DSL, so we figure we’ll just use the internet bars for a few months. We thank Benson for spending so much time with us and helping us out, but he just says, “No problem, it’s in my nature to help you guys out.” I’ve mentioned in a few posts how awesome Benson is. Nora and I say goodbye to him and head out to an Internet bar to try and forget about what just happened. I felt so hollow and disillusioned about wasting nearly 5 hours that everything just seemed surreal. China has been frustrating in the past, but things tended to work out OK in the end. This situation just sucked. Instead of drowning her sorrows in Counter-strike, like I did, Nora decided to be proactive and look up alternatives to China Telecomm DSL. She found a cool Shanghai blog that outlined how to buy a satellite modem card for your laptop and subscribe to a private internet provider. The writer for the website sounded like he had the same problems we did, so my hope for 3 days instead of 3 months faded pretty quickly. Nora wrote down all of the specs and found out where she could get all this stuff in Shanghai, but it turned out the whole shebang would cost more than double the Telecomm DSL deal. She asked if I wanted to come with her to pick up the stuff, but I had really decided against the satellite deal. I figured that even 3 months visiting internet bars once or twice a week was better than paying double for satellite. On top of that, after more than 5 hours dealing with Chinese Telecomm, I had to call it quits for the day. This all happened on Friday and when I spoke to Nora Saturday morning I found out the satellite modem card she looked at was incompatible with her laptop. We just couldn’t get any luck to come our way. Or so we thought.
The next day, Sunday, just two days after the internet incident, we got a phone call from China Telecomm telling us the internet was ready and we could have a guy in to install it by Thursday. I have no idea what changed from Friday until then, but I didn’t really care at the time. Nora and I decided to run out and buy a wireless router at the PC shop down the street right away, so that we could get the service guy to help us install it. The days pass and he shows up, ready to set it all up. Everything goes smoothly, for once, and I ask him to help me with the wireless router. He then tells me that it isn’t wireless at all, but just a regular router. I say thanks and send him on his way, and then Nora and I head back to the PC shop to get a real wireless router. We throw down an extra 25 bucks to get a decent wireless router, and head home to set it up. This turns out to be no easy task. The Chinese DSL uses a user name and password to connect to a central server every time you want to use the internet. It isn’t like American Cable, where you are given an automatic IP address and are always on. So this means that if you want to use a wireless router, you need to go into the routers home page and enter in all of the network connection settings and user name and password. On top of that, I needed to set a password on the router, so that people wouldn’t steal our internet. None of this would really be too much trouble, except that the router settings were 100% in Chinese. Regardless, I sat down and worked it out after about an hour or so, and had it all perfect. It took a good deal of trial and error, but it all worked out. I was very proud of myself. Yay.
OK, so thus ends the great ordeal that was getting internet in my apartment. Like all tasks in China, it was immensely difficult to accomplish and barely even worth it. But TIC (watch Blood Diamond to catch that reference. Since we got the internet, I’ve downloaded about 10 movies and all 3 seasons of arrested development. Score).

Apart-mental (cute or corny?)

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days, but life in China can be rather hectic and the internet in China can be rather fickle . But I'll save the internet story for another post. First let me tell you about the hell that was getting an apartment. It's a long one, so pour yourself a glass of something warm and dig in.
Nora, my shanghai-flatmate-to-be and old friend from college, planned to arrive on Tuesday, the 24th of September. I arrived in Shanghai almost a full week earlier, so I looked at 6 or 7 different apartments before she arrived. Some were terrible, one claimed to be a two bedroom but really had a small bedroom and a linen closet, but even the better ones had one or two major flaws. Then I found the apartment I knew we were going to live in. It was perfect and the rent was low from what I had seen (4,500 RMB per month between the two of us. That's just around 350 a month per person). It's location was perfect, a two-minute walk from the metro, the flat was huge and the bedrooms were great. I set up a meeting to sign the contract with the landlord for the Friday after Nora arrived. The Chinese have this custom with rent where you pay a one month deposit and the first two months rent up front. On top of that, the realty agent gets a 36% cut of one's month rent from both the landlord and the tenants. So this meant we would have to bone up about 8,000 RMB a piece. In America we call this number just over one thousand US dollars. Now, I didn't have 1,000 USD, and it turns out Nora didn't either. Before Nora arrived, I was smart enough to ask for a cash advance from my company, EF. My boss told me I would have an EF ATM card by Tuesday and 8,000 RMB in the account by Thursday. This amount would be deducted from my subsequent three paychecks, in sums of 3,000, 3,000, and 2,000, respectively. This all sounded good, but my card had not come by Wednesday. And then on Thursday my DOS had to get in touch with the EF China center to confirm my request would go through. They assured her it would and that my card would be at my school on Friday morning. In the meantime, I had been trying to figure out a way to get Nora 8,000 RMB, even before she arrived. The cash advances take three days to process, and you need to have submitted a new hire form before you could even request one. This meant that Nora could not get one in time. Eventually Nora's DOS, Benson, says that he will either front her the money or have their school give her a personal loan. Keep in mind that Benson had not even met Nora at this point. Needless to say, Benson is the coolest guy in the world. I want him to be my new dad.
Thursday night is the last night of my 3-day, 25-hour training session, so Nora meets up with me and a few of my international employees/fellow trainees and we all proceed to get sloshed. The night somehow ends up with me getting hammered, heading to another bar with a brit from my training session named Lottie, and then making my way to a table with 3 old Chinese businessmen. They speak OK English; I speak OK Chinese; we end up taking whiskey shots for an hour or so and singing songs. Lottie enjoys the show, I'm sure, but at this point I am having too much of a blast with these Chinese business men to care. By the end of the night they are calling me DiDi, an affectionate term for little brother, and I black out somewhere around there and wind up back in my hotel room bed (Side note: It turns out I took a cab home, leaving the bike which my boss lent to me at the Metro station. It goes without saying that it was promptly stolen). I wake up the next morning with one of the worst hangovers of my life, but I'm not too worried because Nora and I both have our moneys set up. We head to Nora's EF school that morning to get Nora's cash and my cash card. We arrive and Nora gets a fat wad of cash from Benson, and she gives a signature on a contract saying she will pay back EF as soon as she gets her paycheck. At this point I am already starving and hungover all at once, making me insanely miserable. There was some confusion about my card, delaying us about an hour, until the local staff realized it was in the front office the whole time. We've already lost too much time, so Nora and I just jump into a cab headed towards the realtor's without eating anything. I figure it will be an hour and a half tops until we are all done. I am very wrong.
We arrive at the realtor's a little early to find the landlady of our building already waiting. I head off the the bank to get my cash, leaving Nora to chat with her. After spending half an hour at the bank trying to figure out why my card won't work, I call my supervisor and she tells me she'll call up the center and ask what's going on. The whole time my stomach is yelling obscene things at me for putting it through such hardship. Meanwhile, I try another bank with no success. I even had a realtor with me for each visit, he wanted this thing done with promptly too, but both banks told us the card wasn't activated. Eventually my boss gets back to me to tell me that, even though the forms were submitted on time for my cash advance, they were never processed. She then tells me I will have the 8,000 RMB in three business days. This would not be so horrible, except for the fact that this the Friday before "Golden Week." The Golden Week is a week long national holiday in China where EVERYONE takes off from work and goes to vacation somewhere. This meant I wouldn't be able to get my money for another 13 days or so. I finally head back to the realtor's, a good hour later then I left, and I feel like I am about to pass out from hunger/my splitting headache. After a lengthy discussion (read: about an hour) with the landlady, using one of my Chinese coworkers on the cell phone as a translator, I finally convince her to agree to a deal. We will pay her one month's rent instead of three, as well as her end of the realtor's fee, and then pay three months rent next paycheck, less said realtor's fee. I am amazed that she is even willing to put up with us at this point, but it turns out she is an insanely sweet lady. There was one catch, though. For her to trust that we weren't going to skimp her, she wanted to go see my company's new building, meet the Chinese staff, and have me sign a written contract agreeing to pay her as soon as I got my cash advance. At the sound of this further hurdle I can almost literally feel my stomach acids eating away at the lining in my gut. I figure it will be another hour, at least, before we are all done. Luckily, the realtor and I had been making small talk in between bank visits and he knows I am starving. He drops some hints that I hadn't eaten in the four or five hours it had taken for us to deal with this whole shindig, so she agrees we would go to lunch first. We ate at a chain called "Steak King," where she got a Chinese dish and I got pan fried chicken in a black pepper sauce.
I don't know how much this had to do with my voracious appetite, but that chicken was some of the best I have ever tasted. It really was delicious. The landlady and I wound up talking for about an hour about life, her family, my family, the differences between Chinese and American culture, and all of that kind of great stuff. Keep in mind that she doesn't even speak a word of Chinese, so it was much like a parent talking to a 7 year old with a learning disability. After the awesome meal, which she demanded she pay for!, we made our way to my new work building and she was pleased with it. I thanked her a million times for being so understanding, but she just kept saying, "don't worry about it. We are friends now." After having this lady feed me and then having say something like that, I was about ready to kiss her. Nora and I moved in that night and have been settling in since. that alone has been a very interesting experience, but I'll move onto that in the next post, sometime this week.