Taking advantage of Rich’s request, I slept in until about noon and made it to Lush around 1:00 PM. But my short day at work was not a waste and I was productive while I was there. I outlined and started planning the 4th of July party, I created an Excel spreadsheet that I would use for competitor analysis and I started to research summer program coordinators that I could contact to set up mixers with when they arrived in Beijing. After work four of us met up and decided to go play basketball at the outside courts on the PKU campus. When we got there we could not find anyone to play against us (the language barrier had a lot to do with that). Finally a group of four Chinese students wearing matching uniforms came up and offered to play against us. These guys were big, the shortest one was close to my height. They also all looked serious. One guy was rocking the Dwayne Wade/Dwight Howard full Nike armband. Fortunately, one of them spoke English and he quickly explained that they were the Peking University basketball team. Once we started playing, it became obvious that they were not lying. These guys could ball. They were shooting lights out and they fought for every rebound. We played them for almost two hours and got beat up and down the court the entire time. Afterwards they were telling us that we did a great job and it was nice to have some competition on campus. We exchanged numbers and told them that we would play them again sometime soon. After a quick shower a large group of us caught the subway to Ho Hai to get dinner. We finally settled on a nice and fairly inexpensive looking place where we were able to eat on the rooftop terrace. We had an assortment of meats, vegetables, dumplings, and a delicious fried pancake. The view was awesome. We were looking out right over the water and you could see all the activity happening on the street below us. After dinner we bought a fruit smoothie and walked around Ho Hai. We later caught a taxi home. By the time I got in bed I was exhausted and sore. That was the first exhausting physical activity that I had been able to do since I arrived in Beijing.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Day 15- June 15: Happy Birthday Russell!
It was Russell’s 21st birthday! And Pub Trivia Night at Lush! To say that my focus on work was less than stellar is an understatement in itself. Looking back, I honestly cannot remember what I accomplished besides more brainstorming for my projects and some blog writing. After work ended I went back to Global Village and took a quick shower. I met up with Russell and John (Tackaberry), it was raining so we decided to take a taxi back to Lush instead of biking or walking. The first taxi that pulled over to pick us up was as sketchy as they come. It was a black van with tinted back windows and no marked taxi sign. We had previously been warned not to get in an unmarked taxi, but it was raining, so we took the risk. The gamble paid off because the taxi driver was as aggressive as they come and actually cheaper than the normal taxi price. At one point he pulled up on the sidewalk to pass a bicycle that was in the middle of the bicycle lane (which he used as his personal highway). Pub Trivia Night was fun, but the crowd was not quite what it had been the Wednesday before. It was awesome to get half off everything with my “Wu Krew” card and after trivia ended we decided to head over to KTV (the Chinese name for Karaoke). We all chipped in and rented a huge room where they helped us set up our personal flat screen television and duo microphone set. Apparently our package also included beer because they filled the table in front of us with bottles and left us to have a great time. Everyone took turns singing and Yuan and Rui even got in on the action with a Chinese duet. The KTV spot made us leave when they closed, but instead of heading home we went downstairs to Club Global to continue the celebration. It was a long night (I got in around 4:00 AM), but fortunately at Pub Trivia Night Rich had told me to come in to work late the next day and to make sure we all had a great time that night. I considered that to be an assignment from my internship, so I made sure we all had a great time celebrating.
Day 14- June 14: Time To Make A Good Impression
It is an interesting feeling to wake up early for work when you really are not certain what you are doing on that particular day. That was my overwhelming emotion at the start of the day and it grew even stronger when Rich sent me a message saying that I could present my data to him at noon over lunch. It was great to have a meeting on the books…but I did not have anything to work on up until that point. Regardless, I decided that I would go to Lush around 10:00 am and brainstorm about projects that I could do in the future and new ideas for the businesses. This actually turned out to be a great way to spend my time. I came up with a number of good ideas and it gave me a chance to really analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three separate businesses. By the time Rich arrived for lunch I was bursting with ideas and I was excited to present my data analysis. I have to admit, the way that I organized the data was pretty cool. I broke down each response into four categories: mindshare, race, sex, and location. Once I had put them all onto an Excel spreadsheet I created a system where you could sort through the data by limiting each field. I also made a PowerPoint with six pie charts to show the pieces of information that I found most relevant. As I explained what I had done, Rich seemed to be just as impressed as I had hoped. It was nice to see him pour over the numbers, ask questions, tell me how helpful it would be and say how I had gone above and beyond what he expected. After that I talked about the other ideas that I had come up with and we discussed upcoming projects that I could work on as well. He seemed a little surprised (in a really good way) when I talked about two of my ideas. I had identified the biggest problem that Gung Ho! Pizza faces as being the inability to communicate between the foreigners who order the product and the Chinese workers who work at the POS. I asked if they had considered online ordering software and he said that Jade had just come up with that idea a couple of months before and the contract for the software was sitting on his desk. He also really liked an idea that I had to create a link from the Gung Ho! Pizza website to the iF Juice (a fresh juice that they serve (also another girl on the trip is interning there)) website and vice-versa. After that we discussed the possibility of me running their big 4th of July party and setting up a number of mixers between foreign programs and Lush/ Pyro Pizza. Other ideas for projects that I could work on included doing competitor analysis and creating an English training program for new employees. Before Rich left he gave me a “Wu Krew” card that gave me 50% off any purchase I made at Lush or Pyro Pizza. After the meeting I spent the rest of my day planning and brainstorming for my new projects. When I got home I went with a group and ate at the Chinese restaurant within the Global Village. That night I started reading the first book that Jade had given/assigned to me, The E-Myth Revisited. It was a good day at my internship and I feel like I started to turn a corner in proving that I would have some worth to the company in my limited stay.
Day 13- June 13: Here I Go Again…On My Own
Yes. I listened to that Whitesnake song at work today. But, also, today was my first day working on my own. But, before that, this morning started out quite strange. I was supposed to Skype with Mom and Dad, but they were reckless and broke the webcam that I bought them for Christmas. So, they still had Skype and could see and hear me, but I could not see or hear them. Basically it was a 20 minute monologue and they would spur me on by asking questions via instant message…it was interesting but it was nice to kind of catch up with them. After that I got to watch as the Heat were dominated throughout the course of Game 6 of the NBA Finals. Even though they lost, I am still in the market for a knock off LeBron jersey while I am here in China. Today I had a few assignments to do for work and so I decided to go and do my work at Lush, since I do not have a true office. It was nice to just sit at a booth for most of the day and be productive and have someone bring me water and food. In my mind, I imagined the waiters were my assistants…it’s the little things that get you through the day. Anyway, my first two tasks were to email some information about my student assistants to Cara, Rich’s assistant, and to get information regarding the international summer programs at universities around Beijing. One of my next projects will be to plan a mixer between the various programs that will be sponsored by Lush and Pyro Pizza. My final task was a little tricky. I had to organize all of the data I collected last week onto a spreadsheet, calculate a bunch of numbers, and then put it all together with charts on a PowerPoint. The problem was that I am not proficient with Excel and I had no clue how to make graphs and charts with PowerPoint. It took a little while but I eventually figured it out. I am going to present it all to Rich tomorrow and (if I do say so myself) it all looks pretty good and professional. I finished work a little bit early and was able to head back to Global Village around 5:00 pm. I had needed to do laundry all weekend, so I went ahead and washed all of my clothes. China has great washing machines. They take about thirty minutes and even though they are small, they do a great job. The problem is with their drying machines. Simply put, they suck. It takes only 1 Yuan to use the dryer for 10 or 20 minutes (depending which machine you use) but they take about 2 hours to dry a load of clothes. Also, some machines only allow you to put in one coin at once, so you have to go back every 10 minutes. It took so long to wash clothes because of the slow drying process that I had to order dinner and stay in just to finish the laundry before it was time to go to bed. But, now I have two weeks worth of clean clothes and I have a great entrepreneurial business idea (importing decent dryers into China and selling them at huge mark ups).
Day 12- June 12: There Is Nothing Like A Relaxing Day At The Summer Palace
I do not want to say that a relaxing day of just being a tourist around the Summer Palace is the perfect way to follow up a ridiculous music festival, but it is about as close to perfect as you can get. Yuan made the decision to take us to the Summer Palace at 1:00 pm (giving me the opportunity to sleep until noon). But he failed to mention that we would not be having lunch before our tour, which made it a little bit less relaxing for a while. So, instead of lunch I ate two ice cream cones and decided that was a sufficient breakfast/ lunch combination. To get to the entrance to the Summer Palace we took a bus and it was my first time on a Chinese bus, where they speak no English…that was kind of nerve racking, but I (with the help of Yuan) handled it like a champ. The Summer Palace was really beautiful and it was the first chance that I have had since I arrived to take a large number of pictures. The architecture was just what you would imagine when you think of ancient China. We spent about four hours hiking around the Summer Palace. Yuan led us every step of the way, eagerly telling anyone who would listen ancient stories about the Summer Palace and ancient China in general. He took us to his “favorite park on the planet” where there was a stage set up with a peaceful music performance and a few silent plays. We also hiked to the top of the Tower of Buddha Incense, which allowed us to have a marvelous view of the city and the small lake that bordered the Summer Palace. After the tour Yuan took us to a western Chinese restaurant. As is custom in China, we all shared a variety of dishes. As we were eating I took note of how great of a chopstick user I am becoming…seriously, I can pick up anything now. The dishes were all pretty good. I am finding that I have a hard time describing all of the dishes that I am eating. For one, trying to remember fifteen different dishes after taking two bites of each is not an easy task. The main course at this restaurant was a type of flour pasta that tasted like…well honestly nothing but pasta and you dipped it in either a mushroom, lamb, or vegetable soup (I chose lamb). After dinner we rode home on the subway and I completed a short one-page write up for Econ 328 about my internship thus far. Then I met up with a few people and we went and got a milkshakes. Later that night I got to Skype with Lindsey for about an hour (maybe thirty minutes of talking time because of a bad connection) and then I went to bed eager to start my next week of work. It was a relaxing day and a great way to finish the weekend.
Day 11- June11: Seriously?! Fay Boy Slim Is Still Alive?! And He Is Playing At The Great Wall?!
It was one of those events you simply could not pass up. If I had heard about a Fat Boy Slim concert in Chapel Hill, chances are I would not have given it a second thought. But…I am not in Chapel Hill and Fat Boy Slim was playing in the shadow of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, with some of Beijing’s best DJs, so of course I was going. The bus was leaving at 2:00 pm and I had no plans for that morning so I was able to sleep in until 11:30 am. After a quick shower I went with two other people to eat a quick lunch at the Chinese restaurant that is located just inside the Global Village. After my quick lunch turned into a 45-minutes wait for food, I crushed a plate of pork dumprrrings (dumplings) and sautéed broccoli. Next we went and bought some early afternoon bus ride drinks and quickly biked down to Lush where the buses were preparing for the 2:00 pm departure. After the typical amount of confusion you would expect from a bunch of young people trying to direct a much larger group of young people onto a variety of different buses, in what felt like about twenty different languages, I finally found a seat. The drive took about an hour and a half and it took us well outside the city and into the mountains of China. It was my first time outside the city. It was interesting to see how much cleaner the air was almost immediately once you were outside of the city. After we arrived we checked in through the lower gate and made our way up a mountain to the concert venue. There were three separate stages, but we were told that the music would not start until around 6:00 pm, so we had about 2 hours to hike around on The Great Wall. After bartering for a cheaper ticket to gain access to the wall we began the hike. This particular portion of the wall was all up hill…and it was very steep. The consistency of the stairs was terrible at best. One stair could have been 20” tall and the very next one could be 2” tall. Our group hiked for about forty-five minutes, stopping at various places along the wall. At one point we reached a watch tower that had no access to the top, but myself and a few others wanted to get to the top so we could, and I will quote this part, “get where no one has been since the Chinese shot Mongolians from up there.” So, we grabbed a trash can, stood on top of it and helped each other to the top of the tower…it was pretty cool. Once we had all had enough hiking we hung out at a resting spot (basically we just leaned against a flat part of the wall) for about an hour with a group of guys from Australia and random others who would stop and chat us up. We finally hiked down, I grabbed a ridiculously overpriced burger for dinner and about that time the music began. The concert started off slowly, it was still light outside, but as the sun went down the concert really began to pick up. For the most part the concert is a blur. There were times I was with my group and there were other times that I would roam to a different part of the venue and see someone else from our group or someone random that I had met throughout the course of the day. There was lots of dancing, lots of techno music, lots of jumping, lots of screaming, and simply put lots of partying, but all the while, all you had to do was look up to see the illumination of The Great Wall in the moonlight to know that it was going to be a night to remember. After six hours of doing the above antics continuously (and the end of Fat Boy Slims set) a small group of us loaded onto the bus to go home (some people were lost and others wanted to stay longer). As the bus drove off I immediately passed out and the next time I opened my eyes we were pulling up in front of Lush. Most of the group agreed that they wanted to get some late night at McDonalds, but not me…I hopped on my bike (still trying to decide on a name for it) and flew home. I do not really remember, but if I had a guess I would say that I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. It was an epic night out.
Day 10- June 10: I Love Riding My Bicycle!
Ahhh it feels great to wake up not feeling sick and instead feeling well rested and ready to go. After a quick shower I was on my way to my 9:00 AM Chinese class. I arrived right on time and even felt a sense of pride because our Chinese teacher had not arrived yet. Over the next fifteen minutes the rest of our group arrived in the classroom, but still, our teacher did not arrive. Our group was even joined by one of the Chinese women who is in charge of the international relation’s program and we all chatted with her while we waited for our teacher. But, after thirty minutes had passed and the teacher had not arrived we decided to pack it up and call it a morning. The woman from the international relation’s office politely asked us to wait fifteen more minutes while she made a few phone calls (she was clearly embarrassed). After a total of forty-five minutes of waiting and no less than fifty apologies from the woman from the international relation’s office, we headed back to the Global Village. Secretly, I was psyched that our teacher did not show up. 1. I felt that I had reached my limits on my Chinese language knowledge and 2. The Heat were playing in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Nash and I hurried back to our room where we were able to watch the (disappointing) second half of the game (the Heat lost). The announcers of course spoke in Chinese, but it is nice to be able to watch something that I would have been watching at home. The second half of our Friday off from work was devoted to taking a tour of a GE plant in China. Before we left Rui had ordered all of us lunch from Dominoes. Once again, American food in China managed to disappoint (maybe surprise is a better word) me. My thoughts were focused on pepperoni, meat lovers, and margherita pizzas, instead I was treated to corn, shrimp, crab, and weird sauces all over my pizzas. After eating the strange lunch and thanking Rui and telling her how great it was, we all loaded onto an undersized bus and embarked on the hour and a half drive to the GE plant. The tour of the plant was pretty cool but I am not sure they exactly understood who we were. One Chinese factory manager kept asking me where I got my MBA and another kept asking which business it was that I started in Beijing. They started by giving us a run down of business in China and where China fit into GE’s bigger business picture. After the discussion they led us around the actual plant where we were able to see hundreds of Chinese workers building MRI machines and other hospital machinery. Before we left we took a big group picture and the manager of the plant gave us all a nice USB flash drive that had the GE logo stamped on it. When we got back we convinced Yuan to take us to the store (man standing on the side of the street) that sold bicycles. Once we arrived I quickly picked out my winner. It was black and awesome. I bartered with the man to get the price down to 210 Yuan (a little more than $30) and I made my purchase. It was perfect. As I was biking back to the Global Village the perfection ended when my seat collapsed, transforming from a perfectly flat seat into a nearly vertical seat…awesome. Today was Ying’s birthday and we were all planning on meeting her at Lush to celebrate. But, before we went Yuan and Rui took us to a really nice Chinese restaurant, in a mall that was at least seven stories tall, to eat dinner. The restaurant was really delicious, but the highlight and funniest part of the evening was watching fifteen American students, led by two Chinese students, bike around the city. Purchasing a bike quickly turned Beijing into one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. Everyone had, at a minimum, one close encounter with a car and I considered it a miracle that we all arrived at Lush safely. Once we arrived we quickly found Ying and I convinced Rich to sing her happy birthday. We spent the rest of the night hanging out with her and making sure that she had a great time.
Day 9- June 9: Death…
So I ate something bad yesterday or maybe I drank something bad…either way, I felt terrible when I woke up. I immediately knew I was not going to make it to work. I quickly sent John and Rich a message, took some medicine and went back to sleep. Apparently I was pretty exhausted because I next woke up around 3:30 PM. I still felt pretty awful, but not nearly as bad as I did that morning. When I woke up I had a number of messages from John and Rich making sure that I was alright and telling me if I needed anything to not hesitate to ask. I took it easy in my room until around 6:00 PM when a few people got back from work and I decided to go out to eat with them. As we walked to the restaurant I realized that I had only eaten a granola bar all day. At the restaurant I devoured a plate of dumplings and a separate plate of noodles and immediately felt almost all better. At dinner we discussed the possibility of going to a concert we had heard about at The Great Wall on Saturday. When we finished eating we took a cab down to Wudaokou and bought tickets…I will explain the details of the concert later on. After buying the ticket I went back to my room and laid around until it was time to go to sleep. It was by far my least favorite day in Beijing, but I am glad I had a quick recovery.
Day 8- June 8: Ring Ring Ring
Another early morning and another day of data collecting marketing data for Gung Ho! Pizza. Today, Alex, Harry and I were working in Guomao an upper class business district where Gung Ho! is considering placing their second location. We decided to stick with the tourist act to collect data…basically acting like a lost tourist in the hope that someone would take the time to help us out. About an hour into our survey collecting (we had five results), Alex and Harry announced that this was the time they ate lunch at school and they were hungry. Reluctantly, I agreed to take an early lunch break and Harry picked out an authentic Japanese restaurant. The food was actually delicious! I had a noodle soup that had slices of duck and a few vegetables…of course it is hard to eat soup with chopsticks and one giant spoon, but I managed. After lunch we went around a two-block area collecting results, we actually had a decent amount of success and matched the number of results we got the day before. The area was really cool as well. It was an underground mall that was connected by tunnels and featured high-end stores. Outside they had a few really large stores attached to the skyscrapers, including a five-story Tiffany and Co. location. Once it got to be 3:30 PM (15:30 as they say here) we headed back to Gung Ho! Pizza to do some POS training. John met us there and gave us the run down of what to do. Basically, we were supposed to talk to the sales people in English and help them understand things they didn’t know, as well as practice their general English speaking abilities. I was teamed up with three girls and it was fun to talk to them in English, as well as helping to teach them my native language. We started out by reading the menu, then I pretended to call in (I made a phone ringing sound as a joke and they laughed for a solid two-minute period) and place an order, and finally we practiced small talk. They seemed to make improvements and they also tried (to no avail) to teach me Chinese. After that I got on the subway and headed back home. It was Wednesday night, so everyone met up at Lush for Pub Trivia Night. Our team lost, but it was still a great time. Afterwards we went down to Pyro Pizza, which had been transformed from a nice pizza restaurant into a full bar/ dance floor/ nightclub. It was a really fun Wednesday night and a great way to wind down after a long day of work.
Day 7- June 7: Hard Work Is Hard
Today was my first day working at Gung Ho! Pizza. What that really means is that I have to take a 45-minute subway ride, followed by a 15-minute walk into one of the smoggiest parts of the city. As bad as that sounds…. I loved every second of it. I love the city atmosphere. I love the way that you can get on a subway knowing where you are going and what you are doing and being one of over a million people on the same subway system. I love Sanlitun (the area where Gung Ho! is located). It has a western city feel, but no matter where you go street vendors, crazy taxi drivers, and an unknown language remind me where I really am. It is an awesome place to work. I arrived at Gung Ho! at 9:45 am and I was the first out of the group that I was supposed to meet to arrive. Today I was supposed to be guiding two other younger interns around to help me with my first project. The interns are named Alex and Harry and they are both in the 10th grade at a prep school that churns out genius children as easy as Hershey’s makes chocolate. Rich had briefed me on our project the day before so I was a step ahead of the game. Carrie, a young Chinese woman from France is also part of the marketing team and she was going to help see us off that morning. After a short Skype meeting with Rich I went over our project again with everyone, it was kind of cool to be in charge of something on my second day, especially because John was listening to what I was saying as well. As cool as that part was, the work kind of sucked and it would best be described as mindless work with a twist of marketing. The gist of the project is that we went to the upper class shopping area about 5 minutes away, named “The Village” and asked individuals “Can you help me with something? What pizza delivery places do you know of in Beijing?” We would then record the data on a chart that Rich and I made the day before. If the interviewee responded with only Gung Ho! we would mark it as “dominant”, if it was the first they mentioned of many we marked it as “top of mind”, if it was mentioned in the middle we simply marked “mentioned” and it is pretty obvious what you mark for no mention. Our target market was individuals between the ages of 20-40. Alex and I talked to foreigners and Harry (because he could speak Chinese) spoke to native Chinese individuals. We would also record the individual’s sex and any other restaurant that they named. That was pretty much what I did most of the day from 11-4 am. Alex was a sweet girl and Harry was a goofy kid who liked Man U and we all got along just fine. It was easy to keep everyone on task and we did a decent job collecting data. Overall we received 65 responses and what felt like 20 million (the population of Beijing) rejections. When we got back Carrie helped me put our data in a spreadsheet and we were able to determine various pieces of information, that part was pretty cool. After that I called Rich and he told me that tomorrow we would do this again in the area where Gung Ho! is looking to put their second location and after that we would analyze the data together and he would let me present it at the next meeting. I kind of have that feeling that I am being tested and hopefully I am right. I am trying to do a good job on this project and hopefully the next one they put in front of me will have a little more responsibility. It is neat to start with something like this knowing that I have a chance to prove myself and possibly work my way up to larger projects. After making the long subway ride back to PKU Yuan took a group of us to play badminton. Yuan has claimed since the beginning of the trip that he is the top badminton player in his grade and in his department. He lived up to the expectations. He beat me 7-21 and everyone else who played against him faced similar results (even though he had not played in 3 months so he could concentrate on his thesis paper). Afterwards Rui and Yuan took a group of us to eat at Yuan’s favorite hot pot place. It was delicious! We ate a ton of food and I tried duck blood tofu…that was alright. When I finally got back I passed out immediately on my rock hard bed. It was a really long day and I am pretty sure that I was dehydrated after being in the sun for so long. Thank God I bought a 1-gallon jug of water on my way home!
Day 6- June 6: Getting Started At Lush/Pyro Pizza/ Gung Ho! Pizza/ Gungho Ventures/ Blue Panda Co. Ltd…Fuck It I Will Figure Out A Shorter Name After A Few Days
Sleep!!! Wow, seriously, it is incredible how great you feel after a long night’s rest. I slept for 10 hours, 4 hours longer than my previous longest night’s sleep, since I arrived in Beijing. I was able to wake up at 9:30 and Skype with Lindsey for about 15 minutes. Great way to start the day! I went upstairs and watched the second half of Game 3 of the NBA Finals with a few guys…go Heat! I am just going to go ahead and make it clear that I am on that bandwagon. It was really great to get to watch a game of NBA, even with the Chinese commentary; it still felt like a slice of home. To top off the “home feeling” that I had started my day with, a group of us went and had McDonalds for lunch/breakfast/my first meal of the day. Of all the things I thought I would miss who would have guessed that cheese and milkshakes would be at the top of the list? Oh, well. After that it was time to start my first day of work. When I walked outside it was raining… great start. There is apparently some great secret to waving down a taxi in Beijing…I clearly do not know the technique, so I took the 20 minute trek down to Lush in the rain. Having been to Lush a few nights ago I had no trouble finding the place, unfortunately Rich had not been specific about who I was supposed to meet there. I hit a bit of luck when I walked in the bar/restaurant/student lounge/concert hall and saw Jade sitting at the bar. At that moment, I was really patting myself on the back for being creepy and googling “Jade Grey Beijing” when I had been home. I went right up to him and introduced myself and Rich joined us a few minutes later. We started out with a simple conversation about being in another country, how they wanted to be a support system for me while I was here (but they made it clear I would not be babied, which I appreciated), and just a little bit about what both of our expectations were for the next two months. It was a wonderful conversation that I felt did a great job in setting the tone for the working portion of my time in Beijing. Jade and Rich left after about half an hour and I was left in the hands of Josh Lally, a native of Las Vegas who had lived in Beijing for about 6 years and does the day to day food management of Lush and Pyro Pizza. I spent the next 3 hours with him talking about the start of Lush, how it evolved into a nightclub that was shut down and turned into Pyro Pizza, and how that evolved into Gung Ho! Pizza. We also discussed various aspects of the company, the day-to-day procedures, the expectations of the company, and the competition that has grown up around in the area since Lush started in 2003. He also showed me around Pyro Pizza, which is literally a 2-minute walk away from Lush, and let me sample the cuisine…I devoured 8 wings and 5 slices of pizza. We then walked about 5 minutes away to the Blue Panda Co. Ltd office or it might be the Gung Ho Ventures office, I am still not really sure on what to call the company when it is talked about as a whole. Anyway, that is where I met John O’Loghlen, Jade’s partner at Gungho! Pizza. I went with him and Rich back to Pyro to listen in on a few details about the company moving forward and to talk about my role as their first intern. I then followed Rich back to the office to discuss the details of my week and what I would be doing on Tuesday. I am going to keep the details of that conversation private so you will be surprised by what I do tomorrow, but it seems like it will be an awesome week and I am really looking forward to my next two months of work. Now it is time to catch up on some rest and get ready for my first full day tomorrow. Here are some websites if you want to check out the company:
Day 5- June 5: If There Was A Swimming Portion Of This Tour You Could Call It A Triathlon
Just the words made my mouth water…big American breakfast. That is what we were promised on the morning of Day 5 before our tour of Beijing. The tour was set up by Wild China and they promised us that it would be a long and exhausting day, they were not lying. We met our tour guides outside of the East Gate and embarked on our journey. The first step was that we had to take the thirty-minute trek to Wudaokou where we would be rewarded with the big American breakfast. Once we arrived the breakfast consisted of eggs, pancakes, bacon, ham, hash browns, a muffin, and orange juice…it lived up to my expectations. We were introduced to our tour guides, an American girl named Taylor and an overly enthusiastic Chinese man. They gave us a presentation on the basics of life in Beijing while we devoured our breakfast and then they led us to the subway. After a short, but packed, subway ride and another thirty-minute walk we arrived at our first destination, the Temple of Earth, one of the four prominent temples built under the reign of the Jiajing Emperor in Beijing in the 16th century (you are welcome for the history lesson). The temple was pretty cool and we spent about an hour exploring and taking photographs of the whole thing. After the tour, we played the Chinese version of hacky sack (called jianzi) with a feathered and springed contraption. Then, we had a one-hour trek to reach our lunch destination. By the time we reached the restaurant we were all exhausted and starving (we had probably walked a total of four miles so far). The food was good and a traditional Chinese meal. One interesting dish was a fish that had been cooked whole, it was served whole with the skin peeled and the meat diced on top of the bone...it was delicious and Yuan said it was a specialty. When we walked outside we discovered a row of BMW bicycles that would take us on the second part of journey. Following a short bike ride we stopped at a very crowded street that was apparently famous among foreigners. Ying was with us and insisted that we go to a place that sells the most famous yogurt drink in all of China. She informed me that people come from kilometers around to have this drink and when we saw the line, that fact became apparently true. In the States a line that long would have taken hours to get through, but in super-efficient China, we got through the line in ten minutes. I tried their traditional yogurt, it was good, not great (another entrepreneurial idea is to import YoPo into China). After battling back through the crowded streets to our bikes, we loaded up and embarked on the hour-long bicycle ride to Houhai. Houhai is a beautiful area. It is located on a lake where bars, restaurants, and shops surround the entire body of water. Each bar and restaurant has oversized couches in front for relaxing and rooftop terraces for dining. We were able to get off of our bikes and hike around the lake. About halfway through the hike we noticed a street vendor who was selling scorpions on a stick to eat…a small group of us went for it. The scorpion was crunchy, salty, fried, and strange, but it was on my checklist of things to do while in China. Next up was a two-hour bike ride from Houhai, circling around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Biking past these locations was a great experience and it really got me excited to take the tour later in the trip. Upon our arrival back at Houhai we returned our bicycles and settled in at a well-known restaurant named No Name. Dinner was another Chinese meal and it was delicious. It started with this great slaw and ended with a sweet dessert of black rice served in pineapple…it was amazing. After an exhausting day our group split up. Some people wanted to stay and hang out in Houhai, I was not one of them. I went with the group that boarded the subway to go home and pass out in bed.
Day 4- June 4: More Street Drinking!
Between my jet lag and the adrenaline of finally being in China it was easy to wake up for my three hour Chinese language course and the course went well. The professor tried to teach us how to barter in Chinese and we tried to pretend like we were comprehending the language and retaining the information. After class we all grabbed a quick Chinese lunch and headed to our first meeting with Professor Akin. Professor Akin is perhaps the most relaxed professor I have ever met. Our classroom setting was extremely laid back and the conversation was focused on how we were all adjusting to life in China and the upcoming activities in which we would be participating. The meeting was scheduled for three hours but it ended after about forty-five minutes. A small group of us decided to head back to Sanlitun to try and find a famous pizza restaurant named The Tree. After a forty-five minute subway ride and two hours of aimless searching (we were pointed in each of the four compass directions at least three times apiece) we finally found The Tree tucked away in the back corner of Sanlitun’s bar street. The pizza was good and they had a great selection of microbrews, but the setting made you feel like you were in a dark beach bar instead of in the city of Beijing. After some more aimless exploring our group headed back and decided that we would go out in Wudaokou that night. The walk to Wudaokou consisted of more beer drinking on the streets. Our group moved slowly stopping in front of various buildings to take a break and to try to construct a plan of action for the rest of the night. At one point we were sitting across the street from the corner where Lush is located and a Chinese promoter came up to a group of us and gave us VIP passes to Global Club (a dance club that is located below the building that is across the street from the building that contains Lush). Russell and I decided that it was worth checking out. As we walked to the door the promoter waved us past a group of Chinese individuals who were paying a 50 rmb cover and we went downstairs. Global Club was every bit the opposite of what Propaganda had been the night before. There were private rooms, everyone was dressed in nice attire, there were plush white couches, a DJ on an elevated stage and a clean feel to the entire place. After these quick observations Russell and I went back upstairs to bring everyone else downstairs. After a long night of dancing and complimentary drinks I grabbed a taxi home with two other people. The only way I got the taxi to take us anywhere was yelling “DONG MEN BEIDA” (East Gate of Peking University) as loud as I could. I have a theory that taxi drivers discriminate against Americans in Beijing.
Day 3- June 3: This Is Going To Be A Great Internship…
Can you imagine the ideal start to your day? I can. Now, can you imagine the exact opposite of that? I can do that too. For me, the opposite of my ideal morning would be to have a three-hour foreign language class that started at 9:00 am…and that is exactly how Day 3 began. Surprisingly, for whatever reason, I really enjoyed the experience. There is no pressure when it comes to learning Chinese. I know that I am not going to be perfect at the language and I also know that I will not be tested on it. I even mastered a few sayings. Wo shi mei guo ren (I am from America). I also received my fair share of “standard” comments. After class we met Professor Akin (our UNC professor who is with us for the month of June) outside of the classroom and we all loaded into a bus to go to Sanlitun to meet our internship hosts. Visiting Sanlitun was an eye opening experience. Up until this point, everywhere that I had been in Beijing had seemed dirty and much closer to a third world country than a global power…Sanlitun was Western, advanced, clean and awesome. There were huge buildings everywhere with progressive glass architecture. They had a five-story Nike store, four and five star restaurants all around, and every major clothing brand you could imagine. Our destination was a nice restaurant named Blue Frog, where we were treated to a huge cheeseburger and a plate of fries. Jade was in New Zealand, so I was met at Blue Frog by Rich, the head of marketing for Lush, Pyro Pizza, and Gung Ho! Pizza. Rich was very friendly and personable. He had some Chinese heritage, long shoulder length hair, and tattoos all over his arms. Jim James, the internship coordinator, was present at the lunch as well and he gave a short presentation to all of the interns and their hosts about what the expectations would be for both sides. After the lunch ended, Rich invited all of us to come to Lush for a few drinks later that night (after street beers the night before we all eagerly agreed). Everyone took a little bit of time to shop around the Sanlitun area (no purchases…everything here was legit and expensive) before taking the subway back to the Global Village. When we arrived home it was about time for dinner so we decided to go ahead and go to Lush for dinner and drinks. My first impression of Lush was that it was a cozy bar and hang out. To get to the entrance you have to walk through a bookstore and up a flight of stairs. Once you enter, the space is pretty small, but it was packed full. At any given time there are about fifteen tables, a few bar stools, and a bit of standing room in Lush. I had called Rich right before we arrived and he met us at the door and led us through the crowd to a table. We all ordered various western food and Rich got us our first round of drinks. It was live music night and everyone enjoyed hanging out for about four or five hours. After the music ended Rich suggested we check out Propaganda (he called it a “right of passage”), a club that was two minutes away. By this point, it did not take a lot of convincing to get everyone to go to a dance club. I later found out a few things about Propaganda 1. It is known for having fake alcohol 2. Chinese gangs/mafia like to hang out there and 3. They love white people. As we walked in the door we were all given our own VIP black card that gave us all half off drinks and free admittance any night of the week. Everyone bought a drink and headed down into what could best be described as a basement/ dance floor/ dungeon/ Chinese mosh pit. Surprisingly, the DJ was playing regular American club music. After fighting our way downstairs our group pushed onto the main stage right in front of the DJ (we literally kicked everyone else off the stage) and danced there for what felt like hours…it was great. Nash had his Flip video camera and it is safe to assume that there are a number of ridiculous videos from that night. At some point I left Propaganda and went home to go to sleep…knowing all along that I had Chinese language class again the next morning at 9:00 am.
Day 2- June 2: Getting Lost In Beijing
Day 2 was a really long day. As I am writing I am on Day 8 and I am just going back to fill in the missing days of this blog. As I am looking over the notes that I took it has occurred to me just how much was accomplished. After a good night’s rest I woke up starving. Our group met our teaching assistants downstairs and they led us through the gates of Peking University to help us set up…well, I guess they helped us set up our lives. After a short walk we mentioned that no one had eaten breakfast and they kindly led us to the dining hall where they paid for our first Chinese breakfast. As images of eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, waffles and all the other breakfast foods that I love jumped through my mind Yuan brought a plate of pork dumplings over to our table, followed by what could best be described as black beans floating in muddy water, and to wash it all down we had a warm bean drink that was green and served in a soft plastic cup with a straw…it sucked. After eating what I could, we went to a random building where we were given our welcome packets and our ID cards. They also completed one out of what has felt like 100 passport and visa checks (nothing gets by this government). This was followed by short introductory speeches by Yuan, Rui, Ying, Professor Akin, and some other random people who do not matter. After, we went and got a meal card where Yuan convinced us that we would eat 100-Yuan worth of campus food (yes, if you haven’t noticed his name is the same as the Chinese currency). We were then given a tour of the campus. The campus is a really crazy place. Half of it looks like a slum and the other half is a beautiful park, with a lake, amazing flowers, trees, and this huge (very Chinese looking) tower. Of course I didn’t take a single picture. Sorry. But, I plan on taking a few hours out of one day just to go around and photograph the whole campus. So, stay tuned for the pictures. After our tour Rui showed a small group of us where the China Construction Bank was and I withdrew a cool 1000-Yuan. It really makes you feel like a boss to withdraw the maximum amount that an ATM will allow, even if it is only about $150 US dorrahs (dollars). The next step was to dive into the world of Chinese language with a three-hour class. The woman who taught us seemed nice enough, but she always appeared perplexed when we spoke in Chinese. Occasionally, if someone did a good job she would simply say “standard” and move on…I received a few “standard” comments myself. It was nice to take the class, but the reality is that barely any of it has stuck with me and it really was just a funny bonding time with everyone that is on the program. After that we decided we would head to the subway station and go check out the town. When we were on the subway we decided to get off one stop earlier than planned (for the life of me I cannot remember why we had this idea…I think it was to avoid a transfer station) and just walk the rest of the distance to the area where we were told had some nice dinner locations…bad idea. As soon as we got off the subway we had no since of direction and ended up walking in circles around a really sketchy part of Beijing for about an hour. Finally, we were all starving, and decided to try a random restaurant that seemed sanitary enough. When we walked in we should have been scared off immediately. At the front of the restaurant we spotted a young Chinese boy throwing ash from an ashtray at a few of the waitresses…never a good sign, but we were starving. After a 10-minute wait they found a waitress who could speak Chinese and she took us upstairs to our own private room, which was surprisingly really nice. That is when we realized it was a hot pot restaurant, which made us all alot more excited. In the end our waitress was extremely kind and helpful and the food was great. The waitress helped us order, showed us how to cook our food (she even did some of the cooking for us), and brought us a round of refreshingly cold Tsingtaos (Chinese beer). We all shared a huge plate of mutton, a bowl of cabbage and spinach and I think the other dish was pork. The meal was relatively inexpensive and after we finished we really had no idea where to go. In the end we just posted up on some plastic furniture in front of a 7-11 gas station and drank cold Tsingtaos on the street until everyone was ready to take the subway back home. It was a really long day, but I learned a number of valuable lessons that will help me in Beijing and everyone got to know each other a lot better.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Day 1- June 1: Beijing Has Him Now
I guess we will start Day 1 with the moment I got off the plane. Even though 3 hours of sleep does not seem like enough time to separate two different days. Leg three…complete…welcome to China. If you do not catch the reference in the title, it is referring to The Hangover 2…just think about it or Google it if you have not seen the movie. It literally feels like you are in another world as soon as you walk off the plane. There is this really crazy ceiling in the airport that I did not take a picture of on the way in (hopefully I remember on the way out). The number of Chinese people that I have seen in my life doubled or possibly tripled in a 20-minute period. I cleared customs and people who could not speak a word of English surrounded me. When I smiled at the lady who took my passport I was met with a straight face…I was clearly not at home anymore. After clearing customs it was on to the baggage claim. Bag one…check, the woman at RDU continues to be an angel in my eyes. Bag two, on the other hand, which Air Canada forced me to check at the gate did not arrive. In fact when I went to the office to ask of its where abouts, a young Chinese boy told me in broken English that is was sitting in Toronto and would not arrive until late the next day…awesome start. I then exchanged $100 USD for right around $650 RMB…booyah!!! We were met at the gate by who I would later find out are our student assistants from Peking University (Rui, Yuan, and Ying). They walked us to a bus and we started on the hour-long drive to PKU. The driver of the bus was a sweet looking Chinese woman who spoke no English, but if you had been blind folded you would have thought that she put the worst NYC taxi drivers to shame. She was fitting our bus into the tiniest openings, dodging around other cars, going out of the lanes onto the side of the road where no one drives in the US and simply driving recklessly…I would later find out that this is completely acceptable and necessary behavior for a driver in Beijing. When we arrived at campus our group discovered our home for the next two months, and it was really nice. The buildings were new with great architecture and they were clean. They surround this great courtyard that has a round about, flowers, trees, and stone benches everywhere. We checked into our rooms and had to give a 500 RMB cash deposit…that pretty much took care of the cash that I had withdrawn. Everyone took the time to unpack and after about an hour my roommate John (Nash) (there are three Johns on the trip) arrived as well. After we got settled in we met up with Yuan, Ying, and Professor Akin and they took us to a restaurant around the corner. The way that you eat food in China is very different than in America. To start, everyone has only a tiny plate, about the size of what we would rest our coffee cups on at a restaurant. You obviously do not have a fork…only chopsticks. Finally, the food is brought out and put at the center of the table and everyone shares everything. Our dinner was pretty good, but definitely different than sesame chicken or General Tso’s chicken. Some of the weird dishes included this strange white stick with a odd texture and taste, covered in a jam, random meats, veggies, and chicken were served in ways I had never seen and there was a fried dough covered in a good, yet unidentifiable orange sauce. Fortunately, Tsingtao, the Chinese beer, is pretty awesome. After dinner Yuan and Ying took us to the East Gate of PKU, which is right by our building. After 10 minutes of arguing with the guards we had to walk to another gate to get in because we did not have our ID cards yet. They took us to a little underground convenient store on campus where I was able to buy a few essentials such as a towel and a huge bottled water. After that we went back to our rooms and went to sleep after the long day. It was the first time that I had a chance to catch my breath since I left Gastonia.
The Journey To The Other Side Of The World
Wow. There is no better word to describe the beginning of my trip. The morning of my flight I was woken up at 5:45 am by a call from dad…my international flight to Toronto was leaving at 7 am. After franticly waking Hunter up we were off and literally running. Hunter’s impression of “The Fast and The Furious” landed me at the airport at 6:15 am. As I was waiting in line two fellow late risers (John (my roommate) and Charles) rolled in behind me. A direct quote from the man behind the counter “You will never make that flight.” Great start to the trip. Fortunately luck was on my side because an angel of a woman behind the counter quickly checked our luggage, gave us our boarding passes, led us to the front of a line that consisted of >250 travelers who were pissed that 3 college students got to skip to the front, and helped us through security. Then all we had to do was sprint through the terminal and get on the plane…easy. Leg two…complete. We arrived in Toronto and discovered our flight was delayed, which made our total layover more than 5 hours. Toronto had a tiny airport, but they compensated for their lack of entertainment by having a bar that opened early. That made it much more enjoyable. I have not decided if Air Canada sucks or not. The plane was pretty awesome. They fed us three meals on the flight to Beijing and all beverages were complimentary. They also had individual monitors that allowed us to choose the movies we watched on the flight. I spent my 13 and a half-hours watching No Strings Attached, Dinner For Schmucks, The Town, and something else I cannot remember…oh also I managed to sleep for maybe 3 hours. As we arrived in China I was able to see the Great Wall out of the plane, that was pretty crazy, and a great welcome to China.
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