TravelStream™ news feed for member mulzey on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mulzey en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:49:48 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1206077940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1206077940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1206077940/tpod.html Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:49:48 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

Friday night in Beijing holds both the thrill of the impending weekend to come, but also the stirring soul challenging search for a cab home. Okay, so this is my own estimation here without real documentation, but bear with me. There seems to be about 250-thousand taxi drivers in Beijing...but they all aren't working all the time. So let's say, something like 60 percent are on the road at any one time, okay? You with me so far? So that is roughly let's say, 150-thousand taxis on the road at the most at any one time. Now you have 16 million people in Beijing. Let's say for argument sake, removing the too young, the too old, those who work odd hours and those who simply don't, we have 30 percent of that total working a regular 9 to 5...therefore, we have around 5 million folks getting off work at the same time. Of that 5 million probably 20 percent own cars..that's about a million. That leaves 4 million of us getting home on buses, subways or taxis, or even by the use of good old shoe leather. If even 75 percent of this group uses mass transit, that leaves one million of us losers chasing these 150-thousand cabs, every day between 5 and 7 pm. Now factor in a rainstorm, and it becomes a feeding frenzy.
On this night, a bitter chilly rain falls and the cabs disappear into the gloriously neon washed streets where huddled crowds wave their pathetic arms at any moving object that races by. I make it out to the street to join this mob, and briefly play the along in the every losing lottery along with my soggy brethren. A taxi cab is seen the distance, and we all jostle for position, only to notice the cab is already occupied. I give it a good 10 minutes, and then I'm on the move. Just like fishing, I figure you have to get up stream to land the prize. If this is a first come, first served world, I assume being the first one up the street will have a distinct advantage. So I begin walking...and it begins raining harder. Now at least 4 blocks into this new scheme, I realize that much to my dismay I am, by trying to distance myself from the pack that I am moving further and further away from my actual home. Decision making time....to retreat, retrace my steps back to my original position and possibly walk back closer to home, or do I continue the brave experiment? I am weak, and the idea for heading towards home is somehow more fulfilling than moving away, but I also just can't bring myself to splash my way back to where I just left, so I decide to cut the corner and move due East from where I am. Great plan except, although the grid street system is in place for most of Beijing's byways, this particular street isn't. I turn right on a very long, darkened Chinese charactered street and wander off into the unknown.
Immediately I know I'm on the right track with this move. Not more than 25 yards from the corner, a taxi cab is pulling over...presumably to drop off a passenger or two, and therefore, available for my magic carpet ride to a warm dry location. I make my way towards the taxi, and wait for whom ever is inside to join me outside. I wait...and I wait. Finally, I knock and window gaps. I notice that the inhabitants have a map spread wide. They are not leaving, but simply lost. Actually, they might be where they want to be, but perhaps they are using this whole map ploy to wait out the storm. Either way, I remain on foot. I trudge with my shoes filling up with the swamp like water washing months of grim from the streets directly into my socks.
I had great hopes for this enticing street of my new journey, but really there is nothing that screams, "Lots of Taxis here on this street. Excellent choice my friend!" As a matter of fact, I haven't seen a vehicle of any type in the last 3 or 4 minutes...is this street...? Yes, of course it is, well actually, no... I have chosen a street that is not open to traffic.... Um, let's see... Students, here's a math word problem for you. All Taxis are cars, All Cars drive in Traffic, if there is no traffic...how many taxis will be coming down your street? Did everyone get Zero? Very good (and those who got something greater than zero, you are a hopeless romantic, and you need to leave math class immediately, start writing poetry and is the case of all hopeless romantics, start drinking heavily.)
Now I'm posed with the same question I had earlier, retrace or muddle on. Those who know me...I don't even need me to explain the decision... It can't be closed all the way across the 3rd Ring Road? Let's keep going. More rain. More mud. I know you can ruin socks and shoes, but can a rain storm ruin your pants too. I'm thinking so. In the distance is the glow of civilization. A beckoning of yellow and green in the form of a store front sign with crazy looking Chinese letters and a big smiling face. I don't know what it is, but it feels like home. Unfortunately, it lives on the other side of a fence. Okay students, next question. If you have a street closed for traffic which is the most effective way to deter cars and trucks from driving on a closed street? Answer A, Ask them nicely not to. Answer B, Put up a very large sign telling them not to. Answer C, Hire an attack dog to chew the tires of any cars that try to. Or Answer D, Put up a 15 foot wire fence to block passage preventing them from trying to. Who got D? Very good.
So now there is me...a fence....and just a mere 150 meters away, as Bob Dylan would say, Shelter from the Storm. Retreat? Turn around and admit defeat? Ha...say I. Now I assume there must be an end to this fence one way or the other.. This is not the border to Mexico...there must be away to get around this thing. So I follow the fence line....and there at the end is a gap and I slide through...escape, and soon to my sanctuary. Not so fast...oh no. Now, that I'm through the fence I'm no longer on a paved street and the area where the new street will be placed is quickly becoming officially the Seventh largest lake in Asia. There is a massive expanse of water directly in front of me, and mounds of what was previously dirt piles on either side. We face another decision...Mud or Water? Students? Part of me says, "Your feet are already wet, what's a little more water?" and yet my even more insistent part of the Cortex screams..."Mud more better, ugh."
Over the mud I hike, in gingerly placed tiny steps as if the lighter steps would lessen the massive caking of clay on the bottoms of my feet. In a series of maneuvers that would impress most of those assembled for the 34th annual meeting of the Everest Summit Survival Club, I am through the mess and to the light at the end of the tunnel. A Chinese restaurant full of neon lights, Kung Pao Chicken and even more important Tsing Tao beer waits like a love-struck New Kids on the Block fan at a Mall Opening where the boys are going to perform. I decide to have dinner and wait out the storm, when like a miracle from above, a cab pulls into the parking lot to drop off some eager diners. Before they are able to get both feet on the ground and their umbrella fully deployed, I am in the front seat, with my taxi cab directions home at the ready.
This in brief is my story of survival, and I hope it will be an inspiration for those who follow in my footsteps. I'm hoping the folks at the Oxygen Channel, or the Hallmark Hall of Fame can turn this into a thrilling Wednesday Night at the Movies Feauture, perhaps turning my story into a heartwarming tale of one man's fight against nature and the enduring will of the human spirit. It the very least, I hope they get Valerie Bertinelli or Greta Scacchi or any other of those Movie of the Week darlings to play my loving wife waiting at home, worried by the phone. And to play me...most likely some former sitcom washout, Ken Olin from Thirty Something, I'm thinking, or better yet, Anson Williams...you know Potsie from Happy Days. That would be perfect. Let me wring out these socks and start writing out the pitch.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205742600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205742600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205742600/tpod.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:29:25 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

As the weather gets nicer...it is time for my little snow-globe of a world to expand. I have ventured by foot over most of my sizable neighborhood, spending hours hoofing it for miles to discover my new home, but just like a tiny hatchling leaving the nest, I want to spread my wings and fly. Short of getting a driver's license, the best way for me to expand my compact Chinese universe, I figure, is to buy a bicycle. Beijing is the city of Bikes. There are more people here on bicycles each day, than there are people who live 80 percent of any of the individual United States. Oklahoma, total population: 3.5 million...People on bikes everyday in Beijing...over 7 million. I vow it is now my time to join the lumbering masses on two wheels. This is a vow, much like many others like, "forsaking all others," or "I am never drinking again," that is sometimes much easier to say than to execute.
You would think finding a bicycle in Beijing would be very easy, and it is...do a degree. You see, everywhere you look, you'll find bicycle shops. In fact, on just about every corner of the city there is a grisly old bicycle repairman. He has a pump and patch kits, and a rolling repair shop with nuts, bolts, chains and anything else related to the bicycle family of vehicles. There he will sit all day, everyday, just in case somebody rolls by with a flat or a broken chain. No, it is not the availability of bicycles, it is the ability to purchase a bicycle that is my problem. I take a few minutes as I stroll about my immediate neighborhood to stick my head into the various bike shops on my street. There are big bikes, and small bikes. There are huge Mountain bikes with 20-something gears and tiny little bikes with 5 inch wheels. There are folding bikes and even disassembling bicycles that can be broken down to 4 small parts and can placed in a briefcase, so you can carry your bike on the subway, or into your office, like an old school businessman with a case full of briefs.
There are plenty of bicycles, but strangely no one really wants to sell me one. I wander around looking at bikes, as the only person in the shop, and no one approaches me. I sit on bikes...I squeeze hand brakes...spin pedals backwards...and sometimes I even pedal around the store. No one moves a muscle. I grab a business card as I leave, smile at the shopkeeper and go next door to the next bike shop...where I find the same thing. Finally I go to a very big mega-super department store. This is the store I told you about previously, the Costco on Steroids, with a two story grocery store in the basement...topped with 4 more stories of everything from washing machines to toothpaste. Here they have at least 25 different brands of bikes...Kids bikes, three wheeled bikes, and even motorized bikes. I want a bike, and I figure this is my best bet. I walk through the multiple rows of the every possible combination of gears and tires and handlebars and brake pads and paint jobs. There are bright pink bikes with flowers and wicker baskets, and there are red, black and silver racing bikes with stripes and scary sounding names.
I pick out a bike that looks nice and make eye contact with a young salesman. He steps up to me, and begins speaking furiously in Chinese. I smile and point at the bike...He talks again. I don't understand, but I try to get the price by pretending to write on an imaginary piece of paper with an equally imaginary pen. He talks again rapidly and points at me a couple times. I point at the bike and he escalates his screaming and then hops on to the left side of a bicycle near-by, pushes off with his free foot and coasts to the opposite side of the bike area. I stand there in bewilderment. My guy starts working on the bike and I am forgotten. I try several other sales assistants and they speak, more like scream at me breifly, and move along.
I finally realize that I have become a dog. Just as the family dog wants to participate in the activity around them, they don't understand what is happening. When the dog inquires about the situation with a well timed bark or nose nudge, they are spoken to in a language they don't understand, and they are expected to know what to do. Just like a dog I have learned a couple words to help. The dog might learn, "Sit, Stay, Heel, or Car" that's about it. I might learn, "Nie Hou (Hello), Directions, and a couple restaurant items, that's about it. Just like the dog, my needs are only a minor distraction for the others in the room. The dog may want go out...I might want to buy a bike, either way it is a major pain in the ass for the people who are in charge. And soon, just like the poor puppy, I'm outside with my tail between my legs trying to figure out why I can't get what I want. Perhaps I'll do what I can to make them notice me, like taking a large dump in the middle of the living room on the really expensive 18th Century Oriental Carpet.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205128380/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205128380/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1205128380/tpod.html Mon, 26 May 2008 05:27:56 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

There are few things in every city that defines them in what Dorothy Parker liked to call the "popular imagination." When you hear the word Paris, you immediately think, "Eiffel Tower and the Louvre" ...Moscow; "Red Square and the Kremlin"...Cleveland Ohio: "Crack Whores and Syphilis." These images are not always accurate or fair, but they have somehow come to represent an entire population of millions of people. Often times these images are pictures we can identify by the city of location, but not by name. There's that crazy fountain in Italy...you know the "3 Coins in the Fountain" place that every associates with Italy, but only a few can actually name. Don't email me, I know it is the Trevi Fountain, and a dozen bonus points for everybody who got it, but I'm just trying to make a point here.
Beijing is easily defined by many images...the Forbidden City, with Mao staring out over Tiananmen Square; Pagodas and Bicycle-filled streets, but probably one of the most recognizable places in the city is a building in a remote Temple park in the southern part of the city. It is the Temple of Heaven. You may not recognize it my name, but I think most of you would know it by sight. It is a huge ornately decorated circular tower that attracts photographers from all over the world. It could possibly be the 2nd most photographed location in the world, with the first, of course, being Paris Hilton's bedroom. (Thank you...I'll be here all week...two shows Friday and Saturday nights...tip your bartenders, they're working hard for you.)

Despite the incredibly frigid temps, I figure this is my day to get to the Temple of Heaven, and knock that off the incredibly lengthy "to do" list. Now that I have ventured into the subway system of this fair city at least a couple times, I figure I can easily navigate the different colored lines and make my way to the Temple of Heaven without much difficulty. Before I start, can I point out a couple things? In China, you may not know this but, it is like they speak a completely different language, and the other important thing to understand before we venture any further is, I don't. So I pull up out my massive Beijing Travelers Map in the morning, spay the thing over my large dining room table and chart my course. I'll take a cab to the Subway station at Dong Zhe Men, and from there it is two stops on the Blue line, transfer to the Red for a couple stops, and then walk from there...how hard can that be?
Not hard at all, if your cab driver can find a subway...any subway station. I had a friend write out in Chinese very clearly, "Dong Zhe Men Subway Station," on a 3 by 5 card, but this does not lead my rather smelly pal to the Dong Zhe Men Subway Station, um, no.. Instead, he takes off in Northerly direction, a path that will dramatically take him further away from any subway station within the city limits. I point at my book, and the very pretty colored circles and swiggles that represent the complicated underground train network. He nods and continues to drive the wrong way. I'm thinking, "he does this everyday, all day, he must know better than me." This is my first, but not my last misdiagnosis of this day.
He drives, and I stare out the window as the Beijing gets smaller in the side-view mirror. At the next stop light I point at the subway icon in the book and he smiles. He smiles a bit too much and a bit too toothy, and I detect a uncertain trance-like blankness in his eyes. We continue to sit well after the light turns and I realize he has no idea where I want to go, and further more, he has no idea where we currently are. I also realize he does not know where the subway stations are, because he in fact doesn't know what a subway is. It is now clear to me that he has just arrived in Beijing from the countryside, someone gave him roughly 30 minutes of driving lessons, and now he is out on the streets as a Beijing Taxi driver. This, I can imagine, probably his second day...third if you count the day he spent bribing the licensing officials. Oops...now where are we? And why is the meter still running?
I think the best thing to do is just turn around, so I make a huge sweeping arm turn and face behind us. "Okay!" he says and we turn around...I point, and he follows. I contort and twist my hands into hula girl's gestures and he maneuvers through some tricky circular traffic junctions. I am aiming for a street that has a series of Subway stations every 5 kilometers or so. Obviously, I'm not on this street. We drive...and the meter runs. We drive some more. Finally I see a big Blue Sign on the street which has the icon representing the Beijing Subway and a large arrow above the numbers 1.5 km. I point at the sign, and he glares back blankly. That is it...I'm out. I say, "Tdalla..." which is in very bad Mandarin for, "Here." He pulls over and I pay the whopping taxi bill. My guy smiles and waves; I slam the car door closed as hard as I can. I'm walking it from here.
Did I happen to mention it is freakin' freezing? I bundle up and walk headlong into a wicked winter wind. This kilometer and a half seems to last as long, and is just about as painful as a TBS Holiday Weekend "Full House Super Summer Marathon, hosted by Danny, Joey and DJ!" I am in as much anguish as if I really had to suffer through all 12 hours of David Coulier doing horrible Popeye impersonations and to hear Bob Saget telling incredibly stupid jokes and then say, "you get it?" Ah, finally the happiness of finding Oasis...the big blue sign for the subway shines ahead. I can't get down those steps fast enough. Then another realization of distress hits me...I don't exactly know what station I'm now standing in, and I really don't know how to get where I'm going...
Now that I you've invested this much time on this entry, I'll just say... I eventually get to the Temple of Heaven, and it is truly amazing. A beautiful park, and stunningly spectacular buildings, temples and grounds, are highlighted by a huge circular 4 story tall temple that has been constructed without a single nail. Alright, wise-acres...there aren't any screws, rebar or other fasteners involved either. On the end of one long walkway is a round marble alter, where the emperor would give speeches. It is said that anyone who speaks from this spot can be heard throughout all of China. We all wait for our turns to step up on slick white marble mound to make our declarations to the Chinese People. When my turn comes, only one thing comes to mind to say... I stand up proudly and announce to all the peoples of China, "Taxi Driver number 213496 should not have a driver's license!"
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1210930020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1210930020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1210930020/tpod.html Fri, 16 May 2008 05:41:23 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

In my sorry attempt to cross items off my ever going list of Sight-Seeing highlights I have found myself compelled to become an addict to at least a dozen mass market paperback travel guides. Lonely Planet, Frommer's, Fodor's, Insider's Guide, you name it, I have it on a book shelf by the TV in the apartment. This week, I decide to attack some real quirky items that have me incredibly curious and strangely excited. I have to give you a little background, as I am a not so closeted history fanatic, and especially anything Cold War related is a particular interest. So buried in the very back of one my guides is a place that I am now obsessed with visiting.
It is the Underground City. This is the ultimate in "Mutual Assured Destruction" Mania knee-jerk reactions.
In the late 1960's the tension between China and then still Soviet Union Russia escalated to alarming levels. It was US vs. Russia circa 1960 times 10. It was to the point where it wasn't whether the two super Communist powers would go to war, but to what degree. The two Red Armies did have a limited escalation of tensions from 1967-69 over the border disputes over the Zhenbao Islands. Whether they would jump into a bigger skirmish type scuffle staged in a fault-line disputed territory (perhaps the recently unified Vietnam or Cambodia), similar to the USA vs. China battles in Korea, or if they would really go for it and invade each others land. Russia and China roughly border each other on the east, and have only Mongolia in between, so a full scale tussle could be easily imagined. With this in mind, Chairman Mao decided an entire Underground City should be constructed under Beijing, with enough space for the entire population of China's capital to be housed for months or years on end. That's 16 million folks living in a cave city until the nuclear dust could settle. This project was completed (or abandoned) in the early 1980's, and it is said that most of Downtown Beijing sits on hollow ground...and on a tremendous earthquake fault line...um, is this a good idea?
Now that the USSR is no more, and Beijing quickly becomes a city wide construction site, the Underground City is becoming High Rise Building basements and Parking Garages as there is more earth-moving going on here than probably anywhere else on earth right now. As the city reshapes itself into Communist-Capitalist hybrid much more effective than a pseudo-electric Toyota Celica vehicle, the Underground City is being destroyed and the entrances that were hidden in train stations and schools are being blocked up. Only a few passages remain, and a couple of these pathways to the subterranean fortress have become tourist attractions; that is if you can find them. You see, nobody knows it exists. Not Taxi Drivers, not regular Beijing citizens, not Hotel Concierges, no one....trust me.
I hop into a cab and point most happily at the Chinese letters that are written next to the Underground City in the guide book and my smiling, if not shower deprived, Driver drives off in great speed. He races straight downtown, and drops me with great gusto right in front of Tiananmen Square...um, no. I get out and consult the map. The Underground City is shown as a dot on the map and unless the door way is actually 4 blocks wide, this place could pretty much be anywhere. I start wandering....and without much success. There are huge tour buses rolling in with tourists who are headed to the Forbidden City soon park on every side street, so walking on one side and seeing what is on the other is impossible.
I go in and out of tiny Hutong mazes for what seems like hours, until I notice the rickshaw drivers. They all have lists of attractions to which they can whisk you away, at a very small price. The 2nd to bottom entry is "The City of the Underground" which is a title for the attraction I really like much more than the Underground City for some reason. I walk in the direction they seem to go be going, and with my poorly drawn map, I find myself smack in the middle of a bustling hutong full of Weekend activities. Cooking, Cleaning, Children playing and of course, Old Men playing cards...what is it with people playing cards in tiny groups all over town. It is weird. Doorways crowded with semi-destroyed bicycles and piles of junk, next to tiny restaurants and even smaller shops. About half way down the tiniest and most obscure labyrinth twists is an old wooden door on which the words, "Un..er..oun Cit.". are written (well almost written) in vinyl stick-on letters.
Even with the missing letters and all, I feel an adrenalin rush of uncharted discovery, just like Columbus, Pissarro, or the first guy to be with the Olsen Twins. I walk inside and a group of young people dressed in army costumes greet me with two simple clearly pronounced English words; not "Good Morning," not "Hello Welcome," not even"You Again?", but simply "Twenty Yuan!" I shell out the cash and a young man who speaks beautiful English leads me down a series of moldy dark passageway stairways. He asks many more questions than he answers. He wants to know where I'm from. He wants to know what Pittsburgh is like. Do I like China? Have I been to China before? Do I like Chinese food? What is my favorite Chinese food? What have I seen in Beijing? What is your favorite place in Beijing? When do I leave? What do I do for a living? Do I like the Olympics? What is my favorite Olympic Sport? Do I know the names of the Olympic Mascots? Which my favorite Olympic Mascot? (Jing-Jing, the Panda is his...) Where do I stay? Where is that? Do I like it? Is that in Lido? Do I like Lido? 5 minutes into the tour, I feel I somehow stumbled into the strangest of all Human Resources job interviews, and I should have updated my resume.
Finally, we reach a landing in a cavern that has a single 60 watt strangely colored light bulb hanging from some dangerous looking frayed electric wires. The glow of the illumination combines the odd light amber color of the bulb and the irregular stripes of green mold growing on the bulb itself to make a surreal 1960's Saturday Night at the Fillmore light show effect. Some semi-disturbing moving bolts of light pass in front of your eyes and across the hollowed out walls as a breeze blows the bulb just slightly. It is like something you might imagine modulating behind the Jefferson Airplane or Quicksilver Messenger Service, as Sunflower passes you the tab of acid she promised to give you before you left your Berkeley dorm room, but she forgot they were in her other purse.
My tour leader then explains the idea of the Underground City, (which I already know) and that the Underground City was expected to house all of Beijing's 16 million residents. I'm thinking with the two of us standing here...I'm a little cramped. On the walls are great propaganda posters and pictures of Russian tanks and airplanes. I ask if I can take some pictures, and my guide utters the greatest response to any question I have asked so far in my many weeks in China. He says, "You may take all the photos you like, but only with your mind..." Ah, a poet and a tour guide.
We begin our tour, and he points out that if we walked down this corridor, we would go to the Forbidden City, and if we followed this one, we would be lead to the Temple of Heaven. He points down some dark hall, and says that is where there was a full classroom for the children's education. We pass a hollowed out area that has a folding cardboard table with some white (well, at some point, I'm sure they were white, but now they are a very dingy combination of gray, green and very unappealing beige.). This he says is the hospital. To me it looks like a sickly, badly set dinner table. The kind you could easily imagine resting beneath a case and a half of nearly empty, mildly crushed aluminum Budweiser cans in a just out of college, 6 guys in a two-bedroom, breakfast nook. An IKEA pressed wood table that one of the guys got from his parent's basement, or another found on the street amongst the neighbor's weekly garbage pile as he stumbles back from the corner boozer at 3 am. Hey, don't knock it, that's how I acquired most of my furniture at that time in my life.
Further down the musty dugout we go, "This is a room where many soldiers would keep munitions. Is that right? Munitions?" I nod, and we trudge on. Everything is the same, but the posters are awesome. Chairman Mao waving and smiling, some of earnest looking children with rifles, and still another reminding the cave-dwellers not to light fires to keep warm. In about 25 minutes the whole thing is over, but not before the tunnel kicks you out into a silk factory where dozens of smiling faces ambush you with their fabulous wares. Silk sheets, shirts, banners, and even underwear. Girls, how about a hot pink silk G-string with the words "Sexy," poorly silk screened on them in overly ornate cursive writing? Give me a call before I leave and I'll pick up a pair for you..
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204777980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204777980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204777980/tpod.html Fri, 16 May 2008 00:25:38 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

The cavernous warehouse where they are constructing the International Broadcast Center is slowly, ever so slowly, like a snail with a hang-over getting out of bed to let the dog back in slowly, coming together. In the 7 or so weeks I have been here, the place hasn't really changed a bit, but there are literally tens of thousands of rapidly working Chinese Construction Teams feverishly wrenching and screwing and hammering and kicking, if it is needed. It is now the first week of March, and the entire Beijing Broadcasting staff is scheduled to move in here within a fortnight. Um, perhaps there should be carpeting and other luxuries like, I don't know door handles (and doors to go with them), or let's say operating bathrooms in place before the first happy employees file into their new cubicle heavens. Since I arrived here, my only access to, how do you say this... my only way to visit the restroom...is to walk from the IBC building and wedge my way into another usually closed building where there a single locked bathroom for our employees.
There are about 20 to 30 of us here, and there are at least 7500 construction workers. We all have keys to this bathroom...they do not. A 10 minute walk to the bathroom becomes a spy mission so that you can clandestinely sneak to the general area without being spotted by their scouting teams, get in quickly and lock the door behind you before the hoards storm the Bastille. I feel like the Omega Man trying to fight my way home as lurking interlopers try to slip inside as soon as there is the slightest crack in the doorway that leads to the luxury of the only restroom in the building complex. This sounds like we are treated likely royalty, but once inside you'll find, with absolute horror, one of the most shocking and completely disorienting aspects of Chinese culture...the Squat Toilet. That's right my friends, no friendly reassuring toilet bowl with an alluring vulcanized plastic seat and porcelain, no, it's a nicely tiled hole in the ground. This is a brand new multi-million dollar building, and they have installed squat toilets. But these squats are ultra modern and even are equipped with automatic flush mechanisms. So imagine your position, and then when you stand, the hole flushes itself, however even the slightest body movement triggers this water torrent to be unleashed that splashes into the hole over which you are closely hovering. Imagine if you will, this water coming into the hole at the roughly the same speed as the narrows of Colorado River the first few days after the snow pack melts and you can understand why this squat also often serves as a combination involuntary bidet and shoe/sock/ and trouser washing service. Enough about the bathroom, and I won't even mention that you don't flush your toilet paper in China...you place this soiled paper in a small trash can nicely placed next to the hole. This can is emptied every few days...ah, the sweet aroma of every day Chinese Life.
So only we handful of BOB employees share this tiny bathroom, which leads to your next obvious inquiry, where do all these thousands of Chinese workers go? The short answer is similar to the answer about the 800 ton Gorilla...where ever they want. I won't be to gross here, but I can say this...you don't want to leave your empty paint cans in the stairways, because they will not stay empty for long....that's all I'm saying.
To compound this issue, this is the week that dozens of Television professionals fly in from all over the world to receive their training for the Olympic Games. The exercise is aptly named the nicely abbreviated phrase, BOB TOT. I think actually Bob Tot was the nickname we had for one of my classmates in Mrs. O'Brien's 4th grade math lab, Robert Tottleman, No, BOB TOT, is simply, Beijing Olympic Broadcasting Technical Operations Training. Say that three times fast after a couple martinis (Actually just have the martinis and keep you mouth shut...) This is a very organized 4 day series of instructional seminars, management meetings, and an excuse to expose various South Americans, North Americans, Europeans, Scandinavians, and a random Asian to intense 3 day jet lag and overloaded sensory stimuli, before packing them up with a ham sandwich and shoving them back into a shady China Airlines plane for minimum 13 hour flight home.
My little piece of the puzzle is to provide communications for the simulated Sports Broadcasting Exercises. At the end of the festivities, the Broadcast Groups all take part in a mock television broadcast of the Olympic Games. Fake Games are provided by the means of video tapes from previous Olympic events. This makes me a great deal of money when I gamble with the dozens of uniformed Chinese Security Guards on the results of these contests. They are amazed that I always know the winner of each and every athletic endeavor, while they sadly turn over most of their 7 dollar a day paychecks. Just joking, I didn't take their money, but it was tempting because these much younger than high-school aged military attired boys were riveted to the big screens full of such fabulous delights as White Water Slalom racing and Horse Jumping from Athens in 2004.
At the end of the "War Games," the Engineering Staff would create various horrendous "incidents," such as failing live sports feeds from venues to the Broadcast Center, all communication lost between different groups and the most crippling obstacle of all, the coffee runs out and they are down to their last 3 donuts just 37 minutes into a 10 hour over-night shift. These catastrophes are dealt with as best as can be, but watching from afar, it is not difficult to look at this as a grandiose and equally pointless fire drill. Just as we all file down from offices in the middle of the day, careful not to use the elevators, in an orderly fashion, for our pre-scheduled office fire drills, these mock situations have no real impact on what would happen in real life. If there was a real fire, flames shooting out of Accounting, and most of Human Resources caving in as the heating ducts collapse in your building due to the intense heat, there is no way everyone would happily bounce down the flights of stairs discussing the recent merger of two competitors, or delighting in a quick rehash the highlights of last night's big game. It is the same with this exercise. It is easy to fix any problem in a simulation, but add a screaming producer, a demanding director, and your professional life flashing before your eyes...I'm not sure it will be so easy to tell that something simply was unplugged, or a dipswitch was accidentally misadjusted. All I know, is they serve a nice catered meal, and the afternoon coffee break cookies are delicious.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204956060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204956060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204956060/tpod.html Fri, 25 Apr 2008 00:08:56 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

I understand...I haven't written in awhile. What happened to you, you may ask... Okay...alright already. I have been remiss. I won't bore you by trotting out work excuses, as they always turn out to be "Dog Ate My Homework" stories in the end. I did miss you, but perhaps I was playing hard to get. Anyway, I hope all is forgiven, and these updates will continue in the happily haphazard fashion as before... So as Milton Berle said to Hedda Hopper on a luxurious "Riding on Air" Strato-lounger Express to the coast..."Here we go!"

Just because I feel so badly about our lengthy estrangement, I'll drop you a little yarn that is certain to cause you to question any regard you may have for my intelligence. So let's start with this, Beijing is very dry...arid is what they call it. I call it freakin' parched. It is on the edge of a desert so what do you want. As a result, two things are immediately apparent upon your arrival into China's Capital. The first is a constant thirst, which I use to excuse my tremendous alcohol bills, and the other is any skin moisture you may have brought with you on the plane is evaporated instantly, and each visitor is turned into a strange upright biped version of an albino alligator (or crocodile, if you prefer) within hours. It is that kind of flaking skin that demands vigilant scratching, especially at 2 am as the sandpaper sheets of the rock like sleeping surface irritates each square centimeter of skin. Is it possible to have an uncontrollable itch inside your inner ear cavity?
After a few weeks into my journey, and with bits of chalky white epidermis peeling away from my body in a record setting pace as I made my way through town, I figured I needed to do something. I don't want to say it was bad, but Hansel and Gretel where seen following my cascading scales of peeling skin as a guide back home from Grandma's place. Lotion was inked in on the top of my shopping list and I found my way to my local grocery store. It is a tiny store, but is remarkably well stocked, and strangely enough, health and beauty is a particular strong suit. I wandered down the multiple rows of "soap, lotion, shampoo, etc." aisles, trying to settle on just right combination of fragrance and constancy that screams "Soothing relief." Coconut and Vitamin E? Kiwi, Lemon and Ginseng? Something that looks like two atomic particles circling a milk bottle? I find all the classics, but all the fancy western brands cost a fortune. Oil of Olay at 85 yuan (12 bucks?!) are you kidding me. Luckily, on the very same row of fancy looking bottles is an alluring white plastic bottle that has an ultra-modern logo, Chinese characters in cool street fonts, and one English language word on the front, "Clear!" How can I go wrong with something in its very nature is "Clear!" Happily back home with my bottle scratching relief, I lather on a healthy dose of that glop and head straight to bed.
The next morning my skin, especially my legs are so dry I have to put on twice as much lotion as I normally would. I splatter big puddles on my thighs and rub the stuff up and down my legs. I notice that it doesn't really absorb into my skin so well, but it eventually I'm ready for work. All the day, my legs itch and itch. It is to the point where decorum and standard office policy for proper behavior are completely abandoned, and I scratch way like a leper chimp on a meth binge. I get up walk around several times during the day, because it seems to relief the itching. I try to determine what is going on, when I realize, I am wearing my new wool pants from a fancy fashionable designer, and cost all of 8 dollars at the Silk Market. I must be allergic to the inexpensive Chinese fabric in my cheap knock-off French Designer Silk Market pants, and I secretly curse my decision to buy fake uber-hip clothing and the even more incredible miscalculation to wear them the very next day to the office. Let's cut to the chase as they say...
I get home and take off my pants to discover my legs from hip to ankle are a scarlet shade of crimson that hasn't really been seen since the demise of the liquid dye versions of old 1940's Technicolor movies. You know, those kind of incredibly bright reds you see in movies like "Gone With the Wind," or the color parts of "The Wizard of Oz." My first thought is, "I should have known better than buy those stupid pants. That isn't wool...and whatever it is, it is shredding my skin. How could I be so stupid? Good thing I bought the lotion." So it's another good heaping potion of oozing white lotion relief, and on with the pajamas before going to sleep that night.
The next morning...Why can't I move my legs? The skin on my legs has now gone from irritate mess, to full on rash. I can't walk. I put on my softest linen pants in can locate in my closet and waddle my way to work. I am in complete pain all day...What the hell was that fabric in those stupid pants. I somehow make it home, and plop down in front of the TV. I lift my legs to an elevated position, as the latest Barclay's Premiere Football Match from England goes to half time. I pop open a large Tiger Beer and see a happy singing cartoon character come bouncing on to the screen. In a high pitched Chinese song, the character takes a bottle of my favorite lotion and tosses it to a very beautiful woman who is smiling while showering. She takes the lotion and rubs it into her hair. The Chinese song continues and beautiful men, children and even more beautiful women rub the lotion in the hair of children in a bathtub. Everyone is so happy to have my lotion in their hair. Then during the third chorus the catchy melody, some hybrid of Chinese characters and English words appear on the screen. I don't really catch any of the graphics, other than the very clear English word "Dandruff" which flashes in a neon green and pink, as the la....la...la...la part of the song begins.
Wait a minute. Dandruff lotion? Um, no...not dandruff lotion (wait for it...) No...Dandruff Shampoo. Yes, my dear friends. I had been rubbing handfuls of caustic chemical enhanced Dandruff Shampoo into my legs for days on end, thinking it was body lotion. Not too worry, I got some American Skin Repair lotion (at 10 times the price of the original Oil of Olay lotion I had shunned) and after a few days I was fine.
Chinese lesson one... Products aren't grouped by function as is the case in the West. You might find a bottle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil right next to Toilet Cleaner. If there is an empty space on the shelf...that's where it goes.... If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, in Beijing...you get the goose.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204518480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204518480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204518480/tpod.html Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:36:40 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

The recovery continues on Sunday. I sleep a few extra minutes, and settle in with Chinese television. Imagine if you will every ordinary college television station show you have ever had the pleasure of viewing, perhaps on damaged 25 inch set in a Student Union, and you have a good idea of what the average CCTV production looks like. Very stark, non-threatening bland sets with heavy announce desks; two attractive let strangely uninteresting talking heads in full on blue blazers and ladies business leisure wear. Closely cropped, yet highly stylized hair and absolutely no expression in any of the spoken words is the standard presentation of nearly 40 percent of all shows. You also have a channel that seems to be constantly showing traditional Chinese Operas, which can not be accurately described using words continued within the framework of the English lexicon. High pitched wailing modulations by both voice and musical instrument, occasionally punctuated by what sounds like crashing trash can lids, are accompanied by heavy make-up and outrageous outfits that are so over the top that both Elton John and Cher would find themselves saying, "I don't know, honey, don't you think that is a little, I don't know...too TOO much?"
Another station shows 24 hours a day stage productions of variety shows that feature famous Chinese singers, acrobats, stand up comedy teams and for some reason, the most untalented western magicians available. These are the guys who miserably failed in their auditions at Six Flags Over Three Mile Island and untold thousands of cocktail lounges of Indian Casinos across the United States and Canada. One fixture on these shows is a western performer who somehow turns himself into characters from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Mask. Even the entertainment starved Chinese studio audience is seen saying amongst themselves, "Dude, that is SO 1988...move on, pal." There are historic dramas, and contemporary soap opera type shows, and some program that features some strange Ninja Monkey character in a live action children's show that apparently is aired a minimum of 35 hours a week...day and night.
The haunting sing-song Chinese language flows over me as I continue to nap on the rock hard mattress throughout the morning. Only the well place shafts of sunlight splitting my parted curtains to invade my eyelids gets me up from my full recline. It's Sunday morning, so some breakfast must be on the docket. I vow to try some place new, but it's back to the tried and true Mexican place with some eggs and sausage, beans and rice. I have great plans for today, including grocery shopping, and errands that I have put off since arriving in Beijing. My long walk includes a stop at the DVD bootleg shop, and I pick up a couple films by some of my favorite independent American Filmmakers, Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson. After breakfast, I pick up a large bottle of fresh squeezed orange juice, and bag of Doritos, and I head on back to the apartment. One tip for all you in full on alcohol recovery, eggs; good...sausage; bad; rice; good....beans; bad. My battling gastronomic functions perform their very own version of the Dueling Banjos theme. One moment...".ah...that feels great," (eggs settling the stomach,) followed by, "ouch...am I a character in the film Alien?" (sausage and beans having a full Cinco de Mayo celebration in my stomach...I can feel the blender churning out the margaritas.) On the walk back, I down the bottle of OJ, so I grab another before getting back to my complex, and after only about a couple hours in a horizontal position...I'm back on my back with incredibly annoying Chinese programming diverting my attention. Now it is a show that is 1 part "American Idol" (amateur singers...singing poorly to the delight of a crowd who are more excited to be in a television studio than to hear these warbles) 1 part "Dating Game," (these people seem to be hooking up in the most embarrassing ways) and 1 part "Fear Factor," (the young couples have to do some strange feats of daring) all hosted by two guys who look like they could have been back-up singers for Wham during their "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" video. I flip channels non-stop for about an hour, before popping in "Margot at the Wedding." I'm in and out of sleep mode for the rest of the day.... I'm thinking...I have to get my rest, I have to get up in the morning for work. Ah, is this what it is like to have a real job?
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204429020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204429020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204429020/tpod.html Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:39:46 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

The first of March is beautiful in Beijing. Sunny and incredibly warm for the winter, but of course, I wouldn't know because I sleep most of the day away. That is what Saturday's are for, but ingesting nearly a cubic gallon of distilled juniper berries in the form of an off-brand Singapore Gin on Friday night helps. I did wake several times during the day to make full note of the incredible effects that unrefined spirits can have on an empty stomach. I prefer to blame "something I ate," and lift a line from Jackie Gleeson who once said to Edith Head, Mahatma Ghandi , and his personal driver, Pedro over a dozen of so vodka martinis at Hollywood's Musso and Frank's on late Saturday night, "I must have gotten a bad olive."
After a long day of recovery, I vow I will not waste the entire day due to some misguided decisions of the previous 24 hours. Even though I am leaving most of my rational mind behind, I venture out of my cocoon, and witness most of Beijing coming out theirs. It is the first really nice day, and everyone is out. Kites are flying, children are playing football (soccer) and everyone is basking in the brilliance of the sun. I am trying to keep my stomach from leaving its location and stop it from trading places with my Adam's apple. With incredible focus, I start walking and walking...in a different direction than I have traveled before and more of the Chinese capital opens up to me. New Shopping Centers, restaurants and a very strange stretch of several miles that seems to house only used bicycle stores and noodle shops. There are literally thousands of people just out, sitting on park benches, playing with pets, riding bikes, and buying street food from rusted bicycle carts.
When I come to a small square outside of a brand new shopping mega-plex, I stumble on to a truly uniquely Chinese experience, and I am transfixed for the next 45 minutes. On the concrete sidewalks and along the front entryways, a group of elderly Chinese have created a old fashioned ballroom, sans the wooden floor, the tuxedos and the orchestra. A large, badly damaged Tape Blaster held together with cellophane tape and scrap wire plays out Big Band sounding Chinese dance music, and at least 50 old men and women dance intricate dance steps in the twilight on the pavement outside the opening of the mall. A group of seemingly semi-intoxicated men mill about the group trying to raise a partner to join the festivities. One old man dancing the complicated dance steps with an imaginary lady, who he surely imagines is dressed in a beaded gown and pearls. He spins; he dips and bows to his partner, and at end of each song he bows to her, although to the rest of us, she doesn't exist. As the tape continues to whirl on, he picks up the next number just where the last left off, with the same dancing partner...or perhaps his imagination has replaced the last girl with a new one, this time a Scandinavian Princess with long legs and devilish smile.
I pull up a spot on a wooden bench and allow this moment to sweep over me. Temporarily I am at The Waldorf , September 1928. The broken concrete is now Mahogany, the lamp posts- crystal chandeliers, and hissing cassette tape- The Paul Whiteman Orchestra just returning after a lengthy engagement playing the Lido deck on the latest Atlantic passage abroad The White Star Luxury Liner. And the old man dancing alone, shares his dance with whomever he fancies. Although the impromptu tea dance lacks the melodies of George and Ira Gershwin and sips from clandestine hip flasks...Beijing continues to amaze and on nights like this, soothe a weary traveler a long way from home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204277700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204277700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1204277700/tpod.html Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:46:49 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

Friday night in Beijing, and it is Leap Year, February 29th. If that doesn't call for a party I don't know what does. I somehow get invited to a party at the Metro Bar. We have become friends with the owners of the neighborhood bar, and their story is either a perfect New Yorker Short Story, or Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie of the Week, depending on the quality of the writer. Luke and Coco are both around 25 years old. Luke is from England and his girlfriend Coco is a native Beijinger. Coco's father owns at tiny grocery store that sells expired cans of peaches and bottle of stale beers to late night drunks and bewildered foreigners. The store is literally 30 square feet total, and yet this old Chinese guy is able to sock away enough cash from unloading moldy Pop-Tarts and semi-melted Bomb Pops to be able to send his only daughter, Coco to England to study. And it is during her 7 years of college and post-graduate studies, that our friend Coco meets a typical English boy, Luke. After her graduation, Coco is torn between returning to her native China and staying in England with her boyfriend. She decides that she must return to the land that she loves, and in quite the romantic twist, that is perfect for an Oxygen Original Movie, Luke does two things, first he agrees to move with her to Beijing, and he also proposes. So Luke and Coco take over the failing bar in the basement beneath her father's shop, and try to make a go of it. How romantic, and an incredible waste of two proper and wildly expensive prep school and Oxford educations. Luke's parent's must be so proud that all those years in Stafford learning Latin and Philosophy, securing all those O levels, before attending Charter House at Cambridge have lead to a very dicey career as a Barkeep in Beijing. I'm sure that will be the highlight of next year's Christmas card letter.
Anyway, we have adopted Luke and Coco's Metro as our unofficial drinking establishment, and they decide to celebrate their new enterprise with a private Leap Year Day party, and by private they mean, we have invited everyone we have ever met in their lives and posted an invitation on the local ex-pat magazine's website. Very exclusive, as you can see, with private invitations sent to an select group of roughly 250-thousand Foreign Chinese citizens. The party offers discounted drink specials, a free buffet, and a band. Yes, a band...in the space of good sized Dentist office they will have a band...um okay. So we promise Luke and Coco that we will be there, and after a long week at work, I must admit the idea of what has the makings of a typical frat-style party is rather appealing.
As with any party, a fashionably late entrance is important. I get there after 11 pm, and find the place packed. Of course due the size of the real estate, a small ladies garden club would pack this place, but the effect is tremendous. In the corner is what appears to be very intoxicated group of Bolivians sit in a semi-reclined manner at the only real bar tabletop in the place. The remnant dregs of amber colored liquids circle the bottoms of at least 25 glasses on their table. Beside them are some Asian rock and rollers in full-on 50's Marlon Brando Wild One's get-ups. Black Leather Jackets and dangling cigarettes from the corners of mouths. All of them are staring at the tiny stage that is set up in a corner behind the pool table with lust at the only real Fender Stratocaster that any of them have ever seen. At the pool table are a group of Aussies, and with them are the only blonde girls in China. They spend at least 20 minutes per each ball on the table, and have at least three times as many spectators as the band.
I make it through the crowd and to the bar where Coco greets me with a Carlsberg in a cold glass, which has somehow become my standard order and a nice hug. We make some small talk before she returns to the clamoring throngs who are pushing up to the bar for the inexpensive liquor. When I say they have discounted drink specials, try 2 bucks a well drink and around a buck fifty per 20 ounce beer. I turn around to see the "band" taking the stage. This band consists of one guy with an electric guitar, another guy with a saxophone, and a 25 dollar stack of karaoke party tapes. They pop in a tape of American Garage band standards, which is probably labeled, "Tape Number 25...Favorite Selections for Drunk Kansas Girls." The fantastic melodies of Sweet Home Alabama, Good Lovin', Louie Louie, and an extended version of Hit Me with Your Best Shot, echo through the room. The guitar player strums over the tape, and the two live members of the band trade vocals. Occasionally an intoxicated American girl yells out requests, which are never granted because, you see...they are playing along to a tape, you idiot.
This is the best bit of entertainment I have seen in years. I have seen Pulitzer Prize winning plays, world famous musicians, incredible comedians, street performers, amazing films from around the wrld...you name it, and I really can't think of a performance with greater shear entertainment value (although it is totally unintentional) than the Karaoke Twins. After every song, the guitar-player bends the strings of his guitar, and raises his hand to the air like Pete Townsend, while the sax player leans into the mic to say, "Thank you very much," like Elvis or more like a very poor Elvis Impersonator unsure if he should do the early rockabilly E or the bloated Vegas Presley.
I delight in the craziness of the "live band..." when several of my German and English pals arrive. We all say hello to Luke, and he decides we should all share a drink. It is decided that we should all switch to Gin and Tonics. One leads to another, and the band plays on. Such classics as Eric Clapton's, Cocaine...with an amazingly awful Chinese accents, "She no rye, she no rye, she no rye, Krow-Crane..."
Luke brings us back tequilas, and from this point on...the glasses are never more than half-empty before they are replaced by others, each more toxic than the last. 100 yuan goes a long way, and we all have slapped a couple hundreds on the bar and left the leftovers for additional drinks, so we have pretty unlimited bar tab at this point. The Gin and Tonics are getting stronger, and the reason is quite simple. Apparently there is a limited supply of cans of Tonic water, and there is plenty of Gin. This is perhaps the only time in history that tonic is watered down by Gin. Shall I make the long story short and just say...it is very long walk home, and I am miraclously successful to make it home without incident. The denouement of the night involves waking up on the couch with the computer's Slingbox blasting away on some Cinemax 2 Police Academy film at 6:30 am, fully clothed except for my shoes. I drag myself to bed by way of 3 aspirins, a vitamin C, and an Echinacea tablet for good measure. Happy Leap Year...good thing I have 4 years to recover.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1203925500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1203925500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mulzey/china/1203925500/tpod.html Sun, 09 Mar 2008 08:49:08 -0400 China? Am I really moving to Beijing?

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Beijing, China

I am essentially an illegal immigrant at this point, well not exactly. I do have a business visa, which allows me to consult with Chinese companies, which is what I am doing, but doesn't really allow me to "work" in China. The thing is, officially I work for a Spanish company who is doing business in China, so how does that work? Either way, the good folks where I work are arraigning for an actual work permit for me to be legal in Beijing. Which I think was the title of Jerry Bruckheimer action adventure super-boffo box-office hit of the late 80's with Chuck Norris and Shelley Long, "Legal In Beijing." Anyway, I had taken a physical, I submitted my resume and my actual college diploma (that's right had to rip it out of the frame after my parent's found at the bottom of a trunk...) with letters from my employers who claim I am the only person in the entire world who can do it is what I do here. I will also submit my residency permit, which I got at the police station when I arrived, my departure documents and my passport, when I have my "interview" with Chinese officials this morning.
I don't know why, but I have to say, I'm a little nervous. I'm really sure why, but I'm uneasy all day on Sunday and don't sleep well the night before. My appointment is at 10 am at the very official sounding, Beijing Exit and Entry Administration of Public Security Bureau. A young woman named Mao will meet me to help me with my interview. I supposed to meet her at 10 am at window 29 on the second floor. Not knowing how long it might take to get to the Bureau, I decide to give myself a good hour to get there. I arrive in about 4 minutes. I decide that I'll check out the building, find Window 29 and then go take a walk around until 10 am. I find the building and am genuinely shocked at the appearance of the place. For you Americans out there, let me just describe this building and then tell it is anything like any governmental office you have ever visited anywhere in the 50 States. Brushed marble entryway, leads to copper stairs that jut out in a very Scarlett O'Hara manner, which leads up a series of steps that take you to two sets of escalators. These escalators take you to the second story where the walls are lined with information desks, each spelling out there duties and the name of the person working there at the time. In the center of the room is an information desk and person who speaks not only English and Chinese, but I overheard at least 3 or 4 other languages...many I couldn't place from my language frames of reference. On either side of the escalators are places to fill out forms, and people to help you fill out the forms, and then rows and rows of soft comfortable seating...facing 60 inch plasma television sets showing the morning news. There are free coffee kiosks and complimentary bottles of waters and Pepsi products. I'm sure that reminds you of the local DMV or Social Security office you last visited right?
Even after walking around the surrounding area for about 30 minutes, I'm still early, so I sit down and engage in one of my favorite pastimes...people watching. The place is crowded but is very orderly and relaxed. I see many different foreign people, and many different degrees of appearance, attitude and wealth. The first person I see is a very tall, very blonde, very surgically enhanced (can I say that...) woman. She looks like Pamela Anderson before hair and make-up. She has a stack of papers and a very business-like Chinese assistant who is translating furiously at one of the windows. The blonde woman removes her Mink fur full-length coat, folds it over one arm and then taps the toes of her knee length 4 heel black boots, obviously not happy. I turn my gaze to another window where a young African man is standing in full on Gansta Rappa gear, except that he too is wearing a full length fur. It is clear that his might be a little fuller and even more expensive than Blondie's at Window 13. He is very friendly and speaks fluent Mandarin. All of the clerks and officials are smiling and blushing a little as the guy speaks with them... I instantly assume he is the P-Diddy of Central China, but who knows. On the opposite extreme stands a tall blonde European guy who is arguing with someone who is either is lawyer/representative or his girlfriend, either way things didn't go his way at his window. They are speaking some language I can't place (Swedish, perhaps?) but I get the idea that he was probably saying, "You said it was just a formality... What do you mean denied? Now what am I going to do?" Something like that. There are Chinese people there with their suitcases with them, like they are either going to are coming directly from the airport with whatever documents they need to get straightened out here. There are other ex-pats staring at the window waiting for their translators and it appears some people who just came to watch TV.
I check my watch to see it is 9:58, so I get up and walk over to Window 29, and stand there. I scan the room for people coming up the elevators, people whose eyes are darting about in search of another...and although there are many people streaming up the moving stairways, no looks like they are looking for someone else. At 10:02, I decide to call. I get a Chinese speaking voice, and I introduce myself. I explain I'm at the appointed window but perhaps I got my information wrong. The voice on the other end says about 15 words in Chinese and then hangs up. I can't even hang up my phone before a young girl comes from behind me and says, "Ree-Chard?" I turn around and see that Ms. Mao has already begun my "interview." In fact, she holds about 35 envelopes of information for other clients and mine is one of about 9 or 10 that are spread out on the counter. She says two things to me, "Sit...Passport." I do the first, and hand her the other. She then pushes a paper in front of me. I don't know what it is, or if I'm supposed to take it or sign it or just look at it. I don't do any of those initially, and look around for someone to tell me what to do. She points at a line and I sign, and then she gives the form to the official. The official takes my passport, my stack of papers and that single signed document that she stamps several times with different red pads, and turns to give the whole mess to an assistant who walks back through some double doors. I sit there for a second and then Ms. Mao says, "Okay, you go home now."
I am like, "What?" I thought I was getting my passport stamped or something, I am not prepared to leave without it. I try to explain this, but everyone has already dismissed me, and they are off to next person from the pile. I have this instant feeling of being that guy on 42nd street in New York City who just got the 3 Card Monty pulled on him by some smooth operator outside the Marriott Marquis. I'm standing there trying to figure out what just happened to my 20 bucks, while the City that Never Sleeps blows right past me. I'm supposed to get my passport back soon...and the pea is supposed to be under the shell to the right. It doesn't always work out that way...I'll let you know.
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