I love New York.

New York really does have a feeling about it that is different from anywhere else. I have also been feeling that I belong here. Maybe it is just that I have been so busy meeting interesting people and doing rewarding work, or maybe it is that after being in Beijing anything would be more pleasant, but I am not even minding staying in a tiny apartment with my parents.

On friday night I went to meet Vincent. He was working in the Chrystler building on 42nd st for the "Europe-America Chamber of Commerce" so I met him at his office. I had never been in the Chrystler building before and I was definately impressed by the details of the interior. The view from the 67th floor was pretty good too.

After taking a quick look around there, we went for a bit of a walk over to Broadway and then up Broadway to Lincon Center. Walks in New York always go so much faster than anywhere else because the streets are so packed with people, stores, and life that you are always engaged in your surroundings. When we reached Lincon Center, we decided that walking all the way to Columbia (on 120th st) was a bad idea, so we got on the subway.

The New York City subway system is really not what it should be. Although it is certainly comprehensive and fairly efficient, it is one of the least attractive subays systems I have ever been on. The cielings are low and nothing is inspiring. I get the feeling that they just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible, no matter how it looks. I think this is a real shame, but also representative of New York in general. That is, its primary function is work, looking good is optional.

At Columbia we met up with Vincent's friends, had dinner, and then went down to the Village. The village is really alive on a friday night. It is alive in a different way from Granville street. There are not hordes of drunk people doing stupid things on the streets everywhere, but rather there are plenty of small bars and cafes full of people having a good time. After being rejected by two such places on account of Vincent's friends not having proper IDs, we found our way into a smallish bar with live music. On stage was a 20 something Jewish guy with an accustic guitar singing songs about the neo-fashism of the Bush administration. The whole scene was very New York.

From there we took a cab to Midtown to meet some of Vincent's friends. They were two Americans who had studied at Sciences-Po and were back in New York working. It turned out that one of them had done an internship at the American mission to the UN under Bolton. Before I could even tell him how much of an asshole Bolton was, he started defending him. I guess it is true that the UN needs to be more efficient, but the American argument that paying most of the bills means they should control the whole oganisation is really against the whole purpose and spirit of the UN. I guess it is just hard for Americans to accept that they are paying to give North Korea the right to get heard in an international forum. Apart from that they were cool guys, and both vaguely knew my sister from when she was on exchange at Sciences-Po.

Saturday I saw Roger again. With him it is always the same thing. All he ever wants to talk about is Chinese power and criticise everything western. He just does not stop talking about how he is an oppressed minority and how the only way for him to get respect in North America is for China to be a military power. He has come to the point where he can not criticise the Chinese government. Even the Chinese relationship with North Korea, or the North Korean government its self for that matter, are both good things. I hope when he goes there he will be able to see past the Xinhua propaganda and start to understand the nature of the Communist Party.

On sunday my parents took me out to Jersey City to see Coleen and Clancy and their kids Christ and Andre. They are from upstate New York and our families have been friends for as long as I can remember. We would always go drive down to their place to see them. In the 10 or so years since I have seen them, Chris and Andre have both grown up. They are both a few years older than me and now they are working on Wall st and starting up a new forex firm. I was very impressed. It also gave me the impression that the financial industry in New York is not as hard to break into as I thought it would be. Even outside of the biggest firms there are still lots of opportunites for good jobs that can provide a New York lifestyle.

Last night after work my parents and I went to a Chinese new year's party. It was thrown an old lady that my father has done some work with. It turned out that she lives in an apartment on Central Park South, two doors down from the Plaza hotel, with a great view of the whole park. There, to my great surprise, there was only one Chinese person and no one under the age of 40, with most of the guests easily over 60. After I started working the room I discovered that I made the right decision to go to China, if only for the stories to tell. Everyone I talked to was interested in my experiences in China, and many people had been there themselves. People there in general, although not particularly intelectual, were active and engaged with the world. This was the kind of party that I don't think I would ever find in Vancouver.

That said, I have found a place in Vancouver. I am going to be living in East Van in an apartment shared with some aquaintances of Rachel's. I don't know how long Vancouver will keep me interested, but Rae is there and that counts for a lot. Also, life is pleasant and I will be able to save money when I find a job... Lets see how that goes.

Marc

Finally done the preliminary report.

That last week was a tough one. Mr Chen gave us a one week deadline to give him a preliminary report and do a little presentation for the senior management. It took us 8 days straight of working 10 or more hours a day. On tuesday, the day before it was due, we stayed until midnight working. The work is interesting. I am definately learning a lot about using excel and dealing with budget figures. Unfortunately, I was too junior to attend the presentation for the senior managers, so instead I got to sleep in for the first time since I got back from China. It was nice.

I got my grad school applications out yesterday. Even though they eventually let me in last year, I am still nervious about my chances this year. If I don't get in, what will I do? If I do get in, I will have to move again, this time back to Ontairo. Even though I spent a few months idealising Vancouver while I was in Beijing, it is pretty clear that Vancouver is still a provincial city. Grad school in Ontairo is going to be useful as a bridge out of the small West Coast.

Tomorrow, I will go hang out with Vincent again. Should be fun, I look forward to it.

Marc

Well, my life has changed a lot in the two weeks or so since my last post.

First, I went back to Vancouver on the 11th of January. The flight was not great, but it was nice to be sitting with Rae. When we got in, my parents were waiting for me at the airport. In the car, to my great surprise, my mother asked me if I wanted to go to New York on monday to join her on a contract that she would be doing at the UN secretariat.

At first I didn't believe it. It was a pretty much perfect opportunity for me and a great solution to my problems. Firstly, they offered to pay me $2000 for three weeks of work, which is probably more than I would make in Vancouver doing whatever. This also sloves my problems as to finding money to rent an apartment. Secondly, it gets me to New York before they leave and give up the apartment. It also lets me see Vincent and Roger, and hopefully Will. Finally, it is finally some job experience that I am not ashamed to put on my resume (thankfully my mother has kept her maiden name so it does not look like I am working for family).

We dropped Rae off at her house and went downtown to my building. Since I left, my parents have rented out the apartment that I used to live in (which, in all fairness is theirs, not mine) so we had to stay in a second apartment that we have in the building. Unfortunately for me, my parents were in the middle of upgrading the apartment to rent out at a higher rent. This meant that I was enlisted to paint, move furnature, steam clean the carpet, etc... in the four days that I had in Vancouver. So, for the first few days I was working so much that I didn't have any time to see anyone.

The first night in Vancouver we went to the Eatery, a funky sushi-fusion restaurant near UBC. The food was amazing. The other thing I noticed was that everyone was so well dressed at attractive. I was so used to PRC standards that it was quite distracting at first.

On sunday, I introduced Rae to the extended family. I had been quite nervious about this because I know my grandparents want me to marry a Jewish girl and Rae is clearly not. In the event, it went quite well. She talked with everyone and I think they liked her. The most important thing I got out of that afternoon is the feeling that I should spend more time with my grandparents. My grandfather is almost 95 and I should be there for him if he needs me.

Since I have to go now, I will just post some content from two emails I sent to Rae. The more or less describe my life since I have gotten to New York.

Right now I am in my new office in the UN secretariat building overlooking the river. The job we are doing here is looking at outsourcing conference services for the UN, particularly tranlslation services. It looks like we are going to be working really hard here because we have to give in a report by tuesday. My job so far has been to write up, format, and print notes. It is ok, and it is definately cool to be here working in the main UN building. Just going to the cafeteria you can see people from all over the world and listen to so many different languages.

Our boss here is Chinese. When I first met him I said "ni hao" and we had a very short exchange in Mandarin. I think he was at least somewhat impressed. Apparantly there are very few non-Chinese who can speak it in the UN organization. Unfortunately he is very busy and he will probably not have any time to talk to me one on one.

And the second email...

I have been working about ten hours or more every day and sleeping on a crappy mattress in the hallway. We will probably take a day off some time next week after the preliminary report is done. The work has been pretty interesting, although most of what I do involves data entry and manipulation in Excel or note taking during meetings. On the bright side, I do wear suits every day and the cafeteria food is good.

My boss is definately a mainlander, but he is a very high class one. His position here is "Under Secretary General" which means that he is one step down from the top (think vice-president). His English is very good and he seems very smart and on top of everything. Of course, because he is busy, and I am just an intern, I have only met with him that one time and I doubt very much that I will ever have a chance to actually talk to him one on one or otherwise.

In the last two days I have seen both Vincent and Roger. I went to see Vincent on friday night, but I took the wrong subway and instead of getting off on broadway and 116th next to Columbia, I got off on Lenox and 116th in the middle of Harlem. Since I had come straight from work, I was wearing a suit and tie. The cool thing was that even though it was 10pm (I had just gotten off work at 9... worked about 12 hours that day...) and I was the only white guy it didn't seem that dangerous. Actually, there was a lot of new construction there. Anyway seeing Vincent was cool, we had a few over priced beers in his neighbourhood and I spent an hour getting home, finally arring around 3. Of course, my parents still woke me up at 8:30 the next day...

Last night I got off work a little bit early, about 6:15 (it is 6:30 now and we have no plans of leaving...) and met Roger for dinner. He ended up getting that dream job in Hong Kong so he was pretty happy. He had more or less the same things to say as always, that people in North America, especially Vancouver, are racist, that China needs a strong government and how these are related. I told him that he was was obsessed and that his fixation on this issue was unhealthy. It was a typical, not very fun experience. Later we went for a walk and talked about other things, and it was a bit better, but I don't think I will hang out with him too much while I am here.

More later

So I am going home.

I am still in a bit of shock over the suddenness of the whole thing. I am leaving Beijing at 5:45 on wednesday the 11th and not coming back for a long time. I should be back in Vancouver some hours later...

Lately, life has been about the same. On new year's eve Rae and I went to Houhai with Neal and one of his girlfriends. The bar was nice, but there wasn't a countdown and no one was in the new year's mood. At 3, when we left the bar, we wandered around on the frozen lakes for a while. It was fun, it reminded me of the canal in Ottawa.

Going into the centre of the city reminded me that where I live is really out in the suburbs and even uglier than other parts of Beijing. So, the next day, Rae and I went into the centre of the city and walked around the hutongs all night. It was actually quite nice. The traffic is better there, the buildings are not as ugly and the streets are somehow more welcoming. It was a really nice change from the stalinist buildings and traffic jams where I live. We walked all the way from Jingshan to the drum tower in the north. After we got there, we stumbled across this bar that Catlyn and Alex had taken me to once, bed. Bed is a bar that is set in a real hutong courtyard house. The bar rooms are all the different buildings of the house and instead of the normal tables and chairs, they have beds to sit and lay on. We had a good time sitting there drinking hot coffee and eating custard tarts. We said we would go back, but unfortunately it doesn't look like we will have the chance.

A few unremarkable days later I had exams. I missed the first one. I knew that the exam was supposed to be first thing after the new year's break, but for everyone else in this country there was a break from the 31st to the 3rd and work started again on the 4th, but at my university, for reasons unknown to me, we had our new year's break from the 30th to the 2nd. So, I slept right through my oral exam, the exam I should have done the best on. The next day when I showed up for the writing/grammar exam I asked the teacher and she said that it was only worth 20% of the core (oral/written/grammar) course and that I should still be able to pass my final without it. This was a small consolation. In the event, I passed everything, but I am not eager to see my results.

After exams we celebrated by going to karaoke with some friends. It was Catlyn and Alex's first time going in China and they had fun. Most of the others there went with us when we went the first time some weeks back. Most people only sang English songs, but I sang "lao shu ai da mi" and Rae and one other Chinese girl sang a few Chinese songs. I think because most of us had just finished exams, on one had as much energy as last time so it didn't go as late, bu tit was still fun.

Yesterday Rae, Neal and myself went to Qingdao (or Tsingtao in Wade Giles... yes, the beer city). Rae really wanted to get out of Beijing and see some other part of China before we leave and I agreed with her. Originally we planned on going to Pingyao in Shanxi, a city with lots of preserved traditional architechture from when it was the banking centre of China, but we couldn't get seats on the train so we had to pick something else.

We caught the night train and got into Qingdao at 5:30. We first walked to the waterfront. There, we saw a guy running up the beach coming back from his own personal polar bear swim. He was screaming... It was still dark and probably well below zero... We then walked around looking for somewhere to eat. After half an hour of finding nothing, and feeling very cold, we got in a cab and asked him to take us somewhere that was open. We had breakfast at this Cantonese style restaurant. The congee was good, the dim sum was ok, the music was terrible pop-house remix stuff. After breakfast we explored around on foot until lunch. At lunch we had seafood. The food was good but the restaurant was freezing. We could see our own breath the whole time. They didn't have any heating at all, it was very hard for us to finish our cold beer.

After lunch we went to the Qingdao beer factory. For the first five minutes we just basked in the heated room that was the museam to thaw our our hands and feet. There, I learned that the Germans had lost Qingdao to the Japanese in 1916. This was surprising because of the big and visible presence that the Germans had left in Qingdao in the form of thier architecture. The rest of the beer tour was not that interesting. The next highlight was drinking Tsingtao dark beer, something that they don't sell on the domestic market (although it would be nice if I could drink something other than weak lager once in a while). We spent the rest of the day walking around and enjoying the scenery. It was very nice to be out of Beijing.

The bus home was terrible. It was one of those sleeper busses that they have in China with beds insead of seats. This, on its own is good, but the bus driver and the other workers wanted to get more money so they also sold room on the floor. In the end the whole floor was full of people and it was impossible to walk to the bathroom. It goes without saying that the workers were loud and rude... Just one more reason to leave.

Another thing I was surprised about in Qingdao was that it was not nearly as developed as Beijing. It was clear that people there were significantly poorer. Things were cheaper, and there were more crumby dive restaruants than "up scale" ones. I had though that Qingdao was one of the booming costal cities... but maybe, like Hangzhou's beauty, it is just more bullshit.

Anyway, 47 hours left in China. I guess I should make the most of them.

Marc