Pudding and Chopsticks

Starbucks in China has got something right. I’ve been here for quite a bit today. Along the lines for four hours thus far. Doing a little work and chilling in the ar conditioning. It’s hot outside. But I’ve noticed a few things. Starbucks it’s seems in China is not a place to come get coffee in the morning. I say this because I rolled in at 11 and started kicking out the vibes. There were only 4 people inside. Not many for a Starbucks this size. But now it’s 3 pm and this place is rocking. Most of the people here are couples. Dressed quite well. Some students and friends. They are chatting it up like tomorrow there is going to be a gigantic rock hitting the earth.

What does all this mean. I think this. Starbucks is a hip, trendy place to socialize with your friends and drink expensive trendy fruit drinks. Yep. Not really a place to roll in and get a coffee. Mostly a place to meet and act like you are from America. Really. Most are trendy dressed in Western clothes. Some in Hong Kong style. Some is the good old god awful Chinese style.

Hell I would even say that there are multiple first dates going on right now. One in front of me and a couple to the side. Good stuff. Starbucks helping young rich Asian couple hook up since whenever.

But the consistency here is that they are trendy in the way they all dress, act, and look. I’m not sure what this means. I am the same. I’m all trended out. But that’s just me because I’m just naturally awesome.

Either way, I felt like I needed to blog about something but had no idea what t blog about. so I guess that I thought I would give some of my observations.

There is a Chinese saying or phrase, 差不多， which means pretty much the same. Almost, nearly, more or less. I hear this phrase all the time. Here is an example.

Making widgets. A customer wanted a widget a specific thickness. The thickness of the widget is supposed to be 1.2mm. We first sample the widget. Build one make sure it’s good then send to customer. Today we go to look at the sampled widget and find out that the thickness is 2mm. .8mm too thick. This is a real problem. It’s almost 100% too big. The department that makes the innards of the widget has the drawings, the people that design it have the drawings. So my question is this. If we are making a widget and the thickness has to be 1.2mm and I have a part that is 2mm, what makes me think that 2mm is ok when the drawing says 1.2mm. Well, it’s almost, nearly, more or less the same. It’s why I hear that phrase all the time. Because to a Chinese person pretty close is good enough.

Let me explain. I’ve just finished reading an excellent article by Modern Lei Feng, entitled, “Whither Chinese Soccer?” on why China is unable to field a world class soccer team. It basically talks about how China has 1.3 billion people and can’t find 11 great soccer players. Check it out, give it a quick read and gain some more insight into China.

I would like to add and if I may further the implications of the mentioned areas of Lei Feng’s article. Specifically how they translate into other extracurricular activities and models.

The Educational System: This is usually a hot topic among different cultures. Probably it’s because everyone has direct experience in one country’s education. Whether a student, a parent, or an avid reader of news. How does the educational system in China hinder the ability to do any activity outside of school? Feng brings up good points and I totally agree. In China you have to go to the best schools, just to get into a good college. And even then you have to do extremely well at those schools. Remember, with 1.3 billion people there are a lot of students trying to get into a limited number of university spots. Thus the competition is fierce. With that, parents don’t allow free time, you must study, to get good grades, to get into a good university, to get a good job, to buy a house, get married and pump out kids. Skateboarding, snowboarding, etc, are all out the window. This can be seen by the slow growth of each of these sports. American kids have the free time to do these activities and become proficient in each if they like. With that follows the industries that support them. Ski resorts, skate parks, brands, products, etc. It’s starting to develop here, but slowly. The demographic driving them right now are rich kids and mid twenty year olds that are finished with college and no longer have to study.

Sports Schools: I also agree here although I have no direct knowledge of sports schools. If you only select kids to go the a specialty sports school that younger then 11 then you ignore a good amount of the population. I know that the Chinese snowboard team is mostly teenagers. I do not know when they were picked. But really, how could you pick a 7 yr old and say you will train to be in the Winter Olympics in snowboarding. The child hasn’t even developed yet. Same with soccer. How are you supposed to know if a child is going to be a good soccer player at 7 yrs old? Wait a bit and see if they take an interest in it and see what natural ability they have.

Soccer can’t be taught: With going to schools that only teach to pass a specific test, students are only taught to follow a process. A series of steps that are given to them to get an end result. Soccer doesn’t have a series of defined steps. There is infinite number of outcomes to the infinite number of inputs for an infinite number of scenarios. Ever wonder why China is the world’s factory. Well, factory work requires no thinking; it is a series of defined steps that can be taught as input-outputs. If widget has this, then it is a defect and must go here. Soccer can’t be taught like this. Gymnastics and other repetitive sports can be for the most part. Skateboarding and snowboarding seem like they could be in this realm. However, creativity of the “run” or linking together of these repetitive tasks could suffer a bit. Remember, there isn’t a clearly defined formula to a half-pipe run. Lot’s of copy products, and what have you come from China. Ever wonder why?

Work Ethic: He explains some things about older players being happy with the success they have, so they don’t work as hard thus the younger players copy them. This could translate into other sports I suppose. With the majority of snowboarders and skateboarders being older and having studied so hard most of their lives they may not feel like they need to work as hard as they once did. They finally graduated why should they put the effort into it. With participating in sports during school, even if you have free time, you spend most of your energy during studying, your tired, why work just as hard as something that you don’t need and can’t make you money in the short term. To be honest and too parallel Feng’s explanation of work ethic, to be good at something in China doesn’t take much. Not many people can snowboard, so if you say, live in the States for a stint, learn to snowboard and become ok at it, you can be sponsored and make a living at it here (maybe). That’s changing but really, I myself am better at snowboarding then most everyone in China. Not all, but a good amount. So with the bar so low, advancement, and progression doesn’t have to go too far. When you get there, why work harder, you’ve already made it.

The rest of the article is solely based on the governing body of soccer. However it does relate some to snowboarding and other sports. Most new sports in China are new and have no direction. That’s changing. Snowboarding has starting to become a well-known thing in China. The girls at the Olympics killed it. Most people don’t realize that LIU Jiayu is 18 yrs old and has only been snowboarding for 7 yrs at the time of the Vancouver Olympics this year. She placed fourth. The 1st place finisher Torah Bright is 24 yrs old and has been snowboarding for 13 yrs. On skis at 2 and a snowboard at 11.

Things are changing in the way of new sports in China. Snowboarding is an Olympics sport and with golf coming up, look for China to provide even more backing for these. Without having the Olympics there isn’t any reason to compete, but with the Olympics there is a reason. And that reason is Face.

So I’m back at the airport, returning from a mini trip. I wanted to do a little blogging during my visiting a friend. But yeah, that didn’t work out. I should of known. But alas I am sitting here watching people again. Which I like to do. I’ve noticed that the most attractive girls are at the airport. Working and flying somewhere. Which means a few things. The ones that are actually flying somewhere have what I would call a sponsor. Whether it is a boyfriend, a lover, a dad, or another version of a male in their lives. This is not really a good thing. Because I would guess that the statistics would show that most are carry a LV bag and what to own a Ferrari California.

I got another half hour before I can check in. So here is what it took to get to Huizhou. A car from my apartment to the major city near by that has an airport. 1hr. A flight, which I have to rant about. Ok, tangent.

We all boarded the plane. Everything is good until we do the safety spiel then, BAM. They announce a delay. No it had to be now, not 20 minutes ago when I wasn’t strapped in. 2, yes 2 hours later we finally take off. So my wonderful 1.5 hr flight was now close to 4 hrs. Man I love it. So I spoke too soon in my last blog post. My flight was delayed and it sucked. I think that reason was air tower delay. It was probably lunchtime and the entire control tower went to lunch and didn’t come back for 2 hrs. Wouldn’t surprise me. Ok back on track.

1 hr car to airport, 2 hr delay in airplane, 2 hr plane ride, 2 hr bus ride, 10-minute taxi ride and bam, at the hotel. Travel time, 5 hours. Not bad I guess. Going back it going to be the same thing. So yippee.

During the 2hr delay I slept, ate dinner from the airplane, and watch a dude get angry because he was missing a connecting flight. What happened, nothing. We all waited.

So that’s what it’s like flying in China, delay, delay, delay. How the hell are you supposed to evolve as a society if you can’t keep all your damn planes on time.

I am currently sitting in an airport people watching. One of my favorite things to do. I am taking a few days to go to a different city to visit a friend. Well, this is going to be interesting. My friend doesn’t speak any English and I will be without anyone who does. So, I am going to have to speak Chinese for real for the next 3 days. Not that big of a deal. I’ve had to speak Chinese for the last 3 or 4 days anyway. So I think I can get by. But what makes this trip different from the other trips is that I booked everything myself and it will be my first solo trip.

I am traveling to a city where I have never been, staying at a hotel that I have never been, have to speak Chinese, take a bus from a big city to a smaller city without getting lost, and then from that bus stop to the hotel, check in, etc.

It’s going to be interesting to say the least.

Now for some people watching.

Most all the people inside the airports in China are businessmen. Mainly because it’s so expensive. Common people can’t afford to fly. There are a lot of well off people here too. Also because of the expensiveness of flying.

Most all the girls look like they are from Beverly Hills. Big sunglasses and what not. Trying to look all cool. So at least we know where they get their style from.

This airport is nice.

Flying in China is a trip in itself. The like to delay all the flights and blame it on other things. Weather, late arrival of the aircraft, out of gas who knows. But I hear the real reason it that the government controls the airspace. Thus if they don’t want you to take off or something like that you wait. Maybe someone needs to pay someone off to take off, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t doubt it’s something like that. Basically you have to plan on every flight being delayed. All the time. I say that but my flight isn’t delayed. So that kind of contradicts my statements.

I think I am going to practice some of my Chinese while I wait. Sounds like fun. I better saddle up because I don’t see a plane at the terminal yet, I bet that it’s going to be delayed. As usual.

I took a mini trip to a city to which I have never been. I was visiting a friend and it was going to be my first big test of my Chinese. Which turned out ok. But I had something happen to me while I was walking down a sidewalk.

I was walking next to a big lake which was pretty famous. It was at night and I was admiring the shimmering lights from the buildings on the other side. When suddenly I walked into a tree. Square in the face. Didn’t feel too good. It was one of those trees that kinda jet out into the sidewalk a little bit. Well, I was day dreaming and walked into it. How awesome is that.