Tom's 2004 Journal - Part 1

In 2004, Tom was travelling a lot to China. During the fall, he was here for 3 months, with only one trip home. It was hard, as Natalie was only 2 at the time. Now that we have lived over here, it is amazing to read what it was like even just those few short years ago! Of course, some things have not changed! Generally, things are better. The most surprising thing though was that Tom actually wrote this. Very eloquent for a Benton Central boy. It is rather long, but I recommend taking a few minutes and reading through. We thought it would be fun to publish this old journal for our friends to read through. This is Part 1 of 3. Enjoy!

Wednesday – August 25, 2004

Just thought I would send a few people an update of my new life.

I live in an apartment/hotel room in Pudong (a suburb of Shanghai).  It has a living room, bathroom, bedroom, and a kitchen.  Pretty nice but very bare in terms of amenities - not as nice as the hotels where we usually stay in Shanghai but the kitchenette does provide a great benefit.  There is a gym and a swimming pool.  I doubt I will see the gym for a reason I will explain later.  The air conditioning is poor but it is comfortable when I crank the “cool” as high as it goes.  It is very hot and humid here at this time.  I believe the temperament zone is very similar to Atlanta or upper Florida.  It will be nice this fall/winter.  I stay on the 16^th floor so I get a good view of the city.  New apartments are being built everywhere.  I had lunch today with Gene Slusiewicz.  He has lived in Asia for 10 years now.  He bought an apartment 3 years ago right across the road from where I am staying.  A year before he bought the apartments were priced a $4,000 per square meter.  He bought at $5,000 per square meter.  Apartments now sell for $12,000 per square meter.  Currently, the demands for apartments are high.

Every morning I wake up, shower and go to breakfast.  It is a very traditional Chinese breakfast but I do recognize the on-demand omelets and some form of bacon.  There are other Chinese food items but I cannot even guess what it is.  By the way, they serve porridge.  I never knew that even existed.  I thought it was just a made up food item to help tell the story of the Goldilocks and the three bears.

After breakfast it is time to go to work.  I take the bus to work.  I have to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop to catch a Delphi Plant bus.  It picks up at 7:55 and is used by the Delphi managers (or known in the states as salary).  There are 9 buses that go to different parts of the city.  I take bus #8.  I use the same bus to go home.  The bus leaves work at 5:15 (prompt).  It drops me off at a different location that adds about 5 minutes to my walk, thus the reason I will not be using the gym.  Forty-five minutes of walking is more than I get in a month at home.  Nothing like working up a good sweat (due to the humidity) before I even get to the office.  At least the buses are air-conditioned - actually there are very nice!  The bus ride is 20 minutes each way.

On days that I want to go to the office earlier or stay later I will use the taxi.  Taxis are very cheap.  I actually could use a taxi from the apartment to the bus stop and avoid the walking.  Any taxi ride, less than 2 kilometers, is 10 RMB, which is just over $1.  But for now I will walk because I could use the exercise and I have discovered shops, bars, and restaurants I would have probably never have seen otherwise.  I need to use the walk to discover other parts of the nearby community.  There is a new Starbucks being built nearby but I do not drink coffee - yet.

Attached to the hotel are a couple of shops.  The one that caught my eye was Pappa John’s pizza.  Monday night I bought a large pizza and that has been my evening meal ever since.  After tonight’s last two slices I will have to either buy another pizza or find another restaurant.  There is a small mart attached to the hotel also.  I go there and buy my Pepsi and bottled water.  I freeze the Pepsi and the water and take them to work.  Cold is a term that is not often used in Shanghai.  They have a water cooler but that doesn’t mean cool.  They like warm water and hot tea.  That, I dare say, is not my cup of tea.

In the evenings I do some work and watch TV.  About 20 channels but only two are in English.  HBO and a channel that shows prime time TV shows from all three major networks.  HBO has yet to show a movie from within the last 10 years.  The other station is advertising the premier of “The Bachelor”.  Wasn’t that shown about 4 years ago in the states?  I didn’t watch it then but maybe I will watch it this time.  It is hard to root for the bachelor to choose Trista when you know she was dumped and starred in “The Bachelor-ette” the following year.  I am still tired from the time zone change - 12 hours.  Currently my evenings are pretty short.  I do feel like Bill Murray in the movie "Lost in Translation".  I wake up every morning about 2:00 a.m. and stare at the ceiling for a couple of hours.

Work is good.  Work conditions are so different here.  Number 1, the people are great and are very hard workers.  Honestly, they work at about twice the pace that we work in the states.  All offices are cubicles.  They have bays of cubes that have 4 desks in each bay.  They actually have two people per desk.  As a manager I get my own desk but I sit in a bay with 3 other desks or 6 other people.  My administrative assistant sits next to me.  She is a young girl who loves to laugh at my American ways and my “stupid” questions.  She is great.  I am probably one of maybe 5 Americans at the Plant.  Most employees speak English - some better than I.  It is very common to have lunch with a group and listen to them speak in their native language.  I think they talk about me trying to eat my lunch with chopsticks.  I learned after day #1 to buy a plastic fork from the mart and hold on to it for all its worth.  That one plastic fork is very valuable to me.  I actually use chopsticks on some food items.  But I have not mastered the chopsticks on noodles.

Lunch is provided to all employees everyday at the plant.  There are two lines:  a rice line and a noodle line.  So far I have only had the noodles.  Both the rice and the noodles are made fresh.  You order the noodles and the chef hand-makes the noodles in front of you and they are cooked in front of you.  You add sauces and meats to them and off you go to the tables.  You also get a banana and a soda for a snack.  You have to have a ticket to get your food. 

Shanghai is a very modern city but one can see the Communist influence on the lives.

OK - this is more writing than I have ever done before.  It's time to go to bed but I will mail from work on Wednesday.

Whoops - I better state that I miss my family - especially Natalie

 

Sunday – August 29, 2004

It is Sunday evening as I write this entry into my journal.  To those keeping score at home – it is Sunday morning your time.  First, I must make a disclaimer.  My grammar, spelling, or writing skills are no reflection upon my parents or Purdue University.  It can be entirely blamed on my High School.  Remember, I went to school where we were the “Home of the Bisons”.  (There’s humor there, you just have to be smart enough to catch it – if not, then Gerry can explain it to you).

Hopefully I can continue to write these letters.  I had several questions from the last letter I wrote.  I will answer most of them in this letter.  I will also discuss a big event that occurred in my Shanghai life.

The reason I am in Shanghai is that I was given an assignment to assist with the Purchasing activities within our Shanghai manufacturing plant.  If you read the paper, you have probably noticed that China is the “gold rush” economy of the world.  Delphi is experiencing tremendous growth in the region.  The Shanghai Plant is a recipient of the growing automotive industry in China.  Our plant has been awarded several programs that start in the 2005 calendar year.  Three factors contributed to sending me over here:  The tremendous workload, the youthful purchasing department, and the resignation of the previous Purchasing Manager.  The plan is for me to stay here until Thanksgiving.  This will be one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I have had and I looking forward to spending it with my family.  But that is 3 months away and I have a lot to do between now and then.

The week at work went well.  I fully recovered from jet lag by Tuesday.  The week went by quickly but my initiation is over.  The long hours will begin this week.  I think I mentioned this last week but the work hours over here are long.  If you take the bus, the hours are pretty much 8-5.  If you take a taxi to work then the hours are pretty much as you schedule them.  The majority of the people take a taxi home since their work takes them past the 5:15 bus departure time.  The long hours come in after the normal work hours.  Basically, conference calls with North America start around 7:30 every evening and can continue until midnight. 

Enough talk about work.  Let’s talk about the culture and my experiences.

First for my mother’s sake, it is very safe here in Shanghai.  The people are nice and friendly and being an American is not that unusual.  Although I do get a lot of people staring at me now.  Earlier I mentioned my big event and here it is – I bought a bike.  I went the Wal-Mart of Shanghai – Carrefour.  They had a huge bike sale and the place was packed.  I bought a good mountain bike.  It came with a bookrack on the back.  I added a wheel lock and a bell.  Bells and horns are used very frequently here.  Anytime you approach the rear of a person you politely ring your bell to warn them of the pass.  My hotel has a large bike garage so I knew I had a place to store it.  I spent an hour or so today riding around the neighborhood - not too much as I have not been on a bike for about 5 years.  My butt is a little sore from the seat.  A couple of weeks and I will have that issue resolved.  The bike is a good idea.  I am seeing parts of the neighborhood that one would not see riding in a taxi.  It is common just to pull up in front of a restaurant and park your bike upfront and go in. Oh, by the way, the bike cost me 302.40 RMB, which is equal to $36.83 – what a deal.  When I am done, I may give it away or keep it the garage until I return…I have a feeling we all will be working here in the future if we want to retire from Delphi.

Saturday, along with the bike, I also went shopping for the essentials.  I have a washer and dryer in my apartment.  It is a Bosch machine that does the washing and the drying in one unit.  I have never operated one and all instructions are in Chinese.  I didn’t know how to start the wash, where to add soap, or even how to operate the dryer function.  At the store I had purchased laundry soap, fabric softener, and bleach.  While in the store, I went to the appliance section and found the exact machine that I have in the apartment.  I found a salesman, who didn’t speak English.  I picked up the laundry soap and pointed to the machine.  He smiled and showed me where it went.  I picked up the fabric softener and he pointed to me where it went.  Finally I picked up the bleach.  He looked at it kind of funny.  He went and got another salesperson.  She looked at it and read the label.  They looked at the machine and finally just shrugged their shoulders.  Either bleach is not commonly used or maybe what I thought was bleach actually wasn’t.  Oh well, my t-shirts won’t be the whitest.  I did manage two successful loads of laundry on Saturday.  The other thing that I did was getting my apartment set-up with DSL.  This was a necessity in order for me to “watch” my Purdue football games on the Internet.  If only my boss went to a football school, he would be aware the pain that I will experience missing this year’s football schedule.  Maybe he should have chosen another West Point Grad or even someone else that rooted for the Browns.  Nobody would ever miss going to a West Point (Army) game or a Brown’s game.  Army hasn’t had a decent season since Jim Young left as the coach.  Did you know that Jim Young was also Purdue’s coach in the 70’s?  Next weekend is the first Purdue football game so I will tailgate on my balcony overlooking the city.  I will look to the West and maybe catch a glimpse of the action.  (If I look to the East, the press box will block my view of the playing field).

Not much has changed regarding meals.  Still am consuming the omelet and orange juice in the morning.  I used to never drink orange juice at home.  I am still eating the noodles at lunch but I had my first bowl on Friday consumed entirely with chopsticks.  Chopsticks are kind of easy once you understand the mechanics.  Eating and manners are quite different here and I kind of like it.  First, it is common to eat fish and meat with bones.  You stick the whole thing in your mouth and spit out the bones on your plate.  Everyone, men and women, do it.  Another thing I have noticed is that you eat your food about two inches above the plates.  That is helpful when you eat rice with chopsticks; one just shovels it in one’s mouth.  When one eats noodles you start with a small amount and suck the noodles in – sort of like a 5 year old would do with spaghetti.  If you get a mouthful before you reach the end you just bite off and let the noodles drop onto the plate – remember it is only a two-inch drop.

So far it is still pizza in the evening.  I did switch things up and order a different type of pizza over the weekend.  Saturday I ordered a salad.  They offered me a choice of dressing.  I chose Ranch.  When I got to the apartment, I noticed the Ranch was actually mayonnaise.  Oh well, have to try everything once.  Now that I have my bike I will probably start eating elsewhere.  But pizza is so convenient to eat when participating in conference calls in the evening.  By the way, since someone asked last week, the pizzas are delivered and it is done on bicycles.  The bikes have containers on the back where the pizzas are put to stay warm.  On the front fenders are “Pappa Johns” signs – do not know if they are lighted or not.

Television is terrible, although I really didn’t give “Knightrider” the credit it deserved in the 80’s.  So far, it is about the best TV I have watched.  HBO is strange.  Last night I couldn’t figure out why “Sex and the City” was only 40 minutes long.  After watching it became obvious that 40 minutes was the length of the show once you take out the nude scenes and vulgar language.  Speaking of clean entertainment, there is a Catholic Church right across the street.  I think next Sunday I will attend the services.  They always told me that’s the place to find a date as opposed to a bar.  Oops, one week and I already forgot I was married.

There is a music video channel but it is mainly Chinese stars singing in Chinese.  In terms of American Stars, I have seen one Jessica Simpson video, one Eminem video, and several Hansen videos.  Believe it or not, Hansen is huge here in China.  Hansen, Jessica, and Eminem – what a strange view they must have on Americans.

I got a map from the front desk today and discovered that I am a long way from anywhere.  I see the hotel offers a shuttle service to the tourist section of the city.  I will go there next Saturday.  I need to buy a camera so I can take pictures of my experience.  Plus I am sure you all want to see my bike.

A couple of final notes on the life in Shanghai.  The traffic lights are slightly different here.  Here they have the US traditional Red-Yellow-Green lights.  As in the States, the light is green (go) then yellow (caution – slow down) and finally Red (stop).  The odd thing is that here when the light is Red, you get a yellow light before it turns green.  When the light turns yellow following a red, the traffics gets a jump on the upcoming green light.  I don’t know what would happen if two aggressive people would meet at the same intersection going in different directions. 

Finally, the traffic pattern on the road is that cars drive on the right side of the road as we do in the US.  But it has taken me a week to discover that pedestrian patterns are the opposite.  When walking down a sidewalk you pass oncoming people on the left.  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer and it took me about a week to understand why I would constantly have head-on collisions with people on the sidewalk.

 

Sunday – September 5, 2004

Once again it is Sunday.  It is time for my third installment of my journal capturing the experiences of my assignment in Shanghai.

Eating habits are remaining the same.  Omelets and orange juice in the morning.  Rice or noodles for lunch.  Mainly pizza in the evenings.  On Tuesday I did stop at Subway’s and picked up a 12” cold cut trio.  That managed to last for 2 evenings.  I definitely will continue the Subway meal although I am suspicious about the three cold cuts.  They aren’t the same cold cuts as they put on in North America, but, nonetheless, they were good.  One thing about lunch at the plant is that there is live entertainment provided.  During lunch one can watch some very intense ping-pong games.  There is ping-pong played that would rival the Chinese Olympic ping-pong team – very entertaining. 

On Saturday evening I went to a new bar/restaurant close to the hotel.  It is called the Blue Frog.  Although I am not much of a drinker, I plan many return trips during the weekends due to their menu selection.  They offer a very American menu and I selected the BBQ ribs.  I chose the BBQ ribs since that the entrée that my wife has chosen for Purdue’s first tailgate party (I am not going to harp this week about the football issue).  The manager of the establishment, Jerry, is very friendly and she speaks very good English.  She told me that she chose the name Jerry not realizing it was a traditional male name in North America.  I told her to change the “y” to an “i” and she would be fine.  There were many Americans in the restaurant in the bar and should be able to strike up conversations in the future.

Speaking of Americans in Shanghai.  On weekends you see many American families walking thru the neighborhoods.  I think that many of the men work tremendously long hours during the week and they devote Sundays to their families.  During the week I never see American families but I do see many American men with Chinese women.  I think there are three types of men who work in Shanghai.  1.  Married men who bring their families.  2.  Single men who eventually marry Chinese women  3.  Married men who come here without their families and are too pathetic do to anything but “hole-up” in their rooms and eat carryout pizza.

My hotel is next to the Private International School.  On the mornings that I walk to the bus depot I see the American children heading to school in their uniforms – very cute.  It rained quite a bit this week so I ended up taking the taxi to avoid walking in the rain.  Taxi trips to work are quicker and they get me to work earlier but I am getting tired of telling the driver, by using my finger, on how to get to the plant.  Most drivers know how to get to the Industrial park but none of them know how to get to the plant.  If you know me very well, you know that I am terrible with driving directions so the fact that I can tell a driver of another language on how to get somewhere is amazing.

A couple of work related items this week.  First, I have to give a speech to a group of 30 Chinese suppliers who will be at our plant this week for training.  They informed me that the majority of the suppliers do not speak or understand English.  Knowing that I was going to recite my High School Class of 1984 Graduation Speech that I gave during commencement.  Now they told me that they are providing a translator.  I guess I will need to write a speech related to quality and the importance of it.  Oh well!

I learned something interesting this week.  Chinese workers receive 10 holidays throughout the year.  There is National Holiday coming up soon.  October 1, 2, and 3^rd are Holidays.  This year the 2^nd and 3^rd are on a Saturday and Sunday so the Delphi Plant will honor the holiday on the 4^th and 5^th.  The Plant is also taking the 6^th (Wednesday) and 7^th (Thursday) off.  Those two extra days had to come from somewhere.  In this case they are borrowing the days from Saturday (9^th) and Sunday (10^th).  In other words, the plant will be off from October 1 thru the 7^th.  Then the plant will work from the 8^th thru the 15^th, including Saturday and Sunday.  Finally, on the 16^th the plant will be on a normally scheduled weekend.  I plan to work thru the Holiday and try to live a normal life in Shanghai.  The reason that I will try to live a normal life is that the city almost shuts down.  Many city workers leave the city and go to their villages away from the city to visit families.  Most restaurants don’t even open during this period.  The difference between Holidays schedules creates a problem for me in this assignment.  An example is the Labor Day Holiday.  The U.S. operations are shutdown on Monday.  Since the Corporation is down on Monday, our IT department decided to perform maintenance on their servers until Monday Night.  The problem is that I am working during this time.  Since I still operate through the North American server I am pretty well screwed.  I will not be able to access my e-mails nor my files on our shared drives. 

Finally, I purchased a camera this weekend.  Funny story about this is that when I returned to my room I had to charge the batteries to the camera.  I unboxed everything and started to charge the batteries.  While the batteries were charging I noticed the owner’s manual was in Chinese.  No problem since a camera is a camera.  Point – focus – shoot.  How hard can it be?  Well, when I put in the batteries and had to set-up the camera (date, time, settings), everything was in Chinese.  I knew that one could change the language to English but one would have to know Chinese to know how to change the language (remember the user’s manual is in Chinese).  Well after about 20 minutes of selecting every option available I finally found the right buttons.  All is well.  I will begin to send pictures and post pictures this week.  For people at work I will place them on the S-drive in our folder.  Look for my name.  For friends I will mail a select few.

This is that I will report on this week.  I have some work to complete today.  Seventy-five days to go but who’s counting?

Next week’s topics

Sheer clothes, Hong Kong, napkins, restroom cleaning and finally, hockers and boogers.

Shelly and Natalie

Miss You!

Without Wax

Tom

P.S.

Way to go Purdue.  51 to zero.  A defensive shutout with a defense with 9 new starters.  I stayed up all-night and listened to them on the Internet.  It was worth losing all the sleep.  Shelly sent me pictures of the game via her camera cell phone so I was able to see the stadium as well as our tailgating crew – the pictures helped me “see” the moment but also made upset that I couldn’t be there – but such is life.  Next week the game is a Saturday game so I will be able to catch on my sleep on Sunday (this week’s game was Sunday at noon which was Monday morning my time)