My neighbors

Today my boss gave me my RMB 2000 prize money, so I attempted to ask my neighbors out to dinner. The wife has been making me dinner every day and - whenever possible - (s)mothering me to no end. Anyway, I figured taking them out for Italian food would be a good way to blow some of the money. As I expected, they said no (I get the sense that 19 is much younger in China than in the US). I think I even offended them by very indirectly suggesting that I wanted to eat something besides her food.

When I got home from work at about 6:30, both greeted me and told me she had made me "Italian noodles". This sounded pretty interesting, so I quickly sat down in their apartment. The dish had noodles that looked a lot like spaghetti, only they were mixed in a typical Chinese sauce with chunks of tomato, onion, and beef. It tasted nothing like spaghetti and was a little strange, but it was very cute.

Meals with my neighbors are always pretty funny: the husband, who only wears boxers at the table, usually just makes puns about me that I don't understand to the wife, who - even as I am shoveling food into my mouth - continuously insists that I "多吃一点“， “eat a little more". After every bite, in between her exhortations for me to eat more, she asks "How does it taste," and then - as if in agreement with my standard response, "good" - says "other places don't make X dish as well as I do." She has said that for every meal except for the spaghetti, which she has somehow decided that my mom can make better.

Sanya and Miscellany

I got back from Sanya at about 3am Saturday night. In true Chinese fashion, my plane was delayed both ways. Sanya was pretty fun. It definitely had the most picturesque beaches and I really enjoyed lazily swimming and lying around. By Saturday I was pretty exhausted - essentially every part of the trip was done in Chinese (tour guides, my bosses, activity leaders, and friends all spoke in Chinese). While it was certainly good for me (and while there was some English), I was done with wanting to hear/speak Chinese until Monday.

On Friday night, there was an office-wide banquet with a prize-drawing. Awkwardly, I - the unpaid, newly arrived intern - won the top prize of RMB 2000, about 200-300 dollars. When I went upstage to collect my prize, one of the firm's principal partners said in Chinese, "He has been studying Chinese, so I won't give him the prize unless he gives a speech in Chinese first." The thought of speaking in front of 100 colleagues I had just met in a language in which I am hardly literate was a little daunting. I ended up jokingly saying in Chinese, "Hi my name is 周洪恩 (my Chinese name) and I'm an unpaid intern here." Luckily people laughed, and the rest of whatever I said went by quickly.

I celebrated the mid-autumn festival with my neighbors and their family. We went to a nearby restaurant and had moon cakes. That went pretty well, except that my neighbor has taken up the habit of telling people (or just telling me) that I use chopsticks terribly and then insisting on putting food on my plate herself. Now, while I may not have the skills of a native Chinese person, I'm pretty sure I can at least feed myself. Oh well, I guess I need to practice more.

At work, I'm getting more and more things handed my way. I feel like I'm slowly getting a sense of some of the basic players in Chinese corporate law (the important agencies and regulations). That's probably pretty silly to say, but - at the very least - I don't feel as clueless as I used to when I'm handed an assignment. I had to buy some more clothes for work; as usual - and as my neighbor was happy to point out - I paid too much for them. That'll happen.

I bought a Chinese movie to try to improve my listening comprehension. I just asked a street vendor to pick me out their favorite movie. It was corny and girly, but fun to watch. I asked my neighbor's brother for a movie recommendation, and he gave me the name of an action movie. I'll try to find it the next time I walk by a DVD stall.

台风 (typhoon)

so far the typhoon hitting shanghai has been pretty anticlimactic. when i left work today there were some pretty neat winds and it was raining some, but nothing too impressive. i'm a little disappointed, though there is still hope for more tonight.

the past two nights, i've had dinner with my neighbor and her husband. they're a relatively young couple so it was fun to talk to them. she says that because i'm young and alone, she, as my older chinese sister, has to take care of me. in any case, it's been a great way to practice my chinese and eat good, free food.

on sunday when i get back from sanya, i'm going to play basketball with some of the people at my work (including some of my bosses). while i realize there is a bit of a conflict of interest there, i think it should be fun.

settling in

at work, i've either been extremely busy or very bored. i write and edit (articles, powerpoints, etc.,) for the partners at the firm, meaning i don't really have any long term projects to work on when they don't need something written. it's kind of like being a freelance writer who has to be at the office from 9-6. the upside is that i'm learning a lot about really specific, obscure topics. give me a call if you want to learn about new chinese antitrust laws. or if you're an employment law buff, last thursday i was up late because i had one day to write a 6 page article draft about regulations concerning equity-based employee compensation or incentive plans.

i think i'm starting to make friends at work. it's pretty difficult because, not only is everyone older than me, but those closest to my age are chinese with limited english skills. i think the language problem is actually an impetus to conversation though - they are as eager to practice english as i am to practice chinese.

i'm working on getting more acquainted with shanghai. on saturday, i took the subway shangha's "people square" or 人民广场. after buying some english books to keep me occupied, i attempted to walk back to my apartment. when i realized there wasn't a nearby bridge to cross the huangpu river, which cuts my neighborhood, pudong, off from the rest of shanghai, i had to give up and take a subway-like thing across the river.

on thursday, the office is paying for my coworkers and i to fly to sanya, an island in southern china. i don't really understand what this "office outing" is for, but i think it should be fun. at the very least, i'm staying in a 5 star hotel and eating well on the company's dime.

here is a picture of my apartment building.
it's pretty basic without too many flourishes. on the first floor, there's a bank, two bakeries (one french, one chinese), a hair salon, a dry cleaners, and a coffee shop. in that respect, the location is pretty handy. i've started trying to run up and down the stairs to release energy. i really confused some of the other tenants when they saw me take the elevator down to the first floor and then go right for the stairs.







this is a picture of my office building, jin mao tower (there are probably better pictures on wikipedia). It looks a little like something out of batman's gotham. it also seems very hi-tech: to get to the area where the elevators are, employees have key cards that they slide, opening little clear plastic gates. then to get into the baker & mckenzie office i use another key card to open these big sliding glass doors. there are all sorts of expensive restaurants and bars on the top floors, but i don't have the money to eat at any of them. when i go in and out of the actual building, i see lots tourists taking pictures of china's tallest building (though, obnoxiously, a taller one is being built right next to it).

the first picture is taken of the neighborhood where i live/work from across the huangpu river. i'll try to post pictures of the inside of my apartment sometime soon.

first day

my first day was pretty boring. i spent most of the day going through menial orientation things. the worst part is that the vast majority of the orientation material didn't apply to me, an unpaid intern from america. i was orientated with 3 other people, all shanghainese. two are secretaries and one is an IT support guy. because we were all given the same orientation spiel, a particular section rarely applied to more than two of us.

i'm slowly discovering that the area i'm working in is incredibly expensive. i'm starting to miss all the cheap meals i had in beijing; here, i'm almost paying western prices for my meals. i've been trying to cook a little, but the little gas stove i have is irritable and often goes on strikes.

i'm starting to give up any hopes i had of understanding shanghainese. it really is radically different from pu tong hua (normal mandarin). luckily, most people i've met have been willing and able to speak mandarin with me.

random: a lot of my coworkers have things that look like little desktop humidifiers. they're just these little machines that produce steam. i'm guessing they have some kind of medical purpose, though i can't quite figure out what that'd be.

到了

two nights ago i took an overnight train from beijing to shanghai. i arrived in shanghai at about 7am. after a delicious *rolls eyes* KFC breakfast i took a taxi to the building where my office is. The building (Jin Mao Tower) is one of Shanghai's tallest and the taxi driver knew it by name, though it's at least 20 minutes from the train station.

when i got to the office, the office driver, a secretary and the office maid (they call her wei ayi, or aunt wei) took me to my apartment. The secretary and wei ayi nagged the landlord to fix or clean various aspects of the apartment. while the landlord fixed up the apartment, the two took me to buy various 日用品 (necessities) at a grocery store nearby. The outing was very surreal: two Chinese women leading me through a grocery store, speaking Shanghainese to eachother and Mandarin to me, asking me whether i need dishwashing detergent, milk, chopsticks, etc. Strangely, it reminded me a little of the Wal-Mart visit I did with my parents right before college.

my apartment is on the 19th floor of a 35 floor building and the office building is something like 88 floors tall. when i walk on the street i still find myself spending a lot of time with my neck craned staring up at all the buildings. my apartment is pretty standard: 1 bathroom, 1 bedroom, kitchen, living room, and a closed in balcony/office. From the balcony window I can see the river that splits Shanghai in two, lots of buildings taller than my own, and 6 different tennis courts. i'm not sure why we need so many tennis courts sprinkled throughout the neighborhood.

i start work on monday. i'll post pictures of my apartment and office building sometime soon.

so here's the scoop:

after months of uncertainty, it looks like i'll be working in shanghai until mid-december. i'll be an intern at the law firm baker and mckenzie. i'm still kind of finishing up the details, but so far, that's the plan. i'm sorry to keep you guys out of the loop.