manninchina

Back in Buffalo for the weekend, before heading to Raleigh for a week of meetings. Feels good to be back. A nice welcome was the weather…a comfortable, breezy 70 degrees. Supposed to be like this all weekend…it will make for a nice round of golf on Saturday.

I continue to be shocked at the internet speed when I’m home. I would say at least 5X faster than China/India. It’s also nice to be able to browse the net freely.

Tomorrow night … dinner with the fam, then out with my brother and some friends. I’m sure my mom will be thrilled with me Saturday morning…..I mean, afternoon.

It’s simple in Beijing - tell people they can’t drive.

So, the Olympics traffic test happens this weekend. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to see how it goes. However, witnessing last year’s reduction for the China-Africa Summit leads me to believe this will be a success.

Police to limit traffic into capital

Oddly enough, I’m heading back to the US exactly one year to the day of me arriving in Beijing to begin my assignment. My assignment is not over - still another year to go. Just heading to Raleigh for a week of meetings next week. A quick weekend stop in Buffalo to see mom & dad and of course, have some beers with my older brother, sister-in-law, cousins and friends.

13 hours in coach, can’t wait.

Yesterday I ran into some foreigners who are here to film a commercial for Lenovo. They didn’t really tell me what it was for though. There’s been some recruiting going on to try and get some foreigners on campus to act as extras in the commercial. So far, there have been two to sign up (myself not included)!.
We think the commercial will only air in China. Can’t wait to see it!

I need your help, and it’s fairly urgent. We’ll start small, I promise.

Tomorrow (any time between 11am and 9pm) head down to the Silk Market. You’ll find a strip of coffee shops/small restaurants on the east side. Just focus on one, for now … Subway. Yes, the Subway all of the westerners flock to after a few hours of being nagged, hit, cornered and ripped off while shopping in the market (but, everything is real, so it’s worth it).

What you need to do:

1. Get people to stand in line. I know it’s not a large space, but assuming there is already someone there ordering, it’s easy to figure out where to stand. Please guide the customers.
2. Get people to make a decision on their order in 30 seconds or less. Usually, there is at least one person in front ahead, so that gives them an additional 30 seconds to make up their mind. I realize Subway is new to many people here, but it’s bread, fake meat, some veggies and your choice of sauce. Please encourage the customers not to ask too many questions and just make a decision.
3. Have a talk with the Subway employees. Tell them it’s best if they just focus on one customer at a time.

So, that’s it. I’ll look for the results two weeks from now to see if we’ve got any improvement. Don’t worry, it only gets more complicated from there!

I’m over on yahoo hosting now (went with mannblogs.com as master domain). If this somehow becomes non-functional, I’m not sure what I’ll do next.

I’m using google reader to view blogs (even ones that aren’t blocked in China). The only thing I don’t like is I can’t comment via google reader. So, for those of you who have blogs that are blocked here (it is now virtually all that are hosted with the service providers … wordpress, blogger, typead, etc…), I can’t comment on your blogs.

Is it…

• The girls at the market yelling and pulling at you to get you to buy a fake purse?
• The dvd guys saying “hey, dvd? dvd? dvd? dvd?”
• The women, holding babies, trying to sell you “sex dvds”?
• The constant spitting and snot rockets flying around the side walks?
• The ring leaders of the beggars sending little kids out on the streets to hang on you and whine to get $1 out of you?
• The taxi drivers who are always looking for the “long ride” with the foreigners, so they either…
  • Decline to take you where you want to go
  • Drive slow as hell to piss you off
• The people outside of restaurants/bars yelling at you and getting in your face to get you to come in?
• The guys on Sanlitun bar street trying to get you to go to a “lady bar”?
• Belly shirts?

There’s a lot of talk in Beijing these days in regards to manners. There’s even a “Miss Manners” in Beijing. They also have people going around town fining people for spitting and not standing in line (I have yet to see any of this in action).

I don’t know anyone, Chinese included, who likes when someone bugs the hell out of them to try to get them to buy something. Why do people around here think the way the act will entice people to buy?

There are rude people all over the world. But, in Beijing, I think it comes down to the fact that many Chinese just don’t know how manners are defined by the rest of the world. Many people seem worried about the massive number of migrant construction workers in the city; I think that should be the least of everyone’s worries.

My view…there are going to be a lot of pissed off and annoyed people in Beijing one year from now.

Supposedly, Beijing is removing 1 million cars from the roads between 7 August - 20 August (this year - 2008 will be more drastic). I’m not surprised by this and completely believe they can and will do this (did something similar last October for the China-Africa Summit). However, I didn’t notice any reduction in cars between the 7th - 10th.

Beijing has over 3 million cars on the road today…they add over 1,000 new cars to the roads each day. Why not stop adding? I know it’s not that easy…but for a government who can tell 1 million people they can’t drive for 2 weeks, why can’t they tell potential car buys they can’t buy for 1 year? Yes, this has other impacts (car sales, fuel sales, etc…), but there will be just that much more of a demand post Olympics - just start preparing for that.

Much of the city traffic, in my view, is caused by people walking and on bicycles. The “people watchers with flags” really don’t do much in the way of stopping people from walking or riding through the intersections when they aren’t supposed to.

Happy to report that the skies are blue in Beijing today - not one sign of polluted air (other than the stains on all of the buildings).

Today marks the 1 year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but it doesn’t seem like there is much celebration going on. Maybe because I’m out in Shangdi, very far from the “cool area” of Beijing at work. But, even at Lenovo - I haven’t seen any sign of a celebration…

Tomorrow (08/08/07) marks the 1 year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It also marks my attempt to get back to regular blogging again and put some more interesting content up to get my following back! We’ll see how that goes…

Lot’s of talk as to whether China is ready for the 08′ Olympics or not. I can’t speak to the status of any project in particular, but I can tell you the following…

• Construction projects - seem to be moving faster & faster. It’s unbelievable to see how quick they are moving on the CCTV complex and China World #3 … both huge, huge projects. But, will all the cranes be out of sight by year’s end? … doubtful.
• Traffic - sucks…will continue to suck until; 1) They get better driving schools in China; 2)Stop selling new cars; 3)Current drivers get better road manners (patience, for starters).
• Food - I haven’t noticed a problem, but maybe that’s because I’m used to it after being here for almost a year.
• English - taxi drivers aren’t even close to being able to take foreigners around without relying heavily on written directions from the passengers (in Chinese) or maps (in Chinese)
• Air quality - keep forcing it to rain, maybe it will wash it all a way (for a few days). I think this and food are the two biggest concerns for Olympic athletes coming to Beijing.

NY Times has a good article published today too -

“China under fire…”

My recent experience (yesterday) with the traffic situation, which is mentioned in the article, really opened my eyes to how bad these issues may be. My commute sucks as it is (1 hour in the morning, usually 1.5 hours in the evening). Last night … 3 hours. Why? Due to the rain. It has been raining here a lot lately, which is very unusual for Beijing. Usually, the rain is “forced” (they seed the clouds with sulfur rockets). Why is this done? People believe mainly to clean up the air when there are important visitors in town. I’m taking a guess that this is why it’s been raining so much the last week.

Well, a lot of rain causes problems…flooding. Was this not expected? Last night, 2 days before the 1 year mark, this flooding wreaked havoc on the city (and caused my shoes to be caked in mud). I hope tomorrow (8/8) proves to be a clear and traffic free day!