mmmm….chocolate

As you may know, Chinese people don’t really eat sweets. Fruit for dessert is a way of life, and any snacking usually takes the form of dried meat or seed products. So growing up, the only exposure to chocolate I had was the annual Halloween binge. That and the ubiquitous boxes of See’s and Ferrero Rocher, to be passed around from household to household on Chinese New Year until wrapping wore thin and had to be replaced. I would estimate that between the 200,000 Chinese people living in San Francisco, there are probably only three boxes of chocolates existing at any given time. Everyone knows those boxes of chocolate are not for eating.

Going to college and then working, my access to sugar grew, but was still largely restricted to baked goods and the Walgreen’s candy aisle. Occasional treats requiring a special trip and strategic planning.

And then I moved to Germany. The first time the German and I went grocery shopping together and I watched him toss bars of chocolate in the cart, I thought he must have a serious craving. Or a secret child locked away in the cellar. Then I realized that after dinner, while sitting around and watching movies or reading, he would just eat chocolate. Plain. Just chocolate! This simultaneously disgusted, fascinated, and alarmed me. Especially when I shared this news with my coworkers, only to find they all sat around and ate chocolate for dessert. It had never, ever occurred to me to sit and eat pure chocolate.

But let me tell you, I learned quickly. And chocolate bars made in Europe are a far more enjoyable snack than Snickers and Almond Joys, which I used to consider the highlights of my childhood Halloweens, to be hoarded and the very bottom of my candy jar, which was organized from the bottom up based on preference with the favorites only to be consumed some time in March. What, all the kids didn’t do that? So for the past few years, I’m sitting there, enjoying an after dinner Ritter Sport Dunkle Voll-nuss, and it is not disgusting or weird at all. It’s delicious. At the risk of sounding like one of those French-women-don’t-get-fat-neither-do-Japanese! nuts, it’s probably also better for you than platters of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm….cookies. Anyways. And all was well and good until we moved to Beijing. As much as confectionery giants would like to stake their claim in the world’s largest market, it hasn’t really happened yet. I’ve managed the switch to fruit-as-dessert pretty well, but the German has taken to lying on the couch and weeping, claiming the lack of chocolate is causing headaches, dizziness, and swine flu. I expect any day, he will ask his contract to be re-written to guarantee access not only to "European-style housing" but "European-style chocolate, including an allowance of 1kilo of Nutella per month."

the waiting game

Another day, another country, another struggle for a working visa.  You know how a passport full of stamps is supposed to bring you joy and fond memories of your travel?  Thanks to open EU borders and three years of working in foreign nations, when I page through my passport all I feel is rising blood pressure.  Good thing my hypothyroidism keeps that relatively low already.

Anyways.

The process for a Chinese visa is a little different than Germany.  First, they kindly tell you that they need 37 ridiculously random documents.  The originals, of course.  Those who did not get original reference letters for that first job out of college better dust off the Rolodex.  Because, you know, you actually had a Roledex on your desk at that point.  Then you give those documents, your passport, and several thousand kuai to the visa processing company.  The nice part is that all your waiting is done in the comfort of your own home, rather than dragging yourself to the cold, unfeeling Torture-Amt office at 7am every week.  A week or two later, they deliver everything to your door, book your ticket to Singapore and Hong Kong, and send you on your way.

Only when you get to the Chinese embassy in Singapore are you reminded of your Torture-Amt experience.  I arrived 15 minutes before opening, only to find a line of 200 people in front of me, most who had arrived several hours earlier to line up.  Luckily, I befriended a couple in line behind me who made a Starbucks run to survive the 2 hours of waiting outdoors in the 30+ temperatures and peak humidity.  Once we made it inside the hallowed walls, there was also a line for the counter, a line for the copy machine (double copies of my passport, certificates, health check, official letters, and photos and they want a copy of the airport immigration card too?), and a shoving match to resume my place in the counter line.  Picking up the visa today was a vast improvement, with a special collection line at the door, a mere 30 minute wait to pay, and one last line to pick up the actual passport.

As much as the two day ordeal reminded me of a third world country train station on New Years, I have to say it was infinitely less painful than applying for my German visa.  Once you actually made it through the line, I just dropped off my inch-thick stack of paperwork, cash, and was ready to go.  No condescending questions, no criticism of language skills, no detailed examination of every aspect of my job.  I’ll take humidity and shoving matches over a three month German bureaucratic paper war any day.

worker bees

In addition to the sinister “Everything better red” banners, there are a few other significant differences in office life I’ve noticed since I started working in China.

- Going to lunch at 11.30am.  On the dot.  En masse.
- Taking naps after said lunch.  Fully splayed along couches and kitchen chairs.
- Humidifiers on every desk.  Pink ones.  With cartoons and flowers.
- People using cellphones in the restroom.  The public, 6 stall, noisy flushing restroom.
- Snacks in Germany: candy, pretzels, and more candy.  Snacks in China: sesame peanut cookies, Chinese rice krispy treats, and dried beef chunks.
- Coworker lectures for not dressing warmly enough.

And don’t get me started on the additional differences of working in an office of 100 engineers.  Sometimes I think I’m working for an entirely different company.  But previous comments aside, it’s interesting how the office environment insulates you from the outside world.  With English-only emails and colleagues around the world, it is shockingly easy to spend the entire day working exactly as you would in any other office in the world.  I’m not sure if this speaks to the wonders of a global company, or the depressingly Office Space-esque nature of corporate life.

the promised land

The last time I was in Singapore, I thought it was a decent city with warm weather, beaches, good food, and good shopping.  Nice, but nothing to write home about.  Coming here after two weeks of snow and subzero temperatures in Beijing, suddenly it seems like the promised land.  With warm weather! beaches! shopping!  I may never go back.  Who needs a city with personality and character when you can have Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Borders in your cookie-cutter high-rise condos and office buildings?

My manager had actually asked me to go to Singapore last month, the day after I moved to Beijing.  While that sounded like a horrific interesting option, I gently pointed out that an international flight the day after another international flight preceded by a week of moving was not something I wanted to sign up for.  To which he responded, what?  Isn’t the flight only 2 hours?  Um, more like 6, my friend.  Because first there’s this little thing we like to call China, and then this other thing called SE Asia.  You know, Vietnam?  Where pho comes from?  Pho.  No, PHO.  Not “poo”, with an “f” sound.  Never mind.  Apparently, he’s not the only one in need of a world geography recap, as my coworker informed me today that her manager once asked why she couldn’t make her business trips to Tokyo one-day trips.  I’m guessing they were low-balling the 7 hour flight time.  Or they have a time machine they haven’t told us about.

It’s pretty much the opposite of Europe, where every country was so small you really could get there in 2 hours max.  It makes the holiday planning much harder.  The German and I are looking into a Christmas / New Year trip, but the constraints of my 2 days of available vacation and the whole of China separating us from any source of warmth and sunlight are extremely limiting.  The only places accessible by short flights are either freezing (Japan) or communist dictatorships barring US visitors (North Korea).  Make that both freezing and a communist dictatorship.  Any better suggestions?

cashing in

When I first moved to Germany, every time I needed something (socks, running shorts, books), I would go out shopping, be horrified that said item cost about twice what it costs in America, and move on to the next shop. Rinse and repeat for the rest of my Saturdays until I finally learned to start thinking in euros, not dollars. As much as I used every US trip to stock up on clothing, books, and food, some things you just have to have. Of course, the German had the opposite problem, where once he experienced the magic of American shopping malls, outlets, and sales, he was paralyzed with regret and nostalgia upon entering any German shoe store.

Now that I’m living in China, I’m faced with the opposite problem and feel like I have wads of Monopoly money to throw around. Except it’s hard to judge worth when there are huge gaps in pricing. When lunch cost 8 kuai, but then I attend a dinner where the bill is 10% of my monthly salary, it just stops seeming like real cash. Yesterday, after a sudden blizzard covered the city in piles of snow and slushy mud, I stood in my ballet flats trying to decide if I should cab it to work or trek to the subway. If you were in New York and presented these $60 vs. $2 options, 15 minutes of walking in the snow would be a worthwhile trade off. But if you’re still converting things to a 5EUR difference, it becomes a harder choice. In the end, I think you just have to forget currency conversion and think about what you have. In which case, the clear answer for this scenario is to work from home.

The first snowfall last Sunday also prompted the beginning of daily tirades on the failure of the German’s company to procure our visas. Restricted travel and inability to open a bank account are minor issues, but lack of winter clothes because the moving company refuses to ship our things without a copy of the visa? Not so fun in -10 temperatures. Especially when you have been advised that visa processing will take “2 weeks, or to the end of October” and packed accordingly.