Natalie with Gammaw, Pappaw, Uncle Angel, and Aunt Eyeball

Well, Natalie spent some time with her other grandparents, my parents, and my sister and brother law, Angel (aka Uncle Angel) and Tony (aka Aunt Eyeball) Smith, after we left. She got a chance to play in her little house, which was a birthday gift from Gammaw & Pappaw when she was only 3. Pappaw built it and Gammaw painted it! It was at our house in Ohio, so we moved it back to Indiana before we moved. It is such a cute little thing.

But the big thing for her this year is that Gammaw put in a small, above ground pool. I think that Natalie has spent more time in the pool than out of it! Besides these pictures, I put some videos out on You Tube. Check them out!

My sister Angel was also in Fowler for part of the time. Angel borrowed a tent from my cousins and Natalie and Angel stayed out all night in the tent. Oh, and Nikki was with them! I think they had lots of snacks and luckily it wasn't too cold.

For the 4th of July, they went to the parade in Fowler and then went to the park to watch the fireworks. On a side note, I thought I should share that I never missed a 4th of July in Fowler Fireworks show until I was out of college! Here in the picture she is sharing some ice cream with Pappaw!

Finally, she got a chance to the Children's museum in Indianapolis. They met all of her Uncle Tony's family there. she had a great time. In this picture, she is digging for dinosaur bones!

And don't forget that she has been watching Fox news with Pappaw. It helped to determine her preferred presidential candidate.

Working in China

Last week, I had a chance to go to travel for work. We had a 3-day management meeting in Hangzhou, which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Shanghai. Let us just say that it was a total immersion into Chinese culture! In the group, I was the ONLY western face! There were a few American Born Chinese (ABC), but you can't tell they have more of a western background. Also, 95% of the meeting content was in Mandarin. I exhausted quickly trying to comprehend the conversation. I quickly learned that comprehending casual conversation, which I typically can at about 50%, is much harder when listening to business presentations. The words they use are definitely NOT in the small vocabulary list I have in my head!

• I thought it would be interesting to highlight some of the main business differences between China and the US.
  When travelling for business events like this type of meeting, it is very common for businesses to book two travellers into a single room. This is the second time I have had to stay in a room with another co-worker. I NEVER in the U.S. did the same thing. Americans are such private people, I don't think the whole room-share thing would go over well. My roommate, who thankfully I actually knew, ended up leaving a day early, so I had the room back to myself for one night. Whew...


• There were no name tags and no effort into introducing the employees. Keep in mind that this event was for Roche more senior employees (150 or so) from all over China, so many employees did not know each other. Nor did it seem there was effort to get to know them. Not one person asked me who I was or where I worked! I think in the U.S. it is much more common to use meetings like this to get to know each other and that starts with names and organizations.
• The Senior Management team for China presented overviews of the results and upcoming activities, but there was NOT 1 ORGANIZATION CHART in any presentation! I find that really weird. There is not a real sense of organizational awareness here.
• The Chinese workers tend to have interactions ONLY with their own small departments. During the three days, I observed very little interactions between the various business areas. Contrast this to the US where may individuals embrace the networking opportunities associated with a get-together like this.
• There were many secretaries who appeared in the hotel. Hmmm... In the U.S. most managers do not even have secretaries supporting them, let alone the flexibility to have them travel with them! And the implication of observing a manager who had to have his secretary come with him was that she was travelling with him for more "aesthetic" reasons!
• The idea of team building is a bit reversed here. The smaller break out groups I participated in had more trouble expressing individual ideas then they did expressing a group opinion. Asking a person for the thought on something almost always resulted in them looking around the table for an ally, who was usually sitting next to them, and then they collaborated on the answer. Weird. In talking to some Hong Kong-born Chinese, they shared that this is normal.
• I don't feel that the younger employees have a real sense of what it would take to be deemed successful in the long-term. Right now, it is all about the money. they define success in terms of how much they make or can make. Contrast that with the U.S. where we really are made to understand that our career decisions have to about the end-game. I would guess that if you asked many Chinese employees where they want to be in 5 or 10 years, it would have nothing to do with the company they are working for! It would be about money and status. When I was younger, I felt that that I needed to find ways to move up the ladder and worked to get that next big opportunity, but usually it was inside the same company. Maybe the younger American generation has the same view as their Chinese counterparts!
• Professionalism is totally different here. From the clothes to the behaviour in meetings. Women in particular do not seem to be particular interested in dressing in a Western-style professional way. Now, the standard dress for the event had been determined to be "Smart casual". Their 4 inch stilettos and short skirts did not exactly call out "future executive" to me! However, there were a handful of women in very smart suits and conservative shoes! And many employees chatted away during most of the meetings. That drove me crazy! several got up and actually just started having a normal volume level conversation right in the meeting rooms! In the U.S., many speakers or presenters would have asked for some respect. But the speakers at the event just tolerated it.
• Our dinner events involved going to a restaurant and eating a Chinese meal. That meant groups of 8-10 sitting around big tables. And of course, the same people sat together for both meals! There was no Happy Hour, which is more conducive to mixing and getting to know everyone.

I think that some of this differences probably sound negative, but really, it is just in contrast to the U.S. I am betting that if I had worked in the U.S. in the 60's and 70's, the contrast would not be so great. China business will mature rapidly, they know they have to to survive. But I hope I don't get another immersion for a few months...

2008 Presidential Elections - Who is Natalie voting for?

Funny story regarding the "influences" that Natalie is under while in the states...

A couple nights ago when George (Tom's Dad), Sara (Tom's Mom), and Natalie were returning from Church, Natalie was in the backseat and she asked George who he was going to vote for in the presidential elections. George replied that he didn’t know and jokingly asked Natalie who she was voting for. Much to George’s surprise, Natalie said that she was voting for McCain because Obama was on TV too much.

After George and Sara quit laughing they assumed that Natalie picked up her political position from influences in Fowler, where Shelly's parents live.

Know any other 5-year olds who are involved in politics as much as Natalie?????????

It was requested that for the best interest of everyone – the Johnson's (Shelly's parents) should NOT let Natalie talk to her radical aunts about politics!!!!!!

The Oympic Mascots - Who Knew???

OK, I admit that while I am living in a country that will soon be hosting the 2008 Olympics, I haven't really absorbed a lot of the details associated with it. Pretty much like it was when Atlanta hosted! However, I was talking to someone the other night about the mascots and the fact that there was a lot of symbolism involved with the Fuwa, very typical of many activities here in China. I felt pretty silly not being able to actually summarize the symbolism, especially after living here for a year and a half. So I jumped online and learned a bit. I have only in the past 4 months started learning Chinese characters and I find them totally interesting, so I was very surprised at the symbolism just in the characters. Thought I would share my learning's for any interested!

First of all, I am sure you have all seen the mascots, right? Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name. Using two words for proper names like this is very typical with children is a common way of expressing children. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When you put their names together, Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni, it translates to "Welcome to Beijing". Chinese: "北京欢迎你", I'll not argue with that, though the literal translation (with my simple 14 months of mandarin lessons) would actually be Beijing Welcomes You. Weird, huh? And the position in which the Character are standing are somewhat in the same design as the characters of their names. The characters each loosely translate to prosperity, happiness, passion, health, good fortune.

Some other interesting notes about the characters. In traditional Chinese culture, the fish represents prosperity, as the character for fish (魚) sounds the same as that for surplus (餘 / 余). The Chinese character for swallow (燕) is also used in Yanjing (燕京), an old name for Beijing; thus the swallow alludes to Beijing.

Anyway, I better get back to surviving without my little girl!!

Summer is Here! Week 1 at Bramer's

Tom and I are here in Shanghai now, but we did make it home for a some R&R. I thought I'd post some pics from our first week. Natalie will be in the U.S. all summer! I think, based on all the stuff she did in just the first week, she is going to have a good time this summer.

Natalie started the summer by learning how to drive the tractor. I am not kidding!

She talked her Grandpa George and Uncle Ted into letting her drive the new tractor around the barn lot. She actually got pretty good. One of the pictures shows her dumping a load of rocks.

One morning I went out to see what Tom and Natalie were up to and was a bit surprised to find them on TOP OF THE GRAIN BIN!

What were they thinking???

Natalie helped her Grandpa Bramer and Uncle Ted paint the barn. I think she was actually a pretty good helper.





So all this in the first few days. I didn't even put pictures of her palying in the sprinkler and driving the boat (well, the tractor was pulling the boat). More later on her next week with Gammaw and Papaw!

OK, So I am a little behind!

Just returned from Summer trip home and realize how many people keep in touch with us here by reading the blog. So, I will have to do MUCH better at putting updates out here! Sorry to all of you who are feeling out out of touch. Here is a quick update of what has happened in the last few months:

• I participated in the 2008 Great Wall Marathon. Well, it wasn't pretty, but I did it! I did the half marathon and did it with a combo of run/walk. My goal was to finish in under four hours, which I did. Check out the final results here. I think there is a video somewhere, if I find it, I will put it on YouTube.
• Work for both Tom and I is going well. Tom has a decision to make regarding staying with Delphi or going with the new company that will be buying the brake business from Delphi. Both appear to be good opportunities, we will just have to wait to see what the final decision is...
• Natalie finished Kindergarten. All good stuff! In fact, they would like to have her move up to 2nd grade math (only math, the 1st and 2nd grades at Concordia are already combined for some classes). So, now she has to do math worksheets this summer!
• We all traveled home to see family in the States in June. Very short visit as I am working now and don't have as much time as I used to. Sorry to all I didn't get a chance to see!
• Tom and I went to St. Martin in July to celebrate our 20th anniversary this year (it is in August). Stayed at the Alamanda resort which is right on Orient Beach. Took another Random Wind tour (highly recommend) and basically just laidon the beach! This was our first vacation of more than 7 days. Very nice!
• Spent the last few days in the States with my family.
• Said goodbye to Natalie for 6-weeks! We felt it best to let her stay in the states rather than come back here with us working every day. Plus, Vizcaya is a ghost town right now! Nothing for her to do without me home all day. I am sure there will be more to come in the future blogs regarding my loneliness for my little girl!
• Went to Indy to catch my flight back, then had to reschedule for following day due to flight delays. rented a car, drove back to Fowler, then turned around and drove back in 15 hours. I HATE TRAVELLING!

Which brings me to my only rant for the day... Travelling. When did travel become such an awful activity? If you have travelled by air lately, then you know what I am talking about. The whole activity stream, from booking travel all the way to actually executing the travel plans is just not a pleasing experience anymore. I know it is an industry wide problem, but come on, surely there is some what for someone to figure out how to get people from A to B without all of the hassles. Anyone have any ideas???