thoughtcrime 2.0

Earthquake

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:59:30 +0200

I don’t want to raise any false hopes, so I will tell you right away:
I am neither dead nor injured!

As you might know (if you are not deaf and/or blind) there was quite a huge earthquake in China last Monday. And actually it was not that far away from where I am staying right now. It is definitely much closer than Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong. But here in Changsha we barely felt any shaking. Well… Some most dubious sources (no offense Aron ) claim they saw their pc screen shaking but I think they just didn’t sober up from Sunday evening drinking. Anyway, it was/is a horrible disaster! I heard it was the second biggest earthquake in younger Chinese history. Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter… They are still digging up dead bodies. I think they counted around 20.000 people so far. And I expect them to find a lot more within the next few days. Therefore the atmosphere in our company has seen better days (understandably). Some of the workers here had relatives or friends living in the affected area… If you are religious, this is the moment where you should start praying for survivors and those who lost family members and friends.

But enough for that. As tragic this is, it shall not be the subject of my blog post. I think you are all able to read (since you are reading this) or watch the news, so no need for me to chew on that topic any longer.

So how can I go back to something more amusing? How about telling the world that I won the company’s interns’ internal (what a nice name) PacMan contest! Or how about telling the world, that I went to play “Lasertag” last week? It was really fun and I want to go there regularly and maybe found a team with some other interns to join the “Lasertag-league” . But so far I couldn’t convince enough people. The time will come when I will enjoy those victory onion rings I have been waiting for since I saw that legendary episode of HIMYM.

Last Saturday I gave my housewarming/welcoming party in our apartment and a local club. As far as I can remember it was quite good
No seriously. I can remember everything that happened, I just have some problems recalling the content of the conversations I had this night. So no harm done.

Oh right, I also started my Chinese language lessons. Me and another intern share a private tutor. They are quite “affordable” here - like anything else.
And talking about affordable things:
Last weeks highlight was the traditional Chinese massage I got. No! Not that kind of massage! You perverts! It was a professional massage by a professional massage-woman in a professional massage studio. And I was dressed. It was like heaven… She massaged the whole body (except the “private” areas) and in the end she was walking around on my back. Sounds horrible, I know. But it felt great! I plan on going there at least twice a month since it is only 50 RMB (~5 Euro; ~6000 KRW) for 1 hour.

Hurray for Chinese massages!

Cheers!

No title whatsoever...

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:14:37 +0200

I know it's been a while since my last post. But first I had to get used to my new environment..

Two days afer my last post, I finally arrived in Changsha, Hunan Province, China.

Before I came here, I heard some rumors about this city. Most of them were pretty bad...
So I was quite surprised when it actually turned out to be a really nice city! Ok, the air pollution
might shorten my life-span for a few years but except that, I can't complain!

Here is why:

Continue reading "No title whatsoever..."

Busride of doom

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:04:24 +0200

4th in a row. I am on fire! But this will be my last post for the next few days. Tomorrow I will finally fly to my final destination: Changsha. And I am happy about it. I am sick of living out of my luggage. I want to unpack and I want to "settle" down. I've been travelling enough...

But before I can fly to Changsha I have to attend the exhibition for 1 last day. From there I will go directly to the airport. Lets see if everything works as planned (in China that's not so normal)...

Well... Today was another hard day. We have been walking around for almost 7 hours. Same old, same old. Again, it was the way back that really hit me... You see... Chinese people are not used to line up in a row. That's why, a few months ago, they practiced lining up for the Olympic Games and had a "Line up day" (at least that's what I read in the news). Long story short: It didn't help. They still cannot line up... I realized that already on various occations like getting a subway ticket or waiting for something. People just pass you, push you away (sounds harder than it is), try to be first and so on. But what I experienced today was beyond all good and evil! Like yesterday we couldn't catch a taxi after the exhibition so we went for the bus. Around 200 other (mostly Chinese) people had the same idea. So far, so good. After a few minutes a bus was approaching. And hell broke loose! Everybody was storming towards the bus. Nobody was lining up camly! It was madness! I reminded me of those mosh-pits within the first 20 rows of a Death Metal concert. I will call it a "rampage mob". Lucky me I am taller and bigger than most of those little fellas. But if I would have fallen down I would have probably been kicked to death by hundreds of little Chinese feet (could be the name of a Kung-Fu technique). I am really surprised that nobody got hurt or seriously injured! There was a woman shouting something into a megaphone. I guess it must have been something like "be carefull, try not to kill anybody". What followed was the busride of doom... Standing in this crappy heavily overloaded bus for almost 1.5 hours. I couldn't move... I wanted to take pictures of this crazyness but I couldn't reach into my pocket for the camera...

After getting off that rolling coffin we went straight for dinner. Again I ate various things i don't know and probably don't want to know. One dish was something similar to snakes but smaller and slimmer. Looked like little worms. But was delicious! The highlight was some kind of fish swimming (already dead of course) in a big bole of chili marinade . They gave me a small plate with one slice of toast on it. So first you have to put the fish out of the chili marinade onto the toast which sucks up the marinade so you don't die eating something horribly spicy. After that it goes straight into your mouth (still quite spicy). I really love Chinese food... To see what I am talking about, click this picture:

For the blogs' popularity I also added some more pictures of exhibition babes into this gallery.

Enjoy!

Oh and I would be happy for comments or guestbook entries. Keeps me going you know...

Can... barely... walk...

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:28:22 +0200

It's me... again! 3rd post in 3 days... I am on a run!

Today was a pretty tough day... After getting a nice breakfast I was heading out for the Auto China Exhibition. After arriving we tried to get in. But the Chinese police or something similar blocked the entrance for some unidentified reason... So we had to walk all around the exhibition site... which is huge! It is not the IAA, but we still needed to walk for around 10 min (through bushes and construction sites...). After going through a pretty useless security check (the scanner went crazy when I went through but nobody cared) we finally got in.

I found out that one thing which is worse than going shopping with a woman! Visiting an exhibition with your female boss! Ok, ok... We didn't go there to enjoy the show but to work. And the fact that she is female is probably irrelevant. I just needed a good comparison. We were walking around all day, checking engine cooling fan modules, taking pictures of motors and writing down notes so that I can write a nice report later on. It was hell... We even skipped lunch! Argh...

Since competitors and car manufacturers are not happy to show what they got (inside the car of course) we needed a strategy. You cannot just go there, tell them you are their competitor and kindly ask them to show you their secret innovations. So sometimes I played the engineering student from Germany who has to write a research paper about engine cooling and CO2-emissions and sometimes I played the wealthy rich European buyer (of course wearing a suit) while my boss pretended to by my guide/translator. And it worked! Wherever they saw me they opened the cars, I took pictures, wrote notes, the whole 10 yards! In China the guest is king. And I am considered to be a guest in their country.

After walking around for almost 6 hours we tried to get home. Because no taxi was available we were forced to take the shuttle bus. And there the fun began. We had to stand for another 1 hour. Than get on the subway for 25 min and than grab a taxi and have a ride for another 25 min... It took us almost 2 hours to get back to the hotel. Lucky you who didn't smell my socks ^^

Same thing tomorrow... Don't wanna think about it...

I added some pictures. You can find them here

Most pictures I took are work related and therefore cannot be shown here (would be boring anyway). This is just a selection to show you that I was there Please note that I went to the exhibition for work, not for fun. All hostesses are taken by accident. I never intended to take pictures of pretty girls leaning against nice cars duck+cover (otherwise there would have been much more). Furthermore I only uploaded them for the pleasure of my readers (*note to male readers: I might be able to take some more tomorrow)

Cheers

My quest for an umbrella and a surprise

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:32:46 +0200

My second post in 2 days... But don't expect anything, I will not be able to keep it up. First things first: Yesterday I forgot to thank my buddy MIQ for his help setting up this blog. Without him I couldn't be "on air" now. Thanks!

So, this was my second day in Beijing. It was way better than Day 1! For starters, I got up enjoying a nice breakfast buffet. I had some nice toasts, bacon, scrambled eggs and (chinese style) some fried noodles and thin slices of beef in a pepper crust. The day started promising! Except that damn rain... It was still raining... Well... Back to my room I took it slow. Checking some E-Mails and doing some small things it actually stopped raining! I decided to head out quickly. Still needing an umbrella I went to the souvenir shop in the lobby. You know those level 1 quests in warcraft "Kill 10 crag boars..."-style? This was my level 1 real-life quest: "Get an umbrella!". It turned out to be harder than expected... The first one she offered to me was pink... So I asked for another one. "Ah... Äh... wait.... 10 minutes...." she said and took off. So I sat down waiting. After a while she came back with another umbrella... White handle, transparent shield... like prostitutes have it so the "customers" can see them even when it is raining... I refused and asked for a dark color. I don't know if she understood what I was talking about but she tried to convince me that this transparent umbrella was perfect looking by demonstrating me its use... I still refused and basically ran away... I bought one hours later near a subway station. It still looks quite crappy but it was only 10 Yuan (not even 1 Euro hrhr).

I had a nice plan which involved a lot of walking. But it was totally worth it. I started out in the northern part of downtown and made my way through an historic Chinese district with traditional Chinese houses called "hudongs", went through various nice parks, went through the Forbidden City and finally arrived at Tian'anmen Square (which by the way is the largest public square in the world). To my big surprise, Beijing turned out to bea really interesting city with some amazing sights and realy great parks! Especially the Jingshan Park with a Pavilion on a high hill from where you can overlook the Forbidden City and the Forbidden City itself were quite breathtaking! Overall I walked for almost 5 hours. So I decided to settle down in a traditional Chinese tea house for a while where I had some nice Jasmin tea and enjoyed some oldschool Chinese music...

*update

I just came back from dinner with my new boss and co-workers. It was really nice. We had lots of food. Famous Beijing duck (so yummy), frog, shrimps, beef, some chinese vegetables, some weird fish, some things I don't know... The point is: It was all so delicious! If the food in Changsha is similar (which they said it is) I will have a great time

You can find todays picture here

or just click on the photos link.

Tomorrow I will start working at the Auto China Exhibition in Beijing. I guess it will be quite stressfull...

Lost in Beijing, lost in translation, just lost...

nospam@example.com (Markus) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:15:21 +0200

Well... Hello world!

Although this blog is not yet finished (and I am wondering if it will ever be finised) I guess I should start writing since I already arrived in China. For now you should just ignore those functional and non-functional (design) errors. I will fix them someday (don't wait up). Furthermore, as you might have already noticed, I will write all my blog posts in English. This, of course, will lead to some more or less embarrassing missspellings and grammatical "supergau's" my former High-School English teacher would hang me for (Cheers Mr. G.!). I will just blame this on the missing spellcheck option and my lack of care. And: no! I will not write all posts in word, run spellcheck and than copy/paste them into this blog software.

So, back to the topic... After enjoying 10 sunny, warm days in Seoul, I finally arrived in Beijing today. And (surprise) it is raining like hell... Plus, it is only 14°C outside. Smart as I am, I didn't bring a jacket. It is supposed to be terribly hot! But hey, be optimistic! Just buy an umbrella at the airport. Or don't... I was too lazy to search the whole airport for a store that sells umbrellas. I was focused on finding my hotel quickly to get rid of my luggage and relax. So I went for the shuttle-bus terminal. So far everything fine. My first surprise: Those important people, sellings you the tickets to your destinaten don't speak english... No big deal. I had the address written down in chinese characters. So i showed her. After a little while she found out where that is and showed my the bus number and where I am supposed to get off. Well... Could have been worse. It all went down quite smoothly. I found the bus, got in, and enjoyed the ride. Traffic jam... Almost 2 hours later, I arrived at my destination. And it was still raining like hell. I got off into the pouring rain, no umbrella whatsoever, 20 kg luggage and tried to catch a taxi. After a few minutes (now all soaked up) I got one. I showed the address to the driver who didn't understand a single word... After calling another taxi driver (or so I assume) he (to my big surprise) found the hotel. Well... could have been worse. I started thinking that maybe this must be my lucky day. I checked in. Nice room. 4 English channels out of 70 (good quote). Time to think what to do with the rest of the day (it was 4 o'clock). Sightseeing? No, still raining. Staying in the hotel? Naaa... that's lame... I decided to get an umbrella and go out to do something. From now on it all went down... Talking to the receptionist I found out that she cannot speak English either. I tried to ask her where I could go, somewhere inside. She didn't understand a single word... "Please... speak.... slower.... please" she said. Ok... "Sightseeing" I replied. Her facial expression told me that this was a dead end. "Palace, Garden, Museum" I tried. "Ah... wanna go shopping?" she asked. "No thanks" I said. I gave up. Just ask her for a map. That worked. She gave me nice "portable" map which is only 1m² small (folded). Argh. okok... Get and umbrella... "Umbrella" I said, waiving my hands over my head, symbolizing the shape of an umbrella. Nothing. "Raaiiiiin" I said, waiving my hands over my head this time symobilizing rain drops. She got it! Sooo.... she gave me her own umbrella... That's really sweet of her (really) but I need my own one. I said "Thanks a lot, but I want to buy one". "No... not buy... my umbrella" Yaks! A what the hell... I took it and swore to return it later and went out. But where to go... Obviously concerned she followed me... "Shoes... will be water" she said. "Ah thanks... I know... Where is the subway station?". "???... Ah!.. 10 minutes walk...". "10??? Gna... Taxi....". She wrote something down for me where I could go. I showed that address to the taxi driver who happily drove me through whole Beijing... I saw the Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City (well... I actually just passed it with the taxi). After a while I arrived at what turned out to be a shopping place... Which part of "no thanks, i dont wanna go shopping" didn't she get? Whatever... I found a KFC and had dinner. A vegetable burger... It really sucks if you cannot read anything and just point to a picture... After that I took the subway/taxi back to the hotel. returned the umbrella and now I am wondering whether i should get up tomorrow or just stay in bed. It will be raining anyway...

Nobody here seems to be able to speak English! Plus... I feel strangeley observed... I know it's gonna be better tomorrow... It just has to be!

Over and out!