Day 20 (2)

Day 20

Because I still had some money to spend from the stipend we were given, and because it was our last day in China, I woke up earlier and decided to make the most of the day.  What else would I possibly do?  At breakfast I talked with Amanda and Max for a bit before we were joined by Mike, Josh and Brandyn.  Josh, Mike, Max and I decided to go to a shop that had good touristy things, in a mall that had a floor which Josh had been to, dedicated entirely to pearls and jewelry.  It took a while longer than we expected for it to open, so we loitered outside for a bit just looking around.  There was a man doing what looked like a very feminine dance (he was mid-50's or older perhaps) and teaching some other women.  I took a picture which pretty well encapsulates the atmosphere of the thing.  It was certainly interesting.  Things were a little pricey inside, but I did manage to find the tea I had been looking for.  I had been going on the assumption that it was ginseng tea, however the tea I found, which smelled the same, was jinshen tea and may or may not be a Chinese miss-spelling (I'll defer to the tea experts on that one).  Mike of course spent the last of his money on a set of porcelain chopsticks for his mother (to be fair, it was a nice gesture, but I think he paid too much).

When we had left the store some other members of our group were there, and I stayed with them while the rest of the guys went back to the hotel.  I took Luke back up into the store and eventually Anna and Julie came up too (Nana was in the Nokia store, looking for a job probably.  He's had some pretty good success on that front in China).  We kind of looked around some more bought a couple of things then left.

Originally the thought was that we would visit the museums again, near People's Square, but we decided to take taxis to the Yu Yuan Garden area again to visit the shops and get some "bao-dz," which is a type of dumpling and is fantastic (I was talking with Amanda about it later and it turns out that YuJing, whom I worked with a couple of summers ago, makes excellent bao-dz).  Taxis typically won't let you fit five people in, so we had to split up, and ended up being separated when we got to the market.  Our taxi driver was pretty crazy, but fortunately had great reflexes.  He has this great habit of seeing a line of traffic, waiting for a bit, getting annoyed, then gunning it around the line and hurtling past (and cutting off) the cars, to make it through the turn, seemingly blind.  He made a number of left turns this way, it was pretty exciting.

Like I said, we got separated because the taxis dropped us off at different places, but it was fine because we both had Chinese speaking students in each group and knew how to get back.  Luke and I walked for a bit along the major street, kind of eyeing up shops that sold t-shirts.  We did a little bartering, but didn't purchase anything because we were convinced we could get a better deal.  Amazingly we came upon the three others that we had set out with in another part of the market area.  Tim was looking for a way to spend the money he had left, which was quite a bit.  I ended up buying a cool painting that was part of a four seasons set (spring) and got some more tea at a cheaper price (now that I knew what I was looking for, it was much easier to find the tea).  After shopping, and with less than an hour before we had to be back at the hotel and checked out, we headed to get some bao-dz.  For the price, you don't get much volume (at least not at the place we went to), but it certainly was delicious.  I think I'm going to have to find YuJing and have her teach me how to make it.

We made it back with plenty of time to spare, and then headed out as a group to take the metro to the Maglev station.  It was quite the ordeal to get all of our things through gates and turnstiles and on and off the subway through the crowds, but eventually we made it.

The Maglev was pretty cool.  I took video of almost the entire trip (all of 7 minutes); we got up to 430 km/h which is about 266 mi/h.  It was by far the fastest I've traveled on land.  At the beginning there was some talk about how it worked, and right before I was about to explain it to those interested, at the behest of Prof. VanDrunen, Mike spoke up and said that he thought perhaps the professor had meant him rather than me (I had talked with VanDrunen earlier about it, so I knew that was not the case).  He is an electrical engineering student and I'm chemical, but there is nothing in the electrical curriculum outside of the common first two years that would prepare him better than me to answer it.  I was a little miffed, but chose to let him take care of the explanation anyway.  He did a fine job in any case.

When we got to the airport it was pretty easy getting through security and having our things checked.  I think everyone was under the weight limit, or at least close.  I had my first bit of Western food in a while: a BBQ bacon cheeseburger from Burger King (the first Burger King I had seen in China).  It was good, and had a distinctly Chinese flavor to it too).  Our flight boarded and we all made it on without a hitch.

A little bit into the flight I decided to check the map to see where we would be flying over, but found that my whole console (audio, video, lights, sound) was broken.  I was able to be moved though to a different seat with a working one (an aisle seat, so definitely a huge bonus there).  The steward on my side who helped me was an African man (American, Chinese? Not sure) with a great set of braids that almost looked like they could be dreadlocks.  He looked pretty awesome, and was very helpful (later he asked me where our group was from, because we were all so polite, he said; way to be Calvin I guess).  One bad thing that happened during the flight was that a lady in the front of the plane became sick (no details of course) so they asked for any medical personnel who were on board.  Mrs. Jen eventually was brought to the front and Prof. Jen came back later on behalf of Mrs. Jen, asking for prayers for the lady.  After a short time, they announced that we would be landing in Anchorage so the woman could get medical attention!  This was an interesting turn.  Anchorage turned out to be beautiful; the airport surroundings were at least.  The mountains were glowing reddish with the dawn when we touched down.  Now I can say that I've been to Alaska, at least for a very brief period of time.

On the approach to Anchorage I started talking with the man next to me.  He was from Nanjing, traveling to Chicago to work for three months.  His name was Xia XingSuo (English name: Major, which I thought was awesome, and kind of hard to figure out) and he works as a computer engineer for Motorola.  He primarily writes applications for the Android operating system (by Google) that Motorola uses now instead of its own system.  He went to school at the University of Nanjing technical/telecommunications school (it's different from Nanjing University), worked for a year at a smaller firm and has been at Motorola for 5 years.  I really enjoyed talking with him about pretty much anything.  I asked him what he thought should happen with Taiwan; he said that it would be better for Taiwan economically to join back with China, but didn't think that it would happen any time soon.  As a computer engineer, he said that in addition to the three phones he was carrying with him, he has at least 10 that he uses at his work for coding and debugging purposes.  Pretty crazy stuff.  He was very nice, and we exchanged e-mail addresses, so that the next time I'm in Nanjing, I can meet up with him.  I'd love to, but I'm not sure how soon it will be, if ever, that I return.

When we finally arrived in Chicago we learned that our plane had been held for us until 8pm.  We arrived at around 6:45pm, and whisked quickly through customs, got our bags rechecked then speedily got onto the plane.  The flight from Chicago was only 30min long, which was great because we all just wanted to not be on a plane anymore.  It went without a hitch, and they even managed to get all of our bags on the same plane as we were on, so we only had to wait a bit to get them.

We arrived in Grand Rapids to the smiling faces of friends and family.  It was great to be home.  The family rounded up the bags, I got my things from Joe, who had generously let me put my new coat and old shoes in his duffle, I said some goodbyes and we were gone.

When we arrived home I wasn't very tired, so I shared the things I had bought with the family, unpacked slightly, and left most of the dirty things (read: all of my clothes) for tomorrow.  Today was pretty much a 30-hour day, split up by a bit of sleep on the plane.

Good afternoon from Shanghai and goodnight from Hudsonville, a wonderfully exotic locale.

Day 19

It's our second-to-last day in China, and the last real day.  Based on some talk we heard about checkout last night, I got up at 6:00am to shower and get ready to go.  We heard that checkout took 30-45 minutes/ room because they had to check to make sure we hadn't taken anything, however when we got down there an hour early it took us all of five minutes.  We handed over our keys over, they asked if we had used the mini-bar, which had been locked in our room, and they said we could go.  It wasn't all bad; we could at least enjoy a luxurious hour-long breakfast.  Every morning they've served seasonal vegetables, which have been fantastic.  My two favorites were a boiled cabbage dish and green beans served with "bits of real pork".  It took me a while to realize they were beans, but boy were they ever good.

We took the bus to the train station and had a little over an hour ride back to Shanghai.  I talked with Luke for a while about his Chinese language studies among other things, and then napped for the rest of the time.

Back in Shanghai we took the subway to our hotel, East Asia Hotel, where we stayed when we were here earlier.  Pretty much right away we headed to the fabric market to pick up the clothes that some of us had ordered.  When I tried on my coat it was quite small in the shoulders, but they said it could be taken out in an hour.  I had them do that and wandered for a bit with Joe, looking for some fabric for the comforter he was going to have his mom make.  He bought the inner part at a market in Hangzhou and needed a cover for it.  We found some fabric for ¥30/m² and I helped him barter it down to ¥21.5/m² which is about $3.13/m².  I'm not sure what fabric prices are typically, but it seemed like a reasonable price.  He got 8 m², which seemed like quite a bit, but I guess you're going to need a substantial amount for a comforter.  We tagged along with Kurt for a bit, who after an amazing bit of haggling, got a North face jacket for ¥230 from a ridiculous starting price of ¥1500.  That lady must have been crazy trying to offer it for that much, but apparently she wanted to make it worth her while, because she told Kurt that the Chinese government doesn't allow them to sell North face coats.  I'm pretty sure that's true, because the only other ones we've seen have been sold out of trunks of cars.  After a while we met up with the group again.  Their suits were ready at the same time my jacket was.  It fit much better, though I was still skeptical that a suit would fit underneath it (I was relieved that it did when I tried them on back at the hotel).  It wasn't as thick as Kurt's, but he paid substantially more for his.  I'm quite happy with it.  Quite happy indeed.

On the way out of the subway a Chinese guy and girl asked about our heights as we were passing them, so I turned around and told them that I was 2 meter tall (I'm not exactly sure, but 2m is convenient).  I ended up talking with the girl and Joe with the guy for a while.  They are students in Shanghai at some university that I wouldn't know, she said.  She was studying Business English and he was studying Business Marketing.  We talked for a bit about China, the U.S. and school; plans about after school and where she would like to visit in America.  She talked about the tea performance, just like the three that I met in Shanghai earlier, so I'm beginning to think that it's a pretty popular thing to do.  Apparently the ethnic minorities come to the cities and do these things.  I didn't get the guy's name, but hers was Hu Xui Fang (Hu like Hu Jintao).  We gave them our e-mail addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, bank account numbers and mother's maiden names then went on our way (actually just e-mail).  It will be interesting to see if they contact us.  I hope they do.  It was very refreshing to talk to people with no agenda.

Back at the hotel I got a better look at my coat, with suit on as well.  The other guys were happy with their suits and shirts as well.  It was a good day in that respect.  Now the challenge will be getting all of our things back intact and with weight and room to spare.  We'll see how that goes tonight.

Supper tonight was in a restaurant in a fancy hotel overlooking the river that runs through Shanghai.  There was good food and good discussion.  We talked a bit about what was different/same/we like about China, what we thought God was telling us/what we would bring back and do differently.  There were good ideas all around.  Personally I said that the service here is different, with vendors tripping over each other to sell you things compared to the U.S. where it can be difficult to find a salesperson in some stores.  For the second question I reflected on the use of resources in the U.S. and China.  They have so much less, both superficially in terms of water and disparate wealth distribution, and in ideological freedoms such as political and to some extent religious.  It seems like we should be able to do so much more than we are to help people and to advance our nation, and yet we were destroyed economically recently and have massive debt to foreign nations.

After dinner Joe, Derek and I decided to whet our adventurous sides.  Instead of taking the subway back to the hotel and going someplace from there, we headed the opposite direction and walked along the river for a while looking for a bridge to get to the other side where our hotel is.  We never found a bridge, but we did find a ferry which was awesome!  It was filled with bikes and pedestrians.  The fare was ¥0.5/person, which is absolutely insanely cheap (7¢!!!!).  We readily paid it and headed across the river with a bunch of Chinese people.  When we arrived at the other side we really didn't know where we were except that we were along the river, which eventually would lead us to our street.  Following much of the crowd, we headed in a couple of streets and set off north.  Eventually, after a couple of blocks and twists and turns I recognized where we were, which was really a miracle, since I'd only been in that place once before, coming from the other way in the daylight, and we really had only walked tangent to the intersection.  In any case I was much more confident, so we kept going and cut into the city a little bit more to get away from the construction going on all along the river.  Everyone we passed was headed home from work I'm pretty sure.  There were many on bikes and quite a few walkers as well.  Tonight was definitely a night of exploration and somewhat of uncertainty.  Very fun though, and we saw zero Westerners during our trek.  We did see a massive covered truck trying to make it through tight city corners.  There was a man in the passenger's seat whose sole purpose was to yell at pedestrians and get cars to move so that they could get through.  It was MASSIVE!

Finally the street we were on turned into Nanjing Road.  We had been walking parallel to it along a dark street for a couple of blocks.  By this time it was getting pretty close to 11pm which meant that most of the shops were closed.  Since it was deserted we decided to go inside (after buying a Shanghai Expo mascot) and being harried by a beggar lady and a small child.  It's kind of hard to ignore people asking for money like that, but it's often a scam, so we've been told just to ignore them like the Chinese do.

Tomorrow we'll have some time before we have to leave for the airport.  I think I'll go out and spend the rest of my money then.  It's the last night in China.  I can't believe it's already here.  It was a great trip and I've had such a good time.  Good night from the Middle Kingdom and I'll see some of you tomorrow.

Day 18 (2)

Day 18

For worship this morning we headed by bus to Hangzhou International Christian Fellowship.  It's a church for only internationals and you have to have a foreign passport to enter.  Luckily for some people, as well as our Chinese-national helpers, they didn't check for them.  The service was done in English by a pastor from Africa (he didn't say where) and an international worship team.  We kind of increased the attendance by several hundred percent I believe.  Initially we were all sitting by ourselves, but during the greeting we all said hi and spread out amongst the regulars.  I met a lady who has relatives in St. Joseph.  The sermon was about choices and our choice to remain faithful to God.  We fellowshipped for a while after the service with the members of the church.  The far was a bit different than the coffee and cookies from back home.  There were oranges, bananas, cookies, chocolate covered marshmallows, crackers, chips, dragon-eyeball fruits and a host of drinks for us.  I think that we can learn a few lessons from the Chinese church.  In food and fervor perhaps.  For a while, I talked with a physicist/engineer who grew up in China, worked for a company making solar cells in Princeton, NJ for 28 years, and moved back to work in Hangzhou (he grew up in Shanghai and visits there frequently).

A few of us left (Marshall, Ben and Ben) to go back to the hotel.  For lunch we stopped at 85°C Café for some baked goods which were quite tasty and pizza themed.  We took the bus again to get back.  A cute Chinese girl sat down next to me, and I would have liked to talk to her, but I could only say, "Knee-how."  I'm guessing that she didn't speak English, because she reciprocated my greeting, talked to her friends for a bit then sat quietly (typically Chinese people like to practice English if they know it).  When we got off I said, "Dway boo chee" (excuse me) then, "Zi gee'en" (goodbye).  She said something in Chinese and I think said "Good bye" in English.  Sometimes I really wish I could speak Chinese.

Marshall and I hung out in the room checking e-mail and whatnot, for a bit then headed out to see one of the pagodas on the top of a hill overlooking West Lake and the city.  A couple of guys had done it before so we got some basic directions from them, and then headed out walking along the water.  The entrance was a very non-descript residential looking road.  There were no obvious markings in English (maybe it was obvious in Chinese, hard to tell), but we went in anyway.  The street rose a bit to some stairs.  A lot of stairs actually, which twisted and turned through a bamboo forest, up to a restaurant, then up further to where the pagoda actually was.  You couldn't go inside (I'm not sure if there ever was an inside) and it was fenced off.  The "windows" were bricked closed (like I said though, it might have just been solid).  It was cool, pretty tall and stood out against the sky and trees.  There was a path that continued up, past the pagoda, so we took it to see what else there was.  What we found was even better than the pagoda.  The hill has a spectacular view of West Lake and the city of Hangzhou.  It is phenomenal.  You can do a lot of climbing on the rocks or none at all; most people were climbing all over though.  The hills were all misty like they had been the last couple of days, and the lake was full of boats that people had rented for a while.  The causeway was visible below, and I could see pretty much every part of the lake that we had walked a couple of days before.  Marshall was pretty glad that I convinced him to come with me.  We met the Jens on the way down.  I'm sure they enjoyed it.  Some of the places that people were climbing were pretty dangerous.  There's no way that any of this would happen in the U.S.  There would have to be railings and guard rails everywhere, and people would probably insist on their being some sort of cable to the top or elevator.  Marshall and I were talking about this on the way up, and I jokingly referred to the "fat Americans" stereotype (which is becoming alarmingly true, sadly), and a Chinese man passing in front of us heard it.  I think he said, "Russians?" or something like that.  Hopefully I haven't caused him to think that all Americans are fat and that all Russians are vindictive.  That's actually the second time that a Chinese person has thought that I was Russian.  Either way, the hill was cool and I'm very glad that we decided to take the afternoon and climb it.

Eventually we headed back into town.  We tried to hear the musical fountain, but we didn't want to wait for it to start up again.  Instead we got some supper (sweet and sour chicken with peppers and peaches in the sauce; we had it the other night too) at a restaurant we'd been to before on the main street.  At that point we were pretty tired so we decided to head back to the hotel and just rest for the duration of night.  We have to be ready early for the train back to Shanghai tomorrow.  I'm getting pretty excited about getting the wool coat I had tailored (hopefully there won't be too much disappointment).

There were some movies on tonight.  It felt good just to be off my feet.  We've been walking for what seems like forever.  It was a great last day in Hangzhou.

Day 17 (2)

Day 17 (Long Bridge isn’t long)

I woke up around 8:00am this morning, a bit earlier than Marshall, because I planned on walking around for a bit before he got up.  Joe, Josh and Ben were at breakfast and they said they were planning on walking to the tea museum on the other side of the lake.  Instead of going to a pagoda with Marshall and the rest, I went with them to walk around West Lake and see the national tea museum.  The weather today was pretty calm, but pretty chilly.  My hands are kind of still numb as I'm typing this.

We set out and kind of meandered our way to the museum.  If there was a place to see, we saw it on the way there.  It's amazing how many gardens and parks there are in Chinese cities.  Today, the sights were magnified by the lake and the mountains permeated by a thin mist.  It was very picturesque pretty much everywhere around the lake.  During the first part of the walk we found many, many tombs of female revolutionaries who had been killed.  The Chinese are very proud of their heroes, and it's quite evident.  We also noted at least 5 wedding parties around the lake, taking pictures and walking around.

After walking for a while, we were nearing the museum site, and got passed by five members of the group who had taken a taxi after sleeping in.  We walked through the museum and grounds with them.  The museum is surrounded by fields of tea bushes and has quite an extensive campus.  It's dedicated to all parts of the tea process, from cultivation and leave preparation to steeping the tea and enjoying it.  Quite a bit of the museum was under decoration (construction) so it was unavailable for us to see, but in spite of that it was quite the thorough tour.  We found some more great signs that had been mistranslated.  My favorite so far has been: "Unredncible".  It was trying to say "Unrecyclable" I believe (public trash containers have companion recycling containers which are often just treated as another trash container).

For much of the path around the lake, we were able to walk in public parks.  There were only a few times when we had to cut in because of private property, because many of the business open the path (probably to increase customer numbers).  The paths are often very intricate with patterns of stones embedded in the cement and stone decorations with dragons and such on them.  A lot of walking was done today.  That's for sure.  I wouldn't trade it for anything though.

We could tell that there were a few obvious touristy places, and because we couldn't read the signs we were turned away from a few private drives.  The hand wave is probably the most recognizable way to say, "Turn around."  It was pretty effective with us.  There weren't many times or places for interactions today because everyone was being very tourist-like: trying to see everything.  I was in one picture with a chubby middle-school aged boy.  He was pretty cool.  I think his parents wanted him to talk to us, but he didn't really want to.

There aren't many specific stories from this morning and afternoon, but I was very struck by the beauty of the Hangzhou region, specifically around West Lake.  Hopefully some of that sentiment bleeds through my pictures.

Dinner was at 5:30pm today with the group.  We went to another hotel, and when we entered the five brides and grooms were right there in the lobby.  There must have been some sort of media attention for them to all be gathered in the same place.

Our dinner was splendid yet again and there was plenty of food for everyone.  We had some fish, pork, beef and plenty of vegetables; they were all done up amazingly and tastily as usual.  There was a spicy boiled salad-like dish which was fantastic.  To top it off, we bought some cakes in Amanda and Yang's honor.  They helped us out a ton on the trip and they deserve recognition for it.  One of the most amazing parts of the trip came this evening (that's a bit of an overstatement, but I thought it was cool).  The candle they put on one of the cakes looked like a folded up flower with little candles all pointed inward on the petals.  The lit it and it was like a pyrotechnics show, with sparks flying upwards igniting the candles.  They then spread outward and unfolded to look like a flower with candles lit on the petals.  It had a little speaker which played 'Happy Birthday' even though it wasn't anyone's birthday.  I think everyone should have one of those for their birthday.

We discussed some of the reflections we'd been having after dinner.  I shared what I'd been thinking about the dangers of assumptions, and how misattributions based on assumptions can be the biggest danger when forming and maintaining cross cultural relationships.  Assumptions are so easy to make, yet it seems like they should also be one of the easiest things to quit doing.  Being conscious about assumptions and misattributing behaviors is one of the best things to do when dealing with other cultures.  It's something I'm going to try and focus on in the future.

After dinner, Marshall and I went out to find the pagoda on a hill, overlooking West Lake.  We walked for a ways until we got to a causeway that I had gone over earlier in the day.  At that point it was quite dark, and neither of us really wanted to be poking around in areas we hadn't been before in the dark, so we headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is church, so we'll be meeting in the lobby at 9:30am.  Good night from one of the most beautiful locations in the world, Hangzhou.

Day 16

We had our last two company visits this morning and afternoon.  Our first meeting this morning was with HuZhou ShengLi Industry Manufacturing Company which makes a variety of chairs, risers and tables from steel.  When we got to the gate, there was a banner welcoming the group from Calvin College, and in the meeting room there was another one!  Chinese companies have been throwing out the welcome mat to us; we've been very grateful to them.  Their products are on the cheaper end compared to companies like Herman Miller and Steelcase.  They make a foldable chair and table system like the kind Unity uses in the south gym for lunch as well as wheelchairs, many of which they give away to charity.  In fact, they recently donated a day's worth of wheelchairs to an organization in Haiti in light of the earthquake, as part of their company's social obligation.  The corporate atmosphere is geared toward generosity and they didn't even have to lay off any workers because of the economic downturn.  It sounds a little fishy to me, like some nice spin, but for now, I'm going to believe them.  We had quite a long meeting in a room that was open to the outside.  It was in the 30's today, so the meeting was conducted with jackets on all around (not uncommon at all in China).  They were very good hosts and provided us with buns, fruits and drinks for lunch.  As a present, and to feature the primary product of the region, they gave each of us a silk handkerchief (mum, that's yours).  The general manager spoke with us using Amanda as an interpreter.  He is very good at what he does, and because of that ascended the ladder, from starting as an entry level engineer when he left school (mechanical engineer).  I think that it's important to have engineers in the upper management levels, to combine both the technical understanding and experience with leadership.  It's worked very well for their company at least.

Next we visited Zhejiang Hengfeng Top Leisure, a maker of outdoor supplies for companies such as Dick's, Cabelas, Bass Pro Shops, Costco, Gander Mountain and many other popular American brands.  We met with some sales people, and the owner's brother-in-law, who now works there after being involved in the government.  The company increased its profits from $150 million to $250 million from 2008 to 2009, quite an achievement.  There's a pretty good likelihood that we've bought something that they produce there, considering the wide range of goods, from patio furniture and tents, to camping chairs and tables.  This company produced 85,000 tents in one month to donate to the Szechuan earthquake victims in 2008; President Hu Jintao visited the company to oversee their progress and they said that even the administrative staff was working to produce the massive amount of tents.  We went on a tour of their showroom and then the manufacturing facility.  It was quite the place; they make many more than the 1100 products per day that HuZhou ShengLi makes.

The bus rides were pretty long again today, but now we have the rest of the trip to see what we want to on our own time.  It will be nice not to have to wear a suit so often now.  They look pretty spiffy, but after days of traveling in a suit it gets tiring.

Tonight we went to a hotpot place again, this time with more people.  It was a nice place, but pretty crowded around the table we were sharing.  The food was tasty as usual.  Afterwards, some of us went to the lake to walk for a bit, and the others went back to the hotel to finish journaling and to play Rook.  Will and I had to go to the men's room, and when we made it back to where the group had been, everyone had left, so we walked around the lake for a bit.  There was the musical fountain again, and we even saw a large dancing group in the park.  They were dancing to some sort of techno music, all in unison.  I was impressed.  We didn't manage to find them, so we just headed back to the hotel.  It was a nice night, but a bit chilly.  Hopefully it will warm up a bit tomorrow.

We played some cards in the hotel tonight after everyone got back.  I'm going to bed now because we have a whole day to do what we want, and I want to make the most of it.

Day 15

Let me just say that our hotel is probably the most amazing hotel that I have ever been in.  When I got out of the shower this morning, the mirror had a large square that was not foggy.  Any hotel with a heated mirror is a fantastic hotel in my opinion.  The internet did not work this morning, but that was ok because there was an umbrella in the closet (it was raining today).  Also, breakfast was spectacular with both delectable Chinese and American dishes.  There are tea eggs everywhere here, which is perfectly fine with me.

Today was a bit colder than yesterday.  Marshall and I thought it would be as balmy, so we mistakenly did not bring coats on the bus with us.  Oops.  Another oops was that the prof.'s forgot to tell us we had an hour bus ride, so we didn't bring books to read when we could have.  The third and largest oops was the bus driver's underestimation of the travel time.  We arrived at both meetings 45 minutes late (this was the first time we've been late, but it's still embarrassing).

The first meeting was with Ningbo PanAm, a manufacturer of safety equipment and apparel.  They make vests and other visible gear for customers such as the LA and NY police departments, 3M and Honeywell.  International trade is much more transparent than domestic trade in China.  The owner prefers to deal with international businesses because he doesn't have to do the "dancing and singing" that he does with Chinese firms to build relationships.  We got a tour of their production facility and saw that most of their products are hand manufactured using high-tech sewing machines that, in his words, "learn" based on how you sew.  I'm not sure if that's what he meant to say, but that's what was translated.  The work environment was pretty good, and the 200 employees that work there seemed pretty happy.  The owner was probably also pretty happy, based on the BMW, Mercedes and two guard dogs in the company garage.  He and his employees were very good to us and even served us lunch afterwards.

I should probably note here, that this meeting and the last three after it were done entirely using Amanda Zhou, our student assistant as a translator.  This is quite the job for a student, and despite some difficulties, she has done wonderfully.  Especially is you consider the amount of pressure put on her to have food ordered, hotels reserved, companies contacted and a host of other things.

Our second meeting of the day was at Hangzhou Shengtai, a company that manufactures outdoor equipment such as tents and hunting blinds.  We met with them at the local government building and heard from an official about the region through a video which was in Chinese.  It apparently extolled the virtues of the region and its people, which Amanda helped us get the gist of.  The room was heated, which was pretty great, and then they served us some tea in the normal Chinese style: leaves in the cup and hot water poured into it.  After the government building meeting we took the bus to the manufacturing facility.  Like at the earlier facility, all of the goods were manufactured by hand and sewing machines.  I was less impressed by the worker's conditions at this company though.  It was colder and more dimly lit than previous places and all the labor was manual.  It's definitely not a place that I would like to work at.  What was cool about this company though is that they make a blind just like the one we have for deer hunting.  They have several models of collapsing blinds and a bunch of children's play tents and sell to companies such as Wal-Mart, Cabelas and Dick's which put their own name on the products.  Much of their domestic sales are done online because they have very few stores in China.

The bus ride back was long and dreary, so I slept quite a bit which was nice because we've had some short nights.  When we got back Will, Marshall and I headed out to find a place for some supper.  We walked for a bit before finding a place with reasonable prices and a menu with pictures.  Luckily when we were ordering there was an English speaking Chinese man nearby our table that was able to help us understand that we almost ordered chicken twice (which really wouldn't have been that bad, but the waitress seemed to think we shouldn't) and he told us what to do with the flaming bowl of fat served us next to one of our meat dishes (that was really cool actually, there was a blue pile of what I can only assume was a fat or oil that was burning on our plate, which we could use to heat the meat again before we ate it).  The dinner was quite tasty.  Before heading up to our hotel for a somewhat early bedtime we hit up Casa Miel for a piece of cake for me, a smoothie for Will and a donut for Marshall.

Tonight because of the weather we journaled, I blogged and we watched a movie.  It was nice, quiet and relaxing.  We watched Misery, so at least now I understand the DirecTV commercial.  Tomorrow is another early morning.

Night.

Day 14

We awoke early this morning to the familiar beeping of Jeff's alarm (it's a good thing it came along because we haven't had access to alarms here regularly).  Our breakfast was at the hotel this morning and consisted of a dumpling with meat in it, a doughy ball, fried breadstick like food, boiled eggs and something like cornbread.  It was a very carb-filled morning.

The company meeting today was with ZTE, a telecommunications firm.  We actually met with a representative of ZTESoft, the division that deals with network solutions for cell phone companies.  They provide software and service for business support systems and operational support systems.  There was a bit of confusion among the group as to what this was, which led to some strange questions that kind of confused our host.  What it comes down to is that ZTESoft helps companies like China Mobile (similar to a Verizon or AT&T) manage their network.  They help companies manage customer needs such as landline or mobile phone requests (the hardware which is under operational support) and the business aspect of the contract that people have with China Mobile such as billing (network usage such as data, SMS, MMS and call duration).  I'm pretty sure that people still have no idea what they do, but what it comes down to is that they are a network management company and have no part in the hardware or anything like that (ZTE does, but not the part we visited).  Because of the confusion the meeting was kind of frustrating for the host and for those of us that understood what was going on.  It was still a good meeting though, because I got to learn about an industry that I didn't really know existed before.

Following our meeting we headed to the train station to go to Hangzhou.  It took about four hours and most of the time was spent journaling, reading, sleeping and playing euchre.  We actually went back to Shanghai, then over to Hangzhou which is why it took so long.  A very bad thing happened on the train.  I took out my camera and was monkeying with it when it notified me that the memory card was full.  This cannot be the case, because it is an 8GB card with room for 2000+ pictures, or over an hour of 720p HD video.  I put it in my computer, which couldn't access it or format it either.  I'm pretty sure it's broken.  Very sad.  However, luckily for me (very unluckily for Cedric), Cedric's camera broke and so I can use his 1GB memory card for the rest of the trip.  I can take 200+ pictures with it at my highest setting, which is more than I have taken at one time before uploading to the computer, so I should be fine.  Very unfortunate for Cedric though.  I'm letting him borrow my camera whenever he wants it.

Our hotel in Hangzhou is pretty amazing.  There are robes in the closet and we have internet access, a desk and couch in a large room.  I'm pretty excited about the robes though.  It might be the best part of our trip so far :).  They're even Calvin colors.

We hit the town after most people had a chance to check their e-mails and got some dinner.  There were plenty of places nearby; we sat down to some sweet and sour pork with a spicy chicken-potato-tofu dish and some fried rice.

Hangzhou is known for the beautiful hills, rivers and lakes, so we walked down the street to see the lake at night.  There was a musical fountain presentation going on that, if I may be so bold, rivaled the 4^th of July show in Grand Haven.  It was very picturesque by the waterfront at night, and there were many people sitting in plastic chairs right along the edge watching the show.  After we had seen our fill we headed to the night market.

There's probably a night market in every major city in China, and they're all quite different.  This one had more clothes and goods and less food.  There were knockoff items in all shapes sizes and types.  It was stall after stall of clothing and glasses, blankets and computer peripherals.  I really wasn't looking for anything, but I spied a cool little mini-tripod for my camera when there's no handy ledge.  Initially I had no intention to buy it, but I had to know what the man wanted for it.  He started at ¥65 (which is almost $10 and ridiculous for such an item), so I laughed and continued on, but he said, "Wait!" and asked me for a price.  Just like that I started haggling, got the price down to ¥15 and bought it.  It's quite sturdy and fits my camera well.  I think that for an impulse buy, a $2 tripod that I'll probably use quite a bit can't be too bad.  A little while later we headed back to the hotel room, quite tired and eager to get some sleep to be ready for the two company meetings on Thursday (tomorrow).

Good evening, from Hangzhou.  We'll be here for a few days, so expect a more regular posting schedule.  The connection is good here too.  That will hopefully mean more photos.

Day 13 (3)

Day 13 (2)

Day 13

We were able to sleep in this morning and only got up at 8:30am.  We are provided one morning of breakfast during our two mornings here and Marshall and I planned on using it this morning.  Unfortunately the breakfast ended at 9:00am and we didn't know that.  We hit the streets to find some food instead.  There were many street vendors, and we found a shop that had fried egg with pepperoni on it, which you put into a crispy bread shell.  The man put some spicy sauce on it too.  It was a very interesting and tasty meal.

After breakfast we all headed to the tomb of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.  His life's work was to unify China, and though he didn't succeed in his lifetime, he is honored both by communists and nationalists for his efforts.  The grounds, which are really a national park, are expansive and include his mausoleum, a museum, several scenic areas including a Ming dynasty tomb site and plenty of shops.  All around are rolling hills filled with trees and mountains too.  It reminded me of Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains quite a bit: both the smoky look and the similar topography.  The mausoleum is quite the monument.  The path to it slopes upwards the whole way until you arrive at the stairs.  There are three different structures with similar blue roofs on the way up, punctuated by flights of stairs.  Then finally there is a massive set of stairs, which some of the guys raced up, which leads to the mausoleum site and rear gardens.  There is a large statue of the doctor and behind it in a circular room with a high ceiling, no pictures allowed, is the actual tomb/box/sarcophagus.  We headed down the many flights of stairs to go to the museum.  Our allotted time to see the whole complex was two hours, which wasn't nearly enough.  We saw plenty though still.  On the way to the bottom, Kurt and I were stopped by a young lady for a picture (this time I actually got a picture on my camera as well).

Moments after that though, my favorite part of the trip came.  A little boy was descending the steps with his parents and when they walked in front of the bench we were on, his mother encouraged him to say the A, B, C's for us.  He counted to ten (kind of) a few times and sang the A, B, C song for us.  He might have been the cutest little kid I have seen so far.  There are quite a number of them though, in China.  I was able to quickly turn on my camera when he started, so I have video of the whole thing, in HD!  That excited me most.  It would be prohibitive to post the video on the blog, but I'll probably put it on YouTube when I get back in the States and link to it from the blog (as well as the other videos I've taken).  The boy had on a shirt that said something to the effect of, "The giraffe openned[sic] the forest to the party!"  He and his parents were pretty cool (the mum spoke English pretty well).

When we had completed our descent to the main level, we hopped aboard a choo-choo train like shuttle to go to the museum.  However, the train took us to the entrance of the park then left us.  Amanda, Tim and Kurt took a car-ride with some guy that was at the bottom (taxi maybe?) to get to the museum, but since we only had 30 minutes left the rest of us decided to wait for another shuttle that would take us to the top.  We waited for the group to assemble, and then headed back to the hotel in the bus.  I forgot to mention earlier, but we're staying in a traditional Chinese inn.  It's a very interesting place with larger halls and corridors indoors.  Though it's not open to the outside in most places, there are enough openings to make the inside part (except for the rooms) quite chilly because it's not heated.

Back at the hotel, a group of us assembled to find some lunch and visit a Confucian temple/teaching site nearby.  Yang, Nana, Luke, Brennan, Sarah, Will, Anna, Julie and I found a restaurant that served a dumpling with pork inside.  Most of the rest of the group had eaten it before on the trip, but it was new to me, and like most foods it tasted very good.  We also had some tofu and ham strips.  Don't think tofu slabs, but more like spaghetti tofu.  Not bad at all.  After our lunch we hit the Confucian temple.

The temple required ¥30 to get in, but it was worth it.  In the past it had been a center of Confucian study and place of worship.  While we were there, a woman was even praying in one of the main buildings.  There were two traditionally styled buildings in the complex with large amounts of jade art and pictures made in jade.  The architecture in places like this, and the Forbidden City, is always very beautiful and I can't get enough of it.  It's all very intricate and ornate.

There was an elementary school right next door, so we watched them for a bit having recess.  Basketball is pretty popular there and there were a number of kids playing it.

We walked around the city for a while after that.  Luke and I had gotten separated from Brennan and Yang, so we just kind of wandered.  There was a food market nearby, so we went to check that out.  It was quite the place, full of every kind of food and things that shouldn't be eaten.  There were pig snouts and tails, whole ducks with respective parts, nuts and candies of all kinds.  Strangely, there were many infomercial-like booths around.  It was like a trade-fair with mops and dusters being shown along-side window washing kits and massive chunks of unidentifiable meat.  After our market foray we headed back to the hotel for some journaling, reading and writing before dinner.

Guests joined us for dinner tonight.  Professor Si's younger brother, his wife and their two year-old son ate with the engineers and predominately women's tables, respectively.  The third table was staffed by Professor VanDrunen and consisted of mostly the other guys in the group.  As an engineering student I sat with Mr. Si, along with the other engineering students, Prof. Jen and Yang for translation.  He spoke some English, and I'm sure his writing and reading are excellent, but largely we needed Yang to translate.  At some points our discussion became a little too technical for Yang's Chinese (though he's native there are words he doesn't know, just like in English there are words we don't know), but he did a fine job overall.  Mr. Si is our Professor Si's younger brother; he is a mechanical/electrical engineer, working for ZTE a telecom company in China (we will visit them tomorrow).  He has a master's degree and did his thesis on the mechanics of robotics (that was the general translation).  It was a nice dinner and despite the language barrier we were able to ask some pretty decent questions.  Yang even learned a bit about 3 and 4G networks (third and fourth generation wireless networks) in China.

After dinner there was a playful chicken fight on the sidewalk between Tim and Julie, and Kurt and Marshall.  A bunch of Chinese people gathered around to watch, it was quite funny.  Before that Julie (the smallest) carried Tim (the largest) on her back; it was pretty impressive.  Then some of us called a taxi and headed to a part of the old city wall.  We went to a part that the Japanese had fought to take when they massacred and raped the city in the years before WWII.  Though we arrived a bit late, the people in the gatehouse agreed to let us in for an extended period of time at reduced cost.  It was dark, but there was still plenty to see, and photos to take.  We explored a bit in the dark and took plenty of pictures.  Part of the way through, I realized that the manual setting I had been using for longer exposures was still set to manual focus from earlier when Cedric was using it.  I don't think it affected many pictures, and I changed it to autofocus right away, so the rest of them were a bit sharper.  We called another taxi to take us back to the hotel after taking a few pictures by the river.

There was an internet café nearby that someone wanted to use, so we dropped them off before going inside the hotel to play Rook then go to bed.  Again, astonishingly, I did very poorly at it.  Amanda was my partner and we won only one round.  We only played five rounds then separated to get our stuff packed in order to be ready for checkout in the morning.  That's pretty much all she wrote.  Tomorrow brings a company meeting (ZTE) and then a train to Hangzhou, where we will stay until Monday.  I think we will have free internet access there, so there might be quite a few blog posts where there had been none for a few days.  Sorry about that.

Good night from Nanjing.