The other half

On our first visit to Shanghai, we stayed on the East side of the river, in an area called Pudong. This is the newer side of Shanghai, and we found the city blocks long, the streets wide and the entire area uncrowded. It wasn't particularly charming or exciting. In fact, it felt a little bit cold and sterile. Papa works on the West side of the river, so it was easy for us to chose to live  in Puxi, which is older, more charming and quite lively. We have been happy with that choice. But now we are switching to a new school, which is not only in Pudong, but it is on the China Sea.  Although we do occasionally visit Pudong, today we decided to spend the afternoon exploring one Pudong neighborhood more closely. We are all glad that we did! We were able to locate the Pudong branches of many of our favorite shops and restaurants. We saw a few potential housing compounds, and even found the church. We were surprised how easily we were able to cross the street. We noticed car honks with decreasing frequency and fellow Americans with increasing frequency. This time Pudong didn't strike us as cold and sterile, but quiet and comfortable. I guess a year living in the bustle can do that.  Next year we will have an entirely NEW China experience!

Local Laowai

Found a nice series of youtube videos about traveling or visiting to China. I think the guy who made them is a college student or recent graduate living in Beijing. Covers topics like visas, health-checks, drivers-licenses, car-rentals/purchases, office behavior and a bunch of other useful cultural tips.

http://bon.tv/locallaowai (website)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL368A45B29D69F8BB&feature=plcp (youtube)
https://www.facebook.com/Locallaowai (facebook)

A very good week

This week was a very good one indeed. We learned that both of our boys have been accepted at the Shanghai American School (SAS). It may not sound like that big of a deal, American kids being accepted at the American school.  But there are many schools in Shanghai that offer an American curriculum and admission to SAS is highly competitive with a very high demand from students the world over many other seeking a quality American education. It is considered one of the best schools in Shanghai while also being widely recognized as one of the best international schools in the world. We are very proud of our boys and excited by this opportunity. Now all we have to do is find a new place to live and move across town :-)

This week we also celebrated Engineering Recognition Day. Once a year GE celebrates engineering accomplishments, takes everyone out for lunch, brings in a speaker or two and gives out awards. I was surprised to learn that I received an award for Innovation and Imagination. Quite an honor given there are hundreds of very bright/capable engineers working on a wide variety of innovative projects. There were other categories like "customer hero" and "success in the face adversity"...but I must say as an engineer it feels good to be recognized by my peers for being innovative.

The craziest part is that I was standing on stage in front of all the engineers in Shanghai when the phone rang. We'd learned that morning that SAS wanted to speak with us and we expected to learn if we were in or out. I couldn't take the call or even glance at my phone until the presentation was complete. It was very difficult to stand there wondering what I would learn when I could finally look at my phone...happily it was very good news indeed.

So this week The Paying Customer, The Works and Papa-Dumpling were all recognized for their capability and potential. Time to move on to the next adventure!

The ERD award is the sparkly one in the middle, to the left is a model of the C919 and t o the right is an award I received from Boeing for work done on the 787.

A Dog's IQ

Yesterday Mom and I tested Biscuit's IQ with five simple tests. We got the idea from a TV show about a dog who can do math. If you would like to test your dog you are going to need the following items: a pillow, a cup, two chairs that can be put on their side, some string, and a bag of dog treats.

The first test is the spacial awareness test. To do this test you will need to put a pillow on a low-lying piece of furniture then you must drop the treat on top of the pillow and see if the dog looks up to the pillow or under the furniture. If the dog looks up at the pillow the dog passed. If they look down the dog failed. Biscuit failed this one.

For the next test place a treat under an (opaque) cup. This tests to see if the dog cannot see the treat if it with think it's not there. If the dog thinks the treat is there it will try to get it. If the dog starts to wander away it means that the dog failed. Biscuit passed this one.

The next test is the chair maze. To do this test you take two chairs and line them up on the ground so that the backs of the chairs are facing each other. Then take the dog to one side and put a treat on the other. If the dog tries to take the shortest route the dog failed. If the dog goes around chairs the dog passed. Biscuit passed this.

Probably the trickiest of the tests is the string test. To do this test you need to tie a treat to a string and a knot in the string. In this test we will see if a dog can figure out how to use the string to pull the treat out from under the low-lying piece of furniture. For this test you may show the dog how to get the treat. Even after seeing the solution the dog still might have a problem with this test. Biscuit did this after she found out that we were not going to do it for her.

The final test is the memory test. For this test you're going to need at least four treats. To do this test bring the dog into a room and show the dog where a treat is hidden and let the dog eat it. After the dog eats it take the dog out of the room and hide one treat in the same location and a few others in different locations to throw the dog off. Now bring the dog back into the room and see if the dog goes straight for the treat in the location you showed it earlier. Biscuit found one of the treats that was meant to throw her off.

In the end Biscuit did pretty well. If you want to test your dog you will have to remember to give the dog treats if successful on a test. Well that is the end of this essay.

I told you that this essay is over! Do you understand???

Healthy Apostrophes!

We have chinese cell phones with chinese calling plans. Overall I like their model a lot better. You buy the phone up front then purchase a service plan to go with the phone. The total cost is much lower than the bundled phones you get in the US (about 30 RMB/month or $5/month) after spending $2-300 on a phone.

The odd part is we get text messages from the phone company, written in chinese. Recently I got this one:

有一天"我"字头上丢了重要的一撇,就变成了"找"字,为了找回那非常重要的一撇,问了很多人，那一撇代表什么?商人说是金钱,……最后长寿的人们告诉我:那一撇是健康和快乐,否则什么都是浮云！亲爱的朋友，工作再忙，压力再大，也别忘了照顾自己！

Which Google translates to:

"I" head lost an important one to write, it becomes a "find" in order to recover a very important one to write, ask a lot of people, the apostrophe mean? Businessman said the money . last longevity of people tell me: the apostrophe is healthy and happy, otherwise, what are the clouds! Dear friends, no matter how busy work, the pressure is big, do not forget to take care of themselves!

Yes, this message was sent by the phone company! I need to ask a co-worker to explain it to me, I suspect in Chinese it is a clever play on words using some ancient chinese proverbs mixed with modern slang. Either that or somebody's kid got their hands on the keyboard & hit <send>

So, take care of yourselves and watch your apostrophes!!

Home schooling

Oh, sometimes it is hard to tell which way is up! I started home schooling The Paying Customer in February because he was miserable at school. I was concerned by the apparent ease of the school before news of its troubles reached my ears, so it wasn't hard to pull him out once he started to show signs of anxiety. He is a good student and he is easy to be around, so we are having fun together. Hopefully we are covering enough material to keep him on track with his schooled peers. Aka the Works is still at Rego for the time being. So long as he is still learning and enjoying his quirky classroom teacher, he can finish out the year there. Chinese officials have advised us to find a new school for next year, despite the owner's assurance that they will still be in operation. Sorry, that is not a bet we are willing to take! Still trying to figure out what we are doing next year. One day at a time, and thankfully, that means it is time for Spring Break! 

Travel Tips

Actually the previous post wasn't the first time I created a "page" on the blog....its just the first time I posted it. I've had another one sitting in draft form for months, figure I'll push it live and edit as necessary. Let me know what you think.

It is heavily based on people coming to Shanghai to stay for awhile, but I have a number of coworkers who read this blog and I figure it gives a glimpse of daily life to everyone else.

http://mommadumpling.blogspot.com/p/shanghai-travel-tips.html

--papadumpling