"Oh My Lady Gaga"

It is the first of May, spring is in the air.  I feel so romantic sitting next to an open window at 雕刻时光 “Sculpting in Time”… the coffee shop I frequent.  Fifi my cat has grown much larger, but I think now after I have seen her grow a bit, I think I should have named her Feisty or something of that nature.  So last I wrote 1.5 weeks ago or so?  I had just come back from HK.  Although that work is good, I still think that for my internship experience I need something more stable.  It is good being the assistant, but come July I would like to be sure.  I have applied around to several places through internet sites, but to no avail.  There are various companies that assist in finding short term internships, and I have paid a deposit to one just in case there is no luck.  Although this is not ideal, it is something to fall back on if my internship here does not last that long.

Mr. Li is an interesting fellow.  I think before I continue to explain, I might add that some Americans have been lucky finding jobs and find that they are automatically placed higher on the totem pole than others.  Just by default of being foreign and understanding Chinese.  For example, Mr. Li straight up said, “Kailin, I would like for you to find me some good American investments.”  OMG…  -Good American investments, I know a lot of Americans good at finance who don’t quite know what seems ‘good’.  “Where would you like me to start?”  He replies, “Even if you find 20 and there is one good one and all the others are garbage, -that would be fine!”  What a task!  As if I am an expert!  Previously I:

ü  Studied finance (check),

ü  Worked at a couple reputable investment banks  

ü  Analyzed various models that quantify risk

ü  Handled $ increments above 5 million

… hand-picked investments for a wealthy individual… um, not yet, and this adds a little more pressure. 

I guess if he had given me a better idea, perhaps of what industry/category he is interested in, that would give me a better start.  -I’m not complaining, I will take the challenge!  I guess I am just surprised at the amount of authority and trust he is giving me.

Ha – On a lighter note.  It is Chinese Labor Day!  All of the students went home for the weekend.  I went out for a massage yesterday.  There are many places around here that offer blind massages.  60 kuai for 60 minutes!  Not bad!  Other than that… the office was joking that for my internship I could become a Chinese pop star.  I was enlisted, (LOL) for a Chinese singing completion two weeks ago.  I sang “Hou Lai 后来”~ Later on… by Liu Ruoying 刘若英, and I won.  And then I sang a 母语 mother-language song (I chose Bad Romance by Lady Gaga – everyone knows her).  

When I originally signed up I thought it would be just a little Karaoke get-together, but it turns out it is like this provincial competition where I compete with 9 other foreigners and 400 Chinese people get to watch.  Because I won, I get to go to finals now!  LOL wish me luck… below is the link to an article about the event.  It is in Chinese, but the pictures below are of me and “Lady Gaga” me wearing a wig!  I chose her because I know that Chinese are familiar with her.  Instead of saying “oh my God,” they actually say (amongst themselves in English) “Oh my Lady Gaga!”     0_0 

Don’t laugh too hard at the pictures!  Boy I sure got myself into something!  But now I don’t know that to sing for finals??   Help!!! 

http://www.jl178.net/read.php?tid-5533-page-e.html

Business Trip'n

4.18 Business Trip

Just got back from Macau and Hong Kong!  This weekend I had a little business trip with Mr. Li.  If you ask me what my job title is… perhaps a personal assistant for Hengwei Investments Ltd.?  Mr. Li is a venture capitalist who would like to invest in language school in Hong Kong.  I accompanied him there to help with English and to listen to the presentation of the Romanian couple who would like to open the school and are asking him for the startup capital.

This is a great opportunity!  I didn’t use any English this weekend, and all expenses were covered. From the presentation I could tell that the Romanian couple had almost perfect English, and that they were very experienced in teaching.  However, it seems their understanding of business is a bit shallow.  The estimates they had for the first year to begin “return on investment” was somewhat unrealistic.  Other details of the presentation were simply written on pen and paper… not exactly what my Laoban 老板 (boss) was looking for.  So I will be busy this week trying to mold their presentation into a proper business proposal format to properly estimate the risk and rate of return.  I am so excited to do this in Chinese!  Hopefully he finds my work useful.

Now what about the fun aspects of trip?  I arrived in Macao Friday night and stayed at this beautiful hotel called 老铺京. It is the “Sin City / Las Vegas “of Asia. They even have a 威尼斯 Venice like Caesar’s Palace.  You will laugh at me because I am not at all someone who has interest in gambling.  Why let hard earned money leave your wallet like water slipping through your fingers?  I can’t think of any other better comparison.  It makes me sick to think of, however, Mr. Lee gave me a small stipend particularly for gambling… “just try it!” He said, you need to learn this part about Chinese culture... Everybody loves gambling.  Um, okay?  Educational experience? I thought… I’ll try out my luck... four hours later I ended up with enough money to buy a Gucci bag.  One of the funniest things that has ever happened to me!  Why a Gucci Bag?  Particularly in Macau, there a many Russian woman who are 妓女… (prostitutes) the way they distinguish themselves are by small sparkly purses.  Not knowing this I left my hotel at the beginning of the night with a small bag…  this along with the fact that most Asians guess by my profile (my big nose) that I am 俄罗斯人 Russian or Eastern European  -allowed too much room for suspicious eyes to follow me.  At the end of the night with this “silly” cash, I opted to distinguish myself from these ladies with a much larger, less sparkly, classy “prize” bag. 

I already discussed the dinner in Hong Kong.  Quite productive!  This trip has inspired a “business idea”,  I will continue to turn this over in my mind a while before I write about it =)  But anyways…  the trip was successful, and I have safely returned to Nanjing. 

Love,

Caity

Death, Birth & Marriage? 4.12.

Good day everyone!  It has been a while since that I wrote… so much has happened these last twelve days.  Why do I write death birth and marriage?  Perhaps the when I am more stricken by the happenings in my life along with the busy-body lifestyle I am more likely to forget to write in my journal...  I am also going to the post office today to send some letters… if you would like a letter, please email me your address!  Clklein1@asu.edu  I remind myself it is a “healthy” part of my Nanjing life.  It makes me feel more connected with my U.S. relations.

Death



 Last weekend we went to 常熟, a small city on the outside of town (about three hours out of Nanjing)  -quite a developed city.  Our hotel was $35 per night, but it was luxurious!  Cali was my roommate and we really wanted to stay in our hotel for most of the time – but no chance with our excursion.  The students – both the Masters students and the undergraduates were mixed and split into three groups to study burial sites and how Chinese pay respects to past ancestors.  My group’s focus was about the common people’s beliefs and practices.  We visited a gravesite, several Buddhist temples, and participated in a family’s pre-burial prayer ceremony.

I have been to many Buddhist temples before… not match those of Tibet in my opinion, but I sort of feel after I have been to one temple I have been to them all.  The most interesting aspects of the gravesite were: the descending style of graves upon a hill (as opposed to U.S. flat grounded rows of gravestones)  The families bought carnations for the holiday and placed them atop of the grave.  In the past incense was also burned by the graves, but because of pollution requirements this has been contained to an extent.  I was most fond of the experience visiting a family’s home, it was a ceremony of Daoism and Buddhism fused together:

As we entered the home, the family members wore white jackets and white bands around the forehead.  Although the home was a rather small apartment, there were at least 25 people inside.  When I entered to the right was a small altar with food offerings, burning incense, candles, Buddhist banners hanging from the ceiling and a photo of the loved one.  The grandmothers/mothers/aunties sat on the floor folding 5x5” pieces of paper into origami bags.  These were to be burned at the funeral representing money for the dead one in the afterlife.

To my left were 6 Daoist Priests rattling chimes, tapping drums, and strumming a Pipa while chanting prayers.  This is all very interesting to me as I have never seen this before.  This activity lasts the entire day.

I asked the priest:  What do you (all) believe happens to the soul / spirit when the love one dies?

Daoist Priest:  Their spirit goes to the spirit world… they are always with us, but we believe the offerings, burned prayers, burned money paper, and fruit are things that we must tend to for their well-being in this life.

Me:  Is there heaven?  Is there hell?  Buddhism has many layers of heaven and many layers of hell?

Daoist Priest:  No, we believe in more of an afterlife… although we go to Buddhist temples to pay our respects to the dead, many years have fused these belief systems together.

Very Interesting!  We students bowed our heads (as expected by all) towards the photograph of the grandmother who passed away … Cali was the smartest one who offered to help fold the paper for burning this allowed the hosts to receive our presence more warmly.  My assignment was to write about this fusion of Daoism and Buddhism.

Birth

So…  If you read my last entry… perhaps I was lacking the warm company of someone… As replacement for this need for something to cuddle with…  I decided to raise a small kitten.  Obviously this means I plan on being in China for quite some time.  When I look for this “internship”  (which by the way – heads up for other flagship students this is more of an independent process) I will be looking for both a paid internship and a lead into a job-job which will fulfill my Boren requirements.  I have decided to start looking in Shanghai, Shenzhen and even Hong Kong. 

So this kitten – I got her at 夫子庙  =)  Fuzi Miao (a very renao 热闹 lively shopping center) . She was only 50 yuan when I found her… and much to small to be sold to anybody.  But when our eyes met, it was like love at first sight =)  I couldn’t tell her no.  So she came with me home and I looked up online how to feed a small kitten.  She has already grown a bit and has become very healthy.  Where I go  “Fifi” will also go  (my roommate and I debated on whether or not to call her “Meow 泽东” (after Chairman Mao) because her personality is much too fighsty for a name like “Fifi”  -But that name would only be used at home =)  But it is great… instead of going out to coffee shops, I stay at home and save money, studying with her all balled up in my lap.  That is the new “life” in my Nanjing; a newborn kitten.

Marriage



And now… my dear friend Kaytlin was recently married this weekend.  According to me, the most important events in life are simple:  Births, deaths and marriages.  Although my life in Nanjing feels quite wholesome and my homesickness is not a problem at all, being absent during these life-important events is hard for me to swallow.  Sometimes I realize we don’t understand ourselves until we are faced with new struggles or problems.  I woke up at 5:30 to catch a 6:15 skype call but my friends were very busy with the wedding preparations (Completely understandable)!  Then my roommate Liyue walks in and asks… “how was it?”  ugh!  I surprised myself and broke down a little bit…

My roommate is so sweet that when she was out on her breakfast run that she picked up some chocolate to cheer me up =)  so sweet!

But so busy… I think you can see why it is hard to fit in an once of time to write, but I am doing my best to narrate my personal account of Nanjing, and my feelings thereafter… but I wrote twice as much to compensate, and you can see that I could connect everything these last 12 days… kind of deep, but one is affected more when away from their usual habit!

Today I will send mail home, take a professional photo for my Chinese resume, and begin the application process.  My roommate helped me completely go over my resume and cover letter.. again!  And now the hunt begins… will keep you posted, wish me luck!

4/1 Invisible Western Women! Where East Meets West, but lost in between…

4/1 Invisible Western Women!  Where East Meets West, but lost in between…

This is something that is very interesting to talk about, if you don’t mind… allow me to have another girly moment.  But really, guys you might as well admit that you do enjoy talking about this topic once in a while.  I just think that relationships are interesting to talk about from the perspective of a 20-something year-old American girl in China.  But let’s do some background reading first shall we?

I think that this article a friend sent me is right on the money!

Called “Invisible Western Women” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2010-04/09/content_9707047.htm

Basically it summarizes several facts of life for us western girls her from abroad in China:

·         American men have yellow fever when the get here, and don’t seem to give us Western girls the time of day when it comes to ‘turning heads’ over here.

·         Most Western girls don’t seem to be interested / attracted to Asian men, maybe this is the fault of mass media.  Such is the case probably because wealthy women or women from a society of higher wealth are not expected by society to form romantic relationships with men from a society not as wealthy. (May I add: I do find some Asian men quite attractive and some quite unattractive, same goes for Western men, I think that all nationalities have their 帅各hunks, and their丑八怪…ugly ducklings)

·         Asian men are not as “aggressive” in their attempts of courting in general, and also seem to like the more passive chic that isn’t quite as “scary” as these “forward” Western women.

These facts and opinions basically draw the picture of a very dry relationship life for the Western Chic… kind of sad… but kinda true… this woman is stuck in a 矛盾 – the Western men are sick 病 with yellow fever, and the Eastern men just don’t even want to go there because it is either too 麻烦 troublesome or they are scarred of us.  This article suggests that all we can do is start up conversation with Eastern men, and hope for the best… o(>﹏<)o

Could an Asian man please comment on this blog and shed some hope for us Western chics?  We’re cute right? Us Western women tend to come in a variety of shapes and sizes, more variety of hair color, generally xihuan 喜欢a “California glow” as compared to a “Snow White” skin color… We also like coffee slightly more than tea… a lot of us are super chill!  We can learn how to cook all the kungpao chicken you want!  In addition to pancakes and Beef Wellington… If I might add, I do think I make excellent fried rice and decent葱油饼 onion pancake!

From my experience, I’ve dated Asian before, and it went quite well –a year and a half relationship, and still on good terms.   For that stretch of time, I consider it to be quite successful.  However, keep in mind he was quite international, and I still think his English was probably better than mine.  But I totally feel the “fear factor” from the mainland Chinese boys if that is what it is after all… or it is just the “deer with headlights look.”  (0_0)  我们不咬人… I Don’t bite… hard? Lol (Just kidding).  But think about it: if they are too afraid to approach the Western girl, think she’s great but don’t like forward women… how the heck would a Western woman deal with that (supposing that she is attracted)?  Should we pretend to be shy to make them realize we’re not… that bad?  “Um  你好 nihao.. um hehe, my name is uh…我加..what’s ur name?  ”  <giggle><giggle>

Sigh.. let’s just face it girls.. the Asian girls take the cake on this one!  Although we may have a more competitive brassiere size, they’re “fishing pool” is so much bigger than ours simply by default.  Not only that, but these yellow fever Western boys as boyfriends 男朋友’s sometimes give these ladies clout or face面子.  Once a close Asian girlfriend told me that this is an Asian girl secret (obviously that is not every case, but it seems to be a popular opinion about this kind of relationship here in mainland)… but I warn Asian about some of these Western men.. a lot of us Western women are aware that our boys are in the ‘know’ about this 面子(clout)thing and just use it to their advantage.

Thoughts? Perhaps I speak brazenly, but I feel sympathy for my breed!