One of my favorite aspects of being in China is that I generally don’t have a clue as to what is happening when trying to read or communicate with others. I thought the Chinese language would be a bit like a pictograph, a more advanced version of hieroglyphics perhaps. While you might not initially know the meaning of the Egyptian dude with a bird and a stick, once you found out that the symbol meant “Tasty chicken” you could readily pick him out on future menu and order accordingly. With languages that use the traditional alphabet and 26 characters, give or take, it’s only a matter of time before you figure out that poullet or pollo are chicken, and bier/beer/cervesa makes for a nice pairing. Not so with Chinese characters. In some cases it seems that a fairly simple word like “Welcome” (posted at the door to our office) entails 8 seemingly complex and almost indistinguishable (to my western eyes) characters. In other situations, a complex English word like “Incorporated” is a single character. Spoken Mandarin also seems to be a challenge, and only last night, with the help of a Cantonese speaker on our team, did I expand my Mandarin by 100%, adding “yes” and “no” to “hello” and “thank you” (although I’ll give myself a half point bonus for an ability to order my beverage of choice, Tsing Tao beer, which is procured by demanding, in a rather gruff tone: CHINGDOWBEER!”)

There are also strange things that happen without explanation. For example, when paying in cash at a restaurant, it usually takes a bit of pantomime and pointing to get a receipt. Where we dined last night, a modern establishment with what looked like a very high-tech cash register, the waitress painstakingly generated a handwritten receipt for our meal. You also get a wad of certificates when paying in cash. I picked up pizza buying duty yesterday (yes, we did have pizza for lunch EVERY day we have been here) and for my 400 yuan I received four certificates with lots of Chinese writing and a 100 in the corner. There are also a few scratch off areas, so I’m unsure if this is a lottery ticket of some sort, or a certificate that must be presented to some government official lest you be summarily executed when leaving the country, so I’ve dutifully stashed the certificates in my passport, ready to present them when and if they are demanded.

Apparently the difficulties go both ways, as the English translations to various phrases range from prophetic to fairly amusing. A billboard at street level a few blocks from our hotel admonishes the Chinese (according to the English translation) that: TIME IS MONEY, EFFICIENCY IS LIFE. On of my favorites gives me a chuckle every morning. Our office building houses several of the major oilfield services companies, familiar names like Halliburton and Weatherford are matched with local companies, the most amusing of which is translated as “OILFIELD DECORATING ENGINEERS.” I have a mental image of slim men with pastel hard hats, designer shirts slightly open at the chest and perhaps an ascot or pocket square, prancing around a drilling rig considering the feng shui between a paisley submersible pump and a diamond drill bit.

On Monday I finally convinced my colleagues to eat some bonna-fide Chinese food for dinner. We were all dealing with the lingering effects of jet lag so we tried the hotel restaurant, and it ended up being fairly good. One section had several fish tanks with various aquatic treats. Occasionally a chef would walk to a tank, net a fish and presumably send him to his early demise. Luckily several years of eating a Noche Buena pig had me a bit used to being closer to the start of the supply chain for your dinner, but it unsettled the other American on the team a bit. We also ordered Beijing Duck (the more familiar Peking is the old name for Beijing) and Donald came to our table, head and all. After some of our team still in the states expressed some concern about the food and went so far as to lookup locations for the nearest McDonalds, someone took a picture of the duck to email to the rest of the team and suggest this would be a frequent delicacy.

Last night three of us decided to take a quick shopping expedition. Along the way we passed everything from a dingy strawberry field to high-rise apartments while our taxi driver attempted to set a new land speed record, passing on what seemed to be double lines and running red lights for no discernable reason. Taxis are surprisingly cheap, with what must have been a good 9 mile ride costing approximately $3.50. I finally had a chance to witness what I had imagined China to be like, and realized that we’re staying out in the boonies. The palm trees and greenery around our hotel were rapidly replaced with tall buildings, neon signs, cars and people everywhere. Once again, save for the occasionally green uniform, random slogan and red flag, there is little to indicate you are anywhere but a mecca of capitalism. The mall was as modern as could be, and frequented with well-dressed and obviously moneyed individuals. Interestingly, the shops had almost as many staff as there were customers. An average-size jewelry store had six or seven staff eagerly standing by, and whichever store I went in would have a staffer shadow my every move. This was a bit unnerving, and I’m unsure if this was to ensure the large gringo did not do anything uncouth, or if this is high-touch Chinese customer service.

The last few days have also been marked by an unfortunate aspect of China’s economic boom: pollution. On my first day, I woke up to relatively clear skies and thought the stories of China’s air pollution were overblown. The last two mornings however, I awoke to a nasty grey-brown haze. At home, when it’s naturally foggy you generally get grey and depressing light, and can’t see the sun save for when it peaks out from behind a cloud. There’s a sense of depth to the cloud cover and a sense of motion; you can feel the fog lift and eventually succumb to the sun’s light and gradually dissipate. Here, you can actually see the sun, but it’s a muted white disc behind a ubiquitous layer of smog. It’s almost as if you’re surrounded by an opaque bubble rather than a shifting, cotton-like foam of natural fog. The buildings and trees also have a thin coat of dust and funk, and most buildings look rather unkempt, despite them being relatively new as this area was all farmland a mere thirty years ago. This makes for an odd contrast. A particularly grim and depressing housing block on our way to work is lit up with vibrantly colored laundry hung out to dry, and dingy buildings and offices are brightened with up to a hundred baskets of flowers and orange trees celebrating the Chinese New Year. It’s almost as if there’s no time to clean and rebuild and abandonment and starting anew seems to be preferred to refurbishing.

It’s easy as an American to turn one’s nose up and indict China for spewing pollution into the air and water, but it is difficult to reconcile this smug moral high road with the fact that the US more or less invented the consumerist society, and who are we to deny others that dream. Not having lived during the industrial revolution, I can only imagine what our air was like in the late 1800’s, and I wonder how the world will reconcile China’s aspirations with the demands of other nations already secure in their post-industrial boom comfort.

Moving away from the deep moral quandaries, it seems our team has selected Indian food for tonight’s dining. Unfortunately, Papa John’s and other non-Chinese dining establishments will get the majority of my Chairman Mao’s while I’m here. I have insisted that we push dinner back a bit so I can spend some time on the treadmill. After seeing the drivers and battling my way away from crazy old ladies, not to mention the air quality, I’ve abandoned my plans of outdoor running for the moment. The China-made scale in my hotel room indicates I’ve either gained 30 pounds or lost 40 in the 4 days I’ve been here, so apparently I have some work to do, or the gravitational pull on this side of the world is a bit unstable. Until the next update, remember that time is money, and efficiency (combined with Papa John’s) is indeed life.

Categories: Travel