I’ve switched themes again, to more properly reflect the colors of Fall that are all around me here in Beijing. Thankfully though I caught it; it’s already basically Winter and a brisk cold and wind have settled in. For a while though the leaves on the trees were a bright and deep red and yellow, falling with every gust of wind. I had thought that if I had the time to pick together the necessary photos and color palettes I’d code the site to automatically switch depending on the season, to reflect the seasons, or perhaps if I had the proper photos to depict all the different moods of someone’s weather, then those. But that feels like a chore, and more effort than I’d want to expend at the moment.

We’ve been taking some lovely photos though of the season, though most of them are on Maria’s phone. I hope to find the time to get them off and onto here soon.

Let’s see, my other sites are all up and running now: photos, music, blog, portfolio. I should add a proper link to all of them from here. And though our server in China has somehow stopped serving up sites, there’s lots of work on there that I’ve been working on. Hopefully that technical issue will get resolved soon, though it’s actually beyond my abilities to diagnose at the moment.

The point of this post though, despite general updates about whatever and anything that’s been going on, I still need to find a new project to focus on. We’ve taken delivery of my grandmother’s old piano and I’ve been able to practice playing more and that’s been quite fulfilling. Though last night for the first time one of the neighbors came up and knocked on our door, saying that it was too late and too loud to play. I suppose it was quite late, but there’s a part of me that still prefers a later schedule in general over an earlier one. But the days have been very pretty, and I’ve taken some nice long walks with Maria. So despite not having gotten much sleep in general, I’m staying up all these days so that I wouldn’t be on a different schedule from her. Her school’s been quite busy, the first semester almost coming to an end, her midterms finishing up soon. I spend my days spending as much time as I can with her, travelling to and from her school, then during the times when she’s in class working on my little “projects,” such as they are. Again, I need to find a new one.

My visa woes have finally come to a head. I have 8 days until I need to actually leave the country again, unable to get another extension, the only reasonable recourse to finally get my working visa so that I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving the country again for at least a year. Those prospects are a little bit spotty, but they should work out. The only difficulty is that I need to actually return to the US, which is something I’m not looking forward to. I’m thinking maybe of heading to NYC instead of LA, see some friends, get in some sights. We had thought that maybe it’ll be possible to just go to Hong Kong instead but according to their website, you need to go to your country of residence to process this new visa. And the worst of it is that as soon as I get this new work visa, pay for it and all and bring it all back into China, I’ll have to turn it in for a residency permit thus canceling my work visa. It’s a really pointless process actually, but one that you nevertheless have to follow. Sigh, we’ll know soon though. I think I’m going to make the executive decision that today is the last day I’m going to fret on this. I doubt I can go anywhere but the States, I’m decently sure I can go to NYC, so I guess I’m going to NYC.

I’d forgotten my mother’s birthday also, the 5th, which means that soon it’ll be the 15th.

The IFC also had its first ever Gala Evening on September 11th. Inauspicious day I know, but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference in this country. It took place at Capital M Beijing, a very lovely restaurant at Qianmen actually. I was surprised by how fancy it was on the inside, and it had a huge patio with wonderful views of the gates and the Forbidden City. Perfect on a warm summer evening actually, very comfortable. The food looked good, though we didn’t actually eat any. I was there as a volunteer for the IFC, helping coordinate the evening, handle registrations, payments, attendee corralling, and singing even. We sang 3 songs between courses, to general appreciation. Either way, this just means that it was a very long and tiring day, but still nice! We’re thinking of heading on back to the restaurant at some point, get a nice, fancy dinner. Or apparently they have a lovely Sunday brunch special on the patio, which sounded like fun also. Another member of the IFC, Amanda, suggested it, because the price is like a quarter of the normal dinner prices, but the food is still good, and there are champagne cocktails.

Otherwise, my father has succeeded in selling off the rest of his shares in the restaurant, 25% of which the sales revenue goes to Maria, at some point, which will be great. I have a job offer jointly from FTC/Matrix, my father and cousin’s, respectively, companies, though they haven’t paid me anything, and have kinda gone silent as far as work for me goes. I was supposed to go on down south a bit to put up some wireless sensor network thingie, work on some remote medicine stuff, etc., but apparently there’s been some miscommunication between the multiple parties and what responsibilities were meant to be delegated, and I kind of feel like I’m left out in the blue with nothing to do, and maybe nothing coming to me. I was supposed to be paid already, and again at the beginning of October. I even turned down yet another job offer from another company because of this, and it’ll actually really piss me off if I don’t get paid. I made this mistake once, turning down a job for the job at the restaurant, and this is the second time I’ve turned down a job for some family opportunity and if it doesn’t work out well, huh, I guess that’ll just suck, short answer, huh?

Either way, it does feel like things are coming together, school, relationship, job, apartments, visa, etc., which is absolutely great actually. It’s taken a bit, but maybe it’ll start working out soon.

I also hadn’t blogged in a while, which is mostly the point of this entry. We’ve been sick, that’s all, and very, very busy. But as I look at the last post date, it hasn’t actually been that long somehow, just like, a little over a week. I wonder if it’s really the fact that being sick, being unable to sleep, being generically uncomfortable, has just made the time drag. Though we had a good time last week, hanging out together, sick, at home, watching movies and TV. I guess this week’s a bit different now, and everything feels more, specific in how they bother me, like the sickness, the lack of commitment from my “job,” because Maria’s started classes and is much busier during the day, and it would be great if I had things to do during the day as well as I had planned on it, but well, I’ve already written about how annoyed I am at my family, and I guess I may get even more annoyed at them…what does it take to have a steady job eh?

i would like to comment a bit on the odd day to day expenses that occur in th is country. now it is very cheap, unreasonably so even, to eat out, buy groceries, cook, find entertainment, see friends, etc., so that in general, one does not actually need to make a lot to live very well. we buy massive bags worth of fresh produce for less than 30rmb, all the groceries we could want for less than 50rmb, plus fruit and freshly prepared cold chinese salads and we’re looking at no more than the equivalent of 20 dollars and we’re set for at least a week. by some estimate, one only needs a quarter of that to live very comfortably in this country. but then, there’s rent.

now maybe i’m unreasonable, but i have a certain standard that i find hard to give up, especially when it concerns the place that i call home, the bathroom that i do my business in, and the kitchen that i prepare meals for the ones i care about in. you can rent a place very cheaply, no more than 30 dollars a month, but it will be underground, is a literal room, have a shared bathroom with no gauranteed hot water, no gaurantee of windows, and definitely okitchen htough you can bring your own electric stove and many people do. that’s the bottom of the pole.

and then there’s the chinese style apartments which are, for most intents and purposes alright, but shoddy, feeling like they’re falling apart, and they are, with no regard for the common spaces of the buildings meaning you can be on the highest floor and all the lights will be out in the hallways so you’ll feel like you’re living in a cave. and the bathrooms, lord save me from the bathrooms. so that’s like, the middle, wh ich, unfortunately, from a standards point of view, i find difficult to accept.

now i realize this might make me seem like a snob or something, but for the same reason that i never understood why people don’t care about the quality of their hotel rooms while on vacation based on the flimsy pretense that they don’t plan to stay in that that often didn’t and doesn’t make sense to me i mean, you need a place to stay right, some place comfortable because what happens if you’re sick or too drunk you don’t want to passout in a trash heap i can’t come to terms with an apartment that i dread the thougt of taking a shower in, which is most chinese apartments. but that makes up the middle tier as far as quality goes.

then there are those places meant for foreigners to stay in, built from the ground up for them, and are of decent quality. noe i say decent only because even they could use a good bit of work. one common complaint is the abundance of mold on the walls of even the most expensive, and i do mean most expensive as these places can run for close to western prices, of places just still feel like they are falling apart, and they are. but, you can find places that will satisfy my standards, but again, they’re expensive.

which brings us to the point that i find myself in an odd employment state. you see, i’m no longer. the foreigner who’s willing to relocate and work in beijing, i’m the foreigner who’s already here and is looking for a job, with the major difference being that while the former has an allure of self sacrifice, and thus the appropriate compensation to go along with what ever jobs may fall under that category, the latter does not, and will pay close to absolutely nothing for work that in any other country will earn me a decent living. bottom line, i can’t make more than 700 dollars a month doing full time programming work in this god forsaken country. now that isn’t actually bad by chinese standards, and were my only goal to pay for our day to day expenses, i’m golden, but i need to pay for rent, and i need a place that i am comfortable taking a shower in, and that’s where the conflict comes into play, namely i for the moment just, can’t.

and the irony of it all, my father just got a new place in beijing and it meets our standards, and is cheaper by far than anything else out there we’ve found, but is in the wrong part of town, and i think that makes all the difference.

but the plan is to continue searching, both for a job and an apartment, and i think we’re going to venture way the far out of town to a place that’s still subway accessible, and easilly accessible might i add, but hopefully very inexpensive by virtue of it being far away, and we might be lucky out there.

let’s see, other problems that plague the sean. he needs to leave again out of the country by july 15 to get on his last entry into the country. and this will be the last one as his visa expires at the end of august, as in proper expires and he will need to go back to the united states to get a new one, which he really does not want to. for reasons beyond his countrol and knowledge and patience to sort through his working visa still hasn’t come through, and neither had maria’s, but she no longer needs to worry because a) she’s going back to the states anyways and b) she will get a student visa through tsinghua. the sean’s plan though is to get on his last entry, as cheaply as possible, then at the last mi nute switch while in country to a 90 day single entry visa, which he knows he can, so he cwn stay in the country until the end of november by which time hopefully some other, better solution would have presented itself. at the moment he doesn’t care which: his father comes throug, he gets employed elsewhere, or he pays somebody 1000 dollars and they give him the visa in that shady, underhanded, sort of grey area kind of way. it really doesn’t matter.

back to i here, i think. i had also planned on joining maria in the states and nyc for her internship this summer, but the feasibility of it is minimal. the expenses unfortunatly just far outweigh the gain, and if i go, i have to plan on staying, which is a decision i’m not yet ready to make. i definitely want to be here when maria starts her school so if i head back to the states it will be after that so no point making the expense now. startup expenses in general back in the states is also just in general prohibitive so even if i wanted to, maybe the best i can do is go back to los angeles which actually doesn’t sound that appealing. i’m kinda holding out that china will still work out in a bit way and we’ll all make our personal fortunes here and change the world for the better.

which at least there’s still a chance of, and having lost most of my steam for blogging, i will end here by saying that no matter what, the sean is trying to be optimistic, and hey, he hadn’t thought of this but maybe he and maria can get married; that’ll solve his visa problems.

oh and the restaurant is a complete bust incidentally. to summarize in the quickest way possible, there’s been management issues from the get go, the owners no longer like each other, for some reason one half viewed my desire to no longer be their full time employee as a sign that they should exit the business as well so they gave my dad some time to find someone to buy them out, and since it obviously didn’t happen fast enough they’ve been threatening to close down the business and then wanted to buy us out which, well, hey, seemed like quite a good deal actually because we were done with the stupid thing anyway and didn’t want to have anything to do with it and if you’ll listen to my father about it, he’s convinced the entire thing was a conspiracy to get the entire business by the other half owners at a greatly depreciated value by driving me out, driving the restaurant down, then lording over us the fact that they have more money to convince us to sell out to them, but things really came to a head when, afraid that they might steal our business licenses my father put up fake copies on the walls and, lo and behold, the next day they were stolen from us, and then when maria and i went to go check our mail because we’re using the restaurant as our mailing address because it’s convenient we find that they had changed the locks on us and were no longer able to get in, and that they had fired all the staff and closed the restaurant without telling us! what is wrong with these people? they were just in the middle of negotiating how to buy our half our when all of a sudden, chaos. so now maria and i have no place to get our mail which is a) a shame and b) just inconvenient as far as timing goes because we’re expecting her all important actual enrollment confirmation packet from tsinghua which should also have the confirmation that the chinese government is going to pay for all her tuition and housing and give her a monthly stipend to live on in. that was sarcastic by the way, though it’ll be cool if it happened that way, but we are actually waiting for this packet and it’s being sent to the restaurant and we’re not sure how to get it anymore because these people are insane!

…

so here’s to hoping it all comes together, heh, and that those we’ve wronged or disappointed in the past may forgive and move forward with us towards a brighter and better future.

Which lately hasn’t been all that great. Lots have happened actually, and I can’t believe it’s been twenty days since I last posted anything, since anybody last posted anything here. I wonder if it’s possible to get my membership with expat blog revoked? It’s not like I’ve been doing anything horribly expat-y lately, though we did buy a water cooler, and that was an adventure in and of itself.

So Maria had been feeling dehydrated, and so have I frankly, and the water in China is a little dodgy and though you can boil it and clean it of whatever bacteria might be in it, we couldn’t help the film of sediment that formed on our water kettle nor the layer of detritus on the bottom of our water bottle into which we poured our boiled water. This meant we didn’t have much faith in it actually, and have substituted water when thirsty with perhaps not too healthy, sugary others. So we had talked about it a while ago, but the solution was to purchase a water bottle, one of those big ones that you see on the backs of trucks being delivered in the States. I had fond memories of using one the last time I was in China because it provided instant hot water and was a perfect means of re-constituting instant noodles. I only just recently realized, since it’s gotten to be summer and the weather is hot and humid in Beijing, that you can also get instant cold water and so have a nice refreshing beverage whenever called upon. But this was some time ago, the discussion I mean, about getting a big water bottle, so we revisited it recently and decided to actually go forward with it.

So in China, it’s a pretty easy thing to do. Just down our little alley there’s this guy that sells these big jugs of water. They weren’t open that day actually, so it was their loss, but we found another guy selling the exact same thing serendipitously actually on our way to the supermarket. Apparently they’re just everywhere, and they all do basically the same thing, and they all have a guy driving around a three wheeled bicycle that takes these things and delivers them to you. So we go into this little hole in the wall store, filled with big bottles of water, and the guy is very nice in that salesmen-sy kind of way and he lets us sample the water and he explains how it’s the best kind of water there is and he says they’re having a special where if you buy ten bottles they’ll give you two more for free. Whatever. The point though was that it was easy. He had the machines there that provided the instant hot and cold, he had the bottles of water, he had the guy to deliver and install it all, and a quick exchange of money later and we were on our way to fresh water heaven. We’ve a phone number to call whenever we need a new bottle and he’ll send the guy on his way, and he’ll maintain our water machine thingy for a year. Obviously the point’s a little moot since we’re hoping to move by the end of June, but apparently it’s a universal machine, capable of housing and carrying any and all kinds of big water bottles, so we’re good. It’s humming away happily as I write actually, and it breathes; every now and then you’ll hear it gurgling pleasantly. In short, everyone go get a water cooler! Huh…I just remembered that those things are called water coolers…

So that’s the bit of China that’s kind of non-bloggy and kind of expat-y and I hope it justifies my existence in the expat blog directory listing.

Since I last wrote we’ve also attended a friend’s wedding up in San Francisco. We needed to get out of the country anyways to enter on our next visa entry and Maria was running her first marathon in the States, which turned out very well. Fully expect to see some more milestone updates later on but at the moment I’m a little fuzzy on all the dates. But the wedding was nice, I got to see some of my family and Maria got to see an extensive bit of hers. We were apart for two weeks, and it killed me. That was when I was doing the whole nocturnal living thing as evidenced by my previous posts about biking in Beijing in the middle of the night. Not exactly the pinnacle of healthy living here. I’m hoping though for things to regain a semblance of sanity and normalcy soon.

The restaurant is also fast out of my hands, hopefully, I pray. Skipping over all the pertinent details because they’re not mine to disclose, but the headache and stress of having to deal with being in the food service industry may soon be behind me. That does mean I’m still out of a job, and have been for a while, and haven’t been paid by anybody for a really long while, and the whole process has still nevertheless sucked this transitioning out of my hands and will probably suck long after the actual transition takes place, but um, it’s still a load off, and will be even more so of one when I have my high paying power job that lets me live the life of luxury in this town, no sarcasm intended, obviously.

And speaking of jobs, I had the world’s worst interview today, ever. Not only was it for a job that I applied to a very long time ago and so now have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of what it was about, but they had layered themselves in so many different company names an recruiters and go betweens that I had no idea who I was even applying for a job with. It was an hour away by subway, out in the bums of nowhere, though it was really pretty, kind of tropical looking on the ride out due to it raining today, and when I get there I knew immediately it wasn’t going to work but had to still sit through it all, much to my general embarrassment. See, I knew at once that it was a Chinese company, without even a hint of foreign-ness to it. There were no English signs, there were no foreign employees, and you could just feel that tinge of Chinese laziness in the air where they hire a bunch of people with credentials on paper who all they do is the least necessary, if that. I’ll come out and say it now: the majority of Chinese employees try to get away with doing as little as possible. Maria just read somewhere recently that Chinese greed is only outweighed by Chinese laziness, and it’s true. There’s a whole floor of people sitting in cubicles, everyone looking at their own computer screens, all messing on the internet in one way or another, without so much as a word being spoken to anyone, without that sort of collaborative creativity and productivity one feels in US offices. Just with that, I knew I wouldn’t want the job, but apparently they didn’t want me either. Ah the other thing was the actual applications I had to fill out. First, there was a questionnaire and one of the questions was in Chinese; obviously a test of my literacy which I obviously failed. Second, all the boxes to fill in information like “name” or “relation” or “previous employer’s name” where too small; you couldn’t write the English in there even if you wanted to. Obviously meant to accept Chinese characters only, and obviously another count on which I failed. Then there were the questions about HTTP protocol and DNS lookups which I actually just don’t know, so obviously I’m not qualified for the job either but I don’t actually remember because it’s been ages since I first applied and these people put so many buffers between the actual job and me I went in completely blind. So there wasn’t even a real interview. Some guy came out, said thanks for coming out, said I probably wasn’t qualified, asked if I had any questions, and that was it. Hours of my life wasted in what is probably the biggest job interview fail of my life. I’ve been failing a lot really, and it’s kinda putting a crimp in my self esteem.

But the pluses do also exist. I’m doing some freelance programming work which allows me to flex some of my programming muscles. I’m doing some music work for pay as well and that’s always a good thing. There are a few social events on my calendar coming up with people whose company I enjoy, and I at least am very excited by my father’s and Maria’s business opportunities coming right over the horizon. I’m hoping for lots of good things from them.

A bigger short of it though is that I’m not entirely sure I’m happy, but I’m hoping to find what I need to fix that so that I can be, so that this opportunity which has been afforded me and which I have undertaken with Maria, my partner in all of this, will have ultimately been beneficial. Um…so that’s the meaning behind the title, actually. I’d like to enter a process of discovery and more specifically, rediscovery, of all the things in life that I love so that I can share them with the person I love.

As of February 15th, Maria and I would have been in a relationship for two years, and we just celebrated today, rather belatedly, on March 27th.

I’m surprised at how quickly the time went by. It doesn’t feel like six months have passed, and it certainly doesn’t feel like two years. I am grateful, surprised, and happy at both milestones. I sometimes I feel like maybe I don’t make a good enough show of just how much I care for Maria. As long as ten years ago I was first told that I may just not know how to show people that I care about them, that I love them. I started to work on it then. I would hope that in a decade I’d have progressed. I guess the jury may still be out on that one. Two years is a long time, but these past six months I guess have felt longer. It’s funny that over a quarter of our relationship has occurred outside of the country. I feel so well traveled and worldly. Six months in China have almost flown by. It might be the cycle of having to leave the country every two months; it makes things seem to go by quicker because in the grand scheme of things, two months really isn’t that long of a time. I at the same time feel like we’ve accomplished a lot, and nothing. I do believe that Maria’s accomplished a lot. For her to have come to this country, not knowing the culture or the language or having any real support base waiting for her took a lot of courage, and to be able to do as much as she is right now, though simple things like go out for groceries, eat out, buy supplies, even take care of our electricity and gas bill needs, go running, have a gym membership, take taxis, are all great accomplishments. In fact, it makes me wish I had documented those under our list of milestones at the bottom of the page; the first time she went for a run in China; the first time she bought fruit. She’s even involved in such promising business ventures, and her Chinese is progressing, in my opinion, nicely. As far as my progress though, I hold a slightly more negative view. It did not take courage for me to come here; I know the language, some of it at least, some of the culture, and have a large support base already in place. China had always been my BACKUP plan, should all else fail, and though it is still a great adventure, greatly helped along by Maria’s presence as one, my personal presence, were it on my own, would not be any great accomplishment by any means. I owe so much to her. But I do feel rather worthless some of the time though. I’ve not blogged in a few days mostly because of no pressing desire to. I do so now out of guilt, out of some feeling of obligation to explain myself. China is such a great place on the one hand, especially since Maria is here, but on the other, it really makes me feel pathetic. I was working as manager of a restaurant, pulling 91 hour weeks, seven days a week, for the equivalent of a measly 700 dollars a month. Even in RMB, which is 5000, the amount just covers my current rent leaving no money left over whatsoever for any other expenses. I know I shouldn’t judge myself based on how much money I can make or how well I can provide for some one in a tangible way, but as I said before, I’m no good at showing people how I love them; I need to not be a failure. So I used the past tense because I’m no longer manager of the restaurant, at least not full time. I’ve stepped back into a part time position, given up most of my day to day responsibilities to two of my staff whom I’ve promoted into supervisors of sort, and now only show up every other day or so for a few hours at most. I also tend to some other work at home. The good part of this is that I no longer work obscene hours for meager pittance. The bad part of this is that I still do some work and now for no pay whatsoever. I need a job. I’ve had a couple of interviews, and have a couple more in the works. Hopefully something good will come from these. I’m not sure really anymore what the point of this post was. I think I wanted to take stock, now that two milestones were occurring at relatively the same time. I wanted to know that what I’m doing is right, and I really hope so. I want to believe it is right so much. If not, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself. Everything seems so just over the horizon over here. Maybe that’s a side effect of having too much to do with my father, but everything has the taint of tangible benefits, nothing actual. It’s all just a little farther away, no matter how far you travel. I never thought my fortunes or my future would be tied together with his, maybe I should have less to do with him. Maybe I don’t have the psychological fortitude to live on the cusp for so long, and it’s not even been that long, I mean, what, six months? But I think the future is bright. But the future is always bright here in China ;) I just hope that Maria will be able to put up with this particular failure for another year, or even more, until one day where he will not only be a success in all the things that don’t matter in life, money, responsibility, providence, support, but also a success in that which actually may matter, the ability to show someone that he truly cares and loves them.

So it’s quite late, and I’ve been tossing and turning in bed for a good while now. The issue is that I’ve been all of a sudden sick again, and it’s not been that great of an experience. I really do believe it’s due to the sudden changes in the weather and ambient temperature as opposed to any drastically low temperatures in and of itself; I don’t think my bodies knows what to do when things keep changing! It prepares and is ready for it to be warm or cold, but it can’t handle the shift, and so dies, metaphorically.

The point though, is that while I’ve been sick, I’ve been either not very productive at all, or decently productive on some of my web projects. So assuming I spend half my time productive, half of it not, and a good potion of the rest asleep or in a daze, accounting for time to spend with my Maria of course, I should have time left everyday to blog. Right? So why is it that I don’t, and why is it that it’s been nigh on three weeks since anyone’s updated this blog?

I think it has to do with the actual concept of blogging. Before now, as in, literally a couple of minutes ago, I was suffering quite contentedly in bed, unable to sleep, dreading the possibility that I might be disturbing Maria’s rest as well. And my mind was racing. I was thinking about my restaurant’s website (which isn’t up yet), my art website, which is up here, and some new stuff I’m planning to do for my choir, which, obviously, isn’t up either, neither is the West Campus site. Incidentally, this would be the first time I’m plugging my art website…everyone go and look at it! It represents the “best” of Beijing’s urban youth, or so the propaganda page tells me.

West Campus, incidentally, is a school I’m starting in Beijing! It will at first only offer year long intensive Chinese language and culture courses, hopefully starting Fall 2010, but will move on to offer full study abroad options for a liberal arts education, hopefully with a Fall 2011 availability so we can start searching for partner US institutions. Grandiose, no? They also get a website, one to provide information, brochures, contact information, and a way to register online…hmmm…I wonder if I’ll get paid for any of this web work; they’re all decently complicated…

Um…but yes my mind was racing, and I was even mentally ranting to myself, “hmmmm…this would make a good blog post.” So here I am, finally. Partly also due to he fact that I got tired of lying in bed unable to sleep and I wanted to spec. out the requirements for the IFC website.

So what this post will be about then is just a mish-mash of everything’s that’s been going on, with the hopes that it will make some greater sense, and that it will in some small way make up for the lack of anything interesting floating around here. Ah I’ve also modified the layout a bit to have static headers and footers; I’m not sure I like it…

So I think the restaurant’s a good place to start. We’re switching owners. My aunt and uncle, God bless them, are no longer going to be working with us, thank God. This means that we have to find somebody to buy out their 50% stake in the restaurant for $$$K, plus work out some way to repay the $$$K RMB that they “loaned” to the business to cover operational costs. Without going into too much of the details because I’m not entirely sure I’m at liberty to say at the moment, it’s being worked out, and it should be good.

What I am most excited about is the possibility of greater interactions with a local farm that my father is associated with. This should allow us to get good dairy and meat supplies, plus develop new foods like homemade cheese! I’ve been missing cheese in this country, and I have grandiose dreams of being Beijing’s one and only source for freshly made mozzarella. There is also the possibility that we may partner with another good friend of ours and jointly open yet another restaurant in the same complex as Connections. This will be a all vegetarian restaurant, specializing in fresh juices, fruit and vegetable cocktails, and entree size salads, something wholly lacking in this country. This will also entail greater cooperation with the farm as we will need to grow the entree salad vegetables, things like endive, mescalin, arugula, also things either lacking or inconsistent in this country, and which I will even admit to missing. Again, I have grandiose dreams of being Beijing’s one and only source for fresh, home grown, specialty vegetables.

I am also leaving my role as full time manager of the restaurant, mostly because it’s too time consuming. I have faith and confidence in my staff and the training I’ve provided them, and will still be on hand in a very part time manner, perhaps a couple of hours every other day. I’m going to promote on waitstaff and one cook to be my eyes, hands, and ears while I’m away, and they will be responsible in my absence. We’ve been kind of operating this way for the past week, mostly due to circumstance since I was sick, but also due to premeditation because I was just sick of being there 91 hours a week, and things seem quite smooth. Again, I have faith.

The only other thing interesting about the restaurant is that I think I’ve finalized with my choir, the IFC, the option of using Connections as their “home away from home,” or “home base,” the most pertinent bit of which would be the using of it as their ticket distribution hub. I needn’t tell you all the great benefits this entails. I had always wanted a stronger tie between the restaurant and my choir, and this provides it. Part of the reason why I got a piano for the restaurant was so that there can be impromptu rehearsals, sections, or other music related events, open mics, sing alongs, etc. that can happen at the restaurant and involve the choir. If I can be the one and only place to get tickets for our upcoming concerts, then that’s a step in the right direction. The website I’m spec’ing out for them is to give them the ability to handle online ticket sales on their own without using a third party service that charges an obscene service charge per transaction. Plus, it looks like my Epiphany music center idea may come to fruition at some point relatively soon as well, and all these things will work so well together I just know it.

Which is a great segue for that topic! I got Cary, my father’s business partner, interested in Epiphany. I think he’s always been half way interested, though no one’s taken the initiative to develop it really. My father had done some work, and I’ve built off of that to come to where we are now. Again, without going into too much details because I may not be at liberty to say, but it’ll be good, and it’ll be THE place to go for all your classical music needs in the “heart of Beijing” so to speak, or so the propaganda page states ;)

Also since I am no longer going to be the full time manager at the restaurant, I’m relegated myself to the status of “owner,” which means I get paid when the restaurant is profitable, or if and when that is. This means I’ve been on the prowl for a normal job, hopefully something in a programming vein. I had interviewed with and received a very decent job offer from Pixomondo, a visual effects company opening their Beijing office. Unfortunately, the timing had sucked because I was just getting deep into the running of the restaurant so I turned their offer down. Or more, I didn’t respond when they asked me if they could negotiate my offer with me…my defense on this issue is that I was really busy, as I’ve always been, and it was during New Years so things were extra hectic. But yes, I should have gotten back to them no matter what and it’s my bad for not. The point also being then that I feel awkward approaching them again since I sort of brushed them off earlier. I’ve also interviewed with Wokai.org, a micro-financing company. They’re in first round interviews, and they’re supposed to get back to me. And if any of you reading this know of any good PHP Programmer jobs, let me know! I’ve already been thinking about posting to this blog post photos of my new Connections menu, I think I’ll also post my resume. I NEED A JOB!!! PLEASE HELP!!!

Our visas are also expiring, again. This will be our, what, third entry? Haven’t figured out where to leave to yet, but need to soon, we have just under a week left to clear immigration. Part of the other reason a “normal” job sounds appealing is that they should be able to help me sort out my work visa issue. At the moment, the stand still is that VSM hasn’t gotten back to me yet on my employment verification letter, which is the last thing I need before one round of work visa applications with my father can be filed. They’ve sort of fallen off the face of the earth at the moment, I wonder if they’re alright…But since I’ve stepped back from the restaurant, this next trip promises to be much better, and longer, and more fun, I promise, my dearest Maria. I know I’ve been sucking lately, being sick, being busy, but I promise better times ahead.

Whoo I’m on a roll aren’t I! And real tag happy :)

Regarding Maria, since a lot I’m not at liberty to myself say, I will say that she did very well on the GMAT, finished her MBA applications to Tsinghua and BiMBA, is plowing her way through her Chinese government scholarships, was NOT late for any scholarships at Tsinghua or BiMBA, and has many promising projects coming up involving Chinese lawyer and my father. And that’s all I’ll say.

Let’s upload that menu now shall we? And don’t laugh at the over the top English; it hasn’t been edited yet.

Let’s also get the resume uploaded shall we? Download now

And now I’m feeling a little dehydrated and shaky. I should probably stop now as I think I’ve got most things covered, and those that I haven’t, I’ll try to list out real quick. I also need to upgrade this WordPress install before I’m finished.

1) We’re still looking for an apartment. We’ve had a reprieve because my mother’s not coming until June, but that’s feeling like it’ll be here real soon. We’re playing around with the option of living in the complex that Connections is in because we have so many things going on there (Connections, Epiphany, the new vegetarian restaurant), plus we also want to start our own business so it seems also appropriate, but there’s a lot of logistics involved with that mostly due to the fact that it’s commercial real estate and so is more expensive and lacking a kitchen and plumbing.
2) My best friend from high school’s wedding is coming up in mid-May, so we’ll be both going back to the US around then. Maria’s going to go earlier, see some family, and run her first marathon in Cincinnati! I will, unfortunately, be unable to attend. But this should mean we’ll have exciting things to look forward to come October and the Beijing marathon :)
3) I only need 40 some odd words to get to 2000 at this point, so I’m just stalling and rambling until then. It seems like a nice, round, number, and may very well be the longest blog post we’ve had. I had been toying with the idea of separating this one entry into multiple entries, and just post them all at the same time. But that also felt stupid. Not that this monster of a post isn’t stupid in and of itself, there’s just no lesser evil with those two choices…

Edit:

Already had to correct a couple of typos, and I just realize I never tested the new sites I’m developing in IE, because I don’t have access to IE anymore! I should get around to that huh…?

But, like the title says, it means we’re off to Seoul, again, tomorrow, for even less time than last; we leave Thursday, come back Friday. The tightness of the travel schedule had originally been to accommodate an activity the IFC was going to participate in. They had been asked to perform on Beijing TV, nationally broadcast no less, but the BTV people wanted a large showing of foreigners, and what with it being the holiday season and all the IFC just couldn’t scrounge up enough singers, though of course I signed up since I have no life and no reason to leave, though I kind of do actually; it’ll be nice to get to go to Bangkok. Either way, they cancelled on me last week, after I’d already gotten our airplane tickets, so what can you do.

Since we’ve been there before though, we’re kind of nixing the whole “tourist in Korea” thing and opted to stay in a hotel real close to the airport and will just camp there. It should be fine; Maria managed to find a very nice looking place for a good price. Hopefully we won’t have to run this whole gamut again, and the only thing we’ll have to do is leave the country so we can enter on our working visas. Though that in and of itself may be difficult as the process seems to be, as mentioned before, much more difficult than before, and we will most likely need to return to the States of all places to get it.

So it used to be easy, very easy. There’s a whole long list of things you need to apply for one, ranging from a translated resume, a translated offer letter, and the offer letter needs to be for a “fancy” position signed by a “fancy” executive of the company inviting you. Oh, your resume needs to be “fancy” too so it seems justified that your skills are needed. All these things in the past used to just be for show but apparently someone actually looks at it nowadays. They want our ORIGINAL college degrees (pain in the ass), and they need actual signed work verification letters from EVERY employer on your resume. Can’t be emailed, can’t be faxed, can’t be copied; needs to be the actual damned thing. So we’re left in the position where ok, I’ve a lot of employers on my resume so that it can be “fancy,” but I don’t want to track down all of them and ask them for this silly work verification letter. Sigh. On top of all this there’s a health inspection that we needed to have done, and have; thankfully that was relatively painless, and it’s convenient to know we’re healthy, though it was expensive for just a sheet of paper. And they really go over board with the health inspection! They took lots of blood, did an EKG, did an ultrasound, took an x-ray, checked your hearing, vision, general physical health. Sigh, again. It’s in process is the point. A long process.

Ugh and it’s gonna be so expensive to have to leave the country this many times! There’s Miguel’s wedding, there’s Kelly’s wedding, and some time between the two there’s the last time we have to leave the country back to the States to get our working visas. It’s actually I just don’t want to go to the States heh. And I’m sick again damnit. This city has been very cold lately, so business also sucks. Heh and I haven’t had time to blog so I’m doing it now.

Business is actually alright. It’s surprising but for a restaurant in China to be profitable it just needs to make 1500RMB a day. That’s just over 200$. It sounds small, but when you’re only charging 30RMB per dish, you’d need to serve 50 people at least, per day, which given how cold it is, is no mean feat. Ah either way.

First, my IFC (International Festival Chorus) Messiah concert has been postponed until the 19th of December. Apparently they’ve been having more and more problems getting government approval to perform Handel’s Messiah in a public venue, and it was going to be a GREAT venue (sorry, Chinese site only, but it does illustrate just how weird Chinese web URLs are: www.zxyyt.com, it’s the first letter of the each Chinese character as written using English letters). So what they’re going to have to do now is perform it on the sly, at an independent location, specifically the International School of Beijing. Apparently it’s a big deal, the Messiah I mean, and subject to lots of government scrutiny before it’s allowed to be performed. Either way. This just means it pushes off my performances and rehearsals a bit.

Secondly, thanks to my connection with the IFC, I am also performing at the British Embassador’s Residence, singing Christmas carols. We’re also “performing”/”rehearsing” at the Bookworm, a coffee shop in Sanlitun, the bar area of Beijing, this coming Thursday for either “Beethoven Basics” or “Basic Beethoven” or something like that, for their classical music open mic night. Who knew such things existed huh? Sanlitun itself is weird, and not quite my cup of tea. There’s this huge “Village” complex they’re building, basically a tricked out shopping promenade, with massive numbers of massive stores. We’re talking three stories of Nike and the world’s largest Apple store; completely out of the locals price range, but trendy, I guess. Um, what was my point?

Right, thirdly, I’ve actually signed a contract with Connections. I am their full time manager now, for the next year, unless terminated in writing with 45 days notice. The restaurant is for most intents and purposes ready. We’re just missing staff and suppliers. There’s still a big part of me that’s unsure of whether or not I should really be continuing with this, but that’s all part of some much larger general concerns of mine regarding my relative success or actually lack there of since we’ve been in China and the almost irrational and unreasonable way that I am treated or considered by my parents and extended family that I will not get into here.

Fourthly, we saw 2012 in theaters. This is Maria’s first time, and only my second. So in China, apparently, the movies are expensive as hell by local standards (35 RMB/5 USD on a weeknight, 75 RMB/11 USD on a weekend), you pick out your seats before hand and they’re assigned, if there are any English subtitles in the original movie you can kiss those good bye (which actually means we’ll need to watch 2012 again since there were lots of time when people were speaking other languages that we have no idea what was going on because there’s only the Chinese subtitles), and before the credits even begin rolling, the lights come on, the movie is over, and the theater empties. No staying for the credits in this town.

Fifthly, and related to the “Fourthly,” we wandered around Wanfujing a good bit. It’s about 5 miles from our apartment, and we wanted a walk, and I hadn’t been there in a while and I remembered that there was a movie theater there, so we headed out. We passed what the internet is apparently calling the “night market” which is this long city block of nothing but street food, most prevalent of which were things on skewers, with an emphasis on the weird and gross, like still moving scorpions, starfish, sea urchins, bug “pods,” various internal organs, etc. The place has really gussied up since last I was there. A couple of new shopping malls have opened, all selling high end durable goods. What we’ve come to realize is that brands that in the stores one would find only in department stores, for some reason have their own massive stores. They definitely like their things big.

And lastly, construction at the apartment should be finishing up relatively soon, within the week actually. Which means that for once, and finally, we will have a place that is all our own, livable and clean. Thank god for small favors.

And as a side note, we’ll be revisiting some of these things and hopefully that means there’ll be pictures!

Shortly after arriving in Beijing, I responded to an ad seeking teachers of legal English. “LegalCo” promised a light schedule and a few bucks, and I thought it might be interesting. LegalCo deals in teaching professional skills, law firm p.r., translation, and lawyer placement; I toured their office; I discussed with them my suitability for their available position (they had me penciled into their schedule before I even showed up, as it turns out) and I started doing things with them. They asked me to give a short talk on a topic of my choice within the field of Legal English to a promised audience of 100 students at one of China’s most prestigious universities, and I agreed. Thereafter they asked me if I’d like to tag along to a visit to one of China’s leading domestic law firms and dinner. Sounds good!

I probably spent too much time preparing for the lecture. I’ll return at some later date to the “Chinese people don’t take a schedule seriously” idea, but suffice to say that although they wanted to make sure I could fill 40 minutes, they still had to tell me to stop talking. Dude, I was on a roll, I had (legal writing!) powerpoint slides left, and I was enjoying listening to myself talk. :) I am a grammar fanatic, after all.

The day itself took forever, though. I was promised 250 yuan for a 30-40 minutes talk. The campus itself must have taken over an hour to drive to (in one of the LegalCo’s vehicles). Not to mention that it was pouring rain…anyway, the day began with me subwaying across town, walking to the car of the main employee I deal with at LegalCo (whom I’ll call S), and driving around trying to find this Australian tax lawyer, R, who was to give the talk at the Chinese law firm (on negotiation skills). We eventually found R, made it to the firm, found an elevator that would take us to the right floor– after some false starts, and got set up for his talk. The room filled with Chinese lawyers, most apparently no older than myself (although maybe the Asian gift of enduring youth affected my perception of their age). Many of the girls were dressed like American high school students. Sparkly dresses, tiered skirts, novelty shoes. What? The guys mostly wore jeans and dress shirts. I was wearing full formal suit-skirt and pumps, R was in a decently formal suit, and S at least wore wrinkled khakis. Even though I wasn’t on the schedule, a few people had questions for me too. I really wish I could understand the introduction that people give for me (in this case, by S). The law firm presented me with a neat little gift, formally presented, which turned out to contain a chunk of lucite with a dragon seal –functionally, a business card holder. Pret-tay nifty! Chinese paperweight!

Next step: after dropping off R, we drove to the University. The U has two campuses, one quite close to where I live. This was at the other campus. S admits he is not a great driver, and traffic was horrible, and the weather was also quite bad. We had picked up C, a Chinese law firm partner, at the law firm, so S and C and I drove first to the wrong town by accident and then to the right town, and to a fancy restaurant near the U. We had good food, a somewhat … inelegant meal, in terms of conversation, as I speak only English and C speaks only Chinese. S did some interpreting, but mostly went back and forth between speaking to his two guests. It was a neat place, we took pictures, and entertainment was just starting as we were leaving. I expect it was quite expensive, although of course I didn’t see the menu or the bill. Our event was supposed to start at 7, and at 645 we were still at the restaurant. Sigh. People just aren’t concerned with schedules? They also didn’t let me know when the bill came, and didn’t let me contribute. Apparently I’m the invitee, and it’s the inviter who pays. Plus they don’t let people who are just starting out, which apparently includes me, pay. Okay, for now! I only owe a thousand people already …

By the time we made it to the U, we were several minutes late and the room looked restless. It was packed, though, and no one looked like they were ready to give up their seat. A few people were standing against the back wall, too. We had some technical issues–resolved, and one of the speakers didn’t show (a guy from the British consulate supposedly was on a business trip). Whatever. Regardless, C and I got a million questions, and we didn’t end up leaving until 3 hours after we got there. Can I please go home now?

We packed S’s car with two more people, who we then dropped off (they have something to do with LegalCo…I think…they were never properly introduced). I got home so freaking late. So…30-40 minutes, eh? I returned home more than 11 hours after I left.

S is an interesting fellow, and he and his colleague D have explained to me their views on the Chinese legal system at some length. It is clear that China is in a transitional period, as western ideas of the rule of law and the desirability of avoiding corruption are gaining some ground, but the old ways prevail. Sounds like bribery is the way it is.

S also mentioned that he didn’t think it’d be hard for me to get a job in a domestic or international law firm. I told him: no hurry. For now, I’ve accepted a job as a “legal associate”–a very loose, part-time gig for Sean’s dad’s co. Still, I’m doing some legal work, and it’s very interesting. It is *not* California litigation (read: I have no experience in this area). So I am happy, but I am not actually content. I wasn’t planning to work here. I am supposed to be studying. As things are going, I think it unlikely that I will be happy with my GMAT score if I take it on the day currently scheduled. (Ignore, also, the fact that I don’t currently feel like going to business school.) The plan was to study, do my apps, learn Chinese. These things have *not* been my focus since showing up in this fancy city. I need to re-think, prioritize, and maybe even buckle down and work hard or some shit. Most unpalatable.

And not that anyone would’ve noticed yet, but I’ve transitioned the blog out of Blogger and into my own private domain with a WordPress install. As well as Blogger had been treating me, as a blogging software I actually found it lacking in certain key areas, primarily “post privacy.” Did you know that in Blogger everything’s either published and public, or not at all? Hardly reasonable, especially after discussing our online presence further with Maria, there are just some things that we don’t want all or some people to see. So I stayed up last night much too late getting this up and running. I was also much too tired to code my own layout, and you know, it’s been a while since I’ve poked around the underbelly of WordPress, but they’ve got some pretty nifty new features, so the point is I didn’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with a brand new layout so I just too someone else’s and customized it.

But it’s a much more full featured blogging software; I hope Maria doesn’t have any problems using it. Same as before with the Blogger location, I will be tweaking and updating things as we go; I think a “Contact Form” might be appropriate, or a “Contact Us” page.

There’s not too much to say right now. Tomorrow will be the first day that Maria is out of work and not otherwise occupied with family. I worry that she’ll be bored, or that she’ll run out of things to do. I’m dropping her off at the subway stop near my father’s house, and from there she’s going to go to the Downtown LA YMCA to get a workout, then spend the rest of her day studying for the GMAT, looking over her “Learn Mandarin” book, and other logistical slash administrative stuff. I actually envy her; I’m really quite done and over with work.

And I just noticed that this WordPress isn’t configured properly as far as Timezone goes.

We hashed through a pretty decent financial plan as well, whose details I will tactfully leave out. We also have a pretty decent exit strategy for this country, and though I am impatient, we’re going to stick with it. I’m a little worried about China though, especially after speaking with my father earlier today. He claims he’s just “excited,” but I think he’s worried. He’s not sure if we’ll be able to find jobs in China, and I think he grossly overestimates the benefits of the internet in procuring said jobs. He’s managed to shake my own confidence in our abilities, something he’s fairly good at doing. I suppose that might be considered a positive in some ways; at least he’s giving me, and us, pause, making sure we’ve actually got it all figured out.

I still think the best thing to do is to sort it out once we get there. Our resources will be greater, our feelers better able to reach further and deeper into the under mire of this new world into which we are embarking. I want to stick to our original plan. I’m just so impatient to just leave already! Maria and I did manage to find some websites online, based out of China (by the way, Chinese website are just horrible! It’s like, nothing you’ve ever seen before I assure you), that have some promise in some of the posts they have. It’s got me motivated enough to have updated my resume properly. Ah, and you know, I think this is a good place for a link, something I’ve been promising to do: Have you ever seen such, crowding?

Plus I’m on time this evening. I got together with my ex., that would be my first ex. Hard to imagine that we used to go out almost a decade ago. I’ve only recently begun demarcating time in “decades.” I think the first time was a couple of days ago when I went to visit my mother in the hospital. Speaking of which, she had a baby and/or cantaloupe sized tumor removed from her uterus. I don’t know if the uterus is still there. It’s probably not cancerous. They’re testing it now. They found the tumor during x-rays/MRIs for her hip surgery, which she’s just recovered from. She had hip surgery not because she needed to, but because she wanted to; she’s had problems with arthritis and wanted to be able to run again. I’m sure Maria understands that particular sentiment actually. And that was a not-too-subtle hint at a psuedo-bio bit of information about Maria. As I was saying, I was visiting her, and we were talking about some things that happened in the past, just reminiscing really, and out came the word “decade.” As in: “that happened a decade ago.” Since when did my years grow into decades?

But so I got together with my decade ago first ever ex. We had Indian food. Chatted, caught up, traded stories. It was very nice indeed. I’m not sure why I’m writing so briefly on the matter, but I guess I don’t want to say too much about it. I sort of feel like I’m on a whirlwind tour of my now decade ago past. In the next just a little over a week time period I’m going to be catching up with as many people as possible from that time; people I’ve almost lost contact with; people I’ve been remiss in keeping up with; people I used to and well let’s just admit it still do care a lot about. I expect they’ll go much the same as one another. Catching up, chatting, trading stories. It’s actually quite emotionally tumultuous for me in quite an unexpected though I believe understandable way.

I don’t know if it’s been noticed, but as alluded to I did post proper fiction on here. It’s tagged so. I also embedded my music. I’m slowly coming to understand the template engine at work behind Blogger. As time goes on and I become less and less busy, as my proper commitments and responsibilities slowly slip away, expect much of the layout here to change as my understanding of it matures. And I’m having way too much fun constructing some of my sentences. And you know what will be fun? I should find the email I sent when I gave notice. I think it was brilliantly constructed. Expect it soon-ish.

Here’s the token “China” reference: Beijing.