Guo Nian Hao!

The Chinese New Year holiday is over and it's time to go back to work! I really needed a week away from the office.

On Chinese New Year's eve Kaoruko, and a friend of hers from Japan, and I went to spend the evening at a Chinese co-workers' house with his wife. We had a really great dinner, chatted, shot off fireworks, and then ate dumplings. It was a wonderful way to spend the evening. Kaoruko doesn't get the Chinese holidays off since her customers are in Japan, so we were lucky that it was on a Saturday night and she could join us.

A few days after Chinese New Years I had some friends come over to my place for dinner. My friend Jessie and two of her friends who were visiting for the holiday. I cooked Fiesta Chops (recipe here), and it turned out pretty well...



Here I am with Fang (left) from Shanghai and Cindy (right) from Dalian...



... and here I am with Jessie. Jessie helped cook some and also helped clean up. Thanks Jessie!



After dinner we watched the fireworks over Xinghai Square from my apartment...



Oooo.... Ah....




After the fireworks we went out dancing. The first place we went to was so full of people we could not get a table, so we went to another place. The second place we went to was also crowded, but we got to share a table with someone. It was a really fun time.

On Wednesday a co-worker from the US came over to my place and we watched the Colts/Patriots playoff game that my Father recorded on DVD for me. We had pizza and some beer and it was a lot of fun to watch American TV, American TV commercials, and of course watch some real football. The only football we get here is soccer.

On Friday I was hungry for some German food and went out to eat at Paulaners. The food was really good and they also have a good band from the Philippines. I got to talking with some of the ladies in the band and they wanted to go out dancing when the band was done, so later we headed out to a place called Alice Bar. There we met up with some other people... another lady from the Philippines and a guy from Italy. It was fun, but the ladies kept getting me to dance, so I was really tired.

On Saturday I woke up early, but realized I had caught a cold. I was going to cook dinner for Kaoruko and a friend of hers that evening, but I called and postponed that. I slept most of the day and still feel kind of out of it today. Perfect condition to go back to work.

Short dates and queues

I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but a lot of Chinese prefer to live with their parents for as long as possible... even well after graduating college and finding work. It is not too uncommon to find several generations of a family living together here in China. Some of my Chinese co-workers do find it curious that young Americans usually leave home the first chance they get. I guess we are just more independent spirited. I don't have anything against people staying with their families for a long time, but it does present some unexpected surprises...

On Saturday night I took a friend out to dinner, and she told me that her father wanted me to be sure she was home by 10:00pm. I really can not remember the last time I heard that before. Anyways, dinner was very nice. We went to Paulaner's and had German food, listened to the band, danced, and chatted. I got her home by 11:00pm. I did not mind the early end to the evening since the last time I took her out I didn't get her home until 1:30am and we were both a little drunk. I guess her father didn't want that to happen again.

One thing I know I have talked about here on my blog is queues (or lack of them) in China. The other day I found this interesting news article about how Beijing is trying to do a monthly "Queuing Day" where people are encouraged to form lines on the 11th of each month...

Beijingers line up on Queuing Day - with a little push

Waving little red flags, 64-year-old Ma Yingxin and his 62-year-old partner Chen were up to serious business yesterday: the two helped form six queues for people waiting for six buses at a stop in the upmarket Wangfujing shopping area.

The two men were volunteers for Beijing's first "Queuing Day". The event, on the 11th of each month, was launched by the municipal government as part of a campaign for residents to exhibit "civilized behavior" ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

I was struck by the quote from this lady...

Also, no queues could be found at bus stops where no volunteers had been designated.

"I know it is Queuing Day, but there must be an organizer to help people line up," said a woman in her 40s surnamed Xu. "Otherwise, who is going to do it?"

I know that self-initiative behaviour was not really been encouraged here during communist rule, but it still strikes me as odd when someone says something like this.

Getting back to normal some

Our interent connection is returning to its normal speed... from terrible to slow. I opened some spam email at work last week and now I have some nasty Chinese malware on my work laptop, so I need to clean that this weekend. My desktop computer is running good. It can get a little hot if I run a really big battle with thousands of troops in Medieval 2 Total War, but not too hot.

The weather in Dalian this last week has seemed pretty warm... a little above freezing with little wind. I hope it lasts awhile.

A few weekends ago we had our company annual party. This year we had it at the Furama Hotel. The food was a little better tasting than at the Shangri-La Hotel, but was served cold since we started dinner later than we had told the hotel. I know we were late and we had a thouasnd people, but you would think some place like this could serve food hot. Anyways, it was fun. As in previous years we had plenty of co-workers provide some very good entertainment...

Awards first...



Opening remarks in Chinese, English, and Japanese...



Some traditional singing and dancing...



Some other traditional singing and dancing...



Some co-workers from the Philippines singing songs...



Some dancers doing a scene from a movie called The Banquet, which is a lovely Chinese version of Hamlet...



Some salsa dancing...



Modern dance...



A love song by some angels...



Less than two more weeks until Chinese New Years. A week off of work is looking real good about now.

ChengDu move

It looks like I will not be going to ChengDu as soon as I had thought. The Chinese portion of the project I was on did not pan out as we had hoped, so I am now on a new project at work and it is located here in Dalian. I am not sure how long I will be on this project, so I might not be moving to ChengDu for several months or a year even. I am hoping for sooner rather than later.