My Triumphant Return to China in a Corporate Lifestyle

Hello Blogging World!  I've managed to successfully ignore you for the past few years, but now that people can subscribe to these things in various different ways, it's actually a much better way to track my China travels than by sending out mass e-mails that constantly get rejected based on their size...

It's been two years since I was last in China, and in that time I've transitioned from college student to corporate employee at Intel.  Luckily, I still have red hair, so my blog does not require a name change.  There are obviously a lot of differences between being in China as a student and as an employee of a big company, but my desire to explore, converse in Mandarin, and eat lots of delicious local food has not changed.

First, a summary of what I'll be doing here for the next 6 months: I am in the Rotation Engineer Program (REP) at Intel, which involves doing three 6-month rotations in different business groups within the company.  My first two rotations were in Oregon; I first worked on board assembly (how do we attach Intel parts onto motherboards while ensuring their quality and reliability), and then I worked on board and system-level test (once these parts are assembled, how do we confirm that they are working properly).  I am doing my third rotation in various locations in China assisting Intel with both of those previous aspects in actual factories for tablets and smartphones that we are producing.

First stop, the Foxconn International Holdings (FIH) plant in Binhai, Tianjin, China.  This area is called TEDA (Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area), one of many special economic zones developed in China since the late 70s.  This is one of the smallest (perhaps even the smallest) Foxconn plants, and I am assisting with some of Intel's smartphone manufacturing here.

I arrived in TEDA at the Sheraton late Thursday night (August 23rd) after over 24 hours of traveling including two delayed flights, a very nice conversation with a vintner (apparently this is the term for someone who makes wine) in the SF airport, and a 3-hour car ride from the Beijing airport to the hotel.  For those of you unaware, I also spent the two days prior to coming out here moving all of my stuff out of my apartment in Portland into a combination of a storage unit, my bags for China, and various friends' apartments.

I'd like to make a shout-out to Caitlin and Ian for dealing with the stuff I left behind due to lack of time and for taking care of my car (I miss you!) and my mail while I'm gone.  Ethan also deserves a special thanks for spending his last two days with me moving all of my shit, calming me down whenever I started freaking out, and helping me figure out how to fit all of my stuff in my suitcases.

After my 10pm arrival and my body waking me up at 3am (15 hour time differences take some adjustment), I ventured to the Foxconn plant at 9am Friday morning for my first visit accompanied by two co-workers.  First, I will answer the question I've been asked oh so many times: yes they do have suicide nets on the side of the building (though not the building I'm working in):

Suicide Nets at Foxconn

The factory conditions are not as bad as I was expecting, and I really enjoyed meeting everyone there I would be working with, not to mention that they were all rather impressed with my language skills.  It's interesting to walk around the factory floor because we are given different colored (pink) anti-static smocks and hats than the other workers, who wear white, blue, or yellow, depending on their role.  I was surprised to see that everyone on the floor wears anti-static sandals that basically appear like your basic house sandals you'd wear after taking your shoes off.  The employees all put their own shoes in or on top of lockers when they are on the floor.  Also, instead of wearing full hand gloves, they wear what I would call finger condoms on each finger (I guess this is cheaper).  They are really small, and my fingers started to turn purple after wearing them for a few minutes.  I quickly understood why a lot of workers tear the bottoms of them: I'd imagine it would be hard to do much without any feeling in your fingers.

Walking around with the pink smock, everyone seems to know who you are and get out of your way, which is certainly not something I am used to, and it's additionally entertaining to see the looks on their faces when they hear me speak Mandarin.  I guess most of the foreign employees who come in do not speak their language.

After attending a bunch of meetings and being shown around the factory, I ventured bak to the hotel to gather my things for my weekend trip to Beijing.  Luckily, there is a high-speed train that goes from Tanggu station (a 15-minute cab ride from my hotel) to Beijing in just under one hour.  Unfortunately, the lines to buy tickets were much longer than I predicted, and I got to the front of the line at 8:10 to attempt to buy tickets for the 8:14pm train.  Since boarding ends about 5 minutes prior to departure, I was stuck taking the 9:54pm train; good thing I purchased a Kindle before I left the states!

Upon arriving in Beijing, the subway was already closed, and I proceeded to get ripped off by a cab driver at the train station (I couldn't recall how to tell him to turn the meter on).  What should've been a 50RMB ($8) cab ride, I was charged 120RMB ($19) for, but I only handed the driver a 100RMB note when I exited the cab, which it turns out was about a 10-minute walk from where I was supposed to be.

High-Speed Train (takes 1 hour for what would be a 3-hour drive)

A shout-out here to Mike and Helen for allowing me to crash at their place very last-minute and being very hospitable.

Saturday was my birthday, and I was excited to spend it reuniting with old friends in Beijing.  I started off the day attending Ultimate practice with Beijing Big Brother, which pretty much kicked my butt after having not worked out very much the past couple of months, but it allowed me to easily justify the beer I drank immediately following practice :)

I proceeded to meet up with Scuz and Andi (college friends), who had recently moved back to Beijing from Hangzhou (down south), and I spent most of the day with them catching up, playing with their dog (see picture below), and then going to the one (I think there's only one) microbrewery in Beijing.  I was stoked to hear about this as it was not here last time I was in town, and I was certainly not expecting to be able to drink microbrews on my birthday in China.

A shout-out here to Great Leap Brewing for existing and starting off my birthday evening right!

Jiaolong (Ginger Dragon), Andi and Scuz's dog

After the brewery, I went to a party with the Ultimate team that was technically for someone else who had returned to Beijing that afternoon after spending six months in Australia, but I was happy to adopt it as my birthday party as well.  Since I didn't show up in costume (I didn't feel like figuring one out on my birthday), I was sent to time-out in the ball pit as soon as I showed up, but the ball pit turned out to be rather fun to sit in!  Unfortunately, I was kicked out when the next un-costumed guest arrived.

I spent Sunday recovering from Saturday night by way of a McDonald's breakfast, knife-cut noodles (dao xiao mian) for lunch, and some time throwing that toy (shown above) for Jiaolong in the grass outside Scuz's dad's apartment prior to returning to TEDA (or so I thought).

Unfortunately, everyone is traveling this time of year in China since school doesn't start up again for another week, so there were no train tickets available back to Tanggu.  I bought a ticket for the Monday morning train, and proceeded to call whoever I could to find a place to crash that night.

A shout-out to Baby Girl and Leigh for answering their phones and providing me with food, shelter, and a much-needed shower!

I woke up at 6:30 Monday morning to a downpour in Beijing, which resulted in me getting soaking wet (of course I didn't have my raincoat) between the apartment building and the taxi I managed to find (it's generally impossible to get taxis in Beijing when it's raining).  The extremely nice taxi driver handed me a towel to dry myself off, and of course it stopped pouring about 5 minutes in to our 20-minute cab ride to the train station.

Back at the Tanggu station, I was put into a cab with three other random people and dropped off second back at the hotel.  I arrived back in my room to find this lovely cake that the hotel had left for me:

It says "生日快乐," or "Happy Birthday" in Mandarin

Monday night, I experienced the luxury of being a preferred guest and having the "Intel rate" at the hotel for the first time: the executive lounge.  Every day from 4:30-7:30pm, there are, essentially unlimited, drinks and food available to those who have access.  The food varies by day, but generally consists of some sort of dim sum dish (often dumplings), a pasta or noodle dish, a couple of meat dishes, something Italian (pizza, bruschetta, etc..), rice, a salad bar, and then a variety of cut up fruits and bite-size desserts.  The drinks include beer (Tsingtao or Heineken), a red and white wine, and a variety of liquors and mixers.  It's all self-serve, but the women who work there generally offer to bring you your drink.

After eating my fair share of food and having a few rum and cokes, I ventured down to the fitness/pool/spa level of the hotel to check it out.  The pool and hot tub look quite nice, and I intend to make use of them one of these days.  Adjacent to the fitness center is a yoga room with mats, foam rollers, exercise balls, etc...which is pretty awesome since I couldn't bring my foam roller with me (I hope you're taking good care of it Stacy!)

It's an odd concept to me having spent 4 months living here previously, but the hotel basically makes it so that you don't ever have to leave besides going to wherever you are working here.  The hotel also provides a free buffet breakfast (I think to all guests), which is quite delicious, and the "Intel rate" includes one laundered shirt per day (by the way hotel laundry is REALLY expensive and I think I'll take it to a laundromat next time).

Tuesday night, I got to meet up with my new friend Ed who plays Ultimate locally.  He is also the PE teacher at the local international school, which you might have read about if you clicked that link about TEDA above.  He was a great help to me even before meeting him as he booked my train tickets for this coming weekend to go to a beach tournament 3 hours north of here (he's also the tournament director).

Note: you can't book train tickets online in China without a chinese bank account (I might get one solely for this purpose).

Ed met me in a huge park across the street, and we threw a disc for awhile prior to going out to eat (yes real Chinese food!)  He showed me around the whole mall area just a few blocks from my hotel that includes a movie theater, a supermarket, a bunch of different restaurants (most have outdoor seating on the 4th floor), and a few bars/clubs.  With this tour, I now feel a bit more comfortable living here for an extended time, though I have no idea how extended it will be.

As I mentioned previously, I'll be heading to a beach tournament this weekend in Beidaihe, which is supposed to have really nice beaches.  Ironically, it will take me about 3 hours to get there by train while those coming from Beijing will only take 2 (there aren't speed trains from here).  I'm hoping to find out this week or early next when I'll be headed someplace else and when I'll be headed back to the states (currently scheduled for 10/4), but additional future plans include attending tournaments in Singapore and the Philippines and a trip to Thailand with Ethan for Christmas.  For those of you in the New York area, I'm hoping to make it home for Thanksgiving.

Well I had every intention of going to sleep early when I started writing this post about two hours ago, but such is life.  I hope you all enjoyed reading, and I suspect future posts will not be quite as long.

Cheers from China!
~Chirona/智诺