uggh

Working in China

Jacob Redding — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:31:36 +0000

Working in China, for someone coming from the "West", comes with its own unique set of difficulties. The first difficulty, of course, is the language barrier which may be present even if you speak perfect 普通话（Mandarin, Chinese) as many Chinese people still speak in local dialects. The second is another obvious one, the cultural differences. Cultural differences may not be apparent at first but they creep up on you and can present interesting challenges from time to time.

The biggest challenge/difficult when working in China may not be these obvious ones but rather these things that we take for granted in the "West".

1) 24 hour power. Power at all isn't always guaranteed even in the big cities. I know of several technology shops that have regular power outages. How does a tech-company operate without power? answer, it doesn't.

2) Internet access. Yes you have the challenges of the great firewall and the impositions it places but you also massive inconsistencies with the web itself. You may be paying for a 2MB line but there is no guarantee that you are going to get that or anywhere near that. Now when you combine spotty Internet with the fact that most of the Internet is hosted outside of China you get a really bad combination for doing any sort of web related work unless, that is, your web is 100% focused on China, your hosted in China and all of your resources are within China; a highly unlikely scenario even for China-based sites/companies.

As an example of one of the challenges, I uploaded 100MBs of file to a server in the U.S, the upload was done on a 2MB up/down business class ADSL line. The picture shows my upload times. As you can see one 34 MB file took 2 1/2 hours to upload, at a whopping 3.8KB/s but roughly 2 hours later a 13MB file took only 4 minutes at a, moderately faster, 54.7KB/s. This sort of inconsistency reigns supreme here and its just something that, for the moment, you just have to live with.

Doing any sort of web-based work in China is, in a word, challenging.

Beijing Pollution

Jacob Redding — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:16:54 +0000

I shot this video several weeks ago and after I shot it the air cleared up for a few days and then got worse again. The last two days the SEPA index has been over 100. Fortunately today the rains and wind came to wash and blow away all of the pollution! yay!

How I learned to fly (beatnick style)

Jacob Redding — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:53:14 +0000

My flight from Vancouver to Seattle to Boston to attend the Boston DrupalCon was a little less than desirable. The differences in flights in the U.S is amazing. My seat was comfortable with ample legroom and the flight incredibly smooth. The check-in attendant, however, was rude and actually told me that today was the day that I learned how to "fly" (because apparently I had no idea how the airports worked).

The entire flight felt like an advertisement. I was asked no less than 3 times to sign up for a Visa card. Food was for sale, Sodas were for sale, entertainment units were for sale, and anything/everything else they could possibly sell you was on sale. I felt like a trapped customer that couldn't flee the salesperson. I'm sure this is exactly what the airline wants (I couldn't go anywhere so I had to listen to the ADs) but I can promise you that I will probably not fly with Alaska air again.

Anyhow... I wasn't happy when I landed in Boston. Instead of writing a long letter to the company (which would be thrown out) or complaining to all ends I instead recorded a really bad beatnick poem and I did it on the spot. There are mistakes, much of it doesn't rhyme but heck I would've cornered anyone of my friends and made them listen to this so I might as well put it up.

Update: Yes they lost my bags, and then they lost my bags again.

Chinesepod, Twitter, and Social Networking

Jacob Redding — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:12:23 +0000

These days I rarely write blog entries that express an opinion about a subject or that are of the typical "blog" type. My blog entries have been directed towards my family and friends and are rarely directed towards the "Internet" (although I fully understand they are on the Internet). Today is a bit different.

This morning I received an email from Twitter that ChinesePod was following me. This isn't the first time I've been "followed" by a non-real person. Its probably the 1,000th time to be honest but this is the "follow" that pushed me over the edge and it really has to do with the whole social-networking web 2.0 madness that is currently taking over the Internet. I have a Love/Hate relationship with the craziness.

As a person that spends most of his time on the Internet I am incredibly familiar with Web 2.0 and Social Networking craze going on. In fact I would even venture to say that I'm intimately familiar with it as I help create these types of sites, work with those that manage them and know the in/outs of the industry. I love this whole craze because it is creating communities of real people that never would have existed otherwise. People are connecting with other people in ways they never would have thought about and we're all learning more about each other if the web hadn't existed.

In short: I LOVE Social Networking & Web 2.0.

and
I hate Web 2.0 for roughly the same reasons. People are connecting to people they don't know and may never know; which isn't necessarily a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that they are only connecting to connect, instead of connecting to meet. Maybe my "rules" would help explain my position here.

I use Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter as well as others. My rules for accepting an invitation are

1) We should have met face to face and had a meaningful conversation (not simply "hello"). This is not a hard and fast rule though as I've connected to people I've never met in real life

2) There should be a reason for being listed as friends on Facebook/Linked-In/xyz. Maybe we worked on a project together, at the same company, have similar interests, hiked the same path, etc. There should some reasonable assurance that we will meet again in the future, hopefully in person but online can also count.

3) There has to be desire to actually be a friend instead of just an anonymous person on the Internet. Can I crash on your couch? Could I call you up and talk politics one day?

4) You must be real. Pseudo names are cool (ahem: WiredGeek) but what's your real name, what do you look like, where do you live, etc. Life is not virtual.

I will not add you as a friend for the following reasons

A) You saw my site and it looked "cool"

B) I lived in xyz town that you want to live in thus we should be friends

C) You know a friend that has a friend who knows a friend that knows me (we don't know each other though.. lets meet first)

D) We both frequent the same website
etc. etc.

My rules get down to what I think the social networking madness should really be about.

Connecting people. We should use technology to connect people to each other and create real sustainable connections that enhance the quality of our lives.

Getting back to why I was perturbed by ChinesePod following me on twitter my reasons are fairly straightforward. I use twitter as a method to stay in touch with friends and learn more about them as I read their various thoughts/Ideas/Ramblings. I'm interested in what they have to say and I would hope that those following me are also interested in my odd and varied twits.

ChinesePod is a company and not a person. Their twits will be links to their website and response to other twitters. ChinesePod won't be sending out twitter Haikus or twitting as they head to the store. I won't hear about when they move or the hot guy/girl they met the other night. ChinesePod isn't going to ask the twitterverse for a movie recommendation or twit about their chocolate/ginger cravings.

Chinesepod is NOT a person.

If they don't twitter website links maybe they'll be twittering responses to people. Unfortunately twitter is a one-way communication. For example they twitted "@Julesong Sorry, didn't mean to scare you with Chinese characters!" wtf is that? Who is Julesong and what are they responding to. Its as if I were eavesdropping on a telephone conversation but I was only able to hear one person.
How is this connecting anyone, helping anyone or providing any value to the world? Its simply noise.

I really appreciate ChinesePod's attempt at reaching out to their customer base and exploring new ways to connect people together (really I do) but this is not the way.

The "Perfect" place

Jacob Redding — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:25:21 +0000

Length disclaimer: This is going to be long... Give yourself time

The silence is finally broken. For the past 3 weeks I've been twittering several times a day but not a single blog post or photos. If you've been following the "twits" you know that we found the "perfect" place that was incredibly convenient but a bit expensive. You'll also know that the perfect place turned into a ugly nightmare very quickly.

Well this is the full story. Sit back and relax.

Three weeks ago it began. We started slowly by only seeing one or two apartments a day and worked up to a searching frenzy by looking at 5 to 10 apartments a day. There is good reason for our massive searching.

Beijing is a very, very modern city and most of the apartments in Beijing are more modern than those in the U.S. It also a large city of roughly 15 million (yes Million) people with a housing market to match. In this respect it is very similar to the housing market in NYC. A ton of apartments are on the market in a massive range of sizes, types, amenities, and locations. Of course the prices vary widely too.

But, just like in NYC, location matters. We are attending classes in the 五道口 (Wu dao kou) area of Beijing (just outside the Northwest area of the 4th ring). This area is home to what seems like every University in Beijing. I know of 5 Universities within walking distance of each other and, I've been told, that you could hop between 15 Universities with short bus rides. I say all of this to give you an idea of what the area looks like. Students everywhere. Foreigners everywhere. Restaurants, bars, clubs, movie theaters, etc. etc. Its all here and catering to the 20-30 year old crowd. Now I'm pushing the upper limits of that crowd but I still like being in an "active" neighborhood (I'm not old yet!).

We decided that 五道口 is where we want to live. Wonderfully, a twittering friend let us know that 五道口 was both expensive and inexpensive at the same time. We didn't quite understand what this meant until we started searching. This is what it means.

Its cheap: Yes 五道口 can be really cheap. A room can be had for as little as 800-1,200 RMB/mnth, studio apartments as little as 1,500, one bedrooms easily at 2,000 RMB, two bedrooms at 2,500 RMB. In US dollars (currently at 7.40RMB/1USD but this will drop SOON) this is $108, $200, $270, $330 respectively. Its cheap because most of the places in 五道口 are older places built between 50s & 90s. The furniture is going to be older, the appliances older, refrigerators will be outside on the patio if not the entire kitchen (no indoor ventilation). They will ALL have a massive amount of room though. The biggest thing, for us, is that they will have older bathrooms.
Forget about having an enclosed shower. Most "showers" are simply a showerhead attached to a hose and hung on the wall of the bathroom. When you shower the ENTIRE bathroom gets wet. Hey if you're young, want to live cheaply or don't spend a lot of time in the bathroom then its probably fine.

I'm not. I'm old(er). I primp. Yes I admitted it. I primp. I take decent length showers (i.e. long). I like to shave in a steamy bathroom room with my bare feet on a DRY rug in front of the sink. Yes...I'll admit it...I'm western.

Now, now. Don't go saying "but you're in China, not in Western country. Adapt!". Read on.

Its expensive: Modern buildings (>95) almost always have "Western" bathrooms or at the very least bigger bathrooms so that the shower "area" gets wet and not the entire bathroom. Buildings built >2000 generally have decent modern bathrooms. In Beijing these places are generally between 2,500 to 3,500 RMB for a one bedroom. In 五道口, however, you have the NYC effect. There is ONE, only ONE modern building complex that sits next to the subway station. Scarcity breeds high rents. If you want to be conveniently next to the subway and have a nice modern apartment you have to pay up. Average rents are 4,000-5,000 RMB for a one bedroom and 4,500 to 6,000 for a two bedroom.

We looked at many, many inexpensive apartments and really thought about if we could live in one of these apartments. After a while we decided that we're older now. We want to be comfortable in our house and we're judging comfort on a modern standard. Bathrooms must have a separated shower and the kitchen needs to be in the house.

These types of places exist all over Beijing just not close to the subway in the 五道口 area. So now we were looking for the needle in the haystack. A nice modern apartment within walking distance to the subway. As in NYC we spoke to every agent that would speak to us. At one point we had an agent, after showing us several apartments, tell us that our requirements were just too much and gave up on us (of course they called us the next day). The apartment was out there it was just going to take a while.

Bring in the web. We're in China so all the "Craigslists" don't really exist here and if they do they are (a) all in Chinese and (b) full of scams. We've tried them (We both can read enough Chinese to figure things out) its just not the way its done here. I did, however, find something on http://www.thebeijinger.com. The ad made it sound like it was the "perfect place"

This the ad.
"A 2BR apartment locates in HuaQingJiaYuan. A great and convenient place to live in Wudaokou area. There’s a swimming pool and GYM inside the complex area, a supermarket right across the building, stores and restaurants around the apartment complex. 5 minutes walking distance to Wudaokou subway station. Close walking distance to several famous universities and language institute such as BLCU, Tsinghua University and Peking University. The apartment is on the 18th floor with a good view and also has 2 bedrooms, 24 hour hot water, high speed internet, TV, washing machine, refrigerator, a well equipped kitchen, a washroom, couch and other necessarily furniture. Satisfaction Guaranteed ^o^ ~~ The rent is only RMB4000 per month and one year contract is needed. NO Agency fee required as I’m only helping a friend to find a new tenant. You can reach me anytime in either way convenient to you, call or text messages at --------- for English and Chinese speaking and ------- for Korean and Chinese speaking. Hope to hear from you soon ^o^ "

OK so the ad sounded great. HuaQingJiaYuan is the modern building I was referring to earlier. Its right next to the subway line. The advertisement didn't lie. It is a superb location.

So we called and made an appointment to see it. Now the fun begins...

The apartment was truly on the TOP (18th) floor of a building on the outer edges of the complex. The two bedroom were of a decent size, the kitchen big and nice and the architecture, as well as decor, was modern. The master bedroom had a decent sized window to enjoy the view and a sliding glass door to access the *gasp* sunroom patio!! I LOVE views. Windows all around to enjoy the unobstructured view of the outer edges of Beijing. Its was pretty awesome.

Although I should have suspected something was wrong because diagonally across from our building was the brand-new science park of Beijing that houses Google, Sun Microsystems and......Microsoft.

Yes I was in love with an apartment that was within walking distance of Microsoft and one where the giant neon sign saying "Microsoft" was visible from my would-be bedroom.

Right then I should've known that something was up.

The apartment was everything we wanted though. Top floor, modern, two bedrooms and insanely convenient. Our school; across the street. Supermarket; across the street. Restaurants, about 50, on and across the street. Movie theater; one block. Subway; half block. Taxis; out the door. Buses; half block. Bike lanes; all around. Everything! It was all right there.

Trouble in paradise.

The apartment was currently being rented by two Korean students that were six months into a one year lease. The story goes that they had to get back to Korea by the 20th for some reason. The landlord was willing to let them out of their lease if they found replacement tenants. The advertisement was posted by a bilingual English/Chinese friend of theirs. We did the same thing in NYC so this waasn't much of a surprise.

First surprise: The bathroom.

The bathroom was absolutely disgusting. It was a standard shower nozzle on the wall, get-the-whole-bathroom wet type. Sadly the entire bathroom had gotten wet and was NEVER cleaned. Mildew was on every tile, in every crevice and on every surface. Honestly it was amazing to see considering that the two girls whom lived there were pretty, well dressed, clean, and well kempt.
The smell coming out of the bathroom was something horrible. Actually it was worse than horrible it was nauseatingly atrocious. I looked around it and made a quick decision that it wasn't anything that couldn't be cleaned. Some elbow grease, cleaner and a good day's work. It'd be good as new.

The next day we got a call. The
landlord was raising the rent from $4,000 to $4,500. This was a sudden bait and switch move. The rent raise was a blow but not out of line with market rents; $4,000 was a bargain but $4,500 was still decent.

We continued looking at apartments and although we found better apartments at cheaper rents nothing was as convenient as that place so we decided to up the anty and apply some NYC tactics. The girl's lease wasn't up until the 20th and it was the 1st. We offered to share the house with them from the 1st to the 20th and in return we'd pay the entire rent. So they would live rent free. They could have the Master bedroom and we'd take the smaller guest room.

This tactic was two fold for us. It ensured we'd have the house (free rent is tempting, its like key money). The sudden rental increase hit a sketch factor of 1 for us and some other actions raised the sketch factor up a bit more. So we wanted to make sure things were legit and living with them is a pretty sure way.

After a day of thinking about it they decided that they would do it. I said great lets start the rental process and bring the landlord into it.

The day was Saturday.

On Sunday I received a call that we could meet with the landlord on Monday evening. It seemed like things were set.

Monday. We decided to do one last check of the neighborhood to make sure we we're making the right decision. The rent was high for Beijing but the convenience was extremely hard to pass up. Again we found better places at lower rents but nothing with as much convenience.

That afternoon we got a call that raised the sketch meter to high. The girls had suddenly decided to move out completely. If we signed the contract on Monday we could move in on Tuesday. hhhmm... why would they suddenly move out? They said they were in classes until the 20th. Seems odd.

The sketch meter hit an all-time high and we need some help now. My Chinese is horrible. Diana's is better but we're entering legal things, its big. A good friend, whom has since become a really-really good friend, Ben came to our aid. That night we went out to hot pot and talked about what we could do. We were meeting the landlord at 8:30pm it was 6pm.

At dinner we decided that we had to verify that the landlord was actually the landlord. A really common scam in China is to have someone pretend to be the landlord, have you sign a "contract", pay the deposit + rent and then they take off. At this point we hadn't met the landlord and the girls we're moving out rather suddenly. Sketchy.

At 8:30 we walked over the apartment and upon entering the apartment the sketch meter went up again. The girls had definitely moved out in a hurry. None of their stuff was left in the apartment but it was a mess with papers and various knick-knacks. The bed were stripped clean, shelves emptied, refrigerator empty.....

sketchy.....

At that point we immediately decided against signing any sort of contract and we had to verify that the landlord was indeed the owner. We asked her for the deed to her apartment and/or her tax statements. She couldn't produce either. Although it was claimed that its because we sprang it on her at the last minute. This is true (we did it on purpose). She, apparently not offended by us asking for some legal documentation, offered to go down to the management office to verify ownership. This seemed reasonable to me so at 9 o'clock at night we marched down to the management office (this is large skyscraper complex with 100+ apartment each with individual owners).

The office was closed.

No matter. She marched over to the security office (24 hours) so that they could match her ID card to the register sheet. It took a while but they did verify her ID card as belonging to the complex AND to that apartment but they couldn't verify ownership. Sketch factor + 1.

But our wonderful interpreter, Ben, heard the entire conversation between the officers and her and had reasonable assurance that she did indeed own the place.

So we worked out a deal. We wouldn't sign the contract until ownership could be verified. As we would need to register with the local police department anyhow (all foreigners have to register with the police within 24 hours) we made a plan to sign the contract on Wednesday.

The landlord, obviously, wanted a contract signed now and we didn't want to sign. If the contract wasn't signed she said she wouldn't hold the place and would rent it to the next person inline.

Our sketch factor was pretty high BUT we allowed our brains to be clouded by the fact that it was (a) on the 18th floor (b) awesome view (c) lots of room (d) the ONLY convenient building with our picky criteria.

We worked out paying 1 month rent to the landlord as a "good faith" payment. 4,500RMB

Before giving her the cash, however, we started to point out various things that were wrong in the apartment. The items were minor but there were quite a few of them. To start about 10 or 15 light bulbs were burnt out. The bathroom needed to be cleaned, mailbox door was broken, shoe rack door was broken, a mirror was broken, dirty kitchen, etc. etc. Little things that are quickly fixed.

The rent, however, is high for Beijing so these things should be fixed.

We pointed them out and she seemed to understand and said that she would buy some light bulbs and do some other things. An agreement was reached. We handed over $4,500 RMB and she gave us a receipt and the keys.

Now I'm not joking but within about 45 seconds the two girls walked out the front door with bags in hand. I thought they were just going out to take out the trash or something like that but they actually left.

bad sign.

Within about 10 minutes we all left the apartment and went home to our respective dwellings. Although things were "sketchy". Our, wonderful, translator had a good feeling and thought the landlord was good. We really wanted the place so we decided to overrule our "sketch-dars".

Tuesday morning we packed and moved over to our new apartment. We immediately starting making a list of everything that was wrong with the apartment so that we could put it in the contract to be fixed. After about an hour I think we discovered one of the real reasons why the Korean girls left the apartment. A can of bug spray and bait traps everywhere. The bathroom reeked, even more than before, and the apartment walls were filthy. Again nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little elbow grease. But there was one more MAJOR problem with the apartment.

The dirty bathroom was the most likely cause of a big hole that had been somewhat disguised from us before we moved in. The bottom of the wall outside of the bathroom door was disintegrating. The kind of disintegration that only comes from a moldy/mildewy core. Most likely the uncleaned bathroom had begun seeping behind the tiles and into the wall. Parts of it were soft and hollow while other parts just flaked right off. We invited a relative over to survey the damage and they confirmed that the hole was going to get worse and it needed to be fixed.

At this point we have a dirty apartment, filthy walls, a bathroom that reeks and a hole in the wall. BUT we're on the 18th floor with a view of the mountains surrounding Beijing and a pretty cool patio surrounded by windows. Its cool...

Maybe we can work something out?

The last straw came in a search through the house. We came across an old bag of receipts that apparently belonged to a former tenant back in 2005. In addition to a lot of interesting receipts which painted a pretty good picture of his/her life we also found a copy of their lease. Actually their were TWO leases. The first lease was for one year from late-June to Sept of 2005 at a price of $3,000/mth. The second lease was for the same person, for the same apartment, but it started in Sept of 2005 extending for one year at a price of $3,700/mth. According to the papers rent went up DURING an existing lease.

Sketch factor really high now. It reached super majority and vetoed the good view, ample room and excellent location. You could say that the sketch factor is of Olympic proportions.

We are staying in Beijing for a full year for one reason. The Olympics. The Olympics are coming in August and by July rents in Beijing will be so high that we won't be able to afford to live here. Thus we're renting for the full year so that the landlord gets a good tenant and we have a place to stay during the Olympics. If this landlord raised the rent in the middle of a lease for one tenant what would stop it from happening again?

The feeling of being "took" sinks in.

We asked the relative that helped inspect the house for us to contact the landlord and see what she'll do about the problems in the house. We didn't tell him about the contracts we found.

The old rental price was $4,000. The new rental price was $4,500. She was making an additional $6,000 a year. We came up with a few different price scenarios and presented them to her.

We'll pay $4,500/month if the house is cleaned and a list of about 10 things is fixed. If she doesn't want to do anything then we'll pay $4,000/month and do the work ourselves. We also had various other items along that spectrum. Honestly I think it was fair.

She was contacted. We waited.

Relative calls back. She wants $4,500/mth and she's not doing anything.

Our response. OK we don't sign the contract then.

Relative calls back. She said OK no contract signed then I'll return you the rent you paid minus two days rent.

Our response. OK sounds good.

3 hours pass....

Relative calls. Landlord says "legally I don't have to give back anything. I want them out by morning and I'm keeping everything".

This was 11pm on Tuesday.

Now we made a mistake when we handed over cash without a proper contract in place but we covered ourself by not handing over the full amount (4 months rents). Additionally we have keys to the apartment and the landlord also doesn't have a contract. The stage has been set for a battle of politics, legality and the all important "face".

Wednesday morning we woke up and began strategizing. We were going to lose something in this but how much?

Ben our wonderful friend and translator called. The landlord called him and wanted to setup an appointment. Initially it was 2pm but we pushed it back to 7:30pm.

The internet poster called. "They are problems with the apartment, the landlord wants us to meet"

A flurry of phone calls back n' forth. The landlord started to make some concessions on the apartment but still refused to fix the disintegrating wall. Our response was staunch $4,500 if the place is immaculate or bring down the price. The landlord refused to bring down the price.

Calls stopped. The time was determined, the characters selected and the stage was set.

The showdown: Wednesday night at 7:30
Characters: Landlord, landlord's husband, Diana, I, Ben, the relative, The internet poster, Korean girl A, Korean girl B and Korean girl's friend whom is in law school. 10 people.

The battle: $4,500 to be returned to us

The twist: The girls moved out, paid for and signed into a new housing contract at a new place. Because we didn't sign into the contract the girls can't sign out of their's thus they are responsible for both places. The girls are blaming us for their financial loss.

Now I admitted that we did operate in good faith and that we did want to rent the place. I also noted very strongly that we did not force the girls to leave. In fact we offered to pay the rent on THEIR contract until the 20th in exchange for living in one of the two rooms. Without consulting us they decided to go ahead and move out completely BEFORE we moved in.

I can understand their argument. However, they made the decision to get a new contract before they were signed out of their current contract. This wasn't smart on their part. I'm sorry it may sound mean but its not smart.

The landlord was actually quite nice and pulled a mom tactic. She agreed to refund the entire 4,500 dollar amount IF we could reach an agreement with the two girls on an amount to pay them b/c of their decision to sign into a new contract. Legally we didn't have to pay them anything as they shouldn't have signed a new contract. Especially since we offered to pay their rent in exchanging for being roommates for only 2 weeks. If they wouldn't feel comfortable rooming with us they should have refused the request and stayed in the place.

The landlord was obviously a mom and thought that some compensation should be given b/c they did act upon the presumption of us signing into the lease. I would agree, however I don't agree the number would be very high. They wanted us to pay half. This was way too high for me.

It took about an hour of negotiating and in the end I had to stand up and say very bluntly that if we don't finish this within 5 minutes we're walking out with the keys to the place and you'll have to call the place and take us to court. I was stearn and I was pissed off especially because I was trying to be nice.

Their initial offer:
Pay us 2,250 RMB. My response I'll give you 750.
Their response..... was too slow but...
They finally responded with pay us 1,300.
Actually they wanted 1,320 but I took the 20 off but that's just nit picky.
I agreed just to end things.

So we stayed in the apartment for one night and it ended up costing:
300 RMB to the owner for her "pain and suffering" (and it avoided the loss of "face"; which is highly important)
1,300 to the girls because they rented a place on the presumption that we'd sign into a lease thus releasing them from theirs (I don't fully agree but I also know what its like to be young and broke).

One night in the place cost us 1,600 RMB.

Money, key and receipts were exchanged and everyone left happy. I even received a text message from the Internet poster apologizing for the entire incident.

I believe that most of this was simply due to communication breakdowns. Communicating through translators doesn't get the full message across and emotions can run high really fast. A lot of the "sketch" factor could have easily been coincidence and/or cultural differences on how business is handled. The landlord seemed like a good person that will, most likely, work to fix the problems. The girls learned a good/hard lesson on contracts. We also learned a lesson on contracts.

No contract + No full agreements = No cash

Diana found a nearby hostel with private rooms and rented one for the week. Its decent, albeit small, but only 180RMB/night. Tomorrow we continue our search and, this time, we're taking our time.

Frustration, Sadness, Depression and Moving On

Jacob Redding — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:35:27 +0000

It was bound to happen. All of the books, magazines, websites and blogs I've have read said it would happen. I just didn't think it would come this early. I really didn't.

Four days is about how long it took to boil to the surface.

On the first day I became frustrated with my progress. It was only a little frustration. I've been studying this language for quite some time and I can read basic sentences and recognize a few hundred characters. I, however, can't understand a person when they speak nor can I speak even if I KNOW what to say. My brain is just not working fast enough. By the time they finish their tenth word I've only figured out their first. They wait for me to respond but my brain is only through a 1/4 of what was spoken.

In short I'm a 486 processor without dx and they are all quad cores!

The second day my brain decided to mix in a little sadness with the frustration. I'm sure it was just trying to get a wonderfully exciting flavor but the effects were disastrous for me. I'm essentially mute in this country because I *want* to speak soo badly in THEIR language. I understand that a lot of people can speak English and I'm not exactly mute but I'm mute by my standards. So the sadness kicked in.

Day 3. The ratio of sadness to frustration flipped to the majority and started me down the path of depression. To be honest this wasn't my first bout with mild depression on this trip. I left a lot behind n the U.S. I'm a geek, its web 2.0 fever and I left that behind. Its depressing to think of what "could have been" sometimes. The people, the projects, the opportunity but especially the people. The people I've left behind. Those people are awesome. I miss them all (you know who you are).

What was I thinking?
Was I thinking?

Fourth day. Deep depression. Why did I leave? I can't learn this language. What am I doing here in a tiny studio apartment in the middle of Beijing? Traveling, learning. pwwftt whatever. I could be "living it up" in the U.S with some really great friends and those "people".

By the afternoon my depression turned into anger which quickly plummeted into rage. The questions poured, actually they gushed out of me.

What am I doing here?
Why am I learning this language?
Why didn't I put this much effort into Spanish?
If I put this much into Spanish I'd definitely be fluent.
Why don't I go home, get a "real" job, buy a house and settle down?
Why don't I move to France?
I can fit in, in France and they have great cheese.
Spain. After a few months I can fit in, sorta, and they have great meats.
England, Music.
Italy. Wine, pasta
Germany. Beer
Copenhagen. Biking
back to New York, they have everything.
What...am...I...Doing? I could go anywhere.. why here?

over and over again I asked myself the question. I was downright angry with myself and the entire situation. This was stupid

Then my angry turned straight into deep hardcore depression. I was sad, really sad. I'm 8,000 miles away from my family, friends and everything that I know. On top of that I'm months, well really years away from a good discussion on the world, people, current events, technology and that p word that I dare not say. I love these things and I'm so far away from them that they aren't even a blip on my radar. But they could be. I could be back in the U.S hanging out with friends around a table of good dark beer talking about a number of topics including the upcoming '08 p word.

On top of that I was alone that day. Diana was out shopping. Almost naturally my anger infused depression turned its ugly head onto the only subject it could have; her. The decision to come here and to learn the language was mine and mine alone. I've always wanted to learn a second language and in the past those languages have been Spanish, French, Japanese. After meeting Diana I decided that Mandarin Chinese would be a fine language to learn and I started down the path on my own free will and desire.

Rationality, however, has no place in the depressed mind. She got the brunt of everything pushed against her. My mind projected all of the negatives onto her and all of the positives away from her. When she came home...well it really hit the fan.

I didn't want it to be that way. I didn't plan for it to happen but it happened.

Fortunately Diana is a pro. She sat me down, talked with me, let me vent my anger and frustration and pulled me out of my depressive state. Then she talked about how to get over it. How to help me learn to speak and to listen to people. How to train my ears so that I can hear the tones and organize the sentences. The most important thing, however, is that we talked.

I'm not leaving. I'm not giving up and despite what my thoughts were those four days I never really wanted to give up. It just seemed the easy route and the "logical" solution.

I, however, want to communicate with someone in their native tongue. I want to hear those expressions and thoughts that just can't be communicated in a second language. I want to hear what they are thinking. I've always wanted this. It has always been a lifelong goal of mine. I will achieve this goal.

Now its been a few days. On Friday we went out to the "Global Village" private school and enrolled. We putting structure into my/our studies and it really helped. To date all of the studies in this language has been personal from books, cds, mp3s, online studies, friends, etc. Its time to put some real teachers into the mix. On Monday we begin full-time studies.

I'm back in school and loving it. This is where I belong. We're not going anywhere (sorry Mom and Dad)

Why I hate investing

Jacob Redding — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:20:06 +0000

Investing is one of those great parts of a modern society that fuels its advancement and growth. Capital is funneled to people and businesses and used to fund their ideas and move them from thought and concept to the real world. Without investment many, if not most, of the items, services, and companies we use on a day to day basis wouldn't exist. The stock market has been a tremendous boon to investment as it dramatically reduced the transaction costs for investing and, coupled with modern day technology, has allowed small investors to pool together to invest in big projects.

Of course on the surface that's how it is supposed to work. I believe, wait no I fear that the stock market has had an unintentional side-effect of polluting the reason for investment with short-term greed.

Whole Foods has been in the news a lot lately because its CEO and founder, John Mackey posted negative viewpoints about the company "Wild Oats" on various investment websites. This is unfortunate because, although he is entitled to his opinion, Whole Foods recently purchased Wild Oats and his comments *may* have influenced the purchase price.

Mr. Mackey started Whole Foods in 1980 because he wanted to take the small mom and pop natural food stores and make them mainstream. He wanted to make a change in the way Americans shop for food and the way businesses act. Its become blatantly obvious that Americans wanted this change and, more personally, I wanted this change. Which is why Whole Food is one of the few individual companies that I own stock in.

I shop at Whole Foods and, knowingly, pay a premium for my food because I have faith that they have done the due diligence necessary to source their food as locally as possible and from reputable dealers. Whole Foods also ensures that their food is made with quality ingredients and doesn't contain unnecessary filler. For example I don't need high fructose corn syrup in my corn flakes; they are corn flakes! I also don't need meat with hormones or gluten in my sour cream. They are not a perfect company but, all in all, they are not bad and I support their momentum.

The biggest reason as to why I shop at, and invest in, Whole Foods came to me while I was visiting my Grandmother in King City, California; which is located in the Salinas valley. The city is surrounded by fields of lettuce, potatoes, artichokes, carrots, tomatoes, peppers,etc. You name it, it grows in the Salinas valley and is shipped all over the world. Sadly you wouldn't know this if you shop at the only grocery store in town; Safeway.

I am constantly amazed when I walk into the King City Safeway because I can't buy a locally grown artichoke, bell pepper, orange, head of lettuce, or any other local grown vegetable or fruit. And this is despite the fact that not more than 500 yards out the back of the Safeway is a massive field growing thousands of heads of lettuce and within a 5 mile radius most of the vegetables in their produce aisle are being grown nearly year-round. Sadly I see fruits and vegetables from Australia, New Zealand, China, Mexico and many Central and South American countries. Fruits and Vegetables that were picked before they ripened, placed in container bins pumped full of nitrogen then placed on planes or boats and shipped thousands of miles. All of this is done so that Safeway can centralize their produce purchasing/distribution and buy in massive amounts at the cheapest prices. This saves the company millions and only a few pennies, if anything, to the consumer.

I want the locally grown fruit and vegetables so I will pay the premium. I will shop at Whole Foods. I will shop at a place that *cares* about its local community and about the food it sells and not simply about the "bottom line".

This then brings me back to why I hate investing. Unfortunately despite the fact that Mr. Mackey has spent 27 years creating a great company and helped to bring locally sourced and organic foods into the mainstream some investors don't care. Investors tend to be short-term, fickle and only set their sites on a single item. The stock price.

I came across this article today.

The article starts off praising Mr. Mackey stating that he is a great businessman with high integrity and good family values. Then, after acknowledging that the Board of Directors supports John Mackey, states that he is in favor of firing him because the "scandal" may, emphasis on may, cause bad P.R for the company thus having a negative effect on the stock price. There may even be a lawsuit in which this "scandal" could be brought up.

This is why I hate investing. There are too many investors that only care about the stock price. They don't care about what a company is actually doing or the people behind except for how those actions or reputations would affect the stock price. Investment is supposed to follow a company and its actions not the inverse. In this scenario you have a company that is still producing quality products and service and this investor is reacting to an emotion. He immediately wants to get rid of Mr. Mackey to avoid any *potential* bad P.R that would then affect the stock price. However if P.R has an affect on the stock prices it is based on an emotional reasoning and has nothing to do with reality or the business itself.

People should be investing to encourage the company to move ahead and thus make a good return. The company has to do well first then the return comes after. In this case Whole Foods is still doing great and Mr. Mackey may not have done anything bad at all. If its found out that Mr. Mackey's action were horrific and the company is forced to replace them then the stock price should move as a new CEO may cause a dramatic shift in the company's direction.

Instead people are one-sided investing only for the short-term gain; which is purely emotion-based investing.

I love the American stock market and I truly believe that it was an ingenious device that has pushed the American society and the World forward at a pace that wouldn't be possible without it. I do believe, however, that it needs some serious retooling so that investors are encouraged to look at the company as a whole and reduce this emotion-based investing.

My what a week..or two..or four

Jacob Redding — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:15:37 +0000

I'm not exactly what is going on with me lately but since I left New York I have been unable to hold onto the things I need to hold onto. Less than one week after arriving in Florida I lost a folder that contained all of my important financial information (tax returns, bank account info, retirement accounts, etc. etc.). This caused me about two weeks of daily phone calls to financial institutions to change account numbers, add security passwords, alerts and/or shift funds around. Now nearly a month later I'm still not done due to some very old-school (and possibly incompetent) institutions (*cough* MetLife *cough*).

Now I've lost my phone. A phone that I've had for over 5 years and I was planning to get rid of........when we left for China. But not NOW! Every phone number I have, lost. Pictures that are 4 years old, lost. Txt messages from twitter,lo.. wait, who cares. I've been phone-less for about a week now and it feels like a throwback to the 80s. How did people live without cell phones? really, how? I guess I'm going to find out. We're in the U.S for another 3 weeks and there are no plans to get a new cell phone. *gasp*

Despite losing a folder that is an Identity-thief's wetdream and losing my cell-phone things in Denver have been going pretty good. The weather has been amazing. The mornings start out around 70 degrees, reach a high of upper 80s to low 90s and then cool back down in the evening. Afternoon rain showers are pretty common but they go as quickly as they come and the water dries up within the hour. There has only been a single large thunderstorm that sat on top of Denver for about 30 minutes. It woke me up at 2am and had me a little fearful of being hit by lightning. What is life without a little fear though, eh?

We haven't had a chance to do much in Denver yet due to varying circumstances. Our first week in Denver Diana went to California and I stayed behind to do work. The second week was filled with planning our trips around California and China, determining dates where to stay, etc. as well as starting our Chinese studies up again and getting acquainted with our surroundings. Finally in our third week we have plans to really explore Denvey by leaving it.

Tomorrow Diana and I are picking up a rental car and heading out of town. We're not exactly sure where we're going yet but there are a few possibilities. Garden of the gods, Pikes Peak, Mt. Evan, Colorado springs, or heading to Wyoming to meet my good friend Ryan.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring...

Ever wake up and just have one of those days?

Jacob Redding — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:02:00 +0000

I woke up around 9:30am in a great mood. After getting out of the shower I kicked my cousin a few times to wake him up and get him out of the house. I spent about 30 minutes calling him a loser in a failed attempt to get him motivated to leave the house. He is visiting from Seattle Washington (first time in the city) and hasn’t really seen much of the city. I finally left for work around 10:30.

Leaving my house I was in a great mood. The sun was shining, the temperature was moderate, and, best of all, the hallway didn’t stink. Something changed when I walked down into the Brooklyn subway stop. While waiting for the A-train to arrive my mood suddenly shifted from happy-go-luck to incredibly solemn and glum. I jumped on the train, found a seat and turned on my iPod.

Normally I listen to Mandarin lessons in the morning (I’m learning Chinese) but, because of my mood, today I decided to throw on a KEXP podcast. The latest Podcast I had was #6; which is filled with a lot of upbeat rock from Cloud Cult, Okkervil River, Spoon, The Hold Steady and others. The weirdest thing happened though. When Cloud Cult (Transistor Radio) came on my mood shifted even deeper into an dark-mood abyss. I started to feel tears welling up inside and I found myself fighting back the urge to cry.

Odd…..

I have no reason to cry and I am not the type of person that bursts into tears for no reason. Yet, I found myself listening to Okkervil River, staring out of the subway passing by 23rd street with a single tear dripping down my face. No explanation.

Freakin’ weird.

So I started thinking about what was going on and I came up with only one reason. I feel as though all of the things that I came to New York for are slipping away from me. I accepted the job at MNN because I wanted to get more involved with Video and Music yet I haven’t picked up my video camera since August and I haven’t recorded audio or video since my cross-country drive. I just don’t have the time, I have been dedicated myself to a programming project for MNN and I really don’t like working on large programming projects.

Aaaaahhh, life. It throws weird curve balls at ya from time to time.

ooohhh bad news.

Jacob Redding — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 08:31:00 +0000

My web hosting company deleted 3 weeks of data on my site and, at this point, is refusing to restore. I've begged and pleaded to no avail.

Until the data is restored I can't do anything on the website so, just like the past two months, the website will be "frozen".

Anyhow, hopefully the data will be restored; this posting will be deleted (as will any comments) and things will return to normal.

In other news I got a new job. I'm the new Director of IT for a local non-profit here in NYC. The job is significantly smaller than my previous work but I am really excited to work for the organization and I'm really into their mission and what they do. I\'ll give you more details when the website get backs to normal.

I'm going to get some sleep now (1:30am here). Oh and its raining... and will be all week.