BenPadnos.com

Friday Night in Beijing

I arranged to meet for dinner with a friend of a friend for Friday night dinner. When my friend heard I was in Beijing, he made an email introduction and Bill (not his real name…more on that later) agreed to meet me and Steve at our hotel @ 7:30pm. He wanted to take us to “a great Sichuan restuarant called Chuan Ban“. The restaurant is owned by the Sichuan Provincial Government — they run it, and it’s staffed by Sichuan locals.

Chuan Ban was about a half an our walk from our hotel, tucked behind a series of alleys in a residential area that included various local shops — convenience stores, hair salons, etc. — and there was a pretty good-sized crowd waiting to get a table when we arrived. The promised 10-15 minute wait was more like 45 minutes, but we drank a beer and Bill told us about his experiences living in Beijing for the past 10 years.

Chinese food aficionados know that Sichuan food is extremely spicy. In writing this post, I did some research and reviews include such expressions as “tongue-numbing” and “lip-tingling”, so you get the idea. My mouth was numb within minutes of digging in — one plate was particularly memorable: it was a giant bowl of chili peppers with peanuts and the occasional piece of chicken called “lazi jiding”. Each little bit required an immediate swig of beer to cool down my mouth!

Throughout the past week, Steve and I have said a number of times to each other how surprised we were at how “normal” day-to-day life feels here. I guess the propaganda we grow up with about “Communist China” set our expectations that we’d see an active governmental role in daily life. Many things, including the explosion of the Internet, have led to China opening opening up over the past decade or two. In fact Bill mentioned the Western influence he’s witnessed — Chinese people love American pop culture (music, movies and TV shows), NBA basketball (Yao Ming is idolized), and seem to have adopted an American level of consumption.

One thing that hasn’t truly opened up is the Chinese attitude toward homosexuality. Bill confided in us that he’s gay and has a long-term partner. However he’s not “out” at work, and although he thinks some people know, it’s not something he’d ever openly discuss for fear of creating controversy that could pose a risk to his annual visa renewal.

There is an active gay community, Bill told us, but it’s primarily closeted, and many Chinese people don’t even tell their parents as such an admission could post great shame on a family. Instead, some gay men look for lesbian women to “marry” — they go through the entire charade in the name of family honor.

While the US still has a ways to go on true levels of equality and civil rights for gay Americans, it’s leaps and bounds better than in China. From what I took away from Bill’s comments, there’s no “penalty” for discrimination against gay people here.

After dinner took the subway over to an area of the city called Sanlitun. It’s a very modern part of Beijing known especially for its bars and nightlife. We saw more Westerners walking around in Sanlitun than anywhere else during our trip. Some bars played live music while others rocked American hip hop.

Steve and I decided not to push it too hard so we’d be rested for our trip to the Great Wall on our last day. The plan is to pack up and hire a car for the day and head out to Badaling — can’t wait!

Air Pollution

It’s the real deal here.

There’s literally a greyish/brownish/yellowish haze that sets over the city. I woke up this morning (it’s Friday 3/12 here, while only Thursday afternoon back home) to blue skies, but the sky is not truly clear as this ugly film coats the sky.

People who know me have heard my opinion that I’m a believer in the science that aspects of “climate change” are real and have been expedited by man rather than purely from nature. However I’m also a believer that the earth has been through a lot over it’s 4.55 billion years, and have confidence in the Earth’s resilience — things will work themselves out. Of course I have zero scientific credibility to have an opinion on these types of matters, but I tend not to worry about things so deeply out of my control.

With that said, I don’t have a problem with environmental consciousness, and the least we all should do is be aware and responsible about our actions.

Placebo Effect?

Even if it’s just a placebo effect, I’m feeling good about the Airborne tablets I’ve been taking every day during my trip. Ellen included them in a mini care package, along with some chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies from Isabella’s Cookie Company, and a box of Clif Bars.

Between the time difference — Beijing is 16 hours ahead of California — messed up sleeping schedules, foods and spices my digestive system isn’t accustomed to, and the mix of all sorts of different germs my immune system has never been exposed to, plus a couple of late nights, I’m very glad to be taking some extra precaution about staying healthy.

I don’t know if there’s any any actual medical thanks I need to pass along to the folks @ Airborne, but the psychological boost has been worth it in itself!

Beijing Day 6

Memorable events of the day:

* Lunch with Tony Wei, CEO of MySpace China (www.myspace.cn), who gave us a tour of the offices and a 2-hour education on the Chinese Internet market. There are tremendous opportunities due to the massive size, but the market is still very immature due to the fact that the per capita GDP here is about 1/10th of the U.S.

* A negotiation with a woman at the Silk Market ended up in a minor assault — she literally hit me as I walked away when she did not like my “best price”. It was harmless and very funny! But as Steve can attest, the women are extremely aggressive…

* Passing out ice cream cones to our favorite vendors from the day. After literally 6 hours of intense shopping — every stop includes a serious haggling session — Steve and I took $20 to the mini-grocery store and had them give us as many packaged ice cream cones as that would buy (about 3 dozen) and we handed them out Oprah-style. “You get an ice cream cone. And you get an ice cream cone…” At one point, we literally almost started a riot!

* Getting fitted for a custom-made suit — for 900 Renminbi (~$133) I’m getting a suit and dress shirt made. “Susan” and her sister took great care of us. And the cool thing is, they keep your measurements on file, so once you’re in their system, you can re-order and they’ll ship to you!

* Returning underwear for a larger size at one of the Silk Market stations. See “Skid Row” post here.

* Rocking to 50-cent in the back of taxi home from the market. The Chinese cab driver, in splintered English asked, “You like the rap music?!”

* Enjoying “comfort food” — a hamburger, fries and a beer @ Molly Malone’s, an Irish pub across the street from our hotel.

Here’s my favorite pic of the day:

Skid Row

I am pleased to report I successfully executed an “exchange” at the Beijing Silk Market…

But here’s where the story gets really fun…or gross….

I bought 5 pairs for boxer briefs during our first visit the other day. I paid too much — 100 RMB (~$15) — although these would have been about $15/pair back home.

Anyway, I’m a US “medium” — large on a bad day — so I went with large to be safe.

Well, when I got back to my hotel room, I tried on a pair of the Dolce & Gabanna knock-offs, and they were more than a bit snug.

Joking with my buddy Steve, I said, “wonder what the returns policy is @ the Silk Market”. He had a great reply: “Man, if they’ll exchange underwear….if they’re actually willing to do it, do you really want to?”

For the sake of the experience, I marched back to the third floor, back-corner and the woman remembered me with a smile. “Will you please give me a larger size?” I asked.

The answer was YES, and I have 5 pairs in size XL!

Apologies in advance to the guy who gets my returns. Ha!

Sorry Starbucks!

They even have Starbucks knock-offs here!

Beijing Silk Market

The conference ended on Tuesday — Steve and I saw presentations from a number of companies and met with an interesting, small (~$10MM in annual revenues) Chinese gaming company based in Xi’an — and joined some of the Rodman & Renshaw folks in a trip over to the Beijing Silk Market. Rather than wait 30+ minutes for a cab, we trekked over via subway, which was crowded, but very cheap (~$.29 for a ticket) and efficient.

The market itself was amazing. Wikipedia puts the store-count @ 1700, so we’ll go with that. Floor after floor of vendors in stalls about 10 feet by 10 feet in size selling goods ranging from t-shirts and jeans to scarves, sportswear, handbags and suits. There are amazing deals to be had as long as you’re comfortable haggling — and I mean haggling — with the vendors. Often times in business, I don’t like aspects of hard-core negotiating — I’m more of a lead with a # that’s reasonable kind of guy — but the fun part of buying things at the silk market is fighting with the vendors to reach a deal.

Worth noting is the reckless disregard for Intellectual Property — most of the “brand name” items there are counterfeits. Brands ranging from Polo Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Paul Smith and dozens of other are attached to various products in the stores with the knock-offs selling at a fraction of the regular price. You can read more about that here, if you’re interested.

I did some shopping! I picked up a couple of suits, 2 dress shirts, 3 ties, a bunch of other stuff, and a “Swiss Army” luggage set — a large bag and a matching one in carry-on size.

Exiting the market, we were approached by a kid selling pirated DVDs — name the film, and you could buy a DVD for about $2. I was also chased into the taxi by a woman on the street selling socks — offering 15 pairs for about $7 for various black dress socks (with the “Boss” logo) and white work-out socks emblazoned with the Nike logo. I literally had to get the cab driver to pull away with the door open to get away from this woman!