Shanghai, first impressions

First, The one thing that sums things up for me is this: imagine a country peopled entirely by only children, now multiple by 1 billion. This is my big observation.  The impact that this small, often overlooked effect has on China is incredible to see.

So as many of you know I just returned from 2 weeks in Shanghai, China. Despite being married for more than 9 years, I had never been to the country my wife grew up in. Sharine moved to the US when she was 17, and her immediate family is all in the US, while my immediate family is in New Zealand. Whenever we went somewhere we went to NZ, grandkids visiting grandparents, engagement, etc… all to New Zealand. This was my first trip to China, but not my first trip to Asia. As many of you also know I had spent a short business trip visiting Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Tokyo. They were much more like I expected. Malaysia was a fantastic polyglot of cultures and people. Jakarta was an oft savage, close to third world experience. Tokyo was a refined, polite, deferential fashion leader that defined what the east is in the eyes of the west. Shanghai, is as once all of those things and none of them.

We did not go to China as American tourists. We went as “local tourists”. My wife had several friends and family members in Shanghai who offer to let us stay. Veronica and her family magnanimously offered to live at their parents house while we stayed out in their place on Xei Tu Road, in South Shanghai (no, not at all like South Los Angeles). We arrived tired but excited from a United flight that connected through Chicago mid-afternoon. The smog was palpable. I assumed the visibility was limited to about 1/2 a mile due to the industrial areas out by the airport, oh how wrong I was. As we drove into the city across 15 story fly-away road bridges and massive centrally suspended bridges it dawned on me that this kind of air was normal, and my first observation was the cab in front of us had a HOOTERS ad in the window, not that I notice these things. It was hot, high 90’s, sticky, and smoky. As I glanced out the window I spotted a 300 mph maglev speeding past us to the city. Hunter was so excited he squealed!

When we arrived we discovered that Veronica’s place was a 6th floor walkup, accessed through a rough hewn concrete staircase, with a security gate that rivaled a Federal penitentiary (yes I’ve been in one, during my work with DHS). My mind was reeling as we lugged out overstuffed suitcases up the 12 flights of 8 stairs. Each stair was stamped with multiple blocks of characters and numbers: advertisements for the contractors who fixed things in the building. When we finally climbed the stairs to the 6th floor we were greeted with another gate, of the same quality and strength as the one below, then a beautiful wooden door, with a 3 bolt deadlock. My initial reaction was, as you can imagine: concern. Why did they need this kind of security? What kind of neighborhood where we in? How would I cope with little to no Mandarin. I was truly giving up any semblance of control.

Veronica was fantastic, showed us all around, opened her home to us, stayed to help us make wontons and cook them up for a feast the first night (one feast of many!). Her house was not really a home as I would have defined it. They lived in this apartment during the week, basically just eating, sleeping, and doing homework. During the weekends they go to live with their parents, in a much nicer, homelier apartment a bit further out of the city. According to my Lonely Planet guide, the road we were on wasn’t even on the Shanghai map! I was worried this little place was waaaaay out in the city burbs. I didn’t realize how small Shanghai is (despite being home to 17 million people).

Filed under: NZ vs USA, happenings, on the go , china, kuala lumpur, New Zealand, shanghai, tokyo, trips, United States, wonton, wontons, xie tu lu

Cape Cod versus New Zealand

So you might be wondering what I thought about Cape Cod versus New Zealand beaches (of which I am intimately familiar). When I first came to the States (and in fact my second date with my wife) I went to the Maryland shore. Rehobeth beach. Expecting to spend some quiet time on the sand, paddling, walking, and chatting to my wife to be. When we got there I was completely floored: it was shoulder to shoulder people, boardwalk, funnel cakes, taffy, skeeball, and candy floss (cotton candy for you yanks). It was so unlike what I imagined, that it was all I could talk about (I have no idea why my wife to be was still interested in me, I couldn’t shut up about it). I hated it. It was not the New Zealand beaches I remembered. It was not the experience I wanted.

When I next went back to NZ I took my wife to be and we hung out on a few Dunedin beaches. I have fond memories of me and my friends heading down to the beach, just us, no one else for miles around. Chris, Hayden and they crew in an old Land Rover. Liane, Leanne, Gilly, Steven, Brocky, Andrew, Callan, and a bunch of others. Building bonfires, hanging out. Cold water, but bright sun. Quiet, few people, sand dunes, a much more intimate experience. I felt right at home, my wife to be was a little surprised at how hard it is to clmb a sand dune. Shae had never had the opportunity before. This took me by surprise, but she grew up in Shanghai, China. A city girl.  Sand dunes aren’t so big in China. Neither is free time to explore a wild sea shore. So we have fun exploring and learning about NZ beaches. The penninsula (literally ‘The Penninsula”, there was only one in Dunedin) was a great place full of wild sea shore, small art galleries (the chickens? anyone remember the chickens? Henny Penny anyone?), small cafes, and interesting characters (think “Deliverance” but with a kiwi accent).

Cape Cod reminded me of that NZ beach experience, but like everything else in the US, multiplied many times. Many miles of beaches, hundreds of small, quaint art galleries, small cafes, interesting restaurants, people having fun, and wild sea shores. It was much more like what I was looking for. I think mum enjoyed the down time and the GPS made sure we never got lost. Some words that describe the Cape for me: Wind swept, Expansive, Laughter, Sunlight, Unique, not the United States of Generica, Florida, Smiles, Short Hair and Tanned Skin.

Despite the distance, I think I could like the Cape. The rest of summer we are going to try a Lake trip: ether Lake George, NYor Lake Champlain, VT. But summer is quickly leaving us. We only have 3-4 weekends left and then its back to school for the kids!

Filed under: NZ vs USA

What do American’s do with all that money they earn?

This really tickled my fancy:

Americans have one of the worst personal-savings rates of any industrialized nation. For every $1 in income earned, the average German citizen saves about $0.10 of it. Whereas, for every $1 in income earned, the average American spends approximately $7,300 on a plasma-screen television.

Get Laziness on Your Side | Fast Company

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Tags: money, savings, USA, NZ, Germany

Filed under: NZ vs USA

Recession … what recession?

So this weekend I went on a protracted retail mission to buy some new jeans. Now, I’m no slave to fashion so I suggested my normal discount store crawl, looking for a good bargain on good jeans: Filenes Basement, TJMaxx, Marshalls, Nordstrom Rack, all the good discounters. There was one thing I noticed … cars … good grief, the traffic, parking, and manners were worse than at Christmas time! I’m thinking something somewhere has all these people out buying, they may not be buying houses but they are definitely shopping.

Filed under: NZ vs USA , bargain, deals, discount, driving, finances, parking, recession

Unwired in New York

Having finished at my old position on Friday, I am now laptop less. I am trying to work in the most wired city of the world, through a 320×240 pixel Windows Mobile screen. It is both liberating and frustrating.
Despite playing it out in my head a million times, I was not prepared for the huge sense of loss as Sharine, Kylie & Hunter drove down 39th Street back to DC. I was also unprepared for the sheer number of tourists and people in Times Square … OMG
Sharine felt right at home in the throngs of the city. I felt like a kiwi trying to fly … pointless.
I can already feel the loneliness of thw big city settling around me. I want to share things with people, but this is NYC …

Filed under: NZ vs USA, USA, consulting, marketing, mentoring, mobile

Moving to New York City

Well, it’s been a while but I have finally decided to leave my current employer (a company that I love) to move to the big city and change jobs. When I got my butt out of government consulting I re-tooled myself into commercial consulting with a long term aim of international experience. Over the last 7 months I have come to realize a few things:

1. I am getting quite good at managing internal consulting systems
2. I can manage profit and loss, invoices, operations, staffing, people, pretty well
3. I hate doing those thing … they are a necessary evil but not what I wanted to end up doing

So … what do you do when you wake up every morning saying “oh no, I have to to X again”? Simple … move your own cheese. I went through another exercise of trying to work out where I wanted to work, what I liked, what I disliked, what industries I preferred and many other aspects. I read Drucker and HBR again on managing yourself, re-read the Seven Deadly Habits of Successful People, dusted off David Allen’s Ready for Anything, cruised lifehack and other great blogs.

I decided that I wanted to get back to the presentation layer. I am very excited about the push towards a richer client-side experience (DHTML/AJAX, Flex, Adobe AIR, and Silverlight) and very excited about the future potential of multi-touch interfaces (moving away from the “mouse” to a tactile interface). I went looking for companies that might be interested in what I can do, while not needing me to manage the operations side of the business (that I do not like!). Unfortunately, the only road up at my old employer is up to “general manager”, business unit lead, C-level business executive. There are no specialties (short of being bucked down the org chart a few levels!) at the Director level.

So things are getting weird … I am leaving a company I have been with for seven years, that has grown me from a simple software architect into a fully fledged Director and engagement lead. I am moving to a smaller company, who is growing quickly. I am moving away from my home of 10 years, Washington, DC. I am moving to New York City to get closer to some international experience. I will be away from the family for a few months while they finish the school year and we sell up the house. I am feeling rather unsettled.

Filed under: NZ vs USA, USA, ample sufficiency, personal improvement , family, moving, multitouch, nyc, rich internet application

Cities

Have you thought about 19 20 21? A fascinating project to try to redefine the way we live on this planet. Some startling facts, some concerning observations, some startling reality. What is the world were governed by cities not countries? Makes you wonder … what happens to the non-super cities, is Washington DC the Clark Kent of super cities? Where might this leave little old New Zealand?

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Tags: USA, NZ

Filed under: NZ, NZ vs USA, USA

Change of mood

So I caved and moved my blog over to a darker theme … better fitting my current mood … whatcha dink?

Filed under: NZ vs USA, personal improvement , look and feel, webdev

Happiness

It’s nice to see that we finally have a mathematical formulation for happiness! The global “Sense of Well Being” survey at link and the wee picture at the right, shows us how “happy” we all are. It makes me wonder … who has the job of going to East Kraplakistan or South Moga-zambique-inia to ask “how are you feeling?” … as you can see the US and NZ seem to be on par, although we all know life and happiness are very different things in these two places.

Filed under: NZ vs USA , happiness, life, survey, world

Boy, 5, boards wrong bus, left on roadside

Ok, so this is a fantastic example of the difference between the US and NZ. The story quoted below showed up in Stuff this morning:

A five-year-old boy who boarded the wrong bus was left on the side of a road 10km from his home. Matt Holmes, a Year 1 pupil at Tauranga’s Oropi School’s Year 1 was allowed to board the first bus run on Wednesday afternoon when he was supposed to get on the second one. The school today admitted responsibility and said it was “distressed” at what the youngster had to endure, The Bay of Plenty Times reports.

The boy was allowed to get off the bus at Waimapu Service Station – 10km from home. He then tried to walk home. A member of the public saw him and called police. His parents Tracey and Trent Holmes say were “horrified” at what had happened.

Police told the family they would talk to the school but were unable to lay charges.

Now pause for a minute, can you imagine what might have happened in the US? First of all the parents would be laying charges at the school, the driver, the school district, anyone they could point to. Damages would likely tally millions of “psychological damage” to the poor kid.

Now, there is no doubt that Matt was terrified, scared, and tired by the time he got home but isn’t this one of those little lessons you need to learn: don’t get on the wrong bus! I’m sure we all learnt it at some point. In New Zealand, the summary appeared to be “no real harm done, boy, no one will do that again!”. In the US, the outcome would likely be much different … what do you think?

Filed under: NZ vs USA, New Zealand, ample sufficiency, happenings