Zaijian Means See You Again

Prior to leaving China, I was asked by my company to create a blog entry for their website. The following is the blog entry that I created:

The typical phrase to use here in China to say goodbye to someone is “zaijian,” which literally translates into “see you again.” My 3 year assignment in Shanghai, China is coming to an end in April, and needless to say, I will be saying “zaijian” a whole lot over my last couple days and weeks. It has been an amazing 3 years here in China, both personally and professionally, and there are going to be a lot of things that I will miss when my time over here comes to an end.

To put things into perspective, when I arrived in Shanghai just over 3 years ago, I worked in GT’s small correspondent firm, Pan Cheng Zhang, as the only non-Hong Kong expat in the office. In an office of about 70 people, I kind of stood out and many of my colleagues didn’t know what to think of the new tubby white guy in their office that sat by the microwave. Day after day I had the luxury of having my colleagues cook their lunches in the microwave right next to me, so I got to get a whiff of the various different Chinese style lunches being cooked, sometimes they smelled amazing, other times…is pungent a safe adjective to use?

After a year and a half of sitting next to the microwave and becoming a second hand expert on “what Chinese leftovers cook well in a microwave,” we merged with another local firm in Shanghai, Jiahua, and moved into a brand new office in a prominent building in the middle of the city…and happily my seat was no where near the microwave. By this time there were 3 other US secondees in the Shanghai office so I wasn’t the only “qiguai meiguoren” - strange American. Since then our office has grown, we gained a couple of other foreigners and we are in the midst of another merger with the new GTI China member firm, Zhonghua.

When asked “what is the number one thing that I am going to miss”, the people we have encountered takes the top of the list. From my gracious colleagues in the Shanghai and other China offices, to our friends, to just other random people that kept popping up in my life, these 3 years have been a great experience to meet new and different people. I am especially going to miss the everyday crowds piling into the bus and subway for my commute, I’ll miss my flower guy who sticks around at a corner near my house to sell me flowers to give to my wife ($4USD for a bouquet of flowers is something I will definitely miss) and the construction guys that aren’t wearing any shoes while they are jack hammering the road, the random people who run to take pictures of our two kids as we walk around…as if we are important, the people who comment that my English is better than the governor of California’s English (which is good since he is Austrian), the guys who carry open canisters of gasoline with cigarettes dangling from their mouths, the tailor who makes tailor made suits for a small portion of what you would pay in the US, everyone who shouts “Hello” at us in English while we are meandering around town, the guys riding around with 10 feet of trash piled high on a two wheel trailer attached to their bike, the people who ride around on their motor scooters in the morning with a freshly killed pig strewn over the back of their bike, and of course all the people who were so accommodating to us when the only way we could communicate with each other was with sign language because of the language barrier.

My family and I have established a bunch of great relationships here in Shanghai that we will never forget, and we have been mesmerized by the outpouring of appreciation that has been shown to us as we have begun our transition back to the US. Ultimately, my hope is that when I say “zaijian” it is not out of the common courtesy of saying goodbye, rather it is for its true meaning of, “see you again.”

Liver, Kidneys and Ostrich...Oh My!

I am currently on a business trip in Africa, so some of these posts relate to this trip, like the one below:

Well I thought I ate some crazy stuff when I was in China, I guess I am trying to make Africa just as exciting from a food standpoint. Actually the difference in between eating weird things in China and in South Africa mainly has to do with the fact that when you are eating the weird things they are prepared in a gourmet way…so they have some nice flavors going with the weirdness.

Our first night in Johannesburg, we went out with one of the South African partners of our firm to an upscale African type food restaurant called Lekgotla in Nelson Mandela Square. There were a lot of great choices on the menu of foods that I had never tried, so it was pretty tough just to choose one. A colleague began his meal with chicken liver prepared in an spicy African sauce. I can say that I am not normally a big liver fan, but this might be one of my favourite dishes I have ever had. The sauce had a great spice to it yet the spice didn’t take away from the great taste of the Peri Peri sauce…a sauce that is derived from a Mozambiquan chili. For my main dish, I decided on an Ostrich Filet, which was pretty amazing. Ostrich (much like Buffalo) tastes like beef, but has significantly less fat then beef and is very tender. I have to say, my meal of Chicken Liver and Ostrich was pretty amazing.

Not to be outdone by the first night’s meal, we went to one of the best restaurants in Pretoria, Ritrovo Ristorante, with a partner from the Pretoria office for our second night’s meal. While I did get the house special pasta for my main dish (awesome), I tried one of the specials as an appetizer, lamb kidneys. I have to say that I am not a huge kidney person…but the way that these were prepared was absolutely divine.

So within the first two nights I had been pretty adventurous with my food, but it paid off, all the dishes were some of the best meals I have had in a long time. I guess the only problem is, I still have 2 weeks of eating like this…I could be in trouble.

ill'n for some Grill'n

Sorry about the delay in posting, but we have been in the process of moving from China back to the US and there are a bunch of things involved with moving halfway across the world. There are a couple of stories that I want to catch you all up on before getting current so some of this might seem outdated, but I still think it is interesting.

One of the things we had been working on before leaving China was a party to say good-bye to some of our friends here in Shanghai. We decided it would be fun to use the grills in our apartment complex while the weather is nice here in Shanghai (at least we are hoping the weather is nice on Saturday). The only problem is that in a complex that has thousands of residents, they only have one grilling area, which translates into there being heavy demand for the grill. As a result, I decided to go and sit outside the management office for 1 hour before it opened to ensure that I would be the first person there to reserve the grill (you can only reserve the grill 1 week in advance, so I had to go the Saturday before we were having the party to wait). As I was sitting there waiting, a guard came by and opened the door to the management office, but did not turn on the lights, it was before opening hours so I assumed it was not open. After about another 20 minutes another resident comes by and opens up the door to go in. As she opened the door, I jumped up and went in with her and approached the desk (I walked a little faster to get in front of her). This lady also wanted to reserve the grill for the same time as me and tried to explain that she was the first one to open the door…too bad I was there an hour before she was.

To make a long story short, I tried to be nice to her and was thinking about sharing the grilling area (fits probably about 50 people, we have about 60 people coming), but she started to get disgruntled with me, so I explained to the worker, in my broken Chinese, I was the first person, so I get first priority on reserving the grill. The worker didn’t want to start a fight, but after I said that he recognized that, indeed, I was the first person, so I go the grill.

Basically it took more effort to reserve the grill then it would to buy Superbowl Tickets...now if the weather can cooperate it should be great time.

Guest Of Honor

Prior to leaving China, I had been feeling really appreciated by my Company, before I left they really made it known that they appreciated what I had done in China. On one of my last nights before leaving, I had the last of the 3 going away shin-digs, the last one being the night that the managers and partners of the firm took me out. While I have been a spectacle at the other annual dinners, mostly because I have typically been the only white person at the parties, I was basically the guest of honor at this dinner. Never having left a Company in China, I didn’t know that as the guest of honor at a going away dinner, everyone, individually, comes around to toast you. This means they individually get to perform a toast once during the night, the person being honored gets toasted by every single person. The idea of being toasted can range from a sip of alcohol to drinking down a shot for each toast. Being the foreigner, I guess the expectation is that I can really keep a lot of alcohol down, so mostly everyone was coming by expecting me to drink it down...and we were not drinking wine spritzers. I had to slow the toasts down a bunch of times so that I wouldn’t lose my faculties (to note, I held everything together the whole night despite all the toasts), but ultimately it was a very fun night.

Hangzhou

Way back in April...you know, when I used to post things on this blog...and when I used to live in China, the family and I took a day trip down to Hangzhou. There have been many people that have told us about how great Hangzhou is and so for our last hoorah in China, we decided to go to Hangzhou.

Since it was a day trip, it was going to be a quick trip to see just a couple of sites. The traffic was smooth getting there, until we got into Hangzhou...where, surprisingly, the traffic was worse then what we got in Shanghai. Believe me, I was extremely salty as we were heading to our first sight…and I thought to myself that this had better be worth it for all this traffic. We were on our way to the LingYin Temple and the Fei Lai Feng Peak to see the temple and buddha statues that have been carved into the side of the peak and it was definitely worth sitting in traffic. Along the peak they have stairs that one is able to climb to see the statues carved all throughout and, while I've seen my fill of buddha statues in China, these were the coolest ones knowing how long they have been here and how, when they were carved, there were no stairs for the carves to climb…Pretty Amazing. The temple was nothing too special, but this is definitely a place to go to see…even if there is a bunch of traffic while you are trying to get there.

After our first stop we headed to the famous restaurant in Hangzhou, Lou Wai Lou (Pavilion Beyond Pavilion). It is famous for the Hangzhou food of Beggars Chicken (chicken with spices, slow cooked in a clay mold), and sweet pork along with some of their other famous dishes. This was not the best Chinese restaurant that we have had during our time here, but the food was definitely worth trying, especially because many of the dishes are hard to find at places outside of Hanghzou.

After lunch we headed out and walked along the most famous sight of Hangzhou, the West Lake. It was a great day to walk around the lake and, for a lake, this is definitely a cool place to see. It is spring time, so seeing the greens around the lake coupled with the pagoda and pavilions that line the lake is a really cool sight. We got a boat for about $10USD to take us out for a quick tour around the lake. Best decision we made all day was taking this boat. Basically you have one guy that rows you around the lake and it was really relaxing plus it gave you a better view of things around the lake.

All in all, Hangzhou was a great day trip and a fun trip to end our time in China.