Bob Dylan in Shanghai

So a couple of weeks ago I returned from my short visit to the US.  Landed here at 10:30AM, went home, showered and then off to the office to meet my boss who was in town.  Worked the rest of the day and then a group of us went to the Bob Dylan concert here.  The concert was literally right across the street from my office so that made things easy.

This was only the 2nd concert he had ever given in China.  The first being 2 days previous in Beijing.  It also happened to be that the date was nearly 50 years to the date from his first ever show!  So yes he has been at it a long time.

Here's a view of the arena and stage before he came on...

Looks more like a small college arena than anything but still it's Dylan right?  We were ready for anything.

Above is with him on stage (sorry for the poor iPhone quality photos).  Unfortunately there was no large video screen to see what was happening up there.  Dylan is now 69 years old.  His song writing skills are brilliant but at this point his voice is pretty much gone.  He played a two hour set but not until the encore songs did I even recognize one of them.  That was because the Chinese gov't strictly controlled his playlist.  In fact he tried to come to China last year but was refused entry by the gov't.

All in all it was a fun experience and I'm glad I got to see him especially saying that I saw him in China.  But given I had arrived that morning on a trip that took nearly 32 hours from start to finish I could have used a show that was more upbeat to keep me fighting the jet lag!

This is China, driving to work

Another China moment on my way to work this morning typifies what we go through on a daily basis living over here.   My driver, Cash, just picked me and headed our normal route to the office, same one we did yesterday  and the day before in fact. Getting one block away from my apartment complex and crossing an intersection he realized that over night the road had been made a one way street, the other way!  So there is some oncoming traffic coming right at us.  To make it more fun they haven't yet put up the "one way" street signs!  Thankfully we had only gone about 15-20 feet but still.  Then the next fun was backing up into the cross traffic to get on a street going the right way.




Oh China how I love thee!

Chinglish at its best

For a good laugh check out the article in the top right corner.  Keep in mind that this was written in the Shanghai Daily which is the main English written newspaper serving all of Shanghai.  While they might know the words in the English language it doesn't appear that they always know how to actually put those words into use.

Hope all is well everyone!

A quick trip home

I am just about to head to the Pudong airport for the 14 hour flight back to Chicago.  Unfortunately it's a short trip so really not much time to hang and catch up with anyone.  Arrive Saturday evening and then on Sunday mid-day fly to North Carolina for the wonderful High Point furniture show!  Spend a couple days there and then on Wednesday make the return to China. 

Taking a whole new way "home" so to speak.  Departing Chicago at 1AM and going to Seoul and then from Seoul to Shanghai landing around 10:30 Friday morning.  Then right to the office as my boss from the US arrives the night before.  Spend one night in Shanghai before flying down south for a couple of meetings.

Good luck to my sleep and for that matter the training I am already doing horrible on.  I've signed up for 1/2 Ironman China up in Beijing at the end of May.  Not quite sure why I keep agreeing to do these when I know I don't have the time to train!

See you soon USA!

Beijing and the bank

Last week I went to highly entertaining conference on Cotton Sustainability in Beijing (ok so not entertaining at all).  A couple of days of speakers that were mostly in Chinese but that was ok because we all had headphones and it was instantly translated.  Kind of felt like being in a UN type meeting in fact.  The difference between the Chinese speakers and the western speakers was astounding.  The Chinese took the approach of just spitting out statistics, numbers and data one sentence after another.  Honestly it was impossible to keep up and follow what they were trying to tell us.  Then the western speakers were mostly following their agenda using anecdotal evidence, relating to previous speakers and being a little more free with information.  Was quite an interesting difference between the two.  All in all the conference was beneficial even though it seemed to be more focused on cotton in relation to apparel than my field of home furnishings.

In my free time I wandered around near the hotel as the weather was awesome.  Right down the street I found this bank and wondered who in their right mind would deposit their money here????

The Worri-bank?  Really?  Not smart folks!

Medicinal Wine

On a recent trip to Dongguan (southern China) we had lunch with a factory.  The food itself was excellent, so much better than the style of food in Shanghai.  For those of you not very familiar with Chinese food it is very regional in style and taste.  Some areas are very spicy, some more fish, some hot pot, some sweet/slimy (Shanghai), some rice, some noodles.  You get the idea.  Well this place was good...until...

We were leaving and they showed me some special bottles of wine that are very expensive and typically used for medicinal purposes.  I couldn't take photo of them all as a couple just looked normal.  For instance there was a bottle filled with ants and another one with bees in it.  Those just looked like a pile of something at the bottom of the bottle.

Then there was this...

It's a little tough to tell but the image above is a bottle filled with scorpions! 

And then the absolute kicker and one that nearly made me lose my lunch right there...

Yes folks that is probably what you think it is.  Those are mice fetus!  Who in their right mind drinks that and why???

Rainbow dog

I was walking around Shanghai the other day and saw this dog (yes it is a very real dog) in the window of some shop.  I couldn't resist the chance to take a photo. 

Now I know many people love their dogs but has anyone thought about if their dog would really appreciate being painted like this?

March 2011

Well I just realized it is March now.  This is cool for a lot of reasons...spring is on the way (fingers crossed that it comes sooner than last year), my birthday is coming (the 14th if you want to send gifts or money), St Paddys Day (although not the biggest social event in China), etc.

But the other thing that makes it pretty cool is that I have now officially lived here for one year.  While I started this job in December of 2009, I didn't move to Shanghai until the end of Feb 2010.  So I've now been in this apartment one year, have extended for the next and so on.

Looking back it was a good year filled with plenty of challenges and lots of laughs along with some fun.  As I said before let's bring on the next year!

It's been too long since my last update

Sorry all, it's been too long since my last update.  A tremendous amount has happened in the past month and I have a lot of updates to get onto here.  I will get to them as best I can over the coming days...

But for some recent humor I thought I would include these couple of photos first.  The first one is from a flight last week.  Not sure why he had his shoes off in the first place given it was a short flight and all, but if you knew your socks were worn down to nothing do you really think everyone wanted to see?

 And this one was from a factory visit.  I just appreciated the irony of the situation.  You have a huge conference table with these nice US/China flags all down the way, a no smoking sign prominently displayed and then the ash tray right behind it.  Unfortunately there was no way to get a photo with the other 6 or so ash trays all down the table.

More to come, check back soon.

Mao Live

Last night I went to a place called Mao Live to see some live music with a buddy.  It was the final night for this venue and the show was to include 7 different bands.  When we arrived and went to check our coats they wouldn't give us a ticket for them.  They simply said they were out of tickets and to get your jacket back it is pretty much the honor system.  Well I didn't go for that as it was my warmest winter jacket and I couldn't risk losing it.

Once we got it we found the place to be packed to the gills!  Probably 90% local Chinese with the rest being foreigners here and there. 

We watched three bands play.  I would say the first two were punk/rock type...kind of like the Chinese version of the Violent Femmes.  All the music was in English but that didn't help me recognize any of the music.  The last band was Heavy Metal with the lead signer being Chinese with dreadlocks!  That's a new one for me. 

A pretty cool night and different but after a few sets we had to get out of there, not quite my music scene.