Hong Kong Here We Come!

11:05 PM Beijing:

Ni Hao!  Leah and I take off for Hong Kong in less than 6 hours! Ah!  We have a ton of packing, cleaning, and follow-up to do before we leave but I just thought I would post some pictures from our trip today.  

http://picasaweb.google.com/schragoo/GreatWall

Brief synopsis of our trip:

Got up early, missed our bus. Hopped in a random person's car that took us to our bus. Wound up at a Wax museum of the Ming Dynasty. Then they took us shopping. Went to go see "a monster". Touched his ears (yes!), hands, then rear end (just like everyone else). Then they took us shopping (jade this time). Went to the GREAT WALL! Had only two hours :-/ . Then they took us shopping (food! - I dropped some yuan at this one). Went to one of the Ming tombs. Then they took us to the Bird's Nest. :-)

All the while we had a tour guide that spoke ZERO English save occasionally repeating "Thank You" in somewhat of a mocking tone. We did however meet two guys: Cris and Raymond that were our unofficial translators for the trip. Thanks guys!

Catch you all next in some sunnier weather!

Sān Ling Sì! Sān Ling Sì! 三零四 Take 2

Friday, January 15, 2010

12:20 A.M. BEIJING – Hello all…  Yes, that is Mandarin I write to you.  Fortunately Google can automatically translate that stuff for me (can you imagine me trying to write that middle character? I failed handwriting class in fifth grade, that would take me years to learn), but I have been able to pick up a few characters.  Bei and Jing for instance: 北京.  Bei means North, and Jing is city. It's nice to know that the back of the shirt I designed for my Grosse Point North classmates at senior year homecoming is legit even if the sleeve isn't - right Tom Bogen?  ;-). 

So we have now presented at two Chinese schools (in Anshan) and two international schools here in Beijing.  While it may be uninformative to say that these schools were very different from those back home – I must reiterate- they were.  The Chinese schools with no heat in -20 degree weather. The international schools with pleasant streams running through them. The Chinese schools with huge outdoor bathrooms, with troughs bigger (and dirtier) than the bins at the Big House.  The International schools with marble sinks in their bathrooms that smelled of summer.

The drastic differences in the schools here really didn't concern me much until now, as I see it written down. The thing that HAS stuck out to me the most is the seemingly indifferent attitudes (and I am generalizing here) Asian students have displayed - not necessarily to our message but more towards taking the time to help others.  It's very interesting to see the lack of excitement at the prospect of helping others, but it begins to make sense when you look at the priorities they are given and maybe the lack of resources they have.

For the Chinese schools, it's time.  They are in school until 7:00 or 8:00 at night almost every day. The students are so entrenched in their schooling that it is very difficult to get them to see beyond it, and they are far from encouraged to do so by anyone- especially their teachers and parents.  They are told to focus on school, and that's it. They dream to be engineers, doctors and lawyers, and anything that can distract them from those goals is considered frivolous. Even elementary school students have developed this seemingly closed mindset. 

 As for the International schools, I have yet to figure them out. They, for one, are by no means short on funds.  One of them seems very active in a ton of different service projects and has even hired a "Global initiatives coordinator" for the students to go to when they want to start a fundraising activity.  The other is still relatively new and is having problems getting certain programs off the ground – but we ran into some very interesting dynamics where students refused to participate in some of the goofy activities we do and hesitated to speak in front of each other. I am beginning to think it stemmed from the fact that the majority of the students in the workshop were Asian and probably adhere to the same sentiments of the Chinese schools. Perhaps by explaining to them that initiating projects like this will help them with their college applications they will begin to understand the importance Western culture places on being well-rounded and begin to start implementing their own projects.  I also see our tour as a great way to start the ball rolling with these kids. Every little activity that we do to open their eyes just a little is a step in the right direction.  No pun intended.  Alright maybe it was a little, I couldn't help myself.

So enough about that.  I got had for 60 yuan (12 dollars) yesterday by two girls wanting to "practice their English" with me.  I knew darn well what was going on when they said they wanted to go to a coffee shop and yet I still went.  Fortunately, I knew I only had about 60 yuan in my pocket so they couldn't nab me for more than that and in the end I got the last laugh as they were stuck footing the rest of the 280 yuan bill. 

Also, yesterday we went around the Forbidden City and walked past a market were you could basically find anything you wanted (many things you wouldn't) to eat.  Today we booked a trip to this wall they keep talking about and tomorrow (well, today now) we have our last speech till our first in Hong Kong on Monday.  I believe my photos just updated and you can find them here:http://picasaweb.google.com/schragoo/ForbiddenCityCIS

Goodnight! 

Sān Ling Sì! Sān Ling Sì! 三零四 (304)

Friday, January 15, 2010

12:20 A.M. BEIJING – Hello all…  Yes, that is Mandarin I write to you.  Fortunately Google can automatically translate that stuff for me (can you imagine me trying to write that middle character? I failed handwriting class in fifth grade, that would take me years to learn), but I have been able to pick up a few characters.  Bei and Jing for instance: 北京.  Bei means North, and Jing is city. It's nice to know that the back of the shirt I designed for my Grosse Point North classmates at senior year homecoming is legit even if the sleeve isn't - right Tom Bogen?  ;-). 

So we have now presented at two Chinese schools (in Anshan) and two international schools here in Beijing.  While it may be uninformative to say that these schools were very different from those back home – I must reiterate- they were.  The Chinese schools with no heat in -20 degree weather. The international schools with pleasant streams running through them. The Chinese schools with huge outdoor bathrooms, with troughs bigger (and dirtier) than the bins at the Big House.  The International schools with marble sinks in their bathrooms that smelled of summer.

The drastic differences in the schools here really didn't concern me much until now, as I see it written down. The thing that HAS stuck out to me the most is the seemingly indifferent attitudes (and I am generalizing here) Asian students have displayed - not necessarily to our message but more towards taking the time to help others.  It's very interesting to see the lack of excitement at the prospect of helping others, but it begins to make sense when you look at the priorities they are given and maybe the lack of resources they have.

For the Chinese schools, it's time.  They are in school until 7:00 or 8:00 at night almost every day. The students are so entrenched in their schooling that it is very difficult to get them to see beyond it, and they are far from encouraged to do so by anyone- especially their teachers and parents.  They are told to focus on school, and that's it. They dream to be engineers, doctors and lawyers, and anything that can distract them from those goals is considered frivolous. Even elementary school students have developed this seemingly closed mindset. 

 As for the International schools, I have yet to figure them out.  They, for one, are by no means short on funds.  One of them seems very active in a ton of different service projects and has even hired a "Global initiatives coordinator" for the students to go to when they want to start a fundraising activity.  The other is still relatively new and is having problems getting certain programs off the ground – but we ran into some very interesting dynamics where students refused to participate in some of the goofy activities we do and hesitated to speak in front of each other. I am beginning to think it stemmed from the fact that the majority of the students in the workshop were Asian and probably adhere to the same sentiments of the Chinese schools. Perhaps by explaining to them that initiating projects like this will help them with their college applications they will begin to understand the importance Western culture places on being well-rounded and begin to start implementing their own projects.  I also see our tour as a great way to start the ball rolling with these kids. Every little activity that we do to open their eyes just a little is a step in the right direction.  No pun intended.  Alright maybe it was a little, I couldn't help myself.

So enough about that.  I got had for 60 yuan (12 dollars) yesterday by two girls wanting to "practice their English" with me.  I knew darn well what was going on when they said they wanted to go to a coffee shop and yet I still went.  Fortunately, I knew I only had about 60 yuan in my pocket so they couldn't nab me for more than that and in the end I got the last laugh as they were stuck footing the rest of the 280 yuan bill. 

Also, yesterday we went around the Forbidden City and walked past a market were you could basically find anything you wanted (many things you wouldn't) to eat.  Today we booked a trip to this wall they keep talking about and tomorrow (well, today now) we have our last speech till our first in Hong Kong on Monday.  I believe my photos just updated and you can find them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/schragoo/ForbiddenCityCIS

Goodnight! 

PS - Do you like my picture? 

PPS - The title of this post is the room number I am in that I need to ask for every time we travel in and out of this hostel.  Definitely have that down.

Pictures!

Should be here: http://picasaweb.google.com/schragoo/Anshan 

I hope.  Goodnight!

And I thought Italian driving was bad...

Monday, January 11, 2010

3:51 PM ANSHAN –

Greetings from the backseat of our special Volkswagon sedan en route back "home" (as Leah so referred to it today) to Beijing.  As I type this we are flying past cars at 180 km/m giving a simple honk as we pass cars to let them know we are coming.  I feel surprisingly safe with William as our driver, but this is very much emblematic of my experiences abroad: Me in the backseat of a car unsure of the traffic codes and/or our destinations. We keep getting our picture taken by speed cameras.  I wave, William ducks.  It's quite fun. 

The past 24 hours has been a whirlwind tour.  We woke up early yesterday, ready for our journey to Anshan.  As soon as Borja arrived, true to form, the first thing he said to us was: "Alright guys, change of plans…"  haha. Apparently, our flight home wasn't booked properly so we audibled and jumped into William's car for the five hour drive.  By the time we get home (late tonight) we will have driven easily over 11 hours, delivered two speeches and eaten four HUGE sit-down meals in a span of 30 hours.  Not bad, eh?

While highlights of the trip included meeting our accountant Victor's sister, our four-star hotel suite, working with Leah until late adapting our speech, and a caramelized potato dish that I am surprised isn't more popular in the US, I think the best way to describe my experience in Anshan is through pictures. So before my battery dies I hope to download and tag most of my pictures from this trip so I can upload them when I get back to the hostel in Beijing. Until the next time, Ganbaei! 

Change of Plans

Saturday, January 9, 2010

10:23 PM – BEIJING

Yes, Beijing!  Some of my more astute readers may observe that Beijing is not the city I should be updating from at this point in our venture. And, yes, they should be correct had not plans change by the minute on this tour.   As Leah and I were eating breakfast yesterday morning we received a text from William and Borja saying that our schools for Saturday and Sunday were going to be cancelled due to a blizzard rolling through the Anshan province. 'What luck!' We both thought as we had been fretting over the amount of material that needed to be changed and the lack of time necessary to make those changes. 'Now we have time to work!'

And then we hit up the Lonely Planet book to figure out what we could do for the day. Did we want to do the Great Wall? What about the Forbidden City? How about trying to find a market? Let's do ALL of that.  Oh, and now that we don't have to work tomorrow, let's go clubbing tonight!  Yes!

We ended up staying in the hostel and catching up on e-mails and such until Borja came and took us to the Temple of Heaven. We spent most of the day walking around in the freezing cold watching the older Chinese men playing cards while the women danced. We watched the old mix with the young in games of hacky sack. We caught up on each others' lives and spoke to each other through opposite ends of long walls.  We froze our butts off and warmed them up in a pearl market where I haggled my first piece of merchandise (a replica Breitling Navigator watch) down from 1000 RMB (Yuan) to 250 RMB (roughly 36 USD).

After deciding I still probably spent too much for it, we went to eat, where we trusted Borja to get us something edible. After a bowl of noodles bigger than our heads and some red-sauced eggplant meal we went back to the market where I picked up a couple of iPod covers (including a Michael Jackson one!) for pretty cheap.  Relative to the US price that is.

After a long day of dancing with older ladies, yelling down walls, and pushing for bargains, we decided that work could wait and that we wanted to go out after a quick nap. So Leah and I got back to our hostel around 6:00pm, set our alarms for 9:00, and put our heads on the pillow.

9:00 Came and went. So did ten. And so on until 1:30 AM when we got a little bit of wind to us and decided to text Borja to find out if any places were still open.  Borja was passed out, too.  Well, I'm fine with sleeping a little more, how about you, Leah? Yup…

Next thing I know is its 6:00am.

I headed down to the "recreation room" (which is just a TV room) where I sat and watched a funny little white guy on the piano and figured out how to upload pictures.  Finally, I was interrupted by a self-proclaimed former Navy Seal from Texas named Wiley who was on the run from the US government. His stories we consistently intriguing, graphic, and for all I know 100% true, but I felt compelled to leave him in order to wait for Leah to wake up. Fortunately, she woke when I entered the room and I greeted her with some of the one-liners I had just heard that would not be gentlemanly of me to reprint here.  Suffice it to say, Wiley did manage to give me some advice on Chinese women.

From then on, Leah and I spent our ENTIRE DAY working on our presentation. We arrived at Bookworms (our fake office) before 9:30am and didn't leave until 6:00 when William picked us up to take us to the printer and then out to dinner where we feasted in a very nice restaurant. Duck, chicken, potatoes, tofu, soup, eggplant, mushrooms, and a handful of other dishes I had no idea what was in them filled the entire table around us.

We ate our fill

And drank some beer

Caught up with Will

And had some cheer!

 

Now the night has come, and the new day brings new travel.  We will still be going to the Anshan province – this time we should be a go. I hate to admit but despite the 12 hours of sleep I had last night, I still feel like I'm a goner as soon as I lay down. And that's exactly what I plan now to do!  I hope you enjoy the pictures and Thank you to Mrs. Schrage's class – we will be working on answering all of your questions as soon as we can!

 

Yao Ming,

Steve

 

Tienanmen Square

Friday, January 8, 2010 

1:00 AM BEIJING - Ni Hao-dee ya'll!  I am writing from my hostel bed in Beijing where I am doing head nods trying to stay awake. We just got back from a dinner meeting with Borja and his wife after having spent the day exploring Tienanmen Square.  If I had two words to describe the square I would use: Quite Large.  Other than that, perhaps due to the lack of history I was privy to, the square itself didn't have as huge an impact on me as the people inside of it.  

The many and varied faces that we saw were mostly all of Asian descent (very few Caucasian) and all seemed to be very friendly and willing to talk to the two of us despite the fact that no one knew more than four words in the other language.  Leah and I regularly joke that we are work boyfriend and girlfriend and when we are on the road outside of our workshops it is never more evident. Especially when people treat us that way - taking our pictures, going out to eat, etc.  It's funny, eh?

Highlights of the day included: 

- A HUGE TV screen in the subway stop close to us that when I walked in had an advertisement featuring Jackie Chan (which made my day). We have decided to include him in our speech.

- ON the subway, when you looked outside, projected onto the walls as you passed were full color advertisements that even though I couldn't read a character were pretty neat and caught my attention.

- The snow on the ground and the thousands of people walking around taking pictures.

- KFC for lunch.  Can't beat fried chicken. Plus, I braved duck skin last night - I think I am entitled to have western food while I still can in the big city.

- The Zhengyangmen Gate - a 600 year old building with all four floors recently opened to the public in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Chinese government.

- 16 million people.  That was the theme for today and the answer to almost every question we had:  Why is the subway so crowded at 2:00?  Why would anyone want to eat dog?  What is with all of these honking horns?!

- The "Bookworm" bookstore / western restaurant where essentially Borja and William post up for meetings (otherwise they work out of their apartments).  They had a large collection of English books to be read at your leisure and provided a very nice/chill atmosphere for us to work on our powerpoint and presentation.

Tomorrow (correction-) TODAY we will be heading to a more rural area where we are going to present speeches Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Tomorrow we embark on the "short" four hour train ride to get there.  I am not sure if the Internet will be readily available but I hope to update when possible.  Also,  I have attached two pictures.  (I do not know if they will upload properly).  The first, of Borja, Leah, myself, and our Club Penguin friend we named "Chip" in our office (aka hostel) this morning.  The second is of me and Chip in front of a big portrait of this guy.  Please note that I am partial to the politics of peace and do not intend to make any political statements by this photo, but rather I was drawn to it's imposing presence in the square and wanted a picture, darnit!    Plus, everyone else was doing it.

Thank you for all of your comments! Thanks to Danny I think they will be sent to my e-mail from now on. We shall see. Lastly, Aunt Chris, do we really have Pittsburgh and Detroit in our blood?  And we dare to dream of becoming "wine attachés" in a European country?  That is a hefty order, zia. Madonna mia. Ciao ciao!

They are watching...

Thursday, January 7, 2010 – 2:48 A.M. CST (Local) – BEIJING

Hi again!  It is now quarter to 3 A.M. local time here in Beijing and I can't sleep!  I managed to get about four hours in so far but I thought I would try and update real quick.  Unfortunately, I won't be able to respond to many (or any) comments because they have many blogging sites blocked - but I should still be able to post.  Just don't tell anyone.

Alright I have no idea where to begin so I am just going to plunge in.  Our colleagues William and Borja were waiting with smiling faces after we went through customs yesterday which was probably the best feeling of the trip so far. Leah and I weren't entirely sure they knew which flight we were on and we hadn't officially confirmed they were going to pick us up. Needless to say we were a little apprehensive. After formulating several gameplans in the event they weren't there, it was a relief to know we weren't going to have to implement them.  It was also a great relief to talk to Borja who is taking the driver's seat for our tour and essentially hosting Leah and me for the next three weeks. 

A little bit about Borja.  I met Borja several months back during our We Day bonanza (that's a good word to describe it right now).  We were able to hang out a little and he explained to me a little bit about his life.  Born in Spain, raised in Holland, has lived in China for just about 5 years now (he is 25) and is recently married to a girl of Chinese/Korean (I think) decent.  I hope to meet her soon.  Borja's Chinese is surprisingly good – though he is modest about it – and is a very REAL person.  The two hours we spent with him earlier this evening has given us a greater perspective of the task at hand then the past four months.  It is also nice to know that he has a fantastic grasp of the situation and presents it to us in a very blunt and unassuming manner.  Leah and I both work best when things are not sugar-coated for us.

What we NOW know:  We have 10 schools booked!  Borja has been able to secure several more speaking engagements INCLUDING three in a city where William and our accountant Victor are from in Northeastern China.  The name of the city escapes me but apparently they make a lot of steel there so in my mind I have already likened it to Pittsburgh – a city I have never visited but have somehow managed to form a memory of.  Funny how that works.   Maybe it's transferred like a memory from the pensieve in Harry Potter.  I digress…

I think the biggest challenge at this point is going to be introducing these children to a concept that is very foreign to them: thinking on their own.  Borja explained the schools here as very disciplined no-nonsense environments that are very mechanical and deliberate with their curriculum. That way of learning is very much in contrast to the message our organization and workshops attempt to foster, though I would also argue the two methods to be complimentary.  A steady regiment of both deliberate and freeform education, I believe, promotes disciplined creativity which can be beneficial to all professions.  Mostly Borja is just excited to have us here – as a pretext for engaging schools that were not previously committed to fundraising for FTC.  The three of us will be going to schools in Hong Kong (a place none of us have been) and most likely will be presenting a brief summary of our involvement in China to employees at the Disneyland offices for Club Penguin – as a way for them to better understand the philanthropic undertakings of their corporation.   

Lastly, Big Brother is watching.  Everywhere.  And just like a sibling, interferes with everyday life.  I haven't been here for that long but government involvement in everyday life is VERY apparent.  From the minute we walked out of the airport and saw hundreds of people shoveling the streets to get rid of the snow to walking into the hostel and staring at a machine that reads your body temperature and alerts an authority if you have a fever (remnants, Borja said, of the Bird Flu that raised alarm several years ago).   It is also very evident in regards to the internet.  The Chinese proxy doesn't allow for facebook, youtube, blogger, etc.  It also didn't allow me to view anything from CNN.  It is a strange feeling waiting for a website to load knowing that either a person or a machine is deciding whether or not I should be allowed to view the page I am trying to access. Also,  as I have just experienced, I must be careful about what I say- apparently using the terms "freedom" and "American Hero" (two very commonly used expressions in my personal everyday chats) will lose you g-chat and g-mail privileges. I hope they let me back on so I can send this out!

Until the next time, friends!

Steve