Job jobby jobula jobiska jobby job McJobberson

Could it be? Employment? Me? Ca-ca-ca-crazy. I know, I know, you want to know all the details. Well I’ll tell you what I know. Friday night I met Hayley’s friend Jon Hakim, AKA ‘The Great Hakim’ because the man knows just about everyone in this small town. He introduced me to James Fan, who is the General Manager/ founder of a company called Jowin Communications, they deal in healthcare marketing. I am going to work with them for a couple months, as an intern, so my hours will be flexible, my pay small [5,000 RMB, or about $625 a month, which is pretty livable in this country and already 2,000 RMB more than Wu Xia makes!] and the dress casual. There are only about five people in the office, and we can all smoke as many cigarettes as we want [thank god, second hand smoking was one of my job requirements].

They work with local brands in a bunch of areas [advertising, product development, etc], but I will be working with a company that they do business with in England called Nicholas Hall- http://www.nicholashall.com/ who deals with complete consumer healthcare marketing support service [yes I just took that from their website]. I will help coordinate a training session where Nicholas will come to China in May or June. James just gave me about 12 issues of “Insight,” Nicholas Hall’s industry magazine, to read through on this lovely grey afternoon. Fun fun fun. James is very excited to be hiring his first foreigner! I will no doubt rapidly improve my Chinese as James is the only staff who speaks English. He is from Jinan something Province, his wife [who works next door in another company that James owns, dealing with representing a French brand of eye lens/surgery/product something] is from Beijing.

So I’m excited that I have a job, a salary, somewhere to go everyday [it took me a quick 45 minutes to get there by bus, I think I may purchase a bicycle!] and the job actually sounds pretty interesting. I think the healthcare marketing field could be a good field to get into, OTC [my first vocab, over the counter] drugs certainly aren’t going anywhere.

What else? I may consider moving from April’s sofa, getting my own place, hopefully with roommates similar to Jack, Janet and Chrissy. I can rent a room for about $150.

I just bought some snacks, or little food as it translates in Chinese. Some sesame bread and caramelized crab apples on a stick, the man first said this costs 1.6, then his boss shouted, 2.6! Inflation right before my eyes. As if 12 cents really makes that much of a difference to me. I guess on my $625/month salary I should start thinking like a Chinese.

Well I am off to read about drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Could be a fun evening!

PS My birthday is next Tuesday, March 8th, and I expect e-cards from everyone. www.bluemountain.com

White and furry

Meet my new friends: blue eyed Yoyo, brown eyed Mojo, or perhaps it is the other way around. They are uber furry white cats and they like me very much. I like them too, except when the scratch at the couch I am sleeping on at 4 am.

April has a Chinese boyfriend, his name is Da You, or Yong, or Yao, or something thereabout. Anyway, last night he came home before April because April had a meeting and we chatted about the US, he has many questions. Here in China he is a personal trainer at a gym so we discussed gyms in the US and my ACL/ knee and my subsequent workout. We discussed Arnold, steroids, the cost of living in NYC versus Beijing. I introduced him to the Rolling Stones, and he wanted to know about American weddings. I introduced him to Bachelor parties, what the bride’s parents pay for, what people do at weddings. I was impressed I could have such a lengthy discussion in Chinese [with the aid of my dictionary for words like ‘tendon’].

The courtyard the this apt looks onto fills with old people and little dogs around mid day. They bark a lot. Well anything to shoo away the Chinaman walking around in his long underwear. It’s warming up here, maybe. My birthday is coming up, maybe I’ll get a job as my present.

mom's words of wisdom

For those of you unfamiliar with Pat Nelson's ability with words, welcome. She wrote this to me on Feb 17th:

C'bert: So now you are in Beijing.......and you accomplished the Herculean task of figuring out how one moves away for an unspecified, but probably lengthy, period of time. You successfully moved stuff and stored stuff and got rid of stuff, sorted out insurance and car and telephone and who knows what else and said one million goodbyes and now you're there. If I remember the beginning of most adventures I have known, you may be thinking "Eeegads. I'm here. What now?" First you congratulate yourself on what you have already (rather gracefully) managed to accomplish. Then.........well, then you just keep going. Just like you have done. So, with these incredible words of wisdom I shall leave you to go off to my daily adventure --not to deal with death and disease, but with healing and with coping. (I'm trying to be a more positive person). You know we're thinking of you---trying to imagine what you're doing, who you're with, what your reaction to China is...................and, of course waiting with baited breath to hear from you. So, enjoy (the air?, the peaceful streets??) No, the adventure.
I love you! Mom
Thanks momma, you keep me going.
write to Patty Nelson, MSW at patnelsonxx@hotmail.com
ha!

I heart April

First step: buy a cell phone. Second step: move out the hostel. Check and check! Yes folks I am leaving my backpacking friends behind and will be moving into my new home this evening. my friend April, who I met when I was studying here in 2001, has offered her lovely apt to me, which is really nicer than nice. She lives still near Xiao Wu, in a Chinese apt building, and has a two floor flat. She lives with another girl from the US, and I will be residing on the second floor room couch. I will be sharing my living situation with two furry white cats, I am sure we will soon all be friends.

A note on my Chinese friends: well really it is only the Wu family. Xiao Wu [man] was our driver when I lived here with the folks back in 96 to 98. We were not allowed to drive [according to IBM] so he drove us around. He speaks English, and his daughter, Wu Xia [same last name as her father] is my age and her English is fabulous. Wife is YangLing, no English speak for her, but she takes good care of me and makes some mean grub.

Xiao is pronounced "sh-yao" kindof. Xia is pronouced "sh-ya"

Today I asked Yangling to help me buy a comforter for my new sofa bed, and we went to the much loved Carrefour [think Target] and bought a $10 comforter, pjs, Baobao cha [yummy tea that my father would kill a man for] and a nice thermos [the same one costs $25 at the tea spot, $3 here]. I love the cheapness of China. Yangling was a great shopping buddy, I have to say I couldn't have figured it out myself. Her funniest moment was me saying the tea smelled like soap.

What else? Well I guess that's it. Tonight I will eat at the Wu's, Yangling has made Ou Her, which is lotus root sliced, then the slices put to sandwich 'xiar' which is a pork/seasoning filling that goes in dumplings, then deep fried. It's amazing. [my mouth is watering].
Love you all. Thanks for reading.

blogger in china is not work so well

i find that the more chinese i speak the worser my english gets. i should work on that, trying to get a job and all. also my blog is not working so well, at least i cannot view it, but yall still can so thats what matters.

hello everyone from the heart of the middle kingdom! i am glad everyone is enjoying my blogging and most are writing me real emails too. really appreciate that. that means that when i come to the internet cafe i can email yall back instead of job searching.

life knocked me off my platform so i pulled out my first pair of boots bought on the street at astor place before new york was run by suits. and i suited up for the long walk back to myself closer to the ground now with sorrow and stealth
thats ms ani difranco for ya, seems pertinent to me now.

my neighbor here at the lovely internet bar is showing me a photo from her american teacher... she is from henan province and has the face tan to show it. in china if your skin isnt bright neon white then you are a country bumpkin and your skin has been roasting in the sun... she asks, is this your country? and its a photo of a bunch of horses in a park... yes that looks like my country [it could be anywhere]. we are now exchaning email addresses, maybe she will want to read my blog. she shows me her chinese passport, she has applied many times for a visa to go to sweden to visit her friends but hasnt gotten one yet. now we are exchanging cell phone numbers. i wonder what we will say on the phone... probably something like: she: shen me shen me china speak, me: sorry i dont understand. she seems like a shady character to me, i probably should not give her my cell #. a henan person in beijing is not right, you know they are not allowed to move around like that. now she wants to get me some job. strange encounters in the smoke urine internet bar.

the internet bar is lovely, 25 cents per hour, and in the bathroom i discovered my first non squating toilet, if you can call it that, it was really more of a dirrhea filled vomit hole whose smells frequently waff through the computer room, disrupting the thick smoke caused by the 17 year old computer game players that fill this place. i will cease drinking any fluids, at least until my next trip to mcdonalds where i feed my coffee addiction. i wear a giant down coat so only my fingers freeze [yes i am indoors]. at some point i will have to step out for a breathe of fresh air, maybe even a bite to eat.

I spoke to my folks and sister this am, I have purchased a cell phone [want to call me? 011 86 10 137 1823 9041] and we discussed what had changed since I was last here. the city itself is the same, some new buildings, subways, but mostly that part is the same. the pollution is not as bad! the factories have been moved away, the coal burning lessens due to the rise of apt buildings. chinese have little toy dogs now, they wear little sweaters and go to dog parks. they go skiing, they wear cool 80s leather boots, like molly ringwald in the breakfeast club. they dont stare at me on the bus, they are over the foreign face. mcdonalds continues to fascinate me- the sign above the straw dispenser warns you not to put your straw in a hot drink. i order an orange juice and they ask if it is ok that it is cold. i buy roasted chestnuts at an outdoor market, the man microwaves them up for me. two stalls down a man is selling a device that cuts carrots and potatoes, announcing as he demonstrates it with his microphone.

jobs, jobs, jobby jobola... i am applying for some jobs via a beijing classified ad websites. i think i would do well as a editing/polishing/writing position at an advertising/PR company. hope for the best. hope my next blog my job paragraph is longer!

i am making friends- last night i hung out with my friend hilary's friend caitlin's friend alison, who was very cool, shes a dj for an e-z commy listening station, she lives in some phatty new hutong housing, modern china style two story house. tonight i will see another friend who was here when i was in uni here. i love my cell phone.

well, time to move on from my rambling blog. to clarify, if you would like to post a comment to my blog, the comments are for everyone to see, it makes the blog more of an interactive discussion. i cant see them because as we reviewed i cant see my own blog, it dont work in china. email me if you want me to read it.

love to you all.

welcome to your new life

I have arrived in China! Holy Crap! I am currently enjoying a lovely YanJing brewsky in my lovely internet cafe in an International Youth Hostel that Xiao Wu found for me. [For those not that are not in the know, Xiao Wu was our driver when I lived here in high school. IBMers were not allowed to drive. We have since become good friends and his daughter is my age].

The Wu family picked me up at the airport and so far it is looking similar. We passed the Nelson residence 1996-1998, Legend Gardens Villas, where the closets were not wide enough for my father suits...

It smells the same here. They still havent got a good handle on that crazy English language. In the airport bathroom the sign above the automatic faucets read "automatic water. unnecessary touching." Maybe the unnecesary touching was in reference to a banned activity in the bathroom. Who knows.

Wu has a new car, an American mini van. Ha! On the way home we passed an accident that looked like it had happened a while ago but they still had not retrieved a dead comrade from the road side. We drove by his dead body, covered by a makeshift tarp, as if it were just broken glass. The Wu family commented on it briefly.

I am staying very near the Wu's house, so they can take good care of me, and under the lights of Big Blue, yes I can see the IBM on the building next to me from the hostel. Right near the bar street too, where I had a few Corona's during my later high school years. 7-11 has moved to China, thank God I wont be without that convenience. Wu Xia [daughter of Wu] says she eats lunch there almost daily.

Well that's it for now. Sorry if its somewhat disjunctive, who knows what time zone I am on. Please email me. Now is the time. It's not difficult, just a press of a button and you can tell me your own personal thoughts....

Maybe I'll get a job tommorow. Well I'll definitly get a cell phone and some yummy Chinese food- Wu's wife Yangling is cooking!

Preparing to leave Colorado

Thanks for checking back on the ol' blogsite, I had an overwhelming response of gratitude for an introduction to this new-fangled "blog", from all ends of the age spectrum. You're welcome. It's really my first time blogging as well.

We had our going away/ housewarming party Monday. You dont get too many of those kind of parties anymore. we prepared for the fiesta by getting the new boulder house together- new coffee table, photos on the walls, and had a great party. our first potluck, and it worked so well! sorry friends that comeover often, any dinner party from now on is potluck. on that note, lindsay and i have a TON of beer and potato salad if yall want to come over and help clear out the fridge.

with most goodbyes said, i spent the day actually putting my stuff into suitcases and sending off pieces of the things i will miss most- my bike, disassembled, and my car will be residing in the mtn location of cousin karen and jon's, and my skis in aunt jody and uncle phil's basement. i hope to duplicate my bike in some way once i get a job and for sure try out china's idea of a ski resort.

I cant wait for san francisco, the city alone is an ausome place to visit, but the people i know there are really why i am going. it will be a good send off from my roomate from senior year, lilli milton, two friends from china when i was there in 2001, lydia and alissa, and caitlin finnel, rugby allstar.

I also spent a portion of the day with Kat-o, newest employee at Dog City Doggy Day Care[ DCDDC], on our Flatiron view porch enjoying a beer and Colorado sunshine. i will miss the mtns a ton, but fortunatly beijing does have some crazy mtns nearby, you just dont know they are there until you walk into them due to thick pollution. itll be like biking uphill with four cheap chinese cigerrettes in your mouth. well i always enjoyed a challenge.

Happy new year of the rooster. To send a new year card, or print out a rooster to color-in, check out http://www.underfives.co.uk/chnsenyr.html

well thats it from the square state of colorado, at 5,324 feet in boulder, more from me when im wearing flowers in my hair.

Welcome to My Chinablogs!

Welcome everyone to my first Chinablogs, well really its a Boulderblog as I am still in sunny snowy Boulder. I depart Feb 11 for San Fran and the 15th for the motherland, so stay tuned for highly exciting events along the way.