David's Big Adventure in China

If you haven’t heard the news already, I got married on 11-11-11. We went to the government office that handles marriages involving foreigners and spent about an hour there filling out the forms and getting our marriage certificate. There was no ceremony and once they hand you the certificate you are married. It took us a moment after we got the certificates to realize that we were married. We finished there just before noon and then went to a local fast food place for a quick lunch. The cost of the marriage certificate was about $1.50….so expensive…lol! Then we went to my…..errr, I mean OUR place to grab a few things. We stopped by my office and handed out candy (a Chinese tradition) then went and checked in at the Marriott. A bit later we headed off to Bonnie’s mom’s place for dinner with Mom, Bonnie’s cousin and the cousin’s husband. Then back to the Marriott where we spent the rest of the evening discussing the pro’s and con’s of nuclear energy. Our honeymoon ended Saturday afternoon as we both had work to do. We spent part of the day Sunday working before I headed off to the airport for the first of my 4 flights to Grand Junction, Colorado where I went for 3 days of planning meetings.

I had a tough time with jet lag while in the states normally going to sleep by 11 and waking up at around 2 a.m. I finally got a full night’s sleep the night I spent in San Francisco during a layover on my way back to China. I took an empty suitcase with me and bought a bunch of food products to take back. I got back home just before 1:00 a.m. Sunday night the 20th and went back to work on Monday the 21st.

I posted some pictures from our marriage day (I won’t call it our wedding day since we didn’t have a ceremony).

Below is part of an article from China Daily. You can find the entire article on the China Daily website if you’re interested. As far as I know, I’ve never consumed any placenta. Try not to think about that the next time you go out for Chinese food….lol.

BEIJING – Sales of human placenta continue to flourish online, despite a government ban on the trade and warnings from health experts about the risk of disease.
Taobao, the country’s largest online marketplace, is awash with vendors offering dried or ground placenta, a popular ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
Several traders contacted by China Daily said their products were secretly purchased from staff members at hospitals and specialized maternity clinics, without the knowledge of new mothers.

“I’ve got relatives working in hospitals, and the quality of the products is guaranteed,” said a Shanghai-based e-trader who refused to be identified for fear of repercussions.
His online ID is “One Night in Guangzhou”.

According to the sales record of his Taobao store, he has sold 42 placentas in the past 85 days.

Placenta, a vascular organ discharged shortly after birth, is believed to be full of protein and nutrients, and according to TCM doctors can help improve the immune system, slow the aging process and cure impotence and infertility.

However, due to disease concerns, the Ministry of Health banned the trade of placenta in 2005.

“For sanitary reasons, only a new mother can ask for her placenta from hospital staff,” said Ma Yanming, spokesman for the Beijing municipal health bureau. “But if the woman doesn’t want it or the placenta is deemed unhealthy, the hospital must have it burned and buried as medical waste.”

However, Wang Ping, a doctor at a maternity care unit in Juqiao township, Central China’s Henan province, said the sale of placentas by hospitals to pharmaceutical companies remains common.

She said that healthy placentas are often sold after the mother has given permission for it to be destroyed. Factories then dry and process it into ziheche, which is available in markets nationwide.

It’s unusual for me to post 2 updates in the same week so if you’re reading this one make sure you read the one I posted just a day or two ago. This update is about buying housing in China and most housing here is in the form of apartments in high rise or mid rise buildings. Most of this update was written by Bonnie except for the last 2 paragraphs at the bottom.

Before 1980s, Chinese people didn’t have ownership of the apartments they lived in. All the apartments belonged to the organization they worked with, or in a broad sense, the state, as all such organizations were owned and run by the state. So people paid rent which would be deducted from their monthly pay automatically. The system was regarded as a kind of welfare, so the rent was fairly low.

About 20 years ago, the Chinese government started the housing reform. People were allowed to “buy” the apartment they lived in then at a fairly low price, again, as part of the welfare system. In deciding the prices of the apartment, a lot of factors were taken into consideration, including seniority, whether or not the couple was working in the same organization, position, etc. But people who “bought” such apartment didn’t have the land ownership certificate for that apartment, which meant they had only the right to live in or rent out the apartment. They couldn’t sell the apartment as they wished. This was called half-ownership in China. In the meantime, the government encouraged the real estate businessmen to develop what’s called “commercial apartments”, the buyers of which were given both the certificate for the land and the apartment itself, so the buyers had the right to dispose the apartment as they wished.

Since the old apartments were all “bought” by the old employees, the new employees didn’t have apartments to live in after coming into the organization. Besides, the “commercial apartments” were not well developed yet to meet the demand or were too expensive for the new employees to afford, so another policy was formulated to address the housing issue. The organizations were allowed to build new apartments for their employees on the land that the organizations owned. The funds for building such apartments all came from the employees of the organizations. Since the land was owned by the organizations, the employees didn’t need to pay for the land, but only the construction for the apartment, so the total payment was relatively low; but that also determined that the employees again didn’t “own” the land on which the apartments would be built, so they wouldn’t get the land-utilization certificate. As a result, again they couldn’t sell the apartments they “bought” but only live in it or rent it. If the employees wanted to “sell” the apartments, they could only sell them back to the organization they worked for and the employees could not sell them at the prices they wish or at the market prices. The organization would buy the apartments back based on the prices that the employees had bought them after some fees or charges, e.g. depreciation was deducted. (This selling-apartment-back-to-organization part is so far in theory, not in practice yet as no such selling back is heard of by now.)”

Chinese people believe that apartments facing south are better than those facing north. Those on the first or top floor are not as good as those in the middle floors. So again in determining which employee will have which apartment, a lot of factors will be considered as mentioned before.
By organization here I refer to the governmental departments and agencies, institutions that are owned or run by the state like universities, colleges, hospitals, etc. Private companies are not included in. Since this type of housing program is also a part of welfare system, an individual/couple is allowed to have only 1 such apartment. If both husband and wife of a couple work for such organization, even in different organizations, they can’t own such apartment from different organizations. In practice, if say the husband’s organization will build such apartments and the husband would like to get one such apartment, he’s required to present the note issued by his wife’s organization that proves that his wife doesn’t have any such apartment in her organization or that such apartment his wife used to have has been “returned” to her organization.

Commercial apartments are a different story. People can buy commercial apartments outside their organizations in addition to the apartments they’ve had from the organizations. They can have the total ownership of the commercial apartment, including the land-utilization certificate. But such ownership can last only for 70 years. After 70 years, these apartments will theoretically be owned by and at the disposal of the state. But so far nobody knows whether that will happen as the first 70 years is not due yet. It’s likely that the policy will be revised before that.

Bonnie and her mother purchased a “half ownership” apartment several years ago from her mother’s former employer which is a state owned construction company. They paid the deposit in 2001 or 2002 before construction started and made the final payment in 2004 about the time construction was finished. New apartments here are not finished when you buy them. You have to arrange for yourself for the electrical, plumbing, fixtures, kitchen appliances, water heaters, air conditioning/heating (if you are rich enough to have it), flooring, etc. They paid about $12,500 at current exchange rates to purchase the apartment and another $6,500 to finish it and furnish it. It is a 3 bedroom/1 bath unit with about 800 square feet of interior space and has a small storage room in a separate location downstairs. It’s comfortable enough for her mother and I also would be comfortable living there after adding heat and air conditioning.

Bonnie is in the process of buying a “half ownership” apartment from her employer (the university, which is a state organization). She made a deposit last year on a 4 bedroom/2 bath apartment on the 18th floor of a building that will be constructed on campus. It will have about 1600 square feet of interior space. The cost of the apartment will be about $50,000 plus we expect to spend about $32,000 to finish and furnish it. Thus the total cost will be around $82,000 vs. a similar commercial apartment cost of about $160,000 which is a relatively high end apartment. She expects that the apartment will be ready for us to take possession of sometime in late 2012 to mid 2013. That will be our residence after it is completed. Until then we will live in my rented apartment although she will continue to stay in her dormitory room on campus when she needs to be at school since my apartment is on the opposite side of town far from the school.

Mid Autumn Festival holiday was on September 12 and it’s similar to Thanksgiving in the states. It’s traditional here for companies to give mooncakes or other gifts to employees and officials. There was an article in the paper saying that employers should make employees pay income tax on the value of the mooncakes. I imagine that there are a lot of taxes collected on the value of all the cakes/gifts given to the officials too…..lol. “Typical mooncakes are puck-shaped pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. They have a relatively thin crust (2-3 mm), which surrounds a thick pasty filling and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are typically rich, heavy, and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries.”

Last week I took the overnight train on Sunday night to Guangzhou to go to the U.S. consulate to get my “marriageability certificate”. That certificate is required by the Chinese government for foreigners to get married here. When I arrived at the train station in Nanning I ran into a friend who was also going to Guangzhou and we were in the same car so we traded tickets with some others so we could be in the same cabin. We arrived in GZ at 6:00 a.m. then we went to McD’s for breakfast. My friend then went to catch a train to Shenzhen and I went to wait outside the consulate for my 8:30 appointment. There were a couple hundred Chinese waiting outside for their appointment to get a visa to the states. Many of them, especially young single ladies will be disappointed. It only took about 10 minutes to get my certificate (a document stating that I’m not married signed and notarized by a consular official) then I went to catch a bus to the airport. I had a12:45 flight back to NN and arrived back at home by 3:30 p.m. We still haven’t set any dates or made any final plans about a wedding party.

Things are progressing well at the pig farms in Dahua (near NN) as we now have baby pigs! At this point we don’t have facilities to raise them until they reach market weight so we will start out in December by selling feeder pigs of about 44 pounds.

It’s now the first week of October and we’re celebrating the National Day holiday for 7 days although us accounting types will start back to work a day early on the 7th because of period end close. We will work Friday the 7th through Friday the 14th without a day off after enjoying 6 days off. Many people travel this week but we decided to just stick around town, relax and have some dinners with friends and family.

The big news for this post if you haven’t already heard is that I recently became engaged. I proposed to Bonnie on August 28 on the top floor of the tallest building in Nanning (59th floor) with a view of the whole city (see pic). It was her birthday and we had gone to dinner at her favorite Japanese restaurant. After she said yes, we had some pictures taken then we headed back home where I suddenly became very ill. Apparently I got some bad sushi and I was spewing the contents of my digestive system from both ends. 24 hours later I was almost back to normal. We haven’t made any detailed plans as of yet but I’ll let you know when we do.

Bonnie and I took her mother with us and went to Hong Kong September 1 to 4 for fun and ring shopping. After Bonnie accepted my proposal, I told her I didn’t have a ring for her yet but that we could shop for that in HK. Being the pragmatic person I am, I gave her a budget for the ring which she happily accepted. Our first day in Hong Kong we stopped in a jewelry shop and started looking at rings. She was only looking at very inexpensive rings and I didn’t understand why. Finally I asked her if she was confused about the budget. I told her again her budget amount and she said she had misunderstood and thought the amount was only 10% of the real budget. We then quickly moved to front of the store from the back corner to look at the nicer rings. She was so happy when I told her the real amount and I couldn’t stop laughing. I was also very happy that even though she thought the amount was so small she never complained or acted disappointed.

Last time I said I would talk more about the power situation. Here is part of an article from China Daily 8-24-2011 (the English newspaper here)
“GUIYANG – A dry spell plaguing Southwest China that has pushed up electricity demand and crippled hydro-power output is exacerbating the power crunch in the region, officials said Wednesday.
In Guizhou province, power supply is about 120 million kilowatt-hours short of demand on an average day, statistics from the provincial power grid company show. The shortage is caused mainly by the chronical strain in the coal supply and declining hydropower output, officials said.
The drought has dried up the reservoirs which Guizhou’s major hydroelectric stations are located, reducing the province’s daily hydro power output by 28.5 percent compared to the same period last year, said Zhang Quanyi, an official with the economic and information committee of Guizhou.
Zhang said the hydro-power reserve was only 530 million kilowatt-hours, about one-tenth of what it was at the same time last year.
The neighboring Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region is also squeezed by the power crunch, which has forced 1,000 factories and companies in the region to suspend operations, local officials said.
The output of three major hydro-electric stations on Guangxi’s Hongshui River was down 50 percent from a year earlier and experts suspect the stations will run on low water levels for long time.
Enduring heat and a lack of rain over the past few weeks have left parts of south China drought stricken. In Guangxi, about 150,000 residents did not have adequate access to drinking water. The drought also wiped out harvest on 10,000 hectares of farmland in the region.
Demand for electricity has soared with rising temperatures. According to the China Southern Power Grid, power demand in five southern provinces grew by 11.5 percent year-on-year in August, worsening the power crunch originally caused by the strain in coal supply.
Guizhou is southern China’s major coal-producing base with an annual output of 150 million tons of coal, but managers of the province’s coal-fired power stations say they have little incentive to generate electricity as the government-imposed cap on electricity prices make the business unprofitable.”

What’s interesting here is that the power company is mostly owned by the government which also sets the electricity prices. So it seems they’ve created a situation that is certain to result in significant power outages. We’ve been lucky here in Nanning in that they seem to keep the power mostly on in the bigger cities. That’s all for now.

Wow, it’s really been quite a while since I posted an update here. I spent 2 weeks in the states in mid July going to a wedding, visiting family in Indiana and then visiting friends in Florida. I first went to my nephew’s wedding at his in laws’ backyard overlooking the Atlantic Ocean near Boston. Then I drove to Indiana with my parents for a few days before heading to Florida to visit friends and family there. I was the beneficiary of an almost random act of kindness (Thanks RL!) on my flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco as a guy I met on a flight several years ago used his airline status to get me upgraded to business class (we chatted on Facebook the night before my flight). My return trip itinerary was Tampa to Houston to San Francisco to Hong Kong to Nanning all in one day. The trip took about 29 hours and I consumed 6 airplane meals. I brought back a whole suitcase full of food items that I can’t buy here. I opened up a can of beanie weenies the other day that I brought back and Bonnie enjoyed the beans but not so much the weenies……..lol.

I’m an employee of the Chinese company here and thus pay taxes, etc. just like the Chinese staff. At first they were deducting money from my pay for medical insurance (actually more like a medical savings account) until I learned that they only place I could use that insurance was the small town where we have our pig farms. Since I am very rarely there it seemed stupid to have that so I asked them to stop withholding it. So many things here are locally oriented including many federally mandated programs such as social security. Social Security benefits are paid from the location where you worked and paid in the money so if you worked in several different counties then you’d have to go to each to collect the benefits and they would be paid separately. Many people choose to only pay into the social security system in their hometown which creates headaches for the employers and employees. I wish I could express my true frustration with these kinds of things here but it’s best I don’t take any chances on causing myself any trouble.

Bonnie has had a busy summer with all of her part time jobs and last week was doing translation/interpretation at an international meeting including translating for the former president of the Philippines (Ramos). This week she’s working in Beihai, Nanchang, Xinyu, and Shanghai. Next week she starts back to school. I worked at home 2 days last week because we didn’t have power at our office. Actually, we’ve been lucky not to have many power outages although one day we were told we couldn’t use air conditioning in the office. In the small town where we have the farms they are frequently without power for many hours. I’ll write more about the power situation next time. A couple weeks ago I was in Hechi (the county seat of the county where our pig farms are located) having a couple meetings and in both meetings someone came in and took pictures (they don’t get many foreigners in Hechi…lol).

I had a visitor from the states in my office last week. Scott Tong is a reporter on the NPR business program called “Marketplace”. We shared some emails while I was teaching as I would sometimes use his reports in my classes to help the students practice their listening and to generate discussion topics. At the time he was the China correspondent but has since been repatriated back to the states. He was born and raised in the states but is of Chinese heritage. His visit was a social visit as he was in town visiting a friend.

Be sure to check out my pictures by clicking the link on the right. Until next time…….

June 23 through June 26, Bonnie and I took a trip to some places in Northern Sichuan province called Jiu Zhai Gou and Huanglong. They are not far from each other in a fairly remote area. They are known for their natural beauty among the mountains with beautiful waterfalls, ponds and lakes. The color of some of the ponds/lakes are quite intense (see pic’s) due to calcification. Since the elevation is between 6000 and 12,000 feet the temperature ranged from mid 50’s to 80 F. We were lucky to have sunny days for most of the time. We did a lot of walking, a bit of horseback riding and took in a Tibetan Culture show.

Here’s parts of an article that was published recently in “The Economic Observer” about corruption in China……amazing! “Last week the Bank of China published a report entitled “How corrupt officials transfer assets overseas, and a study of monitoring.” The report quoted statistics based on research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Since 1990, the number of Communist Party and government officials, public security members, judicial cadres, agents of State institutions, and senior management figures of state-owned enterprises fleeing China has reached nearly 18,000. Also missing is about 800 billion yuan (more than $120 billion). It is equivalent to China’s total financial allocation for education from 1978 to 1998. Each official stole, on average, an estimated 50 million yuan (more than $7 million). Precisely because this is only an estimate, one can imagine the real numbers are actually much bigger. Some media have reported that the wife of the Deputy Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Railways, Zhang Shuguang, recently caught for corruption, owns three luxury mansions in Los Angeles, and has bank savings of as much as $2.8 billion in America and Switzerland.”

Looking forward to my trip to the states next week…………until next time!

It’s now summertime in Nanning and the weather is hot and humid, Florida style. I’m so happy I have good air conditioning in both my office and home. I visited my girlfriend’s dormitory at the school for the first time a few weeks ago. She has 1 large room plus a bathroom with a very small washing machine inside. Otherwise, she has almost no comforts – no air conditioning or heat, no tv, and no refrigerator. She does have a slow internet connection. When she’s not working she normally stays with her mother and her mother’s place also does not have heat or air conditioning. These Chinese are tough! I’m a spoiled American…….I have to have heat and a/c.

Bonnie (my gf) has specialized in what’s called simultaneous interpretation which is doing oral translation as the speaker speaks. This is what you see on tv when at the United Nations someone is speaking in their native language and you hear the translated version of it in your language. Because of her skills in this area she often has part time jobs doing this for international meetings that are held here in Nanning. She can make more in a 2 day meeting doing this than she makes for her normal monthly salary. Normally she would spend 2 or 3 days preparing for a meeting like this, reviewing presentations in advance and learning any specialized vocabulary required. This week she is working as part of a 3 person management team overseeing the grading of the English portion of the gao kao (university entrance exam) for the 285,000 students who took the exam in Guangxi province. There are 200 English teachers grading the exams over a 9 day period and each exam must be graded at least twice. I have written about the gao kao before and its importance to a Chinese student’s future.

Well enough about her work and now for news about my job. I’ve agreed to continue working full time for at least another year at this job. It’s been a challenge and mostly fun so far. It’s gotten easier recently with having a full staff and getting them up to speed. I was in Shanghai with my boss visiting another division of the company 4 weeks ago then after I came back to Nanning, went to Dahua the next day. Of course Shanghai is very developed and has many western things. Dahua is where we have our pig farms so it’s a small town/rural area with no western restaurants. Quite a contrast between those two places! I’m looking forward to another break soon as I’m going to the states in July for my nephew’s wedding in Boston and to visit family/friends. Until next time………

I had a great time showing my parents the highlights of China over a very busy 12 days. We met in Beijing where we saw/did the following in 4 days:
1. Had Beijing roast duck at the most famous roast duck restaurant.
2. Went to the Forbidden City (aka Imperial Palace or Palace Museum)
3. Went to Tiananmen Square.
4. Went to Lama Temple (biggest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing).
5. Climbed the Great Wall, visited Ming Tombs and drove past the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube.
6. Went to the Summer Palace.
7. Went to the zoo and saw the Pandas.

We then had a sleeper cabin on an overnight train to Xi’an where we went to see the Terracotta Warriors and the old city walls. Amazing, be sure to check out the pictures! Then we flew to my home in Nanning to visit Emperor David’s palace for a couple days and took in some of the local sites. Included in our Nanning stay was a Chinese foot massage and a Traditional Chinese banquet in a private room (only thing missing was officials getting drunk…lol). We boarded a train for a 6 hour ride to Guilin where we spent one night before heading on to Yangshuo via a 4 hour river cruise. Yangshuo is famous for its limestone mountains scenery and river show. We spent 2 nights there and enjoyed the famous show using local villager performers that was produced by the same guy that did the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony (Zhang Yi Mo). We also enjoyed a demonstration of using Cormorant birds to fish. The birds go under water and catch the fish with their mouths but can’t fully swallow them because of a string tied around their neck. Then the fisherman lifts the birds back onto the raft and forces the birds to spit out the fish. Mom spent some time shopping and haggled like a pro.

We then took a bus back to Guilin for one last night before Mom and Dad’s early flight the next day. They’re safely back at home now resting from their whirlwind trip of China. My translator Audrey went with us the first week to Beijing and Xi’an (she shared a room with Mom and I bunked with Dad) and my girlfriend went with us to Guilin/Yangshuo.

Yes, I have a girlfriend now. Last October I decided to try having a girlfriend here in China and that relationship lasted until February. Then in March, a lady that I had expressed interest in 1 and ½ years ago finally agreed to start seeing me as perhaps more than a friend and is now my girlfriend. Her English name is Bonnie and she is an Associate Professor of English at the university here where I taught for two years. I met her in the cafeteria there one day and we became good friends taking many evening walks together. For a long time she said she didn’t want a foreigner boyfriend or husband but it seems my charms have convinced her to give me a chance and I’m happy for that. Until next time……..

It’s been a long time again between blog updates because I’ve been working so hard on implementing the new accounting systems. I’m happy to say that we’ve successfully implemented the new systems and have completed all the accounting for the first quarter on schedule. I think that’s quite an accomplishment considering that I had no experience with the software or the industry and I was training people to use it that had no experience in either and had to do so in a language that I can only speak a little! And this was with a team that had only been working together a few months.

It’s now Monday morning (4-18) and I’m at the airport waiting on my flight to Beijing to meet my parents. They will arrive about 90 minutes after we do. Sadly, my friends Doug and Bev were not able to make the trip. My boss approved my translator going with me for the first week of my parents’ trip here to be tour guide. We will spend 4 days in Beijing then take an overnight train to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors. Then we will spend 6 days in my home province seeing some sites there.

I recently went to Hechi (a medium sized city about 4 hours away from Nanning) to get my work visa. Our company is registered in Hechi so that is why I had to go there to get it. I was the first foreigner ever to get a work visa from Hechi as they had just been approved to issue them earlier this year. As part of the process for getting the visa I had to have a medical exam. The medical exam facility is probably the most efficient operation in China. I arrived just before they opened at 8 and then started hitting the exam stations one by one like an assembly line. They included urine analysis, blood analysis, ECG (or EKG?), general exam, liver ultrasound, and chest x-ray. I was finished by about 9, just 1 hour later. I went back a bit before 5 that afternoon to get my report and the total cost was 310 rmb (about $45). Amazing!

Odds and ends – I recently purchased a clothes dryer and it’s the first time in almost 4 years that I’ve had access to one. I think less than 1% of Chinese have a dryer. It sits out on my balcony next to the washing machine. An American friend told me recently that she saw shoe prints on the toilet in the Pizza Hut here recently. Apparently it was from a Chinese not wanting to sit on the toilet western style and instead used it as if it were a Chinese squatter toilet……so funny! Until next time….