Intel visit - Expat Q&A

Our Intel trip was quite different from our Google visit. The focus was supposed to be towards expatriates in China. They have several expats that have been living in China for quite some time. I took notes for my friend Heather who will soon be an expat herself, even though it should be much easier in Australia than China.

• Being an expat is only possible if you are willing to make tradeoffs. This is especially true for people with children. You have to be willing to trade having an affordable education for your children in the US to having an expensive education in China. You must be willing to live on the other side of the world from the rest of your family.  If you are not flexible, being an expat will be really hard.

• Companies don’t tend to care about expat experience unless you are in a more senior position. They may respect that experience at a junior level, but not as much as if you were in a higher position. This is experience at Intel, which may not be transferrable to other companies.

• Many companies with expats create an American bubble so that their employees feel comfortable while overseas. They have neighborhoods, schools, and even English speaking drivers that are provided to expats. Intel even financially provides one trip back to the US each year to visit family.

• The easiest part of being an expat is going to work. The hardest part is everything else. Going to work is very similar to what it was in the US. Getting to work, living arrangements, and even grocery store shopping is going to be completely different. One expat told us that he learns as much about Chinese culture at grocery stores as he does in Chinese business meetings.

While much of this sounds a bit negative, the fact that there are so many people here shows how much people really enjoy living in China as an expat. One expat even said that his wife told him it would be okay if he wanted to return to the US, but he would be going by himself and she would keep the children with her in Beijing! So it is possible to make it work and make it a great experience.

Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square were actually walking distance from our hotel. Our hotel was on a pretty nicely commercialized street that is fairly famous in Beijing, named Wangfujing.

Since the Forbidden City is fairly centrally located, much of modern data city life surrounds it now, which takes away from some of the beauty. You can see that I wasn’t able to take a picture of the building overlooking the Forbidden City without also taking a picture of power lines.

Here is the back entrance into the Forbidden City. It got its name because it was forbidden for anyone other than the emperor and his concubines to enter the city. If there were any male help, they would have to be eunuchs. To quote the great Captain Jack Sparrow, "Snip snip!"

There were lots of large pieces of stone throughout as decoration. Every stone has a story and probably brings good luck. It seems as though every tradition the Chinese has is due to wanting to have better luck.

The city takes about 2 hours to walk through from one end to the other, so it was quite large and intricate. There were several buildings throughout that would either be the living quarters of the emperor, different concubines, or where the daily affairs would take place. There was also a building that housed the potential concubines for the women that were vying at the opportunity. Below are pictures of some of these buildings.

My roommate for the trip, Eugenie Lum, is in the middle, and another student Jennifer Woods is on the right.

Apparently they even had big screen TVs back then! :)

Here is a picture of one of Beijing’s skyline. Apparently the media was not allowed to broadcast pictures of it during the Olympics because it would show the haze. Beijing is so spread out compared to most cities in the US that there wasn’t just one skyline that really stood out.

While the Forbidden City was in use by the emperors, no buildings were allowed to be built larger than any of the buildings in the Forbidden City. That obviously is no longer the case.

The throne.

These are the stairs heading up to the throne.

Here is Steve, our TA. He’s originally from Shanghai so he was actually a tourist in Beijing along with the rest of us. This is the front of the Forbidden City across the street from Tiananmen Square. Mao Zedong is the one in the photo in the background. In order to get to Tiananmen Square, you must go in a tunnel under a street. They were checking the bags of the local Chinese citizens, but they let us and other foreigners through without a baggage check. The few Chinese people in our group were able to get through with us as well. I found it interesting they would essentially profile their own kind before they would profile us.

This reminded me quite a bit of Native American totem poles. I guess they are all over the world.

This picture was necessary to really explain gawking we encountered while there. The Chinese man in the middle of this photo was not part of our group but was instead staring at us, in particular a black student in our group named Edyth. When we first arrived to the Forbidden City, a Chinese person walked up to her from behind and a friend took a picture of both of them from 20 feet away, without asking her permission. She didn’t realize it was happening until it was done. Throughout the rest of the trip similar things would happen – sometimes they would ask permission to take a photo with her or others, and sometimes they wouldn’t. My picture was taken by two men that asked our TA’s permission first. I had a hard time understanding why they wanted our pictures. I know that since Chinese and other Asians are so much thinner than us in general, I thought they wanted to bring home proof how much fatter us Americans are. I soon found out that when these people see Americans, they tend to be retired, so they aren’t used to seeing young foreigners in such a large group. We have about 30 people in our group in total.

 

This is Tiananmen Square. It’s really hard to take a picture from ground level because it is so large, but you can get the idea at least.

Tiananmen Square.

Random

If you watched the Olympics in 2008, you'll recognize this building.  It's the Beijing National Stadium, more commonly referred to as "The Bird's Nest". 

What you've all been waiting for... The Great Wall!

The drive to the Great Wall took 1.5 – 2 hours. What is your first impression of the Great Wall, you may ask? Well, it was this strategically placed Subway.

It was actually a really steep walk up a cobbled road with street vendors on both sides all selling the same items: chopsticks, fans, table runners, t-shirts, more panda hats, etc.

We didn’t have to climb the entire mountain to get to the top even though it felt like it! We were able to use a cable car to get to the very top.

Below are some pictures taken at the Great Wall. It snowed the day before which caused everything to be very slick, so we had to be careful. You’ll also notice my panda hat always wanted to look a different direction than I did.

Notice one person sliding down the hill and another holding on to the wall.  It was pretty slick that day. 

Interesting food!

I know other cultures eat weird things, but I had no idea they eat wikipedias!!! HA! Apparently restaurants and other shops are more respected if they have English wording on their signs, and I guess that goes for menus too.

Temple of Heaven

This was an interesting place. It used to be a place of worship until it was banned. Now the older generation comes out to play cards and a hacky-sack type game. It was very beautiful, but we were definitely haggled by street vendors. I was suckered into buying a panda snowcap. Maybe Katherine will enjoy it during those cold San Diego winters??? ;)

One of our MBAs playing hacky sack with the locals. Then they sold it to us for 5 RMB ~ $0.33.

The three rings have symbolism – the bottom ring is the earth, the second ring are humans, and the third ring is heaven.

Google Pictures

So, if you read a few post ago, you'll remember that Liz visited Google in China.  She got some good information about it, and was pretty impressed with the people working there.  But, it was still a little odd.  They only allowed photos in two places.

-This was outside.  The person on the ground is Liz's TA.  Apparently, he came outside running to get into the picture.  Almost everyone warned him about the ice in front of the sign, but he still fell.  One person is reaching down to help him up while everyone else is laughing at him.  Good job everyone!

Here's the first picture that Liz got of herself, and it was the only place indoors they could take pictures at Google.  Hi Liz!  We missed you.  Hope to see you in some more of these, otherwise I won't believe you actually went to China.