Current mood:

hopeful

My Birthday
Today, June 16, 2005, is my 26th birthday. I was woken up today at precisely 6:00 a.m. by the sound of fireworks. Why do Chinese think they need to set off fireworks at all hours of the day? Yeah, I know most Chinese like to get up early and line up to do calisthenics, but not me!

I tried to get back to sleep, but at 6:30 a.m. the phone rang two or three times, then went silent, ruining my chances for any more sleep this morning. Probably a wrong number. Fifteen minutes later Xiujuan woke up. She needed to get back to her school to start work. I took her to catch her bus at 7:00 a.m., and bought a daily newspaper on the way. I got it not because I expected to find any really interesting news inside, but because reading newspapers helps me improve my Chinese.

Here's something that happened yesterday morning right at the intersection where I live: A driver was in his Buick waiting at a red light when a group of five guys came up to his car. One man tapped on the window and the driver rolled it down. The men immediately reached in and unlocked the door, then pulled the driver out of the car, got in and drove away, saying not a word other than "Where's the money you owe our company?". At first the driver thought they were carjackers, but after reporting the incident to the police it turned out that they were from the car dealership where the car had been purchased. Apparently the man had failed to make payments owed on the car. I guess this is the way companies deal with debtors in a country with a completely broken court system.

After reading the paper I went out to buy some packing tape and pens and to make a withdrawal at an ATM. I survived that journey despite near misses from speeding bicyclists weaving through the pedestrians on the sidewalk. There are hundreds of them, hordes of them every morning and every evening. Unlike in Beijing many of the bicycles are electric powered, and also unlike in Beijing, many of Hangzhou's main streets do not have separate places for people and bicycles. It's pretty dangerous both for the riders and the pedestrians.

I got back home around 9:20 a.m. and called FedEx. I needed to ship some small plastic parts to the US and Hong Kong for a customer. Since the customer's order was so small (4200 units, 2 grams per unit), using FedEx is a cost-effective method of shipment. I think it's wonderful that manufacturing in China allows anyone to produce quality, custom parts in fairly small run sizes for really cheap. It should spur a lot of new innovative niche products, probably often sold online to avoid overhead. In the future you'll be able to purchase just about anything online, not just the mass market stuff you can find in a mall or supermarket. This seems like a great thing to me. It depends on search engines like Google getting better and smarter at finding what we're looking for though, because it doesn't help if some unique product is available online but you can't find it amid the refuse.

Ok, I just got done sending the packages and writing this, and now it's 12:00 p.m., time for lunch. Maybe I'll add more later today...