chapter1

03.01.2008 - 04.01.2008
2h delay, 8867km to go. That's how my trip to Shanghai via Ostsee, St. Petersburg and Russia started in Frankfurt/Main. The flight took approx. 11h, traveling at 34000ft with cosy minus 67°C outside.

We landed at 3pm local time and the still strong communistic influence was sensible at first sight. Men in uniform everywhere, watching the passengers and other people. You had to fill out 2 arrival cards, which you had to show at 2 checkpoints. At passport control, I happened to end up in the slowest line.

Been woken up by the wakeup-call at 9am, I nearly spent the whole day in bed in order to cure the aforementioned cold. Meanwhile maintenace showed up to set the A/C on heating, so it became cosy in here. Breakfast was quite tasty. White bread, eggs sunny side up, undefinable juice, fruits, marmelade. I think this will be standart.
TV is very funny. "Who wants to be a millionaire", Casting shows and even a BAP-Concert. Sadly, I dont understand a word spoken 'cause everything is commented in Chinese, ever German Bundesliga. At least I was able to see Stuttgart kick ass Bayern Munich 3:1.
In the evening, I went shopping. Very weird shopping there. Some things you recognize by the color or the lable. But with thé rest you have to guess.

Chines dogs and cats love to dine well	Judging by the color and lable this could be knorr

I brought some soups with me from Germany, so didn't have to starve in the beginning. Lucky me.

Jachie Chan advertises for razor blades, fruit is sealed one by one and there is yogurt in a 1l Tetra-Pak. Stuff is mostly a lot cheaper than in good old Germany.

In the evening, a blackout happened. When under the shower, one should hurry up to rinse before the hot water runs out. Power came back 15min later.

6.1.
Spent my 2nd in bed again, trying to cure that bloody cold. I'm feeling better, but it could go faster. On the other hand, that’s how I found finally time to create this blog. So everything has its bright side.

And another 15min blackout. Seems to be fashionable here.

7.1.
First day in the office. See, how things are going, check some files, discuss where to go the next couple of days, checking a bunch of samples and preparing them to be shipped to Germany.
CHECKING, that will be my job for the next couple of months. And writing reports. But also go directly to the manufacturers and check out how things are going. It'll start tomorrow with a trip to Su Zhou.
The least smog occurs to be on Mondays. That's at least my impression. I assume its because of the lesser traffic in town on weekends. However, you can see some blue sky and the sun.
At noon, I took the chance to check out the surroundings of my office. Lots of stores like G-Staff, BOSS, ONIQLO, Swatch and many many more.
Take this as an advice: When attempting to cross the street, try to get, at least one, Chinese guy between you and approaching cars and you are safe. : )

8.1.
Today's the day of my first trip to Su Zhou, a suburb of Shanghai, one hour away by train. It's in the province of Jiang Su, meaning "Area with lots of rice, fish and lakes".
Unfortunately, there was smog too. Not surprising, seeing all the jalopies driving around. I was astounded that all scooters are electric ones. This is because they want to condemn the smog this way. I guess, it's better than nothing.
Su Zhou has to offer a terrific old town, beautiful gardens and parks making this town appealing to tourists. Because of the many canals running through the town, it is called Venice of the East. How do I know this stuff? My constant companion is translator and a Doctor in History, if I got him right and he tells me a lot about the people and the history of the country. But more at given time.
We went to the company, first thing that day.

After a short introduction, I was checking the first samples. Some were good, some not. Afterwards we had lunch with the management. Everything lokked very yummy and I tried some out (Mam, you would have been proud of your son), but not without asking, WHAT exactly it was that I was about to eat.

After lunch we went to check out the production site. Where and how is tailored, how sawn and so on. Details were discussed with the foremen, which is very important to us because we can't hardly sell our samples otherwise. They seemed to be insightfully. I wonder how the next samples will turn out.
After looking around in the showroom and ordering a few samples, we headed back to town. We did a little sightseeing while bridging the 2h time gape until our train departure.

Being winter at the moment, most of the plants don't carry leaves or aren't there at all. I think I'll come back in spring. After a little sprawl through the old town of Su Zhou I returned back to my apppartement. The subway was completely modernized lately. Enormous trains traveling under Shaghai transporting 4 million peoples to work and back every day.
Tomorrow, I'll head for the next appointment from the southern station, opened in 2007 and reported to be humongous.
On my way home, I left the subway one station earlier, so I had another chance to check out the city life. But more of that later.

Province of ZHE JIANG, meaning "criss-cross rivers and mountains".
But first I had to get to the southern train station by subway. Fun when you can't "decode" the signs, but it worked out, be spite of having to chance trains twice. I met Edward where we agreed to. The station recently opened a couple of weeks ago, is a giant dome, under which the tracks run.

After 2h trip, the smog decreased surprisingly a little bit, so you were able to see further than 50m. The "catering cart" passed me and I tried out some weird flavored chips ("Green Cucumber"). Don't know how to describe the taste.

What I noticed during the ride is that whole China a a giant construction site. Everywhere you look, you'll see constructing, planting, boulder, bringing up walls, tearing down old stuff, erecting new skyscrapers.
Respectively, it looks savagely and dusty, ground and bricks are piled up everywhere, crowds of builders, building something somewhere. A lot of buildings, I guess mostly private homes, look like somebody started to build them but didn't find the time to finish the job.

Having arrived at Jiwu's brand-new futuristic station, we were picked up by one of the company's driver in a BMW 7 series. Edward told me, the town would consist of Industry and trading companies to over 90%. The people are living in their companies, so to speak. The town didn’t even exist 10 years ago, replacing only some farms that used to be there before..

After a small lunch at McDonald’s we drove to the company, manufacturing mostly underwear "fully fashioned", meaning the knitting machines eject a nearly finished piece of clothing. The seamstresses only have to attach the straps and/or the lacing to tops for example.

Same procedure again. Greeting, short meeting, showroom, production and going to the station, 'cause the train wouldn't wait. After 3h, the smog of Shanghai had us back.
Tomorrow's again another day at the office, discussing the last few days and working out concepts for the next ones.

So long. See you soon.


10.1.

The day went as predicted yesterday, but something happened nevertheless.
During lunch-break, I went out on my own again to actually get something from McDonald's. On my way, I ran into some street hawker, selling CDs. No bootlegs. Alongside me, a European, turning out to be Marco, he must be in his mid 40s owning a company for industrial floors. He knew the vendor and told him I'd be a friend of his and that I should get the best price possible, too. Well, 1,50€/CD isn't exactly what you might call a rip-off. ;-) So I bought 13 CDs for under 20€ and Marco and I took off in the same direction. We had a little talk and so I told him that I'm new here and was on my way to grab some food. Because he was hungry, too, he took me with him and we went to a Japanese restaurant just around the corner on the 9th floor of a mall. A place, where you wouldn't suggest a restaurant to be in the first place.
I chose something from the illustrated (thank God!!) menu and right on a chef showed up, preparing the food right in front of our eyes.. We had fish, scallops, 2 different filets, green asparagus, cabbage, rice, soup and different dips. With a coke for about 4,30€ Unbelievable!!!! I think, I'll pay this place some visits again soon.

Freshly prepared and really yummy. Just a part of the food. And I even ate with chopstick. Doing better every time. ;) So no danger of starving..

China.
Population aprox. 1.4 billion. A huge number, but where do they actually live? Chinese cities are HUGE. Cities with 100.000 inhabitants are considered villages. For Peking, or Bejing as it is called here, official statistics report 13.8 million, for Shanghai 16.7 million and for Quongqing even 30.9 million people. And these are the numbers of 2004!!!!
Even more breathtaking are the indicated surface dimensions. Peking has, with 16,800km², more than the size of Schleswig-Holstein, Shanghai with its 6,349km² is 7 times as big as Berlin (even though with 3 million more inhabitants than Peking) and Chongqing is even 12,000km² LARGER than whole Bavaria!! But I must add, that these numbers include all the suburbs, so that the number of citizens doesn't say anything about the size of the town.
Men prior to the age of 25 and women prior to the age of 24 are not allowed to marry and are only allowed to become ONE child (out on the country they might be allowed to have a second one). This should slow down the rapid increase of the population. Preferring male offspring’s, female fetuses are often aborted in order to have the chance of receiving a boy the next time creating a excess of males. Good for the girls, 'cause they can pick themselves the best man. Unfortunately, a lot of men won't be able to find a partner to found a family with in order to procreate. Bad luck, I'd say.

Another funny story out of the every day life:
Elevator doors are closing THAT fast, they actually endanger your heels. But that doesn't seem to stop some people from slamming on the "close" button... :)

Shanghai. I guess, he was new in his profession. Ususally, every gap is used in order to come forward as fast as possible, regardless of pedestrians or bicycles.. They pass people in such little distance that I couldn't help myself but wonder why we hadn't to scratch somebody off the windshield. But TODAYS driver gave way to everyone coming along. So WE ended up being surrounded by flashing and honking cars.
Anyways, we picked up my boss and took another cab to the station to take the express train to Nanjing, 300km NE of Shanghai. Nanjing is the capital of the Province of Jiang Su and it was the capital of China prior to Peking. I try to find out the When and Why.

Altogether, this wasn't a great day. The smog was so dense that you couldn’t really see the cars on the streets in front of my apartment.

We headed for the town, business as usual, back to the station, waiting for the train and heading back to Shanghai. It was so humid that there were short-circuits in the trolley wires. There were quite some bangs, bright light and a terrible smell, shortly after. I think some animal put itself on the grill. We were relieved as we were finally able to leave. Back in Shanghai, the fog/smog cleared a little bit and the skyline was visible.

I know. This day wasn't killer...

Germany for several years, I was eager to buy one.
After lunch, I opened it and had a big bite... strange.... not sweet at all... really weird. A look on the receipt shed light on the mystery: RED BEAN PIE

Saturday: Bag weather ergo I stood in bed after having come home at 10pm.
A friend of a friend of mine is in Shanghai, too. We wrote each other some days ago and finally decided to party togehter. Off to the ATTICA, where a DJ from Ibiza performed that night.

The METRO being out of service already, we had to take a cab. Luckily, I wrote the club's address down in Chinese. I had it double-checked by the concierge and the driver understood it, too. I was proud as punch.
With a Mohawk, you stick out 100 times more than in Europe. I started to feel a little queasy when I was watched by 4 bouncers in a strange way after getting out of the cab. After their grinning thumbs-up I was relieved. The club is located on the 11th floor, riverside. It also has a deck, probably only opened during summer, offering a great view over the city. Starting with R'n'B, the DJ changed slowly to Ibiza House and Electro. Great place to party, even though the prices are quite European, different to most of Shanghai. 45Yen for a Evian, e.g..

The guests are 70% Chinese and the rest seems to be from all over the world. After having made the acquaintance of 2 girls from the Ukraine and Russia, we headed to another bar called Windows. Close your eyes and you might have believed being in London. A lot of non-Asian people by which I was surprised. Prices were back again on usual Shanghai level.

13.1.
Weather sucks, hence bed and DVDs.

Germany. On lunch break, I went around the block.
I checked out the nearby mall because I hadn't adequate shoes for my trips. I found a CD and DVD store, offering new blockbusters with an English audio track for 25-40 yen. You can't get them THAT cheap in Germany not even during sale.

After work, I decided to WALK home and not on main street but through the small alleys with all the small stores.
UNBELIEVABLE!!! Small shops everywhere where you can buy almost everything imaginable like pens, accessories, food, clothing. I discovered a little store, selling unique of famous labels. Some was fake but he told me what was original. And when it comes to clothing I should be able to tell the difference. ;-)

So I'm sitting here with my brand new AVIREX HOODY with a fake fur lined hood for 190 yen (cozy in this cold country) in front of my laptop. And even if it should be an imitation, it's still worth its price.

Furthermore there are those little "restaurants", whose kitchens I rather don't want to look in and washing their dishes on the sidewalk. The sinks are installed OUTSIDE, due to the lack of space inside. Not to forget the small hairdresser's shops, where he girls sit in front of the shop in mini skirts. I guess they more likely do you than your hair. ;-) I was astounded to find this very poor surrounding between the highest buildings in the world. Here the shacks where people "live" without heating right next to a guarded new 30storied building. The A/C is installed outside of EVERY apartment. This waste of energy is unbelievable. I live in a quite new building but the wind is blowing thought the window frames and the walls are freezing cold. I guess they never heard of an invention called isolation.

So much for today. Tomorrow, I'll visit a small company in a suburb of Shanghai. So no big trip tomorrow. :)

Shanghai traffic, usually fun enough, but with a driver addicted to his horn and with the pedal welded to the floor, things start to become interesting. The lane is changed every 10sec, overtaken left and right and when the lanes are jammed, the the breakdown-lane may join the game as well. The honk to every car. It could dare to change the lane, too. It became close again 2 times.
After getting to the company, off to lunch first. Driver seemed close to starving. He bombed down the 2 lane road, leading to downtown, at 100km/h, using ONLY the breakdown-lane flashing and honking as if there would be no tomorrow. On the freeway you don't stick out driving that way, but in town you feel a little bit like a celebrity.

We had lunch in a restaurant, a little different to the previous ones. On ground floor, there was a big room with a lot of tables, being all empty. On the 1st floor, there were several rooms each with only one table and the chairs and you are served. Again, we had several yummy dishes which some of them I tried out. What I like is that you order 10 different dishes and everyone can try everything, because it is put on a rotary disc in the middle of the table. From a hygienic point of view it isn't THAT thrilling, considering everyone poking around in the food with his/her chopsticks. ADVICE: Load your table in the beginning as full as possible to avoid reloading. Btw.: My chopstick skill improve by the minute. I'm currently on level "PEA". ;-)

After lunch we drove to the company with a driver, apparently still hungry. ROFL

We've never been to this company, that's why we took a closer look. Again, it was quite interesting. When our driver returned, he finally made it. He put a dent on the right rear and argued with his boss how this happened. It didn't surprise me, considering his way of driving. After 2,5h we were back in Shanghai safely.

16.1.

Day at the office. Boring.
In the evening, I headed for my "Wednesday-Meeting" (When in London, I always hooked up with my friends on that day, too. Funny parallel.)
We met at the MURAL-Bar, where I met 2(!!) Germans accompanied by a Chinese and an American girl. Right next to them, another table with people I started to greet, assuming to be also part of OUR meeting. Well, they turned out as a bunch of Americans who were a little bit confused by my greeting and introducing myself. Shit happens and off to my actual table. Soon, more Germans showed up. After 2h, we dicided to head for the ZAPATA, a wellknown club/bar in Shanghai. While the Mural being a little bit Indian style, the Zapata has a more Spanish/Mexican touch but with European music. We met a lot of British and some more German folks but also some Chinese, Swedish and French people, too. I left at half past midnight. I paid 3,20€ for the 7km ride. One can't complain about that price. Outside the club, the hookers were waiting for customers, but this is nothing for daddy's boy.
Summing up the evening: 2 nice locations worth another visit.

17./18.1.
2 days at the office checking samples and a lot more. I kicked back a little, because I wanna hit the road on Saturday.


So much for today. Tomorrow, I'll dine at a Japanese restaurants with some friends and after that to the ATTICA, having a London DJ performing.

Hong Kong Square for Japanese dinner and to the ATTICA afterwards where Guy Williams from GB performed that night. As it turned out, Sir Richard Branson, owner of VIRGIN, throwing a promotion party for his airline, showing up in person.
2 "funny" storys:
-Branson and Prime Minister Brown were on the same BA plane, waiting for take off, and became witnesses of a plane, coming in from Peking, crashing. Creates certainly a good feeling about his own trip... ;-)
-BA has the highest luggage loss rate in air traveling. So Branson traveled only with carry-on luggage. ;-)

20.1.

Sunday. Rainy. Again or still? Whatever. Slept long, read, and watched DVD, chatting with friends in Germany uploading some pictures and back to bed again. Dull day but none for leaving the appartment, either.

21.1.
Beginning of week 3. It stopped raining and some blue sky showed up. Spent the day at the office, scheduling my week and did some paper-work.
Discovered two nice things just around the corner. First a bakery, carrying very tasty French baguettes and second a very good Italian restaurant where NO Italian works at all and little to none English is spoken but with excellent food and prices. I'll dine there more often.
Before I left, I taught the owner and the waiters some Italian. "Bon giorno" and "Arrividerci". Funny picture, them standing around the piece of paper, trying to pronounce the words properly. Next time, they will be tested. :-)

23.1.
Another day at the office. They brought in tons of samples that have been finished before the Chinese New Year (Feb 6th), until half of China heads home to their families.
In the evening, I went to the Zapata, meeting with some folks from last week. I met someone from MÖSSINGEN, the small village I moved to in October myself. Isn't that unbelievable? I also met some guys from Tübingen and Sigmaringen. It's a small world!

Shanghai, again by car. I was very pleased by everything. The owner spoke nearly fluent English. Let's see, if there will be a co-operation.

Our driver drove hell for leather approx. 130km/h. BUT!!!! Speed limit was 40km/h he had 2 passengers. If you do the math, 3times 40 equals 120, so he wasn't really driving fast... LOL. Using the break-down-lane(s), shifting lanes faster than Michael Schumacher gears. I have the trip filmed but the quality is yet unknown.
Later back to the office and after that shopping for warm clothes. We'll go to a very cold surrounding for the next two days and I don't want to end up again, having a cold. So, finally my first night OUTSIDE of Shanghai is going to happen. :-)

China packs their bags and heads home. But with everything being bigger and less developed as in Europe, the traveling begins weeks before. Gotta take some pictures of that.

Nearly every company closes, too. Having arrived in Wuxi, it took us another hour to get to the company, where we checked everything until the middle of the night. Finally, at 1am we arrived at our nice hotel and at 8am we were off to work again. We had a very European style breakfast which was a welcome relief.

When we left our hotel, we realized that 10cm of snow had been fallen. OK, nothing unusual for Germans but here is snow very rare and it thaws quickly. But not today and eyeryone on summer tires or even slicks. Yes, that's possible here, because nobody controls if the cars are safe. The cars are driven until they break down.

So we played car-slalom, because cars and trucks broke down, accidents happened, they shoveled snow on the street by hand, pedestrians walking on the street or someone driving against the traffic turns and drives back against the traffic AGAIN!!!

After a wholes day work, I went home. Highway was already closed, so we had to drive through some villages to get to the station an on our train. Chaos there, too.

Back in Shanghai, I changed quickly and went out. IT'S SATURDAY!!!

First to the “Servus Vienna”, where every last sunday of the month a German-speaking regular's table took place. Some of them I knew some of them I met. With 9 others, I went afterwards to the MUSE, a fancy club but with a lot of Asians and only HipHop. We didn't grow old there and headed for the MAO for some House, Dance and Electro. Partied hard and went home. Funny how happy the cab driver looked at the snow-flakes on the windshield at every stop.

Sunday, I stood in bed, too, because of the snow.

28.1.
We originally planed to go to Nanjing today but because of the snow finally reaching Shanghai we had to stay at the office. In Nanjing, traffic broke down.
There was enough work to do at the office, too. I bought some hearable socks to prevent cold feet the next couple of days visiting the company in the mentioned cold area again.
When I came home at night, the batteries of the A/C remote ran out. So I called maintenance who came to change the remote. The moment she left, I smelt it. She let off a silent but violent. GREAT!!! That made my day... :-/.
That's China: Suspense, play and surprise. Three wishes at once... ;-)

Shanghai broke down already on Monday and the highways were closed.
Back to the office and spending the day there. My feet were cold even though I brought my heat able socks but having run out of batteries.
Right now, I'm sitting at my favorite Italian restaurant, had a fine meal und now I'm about to go home.
Hopefully, we'll be able to travel south tomorrow.

Shanghai.

I asked the driver to drop me off in town and met with some people at the ZAPATAS. What a day...

31.1.

Another day at the office with samples. I'm glad to not having to go out into that chaos again and it is very likely to worsen the next days. I pray for my flight to Germany to leave on 2/6 so I manage to get out here.
Let's hope that on my return (2/19) things got back to normal. Well, we'll see.

Please turn the page. ;-)