Tongli

Yesterday I went with my friends Juan, Amanda, Patrick and his daughter Jasmine to Tongli, yet another picturesque canal town about two hours from Shanghai. It was pleasant and quite beautiful – although it was BLAZING HOT and I think lunch made me a bit ill. We rented a boat and toured around the canals.

The first two photos are of the canals. Pretty, right? (Although don't look too closely at the greenish, soupy water.) The last photo is the primary suspect in the mysterious case of my gastrointestinal distress. If you look closely behind the chopsticks -- that's a chicken claw.

Tomorrow I'm off to Guangzhou for work. 

This morning

I took this photo on my way to work this morning.

Repairs are starting on the house near the entrance of my alley and workers came and erected scaffolding all around it. The house is quite dilapidated. I don't know if it's merely being fixed or if it's a complete renovation. Maybe I'll have some new laowai neighbors?

The whole city seems wrapped in these bamboo cages. I fear the pandas will go hungry.

Tomorrow I'm driving with some friends to one of the canal towns (the one featured in Mission Impossible 3!) for a day trip. I've been assured a non-suicidal driver was hired.

I'll take pictures. 

One "L" Away from Disaster

I stopped by the Lawson's (Asia's version of 7/11) on my home from work last night to pick up some snacks. These chocolate-flavored round biscuits caught my eye, but I got chips instead. 

Please ignore the comment spam

Some idiot posted spam in the comments section of my blog (like in the previous post.) It features a link to some kind of rip-off credit counseling service. Please ignore it.

I've turned on the word verification to prevent this from happening again.

I would delete the comments but China censors the Blogspot URL, so I can't access that page. I can, however, access Blogger.com -- but you can't delete comments from there. All of this makes NOFUCKINGSENSE whatsoever.

I'm leaving the office now to watch "Mission Impossible 3." I hope it's better than "Superman."

Black-Eyed Peas

I saw the Black-Eyed Peas perform last night at the Shanghai Stadium. My friend Juan works for one of the sponsors and he got us terrific seats near the front.

The performance was pretty terrific. They did all the big hits and half way through the concert a gigantic inflatable monkey head sprung up on stage. I impressed everyone in my group with my flawless recitation of "My Humps."

Fergie needs to take it easy with the collagen though -- she's on the verge of becoming Amanda Lepore. 

Pudong

Shanghai is divided into two primary areas: Puxi, the older section that has everything that’s even remotely interesting, and Pudong, which is China’s super-sized version of Irvine, California. The Huangpu River flows between them.

I had to go for a client meeting out in Pudong today. It takes between 30 minutes and 2 hours to get out there from my office depending on the traffic.

Fifteen years ago Pudong was little more than a swamp. Now it’s got a couple of the world’s tallest buildings (Jin Mao Tower, pictured on right; and China World Trade, not yet completed), the tallest observation tower in Asia, a levitating train to the airport, and some of the most unfortunate architecture that’s even been inflicted on humanity. A lot of multi-national companies are based out there because it’s cheaper, cleaner, more spacious and home to many of the international schools.

It seems the Chinese are determined to make the same tragic urban planning errors that created the endless aesthetic banality of most of the US. (Tom Wolff once commented on Atlanta: “The only way you know you’re in a different neighborhood is when the fast food chains start over.”) There are 8 lane boulevards, big box stores and giant moats of asphalt that make it impossible to be a pedestrian.

More and more of the housing there is in suburban-style gated neighborhoods done in some theme that is pure kitsch considering its actual locale (Mediterranean villas, Southwestern adobe homes, Romanesque with lots of fountains and columns, etc.) It's all very fancy -- a narrow Donald Trump-inspired fantasy of what wealth should look and feel like.

Despite all of my petty criticisms, it is shiny and new and impressive.

And considering the history of this place -- it's progress.

The view from my window

Here's the view from the conference room in my new office. We're in a good location -- right above a subway stop and next door to a nice department store.

The street to the right is Huai Hai Road, it's one of the main shopping arteries of the city. The grassy part directly in front is attached to a small park that adjoins the Garden Hotel.

I took this photo on Friday, a bit after 6PM.

PowerPoint

As a newcomer to Shanghai I’m frequently engaged in the idle chit-chat, get to know me and assess my worth as a human being conversations that I usually find so intolerable. After “What’s your name again?” and “Where are you from?” comes the question most people really want answered: “What do you do?”

Obviously I know why everyone asks. It’s the same reason I ask. You can’t tell anything about a person regarding education, wealth, social status and potential for upward mobility by inconsequential information like someone’s name and hometown. The initial indicator of social status both real and imagined will always be “What do you do?”

In the past I’ve tried making light of it by giving some outlandish job: “I’m the star of ‘Garfield On Ice.’” “I’m a professional ear model.” Or my favorite, “I’m a hobo!” The problem with this is sometimes people believe you, and 100% of the time no one thinks you’re funny.

Since I have one of those esoteric, touchy-feely new economy jobs (it’s about synergy! And insights! And insightful synergies!!!), I invariably dodge the inevitable “what do you do” question with a rather lame response. “I work in advertising.”

Telling people you work in advertising is like telling people you’re from Minneapolis – it’s a statement that’s neither terrifically interesting nor dreadfully boring. It’s the quintessential compromise job for people who “kinda want to do something sort of creative,” but certainly don’t want to “starve.” This means that on the scale of professional impressiveness I’m somewhere between Nelson Mandela and Paulie Shore’s personal assistant.

But to be honest: What do I really do? All day? Every day?

I do Powerpoint.

For those of you who have been on Mars in a cave with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, PowerPoint is Microsoft’s presentation software. It’s the glue that binds global corporate commerce together. Millions of people use it every day to bore millions of other people with charts, graphs and bullet points.

The past 8 years of my life have been spent sitting in front of this digital taskmaster creating “decks” about “strategies” that are invariably “breakthrough” or at least “cutting-edge” to create “value.” I then present these decks-about-breakthrough-cutting-edge-strategies-that-create-value to various clients. People either agree or disagree. Decisions are made. Decisions mean more decks and the process starts over -- inevitable as the tide or migrating birds or the sun rising or worm turning or any other stuff that’s inevitable.

It’s the perfect circle of corporate life.

I don’t mean to completely diminish my work. The problems we solve are sometimes (albeit rarely) intellectually engaging. My job has allowed me to do something I love which is to travel, think about the way people live and occasionally wear jeans to work. I usually get to go home at a reasonable hour. It provides a decent standard of living without having to be a lawyer.

But it will always be a compromise. I just don’t know for what, with whom or why.

Maybe I should just go to law school.

Weekend

My weekend was uneventful. Friday night I went to see the new Superman movie in 3D at the movieplex across from People's Square. The plot was incomprehesible, the jokes were lame and the action sequences overwrought and plain dumb. I'm sure it will be a big hit. 

Giant mirror

I feel like I missed this opportunity. These workers were moving a giant mirror on Saturday near my house. I tried to get a cool image -- but this is what turned out. 

There? Where?

I had to take a break from my Chinese lessons because of all of the travel. I finally started again last week. The verdict is in: I’m too stupid to learn Chinese.

Every lesson is full of HILARIOUS linguistic quirks surely designed only to confuse whitey. For instance, “where” and “there” are the same word except pronounced with a different tone. Thus every trip in the taxi becomes my own Abbot and Costello routine. Stop where. Where? There? Right where! There. And on and on and on. It’s easier and less humbling to walk.

I’ve also become attuned to the foreigner caste system based almost entirely on language proficiency.

There are foreigners who speak only “street” Chinese. There are those who speak with relative ease and fluency. Then there are the Brahmins, these are “Starbucks-level” Chinese-speaking foreigners. You will see them in almost total English language environments and they still insist on ordering their Skim Mocha Latte in Mandarin. (I find this to be a hopeless affectation, but surely I’m just jealous.)

As a recent arrival who knows nothing I’m untouchable, barely above the drunken sorority girls on school-year-abroad. The higher-ups give me losts of condescending smiles and empty encouragement. “Hang in there! It will just click!"

I don’t feel any clicking.

I'm still here

I've been away from the blog for a bit. It's the usual assortment of excuses -- too busy, too tired, too lazy.

Also the oppressive steambath weather here has made me too lethargic to do anything except sit around the house and watch DVDs.

Mini DVD Reviews:

"Bad Education" = Good
"In Her Shoes" = Bad
"Munich" = Dubbed in Russian
"Little Brittain" = Eh, I don't get what all the fuss is about.

I'll try to post more over the next few days.