My final day came and went in Beijing and I was thinking about the cultural aspects of my trip. Thus far, I’ve only spoken about my smart ass comments about freedom and coffee and random ramblings about sight-seeing.

My trip here has been quite the cultural experience for me. I do know some Cantonese, but not enough to even claim that I speak any. I know even less Mandarin (read: none). Since Mandarin is by and large the predominant language out here in Beijing, it has been impossible for me to communicate with anyone except to say ‘Thank You’. Navigating cabs, ordering at restaurants and even trying to buy stuff at the store has turned into monumental tasks. It’s eliminated the independence that I’ve gotten used to living in a country where I speak the native language.

To make matters worse, the locals here are completely puzzled, shocked (some even disgusted) that I’m Chinese but can’t speak the language at all. They can’t conceive of a reality where this happens, or even that I was born somewhere other than China. When they found out that I used to be fully fluent in French I swear it almost throws them over the edge

One of the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make is not getting any coffee. I previously mentioned this a few days ago, but my love affair with coffee is less of an addiction and more about just loving the taste of it. There is something ritualistic about having a morning cup of coffee on the way to work or at my desk that is completely missed here.

Culturally at the Microsoft office in Beijing, everyone has been super friendly and very accommodating. I’ve been taken out to dinner several nights, helped with directions and even taken out for nightlife around the city. It also helped that the test lead and architect are both from Redmond and native English speakers. It was nice having the solace of their company a few of the nights to actually have some “normal” interaction, instead of strained conversations in English with random people on the street.

One big cultural difference between the Redmond and Beijing office how confrontational the people are. In Beijing, everyone is so agreeable and almost to a fault. In spec reviews and feature discussion meetings, people seem to rarely disagree and instead talk 1:1 after the fact which is many times counter-productive since they need to involve the feature team anyways. In Redmond, there’s no shortage of Type A personalities, so conflict and confrontations in meetings are typically in endless supply I’ve been fortunate that my current team doesn’t have that issue and our team cohesion is really, really high. Then again, maybe you’ll have to ask my team when I’m not around and they’ll tell you a different story

So on my final day in Beijing, I bid it farewell. I’m a bit sad to leave but more excited to be reunited with the guys in India and to have some relaxing time in 80-90 degree weather.  My parting words on Beijing are to state 5 things I’ve learned while being here:

1. There is no such thing as a line, ever.  When you think it makes sense for people to line up, the locals ignore all common sense and will skip the line and push you. This even happens in the Microsoft cafeteria.
2. You know you’ve adapted when you can ignore the occasional whiff of foul odor of urine while walking down the street. If you cringe, you’re still an outsider.  Me? After 10 days, I’m still cringing.  If I ever return, I hope I’ll be able to say I never get used to it.
3. You can buy a fake Rolex anywhere in Beijing.  Anywhere.
4. Generally speaking, the dirtier the restaurant, the better the food.  It’s been proven time and time again throughout my time here.  However, there’s a fine line between good tasting food and what it’s doing to my intestinal tract.  I’m praying that I haven’t harbored a tape worm along my travels.
5. Traffic lights are mere suggestions.  As a pedestrian, adopt the herd mentality and cross the street with large groups of people regardless of what your common sense tells you.  Cars and buses seem to to have no problem hitting individual pedestrians, but if they hit a large group, I figure that’s when people start going to jail and getting their fingers cut off.

I’m off to India!

I took yesterday off to do some sight-seeing as I wind my trip down. I made a trip to the Great Wall to the Badaling section followed by a trip to the famous Summer Palace.

I initally wanted to go to the Simatai section since it’s supposed to be less touristy and a better hike, but this time of year I was strongly advised to avoid it since I would be iced over and I’d need spikes to ensure I didn’t fall.  I think not.  So I opted for the more touristy Badaling and hired a tour guide to take me to the wall.  We first walked up the south section of the wall to the highest point, Hero Tower, and then turned around. She expected that I was done, but I wanted to also walk up the south end, and I had to leave her behind part way down the walk of the south side since she was “too exhausted to walk any more”.  So my 300 RMB guide was left sitting at one section while I continued up the south side myself.  At least she took my picture a few times before we got back to the car to justify her price. Otherwise I would have paid $40 US for a walking paperweight.

I headed to the Summer Palace afterwards to try to get the sightseeing done and ready for sunset, since I’ve heard such great things about that area.  When I arrived I was disappointed to see 2 things that destroyed my picture taking dream.  First, the infamous Beijing pollution haze set in during my drive from Badaling which completely destroys any landscape/scenic photos for me.  Second, the famous Summer Palace lake was complete frozen over. Visions of the sunset reflecting in the water were replaced by locals trying to ice fish by poking the ice with long wooden sticks.  Genius.

That night, I headed over to Sachin and Bei-jing’s house for dinner (yes, her name is Bei-jing so it’s a bit confusing).  They have condo on the east-end of Beijing in a fabulous complex. They’re renting their condo from a local artist, and the layout was utterly amazing and no words can do it justice.  Let’s just say it was a dream come true for me — open floorplan, exposed brick and lots of wall space for art.  Drooool….

We had a great dinner and caught up on old times since Sachin and I used to work together quite a few years ago on the Passport team.  It was great to spend an evening not struggling with English to Mandarin translations and to enjoy a good home-cooked meal.  I was truly thankful to them for a wonderful evening; nothing beats a great meal with great friends.

China hasn’t discovered the wonderment of good coffee yet and the city keeps teasing me with poor caffeinated options from the likes of SPR, Starbucks (!!) and the famous coffee machine on the 3rd floor of the Microsoft Sigma building which everyone claims is good espresso. It’s not.

They hate caffeine and coffee, and consequently means they hate freedom.

The other night I headed out for dinner and drinks with a friend and had my first experience with the local alcohol. Bai-jiu is made from fermented rice and is apparently anywhere from 35-65% alcohol with a strong emphasis on “make it as cheaply as possible”. Just as my luck would have it, the bottle we had was 60% strong. I’m already a lightweight when it comes to drinking, and my first sip of this stuff almost sent me over the edge at the start of our meal. I couldn’t believe how strong this stuff was and strongly encourage you to avoid it at all costs despite what the locals tell you. If I ever was to drink paint thinner, I’m positive it would taste exactly like Bai-jiu. After I took my last siip to finish the glass off, 2 of the locals in the restaurant clapped and gave me a high-five. It’s never a good sign when the locals are giving you props for drinking hard alcohol.

Later in the evening, we went to a few bars to try to get the taste of the Bai-jiu out of my mouth. The funny and scary thing about Beijing is that no matter how nice the establishment is that you go, the condition and cleanliness of the toilets are a crap shoot (no pun intended). The bar that we ended up going to was fairly and when I decided to gamble with a trip to the restroom, I saw the funniest sign I’ve seen so far in Beijing:

A picture really does say a thousand words…

Day 3 was marked with a 2 hour presentation on designing user experiences and several 1:1’s with the Program Managers in the Beijing offfice.  It was a busy day, but it got more frantic near the end of the day when I realized that I don’t have my weekend planned out and I don’t even own a “Welcome to Beijing” tour book :)  It complicates matters not to have internet access in my hotel room, so I’ve spent the last hour doing web research in my office and making print outs of stuff that will come in handy.

My plans for this weekend are to fit in the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven and 798 art district.  Oh, and obviously lots, and lots of eating random foods.  I’m saving the Great Wall for a weekday excursion to avoid the manic crowds, and to hopefully minimize my chance of getting pick-pocketed

I’m not normally squeamish about venturing off on my own when I travel, but it’s a bit scarier here since it’s hard to navigate the city not being able to speak the language or understand any of the written language.  When I traveled through Europe last year with my sister, it was at least easy to memorize words on signs since they used a latin character set.  In Beijing, I’ve had to resort to getting my coworkers to write down the chinese translation of certain locations so I can show taxi drivers.

The best tip I got was to call my coworkers from the cab and handing the cab driver the phone so my coworkers can tell them where I want to go.  I’m embarrassed to admit I didn’t think of this before someone in my office suggested it. Eep.

Tonight I’m meeting up with a local girl from the US that is teaching English in Beijing and who’s graciously offered to show me around a bit.  Luckily she’s willing to take the subway out to my part of the town where we’ll then venture off from here to grab dinner and drinks.