7,000 Miles of Discovery

NI Hao everyone!

Wow, who could ever believe that there would be so much of an adventure
just getting to China? I am now finally riding to the hotel in a van
after a 16 hour flight. To make things more interesting, I have been
up for 30 hours so far. Don’t get me wrong the plane ride was not as
horrible as I thought it was going to be. Despite what a 2 million mile
traveler told me Delta actually did a very good job. Flying the new 777
is the only way to travel internationally I think. On the plane I had my
own personal TV with access to 10 movies, numerous shows and a plethora
of music. While the leg room was small, I luckily had a very short person
sitting next to me so I could take up some of her leg room. Now to food….
There were 2 meals and one snack served to us. The first meal was actually
ok. They didn’t have the entrée I wanted but the back-up was acceptable. The
snack consisted of a portable ramen noodle bowl. And it wasn’t even
really given to us! We had to go to the galley and get the cup o noodle
and add the water ourselves. Finally we were served a “light” meal. I
have to honestly say it was the worst thing I have had in a long time.
Orange chicken and rice is not supposed to be kept hot for that many
hours. And you would think that with a plane full of native Chinese
that the meal would be authentic, but no.However I think if that is
the biggest complaint I have about the flight then it went very well.
Shanghai airport is nice I have to say though. And I was truly surprised
at customs. Chinese customs consisted of a huge barricade wall and signs
that look intimidating. Once you pass by the blockade you are in the lobby.
That’s right no inspections, questions, anything. Ha-ha, love it!

I have learned a few things already on this trip. First of all, make sure
you weight your bags before you go so that at the airport you aren’t shifting
stuff from one suitcase to another. For some strange reason people seem to like
to stare awkwardly at you when you have your stuff all over the airport floor.
Second, if you don’t have to be at the airport extremely early, don’t. I spent
4 hours in the terminal trying to fill the time with FB and window shopping in
the stores. Three, bring a big carryon because of having extra stuff but be
prepared to have to store your bag 10 aisles back or try and shove it under
the seat in front of you robbing you of precious legroom. Finally for those
going to China, try and adjust your sleeping cycle before the flight to
sleep during the day. It will help so much with adjusting. And most importantly don’t
forget to bring your earplugs and eye patch like I did!

From a highway in China,
Kyle

Greetings,

Sorry that this and the previous posts are going out at the same time. There has been so much going on lately and it is just been hard to keep up with! To start off the reason that I haven’t posted or used FB is because I just got internet access. The hotels wireless router system hated our computers. We actually had to have the engineering department come and program our computers to work with their wifi. It was a mess to say the least. But enough about that what else has happened:
Nanjing is a huge city. It has 6.5 million residents in the metro area, and a couple more in their version of the “suburbs”. However their suburbs are completely different than ours. Almost everyone here lives in high rise apartments. And I mean high, usually10-20 stories! The look is so much like New York. The only difference is the signs in Chinese and a total of 50 Caucasians. There are extremely few races here other than Chinese. This can be kind of unfamiliar sometimes. The city itself is dirtier than new work but not as much as I expected. We have been taking small walking trips to the local area. We have already visited a bargaining shopping center. We bought supplies at the Wal-Mart here. And we have been to 4 different malls. Our last adventure was to a massage parlor for an hour long full body massage for 70 RMB (10 dollars).

Now to what the people are like. The Chinese people are very friendly and inquisitive. I do feel that there is still the race misconception when it comes to blacks here. They either still have the old mentality that dark skin means you are not smart or of a good class. Or the new generation is only familiar with us thru rap videos and stereotypical TV and movie roles. But they don’t overtly say things to us it is just kind of an uneasy feelings, awkwardness. The hotel staff on the other hand is so nice to us. They just want to be friends it seems. However the department I will be working in the food and beverage department seems to be more business minded. But I think when I rotate thru the other departments it will be fine.

Our hotel room is nice. Somewhat small but has everything that we could want. Jinling is definitely a 5 star hotel. Very comfortable beds, cotton embossed towels, high quality toiletries, and a 40 inch LCD TV. The hotel common areas and restaurants are extremely nice! I will post pictures as soon as I can. The only complaint I have about the hotel is the staff eating area. We affectionately refer to it as the dungeon. It is on the first floor of the hotel behind several doors and a long hallway. When you go in it is dark. They don’t have lights in there; the only light comes from a few windows on the outside walls. The tables are basically park benches, the ones have the seat and table connected. The food is traditional Chinese, village style. It is going to take a while to get use to it. Most of the other interns are going to probably going to skip lunch and just eat breakfast and dinner in Jin’s café. Ohhhh, Jin’s café is excellent! The food is great and the atmosphere is perfect.

Ok well that is all I have time for now. But I will give you some more advice for your trip to China.

1. If you are male and have a shoe size bigger than 44 (8 in American) you will not find socks or shoes. Females 40( size 7 I think?)

2. You cant always tell what kind of meat is in your meal so be prepared to eat almost anything. IE bullfrog, snake, chicken and beef that does not taste like it.

3. If your bigger than the large size in America in you may not have an easy time finding close. I am medium in America. In China I am XL .

4. Nobody in the stores speaks English but they are the best I have ever seen at playing charades. You can get everything you want without saying a word.

Hope you are all well and I will post to you later.
Kyle

Hello my fans! HAHAHA

I finally got a chance to sit down and type this out. It has been so crazy lately; I haven’t had much time for anything.
I started my first rotation in the hotel. It is in the GRO (guest relations office). I have only worked 3 times but I think I am getting the hang of it. The major portion of the job is just to interact with the VIP’s. Greeting them when they arrive and saying goodbye and thanks when they leave. I also get to give the birthday cake to the guests who are staying in the hotel on their birthday. Personally it think it is sad to be alone on your birthday. Even if it is business. So it is nice to be able to show them someone cares. Another part of the job is to act on behalf of the guests who have problems inside or outside the hotel. We book train, plane tickets, request special arrangements, and basically do anything they want us to. Finally one of the biggest time consuming and least fun parts of my job is to solicit suggestions from the guest and try and get them to join the elite club. It is hard enough to find foreign guests in this hotel, but to then have to try and get them to stop and talk to you is nearly impossible. Also a lot of them are “foreign” guests to me. Quite a few don’t speak English or Chinese so what am I supposed to do? So frustrating sometimes. And sometimes I feel like I am stalking and badgering the guest as part of my job; however I am told I do a good job at it.

My trainer is very nice her name is Michelle. She is patient with me but also very tough. She quizzes me every day on what I learned and forcefully challenges me to get more suggestions and sign more people up fir the elite club. I also work with the Assistant Manager on duty. Most of the time it is Mala; he is so nice and fun. He likes to help me with my Chinese and I help him with English. He is only 25 but seems very wise. Also the amount of people I am meeting daily is rapidly expanding. I think I am up to ten people that I can name on site, and another 5 that I should start to try and learn. Overall I am glad I Started in GRO.

Now to Chinese classes. We are going to meet every Saturday for 3 hours in the hotel basement. We use the New Practical Chinese reader for our lessons and the teacher makes up the homework for us. I think the class will be ok. It has started off on a nice pase, easy for most of us to keep up with. We went it the school that sponsors our classes last week. It is just on the edge of Nanjing. They just built this brand new campus and it shows. The buildings are nice and clean, the teachers and students seem happy, and the atmosphere is great. The only thing that I had a problem with is they don’t have air conditioning, and you know we had to do this school tour on a day when it was 95 and 80 percent humidity.

Finally about me; I am actually doing great here. So far I am the only one who has not had a breakdown. Maybe it is because I am older and have already left home, but I seem to have been able to adapt to life her much better. I do miss my friends a little but then I Skype them and it is fine. I have made it my goal to get to know Nanjing very well. I have taken walking trips around the city. Sometimes other people come with me but not always. Truthfully I feel like Nanjing is a Chinese New York. A city is a city. Once you go out and look you notice things are not as different as you thought. So far I have made it to 10 malls, 1912 district, 2 stops on the metro and 20 city blocks in every direction. I really am looking forward to seeing the rest of the city and much more of China.

I will speak to one thing that I had asked people about before I left but nobody would tell me. The Chinese people for the most part still seem to have an aversion to African Americans. The three of us on this trip definitely get awkward stares and whispers that the others don’t get. In fact one of the girls who is not a minority has told me she feel s more uncomfortable when she walks with me because of the looks. Mainly it seems to be the older generation but it still is a culture shock. Now don’t get me wrong I have had several people tell me they loved my skin color and have wanted to play with my hair. But I still feel somewhat of an outcaste. Que Sera Sera.

Well for right now that is all I have. Thank you for reading my post, Zaijian!

Kyle

Whew, what a day! Today I was my first trip outside Nanjing. I had to go to the consulates office in Shanghai for some urgent business. So I decided I might as well make a day out of it. And that I did.
My day started off with a 6 am alarm set on both my phones and my alarm clock (can’t ever be too careful). I went to the concierge to exchange some money and left the hotel. Now I decided I dint want to lug a lot of stuff with me so I took a backpack with 5 things in it; My Chinese textbook, my MP3 player, Cell phone, passport and a piece of paper that had directions written in Chinese. To be more specific the paper said: please take me to the American Consulates office, and please take me to the Train station.

I hate long detail stories so this next part is condensed. Backpack and I went to the metro, metro to the train station, and train to Shanghai. Once in shanghai I get a taxi. I will make one caveat. It was so cool to be on my first bullet train that went 344Km/H (211MPH).

After handing the driver my small piece of paper with take me to the consulate we are off. Now I have to tell you that while I might not have traveled the globe I have been to a fair amount of places. And I have been in cities were traffic is so bad it is world renowned. None of them compare to Shanghai, even when I was in Mexico dodging cars that are flying down main roads at 60 when the speed is 20. The taxi cab drivers are both horrible and great at the same time. The roads 5 lane roads, but no, not in Shanghai They can squeeze 6 cars side by side. And traffic signals are optional; in the first 5 minutes of taxi ride my driver ran 4 red lights, almost hit 4 pedestrians, drove down a wrong way for a short distance and almost hit every car in sight. But if you think about it all the other drivers were doing the same thing and there were no wrecks. Makes you go hummm? Regardless he drops me off at the consulate after 20 minutes with a fare of 30 RMB. That’s a little under 4 dollars, got to love it. I get out get my passport out and start to walk in the gate when a Chinese guard stops me. He starts talking to me in mandarin. I am thinking it’s odd to have a Chinese guard for an American installation. Come to find out that consulates are not for Americans they are for the foreigners. The building I want is another 20 minute drive. So armed with a business card with the address I am off.

The American services office of the US consulate is on the 8th floor of the Westgate mall. And for those of you who didn’t know like me, Westgate mall is the center of the Shanghai business shopping district. And the Mall itself houses some of the most expensive stores in the world. The whole area for 4 blocks in 3 directions is like a gigantic Rodeo drive, 5th avenue and Milan packaged in Chinese. It was awesome to look around in the stores and see the security guards stalking the African American male with a backpack looking at the 600,000RMB ($85714.30), Audemars Piguet watch. They also didn’t like me staring in the window of the 1,000,000RMB Bentley Sedan that they had in the atrium of the mall on display. But I had a blast.

After handling my business and walking around for several hours I decided I had time and wanted to go to the World Expo. I won’t talk about my experience now because I will be going back with my group and spending more time. But I will say that I felt slightly disappointed with what I saw.

The rest of the story you can already guess. I just did the first paragraph in reverse. Although this time instead of a 1.25 hour train ride, I got the broken/busted train and enjoyed a nice leisurely 3 hour ride home.

Well that’s all for now. I am really tired and it is midnight. So the things I learned and suggestions to you section will have to wait for another post. Sorry.

Zaijian

Kyle

The Good:

This week has benn a very interesting week for me. Work has gotten into a routine and i am starting to make friends with some of the staff i am working with. Last saturday I was supposed to go to this big shopping area with my Trainer, Michelle, the assistant manager, Mali, and the concierge, Robin. whoever due to the heavy rainstroms we have benn getting that trip was canceled. But, nevertheless it has been rescheduled for a later date. On Sunday though, one of the other interns invited us out to a family friends house here in Nanjing. The Von Meisters are a Couple that the other interns father used to work with. Mr Rudy Von Meister is Austrian born, but raised in the USA. He is the local Director of Fiat. His wife is Taiwanese born but gained American Citizenship about 10 years ago. They live in this nice area of the city in a highrise Condo on the 24th floor.

It was so nice to get to talk to some Americans after not having any contact for so long. Because they knew we had missed the 4th of July, Mr. Meister Grilled Steaks and BBQ ribs. We also had potato salad and homeade pickles. Followed By 3 whole Watermelons for dessert. It definately felt like we were back at home. We spent nearly 6 hours talking at there house before we thought it was a good ideal to leave. They invited all of us back again sometime and I think we will all take them up on that offer.

Lastly this sunday I will be going to Wuxi, with some of the other interns to see some Chinese parks and tourist sites. The area is supposed to be beautiful so I am looking forward to it.

The Bad:

Well for the last 2 days I have been sick with a cold. I have tried to get them to let me work but they said it would be best for me to stay in my room. So for 2 days I have been sleeping roughly 14 hours a day. The only time I leave my room is when I go to eat. Also to make it worse this is my last week in the GRO. I am sad that I have missed 2 days to be Michelle and Mali, but maybe it was the bes thing for me. I am hopeful that my next trainers will be as nice as the two of them have been and I hope that the three of us can remain friends.

The Ugly:

Well thank you for letting me vent and inform you on what is going on here. I just want to give the future interns a word of advice: Make sure you find out who you will be going with beforehand and find one of them to cultivte a friendship with so that while here, you have at least one person that you can escape with.

-Kyle