UWMBA Exchange

Chinese crutches

2008-12-04T16:53:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone back in Seattle. I guess I'm writing this right at the end of the term so I wish everyone good luck on exams. Here is a picture of the progression of Shanghai from old to modern to mega-city.

So what's new in Shanghai? Well, unfortunately I found that the only crutches available in the local hospital are still too short for me. I'm going to a school called CEIBS here and was part of their cursed soccer team. In just 5 games our team got a broken ankle, a chipped tooth, 12 stitches above the eye and a strained ligament. I was the strained ligament. So our team has successfully completed an overall assessment of the Shanghai healthcare system. Anyway, we did win the tournament so are the best MBA soccer team in Shanghai.

My classes have been super interesting mostly because of my classmates. CEIBS is a small school and half of the class goes away on exchange which means there are about 65 other exchange students from Canada, USA, South America, Spain, Hungary, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia etc. A group of Mexican students organized a great American Thanksgiving for all of us. We imported a real turkey (they don't have turkeys in China) which cost about $150 but it was worth it. We also had another event where we went to watch the Shanghai Tennis Masters Cup and saw Federer lose and Andy Murray crush Andy Roddick.

It is also interesting the number of large companies that are recruiting at CEIBS. I read a stat that about 480/500 Fortune 500 companies are in China right now. So there is a large demand for management that is fluent in English. So although, China is also feeling the financial crunch, my Chinese classmates are still receiving many offers from companies desperate to improve their Chinese presence. And the salary offers are rapidly approaching the level a US MBA might look to receive. Unfortunately for me, the companies also need native Chinese speakers... and that's not me.

The city of Shanghai still amazes me. I visited last December and saw a huge half finished building in the new downtown core. Well, just a few months later it is finished and is the 2nd tallest building in the world next to Taipei 101. And a few days ago, the started on a new building that supposedly will be taller than Taipei 101. So three of the tallest 7 buildings in the world all within walking distance. Actually a little scary considering the events in Mumbai last week.

I haven't travelled so much other than one bike trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou. (360 km) And that was a very interesting trip. You can ask me in January when I come back about getting lost on the freeway and then my tire that fell off. But as I left the downtown core of Shanghai and rode through the countryside which is basically the world's factory I gained a different perspective of China. Namely that there is no public garbage control when you leave the city limits. So everyone just throws garbage on the ground and lets it rot there. I remember stopping for a snack at a farm and saw a stream full of garbage. Just about the stream full of garbage were the vines from all the vegetables that the farm was growing. Makes me think twice about the food I eat in the restaurant.

Anyway, I do miss my time in Seattle and will take any Qmeth notes that people are thinking about burning. See you in January!!

Geoffrey

Swiss-style Fall Forum And Recent Travels

2008-11-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

Many wonderful things have happened over here since that last time I posted. While all of you were busily networking to land jobs and internships at Fall Forum 2008, Trevor and I were doing a little networking of our own. That's right, UZH also has a fall forum (of sorts) that they put on. How does it compare you say? Well, to be honest, it doesn't. At this Fall forum, there were four(!) firms - Ernst & Young, IBM, Credit Suisse, and McKinsey&Co.

Now, all of these firms are very well known and very respectable. but I.M.O. this was not a very good networking opportunity. There were not very many options for students and the company representatives were only moderately interested in meeting us/helping us navigate the application process. So, to those of you reading this, be thankful for the BCC and all of their efforts with companies and recruiters. Also, be thankful for the great reputation of our school and our MBA program. I know I am and I will be even more-so when I get back in the States and I start looking for a J O B.

Also, last week it snowed! It was heavy, and it did not last for more than a day, but it was my first snow in Europe. Locals say this is a regular occurrence, and that it is not expected to stick until January. It's hard to think that it was 20 degrees Celsius (~70 F) just a few weeks ago.

As if that weren't enough, we are traveling almost every weekend to a new country to see the sights and experience a new culture. So far we have visited Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France.

As such, my perspectives are being constantly adjusted in ways both big and small. From environmental policy, to work/life balance, to career interests, to social norms, I am beginning to think about issues from a more global perspective. The biggest change of all is the realization that Europe has a very different pace of life from the US. Everybody knows this back home, but experiencing it first-hand is something entirely different. Christine (the wife) and I have been talking and we both agree that we could easily live and work in Europe at some time in the near future. Of course, the biggest problem, besides finding a job over here, is getting a company to sponsor us and move our important stuff! ...I can only imagine what that would cost if we paid for it ourselves.... So, in the case that we do not get back over here for a while, we will have to visit as many countries on our list as possible - places like Croatia, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and possibly Morocco. The UK and most of Eastern Europe will have to wait until we return. I know it will be tough to go on without me, but I'm sure they'll find a way.

Turkish Norms and Culture

2008-10-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, I clearly had no idea what I was signing up for when I chose to do my exchange program in Turkey. I think it was a combination of seeking adventure and being naive that brought me here.

Turkish norms and culture are very different from the U.S. For starters, the U.S. is a very developed, westernized country and Turkey is a developing, trying-to-be-westernized country. Also, the U.S. is a highly individualistic country and Turkey is a collective society. Just these differences alone have huge implications and make daily life for me challenging because differences come out in even the smallest of events.

The language barrier is by far the thing that makes living here difficult. By not being able to read or speak Turkish, I am essentially illiterate. Living independently and trying to accomplish mundane tasks when you cannot read or speak the language is a tremendous challenge. For example, I went to the grocery store the other day and made the mistake of not taking my Turkish phrase book with me. I needed a shopping cart but did not know where they were so I did hand signals with a guy for about 5mins before he realized what I wanted. I usually make pasta because the foods sold in grocery stores are very different from the U.S. so I make pasta often because that's a food that I actually recognize and know how to make (and don't need to be able to read the cooking instructions on the back). I do my food shopping by examining packaging and looking at pictures. Yogurt milk is very popular here and it is packaged exactly like milk so I accidentally bought yogurt milk instead of milk. The next morning I had it with cereal and was convinced I had bought sour milk until I looked up the words for milk and yogurt milk and realized I bought the wrong thing. I didn't want to waste food so I ended up eating the cereal with sour yogurt milk. I obviously quickly learned the Turkish word for milk.

Turkey and the US are very different in the way people think about things and the way things are done here. The ideas of discipline and structure are not part of Turkish culture. So the idea that someone would create a schedule, stick to it and successfully accomplish what was supposed to be done just doesn't exist here. The reason this doesn't happen is because if a person doesn't stick to the schedule or do what they were supposed to do, there is no one to hold them accountable and the person never feels that it was important anyway. The ideas of accountability and responsibility are completely absent here. This was very difficult for me to grasp when I first started school here because I actually assumed that the people in the administrative offices at school would actually do what they told me they were going to do. I realized I was making assumptions that people feel a sense of responsibility to get my request done; they don't. I was also making the assumption that people enjoy their jobs and are self-motivated to work; they aren't. These were assumptions I had brought with me from the U.S.

People think and operate in completely different ways than they do in the U.S. When someone tells me they are going to do something I just assume that its not going to be done or it will take on average 5 days longer than they originally said it would be completed. There is no trust in transactions between people and so I still wonder to this day how this society manages to operate when the idea of trust does not exist? All the things I've mentioned is part of the reason why things in society either don't operate or they operate with much lower standards for quality and time than they do in the U.S. There is tremendous bureaucracy and inefficiency in the way pretty much everything is done here. From the bus system, to the school registration process to the way people think. It is completely engrained in society.

Since I am a person that thinks logically and tries to do things in an efficient manner, life was very frustrating, stressful and confusing for me during my first month. I can only laugh now at the difficult adjustment I went through and be proud at how much I have adapted. I am way lazier than I am in the U.S. and I don't have the ambition and drive that I do when I am at home. Its not that I want to be this way, its that in order for me to live successfully in this society I have to be this way or I will find myself unhappy all the time if I try to think and operate as if I'm in the U.S.

I have talked to some students here who have done exchange programs in the U.S. or western European countries and some of them loved it and some of them hated it. For those that hated it, they said they did not like all the rules and all the structure and the fact that people were punctual. They said they felt like they had to be a machine and they're not a machine; they're human!

Hello from Istanbul, Turkey!

2008-10-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone in Seattle!

I am also sorry I have not written a post on this blog....I have been crazy busy since I arrived in Istanbul at the beginning of September. I have so much I could write about that I'm just not going to be able to fit it all in so I'll pick and choose certain things. First off, a big shout out to you Aaron for the great post on your experience in Denmark so far!! I was laughing so hard because I can completely relate with so many of the weird travel experiences you have gone through!

Koc Universty

Koc (pronounced Coach) University is a private, non-profit university founded in 1993. The university is supported by the financial resources of the Vehbi Koc Foundation, set up by Vehbi Koc, a leading Turkish businessman. Attending Koc is pretty much like going to any college campus in the U.S. Its students come from very wealthy Turkish families and they are very westernized and super trendy. I cannot believe all the nice cars that the students drive into campus. Koc’s campus is practically brand new and very nice (by U.S. standards). I work out at the gym which is very nice but doesn’t open until 9am!! In Turkey though 9am is considered early (of course).

Koc University is located at the very north of the European side of Istanbul. Its campus is located up on a big hill in the area of Sariyer. It is about a 10min shuttle (dolmus – pronounced dolmus

h)down to my apartment from campus and about a 10min dolmus ride to downtown Sariyer from my apartment. Downtown Sariyer is a small town where fairly conservative Turkish people live. It is not touristy at all and hardly anyone speaks English. I go to downtown Sariyer whenever I want to get away from campus and my apartment. I go there to go grocery shopping and to drink tea (caye –pronounced chai)and walk along the Bosphorus. Its very beautiful and Turkish people love to sit and have caye and stare out at the Bosphorus.

There are about 3,000 students at the university. There are not many graduate or PhD students, but I have met most of the Master’s students. They are all very nice and there are a few Americans doing their Master’s programs here for two years. Its so nice to talk to Americans and native English speakers. The MBA program here is very small. There are only about 30 people per class. There are only two other MBA exchange students here; both are male and one is from Germany and one from India. They also cannot believe the backwards and inefficient manner in which everything is done here so we usually just sit around and laugh as we share out nightmare stories with each other.

While Koc is certainly nice and very modern, I don’t like that its far away from downtown Istanbul. With traffic it takes about an hour to get to various places in the downtown area. I am getting better using public transportation everywhere I go except that the bus drivers never speak any English and I never know how much a bus ride costs. The bus fare depends on how far you go and so I just hand the bus driver 2YTL and he gives me some change. There are no bus schedules posted anywhere nor are there any signs that explain the fare. I’m not surprised. Like everything else about my life here, I have had to embrace riding public transportation as an uncertain adventure. The first two words I had to learn in Turkish in order to get off the bus were dur lutfen! (stop please!). The bus drivers are very crazy and aggressive!

Istanbul

Given that Istanbul is an absolutely beautiful and amazing city but that setting up life here is extremely difficult, I would highly recommend visiting but not living. Unless you want to lose your mind and go crazy. I love Istanbul!! It is everything that everyone told me it was li

ke and more. Istanbul really is where old meets new, where conservative Islam meets liberal Westernism. Everyone looks different – from the skin color to the hair color. I don’t think there is any other place in this world where a Muslim woman is dressed head to toe in black and is walking arm in arm with another woman wearing a tank top, mini skirt and 4 inch heels. That is totally accepted here and no one thinks anything of it. People are free to be religious (although the secular people don’t like the conservative practicing Muslims) or not be religious. Turkey is the only Muslim country in the world that is a secular democracy. 99% of the population is Muslim. It makes for such an interesting and dynamic place.

I do have to keep in mind though that Istanbul is not representative of Turkey as a whole. Istanbul is a very liberal metropolis of 16 million people. The rest of Turkey is extremely conservative. Still there are millions of conservative practicing Muslims living side by side with non-practicing Muslims in Istanbul. At first I could not stop staring at all the women who wear headscarves and now I don’t even notice it. I’ve already had many conversations with students about the religious, political and economic aspects of Turkey and it has been very interesting and insightful.

For anyone that has ever studied or cared about religion, philosophy, politics or history Istanbul is the place to visit. I’ve already visited many of the major historical sites around the city including the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia. I visited the area of Uskudar on the Asian side and I also went to the area of Eyup which is the fourth most holiest place in the world for Muslims. We climbed up to the top of an ancient grave site and had caye at a teahouse overlooking the town and the Bosphorus. It was very conservative with no tourists around and I always carry a headscarf with me because I have to wear one to enter a mosque. I have taken some photos inside mosques, but sometimes I feel uncomfortable doing so because of all the people that are actually praying. I cannot believe the beauty of all the hundreds of mosques around the city. I hear the Muslim call to prayer 5 times a day.

I have already learned so much about the battle between the liberal secularists who want to westernize and modernize Turkey and the conservative Muslims who feel Turkey is loosing its identity and religious roots. It is so fascinating the religious and political struggle that this country is going through right now.

Also, Istanbul is very expensive. I consider the cost of living to be higher than Seattle.

Copenhagen and beyond...

2008-10-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys and Gals,

Let's be honest, I have been very bad at this update thing since I've been away. But, after almost two months, I have come around to writing about my adventures.

Everything feels like a blur since I arrived in Copenhagen on August 21st (I can't believe it’s already been a month and a half). For my first few weeks, I didn't go very far. I spent most of the time getting oriented with the Denmark and the school, meeting all sorts of people (mostly other exchange students from Europe), and exploring the city. It's certainly a beautiful city with a great vibe to it; the people are friendly, it’s very clean, and the culture is great. However, I am happy that this is only a temporary residence for me as it is too flat for my liking (permanently) and super expensive (I've never seen anything like it). Plus, in some ways I feel like I have regressed in life as I am living in a dorm for these 4 and a half months, having to abide by some strict rules set by the building inspector, who conveniently lives on the first floor. I don't think I've ever had a building manager send me an email about keeping my windows shut on a beautiful, sunny day. That's what I've walked into.

Thankfully, as time has moved on, I have explored out of the city. My first two trips were day trips...one to Malmo, Sweden (just across the bridge) and the other to Mons Klint (down south a few hours). Malmo was a beautiful quaint city that felt like a smaller, less expensive version of Copenhagen. While I can now say I've been to Sweden, I want to go to Stockholm to get a better sense of the real Swedish culture. Mons Klint was really beautiful and something I needed after being in Copenhagen for about a month. It is a outdoors area right on the Baltic Sea with chalk cliffs. Luckily we went there on the sunniest day in a week. The trip was great as 11 of us rented two cars to see more of the landscape of Denmark. Then, in the evening time, as we headed back towards Copenhagen, half of us decided to get our full worth out of the cars by making a trip up north an hour to Helsingor. Stupidly, though, we forgot that it was Sunday night and everything would be closed (as it always is in Denmark on a Sunday). We did get a glimpse of Hamlet's castle. It was cool to see in the night time, although I imagine it’s even better during the day and from a closer vantage point.

My next trip came a week later with some fellow University of Washington students. The other two scholarship recipients (one engineering student, Paul, and one architecture student, Roman), our "Danish mother," Marianne, and I went off to the island of Bornholm. Bornholm is part of Denmark, but you have to cross over southern Sweden and take a ferry from there to get to it. Marianne organized this trip, telling us it would be a pleasant time casually riding our bikes around, eating smoked herring, and seeing some sights. Well, she was honest about two of the three. We ate some delicious smoked herring and saw some breathtaking sights, but I wouldn't really consider it a "casual bike ride" at any point. Within a two and a half day period, we rode around the entire islands (approximately 75 miles around). But I guess it was casual for 68 year old Marianne, who kicked my butt on the bicycles, then ran a marathon in Berlin the following weekend. Paul and Roman were fun guys to hang out with. I especially enjoyed Roman's acrobatic move of taking a picture while riding his bike on a curving rode, veering off the rode into a ditch, and landing face first into a pile of fertilizer. Lucky for him (depending on how you look at it), the fertilizer was fresh, so the landing was soft.

A few days after I arrived back in Copenhagen, it was time to prepare for the next trip, Greece and Italy. I went on this adventure alone and, to be honest, had to skip a couple weeks of class in the process. Fortunately all of my homework revolves around reading, which is easy to catch up on.

I landed in Athens on Wed, Sept. 24th around noon, immediately found a hostel, and explored the ancient sites the city has to offer. The Acropolis and some surrounding areas were amazing to see in person, but the city of Athens itself was not that pretty. My impression is that it is an overcrowded city with lots of small crime. I got that impression when, in one day, a Belgian guy staying in my hostel got his backpack stolen, a Japanese guy got his wallet pick-pocketed, and I have some small object thrown past my head when I refused to buy drugs. But, at least I could take refuge in the dorm room I shared with by far the smelliest person I have ever been in close quarters with. I don't believe this Scottish guy has taken a shower in 2 weeks. Without going into too many details, I was physically choking on his stink most of the night.

Though I didn't get the best impression of Athens, I did enjoy my short time there. That first night I hung out with two Japanese guys that were blown away by my height. In fact, they were so in awe that they made me arm wrestle them. Don't worry guys...I won! (I’m no Ben Mahdavi, but I’m tough!)

The next morning at dawn I left Athens for the islands. I set out on a 7:30a ferry ride to Ios that I figured would last approximately 3 hours. By hour 4 I asked how much longer. The crew told me it was a 7 hour trip in total. We arrived at 5:30p. For all of you who did poorly on the math portion of the GMAT, that’s a 10 hour trip...long, but worth it.

Traditionally, in the situation I was in, 8 days to spend on the islands, I would normally venture around a bit more. This time, I found Ios to be so relaxing and peaceful that I stayed there for 5 days. During my days I would explore the island a bit, relax on the beach, or hang out by the pool and read. One day I wandered off to a rather large cove that I had entirely to myself; no one was within a couple of miles. There I ventured across a few cliffs before stumbling over to the beach area of the cove. On the beach, I found a hammock to pass out in for a while. Passing out on a hammock on the beach may be one of the most relaxing things you can do. At night time, I hung out with people in my hostel, kicking back a few beers...okay, a couple nights it was more than a few. It was going into the last week of the season, so things were calm but not dead. My time on Ios was almost perfect.

I liked Ios so much that I could have spent my entire time there, but I realized I should at least check out one more island. So, I headed to Santorini. Now, in getting there, I could have taken a half hour speed boat for 18 euro, but being the budget traveler that I am, I chose to take a 4 hour ferry for 7 euro. You can call me cheap...I'd prefer to say that I wanted to take in the scenery. For those of you who haven't been, Santorini is a fascinating island. It is one big volcano that has seen a vast amount around the center sink underneath the water. The most inhabited part of the volcano island is on an outer rim.

I made it to the island with two Australian guys from my previous hostel on Ios and subsequently spent the next two days hanging out with them. During those two days, we rented quads to explore the island, while taking it easy at night time. These quads may have been the slowest ones ever created but they were still good fun. I certainly enjoyed racing uphill at 16 kph against Patty, one of the Australian guys.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. On Thursday, Oct. 2, I took a ferry boat ride back to Athens in order to catch my flight the next day. The only ferry heading back that day left at 3:30p and was supposed to get in at 12:30p...key phrase, "supposed to." The ferry ride was enjoyable as when I stood up for a moment from the bench I was sleeping on, a Greek woman tried to steal it from me. When I explained to her that I was still using it, she decided to sit down in the closest seat to me and blow cigarette smoke in my direction for the remaining 6 hours. I guess she felt more comfortable at my table than at one of the other 6 empty tables on the sundeck. I decided to hold my ground as the other tables didn't have a bench to lie on.

We arrived in Athens at 2:30a (remember I said "supposed to"). At this point, I couldn't justify (being a budget traveler) paying for a hostel bed for a few hours of use. However, the port we were docking at is "the most dangerous place in all of Greece," especially at night time...or so claims the Lonely Planet. Despite my thrill seeking style, I decided to obey the book and move away from the port towards a nice area in Athens city center; I needed to find a place to hang out for a few hours. What I found was a 24 hour McDonalds. I know it is wrong for an American to get McDonalds while traveling abroad (some of you might claim it is wrong in general), but I needed to do so in order to keep from being kicked out by the rent-a-cop. So, I sat down at this McDonalds with my food, book, and bag at 3:30a. For the next 6 hours, I focused almost entirely on my book, Life of Pi (kind of a weird book). Of course there were distractions from time to time, like when an obese homeless woman sat down next to me, put her sunglasses on, kicked her head back, and let the sound of her snoring fill the room. I only know of two people in the world that snore louder than her (neither of them being me).

Later in the morning, I headed off to the airport for the next part of my trip...Milan, Italy. But before I go on to that part of the story, I must mention the absolute best part of Greece (at least from my perspective). GYROS!!! If you ever make it Ios, go get a gyro at Porky's and tell them I sent you. There are many amazing sites to see in each continent, tons of beautiful beaches that fill the world, and numerous adventures that you can go on, but there is only one Porky's and they make the best gyros in the world (can I get paid for this endorsement?). And if you make it to Santorini, take advantage of the 24 hour bakeries! As you can imagine, my diet during those ten days consisted mostly of a gyros and pastries.

I arrived in Milan in the early evening on Friday, Oct 3. I headed there to visit Mr. Nick Casaril…all of you first years, you’ll know him soon enough! Nick welcomed me and a Swiss girl that I met on the plane. This Swiss girl, Milica, is the 9th ranked Swiss female tennis player and 800th in the world. She promised to include me in her speech when she wins her first Wimbledon. I'm holding my breath. Milica, due to ferry problems in Greece, missed her flight home and had to take an asinine route to get back to Zurich. In fact, she got stuck in Milan that night, hence got to hang out with us. However, that night she had a fever and I had flu-like symptoms, so I doubt we were all that much fun for Nick...sorry, buddy.

The next day Milica left, and Nick and I explored the city. I felt sick as a dog, but fought through it. Nick gave me a great tour of city, stopping at all of the impressive attractions. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in to see The Last Supper as you need to make a reservation two weeks in advance, but I'm certain that the posters we saw of it were just as good. During the rest of the weekend, we did more exploring and hung out with his friends at night time. Overall, I enjoyed my time there. I'll admit, it would have been even better and we would have seen a bit more had I not been so sick.

Last Monday, after a couple weeks away, I arrived back in Copenhagen and have been here ever since. During this past week, I have done very little beyond classes, homework, and such. But don't worry, I have already planned out the next trip. Being that this week is Fall Break at CBS, my friends Rocco (from Italy), Justin (from Lithuania), and I are going to head to Barcelona for 6 days, leaving Wednesday. It should be a great time!

As for the school, it’s a different type of setup here. Where we are getting a much more practical education at UW, applying our new knowledge and skills all the time, CBS teaches in a much more philosophical sense. I feel like we are always discussing topics and issues from a very high level hypothetical perspective and never going deep into the subject matter. One thing that is the same, however, is that we discuss the US economy, Microsoft, and Bill Gates very often.

On the career side, in early September I was fortunate enough to volunteer and attend a conference called COPENMIND, which is highly focused on the future of sustainability. There I made a number of renewable energy contacts from around the globe and met the US Ambassador for Denmark. Those of you that know me well enough should realize that I am working hard to get an informational interview with him. In addition, a fellow MBA from Victoria and I are working on organizing a trip to Vestas headquarters on the other side of the country. For anyone serious about, you should look at their website. They seem to have a very impressive graduate management program.

So, that is it for now. More stories to come. Hopefully I'll be a bit better at send them out in a timely manner!

Cheers,
Aaron

P.S. I am currently planning out some trips for November and December. If anyone wants to come out for an adventure with me or even visit me in Copenhagen before I leave at the end of December, please let me know.

Classes at University of Zurich

2008-10-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Seeing as I am STUDYING abroad, I guess it would be good to talk about my classes, huh? Well, this term I am taking:

Advanced Corporate Finance
Financial Risk Management
Microfinance
Enviornmental Finance
Financial Markets and Institutions

Sounds like a lot of finance, right? Well, it is! The reason for that is because The University of Zurich's (UZH) Swiss Banking Institute is focused mainly on banking. So, if you are contemplating attending UZH via our exchange program but are interested in studying marketing, IT, operations, HR, or some other aspect of business, look elsewhere. However, if you are thinking about studying finance from a practitioner's or manager's perspective, this school is an excellent choice. It will give you the tools to engineer financial products, manage portfolios and understand economically why you should do one thing over another. ...Of course, acquiring these super powers while you are here implies that you put the effort in to learn the material.

The last thing I'll say about classes here is that I'm told they can arrange it so that you can take classes from *any* masters program in Switzerland! So if you wanted to study at, say, IMD in Lausanne (ranked 14th of all MBA programs in the world by Financial Times), I'm told they can arrange that! However, you should check that assertion before you act on it.

Grüezi from Zurich, Switzerland

2008-09-30T01:34:00.000-07:00

Friends, Students, Future leaders of the World,

Welcome to my little corner of the MBA Exchange blog!
From here I will try to keep you up to date on my classes at the University of Zurich, my travels in and around Switzerland, and other random thoughts about living in a foreign country where I don't speak any of the four national languages. Please forgive me if the spelling or grammar is a bit off, but I'm trying to juggle this "bloglet" with many other international pursuits and I don't intend wasting time looking for that one errant apostrophe that should be before the 's' as apposed to after it. There are more important things to do. So, with the intro out of the way, let's get down to business (ooouuuuu, bad pun).

My wife, Christine, and I have been in the country for about the past 4 weeks and are finally getting settled. It seems everything takes longer than one would expect - even in efficient Switzerland. Not speaking the predominant language in this region of Switzerland (i.e. German) makes even a trip to the grocery store tiring, to say nothing of the immigration office, the international students office or the bank! That being said, things here are amazing! People are friendly, the city in wonderfully clean and organized, and the sights are spectacular! I could go on forever, but I'm sure the first-years have studying to do (right, right???) and the second-years have jobs to look for (assuming the economy stay afloat long enough for us to get them), so I'll skip over the past 4 weeks travels and get right to this past weekend.

We started out in Sazlburg, Austria in the Alps. Salzburg is famous for salt, Mozart, physicists, and the oldest restaurant (circa 803AD) and biggest fortress in all of Europe.
Our accommodations were a hostel embedded within a 15th century castle overlooking the city (!) and our activities were all of the regular tourist stuff - churches, old buildings, open-air markets, fortresses, etc. Overall impression, very cool city with lots of history. Worth a day trip if you're ever in the area.

After Salzburg, we were off to Munchen, or Munich as we call it, for Oktoberfest. Upon arrival, we had ~36 hours to see the sights. So, obviously we went straight for the beer. After a quick stop at the famous Hofbrauhaus we were off to Oktoberfest. While not entirely what we expected, it was an amazing experience and we would happily return (though next time lederhosen and dirndls are required!). We like to say that Oktoberfest is was 50% county fair, 50% drunken German frat party and 100% fun!
For those that have not been before, Oktoberfest is located about 15 minutes walk from the center of town. As we were walking towards the festival, we saw a TON of families with small kids headed in the opposite direction. This surprised me, as I assumed the only thing to do at Oktoberfest was to drink and sing...and drink. I know that Europe is more liberal when it comes to alcohol, but surely not even they would subject a small child to a 1 liter alcoholic beverage half to 3/4 the size of their body! However, as we entered the grounds, it all became clear. Around the outside of the festival grounds are an endless array of carnival rides, games, and food stands selling everything from souvenir cookies the size of your chest, to candied nuts, to sausages, to shots of booze. We quickly moved past all of this and started tent-hopping looking for a seat. After about an hour of being shot down (it was 3:30pm when we started), we found a table with locals that spoke passable English - thank goodness. We spent the remainder of the evening at this table drinking BIG beers, eating BIG pretzels, and rubbing shoulders with BIG Germans actively engaged in singing and dancing in celebration of King Ludwig's marriage.

To all of my classmates that were in Europe, but that missed Oktoberfest in pursuit of something else: your loss. To future exchange students: make every effort to attend Oktoberfest if you are studying in Europe. You'll make wonderful friends at a party you won't soon forget.

Next week, Paris and the free museums (1st Sunday of every month). Stay tuned....

Good luck to all the outbound exchange students from Class of 2009!

2008-09-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Can't believe the Fall quarter is about to start!

I had such a great time this summer in Oregon. But as I finally come back to Seattle last weekend and can't wait to say hi to friends and share each others' summer experience, many of us in Class of 2009 have already been in different countries for exchange program.

Some of you are in countries that I am familiar with, some of you are in countries that I've been longing to go to. Well, at least I've heard all of those countries.

Here is the list I have:

Kathleen >> Koç University, Turkey
Trevor >> U Zurich, Switzerland
Tye >> U Zurich, Switzerland
Lindsey >> ESCP-London
Fran >> Instituto de Empresa, Spain
Carrie >> Waseda, Japan
Aaron >> Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Donny >> ESCP-Paris
Topher >> Hong Kong Univ. of Science & Technology, China
Kat >> Instituto de Empresa, Spain
Ryo >> ESCP-Paris
Geoffrey >> Shanghai, China
Steven Beach >> WHU, Germany

How are you guys doing? How's life and how's the school there? Please keep us updated by leaving some messages or pictures on this blog. People in Foster would be excited to hear from you! And we'll also let you know how fun the TGs are and who gets drunk in pub club, things like that.

All the best,

Joseph

Golf in Shanghai with Meiwa Corp!

2007-12-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

December 8th I went with Matsui, Iwashita, and Takahashi to the Shanghai West Golf Club to play golf. It turned out to be a whole-day affair, and was an awesome day. We started early, leaving Shanghai at 5:30am and arriving at the golf course about one hour later. After some breakfast, renting clubs/shoes we hit the links. And it was COLD. Right at freezing when we teed off, it reminded me of golfing with ‘the boys’ during many Tri-Cities winters. My hands hurt just thinking about it.

One difference between golf in Asia and golf in America are some grounds rules. In America, as long as there is frost on the ground no one will be allowed to go out on the course (to avoid damaging the grass). Not so in China. When we started there was frost and a ground-covering fog about 6 feet deep. So, white grass and fog. Our first question: “How are we going to find our golf balls?!”

But after the second hole (at which point I had already lost three of the four balls Matsui-san gave me) it was smooth sailing. Sunny and beautiful. The course was laid out along a lake, with barges, fish hatcheries, and houses on stilts. Very interactive scenery. And just like on TV, the course was golden and beautiful. Only the tees and greens were green (and very well kept). The contrast was very vivid.

And of course, after golf we had a 3.5 hour lunch with about 12 Japanese dishes, beer, and Johnny Walker. I’m just glad the bai-jiu never made an appearance...we all slept well on the drive home!

Shanghai Symphony

2007-12-11T22:39:00.000-08:00

One of the problems with such an enormous city, is how easy it is to forget how many great and/or unique things are offered in just about every corner. Last week I went with a friend to listen to the Shanghai Symphony, which turned out to be really great, but it’s too bad I waited until now to attend a concert. It actually reminded me of my years in concert band during high school, afterward I even dug out our Wind Ensemble’s performance at the National Concert Band Festival.

The Shanghai Symphony travels around the city, country, and world. This performance was in the Shanghai Concert Hall; a newly-restored theatre built in the European-era of Shanghai, and originally called the Nanking (Nanjing) Theatre. It’s definitely a European-styled building, surrounded by grass parks on two sides. This is surprising considering the high-priced real estate near Nanjing W. Road in the heart of Shanghai. The performance was “Viennese Glory”, a collection of compositions all written in Vienna, with a guest conductor (whose name I forget…). It was a really great change to my normal ‘routine’ life in Shanghai!

Goodnight Seattle, We Love Ya

2007-12-11T03:41:00.000-08:00

This is the third and final installment of my contribution to the exchange blog, at least as far as experiences at UW go. I intend to be joining in with stories from afar following my return to the other side of the pond.

And I do so with very mixed emotions.

On the one hand, it is a great feeling to only have one quarter of assignments, deliverables and suchlike remaining. On the other hand I will conclude my time at UW and in Seattle with an element of sadness. It’s not even been three months since I arrived in the US, but in many respects it feels as if I have spent my whole MBA at the Michael G. Foster School of Business – albeit that technically it wasn’t named as such when I arrived here. Cynics may suggest that this was the reason for the generous offerings of non-Foster branded merchandise to exchange students, but I digress. That aside, I guess that it is testament to UW and Seattle that I immediately felt so at home here. Of course sharing an (almost) common language, climate and political outlook has most probably assisted with the transition, but such similarities have already been covered in a previous blog post.

In one context it feels like just yesterday that I walked, jet-lagged and caffeine deprived (I hadn’t yet discovered Victrola, Vivace or any other place beginning with letters of the alphabet after the letter S), through those now legendary doors to the MBA Lounge to be greeted by a posse of new friends, colleagues, and alcohol-appropriating buddies. Many of you, I’m happy to say, fit with all three of those categories. But then I have also done so much in my relatively brief my time here. It was, at one point, rumored that I had been to every social event that took place in the Greater Puget Sound region since my arrival. Sadly, this reputation was shattered following my absence from the YPIN event last Friday. Free alcohol as well, apparently. I digress.

I’m really going to miss being in Seattle. It might well rain nine months out of the year (incidentally I think we’ve been fortunate in that respect this Fall), but from the strange noises that can be heard in Capitol Hill at night to the Christmas tree on top of the Space Needle, I really love this city. It’s hard to believe that someplace 5000 miles/8000 km from the UK feels so much like home. It’s a long way, but amazingly only 8 hours on a British Airways flight from London. Concorde would have been even faster – in spite of the concerns regarding noise pollution, but then Seattle never was averse to a jet plane or several thousand. And Concorde did look damn sexy. On second thoughts, I do have an MBA to pay for. (Note to editor: insert pay-per-click banner advertisement for BA here).

I have similar feelings about UW and the b-school. The Huskies might rarely win; the Balmer Café might be clean out of my favorite flavor of VitaminWater at 7.30pm on a Monday evening when I really need it, but there is always something or someone here to make me smile. Incidentally, given my feelings about the Coca-Cola Company I shouldn’t even be buying VitaminWater considering the recent acquisition of Glacéau by said organization. Again, I digress.

It requires exceptional people to have a wardrobe full of purple apparel. I should know – our University color schemes are something else that we have in common. Okay, so it might not go with any other item of clothing that you possess, but then is that such a bad thing? Actually I guess it is, but you have to love it for its boldness. For once, I am lost for words – it’s hard for me to summarize how I feel with regard to my time here. Sufficed to say, it’s been a blast and that I intend to make the most of my remaining 12 or so days here.

Finally, to borrow an amusing yet completely-made-up-for-comic-effect quote from the present governor of California who, when supposedly asked in his former thespian career which classical composer he would most like to be, cleverly responded “I’ll be Bach” [sic].

And so I hope to be.

I’m going to do my very best to make it to C4C in April; steroids or otherwise.

Keep in touch, wherever in the world you may be.

Happy holidays one and all!

[Today’s blog post was brought to you by the letters U and W and the number 2007]

P.S. just noticed that I used US English spelling in this post - that's what a whole weekend of assignments will do to you!

The changing city

2007-12-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve talked to several people who visited Shanghai in the early 1990s, and then returned after 2000 to find the city almost completely unrecognizable. Well, that’s going to happen again at least once during the next 10-20 years.

Shanghai currently has one of the best subway systems in mainland China (second maybe to Guangzhou). There are four lines, and its really typical to use it conveniently every single day. But, before the end of the year, three more lines will open. And the same thing will happen next December. This means that about 13 months from now, the subway system will go from four lines to TEN lines.

Hard to imagine when you come from a city like Seattle, that is much more ‘developed’ but is still working on Line One.

Shanghainese family

2007-12-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

About six weeks ago I sat next to a young Shanghainese guy in the dumpling place across from campus. After asking one question (What are you eating?) we had a good, half-english-half-chinese conversation, and we have been friends ever since. Monday night he invited me to dinner at his parent’s house, and I can definitely say that living in Shanghai and eating at restaurants for almost every meal is NOT the best way to enjoy Chinese food. There is nothing like a home cooked meal in Shanghai.

Of course, there was way too much food and of course, I was expected to eat most of it. That’s fine. Two hairy crabs, lots of fatty pork, Beijing roast duck, egg/tomato, lotus, veggies, and beef tendon soup was plenty. But the best part is the traditional Shanghai-family environment: The grandmother, parents, and child living together in a very small three bedroom apartment, closet- sized kitchen, one bathroom, and an entry/dining room with a nicer Mahjong-table nicer than the dinner table. Complete with a one-year old furball dog (Bao Bao), it was definitely was of the funnest nights I’ve had in Shanghai, and we didn’t even “do” anything. Incredible!

Connor Wingfield in Beijing

2007-12-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Seeing a photo of an acquaintance in a small office in Tibet is a rare connection. But, seeing a friend from freshman year of undergrad (I know, it was only 5 years ago for me) randomly in a bar in Beijing is enough to blow my mind. Wow.

Tibet

2007-12-05T07:37:00.000-08:00

About 10 days ago I returned from my last sightseeing of the quarter. Jerilyn and I went together to Tibet, which was nothing short of an adventure. There we saw many eye-popping sights, which caused various emotions ranging from my amazement in the Tibetan pilgrims prostrating around sacred sites, anger with the dominating presence of the Chinese government over a completely docile population, speechlessness from a Himalayan sunset (and an Everest sunrise), disbelief at the sparsely-heated hotels in sub-freezing weather, and a longing for something not Yak-derived.

The trip truly was more than text can communicate, and can best be described as a succession of small excitements and surprises that somehow tied together. An important part was from the help our classmates Jwalant Gurung, Abi Devan, and Cortilia Lin, who connected us with contacts and travel companies that made the trip so memorable (including a couple ‘not so memorable’ moments!). It’s amazing how far the UW network reaches around the world: in a tiny 4th story office in Lhasa, I saw a photo including Ambrose Bittner (UW MBA 2004) who I climbed Mt Baker and Mt Rainier with last summer!

If you have the chance, go to Tibet. It’s cold. It’s desolate. But it’s unique and totally worth it. And for the record, if you take the train you *probably* don’t need the TTB travel permit J

I have posted almost 200 photos of the trip on www.picasaweb.google.com/mattkuffel

A Blue Ocean Strategy!!!

2007-11-28T19:09:00.001-08:00

Using a phrase from our MBA strategy class, "Go to where there is a Blue Ocean", is how to describe my next destination. While my classmates are traveling around to the coldest regions of China (e.g. Tibet, Lhasa, Lijiang, and Shangri-La), I decided to continue my travels to the warm weather regions of China on Hainan Island where there is an actual blue ocean.

I arrived to the 80F temperatures, strong breeze, and partly cloudy skies of Sanya, the southern coast of Hainan Island. As part of China, this region of the island has been newly developed over the past several years, targeting new Chinese tourists. Most of the hotels are resorts hotels located on the beach facing the south seas. After getting out the airport, I was bombarded by these private taxi drivers. Still trying to figuring how the transportation works, I was followed into the parking lot by a private driver. After a few minutes of negotiation and telling him where I want to go, I jumped into his car. It paid to do my research to know how much to pay for my taxi ride as most taxi drivers don't use the meter and charge a flat rate. Luckily, I knew I paid only 100RMB for my ride to Crown Plaza resort which 30miles from the airport. I assumed incorrectly that people on this island spoke Cantonese since it's southern China but I was wrong again. Everyone here spoke Mandarin so I continue to practice my mandarin on the taxi driver. We had a good conversation. Him telling me about his life in Sanya and me telling him about my background. I did find out that he has seven siblings, 6 more than the one child policy rule in China. Since he was a bit younger than me, he probably had siblings that was born before that policy enacted. In addition, since this island is pretty secluded and a farming community, the government probably don't crack down on this issue as much back then. I was further enlightened by the fact that this place don't have many western tourists. The only foreigners traveling to this area are Russians who I assume travel to this place instead of Hawaii for convenience (distance from Russia) and affordability. Most signs in this place are in three languages - Chinese, English, and Russian. A quick factoid-there are three Chinese ethnic groups that inhabit this island all being darker and shorter than the mainland Chinese groups.

I was a bit out of my element when I arrived at my hotel. A beautiful Chinese palace like grandiose lobby area with a warm breeze sweeping through from the driveway to the back steps leading to a fountain courtyard overlooking a plaza. I was helped by the bellboy who carried my bags and I was served a iced sweet citrus drink as I was getting my hotel card key. My hotel room was plush with great comfy beds, open sliding doors from the bathroom and bedroom. My balcony overlooked the large Vegas style swimming pool with wrapping shapes of a lagoon. Very cool! I later figured this hotel resort is the hotel that hosts the Miss World Pageant which was held the week after I leave. Darn!!!!

For the next three days, I was able to just relax, start my day with a complimentary five star buffet western/Chinese style breakfast, followed by emails (MBA, C4C, news, etc.), then hitting the beach for a few hours, hit a few laps in the swimming pool, hit the weights in the gym, and followed by resting up, dinner, and a movie. The warm weather and sunny skies did my body good with a good dose of Vitamin D which was needed. It also helped even out my tan or sunburned neck I got from traveling to Huangshan last month. Even though I traveled by myself to this Hawaii of China destination which is really meant for families and couples, it was a nice, calm relaxing trip compared the cold, hiking, train jumping, navigation minded person you need to be to travel in western China. It affirms that I love the sun, warm weather, blue skies, and nice hotels!

Hong Kong and Macau - Another Holiday Travel

2007-11-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

People say, including myself, say Beijing is similar to Washington DC with its rich history and culture as well as being China's capital city. Further Shanghai is like China's New York City. Bright, Vibrate, new wealth, and a huge financial market for investments and trade. Then you have Hong Kong. Having traveled a good part of the US and the world, you can't really compare Hong Kong to any other western city. Hong Kong is, for a lack of better words or comparison, Hong Kong. A rich, diverse, populated port city/island on the SE China. A literal hop, skip, and jump away from the two major cities in southern China - Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Having spent some time living Hong Kong with my folks as an very early child, I have no recollection of this city but have always imagined to come back after hearing so much about it from other people who been there.

I arrive in Hong Kong via an 2 hour train ride after my weekend stay in Guangzhou. I checked into the Holiday Inn on Nathan Road, one of the busy tourist districts in New Kowloon. New Kowloon is a peninsula directly facing Hong Kong Island and is considered part of Hong Kong territory. Within the first hour or two being in Hong Kong, I felt I was at home and could easily navigate my way around the city. There are considerable differences between Hong Kong and a city like Shanghai. First, all the Chinese locals speak Cantonese, my original dialect. Most educated Chinese locals are also fluent in English. I could finally eaves drop in the subway and used both languages when walking into a restaurant or shopping. Second, people didn't spit, litter, or jay-walk the streets - all are violations and against the law. A nice and refreshing site. Third, things cost a whole lot more compared to mainland China, closely resembling big city life in a US city. Fourth, the diversity of people in Hong Kong was like a united nation council meeting. With a Brit I spoke to on a ferry, Aussies in an Aussie owned bar, to a variety of languages spoken in the streets, it was a big contrast to China where you have to speak Mandarin to live and survive.

Hong Kong is made up with several smaller islands that includes Hong Kong Island. HK Island itself is easy to get around. You could walk the entire north side in a day. I didn't attempt to do that but I did my fair share of walking in one day by hitting the Tram up the hill overlooking the city, the world's longest escalator, catching a cheap ferry ride to the island, running into a small zoological park to see a jaguar and monkeys, and walking around in two of the trendy shopping areas. Thankfully, I had amazing weather with blue skies and 80F everyday. With cuisines from all over the world and theme bars and lounges, I understand why my classmates (Paul, Heidi, and Annie) who studied in Hong Kong loved it so much. You don't even need to learn any Cantonese as everyone can speak English in the city. Shopping is great here with trendy and more stylish men's clothes that I could wear. You could see by the clothes that people wore in the streets. Almost every office worker wore suits and professional attire. Paul, my classmate at UW, was able to hang out and show me a few places while I was there. It was great meeting up with him and catch up with a good classmate whom I have seen since I left. He took me to SOHO and Lan Kwai Fang, the happening night spots in the city. We swapped and shared our experiences living in each city. We both really understood the importance of having a global (not just business) perspective when viewing the world. And living abroad helps bridge the gap in understanding what the rest of the world is thinking and experiencing. We agreed that we could see ourselves living here for some period of time in the future.

Paul and I decide to visit Macau the next day. We took a quick ferry ride on these small but fast boats that took us to Macau Island. After an hour on the boat, we arrived. At the ferry terminal, all the major casinos had free shuttle buses taking visitors to their casinos. It is early November, probably the low season but still saw swarms of people hitting the gambling casinos. From what I saw, it was mainly locals and Southern Chinese mainlanders who were the visiting these casinos with very few foreigners. Paul mentioned he had a winning slot (ATM cash) machine that has won in the past at the Wynn Casino. So we headed there! These newer casinos were amazing. I didn't know if I was in Vegas or Macau. The only difference are the customers (all Chinese of course) and the background noise in these places. Paul did briefed me that they don’t have slots machines that make that ringing noise and people are a bit more subdued. With club lounge music playing in the background, I liked it and preferred it over Vegas style. Since most of these casinos were relatively new, it was immaculately clean and caters to the people who obviously have money or willing to give away all their money. Paul and I hit the slots, craps, and other gambling machines. I tried my hand at a game not found in the states called Sic Bo. It's like the roulette table but instead of using a ball and wheel to guess the winning number, they use three dices. A guess at the combination, total sum of the dices, and other things could make you money. We took a break from gambling and stumbled to find a great all you can eat, high-class buffet at the Lisboa Casino. One of the best meals I had in the last few months with fresh produce to produce great food. It beats most high-end buffets in Vegas. 5lbs heavier and $25 lighter in the wallet, we headed to the Venetian Casino. Located on the a different island or part of Macau, we took a 20min taxi ride over a long bridge which makes the I-90 bridge look small. Once we got to the Venitian, my mouth dropped to see that this Venetian almost looked identical to the one in Vegas. Situated along a long flat strip of land, I could see a dozen cranes and at least 3-4 more large casinos being built. If Vegas was hit by a hurricane and wiped out the casinos, I would be seeing the first phase of construction. This part of Macau was large to fill most of the casinos on the Vegas strip. I can't imaging the billions of dollars by US and FDI (foreign direct investments) as well as local investments to build up this place. No wonder people in Vegas are sweating that this place could cannibalize the Asian market of gamblers.

After a long day of gambling, I was out $200 USD and Paul probably broken even, we headed back on the Ferry at 3am. A great day to a great experience!

On Holiday in Guangzhou

2007-11-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

November 2007-Some people say after visiting several major cities in China, they all look and feel the same. I would that's true for famous Chinese gardens but I can't say its true for cities. My journey on this trip takes me to Guangzhou, one of the largest cities in Southern China. Located in the Guangdong Province, its rich history goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. More recently, it is well known for the place where Dr. Sun Yat-Sen started the Chinese revolution that overthrow the monarchy in China which stood for thousands of years. I was heading here because I have some distance relatives who live there. After landing at the airport and hopping into a taxi, I could see that this city with 6 million people felt like a real blue collar working town. Guangzhou and Shenzhen is known for is manufacturing industry where many foreign companies have their production or manufacturing operations. Guangzhou appears to be a blue collar type of town. A bit gritty with urban sprawl as the eye could see. However, with a river running through this city, close to Hong Kong, and developed for a Chinese city, it is a vibrant city with many things to do if you’re a local.

With the help of my distant uncle (my dad's side of the family), I spent my first night catching a three hour night cruise up and down the river. I was surprised and impressed at how all the buildings are lighted along the river. It probably gives Shanghai a run for its money. It was probably a four mile stretch along the river where all the building are light up with hotels, restaurants, and a boardwalk lined up along the bank of both sides of the river. Truly impressive!

The next day was pretty packed as I got a tour of the city via bus, taxi, subway. Its unbelievable how well the Chinese government throughout most major cities have planned the subway and bus infrastructure. Makes you wonder most of the time where did Seattle go wrong with its future planning of public transportation. Ok, back to Guangzhou. I got breakfast with my uncle at the corner food stall in the morning. We had the typical Cantonese breakfast of Congee (ie Porrige), Chinese Donuts, and some chow fun (rice noodles). Hmm…delicious!!!! Takes me back when I was a kid. Filling for two people and all for $4USD. Next up, I was able to visit a nice park where many retired people do their daily exercises. Most people in China can retire by the age of 55. We then walked across the street and visited Sun Yat-Sen Park. We then caught a bus to downtown Guangzhou and walked around the main streets. Beijing Road, similar to Nanjing Road in Shanghai, was filled with people walking along a busy pedestrian street lined with shops and restaurants. We decided to take a break and had lunch at a fantastic Vietnamese. I asked my uncle that I wanted Vietnamese food b/c after having Chinese food for awhile, I needed a break. The place he took me too was awesome. We got several dishes to share with a combination of curry, Pho, and broken rice with BBQ pork along with some typical Vietnamese iced coffee. Very good to a busy morning thus far. We then caught a taxi back home where I met up with my cousin, Ving, whom I haven't seen since I was three years old. He recently got married and his wife gave birth. Because my Mandarin and Cantonese is not as fluent as I wanted to be, we had a limited set of conversations. But we were able to communicate. I also met my uncle's kids who also were working professionals in this city. We drove to his condo to visit with his new family. I always wonder what life would have been like if I lived and grew up in Guangzhou or Hong Kong. Would I turn out to be the same sort of person I am now? Would I be going through the same career and education track, think differently, and even be married with two kids. Who knows. Something to ponder over.

Home Away From Home

2007-11-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

Living China has been definitely cultural immersion experience. With Cantonese and Mandarin (the two major Chinese dialects) being my distant second and third languages, it was a bit of a struggle and continues to be challenge in communicating with folks in Shanghai. I cannot easily walk into any café or restaurant and order off the Chinese menu. When eating out by myself, I have find places with English or picture restaurant menus. Sometimes, I take a chance and order foods that are common in all Chinese restaurants - the usual bowl of noodles, soup, or fried rice. It takes some work when shopping, buying train tickets for travel, or telling the taxi driver exactly where to go when he gets lost himself. But this is part of the experience. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way. Otherwise, life would be too easy here. It has pushed me to continue to learn new words and phrases in mandarin in order for me to communicate. With some help from Jerri, Jane, and a few other classmates, I slowly become more and more self sufficient. There are things I've done that has made me into a local just in the first month.

After spending two months here, I feel at home most days especially after returning from my traveling throughout China. Like most of folks, I tend to like find a set of routines and places to go around my neighbor. So much so, people have recognized everywhere I go at my most popular neighborhood destinations. Here's a few of them.

Pancake girl - She works down the street from my condo and probably starts her shift at 6am. Working alongside an older man (the cashier and possibly father), she sets up her shop as a street vendor renting out small store front the size of single car garage. With just a small table of ingredients such as chives, cilantro, eggs, and some sauces, round barrel size grill, a tub of batter, she whips out these Chinese pancakes/crepes in one minute. A constant long line of customers awaits her pancakes, a good sign and litmus test for all street food. At 2.20RMB (30cents USD), it's a great deal at any currency. While the older man takes in the money and wraps up the pancakes, she works at fast pace technique as she builds a sweat on her forehead and brow. So busy is her stall that she doesn't have time to wipe that sweat off. I usually buy a pancake from her weekly. With guests and friends in town, I usually buy several as well as buy a few fried egg crepes from the vendor next to hers to give some business to him as well. His fried egg crepes are not as good but worth a taste for friends.

Fruit lady-I drop by the fruit store fronts down my street several times a week to get my fresh fruit such as Satsuma, bananas, apples, and an occasionally exotic fruit. I buy what I need for that day or two and no more. It is in contrast to what I or other people do in the US. It's nice to shop for just that day because food is fresher and I don't have to haul or carry around my groceries. I usually drop by a particular fruit stand because I build a friendly rapport with this fruit lady who is probably in her late thirties. She along with her husband runs this stall. Her stall is a size of a single garage filled with her fruit. She competes with four other fruits stalls on the same street. I probably go to her because she is friendly and usually greets me with a smile. A simple customer service goes along way with me in China, since it is void in most places I go to except for restaurants.

Local café - My classmates (Jerri, Jeri, and Matt) and I found this café one day while walking to find a new lunch spot. We stumbled to this place that looked like a diner you would find in Taiwan or in the US back in the 1950s. It has a bit of a art deco theme and stood out from the typical Chinese neighborhood restaurants with dark, old, wooden furniture. With its comfy booths, white walls, clean looking plate setting, it looked promising. When they brought out the food, it was delicious. The best part was it was local neighborhood prices, cheaper than major sections of town where most locals or tourist would go. You can feed four people including beer for less than $12 USD. Unbeatable prices, food, and atmosphere. I started returning to this place weekly after my first experience to this place with my friends who were in town. With only a Chinese menu, I challenged myself to go in there and order from dishes I knew they would have. I also asked our server to recommend a few dishes for us too. She kindly helped me out by describing the dishes in Mandarin. Fortunately, I am proficient enough in understanding various Chinese dishes and ingredients to comprehend her. I only wish I had this place near my house back home. No need for me to cook or reheat stuff in the microwave.

Noodle Shop- Everyone has their favorite hangout or food place to go after a long night of partying or enjoying too much of adult sodas. My place happens to be downstairs from my condo is a noodle shop that serves a variety of simple dishes such as hand shaven noodle, hand stretched noodles, and fried rice. At only 60cents (USD) per dish and fast service, this place is constantly busy during the day. At night, they are usually sleeping on the tables after working a long day. This place is open 24hrs a day. Crazy but has a good niche market when food places close usually around 11pm in this city.

DVD Vendors- With a dozen located in a 1/4 mile radius and open up shop on the streets, DVD suppliers are everywhere. At 60cents a movie and 2 dollars for an entire season of a US TV show, need I say more.

china travels

2007-11-26T04:41:00.000-08:00

less than 2 weeks left in shanghai for my exchange but that's ok because i spend the last couple of weeks exploring the other side of china. there were stops in chongqing, chengdu, tibet and beijing. i've posted some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/jerilynyoung if you want to have a peek. there are also many stories that go with these pictures, but just not enough time to write them all down right now. one day i will share the culture i experienced and the views i saw. it just may not be in these next couple of weeks because they will be busy with things to do so that i can return home to see all of you.

thanks to cortilia and abi who helped gather information and contacts, matt for traveling with me, jamie - my favorite cousin on the continent who also introduced me to ma la tang, and everyone else too.

hope you all had a happy thanksgiving with some turkey et al. matt and i were busy consuming yak meak, momos, bobi and more.

Northwest by Northwest

2007-11-18T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today is two-thirds of the way through my exchange here (scary how fast time goes), so I wanted to post a few thoughts on my experiences so far and in particular the similarities and differences between my home city/School and Seattle/UW.

I've titled this post "Northwest by Northwest" because, well, my home school Manchester Business School is located in the region known as Northwest England, and UW... Do you see where I'm going with this?

Similarities in regional terminology notwithstanding, the 5000 mile journey from England's Northwest to the Pacific Northwest represents a large distance geographically and, I had imagined, somewhat of a distance culturally. However, this isn't necessarily the case.

Aside from all the usual USA vs UK differences and similarities that we all know and love, I was actually surprised at how much Seattle and the UW quickly felt like home.

I wanted to share a few of the things that have led me to this feeling and to give some insights into my home city/School in the UK...

Economy

Seattle and Manchester are both erstwhile industrial bases with populations of around .5M (2.5M in the urban areas) and which are now, to varying degrees, succeeding in and helping to shape the modern economy. In this respect Seattle is far ahead, boasting globally renowned firms such as Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks. Manchester is aiming to emulate this type of model - not necessarily copying Seattle but sharing an understanding of what is required to succeed in an information-driven world.

Interestingly, Alan Turing "the father of modern computing" was based at Manchester University and, in the late 1940s, his ideas led to the creation of the first stored-program computer. It's not clear whether this was codenamed Windows 48, although I am sure his concept for a stored computer program would not have been lost on Bill Gates.

Rolls-Royce which makes jet engines for Boeing airplanes (and formerly of automobile fame until BMW/VW acquired the rights to the name) was founded in Manchester, and is still based pretty close to the city.

Politics/Demographics

Like Seattle, Manchester is renowned as a stronghold for liberal politics and free thinking. Manchester is the birthplace of the British liberally-minded newspaper The Guardian and, in recent years, the Labour Party (i.e. the current government) has held its major conferences in the city.

With significant regeneration in the past decade, Manchester is now considered by many to be the UK's second city (London being the first). It is also home to the largest student population in Europe so it can feel pretty empty in the summer when the 100,000 or so students it is home to are on vacation!

Culture

Both cities also share a reputation for music, in particular guitar music, becoming famous in the 1980/90s with the worldwide success of Seattle bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam mirrored by Manchester counterparts The Smiths, New Order and Oasis. One theory on this is that the damp climate common to both cities means that people stay indoors and play music rather than going outside in the rain. Apparently rock stars don't like umbrellas.

Oh, and then there is the Seattle-based sitcom Frasier. In the show, Frasier (played by Kelsey Grammer) has a housekeeper Daphne who is supposedly from Manchester, England. The actress (Jane Leeves) who plays Daphne is British but not actually from Manchester. Ironically, it turns out that the actor (John Mahoney) who plays Frasier's father (Martin) actually *is* from Manchester but he sounds American. If you understand all that you probably don't need to phone a radio psychiatry talk show after all.

Summary

In all seriousness, there are many, many differences between the two cities but it's also interesting to note the similarities. From what I have seen so far, Seattle has much better scenery, air quality, produce, and a more relaxed and positive attitude to life than Manchester. There are also great career opportunities here in technology and startups - an area that I'd like to pursue.

So why do I love being at UW?

Well again, many similarities to my home school come to mind. Both are b-schools that are part of larger universities (around 40,000 students), and both have around 100 students on the FT MBA programme. Amazingly, both universities have purple and gold as their colours so my wardrobe now has even more purple items in there. They don't go with anything else in my wardrobe (I assume that goes for pretty much everyone), but are excellent for helping you stand out in a crowd of non-Huskies. On second thoughts, I'm not sure that is such a positive thing.

The Manchester campus is urban (only 10 minutes walk to Downtown), whereas the UW campus is, well perhaps, somewhat urbane! However, I'm beginning to think that b-schools get some of the worst buildings on campus - both schools have that in common. I'll have to come back and check out the new buildings at UW once they are completed so that I can be proven wrong...

The one thing that I love most about both schools is the people. From the very first day at UW, everyone has been so friendly and helpful. I did a little research before coming here and it sounded as if that was the case, but I was still pleasantly surprised at just how friendly everyone was (and is) and also at how much colleagues at both schools like to party.

It (both the friendliness and the partying) has made my experience here truly unforgettable - not that is over with yet. I guess that the reasons that I love my home School are also the reasons that I love being at UW.

Final Thoughts

Okay, that's great but "why?", I hear you ask, "why come to Seattle/UW if there are so many similarities"?

Well, for one thing it's probably easier to find fish and chips, pale ale and a tea shop in Seattle than it is in most UK cities...

But, as a caffeine-devotee, the answer for me is simple: Seattle has the best coffee.

November 8, 2007: Trip to Nanjing with Bill Taylor (President of ITT Industries’ China organization)

2007-11-10T18:03:00.002-08:00

Last week I had an incredible opportunity to spend an uncensored day-in-the-life of a senior executive at an American multinational corporation. I went with Bill Taylor to ITT Industries' new 400,000 sqft factory in Nanjing, China. He was going for the day to check in on its progress and to deal with some issues getting up-and-running, and invited me to join him. We spent four hours on a train, so had lots of time to talk and share perspectives. For simplicity, I’m just going to give a rambling list of our conversations:

ITT in China (what products, why), Manufacturing quality in China, manufacturing safety in China, corporate insurance and EHS, China’s water situation, dealing with the Chinese government, Environmental issues in China: government action vs. government publication/announcement, Industrial equipment sales channel in China, the border between ‘relationships’ and corruption (would an American distribution model ever work here?), The type of people and organizations that western MNCs do business with in China (ones that “look like” western companies, and where corruption is not the primary requirement for success or occurs at organizations lower in the value chain), M&A, conflict of interest in the American sales channel, executive recruitment and building a team, company politics, spotting hidden agendas in a corporation and bringing them to the surface, promotion through networking vs. promotion through results, skiing and mountain climbing, how to go to Tibet, taking risk in your career and spotting key gateways to advancement, spotting and analyzing ambition

The conversations and overall experience was so interesting that I now have a new cause for confusion. In particular, the trade-offs in life. Undoubtedly MNCs can off a career full of excitement, opportunity, leadership, variety, and even social change, but what about the other aspects of life? Hmm...lots to think about. Life is interesting.

Fake money in China

2007-11-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

I’ve heard so much about them, but finally I found my own counterfeit 50 RMB bill. I’m not exactly sure where it was passed to me, but now its mine. Cabs are supposedly the most common place to find a fake 50 (solution- don’t pay an 11RMB fare with a 100RMB note). The woman at Hello Pizza was the one who rejected it, but she was very helpful in explaining showing me the incorrect aspects, and even offered me some comparison with a real note. Now I can spot fakes on my own. Actually, this one turned out to be a really bad fake. It wasn’t even the proper size! The next question is whether or not to get rid of it…

Tibet planning adventure- Part I

2007-11-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

“Half the fun of going to Tibet is getting there”… Now I know what Lonely Planet was talking about. Actually, all the confusion surrounds a single, mysterious document: the TTB (Tibet Travel Bureau) permit. Supposedly all foreigners must buy this, or risk being sent home (or worse depending on the current government situation!?). The easiest way to go is to pay a ridiculous amount of money and have a travel agency figure everything out for you. But, we decided to try to do as much on our own as possible.

Here’s a quick list of Jerilyn’s and my adventure trying to get to Lhasa legally:

Scouring the Thorn Tree forum on Lonely Planet’s website. Lots of contradictory information about the TTB. Half of the posts say its useless and is never checked, the other half say it’s needed. Great. We’ll be safe and try to buy it.
Tibet guide book. The newest edition is two years old. Yikes.
Train tickets. “Must purchase at Shanghai Station 10 days before departure”. We went to our neighborhood ticket office and bought two tickets 11 days before our desired date. 49 hours on a hard-sleeper. 850 RMB.
“Tibet is closed to foreigners since August, because the Chinese Army is training”, said the biggest travel agency in China. The Tibet Travel Bureau in Shanghai had never heard of such a rule. Why can’t the travel agent just tell us he can’t do the TTB? Let’s try a Taiwanese travel agency instead (Findchina)
Findchina travel agency. Very responsive, cheaper TTB quote (550 RMB), free hotel room in Lhasa with purchase of flight out of Lhasa for departure. One caveat: must book a guide for 280RMB per day while in Tibet in order to apply for the TTB. The Thorn Tree forum told us that some agencies can get around this “law” of needing a guide, but this apparently this one cannot. But, after some more thought, is really good. It will be infinitely better to have a Tibetan speaker at our side than to try to organize it on our own from Lhasa.
The agent will fax our TTBs the day before departure (or maybe the day-of!). Payment is remit-to-bank-account. This is a very popular method in China, but makes a westerner slightly uneasy...I’m told from my people that its no problem. So, I guess we won’t worry about it. Now, just need to find a fax number that’s safe.

November 3, 2007: Crabs at the lake

2007-11-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

Crab is a delicacy in China. Especially famous is Yangcheng Lake near Shanghai (an 18 minute train ride outside the city), where the lake crabs are in season every fall. Last weekend Jerri, Kien, our classmate Jane (Xu Man), and I all went to the lake to have lunch. As we found out, the delicacy is not the legs as in America, but the yellow ‘guts’ under the shell. I’ll try anything once, but that’s probably it for this one (as with chicken feet, stinky tofu, beef intestine, and pig ears and snout). I admit that the crab was tasty, but my mind couldn’t get over the ‘guts’ part. I’ll stick to the legs. But even not from the small, hairy, lake crabs I China. Seattle seafood here I come!

November 6, 2007: Dinner with our e-Commerce professor

2007-11-10T17:54:00.000-08:00

During the beginning of the second week of class, Jerri set up a dinner with our e-commerce professor. Our classmate Allen, from Vancouver (Taiwanese), picked the restaurant and ordered dishes. Mongolian hot pot, basically everything was Lamb in some form or another. Lots of bone-in pieces of meat, complete with a straw used to suck out the juice inside the bone. The meat was delicious, the bone marrow was strange but also good. Professor Chudzik told us some stories from his tenure at General Electric, where he had some opportunities to sit in meetings with Jack Welch. Nothing too out of the ordinary if you’re familiar with what kind of personal Jack Welch at GE was, but it was very interesting to hear from someone who saw it first hand.

October 30, 2007: Dinner with Meiwa Corporation

2007-11-10T17:53:00.002-08:00

Jerilyn has also covered this incredible evening in her previous post. Thanks to Yoshi for putting us in contact with such a great group of his co-workers from Meiwa. They treated us to an evening of great Hunan cuisine, drink, and conversation. One of the funniest quotes of the night: Matsui-san pointing out a dish to everyone saying, “Watch out for this one….tomorrow morning!”

By far the most memorable part (my memory fades after the infamous Chinese white wine came out, served in HUGE tea cups), was the communication. So many great stories were told, songs were sung, introductions were made, all in a combination of Japanese, Mandarin, and English. What a great challenge it was to communicate, but success was incredibly rewarding, both for the speaker and the listener. I feel like all of us connected that night, much more so than in (seemingly) similar situations that arise in America where you may end up eating and drinking with a group of unfamiliar faces. Maybe it was the language barrier that actually brought us closer together? Maybe it was all of the warm personalities, open for anything? Or maybe it was the white wine, sake, and beer?! Whatever it was, I look forward to keeping in contact with this great group of friends in the future. There are talks of a golf outing in China in the coming weeks, are you in Paul?

Paul was traveling in Tokyo during this week, so couldn’t make the trip with Heidi and Annie. We all missed him (although I didn’t need any more encouragement for gan-bei!), but are very happy he had his own great experience in Japan with a new group of great friends. What a great experience for all of us. Thanks again Yoshi, Jerilyn, and Paul!

October 29 - November 7, 2007: e-Commerce

2007-11-10T17:53:00.001-08:00

This course is not nearly as exciting as International Business, primarily because the professor doesn’t seem to have the stories and experiences as El Namaki did. But perhaps he just can’t convey them to us, because he does have considerable experience at General Electric. A lot of the topics discussed are very basic, and not ‘differentiators’ at all in respect to have doing business online, or creating an online presence. I mean, at this point in time, all of the information about website design, content, security, and search engine-friendliness are pretty much baseline for doing anything online. Basically, it seems like a lot of basic knowledge.

Fabric market

2007-11-10T17:52:00.000-08:00

Before heading to Beijing to meet the rest of our family, my brother and I stopped at a fabric market in Shanghai to have some suits made. We spoke with three stores, and finally decided on a smaller one with the colors/fabrics we wanted. Supposedly they had everything, imported fabrics from around the world, any style you want, etc. But the prices argue the opposite. I think everything was made in China.

The verdict is still out on how ‘custom’ these suits are. Even though we pointed to pictures of what we wanted in terms of fit, they probably just took our measurements and made us ‘ standard chinese’ suits. Oh well, I guess if I can’t tell for myself then I won’t worry about it. They look and feel good and were insanely cheap (less than $100). Good enough for me.

October 18 – October 28, 2007: The Kuffels Do China

2007-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

The last two weeks of October my family came to China. Nick came to Shanghai on the 18th; we spent the first afternoon around my apartment and then went to dinner with a big group of people from class (thirteen in total: Stefano, Jerri, Kien, Jerilyn (with cousin and friend), Kimi Fan (with friend), Laetitia, Mathilde). After dinner, about half of us went to Hengshan Road and had a few beers at one of the many bars.
On the second day, Nick and I had a flight to Beijing to meet the rest of the family (9 in total: Mom, Dad, Aunt, Uncle, and the Zhous). At about 9pm we all met in the Beijing airport; and started what would be one of the best parts of my time in China so far.

My parents, brother, and I stayed in Beijing for 3 days while the rest of the group went down to Tianjin to see a new condo purchased by the Zhou’s. After seeing the Great Wall, Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, the four of us joined the rest of the group.

What would we do without Mr. Zhang? Our driver was awesome. The negotiator. He never settled for anything, and always seemed to catch the hotel/restaurant/stores trying to add line items to our bill. When the hotel staff is too slow in ‘talking to the manager”, just go behind the desk, into the office, and talk to him yourself! When there’s a traffic jam, get out and direct cars into open space so that you can get through yourself. When you miss the last exit on a freeway to is closed up ahead, turn around and drive the WRONG WAY back to the exit. These are life lessons.

In Shijiazhuang, the whole group did a walk-through of the factory and saw for ourselves what Lawrence Zhou and Florian are working on. There’s a ton going on, and its constantly changing. Part of the current happenings will give me the chance to meet and spend time with Bill Taylor, the President ITT China. ITT is an American multi-national, with most of its businesses in water resources and fluid control systems. On the way to the airport, we again had to negotiate a closed freeway (due to thick fog). We used backroads, and this was the second time I was truly scared to be in a car in China (the first was driving through a land-slide zone in a ‘micromachine’ bus at Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province). This time, the visibility was about 20 meters, we were going about 20 mph, and constantly swerving to avoid the trucks and cars who were using the oncoming lane to pass! Why change your driving habits just because of some fog? We were all braced for a collision.

Shanghai was the last stop on the trip, and the main focus was shopping and seeing my day-to-day life here. I showed my parents and brother the rat race that is the Shanghai subway, then my apartment, and campus. Going to campus was tied really well, right when classes were out so they had the opportunity to meet some of my friends in the IMBA program (Mathilde, Laetitia, Ben, Margot). Lawrence arranged a day-trip to on of the three water-towns near Shanghai. We went in a 20-person bus, about 3.5 hours each way. Normally bus trips like this are pretty miserable with the bumpy roads, traffic jams, loud trucks, car exhaust, etc. But this was different because we were all together and had a bus to ourselves. It’s very rare for us to have so much time together, in America its usually just for a day or two, or even for just one meal. We had lots of fun, mainly telling stories and teasing each other.

October 4 – October 10, 2007: Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Zhaoqing

2007-11-10T17:27:00.000-08:00

I visited three cities in southern China on this trip, going to each to see friends who were living there

In Gaungzhou I met with Ivy Chen. She was in the same Finding Your Voice class as I was last spring in the UW MBA program. She came to Seattle from mainland China where she now lives again (working for Colgate). This was the first stop on my trip to southern China, and Ivy and her husband were excellent hosts. Here are a few of the trip highlights:

The food: double skin milk (yes, skin), pigeon, chicken feet, oysters, and sweet sesame dumplings, to name a few.
Cruise on the Pearl River at night: On a large dinner boat, with lots of young people. The weather was hot, and so was the tea. I was still sweating at 10:00pm
Historical sights: The Chen Clan Academy (set up by the Chen family, of which Ivy and her husband both belong, to educate its members), Tomb of the Nan Yue King (an archaelogical site, complete with the remains of the ancient leader and his royal staff), Orchid Garden
Home Inn hotel. The Southwest Airlines of the hotel industry. Really incredible how they do it- less than $25 a night, with the looks of a typical hotel chain in America. Started by the founder of c-trip (a really successful online travel booking website in southeast Asia

Hong Kong essentially felt like a weekend-trip to America. It is nothing like China. High prices, English speakers everywhere, and a more civilized society.

Old East meets New West. A very interesting contrast between what seems like an older Chinese culture (that is, not affected by the Mao-era reforms that the mainland went through), and western-wealth and status symbols. The super-high class lifestyles can of blindsided me; famous brands were everywhere, as were nice cars and lots of lights.
Paul, Annie, Heidi, their classmate Rachel from UC Davis, and I met in Soho on Hong Kong Island for dinner at a Cuban restaurant. It was a really great break, as I had been craving meat and cheese for some time. It had both! The streets in this area were very unique, filled with international cuisine. Shanghai also has this, but the key difference is that in Shanghai these restaurants aren’t centralized, and the staff is usually 100% Chinese. This is a key difference, and the food seemed very authentic. The prices were ‘real’ too!
Civilization. Hong Kong citizens are much different than mainland Chinese. Even though there are still many people in the city, it seems more personal, and people seem to acknowledge each other. Also, there is far less smoking and no spitting on the streets. Paul said this is because there are rules for all of this (illegal to throw cigarette butts on the ground, and illegal to spit). Maybe there are too many rules, but I definitely like these two.

My last stop was Zhaoqing, to visit a friend I met this summer through Andrew VanSchoiack. Pat is working at a clothing manufacturer in this manufacturing town, and living on site as well. From my two days there, I was a bit jealous of his opportunity to see so much about doing business in China and (being the only English speak at a facility of about 1,500) learn about the culture and language so quickly.

Being here gave me flashbacks to the movie that Heidi Blair organized last winter, China Blue. It was about the terrible environments that exist at many clothing manufacturers in China. I was really pleasantly surprised to find this company was totally different. The owners were Hong Kongnese, and treated the employees really great. Pat gave me a tour of the factory, from rolled fabric to finished product. Lots of being stared at, also.
This was a great opportunity to practice my mandarin also; we spent most of our time hanging out with a few of his coworkers, and a group of security guards. For some reason, everyone gets a kick out of foreigners.

Izakaya in Tokyo

2007-11-07T19:43:00.000-08:00

So apparently our classmates in Shanghai had a wonderful time at dinner with the people from Meiwa. I was not able to make it because I had plans to travel to Japan for a few days during our break.

A significant part of my mission on exchange is to establish contacts in Asia, so I of course checked in with Yoshi to see if he knew anyone Tokyo who would be interested in eating/drinking with a random gaijin. It just so happened that a few of Yoshi's co-workers from Nippon Oil were interested in such an encounter, and so we arranged to meet for izakaya on the very same night that our friends were meeting with Meiwa in Shanghai.

Our hosts sat us down in a restaurant that we never would have found as tourists, and began to review a menu that looked as though it may have had about a thousand items on it. I was instructed by Sakuto-san that we first were to order a nama-chu, or a medium-sized beer which didn't seem so medium-sized to me, as our hosts took care of ordering food.

The first of the many small dishes of food that came out to the table was a platter of raw horse meat. I'd eaten horse before on my trip to China, so I was not so taken aback, but the expression on the face of the Canadian guy from Pepperdine who was traveling with me was absolutely priceless. Our hosts laughed at the pause we took when the horse arrived and we had a few pieces. It was quite delicious actually. After that there were probably another 15 dishes that came out, all delicious, along with bottles of sake and shochu. By the end of the two hour parade of food and drink I felt like I had great friends in Tokyo.

After izakaya it was time for the second party. We left the restaraunt and walked a few happy blocks to a place called Kennedy House. By this time it felt like the language barrier that was clearly present at the beginning of the night had faded away. It's very interesting how this happens after a few drinks; I've experienced it a couple of times now, and I think Jeri refers to it in her previous post. We arrived at Kennedy House to find an awesome 60's cover band. I was blown away by their Beatles renditions, and when they played the Beach Boys' Kokomo I almost jumped out of my chair. The finale was a well-known Japanese song called Cherry Blossom, which was sung with sign language by a women with an incredible voice. It was so beautiful. Seriously. I almost cried.

And that was the night. Thank you Yoshi again for arranging cultural exchange that was 100x more authentic than anything we could experience in a classroom. Having been through this a couple times now it was very interesting to be able to pick up on the tradition and structure that is embedded into these sorts of events. Watching my Canadian friend attempt to go through the whole experience out of context really helped to show me just how much I have learned over the past year about building business relationships in Asia. These lessons are invaluable, and when the Tokyo/Shanghai contingent gets back to the states I think we all owe Yoshi a.. NAMA-CHU!

Dinner with Meiwa Corporation

2007-10-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Thanks to contacts made through Yoshi over our China Study Tour this past March, I was fortunate enough to meet some great people at Meiwa Corporation once. More fortunate is that I got to meet them again this past Tuesday, and once again they showed us a great time in Shanghai. There is nothing comparable to these dinners where you mix Japanese, Chinese, and Americans over a wonderful meal. Throw in some booze to loosen people up, and this is what you get... Many people having a great time!

It was fascinating to take part in a conversation with these Japanese businessmen who spoke limited English while I have just a few phrases of Japanese. The common bond? A little bit of Chinese, which became our language of choice. What also helped was that because both of our Chinese language skills were limited to about the same level, so we could actually mostly understand each other. Also, thank you to the few translators in the room that helped out with the complexities.

All in all, it was a absolutely fantastic night, but one of my favorite parts was telling Annie's story to Matsui-san. With a little bit of Chinese, Japanese, and English all mixed together, I was totally able to get the point of the story across and in a very strange, but good way, that makes me proud. I may not be proficient in any language, including English at times (just ask Jacob), but I can get the point across.

Thank you Meiwa, Thank you Matsui-san, Thank you Yoshi, and Thank you to Matt, Kien, Jerri, Heidi and Annie who all came together to make this night great.

International Café and Oktoberfest TG

2007-10-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

Friday October 19 saw two really great events at the b-school: the International Café and the Oktoberfest-themed TG.

The International Café was, appropriately, held at the very atmospheric Café Allegro on 15th Avenue in the U-District. It was a chance to learn about other countries and their cultures, and there were excellent presentations on their home countries from Japanese and Korean students.

After this, Veena and I did a little introduction to Germany and the Oktoberfest - despite neither of us actually being from there! Fortunately, at different times, we had both lived in Cologne (Koeln is the German spelling) so had a good understanding of Germany and its culture. I also had the fortune to briefly attend the famous Munich (Muenchen) Oktoberfest a few years back. So with virtually no preparation, in typical MBA-fashion, we provided the audience with an insight into some German customs and traditions as well as the Oktoberfest itself.

Happy and caffeinated, we headed back over to the MBA Lounge for what was certainly the busiest TG I had experienced in my time here... It was good to see selected guests from other parts of UW, not just the b-school, but who also take classes here.

Tareyn and Co. had, as always, done a fantastic job of organising everything... There was plenty of beer flowing and the beer kegs, although they could not be seen directly, were identifiable by the crowds of people assembled around them in the kinds of poses required to inspire the amber liquid into their UW-branded glasses. There was German-themed food, including bratwurst, potato salad (Kartoffelsalat) and a whole host of other delicious things which unfortunately escaped my attention because Veena and I had other concerns...

In an attempt to bring even more Euro culture to the occasion, we had undertaken to introduce UW to gluehwein (a heated spiced wine also known as mulled wine or gloegg if you are more familiar with the Scandinavian variety). It translates directly as "glow wine" - because, as well as tasting delicious, it has an effect not dissimilar to wearing a North Face jacket in a heated room, but without the expense of buying one. In other words, it's great for keeping you warm on a cold day! And on an unusually chilly Fall evening in Seattle, it was most definitely well-timed.

This was the first time that gluehwein had been made at a TG, and armed with two "crockpots" kindly loaned to us for the evening by Beth and Sarah we embarked on our mission. Several bottles of red wine and assorted spices later, and with the crockpots set to full power, we waited for the mixture to reach its optimum serving temperature. Then we waited some more. We hadn't realised quite how gently crockpots heat their contents. Anticipation mounted, would-be customers became intrigued. "Just a little while longer" we told them. After the best part of an hour, and after thorough quality testing on behalf of the two chefs, it was ready to go.

"Would people like it? Would it catch on? Would the crockpots enable sufficient economies of scale?" we wondered. We needn't have worried. In true MBA-fashion (again), we had a plan. The first test customer was suitably taken with our initial attempt, so we co-opted them as part of our viral WOM marketing campaign. Customers loved our product and came back for more, but not before telling their friends how great it was. Demand increased, more and more customers stopped by, but supply was limited. Thinking to our microeconomics classes, we realised that we were in a monopolistic position so customers would just have to wait. Fortunately we were giving the product away for free so we managed to avert any fears of potential antitrust action.

Marketing had generated the interest, but could our operations scale up quick enough to meet customer demand? For the next couple of hours we maintained a steady output and steady stream of customers, many of whom were keen to learn more about Germany and the secrets of the gluehwein. At one point, several of our German speakers (myself and Veena included) took to speaking in German although it wasn't clear whether this was to add to the atmosphere of the party or to covertly discuss the gluehwein recipe.

Finally we had exhausted our supplies of raw materials, the TG was about to end and people were leaving. Suddenly supply had exceeded demand and we had a surplus, so those customers remaining to the end benefitted from extra-large servings.

All in all it was a great evening, and the gluehwein was an unprecedented success. We headed out into the cold and darkness of the Seattle night emboldened and inspired by our experiences and, in no small part, by our own consumption of the gluehwein.

In the true spirit of sharing, we include our recipe below and hope that gluehwein can become a regular feature of the TG especially in the Fall and Winter quarters!

Prost!!!

Disclaimer:
Please drink responsibly. Make sure your friends are just as drunk as you are.

Ingredients:
Red wine - merlot, shiraz or similar (preferably not too expensive)
For each 750 ml (3 cups) of wine:
1 stick cinnamon
6 whole cloves
Rind of half a lemon
2 to 4 table spoons table spoons of sugar
Cardamom pod (optional)
Rum, brandy, vodka or schnapps (optional)

Break cinnamon sticks into three or four pieces. Remove rind from lemon in large pieces or one long piece. In saucepot over medium-low heat, combine wine, spices and 2 table spoons sugar. Heat 1/2 to 1 hour, but do not allow to boil. Longer heating brings out a warmer, more cinnamon flavour. Taste and adjust sugar. Serve, adding a shot of rum or schnapps if desired.

Notes:
We didn't use cardamom or rum, brandy, vodka, schnapps etc.
We used a few bottles of gloegg (from Ikea) as a base.
It's also possible to get sachets of the spices (kind of look like tea bags) from selected wine merchants/supermarkets.

More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulled_wine

Visitors!!

2007-10-21T21:34:00.000-07:00

We started our second class, International Business Law last Monday, but that is not my big news for the week. That goes to the visit from my cousin (Jamie) and her friend (Justin). Ahh, family...

Who knew Jamie would be studying in China during the same time as me? But as it stands, she’s been in Beijing and came down to Shanghai for her long weekend. Not only did we get to spend time with each other in Shanghai, but we also did a lot of exploration of the city since this was her friend, Justin’s first time here. We visited the business side of town, Lujiazui, which is totally on the opposite side of the city as me, since the 4th tallest building in the world (Jin Mao) and the next tallest building are located there. We also meandered down the Huang Pu and found the air-conditioned ferry to take us across the river for 2 RMB. We never actually used the air conditioner since it was cool out, but we could not find the entrance for the .5 RMB local ferry. We walked from East to West Nanjing Lu, got some really good beef jerky, and then headed back so we could meet everyone and then some for dinner and a drink at a bar on Hengshan Lu. The next few days also consisted of a lot of walking and exploring.

This visit re-enforced the difference between the way Chinese treat themselves versus foreigners. Not only do Jamie and Justin agree with Matt’s statement about the great quality of service they receive here, but they also get the numerous stares and are constantly approached to buy the fake goods. It was interesting that when I was walking around with them, I did not get a single card shoved into my face and that many thought I was their tour guide (apparently we don’t look the same – see picture). They tried to speak to me so I could translate for the 2 haole people (who happen to know more of this language than me!). And then, I got a “ting de dong!?” in our elevator from the service guy who was in awe that I could understand what they were saying. Yet it all worked out well since their language skills, in addition to all their bargaining practice in Beijing, helped us to get some good deals.

They did mention many times how much more expensive Shanghai is than Beijing, so you can really see where the money is in China. Other differences include the lack of street vendors, abundance of tall buildings and advanced metro system in Shanghai. (It’s still nowhere near the level of Hong Kong’s subway). Yet, if Shanghai goes though with their subway expansion plan as detailed in the Planning Exhibition Hall, it will get very complicated very quickly. (The plans show 18 lines by 2020! And there are currently 4 in use.) Now, I want to go to Beijing, not to see the same main tourist attractions again, but to see how they live and compare our exchange experiences.

More pictures coming your way.

1st MBA Course - Int'l Business Global Strategy

2007-10-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Dressed for success in his three-piece, Professor El Nemaki, shows up always 20mins before class setting up his computer and PPT slides for the day's lecture. While his students straggle in 5-15mins late for class everyday.

After sitting in his class for two weeks, I really enjoyed his class tremendously. I did learn content, gathered some additional analytical frameworks of breaking down global business issues, and improved my free-hand chart making skills on flip chart paper rather than a white board. However, it was Prof. Nemaki's real life work experiences, his travels, and stories that sticked with me. He worked at Philips Medical, McKinsey Consulting, providing consulting services to Fortune 500 companies and maintain ties to various government organization around the world. Needless to say, he's a man with global business experience. This is something that is hard to find in any top US MBA school. Who can say that he has three properties around the world - Dubai, Holland, and Thailand. A person who meets with dignataries from China on a frequent basis. He was able to bring his real life stories and understanding of a country's culture of doing business was the to key a success or failure of a business decision or strategy made my a big corporation or by one person.

The exercise of analyzing the case study of the day with your group was fun. My teammates were Margot, Gemma, Jane, and Eric. I had a good team. Not too big like other teams which had more than 8 people. We worked well together with good discussion, involvement, and contribution by all. But when it came to frameworks, charts/graphs, and diagrams, I took the initiative. The professor called us the chart making team. Our team stood out with our charts as well as our analysis as pictures was used to convey our message to our international group of classmates mainly made up with Chinese and European students. I was surprised that the rest of the team didn't bring their chart making skills until toward the end our the course which brought out my competitive nature to bring newer and better frameworks out of my tool bag.

In short with the first class completed, there are major differences taking a MBA course at UW and SJTU. I will not say for good or bad, but different.

What is takes to be a good host

2007-10-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

Living in big US cities such as NYC, LA, and Washington DC, you will experience the fast pace life of lots of people, cars, and sensory overload. Shanghai, just like all big cities around the world, fall into this category. With this fast pace life, you inevitably encounter people from all walks of life. This includes rude and impatience people. I have my share of folks shouting at me , giving me bad customer service, or laughing at me at my poor mandarin speaking skills. But my impression of China and the people is that you know someone, even if its through 2-3 degrees of separation, people are willing to help you out in many ways.

For example, my classmates Jane and Gemma agreeable to take time to give me some Chinese tutoring lessons to improve my vocabulary and pronunciation. In addition, Jane was able to take my friends (who were in town visiting me) to a club last week, the night before she was leaving for vacation.

At SJTU, the program office teamed us up with China MBA students as local host buddies. Mine is Bruce Du. He is a 1st yr evening MBA student. He works full time as a data analyst at a US based company. He has class twice a week during the weekday and class all day on Sunday. He decided to get together this past Sunday right after class. He brought Jeri, Matt, and myself to a billiards place where we met up with a few of his classmates. Bruce made every attempt to introduce and integrate us to his classmates. We played pool and ate dinner there. It was a great experience as we would never gone there since it was a real local hang out. He made us feel very at home and comfortable. I felt bad b/c he lives 1.5hr away and he's hosting us right after an all day class and now he'll probably need to take a taxi home b/c the subway closes around 9pm. I really appreciate his efforts to be a good host. This is in addition to the help he gave me earlier in the week when he gave me some good information on how and where to buy bus tickets to the local water towns around Shanghai. I would never have found the right place if it wasn't for Bruce making a few phone calls and recommendations.

Thanks Bruce, Jane, and Gemma!

Recent Pics of my travels and adventures

2007-10-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

For those who interested in what I've been up (w/out reading my blog posts), here are my pics of my travels and adventures thus far in China.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kien.c.ha

Cheers!
Kien

Buying a Bike in a Typhoon?

2007-10-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

It's the start of the typhoon season here in Asia. The news report that this typhoon is the biggest typhoon to hit the east coast of China in decades. After enduring 90F days for over a week, I was thinking that we get some relief. I had no idea we were getting hit by a big storm after watching the news reports and it started raining like cats and dogs here in Shanghai. I never experienced rain like this except for when Jonathan and I went to the Global MBA conference in Singapore this past year.

It rained, rained, and rained for most of the day. During lunch we found a lunch spot to get our of the rain. Matt and I talked about getting bikes would a great idea to travel around our local neighborhoods b/c we were tired of walking around which was tiring and time consuming. We also discussed that we wanted to be productive with our time and not sit around in our condos doing nothing. Then a light bulb turned on in our heads. Let's get bikes at Carrefour today once there's a slight break in the rain.

It was getting dark and rained lightened up a bit. We decided to go for it. So, we walked to the subway to get to Zhongshang Park subway station where Carrefour was located. We looked at the slim bike selection. Matt picked yellow, I picked red. No purple or pink was in stock. We tried riding around in the store. Right away we knew why it costs only $25USD. Price and Quality was in effect. No complaints here. It was a good deal. We took them. Got them tightened up and adjusted.

The experience of riding back in the rain was priceless. Kinda of scary but thrilling also as we had to dodge taxis, other riders, and pedestrians in the dark. We made it back in one piece!!!!

Here's our total damages for this outing.

Two Bikes=$310RMB

Two Baskets=$42RMB

Two Locks=$36RMB

Two Bike Ponchos=$38RMB

One air pump=$15RMB

(In total USD=$35 per person)

Riding back in a typhoon=priceless

1st Week in Shanghai, China

2007-10-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

I really didn't start thinking that I was going to live in China for 3.5months until I boarded on a plane to Shanghai on Sept 5th. For most of us studying abroad, we had a busy summer interning at our company right up until we had to pack and head for the airport. Besides taking care of business and personal matters, I wanted to make sure I got to see my family and friends before I leave.

Fortunately, this would be my second time to Shanghai (the first being last summer). Knowing very little mandarin, this would be definitely a challenge for me. I packed my mandarin language books from the college courses I took 10yrs ago.

When we landed in Shanghai after a nice 14hr flight, I headed for my hotel in Pudong. It was nice staying at the Intercontinental Hotel for a few days. I felt like I was on a much needed vacation. But soon reality settled in - I needed to find a permanent place to stay for several months. I started calling around real estate agents offices who spoke English. I left messages or was in contact with over 5 offices but no real luck yet. Meanwhile, I crashed at Jerri and Jeri's place for two days. With good fortune, Jerri was able to help me by having her real estate agent find a place for me. She was able to translate and set-up times to view condos around Jiao Tong University where we will be studying.

After two days, some stress, several showings and walking around, I finally found the a place that fit my criteria - price, location, cleanliness, etc. After seeing it, it was time to sign the paperwork and give them money. They wanted all cash upfront with deposit and commission, so I had to go the bank and walk around with lots of bills which was a bit nerve racking but had my security force of Jerri and Jeri with me. With key in hand, time for my next set of tasks, get household items and unpack at a place I can call home now.

Take home lessons:

Plan far in advance in finding a place

Calling many people to find a place for you, preferably someone you can trust or who is a local resident.

Be patient b/c you will find a place eventually

You will pay much higher prices for a lease that is short term

Bring lots of cash with you (no check or credit card here for this type of transcation)

Business opportunity:

The rental market is done thru real estate agents who get a nice commission

Real estate agents cover their own local neighborhood that is in walking distance.

How can you build better business model to disrupt this channel and model while providing better service, pricing, and efficiency for landlords and tenants? hmmm......

China explorations

2007-10-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking on the blog, I know and I'm sorry. However, I have been having a good time exploring the area since we did have break in our class schedule. There were a few days in Huangshan, Hong Kong, and Zhouzhuang... and it was a good thing too because I ended up missing the 2nd typhoon to hit Shanghai since we've been here. Jerri and I were actually traveling back from Hong Kong at the time and got delayed at the Shenzhen airport for a few hours, but it could have been much worse, so I'll take it.

Here's a link to my albums because sometimes I like pictures and it's nice to share. Hope you like them too.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jerilynyoung

Here are my thoughts on Huangshan, which really was the highlight of my past week.
Pictures do not do this place justice. It’s absolutely amazing what’s possible out there. Peaks and valleys, strange rock formations, seemingly impossible architecture (including walkways and staircases), and a beautiful sunrise (which would have been even nicer if we were 50’ further down and could actually see the sun poke its head out).
And who knew that we’d all be able to climb a big giant mountain in a day... and then walk around their version of the grand canyon (da shao gu). I think we climbed many thousand stairs and ended up with very sore muscles. It could almost be enough exercise for me for a year. The only too bad part was the second day when the mountain was overloaded with Chinese tourist on their Golden Week holiday. Matt and I decided to go down the mountain early to get away from them and avoid being pushed over the edge. Safety, while not totally discounted, is not necessarily of the highest concern there.

Oh, and Cortilia, thanks for the announcement...

What I Learned!!-2 months back.

2007-10-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

What I learned? Well being back and jumping back in class (Direct Mktg with Elizabeth Stearns), I learned a couple of things. 1) Don't jump back in and take a class with Elizabeth Stearn's right away, great class, but jet lag etc., makes it tough. But seriously what are my key take aways (to use an overused MBA term). The main thing it to share the best of your culture and ask questions. This photo was a great example. As you can see, I am not shy and look at life as one gag after another. My Singaporean friend Suzanne (see below) a former UofW exchange student saw these hysterical manikins and I just had to do 'the face'. People around us just started laughing and after we took pictures, others were doing the same. I found that is was OK, if not great, to make an ass of yourself so others/locals could do the same without being embarrassed. Plus it is fun! Another fun example was I was out with another classmate and her 2 daughters, and the kids were running through a water fountain. Being fairly traditional, the mothers were watching the kids run in the fountain and talking amongst themselves. Yes, being the big kid that I am, I totally ran through the fountain chasing Nicole (my friend's daughter) and got us both thoroughly wet. Peals of children's laughter could be heard and the nervous giggles of the mothers as they looked and pointed at me. But I had a blast and all of the kids did as well. Finally a few of the mother's joined in, probably because I was the one that made it OK to do that, and made it so they wouldn't feel embarrassed.

The other thing I did, was ask a ton of questions, probably to the frustration of my guests. I think they must have thought that I was 6 or something, but I asked and shared as much information as possible with my other classmates, flatmates, etc. That is where I learned the most.

My advice, ask questions, make an ass of yourself but not your sponsors and you will have a wonderful trip and gain the most from this.

Beth

A few more pictures... crazy and pretty

2007-10-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is doing well now that school has started. Just wanted to share a few more pictures from Shanghai and our trip to Huangshan (about a 12 hour train ride away).

http://picasaweb.google.com/jerilynyoung/Take2MostlyHuangshan

Take care,
Jeri

Mid-Autumn Festival @ Seattle - after Paul

2007-10-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Well, as I mentioned in the "Smurf" posters, moon festival means a lot to students like me.

Some of my friends got together to make moon cakes in the evening of Sep. 24. That was the second time that we've made moon cakes together. The size was definitely improved, the taste was different from the first time, but, the most important of all, we had professional photographer this year, so that "the look was a lot better."

Here's the link for the whole process http://picasaweb.google.com/Cortilia/MakingMoonCakes/

Mid-Autumn Festival

2007-10-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was Mid-Autumn Festival. This is a traditional Chinese holiday based on the lunar calendar that has been largely given up on the mainland but is still a big deal here in HK as well as in Taiwan.

On Monday there was a Mid-Autumn party hosted by the MBA office. It was your typical MBA gathering with future business leaders milling about with beer and plastic plates of food. I had interesting conversations with a finance guy from Germany, a women interested in ops and logistics from the mainland, and an American guy from non-profits. The food was fabulous as usual.

At some point during the party it was decided that it was time to light the lanterns, which is a traditional part of the mid-autumn festivities. I followed the crowd out onto the patio and observed while the Chinese students lit their disposable paper lanterns and walked around holding them on sticks. Everybody was so happy. People were smiling, laughing, and taking pictures of themselves holding lanterns. This was totally over my head. Don't get me wrong, lanterns are cool and all, but with absolutely no cultural context I had no connection to the emotional side of the ritual.

The following night we skipped class (mistake) and went to find the fire dragon ceremony. We'd heard that this was a famous performance that was culturally significant, and it sounded really cool. Every student on campus was going home for the holiday so the queues to get on the buses were incredibly long. We decided to take a cab into the city instead. We piled 5 deep into a cab and set out for Tin Hau, where we knew the fire dragon to be. We rode for about 15 minutes before hitting the gridlock. It was like Seattle x 2. We sat there for a long time. The driver sort of laughed at us when we tried to ask him about alternate routes that may not take as long. Everybody in HK was out, and the tiny size of the city was very apparent.

We finally made it to Tin Hau an hour later and stumbled into a carnival. In typical HK style there were thousands of people there. Again it was over my head. I'm not really sure what kind of carnival doesn't have rides or games or candy. A Chinese mid-autumn carnival apparently. Thousands of people were just milling about gathered around several stages with guys giving speeches or something. I assume they were speeches because there were no singers or magic tricks. There were also hundreds of lanterns hung overhead and a few very large lanternesque sculptures that were lit up. Every so often the full moon would peek out from behind the clouds and people would point and say stuff.

Eventually we realized that this was not the fire dragon ceremony. We asked someone where it was and he happened to be going there so we followed him. The fire dragon was made of what looked like very coarse rope. It was probably the length of a city block and was carried on poles by dozens of young men. The head also appeared to be made of some kind of rope and was very elaborate but not colorful at all. It wasn't actually on fire, which was too bad. It did, however, have thousands of lit insence sticks attached to it's head, back, and tail. To the sound of drum beats and a guy yelling into a megaphone, the fire dragon came running through an alley into a small square, and then circled and danced about. The huge crowd responded with cheers to the guy on the megaphone. I wish I could give a better description here but I have absolutely no idea what was going on. This night, more than ever since I have been here, I wished I spoke Cantonese. To a white-boy like me, the scene just looked like a bunch of happy people doing something odd.

On a physical level, I guess this is what rituals are. Lighting lanterns and eating cakes with your friends and family is in fact much less odd than bringing a tree into your home and covering it with bits of shiny plastic and decorations that you normally keep in a box in your basement. It's not about the act. The act can be in fact silly or impractical, and that's just fine.

After the fire dragon we went to an awesome Hunan restaurant and the English guy paid the French guy $12 to eat a really hot Chinese pepper. The French aren't accustomed to such things. It was very funny.

Huddle Updates

2007-10-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

The 2007 Huddle.

Not quite the same without you…but we’re doing our bestJ This year’s team: Marc Ericson, John Snekkevic, Thomas Burgemeister, Ryan Gianelli, Paul Kilian, Steffenie Birkland, and myself.

9/8/2007

Our first game. Opponent: Boise State, longest winning streak in major college football.

After several meetings with former Huddle organizers, we take a stab at our first tailgate. We leave Costco with 50 burgers, 25 brauts, 200 beers, and fixins for breakfast burritos. On game day, Thomas and Marc hold down our premier spot in the alumni lot at 7am. When I arrive at 9:15, I am pleasantly surprised to see all of the food arranged in colorful plastic ware (compliments of Target), complete with napkins nicely folded in the bowls. We quickly decorate our three tents with party streamers and balloons and John gets to work making the Huddle team breakfast burritos. We soon find that the breakfast burritos are a lot of work and switch over to burgers and brauts. We are ready. And then come the first years…all in all, there are >60 people at the Huddle. So nice to catch up with friends coming back from internships and meet new people arriving to the program. I’m sad to say that ~50 of our Huddle participants are 1st-year students with a core ~10 from our 2008 class. Ah well, not a huge surprise. One nice addition this year is the strong participation of new UW alums. Happy to have some friendly faces around: Sara Burnett, Eric Goldsborough, Ben Shepard, John Mowat, and Neil Dunn.

9/15/07 Ohio State

Lessons learned from the previous Huddle:
1. Expect more than 40 people and try not to run out of beer at halftime.
2. No one is actually in the alumni lot at 7am.
3. Coors Light is the beer of choice (even more than the microbrews), go figure.

After one Huddle under our belt, we decide to step it up a little and give people more for their $15. The menu: flank steak, corn, and grilled asparagus. Thomas and Marc early, me picking up the rear. First, I wake up late to pick up the Ciabatta from Trader Joes—yikes! 15 minutes later I get a call from Marc, we need chairs—I make a quick stop at Husky Headquarters and pick up two Husky folding chairs. 10 minutes later, we’ve blown out the adaptor to the TV…we need ?? adaptors. I say call someone else given the lack of hardware stores in the UDistrict and my own personal lack of expertise in adaptors. Ben Shepard to the rescue! The Huddle is busy, fun and crowded with over 70 people (including some wearing Boise State gear thanks to Justin Lewis ^_^ ). Good 1st half (though they blow it in the 2nd), beer left over, and perfect amount of food. Bonus: TV broadcasting the game. Now, for USC…

http://picasaweb.google.com/uwmbaexchange/HuddleOnSet15Seattle

Carrie

(Organized by Cortilia)

月 (Moon)

2007-09-28T22:11:00.001-07:00

月 (Moon) 1

Moon is a major topic in Chinese poems. Poets use it to describe homesickness. This article is about how the moon tonight makes people recall the past year, being away from home, merging new culture, and growing in frustration. There are two parts of this article, and the following is just the first part.

月節，傳統是個與家人團聚的節日，不稱為團圓飯的月宴，在古代，亦為吟詩作對的時機，「三笑姻緣」(又稱「唐伯虎點秋香」或「四傑全傳」)中，行酒令不僅為貴族的特權，更是市井小民游戲人生的點綴

望著朔月，遙想每一詩句詞作，盈滿「千里共嬋娟」，對故友的思念，油然而生。思索過往一年，寄住異鄉，漸漸從個中文筆者轉成英文幼童，究竟在十二個月裡是怎生地成長了，又，是怎樣的改變了？

文化差異？究竟這樣的差異是否存在？
存著這個疑惑，剛下飛機的我，四處看都是文化差異，不同的穿著，居家裡不同的空間利用，大眾運輸不同的設計，都市建築不同的功能，怎麼看都肇因於文化差異。一段辯論在於，有人認為「文化差異」其實是抽象存在著，並非具象概念，其不過是取諸「個體差異性」的眾數，套以文化刻板印象，再借口說你傳之力，在文化外者的腦海裡萌入似是卻非的影像；再者，人性對於不熟悉的事物，亦喜歡以一上位概念偏蓋全貌，易明卻忽略眾多細節與內涵的差異性。
這一切的誤解與不易翻轉的認定，造就文化衝突的存在與必然。

在這個社會裡生活的一年裡，體驗遠比預期地多，也比預期來得正向許多。

西雅圖（Seattle），畢竟跟我的家鄉—宜蘭(Yilan)十分類似，山海佈景，平原與自然景觀，宜蘭多了些礁石，西雅圖則多了些雲影變化。很美的兩個城市，並未帶給我外在環境上的衝擊。

大學離家的我，七年以來，慣了獨立的生活，也慣了較為「內斂」的日子。法律系學生的日子，較諸商學院，真的簡單許多！不同的法典伴隨不同的學說，刑法上的自由原因行為，追溯起來要念的典籍還包括日文與德文，伴書走路的日子與在商學院的生活自有著根本上的差異！真要說起文化衝擊，不同學院的衝擊之於我，遠大於社會的不同！

另一個大衝擊自然就是語言。法律系學生，就算不習慣記訟法典法條，也一定在日常生活中舞文弄墨，不論是往法哲學走的學生，往司法界發展的學生，或是往更寬廣的職向邁進的學生，最大的共同之處是唇齒的敏銳與筆鋒的犀利。而在一個全非熟悉語言的世界，所有身為法律系學生的「優勢」之處，剝奪殆盡。僅存的是難以口語表述的「邏輯思維」，沒有上位概念的辭彙，邏輯沒有比傅柯來得簡單！

這樣的衝擊對於自我認同有什麼樣的影響呢？ (待續)

First course at SJTU: Impressions

2007-09-28T00:34:00.000-07:00

The first class of the quarter, International Business, ended today. Overall it was a good class, highlighted by an outstanding professor (Dr M S S El Namaki) and a challenging classroom environment.

El Namaki was born in Egypt, and raised in Holland. Probably about 60 years old, he now lives in Dubai but spends most of his time travelling all over East Asia teaching executive programs at various universities, corporations, and governments. His career is not 100% clear in his bio, but was revealed during his lectures. It has included McKinsey, Philips (Holland), Time Magazine, followed by consulting with many governments (China, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Egypt,..., European Union). To say the least, he offered personal experiences for just about every issue raised in his lectures and by the students.

Kien and I agree, he would be a great candidate if a Fares Boulos replacement was ever needed. His lectures, selected case studies, and follow-up stories definitely imparted many meaningful strategic lessons and theories into my brain. It was more effective than Fares.

Here's how the classes progressed:

45-75 minutes of lecture, followed by a live case, all having China flavor. The case was typically presented in print media or video. Afterward, groups assembled for about 30 minutes to create a presentation using material from the lecture. No PowerPoint- just poster paper and markers. Definitely 'on the spot' thinking, group organization, and problem solving. Of course, depth of analysis was lost in these quick cases, but the shear number solidly drove his lectures home for me.

The classroom environment was a distraction, however, and often frustrating. I didn't think I would use "shhhh" so frequently in my life ever again, but Kien and I found ourselves doing it almost daily. It is clear that the interest in education, the level of respect for classmates, and the level of professionalism is much higher at UW than at any other program represented here. What does that say about these programs? One thing is for sure- they are definitely not the same as an American MBA Program. As jerilyn said in a previous post- excessive talking was prevalent every day. During lectures, during presentations. We didn't have the 'luxury' of a seating chart as we did during our core classes at UW (hah!) but the absense rate would have been embarassing as well.

Overall, it was definitely a worthwhile class, but we'll see what the next class brings soon.

But first: some time for travelling!

Bicycle update

2007-09-26T07:52:00.001-07:00

I don't think it will last 3 months. Let's recap:

Purchased the bike 10 days ago.
Day 6 my pedal fell off. Seriously. 25 RMB to have a street-side bike repairman fix it.
Day 8 the other pedal was threatening to falling off. 1 RMB for another repair man to do some preventative wrench turning.

I guess it can be expected from a $25 Chinese bike bought at a French mass-retailer?

Other symptoms of 'new' Chinese bicycles (also bought at Carrefour):
- Nuts and bolts spontaneously fall off.
- Seats gradually 'recline'.
- Rear-wheel moves forward. Chain repeated falls off of sprockets.

Luckily, there exists one solution to ALL bike problems: The mobile repairmen. Someone should do a Porter's 5 Forces for this industry.

Switzerland

2007-09-25T00:52:00.001-07:00

After a month in Copenhagen – that much time in a beautiful, historic European city is enough to make me stir-crazy – I took a weekend to go to Interlaken, Switzerland, and go canyoning.

I didn’t realize how much I miss mountains until I saw them again. Interlaken and everything surrounding it is absolutely gorgeous (or “gorges” if I wanted to go with a canyon joke, but that’s the kind of thing my dad would say so I’ll refrain). Here’s the link to my photo album to see all 93 pictures I took before my batteries died (I forgot to charge the replacements before leaving, or else I would have even more): http://www.flickr.com/photos/11691186@N05/sets/72157602132155608/

Switzerland is culturally divided into three parts: German, French, and Italian. Everything in stores is printed in at least two of those languages, often all three. Just like in Denmark, Swiss people all seem to speak English as well, making me again feel inadequate for being unable to speak four languages. Interlaken is in the German area near Jungfrau, “The Top of Europe.” My time there was limited, so immediately after checking into the hostel I asked the girl at the front desk for a good hike from the hostel. She pointed straight up what looked less like a mountain than a cliff with some trees on it and said, “there’s a restaurant on top of that mountain. The funicular that goes up there isn’t running, but there’s a trail you can take. It’s kind of steep, but the views are nice.” First, “steep” doesn’t do it justice. Second, neither does “nice.”

Day two is when I went canyoning. Canyoning (aka canyoneering), for those who don’t know, involves rappelling, jumping, swimming, and hiking down a river cut into bedrock (not the Flintstones’ city). For someone like me, afraid of both heights and water, it’s a great way to spend a Saturday. Given the water and rocks, I didn’t bring my camera. So, I apologize, no pictures. Having a superb sense for irony, I made it safely down the entire river only to promptly slip and fall three steps onto dry land.

After getting back to Interlaken, I had a few more hours of daylight, so I took a ferry across Thunersee (Lake Thun). It was uneventful, but yielded more good pictures, so I’ll direct you back to my photo album instead of writing more on the subject.

The most famous hostel in Interlaken is Balmer’s. So I can take a ten hour flight and fourteen hour train ride, but I can’t get away from Balmer.

I left Interlaken a bit early on my last day there (no hikes I could complete in the hours I had left) and spent the afternoon in Basel, where I had to change trains to get home. This is where I really wish I had my replacement camera batteries. Instead, I just stole a couple of pictures from the internet. The thing that amazes me about Europe is that even cities which are considered nondescript and are famous for chemical manufacturing more than anything else still have dozens of beautiful, historic buildings. I’ll bet that makes New Jersey jealous.

Week 3: September 17-23

2007-09-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

~~school starts~~
We had our 1st week class (week 1 of 2 of International Business), which besides us includes a mixture of Chinese, French, Belgian, German, Italian, and Korean students. It’s interesting to see how every acts and interacts in this class. Basically, many people show up late if they attend at all, they walk in and out of the classroom throughout the session, one guy who sits up front listens to music on his computer the whole time, another reads the news paper or talks on the phone with his head under the desk, there are several simultaneous conversations, people are texting each other on their phones, they play with their PSPs, and who knows what else is going on. Absolutely amazing. But at the end of each session, everyone claps for the Professor who is from Egypt and Holland and actually has a lot of international business experience. Thus far, I can only say that some sessions have been better than others because you can only listen to so many groups present on the same topic each day.

~~typhoon wipha~~
Apparently, the biggest typhoon to hit China is who knows how long was headed in our direction. It was all over the news and we were warned many times to stay indoors on Wednesday afternoon, but I think we had more rain and wind on Tuesday before we really knew what was happening. On Tuesday, the sheets of rain soaked us to the bones, but we were more disturbed because it prevented us from getting out and exploring for a couple of days. This was especially true on Wednesday since that was day 2 of no exploration and the heavy, heavy rain did not even seem to hit the area. After about 2 weeks of decent weather, we did not enjoy being forced indoors, but I guess it helped us to get caught up with other things, like emails and the blog.

~~blending in~~
Kien and Matt bought the cheapest bikes on Tuesday night. $20 for the bike and $10 for the lock and poncho. Apparently the best thing to do is to make your first bicycle ride around Shanghai in crazy traffic in the dark with rain and wet roads and using a poncho that partially limits your vision. Exciting stuff.

Nonetheless, Jerri and I have been enjoying the benefits of these bikes. We’ve been catching rides around town sitting on the back rack of the bike, which is apparently made for bags and things like that. I don’t think it’s the safest thing we could possibly do considering the quality of the bike, the traffic patterns here, and the fact that I’ve already almost fallen off a few times, but we’re just trying to fit in with the locals. At least we’re not 4 on a moped like some others. I really hope these bikes last the duration of the 3 months we are here. It’s a little questionable at the moment and it’s only been a few days.

~~3XL~~
I’m a giant here in China and therefore will not be buying any shorts. The only ones I can fit would be a size 3x. That said, I really don’t like working out for the sake of working out, but Kien, Matt and I joined the local gym this week. We’ve been enjoying the food here and would like to continue to do so, so I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. Sacrifices...

Kevin selling UW MBA gear

2007-09-24T00:17:00.001-07:00

Here's Kevin selling UW MBA gear at the Sept 20 Club Fair TG.

A typhoon and a bike

2007-09-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

There are two ingredients one needs to become indistinguishable from a local:

1. A typhoon

2. A bicycle

That's really all, because most foreigners in China wouldn't even think about riding a bike in a torrential downpour.. And wearing a bicycle-poncho means only your face is visible- no problem because in a typhoon it's raining so hard no one can see your face anyways!

And while it's hard to believe until you experience it, the bicycle poncho is far dryer than walking with an umbrella. Buying a bike was a good choice. Hope it isn't stolen (and that it doesn't fall apart in less than three months!).

A few pictues

2007-09-21T04:05:00.000-07:00

You can visit the album if you have a few minutes to spare... http://picasaweb.google.com/jerilynyoung/Shanghai2007Take1

Easy steps to finding housing in China

2007-09-18T00:16:00.000-07:00

Finding housing in the states is pretty easy, right? There are lots of options:
-newspaper ads
-online classifieds
-driving around your desired neighborhood, writing down phone numbers
-Real estate agent (a last resort, esp for low-budget students)

Unfortunately it's not the same, and more difficult, in China...

Here are the steps to finding an apartment in Shanghai:

1. Find as many housing agencies in your neighborhood as possible. There are plenty, and yes you need a housing agency- there is no open market for apartments other than two or three websites, but the selection/location there is still fairly limited.
2a. If you can speak mandarin- tell them what you want (#Bdrms, lease length, location, price range).
2b. If you cannot speak mandarin- find someone who can, ask them to help you
3. Look at as many apartments as possible
4. Decide
5. For short term leases, plan on paying all of your rent, plus 35% of one month commission, plus one month for deposit ALL upfront. For my roommate and I this was over 25,000 RMB. Writing a check really isn't an option either. Just bring cash (yikes!)
6. Move in!

This is how it went for me, and it was pretty stressful. Especially if you don't have a mandarin speaking person to help. The housing agencies are hit and miss- from really friendly, sincere, and willing/able to speak a little english...to the other end of the spectrum of unhelpful people who actually seem to make fun of you while you are standing right there. This is why you need a mandarin speaker.

I suspect that this entire industry will not last forever. Younger generations in China are beginning to use the internet for nearly everything, and once the majority of the Chinese population begins using the online classifieds that already exist, there won't be a need for the agency middleman. During my process we had an interesting situation- when we went to view the apartment, the previous tenant, apartment (condo) owner, housing agent, and myself were all present. Immediately the agent became very nervous, because it would have been incredibly easy for the owner and I to make direct contact to cut the agent out of the loop. But this didn't happen...otherwise my roommate and I would have each saved 875RMB!

Now we are all moved in, and can finally relax.

Week 2: September 10-16

2007-09-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

sorry this is long, but apparently a lot happened this week...

settling in our new home and meeting neighbors
It seems that our miles of walking and exploring continue. We’re very close to the point where we are “completely” settled into our new homes considering what we want to accomplish in the next 3 months. We’ve also started to spend a little more time exploring beyond the 2 mile radius that surrounds our home and school. This included meeting up with Kien’s friend, Rita, for some very good, but very expensive dim sum at Din Tai Feng(?) followed by a visit to her penthouse. Oh my goodness... a gorgeous view of the Huangpu River and some coal piles. A “beach” including a wave pool and sand, an indoor lap pool, a few tennis courts, a private elevator entrance (so there’s an inner door and an outer entrance, a huge living room with floor to ceiling windows, 3 big bedrooms and a den, a large kitchen, and a driver. And although their aiyi (aunty, cleaning lady, baby sitter, etc) didn’t live with them, she could in the built-in “room,” basically a 3’x4’ closet with a bathroom where the shower head is over the sink. I’m not exactly sure where you would stand to take a shower. On the other hand, they do have at least some rules to these women are treated with some respect. The aiyi room is required to include a window. Amazing.

We also met with Dorette, the daughter of Popo Young’s friend that just passed away. Very smart lady with lots of international experience ranging from international business to technology to real estate to finance. She was based in New York for 15 years while focusing on Latin and South America; lived in Singapore, Beijing, and now Shanghai. She now does consulting and was very nice to meet with us and share some tips and information on getting settled in Shanghai. She is definitely a wealth of information and a wonderful resource.

Matt, Jerri and I confirmed the awareness of our new home as we wandered down Nanjing Lu, which is filled with neon lights, tourists, hawkers, beggars, and just a whole lot of people and noise. Compared to our neighborhood, it was overwhelming to walk down the pedestrian street and be bombarded by everything and everyone each step of the way. After finding a local shop off the main road for a really good dinner, we were happy to go home.

veggies galore
Mmmm... so ono! Long beans, various choys, yam leaves, cucumbers, bamboo shoots... Steamed, stir fried, boiled in soup, pickled... Hot, cold, spicy, and more... They all beat the same salad I was having every day at Pi Phi.

Suzhou
A quick 30 minute express train ride West of Shanghai is the little suburb of Suzhou, home to about 6 million people. Once a favorite of stomping ground of emperors, it is filled with many gardens and history. The grand canal also runs through the city so it is often referred to as the Venice of China. And although they try to follow the old architecture when constructing new buildings in the area, there is a clear distinction between new Suzhou and old Suzhou. With one glance, you know which dwellings are for the expats and which ones are for the country people.

Also, thanks to Jerri’s friend of a friend, we stayed at a nice hotel for less than a third of the listed price... China at work. Xiao Qi was also kind enough to take half a day off from his government tax job to treat us to a very tasty, very large lunch and show us around the city in his new Toyota Camry. It was weird though because he hardly ate even though he ordered about 12 dishes and there were only five of us. To say the least, we ate a lot and left the restaurant stuffed. He then continued to show us around new Suzhou, the Lion’s garden and a boat ride. On our own the next day, we went on another boat ride and climbed up a pagoda for a wonderful view.

Our visit to Suzhou commenced with our hired car dropping us off across the bridge from the train station. With about 45 minutes to kill before we really had to be at the train station, we decided to wander down a side street in search of food. And that is what we found in an old building with just a little sign. We followed the guy in through a maze of construction to their restaurant, which they had just bought, so the menu that was visible did not apply. It was a small restaurant, so we just go into their kitchen and start pointing to different foods they currently have available not knowing exactly what we would be getting in a few minutes. Of course, there was a lot of picture taking and coughing caused by some mysterious spice. In the end, we had some ice cold beer (the coldest we’ve found in China thus far), soy beans something, tofu something, shrimp, and some other veggie with meat. All delicious and scarfed down in the few minutes we had before our return to Shanghai.

Ellie’s Visit
Ellie from Korea, Kien’s first of many visitors, arrived on Wednesday and will be here through the weekend... very nice, very cute, very cheery. She made a couple of the masseurs very happy as well since two of them commented on how pretty Korean girls are.

Her Uncle was also very kind to us and invited us to join him at the Shanghai Circus, basically an acrobat show in a circus arena. Yet, these acrobats never cease to amaze me with what they can do. Their pure athleticism mixed in with grace, humor and style is a sight to behold. In this show, there were balancing acts, vases being juggled, contortion, seesaws, trapezes and motorcycles in a cage.

We did learn, however, that the metro does not run every 2-3 minutes to all areas of the city and that it shuts down at 11 pm, even on a Friday night. After that, good luck trying to find a taxi, especially one that does not completely rip you off.

In our neighborhood, we have been finding more and more perks. This includes cheap, 24-hour massage places as we tried a couple of different places with Ellie. While not to be done every day, there will be many more visits so we can get a hour foot massage for less than $5. Our other discovery was the noodle shop right around the corner from Kien’s house. We’ve eyed this place several times as we’ve walked passed it, but it was finally time to give it a try. Absolutely delicious hand-made or shaven noodles in soup and some really good other dishes as well. We’ll definitely be returning there.

bad news
(1) We had our first bad meal. I guess it wasn’t totally horrible, but it just did not come near the quality of so many of our other meals. So many times, we’ve said the food is so good it makes our expanding list of our top ten... but not this one. So sad.
(2) School starts tomorrow. Can we say - not ready?

My First Thoughts

2007-09-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

returning to china
Two years ago, I came with the 2005 Narcissus Goodwill Tour thinking that I was participating since I don’t know when I’ll have the opportunity to return to China again. Then earlier this year, I came with the 2007 China Study Tour led by Yanni, Lian and Joe because it was a good chance to see the business side of China. Who knew that this would be my third time to China in as many years... This time it’s part of a smaller group and it’s living and studying here for three months. Expectations are high. Let the adventure begin.

many hours of travel
After my 4:00 am alarm on Wednesday, September 5, there were many, many hours of travel (probably around 20 hours or so) interspersed with breakfast with Aunty Char and Keenan and a quick stop at Taryn’s new school, San Francisco State University. Nonetheless, we (Jerri, Matt, Kien and I have all arrived ready to begin our new adventure.

Halo from Spain!

2007-09-13T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hola!

So we've finally made it to Madrid and have gotten settled in. In the beginning it was pretty rough because we both had a bad case of jet lag and had to deal with living in a hostel, going to our school orientation and looking for an apartment. Finding a place was not easy because no one wanted to rent to us for just three months. Luckily, Tania's cousin Jai was here visiting and could wander the streets looking for signs that say "se alquila" while we were at school. While we were looking for an apartment, we stayed in a hostel in the center of Madrid near cute little pedestrian streets, decadent plazas, and beautiful residential buildings. At first, we thought about living in that part of town, but we soon found out that it is party central around midnight every night. A few days later, we finally found an apartment for exchange students in Chameri, located between the center of Madrid and our school. Our apartment is very cute, but not fancy by any means. Given the exchange rate, it's just not the greatest time to apartment shop in Madrid. If you want to check us out on google maps, we live at Calle de Viriato, 21. (Plug in the address, Calle de Viriato, 21, 28010, Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, Spain. http://maps.google.com/)

So far, we've spent most of our free time wandering around town on foot and learning where all the metro stops are. We figure we'll hit the museums once our friends and relatives come to town. Evenings consist of (homework for Shanna), tapas, sangria, and outings with other classmates. Tania and her cousin saw a fabulous Flamenco performance and shopped at Zara (where she ran into a random friend from college) while Shanna was in Italy attending the most beautiful wedding.

Our campus courtyards are beautiful. The student body is very diverse. We've met people from the Dominican Republic, France, Peru, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Germany, The Netherlands, Turkey, Lebanon, Bulgaria, India, and Japan. So far, everyone seems really nice and fun to hang out with. The weather here is great and summer seems to be never ending (especially for Tania who doesn't start class until October!).

Adios,

Tania & Shanna

(Organized by Cortilia)

Oh, that's right, the UW Exchange blog...

2007-09-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

If you’ve travelled abroad before, you probably know that it’s nice not to stick out as a tourist any more than necessary (that’s one of my goals here, so it’s nice to at least physically blend in well). A few times now, locals have come up to me and started speaking in Danish, so I think I’m doing relatively well. One thing that makes me feel bad, though, is that Danes all speak English – they speak it better than a lot of Americans, actually – and I don’t speak any of their language besides “thank you” and a few expletives. Why is it that expletives are so frequently among the first words you learn in a new language?

While I’m on the subject of language, grocery shopping is an adventure when you can’t understand any of the words on the food you’re buying. “Excuse me, is this milk?”

The place I’m living is, to put it charitably, cozy. But I don’t particularly need a lot of space (I don’t have much stuff here, after all) and the location can’t be beat, so I’m happy. The Nyhavn, for instance, (the “y,” for some crazy reason, is pronounced “oo”) is the requisite picture of Copenhagen. I’m two-and-a-half blocks from that.

I’ve been here in Copenhagen for two-and-a-half weeks now. I have a local cell phone. I’ve climbed two church spires to get nice views of the city. I’ve stolen things while drunk (at the time, I thought I really needed that lantern). In short, I’ve fully assimilated as a local and am now thoroughly qualified to speak on locals, tourists, and the cultural differences between here and home.

Before coming here, the only encounter I’d had with anything that could be called “Danish” involved pastries. Based on that, I had expected Danes to be doughy and flaky, but sweet. They are sweet – just about the nicest people I’ve ever met, besides Scottish – but the doughy and flaky things proved way off. For one thing, there are no fat people here. Well, there are, but they’re tourists (USA! USA! USA!). I’ve never seen so many bicycles in one city before. And yesterday – I’m actually serious about this – I saw three people using unicycles for transportation. And as for flaky, let me just say: all the Danes I’ve met speak at least 2 languages. On the other hand, guess the nationality of the person who thought Los Angeles was the capital of the United States… I’ll give you a hint: she’ll (disturbingly) be able to vote for our next president.

The Danes aren’t entirely superior, though. They smoke. A lot. They drink a lot, too, though the presence of the aforementioned lantern in my room prevents me from criticizing too harshly.

Ever since I got my cell phone, I’ve felt entitled to look down on other tourists. Actually, I only look down on the ones who walk right in front of me while I’m obviously trying to take pictures. Strangely, tourists in Seattle never bother me. Once I get into another country, though, the bile starts spewing forth. I guess it’s because I know they, on some level, represent me (both as “Americans” and as “Morons With Cameras”). Honestly, though, if you were this guy:

Wouldn’t you hate these people?

And my concern is that this poor guard’s dislike of the plaid-wearers will translate into a dislike of me.

I climbed Vor Frelsers Kirke the other day. The stairs spiral around the outside of the spire and don’t really reach the top so much as they just disappear into nothingness once there’s no further up you can go, like the escalator to nowhere in the Simpsons. There are amazing views of the city from the top of the spire. It was a clear day, so I could even see Sweden in the distance. But at the top some idiot had written his name. And the “187” reference makes me pretty certain it was an American. Maybe someday the reputation Americans have abroad won’t be so deserved. For now, though, I’ll continue to be happy whenever someone assumes I’m Danish.

First days

2007-09-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

I started my first couple days finishing the only book I brought along for the trip, Endurance (which, by the way, is next up on the MBA Reading List that Kyle Polanski put together in the spring). It reminded me of a really good classical composition (by Timothy Mahr if interested) we played in high school concert band based on this same story. Now, back to China…

The Shanghainese couple I am staying with lives about 25 minutes walking distance from the main campus of Jiao Tong University. I devoted the first two days to exploring campus and the surrounding area to get familiar with the where everything is, and to scout out potential apartment complexes. As I would find out, getting an apartment s much easier said than done, as China has a far different real-estate market than we are used to. More on this later. Jiao Tong University’s Xujiahui campus is just a few blocks from one of the more popular shopping centers in the city (Central Hauihai Road), but the campus is surprisingly quiet and separated from the loud streets. The College of Management and Economics, where the MBA program is housed, has its own small campus about 25 minutes away. The building is really nice- yes, even nicer than Balmer- with AC and new classrooms.

The surrounding streets are all pretty similar to each other, with the exception of the major roads (Huashan Lu, Hongqiao Lu). Lots of small shops with activities including making food, fixing bikes and scooters, complete remodel, cutting hair, making copies...

Lots to do, and even more to see.

Getting into the city

2007-09-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

The Pudong Airport is new, and very nice. But, it is still almost an hour’s drive from Shanghai proper (until Shanghai expands more to the east, that is). Taking the bus from the airport is really pretty easy, and for about $2.50 this is the way to go…as long as you know how to say (and hear) your destination in Chinese. However, the airport buses didn’t seem to have English translations for upcoming stops. I also felt more comfortable after finding a seat on the bus next to a businessman from Singapore. It seemed like a fitting start to 4 months in Shanghai, where I plan to connect with as many people working in China as possible. The man and I got along really well; he was willing to put up with my constant urge to say as much as possible in Chinese. He is currently the executive director of a company that is manufacturing a medical device in Shanghai. Conversation ranged from dealing with the FDA to gambling in Macau.

When we arrived at my stop my ride (the cousin of a family friend) was already waiting for me. We drove around the block to the couple’s apartment, where I got my first taste of lots of Chinese food to come, language, and then a shower and sleep.

Our First Trip to the City

2007-09-06T07:54:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Annie, Heidi, and I made our first real expedition into Hong Kong proper. It was amazing. The trip went something like this..

We left from HKUST on the 91m bus at about 1pm. It was one of those double decker buses like you see in London. The girls thought it would be cool if we sat up top, and I secretly agreed, as looking out bus windows in Asia is one of my favorite pastimes. I can't really be sure, but I think that in HK mostly kids sit on the top levels of buses. At least on this bus, everyone up there was under the age of 16 and wearing a school uniform. There were almost no seats left so I stumbled to the back bench. The ceiling was really low, I am not graceful, and the bus was already moving, so it was awkward. Surrounded by tiny Hongkongese school children, this was one of those moments where I felt like I wasn't really blending in so well.

We arrived shortly at the Po Lam shopping mall which has an MTR station (a green station) beneath it. I was snapping pictures of the apartment buildings that towered above us as we walked up to the mall. There are massive apartment building skyscrapers everywhere in HK. The kind of building that are so tall they make you dizzy if you look up at them. We have zero apartments of that size in Seattle.

We emerged from the MTR at the Wan Chai station. Annie forgot the power chord for her Dell laptop back home in Seattle, so she did some research and found a computer store in HK where she thought she could get a new one. We found the place in a mall on a huge floor of tiny stalls all selling computers and electronics. The tiny stall we walked into was probably only 75 square feet. The walls were lined with computer components and different types of chords. Honestly I thought it would be a futile exercise actually to find the exact right part, but sure enough they had a Dell branded power chord in stock of the exact specifications required. Lesson: Never underestimate Hong Kong's ability to get you the right good, or Annie's ability to do research on the internet.

We decided to hike up to Central from Wan Chai so that we could check out the heart of downtown and locate the building we would have to return to later for our Econ class. (HKUST has most of it's night classes downtown in order to accommodate part-time students' work schedules.) I was completely blown away by the scale of the city. Every building is huge and elaborate in some way. It seems like the HK's architects have been engaged in a pissing match for decades over who can build with the most style. Style is a big thing here. Not in a bad way either, it's just in the DNA of the city.

We found a restaurant in the guide book and sat down to eat. The place was bright yellow with crazy mirrors on the ceiling and flashing lights embedded into the decor. We ate rice with scrambled eggs and shrimp, vegetable curry (with a fried egg on top), and fried rice noodles with beef satay. It was fracking delicious. Not that I was on the fence or anything, but that lunch was what made me know I love HK.

We needed cell phones to use during our time here. We headed back to the MTR (a red station) and took a quick ride over to Mong Kok in Kowloon. When we emerged on the other end it took a few seconds to get over the immediate sensory overload. Ladies with large signs were trying to hand us fliers, there were people everywhere, and colorful advertising and shops filled our fields of vision. We checked several cell phone vendors looking for cheap phones that weren't too crappy. Heidi tried unsuccessfully to bargain. Eventually we got tired and went to Starbucks to get a boost. Once caffeinated we made our way through a row of tents full of really cheap goods.. mostly stuff for women I guess.. belts, jeans, watches, jewelry, etc. Annie bought a wallet and bargained successfully utilizing the old i'm-walking-away-now tactic. I think she saved two bucks on her $8 wallet. Was it Chanel? nvm. We eventually found cell phones and paid the list price. Oh well.

It was getting late and we still had to get to class. We got back onto the MTR (a blue station) to Pacific Place in Admiralty. We felt lucky when we got off the train and realized that the station was actually connected to the building that our class was in. We felt confused when we emerged from the station into that building and found ourselves in another shopping mall. Apparently malls make up the ground floors of lots of building in downtown HK. And not crappy malls either.. We're talking Gucci caliber malls. After taking a series of zigzagging escalators we eventually found our way to the elevator that brought us to our classroom. And what a classroom. If only the UW would treat us so nice. There was coffee, tea, ice water, and Mentos set our for us, and the huge pane glass windows looked out at the Bank of China building which was doing it's crazy nightly light show. I must admit I felt a little important.

Class went on for four hours. The subject was econ in China. It was interesting and the prof was a very funny Shanghainese guy.

After class we got back on the subway, got off at Hang Hau, and caught a mini-bus back to UST.

The pictures that I took (in chronological order) are here.

Hope everyone is having fun on exchange and back home.

First Post from HKUST

2007-09-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

My first impression of Hong Kong is NYC meets Hawaii.

I just got off the plane and have been up for waay too long.. So I will spare you all a disoriented rant at this point.. More when I get my bearings.

Almost there

2007-08-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

In thirteen hours I will be on a plane to east Asia, where I'll be for the next 16 weeks. Hah, I've been planning for months, but still it comes down to a single, master checklist. I think I am ready- worst case scenario I will just buy whatever I don't have (or quickly adapt to the void :).

I'm not sure how I'll organize this blog- the only time I've blogged before it turned into a small number of very long posts. I'm going to do it differently this time, maybe it will be a more real-time account of what's going on. Hope so. Anyhow, this will be short because I'm tired and this is also just to test the organization of Blogger with multiple posters.

What's at the front of my mind:
My housing situation in Shanghai. I have a few contacts over there, and will stay with one of the until I have a dwelling of some sort. Although I haven't spoken with them directly (they are relatives of a family friend), I have very specific instructions for getting there: From the Pudong airport, go through door 7, then get on bus 3. Get off at the very last stop, find the Silver River Hotel. They should meet you there. If not, here is their address and phone number so you can find them yourself. Sweet.

What's at the back:
The balance between staying connected with everything at home and being independent. Where to travel within China? How will the city have changed since last time I was there? What will I feel like in 16 weeks when I'm on my way home? What new friends will I have met?

Final Chapter: Hookers and HotPot

2007-08-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2007
(Singapore Sessions, Episode 6 )
Current mood: nostalgic

So, I am writing my last blog from Seattle. I have actually been home for a week, but brought back one hell of a flu bug. Flew out on Saturday, August 11th and spend Sunday in Seoul for the day and visited my friend Hoseok in Seoul. Had a great day walking around, trying to stay awake and take advantage of 12 hours in Seoul before flying to Seattle. Got home and spent a week in bed with a fever and cold. Now I’m back to normal, well 85% and trying to finish my papers before jumping back in to school on the 10th of Sept.

Anyway, an update of my last few days. One of the highlights was going to this small island, Pulau Ubin, just North of Singapore. It was beautiful. I went with 5 of my classmates and we took a bumboat over to the island ($2) and rented bikes ($6) for the day and rode all around the island. We read that there were wild boars on the island so I saved an extra fish ball, in case one of us stormed us and I could bean the pig in the snout. Anyway, no pigs bu t saw a wild lizard which was very cool. I went swimming in the Strait of Johor which is the water between Singapore and Malaysia. It was awesome after riding bikes all day. We all rode back to the village and had an amazing lunch and drank coconut milk and then headed back to Singapore. I think we were all asleep on the train, exhausted but a lot of fun.

As I titled this entry, the last night out, my friend Rachel promised me really hot HotPot. Well she delivered. I call it Hot, Hot, Hot Pot. It was 1) just hot that day 2) the steam from the hot pot was just making it hotter and then the hot pot was really hot, so we were just sweating. I bow down to Sunny, who is now crowned the Queen of Hot Pot. She was amazing. That food was soo hot, but she was a trouper. I actually had to rinse off the meat in the mild side to cool off the food enough so I could eat it. It was really amazing though. Fresh Shrimp, meat, and other stuff I don’t want to know what I ate, but it was soo hot, it could have been anything. All I tasted was fire.

On the Beth that you know and love side, I also found out that prostitution was legal in Singapore, so in the search of education, of course I had to go down to the redlight district. My Singaporean husband, Alex Chan, (classmate) offered to take Rachel, Sunny and me down. It was hysterical, we didn’t know exactly where to go, but we did spot a few prostitutes on the street, but apparentley they aren’t supposed to be on the street, that is illegal. Honestly, you couldn’t tell the prostitutes from any other people. So I either have a grainy photo of a young Singaporean or a prostitiute, who knows. Anyway, we laughed and got some more Durian and then headed home on the Subway (illegally transporting Durian.)

Have I written about Durian? Oh yeah, I did, but in case you didn’t read it, it is the King of the Fruits. It smells like gasoline, but tastes like creamy flan that kind of tastes like butterscotch, caramel and gasoline. mmmm. Anyway, it is illegal to bring it on the subways, but we did!!! When we got off the subway, we got a cab back to our room because it was too late to catch a bus, and the cab driver immediatly asked us to role the window down, yelling “Durian, roll down the window!!”

The next day, I met Carol, one of my classmates, and her kids for ice cream. We were in search of Wasabi ice cream. We were going to eat it after our HotPot, but there was no way I could have anything hot after that HotPot, so we went to this ice cream store to get it AND THEY WERE OUT. So we had green tea ice cream instead and went running through the water fountain in Bugis Market. Had a blast and Carol’s kids are so cute. (See photos). After that, I headed home and finished packing to head out. Very sad, I can’t believe my month has gone by so quickly. Anyway, loaded up my stuff, had to leave some stuff behind to bring back gifts, so I bequeathed my “hello kitty” sheets to Sunny and left towels and other stuff for Sunny and Stephanie to make room. Lugged my stuff on the bus and then the subway and got to the airport. I was going to have dinner with Rachel since she was working out by the airport, but I got a call and Rachel and her family were at the airport and also Alex (my Singaporean Husband) and Rachel. So that was such a nice suprise and I got to say goodbye to everyone and grabbed some sushi with Alex and Rachel and then headed home.

So fyi, Alex is not my husband, but I heard that a couple of my friends told a few of my other friends that didn’t know I was going to Singapore, that I was going to bring home a rich Chinese husband, so Alex volunteered. (Thanks for the gag Alex). Anyway, back home, but missing Singaporean food, and I can actually say, I grew to like my Nescafe, Milo concoction that I created, my Singaporean “mucka”. Made some great new friends, and fell in love with a beautiful new country.

Updated Photos at:http://picasaweb.google.com/beth.tallman/SingaporeHighlights?authkey=2LzIwTgCHw0

Beth

(Organized by Cortilia)

Four More Days - August 7, 2007

2007-08-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

(Singapore Sessions, Episode 5 )

Current mood: happy

Well only 4 more days to go here and I have done so much since last week. I finally got my big 2 papers done and have done my research for my paper on piracy in Singapore, so off to see the sites.

1)Sentosa Island this is the island where people go to get away, kind of a beach resort. I took a cable car over which was really high and then walked down the Dragon trail to the Underwater park where I truly had one of the weirdest experiences of my life. I did this for my dear friend Niceto, because I know he would have crapped his pants. They have this thing called Fish Reflexology where you put your feet into 2 different tubs and this fish eat your feet. They nibble at all of your calluses, etc. The concept is totally disgusting and if you believe in reincarnation, boy, you must have done something really bad to come back as one of these fish. Anyway, it totally tickles but after you get used to it, it is awesome. You stick your feet in for 20 minutes and then they massage your feet. The small fish tickle and the bigger fish feel more like when your foot falls asleep, kind of pins and needles. Anyway, I have had swollen feet and ankles since I got here because of the heat and after this, it was all gone, I swear to god. Icing my ankles, elevating, nothing worked, but this did and they haven’t swollen up since. You have to see the photos to believe it. Just weird.Also on the island they have a concrete louge which was fun as well as a small island, connected by a rope ladder, that takes you to the southern most point of SE Asia. Great time, beautiful weather and had a blast walking around.

2) Maria Mallon, this one is for you. So Coffee Bean and Tea leaf is here, so I traveled 8000 miles for an ice blended and have had a few in your honor. My only concession to western life that I have done since I was here (OK 2 starbucks)

3) Pulau Ubin-I will do this as my last blog because I don’t have photos yet, so stay tuned.

4) Orchid Gardens-Oh my god, how beautiful. Went to the National Orchid Gardena and Botanical Gardens today and they were just stunning. I took pictures but I can’t capture the smells, simply gorgeous.

5) Tour of Little India and China Town-I went on a tour that the school sponsored of Little India and China town and learned how to make traditional dumplings (you don’t want mine, I suck!) but it was great. Went to the oldest Mosque in Singapore and shopped, shopped, shopped. Also saw the coolest photo shoot. It was a shoot in front of the mosque for some magazine, but it was all a muslin shoot. I took a picture.

I also have been researching all the issues with music piracy here and in Malaysia and have had some very interesting meetings with reps from Warner Bros, EMI, journalists as well as the ministry here in Singapore. Also went shopping in Malaysia at a pirate shop to see how rampant it is. Very interesting.

Well off to bed, getting up early to work on paper 4, go shopping for a new digital camera… yes my technological woes continue, my camera fell out of my backpack and works sometimes, when it feels like it.Anyway, 1 more update before I head home.

New photos posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/beth.tallman/SingaporeHighlights?authkey=2LzIwTgCHw0.

Beth

(Organized by Cortilia)

Durian & Organ Delight at Johor Bahru Trip

2007-08-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

July 31, 2007

(Singapore Sessions, Episode 4 )

Current mood: sleepy

Part 3-Well instead of finishing paper, I am writing this instead!! Bad student. Oh well, I only have 2 weeks here to play so I am going to cram a lot in during a short time. I finished my class work on Saturday around 1pm and then my classmate, Rachel, (who will be attending the U of W in the fall on exchange) and I took the bus, train, bus, bus to go to Johor Bahru of JB for short in Malaysia. It is literally on the other side of the Straits of Johor, just north of Singapore, so it would be like going across the floating bridge from Seattle to Bellevue, except you go from Singapore to Malaysia. In a 24 hour day, we crammed the following in. 2 Day 1 night Johor Bahru Trip.

Sat

Ate Bah Kuk Teh (pork meat cooked in herbal soup) and pepper pig stomach soup for lunch (Lani, yes I ate pig stomach and it was good.)Durian Hunting at Johor Jaya (Outskirt of J.B)Shop for pirated CDs at Holiday Plaza (The shopping mall with the best quality of pirated CDs)Dinner at Rachel’s home @ Taman Pelangi (Rainbow Garden)(Dishes: Curry chicken, Sambal Sting Ray, Sambal Sea Shell, prawn ball soup, barley water, durian)

Sun

Breakfast at typical Malay Restaurant: Roti Canai/Prata (the plain one), Roti Telur (with egg), Roti Tisu (Bread Tissue, the cone shape), and Lontong (Glutinous rice in curry)Shopped and Walk around at Dangay bay. (Pouring rain)Walked through Johor Sultan Garden.Visiting the oldest Chinese Temple in JB, Sikh Temple and Hindu Temple.Lunch: Claypot chicken rice with chinese herbal tea (Luo han guo)Tea break: Local coffee + fish cracker
In short, walked a ton and ate even more. With the heat, I’m not very hungry and they keep feeding me more food.

Durian…. For those of you that haven’t had it, it is really hard to describe. It is a spikey fruit that smells, I mean it smells. Kind of a mix of Gasoline and a mediciney smell. Indescribable. Anyway, you crack it open and there are 5 pods that look kind of like raw chicken and they have a huge seed in the middle. You eat the meat, and it is really creamy and kind of is like a caramel/buttery taste. Very rich and strong. The locals love it. It is actually quite good, they call it the King of Fruit and the Mangostein is the Queen (also smells like gasoline.)
Anyway, had a blast in Malaysia, walked around the Sultan’s gardens and estates, of which there are many. Apparently the Sultan (which is the appointed official for the region) rarely moves into an old estate so they usually build a new one, so there are many of these huge estates that are empty, around Malaysia.

I also ate pig stomach at one of the markets here and it was pretty good. Not too organy tasting and the broth was quite good. I figure I will audition for Fear Factor when I get back. I am going to have some organ delight tonight and probably try some eyeballs or something…mmmm. Malaysia was great and Rachel was the best tour guide ever. Her family was so nice and just kept feeding me until my belly button popped out. Stingray is quite good by the way, very tasty.
On Tuesday, 7/31, I finally had a chance to walk around downtown Singapore. Had lunch with my roommate and her father (not the flying cockroach), but Stephanie, exchange student from Hong Kong via Huntington Beach, CA. Then I went out and got lost, just wandering the streets. Went down to the Singapore River and caught a junkboat tour to look around, and then walked down to the Esplanade and saw the Merlion, kind of the symbol of Singapore. The other exciting thing is that they have Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf here in Singapore, so in honor of my friend Maria, I popped in and had an ice blended. I had to travel across the world to get one, but it was good. Damn Starbucks, Coffee Bean’s Ice Blendeds are soooo much better than a frapaccino.
Met Suzanne, former U of W Exchange student, for dinner of duck and rice and then we went shopping at a huge 3 or 4 story market that was full of small stalls of very cool stuff. If you’ve been to Manchester, it is like the big market there. Very cool, lots of fun stuff and did some shopping. Afterwards we had Durian ices and another kind that I can’t remember that had red beans and green squiggly candy things in it. The ices were great because it is soo hot here and they cool you off. Great day, didn’t rain at all. I think that was a first, because there is usually 1-2 big thunderstorms a day and then it stops and is just humid.

Well got to go and work on my papers. Today is a homework day, but dinner tonight down by the river and more shopping and walking around.

New photos posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/beth.tallman/SingaporeHighlights?authkey=2LzIwTgCHw0. This is an easier site to use. There are some good ones.

Beth

(FYI, you can find Durian in International District or Ranch 99, organized by Cortilia)

Frustration in Technology Wars - July 23, 2007

2007-08-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

(Singapore Sessions, Episode 3 )

Current mood: busy

So 1 week down and adjusting well to Singapore. My plan of not sleeping paid off, no jet lag to speak of at all. FYI, it is the rainy season here and that is an understatement. Basically it has rained here everyday, and by rain, I mean rain. The good news is that since the weather has been so wet, I am fairly caught up on school. Oh yeah, you have to go to class during an exchange program, what a drag. Also since my program is accelerated, I am going to class 8 hours a day for 3 days, 3 days off and then 9 days straight. The three days I had off it poured, so I wrote 1 of my 15+ page papers and started the second one. My goal is to have all of my papers done by week end so I can actually get out and see some of Singapore and hopefully Kuala Lumpur.

I have also attached some photos on my Flickr site below. For some reason, I can’t upload photos onto my Myspace site. I know there are some tighter server issues here, so you never know, but you can click below to see some of the sights from Campus etc. You will enjoy seeing a picture of one of my roommates here (FYI, they fly.) In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a tropical climate so some of the bugs here are pretty spectacular. Lots of wild cats on campus as well. I came out of the elevator and about died tripping over a cat that made it self comfortable right at the elevator door. There are beautiful flowers everywhere and the frogs croak at night, although they sound more like cows mooing than frogs.

My technology woes are finally over. After first having an older converter, I got the new one and was able to use my computer. Also lost my cell phone somewhere between Seattle, Tokyo and Singapore. That was fun trying to call the airlines on the public phone. It kept cutting me off, etc., I also went through several phone cards because sometimes it worked as a direct dialed call (expensive) and other times like a phone card. The other lovely gem was the day that I left, I got a call from the FBI and someone had hacked into Ecampus.com’s website. (Take note if you are buying text books.) Someone had stolen a bunch of credit card numbers, one of which was mine, so 3 hours before I left, I had to cancel my Amex. Amex has a 800 number that you can call for international calls, but it doesn’t work from a public phone, and since I didn’t have a cell phone, I had to go through automated phone systems, etc., to finally get Amex to send me a new one. Got cut off, same problem with phone cards and I got so frustrated I actually cried!! This is Beth speaking. Totally frustrating situation. Finally Amex said they would send me on, and I got it the day after they told me it would be there, so of course I was in class then. Finally got it and that is taken care of. Also got a cell phone on yahoo auction in Singapore. Got a US phone that a former Canadian exchange student was selling so that worked out OK. It is a weird feeling to be on the other side of the world and be that disconnected. A little disconcerting to say the least, but now I am wired and feel great.

Finally made it off campus to downtown to pick up the cell phone and figured out the train station as well as the bus system. Actually pretty great and easy to get around.

My goal is to just focus on school this week and then play, play, play. I have to do some research on a paper that I am writing and have some meetings set up for next week, but I do think I will be able to do some shopping and toodle around before heading back.

Beth

(Organized by Cortilia)

1st Official Day - July 12, 2007

2007-08-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

(Singapore Sessions, Episode 2 )

Current mood: drained

Got up, finished unpacking and headed out to find out all of the missing details, etc. Thank god my apartment has AC. Went outside into the common area and my glasses fogged up, it is that humid. Not that hot, but very humid. 1st hiccup, my universal adapter only had the 2 prong US input, but my computer needs the 3 prong (Note to self, remember this next time). So now I am completely technologically challenged. No cell phone, and my computer battery is dead, so off to find an adapter. $40 later, I am plugged in and writing to you. Also without a cell phone, no alarm clock, but thanks to Karen’s Alarm Clock on the web, I will wake up tomorrow, in theory. Went over to the International Student Center and of course, forgot my Letter of Admission, plus they needed emergency contact info (in my cell phone and my computer, both not accessible) but finally got most of it pulled together. Then went over to the Financial Aid office to pay for my room, and checked in at the MBA Office.

Have I mentioned that it is humid yet? Got over there, huffed about a bit and feel like I’m back in New York, albeit much more pleasant, more like Florida, sans the West 4th Subway station (those of you in NYC will understand). I still can’t figure out if I have to get a student pass from Immigration. Customs stamped my passport as a 3 month visitor so the office thinks I won’t have to (saves more money). Came back to my room to cool off and check email, etc., now that I have an adaptor and then went out for some lunch and to find a real grocery store. There is a 7-11 on campus so I stopped there but it is really just a chips and soda store, so went and got lunch and coffee. This is going to hurt, because I got a Nescafe cappucino, that was the best option. Oh well, but the yummy curry I had for lunch made up for the lack of caffeine. Off to find this mysterious supermarket. Tried to find it earlier but I found it the second time. I think it was just jetlag before. Got some basics, milk, coffee (nescafe , toilet paper) and headed home. I have some reading to do before class tomorrow and am goingto make it an early night. So signing off for now, but photos, etc. to follow.

Beth

(Organized by Cortilia)

Taking off - July 12, 2007

2007-08-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

(Singapore Sessions, Episode 1 )

Current mood: drained

OK, well to try and get acclimated, I decided to stay up all night on the 11th to try and force my clock to get out of sync. Fortunately for me, Harry Potter decided to open up that evening and the IMAX was playing Harry Potter for 24 hours straight. Got 3:30am tickets, determined to stay awake. Also, prior to leaving I left my car at my cousins in Oregon to have some work done on it, so I have no wheels as well. Long story, but the last bus downtown was at 1am. (Why is late night transit so hard in Seattle??) Anyway, got down and have breakfast at the Hurricane and then headed to the movie. Sold out and packed, fortunately I purchased my tix early so no problem.

At the IMAX, the last 20 minutes were in 3D and I managed to stay awake for the entire movie, only 1 head node. Got out at 5:45 and headed home to have breakfast with my friend Colin and his partner Mark. Afterwards, headed to the airport and the adventures begin.Got there, no problem. Checked in, flight was on time and wasn’t super packed. Took 2 Xanax and watched a bunch of movies. I can rarely sleep on planes, the Xanax helped but not much. 10 hours later I got to Tokyo. Found the Singapore Airlines place, after a bit, and got all of my flight set up. No problems. Got on board, and then sat on the tarmac for about 2 hours. I don’t know how long because I kept dosing off, but it was a long time. There was weather in Tokyo so the planes couldn’t take off. So at least I got some sleep but then we were off, no problems to speak of at all on both flights.

Both NW and Singapore were great (shocking I know). We made up some time so I was really only an hour late into Singapore. If any of you are counting yet at this point, I am now on hour 53 of no official sleep. I did nap a bit, but really nothing to speak of. Called this woman Mayuko who had my room keys and grabbed a cab. $45 dollars later and 40 minutes, I was at my building, or I thought I was. I couldn’t find Mayuko’s cell number and my travel arrangements weren’t very clear so I was at the wrong building. My cab driver had a cell phone and I finally found the piece of paper after digging around and starting my computer up. I was just around the corner. Got there and Mayuko was great. Got me settled, etc. She has just finished her MBA and is moving back to Tokyo this weekend, so I will only see her for another day or so. Started to unpack and stole both of my blankets from NW and Singapore airlines so I wouldn’t need to bring a blanket. Made my twin bed with awesome “Hello Kitty” sheets that I bought at Freddies. (They were the cheapest twin set available.) Took 2 Ambian and woke up 6 hours later.

Beth

(Organized by Cortilia)