China 2008

Wisdom from Randy Pausch

2008-06-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

If you don't know know who this guy is, YouTube him. I watched his lecture traveling throughout Asia, and these are some of the notes I took:

"Make sure you always bring something nice to the table."

"When you're in a place where you're doing something wrong and nobody's telling you, you're in a very bad place to be. That means people have given up. Your critics are the ones that love you"

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you were expecting."

"The thing about the brick wall is that its there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough."

"If someone upsets or annoys you, it means you haven't given them enough time. You give them time, and they will almost always impress you."

"When you're doing something new, when you're pioneering, you're going to have to take some arrows in the back."

"Best way to teach someone is to make them think they're learning something else."

"Decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. Always have fun, every day of your life."

"Never lose child like wonder. It's what drives us."

"Don't complain, just work harder. Jackie Robinson had it in his contract that he wasn't allowed to complain, even when fans spit on him."

China 2008: Episode Yi

2008-06-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

Bonus Blog for You!

2008-06-09T19:33:00.001-07:00

Most of you have not run marathons (yet), but you are familiar with capitalism, I'm sure, and as capitalism dictates, anywhere there is a large group of people, there will be a small group of people trying to get them to buy stuff.

It is the norm at marathons for photographers to cover the entire course taking shots of every last runner throughout the race. I've run 3 now, all different sizes, from 150 runners to 15,000, and there are no exceptions. Those bib numbers? Yeah, what are those for? DecORaySHUN?

No.

They're for identifying you in photos and flooding you with emails linking you to pages with those photos for sale at laughable prices.

And that is what I got today.
Click my belly!

Retroblog Time!!!

2008-06-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have blog material scattered throughout a OneNote document that I've been avoiding because I knew it would take some time to edit, but to my surprise I found some that were all ready to post, so here is one for y'all to read. The original date and place of authorship precedes the entry.

More to come!

5/19/08 Beijing enroute to Qingdao, 11:43pm

The past few days have been too much to document comprehensively. I've been waking up very early without much choice, as soon as the sun shines in my face at 4:30am, and going to bed very late on my own volition. I don't want to miss a moment, and there are many moments not to miss.

I'm sorry I didn't take notes throughout the day. I wish I could tell you a story, but the best I can do at this point is a pile of vignettes and observations. I'll try to be m ore diligent in the future.

I complained out loud on Sunday morning that the massive crowds of people I'd been promised to witness in China had not come through. I was unimpressed with Pinggu, not as a city but as an example of high population density. Although I'd already seen the huge complexes of residential buildings throughout Beijing, or one of its districts, I'd yet to see the people that filled them. The group of guys from LA I hung out with, whose names I could never get straight, observed with me that the restaurants, hotels, and retail shops were staffed by a disproportionate number of people for the number of patrons. The employees would outnumber customers 5 to 1 sometimes such that as you entered a shop or restaurant they would all scatter and clamor to serve you. (At some restaurants, 7 or 8 women would flank the entry way and do nothing more than bow and lightly greet you. Can you imagine 8 hostess at Chili's?)

I've spent all night on the train on the "soft sleeper." Only 50 dollars for 500 miles travel on a train, and unlike Amtrak it looks like we're going to be on time. The Chinese countryside is hard at work growing food for the aforementioned masses. Its not clear to be what crops are being grown, but it looks like most of what I'm seeing may be wheat.

Last night I went out with Guo Xiao, who I knew from when she did an internship with Deloitte in Atlanta earlier this year. Not only did I meet her, but 6 of her friends. They wanted to work on their English a little, which I didn't expect, and I struggled some to figure out a way to speak one- on- one with each of them, and encourage them to ask questions not only to practice their English but to teach them some about the United States. Dinner fluctuated between awkward silence (for me, an uncommon scene at a table full of college-aged women… they giggled when I commented on never having seen a table full of girls so quiet) and bright-eyed conversation about American Idol and whether Americans really think all Chinese look alike. I had this conversation earlier in the week with the guys from L.A., and we decided that many Chinese do look alike, but that we also encounter many white people that are difficult to distinguish in passing. Although, it is more common for white Americans to consider Chinese people to look alike, so I discussed both ends of the spectrum with them.

We dined on Beijing roast duck, in which you take a piece of sliced duck meat, dip it in a sweet soy sauce (which was actually salty) and place it on something like a crepe or small tortilla with celery and onions. You then roll it up and eat, with chopsticks.

Chopsticks were a neat little challenge for me. I've used them numerous times, of course, but being in China, I thought, would be a good opportunity to learn to use them correctly. I'd taught myself, imitating others, but decided it wasn't good enough, that I was going to use them the Chinese way. But Xiao assured me that any way that worked for me was okay, and that there was no proper way to do it. When I was a small child, my mother taught me what was the proper way to hold and use a fork, knife, and spoon, and it wasn't unnecessary. I'm glad I don't scoop up my food like a 5 year old, because I might otherwise. So it was hard for me to believe that there was no particular way to hold and use chopsticks, but there was no reason for me not to believe her, and no one else objected.

All of the girls had American names they had chosen in their English classes. It was very helpful for me because there was no way I would be able to remember even one of their birth names, but for Xiao whom I already knew. One girl named Jane sat next to me and seemed particularly interested in learning about whatever I had to teach her. Her English was pretty good, she was almost as proficient as Xiao (who had the best English of the lot, and who occasionally interpreted for me) but I often had to ask her to repeat herself because she spoke so softly. That is something I've found that many Chinese do, and I think its partly because they don't have a lot of confidence in their English, and partly because they speak softly even in Mandarin. I am not blaming them, though. The few Mandarin phrases I know I have been reluctant to use because then everyone starts speaking to me in full Mandarin sentence. Wo bu nu bai ni shuo shenme!

Goodbye China... Hello Retroactive Blogs

2008-05-28T15:28:00.001-07:00

Well, these here are my last few hours in China, at least for the time being. I really dropped the ball on blogging for the past week. Since I've been in Shanghai, I haven't even been particularly busy, but the past 4 days I've been sick with a head cold and have avoided spending too much time looking at the computer screen. I cancelled my trip to Suzhou, but still managed to meander around town for a few hours a day. Yesterday I spent some time at the art museum, pictures of which I'll post when I get home.

I have tons of blog material to post ready to go but for some organization and editing, so get ready for some latent blogging over the next week, if you're all still interested. Videos and things are to come as well. I've gotta finish packing, flight is in 3 1/2 hours.

I have 19 hours in the air today.

Photos!

2008-05-22T10:16:00.001-07:00

See some of my photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8502959@N05/

The Marathon Nightmare

2008-05-22T09:16:00.001-07:00

5/20/08, Qingdao office tower

I'm going back a few days to write some about the marathon. I did not prepare well. Because of irregularities in my sleep from travel, which were less due to jet lag and more to traveling for 35 hours straight, I slept much of the afternoon on Friday. This was a two-fold problem: I missed dinner, and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. Not having eaten any lunch Friday afternoon, I found myself in a bus seat on the way to the marathon not having eaten in 24 hours and having already been away since 9:30pm the previous night. I felt good anyway, and ate two of the breakfasts provided, each of which had a hardboiled egg (which they eat a lot of here) a banana, a sponge cake like thing filled with cream that was something like a Twinkie but not nauseating, and a bag of milk, which I did not drink. Yes, it really was milk in a bag.

I took in the scenery as the bus headed into the mountains. Even this far from the city, the Sun was kind of a pale brown. I joked that, while Japan is the Land of the Rising Sun, China is the Land of the Sun You Can Stare At. There was a surprising amount of traffic on the way to the site, especially at 6:00am on Saturday. It didn't appear to be marathon related traffic, and they were driving like madmen, passing full length buses on mountain passes and around blind curves. There was one very near collision between a van and a three-wheeler that had the entire bus gasping at once, but it didn't seem to phase either of the drivers.

The waiting period was pretty dull. It was mostly people standing around chatting and stretching, and brought with it that impatience I've had prior to every run I've done. It was a good opportunity to take in the scenery from a stationary position, but the part of the Wall we would be running could not be seen from where we were, so I just stood around anxious to begin.

Without harping on every detail of the run, which would take all day to write, I'll start with the end of the marathon, a period I regret not shooting video of, as humiliating as it was. (I will try to post the video I did shoot once I get to Shanghai, where I expect to have a more reliable internet connection.) Around mile 18 I passed a water station where a member of the medical team waited to check out anyone who was having trouble. He approached me and put his hand on my shoulder, telling me I looked pale and asked if I would manage. I nodded with the confidence of someone who could not possibly manage. Less than a mile down the road, I finally sat down unable to go any further, at least for the moment. I threw up a little.

After several minutes, and several refused offers of help from passing runners, I stood and started walking, a few tens of paces after which I vomited five stomach loads of water. It was the best I'd felt since mile 1. I trotted for a while until I reached the paved road, where I was starting to feel ill again. The remainder of the marathon retraced the first seven miles, so I only needed to run the paved road to the start of the race, run the Wall again (a hefty task in 4 little words) and the last 3 miles would be almost entirely downhill. I walked the paved section, throwing up a little occasionally, but having no water in my stomach but the small sips I was taking since I emptied the tank earlier, it was mostly stomach acid.

Once I reached the Wall, I received a lot of unwanted encouragement. Its very frustrating to have a street lined with people yelling in your face when you're in that condition, even if they are encouraging you, but I did my best to ignore it. I climbed set of stairs, only 10 or 15, where police were telling mid-afternoon tourists to get out of the way. I rounded the corner and, no one being in sight, leaned over and threw up again. After waiting a few minutes, I found the resolve to push on when a photographer offered me help. First there was a flat bridge, which was easy enough, then some stairs, which were tougher, a steep dirt trail, which I covered quickly to take advantage of the good footing it offered, and then the nightmare began. The Wall was much steeper on the way back, and sections that did not have stairs but rather a steep sheer section of rock that only went down the first time all went up the second. These were really the toughest parts, because there was nowhere to stop halfway up. You had to cover each of these sections all at once.

I sat and threw up at the beginning and end of each one of them. It got harder as I went along, of course. With the constant fluctuations of nausea, I had trouble breathing. After each time I vomited, the ease of breathing would return and I'd be able to push my way up, but as I got higher the wind would pick up more and more. Because I was pale, I imagined my circulation was not good and my body was not regulating it's temperature very well. I was very cold. I wished I could have a blanket. I would have run with a blanket on, like a cape, looking like some Great Wall superhero. That would have been totally awesome.

I don't think I could ever actually show you were I sat at one point when I became dizzy and almost delirious. Watching my time closely, I tried to figure out a way I could do 4 miles in an hour in my condition, but there was nothing realistic I could come up with. I would have to run at least some of those miles. I threw up violently. When nothing was left in my stomach, my body kept pushing it out. My entire abdominal region seized uncontrollably, and I must have sounded like I was being beaten with the wails I was making trying to take short breaths. My eyes watered and my nasal passage was stuffed with mucous. A photographer ran down from one of the towers having heard me and he seemed as convinced as I did that I was dying. It only required him to say "I'm heading back that way in a half hour, you can go with me if you like…" for me to get up and keep going. I was having none of that.

It was a relief, obviously, to reach the end of the Wall. I could see it from the last tower. Approaching the last turn, I imagined someone popping out and telling me that I had to go straight to complete the marathon. I was imagining that this marathon was a living thing that wanted to make me suffer, but I was the one that was making me suffer, and willfully so. There was no way I was going home without doing one of two thing: finishing, or collapsing.

The last three miles, at last, and I could go down hill. I was well enough, somehow, after all that crazy vomiting, to trot down. Making new calculations, I could make it, but it was going to be close. The only time I slowed down on my way down the hill was a bend in the road where it went slightly up hill for about a hundred yards. I saw some people just ahead of me that were walking it as well, so I felt comfortable with it, but as soon as the road started going downhill again, I could no longer see them, and so ran.

Returning to the flat road in the valley, I did walk just a little more. Iwas very close to the finish, maybe 3/4 of a mile. With 12 minutes left, I was no longer trying for a good time, but merely to finish under the 8 hour time limit. There was no difference between 7:52 and 7:59. There was a lot of traffic down here, both pedestrians, cars, and large trucks. For the fourth time I passed a group of camels lounging on the side of the road. I looked at one and it had hardly more than change position since I'd seen it at the outset nearly 8 hours earlier. "You lazy worthless animal, you should be carrying me 26 miles," I mumbled to myself, in so many words.

I trotted again at this point, and rounding the bend I picked up speed through the finish line. After lying on the concrete with my eyes closed for a while, and after only one more runner crossing the finish line, they announced the marathon was over. My time was about 7:55. I was the penultimate finisher.

I took a few bites out of a Subway sandwich that had probably been sitting unrefrigerated for over 5 hours. Walking to the bus, I was overwhelmed again with illness and sat on the concrete. This prompted the medical staff to take me in. I received 2 litres of IV fluid and the backseat of a late bus where I could sleep on the way back to Beijing. It was late enough that I missed the Beijing Opera, which I was so excited to see, but at least I got back and had a room where I could sleep. I had enough strength to be hungry again, and luckily the hotel restaurant was open until midnight. I was in no mood for Chinese food, so ordered, with some reservations, a pizza, which I was sure wouldn't be much of one, a Coke, and green tea. The pizza was actually really good. It tasted like homemade dough, had no sauce (which I prefer) and cheese, sausage, and vegetables.

I fell asleep in my room to the only channel in English, listening to the continuous coverage of the earthquake.

Marathon Completed

2008-05-17T08:53:00.002-07:00

The restaurant I'm in is about to close, so I don't have internet for more than a few minutes. I just wanted to say real quick that I completed the marathon today, got really sick, and will write more on that later.

The previous two posts are from the past few days before I could post them. Enjoy.

Day Before the Marathon

2008-05-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

5/16/08, Yu Yang Hotel, room 2022

I woke up at 5:30am this morning, having slept about 6 hours. The sun was already high in the sky, and I was wide awake almost immediately. I took a few minutes to stretch and orient myself to the new day before throwing on some running gear and setting out for a 5K around the nearby city blocks. It was very different from Amsterdam 2 days ago, to say the least. Beijing is not the only Chinese locale loaded with infrastructure. Multi-lane roads in each direction sprawl all over, with sidewalks at least as wide and lined with young tree. The main thorough ways were surprisingly clean, although there were many droppings from the countless small dogs wandering the streets. The alley ways were as dirty as you might expect, but not as bad as India. Many people were preparing breakfast on the sidewalk, with small open indoor areas behind them where customers could eat.

Breakfast was better than dinner the night before, as far as what I was able to eat. Mostly boiled, rice, cream puff roll things that were stuffed with sausage or some kind of vegetable mixture. We were all pretty sure the orange juice was actually Tang. That wasn't a problem for us. We watched from our table a number of waiters lined up outside on the terrace like soldiers. It was apparent they were being trained. One guy lost control of his tray and spilled a couple of beers. Everyone was laughing at him. We saw him walk away, also laughing himself, but he never returned. During a break, several of the waiters started doing stretches, as if they were about to… um… run a marathon. Ha.

There is a small team of students from UCLA that came with one of the runners who are producing a documentary of the marathon tomorrow. It looks like they'll be doing some interviews of other runners, and asked me if I would speak with them, so… of course.

After breakfast, I waited in the lobby for a small group that was going to the grocery store. I approached the desk clerk about getting a map of the city to see if there was anything within walking distance that might be worth checking out. No one at the desk knew English, so the girl with whom I was speaking so ineffectually dialed a number, spoke a moment, and then handed me the phone. "What would you like?"

"Oh, I'm looking for a map of the city and…"

"Please repeat, and slow down."

"I need a map... of the… city."
"Oh, give the phone to the girl."

After shuffling around behind the desk, searching through drawers, and asking other clerks where a map might be, she found one that looked okay. I was beckoned to speak on the phone again:

"She will give you a map. Please give it back to the hotel when you return."

Thereafter, she opened the map she'd already planned to give me. Deciding it wasn't one she could give me after all, there were another exchange on the phone and I left the hotel without a map.

We didn't travel far, and the city is built in a pretty perfect grid. It doesn't have the same pitfalls as getting lost in Atlanta when you take road after road that winds around in circles and robs you of all mental bearings of location. Down the road and a block or two over, there was a huge grocery store with lots of sundries and appliances in the vein of Wal-mart. Each area had its own personnel who would stand next to you and watch everything you did. Its exactly what an American would do if they expected you to steal something from their store, but after sometime we figured out that they just wanted to be helpful. One couple that I was with found a pack of batteries and managed to tell one of the people stationed in the area that they wanted a two pack. There were none available, so the clerk simply took two of the batteries out of the package and sold them individually.

My room mate Lee was also with us. He later told me that he was in one area by himself when store personnel were following him around everywhere, and once he walked a certain distance from that area they stopped and turned around. "It was like I had left their area, so they weren't responsible for me anymore."

I wandered away to the produce area. On display in the meat section were squid, octopi, eel, skate, fish, pork ribs, duck, and a number of cooked meats that I did not recognize. I raided the candy, filling up a few bags, with the same overly-helpful clerk looking nervous when I resisted her help. She wanted to stand next to me and hold the bag open while I perused the candy, reading labels, assembling the kind of variety I wanted. I avoid eye contact so I could do my own thing.

Below the store was a condensed mall concept where clothing and jewelry stores each about the size of a two car garage were partitioned by walls, but which still allowed free movement among them without exiting to the main walkways. I recognized a lot of the brand names. This was the most Americanesque retail I'd seen since I arrived. Something I noticed throughout this whole retail complex was that it was operated almost entirely by women. In fact, out on the streets and the outdoor shops, it was mostly women doing work and men sitting around smoking cigarettes. There were even women doing sewage work.

I feel like I'm depriving the most dedicated of my millions of unique readers of the full breadth of my experience here hitherto, but so much has happened that I simply can't spend the necessary hours sitting here writing it all out. When I started writing about today, I didn't expect to have much to say because, believe it or not, I slept most of the day. In fact, I slept through the pasta dinner tonight, and I'm persisting on the candy I bought. THAT IS MY MARATHON PREPARATION. So we'll see how that works out. But I suppose I did do quite a lot today.

Internet is scarce at the moment, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the area, even hotel staff, that can speak English proficiently. One desk clerk told me "your room will not play your computer" when I asked about internet access. Begging for other options, she told me internet in the hotel was out. Lee told me a few minutes ago, however, that he was able to sneak into one of the hotel offices and use the computer for a few minutes before they cautiously kicked him out, so I think I'm going to sneak in there in the morning to post this before the marathon. If the post is dated Friday night, you'll know I was successful. Once I return to Beijing after the marathon tomorrow, Lee tells me the hotel there has free wireless internet. That will give me a chance not only to post about the marathon, but also put up some photos and video (if youtube is available).

Keep checking in!

First Night-- having trouble with pictures, more of those later

2008-05-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

5/15/08 9:12pm Beijing time, Yu Yang Hotel Lobby

At long last, I made it to the hotel. I had to pay 800 kuai extra to get here by taxi, which I intend to make Northwest pay for. I tried to calculate the entire travel time… I got around 35 hours. About 20 of that was on a plane. Otherwise, the rerouting of my flight had mostly positive consequences. I got to see Amsterdam. I got a great seat on the flight out of Holland. And apparently, having seen the marathon site had taken some of the anticipation out of it for the people who were here on time. So despite the inconveniences, I really came out on top.

In my Dale Carnegie coach training session I learned of Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch who recently retired and was invited to do the traditional "final lecture," whereby the retiring professor delivers that "lecture he had always wanted to give." If I remember right he was quoting someone else, but nonetheless made this point:

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you expected.

That has really rang true so far, just in the first 48 hours of these next two weeks.

I haven't yet witnessed the crowds I've been told about in China. I haven't seen any more people on the street at once than in any other city I've been to. But the sheer volume of infrastructure, the endless copses and outcroppings of high rise residential buildings amid towers donning corporate logos, is tremendous. Its really like visiting a city on another planet with a much older intelligent species that has already had to deal with swelling populations. Everything is just so big.

Ironically, I read in my Fodor's guide to China that the Chinese government has spent a lot of money over the years trying to scientifically prove that Chinese are a separate species from homo sapien, that Chinese ancestry only goes back to China, and not Africa.

For your amusement, some instructions from the hotel guest guide. All errors are as published:

"Activities such as prostitution, go whoring, gambling or drug addition [sic] etc. in violation of Chinese laws are prohibited in the hotel. "

"For you safety, Please do not contact with the stranger. "

"For your safety, please slam your door at a moment."

And the best of all, an ad for the "Bright Spring Day" Night Club, cause everyone loves to go out on a bright spring day, you're sure to be afforded "imperial enjoyment and noble taste by our delicate services."

Arrived in Beijing

2008-05-14T21:21:00.000-07:00

Interesting problem... I've arrived here in Beijing, with a host of problems that I'm chipping away at... I got a phone, some cash, some food, a place to plug my laptop in at last, and I copied all the hotel information into a notebook because I never bothered printing it out before. Its kind of hard writing in Chinese, even when copying.

Back to my interesting problem... I can write and edit posts, view my dashboard, etc, but I cannot view my blog at all. I'm curious to see if this even posts... otherwise, its going to ruin my little blogging project here.

The flight wasn't too bad. I got the very front row in coach, so no seat to jam my knees up against for 8 hours. And I watched Enchanted, a wonderful Disney film of a young princess who is tricked into entering real-world New York and struggling with culture shock and the inability of animals to speak. I noticed that the first 4 hours or so of TV and movies they showed had Dutch subtitles, and the second half of the flight were all Chinese subtitles. All the entertainment was spoken in English.

Someone send me an email to help me verify that they can read this post! Thanks!

An Explanation for You

2008-05-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Because I sent out an invite, I suppose a number of you will be reading for the first time, so I'll synopsize my trip to China for you:

I plan to visit Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, and Suzhou. My main goal is to complete the Great Wall Marathon, the site for which you can find easily by Googling. Most of my trip, though, I'll be studying business in China. I've found some contacts over there and am slated to meet with a number of men and women in finance and manufacturing, and others of whose industries I'm yet uncertain.

I wish I had some certainty as to how frequently I'll have internet access over there. As I understand it, it can be hard to come by. But I will post as often as I can, complete with photos and hopefully videos.

Everyone, feel free to leave as many comments as you'd like. I appreciate it.

And please forgive spelling and grammatical errors... I will often be writing quickly and will not have time to edit. Trust me, errors bother me a lot more than they bother you!

Happy reading!

Unfortunate Delayed Flight

2008-05-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

My flight out of Atlanta was delayed an hour and a half, so I'm sitting in Detroit now waiting for a 9:20 pm flight to Amsterdam. From there, I'll sit around for about 6 hours, and then to Beijing. Because I was supposed to leave Beijing for Jixian and then the marathon site at 5am (4 hours before my new arrival time) I'm going to have to figure out how to get to my hotel, check in, then get a ride to Jixian 3 hours away, check into my hotel there, and then get to the marathon site.

Buuut, I get to see Amsterdam a little bit. No visa is required, so I'll have a few hours to wander around town, depending on how easy it is to get between the airport and town. They also gave me a bunch of free miles, some vouchers for food in the airport, and some other stupid thing. The adventure begins.

8 hours til take off

2008-05-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

It's 4 am and I'm already wide awake. 3 hours of tossing and turning is enough, its time to get up and prepare. I hope by daybreak I have an opportunity to take a short run.

Although I've been here and there, I'm not yet a seasoned traveller. I still have some apprehension about what will happen once I get over there, and as superficial as it may seem, one of my most nagging concerns is whether or not I'll be able to handle the food and how well I'll be able to blend in, at least behaviorally.

But part of the fun of traveling is finding out what you're made of.