just my size

planes, trains, and automobiles

justmysize — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:02:52 +0000

The German has found himself trapped in Munich for the foreseeable future. I was initially annoyed he wouldn’t be around to support my weekend efforts to visit as many of Beijing’s Gourmet Month meals as possible, but restaurants hungry friends stepped up to fill void. Not to mention, apparently Icelandic natural disasters are not currently on the list of Valid Complaints About Your Boyfriend/Girlfriend. Must have been an oversight. Just like leaving them off the list of insurable travel incidents.

After seeing these pictures of misery, I think the German and other business travelers actually have it pretty good. At least they aren’t camping out at the airport, don’t have to worry about families/ruined vacations, and can more or less carry on with business as usual. Unlike, say, the pregnant Californian in Stratford or visa-less families unable to leave the airport. Looking at these airport photos also reminds me of the vast superiority of Munich and Schiphol over Heathrow and Charles De Gaulle.

Speaking of photos from this weekend’s travel escapades, how cute is Angie here? Barack, Hillary, and any other US politician aspiring to be a “real American” or “one of the common people” please take note. Who knew Teutonic, trained-physicist, heads of state could be so hilariously was auch immer when faced with an international crisis? If that sold in Germany even half as well as Sarah Palin’s moose-hunting, mother-of-five schtick, the CDU could stop campaigning and start counting votes already.

you heard it here first

justmysize — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:39:08 +0000

November 2009: November 15 is too late to start Beijing (and China’s) “heating season”. As the random observer eloquently noted:

“A fixed time is stupid. I hope it stays on longer too. Beijing is still cold in March when they normally turn it off. I think they shut it off too early,”
Four months later, I can confirm Beijing is indeed still cold in March when they turn the heat off. Too cold to be living without heat. Especially, as I discovered today, when your office also does not have heat. My company has two offices in Beijing. The one I work was warm and toasty all winter and has remained so, thus leading me to assume offices were exempt from this rule, just like hotels. Today I am working at the other one. There is NO HEAT. Twenty people have emptied out of the two offices along the walls and moved into the open plan area for warmth. And people are wearing jackets indoors. The hot water dispenser and coffee machines are getting a workout today.

west virginia? ew!

justmysize — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:24:03 +0000

I love when tourists fail to realize I’m American, even after hearing me speak, and when I’m wearing Cal gear. The best part usually comes when they compliment me on my English and I can say something along the lines of:

“I hope so, considering I’m American”

“Thanks! The school system is really good here”

But I hit a new high when met someone today from the US and who said they were from West Virginia. I was using every ounce of control not to grimace which they mistook for confusion and went on to explain that West Virginia is in the middle of the east coast. I informed them that, being from San Francisco, I was actually pretty caught up on my US geography. At least I managed to refrain from saying, “West Virginia? That’s, like, the 909 of the east!”

eating china

justmysize — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:07:35 +0000

Had lunch with a visiting colleague today who has eaten every meal thus far in his hotel and was thinking how difficult eating in China can be for foreigners. Unless you speak Chinese, you usually end up in your hotel or at a place with English menus or picture menus. Unlike in Europe, you can’t go, oh, lasagne…croque monsieur…at least I know that one. Even if you do speak and read Chinese, it is still hard to master the art of ordering, getting the right combination of yin and yang foods, ordering the right amount (that is, too much), balancing flavors. Not to mention the problem of dealing with dish names that have no relation to the actual ingredients. I can order and get food I like but I am far from confident enough to order for a table of Chinese people.

China is also a difficult country for people with any kinds of dietary restrictions. It’s not that they are insensitive or uncaring, but that they are so unheard of, Chinese people cannot comprehend it. Even in Beijing and Shanghai, vegetarians will invariably get comments such as “oh, let’s have seafood” or “there’s just a little meat in this”. Peanut allergies means, “no visible whole peanuts” (but sauces and peanut oil are okay, no?) Last month a friend with celiac disease was in Beijing and found that “no soy sauce or gluten whatsoever” translated to “this just has a little soy sauce” and “have some toast!” Even in the most Westernized and accommodating of places, the most helpful of conversations went like this:

J: I can’t have any wheat or wheat product or gluten
Waiter: Would you like gluten free bread?
J: Yes! That would be great! Do you really have that?
Waiter: I don’t know. Let me check….No

Despite that, I still think Chinese food is some of the best in the world and my favorite part of having visitors is taking them to eat. Sadly, many Westerners (who don’t come from San Francisco, Vancouver, LA, or New York) know little outside of fried rice, kung pao chicken, or dumplings. Their top dining destination is crowding in with hoards of other white people in Wangfujing taking photos of themselves eating bugs on a stick and somehow failing to notice that the Chinese people only eat from food carts selling corn, sweet potatoes, or meat on a stick. Okay, and stinky tofu.

For those of you planning a trip in the near future, Shanghaiist and the Global Times have done write ups of their top China eats. I’m too lazy at the moment to do my own, but suffice to say my recommendations are more closely aligned to the Shanghaiist.

conference of fail

justmysize — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:10:40 +0000

While conducting research for this year’s bracket, I ran across this proposal from Secretary of Education Duncan to ban any teams who don’t have a 40% graduation rate for its players. Unlike some proposals for change in the world of college athletics, I actually think this is a pretty good one. Especially since it specifically excludes players who transfer to another university or who leave early for the NBA but are in good academic standing when they do. It’s like banning pros from the Olympics – if they want to be student athletes, they should at least make an effort.

But I’m not here to discuss the pros/cons of this suggestion, especially since it will never be adopted. I’m here to shed light on this shameful fact: in the ranking of teams by graduation rate, Cal is second to last with 20%. Even more outrageous is the fact that Cal graduated none of its black players who started between 1999-2002. This is embarrassing for a university that purports to be a leader in higher education. If that’s the case, can the university not spare some resources for supporting and retaining athletes? Or exercise higher standards when recruiting? Equally embarrassing is that other teams who fall short of the 40% graduation rate, such as Kentucky and Baylor at least have high seeds and Final Four potential to show for it. This reminds me all too much of the academic violations during the Tom Holmoe years, where exceptions and excuses were made and Cal still went 1-10.

Considering the popularity of basketball here, especially with players like Kobe Bryant and Yao Ming, the NCAA tournament is surprisingly under the radar. Even amongst the expat community, there is far less buzz than for events like the Superbowl. I feel that this really has potential to catch on in China, as it combines two astoundingly popular activities – basketball and gambling.

zack morris fail

justmysize — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:02:34 +0000

Today I had a get rich quick idea.

Every worker bee in China knows the joy of a jian bing breakfast. Quick, warm, filling, and cheap, these pancakes filled with eggs, some greens, crispy wonton or other fried dough bits, and various sauces are available at stands near any subway station or office building. You can find 4 or 5 within a one-block radius and coworkers love to debate the merits of each. Normally, those in need of a little extra protein ask for an extra egg in their filling. A few other stands have tried to increase their appeal by adding meat, but massively fail due to the use of rubbery, artificially pink Chinese sausage that cannot even be classified as food.

After a long discussion on the virtues of jian bing, my friend and I have developed the ultimate business plan: jian bing with bacon! Not only does bacon make everything better, but it also meets two key criteria of jian bing filling – meaty and crunchy. In one! Bacon + eggs + dough? A no brainer. I set off to work, intent on staking out some prime real estate for our cart, when I spied some formidable competition: a stall selling jian bing with chuar wrapped inside.

Essentially a meat kebab (usually lamb but sometimes chicken or beef), chuar is the street food of Beijing. Officially from the province that shall not be named Xinjiang, this tasty grilled treat provides sustenance to millions office workers, fair goers, and late night partiers. It is to Beijing what the donor kebab is to Berlin or the Mission burrito to San Francisco. When I saw this genius of a vendor combining the two classic street foods, I knew our jian bing empire was over before it began. The worst part was that it wasn’t just a copy of our brilliant plan…but an improvement. Dreams of fame and riches dashed, I trudged to the office in despair. Actually, I got in line and ordered what has become my favorite breakfast in Beijing.

dumpling factory

justmysize — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:40:18 +0000

Happy Chinese New Year!

The German and I spent our week off exploring some nearby cities, watching hours of explosive fireworks, and stuffing our faces. On New Year’s Eve, some friends who own a cafe near the Drum Tower organized a dumpling making party. A few people churned out piles of dough and then the rest of us got to work. People always say you can tell where someone is from by how they fold their dumplings. Well, I can’t, but others can. The last time my Chinese friends and I did this, a girl took one look at mine and said “Your family must be from the south”. The pan-frying friendly shape must have given me away! A truly underutilized cooking format in up in the ‘Jing.

I’ve put the German to work in the dumpling factory many times and although everyone there was impressed by his skill, they were still eager to teach the tall blond foreigner their way of folding. And I realized you can even tell where he is from by looking at his dumplings because:

1. They’re twice as big as a Chinese-made one
2. While everyone else threw finished dumplings haphazardly on the mats as fast as possible, in the piles of dough you could see a few neat little rows, futilely trying to instill order in the chaos

Unfortunately, the week went by much too quickly and I headed back to work on Monday (technically, on Saturday, thanks to the stinginess of China’s “replacement working days”. But not really until Monday, thanks to the generosity of “working from home”). The new year’s festivities will conclude with this Saturday’s lantern festival and the clouds of smoke and red firework papers will fade away until next year.

keep on rolling

justmysize — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:27:07 +0000

You might be tired of me blogging about train tickets, but this topic takes over the collective Chinese brain to an unprecedented level. Which makes sense, because if I had to spend two or three days in the train station waiting for tickets, I would have nothing else to talk about either. Yes, 2-3 days. Over the past few weeks, every office-wide email has been something along the lines of:

“Have been at the station since Saturday AM. No tickets yet, so will be taking PTO Mon. Possibly return Tuesday am.”

Every meeting room is filled with people on their cell phones trying to buy tickets or arguing with their spouses about who was supposed to go to the train station at 5am to get tickets.

Watching this process made me curious as to how regular Chinese working for SOEs manage to get tickets. People at my company are lucky to have flexible schedules where they can show up at 3pm or take long lunches or do whatever else required to get tickets. What about those Chinese people who have to punch in and out and work in factories? Apparently, that is one benefit of working for the government. According to the news and personal anecdotes, they either get tickets for every worker or charter buses, trains, and even planes to take them home. On the news the other day, they showed a bunch of factory workers flying home on a plane provided by their company with gifts and food and red envelopes handed out during the flight. For most of them it was the first time they had ever been on a plane. They also get a big fat bonus when they return (although that is more to prevent them from realizing their lives in Beijing are terrible and they would rather be with their families and not coming back at all).

But with more than half my colleagues gone already and the rest heading out on Friday, it has been a quiet week. We had office parties on both Friday and Wednesday. Wednesday was an office party like none I had been to before – they rented out a big cafe in Wudaokou, provided tons of food and drinks and we played cards and board games all night. Possibly the dorkiest and best office party I have ever attended.

the (other) big game

justmysize — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:11:47 +0000

Superbowl Sunday. Nothing like kicking back in your sweats with enough food, drinks, and pizza (yes, that’s a separate category) to feed an army. Unless you’re in Beijing, where the pre-game airs at 6.30am on Monday morning, leaving you to choose between solitary slumming or kegs and eggs at your local expat bar. Once you make the wise decision to “work from home” and stay in, the next question to ponder is ESPN live feed or CCTV Chinese commentary? You would think ESPN is the obvious answer, but you would be wrong.

On CCTV, not only is the picture quality better, you also get to enjoy Chinese football commentary, which is two guys in suits in front of their laptops (which are covered in giant logos from one of China’s largest sportswear companies. Imagine the CBS crew sitting in a completely empty studio with nothing but 15-inch laptops with a giant Nike logo facing you). The announcing is devoid of emotion, but does include Chinese names for all teams and players. The Colts become little horses, the Saints become the angels, and there is a 15 minute explanation of the 2-point conversion without actually commenting on Payton’s decision to go for one or an analysis of how that worked out for him. Nor was there any mention of breaking the plane. But that’s okay, as I usually provide my own commentary anyways.

And the single best reason CCTV beats out ESPN for Super Bowl commentary is this quote, heard while the fireworks were going off, confetti was falling, and the Saints were celebrating: “Looks like Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) has come one week early to America this year!”

Oh, CCTV. How you entertain me.

stranger than fiction

justmysize — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:25:48 +0000

Evidence that truth is stranger than fiction:

Chinese government working to increase bicycle ridership. Weren’t they just introducing new measures to encourage car purchases, oh, 5 minutes ago?

Parking lots for women. Don’t forget to tip your six dancing parking attendants on your way out.

Oracle exec’s paramour gets revenge with billboards. Let this be a lesson never to give your attention-grubbing mistress a quarter of a million dollars.

In other stranger-than-fiction news, preparations for Spring Festival are in full swing, and some migrant workers and university students are already heading home this weekend. As I will be staying in Beijing, I will not have to face the arduous task of traveling during this period, but feel a morbid desire to spend some time at Beijing train stations witnessing the event. One thing many people take for granted, but that I find most fascinating about China is the sheer task of managing a population of 1.3 billion. How do they do it? (answer: one-party rule). Riding the Beijing subway, with 3.4 million other people every day is pretty miraculous to someone used to the utter failures of MUNI. Guiding over 4 million cars on the road every day with less traffic than San Francisco or LA is a testament to city planning. And transporting 340 million people thousands of miles away and back in a two week period is an event I have to see for myself. Visualize, if you will, the entire US population living in Los Angeles or New York. Then imagine that they all want to travel to cities and towns all over the US, on the same day. By train. And then you have to bring them all back.

I’m thinking this would make a killer reality show. Fox, this should be right up your alley.