More sparrow please, but hold the milk

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September 27th 2008

Published: September 27th 2008

These are Chinese mooncakes. They are a traditional treat that people eat for the mid-autumn festival, also known as the moon festival. On the day of the festival the moon was a big round disc in the sky. The green mooncakes are made of green tea and egg, the orange are Chinese dates and egg, while the white contained an unknown meat (I didn't eat the white ones but the others were delicious).

Firstly I should apologize for not having updated this blog in a couple of weeks. As we all know when things get very busy in one part of your life (especially work), you start sacrificing time you would have otherwise spent engaging in personal activities - whether it's spending time with loved ones, exercise or....writing in blogs. The last four weeks were primarily spent working - both in "implementing" at the office and "planning" after work and on weekends. Being on a six month assignment, unsurprisingly, means your job is very project focused so you have a very clearly on what exactly you want to get done by the end of it. For any new job it takes time to come up to speed on "who's who" at the office, both organizationally and politically, as well as learning the basic functional skills you need in order to do your job well. That can be stressful enough but when you throw in the need to adapt to local language, cultural barriers and local business regulations and processes, it can turn the learning curve into a learning "cliff". I'm lucky enough to have lots of great support from colleagues back home in Canada

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Yours truly enjoying a mooncake

as well as locally here in China but when it comes down to it, I find you just have to grit your teeth and push yourself as much as you can, while recognizing the reality that some things take time to learn. And I'm definitely learning.

It's hard to believe but I have already been here for over a month. Jen and I both are becoming much more comfortable in our surroundings and now that the weather has (finally!) started to cool a little - all the way down to the mid-20 degree range - we're enjoying the autumn air. We are also excited for some upcoming local travel. Our first excursion outside of Shanghai since arriving will be to Ningbo next week, a city which is about a 3 hour drive from here. I understand it is across a bay from Shanghai, and to get there we will cross a new bridge which is 36 km long. I'm told by colleagues that it's a lovely city with incredible seafood. We are able to go to Ningbo since most businesses (including my own) close down for all of next week due to the National Day holiday - essentially the

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We thought the wrapping on the toilet paper here was very amusing

national birthday.

The next trip will be to Hangzhou, another local city where many Shanghainese go to enjoy a more natural setting. I'm told there is a beautiful lake there with lots of trees, around which you can ride bikes. In late October I'm attending a business meeting in Beijing, and plan to extend my stay by a few days so that Jen can come with me and we can take in all the amazing sites of that city as well as the Great Wall. It should be a great experience and since I'm travelling on business at least I can get my own flight paid for. I wasn't sure if I would be able to find time to visit Beijing before the winter so was extremely happy to hear about this meeting taking place there. After all, how can I come to China and not see one of the world's greatest architectural achievements?? Finally we are planning a trip to Xi'an, also an extension from a business meeting there. It will allow us to visit the terracotta warriors. So you all have lots of great photos to look forward to from our travels around the country!

Now

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Just us being silly.

that we are officially "settled", we're also looking at what else we can do with our time here. As I said earlier most of my time has been focused on work, but now that the "learning cliff" is getting easier to scale, I want to make sure I maximize my experience in the city. Jen is doing lots of dancing which is great, and we're also starting to look into language lessons. We're working on improving our Chinese and we even explored French lessons from the local Alliance Francaise. I'm not sure the timing of their courses will work for me because they normally happen during business hours but I think Jen is going to go ahead with them. I've also finally joined a gym so I can get back into decent shape. It's surprisingly hard to find good gyms in the price range that one would pay in Canada. I ended up joining at gym at a local hotel....it was extremely expensive but the gym itself is beautiful and offers more services than I've ever seen back home. I don't normally "enjoy" working out but I have to say this place is a pleasure to visit. I'm also thinking

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This was a cover band playing at an expat bar called Malones. Very loud bar!

of joining a local Toastmasters, which probably makes me sound like a bit of a nerd but it might be a good way of making local friends while pursuing my public speaking skills. I was given some great advice by a mentor of mine in my company to try to be more than just "the expat". I'm here to expand my horizons and the best way to do that isn't to spend all my personal time with fellow Westerners - it could also give me better insight into the culture that can help me personally and professionally.

I've become a little more bold in experimenting with local cuisine of late. Working in an office full of Chinese people inevitably means that 99% of the times you go out for lunch with coworkers, you end up at a Chinese restaurant. Of course by "Chinese restaurant" I'm not talking about going to a "Mandarin" Restaurant in a suburban Canadian strip mall, nor are we even talking about many of the more authentic places one visits on Spadina Ave in Toronto after a night out on the town with friends. In China, you eat real Chinese food. Most of it is absolutely

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This is the Shanghai convention centre, which looks very "Communist", right down to the big red star on top of the tower here. We were attending a contemporary art exhibition here which was amazing.

delicious - I think my favourite dishes here are pork dumplings as well as these chunks of pork with fat and muscle attached that come seasoned in a sweet sauce. It tastes a lot better than it sounds. I was even brave enough to try eating sparrow - my colleagues put some in front of me to see my reaction but I tried some and it wasn't all that bad. For those who are wondering, it looked like small bits of meat - the appearance and taste was similar to chicken, but perhaps a little more rubbery. I've also been asked by many of you whether people are eating dog in the restaurants. While I'm sure it's possible to find that on a menu somewhere in Shanghai, it seems to be fairly uncommon and is mostly found in smaller cities. I have heard stories though about dogs being abducted from their owners and sold to local restaurants. Again though, I've never seen "dog" on the menu here.

On the subject of culinary matters I'm sure everyone is familiar with the issue of contaminated milk here in China. It's not something that has really affected me much since - to

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This was a piece of art at the Shanghai Contemporary Art Exhibition....it was entitled "God of Consumption" or something along those lines

be completely honest - I've always been leery about consuming locally-sourced produce and all the milk I buy is Australian. The emergence of this contamination scare only reinforces that I made the right decision not to touch local dairy products. The only Chinese dairy I might consume is a bit of milk in my coffee at Starbucks, but for obvious reasons I've switched to soy for my morning fix. I get a lot of coworkers who ask me about what people outside of China are saying about the milk scandal. I've had a lot of very interesting conversations where people see this issue as more than just a food quality scare: it's a source of national shame. There is a lot of frustration here because (as they put it) they are upset that while China wants to position itself as a modern and developed country on par with "the West", the national "brand" continues to be characterized as low-cost, low quality and, in many cases, unsafe products. They are both frustrated and embarassed by what they see as very low standards in quality-control and business ethics among Chinese manufacturers. It validates a general feeling that I've suspected the Chinese harbour

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about products available here - which for me is most obviously shown when you see that the majority of advertising here contains Western (i.e. caucasian), rather than Chinese models. In speaking with people here they say it's because Western branding is associated with high quality standards, which is also why Western products come at a significant premium price (even by our own standards). To make matters worse, Chinese are not allowed to own foreign assets like stocks and mutual funds. The result is that they can only invest in the Chinese stock markets, which is very high-risk since the perception is that once a Chinese company becomes profitable, the dividends will end up in the pockets of high-level executives and government officials rather than in the investors contributing to the success of the company. Due to the frustrations among Chinese in the ethical standards of their businesses (and, some will admit confidentially, the people who regulate them), most here don't see China as the rising power that we see in the West. When I tell people here that China is portrayed in the West as an emerging economic and military superpower I'm met with more raised eyebrows than nodding heads.

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This reminded me of my daily walk to work

The milk scandal has had a profound impact on people here and seems to reinforce what appears to be a general public skepticism in the ability of their country to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Americans or Europeans. If more Westerners (and their leaders) knew about this, I think there would be a lot less fear and suspicion about this country.

A final note should be given to our first live performance that we saw in Shanghai. It was a group of Shanghai acrobats, and for those unfamiliar with Chinese acrobats they have a level of flexibility and balance that I've never even imagined possible for the human body. I highly recommend looking it up on the web for some pictures. It's well worth seeing and a real thrill to see what these people can do.

So hopefully you've enjoyed this update on how things are going. I promise to be better with my blogging, and hopefully will have lots of great photos from around the country in the near future. For now I'll attach some pictures that I've taken from a number of different places including a modern art exhibition we recently attended as well as some outings

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This was an exhibit of random black shapes like this against a white wall. It was very German minimalist...unsurprisingly the artist is from Frankfurt.

we made to Xintiandi and an artsy neighbourhood called Taiking Road. Zi jian!

Additional photos below

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