Sleeper Cell Contractors

It’s amazing how some things are the same, regardless of location or culture or even the space-time continuum. Like pyramids built by both ancient Egyptians and Mayans (both undoubtedly under the influence of extraterrestrials). So, too, as I’ve learned in the last 3 months renovating my new apartment, are evil contractors -- they live in every corner of the world, sharing the common trait of unscrupulousness wherever you find them. (Maybe evil contractors are sleeper extraterrestrials living in our midst?)

Ok, to be fair, the contractors that are working on my apartment are very professional, and pay attention to every detail thought up by my architect extraordinaire, Joy Hou. I’m talking about the contractors attached to the vendors here in Shanghai.

The way it usually works, when you buy something for home improvement here, is that the vendor will send out their guys to deliver and install. And the general rule is that they suck.

My most recent experience in how much they suck was getting my new kitchen installed. I spent about Rmb14,000 on a new kitchen, which was installed a few days ago. It turns out that the sons-of-worms managed to scratch the hell out of my new wood flooring, hung the upper portion of the cabinetry too low, used cheap screws to attach the cabinets (making them unstable), got the alignment wrong so that the height of the handles don’t match, and used the wrong color trim on the cabinetry.

I’ve screamed bloody murder twice now to the kitchen vendor. The only thing I got out of these calls was finding out that my Chinese gets really bad when I get angry -- I start to stutter and forget words and so I keep saying “that that that that thing” / 那个那个那个东西, as in “I’m going to beat you with that that that that thing if you don’t fix that that that that other thing tomorrow."

Ok ok, some contractors are evil and this whole renovation process almost killed me. But in the end, property ownership has turned out to be incredibly rewarding (never thought I’d agree with John Locke on anything), and I’ve found a new indicator for China economic well-being: the amount of activity in the home improvement centers.

Home improvement is aspirational: you dream of a more beautiful life for you and your family through new flooring or new bathroom tiles or a new closet. (Or, in my case, a new Japanese toilet with temperature-controlled seat and water spray with an automatic deodorizer option. What can I say, I’ve got a bit of the hyper antiseptic Japanese in me.) (But a spraying toilet seat is better than using wet baby wipes, as my favorite actor Terrence Howard suggests.) (While I’m on the subject of favorites and buttock hygiene, here’s my favorite Confucius quote: “Confucius say, man who goes to sleep with itchy butt wakes with smelly hand.”) (Ok, I get side tracked, no more parentheticals.)

And home improvement is an expression of belief in a better tomorrow. You don't sink a big chunk of disposable income on home improvement as opposed to basic rice and beans unless you have confidence in not only a secure economic future but also a better one. (Although this probably does not apply to me: I went way over my budget not because of confidence in my ability to earn; it was more a matter of unstoppable inertia -- if I want floor heating, I have to get new floors, which means a change in the color scheme/palette of the entire apartment, which means the previous kitchen and closets have to go, which means an opportunity to install a state-of-the-art water filter system, which means new pipes, which means digging up walls, and so on and so forth, although I'm not sure this explains why I have to re-do the bathrooms... In other words, my home improvement was driven by an inability to stop taking one simple assumption to its logical end.) (Well, ok, I mean it now, that was the last of the tangential parentheticals.)

If home improvement is indeed a leading indicator at the grass roots lao bai xing level, then there is no bubble here in China. In fact, we're just now getting started on the elevator ride.

I went to Ikea here in Shanghai yesterday, to buy a few necessities and a ton of other things that I don't need and didn't want to buy but could not help myself, and was overwhelmed by the thousands of people buying Ivar shelves and Svalov side tables. There were so many people stuffed into this ginormous Ikea and sucking air that I could feel oxygen availability dipping well below safe levels.

And I love it. I love seeing young Chinese couples snapping up bright red plastic hangers and faux brass candle holders. I love the 50,000 people getting off diesel-fume-spewing public buses everyday at the Shanghai light textile market in Putuo District haggling over prices of roman shades and rattan rugs. I love walking through the hundreds of stalls in the home improvement malls off of Yishan Lu with their 10,000 varieties of bath & shower fixtures. I just love it.

I'm usually a pretty cynical dude, but I get slightly emotional when I see people here going gaga over home improvement, taking pride in their homes, confident in a brighter future, aspiring to a life more beautiful (and in some cases a butt more clean).

Next time, I will post pictures of my new home, with magic toilet.

Working for The Man

My friends, sorry I haven’t written for awhile. I’ve been overwhelmed with work. Not so much by the volume of work, but rather by the stressful nature of work.

There's much that I want to tell you about, from how I wish the 90's hi-top Gumby fade haircut makes a comeback (hence Bobby Brown’s pic to the left) (you know, I used to want to be Bobby Brown), to Shanghai taxis, to my friend Stan’s rules for Samurai Dating (the honorable way for a man to flirt while he is in a serious relationship), but I just have not been able to find time to write.

Instead, I give you insights on how to decode and prioritize work requests, from my 13 years of experience working in the Large American Corporation:

(1) "Urgent"(as in, "I need this to be done on an urgent basis"): this typically means that the end product is actually not needed for awhile, probably 2 weeks, but it has been marked urgent so you won't ignore it. I tend to ignore these for at least 48 hours. That's probably why, lately, people have been sending me requests of a "very urgent" nature.

(2) "Very Urgent" (as in, "I need this right away, it's very urgent that you review this by COB today") (COB means close-of-business, for those of you unfamiliar with the lingo of the Large American Corporation): these types of requests typically have little to do with how urgent the task actually is. Rather, they tend to come from the ranks of managers (or below) who copy their supervisor on these very urgent requests, mainly to show their supervisor that they are working on something important. Of course, these tend to be not all that important, so I will not look at these until I get a second reminder (which comes invariably, like, about 5 days later, in spite of the whole COB thing).

(3) "When you get a chance" (as in, "No worries, I know you're busy, so take a look at this when you get a chance"): I always look at these right away. Because I know people don't want me to look at something and find that it doesn't smell right. They don't want me slowing things down and so they try to throw me off their scent. But they can't fool me, cos I'm the super crime fighting dog of compliance, Ooof Ooof, Bark Bark, Aaaaoooooooooww!

While we're on the subject of work requests. I've been thinking about ways to improve my level of service to my clients at the office. I want to be able to anticipate what they need, before they ask. Because The Customer is king. The Customer is always right. So I think my first response to any work request should be: "Do you want fries with that?"

The Man: "I need this right away, it's very urgent that you review this by COB today"

Me: "Do you want fries with that?"

I end with (who else) Bobby Brown and his Gumby fade. And check out those tight lycra shorts.

Talk to the hand

Don’t talk to me about leaded paint on toys. Or tainted pet food or fish fed on antibiotics or antifreeze toothpaste. Whatever you, farang, are getting out there, we’re getting it 100 times worse here, where there is probably zero testing (or whatever testing there is ends up being wiped out by corruption) and zero collective consumer activism (or whatever activism there is meets with brutal repression). You worried about pet food? Here, we worry about our pets ending up as food. I feel bad for you about the crap lining your Wal-Mart shelves, but that shite is a daily reality here from the moment we turn on the faucet in the morning.

If there is any benefit to this media attention on poisons from China, it is this: it sows the seed for the revolution. The Party has long abandoned Socialism, and thus lost its idealist core as its reason for being. So now it must rely on improving the lives of the people that it has fucked for the last 50 years, to justify its extended shelf life. But its ineptitude in dealing with the degradation of the environment and food supply is getting the 老百姓 Chinese folk more and more up in arms. And, based on what I have seen of college grads not being able to find jobs while more and more big German sedans crowd the streets, I suspect that the wealth being created in China is driven by liquidity rather than fundamentals. So in spite of attempts to medicate the masses with things like the Olympics, the World Fair, exploding (and bubble-like) A Share prices, or glorious (but mostly inbound investment-driven) GDP growth, the seeds of discontent are taking root. And beware when the unruly masses here get done playing World of Warcraft and come out from cybercafés and start to smell the shite, cos it will surely hit the fan.

Ok ok, excuse me while I wipe the spit from my computer screen. (And log off, in case the local authorities want to track me down and Jack Bauer my ass....)

What is he doing?

Saw this man at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning (Xingzha Lu, Shanghai). Weird place to take a phone call...

Taipei Weekend

I spent last weekend in Taipei, eating nonstop and taking pics. Having not lived there for such a long time, I find that I've lost my Taiwanese accent and, having lived elsewhere for the last 30 odd years, people in Taiwan (my own homies!) think I'm from Hong Kong or Japan.

When I'm in Shanghai and people ask me where I'm from, I usually say that I'm from Taiwan -- this is accurate in the sense that I was born in Taiwan, but inaccurate in the sense that my family is not native Taiwanese （外 省人）(oy vey, the Taiwan cultural politics...) and that I still consider L.A. my home town. So, sometimes when I'm as confused as you are now, I tell people that I'm from outer space (太空人).

Greetings from GMT + 8:00

Dear friends,

I blog from Shanghai, my new home. Well, it’s not so new, because I’ve been here for about 12 months. But this city is literally my home: I [gasp] recently bought an apartment here. I haven’t actually moved in, since it’s currently being renovated (with the help of my friend Joy), but close enough.

I owe many of you updates on my whereabouts and doings, and so I now rock the blogosphere with my very own blog, to share with you a slice of life from my corner of the world.

To start, I will catch you up on how I ended up in Shanghai, after three years in Tokyo.

The Dreaded Branded Merchandise

I quit my job with Warner last February (2006), and left Tokyo in July, because, well, to be honest, it wasn’t so much based on a burning desire to move to Shanghai or love for my new/current job; I think it was more because I felt that it was time to move on.

The Warner departure was rooted in events that happened almost a year before I actually quit, when the head of our Asia Pac region (my then boss) was given new responsibilities (which means he was canned, basically). And then a few months after that, the president of the division and his No. 2 were canned, along with about 250 others in Burbank. More folks were then let go in Europe, and the mass colonic was complete when the entire non-expat Asia Pac regional staff in Tokyo was let go with exception of my little arse and a finance manager who was transferred. I’m told that this sort of purge is routine and happens every 2-3 years at all the studios. Nevertheless, in spite of my survival, I was demoralized.

I’m also told that schadenfreude is second nature in the entertainment biz, since one person’s pain is another’s gain, as it makes one less person to have to poop on, on one’s way to an office on the Burbank lot. (I’ve only recently understood the meaning of schadenfreude. I sometimes still get it confused with bildungsroman. What can I say, I went to public school.) Yet when my co-workers were fired in Tokyo, I experienced no schadenfreude. This was not due to any empathy with my friends and co-workers, or that I’m some sort of a saint. Rather, it was because pretty much everyone that got fired (i.e. just about everyone but me) received outstanding severance packages, while I received branded merchandise.

You see, 2 weeks after the mass purge, I received my holiday gift from the studio chieftains. It was the dreaded branded merchandise, a gold-plated Bugs Bunny pen. One might think that it’s the thought that counts, but gifting deciphers tea leaves in Hollywood, it is the One True Org Chart, where the quality of one’s gift reveals one’s place in the scheme of things. (There’s a great podcast from KCRW’s The Business about Hollywood gifting.) The year before, I received a nice set of teacups that took a moment of thought on the part of the gift giver and a personal assistant’s trip to Crate & Barrel. But this time, I got branded merchandise that took all but a tick of the pen on the standard-issue company gift catalog. Bugs Bunny never looked so heinous. And thus I started looking for a new job.

I Like My Oatmeal Lumpy

I was feeling down on Warner on the heels of the Bugs Bunny pen, but I was also down on Japan around the same time because, despite my love for the place, despite my missing it dearly even now, I think my time was up. This feeling manifested itself in my obsession, in the months leading up to my decision to leave Tokyo, to get up off my seat on the Mita subway train and lead the sweaty salarymen in the Humpty Dance. I’m not sure why this song/dance in particular, but I suppose that’s the way things are with obsessions, no rhyme or reason.

I felt this same inexplicable urge back in 1997, the last time I spent quite a bit of time in Japan and felt ready to leave. Only back then, I wanted to do a Michael Jackson lock-and-pop robot thing with a leg kick in the subway train to “Bad”, that pop masterpiece with the classic chorus, “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m really really bad”.

As much as I loved Tokyo, I always felt a bit like a burn victim, wrapped in heavy gauze. Living in Japan as a non-Japanese and not speaking much Japanese (admittedly my own fault) is a filtered, indirect experience, like touching and seeing through gauze. I never felt fully able to delve into Tokyo life beyond the surface. Sure, I made some lifelong friends there and my Japanese skills got to the point where I could make passable conversation. But expressing myself in my full wit, charm and glory (uh ... such as they are) was just not possible.

The difference between the gauzed experience in Tokyo and my current life in Shanghai is stark. For example, in only my first few weeks in Shanghai, I argued spittle-for-spittle with locals who cut in front of me in the taxi queue and flirted with a nurse awhile getting treatment for constant diarrhea (I suppose, more than language ability, flirting while flatulent speaks to my massive wit and charm). Not that living in Shanghai is without its warts, but I feel less incomplete and invisible and bandaged here.

I suppose having to endure life in Tokyo as a burn victim bottled up quite a bit of steam, to the extent that I felt ready to jump up and down and let the good people on the Mita line know that I was there, in their midst, a crazy son-of-a-bitch with such a bad itch that the gauze had to come off. And hence the urge to do the Humpty Dance with the salarymen.

Shanghai

In the middle of feeling sorry for myself, about my job and Japan, I got a call from an ex colleague about an opportunity in Shanghai. It all happened very quickly, from flying to L.A. on 3 hours’ notice for an interview to accepting the job 2 weeks later, and then packing up and moving to Shanghai a few months after that.

And so here I am, in crazy Shanghai, and there’s so much more to tell. I hope you will keep checking back for more.