I could write a long boring blog about our trip to Cambodia and Laos over October break.  However, Lauren’s excellent captioning on the photos do a much better job.  Check out the slideshow.

Tom Melcher and I chaperoned 8 Dulwich 8th and 9th graders plus Mia and Sophie to the Beyonce concert last Friday night at Wukesong Basketball Arena, where the Olympic basketball games were held.

Beyonce is very talented, and not too hard on the eyes either.  She did almost all her hits, but didn’t get to do “Halo”.  The highlight was definitely “Single Ladies”, which included a compilation of Youtube videos of people (such as President Obama) doing the dance.  Despite the cheers of the fans, she didn’t come out for an encore, probably due to time restrictions.  Tom and I were glad that the censors allowed her to do the full show, including the outfits.

Neither Tom or I were able to completely fulfill our mission of mortifying our kids.  Maybe we were too well-behaved!

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Sunday November 1, day after Halloween.  From Sophie’s bedroom window, you can see the Chaoyang Golf Course and Boya Garden apartment building, all with a thin layer of snow!

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OK, all you cynical folks out there.  I’ve been telling you the pollution here is not nearly as bad as the media makes it out to be, and here’s the proof.  In the first six months of 2009, Beijing has 146 blue sky days, up from 123 for the same period last year.

Yes, it’s true, the article is from the government controlled English newspaper, and there are plenty of allegations that the monitoring system is rigged, such as putting the sensors in the most optimal locations.  But speaking purely qualitatively, it’s been pretty good.  Out of the 3 weeks since Lauren and the girls headed off for their summer trip, we’ve had two days of murky air.  Today is yet another clear and hot day in the northern capital.

A lot of the improvement comes from specific measures leading into the Olympics, such as shutting down factories and plants within the city.  The driving restrictions – every private car is off the road one day per workweek – has been a huge success in my view.  The inconvenience is more than compensated by the reduction in traffic and car-based pollution.

Beijing air cleanest in 9 years

Thanks to Beijing Boyce for posting this.  The new Gongsan Plaza development near my apartment.  Not sure if it refers to work or play?

Most things go better in China when you go with the flow.  A good example is biking the mean streets of Beijing.  My strategy is to stay in the middle of a pack of other bikers as much as possible.  My theory is that it’s less likely for a bus to mow down a whole crowd than it is to wipe out one lonely biker.  And in the worst case, I figure those on the outside of the pack will shield me from the impact.

Another example came today at the bank.  I went in to get cash to pay rent and some other expenses.  I needed 50,000 rmb.  In the past I haven’t needed my passport for a simple withdrawal, so I didn’t bring it with me.  When I got to the window, I slid a note across to the teller with a simple message:  “50,000”.  He asked me for my passport, to which I explained, ”Mei you” (“don’t have it”. BTW, this is likely the second most uttered phrase in China after “ne ge”, which means “umm”).

Strangely enough, he asked me for 1 rmb.  I didn’t quite understand how this note with the picture of Chairman Mao could stand in for my US government-issued international travel certificate, but in the spirit of going with the flow, I gave him 1 kuai.

He took and slid 50,000 rmb back to me.  Then the withdrawal slip with the amount listed:  49,999 rmb.  Aha:  I only need the passport for withdrawals over 50,000 rmb.  Transaction completed, 50,000 – 1 rmb in my pocket, satisfied customer!

My stand-in passport!

At the recent Microsoft China R&D Games, Scott and I competed among many for the men’s shotput crown.  I achieved my goals:  don’t get hurt and don’t come in last place.  Scott did better, taking home the silver medal.

File this under the unexplained sites of Beijing.  On the outdoor mezzanine level of the new office building next to our apartment building sits a 6 foot tall multi-stage rocket.  Preparations for the next great fireworks show?  China’s moon mission, staffed by mice?  We’ll keep an eye on things and let you know…

We find that being together as a family here in China broadens our horizons and brings us together as a family.  Consider this SMS exchange between Mia and me, on a Saturday afternoon while I was out getting a haircut and Mia and Sophie were home.

Lindheimer, Mia

CAN WE SCOOTER OUT BACK?

Me

Ok, wear helmets.   Scooters are on porch.

Lindheimer, Mia

OK, BUT MOM SAYS THATWE DONT HAVE 2 WEAR HELMETS ON SCOOTERS

Me

I’m not mom

Lindheimer, Mia

DAD!  WE DONT FALL ON OUR SCOOTERS!  I WONT WEAR A HELMET.

Me

Then you can stay home tonight.  When mom & I are not home, you wear helmets.

Lindheimer, Mia

UGH.  FINE.

Many things work very well in China.  Banking is not one of them. 

I’ll give you an example.  Lauren made reservations at two small hotels at Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) for a trip with friends in May.  Both required deposits to hold the room.  Normally, one would provide a credit card number to hold the room, but China is not so big on personal credit (hmmm… maybe that’s a good thing) so that wasn’t a possibility.

Instead, the typical way is to transfer money into the hotels’ respective bank accounts.  Each hotel had provided their bank name, account number, account holder name, etc.  Of course, this was all in Chinese so I had my assistant at work take down all the info.

Now it’s probably possible to perform these transfers online, but the English language versions of e-banking don’t have that feature, so I went to the bank armed with many pieces of paper filled with Chinese writing.

First stop:  China Merchant Bank, our primary personal bank.  Usually they have at least one person there who speaks some English, but not today.  Luckily Mr. Ma accompanied me, and he and I can usually communicate between my rudimentary Chinese and his rudimentary English.  They told us they couldn’t do the transfer so we should go to ICBC across the street.  I didn’t quite catch the reason why.

So across the massive intersection we strode, right to the front door of the closed ICBC branch.  Various useless iterations of trying the ATM and telephone banking ensued.  Telephone banking was promising at first, but it would only work to transfer to another account in Beijing.  The Huangshan hotel, being in Anhui provice, did not fit that requirement.  On our way back across to the car, I asked Mr. Ma why they couldn’t do it at China Merchant.  He didn’t have such a clear answer, so I tried one more time.

This time I learned we were missing the address of the bank.  A call to the hotel and SMS text of the address solved that problem.  They charged me 3 RMB each to make the payment which was well worth not visiting any more banks that day.  Finally, my two transactions were complete, my receipts stamped with multiple chops were in my hand, and I pushed the button indicating the service was “satisfactory”.  That counts as a good banking experience.

Sophie was the winner of ISB’s Dragon Award this month.  It was given to her for “being a positive role model, studious learner, and trustworthy friend for her peers.”  What a kid!  Here’s Upper Elementary School principal Smith giving Sophie the award.

Our week started on a low note.  Lauren didn’t feel well on Sunday night and couldn’t sleep.  She had pain in her lower abdomen and some dizziness but none of other normal digestive distress symptoms.  By Monday morning she knew something was amiss, so after sending the kids off to school, we headed to the SOS International Clinic.

The doctor did a quick exam and concluded that appendicitis was likely, so we headed directly to Beijing United Family Hospital.  On the way, we contacted our friends from temple who founded the hospital and got recommendations on which doctors to see.  They ran a series of tests to confirm the diagnosis, and by 2 PM, Lauren was scheduled for a appendectomy that evening.  We insisted on a laparoscopic procedure in order to minimize recovery time and scarring.  The procedure was done under general anesthesia.

Everything went smoothly – no perforation - and by 8 PM, Lauren was back in her room, still very groggy but up for a brief visit by the girls.  By Wednesday afternoon, all her systems were going again (I’ll leave that to your imagination) and Lauren was allowed to go home.

On Thursday she was well enough to attend a talk by Alon Hilu as part of the Bookworm Literary Festival.  On Friday night, we had arranged a table at the Festival Gala Dinner, where we had the pleasure of sharing a table with Fuschia Dunlop, author of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper.

She was a charming guest, answering our questions about the buzz of eating Sichuan food and why boiling shrimp bothers her more than boiling rabbits.  We got her to autograph our book and Lauren promised to email her the recipe for Mandarin Orange and Sichuan Peppercorn ice cream!  We also enjoyed the company of our friends Tom and Sharon, Jorge and Paola, Dan and Julie, plus Deb Fallows, wife of author James Fallows who was out of town that night. It was a fun and enlightening evening…

So all in all, another interesting week in Beijing!

Today, we have a belated recap on the events of this year’s Chinese New Year (AKA Spring Festival).  We kicked things off with an emerging tradition – the Chinese New Year Mexican Fiesta at Becky and Garry’s apartment.  Margaritas, enchiladas, and Reese’s peanut butter cup pie are not the traditional Chinese New Year foods, but they sure are delicious!  We lit off our first batch of fireworks outside the apartment later that night, then settled in for a ear-splitting night of ongoing pyrotechnics.  Earplugs are a must to get any sleep on the first few nights of New Year.

Since the holiday came early this year, just on the heels of the Christmas and New Year holiday, we weren’t ready to pack our bags and head on a new adventure right away.  But the prospect of a week with no plans coupled with the insomnia of all-night fireworks gave us motivation to get out of town.  Traveling within China during spring festival can be impossible, but Lauren was able to find us cheap flights mid-week, so we headed off to Shanghai for a four-day getaway.

I can best describe our visit to Shanghai with one wonderful Chinese word:  Ma ma hou hou (yes, that’s one word).  It means “so-so”.  The weather for the first part of our trip was nice – sunny and mid-50s, so we were able to explore Shanghai on foot.  A lot of the city was shut down for the New Year, but we enjoyed the shopping of Nanjing Road, visiting Xintandi, the upscale areas reminiscent of Quincy Market, and the neon nighttime of the Bund.  We were lucky to re-find Yang’s Fried Dumplings, the very same street stall Lauren and I discovered in 2007 simply by getting on a big line on the street in the hope it was something good.  The Shanghai “soup dumplings” are delicious, filled with scalding broth and perfectly pan-fried.

We took a day trip to Suzhou.  We climbed the central pagoda, strolled through the Humble Administrator’s Garden, and had a pleasant noodle lunch.  Toward dusk, we drove about one hour to the small town of Zhouzhuang, a nicely preserved canal city.  They’ve done a great job of making it into a tourist destination, complete with entry fee to get into the old town, singing gondoliers, and local merchants selling fish heads, pig’s feet, and some in-between things we couldn’t identify.

Overall, Shanghai felt like it was missing something.  We didn’t see the pride and animation we see of people in Beijing.  Instead, we got a strong feeling of commercialism, of getting ahead.  This is both a vast generalization and really only a difference of degree from Beijing – Shanghai is still a great place to visit, but we decided we wouldn’t want to live there.  Thus, one great outcome of our trip was that we confirmed that we made the right decision in moving to Beijing!

Also during Chinese New Year, our Ayi Pan Jun cooked us the traditional jaozi (dumpling) dinner.  Lauren and the girls took an inpromptu lesson.  It turns out Sophie has the best innate jaozi construction skills.  They were scrumptious although none of us came close to Pan Jun’s recommended serving size of 40!

School started again the following Monday, but the official holiday goes until Lantern Festival, the next full moon.  Again fireworks ruled the night, although this one ended badly with the fire at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.  In the aftermath, the story is that CCTV, which owns the complex, lit off unauthorized fireworks on the scale of those used to kick off the summer Olympics, thus igniting the blaze.  Surely, there will be more controls on fireworks in the city next year, if not an outright ban.

Our kids are more talented than yours!

Last night was Lantern Festival (Yuan Xiao), the last night of Chinese New Year.  It’s one of the biggest nights for fireworks since they are banned again the next day – everyone has to use up what they have left.  We had our friends the Hobergs over for dinner including these gelatinous rice balls (tastes a little like the paste you used in elementary school). 

Then we went down to light off our fireworks.  Mr. Ma had purchased us a mega-firework consisting of 36 rockets that launched fairly professional fireworks.  We went about 30 yards away from the building, where our security guards told us to go.  It was a good show!

Later on, Lauren and I settled in to watch some TV.  Our bedroom window faces south, and the fireworks were still blasting off all around our building.  I noticed one that looked like a vertical orange stripe, but it was persistent, rather than fading away.  When I grabbed the binoculars and took a closer look, it was clear it was a fire.  It was also clear it was near the new CCTV tower (what we locally call the “trousers”).  At first it didn’t look too big but then I started to see some flames flaring up from the top of the building.

By this point, I grabbed the videocamera and started shooting.  Keep in mind this is from our 19th floor window, from about one mile north.  I have never seen anything like this before. 

We were flipping around the TV to see if it was on the news, but nothing yet.  We started sending SMS to our friends and checking online.  Finally we got some confirmation that it was part of the CCTV complex, but the Mandarin Oriental Hotel under construction just on the north side.  Truly, it was a very ugly building.

Lauren spoke with a friend who is a journalist and she ended up doing a interview for Reuters.  Eventually, the smoke from the fire obscured the whole scene and we went to bed.  The news reports today say the building is destroyed and there are some rumors of arson.  It seems likely the fireworks had something to do with it, and hopefully it will lead to some better controls next year.

I can sum up our Australia trip in three words – fauna, fun, and food!  We had a great time, relaxing and spending some very high quality family time.  Our route took us from Beijing to Sydney (a surprising 11 hour direct flight) for five days, north to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast for three days, three more days at Port Douglas, and then back to Sydney for one night before returning to Beijing.  The best way to get an overall view is to view the photo album!

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Fauna

Cassowaries, crocodiles, koalas, kangaroos, wombats, bandicoots, dingos, platypus, echidnas, wallabies, sharks, dugongs…   It seems like every day we saw something new and usually pretty weird!

Our animal encounters started with a visit to the Sydney Aquarium.  Outside of the coral reef and glass tunnel through the shark tank, the highlight was the dugong exhibit where we debated the difference between dugongs and manatees with one of the marine biologists (she won, but Lauren gets extra credit for recognizing that the tail shape was a key difference).  Sophie took time out to smooch a crocodile.

Another day we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park on our way out to the Blue Mountains.  It’s a free-ranging zoo, with kangaroos (some with joeys poking out of their pouches) were everywhere.  The highlight was petting koalas, which are even cuter and furrier than you’d imagine.

On the Sunshine Coast, we made the day trip to the Australia Zoo, created by famed, late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin.  The croc show is hosted by his wife Terri, and prematurely celebrity daughter Bindi was also in presence.  In addition to the crocs, we spent more time with kangaroos, cassowaries, and elephants.

Finally, my personal favorite was snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef.  We took a snorkel-only tour, the Wavelength boat.  We were concerned about the surf, since Lauren is prone to seasickness, but it the ocean was incredibly calm and we all felt fine.  At the beaches in the north, there is are “stingers”, small jellyfish that give a painful and potentially lethal sting.  They’re not supposed to be out by the reef, but to be safe we wore ridiculous looking wetsuits.

After a 90 minute cruise to the reef, we took three separate swims.  On the first one, we were reacquainted with snorkeling, and quickly got a view of the amazing reef.  We saw hundreds of different fish, straight out of Finding Nemo, plus giant clams, reef sharks, and cuttlefish.  Our snorkel guide, Fluffy (so-called because of his shaggy blond hair), was a marine biologist who would swim ahead pointing out interesting sites.  At one point he held a small wobbegong shark for us to pet.  He could hold his breath for over two minutes, so he could dive down 30 feet, dip through a passage in the coral, and reappear at another point, while I wondered what I would do it he didn’t emerge…

For the second swim, they dropped some of us off and then cruised on to a point about a half-mile away.  Sophie and I got off at the earlier point and swam along with Fluffy.  I carried a foam “noodle” in case either one of us needed it, but Sophie never did, keeping up quite well.  At one point, just the two of us tracked a black-tip reef shark for a few minutes as it menacingly wandered the reef.  Meanwhile, Mia mastered the snorkeling dive, getting down as far as 10 feet before resurfacing and blowing out the snorkel.  None of us could learn how to adjust our ears to the increased pressure much deeper.

We enjoyed the Wavelength trip so much that we booked another tour on a different boat a few days later.  We went to the Low Isles, a closer spot, where we landed on a island and snorkeled from shore.  We got some good snorkeling in before a thunderstorm moved in, leading to a very wet and windy retreat to the boat that looked like the beginning of “Saving Private Ryan” without the bullets.

Fun

We had booked tickets to the “Christmas at the House” show at the Sydney Opera House, but when we got to the iconic building, we saw another show we also wanted to see, “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)”.  So we purchased tickets for that as well.  The Christmas show was a lot of fun – a small symphony orchestra, four of the leading opera singers of Australia, and a lot of sing-along.  The highlight was “Six White Boomers”, Australia’s own Christmas carol.  Later on we got conflicting views of what exactly a boomer is, but we believe it refers to a flying kangaroo.

We rented a car one day from Sydney and drove to the Blue Mountains, 90 minutes to the west.  We hiked down a waterfall path with some amazing views.  On the way back, we navigated to Balmoral Beach in Sydney, just after dark, where we had one of the best meals of our trip (see below).

In Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, the girls signed up for surfing lessons.  In an amazing display of their natural grace, they both stood on the boards on their first try!  Then they got into the water.  Even then, in steady three foot waves, they consistently road into shore, their poses perfect!  Unfortunately, our spray lotion washed off quickly that day, so the girls and I got scorched.  Lauren spent the morning at the Eumundi Farmer’s Market and so avoided getting sunburned.  She did return with an amazing piece of ceramic wall art of the legendary Australian bandit, Ned Kelly.  Interestingly, it looks very similar to the terracotta warriors of Xi’an.  You’ll see it in our living room when you come to visit!

In Port Douglas, we took a day tour of the Daintree rain forest.  Our guide Dave was quick with a terrible joke, but he did a good job taking us to the key spots.  Our favorites were the crocodile cruise, in a small boat with a captain right out of Crocodile Dundee.  We spotted croc in the water not more than 30 feet from our boat.  Later we stopped at the swimming hole, in a part of the river which had no crocodiles (or so they told us), for a refreshing dip.  When we stopped by the side of the river for a tea break, some green ants were swarming over a shrimp.  Dave showed us how to pick up an ant by the legs, which causes them to secrete ascorbic acid, which one can lick and get a sensation like an electric shock.  I’m not sure why, but we were willing to try it.  He was right and it was surprisingly good!

I didn’t forget the Shakespeare show.  It was on New Year’s Day, on our way back through Sydney for the return flight.  We realized the girls didn’t know many of the Shakespeare stories, so we found a collection of junior novelizations of 12 of his most popular works, evenly split between comedies and tragedies.  The girls ripped through them, and declared a scholarly point of view - “in the tragedies, everyone ends up dead” – which pretty neatly summed it up.  Anyway, the show was hilarious, with three actors improvising, rapping, changing costumes, and one of them in particular mock-vomiting through 37 works.  The highlights were the tragic Juliet (the aforementioned vomiting figured heavily), the Othello rap, and the backwards 30 second Hamlet (beginning with everybody dead!).  Did I mentioned this was all in the Sydney Opera House?

Food

We expected to eat well in Australia, and we weren’t disappointed.  We enjoyed everything from ice cream cones to four-course meals.

The kids were excited for pancake breakfasts since it’s not something that’s readily available in Beijing.  But they didn’t expect their pancakes topped with ice cream, as they were in our first stop at City Diner at Circular Quay in Sydney.  We ended up having several meals at this convenient and reasonable stop right across from the ferry terminals.  The girls also want me to let you know about the Chocoholics Irresistible dessert, which consisted of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, marshmallows, whipped cream, and chocolate sprinkles.  Ice cream and chocolate seemed to be national obsessions with shops selling either or both everywhere.  The Copenhagen ice cream chain was especially innovative: If you buy an ice cream cone, you can pump your own hot fudge or caramel sauce on top!

We had a couple of special dinners out.  The kids had been forewarned that they might get room service and stay in the hotel while the adults dined out, but we gave them the chance to come with us.  On Christmas eve, we ate at Est., in the Establishment boutique hotel in Sydney.  We had the five-course chef’s dinner, while the kids chowed on the kids’ equivalent.  We indulged in “bugs”, which fall somewhere between lobster and crayfish, are delicious, and are probably not actual insects.

On new year’s eve in Port Douglas, we had dinner at Bistro 3.  Our five-course meal lasted form 7 until 11 PM.  At 9 PM, Port Douglas lit off their early fireworks show, satisfying our pyrotechnic needs and relieving us from the pressure to stay up until midnight!

More casual but every bit as special was our meal at Bather’s Pavilion on Sydney’s Balmoral Beach.  This came at the end of the long day and we were on the fence about dining out or getting room service.  We found the restaurant just in time and were seated on the more casual cafe side.  Beautiful people abounded.  Lauren and I chilled out with a pitcher of Pimm’s cocktails while the kids ordered off one of the best children’s menus ever.  Mia had a big bowl of mussels in white wine sauce and my seafood risotto was delicious.

So, that’s about it.  For our longest vacation in ever not to home in Boston or Seattle, we covered surprisingly little of Australia.  We’d love to spend more time around Noosa, and to get to other parts of Australia, as well as New Zealand.  For now, though, we have other priorities – like African safari, Israel, Bali!

The news is out:  Microsoft is having its first layoff.  The total impact - 5,000 employees or just over 5% of the workforce – will spread over 18 months, but the first 1,400 job losses happened this week.  I won’t leave you in suspense:  I survived round one.  But several friends and colleagues were not so lucky.  Two of the employees I helped transfer from China into jobs in Redmond were let go.  Others who have been with Microsoft for over 15 years are victims of the cutbacks as well.  So far there has been very little impact here in China.

It’s hard to argue with the logic of the reduction in force.  Ballmer says this isn’t a recession, it’s a “reset” with permanently lower demand in many of the categories Microsoft operates in.  Whenever the recovery begins, it will be to a different level of opportunity than we in the IT industry saw previously.  The good news is Microsoft will certainly survive the downturn and, if we keep investing and focusing on the right things, we could emerge stronger in a relative sense since some companies will fold.  China is definitely one of the areas in which we should keep investing (yes, I am biased).

I feel lucky to be here in China and happy to have been able to hold onto jobs for me and all those working in my group.  I wish I could do more to help those who lost jobs.  Keep tuned, as I’m sure this is not the last chapter in this saga.

5 reasons we miss the US on Thanksgiving:

1. Small ovens:  Even in the big homes of Shunyi, the ovens are tiny, barely big enough for a small Turkey.  So Cherie who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 21 will have to cook 2 turkeys separately…
2. No days off [Whine alert]:  We don’t get time off for Thanksgiving.  So Wednesday is a full day, Thursday is a normal school day but leave work early, and Friday it’s back to the normal routine.  Of course we got a week in October and will get another one in January.
3. No football:  While it’s possible to watch US football on TV or at least Slingbox, the game starts at 1:30 AM tonight.  So I will be in a tryptophan sleep well before the game starts.
4. No parade:  More than anything, sitting in my PJs watching the Macy’s parade says Thanksgiving.  Again, I could probably watch it but the timing is all wrong.
5. No family:  What’s Thanksgiving without the fun and drama of family visits?  For the last few years in Seattle, we had the company of Elinor and Shelly.  We miss having some family mixed into the motley crew of Thanksgiving guests.

…and 5 reasons we are happy to be in China for Thanksgiving:

1. Outstanding weather:  We had a beautiful day today, lots of sunshine and clear skies.  It’s cold alright – high was about 38, but it’s nice when you can glimpse the stars at night.
2. New and old friends:  Along with our very old friends the Emighs and Bajcs (we have known them over one year!) we had new friends the Chors and Hobergs along for Thanksgiving dinner.
3. No “Black Friday” shopping:  Tomorrow we go back to work.  Not to the mall, not online to shop.  Just back to work.
4. Christmas muzak limited to Starbucks:  You have to work to find Christmas schlock.  It’s here, but limited to very few, very ex-pat focused places.
5. The feast:  Somehow Cherie, Lauren, Sarah, and Mev pulled together a tremendous Thanksgiving feast.  Of the top of my head and the bottom of my stomach, I remember turkey, two kinds of stuffing, gravy, two kinds of cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, broccoli, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, pumpkin pie, walnut pie, chocolate pie, vanilla bourbon ice cream, cinnamon ice cream, orange szechuan peppercorn ice cream, some kind of intoxicating martini, champagne, wine.  Yum!

Last a quick word of thanks.  Lauren came back from her Boston trip with a bad case of shingles.  After a week of pain, she’s back to spirited self.  I’m thankful she’s OK!

Three weeks, three different parties to tell you about.  All in all, a good reflection of why we love living here.

Week 1:  Benjamin Plafker's Bar Mitzvah

Benjamin's parents, Ted and Roberta, are absolute pillars of the Jewish community here, so it was not surprise that their youngest son's Bar Mitzvah was something special.  The Saturday morning service was held at the Marriott, but the special part was that it was officiated by Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, head of the Orthodox Chabad community in Beijing.  This was surprising since Roberta founded the other Jewish community, Kehillat, which we belong to.  Since Rabbi Shimon is orthodox, the service was too, including the separation of men and women.  A nice lunch and really touching speeches all around made for a great part 1.

The main reception was held later that night at Chateau Lafitte, a full-on French chateau out in the countryside outside Beijing.  The party celebration kicked off with a "dueling banjos" style havdalah consisting of Rabbi Shimon at the top of a baroque staircase davening alternating with the Israeli folk singer at the bottom playing her guitar and urging everyone to sing.  And if you looked up, you could take in a ceiling fresco straight from the Sistine Chapel.  Also included in the reception for good measure:  a Chinese dragon dance and my first and hopefully last vegetarian faux sea cucumber.

Week 2:  The US Marine Ball

Just like last year, we were invited to join the table of Wayne Wilcox, a former marine and friend of the Emighs.  Lauren had a beautiful new dress made, a Chinese qipao.  I swapped the boring white shirt and cummerbund for a black on black ensemble.  The US Ambassador (most likely outgoing with the new administration coming in) was the guest of honor.

The Marine Ball is fun mostly for the crowd.  Along with gaggles of very young and very clean cut marines (although we did meet one carrying his very own bottle of Patron Tequila), we get to chat with various attaches and representatives of both US and foreign government.  I learned a lot speaking with the US Coast Guard representative working with the Chinese equivalent.  China has the second largest civilian fleet under their flag (bonus points if you know that the largest is Panama).

Week 3:  Dinner at Carmen and Stuart's

Then there's last night.  With Lauren out of town, the girls and I were invited to our friends Carmen and Stuart's house for a dinner party.  The scotch was great and the food delicious.  But what set this night apart was the other guests.  Michael and Sharon are the incoming NY Times bureau chief and correspondent.  Shomak is the World Bank's transportation specialist in Beijing.  Arthur is managing editor of the China Economic Quarterly and Debbie is with the World Resources Institute.  Then there's Stuart - with 15 years in Beijing under his belt, he's the only non-Chinese manager in his private equity firm - and Carmen, who despite not being Jewish manages to lead a lot of the Jewish life in Beijing.

I felt the wise approach was to listen to these people as much as possible, and keep my mouth pretty much zipped.  The conversation ranged from a comparative study of corruption in early America, India, Russia, and China (did you know how Boss Tweed accumulated power?  Now I do!), to the merits of traditional Chinese medicine, to the futility of metaphors to describe how the mind works.  I chose my spots carefully and I think I got through without saying too much to embarrass myself.

This probably sounds like bragging; so be it.  It's just a lot of fun and I wanted to share it!