Shanghai Shift

Georges (Clooney) était en moi ce matin.

Hier soir, en tentant d’accéder au proxy de mon bureau pour pouvoir visiter des sites web normalement gentiment reconduit à la frontières par le Great Fire Wall (oh que c’est mal), j’obtiens une inquiétante fin de non-recevoir.

J’ai dis inquiétante ? Cela le devient d’autant plus quand mes tentatives d’accès à distance au réseau de l’entreprise se soldent par un mutisme des plus total.

Je n’en dors pas moins des plus profondément, d’un sommeil sans rêve, dont j’ai le secret.

Au matin (que dis-je : à l’aube), au bureau, le constat est sans appel : le serveur Linux qui nous sert de routeur a rendu l’âme.

Toutes mes tentatives de réanimation sont sans effets. Le bougre semble sans vie (seuls quelques tressautements sur l’électro, faisant probablement échos à mes massages).

L’autopsie me parait inévitable (aucun signe apparent de maltraitance). Le malheureux semble certes mal entretenu (ce n’est pas le trop plein d’hygiène qui l’a étouffé), mais tous semble être à sa place.

Ah, à y regarder de plus prêt … mais … oui, voilà ! Ici, là-même où l’air devrait circuler pour refroidir le bonhomme brassant sans relâche à longueur de journée des paquets de données qui, sans lui, seraient bien incapables de retrouver leur chemin dans les limbes du réseau (oui, oui quand même, c’est la Chine ici), là-même donc, un tendon avait lâché.   Le poumon n’alimentant plus le cerveau, un mécanisme de survie lui commande de s’évanouir. La nature est bien faite. Mais la nature, en Chine, est fragile. Si, si.

Ah bah, y-a qu’a regarder mon bon monsieur, le même ostrogoth de la famille Intel s’en sort mieux que feu notre ami made in China.
(Nous omettrons ici de parler de la localisation des usines de fabrication d’Intel, qui mettrait à mal toute ma théorie)

Oui, enfin, n’allons pas si vite en besogne, ne l’enterrons pas sans une dernière tentative de retour à la vie.

La main tremblante (trop plein de café, et pas d’émotion, n’exagérons rien tout de même), je me lance dans une opération de transplantation/greffe des plus délicates (venant de deux lignées différentes, la compatibilité n’est pas garantie).

Au moment de relancer le cœur (oui, oui, il n’en a qu’un, ce n’est qu’un routeur bon sang !), le doute m’assaille : à jouer les Dr. Frankenstein ne risquerais-je pas de créer un monstre ?

Mais il est déjà trop tard, la bête reprend vie.

IPCop Login : _

Not called gondola, but they can sing too

Through the "window"

When my French colleague is not around (that happen quite often), I do enjoy a quick lunch.
What's amazing about this place is the way you are welcomed.

Hmm, in fact maybe not you. Just me.
When I pass the door, all (literally) the staff turn their attention to me. Could be annoying if it was not so cute.
Salute me by my name, questioning me about things they don't really care (or maybe they do ...) etc.

I kind of thought all this attention was the same for all customers. A good commercial approach.
But, I was observing closely how they behave with all "the others" (not like I had anything else to do, while eating alone). I am here including all the other foreigners that, it is true, got a much better treatment anywhere anyway. And there is quite a few in the surrounding.
Proper attitude, but nothing like my overwhelming (but kind) welcome.

So I am special here (there). Had any doubt about that ?

One to another in Mandarin: "Does he speaks Chinese by the way ?"

Another starting reply: "No, he doesn'..."

Me: "Yes, 'he' does; a little"

I gained more points here. But, somehow, I knew what was coming next. I mean the kind of deep talk that will follow. Do I look disillusioned here ? No, no. But it is really always like that. No kidding.

In Chinese : "Oh! really ?" But you have to know (if not aware already) that there is a lot of foreign people here that speaks Chinese way better than me. So I still don't know why they always assume that foreigners don't speak it, when probably half of the foreign population got some strong basis (my bet).

"Ya, well, not so good, but I do my best"

"'You are so handsome' you know what it means ?"

"Yes, yes"

So she repeated it. Ya, ya, I guess it cannot hurt to hear things like that. Always good for your ego. Or ... maybe not ?
Then she described why she thinks so, backed up by the others. (Ah ya, I forgot to say they are girls; like every single worker in China; I don't know exactly what men do here ... I don't see many working. Maybe sitting in front of TV watching soccer game, who knows).

But, just thinking about it, this can be a good opportunity to use some other Chinese than my everyday boring Cab Chinese ... (listening to all the taxi driver telling me how pretty are the French girls, the most pretty in the world, you shall never doubt about that).
I'll keep you informed.

Let's go in some photo shop for a bunch of ID picts. (For my Visa, you remember ?)

In the back of the shop.

"- Sit here. Want a red background ?"

"- White will be fine, thanks" (red ? don't even want to consider that option)

"- look at me. Lower your shoulder"

"- ..."

"- more please"

"- that's all you gonna get, i have some physical limitation you know" (funnily my shoulders cannot go any lower than where they belong)

Shot.

"- 'like it ?" (showing me the taken shot)

You probably already heard of the "Love China" leitmotif tsunami (believe me).
You probably heard of some "riots" against the terrible French man (not in Shanghai) .

"More than 80,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in China last year, making the country's roads the deadliest in the world."
I am surprised...

"A 1993 nude photo of Carla Bruni, French President Sarkozy's wife, has been sold at Christie's in NYC for $91,000 to an unnamed Chinese art collector"
Apparently, the call for a the boycott of French products in China hasn't reached the French First Lady's body.

"Coca-Cola Zero makes Shanghai debut"
Ah ... you cannot understand ... here everything is just so NOT light. This was a must.

"China, already the world leader in cellphone use, has surpassed the USA as the No. 1 nation in Internet users."
But to be fair, the percentage of American users — 71% — still exceeds China's 17%.
China has 1.3 billion people, compared with nearly 304 million in the US.

On TV, when they have nothing else to do, they put this video on.

It is scary. Really looks like this kind of anticipation books or movies. "How to be a good citizen in Delta City, officer Alex Murphy will show you the way".

But, something like that is needed. Good manners rule China everyday life in your business environment (protocol) or your friends (of course). Out of that, it is back to the wide wild world, ruled by the strongest brutal force.

But people says that things are changing.

Yes, this was my first week.

Not really over busy, but I can see the amount of work coming. Huge.
People are nice, even if my Chinese team is not super talkative (I'd like to add "yet").

It is clear that Paris and Shanghai do not understand each other.
We will see if my communication skill worth something is that particular scenario.

By the end of next week, I will be back in Paris. After exactly two months away.
Not much, that is true. But I know that I will enjoy few things back there. Like ... probably wine every single day (yes, yes, I can do that).

But let's go back to my working environment. About my first day :

The last interview I had, we talked about the working hours. I just mention that I am not familiar with the traffic during rush hours so I might be a bit late the first day. Or not. He told me that people arrive by 9 something, but are definitely there at 9:30. OK. But considering it is my first day, I can arrive at 10, no one will blame me. OK good.

Those of you that know me a bit, know that even I say I might be a bit late, I am on time. So I was there at 9:20, a bit stress by the idea of being the last one.
The office was empty. Like ... really empty. First I thought they went to a Café or something (ya, cannot be a Café I know) for a Monday global meeting. So I called my boss. No answer. Then I thought about a joke. Something like a welcome joke. But ... 9:40 still no one.
They arrived by 9:45 or so, and my boss by 10. Hey, you know, it is Eastern Monday, "they" know there won't be anyone in France anyway ...
OK, OK. But next day was the same ... maybe a little bit earlier. So in fact, no one before 9:30.

But since my boss went back to France, where he belongs, I'm the boss there. So, I guess I have to be there before them, and left after them.
I'll talk about them later, but somehow, they are "funny".

It was under negotiation process for few weeks now, but it is official now : I'm gonna start my new job on Monday.
A week of introduction in Shanghai, then a short time in Paris for the same purpose, but to know the people on the other side.
Well, as you've probably guessed by now, it is a French company. I'll be managing quite a big team, of Chinese ! It will be something.
Fun will start now.

So here are some pictures of Shanghai. Under daylight this time.
First, the less Shanghai style of Shanghai : Xin tian di.

Under that name is hidden a kind a refugee camp for all the westerners.
They are held there so they can feel happy, just like in an idyllic city of Europe.

Xin Tian Di - Shanghai - China

Friday night, 11pm.
This is Nanjing East Road. I would compare it to our Champs-Elysées (or maybe The Bund is closer to it, but anyway, it is a famous big street).
And it was empty. Night life is more is the bar and the night club I guess.

We were invited to our (my) first expat party.

In fact we were invited by a friend, and I seriously didn't expected something like that.
What was "that" ? Well, first : the place. It was in a super restricted high class houses complex...
I guess that what's go with "expat". But still, impressive.

More : the food. It was a banquet. With great homemade amuse-bouche. Wine, champagne, high quality western food.
Even more : the people. Was invited quite a lot of people. Actually this is the kind of meeting I don't like.
It just like in the movies. Standing in the middle of people to don't know, keep introducing yourself. Repeating the same story (at the beginning, for your own sake your try to generate different version of your story, but after a while you get tired of that exercise), listening to everyone's story. Trying to entertain people's conversation ...

Anyway, It was nice, and it showed me another face of Shanghai : the expats' one.
And I collected a bunch of name cards. And some extra contacts for finding a job.

Last week end we bought a TV.
It was a long time we planned to buy a HD TV. But it would have been stupid to buy one in France knowing we were going to move in another country soon (China or another). Now that we are starting to settle down, it was to hard to resist.

Buying something in China is always amazing (for me).
We went into that nice, clean, high ranked store to do some price check of the models we were interested in.
The guy told us a price (reasonable to my un-experimented opinion).
Then we went to a more "price-killer" place. OK let's say the price on the label was 100. When you ask for the price (if you dare asking in France, they will tell you that the price is on label ...) it automatically drops to 80 (so you can feel you made a good deal). And if you insist and negotiate, it will drop to 60. But for some reason we didn't wanted to buy in this place, so we went back to the original store (the neat and clean one), asked for the price again, said that we saw it for 60, where ? there; so he call his boss, and finally accept the deal.
Delivery ? Within the day (it was already 2:30pm). Can you imagine going to FNAC and bargain ?

TV plugged. It is something. I cannot tell about Bluray Disc yet; still in the boat and cannot buy any in China, but the Playstation games are definitely totally different (read: incredible) !
Few days ago, we bought two real (yes!) DVDs for a cheaper price than what you can find in France or the western world in general. One is from the Europe zone and works perfectly and the other one is Chinese zone and does not work at all on the Playstation (my DVD player).
So yesterday I went out in the street, buy some "homemade" DVDs. I am surprised to see Bluray jackets ... so I asked the reseller. Yes, yes of course it is Bluray disc. Hmm, for 50cents (euro cents) I was a bit suspicious. And I knew that if it was really some BD I wouldn't be able to read them. But for what they cost, I can take the chance. And of course it was DVDs. Super well rendered on this huge screen. But, still, DVDs.