A new year in the cold northern capital
Tricks to a freezing winter from my Minnesotan roommate Alison Olson:
1. Dress like an onion
2. Your head is a chimney
3. Cotton is rotton
I got back a few days ago, I think, but jet lag has me in a pretty thick fog so I am barely aware when morning comes that it is morning and not still the middle of the night. It doesn’t help that its dark out until 8 am. Today I woke up and it was light when I stepped out of my house and I thought my clock was slow. Turns out on sunny days it gets light earlier.
While I was home many people seemed confused about what it is that I do in my employed world, I think I tried to explain my actual position but didn't explain the phenomenon behind it. There are something like 5 billion people in this country, which is a lot of people to employ. Our [silly] American idea of employment is that, there is something to do, you hire someone to do it, they have certain responsibilities and duties and they do them. Not so in China. Here the idea is to Employ the Masses. There are many many people in this country that unfortunately were not taugh to be inventive and entrepreneurial as we are, and therefore graduate and need to be given a job to do. A place to be. From the Chinese ideal of the work unit [dan wei] that employs you and makes sure you receive a paycheck, food, probably a work uniform, transportation to and from your job, and something to do with your time for five or six days a week. They give you off on the public holidays so you can go to your hometown and make dumplings with your family. The government’s jobs still provide you with necessities like long underwear, coke, shampoo. You have no life outside of your work. You might take vacations with your work unit, because why wouldn’t you want to spend an additional five days with your co workers? So everyone where I work is part of that mentality. Now of course the mentality is changing, and girls [like my ever growing population of Angels] can quit and find other jobs at the drop of a hat. And they do. Now there are a total of 10 Angels- 6 have quit and four new ones have been hired. My dad made the astute comment that maybe I should say something of the high turnover rate of the position [for I am their manger] but really, I don't think they would grasp the concept. I would look at it as, they don't do anything, so they get bored and quit, why not just eliminate the position?
Since I have been back, the visitors to our sales center have dropped dramatically. Where we once had 40 in one day now we are lucky to have 10. But, we still have three Angels to open the door, plus the doorman, three waitresses, plus the bartender, 20 some odd sales people on a given day, and one cleaning lady per every 10 square meters. "Overstaffed" is not a word that translates here.
Some insightful bits of Chinese thinking I have heard since I got back:
-drinking water while eating will mess up my digestion
-drinking room temperature water will make my face fat
-and my favorite, you celebrating Christmas is like us celebrating new year. Not really, we don’t make dumplings and we don’t find lighting fire crackers every night for 9 days fun. But close.
So that is what I am a part of. Returning to work wasn't as bad as a dreaded it to be; the questions I got were: was Christmas fun, did it snow/ is it cold there. One security man tried to tell the Angels that its summer in New York, I politely reminded him that it’s the southern half of the world that is currently in the season of summer, not the US. As critical as I am of the Chinese for being ignorant of other countries, I guess I should try to see from their perspective of never having been out of the country, parents have never been out of the country, and most friends have not been anywhere either, except maybe Hong Kong. Traveling is only slowly being encouraged but when a ticket to Vietnam is 5000 RMB and their monthly salary is 3000 RMB it makes it a little difficult. That and the old mentality that everywhere else is dirty and uncultured and uninteresting, why would you want to leave China?
They let me start using my computer at work which is currently feeding my soul- that and we all seem to run around totally unchecked and therefore I can do pretty much whatever I want and no one cares. But I am still starting my job search for something else. Well, full force starting it as soon as I upload my music collection to my new ipod. [thanks HOB]
In other exciting news, I have purchased tickets to Vietnam. I have wanted to go since I became obsessed with ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ the movie when I was 12. [“Time to rock it from the delta to the DMZ.”] I am also exhilarated to be leaving Beijing in the height of the very coldness, and to be leaving during the much anticipated Chinese New Year. The biggest most celebrated holiday in a country of this size can be a little frightening. What is most frightening is trying to appease all my Chinese co-workers by eating their dumplings that they will bring en masse to the workplace soon. The Chinese love their holidays but none more than the New Year. They light firecrackers in a way that gives meaning to the reason why we associate Chinese with firecrackers. To be honest I’ve never been here during New Year and don’t plan to be anytime soon. Although I think we are leaving the day after the actual day so we’ll get a taste of it. Alison will be my chief travel partner and we will be starting our travels in Hanoi. We might visit the Hilton there. Any advice from past Vietnam travelers would be great.
Being back in China is nice, I do like it here, last night I had duck and foot massages which are luxuries I Can Afford, and my Chinese skills was not all forgotten. I did however deeply enjoy the United States- driving, the friendliness, the open space, the cleanliness, although I was a little shocked at the amount of dog diarrhea [sorry to be graphic] on the streets on NYC- when will people learn not to feed their dogs people food? It was nice to be home, of course, see people, stock up on American things, enjoy the food although it doesn’t make me feel all that good, soak in the sun in Mexico. I'll be keeping up more on my blogs now that I have my computer here. So be prepared for more reading. Hopefully it'll be interesting. So far this country does not cease to amaze me.
1. Dress like an onion
2. Your head is a chimney
3. Cotton is rotton
I got back a few days ago, I think, but jet lag has me in a pretty thick fog so I am barely aware when morning comes that it is morning and not still the middle of the night. It doesn’t help that its dark out until 8 am. Today I woke up and it was light when I stepped out of my house and I thought my clock was slow. Turns out on sunny days it gets light earlier.
While I was home many people seemed confused about what it is that I do in my employed world, I think I tried to explain my actual position but didn't explain the phenomenon behind it. There are something like 5 billion people in this country, which is a lot of people to employ. Our [silly] American idea of employment is that, there is something to do, you hire someone to do it, they have certain responsibilities and duties and they do them. Not so in China. Here the idea is to Employ the Masses. There are many many people in this country that unfortunately were not taugh to be inventive and entrepreneurial as we are, and therefore graduate and need to be given a job to do. A place to be. From the Chinese ideal of the work unit [dan wei] that employs you and makes sure you receive a paycheck, food, probably a work uniform, transportation to and from your job, and something to do with your time for five or six days a week. They give you off on the public holidays so you can go to your hometown and make dumplings with your family. The government’s jobs still provide you with necessities like long underwear, coke, shampoo. You have no life outside of your work. You might take vacations with your work unit, because why wouldn’t you want to spend an additional five days with your co workers? So everyone where I work is part of that mentality. Now of course the mentality is changing, and girls [like my ever growing population of Angels] can quit and find other jobs at the drop of a hat. And they do. Now there are a total of 10 Angels- 6 have quit and four new ones have been hired. My dad made the astute comment that maybe I should say something of the high turnover rate of the position [for I am their manger] but really, I don't think they would grasp the concept. I would look at it as, they don't do anything, so they get bored and quit, why not just eliminate the position?
Since I have been back, the visitors to our sales center have dropped dramatically. Where we once had 40 in one day now we are lucky to have 10. But, we still have three Angels to open the door, plus the doorman, three waitresses, plus the bartender, 20 some odd sales people on a given day, and one cleaning lady per every 10 square meters. "Overstaffed" is not a word that translates here.
Some insightful bits of Chinese thinking I have heard since I got back:
-drinking water while eating will mess up my digestion
-drinking room temperature water will make my face fat
-and my favorite, you celebrating Christmas is like us celebrating new year. Not really, we don’t make dumplings and we don’t find lighting fire crackers every night for 9 days fun. But close.
So that is what I am a part of. Returning to work wasn't as bad as a dreaded it to be; the questions I got were: was Christmas fun, did it snow/ is it cold there. One security man tried to tell the Angels that its summer in New York, I politely reminded him that it’s the southern half of the world that is currently in the season of summer, not the US. As critical as I am of the Chinese for being ignorant of other countries, I guess I should try to see from their perspective of never having been out of the country, parents have never been out of the country, and most friends have not been anywhere either, except maybe Hong Kong. Traveling is only slowly being encouraged but when a ticket to Vietnam is 5000 RMB and their monthly salary is 3000 RMB it makes it a little difficult. That and the old mentality that everywhere else is dirty and uncultured and uninteresting, why would you want to leave China?
They let me start using my computer at work which is currently feeding my soul- that and we all seem to run around totally unchecked and therefore I can do pretty much whatever I want and no one cares. But I am still starting my job search for something else. Well, full force starting it as soon as I upload my music collection to my new ipod. [thanks HOB]
In other exciting news, I have purchased tickets to Vietnam. I have wanted to go since I became obsessed with ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ the movie when I was 12. [“Time to rock it from the delta to the DMZ.”] I am also exhilarated to be leaving Beijing in the height of the very coldness, and to be leaving during the much anticipated Chinese New Year. The biggest most celebrated holiday in a country of this size can be a little frightening. What is most frightening is trying to appease all my Chinese co-workers by eating their dumplings that they will bring en masse to the workplace soon. The Chinese love their holidays but none more than the New Year. They light firecrackers in a way that gives meaning to the reason why we associate Chinese with firecrackers. To be honest I’ve never been here during New Year and don’t plan to be anytime soon. Although I think we are leaving the day after the actual day so we’ll get a taste of it. Alison will be my chief travel partner and we will be starting our travels in Hanoi. We might visit the Hilton there. Any advice from past Vietnam travelers would be great.
Being back in China is nice, I do like it here, last night I had duck and foot massages which are luxuries I Can Afford, and my Chinese skills was not all forgotten. I did however deeply enjoy the United States- driving, the friendliness, the open space, the cleanliness, although I was a little shocked at the amount of dog diarrhea [sorry to be graphic] on the streets on NYC- when will people learn not to feed their dogs people food? It was nice to be home, of course, see people, stock up on American things, enjoy the food although it doesn’t make me feel all that good, soak in the sun in Mexico. I'll be keeping up more on my blogs now that I have my computer here. So be prepared for more reading. Hopefully it'll be interesting. So far this country does not cease to amaze me.
posted by Claire at 12:44 AM
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