Me Ol' China (week 8)

Chinese fever for stocks is amazing... A country depressed by the green ticks! Yes, it is not a typing mistake; green over here means down and red, up. Red is a fortunate colour so it cannot be used to signal shares going down. I have been having some long meeting this week and while we were trying to do our job, people were either down or getting up and leaving the room constantly to talk to their brokers. In China individuals are only allowed to go long and they cannot short positions, so when shares go down, the whole country loses money and with the Shanghai index losing about 30-40% from the tops, there isn't much to be happy about. Beijing 2008 is getting closer and the local government is trying to push all locals to be up to the role of hosts. In the taxis there is a message for all passengers inviting them to tell the taxi driver of any wrongdoings. This message is in both Chinese and English but, unfortunately, the English version is unclear and even if it was the clearest message ever, you wouldn't be able to tell anything to the driver as he wouldn' t understand a word of any language either than Chinese with a perfect (local) pronunciation.
Last week I got a drunk driver. Reporting him would have meant his license to be thrown away but, even reporting him would have been complicated. He was singing and drinking and driving and blowing the horn and shouting and spitting, all at once... He was my midnight nightmare after having been to one of the nicest vegetarian restaurants ever in this vibrant city. The more I am over here and the more I realize that learning Chinese and the local culture is a non-impossible challenge. The more I go around the western areas the more I realized how much I dislike staying around expats. I have been around ChaoYang area recently, due to my temporary rejection of Chinese suffered last week, but after two nights I have decided that I will stick to my chopsticks and silly looks I get when I order some hot water to accompany my meals. Much better staying around locals and understand nothing than listening to the comments of Big Noses about locals. Sometimes I really get surprised by the level of ignorance surrounding the Westerners over here and I really wonder if they ever meet some Chinese people during their permanence here.
There is something worse than Westerners, though. And these are Chinese girls trying to make Western men fall for them. They seem dolls in the hands of the occasional Western jerk showing off the trophy, as if people around don't know that you can get a Suzie Wang in any bar in Sanlitun or in the Lido area. These men look so corky and the ladies seem so unnatural in their attempt to renegade their culture and showing how emancipated they are when dressing western clothes and looks and covering some typical oriental features enhancing some western ones.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, over here, girls are honored of having older boyfriends or husbands because age is a factor of respect amongst women. But, after an initial period of belief, giving the benefit of doubt, I am afraid, the wallet is king. If it were true that age is a factor of attraction, you would see many Chinese couples with big age gap. Well, I don't see such a thing but I see older Westerners with young Chinese girls. And that is matter of wallets and credit cards.
I see that there is an attempt of revaluing Chinese values and this is done in many ways. For instance, TV are now banned from showing foreign made cartoons during a certain time and other measures, to increase the awareness of Chinese culture, are taking place.
As I mentioned before, Chinese have a certain sense of superiority and they think that nobody can learn their language and understand their culture. I have had some strong opposition by friends and colleagues and some of them have openly showed concern about me learning their language: I wouldn't be dependent on them anymore and if I really learn the language it will mean that it is not impossible to do so. Same for cultural aspects: impossible I understand them. That's what they keep saying. If you point that someone spat on your shoe, or that someone is pissing in the street in front of the by passers, or someone begging for a few coins and nearly stepped over by subway passengers, you do not understand our culture... It is the sentence you hear every single time you disapprove something that is humanly odd.

I find this a reason to look forward and study Chinese and try to get fluent in 2 years instead of the planned 3 :)) . This week I started my classes and it seems like a very possible task. China is changing me under many points of views. Physically I am feeling better, spiritually, I found a new challenge in life, business wise, I got a big task in making my colleagues aware of their potential and make them feel part of the company and be appreciated.

A few evenings ago I had a business dinner at a very traditional and luxurious restaurant somewhere in Beijing. The food was excellent and I had really the experience of a life time with a table of 10 15 guys showing some Chinese mannerisms... As I mentioned previously during the past weeks, there are virtually no table manners in China, but this has gone far beyond the minimum decency.

They were eating, smoking, drinking, and spitting food and more on the floor. There was more food and spit on the floor than on the middle of their table. Bottles of beers were countless and everything was happening at ease, without them or the other guests taking a notice at it. Shouting and spitting and drinking... all perfectly acceptable. I felt very uncomfortable, I have to admit, and I am sure that there are things I will never get used to, in this Country.

Unfortunately I am experience in prime person what they say about illnesses in Beijing. They say that Beijing takes a very high toll in terms of colds, flues and so on. This week I am sick again with sore throat and temperature. It seems unavoidable getting sick over here, no matter how careful you are. I am not sure whether it's living in an air-conditioned environment or getting into the packed subway or polluted streets or overheated apartments and restaurants or all of them at once...

Yesterday outside, the view from my apartment was a ghostly vision: everything seems to be yellow. Only watching the news I realized that some regions have been hit by sandstorms coming from Mongolia, and this are going to continue today. Ghastly cold winds are reducing the temperature from 12 degrees to around 5 and away from the wind you start sweating and get dried as soon as you are in a wind channel built by the buildings. Add to the sand all the dust flying around normally and you will understand why many people, these days, decided to stay home and not go around. On a local paper it was said that, currently, in Beijing there 2 billion square meters under construction. This represent half of all the construction works carried out on this planet. The government is planning to stop the works of the most polluting ones during the Olympics even if, according to the same article, 96% of the new constructions being completed are within the pollution limits set by the authorities in 2006, while only 76% of those started before have the same characteristics.

For those of you coming to Beijing, the police has thought of a, according to their definition, brilliant solution! If, and this will certainly be the case, you will not be able to communicate with a local policeman (or woman) the policeman will take out some cards with basic questions and answers in your language and if still no understanding between the two is possible, the policeman will contact a call centre where there will be a volunteer that will be able to assist you in your language. They are putting a big effort into this language business and I really hope that the Olympics would just be the beginning and not the end of this travel towards other cultures that China is doing. Economy is important but I think that an opening and an effort to understanding the others could make Chinese better understand the world they live in and how beneficial internationalization can be for an economic power like this. Let's be frank, if I am the only foreigner working in a particular section of the economy over here, it means that a change is needed. I cannot imagine of anyone hiring a Big Nose that doesn't speak the local lingo just for his good looks! China needs some changes, mainly in the organization of work. A lot of effort is put into daily activities but I think that there could be a great improvement and increase of efficiency if things would be organized differently.
You think of the shopping centres. You buy the clothes somewhere, let's say in 3 different shops. You will be given a 3-copy receipt by each shop attendee. You will go to a counter, pay and you will get back to copies and stuck on one copy the receipt showing that you have paid. This for each receipt, because the payments are done separately. Then you go back to each shop and collect the goods and get back one copy of the receipt... I don't even want to imagine the workload at the end of day when the compensation with the House needs to be done. And this is only a small example, but in all aspects of life, this is the reality and from the bank to the supermarket, there are odd things going on that only with some small changes could make China more efficient and people more professional and more in control of their jobs.

Anyway, despite all, the truth is that...

I love China.