Lindheimer Family Blog

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.