Fear and loathing in wherever

So it's election time again and that means everybody's getting fired up for voting for whichever figurehead they think will fulfill their priorities. I consider myself a relatively politically aware person - someone who reads about political issues and controversies more than once every four years. But of course it's election season and that means it's time to be bombarded with politically-related crap from every single direction. (Editor's note - yes, I am trying to get a job/internship working on a website covering the election)

What really bothers me is this - when I try to have a leveled conversation about the two candidates I usually get a reaction like this - "HOW CAN YOU NOT VOTE FOR (insert candidate's name here) ARE YOU CRAZY!??!?! DO YOU NOT REALIZE WHAT IS AT STAKE?!?!?!"

Yes, the president is somewhat important. Yes the country has begun to hit the shits as of late. Yes the last president wasn't that great. My question is, is the presidential election really the most important thing going on right now? In my opinion, not at all. The economy is probably the most important issue right now, followed closely by numerous social developments of which the president has little to no impact. Additionally, I don't think you can blame Bush, Clinton, Older Bush, or any other president for the current state of the economy. Presidents did not force banks to issue bad loans or make people accrue incredible amounts of debt.

Thus, I really can't stand when people I barely ever talk to inform me of how important it is that I vote. Of course I'm glad that I live in a country that perpetuates my right to vote. I find that channeling that sentiment solely into the presidential race is unbelievably idiotic. How about a video of celebrities telling me to vote in my city/state elections? These legislators usually have a far more dramatic impact on my day of life/quality of living than the president. Does the president help get your trash picked up? Nope, that's a city/district rep. Why not release irritating ads decrying how important these elections are?

I have innumerable theories as to why this is - none of them are important. My main point is that while the presidency may be an important, relevant position, it's no more important than state and local elections. Thus releasing idiotic videos about voting in the presidential elections is, to me, just plain ignorant. It's focusing energy on an election that most people are already aware of while disregarding elections that have a greater impact on daily life.

That being said, I'll probably vote for Obama ... mostly to avoid Palin.

The suspense is killing me.

So I didn't get that last job. I tried not to get my hopes up, but I did, and was summarily crushed by the disappointment that I knew was inevitable. I guess I'm back to square one job search wise, which is perhaps scarier now than when I started. As one of my co-workers here would say, it is what it is.

Or so I thought. That was until I got a call at 130 am from time.com. I had applied to an internship there about a week or so ago that I had more or less forgotten about. Now I have a phone interview with them scheduled for sometime later this week. It's not a job persay, but a paid internship through sometime in December. It is, however, a paid position with gd time.com at their offices in nyc helping out with the election. Not too shabby.

Again, I'm attempting not to get excited about this, but I'm sure I will (I already have). It is however cool to think that in 10 days I could be living temporarily in nyc and doing this internship. I'm sure my chances are still slim, but who knows.

I'm not good with gigantic swings in fortune. They mess with my head something awful. A few hours ago I was very seriously worried about the near future. Now I'm wondering if I should pack some of my stuff up just in case. I really hope I find out much sooner than later because I know I'm going to worry myself sick about this stuff over the next week or so. Therefore, if any of you who read this blog (basically Fineman) end up talking to me, please excuse my manic nature.

Timing is everything.

While discussing job prospects, or lack thereof, with a coworker yesterday, he came up with an excellent point - this may be the single worst time since the Great Depression to try to look for a job. My attitude with this stuff (the market/general economy) is generally of the wait and see variety, but even I think it's looking pretty bad. I feel like the media tends to make it out a little bigger than it actually is sometimes, but when Bernanke and Paulson start warning of the end times, I get worried. Interestingly enough this economic downturn may be the final thrust Obama needs to win the office of the presidency. It's interesting to think that we'll look back about the last month and the next two as maybe some of the most extraodrinary times of our lives.

Anyways, back to trying to find a job. I have sent out something like 15 job applications. Until last night, I had not received anything more than an automated response thanking me for my interest. Two nights ago while perusing mediabisrto.com I stumbled across and interest job posting. It was from an investment company that was looking for non-traditional banking and finance people. The posting was quite quirky and light-hearted, piquing my interest. Having been pretty frustrated up til then/now, I decided to do something semi-ridiculous. It seemed as though they were looking for people who think "outside the box" as they say. Well, I figured I would produce an outside the box app.

The first thing that popped into my head was a college essay I remembered hearing about when applying to universities. It was by a medicore student who was trying to get into some schools beyond his reach. It asked him some generic question like "what is your greatest talent?" He then went on a diatribe about how he was master of all creation and such, but in a very tongue-in-cheek way. I figured my best shot at getting someone's attention at this place would be something similar. So...I decided to write a cover letter in rhyming couplets. I have pasted the cover letter below for your enjoyment. It's ridiculous. And what's more, the rhyming couplets aren't even as ridiculous as the ending.

Two days later I got an email from one of their HR people asking me to fill out another form and produce a writing sample. Needless to say, I am absolutely thrilled. I still have almost not expectations of getting a job, but just receiving human contact is a minor victory. For anyone interested, the job is as a generalist associate with D.E. Shaw and Corp. I'll save you the time of wikipediaing it and tell you - it's an investment firm/hedge fund. Indeed during our "once in a century" economic crisis, my best job lead is with an investment firm.

Please enjoy the ridiculousness of the cover letter below. It won't show up here, but I footnoted the part about the Rhodes/Fulbright scholars to their wikipedia page. Thought that would give them a laugh.

"Greetings,

My name is Jason, please find my resume attached for consideration;

I am in search for a job and am applying to your esteemed corporation.

I am a 24-year-old graduate of journalism and international relations;

Currently working and living in Shanghai for the duration.

While searching Mediabistro the other day;

I stumbled upon a job opening for “competitive” pay.

But this job posting wasn’t like the rest;

It had some zing, some pep, ‘twas one of the best.

I’m a hard worker, eager and young;

Just a kid looking to learn and have fun.

While I’m not a Rhodes, Marshall, or Fulbright Scholar;¹

I can promise I’m bright as a silver dollar.

My interests include economics, sports and politics;

And just occasionally I dabble in ethics.

I’m a thinker, a lover, a laugher and a fighter;

But more than any of those I’m really just a writer.

I have experience and education amongst the best;

References and clips provided on request.

Perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree;

If so, I apologize for idling thee.

Thanks again and I wish you the best of luck;

And if I’m not in consideration, well…..f*#k.

Sincerely,

Jason

P.S. My resume is not in rhyming verse. I promise.

Ever get that "whoa, I'm in China" feeling? Yea me neither.

I'm extremely surprised at how fast the newness of living in Shanghai has worn off. I used to ride in cabs and stare out the window in wide-eyed amazement at the shops, the neon lights, and the myriad of Chinese characters of which I probably understand two. Now I just listen to music and play solitare on my ipod.

Having dinner with a friend from work on Friday night, he asked me if I ever had to remind myself that I live in MFing China. This was an interesting question considering he's lived here for a few years and I've been here only a few months. We both agreed that sometimes you really have to take a step back and remind yourself where you are. It's like walking into a Chinese restaurant. By the end of dinner, you're not still thinking "Whoa, everything here is Chinese!" It just is.

On a completely separate issue, China is far more relaxed than I expected it to be. The best example of this is probably drugs. Before I came to China I was led to believe that there is a zero tolerance policy against pretty much every drug. Now I'm sure if you traffic stuff heavily, you can get busted and go to jail for a long, long time, and even maybe be put to death. On the smaller level though, nobody cares. People smoke weed at social events and do rails in clubs. It almost seems like there's a policy of "don't be fucking stupid about it" and then it's OK. That idea seems to permeate a lot of things here. Prostitution is the same. There is a street - Tongren Rd. - that is known in Shanghai for having ladies of the evening. This is a generally accepted thing. Fake dvds too. They're everywhere and they're insanely cheap. On top of that, they're so pervasive that it's nearly impossible to find non-fake DVDs...not that you would really want to. These fuckers are like a dollar a piece!!!

Anyways, I'm entering the home stretch of my little adventure here. I have about a month to go until I'm back in the US, at which point I'll be living with my parents and desperately trying to get a job. This of course leaves open the possibility that I won't find a thing and end up 42 yrs old, living in my parents' house and referring to myself as "a big kid." This prospect is terrifying, so I expect I'll be feverishly looking for employment. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell everyone that if you do talk to me during this period, I will inevitably begin bitching about my job search and the state of American employment. Be forewarned.

Job hunting from the other side of the Earth

The four of you who read this blog probably know that I've been applying to jobs pretty consistently over the last three or four weeks. You also probably know that I have not only been thus far unsuccessful - I've been incredibly, amazingly, gut-wrenchingly, Tom Brady 2008 season unsuccessful.

I guess I fooled myself into believing I was more talented and/or useful than I actually am. I certainly thought that after getting a masters in IR that my resume would be well rounded. You can make a fine argument that it is. Like most applicants, the only real hole in my resume is experience. Most decent jobs seem to require 3-5 years of "experience."

Now, if you'll allow me to bitch for a while. Where is this wealth of people with 3-5 years of experience?? Am I unaware of a sudden population boom in 1980 that has resulted in a plethora of 28 yr old people who have been working since they graduated college? Additionally, unless you're a place that legitimately gets a ton of apps for their jobs (like the UN, which can consider itself not a part of this rant), write me an effing email back to tell me that they at least read my resume. I'm pretty sure at this point it's either hitting a spam filter or circulated around the office for amusement.

On the upside, my friend/psuedo boss at the SBR is going to sit down with the Shanghai Bureau Chief of Reuters. I'm very happy for him and hope he gets it. However, for this post, let us ask the question of how he got this meeting? ... He knew a guy who knew a guy. That's life and it doesnt really tend to bother me except for one thing - I hate asking people for favors job wise. It makes me feel like Oliver Twist begging to someone infintely bigger and wiser, hoping that they aren't going to smack you and take away your remaining gruel.

I guess, as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn and you're always one app away from getting a job. But what bothers me most is that I haven't even gotten a rejection letter. I have been deemed not qualified enough to receive a message saying "we don't want you for this job." After spending 6 years and more money than I'll make before im 35 on higher education, it's infuriating, terrifying, frustrating, etc. It's pretty much every emotion that is not positive.

Fortunately I can still fall back on my degree in ........COMMUNICATIONS?!?!?!

(Simpson's quote....anybody??)

Edit - http://www.realclearmarkets.com/news/ap/finance_business/2008/Sep/05/jobless_rate_jumps_to_5_year_high_of_6_1_percent.html

That's it. You people have stood in my way long enough. I'm going to clown college!

(Another Simpson's quote....anybody?!?!)

Should I stay or should I go?

Weirdly enough, I've been here for roughly half the time I'm scheduled for. In that time i've settled into a pretty good rhythm here. I'm generally surprised at how easy it is to become accustomed to a relatively strange place. The relative cheapness of certain things (taxis, food, etc.) and the large expat population make it pretty easy living. I wouldn't say I've fallen in love with the place, but I also have almost entirely positive things to say about it.

One of the most common questions that expats ask each other is "how long have you been here?" The answer, im finding out, tells you a lot. For someone like me, it's almost slightly embarrasing to say two months. Most people are between 1-4 years with a large amount saying anywhere from 5 to 20 years. These people usually follow that up by saying, "I only planned on stayin for a year, and 7 years later here I am." To me, that's a slightly scary thought - like Shanghai made it easy to stay. Like I said before, life here tends to be quite easy and fun and it seems like often times people come here and don't have any better options, and therefore stay.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. After I tell people I've been here two months they almost invariably ask me "do you think you'll stay?" I really havent had a good answer for this because each day I seem to reach a new conclusion. Some days i feel like I could stay here for a year or two and have fun with it and probably help my resume. Other days, I look foward to heading stateside and finding a job and maybe even heading back to Australia. These are all nice options ot have but it makes for a very confusing feeling. I don't want to stay just because I have nothing better to do. I also don't want to leave without any real prospects, which have been few and far between.

I will almost without a doubt come back to the US for November and December. Even if I am offered a job in Asia, I'd probably make my start date in January. My guess is, I'll probably leave Shanghai in November and not come back. But, like I said, that seems to be the statement right before someone says "and now it's 7 years later."

We're talkin soooftbaallll

This weekend I enjoyed my first games of softball in Shanghai. I was introduced to a couple guys by a friend at work who needed people for their team. I must say it was quite a nice time. Our team is made up of about half American and half Canadians. While softball is important to them, it would seem drinking is priority one. I met them at Oscar's Pub, which is sponsoring our team, at about 9 15 Sunday morning. In addition to having a small bus that got us to the game, they had a large cooler of beer ready to go.

The field was a little ways away but was quite nice. It's a well-organized league, and we got in two games on Sunday. There were few highlights apart from us losing both games (one close, on embarrassing). I actually hadn't played softball since senior year of college, so I was pretty happy that the rust wasn't too intense. They have me playing shortstop but I have no idea why. Anyways, it was a good mix up softball, bullshitting, and drinking. Also, one guy one our team dislocated his shoulder diving for a ball. Good times all around.

The people on my team are almost all older. I'm the youngest person and most people seem to be in their mid late 30s. While that kind of put me off at first, I soon realized most of these people are quite, shall we say, young at heart. One guy, in particular, is called Canada. He's 42 and acts like he's a 16 year-old on meth. Everyone is just fun, nice, and doesn't tend to throw up too much bullshit.

The interesting thing about this league is that there is quite the mix of teams. Some teams are mostly westerners but other teams are groups of expats from all over the place. The second team we played on Sunday was entirely from Japan. The expat population here is interesting. It's relatively tightly knit, as there just arent that many foreigners in the city. I must say though, everyone is extremely nice and happy to meet new people. I guess living here makes meeting people that you tend to already have things in common with a special occasion. It makes for a fun atmosphere. In the US, I tended to stay within basic social circles. Making attempts to meet people and broaden horizons almost seemed taboo. Here, it's pretty much a social free-for-all.

The Wild Wild East

All good suggestions by three of the four people who read my blog. Your contributions will not be forgotten. However I feel I finally have something to write about - not having anything to write about!

I sat down for an interview today for a story I'm working on. I met with a guy who works for a hedge fund here. I expected a 10-15 minute chat, it ended up being an hour long discussion of how China may be the most exciting place on earth.

So far, I've struggled to have anything to really write about. I've attempted to avoid things such as "oh man, the taxi drivers here are carazay!!!1!!11!" and "boy, the Olympics have really opened this place up." It has been difficult to come up with good observations that aren't completely idiotic (for references of idiotic observations please see my last post) and I've been trying to figure out why. Perhaps I know why.

The interview/chat I had today left me pretty much dizzy. This guy, Sage, has been in and out of China since 1987. I literally asked about 6 questions and that yielded about 45 solid minutes of diatribe on topics ranging from the internet (what I'm writing about) to the economy, expats, and most everything else. At the end of this meeting I reached one conclusion.

This place is, essentially, Mars. Up can be down, black can be white, dogs and cats can live together, etc. I suppose for my time here so far I've attempted to relate most of the things here to stuff I'm familiar with, usually things stateside. That's a big mistake. You can do it, of course, but you're really shortchanging everything that's important. The differences are far more impressive that the similarities, the similarities are almost inconsequential when compared to the differences.

If you were to get deeply philosophical on this, you could argue that nobody would be able to give a truly effective viewpoint on China. The base assumptions I make about anything and everything automatically cloud any observations I could make, rendering them half-truths at best.

I had read a reasonable amount about China before coming here. I would not say any of it was wrong or misleading. Instead, it's like giving somebody a look at a Monet painting from 10 feet away - "cool, it's a semi blurry picture of people standing near a lake" - without allowing them to check it out up close. Sure the big picture is somewhat clear, makes a reasonable amount of sense, but without seeing it up close you can't quite understand what makes it impressive.

The guy I sat down with kept using a great word to describe China - chaos. Things often time don't seem to make sense. Not that there isn't logic behind individual happenings, but you can rarely extrapolate that logic to other areas. Like the points in a Monet painting, everything seems to be happening independently but somehow coming together to make some sort of picture.

Obviously, I don't have a very good grip on what I think, let alone how to describe it to other people. I guess that's part of the difficulty of writing about things here. The general narrative is elusive and may not even exist. Hence, be prepared for a strange, mind-numbingly confusing posts in the future. If anything, it should be fun to watch me try to figure this stuff out.

Medal counts and boredom

I have no desire to figure out something interesting to write on and then attempt to finding an interest perspective so here's a smattering of random thoughts.

- I primarily work with two people from Britain and one from the US. It's a relatively fun dynamic, particularly when it comes to the Olympic medal count. The British are doing quite well this year and my coworkers are beaming about it. The US, by comparison to previous years, is doing somewhat crappily. As such, I get minute-by-minute updates on who has won what. It does appear China will finish with the most gold medals, proving once again that Democracy just doesn't work.

- It seems to rain at least once a week here, if not more. And by rain I don't mean a slight drizzle, I mean pouring monsoons. I've already been caught in a downpour twice. On a completely separate note, there seems to be a severe dearth of overhangs on the streets of Shanghai.

- Learning Chinese is pretty difficult.

- My visit to Hong Kong was pretty fascinating. For being a pretty small island, the amount of massive buildings make it seem much larger. It's more Western than Shanghai, but in a slightly annoying way. One thing that is fascinating - you can walk entire blocks without touching the road. Most buildings have enclosed raised walkways that connect buildings. Otherwise it was about how I expected, busy, crowded, and full of Westerners.


That's it for now. i'm going to try to post some more pictures soon. Additionally, i really have no idea who is reading this/what they want to read about. Please, please tell me what you'd want to see here otherwise this thing will die the same death as the australia blog

The Phlog Phart 1

I'm going to try to post some interesting pictures here and write somewhat amusing captions about them. Here we go.



I'm not quite sure if it's a problem with my camera, or there's really this much smog. I'm guessing the latter. This is a pretty random photo of downtown Shanghai. Nothing really notable other than the fact that you really can't see that far.


This is around the block from my house. It's a random storefront for Spyker automobiles. There's a Bentley one not too far from it. There is a good amount of money flying around this place.

There are also some pretty poor people here. Like every good journalist I enjoy stating the obvious and backing it up with choice examples.

Condom machines are scattered around the city. There seem to be some of them on almost every block, probably to help reinforce that whole one child thing. This one appears to be advertising AIDS. I'm sold.

And here's both of those things, sort of. In the foreground, a semi-ghetto area. In the background is Pudong, which has some really gigantic buildings. Dichotomies are fun!

The Daily Commute

I've done this a few times now, and it's always pretty thrilling. In addition to taking the metro system or cabs, one mode of transportation is to ride motorcycles/scooters. They're actually pretty efficient in traffic since they don't really abide by basic traffic laws and can weave in and out of traffic. It's also slightly terrifying.

"How are you" "Oh, I'm horse-tiger"

The language barrier here is probably the most shocking part of my time in China thus far. The only non-Westerners that appear to speak english are business people who need it for work. Otherwise, fluent english is quite rare. Most of my communication is comprised of pointing, wild gestures, and gentle sobbing.

Shanghai has it's own language, known as Shanghainese. Evidently Shanghainese and Mandarin are completely different and mutually unintelligible. While my Mandarin level is still extremely low, I have begun to notice when people are speaking Mandarin and when they are speaking Shanghainese. The differences I notice now are on very basic levels - speed, inflection, etc. Most everyone from Shanghai speaks Mandarin, but the majority of conversations going on around me are in Shanghainese. So much for complete immersion in Mandarin.

The title of this post comes from my first Mandarin lesson. My tutor was going over basic responses to the question "Ni hao ma?" - how are you? Among the typical respones is this little gem - "Mama haha." I have no idea how I put the correct tonal punctuation on those words, but there is some. Anyways, "mama haha" means so-so, or ok. However, if you were to translate each word directly it means "horse tiger." At the time I found this hilarious.

And now for the link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7530720.stm
That's right, alcoholic tree shrews! In addition to being a whimsical/interesting piece, I would like to direct your attention to the caption for the picture. I admire the BBC's attempts at alcohol humor, but let's leave it to the professionals. Even a layman like I could see that the appropriate caption would have been "This bud's for shrew."

Still figuring this thing out

My friend Jarret makes a good point in one of the comments to the previous post. He pretty much asks why I'm not going to write about controversial things such as the Olympics. The first reason is that I want this to be more of a "man-on-the-street" type blog. It will pretty much just compromise things I run into on a daily basis. Secondly, I really don't feel like pissing anyone off. I will be looking to tackle really basic, everyday scenarios including......food poisoning!

A slight warning: although I don't end up getting particularly sick, some of you might get kind of grossed out by the rest of this post.

I met up with a couple friends from France on Friday night for dinner before heading out to a bar. I was pretty excited because this particular bar is on the 26th floor of a building on the Bund (the area near the major river running through Shanghai) and is supposed to have breathtaking views. We decided on a small, european cafe near my apartment. After a dinner consisting of a decent pizza and soda, we walked down the block to meet up with a couple more people. We had been standing on one of the street corners for no longer than a few minutes before I began to feel extremely ill.

By the time our friend Jerome showed up, I was surveying my options of where I could vomit, which included the street and a small green area that was currently being watered by some guy. Jerome attempted to have a conversation with me as I sat there nodding and holding my stomach. Finally the last of our party arrived and I announced that I was ditching them due to impending stomach fireworks.

We were only a block from my place so I stumbled home, attempting not to chuck on any innocent bystanders. By the time I made it to my apartment building, I was feeling a reasonable amount better but still pretty off. I laid in my room for a while and eventually felt pretty OK. The rest of the weekend I ended up feeling fine.

Yes, indeed this has been a boring story, but it speaks to something that a reasonable number of people fear about life in China/Shanghai. From what I understand, food poisoning is not too much more common here than anywhere else. Just like in US cities, if you eat at shady places, you're going to run risks. On the other hand, I would be lying if I said there did not appear to be more of those shady places in Shanghai. Seemingly every block has 4 tiny little restaurants that are comprised of a kitchen and eight seats. I can't even really blame the place I ate, considering I really only felt bad for a few hours and of that time I only felt legitimately sick for about 10 minutes.

As of right now, I'd say the food has been pretty good. Lunch usually consist of eight dumplings (which costs a total of 5 rmb, or about 80 cents USD). Those go down pretty well everyday. I figure food poisoning may or may not be a running story throughout this little excursion, thus I decided to write it up. Perhaps I'll look back on this as a one-off outlier. Or perhaps this will be the first of many.

Anyways, this entire post has been more or less and excuse of why I don't have anything interesting from the weekend. Sorry kiddos. Enjoy the link.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502255.html

Pretty great column on how perceptions may not be reality when it comes to thinking about China.

Also, vote in the damn poll.

Sloppy 100-millionths

One of the reasons I'm doing this blog is that you really don't seen many blogs in China. I feel like I'm really breaking new ground here. It's nice to know that what I'm doing will be among the first blogs to really discuss China.

http://www.cwrblog.net/1089/cnnic-over-100-million-bloggers-in-china.html

Well then.

Sequels are never as good as the originals.

For a few reasons, being among them boredom and vanity, I decided to do another blog. It will probably end up with me posting entries consistently for about three weeks and then abandoning it, a la the jasoninaustralia blog. Therefore, I make no promises about consistency and/or quality.

First things first - I'm not going to blog about or link to anything controversial. There's plenty to write about Shanghai alone, and I really don't care that much about the political issues in China right now. Expect entries to be comprised of things like "Wow, there's a lot of people here!!1!1!" and not "China must stop XXXX right now, blah blah blah."

Secondly, for anyone who ends up reading this, please ask questions or come up with stuff for me to write about. I am incredibly lazy when it comes to doing this and input will provide at least some motivation.

Lastly, I'm really going to try to avoid any posts about the Olympics, mainly because there's literally dozens of quality blogs in China doing a pretty solid job of covering it. The only thing you might see is links. I'm going to try to include links, usually to other blogs, that might be of interest. This is pretty much going to be a blog about what might randomly stand out if anyone from the West came here.

Otherwise, I'd check back maybe weekly for posts. I don't see myself putting up anything interesting more than once every week or two.

As for the link I promised -

http://www.chinalawblog.com/2008/07/chinese_like_us_they_really_re.html

From a blog I read here pretty often. The writer puts it in a pretty funny way.