The Little Things

I've noticed that when I DO make a post on this blog, usually it is due to some big event that I want to tell everyone about (aside from yesterday's haircut issue). But the little things often get left aside, and really it's the little things that make this trip such a great and interesting experience. This post is dedicated to the little things...

Being in a new place on the other side of the world, you often notice things that seem interesting, entirely different, or just downright obscure. Here are some examples of those:

China cold. This refers to the seldom 'coldness' of beverages offered to consumers in China. (It's something that is popular in Europe as well, I believe)...but cold in this country means room temperature, since hot drinks such as tea are very popular, and China cold screwed us this past weekend. Paul (new roommate) and I went to the local supermarket to stock up on some beers for our empty refrigerator. We picked up the standard 600 ml bottles, 3 cases worth, and we headed home. Of course they were not chilled at the store, and we were not interested in drinking room temperature beer if it were in our power to prevent it, so as soon as we got home we threw 2/3 of them in the refrigerator and 1/3 in the freezer, since the refrigerator is very slow to cool things. The plan was to drink the freezer beer first, and then move up to the refrigerator beer. We reminded each other many, many times that once the fridge beers were cold then we would move the rest of the freezer beers to join their comrades upstairs. Of course, we eventually forgot about the 12 bottles that were being quickly chilled in the freezer, and we soon progressed to the fridge beers without giving it a second thought. In the morning, we woke up devastated to see this mess...

The beer obviously froze, and in the process expanded. Glass happens to be a material that isn't very good at expanding, and so most of the bottles broke, but for some of them, the caps flew off and the frozen beer oozed out. We lost many delicious Suntory's on Sunday morning, a very sad day. It's still a bit of a sore subject around the apartment, so we try not to bring it up :-)

The 'not so' man purse. In Shanghai, many men wear purses as part of their everyday wardrobe.

These purses are not manly in any shape or form, they are legitimate woman purses. =) Often times I'll see a big brand such as Louis Vuitton or something around a man's shoulder, and I find this fashion statement very interesting. Men do not seem to be bothered by wearing pink, either.

These two things, which would be seen as very 'non-macho' in the US, are commonly accepted by society around here. Too bad I forgot my purse and my pink shirts back home!

Chinese Innovation. Originally, before I'd come to China, I would have rarely associated these two words with each other. But now that I've been around Shanghai quite a bit, I've noticed some very innovative things that catch my eye. Take for example this 'bike rack for umbrellas,'

created so that people can leave their umbrella at the door and lock it up so that they know it's safe while they shop. Or the lightning fast creation of a bed comforter as seen here at a nearby market. And last, but not least, the user-friendly and incredibly convenient Shanghai Metro - it's a miracle to lost interns like myself.

Google. I found this very ironic sign the other day...

Why is it ironic? Because it is what seems to be a Google office in downtown Shanghai, China, but there is no Google China. There's a Google Hong Kong, to which all mainland Chinese Google searches are redirected because Google has removed its Google.cn site due to too many searching restrictions set by the Chinese government. Google.hk offers uncensored searching opportunities for people in mainland China, so Google has taken advantage of a loophole that it found within the nation's 'one country, two systems' philosophy...interesting.

More 'little things' to come hopefully on a daily basis.

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PMM

A China Haircut

I need a haircut soon (as you might be able to notice in my pictures below), which isn't looking too promising for me...

I don't really need to spend a bunch of money and go to some kind of hair salon - which seem to be all over the shopping plazas around here. I'm looking for something more like a small barber shop, like back home, you know. And I think I've found a good option, but it seems a bit sketchy. They charge only $.85 USD for a haircut.

I don't know if that's a good sign or not. It definitely accomplishes the 'cheap' side of what I'm trying to go after, but I need some quality in there as well. Maybe I'll sit outside of the barber shop a few times and see how the guys look who come out after their haircuts. But still, even if it does seem legit, there will be the dilemma of not being able to explain exactly what I want them to do to my hair. It's not a difficult explanation, I just don't know how to do it in Mandarin. Sooo, maybe I'll take a translator, or maybe I'll just wing it and hope for the best. I could also ask some American guys at the brewery where they get their hair cut, and maybe there's a more western place to go that will provide a less frustrating experience, and probably less of a good story. Decisions, decisions. I may end up having to just cut it all off and hope that it grows back soon if things don't go as well as one would hope!

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PMM

The Shanghai International Football League

I have most definitely accomplished my goal of playing some soccer here in Shanghai...

As mentioned earlier, I went to a team training last Wednesday and played small-sided games for a couple hours with a bunch of French guys. They play for a team called the Shanghai Puxi Lions in the Shanghai International Football League,

with many other teams containing players from a variety of countries. Needless to say, it was some great soccer and I had a lot of fun. Upon the completion of our pick-up games, they invited AJ and I to join them this Saturday (yesterday) to play with them in a game against the British. We agreed almost faster than they could finish asking, and so yesterday morning we joined them for a 7 v 7 game. The league was surprisingly much more legitimate and organized than AJ and I had expected it to be. They gave us these badass jerseys to wear for the game (you always play better when you look good)...

And we crushed the Brits, which was a good feeling after that crap performance the USA gave against England a couple weeks ago. :-) The final was 9-2 and I was fortunate enough to have knocked in three of those goals for the Lions. I'll tell you what, the British most definitely tend to be a bunch of foul-mouthed, obnoxious, and slow-moving soccer players. And the French aren't any better, with their often dirty diving and falling to get a call from the referee, but the game was a lot of fun. Although it was probably one of the hottest days that I've ever experienced in my life. It was 38 degrees Celsius, which is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was also very humid, and the sun was out (oddly, as it never comes out in Shanghai) Of course our jerseys were black as well. But after the final whistle, they invited us to play again with them today, and it was a crazy good time:

The Shanghai Premier League put on 'Mini World Cup Tournament' which was South Africa 2010 World Cup themed, and each team chose a country which it would represent.

Most teams chose the country where most of their players originate from - so the Spanish team had mostly Spaniards, the Italian team mostly Italians, and the British team mostly Brits, etc. But the Puxi Lions (mostly a French team, but today was made up of guys from Germany, Algeria, USA, Mexico and France), chose to take on a more happy medium approach to its country selection, and we chose South Africa as our team. Overall, the tournament had 9 teams: Italy, Spain, England, South Africa, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Brazil, all made up of players from over 25 different countries.

It was a pretty great thing to be a part of. Our team played a total of 6 games, beginning in the group stages (coming out 2nd in our group after tying England), and then successfully beating Italy and North Korea to make it into the final Championship game against Spain. Unfortunately we were too tired and couldn't put on quite as strong of a performance against the Spaniards to take the 1st place trophy home, as we lost 0-1, but 2nd is nothing to complain about! After the tournament, we went to Latina (the brazilian restaurant that sponsors the Lions and paid for those awesome jerseys that we wore) for the trophy ceremonies, lots of beer, and some food.

Overall, the day was a pretty sweet deal: great soccer, a free tournament polo (with the SPL tournament logo printed on the back, pictured above), our team captain bought beers for the entire team the whole time we were at Latina, and everybody was a ton of fun. They gave us all South Africa 2010 World Cup Vuvuzelas (those small horns that you hear being blown during the world cup games by all the fans) to blow during the trophy ceremony...super annoying, but a ton of fun to play with.

We also filled up our team trophies and passed them around, taking turns chugging some kind of alcoholic beverages from the them :-) (Apparently a norm in various parts of the world for soccer players to do after tournaments...cool with me!)

Soccer continues to prove that it is a great sport which can bring together people from all walks of life and all parts of the world. I don't know of any other place on earth, aside from the actual World Cup, that you can take guys from over 25 different countries and give them a chance to compete in some very high caliber, highly competitive, and incredibly fun soccer...Shanghai seems to be a city of many opportunities! I can't wait to see what else is in store for this adventure.

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PMM

The Dairy KING

Well, today was pretty fantastical. Mostly because my many trips to Dairy Queen have finally paid off...

First of all, when I rolled up to the DQ window on my bike, the lady behind the register took one at me and smiled. She knew exactly what I was there for - a large chocolate oreo and brownie blizzard. (You know that you've got to change something about your diet when you've become a regular at the nearby Dairy Queen) So I paid for my tasty treat and then made my way over to the other side of the counter where I awaited the ice cream. The girl mixing my blizzard turned around after she'd finished, and she handed me my cup, but I immediately noticed that something was wrong about the way in which she gave it to me...she'd done it the American way! Right-side up. She never flipped it to prove that it was so thick that no ice cream would fall out of the cup (as previously mentioned in my 'Why Are They Laughing At Us?' post, the servers at Dairy Queen have to give you your blizzard upside-down or it's free). Right away, I pointed out the fact that she had forgotten to flip it over. She hesitated, then immediately denied it. So I went over to her manager and gestured that she had never turned it upside-down for me. Her manager asked her if it was true. Then the girl got the most disappointed look on her face, stared down at the ground, and shook her head in embarrassment. Clearly I had won the battle. But it wasn't over yet. The manager was sure to solve the problem. He reached out for my blizzard and said, "I try again, I try again," (his best English) thinking that he could just take it back and flip it over real quick to relieve his staff of her goof-up. I was having none of that, I wanted my free blizzard! So I pulled it back and said, "No way dude!" Then I pointed to the writing on the cup: "SERVED UPSIDE-DOWN, OR IT'S FREE." They had no other option but to give me my money back =) A feeling of personal victory and sheer happiness swept over me. It was the best tasting blizzard I had ever eaten!

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PMM

^^^Blog Title Improvement

I change my blog title, (well, I gave it a title - there wasn't much of a title before, just quotes that I liked) as you probably noticed when you saw the massive Chinese characters at the top of the page thought that maybe you'd accidentally gone to some weird Chinese site :-)

Here's a quick lesson in Mandarin: 在上海的美国人的冒险 are the characters at the top. All together, it means 'The American's adventures in Shanghai' (at least that's what I was trying for, haha it may be incorrect, who knows). 在 means 'in' - 上海 means 'Shanghai' - 的 shows possession - 美国人 means 'American' - 冒险 means 'adventure' --If you put it all together literally then it sounds very much incorrect, so think abstract =) It is pronounced: "Zài shànghǎi dì měiguó rén de màoxiǎn"

Now you can say that you learned something interesting today.

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PMM

Ahh Finally, Some Footy and Fake North Koreans

Yep, it's called football around here...as it is everywhere else in the world, except for the U.S. - the great sport of soccer.

Thus far, the most popular sporting event in the world - the World Cup - has been quite interesting. Japan beat Camaroon, Portugal and Ivory Coast tied, Germany whomped on the Aussies, Slovenia is in 1st place in the U.S.'s group, and Brazil barely beat N. Korea. Speaking of N. Korea, apparently there were a couple hundred super dedicated fans supporting them at their game in South Africa against Brazil yesterday. But guess what? Word on the street is that they were not North Korean at all, instead they were Chinese actors who were hired by a North Korean Sports Committee to attend all of the North Korean games!

I read that very few people, essentially no one, in North Korea can actually afford to get to South Africa for any matches, nor can they even get a visa to leave their beloved country, and since the Chinese team didn't make the tournament, Chinese people have put forth their best effort to cheer on all of the other 'Asian' teams (Japan, N.Korea, and S.Korea) - talk about international relations! And Americans wonder why soccer is so great :-) ...maybe if we played more soccer, more countries would like us.

With the World Cup happening all over TV screens every time I turn around (even in McDonald's restaurants), it's been tough not being able to play some soccer around here.

But that's all about to change :-) ...AJ (an intern I recently met) and I are heading out to the Jing'An district to play with some French guys from Next Step Connections tonight at 8pm. It costs $7 USD per player to rent out the field, an easy price to pay, because I'm very excited to finally get to play!

I'll let you know how it goes!!

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PMM

A Visit to the Hospital...

Scary title for a post, ay? Definitely. I got back to my apartment at about 5am yesterday after a long and eventful night. Let me explain...

Three of my close friends were in a taxi to meet us at a bar for drinks. They were cruising down a main street, moving very fast, when a big black SUV swang over trying to do a u-turn from the other side of the road. The driver of the SUV was not paying attention at all (the way that many Chinese often drive in Shanghai; reckless and unconcerned), and he nailed the front left side panel of their taxi. My buddy Rich was in the front seat (220 pound Division 1 linebacker), no seatbelt and no air-bags...his head busted open the windshield and needless to say messed up his face REAL bad - he somehow stayed in the vehicle though. Blood was everywhere, and glass was stuck in places it shouldn't have been. The accident miraculously took place in front of a shady hospital, and luckily no one involved lost consciousness. Rich ran into the hospital and got some temporary stitches and some glass shards removed until we could arrive to take him to the international hospital for real treatment. When we got there, we ran in to see him and he looked horrible, you couldn't even see his skin behind the red all over his face, and he asked us "Guys, do I look okay?" Obviously he didn't, but there's no other answer to that question in that type of situation except for, "Yea man, you look great, you'll be fine." The taxi driver walked away 100% fine - he was the only one buckled up. Ibbi and Venice were in the back seat, they ended the day with a few stitches on the face and some bruised ribs/sprained legs. Rich needed well over 30 stitches on his forehead in the end (I sat in his hospital room while the doctor stitched him up with no drugs, it was like a military doctor stitching up a soldier on the battlefield, lots of screaming and swearing). CAT scans turned out fine, but they kept Rich overnight for some more tests. We called their parents to let them know what had happened (Imagine getting that phone call from China, Mom and Dad!). All three of them were troopers through the entire experience though. Ibbi and Rich were cracking jokes the entire time and I was encouraging them. We just wanted them to be okay - what better way to keep them positive than to maintain a sense of humor, right!? Rich convinced his doctor, who spoke very little English, that they should go out for shots of Whiskey after the stitches were over :-)

...Turns out the guy driving the black SUV was drunk behind the wheel. He accepted full responsibility for what happened, and is paying for all of the hospital bills.

It was supposed to be Rich's last night in Shanghai...Quite an interesting way to end a trip to China. Here are some pictures of Rich and his mess of a situation (he wanted me to snap some shots of his war wounds...this was after they had already cleaned him up quite a bit):

He's doing fine now, and walks around with a turban-like wrap on his head. He's heading back home on Friday now.

I've decided that I'll be riding in the front seat of the next taxi that I get into (the front seat is often the only one that has a working seatbelt), and I'll be putting that thing on!

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PMM

Sorry!!

Multiple new posts coming soon...I apologize for the lack of motivation that I've had lately. They'll be good posts, I promise :-)

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PMM

Team America

USA 1, England 1 ...

"WE'RE NOT BRITISH ANYMOOOORE, ANYMOOOOOOOORE"...this was the chant that was screamed from the lungs of many Americans after Clint Dempsey's tying goal during the game just a few short hours ago.

A group of friends and myself went to a British pub for the game (I convinced them we'd be fine as long as we talked as much smack as the English did), and it was a great time. It was too bad the US couldn't pull off the victory, but we were lucky to get the tie so I'm pretty happy with the result. The Brits started getting quite annoying after their 6' goal early on, but they stayed pretty quiet between the 30th and 90th minutes of the game as the US picked up the attack a bit. Thank god for Tim Howard in the net.

If we can tie England, then we can certainly take on Algeria and Slovenia no problem.

GAME ON.

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PMM

Language Barrier - Yessir

I have to say, this Mandarin Chinese language is a well put-together piece of machinery...

Aside from the 4 different tones that are used on vowels and the odd characters that all seem to look the same to me (不要打开这扇门, 否则将承担后果 = do not open this door or you will suffer the consequences...I would definitely be suffering some consequences if there were no English translation readily available for that one), this 'new' language that I'm learning seems to be easier to learn to speak when compared to Spanish or English. Sentence structure is relatively easy: time + subject + place + verb + object. Making a pronoun plural is quite simple in Mandarin, you just add 'men' to either 'I, you, he/she' - as opposed to English or Spanish where there are many forms of pronouns. Possession is also pretty easy to handle - pronouns don't change, you just add 'de' to something to give it possession ('I' doesn't become 'mine', it just stays 'I'). As I've said before, tones definitely do make things more complicated because you can say 'ma' 4 different ways to mean either 'mother, horse, linen, or scold' and 'tang' can mean either 'hot, soup, lay down, or sugar.' So I guess context clues and proper tones are important in those cases.

I have gotten somewhat decent at being able to introduce myself and ask someone who they are, how old they are, who's in their family, where they're from, as well as asking directions, telling a taxi driver where to go, ordering food, cheering for my favorite soccer team, and some other various things. Although yesterday I did run into a problem with a taxi driver. He thought I was saying a street name that I wasn't, and I may have been pronouncing it wrong, so he took me around the city of Shanghai for quite some time until I realized that we were definitely not heading in the right direction (at first I thought maybe he knew a shortcut). I finally signaled to him that the street I needed was entirely in the other direction and then I coached him in turning left, then right, then left, then straight, etc (good thing I kinda knew where I was going). He was a nice guy and seemed to understand that it was somewhat his fault as well, so he didn't charge me as much as he should have, which was nice.

When I get into a bind and don't know what to say, my brain often directs itself to the only other foreign language that I know - Spanish - and I'll sometimes start saying something in Spanish before I realize that is not at all correct :-) It's good that most Chinese people are pretty helpful people who are willing to work with you to figure out what you want to say!

Since I'm not learning the Chinese characters, and I'm just focusing on speaking for the time being, it isn't too overwhelming to learn the language...I just have to remember what means what and which tones I need to be using on which vowels. I imagine that by the time I am finished with my time in Shanghai, I will have mastered the art of sign language, because I very often use my hands to describe things since I have no idea how to say many things that I want to. I have begun carrying a small notebook in my pocket in which I write down simple phrases and words that are necessary to know for daily interaction with people.

I think I'm catching onto the language a bit faster than some of my friends (although some arrived in Shanghai with classes under their belt already), so that's good to know. My tutor is super helpful because she'll usually ask me what kinds of conversational situations I've had problems with throughout the week and then we'll work on learning real life conversations and we often roll play with her as the taxi driver or waitress and me as the customer.

It can often be very frustrating not being able to converse as freely as you would hope to, and I understand that you cannot learn a language in only a few months, but I'd really like to have the ability to converse simply and understand people...hopefully I can accomplish that within the 8 weeks! (Yep, just over 8 weeks left here in Shanghai. Wow - some of my friends are beginning to end their internships and are getting ready to leave for back home within the next week. It's too bad they can't stay for the entire summer) I'll have to make sure I take proper advantage of the next 2 months I have here!!

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PMM

Please Comment!!

I don't actually know if anyone ever even reads my blog :-)...

So maybe if every once in a while you could leave a comment after reading something on one of my posts that intrigues/bothers/excites/disturbs/inspires you, that would be much appreciated!

You don't even have to sign your name, anonymous comments are 100% accepted.

Thanks to all.

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PMM

The Ultimate Internship

I have to say, I am loving this internship. It is easily becoming the best job I've ever had. Aside from the fact that it's unpaid, it seems to be perfect in every other regard: great hours, great projects, not too heavy but not too light of a workload, great people, everything seems to be falling right into place. On top of that, it's almost as if I'm being paid because I eat at least one free meal (either lunch or dinner) almost every day of the week...it's glorious!

I ended my apprenticeship as a waiter last Thursday and I sat down with my boss for a few hours to discuss what I will be doing for the next few months. We talked about things that I would be doing in relation to marketing, pubic relations, market research, business operations development, design planning, finances, and more. It has truly became an entrepreneurial internship, because it offers me an opportunity to dip my hands into all aspects of the business world, as any entrepreneur might experience, and I'm loving it :-)

My boss owns four restaurant establishments: the Boxing Cat Brewery, Cantina Agave Taqueria & Tequila Bar, Iiit! Cafe, and Closed Door Italian Restaurant and Lounge, along with a 5th that's in the works - an upscale Molecular Martini Bar. They are all very different and so far they have all provided me with excellent opportunities to learn...

Currently, I'm working on specific projects for the Brewery, Iiit! Cafe, and Closed Door.

For BCB, I'm helping to plan some big events coming up - such as World Cup game promotions and parties from June 11th - July 11th, our 1 year anniversary on June 13th, and a 4th of July party (I'll leave the date up to you on that one). Today we actually met with some people who run the Shanghaiist.com, a blog/news site that does a lot of promotional stuff throughout the city, to discuss our 4th of July party which will be co-sponsored by them so that we can get the word out about it very easily to people all over Shanghai. We decided that we're going to do a 'Dukes of Hazard' theme, and we're going to do a costume contest, boat race (beer chugging competition), pie eating contest, as well as a bluegrass band all during the event. In the near future, I'm also going to be helping with various projects to move forward with the creation of a new location for the brewery, which should be a lot of fun.

For Iiit! Cafe (pronounced 'eat'), Kelley wants to establish a new location, which we scoped out today. Currently the location is a Costa Coffee shop, but she says it's shutting down (hopefully not because they aren't getting any business).

It's in the main floor of a tall office building down the street from where I live. She has some qualms about this space because she feels that there are not enough non-Chinese people going by on a regular basis. Apparently about 70% of her customers are either American or European and so she wants to ensure that those types of people will be readily available to eat at the cafe during the day. The peak hours for Iiit! are 11am-2pm, so I have been put on the task of sitting at the coffee shop during those hours for the next couple days to do some 'market research' on the types of people coming, going, and passing by the place. =) It should be interesting!

For Closed Door, I am working on some various marketing projects to help with the conversion of the restaurant from a 'restaurant' to a 'social club.' It's a real cool setup that she's got going...there are no signs on the outside of the restaurant, just the address (808) on the door, and it's not really a building, it's in the middle of a big cement wall of many different shops.

You can't just open up the door and walk on in (hence the name), you have to knock. Then a person comes to the door and opens the small wooden window to see what you want. If you have a reservation, you're in. If you don't, you're asked to call ahead of time maybe later on in the week or something. But it is open to anyone - at the moment. As mentioned, they have to change to a 'social club' because they had an issue with their licensing. It's a very weird and hard to explain situation, but essentially, the government busted in a few weeks ago and took all of their files/receipts/customer information/etc because they are not operating legally due to some zoning/licensing issues that are hard to understand and I don't know much about. So they're changing from an open restaurant to a private social club with food. It'll be a very similar concept, but people will have to be members to eat there, so we're not sure if it will be successful or not but we're trying hard to ensure that it will be!

In regards to the Molecular Martini Bar, Kelley is trying to take a new worldwide concept and bring it to Shanghai for the first time. Apparently, in hot spots all over the world, there are new bars popping up that are offering martinis using a technique called 'molecular gastronomy.' This bartending method uses an avant garde cooking approach to mix cocktails through an understanding of scientific processes of various ingredients.

Apparently, different things such as gels, powders, foams, sprays, gases, fire and more will be used to mix drinks - crazy stuff. It's a trend that started in Paris about 4 years ago, and has spread to the Americas as well as Asia, but has not yet hit Shanghai...It will in September though! The projected opening date for Kelley's new project is September 1st, 2010. So it should be a lot of fun to help plan the very first molecular martini bar in Shanghai. I've seen some of the financials for the venture, and it seems to be a very low-risk high-reward opportunity with some great potential to be a huge hit if done right. I can't wait to see where it goes. =)

Adventures in Hangzhou

Once again, I apologize to anyone keeping an eye out for posts from me. I haven't posted in 5 days - partly due to the fact that the internet connection in my apartment is absolute garbage, so I'm in Starbucks getting things done online for the time being :-)

Five friends and myself went to a city called Hangzhou this past Saturday. We took a couple of Chinese girls that a friend works with who were from Hangzhou and acted as our tour guides. They said the city's supposed to be well-known for its silk, umbrellas, the West Lake, and something else that I forgot. It's about 120 miles south of Shanghai, so we took the CRH (Chinese High-speed Railway) and got there in a bit over an hour. We had originally planned for it to be a weekend trip but we decided to head back to Shanghai after being homesick 8 hours into our site-seeing. It just wasn't exactly what we expected I guess. I would describe it as a smaller version of Shanghai, but with a lake next to it. Maybe we just had a not so great experience and there were things that we missed out on, but our guides didn't really have anything spectacular to show us. What we did see for the short time that we were there was definitely very cool. From the train station, we hopped onto an old wooden trolly that took us to West Lake - the main tourist attraction in the city.

It was very beautiful and we were able to see many wonderful things around the large lake. Thousands of people were there, as it seems to be everywhere you go in China :-) This dragon boat was one of the highlights for us:

Unfortunately we did not get to ride on the immaculate dragon boat, but it provided us with many minutes of great picture taking.

We once again ran into many groups of Chinese people who wanted to take pictures with us - something that Rich, Ree, and I encountered at the World Expo last week. Usually it's the teenage girls that want to take pictures, and they all throw up their peace signs and smile as big as they can with their arms around us, giggling the entire time...it makes you feel like a celebrity =)

We ended up eating lunch at Zhejiang University, my first experience as a Chinese college. It was pretty cool, not much different than your standard U.S. school. It did have one thing very few American schools have though...

<-- A giant statue of Chairman Mao Zedong!

After lunch, we were too wiped out from walking around the lake to climb any mountains or anything, so we decided to head home. Overall the trip was a lot of fun, and we definitely enjoyed Hangzhou, but I have a feeling that we missed out on some things that could have made it a lot better...no big deal though.

Once back in Shanghai, we took a rest and went out for the night. It turned out to be probably the most fun night I've had in Shanghai since I've been here, so it was good that we ended our trip a bit early. On Sunday, I went with some people from work to the last softball game of the season for a team that the brewery sponsors - The Boxing Cats. They finished the season with a win, 8-3 against Malone's, and we all hung out and drank some beers after the game. It reminded me of when I was younger and I'd ride my bike to watch my Dad play ball for Nak's. I asked if I could maybe get involved with their team and they said definitely, so I'm going to be joining them for a tournament in Songjiang (about 20 miles south of Shanghai) on July 10-11. It's wooden bats, free beer and food, 4 guaranteed games, and $1,500 USD to the winners! The team is made up of some great guys - lots of big shots in different industries around Shanghai, so they're definitely good people to know. :-) It should be an awesome time.

Later that night Ibbi, Chris, Kim, and I headed out to the 'largest indoor go-karting track in all of Asia' (as their ads proclaim) - Stampede Karting, in the northern part of Shanghai:

We had the time of our lives! It was one of the most fun things I've ever done. The karts were moving at about 50 mph and it was a giant parking garage of road course outlined in old car tires. We were drifting around corners like it we were Vin Diesel in the third Fast and Furious movie ;-) And there were barely any rules. Hit whoever you want, drive as fast as you want, crash into whatever you want, and they encouraged drinking and driving with a bar that overlooked the track. On top of all that, it was buy one get one free for a ticket to ride. What I'm getting at is that it was incredible. And, naturally, I of course dominated everyone and came in 1st place in our 'post-race standings.' The Chinese people that we were racing against had no idea what they were doing...which I have noticed correlates well to they way that they drive on the streets of Shanghai :-)

Sleeping Chinese and Poor Translations

I have noticed two things during my 2 weeks of time in Shanghai:

1. Chinese people can often be found sleeping in odd locations/positions, and
2. Many businesses do not take the time to spell check their translations from Mandarin to English when creating signs.

Proof of these two realizations can be seen in the following images...

(3 images above provided by Bernd Hagemann)

(Image above taken at the Captain Golf Club on 6/1/2010)

After noticing the tired people on the streets of Shanghai, I did a bit of research and there's actually a guy who goes around the country and takes pictures of Chinese people sleeping in odd locations and documents it on his website. I hope to do the same thing, however my pictures will come from the streets of Shanghai instead of the entire country. I also hope to document as many poorly translated English signs as I can. I find these two things quite hilarious, and I hope you will as well!

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PMM

Why Are They Laughing at Us??

I've been in China for 2 weeks, and today was a really great day for adventuring and exploring the city of Shanghai a bit more, especially because I had the day off of work...

Paul (a newly arrived intern, 22 yrs old from Wisconsin) and I did some pretty huge things. First off, we found the Wal-Mart of China - Century Mart. It has everything from gas powered scooters to cereal boxes to mini kegs of beer, and it's right around the corner from our apartment. I imagine I'll spend quite a bit of time there over the next 10 weeks for all the basic necessities. From there, we set out to find a way to golf. I called around to a few clubs and didn't really have much success in the area of public courses in Shanghai, however I was able to get in touch with a Chinese man named Tommy who works for the 'Captain Golf Club' only a 30 minute metro ride away from our apartment. After he tried very diligently to convince us to become members of his club with the poor English that he could produce over the phone, we agreed to swing by to speak with him face to face. And look where it got us :-) ...

One hour of free driving range time with unlimited balls and free rental clubs!!

We got to the Golf Club (which was a three level driving range with a lounge, bar, restaurant, pro shop, and more built into the clubhouse...incredibly nice) and Tommy took us upstairs into his office where he continued to try and convince us that a membership to his golf club was the way to go. Essentially, it worked out to a $400 USD one-time 6 month membership fee which got us some golf hats and polos, free rental clubs, 12 hours of free driving range time, and access to all the Shanghai golf courses for $80 per 18 holes. Without the membership, it would cost us about $200 to play 18 holes at any of the courses in Shanghai. With or without the membership, it just wasn't worth it to us. Tommy still wasn't having it, so he gave us a free hour on the driving range to try and sway us into the membership. So we hit a ton of balls for a while, then told him it still wasn't for us and we took off. If we do ever find ourselves longing to play some golf, it seems that shooting 9 or 18 holes is out of the question because all the courses around here are clubs that cost way too much money, but we can always go back to the Captain Golf Club and hit balls for one hour with rental clubs for $20 USD...so that's always an option.

After golf, we headed off to one of China's infamous 'black markets' where they have tons of different fake products sold in many various types of small shops. It was a really cool site to see, actually. Imagine a nice, clean, compact mall with tiny stores back to back to back wrapping around every corner with shop-owners standing at each front entrance encouraging you to buy their products, and the ability to basically tell them what you want to pay. It was fantastic - Paul and I spent about 4 hours there. I picked up a new back pack (since I have accepted that mine will never come back from Delta), a USA Soccer team jersey, a long sleeve button up shirt, and 6 DVDs. The movies I picked up are Shutter Island, Invictus, Bounty Hunter, The Blind Side, Iron Man 2, and Sherlock Holmes. All of these things were accumulated for only $90 USD...epic! Bargaining the prices down is definitely an art, though. You've got to take them down at least 75% of the first price that they give you, and then work your way up from there. If you get stuck and they won't go any lower, you walk out, that's guaranteed to get them to drop the price. It was a lot of fun, and I'm sure we'll definitely go back many more times. I've got to pick up a phone charger, a camera battery charger, some dress ties, more button-up shirts, and who knows what else.

From the market, we ventured out to find a new place to eat dinner near our apartment and we found a real quality spot. It's a good size Chinese restaurant with some great food for moderate prices. We were set on the fried rice and noodles, so that's what we ordered, along with some beers, all for only $7 USD per person. But for whatever reason, the servers and everyone around us would not stop staring and laughing at us the entire time we were there. We couldn't tell if it was the food combination that we chose, the way we were holding our chop sticks (chop stick use is much more difficult to master when people are staring you down), or just the fact that we were clearly the only Americans in the place. Either way, we couldn't figure it out, but in order to get around as a foreigner in Shanghai you just have to accept that people are going to be staring at you quite often...not too concerned about it :-)

I've noticed that umbrellas are more often used to block sunshine than anything else. In fact, that seems to be their main purpose for existence in Shanghai. The sun does not come out often, as it is almost always overcast due to high pollution from coal burning, automobile exhaust, and abundant pesticide usage. Very few birds roam the streets of Shanghai - they just can't survive here I guess. But, when the sun does come out, people whip out their umbrellas as if they are trying to protect themselves from knives falling from the sky. It's pretty funny to watch.

I recently found a Dairy Queen not far from my apartment, which has turned out to be both great and bad...I love ice cream, and so it's a great snack especially on hot days, but I've been getting a Blizzard every day for the past 5 days! Super delicious though. In China, they give you your Blizzard for free if they forget to prove that it won't fall out of the cup when it's turned upside down before they hand it to you. I never realized the thickness of a chocolate brownie oreo Blizzard until I got to China :-)

I just finished up three loads of laundry, because I realized I only had a few pairs of underwear left, so I figured I should get it done asap...Without the convenience of a clothes dryer, it turns out that my bike makes an excellent drying rack for socks and underwear!

I have officially registered to play in a 7 v 7 soccer league as a free agent. I'm hoping that I'll be able to join a team and I'll get a chance to play on a weekly basis.

6 friends and myself organized a trip to a city called Hangzhou for this upcoming Saturday and Sunday (about 120 miles southwest of Shanghai). We're taking a train. It's supposed to be one of the most renowned and prosperous cities of China for much of the last 1,000 years and is very well-known for its beautiful natural scenery. It should be a pretty awesome time!

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PMM

Lessons of Serving

My apologies to anyone who has been keeping an eye out for my blog posts within the past week - I haven't been very good about it lately, but I'm going to try to maintain more consistent updates from now on...

I recently spoke with my boss, Kelley, after she returned from Hong Kong yesterday and it went really well. I explained that serving and the late work hours have really been taking a toll on me and they haven't really allowed me to take advantage of some other opportunities that I could be getting involved with around here. She understood 100% and she explained that the last ten days have been difficult, as I arrived at a pretty unfortunate and inconvenient time for everyone, with Gary dying and Kelley traveling to Hong Kong for a little while. She didn't really know what to do with me while she was gone and during all the planning/mourning/etc of everything that the loss of Gary has brought with it. So the best option seemed to be letting me get a feel for customer service, as it is a crucial aspect of any entrepreneur's success. She said that I'll be done serving after this week, I'll start working only 5 days a week, with regular hours, and she is going to create a list of all of the possible projects that I could get involved with over the next few months. We're going to sit down on Thursday and she's going to give me a chance to look over the list of projects to pick and choose what I'd like to help out with. I guess what I'm really looking for is an opportunity to figure out exactly what all is involved with starting a new business or expanding upon an existing venture. I'm excited to see the list of options that she comes up with for me. I told my manager, Mia, that my last day of serving will be this Friday and she was pretty bummed but she understood that I'm not here to provide free labor to the restaurant :-) She has asked me to create a list of the things that I learned during my short tenure as a server these past 8 days, and so here my 'top ten lessons of serving':

• Don't be afraid to say something to someone if you're confronted with a problem and need some help
• Use common sense as often as possible
• Set a good example for co-workers
• Be attentive to customers' needs/wants/concerns/comments
• Be helpful - go to the customer, don't make them come to you - and be prepared to answer any possible crazy question about the food, the drinks, or anything either related or not at all related to the restaurant
• Don't use your phone in front of customers :-)
• Be respectful and presentable at all times
• Try to stay busy, and if you can't then at least look busy
• You cannot make every customer happy - you just have to accept that
• Kill 'em with kindness when they [customers] are being a little ridiculous

I'm pretty excited to see what the next few weeks of my internship will bring now that some of my questions are cleared up. Kelley said that we're trying to find a new brewmaster, and some applications have come in but nothing has solidified quite yet, so that definitely puts a damper on the forward progress of the brewing factory that she had planned. Plans are still on for another location of the next BCB restaurant though, so that's good. And she also said that she is in the works of opening a high class martini bar as well as a Shanghai Cuisine Tourism project, so it will definitely be interesting to see what I get to be involved with in the near future!

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PMM