China Mobile---Mike

Monday, January 16, 2012

Quiet morning—routine is really settling in. Workout, cleanup, breakfast, scripture study, and off to work. We did Skype with Tina this morning briefly, though she is always doing weird things in front of the camera, so it’s hard to take her seriously. J The Monday Morning Staff Meeting, where we call the Shanghai office to compare notes on the week’s plan. After, I got to hand out the annual bonuses to everyone as part of the Chinese New Year’s celebration. It’s customary for employers and family to hand out money at the start of their new year in bright red envelopes called “hong bao.”   It’s just the right size for money, normally, but I was handing out a letter explaining what would be in their paycheck at the end of the week, so the ones I picked up were larger. The folks in the office were surprised that I knew about the culture so much that I knew about hong bao, and they were happy with the bonus (equal to one month of their salary), of course, so if I committed any faux pas, they didn’t share it with me. Mission accomplished!

Afternoon

Our office manager, Angela, is back today from her tour across the states, so we decided to have her help us get cell phones. She warned us, however, that it would take at least 90 minutes there in line at China Mobile, so Tracy opted to spend the afternoon poolside instead. So, Angela had an errand or two to run, and I had to get Tracy’s passport from the hotel, so we agreed to meet at the China Mobile store. After getting to the correct subway stop, and coming to the surface, I quickly found the correct shopping center sign . . . on a small, shabby building literally in the middle of the road. I’m not kidding—it looked like a small storage shed. I crossed half the street, and went through the door (that looked like they were still working on it, BTW. At this point, I was REALLY glad that Tracy wasn’t with me!). As I descended, I went into a dimly lit hallway that had small shops set up on either side. I really gotta start carrying my camera with me—this stuff is too priceless to not show everyone. So, I finally found the store, and went in to try to get a number for the waiting line, like Angela had asked me. She hadn’t finished her other things to do yet, so she was going to be a bit longer. However, they wouldn’t give me a number without interviewing me, so fifteen minutes later, and a painful conversation in broken English (and not even broken Chinese effort on my part, so their effort was way better than mine!), I still didn’t have a number. Grrr. But then I found out that the computer that programs the sim cards (you have to buy a sim card and phone separately here) was down, so I’d need to come back tomorrow anyway. The good news is that I went home a bit early, and I’ll try to remember the camera tomorrow!

When I got back to the room, Tracy had ordered room service—spaghetti for dinner tonight!