group vs. individual consciousness

(in case you’re wondering how I’ve found the time to blog twice in one hour, the server with my homedir is about to go offline to upgrade to the latest and greatest release of Solaris. this is convenient for the Menlo Park engineers, not so convenient for MPK engineers like Poorna and I working in Beijing. oh well.)

My Barron’s Chinese At A Glance phrasebook (which is ABSOLUTELY essential, and very very very handy for non-Chinese speakers visiting China) mentions the Chinese concept of ’saving face’ and that they emphasise the group consciousness vs. the individual consciousness.

This basically means that the Chinese culture is to give preference to what the group wants, rather than the individual. This is evidenced by how willing and eager your Chinese co-workers are to try and help you out (which is very true of my co-workers here, I might add). You can also see this in tour groups (i.e.: whatever the group wants, rather than the one individual in the back who insists on seeing every single jade shop along the way). Having grown in a Chinese family (despite my apparent language handicap), I can attest to this as well.

I believe, however, I have found the one aspect of their culture where this doesn’t hold true: traffic.

Somehow, the most polite, willing-to-bend-backwards-to-help-you Chinese person becomes an ABSOLUTE MANIAC in traffic. Just like my last entry, this is again, a HUGE generalisation, so please, no comments on why I’m a racist bigot or something.

Traffic here is insane… it’s like every single person in a taxi/car/bus/truck has a pregant woman in the backseat about to give birth to triplets… oh, and yeah, they left the stove on, so they gotta run back home and turn that off too. Seriously, they all drive like madmen (and madwomen). There is no thought given to “group consciousness” here at all. People block intersections, run red lights, and they all look like they’re doing it with a very intense driven purpose.

Add comment September 21st, 2004

you’re not fully clean, unless you’re zestfully clean…

RobertRichard mentioned in a comment on my last entry:

“Maybe Chinese men are sensitive to being seen with their clothes off, so a blind masseuse would be a good marketing ploy. E.g. we don’t care what you look like (as long as you don’t smell bad).”

Having been in an elevator with many a Chinese man (and woman, to be fair): they do smell bad. Okay, so that’s a huge generalisation, but I have to say, personal hygiene is not as important here as it is in the states. I don’t know if one can quantify B.O., but I would definitely say it’s higher here than in the states.

B.O. aside, there are other things such as the ubiquitous spitting on the streets. 3 years ago, when I was here last, it was rampant (to the point that some guy spit on my sandal-clad feet, and when I confronted him about it, just looked at me as if to say “well, that’s your fault for wearing sandals”). If there’s one good thing SARS did for China, it was to help decrease the amount of public spitting. It’s still visible here and there, but has definitely gone down. Kudos to the Beijing gov’t (or SARS) for that.

…. and the teeth. Don’t get me started on the teeth. Given that my sister, her boyfriend, and my girlfriend are all dentists (and one of my best friends has now started his own 4 year stint at dental school), I’m practically an honorary dentist. Hell, I’ve spent 5 years sitting in the lobby of the UCLA Dental School meeting my sister and girlfriend over the various years, reading their research posters. I can tell you that 4 UCLA dental students found that the Oral-B 3D Excel is better than the SoniCare, and I can tell you that Listerine really does help. But it doesn’t take any dental education to tell anyone that oral hygiene in China is baaaaaaad. People rib on my home country for having bad teeth, man…they ain’t got NOTHING on China. I’m not sure why either… I wonder if dental care is a good indicator of 1st world, 2nd world, developing nation, etc. status. ? It’d certainly be an interesting study, in any case…

(on a totally tangential note: does anyone find it somewhat disturbing that the first Google result for ‘United Kingdom’ returned is a CIA website)

2 comments September 21st, 2004

massage-e… OK!

poorna and i finally broke down and got massages. . . by blind people. massage-e OKAY!

(read my Qingdao entry if you haven’t yet).

I forgot to mention this in my earlier weekend blog, but on Sunday, we attempted to get “traditional Chinese blind person massage”. We hailed a taxi, showed him the address we wanted to go to, and asked him if he knew where it was. He kept nodding and saying yes, he knew, so we hopped in and off we went.

We got a little suspicious though when we arrived in the district, and he hopped out of the car to ask someone for directions. We thought about what to do, with Poorna suggesting we get out of the car and run. As tempting as it was, we decided to stay.

When he got out for the second time to ask for directions we decided this was ridiculous, and got out of the cab. We then wandered up and down the street looking for “#1 Pufong Lu”. We were on Pufong Lu already, so we reasoned that it shouldn’t be that hard to find #1…. until we realised none of the storefronts have freaking street numbers.

I don’t know how these people get their mail.

[sigh]. We wandered around for about 40 minutes looking for the place until we finally found it. Anyway, the massage was great…80 yuan ($10) for an hour. My lower back feels much better now.

I wonder what it is about blind people and massages? Are they traditionally made masseuses because their remaining senses are heightened? Or is it just because it’s a job where they don’t really need sight? i.e.: does the man make the job? or does the job make the man?

tangential note: I suspect my masseuse wasn’t really blind…. but I thought it might be rude of me to ask, “are you really blind?”

1 comment September 21st, 2004

Journey to the West

A long time ago, Steve introduced Erik and I to the wonder that is the movie A Chinese Odyssey, Part 1: Pandora’s Box, or as we called it simply: The Monkey King. Throughout high school, college, and up to present time, we often made references to the movie. I ended up buying it, along with Part 2, and watched it countless times. I dragged other friends to my house to watch it too.

We’ve spent many years making Monkey King jokes, and quoting brilliant quotes from the movie (”You can’t hurt me. I’ve got a super body!” “The world is unfair, I am as beautiful as flower, how can I got pregnant with this ugly man?” and Erik’s and my favourite classic: “”BOYIIIII BOLLOMIIIIIII!!!!!! WOW! BACK IN TIME!”.) Trust me, the quotes are a lot funnier with the context of the movie surrounding them.

Anyway, I was at a Chinese bookshop a few days ago (funny thing…there’s a lot of those in Beijing, go figure), and saw English versions, “Journey to the West: Volumes 1-3″ on the shelf, which is the original title of the Chinese epic that became those two movies. I couldn’t help it, I bought it. Considering how much humour and joy those two movies brought to my life, I feel I have to at least read the original epic.

So far it’s great. I’m only 150 pages into volume 1, but it’s great to read more of the story glossed over by the movie. For instance, I’ve now finally learned WHY the Monkey King was imprisoned in the mountain. I highly recommend it…the translation can be a little stiff sometimes, but overall, it’s good so far…

Erik: read this book.

3 comments September 20th, 2004

swarms, shopping, serenity, shopping squard

ugh. the forbidden city is not nearly forbidden enough. on Saturday, poorna, evan, kevin, and i headed to the forbidden city to see how the emperors lived it up in the old days. this is the second time i’ve gone to see the palace, though it was interesting this time for one main reason:

• i’ve gone to the Taiwan National Palace Museum since my first trip to the Forbidden City, so now I’ve actually seen the treasures and things that used to be in the palace. the same part of me that wondered “goddamn. how many tea pots do they have in this place?!?!?!?” at the National Palace Museum now said “holy shit. this place is huge. they really do have enough room for 5 million tea pots” at the Forbidden City.

however, going back to the Forbidden City was uninteresting for one main point:

• the huge throngs of people. there were just swarms and swarms of tour groups, and tourists everywhere. it was suffocating… definitely better to go there on a weekday than on a weekend.

it was still neat nonetheless, with the photo of the day being Poorna most decidedly taking a warning sign to heart.

after the Forbidden City, we had lunch, where Poorna and I proceeded to make amazing modern watermelon art. i hope the waiters/waitresses appreciated it before throwing it in the trash

after lunch, we headed to Xiu Shui (Silk Road) Market, the famous market by the Embassy District. we had fun shopping, haggling, and bargaining for stuff. we were pretty beat after that, and retired home for a lazy evening of watching Cantonese pop stars proclaim their love for Poorna on the TV, and eating horrible local impressions of pizza and garlic bread.

on Sunday, we went to the Lamas Temple. The Lonely Planet Beijing guide gives a pretty interesting description when they say it’s the place where Chinese Communism controls Tibetan Buddhism. i’d be interested to hear what the Dalai Lama thinks about it. anyway, it’s the temple where they choose the Panchen Lama (i believe this is the second highest lama after the Dalai Lama). it’s amazing…grand architecture, all clean and beautiful, and nary a scaffold in sight. what’s even more amazing is the lack of tourists there. it was such a relief to be able to walk around uninhibited, and see the shrines and temples there. the most awe-inspiring sight was of course the 18 metre high statue of the Maitreya Buddha in the last hall. 18m doesn’t sound that high until you’re there staring up at it, trying to figure out how to surreptitiously take a photo without the Tibetan monk/security guard standing about 10 feet away noticing. in fact, you weren’t allowed to take any photos from inside any of the shrines/temples. this was discouraging until i started practicing shooting my camera from the hip without the flash, and with a slower shutter speed. it’s tricky to be holding it there steady enough for a shot to take, it’s even harder when you need to hold it super steady to ensure enough light enters to allow for a bright enough picture. anyway….yes, i’m evil, i took photos from the inside of a Tibetan shrine. i’m sure i’m somehow going to be damned to a resurrection cycle of roadkill and toilet paper or something. oh well…y’all better appreciate the photos.

after that, we walked down the hutong (chinese alley-way) to the Confucious Temple. it’s amazing, it’s huge, it’s the second biggest temple in China dedicated to Confucious, they have everything on Confucious, except for some reason they don’t mention ANYTHING about his fortune cookie contributions to mankind. actually, it was an amazing temple. they had these “steles” (big giant stone tablets) with the names of all the candidates who passed Confucious’ rigorous governance exams (imagine being locked in a 1.5 square-meter closet for 3 days taking an exam), as well the requisite shrines, etc. one of the most amazing exhibits was the 13 Classics, a collection of 190 stone tablets with these 13 Classic Chinese legends/stories written on them. the calligraphy was exquisite. i totally appreciate the flowing grace Chinese calligraphy has on paper scrolls, but to see it etched and carved into stone was just stunning. it’s hard to explain how flowing and graceful it looked on stone, knowing it was carved in.

after the Confucious temple, we headed to Hong Qiao market, for another shopping bonanza. Poorna is now convinced he can make a business bringing back cheap LED headlamps and reselling them on eBay.

3 comments September 19th, 2004

English names for Chinese people

I’ve noticed something interesting here… a lot of people choose their own English names. Maybe people born now are given English names by their Chinese parents, but people who are in their 20’s & 30’s probably weren’t given English names 20 or 30 years ago, so they have chosen their own names sometime during school or working for western companies. It’s kind of neat getting to choose your own name… of course, it also creates for some interesting ones.

The biggest one I’ve raised my eyebrows at: we met a girl at a bar named Cinderella. I kid you not. I asked her if she had to be home at midnight, but I think the joke was lost on her… alas.

Ones I happen to like: one guy in our group has the name Forrest, which is kind of cool. I dunno if he took it from Gump, but it’s a neat name by itself.

Best name I’ve heard so far: a Solaris x86 engineer here has the name ‘Echo’. I love it… it reminds me of the Bourne series (Bourne Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum). Cain, and Delta are too hardcore - but Echo is a sweet name.

Some twisted part of me wants to meet a pair of twins with the names Alpha & Omega. That would be awesome…

Add comment September 15th, 2004

lessons learned

Poorna and I learnt the following lessons last night:

• $57 will buy a lot of alcohol. specifically: 12 tequila shots, 9 vodka shots, 3 whiskey shots, and a pint of TsingTao (just cause i could)
• Aggresive drunk Chinese girls are scary. How many times do I have to say “wo you niupengyou! Wo bu yao another niupengyou!”

I know.. I know…my Chinglish is amazing isn’t it.

4 comments September 14th, 2004

wo shi swedish

It’s amazing to see how capitalism, and stereotypical American stores have franchised themselves to China. You can’t escape McDonald’s, KFC, and Pizza Hut. But international companies have embraced the world’s most populous country as well. Companies like CarreFour (a sort of gigantic Costco/Wal-mart/Safeway all in one) from France now have 51!!! locations in China alone. Not a single store in the states… but 51 stores absolutely packed with shoppers here. And of course….in the opposite corner of the ring, wearing the well-known blue and gold, is the reigning international king of furniture stores: Ikea.

Since we moved into an apartment (thus saving our group over $2000 in hotel accomodation fees!), we need to buy an extra bed since our apartment was originally only intended for one occupant. In the states, you’d go to Ikea for a cheap folding bed. In China, it’s no different. We were trying to think about where to go, possibly hitting up some crazy cool Chinese furniture market (with Poorna exclaiming how he wanted a cool wooden bed with a dragon’s head on it), Kevin off-handedly mentioned that Ikea would be a good place.

Eh. It works for us in the states, so why not. We went to a crazy cool Chinese furniture mall first, saw the outrageously expensive prices, turned around and went to Ikea and bought a futon for around $100. It’s cheap, effective, does the job, and after we leave, we can bring it to Sun and leave it as a couch/nap spot for everyone.

Add comment September 14th, 2004

gong zuo

One of the reasons I was so excited to come to China was to experience what a daily work environment would be like…. here are my initial impressions so far.

It’s a helluva lot like the US. Of course, Sun environments don’t vary too much from place to place, and they’ve done a great job of emulating a US-like workplace here. Instead of offices, we’re all in cubes (’cept for the managers who have the outer permiter of offices). I actually think I prefer the Beijing setup. In Menlo Park I have an office which makes for some great privacy, but I feel it’s often too isolating. The Beijing setup is four “cubicles” that open up on the inside to each other. I guess the best way to illustrate is like so:

The perimeter offices have windows looking out, but more importantly, the cubicles inside have a really “open” feel to them. I really feel like this can enhance the collaborative feel, especially if people are seated according to team (as we are, since I’m sitting next to Robin & Colin, both on the same SKaDS-QE team).

Culture-wise, the engineers here seem to be much more quiet than the US. I definitely don’t see the same kind of thing with engineers roaming the hallways to say hi to other people. People seem to come in, sit down, and get their jobs done. Another interesting note: nobody listens to music. I love listening to some good music (not enough bandwidth to stream Digitally Imported into Beijing unfortunately, but I managed to bring over 20gb of mp3s on my laptop which Juk claims should keep me occupied for 10 days straight with no repeats.

One warning to any American/European engineer coming here to work at the Sun office: the coffee is shit. Oh man…you guys thought that Superior coffee we had in Sun was poor? That stuff is heaven compared to the Nescafe instant crap here [shudder]. Poorna and I are going to make a Starbucks run and get some better stuff tonight.

Everyone here has been super friendly and great about making sure Poorna and I have all the resources we need. ServiceDesk even got my SunRay account, and SunRay port enabled within a day.

Random thought of the day? I wonder what the Chinese urinal etiquette is? Of course, I’m used to the American Urinal Etiquette unstated rule of going every other urinal so you’re never standing next to another guy if you don’t have to, but I wonder if that is part of Chinese etiquette as well? Play the Urinal Game (flash) if you have a few mins.

2 comments September 13th, 2004

drinking in the beautiful qingdao

we went to Qingdao this weekend, and quite literally drank it in. Qingdao is the home of the most famous Chinese beer: Tsingtao, and…well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. or in our case, when in Qingdao, drink a ridiculous amount of Tsingtao beer.

We headed out on an overnight sleeper train with most of the SKaDS-QE Beijing team, and a few people from the desktop (Evolution, Mozilla, JDS, Glow, etc.) group. We arrived, and after a huge seafood lunch, we jumped into our tour bus for a whirlwind tour of LaoShan (the famous mountain in the region).

China’s mini “tour-bus-for-a-day” tours seem to be a ubiquitous part of any China tourist experience. I usually prefer to travel by myself and take my time, but with a big group, a tour is inevitable. In any case, it was a good experience and a lot of fun. We saw a pretty cool Taoist temple which has apparently been there for like 2000 years or something. We experience a tea ceremony/sales pitch, and then continued up to where we were finally able to hike in peace and quiet. Just me, Poorna, our group, hundreds of Chinese tourists, and tourist booths lining the entire stairway up.

Ugh… I love China and all… and I consider myself a pretty flexible traveller, heck, I can tolerate tourist booths down in the main areas fine - but the beauty of LaoShan is entirely ruined by all these people shouting and pushing their silk art, sea shells, and tea on you every 5 feet.

After a while, we found a waterfall which was clearly marked off-limits. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I wandered off the beaten path, scrambled over some rocks, and went to go check out the fall/pool. Yes, I know this wrong…blah blah blah, sorry - I wouldn’t do this in the states where things are actually closed for good reason (i.e.: to save the environment from excessive human trespass) - but I can’t believe that China’s NPS would tolerate people throwing crap into the pool, and littering all over the trail, yet shut off this one part.

Anyway, Poorna and I wandered over there and waded around for a while until the rest of our SKaDS-QE folks joined us, and then about 20 other Chinese tourists followed suit. Oh well….solitarity is short lived in China.

A bunch of us had brought up cans of Tsingtao with us to drink atop LaoShan, so after cooling them in the pool, we cracked ‘em open and had a good long pull of some good Chinese beer.

Poorna and I saw a cool rickety old metal bridge, so we did what any good monkey king (my nickname), and Turf Boy (poorna’s nickname for the day) would do. We hung from it.

Poorna pointed out that there wasn’t a sign saying not to do it. I rebutted with “well, there wasn’t a sign saying not to stab people either - it’s kind of one of those implied things”.

On the way down, Poorna and I posed in some of the chairs that people paid 30 RMB to be carried up in. We then headed back for a drive-by tour of the city with some more drinking involved along the way.

We then went to dinner at a supposedly great seafood restaurant which operated on the sidewalk in town. We ate, we drank, and we were merry. Behind us there were some people selling Tsingtao straight from the keg. Apparently you put it into regular old plastic bags. Of course, Poorna and I tried to drink from the bags with only some minor spillage. After a dinner which some people claimed was inadequate, and horrible horrible service (one waitress kept spilling stuff all over Henry), a dispute ensued. Both our group, and another group complained to the manager about the poor food, and horrible service. Angry words (warning, that one’s a Quicktime movie) were exchanged, and the owner called in the police. More arguments proceeded forth with one policeman trying desperately to mediate the dispute. A lot of Chinese was flying through the air (words, not people), so Poorna and I did what any non-Chinese-speaking people who have a pleasant beer buzz would do in the situation. We started goofing off with the cop car. The policeman were friendly and let us pose outside the car, but said they couldn’t let us sit inside due to regulations. Darn. I tried to convince Poorna to get himself arrested so I could take a photo, but he apparently wasn’t that drunk.

We then wandered down to the boardwalk and I got a neat photo of the billboards reflecting off the ocean. After a whole day of eating ridiculous amount of seafood, Poorna the vegetarion said he couldn’t take it anymore, so we headed to McDonald’s with Kevin (our Beijing manager) so we could some milkshakes and french fries.

We then retired to the hotel where we were accosted by hot girls propositioning us for massages. My room was right around the corner from the elevator, so I got off on my floor, and walked into my room. Unbeknownst to me, a “massage-girl” managed to slip in my door as it was closing. I jumped in the air when I heard her say: Her: “Massage-e okay?” Me: “What the fuck. How’d you get in here?” Her: “Massage-e? You want massage-e?” Me: “No, I don’t want massage-e. Bu yao!” Her: “Massage-e okay?” Me: “NO! Massage-e not okay. Massage-e BU OKAY. BU OKAY!” Her (grabbing my arm): “Only massage! Only massage!” (stroking my arm) Me: “NO! QU. GO AWAY. YOU BU OKAY!”

at which point I just started shoving her out the door. Poorna had an interesting experience too, but you’ll have to ask him about that one…

On our second day, we went to go take a walk by the beach, and then we split up with Huajian, Kevin, Robin, Poorna, and I proceeding up to walk around the BaDaGuan area to see some really cool English and German architecture and homes. We also saw a wedding, where Poorna managed to convince a lion dancer to let him wear the head and give everyone an impromptu Indian/Chinese fusion lion dance.

We then held an impromptu SKaDS-QE Beijing Beer Meeting, before heading over to Xiao Qingdao (Little Qingdao), a small island off the coast where you can wander around aimlessly for fun. Poorna and I practiced our kung fu for our ultimate Chinese Indian epic kung fu battle.

We then headed down so Poorna could get in touch with his inner princess, and then headed to a really cool seafood (again!) boat restaurant. Poorna couldn’t take all the seafood, and finally snapped. That’s probably the closest he’ll get to touching a Chinese chick’s ass. [Badum-ching!]

We then headed to Carre Four, a French/Asian Costco where we saw an enormous mooncake. We picked up some snacks and dinner for the ride back.

We then went back to the hotel, met up with everyone and caught our overnight train ride back to Beijing where Poorna and I are now sluggishly chugging through another work day.

Tonight, we’re off to “bar street”, a district known for its bars and restaurants. We’ll see if Poorna can get any more Chinese ass… Until next time…

2 comments September 13th, 2004