My Journal

Reflecting back on the past 7 days as I pack up for the trip back to the United States, it was a good learning week.

Baked A Cake…in a crock pot. My apartment does not have an oven, and bread/cake products spoil in less than 8 hours based on the lack of preservatives. However, I stumbled upon a recipe that allowed Duncan Hines, my Korean crock pot and my ingenuity to create a small cake that became breakfast for most of the week.


A small group of teachers and administrators from my high school came to Beijing to recruit students, so I had dinner with a number of parents of potential students and alumni of the school. I was one of the oldest alumni there and quickly realized that I was the same age as most of the parents desiring their children to attend the school. The great part was that we all worked in Beijing and had something to talk about, albeit in broken in English or simple Mandarin phrases. I was able to meet other alumni in Beijing and also communicate in English with people other than the ones I work with.

We actually “spoke” to the waitresses at our favorite Japanese restaurant in Mandarin vs. pointing and motioning. We also discovered (after 15 weeks and eating at the restaurant 2-3 times per week), that there is a tepanyaki grill at the back of restaurant. So we ordered quantities, refills and food with mandarin numbers and phrases…we still lacked sentences, but it was good to no longer guess at how many and what was coming for dinner.

Met a Hall of Fame Lacrosse Player at our second practice on Saturday. John Phillips was elected this year to the Hall of Fame and visited Beijing to see how the development program was progressing. He is the former head of the International Lacrosse Federation and at 71, still had has the ability to scoop a ground ball and fire it effortlessly towards a moving target. His insight on the effort to grow lacrosse in Asia was a great 15 minutes that answered many of my questions.

Taught 30 University Students who were brand new to the game..how to throw, catch, scoop, cradle and use the field for lacrosse…in 45 minutes. 5 of them were natural athletes and went on to assist or score during the following scrimmage.

Shopped for Tea. No explanation required.

Negotiated for Pashmina and Pearls. The going price for Pashmina is now below 10USD. It is amazing to see how my perspective of prices has changed over the past few months. My frame of reference has always been the US market. What is reasonable in the US and what is reasonable in China are 2 vastly different numbers. I am now finding the “floor” price that many vendors will go (it takes a lot of time vs a native Chinese person), and am switching tactics to get a good price plus a few freebies on top. In either case, it is clear that the “value” of products vs that real cost are vastly different (and yes, quality can also be a variable on that continuum).

Went to a tailor for shirts and a blazer. We will see what the outcome is, but the fabric looked/felt very good and the price is fantastic for 6 shirts and navy blue blazer.

Ironed my pants….(I think my wife just fainted) because my washer/spinner has turned them all into a wrinkled mess.

Ended the week by watching the Michigan / Ohio State football game on Tivo/Slingbox delay from the States on Sunday night here…it was great right up until the middle of the fourth quarter when the 3 hour taping time limit ended the broadcast. So we enacted the backup Tivo/Slingbox in case this happened…and found that the backup Tivo owner had taped the Auburn / Alabama game by mistake. We settled for ESPN.com and looked at the play-by-play to see how the game ended. We all voted that the next big game will be watched live (3am/4am, etc) vs trying to time-shift to our schedule.

I am excited to get home “tomorrow” night and sleep in my own bed. I say “tomorrow”, since it is a very long day. I leave Beijing at 5pm, fly for 13 hours and land at 5pm in New York. I get to live Monday twice. Happy Thanksgiving!

When I got to Beijing in August, I saw a listing for Lacrosse in one of the expat directories and sent a message off to the organizer. I didn’t think much about it until a week ago, when I got a nice email back saying that they had a clinic for students the previous weekend and 122 new lacrosse players appeared with only 4 coaches. They could use some help. On Friday afternoon close to 5pm, I got an email with the Chinese equivalent of MapQuest(read: Characters, not roman alphabet) on where to go on Sunday afternoon. It looked to be a place between the 4th and 5th ring roads (I live in the dead center), so if figured it would take me 2 hours on my electric bike to get “there”---not really knowing where “there” was.

An hour and 45 minutes into my ride northwest of Beijing into the University area, I found myself stopping people and comparing my map symbols with landmarks. Just like the US, 1 in 4 people sent me the wrong way. I finally started comparing symbols on gates to my map and found my destination…or so I thought. University campuses in Beijing are larger than US campuses and “lacrosse” is not a known term that people can understand. Anyway, I finally got to the “field”, which are also multiple basketball courts hidden between apartments and dorm buildings.

On the bike ride out, I was hoping that most of the students would understand English and then realized that none of my current Mandarin vocabulary comes close to helping teach lacrosse. Oh well, another adventure in the making.

Today, there are over 100 students from 7+ Universities and only 5 coaches to run a 2-hour practice. I was lucky to have Jiang Bo be my translator. She has been playing Lacrosse for one month and gladly helped teach the drills and translate my goofy terms like the “box” – the area between the head and shoulders where the stick head should be protected. The term “cradle” literally translates to “rock the baby”, so teaching the students how to cradle, first meant breaking the natural position they held the sticks when they heard the term..ugh.

Most of my students spoke survival English – what is your name, where are you from, where do you live; I do not even speak survival Mandarin yet. The head coach asked the 3 Americans to do self-introductions – In Mandarin, I either said that “my name is Chris” or “I am hungry Chris”. I am pretty sure that I mispronounced it but they appreciated the effort – I got a bunch of giggles.

Since lacrosse equipment is not available in Beijing, 150 kwik-stix were sent from the US. So we learned the basics with these short sticks and wiffle balls, both men and women at the same time. We ran drills for an hour then broke into 10 person teams and went full “field” for the next hour. It was very gratifying to watch my pupils pass, throw and scoop the ball after such a short period of time and be effective on the “field” both offensively and defensively.

The ride back home took almost 2 hours through very industrial and dirty areas of Beijing. My bike battery died about 10km away from my apartment, so the last hour was a brutal, slow pedal with 2 hills/ramps to ascend. It was great to spend an afternoon interacting with new friends with a common link and watching people learn a new sport.

Teaching lacrosse in Mandarin is definitely harder than teaching in English, but the outcome is just as gratifying.

I have always been relatively healthy and do not frequent the doctor’s office. Most visits to the doctor have been Emergency Room related to accidents, breaks, stitches, etc. Before coming to China, I got all of my shots and stocked up on some basic supplies (Advil, Imodium AD, Pepto Bismol, etc) and made sure that my health insurance covered any emergencies in a foreign country. By having a physician spouse (who will tell you that I am the worst patient) who diagnoses me at home, I do not need to take many trips to see a doctor.

When I came back to China last week, my right foot swelled to the point that it could no longer fit in most of size 14 shoes. I spent the next few days doing what I normally do for foot/ankle injuries --- elevate, ice, rest over the usual 3 day recovery period. My wife had 2 potential diagnoses determined via phone calls – who needs house calls when you can have phone calls :-) I also did not rest it as much as I should have, but I tried. I gave myself until this past Friday (1 week) for it to show signs of improvement before visiting a local doctor.

I walked into the clinic yesterday at 10am with no appointment and was out by 2pm. I had 2 X-Rays, Full blood workup, Consult with a female German doctor who spoke English, 2 different prescriptions prescribed and filled for $255USD BEFORE insurance. I have to say that my expectations were very low and they were exceeded. I was shuttled quickly to X-Ray, watched as the technician digitized and printed the photos, then off to the lab to get blood drawn, had to wait a little bit for the blood work to be done, but it was entirely reasonable. Then back to the Doctor’s exam room for diagnoses. She and another colleague examined the X-Rays and initially concluded nothing. (Yes, for you Radiologists reading, they also sent it to a Radiologist who will look at it on Monday for final verdict). She gave me her thoughts on why she is diagnosing my ailment and sent me to the internal pharmacy (which has the best selection of Western OTC items that I have seen in Beijing) and billing. I was impressed with the service.

I also must say I probably could not have gotten the same level of service (and certainly not at that cost!) without pulling some strings at a doctor’s office or hospital in the US.

Now I am steeling myself for the phone calls and paperwork to get reimbursed by my insurance company. I bet that I will spend more time and effort to get less than $50 back than it will be worth.

Now, after riding my bike during rush hour and really looking at how rotaries work, it is clear to me the concept of right-of-way does not exist here.

There is a rather difficult drivers test that is administered here, but based on the random rules (or observance) it is clear that it needs some other additions.

Granted, bike and pedestrian lanes on the sides of roads make it harder to turn on and off roads. However, no one gives way until it is clear that an accident will occur and whoever is first gets to go.

I have kept my biking to the roads with separate bike lanes or wide bike paths and have found that you constantly have to be aware of all vehicles and bikes around you. Vehicles coming in from the right typically do not stop at lights or they block the bike lane and stop right in front of you. In fact, I now assume that they will stop directly in front of me. Buses have speakers so you can here them come and can see where they are going. Cabs tend to be the worst at cutting off bikes. It makes it hard to enjoy the scenery but with no right of way, but at least everyone has a fair shot.

Since most of the travel is by foot or by cab, there is a relative radius around some of the destinations that one visits and then is ready for more. So, I have been around the relatively easy walking distance of my apartment in central Beijing more than a few times. I have wandered down little alleyways / hutongs and discovered some of the poorest areas of town 100 yards from some of the most prosperous areas. I can watch people on the Wangfujing Mall, or they can watch me (most do the latter). At the end of the day, my explorations have been planned based on a taxi ride from the hotel to a certain point and back or setting off on foot from my apartment or getting off at a random subway stop and walking around. After 9 weeks, I needed to get somewhere else for an adventure, but did not know where to tell the taxi driver to take me…so I asked for a bike store early on a Saturday morning.

What I thought would be an easy task of purchasing an inexpensive, basic bicycle to use in the city turned into a shopping nightmare. In the US, I really hate shopping for clothes, because my larger-than-average size makes it hard to find items that fit. Little did I know that I was about to have the same problem with a bicycle!

I found a large (~27” wheel) basic, black, muddy bicycle for sale for 140 yuan ($17.50). Perfect price, could use some cleanup and looked to be about the right size when I sat on the seat…but then I took it for a spin. The handle bar design in China positions the handles directly inline with rising kneecaps for every turn of the pedal. I almost toppled the bike with 2 pedal rounds based on my two initial pedal strokes. So bicycle hunt now began down a street with many bicycle shops. At about hour 2, I had now moved to the name brands that we all know – Trek, etc. and my price of 140yuan was now 3500yuan (US prices). A 3500yuan bike will require a 200yuan/20lb lock to ensure that it remains parked for more than a few minutes. I then noticed that electric bicycles were being sold for 2500 ($300) yuan, but more importantly, the handle bar design was one where I could actually pedal the bike. So I picked a vibrant color to ensure that I would be seen (bright orange) and off I went exploring…3 hours later.

Now an electric bicycle is a cross between a bicycle and a moped. It has a 50 lb battery that can be charged by coasting/pedaling or plugging into a wall. It moves at a 20-25 mph on the flats with pedaling. If you do not pedal, it is a very slow and sluggish machine. Any hill requires a good deal of pedaling to make it up. It is still undersized for my frame, but it now allows me freedom to go to shopping, grocery store and restaurants without being a slave to cabs and point-to-point directions.

The next adventure was to find a helmet. They are very rare except for motorcycles. It took 2 weekends to find a series of motorcycle shops that sold helmets and a number of hours to find one that actually fit me. In the end, I found one that looks like an aviator helmet with a big red star on the front. There is no way that someone is going to hit me and claim that they never saw me!!!

I cannot figure out why older gentlemen wander the streets of Beijing at night in their pajamas. I have now seen this on three different occasions in three different areas and cannot figure it out. It must be a cultural thing. But a weird cultural thing..

It finally dawned on me that most of the advertising here does not have Asian models. Billboards, mannequins and ads all use western models. While China does not want to be “westernized”, anything that associates itself with the West sells. We returned to our little restaurant down a hutong from the office the other day for the second time in 3 days. The owner pulled one of our mandarin literate colleagues aside to quiz her on who we were, where we worked and why we liked the restaurant. We are certain that our patronage will turn into popularity for the place, and therefore raise the prices. I am not sure that minorities frequenting a place in the US also drive its popularity and profitability. It is very interesting concept and reality here in China.