Spring

It's official. It is spring in China. How do I know this? It is not by the calendar or the moon phase. China determines it is spring when the temperature reaches 10 degrees Celsius for 5 consecutive days. It finally did that this week. While the US has been enjoying a mild winter and early spring it has been the exact opposite here in China. A longer, colder and wetter winter then in years. Wouldn't you know that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time again!

It takes the Chinese awhile to act like it is spring it seems. While Mark and I were out this weekend enjoying the weather and thinking we should have put shorts on, the Chinese were still wearing their winter jackets and wrapped in scarves. I think they really are still just chilled to the bone and they are still trying to thaw out. It is very rare to be warm here in China during the winter. The "moist cold" really is bone chilling. The stores in China don't use heat in the winter and these people must really freeze. The first floor of our mall is just like being outdoors and the poor store workers wear their winter jackets and gloves. I can't imagine being that cold everyday all day long for hours, and who knows if they go home to heat or not.

Anyways...I'm enjoying the sun and just have some fun pictures to share.

Their laundry gets hung out to dry all winter long. They are very creative.

Kids playing Majong,

They have interesting ways of carrying their babies around.

Little one wanting to play cards with the grown ups.

John's Hopkins University Hospital ordered 150 bears to sell as a fund raisers for Heart to Heart here in Shanghai.



View from our apartment

View from our apartment

Apartment building next to ours. Laundry day.

Apartment along the river.

Poor living area along the river

Terrible living conditions

Mark wanted to stop and watch the boats being unloaded

Nice walking area along the river. There are not a lot of areas like this. See the dark blue building in the middle of the picture? That is a hotel building right next to our apartment and it is always our land mark so we can find our way home. Mark calls it "the big ugly"

Carrefour

As you have figured out by now going to the grocery store here in China is not one of my favorite activites. Sara sent us our smaller camera so I decided to try to take some pictures without too many people noticing or getting in trouble from the staff. Last time we attempted to take some pictures we got yelled at by a staff person. Even if you don't understand the language if a person starts yelling at you, you still kinda get the message.

Hard to see but this area you can buy this meat...it may be sausage. None of it is wrapped and it stays room temperature forever. People love to walk by and touch this lovely display.

One of 3 aisles of Soy Sauce. Didn't know you could have so many choices.

One of 3 aisles of vegetable oil. Huge bottles. You should see people luging these out. Some weigh more then the Chinese.

Rice station. People love to run their hands thru the rice. Just scoop some up and put it in a bag or you can buy the larger bags that are sitting there. Some smaller bag are pre packaged. They love their rice.

Fresh frogs just waiting to be eaten. Bins of these. Right next to them are small snakes. I don't know why that picture didn't turn out, but you can imagine.

Most of their meat isn't packaged and people pick through and find the right one. I'm not real sure what this is...don't really like to think about it too much.

Chicken feet. They love their chicken feet. Mark has eaten some over lunch with his co workers. Not sure why...he can blog about what they are like. Again people dig through these to get the best ones. I even saw one lady throw a frozen clump of them on the floor to try to break them apart and then of course put back the ones she didn't want. Just another day in the grocery store.

Pigs feet. Need I say more?

Cars and Drivers

Yesterday I was in a very, very minor traffic accident. Only took 6 months. I really have thought it would have occurred many times before this. This was so minor it took me awhile to realize we were actually bumped. It just felt like someone slammed the trunk really hard. Xiao Zhu and I were only about one block away from the hospital that I do some of my volunteer work. We were stopped at a light and actually were stopped for about one minute before the little bump. With all the crazy driving that goes on around here this was not a time I thought this would happen. I didn't say anything and just stayed in the car. Our driver Xiao Zhu calmly got out and talked with the other driver. Who came out of his car talking on his cell phone...figures. They only chatted briefly before the other driver handed over 100 RMB (which is less then $20). Xiao Zhu then got in the car and told me "it's okay" and then drove off. I wanted to say" wait tell me all about what went on there" but didn't. As I got of the car to go into the hospital I took a look at the bumper and couldn't see a thing. So what was the 100 RMB for? Do you have to report this? Is the money for a deductible or is our driver just going to pocket the money? So many questions and never will be any answers. I wonder if he knew that I saw the money exchange?
I later called Mark and explained what happened. I know the car is the drivers responsibility but I didn't know if Mark should question anybody about this...guess not.

My friends driver was in a fight last week. He dropped her off at a grocery store parking ramp on a Friday afternoon. When she came out with her bags, she called him and he answered stating that he was in the hospital as he was knocked down. She got a taxi to go home in and when they tried to find out what happened they received very little information. All that they could determine was that there was a fight, and it was all caught on camera and their driver was in the hospital for about one week as he needed some surgery on his head. They think they were fighting over a parking spot or something but will never know. They had substitute drivers all week and really missed their driver as they have had him for about 5 years now.

Mark's Writings - Running with the Bikers in China

I run outside only twice per week, and run the stairways and treadmill other days.   There are 510 stairs leading to our apartment.  That's 33 floors, minus all floors containing the number 4 which leaves 30 floors total.   The number 4 scares the crap out of the Chinese, so they eliminated floors 4, 14, and 24.    Outdoors, I either run numerous laps around ZhongShan Park, weaving around crowds of people, or preferably, I run straight west on Chang'Ning road.  On Chang'Ning, the sidewalks are too cluttered to get a good pace going, so I run in the mo-ped lane with the bikers.  I pass several of them.  I'm a bit of a spectacle I'm sure.  On more than one occasion, curious natives have run alongside me... they only last a few blocks.  I know enough Chinese to say hello: "ni hao, zao shong hao, wo shi mei guo ren"...that’s all I got.  I don’t understand any of their responses.  In the bike lane, it’s mostly bikers and they don’t talk at all.  Biking is not a sport here.  These are real bikers... they bike because they don't have a car or mo-ped.  Their bikes are old and rusty.  Some have little electric motors on them.  Some have three wheels, carrying welding machines, pipes, recycled trash, children, and spouses.  Live chickens go to market by bike.   I respect the lane as their space, and stay out of their way.   I'm training for the Great Wall Marathon near Beijing, in May2012.  It's going to be a bit of a challenging marathon, with over 5000 stair steps; about half of the course is actually on the Great Wall.

Mark's Writings - How Did I Get Here ?

Now that I’ve been here for 5 months, it’s a good time to look back and figure out how it happened that I moved to the other side of the world on a moment’s notice.  It wasn’t really a spur of the moment decision.  Both Susan and I had considered overseas living in the past, and we anguished over this opportunity for a week or so.  The life-timing of it couldn’t be better: kids are adults, no grandchildren (and none on the immediate horizon, as far as we know).   My new job is great!  I’ve got a view of about 1/3 of the company’s manufacturing in APAC, multiple $Bil in sales value of production (no secret, that’s in our annual report).  It is by far the broadest job I’ve ever had, and is a challenge to decide which opportunities to pursue.  I am by no means an executive, so I spend a lot of my time influencing, learning and teaching.  I bring a 3M-USA experienced perspective and learn what I can from the Asian subsidiaries.   

We have to admit that Shanghai is an easy lifestyle for us!  We have housekeeping 3 days a week and a personal driver (we ride in the back, like rock stars).   Our driver, Xiao Zhu, is at our service 24/7.  He opens the car door for us; the guards at the apartment open the building door, and then hustle to call an elevator for us, and press #33 to get us to the right apartment.   When we get back to the USA, we'll be helpless, won't remember how to drive a car or open a door. 

In the past ½ year, I haven’t bought a gallon of gas, cleaned a bathroom, driven a car, shoveled/raked/swept anything...but we also, haven’t seen a jet-blue sky like a sunny, January day in Minnesota, haven’t had a Sam Adams or really good pizza, in 6 Asian countries we haven’t found a place without shoulder-to-shoulder people, and haven't seen our kids other than on Skype.  Life in the USA is very tough to beat, in-total we have not seen anything yet in Asia that compares favorably.   God Bless America!