Schuring Schoop: Beijing

I am on the plane, re-living November 19^th, all over again. We always say we need more time in a day, right? Turning back the clock, so I guess that means I should get double done today. I wrote down some of my experiences from my week in Beijing. After you read this.. you will really see what a great Ambassador I was this week… SHAMEFUL really…

The fancy digs we got to enjoy and the interior lobby of the hotel.

I was invited to rush off to China to join the Global Summit that my new team would be attending. It was important that I go and meet them as they only gather as a group 1x a year. I felt very prepared to go to China again, since I was in Beijing nine years ago with a group from my MBA program, and spent three weeks there. I had good memories and was looking forward to going back, seeing the changes, and having new experiences. I was so glad that I remembered that one key takeaway was that they serve a terribly useless fine grain white pepper that I despised – because this time I packed my own. However, I am recording more thoughts, so that if I have need to return, I might help myself in the future.

Here is a photo of me flying into tomorrow on 11.11.11.

I wonder if Sarah Palin considered that not only could she see Russia from her home, she could see into the future too! Well, here is a photo when we crossed and a little later there were some beautiful mountains.

Good bye 11.11.11 & Hello Tomorrow 11.12.2011

1) It began the minute we started boarding the Chinese Airline in Seattle on November 11^th. Literally, I was 2 inches off the ramp, when the crowding began and I lost my personal space. REALLY? No.. NO PEOPLE, we are still in my country where we respect a certain number of inches between people. There is NO sense in stepping on top of me, I can only walk up the aisle so fast and that is according to the 25 other people in front of me. DUH. I literally had to turn around and tell the person (pretty sure they didn’t know what I said though) that they MUST give me some space or I was going to go crazy and the darn trip hadn’t even started yet.

2) I am not exaggerating, but every hour of every day, there are loud, rude, quite obnoxious actually, sounds of people clearing their noses and throats. Apparently it is not rude to them because it didn’t matter where I was, I heard it. As I sit here on the plane typing, I am SO wanting to stand up and throw my hands in the air, and scream, “WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP, IT IS SO DISGUSTING WHAT YOU ARE ALL DOING.” What I came to discover is that when a Chinese man threw up as we were landing in Beijing apparently is an epidemic. On the return flight, three of our five economy class restrooms have been closed due to puke in the sink. The Chinese flight attendants said to me, when I was in utter awe over this, in a ‘typical’ sort of tone, “it’s the Chinese.” WHAT THE EFF? Really people? How disgusting. So, when I was in one of the remaining two bathrooms and the announcement for landing into Seattle came on, saying the restrooms were about to be closed for landing, I used all five minutes and didn’t feel at all guilty as I ‘was going to show them.’

3)   I was reminded that they generally say YES to everything; sometimes this is because they don’t really know what you said and they want you to be happy and they want to ‘save face’, but also they say YES even when they do understand you and they have every intention NOT to do what they just said YES to. It is super annoying and I really wanted to explain that in the end I don’t think they are accomplishing their goal.

4)      I really wish I could seriously get inside their heads and ask them, WHY IN THE H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS do you stand over me no matter where I am? By Thursday morning, I had HAD IT… I opened the bathroom stall door to find two bathroom attendants pining to get into my stall after I finished. Now, let me set the scene for you though…. It was 7:30am. This part of the hotel was EMPTY and perfectly clean and there were 8 other clean stalls. There wasn’t a drop in the sinks, not a crumble of paper in any waste baskets, this bathroom had been cleaned nine time over already. I was preparing to present at 8:30am and needed to get into the conference room, however when I opened the stall door, I was so thoroughly annoyed, I slammed the door in their faces and spoke some not very nice words to them and I am assuming they felt the tone of my body language because after about 5 minutes, they finally left the damn bathroom. When I would go into a store to look at something, it was as-if they thought I was going to steal from them so they were all up in my business. I wanted to tell them, DO YOU realize that NOW I am NOT going to buy anything from you, just out of principle, you done gone and annoyed the flip out of me. No matter what country or what hotel I am staying at, I never have my room cleaned each day, and I never give access to the hotel staff to come and go as they please. So, starting on morning two, I must have been asked 5 times between the hours of 12pm-8pm, if I was ready to have my room cleaned? It was as if they just couldn’t make sense of it. BUT REALLY? THAT CAN’T BE TRUE… please tell me that it is not that hard of a concept to grasp and I can’t be the first person to have ever stayed there that didn’t require a daily room clean. SOOOOO, why is it that when I did something that didn’t align to their routine, that they just couldn’t adapt and understand?

5)    It was super cool to go onto the massive site where the city of Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics that began at 8:08 PM on 08/08/08. You know I am a sucker for numbers and so I was excited to see the official Omega Time Keeper in the Urban Planning Museum. For 50RMB, I went inside the 91,000 seat stadium and felt the massiveness of this place that just three years ago was the highlight of the globe. The sad part is that this area in general is so vast that it is not being kept up and is looking run down. One would think that the millions of people and laborers that the government would employ many people for super cheap to manicure the area often. I hope it doesn’t continue in this trend.

6)      Facebook, now… let’s talk Facebook, it is literally known as the “Great fireWALL of China” because the government doesn’t allow access to it. Here’s what doesn’t make sense though, many 5-star hotels have it and Chinese citizens can stay there and access it there. Also, consider the flight attendants that I met who layover at the Comfort Inn in Tukwila 2 days a week, frequenting Southcenter Mall and Tukwila Costco and other American activities and locations… these gals are seeing the world, there is nothing they don’t have access to, so what exactly is the government trying to achieve? I guess the way I see it is that all it takes is enough flight attendants and other traveling citizens to tell friends and family about things like Facebook and the public will ‘do something’ about it. The reason I say that is because on the front page of the paper this week was an article about the public putting up stiffer demands to the government calling for rhythmic reports on air quality and putting into action better standards. I was happy to see that the citizens felt empowered to make those kinds of statements.

7)      Now, getting to the Exhibition Planning Museum was another story. Actually, a very typical story that I faced time and time again, starting with my first morning when I tried to find the local Mormon gathering location. No matter if I had the address written in Chinese and if I was literally two blocks away, NO ONE acted like they knew how to give directions, until I was literally ON TOP OF the darn address. Also, when I ask for directions, they always just say, keep going the way you are going. NO JOKE.. it must have happened over 25 times this week. NOW, on the day I was headed to this fabulous museum which contains an amazing city mock-up; 1:750 scale of the entire urban setting, NO ONE could tell me where it was. In fact, I was sorely disappointed that the darn hotel concierge staff had never heard of it. You’d think that museums would encourage local citizens/tour guides to know this kind of stuff to promote it. Even when I got off the subway stop and asked the “TOURIST INFORMATION” about it, the girl sent me on my way to ask another ‘tourist house’. When I ended up finding it, I had only been 100 yards away from the information center. REALLY PEOPLE? I had a notion to go back and drag that ‘helpful’ worker over to the front door to show her what she needed to know to do her job better. Anyhow, I raced in the door by 3:29pm, to watch the 3D IMAX film showing the Beijing Urban Plans for 2020. Would you believe it, I was the only one in the entire theater?! It was hilarious and odd. I tried to invite the ticket girl to come sit with me about 8 rows up, but she declined and sat on the first row, watching the entire film. When it was over, I nearly had tears in my eyes and I wanted to leap from my chair and hug her and be super excited with her because her city is about to become a real SUPER DUPER FABULOUS PLACE. But, she and I couldn’t really communicate and so the moment passed and I left wondering, ‘is this for real, do you believe this can happen, are you just so darn excited for the future?’   You see, when Beijing won the Olympic Bid, the planning committee people threw this urban area into high gear speeding along development, all in all putting them ahead 10 years than would have been otherwise. The local citizens got to experience new perspective of life and living and it is benefitting this next generation. Spending a day talking to Robin, our driver to the Great Wall, he gave us lots of insight to all this. During this planning time, the government formed quite the plans for how they were going to deal with growth, health, and better living. In summary, they are planning of building 11 new cities on the outskirts of Beijing with eco-living, capped population, defined green space per person, and so much more I can’t even begin to re-iterate the wonderful promises. Now…. I am just not sure how they can achieve this by 2020, but I have hope, especially since all this ‘evidence’ of planning sits in the public museum next to Tiananmen Square for any and all citizens to go and see. If I was one of these locals, I would be counting down to expect the MAJOR and POSITIVE changes that their government is publically and globally promising.

8)      Robin and the flight attendants also enlightened me to more understanding on the effects of the One-Child-Policy. When it was put into effect in the late seventies or early eighties, the young couples about to have kids were angry or at least concerned about the ‘control’ the government was putting on this subject. However, they were experiencing new found freedoms, so life went on. Now, there are 24 million MORE young men in the marriage-age range and it is a BIG problem that the government is not sure what to do about it. Robin said he was worried for his 23 yr old son who just graduated from University.

Here is where church is held, on the 4th floor in conference rooms. Here is the actual entrance, funny!

The most amazing scaled down version of a city I have ever seen! SO COOL!

9) I was glad I brought my ZIPP FIZZ, but darn, I missed my Kombucha. I hope by the year 2020, they have started stocking it up because I am not sure I can ever go 5000 miles away from my drink of choice again. My body is bloated and feels disgusting. My fingers and toes feel like little Good Year Blimps and I can’t wait to flush this body clean of the excess salt and who knows what else is hanging out in here. I am glad I brought my own low sugar instant oatmeal for the plane ride and other emergency situations where I didn’t want to eat the food served.

10) The first time I went into the Silk / Pearl Markets at the beginning of the week, I just walked, talked, and wasn’t serious at all in buying. I took note of all the first ‘offers’ thrown out there by the vendors and the lowest price they would throw out as I would slightly hesitate in my step. Then I went back to my hotel and searched other travelers stories for their good deals, so I could get ready for later bargaining. I had to be reminded not to feel guilty by using the bartering system and that in the end, this is about what my emotional price was for something and they had to own their own financial situation as to what they would sell an item to me for. By the end of the week, I think I got pretty good with having low emotional value and demonstrating my ease of walking away from the item they were selling. It was fun to help my friend Jan get a few deals, while we played good cop/bad cop… you can guess who was bad cop, RIGHT?! So, to give perspective on the money: $20 USD would convert to *125RMB, we could get 4 cashmere scarves for *100RMB, a full day reserved driver with 4 passengers driven to the Great Wall for *600RMB, 60 minute full body massage was *200RMB, and riding the subway anywhere in the city was only *2RMB. I had brought back over the ocean my black pearls that I purchased nine years ago, as I had broke one set of strings and the clasps were old and gold and I wanted them re-strung and wanted to add something to partner with them. It worked out great as Emily (self-assigned, made up name for the Chinese girl pearl vendor) achieved all that I wanted for under $20 in about 30 minutes. About two months ago, I had ordered Alyssa a traditional wind up Alarm clock with the loud bells to ding and wake this sleepy head each day. However, $30 later and after only a few days of use, the darn thing kept sticking and we requested a refund. In China, I found a more classy clock, that I stood and tested and re-tested and purchased for only $6. COOL. I hope she loves it.

11) As I think of other funny or interesting things to mention, I will add them here. , or whatever things to mention: I was told that the reason they all crowd onto and off the subway is 'because everyone wants to be first,' it is a natural competition in a city of 14 million. I loved watching the older folks doing exercises in the park and then having a cigarette, the current generation of 20-somethings seem to be very attached to electronics, American music, American food, American clothing and it makes me sad to consider that there would be a point when they will lose traction on their culture and it will never be the same again. Our driver Robin confirmed the same. I got tired of people taking photos of me doing nothing... so I took photos back at them.

Squeeze in there buddy, and don't forget to

Loved this little boy on the subway. When I showed him his picture, he smiled huge!

Loved this little girl just squatting by the subway door and reading away happily.

I know I must appear as a pessimist, I am trying to be a little funny and really, I will retain the good memories I made there, so I hope you won’t think that I am a negative person. The GOOD, you might be asking…Hmmm… ok. My first day there Sunday, was GORGEOUS and clear. A cold front had arrived in and the air was clean, bright, and not a cloud or particle of smog existed. It was a wonderful welcome indeed. My last two days were the same. It was a treat to have my trip start and stop with perfect weather. My hotel was simply divine with luxury. The pool, the amenities, the cleanliness, the soft bedding, PERFECT. My last day, in fact in my final few hours, I went over to Tao Ran Ting Park to take photos and walk around the lake and enjoy a very beautiful area and WOW, was it ever a blessing. I was in ‘awe’ of this place, a wonderful setting full of happy people dancing, doing Tai Chi, biking, taking wedding photos, walking hand in hand, sitting on benches eating fruit, and playing hand in hand as families. It was so refreshing to see this kind of living. I wish more of my co-workers had been able to get away from the tourist sites and see this park. After three traditional dinners of Shanghai Cuisine, Peking Duck, and Hot Pot – I had enough and went to Hard Rock Café for three nights to enjoy something a little more in line with my taste buds. The band was great and it was odd to hear Rod Stewart, Queen, Guns and Roses, Skid Row, Air Supply, Pink Floyd, AC-DC, Led Zeplin, Metallica, and other English speaking sounds come out of these Asian band members mouths. I enjoyed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrIFmry9c3M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEDrrxrzQA&feature=related

Of course, we lucked out with FABULOUS weather at the Great Wall. This time I saw the Mutianyu section, last time I had seen the Simatai location.

I don't think my co-workers believed me when I told them that I was HUGE back in 2002 when I visited the Great Wall, so here is the one and only photo of me back then. Clearly, one of these photos shows warm weather and the other was a bit cooler.

All in all, it was really a great trip and I am so grateful for these experiences. I have joined a wonderful global team that has welcomed me with open arms.