The Accidental Asian

2011-09-06T03:09:00.000-07:00

It's been such a long time that written anything and so much time has past and so much stuff has happened that I think that I've been a victim of the 3 Ps (Procrastination which leads to Panic which eventually Putting things off). Today is the first day that I've literally done nothing and this is due to fact that it takes a long time to coordinate manual labor in Singapore that I've literally sat on my ass all day waiting for a plumber that never came. So with this time, I write.....

Architecture and Cake

2010-02-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

I’ve always likened being an Architect to that of being a Chef. In fact, a few years back the CNN Money did an article called “Big Jobs That Pay Badly” and the number two job with that honor was being a Architect. The Number Three was, you guessed it, being a Chef. Being a Archeologist secured the number one position but that said, Archeologists do get to travel to exotic places and are able to get a pretty kick ass tan in the great outdoors.

The similarities of being an Architect or Chef don’t stop at a “big job” title, long hours and pennies for a salary. Chefs like Architects are in seen as soothsayers in an age-old enigmatic occupation at the crossroads of the practical and the ethereal. We are perceived of being visionaries blessed with a god given gift of coaxing beauty out of everyday banal items like flour and concrete.

I’ve always believed what makes a good Architect are he same qualities that make a good Chef. The first, foremost and most obvious is creativity as food and buildings would really mean nothing if both were approached with the intent to simply sustain. But as I mentioned, this is obvious (this is why we get paid the big bucks right?...right).

The thing that I really believe separate great Architects and Chefs from the mediocre ones is a complete understanding of the materials that are used in their craft. A Chef that knows the flavors of certain spices and foods and understands what combination works best together is like an Architect that knows how certain materials come together in the most efficient, cost effective, and aesthetically pleasing manner. If one has a comprehensive and complete understanding of the materials of their trades, being creative becomes natural. I’ve watched my wife, who is amazing in the kitchen, whip up an amazing gourmet meal with day old rice, an egg, scraps of vegetables and some left over Indian food...best meal ever.

My point in all this, like the rest of my blogs, brings me back to China. Architecture and Pastries suck ass in China and I attribute it all to everything that I previously just wrote about; a lack of an understanding of the materials that they are working with. I write this, however, with one big fat caveat and that is Chinese Food (non baked goods) in Mainland China are amazing. I mean truly amazing but I guess after 5000 years of roasting a duck or making dumplings you have to get it right at some point. My qualm is with Chinese pastries and baked goods. It’s a lot like the architecture here. It looks great (that’s subjective), very ostentatious, lots of flash but absolute crap.

The Breads and Cakes here are airy and dry and taste like cardboard. Knowing what has happened the past few years I would be surprised if cardboard was a main ingredient. Other pastries are just as bad or even worse and don’t get me started about anything with icing or frosting. It tastes like someone melted wax candles added synthetic sugar and food coloring and plopped it over a warm cardboard box.

The Construction of Chinese buildings is just as bad. My first year and a half I did construction administration for the headquarters campus for an International company. What I saw on site blew my mind. Construction workers hanging fire sprinkler heads with used plastic bags, left over bathroom tile and cardboard scraps to shim up $1000 dollar German light fixtures, fire hydrants that were buried in the sidewalk that the fire dept couldn’t access them, the list is endless.

Like their cakes, Chinese architecture aims to please the opening day photo shoot. Once that’s done, all you’re left with is airy cardboard cakes and buildings. That said, the Chefs and Architects in China actually do make money.

Captain Amazing

2010-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

We all have met “that guy" or "that girl" once or even a couple of times in our lives. You know the one, Captain Amazing, the guy (I’m using the male gender from this point on but I do acknowledge that there are “amazing” women out there as well) that everyone wishes they were like. The guy that is not only good looking but also extremely humble, athletic, super fit, intelligent, a great cook, sews his own cloths (sometimes), passionate, dedicated, has about 2% body fat, wants to save the earth and all the cute puppies and kittens in it, tall, blah..blah…blah.....did I mentioned good looking and saving puppies and kittens yet? You get my point. Well I’m serious about all of it (I exaggerated a bit about the puppies and kittens but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was in his life agenda as well).

This is my friend Ryan. Ryan is a young “kid” (anyone under 30 is a young kid to me now) from Chicago that I’ve had the pleasure to meet here in Shanghai and has become a close friend. He never ceases to amaze me. In fact, he amazes everyone he meets hence the name Captain Amazing (another alias was Mr. Fantastic but Marvel Comics currently has the rights to that one). On paper the kid is almost perfect. His dad was a High school athletic coach and his mother a Home EC teacher. So that helps explain a lot.

Tell him you care about the planet and he’ll give you a point-by-point directive on the initiatives and programs that he has developed and implemented (in China). Cook dinner for him and he’ll tell you where you can procure the freshest and most sustainable ingredients in China, India or wherever on the globe. Name a sport and he’ll kick your ass in it.

The first time he ever ran a Marathon he came in fifth. When I trained for the Great Wall Marathon he trained with us and carried food and water for everyone during our long runs. Ryan couldn’t make the race because he had to go back to the States for his sister’s wedding but he still ran 26 miles the day of his sister wedding in honor of us that were racing that day.

He’s a vegetarian (which is tough to do in China) but eats fish. That said, the fish he eats has to comply with a specific criteria on which is detailed on a laminated card he carries in his wallet about how the fish are caught or farmed.

Even as a professional this kid is changing the landscape of Architecture and design in China. He is single handedly helping develop and run GIGA-China, which is a sustainability website to edify Chinese designers on sustainability and provide a resource so they can start designing and building more responsibly.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I think we all strive to be our own Captain Amazing, however, watching Ryan it seems awfully exhausting to consistently maintain this level. So I had conversation with Captain Amazing the other day about this after our swimming session (did I mentioned that he is coaching me on how to be a better swimmer??...kid swims like a frickin’ fish. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that he’s a Tri-athlete as wall...geezzues..I’m having self esteem issues as I write this). Anyway, after he kicked my ass in the pool as usual, I asked him if he always has to be so intense. He then proceeded to tell me that he didn’t think he was intense but rather:

“…just striving to achieve all the goals that I set for himself.”

I responded:

“yes, I get that, we all have goals but most people’s goals in a year are the same amount that you set in a week!”

He then said ..

” well, I don’t what to just perform to the lowest common denominator”.

Geez, overachieving young kids these days. Makes me feel terrible that at his age all I was doing was chasing skirts and drinking beer…

I then explained to him my philosophy of performing at a “B-Level”. This is something they teach first year MBA students (I have no credibility in this area as I did not go to Grad school in Business but this is what I’ve been told).

I explained that performing at “B-Level” means doing everything about 80%. What this essentially means is that, in any given situation you will perform at a level better than most, however, still have room to grow or improve. It’s a win-win situation because not only are you still better than most but whoever is on the receiving end, whether it be your boss, girlfriend, etc.. sees improvement in which they feel that they have contributed too. As I said, win-win with less effort.

“You see, I explained, life is a dance, a dance between the auras of two entities in which both entities must be relevant. If one completely dominates the dance, then there is no need for the other, which then collapses the relationship. Not good. The other issue was that if you perform with 100% effort 100% of the time, then the only direction you can go is down...that, or simply burn out.”

He looked at me quizzically and said nothing but I know his silence was saying,

“…shit, I never thought of it that way. What the fuck have I been dong all these years”.

…or NOT

See....there is something redeeming about being a little bit of a slacker and not just a Captain Amazing.

5-Cent Architecture

2010-01-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

We’ve all heard of the rapper 50-cent right? Well have you heard of the 5-cent Architect? There is an article that I read in the New York Times that is so telling of the economic times we are in. I know everyone and every industry is going through this tough time, however, I can only speak personally of my industry, as this is what I have seen and experienced.

Who knows, this could be the beginning of something wonderful and exciting….stay tuned…

Faster, Stronger, Higher.....

2010-01-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

Ironically I’ve had all the time in the world to write and update my blog yet I have not posted anything in months. In the past months so many events, situations, issues have come to fruition that I have been overwhelmed with shit to write about that it simply paralyzed me. So where do I begin?

Well I guess the most logical place to begin would be with current events and the one that is on the tip of everyone’s tongues is the Google vs. China ordeal. In my biased opinion, based on living and working in China the last 2 and a half years, Google should cut their losses and get the fuck out, and quick!

The Chinese, especially members of the confused Communist Party, are so fickle with their policy that they have a shit load of laws on the books that they simple pick and choose which ones to enforce depending on their mood (and they usually pick the laws that give foreign companies grief and put them in a good mood).

Google is a multibillion-dollar company and if they went through just a small fraction of what my wife and I had to go through working with Chinese clients and Government officials, I’m sure they are well aware of the lack of integrity and conscience these people have. I have never worked with a group of people so shifty and self serving in my life! This is a cynical view and a huge generalization (I should not generalize about an entire culture however I believe there is no guide to wisdom without generalizations- I’ll explain this thought another time).

China is using the brute force of shear numbers (it’s unofficial population is closer to 2 billion rather than the documented 1.3 billion people) to muscle its way into a strong global position. There are several problems with that. Yes, you can push people out of the way with shear force but once you get into the front of the line, but can you lead? Then there is the question of muscle and money behind the power. The old adage of “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force him to drink”. China is a nation of farmers and laborers. Once China gets to the front of the line it will need to start innovating. Unfortunately the muscle of this country is not in innovation but hard labor and imitation. What happens then?

If Google leaves, yes some Chinese company will simply fill the gap and fill the immediate need for a search engine. They will most likely imitate Google’s business paradigm and do nothing more than that, copy it. Google, on the other hand, was innovating the web beyond simply being a portal to information.

The other benefit that Google has is that it owns the world’s market share in this business model. Baidu, Google’s Chinese counterpart, dominates the local Chinese market controlling over 63% yet it has no presence globally. If China is truly to be the force it wants to be it will need to comply with Global standards, meaning English, credible information and no censorship. Not only that but it will also have to somehow have to rid itself of the stigma of rampant plagiarism and imitation. No easy task.

So I say as I said before....Google get the fuck out! Trust me you’ll be back…faster, stronger, higher…

game...set ...match

2009-10-14T00:04:00.001-07:00

Shanghai…..I swear you have to love this town. There are so many things that I have not had the opportunity to do while living in the States due to lack of time and convenience. One of them is play tennis. Well, after about 12 plus years I was invited by the CEO of Haworth to the inaugural ATP Tennis Tournament and to their annual tennis clinic at the Shanghai International Tennis Training Center.

It was here that I got to play with some serious heavy hitters, not tennis players but captains of industry! The CEO of Pepsi, Ford, Pricewater House Cooper, etc…. (see attached photo). A couple of players that were decent but for the most part most of them were mediocre. With that, I got a standing invitation from the CEO of Pepsi to start playing with his group.

Who knows, I might be peddling soda pop by the end of the year…

Fat Boys

2009-09-07T00:42:00.000-07:00

This is dedicated to all the Fat Boys in the "Dena". Found this little gem in Prague.

2009-09-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever made a list of things that you wanted to do or have with the expectation that you would never have the opportunity to fulfill it then find yourself in the middle of it manifesting in front of your eyes. This has happened to me a couple of times in my life.

One was of me standing at the chancel a beautiful church watching the girl of my dreams march down the aisle towards me. The other happened just a few weeks ago while I was looking out the airplane window watching the plane squeeze inside a valley between the peaks of the Himalayas. It was a surreal experience watching the terrain zip past you at the same altitude as the plane and the runway at the same level of the clouds in front of you.

I always daydreamed of coming to Tibet. I was in 10th Grade English class when I had put a list together of places that I wanted to visit before I died. Little did I know back then that this would be the genesis of my “Bucket List”. The list has been modified several times with age and wisdom however the number One item has always remained the same: Lhasa, Tibet then to Base Camp Everest!

So there we were, Christina and I standing outside the airport struggling to breathe because the air was so thin at 12,000 feet above sea level. The skies were so blue and the clouds so white, the only place that I have seen anything this beautiful before was hiking in Alaska or driving down the solitary east coastline on the South Island of New Zealand. To date, the three most spectacular landscapes that I have ever experienced.

I sent a text message to my friend Rich back in California who is quite the skilled photographer and told him I wish that he were here with us because I could not capture the shear beauty that was in front of me. He responded back via text “…no one can”. It was comforting to know ahead of time that any attempt to harness the ethereal beauty of this place was going to be futile. I have attached some pictures but they do no justice. Just know that this place is beyond words and pictures.

To be continued…

The Jinx and the Can

2009-09-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

The following is some funny ass shit! There have been some significant changes in our professional lives the last few weeks in Shanghai and so I had written a ‘”Our Next Steps” email to my family and to a couple of friends that were asking us when we were returning to LA. The note was a serious letter that was optimistic yet somewhat somber. I provided a synopsis of our thoughts of our future including all our contingency plans:

This is the response I got back fron the Jinx and the Can:

I concur with stevo regarding:
"we really can’t vet this out unless we get a chance to sit down at a bar and have a few before discussing non-sensically for a few hours… "

But as you can see from the livid iratenessness tone of Stevo's e-mail that Steve has not fully completed his 12-step anger management classes. He has not been the same since you guys left. You’re not the cause, but maybe the proverbial catalyst to his self-destruction and rage.
Stevo’s call for help in his e-mail may have not been obvious to you due to the NOx and SOx and SARS and Swine infested air you breathe, so I will attempt to break down Stevo’s contemptuous libel about L.A. and construct a comparative analysis of the libel to Stevo’s own self-deprecating loathing hate:

"Not to be a downer"
(right off the bat Stevo brings his alcohol, depression and drug addiction into your wonder plans).

"but some anecdotal food for thought on why LA is going down the tubes"
(He conveniently uses LA and food in the same sentence subconsciously knowing of your constant yearning for some Angus tube steak complimented with a port wine reduction sauce-native only to LA).

"not to say we don’t want you back."
(“Or do we?” Another convenient double entendre)

"Our backyard is burning down (Angeles Forest)"
(“OUR?”…don’t get me involved with your pyrohateism we all know those trees were too old and we need more homes up in them hills).

" income taxes just went up again"
(we all need to help our fellow citizens get the proper health care and new Hummers).

"sales tax went up a few months ago (up to 10% in parts of LA)"
(To pay the fire fighters OT and supplement my retirement…thanks)

"unemployment is near 12% (highest since great depression)"
(“88% of people have jobs...lowest since the great depression”. If you move on quick enough, no one will catch it).

"normal peeps can’t afford any decent homes here,"
(Either he is a racist or elitist…Shaquisha Brown just bought a home at 2342 E. 103rd St.)

"Wahoo’s Wed are on hiatus"
(but Fernie and Mario love Hooter’s Tuesdays and BJ Thursdays

"and the Dog is sending nakd pix to Nathan’s cell"
(This is true. The dog’s got toilet management issues)

The General

2009-04-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

With the economy taking the turn that it did, my role in my office has slightly changed. With many of our significant projects going on hold, we have focused more on trying to get more exposure in the Chinese market. With this, I’ve become more involved in Business Development and Marketing. Easy enough I guess I’ve done a bit of this in LA. Meet, greet, smile and talk about your credentials…blah…blah…blah……WRONG! Your not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.

In Asia it’s all about the Guanxi; personal relationships. If you have close relationships with powerful government officials then you are as good a gold. You could be a bi-polar retard with both legs missing but if you have the Guanxi, you could actually be a candidate to run the relay in the next Olympics. No joke, it’s that blatant.

So how do you attain this “Guanxi”? How do you become best friends with someone in the Communist Party? Well, you eat, drink, and get shit faced with them of course. Isn’t that how BFFs are made. I mean it worked in high school and college so why not now?

This is where the General comes in. Somehow, we made a key contact with this gentlemen that used to be something like the Attorney General of Shanghai. Mr. X as I’ll refer to him, has been critical in setting up meetings with high-powered government officials and captains of industry that have more money and power than God (ehhh…well they do in secular China at least).

Needles to say it has been interesting. I’ve found myself standing in parking lots of private dining clubs surrounded by Ferraris and Lamborghinis or in private restaurants choking down Great White Shark fin soup (I detest this but…) and expensive Russian caviar and washing it down with $300 bottles Bordeaux.

On paper, it sounds glamorous and exciting right? WRONG! It’s fricking hard ass work because what precedes and follows the shark fin soup, caviar and Champagne dreams is typically all sorts of crazy freaky dishes and terrible corn moonshine called Bie jiu . The dishes range from whole frogs and pig lungs floating in chicken blood to some sort of gross looking slimy sea creature oozing some ungodly mucousy liquid. I have to shovel his stuff down with a smile and say Hao Chi (DELICIOUS!).

Then there’s the drinking. Normally this is where I excel. This is my sweet spot, however years of training with best (the BBGA) has not prepared me to (and I’m not exaggerating about what is to follow) Gambei (down in one gulp) a full glass of Bordeaux. Now this is not one of those classy pours in a cheesy restaurant wine glass, this is a Crate and Barrel mega red wine goblet filled to the rim with a ridiculously expensive vintage. This is followed with a shot of Bie Jiu then immediately after a sip of beer or Remy Martin XO. Basically, you have about three or four glasses of different types of alcohol in front of you and you are constantly taking a drink out of one.

There was one night in particular that stood out. This night we were invited by Mr. X to have dinner at an exclusive private club that once was the British Consulate in the 1930’s. It reeked of the 1930’s glamour when Shanghai was considered the Paris of the East. The art deco mansion that we had dinner in is currently owned and managed by the Chinese Air Force for high-ranking Military officials to stay or for entertaining government officials. If only these walls could talk.

As we were introduced to Mr. X’s colleagues, my co-worker whispered to me the credentials of each of the men. These guys were no joke. I mean here we are as architects about to have dinner with the men that approve all of the Construction in Shanghai. One of these cats was the chairman that held the purse to billions of money that we are gunning for.

Then there was the host, The General. He is a massive mound of a man with a very imposing stature! He stood about 6’-6” with shoulders like a linebacker and was a retired four star General of the Chinese Air Force.

In China, there is a very specific order in which one sits. Therefore, as it happens, my boss’s sat directly at the center of this long table with Mr. Money bags and his cohorts directly across from him. Then you sit progressively away from the center by your position (or lack there of). Needless to say, I was at the end. Due to this seating arrangement, I was at the far end situated right next to the General who was sitting at the head of the table.

The General didn’t speak much English however as the dinner and drink progressed he asked me if I was Japanese. I said no and that I was, essentially, American. As the drinking continued, he kept insisting that I was Japanese so he kept calling me “Moshi Moshi” (this means hello in Japanese and kind of derogatory when put in the current context). Every time we would “Gambei”, he would say something in Chinese and end with “Moshi Moshi”. I leaned over to my co-worker and asked her what he was saying and basically he was saying that he wanted to bomb Japan so he was going to keep filling my glass until “moshi moshi” (me) was bombed!

Mind you, this dude was a big boy and there were all sorts of drinking and eating going on already; however, I wasn’t going to take this laying down. I remembered what my good buddy and functional alcoholic roommate Jeff would do when we were going to spend the night marinated in alcohol. He would always say it’s all about the pacing and to add taking shots of water in between drinks to stay hydrated and to make it seem like you are drinking a lot.

With that, I went on the attack and took on the General. I was the aggressor. Gambei after gambei. From red wine to whiskey to beer to bie jiu. It was all a fuzzy blur. As the night went on and business was being discussed at the center of the table, the General and I were going mono e mono.

After one bottle of 750 ml of bie jiu, six beers, nine bottles of wine and one bottle of Remy Martin XO, I was spinning and slurring. So was the General, in fact, he was wavering in his chair and that’s when I saw my opportunity to take him down. Dinner was winding down and I knew I had about 30 minutes before I passed out. This was the only chance I had to strike when the iron is hot! I knew if I took two more Gambei shots of red wine, I could end it and I figured I would be in the car by the time it hit me so I went for it. I had the waiter fill his glass and mine to the rim with read wine. We downed it then I asked to fill another round to the rim and that’s when I broke him.

He said “bu shi…bu shi…gou le!” which means “no more…no more…enough!” I kept on insisting that we finish the bottle but he couldn’t take anymore that grabbed one of his chopsticks placed a white tablecloth on it and raised it in surrender!

Needless to say, it was a ruckus-filled evening and as we walked out the door, he put his arm around me and said (in Chinese) you are a good friend and a good drinker. You are welcome here anytime. The only problem is that I hope he remembers me when I come back.

When the car dropped me at my apartment, I rushed in and headed straight to worship the porcelain god.

All kinds of Amazing!

2009-04-15T00:14:00.000-07:00

It is spring in Shanghai. The bone chilling wet winter has slowly dissipated and is giving way to longer days and cherry blossoms. I’ve been able to run outdoors more so the humdrum days of training for the Great Wall Marathon on a treadmill are behind me.

This morning was nice. It was a misty morning when I left the apartment. As I hit my stride about 2.5 km (sorry, I’ve been using the metric system now) the sun started to peek through the haze and the early morning wet market was in full swing on Ningbo Lu. As I dodged through the hustle and bustle of the morning market; I had a spring in my stride, my heart rate felt strong, a cool breeze against my skin and the smell of freshly steamed dumplings coursing through my nostrils. I thought to myself “it doesn’t get better than this” then right at that moment my IPOD shuffles to Jack Johnson’s “ Upside Down”….man, this was all kinds of amazing!

I usually carry a camera when I run but this morning I decided not to because it was a longer than usual run. It’s a shame because there were so many photo-ops. Having said that, I’ve attached pictures from this past weekend race. It was an 8km race in the Jinqiao District of Pudong in which we decided to wear Pajamas.

I think these spell out what running and training is like in Shanghai…..it's all kinds of amazing.

Eventide

2009-04-15T00:10:00.000-07:00

My good friend Jessica has a blog called Sweet Eventide. As she explained it to me, Eventide is that transitory part of the end of the day that is magical. It’s her favorite moment of the day and I agree that it is magical.

Impressionist painters were obsessed with this time of the day because it was so ephemeral. They would use the fading light like acid to change and define everything even subjects that were deemed immutable. Whether it was to “melt” the past or redefine the future, it inevitably connoted change. This transformation, however, was always encompassed in beauty.

It’s a time of the day that one can look into the sunset and pat oneself on the back and say “good job today”. It’s a time of the day that wraps up all the pragmatic issues and allows us a sense of accomplishment. It’s a time of the day when a ritualistic bathing in the golden glow of the sun cleanses the day’s events and prepares us to dream of tomorrow.

I bring this up because last Friday April 10, 2009 approximately 6:15pm, I had a surreal “eventide moment”. I was in the countryside about an hour and a half outside of Shanghai when I stood on a road that seemed to be aligned perfectly east to west.

Unlike California, this part of China is perfectly flat so all I could see was open farmland and countryside for miles around. As I stood on this road basking in the sun’s golden glow on the west, I noticed a perfect full moon to the east. The amazing part was the alignment of these two empyreal bodies.

Both orbs where perfectly aligned at their respective ends of the road and both orbs were about the same size and almost at the same azimuth and altitude. I wanted to reach out; grab them both, switch them, and see where destiny would take me and what change in beauty would this bring.

Barbie...Savage Garden & Tootie Rolls

2009-03-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

In the midst of one of the worst financial crisis, the world has seen in decades, what does China do? Open the biggest (and pinkest) Barbie Flagship stores in the world of course!

I went into this wonderful monstrosity the other day and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We all have our guilty pleasures and as a designer; this is mine. It’s so over the top and ridiculous that I actually liked it.

The experience was like listening to Savage Garden while downing a Henry Weinhard’s vanilla cream soda with a mouth full of tootsie rolls and pop rocks, all while wearing a full body day glow spandex outfit laced with sequin. The place is a 6-story sugary lollipop that is so decadent that my teeth hurt when I left. To that end, shear stupidity and absolute superficiality sometimes has it’s place in our lives.

I was not allowed to take pictures but I snapped a few off with my camera phone when no one was looking.

Big Fish in little Pond or Little Pond with lots of Bigger Fish

2009-03-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a huge reality check. Well, let me put it in terms that are more honest. “Yesterday, I had a huge reality validation of something that I found out after I moved to China.”
You see prior to moving out here, I thought China was at least 10 years behind the US in everything. In many respects it is, so I thought I would be able to come in and dominate. I thought I would walk into my new office and start kicking ass. I thought that when I walked unto the basketball court (or any sport for that matter) I would push and shove their skinny asses around. Basically, I thought I would own this 2-bit town. Well, about 10% percent of that came to fruition. What I did not expect was the “X-factor”.

You know all those Chinese kids with rich parents that live in Beverly Hills, San Marino, Tiburon, Walnut Creek and every other filthy rich Suburb in the North America; well, they are all here too! They are the X-factor! Not only are they armed with their damned Harvard and Yale MBAs (seriously every frickin’ rich Taiwanese or Shanghainese kid here seems to have gone to Harvard – it is ridiculous!) they also have the cash to back them up. To top it off, it seems like all their parents know someone in the Chinese government. They all got the damn Guanxi!

So back to yesterday, you see, I organize and run a group here called yodeng (young designers networking group). I started this when I first got here because I didn’t know anyone and it was a way to meet, network and get the pulse of the design industry in China. As our groups popularity grew so did our reputation. Since then, several other people and entities trying to tap into the network of designers that we’ve built have approached me. One in particular, GIGA (Green Actions Green Ideas) struck my fancy and we have now collaborated in organizing series of “talks” or lectures on sustainability and more specifically aimed at the grass roots level in China.

The GIGA guys are amazing and there are really no words that I can use to describe their drive and passion. They are involved with so much here in regards to Green design and getting the Chinese government involved that what they have done in such a short time in China has completely blown my mind. What blows my mind even more is the fact that they have embraced me and yodeng to help them bring their agenda to fruition. I mean, yodeng, a group that started (and continued) as few architects and designers going out and having a drink to forget about work. Here we are now having a goal and purpose beyond fun…WTF…but I digress.

With this new GIGA + yodeng marriage I’ve found myself surrounded by so may Type A, obsessive compulsive, Ivy league overachievers that I’m having a huge complex about what I’ve done and accomplished in my life. These kids are amazing! I mean not only are some of them like Carol Chyau co-founder of Ventures in Development and Shokay alleviating poverty with the Tibetan Yak herders but she’s making a ton of cash while doing so. What the hell did I do in my early 20s?

Yesterday, during Carols lecture, I was reminded that I am a not so big fish in a little pond with tons of really ginormous, intelligent and cash rich fish.

The Bricklayers

2009-03-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

After a 7-month hiatus from any sports related activity due to my ruptured Achilles, I am finally back on the basketball court. This is a picture of the Bricklayers, my basketball team in Shanghai. Just look for the oldest, shortest most out of shape person (and the only one that looks Chinese) and you’ve found me.

We are called the Bricklayers for two reasons. One, we are a team mainly comprised of Architects or architectural graduate students and two…have you seen our jump shot?

Playing basketball here in China has been interesting to say the least. First, they play under the FIBA (International basketball association) which is a totally lame system. Second, the referees suck ass and none of them have ever played the game before in their life. Finally, since I’m the only person that looks Chinese on our team, everyone from the refs to the stats guy talks to me. Ironically, I’m on a team of Americans (and one Belgian) that can all speak Mandarin fluently except for me.

At any rate, the guys are a good bunch and we are having a great time losing our asses in the open division. I think next season I’ll drop down to the recreational league where all the 40 somethings play.

Architects in Motion

2009-03-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

After sitting on my ass for over 7 months, Christina and I decided that we should run the Great Wall Marathon again this year. So I joined a running group called Architects in Motion. They are a great group and we meet every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and sometimes Sunday to train. It’s been good for me because I’m not the kind of person that was built to be a long distance runner nor do I have the discipline to maintain such a rigorous and time-consuming schedule.

It’s been grueling at times. Ryan, the young kid (he’s 26 and I consider anyone under 30 these days to be a kid) is a machine. I’ve met type A and obsessive-compulsive people before but this kid takes the cake. I wish I had his mental fortitude and discipline.

He’s scheduled some amazing runs. Last week we ran through the historic Old Town in Shanghai. Weaving through dark dank and narrow alleyways dodging pots, pans, and everything you can think of including the kitchen sink (there was one in our way at one point) keeps things interesting. Next Saturday he is making everyone take the subway to the last station and run back on an alternative route, which he meticulously selected. This way, he says, we will be forced to run back and not catch a taxi.

As I said, it’s been tough however, the toughest thing isn’t waking up at 5:30 am or the long 32km runs in the freezing cold. The toughest thing about training is getting into the elevator every morning and smelling the scent of freshly baked bread and pastries wafting up the elevator shaft.

You see our new apartment is right over Paul’s, a French Bakery that makes and bakes some of the most amazing confections, deserts and pastries this side of Paris! The temptation to skip the run, the freezing cold, avoid the aching knees, and sore back and to sit inside this haven of flour and dough encompassed by the warmth of the ovens is overwhelming.

As I take my first stride onto the cold crisp polluted air of Shanghai, I look back at the warm glow of the storefront with the bakers dressed in white filling baskets full of freshly baked baguettes and croissants. I can imagine myself sitting in the corner reading the Shanghai Daily sipping on a cup of freshly brewed Kenyan Medium Roast Coffee and taking a bite of a flakey buttery heart-stopping croissant with orange marmalade jam dripping off the side….

…as I turn on Nanjing Xi Road, a bus full of local commuters pass by spewing some god forsaken black gunk from its exhaust that chokes me. Once the fumes are gone, the scent of steamed buns and oil manifest themselves in the air. Thump…thump….thump…my heart rate matches my stride. I forget about Paul’s and I’m off to meet the other Architects in Motion.

Dian Ping Che Ri Ji (Electric Scooter Diaries)

2008-12-04T20:41:00.001-08:00

It’s getting cold in Shanghai. It’s so cold that I’m going to have to retire the Dian Ping Che for the winter because it’s way to cold to ride in this weather. I would like to conclude my Dian Ping Che Diary with some of images that I took while riding around Shanghai.

Drive by Shanghai Style

2008-12-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was cruising along on my little scooter when this dude and his girlfriend on and LPG scooter (an LPG scooter is a propane powered ride so it’s a lot faster than my little electric number) rolls up on my left and launches this big fat snot rocket. This big fat lugie just misses me and nails my left fender. I’m like….”what the F-*K!!! But I was so shaken by this that I was frozen for a second. When I finally realized what this jerk off just did, my instincts from the old neighborhood kicked in (LA drive by Shanghai style).

He was about 25 feet ahead of me and pulling away because my “dian ping che” can only go so fast. Anyway, I put the throttle as far back as I could and let Darling Delilah do her thing. I started weaving in and out of bikes and little old ladies chasing this dude. I knew I couldn’t catch him on pure speed but I thought I might have the chance to nail him a stop light.

Up ahead the light turns red and I’m like great…..I got you now sucker! So I start working on a nice one. I pull from the depths of my diaphragm. I pull so hard that it rattles my tongue as I create a vacuum in my esophagus that pulls up this nice juicy mound of yellow/green mucous that mixes nice with my coffee infused saliva. It’s so ripe that my salivary glands start to water.

As I approach him I have this huge smile on my face thinking about the satisfaction I’m going to get by painting the side of his scooter with this wonderful concoction of saliva, mucous and probably some stuff left over from the dumplings I had the night before.

I slowly move in for the kill then right before I’m about to let it fly, he bolts! What! The damn light is still red! Damn you! Now what I do with lump of goo in my mouth? Do I swallow it or chase in down with it swishing around.

I finally decide to waste it and spit it out. Man, that sucks, that was a good one. I lay down the throttle again and the race is on once again. We get caught up in a jam in an intersection and in this mess I somehow end up in front of him. After we leave the intersection we both end up on a straight away and although I can’t see him I can hear him. Unlike my electric scooter which is dead silent, LPG’s make a lot of noise. The sound of his particular scooter was now burned into my subconscious.

He was to my left but a little ways back. I could hear and feel it. I started working on hocking up my second lugie. This time I channeled the frustration of my first loss into this one and pulled up an even nicer one. Along will all the goodies of the first one I think I conjured up some extra particulate matter like nose hairs in this little gem.

I throttled down so he would catch up to me. I could hear the high pitched whining of his LPG and the annoying sounding of his girlfriend yapping incessantly on her cell phone coming ever so close. Closer…closer…closer… I turn left…THWOOP…I let it fly…SPPPLATTT!!! Bullseye…right on the leg!!!! ….Oh shit!....I nailed the wrong guy!

Right before I turned to spit, some old dude on a bicycle came between me and my lugie nemesis! I heard the old dude scream….AYIIIEEE!!! As soon as I realized what happened I banked right into an alley and took off.

I felt terrible but somehow all the anxiety and anger that I had towards that dude was gone. I think I left it on some old dudes pant leg and shoe.

Out there in streets of Shanghai there’s an old dude on a rusty bike with goop dripping off his right pant leg cruising around looking for retribution.

Uber Capitalists

2008-11-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

I thought I lived and worked in a Communist Country yet here is a 45 foot “fake” Christmas tree that is being erected in front of our office in Shanghai Times Square. The US was founded on two polarized ideologies that create an amazing balance: Religiosity and Capitalism. The Christmas tree is the epitome of the symbolic manifestation of both of these paradigms. Yet here it is standing tall and proud in all it’s majestic glory smack dab in the middle of Communist China and in Shanghai’s high rent district. In fact, Christmas decorations in Shanghai started going up the moment the first leaf of autumn hit the ground at the end of October. And it’s not just a tree or wreath here of there, it’s huge over the top gaudy decorations on steroids.

There’s this mall by our apartment that is ridiculous. The whole front of the shopping mall is a Winter Wonderland Gateway with the main stairway entry that is about 40 wide and about 30 steps up painted with dancing reindeer and snowmen. There’s bells, snowflakes and shit hanging all over the place. As I walk through (this is the case in any mall or shopping area now), no one speaks a lick of English but you have George Michael’s “Last Christmas” or Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” blasting over the intercom system. Like I said it’s ridiculous.

The Chinese are confused. Many are caught between the two worlds of Egalitarianism and Uber Consumerism so I’ve been spending a lot of time talking to my of my co-workers about this just to get a sense of what they think. Most of them have no idea what all this mean and simple say “well it’s a big Western shopping holiday”. Personally, after living here and seeing how materialistic and how obsessed everyone is with money, I think the Communist Party should stop kidding themselves and just embrace Capitalism. In fact there's a joke that the Shanghainese say about themselves and it goes: "a man is considered a pervert if he loves women over money". If the Party just accepts the people's wishes at least there would be some Intellectual honestly in all this misunderstood decadence.

Gen En Kuai Le [Happy Thanksgiving]

2008-11-27T17:51:00.000-08:00

I wrote this last year when we had our first Thanksgiving abroad. It still applys....

Dear Family and Friends:

This year Christina & I have found ourselves in the unique position of observing the Thanksgiving Holiday in Shanghai China. Celebrating a tradition that is uniquely American in a country that has no real ‘connection” to the Western holiday season has given us a new appreciation for the spirit of this holiday. Right after Halloween, advertising switches gears from ghosts and goblins to images of fall cornucopias, football and gap holiday ads. The air is clean and crisp and The malls are filled with white holiday lights and the spicy scent of cinnamon and holly. The air is electric with the anticipation of the holiday season.

Today, while the air is brisk it is not so clean nor is it crisp. In lieu of scents of the holiday season, the aroma of freshly fired dumplings and diesel fuel waft through the streets and alleyways. Conversations about where you are going to celebrate the long weekend and with whom are going to watch football games with are replaced with “are you working this weekend” and did “Real Madrid win last night?”. There is however one saving grace. Other Americans. Other Americans working along side of us going through the same thing. Nostalgic for all that defines this time of year. Family and friends. A simple gesture like asking us what we are doing today for lunch and where can we get a decent Turkey sandwich in this town becomes a beautiful sound. Not that a turkey lunch or dinner defines the holiday but rather the Turkey meal becomes a manifestation of all that links you back home. A sight and taste that links you back to family, friends and familiar surroundings.

This year we both have a greater appreciation for all that we have and all that we’ve done. We are both very Thankful for all of you: Family & friends new and old. Living abroad has given us the opportunity to be grateful for all the wonderful and beautiful people in our lives that are so far away but always close to our hearts. It has also given us the opportunity to be grateful to be citizens of a brave and beautiful country. The freedoms and wealth that we have are sometimes forgotten when we are not constantly reminded by those that have less. China has been a catalyst reminding us of our fortunate lives.

We miss you all and love you all….Happy Thanksgiving

With Love,

Vic & Christina

A Delicate Sense of History -“Scooting” to Enlightenment

2008-10-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

Most of us go through this phase of trying to figure out who we are where we are and where we are going. I was told by Mr. Diconti, my 10 grade English teacher that if we could answer those questions we would have a philosophy of our own in which to filter the world. Well being here I’m not so much trying to find out who I am but rather trying to find out who they are. I mean I think I know me and I thought that I was opened minded, but then why can’t I just accept my surroundings as they are. I mean when I’m getting pushed, shoved, yelled at and constantly profiled should just deal with it? It’s their country not mine…right?

Well, I had a break through. It’s been a little over a year but the catalyst to my epiphany was on my little electric scooter. Riding this thing day in and day out I’ve become pretty good at dodging old ladies, rusted bikes with Styrofoam piled high, erratic taxi drivers and huge buses with drivers that are clueless. You know what, there is a method to the madness and I think I’ve figured it out. There are so many elements to the madness that I’m only going to deal with one, which is this Shanghainese concept of spatial relationship. Lesson one: There is none, space I mean! So as a person that optimally functions with a 3 foot radius are him, I have to learn to function with no space. If I can get over that (which I think I have) I think I get it!

Watching cars, buses, pedestrians, bikes and anything else that has moves navigate itself in Shanghai is like watching a ton of marbles being dumped into a maze. Anyway if you tilt that maze the marbles will arrange themselves in the most optimal position to get through a small opening to the next adjacent space. Now imagine a bigger maze and throw in larger rubber balls and even larger soccer balls. As you shift the maze in different directions the balls always go to their optimal position. The only criteria for this all to work are that two or more elements make contact and one gives way.

Now imagine a much bigger maze and throw in buses, cars, scooters, etc.. you see where I’m going with this… once I gave up my 3 foot radius and realized that it’s OK to “bump” someone, a whole new world opened up. I finally understood the ebb and flow of shanghai. Communism and lack of open area has given the 85 lbs old grandma, the 200 lbs electric scooter and the 20 ton bus the same right of way and who ever gets there first simply has to hold their line. If bumped, give way because when you bumped someone else they’ll give way. In some sick convoluted fashion it all works!!

All I had to do to find this out was to “scoot” to enlightenment.

Do you really have to YELL?

2008-10-16T23:37:00.000-07:00

Nico, our poor Chinese language teacher is always getting bombarded by knuckle head questions from us Lao Wais (foreigners). Especially now that our rag tag group has instituted beer drinking during class time. This week the question was why the hell do Chinese people speak so load especially on their cell phones. I mean literally it’s like they are always yelling into the phone.

Then there are the business meetings. Here the “yelling” in monologue is ridiculous. Unlike most “discussions” and brainstorming sessions that I have participated in, the Chinese business meeting usually consists of one person on a nonsensical rant going though all the emotion and inflictions as if in a heated discussion, except that no one else in participating in the conversation (unless they are on their cell phone taking to someone else -no joke). These sessions go on for hours at a time with so many contractions from one monologue to the next until finally the main guy, usually the CEO, has his chance to pontificate. In the end, everything that was said by the others means nothing. Only the CEOs word matters.

As a designer you can’t question or disagree with any of the convoluted rants even if they are riddled with contradictions. This way no one loses “face” (this is definitely another topic because I just don’t get it). All we can do is simply compile all that was said and decipher as best you can and come up with something that is close to what the last guy said.

Anyway, I totally digressed and just lived a “moment” that happened a few days ago. Back to the cell phone thing. Nico’s explanation is that the Chinese (especially the older generation) were used to using such bad quality telephones that they always had to yell. Good Explanation but I don’t buy it. The reason I don’t buy it is because not only are all the kids frickin’ yelling into their phones but everyone old and young has their ring tone put on the highest volume setting. It’s fucking annoying!

Personally I think it’s an amalgam of things all which seem very contradictory. First I think it’s the “Look at me” syndrome. Look how important I am, I’m on the cell phone…yippee! I really believe that the Chinese view cell phone like Los Angelinos view their cars. It’s an extension of who they are. A manifestation of their personality and some sort of convoluted self perception.

Then I think there’s this self entitlement that stems from the Cultural Revolution and one of its resultants: the one child policy. The one child policy is very evident as social policy that backfired. In fact, the local Chinese themselves admit that this is a major problem. Most feel that they are raising a generation of spoiled uber-brats!

The one child policy might just be China’s Achilles heel. I mean, when a 30 old man still lives with his parents and refuses to drink milk unless his mother opens the carton and pours it in a glass for him (true story BTW) you know that there is a serious problem here. This same 30 year old man has asked his parents to come out of retirement so they can help him buy a house. I mean’s it’s ridiculous but it seems like the norm here.

From a socio-economic perspective, there’s this issue of having an overpopulation of men and not enough women. There are so many intrinsic issues here that I’ll have to address this when I’m not writing about cell phones. The one child policy has also created a reverse bell curve of not having the population to generate the man labor and the tax base to support an aging yet rapidly growing country.

I know I went so many directions in this blog (ala “attention deficit” Vic) but it all comes back to that individual that is literally screaming into the phone or being so self absorbed in a business meeting. Personally every time I hear a LOUD cell phone ring or someone opens their mouth, I see it as a cry for self definition in a place where no one perceives themselves as an individual. Its either that or it’s a population of frustrated undersexed spoiled brats trying to reign in the fastest growing economy in the world? I see Big Trouble in Little China…..

Damn Mouse!

2008-10-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

Everyone that I’ve spoke to that is from another country but living and working in Shanghai said the same thing when we first got here. Everyone agreed that Shanghai is an amazing city but if you don’t get out of dodge every quarter, this city will drive you crazy. The hustle and bustle and shear amount of people in Shanghai will inevitably drive you batty.

Christina and I were at that junction last month. Well, I should clarify that more; Christina was way more ready than I to get outta dodge than I was. She wanted to get as far away and to a place as polarized from China as we could get. Being the super genius that I am I initially chose another Communist (well former Communist) country in Russia. It’s probably a good thing we couldn’t get our visas in time because that could have been a disaster if it turned out to be similar to China.

Anyway, we opted to go to Prague. The choice could not have been a better one…..oh my goodness the city is beautiful! For those of you that have never been there and want to take a vacation and seem like you are in another world, The Czech Republic is the place to visit.

You see Prague (Praha) is one of the very few cities that was not destroyed in World War II. As I understand its history; after the meeting in Munich in 1938, the Allies pretty much threw the Czech Republic to Hitler as a gimme. Hitler in turn fell in love with the city that he never destroyed it. In addition the Allies never got around to bombing it (I guess they used all their bombs in Dresden). A few decades after the war, The Czech Republic falls into the hands of Communism via Russia.

It seems that all its misfortunes have somehow become blessings. By not being destroyed in WWII and being preserved by the State during Communist rule, The Czech Republic and more specifically Prague has ironically retained much of its original charm via culture, art and architecture. In fact, there are movements in art and architecture that never made its way out of Eastern Europe because of its closed society. The city is an eclectic combination of Medieval Castles and Churches, Art Nuevo and Deco buildings with random structures from esoteric movements like Rodo-Cubism. It all works well though. Everything is so beautiful and it is all linked with these charming pedestrian cobblestone streets. Combined with the beautiful colors of the fall foliage the city feels like you are living in a fairly tale. Not to mention the people are beautiful too.....just like princes and princesses! The best part though is that they drink like fish. I believe they consume the most beer in the world per capita!

The pictures I’ve attached best represent what I thought Prague was but I think Christina would beg to differ. The pictures however do no justice to really how beautiful the place is. There is one thing that kind of ruined everything for me (just a bit). Disneyland! You see walking along the narrow meandering cobblestones streets with the spires of the Castles and Churches in the background and cafes with cute flowers on the window sills at every turn, all I could think of was the damn Magic Kingdom in Disneyland!

Damn Mouse!!!…..I curse the Mouse!!!!!....sorry Rich….

pictures are worth a 1000 words...

2008-10-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

I took a series of random pictures on vacation and as I was going through them many of them reminded me of my family & friends. Here they are and you figure out which one you think is you.

For Larry (part 1)

2008-10-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my friend Larry who has a blog called E A T with Larry.

There are these hot dog stands on the streets of Prague that probably have the best sausage hot dogs I’ve ever had in my life! Maybe the flavor was enhanced a bit because I would have one after a late night of drinking (or afternoon…hey I was on vacation) or in the morning after a wicked hangover. At any rate, they where amazing!

There would be 4 types of dogs on the grill and each time I wanted to try a different one my nose and tummy would always lead me to the spicy sausage (ala Uncle Larry).

The bun was a baguette. This lovely ensemble of flour and yeast was soft and warm from being just freshly baked. The aroma of the bread alone was enough to lift you off your feet and whisk you away into food heaven. The crust was light and flaky and would crumble into wafer like flakes if you held it with the wrong hot dog holding technique. The inside of the bun was dense and doughy and a little sweet. It is the perfect consistency to soak up the wonderful grease and juices of the spicy dog and the perfect sweetness to balance the flavors of the sauerkraut.

Now the coup de grâce was the hot dog itself. This amazing concoction of molded pork bits, parts and spices would bring any carnivore to their knees. I mean it was perfection packaged in a thin intestinal lining.

At first bite my canines would penetrate the dog and create a “SNAP”!!!…then all these ineffable flavors would come cascading unto my palette and all over my fingers. The grease and spicy juices would mix with the sourness of the sauerkraut and soak into the baguette to make the perfect food…..I mean what more can you ask for…..mmmm…I know…another Pilsner!

Item # 3 -unchecked

2008-10-10T02:46:00.001-07:00

I grew up with my formidable years in the 80’s during the heady days of détente between the US and the late Soviet Union. The Cold War was in full effect and the former Soviet Union was the dominant “red” threat to our ideology. I guess being yuppies and preppies and a product of the decadent 80’s I always viewed Mother Russia as representing everything antithetic to our lifestyle of wayfarer sunglasses, Sperry topsiders and Le Tigre shirts (collars turn up of course). I mean, come on, who wouldn’t agree that the Material Girl, Boy George and Devo weren’t the enlightened ones.

Saturated with the obsession of uber-capitalism and superficiality, the idea of Communism seemed evil. I still feel the same way at times now that I’m living China and I realize what a wonderful experiment the US is. The US definitely has its issues but even with all its faults I still think it is the greatest country that ever was! We are declining though, and fast. I promise to share thoughts on this because I feel it completely relates back to everything that manifested in the 60’s and made its mark in the 80’s.

It was then that I placed Mother Russia as one of the places that I needed to visit before I die. Most people want to stand in front of the Taj Mahal or frolic on the beaches of Bali but not me. I wanted to go to Moscow walk along the Moskva River make my way up to Kremlin and stand in front of it take a picture with my hands raised over my head in victory (maybe even ‘flipping the bird”) and repeat those infamous words uttered by Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

With the fall of Communism and Christina and I living so close to Russia, I finally had the chance to accomplish item #3 on my list of things to do before I die. Plans were fashioned, plane tickets purchased, hotels and transportation reserved. All that was left was the visa. Simple enough, we had friends from the US go there with no issues.

With a week left before our flight, I finally got back my passport from the Chinese government (every year you have to register with the government and they hold your documents until you interview with them to get it back). Christina and I stayed up all night putting all the documents together that were required for the visas.

Let’s see......application-check, bank statements and assets-check, international medical insurance-check, verification that we are not experts in explosives and fire arms – check (not joking), hotel verification letters of everyplace we will visit- check, someone to vouch for you-check, passports, tickets, blah..blah..check…check…check….and finally copies of everything in triplicate!

Flawless…we had everything. It was going to be a slam dunk! The next day at the Russian Consulate there was a Finnish lady and an Italian guy in front of us in line. We could over hear them discussing what a pain in the ass it was to get a Russian Visa. We joined in the conversation and discovered that they had been there multiple times and have been turned down.

We had to enter the Consulate one by one so by the time Christina and I got there we saw the Finnish lady sitting in the corner crying. We asked her if she was ok and all she said back was: “I hate Russia….I hate China…I hate Communism…why the hell do they make it do damn hard to enter their god forsaken countries”. Needless to say she wasn’t able to get her visa.

To make a long story short we couldn’t get our visas and trust me it was no lack of effort either. We tried everything including calling in favors from friends that have friends in the Chinese Foreign Affairs. Well, actually we could get the visas but it would take some time because the US and their Allies are supporting Georgia in their little Civil war.......but I filled out the damn application and explained that I couldn’t build a bomb and I wasn’t an expert marksman…wasn’t that enough!

Anyway, we cancelled everything, choked down a grand in penalty fees for flights and hotels and booked a trip to the Czech Republic and had a great time.

So I had to “uncheck” item # 3 on my list …..but I’ll get there someday. The irony is that to get to Prague we had a stop over in Moscow. In the picture I don’t quite have my hands over my head but that’s not a peace sign either. It’s my politically discrete “victory” sign….and oh, I’m not really smiling…I’m pissed off!

The coolest thing ever…..

2008-08-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

One night after Chinese class, one of the guys and I decided to go out for a beer. We couldn’t find anything mellow and low key near work since everything is either a high end restaurant or a hooker bar. So we decided to go to the local market and pick up some beers and shrimp chips (hey, that’s what you get here) and walked over to People’s Park to chill out like two winos.

My friend Joe (his name is not really Joe) is a really cool guy. He’s from all over the place but I think he calls the Seattle home because he’s spent the longest time living there. I think he mentioned he’s lived there for only a few years but it was the longest time he’s lived in one place as an adult. Prior to that he bounced around from city to city with his family and continued to do so during his undergrad and graduate work. He’s lived abroad a few places around the world for school and work and arrived in Shanghai about the same time I did. Joe has recently left China and is now in India and who knows from there.

This seems to be the “profile” of pretty much everyone I’ve met here. Another friend, Helena, mentioned that she’s lived in 7 cities in 4 countries in 8 years! To a guy that’s lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years this all sounds so exciting and cosmopolitan, however it also seems extremely exhausting.

I’m always in awe with the stories and things that they have to tell because they are so varied, exciting and very different from my own. This “lifestyle” epitomizes a key “life rule/ philosophy” that I hold. That is that you can “lengthen” and enrich one’s life by having as many varied experiences as possible since life is simply composed of a string of memories. Think about it, didn’t elementary school, junior high and even high school and college seem like an eternity filled with so many exciting memories? Yet most of us in our 30’s have now spent the same amount of time out of school. Do we have as many memories or does it all seem like on huge glob of work, happy hours and kids? You see, the more you experience, the longer life seems. One caveat though, they must be quality experiences.

Two tall boys down, the conversation gets deeper. We discuss the relevance of friends, family and work. What I discovered that although Joe is driven and has seen and experienced more places and things that I will ever know, he admits that he does not have any real close friends. He knows a ton of people all over the world but has never stayed long enough in one place to cultivate a true BFF. That was sad to me and was a huge “chink” in the armor of my “life rule”.

The family and friends that I have in LA are the ones that, in most respects, define me (us). I am a son, a bother and most uniquely, a friend. I say uniquely because being a friend is a choice. You see my role as son and brother were bestowed on me. I did not choose my parents or my brother or sister or my entire family for that matter. On the other hand all my friendships are all choices, a choice that was made by me and another person. That means that friendship has conditions and these conditions are ones we choose to live with and are what will eventually define me (us). We gravitate to people because we see something familiar, missing or fulfilling in our lives. Remember if you really want to know who you are, look at the friends you keep (and the cloths you wear….but I digress).

Anyway the point that I am trying to make in my patented long winded circuitous manner, is that the coolest thing ever happened that other day. I was on the construction site for one of our projects in Pudong, China and I get a phone call. It was one of my closest friends Steve. He’s calling from LA. He’s at Wahoo’s with the group of guys that I consider my best friends. They have all been drinking and discussing life. I guess there was a point in their discussion where they thought I would have some insight on some nonsensical issue they were discussing. The fact that I am 6000 miles away but still included in a conversation about nothing was the coolest feeling ever. In some small but deeply profound way, it gave me meaning. Cogito ergo sum…kind of….

It’s sad to know that Joe, although he’s seen and done a lot in his young life, won’t have someone calling him up and asking him if he watched some movie and what his insignificant opinions are about it.

The Myth is real…

2008-08-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve been MIA from my blog for a few weeks now. I’ve recently discovered that the mythical “China Hours” do exist. You see, prior to coming to Shanghai, several of my peers mentioned that it was going to be Archi-torture working in China. I mean, Architects as a norm already work a minimum of a 60 hour work week. In China those kinds of hours are supposedly a walk in the park.

Well 10 months into living and working here, I thought I was working for the County of LA. Hell, it was easier than that. It seemed like I was on a 10 month vacation. As our company was trying to figure it out how to define ourselves in Asia there was nothing I could do but go to Moet Chandon Launch parties, fashion shows, Salvatore Ferragamo Anniversary parties and the like. It was a sweet life.

Then one day…BAM! China Hours! Our company gets its shit together and all of a sudden I find myself in some second tier city 2 hours out of Shanghai drinking bie jiu and eating some weird stuff with the Mayor and his cronies, sitting in meetings with Chinese government officials and yelling at the foreman on the job site in English while he looks at me with a blank stare.

One and a half months goes by without a day off and the only way I can swing it is by rupturing my Achilles tendon!

Oh the humanity….the myth is real….the next year is going to be fun..fun..fun…

it's the little things in Life....

2008-07-07T23:57:00.000-07:00

It’s the little things in life that make us happy. Today has got to be the most beautiful day I have experienced in Shanghai. It’s so beautiful that words escape me. Maybe I just feel this way because it’s the first day in 10 months that I’ve seen crystal blue skies and fluffy white clouds, there's very little humidity and NO pollution! That’s right, no pollution. I can see for miles and miles from my office window with no end in sight. I love it! I’ve attached 2 views from my office window. One is a typical day in Shanghai and the other is today (you figure it out).

I’m having the typical day in architecture but for some reason I’m in a really good mood. I think it’s the weather. I think most problems disappear with little sunshine, blue skies and fluffy white clouds…

When in Rome….

2008-07-04T01:05:00.000-07:00

The old adage goes something like this: “ when in Rome do as the Romans do”. Well what do you do if the Romans are rude and impolite? Should I become rude and impolite? This is an open call for your opinion.

I was taking the bus home the other day and I scored a good seat again (as I mentioned in a previous blog, good luck on catching a cab on a rainy day in Shanghai. Odds on accomplishing that are as good as finding an empty lane on the 405 freeway in LA at 4:00 Friday afternoon). As the bus filled up there where a few ladies that were standing that I should have given my seat up to. I normally do, but in the past it’s led to either other men taking my seat as I stood up to offer it to a lady or having some ungrateful bitch push me aside as I motion to her that I want to give my seat to her.

There in lies the dilemma. Do I stick to my own personal values and look like a weak dumb foreigner and get made fun of when I politely open doors and give up my seat to ungrateful unappreciative self-consumed people or do I shut the rest of the world out with my iPod and go on my merry way with only me as my only concern like the rest of the “Romans”?

“Do you have it in you”…

2008-07-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

Currently in Shanghai its hot…I mean really hot!...and really humid too. The air is still, thick and heavy and it’s disgustingly sticky. Needless to say it very uncomfortable to a guy that is used to the “dry heat” of California. The schizophrenic weather doesn’t help either. One minute the sun will be shining then another minute these dark ominous clouds roll in and the sunny day disappears into this dark dismal setting which looks like the world is coming to an end. Lighting strikes…thunder sounds…then on cue, rain drops the size of small animals come crashing down. Half hour later the sun comes back and the process repeats itself.

Having said all that, I had one of the coolest experiences last night. I met up with a bunch of guys that play basketball on the rooftop of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. There are these basketball courts that are on the rooftop surrounded by a chain link fence with a 360 view of Shanghai. The imagery is like something out of a scene from Law in Order when the cops go and talk to someone playing hoops in a playground in the middle of Brooklyn or Chicago (I’ve never played ball in Brooklyn or Chicago but this is what I imagine it would be like…well… except you are on the roof top of a 5 star hotel and your not being arrested). Regardless, it’s a way cool setting when you are in the heart of an urban setting and when you take a jump shot and your backdrop is the bright lights and big city of Shanghai.

There was about 15 of us up there about 8 pm Thursday evening playing 3 on 3 games under the harsh lights of the roof top lamps when a huge thunder storm came in. No one even flinched when the torrential rains came rushing down. The heated games went on. It was surreal to look up and watch the glistening raindrops twinkle as they magically appeared from within the darkness above and slid past the beams of light radiating from the roof top lamps. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion. As I looked around; the mix of the heavy hot rain, humidity, sweat and muffled sounds of shit talking seemed like I was in one of those cool Gatorade TV commercials.

For a moment there I had to stop and check to see if I was sweating orange…..”Do you have it in you”…

The Delicate Sense of History: [Turning Over in His Grave]

2008-06-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

This image is what I thought China would be like; strong, gray and stoic and devoid of any emotion and mysticism. A socio-political commentary manifested in steel and stone. I thought the city would be riddled with these grand industrious and abstracted geometric forms of Mao and the loyal citizens of the Peoples Republic of China depicting social progress and political stability.

Little did I know that only image of Mother China constructed in this manner is of Chairman Mao on the Bund. Ironically the Bund is the part of the city that the British and French built in the early 1900’s and is currently the hub of tourism in China. The architecture of the area is ostensibly French and reeks of English pomp and circumstance. The symbol of industry and egalitarian progress is surrounded by street vendors hocking anything and everything from cheap “Made in China” goods to ferry rides on the Huangpu. I think Chairmen Mao is turning over in his grave…..

The Beautiful Children of Tagaytay

2008-06-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

Christina and I hiked to the top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was an amazing experience. You begin the trip by taking a banca (which is a Filipino outrigger) from the mainland across Taal Lake and anchor at a local village on an island. Then you do the actual hike up the volcano. When we landed on shore we were greeted by some of the happiest and most beautiful children from the local village.

I will elaborate on this little adventure another time is because I would like to share some thoughts about gratitude and happiness that we experienced from these local village kids and share some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. For the meantime, here are some pictures of the kids we fell in love with�

Precious little ghost

2008-06-16T23:39:00.000-07:00

Most people (including me, until I moved here…. we can thank the LAUSD for that) think of China as a monolithic homogeneous country and culture. On the contrary China is comprised of several diverse minority groups. The reason for our (my) misconceptions is due to the fact that about 92% of the Chinese population are of the Han Chinese ethnicity. There are however over 56 other minority groups that make up the people of China. Unfortunately these “other” 56 ethnic groups are a “silent minority”. Among the glitz and glam of a new and improved China, they simply live as ghosts in their own country. Many of them know only a life of poverty and begging. When I saw this little girl, my heart broke…..

borgmania

2008-06-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

Below is an excerpt from my friend Eric’s blog. I met Eric in Shanghai, China when we both signed up as free agents on a local basketball league. Our team sucked but I got the opportunity to meet some pretty cool new friends. Eric was one of the victim’s of “Shanghai’s Revolving Door” but it has capitalized on it and is on a 5 month (I think) “walk about” on this side of the globe.

I envy Eric because he is doing everything that I wished that I had done in my early 20’s. He’s traveled all over the world and has seen some interesting things so it’s always fun read his blogs and find out “where in the world is Eric now”. This is one of my favorites…….

Previously on....Tales of Interest:

(Scene: Korgas, China-Kazakhstan Border Crossing. Translated from the original Chinese)
Me: I want to go to Almaty, Kazakhstan. What time is the bus?
Chinese Taxi Driver: No bus today. Bus Monday.
Me: But today's Friday. There has to be a bus today. There's supposed to be a bus today.
Chinese Taxi Driver: Border crossing closed. Holiday. You go Monday.
Me: Goddamn't. Why didn't anyone tell me the border was going to be closed before I took the night bus all the way here from Urumqi. Well what the hell am I supposed to do here until Monday. There's nothing here.
Chinese Taxi Driver: Get hotel 3 days.
Some Other Taxi Driver: There is train going today at 6pm from another border crossing far from here.
Me: There's no way I'm hanging around here for 3 days. How do I get to this other border crossing.
Some Other Chinese Taxi Driver: Take taxi then bus then taxi.
Me: Are you sure there's a train today there? You're not lying to me just so I'll take your taxi?

(Scene: Train Station, 350 km away at another China-Kazakhstan border crossing)
Me: Is there a train to Almaty today?
Attendant: No train today.
Me: I thought there was a 6pm train today?
Attendant: No.
Me: When's the next train?
Attendant: Sunday.
Me: Goddamn't. I hate you Chinese taxi driver. Is there at least an internet cafe in this shit hole?

(Scene: Uzbekistan Embassy, Almaty, Kazakhstan)
Me: How many days does it take to get a visa for Americans?
Worker: 10 working days without letter of invitation. And we're closed on Fridays.
Me: Goddamn't. What about with a letter of invitation?
Worker: One day.
Me: How long does it take to get a letter of invitation?
Worker: 10 working days.
Me: Goddamn't. I'm not hanging around here for 2 and a half weeks. Screw it, I'll just fly to Nepal.

So I made it as far as Almaty, Kazakhstan (which wasn't easy) and then had my central Asian travel plans foiled by outdated Soviet bureaucratic visa requirements for Uzbekistan. In any case Tibet is still closed to foreigners and traveling by land through Pakistan to India probably was never my best idea. I still blame the Chinese Communist Party and I have long memory. They will pay. Almaty was actually a very pleasant city but no one told me it's as expensive as Western Europe. Stupid Kazakhs with their oil and gas money. That Borat movie was incredibly misleading.

Anyways, Nepal has to be one of my favorite countries in Asia. The Kathmandu valley was fantastic and although I generally dislike large Asian cities due to their being overcrowded, overdirty, overhot and haphazardly built, I really liked it in Kathmandu. The old city had incredible Hindu and Buddhist art everywhere. And I mean everywhere. On every block there was centuries old sculptures, wooden window carvings and temples. Durbar Square could rival anything in Europe.

Basically all the tourists stay in the tourist ghetto of Thamel. There you have narrow maze-like streets comprising of trekking stores selling fake North Face stuff, travel agents offering trekking trips, souvenir stalls, and restaurants, followed by every thing I just mentioned again and then repeated ad naseum, in that exact order. It can be a bit much at times but I stayed at what was an oasis in the craziness, Kathmandu Guesthouse, one of the best places I've ever stayed at. The Beatles stayed there in the 1960s (or if you prefer, only a few weeks ago, Ricky Martin) and the place just has a great atmosphere where I met tons of cool people.

Almost everyone who comes to Nepal does some trekking in the Himalayas. They're almost twice as tall as those hills we call the Rocky Mountains. At first I figured on doing a 5 day trek but after talking to people it seemed like the Annapurna Circuit was the way to go. 12 days through some of the best scenery on Earth with soaring mountains of at least 7,000 meters all around. It wasn't exactly roughing it since you pass through small villages every few hours where you can stay for the night and buy delicious, delicious Coca Cola, Snickers and homemade apple pies. The highlight was the grueling hike up to and over Thurong La Pass at 5,416 meters (17,769 ft). At those dizzying heights altitude sickness is a serious concern, your head hurts and even ipods stop working. The second highlight was when my Sherpa sold his pants for 4 insects he said had great medicinal value. He later confided that they give you "sexy power".

On the next Tales of Interest: how the holy Hindu river the Ganges is actually a septic tank, militant Hindu monastic orders, and why I'm glad cows don't roam freely around the streets of New York (hint: they generate large amounts of shit and generally disregard the traffic laws).

-E
borgmania.blogspot.com

Hardcore Fair-weather Fan: [genus: Los Angelesia -species: Sportazoa Fanalia]

2008-06-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

Hardcore Fair-weather Fan. Mmmmm…does such a curios creature exists? Sure they do, they are known by their scientific classification and nomenclature LAsF - Los Angelesia Sportazoa Fanalia (commonly known as the Los Angeles Sports Fan) and can be found in and around the Los Angeles Basin area. There are high concentrations around the Los Angeles Downtown area around the Staples Center in the mid Spring Months of April thru June and around Dodgers Stadium in the latter months of the Summer.

I have however noticed a mutation of the Los Angelesia Sportazoa Fanalia and for some curious reason this mutation only occurs once you cross large bodies of water like the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. This breed of the Los Angeles Sports Fan seems to be more “Hardcore” than your typical common strain. In fact, it seems to be so potent that it even affects those immune to the Sports Culture of the West Coast. Inhabitants of the East Coast , Pacific Northwest, and the Southern section of the US seem to concede to this beast.

This new more powerful creature is immune to slow internet access, warm beer, communist propaganda and even pixilated satellite viewing!!No matter the obstacle, these beasts find themselves wandering malls, bars and restaurants in the early hours of the morning searching for sustenance and satiation by simply catching the 4th quarter of the NBA finals or a glimpse of a two day old game. It’s a hungry creature that is starved for sports entertainment of which it has never craved nor feasted on in the past.

It’s even gone as far as to watch soccer…..Arrgghh…the Horror!!!

Lakers finally win….87-81

To Buy or not to Buy…that is the question.

2008-06-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

We have another "China" dilemma. There is a local artist that we like. He has gained a lot of popularity the last year so the price of his work has skyrocketed to the point that Christina and I can no longer afford to purchase his work unless we sell our house in Pasadena (I’m half joking). We do however live in China where “copying” is an art form unto itself. Because of this artist’s popularity, several unknown artists have been copying his work and selling them in smaller galleries. Well, we found a few pieces that we really like and we are torn on whether to purchase or not.

Do we save and attempt to buy something original before we leave China and risk it because the price keeps going up or do we relish the fact that we are in the “Copying Capital” of the world and buy a copy……or not buy…

Kung Fu Master or Chicken Fried Rice

2008-06-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

I dig this dude. With my horrible Mandarin and his terrible English, I think we agreed that he is going to be my new Martial Arts Master. Either that or I just ordered 6 weeks of sweet & sour pork and chicken fried rice……

The Pajama Patrol

2008-06-09T21:32:00.000-07:00

We finally did it! After 9 months of living in China we are truly submersing ourselves into the modern Shanghainese lifestyle by buying bikes (and risking our necks while we do it)! We finally got the courage and confidence to brave the streets of Shanghai. For about $60 USD we got our Chinese bikes with all the fixins’ at our local grocery store and are now officially in the mix of the populous.

Shanghai is completely flat so everything is accessible via bicycle, the big concern is more about what kind of risk you are willing to take. The two biggest ones being: getting lost and not being able to find your way back home because the city streets were designed to replicate a bowl of spaghetti or getting hit by a taxi, scooter, motorbike, pedestrian or even someone’s spit. It’s chaotic and dangerous out there…but it’s also very liberating to be out on the streets. They even have these cool raincoats for both you and your bike so you can ride in the rain.

Not only did Christina and I buy bikes but so did our neighbors and some of Christina’s co-workers. We’ve replicated our “bike gang” in good ol’ Pasadena! We call ourselves “The Pajama Patrol”. The name is derived from this unusual but funny fashion quirk that the Shanghainese have which is to wear your pajamas out in public like a suit. I mean they wear their pajamas everywhere like grocery shopping, window shopping, university and even going out to dinner. From what I was told, pajamas are a status symbol because not everyone can afford them. We decided that one Sunday we would all wear our PJs hop on our bikes and go to brunch, hence the name “The Pajama Patrol”.

Now the adventure truly begins….

Wo de Zaoshang Pao: My Morning Run

2008-06-09T21:16:00.000-07:00

I love my morning runs! I hate my morning runs!... Well, I don’t really hate the run itself, it’s the waking up at 5:30 in the morning to hit the roads of Shanghai that I hate. Why 5:30 am you may wonder. Well, running in Shanghai at any other time of the day is like sucking on an exhaust pipe of a car that’s had it catalytic converter removed. In fact, even at 5:30 am, after my run I feel like I've had my breakfast of toxic minerals and heavy particulate matter.

Regardless, the reason I love Wo de zaoshang paos are simply because of the intimate access it allows me of an honest City before it awakes ( I’ve mentioned this before). It’s raw, it’s beautiful and it’s honest.

The Laundry Index: Wedding Dresses

2008-06-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

I love these pictures! I’m bummed that the only camera I had was my camera phone.

The Chinese have recently adopted the concept of a “Western Style Wedding” (I’m going to write more about this on my on going Delicate Sense of History Series) so the idea of buying a wedding dress is new. Currently Brides rent them only for the Big Day and for the Wedding Pictures.

These pictures were taken outside my friend Jeff’s apartment which is next to a Bridal Rental Shop. I guess they have a big weekend planned and had to wash all the dresses. Good times….

The Shanghai Revolving Door

2008-06-04T02:14:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest ironies of living in Shanghai is how easy it is to make friends and how easy it is to loose friends. Unlike LA, Shanghai is a place where it is very easy to meet people and make friends. I’ve met some really cool folk waiting for a cab, in line at the grocery store, Starbucks, walking on the street…wherever. I think Westerners are drawn to each other here because we are all in the same situation.

On the flip side, this week I had 3 of my closest “buddies” leave. One back to Colorado, one back to San Francisco and another back to Norway. This has been a depressing 2 months because the exodus started in April. Since then I’ve had to say goodbye to about 7 people that I’ve totally bonded with here in China. The bright side is that now I have friends all over the world I can visit.

To mitigate this depressed state I went to play basketball at the local playground with my last remaining friend Cole. Anyway, before Cole got there I was shooting around and this Chinese dude in perfect “Californian English” invites me to play with his friends. Turns out they are all from Newport Beach!

Anyway, I’ve made some new friends but this time I made sure to ask them before I begin “dating”… errr…I mean… hanging out with them how long they will be in town.

Chang Cheng Ma La Song [ The Great Wall Marathon]

2008-06-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of friends in LA that are some of the more successful entrepreneurs that I personally know. The thing that they both have in common is that both of them barely made it through high school and never went to college. On separate occasions both have mentioned that they believe that they are successful because they were just too dumb and stubborn to fail. The reason I bring that up is because I just ran the Chang Cheng Ma La Song (The Great Wall Marathon) and was just way too dumb to know what I was signing up for.

I figured, “I’m in OK shape…I’ve done a couple of 10ks in my life. What’s a couple of more 10ks strung along together”. So I took this IIB “Ignorance Is Bliss” training regiment to Beijing. The night before the race we have this big “Carbo-load” Pasta Dinner with other runners and I met this really nice Australian guy Sam. Well Sam and his girlfriend just got back from the race pre-inspection (what!!! there’s a race pre-inspection! – this was consistent with my IIB training) and was telling me that maybe that was a good thing that I did not see the section of the Wall that we were going to run. Evidently it was hellish and would have scared the bejeezus out of a novice like me. Sam then proceeded to ask how many Marathons that I’ve run before. I smile and sheepishly say that this will be my first. He looks at me…was about to say “WTF”…he stops himself and gingerly smiles and says ...”ummm…you’ll be fine”. Did I mention that Sam is an animal? He just finished both the Boston and New York Marathons and to fast forward to tomorrow’s race, Sam came in 8th in the Great Wall Marathon. Needless to say, I had no idea what I was about to do.

Race day…the bus pulls up and I see this section of the wall that literally goes vertical about 500 feet (That’s a 50 story high rise building) and I joking say to Jerome one of the guys that ran it last year, “hey I guess this is where we start”. Jerome looks at me laughs and says “no, this is where we start and finish”!!!

Well…I ran the race… I finished the race (somewhat within the time frame that I set for myself)….it was one of the most amazing experiences that I’ve had to date….it was one of the more difficult experiences that I’ve had to date. The Wall was rough. 4000 steps climb and to do that after your legs are cramping and feel like jelly at the 20 mile mark was tough. Running through the local villages, farmland and country side of rural China was beautiful. Crossing that finish line with the wife waiting with a beer and a subway sandwich was absolute Heaven.

I think everyone should use the IIB training method in life…..

The Delicate Sense of History: The Silent Voice of Fashion

2008-06-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

I liken the aesthetic in China to that of a person with no money that just won the lottery. The first thing they do is buy everything that is silky and shiny. In this case, good taste becomes very subjective. Those on the receiving end become subject to really bad, over the top, ostentatious crap. There is no place where this is more evident than in Shanghai and more clearly manifested than in Shanghainese fashion.

Shanghai is like Hong Kong in the early eighties. There is so much “flash” because it’s now the financial center of China. With all this “flow” people are embracing consumerism with arms wide open and eyes shut tight. To exponentially exacerbate the issue, if you can’t afford the exorbitant prices of Western goods, no worries, there are multiple stores on every corner that sell knock offs and fakes.

There is a fashion designer that once said the way you dress is to put your whole ensemble together, do a quick turn in front of a full length mirror and whatever catches your eye first, remove. In Shanghai I think it’s the opposite. I think they get dressed in the dark.

I took the bus this morning to work and as I looked around, everyone was wearing multiple items of name brand fakes and nothing matched. It was a smorgasbord of fake Prada shoes, Gucci handbags, Versace sunglasses….its revolting! Then there’s how everything is put together. The guys go for this 80’s punk rock look with the ripped jeans and tattered shirts yet have a little cutesy puppy dog doll hanging from their cell phone. Not only that, they have a cool Celine Dion ringtone too! Then there are the girls. They dress with a ton of accessories, really short shorts and high heals and everything is tight fitting. They have no idea of the slutty connotation (maybe they do…who knows). I think women have been silenced so long that they are using their cloths to scream their sexuality. To bad they are screaming silently with no real message.

Clothing has always been an expression of who we are. I was once told by my art history professor that if you ever want to figure out who you are or where you are in life, open up your closet and ask your cloths. China and the Chinese are still trying to figure out who they are, where they are and where they are going……

…to be continued…..

The Delicate Sense of History – Part ll [Architecture & Design]

2008-05-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

Whenever I meet new people and they find out that I work for a US based Architecture firm in Shanghai, invariably the first words out of everyone’s mouth (or some derivative of) is “wow, what an opportunity… you’re definitely in the right city for architecture”.

Shanghai is a curious beast; it’s Los Angeles (via size), New York (via density), Las Vegas (via glitz and glam) and Tijuana (via fuck-up-ed-ness). The Landscape of the city changes on a daily basis….no joke. I’ve been taking these long runs on Saturday mornings and I swear the street configuration changes with each hour and buildings get demolished and new construction begins from one Saturday to the next. This city, nay, this country is growing so fast that the taxi drivers don’t even now where they are going half the time. The taxi drivers are not trying to rip you off they are seriously lost. It’s probably because overnight the government decided that this area or this road needed to “disappear” for the good people’s economic growth.

Another interesting thing I was told is that Architecture (all design for that matter) here is viewed as a product and not a service. When a Chinese client hires you, they are buying a product. “Give me Architecture”, like it is something you unwrap and “viola”, architecture. In the West Architecture is a service. It’s a process of investigation, exploration, a study in aesthetics that hopefully, at the end of the process, yields a beautiful product.

Because of this mindset, The Chinese are buying “out of the box” architecture and design. Some government official will take a holiday in Tuscany, Italy for example and the next thing you know there are Tuscan Style Villas in his District. It’s ridiculous. They even take pride in the fact that they are at the forefront in creating these out of context monstrosities. I know we do this to in the States too. I remember sitting at a wedding and one of the guests found out that I was in architecture. Needless to say, she went on and on about the amazing design of her new house. She mentioned she “designed” it with her developer and that it was a blend of the developer’s Whispering Willow and the Meandering Stream Collection with a Tuscan turret entry (someone shoot me now!) I get it, but what’s happening in the US is not at the grand scale that it is occurring all over China.

In Shenzhen for example, there is a whole city being “created” replicating a Swiss Alpine village in the Alps. I mean this isn’t some cute small touristy town like Solvang which is on the road to nowhere. This is going to be a major metropolis. They are literally moving mountains to create a lake and fabricating mountains to re-create scenery from the frickin’ Sound of Music. On the way to Hangzhou or Suzhou you can see miles and miles of development with billboards ads that read, “Italian Villas, or Chateau Maison Villas or Mediterranean Villages or my personal favorite…”Homes just like Orange County California”. Oooh the humanity!!!

Currently I work under the umbrella of our sister company in China. The have a lot of talented designers here. In fact, their resumes are all very impressive. Lot’s of Ivy school grads. Name them (Harvard, Yale, MIT, Brown, etc... and all of them have at least bachelors or masters or multiple degrees from there). The thing is they all practice “paper architecture”. The thing missing is good ol’ “time put in”. The big “E”….experience….time in the field sweating it out, rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty, yelling and screaming at contractors telling them that they don’t know what the fuck they are doing and showing them how it should be done. Or maybe the flip side, having the salty old contractors yell at you telling you that you don’t know shit and that even his 12 year old daughter knows the difference between a 6 penny nail and a lag bolt. So we have all these super smart designers designing a formal urban plan or landscape designs for a university in rural china that would look great in the middle of Oxford or some other Ivy League campus but has no business here or waterways and canals that meander through the city and look great but occur 10 meters above the water source so water has to flow upward for it to work.

This all does back to a country that is growing too fast and furious. The Chinese government takes what exists somewhere else and puts it here but without ever understanding its history and why it successfully existed in its initial context. China is becoming Disneyland on steroids. The only problem is we go to Disneyland to escape from our daily lives, we don’t go there to live our daily lives.

…to be continued…..

The Laundry Index

2008-05-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

Beautiful clear sunny days are hard to come by here but when they do you can always tell by how much laundry in being hung outside windows, on the sidewalk, on electrical wires, wherever you can hang your “privates” for all the world to see. It actually makes the city quite colorful.

Very much like California where we have the UV (Ultraviolet) Index here it is the Laundry Index. You gotta love it!

The Delicate Sense of History – Part I

2008-05-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve met so many amazing people since we’ve been here and it seems like everyone I meet, young or old, is doing something “big”. There is one person however, that stands out. Her name is Fu Xin. She’s about my age but when you meet her you get the sense that she is an old wise soul. Please don’t get me wrong, it’s her spirit that’s old and wise, Xin herself is quite beautiful. I get the sense that she used to be a fashion model in her younger days. She has the stature and poise of a polished model. There’s definitely something about how she carries her tall thin frame and the way she moves through space. There’ a quiet confidence and elegance, something that is innately acquired but also something that is quite calculated that it must have been groomed and honed on a catwalk somewhere.

Her story is as interesting as she is fascinating. From some of the brief conversations that we’ve had she’s led an interesting life (did I mention she is my age). She is originally from Shanghai but left to Hong Kong when she was 18. This is where I make the assumption she did her modeling (but this is all hearsay and interpolations from our talk) but according to her, she got into journalism and became a reporter for a local station. In our conversations she always has to remind me about how amazing and glamorous Hong Kong was right before the hand over of the British to the Chinese in 1998. From there she studied Art History at Oxford then off to Italy for her Masters and eventual PhD. She’s lived all over the world traveling, teaching and buying art. From this point the details get fuzzy but she did eventually end up back in Shanghai with a contract to teach Art history at one of the Universities.

Frustrated with the educational system in China, Xin broke her contract and on a whim opened up an Art Gallery in the Moganshan District. She’s been very successful in acquiring some amazing pieces from local artists and has become a tour de force in the Shanghai art scene. She has become a conduit to introducing local modern Chinese art to the West, namely Europe.

The point of all this unsolicited praise is that she is the one that brought up this idea of “A Delicate Sense of History” which has inspired me to write. When we discussed all the differences of East and West, Art and Architecture, socio-political issues, food, whatever…. this “thought” always seemed to make its way into conversation. As I’ve written in my journal and thought of why things are the way there are here, I’ve found that this idea is at the crux of it all.

A Delicate Sense of History is essentially the idea that History is a slow fragile process that needs time to evolve, develop and mature. History needs time to make mistakes and correct them. It needs time to weed out the insignificant details and refine the ones that stand the test of time. It needs time to learn and understand beauty, goodness, justice, and all those other things that make things great.

China as a nation and as a people has an old beautiful history. One that is comprised in all of those things mentioned above. Unfortunately with the advent of the Cultural Revolution and Communism all that has been nullified. Now with the introduction of Consumerism and Capitalism from the West without a another paradigm grounded in a conscience (i.e. religion or whatever construct you feel helps you determine right and wrong), China seems to be a nation of people utterly confused about who they are, where they are and where they are going…..in short, they are missing the Delicate Sense of History…..

….to be continued…

The Terminator’s Wife

2008-05-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

I had so many misconceptions about China and what our life was going to be like before we moved here. In my mind’s eye I saw myself in a polluted overcrowded city where everyone was wearing the same grey outfit with a matching cap with that little red Communist star and that I would be hauled around in a Rickshaw and eating dumplings and noodles until I got sick of it all. Okay…Okay…there’s some of that here, namely the pollution and the overcrowding, but on the rest, well, I was totally off base....I mean waaayyy off base!

On its surface, Shanghai is one of the glitziest, materialistic, Uber-Capitalistic cities I’ve ever been too. I mean, when you can sit on the balcony of a bar called Bar Rouge drinking champagne chilling in an ice bucket filled with sparklers ablaze while watching revelers from all over the world party while TV advertisements play on the side of a 50 story building across the river…. you have to think to yourself, "you ain’t in Kansas anymore kiddo…."

We lived at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Shanghai when we first moved to China. It was rad! Because we lived at the hotel and because October and November was the high season for all the “high end” social events, we got invited to Fashions shows, movie premiers, launch parties and the sort. Our social life was kicked into high gear. I mean it made the New York and LA social scenes look like Maw and Paw’s backyard BBQ! For a short while here, life here was a bit decadent and over the top.

In the three months that we lived at the hotel I had the opportunity to have drinks with CEOs of large corporations, hang with basketball stars (okay maybe the b-ball players themselves but the scorekeepers and the guys that shoot the T-shirts from that air canon…hey, you take what you can get) and meet a few celebrities. I saw more celebs in the first three months here than I ever did in over 20 years living in LA. One of my favorite incidents (....here is where I begin to name drop…more than bumping into Vanessa Williams and Roger Federer or arguing over a cab with Colin Farrell or riding the elevator with Lebron James, Turkalou and a few other NBA stars) was working out with the Terminator’s wife. Yup, that’s what I said, the terminator’s wife. The “I’ll be back” dude’s main squeeze.

When the Special Olympics was in Shanghai, Maria Shriver and the rest of the Kennedy clan stayed at the hotel and every morning for a week I would run into her at the gym. I would hop onto the bike next to here and begin my workout. After that I would go over to the free weights section next to where so would do her stretches. I must say for a lady of her age she still looks damn good.

One morning I walked in the gym and began my same old routine. Mrs. Terminator walks in and hops on a bike two bikes away from me. About 10 minutes into my work out (I’m on the up cycle of my Hill workout so my head is down and I’m focused) I catch a hulking figure hop onto a bike next to me. I look over my shoulder and it’s the Termi….errr…I mean the Governator! I think to myself, this is way cool. Here I am 6000 miles away from frickin’ Sacramento (or Brentwood for that matter) and Arnold is working out next to me. Then I look again, and I think…mmmm…he’s not that big. I can take him. (Just kidding). Actually I just said “Hi Governor” which I think surprised him because on everyone thinks I’m Chinese and is surprised when I speak English and number two, wondered how the hell I knew he was Governor. When I explained that I was actually from California he smiled, we exchanged a nice few words and we both went about our workouts.

BTW, I still think I can take him………….

Preschool, hookers and beer

2008-05-04T23:12:00.000-07:00

I’ve been taking Chinese language class for about 5 months now and we recently finished up the first series of beginning Chinese class. The first few months, my learning curve shot up and my ability to speak “survival Chinese” was a pleasant surprise. I was so proud of myself that I could get into a cab and get to where I wanted to go or order food and end up with something relatively close to what I ordered.

Well, since class just ended we also had our Final Exam. The Final was broken into three parts. Part one was an easy enough and was a “complete the sentence by filling in the blank” section. The second part was comprised of two essays that I pretty much hacked through but was seemingly acceptable to our teacher. Then there was part three, the dialogue with the teacher. First, I must give props to Neko, our language teacher. Not only has she been patient and very tolerant with me and the other goof balls in class (all we do is ask her how to say cuss words and make fun of all the situations we’ve experienced in China), she has made our class quite enjoyable.

After Neko and I go through part three of the Final Exam and after five months of blood sweat and a half ass effort on my part, Neko’s response to me was (as she rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust)…”Victor you speak like a preschooler that can order hookers and beer…”

That said, on to Beginning Chinese: Part II. Hopefully I can do as well as I did in Part I.

Hey that’s my cab!

2008-05-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

I’m still trying to figure out this town and its nuances. I had a couple of experiences when we first moved here that totally blew my mind. Both happened in the first weeks that I started working.

I wouldn’t dare attempt to drive in this town. Number one, I don’t think I could afford a car here but even if I could it’s the rules of the road that scare the living daylights out of me….there are no rules, at least none that I can make any sense of. Cars, buses and people just go wherever and somehow it all works out. That being said I’m one of the millions of people trying to flag cabs down in the middle of rush hour. Catching a cab in the middle of rush hour on a cold rainy Friday night is almost impossible. When you are fortunate to see the Holy Grail (an empty cab) on a Friday night (or any night during rush hour) you make you mad dash for it…literally! Well, this is something that I didn’t know.

It was Friday my first week at work. It wasn’t raining but it was cold. By chance I walked up to the corner of Huaihai Zhong Lu and Longmen Lu where I had been lucky to catch cabs my first 2 days. Low and behold, a cab pulls up to drop a patron off. I think to myself “what’s everyone talking about, it’s not that bad trying to hail a cab on Friday night”. So I casually walk up to the passenger side door patiently waiting for the patron to pay and get his change back. I have my hand on the door latch so I could open it, let him out and step into the cab myself. At the corner of my eye, I see a man running towards my cab. Mind you, I’m standing next to the cab with my hand on the door so I know he sees me. He knows that I have this cab. By now the patron of the cab is opening the door and I’m helping him and yet the other man is now in full sprint towards the cab. The patron steps out and as he does the other man reaches “my” cab and goes for the shotgun seat door...gets in and slams the car door shut ...."POOF", the cab takes off! I’m standing there with my hand in front of me still in mid action of holding the door thinking to myself “what the F**k just happened….about 5 seconds later I go…”Hey! That was my cab damn it!

Another time I couldn’t catch a cab so I decided to take a bus. Yup that’s right, me, LA resident in a local Shanghainese bus. Who would have thunk it. So after putting my time in on the streets trying to hail a cab I said to myself I’m either walking home or catching a bus. So I walk over to Pu an Road where the bus stop is. Well, another thing I learned is how to line up for a bus in Shanghai. You can get in the back of the line like a normal person would in a civilized society or you can line up right in front of the first person in line facing him. If you pick the latter the proper protocol is you wait for everyone from the legitimate line to get in first then you go in (yeah I don’t get it either. Wouldn’t it just make sense to get in the back of the line…whatever). At any rate, the bus was loading up and I had just made it in time. The first line had just gone in and the second line was pushing its way through. Anyway, there were a couple of older ladies caught in the mix so I decided to use my body to shield them from the rest of the pushy crowd so they could get in safely. As I did this, they got in and so did some other punk asses that shoved their way through. Now it was my turn to get on but because the bus was now full, the door shut right in front of me and the bus took off ….”Hey that was my bus damn it!”….

Another interesting incident occurred another day when I decided to take the bus home. I was early this time getting on the bus so I was able to get a good seat. 5 minutes later the bus was packed. Standing next to me was a pregnant lady and her son who was about 5 or 6 years old. As any other gentlemen would do in a civilized society I got up and offered her my seat. As I was standing next to my empty seat trying to explain to her in English (which she obviously didn’t understand and was puzzled why I was giving up my seat), Some jerk off starts shoving his way through the crowded bus and sits his ass on my chair. I looked at him and tried explaining to him (in English again…hey, it was my first 2 weeks here, what do you expect) that the seat was for the pregnant lady. He just looked at me an ignored me. Then I tried the “signing” thing, you know …” seat for her…big belly…etc….” All I get back is a blank stare. Then I lose it, grab his shirt and started pulling on him and saying “for her…seat not for you… seat for her you idiot”. I don’t think he got the idiot part but he finally stood his ass up and let the lady have the seat.

Because of all these types of incidents, I’ve been spending a lot of time watching people and how they react. China and more specifically Shanghai is an amazing case study on the collision of the East and West. As one friend put it China is an old beautiful culture that has lost her “Delicate sense of History”. This concept of a “delicate sense of history” is something that I have been thinking a lot about recently.

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up…

2008-05-01T19:03:00.000-07:00

I’m in a quandary….. this quandary Is the genesis to the title of my blog from which I took from a book by Eric Liu, The Accidental Asian.

As I mentioned previously, I’m of Filipino descent but born and raised in West Africa, educated in the United States and currently living and working in Shanghai, China. Now, just in that statement most people would think that I would have some sort of cultural identity crisis. Well that’s not the case, in fact, it’s quite the contrary. I think the vast diversity of my youth gave me the context in which to strengthen who and what I am. That being said, my cultural and ethnic ambivalence did not really manifest until I moved to China a few months ago.

You see, I’ve always been able to navigate through all the different cultures growing up precisely due to the color of my skin. I recall growing up in Liberia and being aware that I was “dark” enough to play with all the “native” Liberian kids and “light” enough to play with the white expat kids.

Moving to Los Angeles was an even easier transition. LA is the epitome of a melting pot. Hell, finding a true California native is difficult task onto itself. Everyone is from somewhere else so needless to say people are just people and they didn’t have huge signs posted on thier foreheads and all this cultural baggage in which to define them. Contrary to popular thought it was easy to be colorblind in LA or for that matter, color and culture blind in the US.

Now fast forward to present day. Living and working in Asia (mostly China) has proven to be very difficult precisely because of the color of my skin and the way I look. I have been judged and patronized more times (on a daily basis) in 8 months here than I have in over 20 years in the US and 13 years in Africa. The irony is that the more I try and assimilate the more negative feedback I get. I guess it’s because the locals think I’m Chinese and they view me as a weak link to the Chinese Culture or a spoiled ABC (American Born Chinese) doing the whole “Roots” thing. After a while it’s become more humorous more than anything. All my friends that are Lawai (foreigners) have a great time with this quandary and it provides great fun and entertainment for them to watch me “sweat it out” with the locals as they cruise on by on their “golden pass” of having blond hair and blue eyes.

I’ve had this experience several times already where I would be having lunch with others that are Lawai but have all lived in various parts of China for a while and can speak fluent Mandarin; I’d be the only one at the table that does not speak Mandarin and the waiter or waitress will walk up to me and ask me to order. I get that part. The part that I’m still trying to figure out is after my terrible attempt in broken Mandarin to explain that I cannot speak the language and after all the Lawais tell the server in perfect and flawless Mandarin that I cannot speak and they will be the one to order, the server will always come back to me numerous times during our meal to ask me questions while the Lawais answer them for me.

Then there is the blatant mistreatment. Through work Christina scored some sweet VIP tickets to both the NBA games and the BMW golf finals. Both times I invited Americans since my co-workers expressed no interest at all. At the entry gates at both events I get hauled off to the side and almost given a full cavity search while Cole, Eric and Jeff breeze right in. While I’m trying to explain that I am the one that gave the tickets to the Lawais they insist on continuing to yell at me in Chinese. Good grief!

Then there's Japan, nothing too bad. It’s just that when we travel there, Christina (who’s half Korean by the way which is more Asian than I am), gets that same “golden pass” when we walk into the plane, store, restaurant (fill in the blank) and I get the local treatment which I must say is much nicer than the local treatment in China. Like I said earlier, I get it but it’s just not some thing that I’ve ever experienced in the States.

Finally there’s my Motherland, the Good ole Philippine Islands. I haven’t been there since 1976 when we were there on a 2 week family vacation. I was sure that this would be the one place that I could count on to feel right at home. Well, I was wrong again, this one is priceless because in my parents own little township, no one believed that I was Filipino. I had to convince my own people that I am one of them and that I have some sort of birth right to be here. Everyone thought that I was Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Fortunately here it worked to my advantage. I could understand the language (which was a pleasant surprise that I will elaborate on) yet not get treated like a local.

Doing the whole “Prodigal Son returns home” thing was an amazing experience for me. I even think Christina was profoundly affected by my homecoming. Although I would not consider myself culturally conflicted due to my upbringing, I’ve always thought of myself as a “weak link” to my ethnicity. My parents didn’t raise us Filipino (whatever that means) and never taught us our mother tongue. I’m still pissed about that but that’s another story. However, my parents did speak Visaya to one another and to friends and older members of our family. Because of that I could understand a little (I think by osmosis, which by the way is how I got through school…but I digress once again) but what I could not do was think of the words to speak the language or differentiate between Visaya and Tagalog (the national dialect) because the 2 dialects were always intermingled in everyday speak.

When Christina and I went to Cebu I had an amazing experience. We were walking through Carbon which is one of the local outdoor markets and to my surprise I understood almost everything that everyone was saying. Imagine, you’re a stranger in a strange land (relatively speaking of course) with a foreign language but you can understand about 90% of everything that someone is saying. I didn’t think I understood my parent’s language but once it is distilled into its purest form and not used with English or Tagalog, I got it!

These new experiences in Asia have really opened my eyes to a whole new meaning of diversity and the relevance of our external appearance. I must give kudos to the West for really attempting (although not perfect) to be color and culture blind. Here, on a side of the world where everyone looks like me, my quandary is “…mmmm…who am I going to be today”….will the real slim shady please stand up….

An Anthropomorphic Case Study on Space

2008-04-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

Among several things, Architecture is a study of space and how we move through it. We spend countless hours examining space trying to coax beauty, meaning and function out of our built environment. Yes, we strive for that perfect balance of that ethereal aesthetic in a functional arena that one can navigate with physical, emotional and psychological comfort to truly celebrate the space.

Then, there’s downtown Shanghai….a city of 18 million people with another 4 million that commute into the city on a daily basis. Space what space! I actually saw a sign on the back of the taxi driver seat that said “please be patient with me, I will be serving 3 million people this year”!! Space what space…Brain dump everything that you’ve learned about space and thrash the idea of your 3 foot radius “personal space”…It doesn’t exist here! This has been one (noticed I said one cuz there’s more to come) of the most difficult things that I have had to deal with so far.

Christina and I were at Yuan Gardens on a weekend (strike 1) because we wanted to go to this “famous” (the Chinese love this term so I will be using often) Xiaolongbao (soup dumpling) restaurant (strike 2). Anthony Bourdain featured this place on his No Reservations Show on the Travel Channel so it was crowded with both locals and foreigners. Needless to say there was a really long line. So like a good citizen I got in the back of the line to wait for my turn at a table. I swear I literally had about 8” to 12” between me and people still saw that as enough space to cut in front of me. I was dumbfounded. Christina keep saying stand closer and don’t let anyone get in front of you to which my response to her was “ I’m so damn close to the lady in front I think I’m having sex with her”!

In the end, “no soup for us”! We finally gave up getting pushed and shoved every which way and settled for a Panini at Starbucks (strike 3).

California Love

2008-04-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love to do when we travel is go for runs around the city, especially in the early morning. You get an opportunity to see an honest city, you know, like seeing your new girlfriend before she puts her make up in the morning. It allows a sneak peek behind the scenes of the back alleys and all those nooks and crannies that really define the city.

When we first arrived in Shanghai I took a week before I started working. Still jet lagged, I would go for runs in the wee hours of the morning. It was surreal. Shanghai is definitely a city with mask on, or as a good friend so appropriately put it …”it’s lipstick on a pig”. I tend not to wax such witty metaphors and simply say that this city is “wonderfully fucked up”. I’ll elaborate on this many more times…trust me.

Going back to surreal nature of my run; I’d suit up, do my stretches, pop in my IPOD and hit the road. No joke, the first song of my first run in China was Tupak’s “California Love”. I’m smiling to myself as I turn on Nanjing Road and see all the old Chinese folk doing their morning exercises. It’s beautiful…imagine the juxtaposition of Tupak’s lyrics “….California knows how to party….in the city of LA….in the city of good ole Watts…in the city…city of Compton…we keep it rockin’…we keep it rockin’…”

I turn my head to the right to cross the street and a scooter hauling slaughtered pigs almost knocks me on my ass. The next song that comes on as I pass all the early morning Xiaolongbao (soup dumpling) street vendors on Maoming Lu is (Hey Baby) Que Paso by the Texas Tornadoes. Now I’m laughing out load and thinking to myself “where the hell am I and how did I get here”…. Insert here….. “Once in a Life Time” by the Talking Heads.

disregard the date and time

2008-04-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

Please disregard the date and time of all my postings for next few weeks. For those that know me I’m sure you understand and for those who don’t, let me explain.

I’m a product of the early 80’s so unlike today where 5 year olds are whizzing around laptops and negotiating their way around website to website I’m still trying to figure out where the on/ off button is. Hell, if it doesn’t have gears and pulleys I don’t want anything to do with it. I have the Midas touch in reverse. When in comes to technology, everything I touch breaks or simply goes haywire (I miss the typewriter). I promised friends and family that when I got to China I would begin my indoctrination into becoming “technopolized” (e-mail, skype, blogging,etc...) so I could keep in touch and let them know how we are doing here. I figure what better place to begin my decent and brainwashing into the “dark side”. I mean, I am in China for goodness sake! They do brainwash here don’t they? And it should be a haven for technology since everything is made here..right? With no family (other than Christina who is always working) and few friends, that made all the ingredients for a good time to delve into the world of cyberspace…..WRONG!

Not only is the Internet speed slow (I never thought that I would pray for dial-up speed!!) but there’s the Great “Fire" Wall of China. I think someone told me that we have 5 censor gates that we go through every time that we access a website. (side note: if some government official is reading this right now, I’m just kidding about everything I just wrote.) China is the most beautiful, wonderful, fantabulous-est place on the earth…. but I digress.

The point is I finally figured how to blog in China. I can write and post but I cannot access my own blog. Wonderful stuff huh? Anyway, I’ve been keeping a hand written journal and I am going to transcribe some of the more interesting stuff here….so please disregard the date and time of all my postings for next few weeks.

The Accidental Asian(s) in reverse

2008-04-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

Before I start this blog I would like to give credit where credit is due. I've been tossing around a lot of different titles for a blog and I ended up being drawn to the "The Accidental Asian" which is the title of a book by Eric Liu that describes his life as a ABC Chinese struggling with his cultural identity. Although I can somewhat relate to the experiences that the author writes about, my experiences begin in reverse. What I mean by that is that my ambivalence of culture and self identity recently came to the forefront of my consciousness not as a child but as a "formed" adult and not in the US but just recently in China.

A little background on me to put everything in context:

I am of Filipino descent but was born in Oshogbo, Nigeria, raised in Mano River, Liberia (until I was 13) and went to school in Los Angeles, California. My wife Christina is half Swiss/ German and half Korean who was conceived in Vietnam but was born and raised in California. We are both living and working in Shanghai, China and these are our adventures......