Monday, July 30, 2007

The Up and Leave Concept

Have you ever sat down at a restaurant and felt that you wanted to leave, maybe because it wasn't up to your standard (smelled bad, silverware dirty, etc)?

Well, the Chinese have no problem upping and leaving from restaurants, taxi's, toilets, you name it. I have been in the same situation a couple of days apart where we sat down at a restaurant, tea was poured, and someone didn't like the look and feel of the place, so off to another place. Another time it happened when we got in a taxi. We let the taxi move about 200m before we just opened the door and hopped out. Those offering their services are usually passive to the whole up and leave concept. I guess with a city of 20 million there are plenty of customers.

A bit confused...
I am still trying to understand where and when the saving face concept comes in. I think there is more of a social contract formed through people that you know and for those that you don't, then you don't have to really consider saving face. I just think it is funny that when conditions are more than smelly and the Shanghainese tend to make a stink about it quite easily (no pun intended)!

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Free Yoga Classes + Massage

I found out the company has it's own Yoga room and conducts classes on Thursday's. I like yoga and figured why not see how I fair with a Chinese teacher. At first I was the only student and she actually spoke a bit of English to my surprise! Then 2 other students came to the class and that felt a bit better. I didn't want to look like a fool considering it has been about 5 years since I last attended a yoga class. The class went on and I was pleasantly surprised how fair she was speaking both English and Chinese and then coming over to everyone to make sure that you were in the right position. I think the icing on the cake had to be the ending bit of relaxation and head massage.Yeah! I think many people in the company don't know what they're missing! Shh..I will keep the secret to myself so I can get the extra bonus at the end everytime =)

Monday, July 23, 2007

One Step Back

Okay...just decided to start posting a random blurb, but didn't do it in the right order so let's take one step back.

I worked one week in the company so far. Some of those "note to self" moments (pretty much the shortened version):

Lunch at noon (sharp). The whole company heads to the dining hall to see what the special of the day is...if you blink and miss the fast foot movement then nothing for you.

Nap time after 30 minutes lunch. The logic is eat fast, have more time to nap.

People's English names can be a bit funny at times:
  • Nokia
  • Person
  • Black (who is a tall white guy and when he met the Jamaican was pretty embarrased)
  • Shutz (is there a meaning to this one?)

Expect documents in English to have poor grammar. Sometimes you don't know what they are trying to get at, but expect being one of two Westerner's in the company you will be asked to correct something.

The cleaning ladies: about 5 on the premises - cheap labor at its best
  • they will normally come in to your workspace 3 times a day with the broom and throw the wastepaper out
  • they dust the plants about 3 times a day as well (mind you, the plants are not looking too spiffy - perhaps it is a bad thing)
Expect to be in a meeting where somehow the conversation turns from English to Chinglish to Chinese for the rest of the meeting. '


Health Exam - almost failed to mention. Every Chinese or Foreigner, newly hired, needs to get a mandatory health exam. The health exam consists of nurses dressed in 70's nurse uniforms with the little hat asking you to go between 10 different rooms for xray, eye check, sample check (meaning your blood), EKG, blood pressure, etc. The big benefit is that your company pays for it. It was a blast from the past with the look and feel though.

New Lesson of the Day

Umm..don't create a powerpoint with 4, 14, 24, 34 slides..etc.. I created a PPT with the only feedback being that it was 14 slides and the number 4 in China when spoken also sounds like death.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Apartment Hunting Time

The next phase after finding the work placement was to up and move from the northeasten part of the city to the far southwestern suburbs. Shanghai is no small city, 20 million give or take, and it took about 1 hour to drive from the NE to the SW. My last classes conveniently was with Ronna and she worked with her company to set up viewing appointments with an agency. As we drove down to the area I was thinking to myself what type of places are these going to be. You know most of the housing is pretty much communist-style bars on windows, stark in the "model quarters" they have all over town. Of course you can live in the center of the city high-rise but you are going to pay a pretty penny for it...even by London standards! Real-estate prices are going through the roof. On the other side of the spectrum you can find cheaper places where you can pay $100-150 per month.

So on the road with Ronna..we went to meet a gal from her company Lydia who works in Admin and she called the real estate agency company on my behalf for viewings. This night they took me to some nice places that felt like they were in the middle of the boonies. Pretty much one university with 70k students, not close to the subway was really not what I was looking for. AND..this one is really important..a PROPER supermarket..with an imported goods section. Once you have that you are all set. After the first night, I wasn't really convinced that the area was for me...big places in nice communist-like communities but too far in the middle of knowhere.

Onto the next day...well LUCKILY the day before we dropped off another gal before heading to do some viewings. She admitted that another guy at her company was looking for a place and he was about the same age as me. The strange thing was her and Ronna kept questioning me on living with a guy..apparently it is taboo here. You live with a guy only if you are basically engaged. But I think that is changing. So I had a quick chat with the guy and he was already looking for a roommate plus he already viewed 7 places and found a good one that he wanted to show me..phew..thanks mister. Apparently the gals told me is a Korean/Chinese - minority in China. The funniest thing is his name: Crane..sounds like his Chinese name so I guess that is why it came easily in English.

Well Crane took me around with Ronna and Irene (his boss and student in my exchange)...more communist-style housing communities and smaller 2 bedroom apartments. Nothing REALLY caught my eye. Yes, they were all fully furnished but some a bit too far from the subway. Although I was pretty content with the area. It had a traditional chinese community feel with really no Westerners. There is a massive mall with Western supermarket 10 minutes walk away and the metro is the same distant.

So the night went on and Irene, Crane's boss and gal in my exchange program had the best proposal of the night so far. She offered me to rent a room in her place which was even nicer than the places I had seen and closer to the mall and metro. Phew! Well I just thought about it for a split second and made sure that Crane was okay with that. Apparently they were discussing in Chinese all about the situation and thought it would be better for me to stay for the short-term because in China you would usually take a lease out for a year.

My new home: Lianhua Road

Well I knew already this would pretty much be a communist-style community fit with bars on windows. Bars on windows in China is a must..this country is not safe..RIIIIGHT! Probably the safest country I have been in..with undercover police everywhere. Lovely lil 2 bedroom pad with a nice entertainment system and big bedrooms. I was looking for the karaoke system but unfortunately that's a no go...there is a good selection of pirated DVD's to keep me busy and a small garden in the back.

Life after MBA classes

A bit about Sino-Stee

This is the first blog of many that will elaborate on being a young professional in China. I know there will be many twists and turns to some of the work stories and additional stories about living in general...humourous, negative, depressing, positive, etc. Please enjoy and perhaps enrich yourself with a bit more understanding of the Chinese people, culture, and business ethics.

Life after MBA - Take 1
Last weekend I officially attended the last class of my MBA exchange program at SIMBA, Aslaug left on Tuesday, and I started working (Monday) with Intradin Machinery Co. in the Minhang District of Shanghai.

Just a bit of background on how I found the work placement...
Thanks to one of my fellow Edinburgh classmates and his International Business Negotiation group work, Jens spoke with Ronna (Marketing Director) at Intradin about any opportunities for work placement with the company. After a small conversation, Jens put me in touch with Ronna. The first time I spoke with Ronna I was about to board a plane for Sanya and it was a bit awkward for an informal interview to hear boarding announcements in the background, but I guess when your in China noise isn't an issue since there is always excessive noise. We got through it and Ronna seemed very interested in taking me in as a Marketing Analyst. So really what does that mean, it isn't necessarily an assistant or a researcher, perhaps it is both. I went to Sanya and layed on the beach for 5 days with Aslaug thinking well what should be the next step. Since I needed to do a work placement, would it be more beneficial in China or in UK. Since I arrived in China, the light bulb went off and I continued to say "stay." So maybe I was just waiting for some way to convince me to stay. More thoughts on what the marketing analyst role was all about continued to linger...

Back in Shanghai after 5 consecutive weeks of travel, I had a work placement, but not without some drama...nothing is really "too easy" in China. I started as a marketing analyst on 16 July, but before that I needed to find a place closer to the office.

Next up..finding a place in Shanghai.