Day 365: One year later

Today marks the one-year mark for arriving in China. Time does really fly by quickly; it does not seem like a year has past at all.

How has the year gone for me? Maybe the best way to describe that is to provide some lists on various topics. So here we go!

What’s good about living in China?

• Most everything is cheap! Take the cost of what something might cost in the USA and it’ll be just about 10% of that price here in China. There are some exceptions (especially clothing and wine/spirits) that do not apply, but paying $10 / month for my cell phone bill or $21 / month for unlimited at-home 1GB download speed internet is pretty amazing. Oh yeah, my bus fare to work amounts to $0.62 / day where as in San Francisco it was $2.75 each way!
• Manual labor is very cheap and very plentiful! I guess when you’re a country of 1.4 billion people, there are lots of folks around to do various jobs and usually for not a huge paycheck. My Ayi (cleaning lady) comes once a week to keep my place looking good and iron my clothes for the equivalent of $15.50 a week / $62 a month; taxi rides around the city are usually $3, unless you use Didi (the Chinese version of Uber) and then it’ll be $2, unless you use the “Black Car” version of Didi and then it’ll be $5; sidewalks are swept daily, handrails are cleaned multiple times a day, and public transportation (bus, subway) run very often throughout most of the day (but mostly not between 11pm-6am…).
• The high-speed rail system is amazing! Once at the train station, it takes about 25 minutes for me to get into the heart of Shanghai at the cost of $12.20 round-trip! If I don’t want to fly to Beijing, I could hop on the train and be there 5.5 hours later for $86 each way. Trains run north-south, east-west, and all over. There are even overnight trains with sleeper beds! And the best part of all: With trains running along the major corridors (Beijing-Shanghai; Shanghai-Shenzhen/Guangzhou, etc.) multiple times an hour, you never need to book your trips more than an hour or so in advance – unless it’s during the major holidays.
• China is very safe! Compared to where I last lived (San Francisco), Suzhou and Shanghai (where I’ve spent the most amount of time) are basically a garden of Eden before the forbidden apple was eaten: There is no trash on the streets, no public display of drug use, no graffiti, no cars with broken windows from smash and grabs, no muggings, no [reported] murders, and very few homeless people or those begging for money/panhandling. Neither I nor my friends (male and females alike) worry about getting home from a night out; leaving a bar at 9pm is just as safe as leaving one at 2am or later! You won’t be bothered one bit, even if walking alone.
• Paying for things is as simple as loading an app on your phone! WeChat and AliPay are the main ways you pay for anything in China. This could be your bill after a good dinner, sending money to your Ayi for that week’s cleaning, buying plane tickets via Trip.com, and even your bus or subway fare (though I still prefer a physical card for that last bit). China does not really have a long history with revolving credit (credit cards) so everything is done through WeChat or AliPay and hooked directly up to your bank account. While this is super convenient it does stink if you’re into collecting points via credit card charges. Sigh. That first class trip to Bali will have to wait a bit longer!

What are things I wish were better about China?

• The air quality. Lately I’ve been obsessed with measuring the quality of the air in my apartment and checking the reported values from the outdoor monitoring areas. I even bought an air purifier for my apartment which is working like a charm. A lot of times I want to leave work and go for a jog but those planes are stymied because the air is that bad. With the pm2.5 and pm10 particles suspended in the air coupled with the high levels of humidity (usually over 70%!) there is not much sunshine that makes it through to the ground. The best way to describe things is that lovely overcast grey sky of Seattle but without the drizzle. When the sun does come out, you feel totally rejuvenated.
• There is no real “beach scene” or “boating”. No one – at least that I’ve met so far – goes to the lake(s) to go swim when the weather gets really hot. And ooooh boy can it get hot here. Remember the posts from last summer when we had over two weeks of temperatures above 40C/104F? A lot of this past spring we’ve been above 26C/79F, with about half those days going above 30C/86F, and about 10 days above 35C/95F! Lots of multiple shower days were had and will be had in the future. Summers are long without swimming or going on a boat!
• Moving money out of the country. There is no easy and cheap way to do this, plain and simple. You either spend a long time at the bank filling out paperwork and having them review your tax certificates (you can’t launder money here, got to pay your income tax!) before you can wire money outside the country or you use PayPal and pay a 4-5% fee. Ugggh. I really wish the government restrictions here were much less stringent.
• While English is much more prominent here than you’d expect, it’s usually not enough for a non-fluent Chinese speaker to easily get by all the time. From trying to buzz your friends into your apartment via the intercom system, to figuring out how to control your HVAC system, to asking for directions or telling the taxi driver where to go, to wanting to know if certain meals have specific ingredients in them … it’s just not easy. I get it, I’m living in a land with a very different official language than what I grew up with and I’m not suggesting that changes, but rather I’m just making a statement! And yes, my Chinese is MUCH better than when I arrived but still has a long way to go before functional proficiency or fluency are had.
• Watching American sports is not easy. Yes, you can find them online or – if you’re lucky – at a sports bar being shown live, but because China is GMT +8 and the USA is GMT -5/-8 (-4/-7 during DST), it’s just tough. Most of the time when you are at home from work or out at a bar on the weekend you’ll see Australian sports (rugby, Aussie rules football, cricket) or, if you’re lucky, football (soccer) from Europe! When your home team affiliation is in the USA, it’s just hard to win here. Yes, you can record things and watch them later (if available online), but that takes some of the fun away from it. Also, it seems the national sport of choice here in China is table tennis. Sigh. I wish they could at least embrace baseball!
• Conference call times for work. Yep, most days out of the week my work day begins wearing PJs and a steaming cup of tea or coffee at 7am, sometimes 6am, as conference calls with headquarters in Redmond have to happen.  On rare occasions I even have a 7am Saturday call. Ugggh. Those are rare, but unfortunately not as rare as a rainbow unicorn running through a grassy meadow.

With 365 days under my belt here in the Middle Kingdom (中国) and both my work permit and resident permits being renewed, it’s likely a post from Day 730 will be drafted at some point in the future. Until then, thanks for reading!

And if you’re reading this, happy birthday dad!