Shanghai & Wuzhen (3rd Trip)

In the 3^rd weekend of my stay in China (24-26 June), I went to my 3^rd trip. The trip was to Shanghai and Wuzhen. Shanghai is one of the biggest 3 Chinese cities which include Hong Kong and Beijing. Wuzhen is a water village (like Venice) 1.5 hours away from Shanghai by bus.

Shanghai is known to be the most metropolitan city in China, while Beijing is considered the capital of culture and history. We left Yantai at 9:30pm on Friday on a sleeper bus – a bus with all beds! It was the first time I know these buses actually existed. Although the beds were tight, the journey (around 10 hours) was convenient because we slept on the bus overnight and reached Shanghai at 7:30am Saturday (it saves you from staying at a hotel). We went and checked-in early at the hostel (40 Yuan per night) which was almost like a hotel. Hostels are really convenient and they make travel and trips much easier and extremely affordable.

As soon as we put our stuff in the room, we stated wandering around Shanghai. It was cloudy and drizzling, which lowered the known heat of Shanghai. We actually visited almost all touristic attractions on Saturday which included:

1. People’s Park
2. The French Concession (Looks and feels like Al Hamra street in Beirut – it is a shopping district)
3. Ju Gardens and The Old City (Had Temple architecture and a market place)
4. The Bund (the famous walkway along Huangpu river where all skyscrapers can be seen)
5. The tunnel at The Bund passing under Huangpu river (the lighting inside it was amazing)
6. IKEA – So typical, exactly like the one in festival city. The icecream is for 1 Yuan!
7. The Maglev train – reached to more than 500km/hr – operates at maximum of 432km/hr

Chinese Market

In Old City

In Old City Market

Ju Garden

What I liked about Shanghai is that it merges between the modern metropolitan life of Dubai with all the skyscrapers and nice roads, and the social lively life of Beirut, with people filling the streets everywhere and with a bit of greenery and nature. Yet although it is so

Chinese Lessons

We started Chinese lessons last week. We are taking classes at Ms. Bonnie’s place which is 10 minutes away by bus. We got to know her from online forums and she is really good. She actually teaches English to kindergarten students also at her home which makes her method of teaching so basic and appropriate for us.

We are taking classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Starting from 6:30pm (after work), we are taking 1.5 or 2 hours each of these days.

We are paying 30 Yuan per hour per person which is a really low amount. Foreigners usually pay 100-150.

It is really interesting and fun when we start testing what we learn with people in the supermarkets or in public. When they understand, they show a verrryyy wide smile..they love it! They don’t mock when they hear our weird Chinese. And it feels amazing for us when we make them understand. This is because the difference between English and Chinese is so extreme, and because the Chinese in public do not know ANY English, except for the word "Hallllloooo" when they see us, especially that in the area we live we are the only foreigners.

So imagine that initially when we first came to China we were unable to communicate in any way. We used to always ask for the help of our Chinese friends from the company. In the beginning, we used only hand gestures and acting. One time I wanted a detergent to clean the floor. I only found dishwashing soap because it had pictures of dishes. So what I did to make them understand is that I took that dishwashing soap to the man at the counter and started acting to him that I am pouring some detergent to the floor and wiping it. And he understood directly! But there was no floor detergent.

But now we can:

• Order food
• Ask for prices
• Communicate about where we are from and where we work
• Understand numbers
• Salute
• Say that “we don’t understand Chinese” if communication gets complicated!

I wish we will be able to add to this list as much as possible.

I will write soon about basics in the Chinese language. It is really interesting and if you have time, you can actually at least know what is the Chinese language based upon.

Lifestyle - Part 1

Here are some general traits and habits in the Chinese daily lifestyle.

• The Chinese have breakfast at 7am, lunch at 11am, and dinner at 5:30pm. Took us 2 weeks to get used.

• They sleep early, usually 9pm, and at 10pm all the city is asleep. We still don’t do this.

• They always eat together and always share food. They rarely get meals independently.

• Especially after food, they burp freely and with no consideration of people around. They of course mean no disrespect. It might be a social norm.

• When they feel hot (even in public), you see them raise their t-shirt and expose their belly and continue walking normally, as if the belly is the secret of releasing the heat.

• They don’t drink cold water at all, even now in summer when it is really hot. They only drink room temperature or even warm water. They say it makes them expel all toxics from the body.

• Tea is the major daily drink (with no sugar). They drink it even more than water, with meals in restaurants (instead of soft drinks), in office, anytime anywhere.

• In China eating dessert after food, or even going out for dessert, is not common.

• Most interesting so far, the elderly Chinese practice TaiChi exercises in public so often and anywhere and sometimes in huge amounts (like 50 people all together moving consistently in the middle of a street). They really care about their health and fitness.

• Obesity is rare in China.

• When they help, the Chinese do not expect “sorry to bother you” or such. It actually bothers them if they hear it because helping others is a basic valuable moral for the Chinese. Saying thank you or “XieXie” would be the best.

• When they offer help or anything, they like it to be accepted. This is because they do not enforce themselves when offering.

Chinese practicing TaiChi in public. This is so common everywhere and sometimes in large numbers and with music

Work - Part 1

As I mentioned earlier, I work as a research assistant in R&D at Wanhua’s Polyurethanes Company. The R&D is relatively new, it opened around 1.5-2 years ago. There are around 17 research teams, each team consisting of around 4 to 20 people. To simplify the companies work, Production of Polyurethanes (abbreviated PU) follows the basic reaction formula:

Polyols  + Di-isocyanate  + catalyst = Polyurethanes

Di-isocyanate is almost invariant in all PU production. What varies considerably and what dictates the characteristics or the produced PU is the starting ‘polyol’. This is because polyols exist in limitless variations. A polyol is the starting basic polymer. Some examples are polyols derived from polyether or polyester, and infinitely other combinations can exist.

Some research teams are:

• Polyols team – 5 people (I am working with this team which makes us 6)
• Analysis team – 12 people (Saeed’s Team)
• Catalysis Team
• Coatings Team
• Product Quality team

The polyols team tries synthesizing new raw polyols.

The analysis team takes material from different teams and applies instrumental analysis mainly.

The company cares about the environment and safety and has a separate department for this cause called “Department of Health Safety and Environmental Protection”. They talk a lot about these issues but they do not really practice what they preach. They actually had a day-long conference about safety and we took that day off since we do not understand Chinese! They often spill chemicals on floors, leave chemical bottles open (sometimes toxic chemicals) and drain chemical waste. The smell in some parts of the company is bad. They are still better than other companies in China. But worth to mention, the cleanliness of our labs in AUS is way better than at the company here. Fortunately, they give us the right “protection gear”. So maybe their philosophy of health and safety lies within the protection gear not within the safe practice. So far I broke a 1Liter round-bottomed flask which is around 200$ (around a month worth of salary) but gratefully they said “Don’t worry, most important is your safety”.  So I can break stuff without worrying about paying back.

The protection gear set includes a uniform, durable shoes, gloves, eyeglasses, and most interestingly the gas mask which I never saw at AUS.

Gas Mask

Wanhua the Company

The company I work at is ‘Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes Company Limited’. Yantai is the city where ‘Wanhua’ the company based (and where I am living).  There is no actual meaning for the word Wanhua. It is just a name.

This company comes from the bigger mother corporation named ‘Wanhua Group’ which is a group of many related companies such as energy, leather and other chemical production companie. The group also operates a school and a hotel. Wanhua Group is one of China’s biggest and most respected professional industrial groups (but, they did not seem to have the professionalism as what international companies posses, yet they are trying their best to reach and compete with international organizations).

A street within the company. Full of greenery and pleasant weather. Only few hot days

In Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes, I am working as a research assistant in the research and development department (R&D). I will write another post related to my work and team sometime soon.

The major product of the company I am working at is polyurethanes, which is a material from the polymers family. Polyurethanes turned to be commonly available in our daily lives more than I expected. It if found in the following:

1. Sofa and furniture cushions
2. Automobiles steering (the leather-like handle)
3. Automobile dashboards
4. Shoe soles
5. Insulators (eg: in fridges or ovens)
6. Coatings and paint
7. Synthetic rubbers

And many more...

 (If you like to know more about the company check the links)

• Wanhua Group
• Yantai Wanhua Polyurethanes

I will also write more posts about what is nice and what is not about the company and the work environment to share the internship experience. I really wish if anybody of our AUS batch reads this or any later posts related to internships, to share the internship experience even if so briefly.

Plant inside the Company. Just a very tiny bit of the whole plant

Barrels of Chemicals

PengLai & ChangDao (2nd Trip)

In the second weekend which was June 18^th, Lauren, Ana and I went to PéngLái which is a coastal city that is around 1 hour far away by bus from Yantai where we live. Beside PéngLái is ChàngDǎo (Dǎo means island) which is an island 40 minutes away by ferry.

In Penglai we went to the ‘Eight Immortals’ temple, which has monuments of the eight legendary immortals. It was the first time I see how the Chinese are influenced by legendary superstitions. At every place you visit in China, you can notice Dragons, superstitious mighty Tortoises (the 2^nd iconic creature I noticed in China), Buddha statues and many other weird-to-us legendary aspects of the Chinese culture. I cannot say much at this point because it needs good deal of reading to know why the Chinese value these.  It is always nice to see how different people can have so distinct beliefs. Hopefully I will dedicate a whole post about this later on when I acquire more information.

The 8 Immortals Temple

Rounded Gate. An aspect of the Chinese architecture

The Tortoise, the Frogs, and the 8 Immortals at the back with their legendary supernatural animals

After finishing from the Eight Immortals we walked along the sandy beachside towards Penglai’s Pavilion. The Pavilion was on a hillside just at the beach. Its seaside location was nice along with the great greenery, which you find almost all around China. It had different temples and a wall surrounding it. Temples are the main traditional buildings of the Chinese architecture, as the mud castles (or Hisns) with the wind towers are the main traditional buildings of the Emirati architecture.

PengLai Pavilion

Cable cars going to Heaven!

After finishing from the Pavilion we went to ChangDao (island) which has attractions such as a Cliff, a Reef, a Mountain, a Beach and so. We went by a ferry that took 40 minutes to reach. It was my first time in such a ferry. We did not know anything about ChangDao which made it interesting to inspect everything on our own. On the island no one speaks English at all! And there was no single foreigner other than the 3 of us. Although we did not want a taxi, one taxi driver kept on following us for more than an hour hoping that we get into the taxi. We walked to the main touristic place from which we had to buy the tickets to visit the different touristic places on the island. There were two different tours the 1^st is to the Northern part (for 100 Yuans) and the 2^nd was to the Southern part (for 100Yuans) or 150 Yuans for both. We counted how much money we had left …and the shock was there! We can either go for

1st Day, 1st Trip, 1st Week

Since I have to speed up publishing posts to synchronize with real-time, I will write about the 1^st Day, 1^st Week and 1^st Trip in China here all together.

When I landed in Yantai Airport, Mr. Liu RuiYang, my direct teammate, who has a Masters in Chemical Engineering, was waiting for me holding a poster that said ‘Chehade’. I felt like a VIP when I saw it! Here, family names are written before given names as I noticed in almost all situations, and the labels are at the end. If written in Chinese you would say RuiYang Liu Mr (but I will be writing their given names first as we are used to). I did not know if I had to call him Mr. or not, but he looked so young like less than 22 years, but turned out to be 28! So I just started calling him Liu without the Mr and it flowed with everyone who appeared to me to be young. Also, the Chinese like to give themselves western names when dealing with foreigners as to ease it on us when we want to call them. Liu named himself Jerry but I told him that I would prefer calling him in his Chinese name. Liu and everyone else have been always helpful anytime, anyhow and anywhere. People here are all selfless and would offer help eagerly. Throughout my coming posts I will be including more about the Chinese people and their lifestyle, habits and so.

On our way from Yantai Airport to the dorm, which took around 40 minutes, I felt like I have landed in Beirut airport and I am going to my village, Insarriyeh, in the South. That was because the weather, nature, scenery and even the taxi felt all so similar. On our way, the sky was cloudy and the temperature was 22C. It was drizzling rain and the breeze coming from the windows of the taxi was so refreshing. There is good deal of greenery and there is a river. The taxi car was old like the taxi’s in Lebanon, but had a counter like the ones in UAE. Instantly, besides recalling Lebanon’s weather, I said to myself “at last I am away from the grilling weather in UAE!! (I thought it in Arabic though :P).” We reached to the dorms and had an hour of napping and went to check out the company where I met our team leader Dr. Chen Haibo who is an organic chemist. In the adjacent lab, I met Lauren (from Scotland) who came two weeks before me also through IAESTE, and works in the same building but with a different team. Later I’ll post more about my work and team, and also about the accommodation.

At LaoHu Shan (Tiger Mountain)

My team had invited me to a trip that had happened the next day, Saturday 11^th June, and I definitely went with them. Our company, Wanhua, takes its employees every 2 months for trips free of charge, so I was lucky to reach exactly on one of those trips, and I would also be joining them in the next one.

This 1^st trip was to LǎoHǔ Shān (Tiger Mountain), which is famous for two things, its history as it was a battlefield in the 1920’s between the Japanese and the Chinese, and more importantly it is known for the plenty Cherries! We picked up lots of juicy red fresh cherries directly from their trees. Moreover, related to the war history, I realized the hatred between China and Japan from the plays they showed and from what the people told me. The plays were surely in Chinese but they were understandable. The outdoors play had real houses and some horses. They actually used fireworks to imitate rockets, mines, and fire. It was so lively and vivid.

Cherries!

Some friends. Liu is directly beside me. Guo is another teammate (Middle, white t-shirt with no hat).

I had my first Chinese lunch during this trip. The food was different but nice. It was all sweet. The tomatoes had sugar on them not salt! It is delicious..try it! It was the first serious time I try eating with chopsticks (the few passive times in UAE do not count, and chopsticks are actually used for ALL the kinds of food you have in a meal like rice, peanuts, noodles, chopped vegetables and even the tiniest beans, and sometimes you pick them peice-by-peice!). It was tough for me. They were teaching me how to hold it and

From UAE to China - When the lag started

Day Zero. Thursday 9^th of June 2011. The last day of exams after the long-lasted breathtaking semester at AUS, and the day of traveling to China. That day was the ‘Separation’ final exam. I had to start the exam at 1pm, 1 hour earlier than scheduled because I had to reach Dubai airport by 4pm. That day, as well as that whole semester, everything was moving rapidly as if time became a tangible object that we are trying to race.

That day, I had to wake up early enough to finish packing my luggage and make sure everything is set for travel. Packing was not a problem.  The problem was that I had to finish what is left of studying for the separation final exam, and what was left was maybe more than half of the semester’s material. I guess that was the case all of us had faced when studying for any exam or quiz that semester. Maybe if the day has like 28 hours instead of 24 hours we can have enough time to keep track of work at AUS, or, another option would be simply not to sleep at all. Eventually, the exam was worse than I expected. I heard that Dr. Taleb got angry and started belittling the whole class when the exam ended. Well, he actually also got angry at me and I got the first shot from him when I left earlier!

When I left earlier, I went into another state of mind. It felt like time-travelling. I just felt that my body was still at AUS but my brain reached China. Maybe that was because of all the preparation and long thorough thinking about how would life be in China. Maybe because I was worried that things might not be as interesting or convenient to be worth the 3 months of travel. I left earlier and all my family was waiting in the car at the Library’s round about to drop me at Dubai Airport. At that time I really wished there are 28 hours in a day so I would have more time to spend and say goodbye to everyone and especially my family since I see them the least of all. Actually, staying at the dorms in AUS makes me see some friends more than I ever saw my parents themselves. On our way to the airport I felt sick and had a bad stomachache. My body was not prepared to this concept of time-travel and to such a chaos of thoughts and overlapped events. I just closed my eyes and cut the stream of thoughts. This was some sort of meditation and I felt cured in few minutes which actually proved to be quicker than a pain-killer. My flights were as follows:

1)   Dubai Airport - Terminal 2 --> Beijing Airport - Terminal 1: (Chinese Southern Airlines) 7:30hours

2)   Beijing Airport - Terminal 3 --> Yantai Laishan Airport, Shandong: (Air China) 1:15 hours

Throughout the travel, everything went perfect. No problems in luggage and no delays. We actually landed in Beijing half an hour earlier. On the plane from Dubai to Beijing, they served 2 full meals which where international, not Chinese as I was expecting.  But the first touch of China was that all the passengers where Chinese and speaking in Chinese which sounded like robot-talk. I was sitting beside a Chinese lady in silence for around an hour. I was having some peanuts so why not offer her some. As soon as I did, she showed a wide smile and started chatting endlessly! Her English was horrible, as with all the Chinese who speak English. She would not understand “I went to Dubai” but would understand “Yesterday, I go to Dubai.” It turned out that the Chinese language does not have tenses for the verbs. They just use the standard form of the verb such as “eat” along with a time-indicating word such as “today, yesterday, tomorrow”.  I got to know some easy Chinese words from her such as:

•   Cola: “ké-lé”     which literally means something like “Can-Music”
•   Coffee: “ka-fei”
•   Thank you: “xiexie”    the x's is pronounced as ‘sh’

When she started conversing and opening up subjects, I wished that the Chinese in China would be this much social. Probably, I will always keep some peanuts with me in China if it would be the secret to trigger socializing!

The plane was flying against the sun. We saw sunset while departing from Dubai and sunrise when landing in Beijing. When the plane was landing, the tv screens started playing some massaging video and every single person started stretching, except for the very few non-Chinese!

In Beijing Airpot - Terminal 1 

When I reached to Beijing Airport terminal 1 I took a shuttle bus to terminal 3 which was convenient and free of charge. At Beijing airport, employees speak English but yet not well enough. At least they can help with travelling Issues. Terminal 3 of Beijing Airport is incredible. It is like a huge shopping mall. Everything is so organized and looks attractive. There are many international shops like Swarovski, Haagen Dazs and many more restaurants of all types of cuisines. There is free WiFi, and there I noticed everything is blocked in China – Facebook, Youtube, blog sites, and many more websites that are so normal such as some regular company websites. I bought my Chinese phone card from there for 150 Yuans (aprrox. 85 AED) which was more expensive than getting it from outside the airport.

Dragons are the iconic creatures of China. In Beijing Airport Terminal 3

Internal Metro System in Beijing Airport

After waiting an hour, I boarded the second plane. In an hour and a half, we reached Yantai at 11:30am Friday morning. Upon arrival to Yantai where I have been residing, I felt like there was a twisted transition in time and place which created a sort of lag in life (as having a typical lag in time when traveling), and then, the 1^st day in China began.

A block in Yantai as it appears from the airplane. It looked exactly like the miniature models that civil engineers and architecs build 

Renewable energy wind mills. In Shandong

Crossing Yantai is HuangHe (Yellow River). The H's are pronounced as 'kh' or 'خ' the arabic letter.

The Opportunity in China

First of all, I like to recall how the opportunity to come to China began. It is all about doing the internship abroad. IAESTE was one of the options for acquiring an internship, although it was not guaranteed. They called me one day and said that there is an offer to Australia, but then it turned out that UAE resident students cannot take this offer because they had to stay in Australia for more than 6 months, which means my UAE residency will expire and I would not be able to get back. At that time there was not any other offer than the Australian and I thought that IAESTE is no longer an option.  Until few days later, Ms. Rana calls me from IAESTE and eagerly offers me an opportunity in China and said that this was the only available. The first impression was “why China? I want Australia, Europe, USA, Canada…simply a western modern country to enjoy and gain experience from.” But surely I could not say no to the only offer that allows me to travel abroad although, initially, I was not feeling enthusiastic about it. When I gave out the yes to China, I had to give a no to Petrofac’s offer in Sharjah that would have possibly guaranteed me a full-time job after I graduate. This is because I thought, and others have also advised especially Ali my brother, that traveling abroad would be a more fulfilling and rewarding experience than staying in the same place that I have always been; that going to a new part of the world will widen my scope of experience in life and would actually open up more chances when I get back to UAE.

At that time, I had perceived China to be an East Asian country seeking development, a country from which all the world imports its Chinese “cheap” products. As a word itself, “cheap” actually primed in my subconscious mind that China as a country would also be characterized as such - cheap. Eventually, after reading and actually coming here, I realized that China turned out to be utilizing the word “cheap” to be able to develop itself to the highest standards, when many other countries still do not even think of being productive.

I do not want to make the first post longer so it would not get boring from the beginning! But soon I will keep on sharing all about what makes China’s experience unique. There are a lot of positives and yet many negatives, but in the end, it all includes priceless, interesting and joyful experiences  that one can only obtain by gaining real-life exposure to the country that is expected to be the world’s largest and strongest economy in the coming few decades.