The Wandering Monkey

I have been in Beijing almost one year now.  When I was in America, I was not happy.  I had grown accustomed to a particular lifestyle in Shanghai, and I felt I must return.  As such, I did return.  Now I've been in Beijing, so it's time to give a little report on what life is like here.

First and foremost, it's not the same.  A few things have changed within myself; namely I'm older and I actually *look* older.  Before I was older but didn't really look it.  Second, I have gained some weight on my trip to America.  I think I was at over 205 pounds at one point.  Most of that can be attributed to the combination of lack of daily dance-teacher exercise, plus eating the higher-fat, larger-portion American meals.  Either way, fat came.  These are the physical changes.  Girls will tell you sometimes, that they are not so focused on physical changes.  It's not true; it all matters.  No one consciously wants to admit it, but at our base cores we are still survival-and-replication animals.

That said (yes, I'm having a bad day), what's good about my situation?  Well, the #1 thing to point to is the job.  it is not easy, but we have achieved a big success with the last project.  The project went live last Saturday, and this week I'm taking a week off.  It was a long and difficult haul getting things rolling.  This includes learning the project goals, learning the new software, and working with the local Beijing team of Chinese.  I'm the only American (or foreigner of any kind) in our group.  There's a strange sort of build-up of stress which happens over days and weeks.  Every day, you make progress but somehow feels there's so much beyond your understanding.  Nevertheless, I persevered as a person, and the team achieved as a whole.  Management in the US noticed, and the team responsibility has expanded.

You can't discount that.  Professional success is by no means a small thing. It has been my #1 focus since coming to Beijing.  I have not been engrossed in meeting people or trying to secure my social life, or swing dancing (:-)) for that matter.  I've been mostly concerned about work, and that's the truth.  6 days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day for the last few months.  But, done, and done.

Let's talk a little bit about the Olympics.  As everyone knows, the Olympics is coming to Beijing.  From a country point of view, everyone is excited about this.  The government is certainly taking it seriously, and they are putting in place added restrictions and security measures to ensure it is a safe and orderly event.  The downside is, the government is putting into place added restrictions and security measures to ensure it is a safe and orderly event.

Namely; visas are much, MUCH harder to obtain than before.  This is odd, because people are trying to come to Beijing.  Now, (as I have heard), if you want to come to Beijing and you want to get a visa, you must produce A) your Olympic ticket, and B) produce your hotel reservation.  This sounds reasonable enough, but it means that any time any foreigner moves from one city to another, he or she is required to register with the police every time they enter a new city, even if just for two days.  Technically, if my friend from the US wants to come from another city to Beijing for the weekend, we have to go to the police station right away an register him.  The rub is, the police will sometimes say "No, you can't stay with someone, you must stay in a hotel."  The enforcement and understanding of the rules is not universal; many police stations will each have a different result.  In once case, a person was completely denied a stay in an apartment, even though he came with the actual landlord of the place and all the required paperwork.  In another case, a person came with virtually no preparation and the police let them stay without any hassle or fine (which could potentially amount to $US700 or so.)

Second; housing.  Beijing is on a real kick about the price of housing, both rental and purchased.  Rental housing is hitting a major spike just before the Olympics.  People are anticipating a stream of foreigners who will each want to rent from their own homes during the Olympics.  As such, rent prices are spiking right now; landlords who have rents expiring before the Olympics are refusing to renew them, thinking they'll get several times the money by renting to a visiting foreigner.

There's a basic flaw in this thinking, if you review the Visa requirement issue.  Foreigners are required to have a hotel reservation to enter the country; as such, it's really unlikely there'll be a flood of renters going into individual houses.   It's also especially unlikely due to the fact that 95% of these landlords do not speak any English or other foreign language.  They are not taking any aggressive steps to secure this windfall of foreigner rent-money; they just expect it will some how, uhhhhh, "fall" on them.

The second problem is the cost of purchased homes.  This actually is not local to Beijing (Shanghai has the problem, too), and it's not completely related to the Olympics.  Many people (myself included) think that there is a major housing bubble.  Prices are far too high, and the supply is much greater than the available pool of buyers at that price.  There's been a lot of speculative buying - people buy real estate as an investment only, and they don't actually live in or rent the houses.  The net effect is that the cost of houses is really just too high.  2 million RMB for a two -bedroom apartment.  (No one actually owns a 'house' in Beijing or Shanghai except for a few extreme elite.  When people say 'house', they mean the American equivalent of 'condominium' or 'purchased apartment'.)

Anyhow, the rents are high and sales prices are high.  One of my individual goals is to own some real estate; I feel quite insecure without any at this phase in my life.  However, there's two more problems in this area.  1) the down-payment for houses is not like the American 5%, 3%, or less.  It's 40% down (cash) for a new-construction home.  It's actually 50% down (cash) for a re-sold home.  This high amount of cash down was intended to curb speculation investement.

The 2) problem with housing is that in China, you don't actually BUY any properly.  You purchase a lease on property.  If your building has 6 or fewer stories, you have a 50-year lease.  If your building has over 6 stories, you are purchasing a 70-year lease.  Anyone with a basic accounting understanding can see that as time goes on, your investment quickly reaches $0 value.  After 30 years, you can still sell your home, but now you are selling a 40-year lease on the property, which is very likely to be worth much less than you paid in the first place.  After 70 years, your investment is worth $0 and the government takes possession of your home.  Which means, no gain of equity and no handing-down of property to the next generation.

So far, there's never been a real test of this situation.  Even the super office buildings 'owned' by corporations are subject to this rule.  But China (in this incarnation of the government) has only been around since 1950's.  No one knows precisely  what will happen when these leases begin to expire.  The government may just elect to impose a tax.  However, it's clearly stated that they outright own the property, so no guarantees.

Aeishhh.

So what's good about this place?  Dating has been bad.  Shanghai and Beijing are not all all the same.  Shanghai has a preference for foreigners.  Beijing-people could pretty much care less.  Shanghai girls much more frequently date (and marry) foreigners.  It is quite unusual for a Beijing girl to marry a foreigner, and by extension that means they don't date 'em, either.  And, from a more base point of view. on average Shanghai girls are much more attractive and Beijing girls.  There is a bigger focus on fashion and makeup in Shanghai, but even that non withstanding, the girls her are just less physically attractive.  They are much more culturally conservative, as well.  Read into that as you may.

The air quality in Beijing is also not good.  There's a combination of smog and dust constantly over the city.  There is a permanent daytime haze, which you can perceive just looking at a building 2 blocks away.  The sun is never clearly in view except for the day immediately following a rain.  For the Olympics, the government is actually putting a moratorium on all manufacturing operations and construction.  In theory, no building or manufacturing is supposed to happen in the city in the months preceding the big Event.  Also, during the Olympics, Beijing will be enforcing an "Odd/Even" license place policy.  On Odd-numbered days, only odd-numbered license plates may appear on the road.  Even days, even-numbered plates.  Taxis and buses are exempt.  This will certainly diminish the traffic problems, which is rather significant.

From a social point of view, Beijing has a fraction of the entertainment choices of Shanghai.  There's about 5 good night-club places here.  Shanghai would number about 15-20.  Granted, I'm getting a old to frequent these places anymore, but there  you go.

I did see my old girlfriend from Shanghai for a while when I got back.  In the end, she decided it was not practical and broke it off.  It's true; it's not practical.  I have no idea when I may be able to go back to Shanghai.  I had hoped that Beijing would 'grow' on me, and that maybe I'd not want to go back to Shanghai after a year.  It's been a year, and I've got no attachment to this city, I'll tell you that.  I don't know if I'd head back to Shanghai, but there's little holding me here.

There's one bright spot, or hope, in all of this ranting.  I am still interested in working in movies, and Beijing has its own movie making groups.  As a middle-aged foreigner with some Chinese ability, I could qualify for many small parts.  I've been trying to put together a 'reel' of my clips from TV and movies.  Just Monday I purchased a new computer capable of handling the task.  Yesterday I configured the new computer, and today - well, I didn't continue working. But tomorrow I can finalize the clips and also put in my movie work (I has asked my mom to send me DVD's of my previous movies, which I am finally putting into the reel as well).

I am hoping to get small, but parts in movies.  I really want to stay active in that.  It's the one thing which I really hope works.  The one thing about China which I liked the most, and as far as I know there's nothing preventing me from achieving it here.  I'm only going to do it part-time, but I really enjoy the work and the result.

So, tonight is technical Wednesday morning.  I have a massive 3-bedroom apartment in Beijing.  There is a friend-girl (note: not girlfriend) who is staying here at the moment in the other room.  Tomorrow, I am going out of Beijing.  I'm on vacation, and as I've said I'm not keen on this place.  I'm going to get on a train and go to Dalian, or Qingdao (I know these names mean nothing to you, but each as a beach#).

It's 330am.  I hope to sleep after this.  Thanks for listening to my rant!  It's not been the best of weeks :-)

Peace,
Jimbo