Wednesday, August 18, 2010
New Blog
For those of you who are pining to follow our new lives in New Zealand, we have a new blog for your enjoyment! It is located at http://nytonz.wordpress.com, and is being kept updated regularly. This blog (and address) will soon pass into oblivion, though if you want to read the archives it can be found at http://shuanglong.blogspot.com. Zaijian!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Final Day in Beijing
Our last day in Beijing is here! We woke up surprisingly early, and go started right away packing up those things that we left out until the last minute--my computer, Apple TV, and our internet connection, mostly--and tidying up what remained in the apartment. By 8:00 we were ready to get going, but we had only arranged for the satellite TV guy to come remove his equipment at 9:00, so we found ourselves with time to kill. To break up the monotony we decided to start walking our stuff into the hotel where we'll spend the night, the Hotel G, located conveniently just outside the South Gate of our compound.
Unfortunately, the weather was once again very hot and sticky, and our bags are VERY heavy, so this walk, even though it was not very far, seemed very long indeed. The satellite guy came a bit early, which was great, and then we had to wait for our housekeeper to come to pick up the stuff that she was going to take home (on her last day of work, she spent much of the day asking J2 what we were going to leave, and whether she could have it; we basically gave her everything that we had hoped to sell but found no buyers for, as well as our outdoor plants and anything else that was the apartment that did not belong to the landlord). We had arranged for her to come at 10, but by 10:30 she still had not arrived. When she finally showed up at close to 11, she blamed the traffic for the delay, but instead of having a van, like she said she'd have, she only had a small compact car that was FAR too small to carry all the stuff. Turns out she was planning to come back in the afternoon, which totally conflicted with our plan to vacate the flat as soon as possible and never return. We managed to work out a solution, and her friend drove us with our last few things to the hotel, and thus we said goodbye to Julong Garden!
For lunch we decided to go one last time to the Noodle Loft, a Shanxi-style noodle place with two locations that has long been one of our favorite places to take visitors. Or should I say it USED to have two locations, since wouldn't you know, the one we went to was no longer in business. So we headed to the other location, a good 30 minutes away by cab.
During the cab ride I got on the phone with China Mobile to try to get them to cancel my mobile phone account. Turns out that the hospital could not do it, since the passport that I used as ID when I opened the account is not my current passport, and of course China Mobile needs that old passport to close the account (don't ask me why). I spent the entire ride to the restaurant on the phone with China Mobile on a new pay-as-you-go number that I bought to tide us over till we leave, and wouldn't you know that China Mobile charges for calls to their help line?!? In the end, they wanted me to go to a branch of China Mobile to show them my old passport (which is deep in the bowels of a suitcase) so I told them that I was calling from the departure lounge of the airport and they'd have to sort it out on their own.
Lunch was good as ever, and we got to sit right near the open-air kitchen so we could watch the chefs making the various types of noodles in front of our eyes. I tried a new style, the "scissor-cut" noodles, which were great with the traditional "fried sauce" that I usually get (J2 had flake-type noodles with the same sauce). We also had a dish of young walnuts with asparagus and celery, and another noodle dish comprising little tubes of noodles standing up in a sort of honeycomb pattern with a tomato-vinegar-meat sauce, another of our standards here. Yum.
As we headed back to the hotel in a cab I realized that this was likely to be my last cab ride in Beijing, which was of course a big moment for me, since so much of my frustration with Beijing is centered on taxicabs. Anyway, it was uneventful.
In the evening, our good friends Naomi and Mike came to our room for a drink before going to dinner. We had saved a few bottles of wine for a "special occasion", and this was that occasion, so we had a fantastic Chateau Haut Bages Liberal Pauillac that was really excellent, followed by a Barbera d'Alba, which we enjoyed in our hotel room. Then for dinner we went to Three Guizhou Men, which I think must be our favorite place in Beijing when all is said and done. Luckily, the quality of the meal today was way up there, too, so we were not disappointed.
I was glad to have had a chance to see so many of our good friends in our last weeks in Beijing. We came to the conclusion in the past few days that we have no nostalgia for Beijing itself as we prepare to leave, but it's the people we'll miss the most. We have made some wonderful friends during our time here, and while some have moved on and others are newly arrived, I am confident that many if not most of them will be people with whom we'll be in regular contact for years to come, or at least I hope so!
Unfortunately, the weather was once again very hot and sticky, and our bags are VERY heavy, so this walk, even though it was not very far, seemed very long indeed. The satellite guy came a bit early, which was great, and then we had to wait for our housekeeper to come to pick up the stuff that she was going to take home (on her last day of work, she spent much of the day asking J2 what we were going to leave, and whether she could have it; we basically gave her everything that we had hoped to sell but found no buyers for, as well as our outdoor plants and anything else that was the apartment that did not belong to the landlord). We had arranged for her to come at 10, but by 10:30 she still had not arrived. When she finally showed up at close to 11, she blamed the traffic for the delay, but instead of having a van, like she said she'd have, she only had a small compact car that was FAR too small to carry all the stuff. Turns out she was planning to come back in the afternoon, which totally conflicted with our plan to vacate the flat as soon as possible and never return. We managed to work out a solution, and her friend drove us with our last few things to the hotel, and thus we said goodbye to Julong Garden!
For lunch we decided to go one last time to the Noodle Loft, a Shanxi-style noodle place with two locations that has long been one of our favorite places to take visitors. Or should I say it USED to have two locations, since wouldn't you know, the one we went to was no longer in business. So we headed to the other location, a good 30 minutes away by cab.
During the cab ride I got on the phone with China Mobile to try to get them to cancel my mobile phone account. Turns out that the hospital could not do it, since the passport that I used as ID when I opened the account is not my current passport, and of course China Mobile needs that old passport to close the account (don't ask me why). I spent the entire ride to the restaurant on the phone with China Mobile on a new pay-as-you-go number that I bought to tide us over till we leave, and wouldn't you know that China Mobile charges for calls to their help line?!? In the end, they wanted me to go to a branch of China Mobile to show them my old passport (which is deep in the bowels of a suitcase) so I told them that I was calling from the departure lounge of the airport and they'd have to sort it out on their own.
Lunch was good as ever, and we got to sit right near the open-air kitchen so we could watch the chefs making the various types of noodles in front of our eyes. I tried a new style, the "scissor-cut" noodles, which were great with the traditional "fried sauce" that I usually get (J2 had flake-type noodles with the same sauce). We also had a dish of young walnuts with asparagus and celery, and another noodle dish comprising little tubes of noodles standing up in a sort of honeycomb pattern with a tomato-vinegar-meat sauce, another of our standards here. Yum.
As we headed back to the hotel in a cab I realized that this was likely to be my last cab ride in Beijing, which was of course a big moment for me, since so much of my frustration with Beijing is centered on taxicabs. Anyway, it was uneventful.
In the evening, our good friends Naomi and Mike came to our room for a drink before going to dinner. We had saved a few bottles of wine for a "special occasion", and this was that occasion, so we had a fantastic Chateau Haut Bages Liberal Pauillac that was really excellent, followed by a Barbera d'Alba, which we enjoyed in our hotel room. Then for dinner we went to Three Guizhou Men, which I think must be our favorite place in Beijing when all is said and done. Luckily, the quality of the meal today was way up there, too, so we were not disappointed.
I was glad to have had a chance to see so many of our good friends in our last weeks in Beijing. We came to the conclusion in the past few days that we have no nostalgia for Beijing itself as we prepare to leave, but it's the people we'll miss the most. We have made some wonderful friends during our time here, and while some have moved on and others are newly arrived, I am confident that many if not most of them will be people with whom we'll be in regular contact for years to come, or at least I hope so!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Penultimate Day
It seems hard to believe, but our first day in New Zealand is just around the corner. We have had our last days at work, we have turned in our company property, we have had the landlord inspect our apartment, and we have packed up what few things we have with us that will come along on the plane. I have even bought my long-wished-for iPad (which I consider to be a business purchase...). And what better coda for our time in China than to attend the monthly Beijing Kiwi Club? As luck would have it, today is the last Friday of the month, so the Beijing Kiwi community gets together for a few drinks, some food and some good times. (Ironic, it seems to me, that the event takes place in a New Orleans-style restaurant, but at least the cuisine has the word "New" in it, I figure.)
The nice thing about going to the Kiwi Club for us is that, in just a few months, we have got to be minor celebrities. It seems that all we have to do is introduce ourselves by first name and the person we're talking to will say "oh, you're the guy who's moving to Oamaru!". I guess when you're American, and moving from Beijing to a small town in New Zealand, and giving up your career for something completely new, you develop a reputation. We thus find ourselves being greeted from all sides and introduced to people when we go to these events. For someone like me, who finds it very difficult to introduce himself to strangers at a party, this is a godsend, and really makes these events fun for me. And what's really nice is that the ambassador and his wife have got to know us, and they introduce us to the people they know, which is how we came to meet John Vause today (a CNN Beijing bureau correspondent, who is actually Australian, but they let him attend the Kiwi club, most likely, since NZ will be beating Australia in rugby tomorrow in Melbourne).
One of the other things we did on our last day in Beijing was to have one last massage at our favorite spa, and then do some gift shopping at the Silk Market. We should have done these in the opposite order, though, since a visit to the Silk Market will restore all the stress that the massage worked out of your system. On our last day in town tomorrow we'll move out of the apartment and into a hotel just near our compound, and go have a final lunch at the Noodle Loft, one of our go-to places in town. Then for dinner we'll go to the Three Guizhou Men for one last meal of spicy southwestern Chinese food with two of our newest but closest friends here. And with that our Beijing era will be nearly over!
The nice thing about going to the Kiwi Club for us is that, in just a few months, we have got to be minor celebrities. It seems that all we have to do is introduce ourselves by first name and the person we're talking to will say "oh, you're the guy who's moving to Oamaru!". I guess when you're American, and moving from Beijing to a small town in New Zealand, and giving up your career for something completely new, you develop a reputation. We thus find ourselves being greeted from all sides and introduced to people when we go to these events. For someone like me, who finds it very difficult to introduce himself to strangers at a party, this is a godsend, and really makes these events fun for me. And what's really nice is that the ambassador and his wife have got to know us, and they introduce us to the people they know, which is how we came to meet John Vause today (a CNN Beijing bureau correspondent, who is actually Australian, but they let him attend the Kiwi club, most likely, since NZ will be beating Australia in rugby tomorrow in Melbourne).
One of the other things we did on our last day in Beijing was to have one last massage at our favorite spa, and then do some gift shopping at the Silk Market. We should have done these in the opposite order, though, since a visit to the Silk Market will restore all the stress that the massage worked out of your system. On our last day in town tomorrow we'll move out of the apartment and into a hotel just near our compound, and go have a final lunch at the Noodle Loft, one of our go-to places in town. Then for dinner we'll go to the Three Guizhou Men for one last meal of spicy southwestern Chinese food with two of our newest but closest friends here. And with that our Beijing era will be nearly over!
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Progress with the Landlord
On a lark, I decided to send my landlord an SMS yesterday asking him when he plans to do the pre-departure inspection of the apartment, fully expecting no response. Instead, he phoned back within a few moments, and before long we agreed that he'd come by the next afternoon to inspect the apartment. He also told me his stance on the return of my deposit--his position was that there was no point in discussing the matter until closer to our departure date, and that there should be some "friendly" resolution to the situation, with us paying him some penalty for causing him to renovate the apartment to our specifications and then not staying for the duration of the contract.
Sure enough, he came on time this afternoon, and found the apartment to be in good shape. There was one hiccough--the list of the apartment's contents was never adjusted to reflect all the furniture and other items that we had the landlord remove from the apartment over the course of our tenancy. In particular, there was an issue of a "missing" television, though he acknowledged that he did not think it likely that we had absconded with one of his TVs.
In the end we reached an agreement on a number, and he will wire it to us within 15 days of our departure. We're having him come by the office tomorrow to sign a paper confirming this, which our lawyer drafted, so that at least we have something iron-clad in the event that he does not follow through.
It's not an ideal resolution of this situation, but it's at least something I can live with. I'm just glad it's (more than likely) over!
Sure enough, he came on time this afternoon, and found the apartment to be in good shape. There was one hiccough--the list of the apartment's contents was never adjusted to reflect all the furniture and other items that we had the landlord remove from the apartment over the course of our tenancy. In particular, there was an issue of a "missing" television, though he acknowledged that he did not think it likely that we had absconded with one of his TVs.
In the end we reached an agreement on a number, and he will wire it to us within 15 days of our departure. We're having him come by the office tomorrow to sign a paper confirming this, which our lawyer drafted, so that at least we have something iron-clad in the event that he does not follow through.
It's not an ideal resolution of this situation, but it's at least something I can live with. I'm just glad it's (more than likely) over!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
No Longer Customers of China Merchants Bank
Yesterday was the day that we set aside to take care of the thing that we were dreading the most, and looking forward to the most--the day when we would send the last of our funds being held with China Merchants Bank out of the country. Unfortunately, this coincided with the unexpected strengthening of the NZ dollar, so we decided not to send the funds to NZ just yet, preferring instead to have them go to the US and sit there for a while.
We got to the bank at around 12:30, having called in advance to tell them what we were doing. We had three things to do: 1) get a statement for the past several months to use with the banks in NZ who need to set up merchant banking accounts for our new enterprise there; 2) withdraw RMB 11,000 to pay for our ayi's last month of salary, the ride to the airport, the court fees for our suit against our landlord, and other expenses, and; 3) transfer our funds overseas.
The first activity, getting the statements, I figured would be the simplest, since there really should be an easy way to print out a statement of your account. But I was of course mistaken. This was a big to-do, and instead of giving me a statement on a nice A4-size piece of paper, what they gave me instead was a printout on a big dot-matrix form printer that proved to be a real hassle to try to scan to send to the NZ bank. But we managed to get it done in the end. Time spent: 30 minutes
The second activity was simpler. Withdrawing funds from your own account is surprisingly easy in the Chinese banking system. Time spent: 10 minutes
The last one was a bit of a nightmare. We had filled out all the forms in advance, so that it really should have been a pretty quick procedure. I had also prepared all the backup materials for our lives in China--passport, statements of employment, tax receipts, and even a letter confirming that we are leaving China and should therefore be allowed to close our accounts--but even so there were issues. For one thing, it turned out that J2's tax receipts were not up to date, and the amount that they covered was less than the amount that we wanted to send out. So we had to go to the tax bureau to get a new tax receipt. So off we went to the tax bureau to take care of that. Elapsed time so far: 1 hour
At the tax bureau. we found that they had once again moved the desk that takes care of printing out the tax receipts for foreigners. There the incredibly unfriendly guy at the counter barked at us that we need to present him with a photocopy of our passports, and that the office has no photocopy machine, so we had to go out in search of a photocopier. We eventually found one at a travel agency nearby, and even though their machine was running out of ink, the quality was probably good enough for the tax bureau. Back at the tax bureau, the same friendly guy barked at us to fill out an application form (the form being all in Chinese, I wonder how many foreigners can read the damned thing?) and to tell him what period we needed printed. With that, he printed out the information, which is now in a different format than it used to be, no longer showing the actual income earned by the tax payer, just the taxes paid. I feared that this would pose a problem at the bank, but that's the only format they have now, so I had to take it. Elapsed time so far: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with travel time)
Back at the bank, we submitted our forms for the wire transfers. Mine went through mostly without a hitch, but when it came to type in the information that I had written out on my form, the teller (whose recognition of English letters is barely kindergarten level) kept confusing Ms for Hs, Ls for Cs, and various other letters for various other other letters, so we had to keep peering over her shoulder to check her typing. Then we turned to J2's forms. Once again we had the issue over his tax forms having used his Chinese name rather than his English name, but the teller who helped us last time was there and was able to square that away. Then there was the issue of his labor contract--it turns out that I did not have the letter from the hospital confirming his employment after all, so they needed a copy of his contract sent over. That would be fine, except that their fax was broken, so we had to have someone scan it and email it over. That was fine, too, but the contract is in English, and the bank cannot read it. That was fine too, but then they wanted his residence permit form, but their copying machine could not "see" the blue ink used to print all of his personal data, so the copy looked like a blank form. That was fine, except then they wanted to keep the original form, which I was not keen on at all. Finally they decided to trust us and gave us the paper back. Elapsed time: 4 hours, total time, 4 hours, 40 minutes.
We certainly won't miss banking in China. The contrast with the experience we've had so far in NZ is so stark, it's just unbelievable. Why the Chinese continue to make it so hard to send your own money out of the country is utterly beyond me...
We got to the bank at around 12:30, having called in advance to tell them what we were doing. We had three things to do: 1) get a statement for the past several months to use with the banks in NZ who need to set up merchant banking accounts for our new enterprise there; 2) withdraw RMB 11,000 to pay for our ayi's last month of salary, the ride to the airport, the court fees for our suit against our landlord, and other expenses, and; 3) transfer our funds overseas.
The first activity, getting the statements, I figured would be the simplest, since there really should be an easy way to print out a statement of your account. But I was of course mistaken. This was a big to-do, and instead of giving me a statement on a nice A4-size piece of paper, what they gave me instead was a printout on a big dot-matrix form printer that proved to be a real hassle to try to scan to send to the NZ bank. But we managed to get it done in the end. Time spent: 30 minutes
The second activity was simpler. Withdrawing funds from your own account is surprisingly easy in the Chinese banking system. Time spent: 10 minutes
The last one was a bit of a nightmare. We had filled out all the forms in advance, so that it really should have been a pretty quick procedure. I had also prepared all the backup materials for our lives in China--passport, statements of employment, tax receipts, and even a letter confirming that we are leaving China and should therefore be allowed to close our accounts--but even so there were issues. For one thing, it turned out that J2's tax receipts were not up to date, and the amount that they covered was less than the amount that we wanted to send out. So we had to go to the tax bureau to get a new tax receipt. So off we went to the tax bureau to take care of that. Elapsed time so far: 1 hour
At the tax bureau. we found that they had once again moved the desk that takes care of printing out the tax receipts for foreigners. There the incredibly unfriendly guy at the counter barked at us that we need to present him with a photocopy of our passports, and that the office has no photocopy machine, so we had to go out in search of a photocopier. We eventually found one at a travel agency nearby, and even though their machine was running out of ink, the quality was probably good enough for the tax bureau. Back at the tax bureau, the same friendly guy barked at us to fill out an application form (the form being all in Chinese, I wonder how many foreigners can read the damned thing?) and to tell him what period we needed printed. With that, he printed out the information, which is now in a different format than it used to be, no longer showing the actual income earned by the tax payer, just the taxes paid. I feared that this would pose a problem at the bank, but that's the only format they have now, so I had to take it. Elapsed time so far: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with travel time)
Back at the bank, we submitted our forms for the wire transfers. Mine went through mostly without a hitch, but when it came to type in the information that I had written out on my form, the teller (whose recognition of English letters is barely kindergarten level) kept confusing Ms for Hs, Ls for Cs, and various other letters for various other other letters, so we had to keep peering over her shoulder to check her typing. Then we turned to J2's forms. Once again we had the issue over his tax forms having used his Chinese name rather than his English name, but the teller who helped us last time was there and was able to square that away. Then there was the issue of his labor contract--it turns out that I did not have the letter from the hospital confirming his employment after all, so they needed a copy of his contract sent over. That would be fine, except that their fax was broken, so we had to have someone scan it and email it over. That was fine, too, but the contract is in English, and the bank cannot read it. That was fine too, but then they wanted his residence permit form, but their copying machine could not "see" the blue ink used to print all of his personal data, so the copy looked like a blank form. That was fine, except then they wanted to keep the original form, which I was not keen on at all. Finally they decided to trust us and gave us the paper back. Elapsed time: 4 hours, total time, 4 hours, 40 minutes.
We certainly won't miss banking in China. The contrast with the experience we've had so far in NZ is so stark, it's just unbelievable. Why the Chinese continue to make it so hard to send your own money out of the country is utterly beyond me...
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Blocked in China!
Just FYI, for the past several weeks my blog has once again been blocked in China, even when using a VPN! I guess that means that someone in the government has actually read my posts and has decided that it is not safe for reading in the PRC! I'm a dissident!
Last Great Wall Visit
It's our final full weekend in China, and, since the skies were somewhat clear (well, for Beijing), we decided to go to the Great Wall for one final visit before leaving. We usually go to the Mutianyu section, about a 90 minute drive from our place, but this time we thought we'd go to Simatai instead, which we visited only once, when J2 came to visit me here in 2002. Unfortunately, that section of the Wall is closed for the next three years for renovation, so instead we decided to go to the nearby Jinshanling section, which J2 had never been to. I in fact had only been there once, way back in 2002, when the Chaine des Rotisseurs held an induction dinner up there. Back then the cable car ride up to the Wall from the parking area was so slow, with only two people able to fit in each cabin, that by the time I got up to the Wall itself it was pitch black out, and I could not see a thing, so for all intents and purposes, this was my first visit, too.
The drive up there took close to two hours, including a delay at one of the tunnels through the mountains where not one, not two but three separate accidents had taken place within one not-very-long tunnel. Chinese drivers... At the Wall we bought our entry tickets and the separate cable car tickets. And sure enough, the cable car is the same one they had back in 2002, taking a good 15-20 minutes to get to the top. It was extremely hot out, and the cabins are not air conditioned, so by the time we got to the top we were soaked in perspiration. At least I was not wearing a tuxedo!
The attraction of the Jinshanling section of the Wall is that it is very extensive and in large sections it's minimally restored, so you have more of a feeling of being in a truly old structure. Unfortunately, the skies were very hazy so the photos are not as good as they might have been, but the Wall itself is very photogenic. But don't take my word for it, take a look yourself by clicking here.
The drive up there took close to two hours, including a delay at one of the tunnels through the mountains where not one, not two but three separate accidents had taken place within one not-very-long tunnel. Chinese drivers... At the Wall we bought our entry tickets and the separate cable car tickets. And sure enough, the cable car is the same one they had back in 2002, taking a good 15-20 minutes to get to the top. It was extremely hot out, and the cabins are not air conditioned, so by the time we got to the top we were soaked in perspiration. At least I was not wearing a tuxedo!
The attraction of the Jinshanling section of the Wall is that it is very extensive and in large sections it's minimally restored, so you have more of a feeling of being in a truly old structure. Unfortunately, the skies were very hazy so the photos are not as good as they might have been, but the Wall itself is very photogenic. But don't take my word for it, take a look yourself by clicking here.
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