HAIRCUT

I got my haircut a few weeks ago here in Beijing.  I went to the north side of the city to meet two friends of mine for a day of fun.  The salon was at a mall and all the stylists were men and I've noticed that here in Beijing, most stylists are male.  I see many more of them than I do female sylists. I'm not sure why and I suppose it doesn't matter but it's just an interesting observation.  So my friend helped translate for the stylist and I brought in 3 pictures of a cute "Charlize Theron" style that I wanted.  The stylist used this awesome foam shampoo stuff in my hair that didn't require any water and gave me a fab scalp massage.  He then cut my hair and started to make all these curls all over using  a brush, and mostly his fingers with the dryer.  It was actually really cool what he was doing to create the curls but by the time he was done I felt he had given me a cut and style more fit for a little girl rather than the hot, sex-pot, classy cut I wanted.  So much for bringing in pictures.  After the curles died down a bit and I got back home to "fix" it,  it wasn't so bad and I've gotten a few compliments on it so it didn't turn out as bad as I initially thought.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Well pretty much customer service sucks here in China.  For me to exchange money from rmb to dollars I usually have to plan about 2-3 hours.  The banks here have all this paperwork and redtape stuff they have to do for practically every transaction no matter how small it is.  And people that work in the banks really don't care about how long you have to wait.  So a few weeks ago I went to the bank at the mall to exchange and wire money to go home.  My co-worker showed up to do the same thing.  We took our numbers and the manager and we waited about 45 minutes and then the manager told us to return in 45 minutes more so we could be helped.  So we left and then came back.  I had to wait 30 minutes  more for help and then the teller guy took an hour to process my tranaction.  So my co-worker is fuming by this point because as soon as the teller helped me, he got up and left to have his lunch and no one else came to take his place.  There were two other people working at windows but because it wasn't their "assigned job" for the day to deal with exchanging money, they wouldn't help my co-worker.  Well she was really angry and told the manager so even though the communication was lacking on both sides because of the language barriers.  Anyway, she finally got helped and I think she got a free mug out of it or something.  I've attached a picture of me waiting at the bank for the guy to complete my transaction.

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JAY CHOU

So one of the biggest pop stars in China is Jay Chou.  My assistant told me about him last week and then the next thing I know I find out that he is the guy in the new Green Hornet movie.  So you have probably seen him on different entertainment programs in the USA lately because of the film.  I am soooooo not keeping up well with American pop culture right now that I didn't even know about the movie until a couple of days ago.  
Jay Chou is from Taiwan and has been a very popular musician for about 10.  He has won numerous awards for his music and has a huge fan base here in China and in other Asian countries.  
 
Here is a brief interview with Jay Chou at the movie premier in L.A.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l2ouAf2lfM
 
Here is a music video of a popular song by Jay Chou.  There is another man that sings in it named Fei Yu Qing but I don't know much about him.  I think this song is cool because you can hear contemporary instruments as well as traditional Chinese ones.  The vocals are also a good mix of contemporary Chinese with Jay Chou and traditional Chinese with Fei Yu Qing.  
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTI7hWlsZO0

Joanna Wang - Bada Bada

So the other day I had the tv on the CCTV music channel and this singer came on named Joanna Wang. She was awesome! The closest thing I can compare her to is Norah Jones. She plays the guitar and has this smooth, mellow voice that I think is amazing. She also sings in English and Chinese! Here is a youtube video for you to watch! Let me know what you think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWap6OJmqYk&feature=relmfu

ADVERSITY

I started attending a religious studies class while here in Beijing.  It is a program they have at my church and pretty much a small group of us get together to discuss religious and gospel topics.  Last week we discussed the topic of adversity and I wanted to share a few thoughts from the lesson.  
The first significant point was that people in general have the thought that life should be easy and not hard. Life is hard for several reasons - people exercise their free will and make choices that result in negative or unforseen consequences,  we make our own choices that result in less than desireable outcomes, our bodies and minds are not perfect, etc...  But I suppose the idea that we first need to accept that life is going to be hard is a pretty important one.  We discussed that when problems arise, we always want to ask "why is this happening?"  We talked about having a good attitude when dealing with adversity and asking instead, "What can I learn from this experience?  What can I do to make it better?"  Obviously it's easier said than done, but it's important to not let others dictate how you will react to a situation.  
The most significant point in the lesson about why we have adversity and trials is because of what it teaches us about Jesus Christ.  As Christians, we know that Christ suffered all adversity and pain.  When we suffer, we are able to better understand his life and the significance of what he did for us.  We don't want to say, "I hope I suffer a lot so I can understand Jesus better" but the point is just that when hard times occur, we are humbled and we know we can depend on him to understand and help us because of all he went through for us.  
So those are a few quick thoughts on adversity and I hope everyone has an "adversity free" day!  

DEEP IN THE HEART OF BEIJING... I MEAN TEXAS... I MEAN BEIJING...

Last Friday night, my new co-worker Ryan and I went out to dinner at a Tex-Mex restaurant.  Yes folks, they have "Tex-Mex" in Beijing.  Well first of all I must say that once you go to Texas and have actual Tex-Mex, it doesn't matter where you go after that because no place will be as good or the same.  So this place looked like a typical Tex-Mex style restaurant on the outside with sombreros and lights and of course, the country music playing on the patio.  The music continued indoors and the Chinese girls that worked there all had Texas flag shirts on which I actually thought was pretty awesome.  The menu had typical Tex-Mex items but I was totally going to order my favorite, enchiladas verdes, but they weren't on the menu.  That bummed me out so I ended up ordering the chicken burrito thing.  It was decent but I wouldn't say it was great Tex-Mex.  I was slightly disappointed but so grateful to be in a place that reminded me of home that I didn't care about the food so much.  Oh, the other bummer was that they didn't bring us any chips and salsa.  You have to order everything seperately here in China but I thought for sure this place would at least provide the chips and salsa like every other Tex-Mex place on the planet.  Oh well.  At least I know there is a place I can go when I don't want to feel so far away from home :) .  
 

TOFU CONSTRUCTION

"Tofu construction" is a term my friends use to describe the process of building things here in China.  My kitchen cabinets apparantly were not installed properly and now they are falling off of the hinges.  This is an example of "tofu construction".  Another example of this would be at my work.  So I don't know who my company contracted with to build the academic center I work at, but I do know that my center and especially my classroom was not "put together properly.  For example I have pieces of carpet that weren't even laid down properly and a crack in the wall.  Also there is a big mural of an ocean on one of the walls and it is starting to fall down.  It wasn't even put up right to begin with because the genius who did the job just thought he would use scotch tape to stick it where it needed to go. I am trying to come up with a term to describe interior design here in China too.  So if you look at my previous post about my apartment you may notice the random choices of outdated wallpaper on the various walls as well as mismatched room accessories and decor.  "Tofu design" doesn't quite describe the randomness that exists when decorating a space.  I'll have to give it some more thought.