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Published: January 22nd 2011
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My friends and family,
It has been nearly a week since I have arrived here, and my conception of China has changed dramatically. In class today I was finally able to understand the words that were coming out of my teachers mouth...sort of. Our pronunciation class was tragic for my teacher, as she realized that the mistakes that she thought to be cute yesterday are going to be a brutal war that she has to deal with this whole semester.
I move in to my host families home tomorrow. They don't speak english, are retired, and smoke. My room is also 14m squared, at least I think. The sheet for my host mom says that she exercises. Something tells me that it isn't the conventional eliptical and weights type of deal that I am use to, but rather qigong (taichi or other dancing/martial arts) in the park. I am excited to ask her first thing tomorrow whether I can join her. I hear that all people, including the christian/jewish blonde boy, can join, the only collateral is they can laugh at/with you. I don't mind.
I am making my way through Beijing, and beginning to understand the subway lines. I had my interview at China.cn today, and had to travel an hour by subway, and even make a transfer. I had my roommate map out the subway stop, so I made it without problems. My interviewer sent me directions that the building was 800 meters outside of the subway stop, going east, and that the building is named XuJie. Well naturally when I started walking the 800 meters, I was looking for a building
with that name on it. After about a mile, I call and she tells me to go north, which I take as cross the street. I then call again at an intersection some time later, and ask if I am at the proper cross section. She told me to make a right and look for a pink building. Well, I walk some more and finally decide to take a cab. I saw surprised to find out that I was able to communicate to the cab driver to talk to my "friend" for directions. He spoke a little English, and of course he mentioned Obama and Hu Jintao with a big smile. The interview went very well. She questioned me about being lost, and late, but I was able to do a great interview. She gave me 2 contracts, one in Chinese and one in English, before we even talked too much, and told me to correct both. Well of course I mainly corrected the English, and pointed out the words that I did understand in Chinese. She was surprised by the amount of corrections on the English contract- it was almost horrid. There were many "will definitely"s and
run on sentences or fragments. I did work on that paper, mainly because I figured it was my one shot. I don't think she looked at my resume, because she asked nothing about it. She did not know about my experiences in the past, as she may have brought it up in the interview and how they could be useful. She talked about the company, and its position as the middle man between importers and exporters. She talked about the economy and its effect, and I of course chimed
in. You could tell she was surprised by the amount I knew, and the evidence of my western education with my personal fascination with finance. We ended up talking about MBA programs, and she jotted down a lot of notes about how going to Europe for a 1 year MA may be much cheaper than going to the US for a 2 year MBA. The description of the
job was interesting. She cut it down to 2 parts, marketing and "polishing" english text. Of course she mentioned the marketing side first. She made it sound better than what I imagine it to be, by saying that I am allowed to draft a marketing plan and have it reviewed by my team. Although that would be something that I may be good at, I don't think thats what the job entails. When she mentioned the translating part I really knew what I would be doing. It seems as
if I will be reviewing the website day in and day out and fixing english mistakes. I guess thats what you could expect when you can only work 80 hours for a company in the course of 20 weeks. I have a friend that did this internship last year, and I am going to check with him. I may still interview with Lenovo, and I kind of got the vibe that she wanted me to join the company, even though she has 2 other applicants from the program.
After the interview, I managed to make it onto a sardine-like subway, and make my way home. Unfortunately, I forgot what subway stop my school is on, due to my primary focus of getting to Jinsong (for my interview) rather than getting back. After wasting 30 minutes on different subway stops, I called my Chinese roommate for help. Needless to say, I won't do that again. On the way back from a 20 minute walk from the subway to the University, I stopped for pizza (the pizza that I missed from the orientation mixer that I was asleep during due to jet lag). It was great, even for American standards, but there is something about Chinese food that just trumps pizza. I surprised myself that I was able to ask the waiter (fuwuyuan) for his
favorite dish. I was also surprised when I ordered coke, and asked for a bag to take home leftovers. This is probably the 5th time in my life, other than the time I had my wisdom teeth taken out, that I had leftovers. The pizza was the most expensive meal there by far: $8. I didn't even get beer. But it was 6 slices of deliciousness...and also a nice place to warm up during my walk home.
It is interesting how I can now make it anywhere I want to go. Things that I was once naive about, such as how far Tiananmen Square is, and how to get there, are things of the past. If I want to go there I now know what lines to take on the subway, and approximately how long it will take to get there. I know that I can communicate my way through the city - even with my limited Chinese. I also know that I can ask for a bag for my leftovers.
I can really see opportunities for China, but mostly Beijing. The simple Subway, in n out, or even my father's very own idea for "Franks and Beans" would be a gold mine. While waiting for pizza I went through my camera and checked out all my pictures from the lake, yosemite, and some of my pictures of China. It was nice to see all of your faces. But what was even better is the fact that I added my mom, dad, brother, and sisters' number to my phone; just to remind myself that home is only a
phone call away.
Love,
Josh
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