Smoggy Shenzhen Town

Good evening, I must first apologize for the delay.  The last week and a half has been very busy and has provided us with some real tangible progress and piece of mind.  This post will be odd for me since I had already written a rather extensive one that managed to disappear from my computer before I could publish it.  Irrelevant at this point!

We finally took a step forward and hired one of the secretaries we first interviewed.  She is not so much a secretary, but more of an assistant/life coach for us boys here in China.  She has been immensely helpful so far in everything we've been needing, from getting our business cards printed out, to finding office space, to helping us navigate our rather complex cell phone contracts.  Cathy works as hard as we do, and it's not uncommon to receive an email from her at 11pm updating us on the progress she's made that evening.  We feel guilty giving her so little, but we are well informed that her price is normal if not a bit generous around here, and she's very excited to be working with native English speakers on something new and exciting.  

Our apartment is also squared away and we have been living there for almost a week now. I'm not sure how to efficiently post the photos I snapped with my phone, so there is a very good chance they'll end up trailing at the end of this post in a rather inconvenient fashion.  That aside, the bachelor pad we now occupy is 154 sq. meters or roughly 1200 sq ft, has central AC in the living room and kitchen and individual units in the bedrooms.  It is 37 floors up and sports a view of the hong kong border, shenzhen downtown, and the mountains not far in the distance.   When the sun is able to overcome our doing, it is actually quite nice.   Perhaps the most impressive thing has nothing to do with the apartment itself but the furniture we put into it.  We were shopping with our super (a great guy named Terry who has been very helpful so far) for furnishings and were looking at some dining room tables.  We came across one that looked great and had great chairs, but was a bit small for us.  The three of us tend to work either in bed or from the kitchen table, so having something large enough to support 3 laptops and requisite work accessories was important.  We said if it were 3 inches longer and 2 inches wider it'd be perfect.  They said no problem, and that it would be ready in two days time.     Linger on that for a second, because we certainly did.   NO PROBLEM?    Apparently not.  Considering the factory that made them was about 2o minutes away, and that custom orders are not unheard of, this was no big deal (something I still am amazed by).    OK, this is pretty cool, but how much will it cost?  And this is why I love China:  no extra cost.  Now, it is also important to note that I am used to Ikea furniture, having had it grace my living quarters for the last 5 years.  their furniture is not famous for its sound structural build or permanence, and anyone thats perused its aisles can attest to this fact.   We half expected a similar build quality but were again really quite surprised, this dining table was pretty damn solid.  I know it may seem an odd thing to dwell on, but imagine going into Jordan's furniture back home and saying "I need this table, 10% bigger, at no extra cost, and I want it in 3 days delivered and assembled at my house"   You would be forcibly removed then laughed at in the parking lot by no fewer than 12 employees.  

Well done China, well done indeed.

Marching Forward

I was afraid the title would be a bad pun, but in my haste I did not realize that it is in fact April (and it is well underway apparently).   Irrelevant.

Short of a good gash on my toe, everything has been running smoothly over the past week and a half.  South China remains cool and everyone is thankful for that fact, and the rainy season seems to be holding off as well.  The apartment has been signed and the furniture picked out.  We estimate a move in date sometime early next week, and of course, there will be pictures.  

We also realized that much of our time was spent figuring out basic logistical questions, and that the only way to make any real progress was to hunker down and get ourselves a secretary/aide to begin making real progress.  As it stands now, True Wind is not on the shelf, but merely taking a bit of a nap while we move forward to get cash in our pockets and experience under our rather tight belts.  

Our new girl, Cathy begins Monday (and will hopefully hit the ground running). Our newest website will begin construction this weekend and may be ready as early as next friday, and I'll be sure to sneak that in somewhere around here.

On a side note, I wish to congratulate the Red Sox on their home opener win.  I am scouring the interwebs for a Red Sox friendly establishment, but a few websites that help fans abroad are inaccessible for some reason.  Hooray odd censorship. Perhaps it is because basketball is so much more popular here.

This is the sound a tibia makes

The expatriate community around the south of China is largely comprised of Britainers, Aussies, Irish and the like.  Rugby is therefore, a big deal.  A really big deal.  We ventured out to Hong Kong last week for the Sevens Tournament, and saw celebrations on a scale I never really thought possible.  Every city has at least one rugby squad, comprised entirely of expats and sponsored by at least one Irish pub in their city.  

We were recently invited to travel up to Guanzhou with the Shekou Dragons (The Shenzhen expat rugby team of which Tom is a part of) to watch them take on their Guanzhou counterparts.  We had a hotel set up and one of the Guanzhou players owned an Irish pub directly next to this hotel, which made everything easy.   Everything was going well, and the game was 5 minutes from stoppage time when a thunderous, ungodly, unforgettable crack rang out from the pitch.  A few screams followed, and everyone went silent.  The largest guy on the Shenzhen team had decided rather than take a hit and go down, to run through two rather beastly Guanzhou boys (as he had been doing quite consistently all afternoon).  Luck had apparently turned her back on this maneuver however, and both his tibia and fibia decided staying whole was no longer an option.   

There are some places I would not mind breaking a large bone, downtown Boston perhaps, and there are places I wouldn't dream of it, maybe rural Africa or China. Guanzhou is really not very high on the list either.  This sentiment was apparently shared by the other members of both squads who flew through their contact lists and phoned up Hong Kong.  In an amazing display of comraderie, the other players organized to have him sent to Hong Kong and have his leg set by a sports injury specialist out there.  It was an impressive display and highlights perfectly the way people are taken care of by their peers in those type of situations.  

For Reference:  Guanzhou is located about an hour by train from Shenzhen, and was rated one of the mot polluted cities in China recently.  It seems that around here the sun only comes out on special occasions, and the combination of pollution and humidity make for an interesting fog/smog situation that keeps the days pretty grey out here for much of the time.  I am told that the rainy season, which will be beginning very soon, should help to reduce some of this, but it is really odd experiencing this level of pollution.  

Busy mind, tired body

Ideas fly around here all the time, and every expat has at least 6 different business ideas/pie-in-the-sky dreams for making it big out here.  The reality is that very few of this ever comes to light.  At night though, after a few pints, everyone gets into the same diatribes about how things here could function more efficiently or how millions could be made on any scheme.

The reality for us is that our original idea still stands, albeit with some modifications, but we have come up against many hurdles, and a new idea is in the works for us.  Time is an issue, as it is a program that would take place this summer, and we are moving quickly an aggressively to get it implemented as soon as possible.  

I am constantly brought back to the jewelry design convention I attended a while back.  One of the speakers kept hammering the mantra that brainstorming and planning are 10% of the picture, you can have a solid gold business model or plan, but you have nothing until you are able to implement it.  You can be smart, the smartest even, but it will get you nowhere without the ability to take proactive steps forward.  This is perhaps the toughest thing for me, and the rest of our group, and I would imagine we share this with 95% of the population at large.  

The next two weeks will be critical for us.

On a side note, I've signed up for rugby, and have a trip out to Guanzhou this weekend to participate/get destroyed by much larger people than me.  This will be interesting.