Working in an office is strange. It's been so long since I've done it that I forget about all the backstabbing, the factions, the lines drawn between sides.
When I started with this company, there were a handful of foreigners working in the China operation. It's a European company but they struggled their first several years in China so that when I started, they had actually closed down for many months and had just reopened.
Now it's astonishing: this single office (the main office in Asia, granted) has literally hundreds of people working here, maybe as many as 600 (no one seems to know exactly). I remember when there were less than five foreigners in the entire Mainland China operation. Now there are so many, I only know a fraction of them (and only know that fraction slightly) and there are large groups now all over Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (and many other locations besides).
So naturally with far more people, there are far more dramas and betrayals and alliances. Though I have worked off and on for this company for 10 years (!!), I am an outsider here since I work remotely from Quebec. I stay out of the gossip and everyone watches what they say in front of me. That's fine with me: I don't have enough invested to really care about who is on whose shitlist. But it sure makes me realize how little I miss being in an office environment every day!
I don't miss all this political crap. I do miss seeing people every day, establishing relationships with co-workers. We sometimes have lunch or have drinks after work. But in all honesty, 90% of the time we are all quietly doing our work and 95% of our conversations (even away from the office) are related to work.
I miss my friends at home. Though I can't talk about work with them (most of them don't even know exactly what I do for a living!), we relate to each other because we want to, not because we are forced to interact every day.
I am just finding it odd: these forced relationships we have to negotiate. The polite banter, the joking, when the relationships are all centered around this place we HAVE to be. That's human nature, I guess (we are social beings, after all), and we all do this (myself included) to some extent, whether or not we work in an office.
But all of this is just on my mind since it's an unusual experience for me. And every day feels like a new lesson or a new kind of adventure. The "exoticism" of China is not nearly as interesting as noting how power dynamics are managed in an office full of ambitious 30-somethings.
One thing: I like feeling a part of a larger project, I like the sense of contributing to it. At home, my work sort of dissipates into oblivion once I send it off but here I can see the team that I am a part of, the ways people rely on each other every day, what happens to the work once it ends up where it's supposed to go. That's interesting. I also feel valued here, like they really actually LISTEN to my opinions about work stuff. That still surprises me!
Though it's hot here and I miss home and I wish I could come back this weekend instead of the following weekend, I am glad I have the chance to leave my bubble a few times a year and test out new skills that have gotten rusty: dealing with co-workers, for example, face to face; trying to stay awake during incredibly dull (and irrelevant) meetings; trying to be supportive but non-committal when co-workers complain about each other to me...
The pic is what is under my office at work. We work in "the tower" (so they call it) but all around us are hundreds and hundreds of cubicles (this is just one tiny wing of them). This is at 8.45am before many people had come in.
Damn, am I lucky that I don't have to do this every day! (No offense to those that do: some people love it, I realize, and most people have no choice)....
So why is Shanghai just not doing anything for me this trip?
Is it the HEAT? Geez, it's really awful. And terribly humid.
Or the fact that I have so much going on at home and don't want to be here this trip?
I keep telling myself to just lean into it, enjoy being here on my own for a few weeks, doing my own thing. I am working a lot (we need $$ the next few months!), but all I've done socially is gone out with colleagues a few times and seen some old friends twice. There are other people I could call. But for some reason, I haven't. (None of them read this blog, I think!)
Other than that, I am in this hotel room working (when I'm not in the office).
Mainly I just want to come home and don't want to stay here two more weeks...
This afternoon, we had lunch at Blue Frog in the huge Superbrand Mall in Pudong. That place is a madhouse. And after, we walked over to the SWTFC to have a drink up in their 95th floor (or whatever) bar. Quite a view. Stunning. But hazy. The building just outside the window is the TOP of the Jin Mao (which is an 88 story building!). It feels extremely disorienting to be so close to it and looking DOWN on it.
And a pic of Stefaan. Hilde refused to let me take a picture of her because she was experiencing vertigo up that high. Pish. Wuss.
So since we've been trying to buy a house, we've been living in this smallish apartment for nearly two years. (Only two more months of that -- woo hoo!) And we have a cat. We'd like to get a dog, but it's unlikely since we (ideally) will travel a lot once we get through the first year or so of homeownership.
Just before I left, a friend asked if we'd watch his cat. Sure, no problem. Anyway, Masa will end up doing most of the work since I left last week. So one Japanese guy, two cats, small apartment. Fine, fine.
Then another friend had to go up to the Laurentians and asked Masa if she'd watch her dog for a week. Uh...OK. Anyway, Mac is a great dog and Masa really adores him. So one Japanese guy, our cat, our friend's cat, our friend's dog, one small apartment. All right!
Then our close friend calls. She wants to have a party. Masa, would you watch the baby overnight? She loves Masa and she's a good kid (18 months old), so OK! One night should be fine.
So tonight, in our small one bedroom apartment, Masa has our cat, our friend's cat, our friend's dog, and an 18 month old toddler!
What a nuthouse!
Here's Mags on the bed with the dog. Apparently, she pulled his tail hard and he snapped at her, which freaked her out. Masa said he had to take her outside for 20 minutes and walk around the neighborhood to calm her down.
Busy Masa!
Jacko est mort. What a shock. I just about choked on my tea this morning in my hotel room. And Farrah, too. She was a bit of a loonie to my mind (he was more than a loonie). Since I don't have access to North American TV, it all seems rather muted from here, but I imagine it's crazy Bedlam back home. I was having a chat just the day before yesterday about how Michael Jackson was so universally well-known -- one of those artists who transcends nationality. Even the Chinese know him and knew him way back in the day. I vaguely remember being told that he was one of the earliest 80s performers to come to Mainland China, though not sure if it's true or not.
I remember many years ago spending all day hiking in the mountains of southern South Korea (along the coast near Pusan)...all day we hiked, through forests and over craggy, gravelly mountainsides, into idyllic meadows of flowers. Finally, we reached this junction in the path and this old woman told us that we shouldn't try to continue to the Buddhist temple just beyond the horizon, that it would get dark soon and the trail was treacherous. She advised us to take the path out of the mountains and back into town. We ignored her, finally reaching the last horizon as the sun set. The Buddhist temple was nestled quietly in a small valley below us, surrounded by mountains on all sides and when we finally managed to climb down the pitch-dark mountain side, the monks had lit all these hundreds of candles (it was some kind of festival) so that the temple look majestic, beautiful, haunting. As we came out of the woods, we were met with this beautiful vision
of a rural Buddhist temple in the mountains. I was expecting chanting or the erhu being played or even just the whispering of leaves through the trees. But, no: the first sound which hit my ears as we approached this temple was a tinny boom box playing "Billie Jean is not my lover...she's just a girl who claims that I am the one..." We all laughed at the romantic notions we had vs the reality of life. It's such a strong memory in my mind, though it was nearly 15 years ago!
So much of daily life in China is determined by rumour. I forget this until I am back.
Off and on the last three days, google has been blocked, including gmail. This is a real pain since half of my contacts (business contacts, too) are there.
When it gets blocked (or doesn't work), everyone starts speculating: is today a sensitive anniversary? Are news outlets reporting something unflattering to China? Is the Chinese government angry about something business-wise with google? Or perhaps it has nothing to do with that. Maybe it's just a fluke? A technical glitch (unlikely since every other site I regularly use here is fine -- Vox is always blocked grrrrrr). It's so frustrating. I wonder if it has to do with this computer filtering that the Chinese government is trying to force all computer makers to adhere to: all new computers must include filters for doing away (or blocking) porn. Thank you, nanny state! Like some sleazy government officials in some office in Beijing need to tell an entire nation what is and what isn't suitable for their eyes. So idiotic. I wonder if it has something to do with that because I vaguely remembering hearing a story in the airport in Toronto that google was
refusing to do this or standing up to the government about it (though not sure what that has to do with the manufacture of computers in China; it would also be pretty surprising as big corporations including google rarely have backbone when dealing with the Chinese government). Anyway, who knows. The point is we DON'T know so we all have to rely on rumour and speculation to figure out WHY it's being blocked. Is it temporary or will it be blocked forever?
It sure reminds me how often I use google for random things throughout the day (excluding gmail). Especially for work: when I am editing something or helping a writer put something together, it's so easy to pop over to google to get the straight facts before proceeding. A complete list of discourse markers to indicate cause & effect? Google. The year the Taj Mahal was built? Google. The population of Chile? The legislative history of Bush's "No Child Left Behind"? The stars and year of production for the movie "Klute"? I actually have to use my own shallow knowledge without google. It's quite alarming how little I know when I'm disconnected...
Wow, I'm inefficient in the office. Here was my day yesterday:
9.00 am -- Arrive at office
9-10am -- WORK
10-12noon -- meeting
12noon - 2.30 -- long lunch (going away lunch for a designer)
2.30-5.00 -- meeting
5-6pm -- WORK
So that was a total of 2 hours of work out of an 8 hour work day. I am so much more efficient at home and can see why everyone is so busy in the office. And today looks to be even worse: meetings ALL day.
Sure, some meetings are necessary and we exchange useful information, but probably less than 20% of the information is totally relevant to my job.
Everyone I know has been recommending taking Melatonin for jetlag. Some people swear by it though I've never taken it. But this British guy last night at dinner told me that in the UK it's banned because it comes from cows' brains and there have been no long term studies on it. Maybe best to avoid it!
Oh, and I realized yesterday morning that for some reason, I didn't pack a work belt. So I have a white belt and that's it. But no time to stop and go shopping for one yet. Weird to have work clothes on but no belt.
Haven't slept in nearly 36 hours and I am so tired I am almost delirious. But I have to stay awake another hour so that I can get on a normal cycle, plus I wanna call Masa and wake him up! SO glad my colleague suggested I just stay in tonight and that we didn't have a company dinner planned!
I'm exhausted but I'm really hungry, too, so I'm sitting here in a bathrobe wondering if I'm more hungry or more tired...
Trip was uneventful except for that when we arrived in Shanghai, they wouldn't let us off the plane and this little army of guys in haz-mat suits showed up with every square inch of their bodies covered, goggles, face masks...it was like that movie "Outbreak". Oy.
They went up and down the aisles, shooting a laser at everyone's forehead to see if it indicated a fever. We all had to fill out questionnaires about our health. Then some guy with a digital thermometer was taking temperatures of random people. THEN inside the terminal, we had to walk through a full body scanner to test our temperature and sit face to face with a quarantine guy who gave each and every one of us the stink eye.
On the flight earlier I overheard this guy sitting behind me saying to his buddy that he didn't feel well and wondered if he had a temperature, so he was nervous. But he didn't seem to have a problem and I saw him later on outside the terminal waiting for a taxi.
I've got to hand it to the Chinese: when they do something, they really go all out and DO it. Five years ago, they totally ignored SARS (to their peril), covered it up, pretended it didn't exist until the rest of the world stamped feet and said "Come, ON!!!!"
So they must have learned their lesson. I wish I would have thought of snapping a photo of haz-mat guys taking Air Canada passengers' temperatures (all these business people were snapping away with their Blackberries) but I thought I'd be testing my luck. I'd hate to be "detained" for revealing state secrets!
But the company did put me in a fancy hotel this time. Cheers!
Back on the other side of the Great Firewall tomorrow, so no Vox for a few weeks. I will probably still send posts if I can, but won't be able to access it until the middle of July.
Wow, it's going to be a busy few weeks: meetings, discussions, observing, editing, writing, arguing...and that's just ONE job! I still have two other gigs I have to manage to keep up with after going into the office all day every day. But it's OK. I'm in a nice hotel in a great city...
But I hate leaving home for so long. I guess it's a good sign that after 5 years, I still miss Masa terribly when we're apart. A week is fine. Actually, a week might even be good. But three weeks sucks! We do end up talking on Skype at least once a day (usually twice) which is borderline pathetic (or maybe fully pathetic, I don't know).
But this time I feel that I have so MUCH to get back for: Masa (of course), closing on our house, getting ready to start renovating for several weeks, moving, Mags and Marie (I wonder if she'll remember me after being away for three weeks, I guess she probably will), plus all our friends who have fun stuff planned for later this summer.
It's good to have a little break from the routine, to be honest. And put in my face there to guarantee another 8-12 months of work on a new project (which means 8-12 months of INCOME). And hang out in Shanghai, a city I love (though it'd be so much better if Masa could come with me!).
I feel like getting slightly poetic here, to write about how lucky I feel at this time in my life: to be surrounded by close friends who give me so much, to have a job which though a bit dull at times, provides me with a good living and allows us to have our own place, travel, be productive. To be such an important part of Magdali's life, to feel invested here in Montreal. Leaving my life for three weeks is so good: it makes me reflect on how GREAT my life is and how very lucky I am.
We bought a place. Our very own place.
The last two weeks have been the most stressful of my life! Seriously. Dealing with bankers, brokers, agents, owners, inspectors, appraisers, etc. etc. It's just been one headache after another. At one point, I was just about ready to give up (getting a mortgage when you're self-employed in this economy took patience and skill!).
But now it's done and we are very happy.
The place: built in 1919, it's a three-story triplex and we bought the second floor. It's two blocks away from where we live now which is what we've been holding out for since we love this neighborhood and didn't want to live anywhere else. It's very big for the Plateau and we got a great deal because it needs a bit of work (painting, floors redone, eventually more). But a great investment and, more importantly, our mortgage payment is low(ish) and we LOVE the place.
Ugh, we are going to be housepoor for sometime, but that's fine. Our savings are gone. Debt is now a friend and will be for some time. We have to buy appliances (we have nothing) and a lot more since we are moving from a small one bedroom apartment to a big 1200 square foot place with a lot of rooms! But we probably won't move until September 1st since I leave this weekend for three weeks to Shanghai.
A fun project that will take years to finalize, I expect. And we are very happy.
My first house! My goal was to buy a place before I turned 40 and I've still got two years to go!
I'll post more pics later but in the meantime. Our place is the open door on the left at the top of the stairs. The balcony leads to the living room.
I love walking around the Plateau when the weather's nice, the trees are green, everyone is smiling.
The sidewalk cafes are loaded with people drinking beers and eating salads.
On the streets, bicyclists flit by and people saunter past in shorts and tank tops.
Fresh fruit spills out of the small markets onto the sidewalk: pineapples and mangos and oranges and avocados and cherries. So colorful!
Couples walk around eating ice cream cones making googly eyes at one another.
People planting flowers or weeding their gardens look up and smile at the passersby.
Squirrels and cats make dangerous mad dashes across the side streets.
You hear a cacophony of languages: French, English, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese...
