contact me at:
justin (@) deepdrift dot com
GyozaQuest is a non profitable site,
Subject: The soil Engineer...
Is it a wrong to be a soil engineer?
A soil engineer is the person who figures out how to lay foundations on unstable soils. Essentially his job is to build houses on sand. Anyhow, that was the profession of one of the people In my group in Shanghai. Nice guy though, what happens when a doctoral student in Hong Kong is given a position at a university in Nanjing? Well since his Mandarin isn't that good, he's teaching in English. His specialty "soil liquefaction" Irony...
I guess one of the stranger things about this man is that he noticed the petzl sticker on my computer. He's a rock climber. Rocks, and houses built on sand. Hmm... there's got to be a good sermon about not building your house on sandy land.
Anyhow in the afternoon of my last day, my friend took me out to Xu Jia Hui. We took the bus from Pudong. It was quite a trek, I would have taken the subway, but he claimed that it was just as fast. It took about an hour, and cost 2 yuan a person.
Xu Jia Hui, is in Pu Xi. The lights are pretty bright on this street. This was the proof that even though there are expansive malls all over Shanghai, this one might be one of the better planned. So we went to the top of this one and I got my hair cut. It still cost quite a bit, by American standards. But this was at a women's hair salon, and it took an hour an a half, including a 45 minute scalp massage, deep conditioning, and a head and neck massage, plus because the head stylist was busy, they threw in an arm and hand massage. My hair feels so luscious now! I was in heaven. And this wasn't in a cheap sleazy place. Had my Mandarin been better, I would have gotten the whole deal, and put some highlights in my hair too.
So afterwards we went downstairs to wait at the KFC for my sales manager, who had invited me over his house for dinner. Quite a feast, and I was hoping that my friend was willing to come over, but alas, he had other plans. I think he was on a date with his girlfriend.
I didn't want my manager to walk all the way down from his apartment. In fact he didn't bat an eye at driving 2 blocks around the corner to pick me up. Plus he broke his ankle the other day. Most parents with a 10 month old wouldn't even leave the house for such a trivial matter. But yet, our sales manager has _two_ Ai-Yi's, kind of an au-pair, that cooks, cleans, and takes care of the kids to boot, plus his live with his kids so he doesn't have to get up in the night to feed them. One for each kid. Of course, it's humbling when you're trying to reason with a three year old who's mandarin is better than yours, and he's asking you if I have a Jaguar, or Ferrari. I guess even in China, boys still like cars.
Anyhow, the ma-po dofu, spare ribs, fish, baby bok choi, and hairy crab were excellent. I wonder how much his wife prepared, and how much was prepared by the two Ai-yi's.
So this is my dilemma, live way out in the middle of nowhere in Pudong, with the frat house atmosphere, amongst all those young engineers working all those long crazy hours; or live in Pu Xi, what could arguably be quite a more cosmopolitan environment. The money might be better, but I would need to hire a personal mandarin tutor, for say two months at 3 hours a week.
Right now I'm leaning towards pushing my company for an internal
transfer, although I don't know how much this would change my job.
I'm back in Cambridge now, and am not sure quite where my home is
now.