Studying for the HSK

I realize that I haven't written since the end of February, but I've actually got very good reason -- I've been studying my tail off for the official Chinese language test, the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi 汉语水平考试, better known as the HSK.  Although my time in China has been over for almost four months already, I don't want my year there to be for naught.  Considering I was more or less a beginner when I first arrived, you could argue that I know I can speak Chinese at a fairly decent level now.  However, it was a personal goal of mine to at least reach a solid intermediate level.  I even wrote what my goal was in this blog post.  My goal wasn't ever so concrete that I specifically said I wanted to take a test, but at the same time, it got me to constantly learn every day while not being in the country.

After leaving Shanghai, I kept saying to myself, "Sure, I'll sign up for the HSK," which is only offered here in Düsseldorf twice per year.  I handed in my registration the day before it closed, not wanting to wait until the fall to take it.  I had been a bit indecisive which level to take, either HSK3 or HSK4.  The main difference is the number of vocabulary words that appear (600 vs. 1200, cumulatively) and the grammatical concepts.  I decided to take level 3 because I figured I don't actually need the certificate for anything in particular, e.g. studying at a university or for a job.  I'm really glad I decided on level 3 because I soon realized there were a lot of gaps in my vocab and grammar that I needed to fill!  So here's how I spent the last few weeks studying.

Reflections on a Year Abroad...again.

It's been almost two months since I left China, but I haven't had time to sit down and really write anything meaningful. To sum up the last two months really quickly, Christian and I left China the day after Christmas because his visa expired on December 31. We flew to Hong Kong where we left all of our suitcases in his company's HK office, then went on vacation for three weeks in Australia. We went to Perth to visit my pen pal, then flew to Sydney (where it rained the whole time we were there), Port Douglas (where we saw the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree National Forest), and Melbourne (where we chilled). We then flew back to Hong Kong, picked up our luggage, and then flew back to Germany on January 20. Then I saw an incredibly cheap airfare home to New Jersey, so after two short weeks in Germany, I flew back home for Chinese New Year for ten days, and then came back to Düsseldorf. This means in the last eight weeks, I've flown over 20,000 miles, which is basically half of the circumference around the world. Whew.

All of the luggage we packed up and brought back to Germany from Shanghai

It's finally all sinking in that I've really left Shanghai and I've now had the last eight weeks to really think about life there. Being back in Germany isn't nearly as weird or as big of a struggle as when I left Berlin and moved back to Middlebury, Vermont. For one thing, I admire the fact that Düsseldorf is so empty compared to Shanghai and it's just so quiet. I don't have to worry about getting run over when crossing the street (not like in China, anyway). People don't shout as much. The subway is so quaint -- the new U-bahn line finally opened this weekend after several years under construction and there's a whopping five new stations that opened this past weekend. Admittedly, I laughed about this because Shanghai opened 22 new stations and a few new lines in one weekend, and that wasn't even the only new station and line openings I experienced in the 15 months I was there. I do realize labor is way cheaper in China, plus the government can basically do whatever it wants there.

It's funny reading my reflections on a year abroad after my year in Berlin. Back then, I said I learned a lot about myself, like that I was more independent than I thought, my academic limits had been pushed, and I was more open to new experiences. After a year in China, it's actually not that much different. Again, I've discovered my independence; instead of academic limits, I was pushed professionally; and being open to more experiences? Duh. To add one more thing to the list that didn't exist in Berlin -- I've learned about myself in terms of identity, but more about that in a bit.

Going to the Movies in China

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about going to the movies in Germany.  I lamented at the fact that there are breaks for long movies and that people don't audibly react whatever they're watching.  I also mentioned the fact that movies are either dubbed or not, and you're forced to watch them in 3D.  Now that I've been in China for over a year and seen a few movies, it's given me more perspective on seeing movies in the theater here, but it's also made me realize that how people watch movies is actually cultural.

Inside my local theater. If you look on the left, you'll see a rose-colored pillar.  It's so weird because they can't have anyone sit behind it.  Not very well planned out.

A Minority Becoming Part of the Majority

It's been awhile since I last wrote anything, and there have been times where I thought, "I should write about that."  But one particular topic that has come up time and again is my relationship to identity.  Being someone that went to a liberal arts college and has always been interested in the notion of identity, whether through media or external forces, living in China has really given me perspective.  So let's start at the beginning.

Let's play a game...where am I?  Answer: Just kidding, not in the pic.

Cultural Differences at Rock Shows

In the past two weeks, Christian and I saw one of my all-time favorite bands, OK Go, in Hong Kong and Shanghai.  Seeing them twice in a week made me think about why I sometimes go see bands multiple times on one tour -- even if the setlist is the same, each show is unique because of the crowd.  With this in mind, I thought about the fact that I've been to shows in multiple countries -- the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and now this year, South Korea, Hong Kong, and mainland China (I count HK as being separate from the mainland).  So having seen OK Go in four completely different places (the US, Germany, HK, and China), here's a comparison of seeing shows in those places.

OK Go in Shanghai

Life Behind the Great Firewall

Before coming to China, I knew about the Great Firewall, which is the Chinese government's attempt at regulating the internet.  In case you've never heard of it, it's basically a form of censorship where certain websites are inaccessible within China, including most of popular western social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress, Blogger, etc.), anything from Google (including Gmail), western news outlets (like the New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, etc.).

I've come to realize that basically all of the media I consume is blocked in China.  The only way I can access it is using a VPN, and even then, it still lags.  The Great Firewall brings everything down to a crawl, and if I want to upload one picture to Instagram, it could take me a good 10 minutes to do so with the VPN.  Sometimes going on the NY Times is impossible.  Quite often, the slow internet is so frustrating that I just don't go online and will just watch whatever's on TV instead (I've become a fan of Masterchef).

Basically, whenever you want to access a site that's blocked without a VPN, you get this:

Working in a Chinese office -- cultural + development differences

I've just recently reached the seven-month mark working here in Shanghai.  The company that I'm at was actually founded here by an Indian and an American, but the majority of my coworkers are Chinese (although we also have an office in Kuala Lumpur and one in Mumbai).  We're only a team of about 20 people in the Shanghai office, so comparing work styles between a Chinese, German, and American company isn't really possible since the other jobs I've had were at bigger companies.  However, there are a few things I've discovered working in China, and if you know me, I love lists.  So here are five things I've noticed about working in the Middle Kingdom.

Pictures of the office are boring. So here's a picture from Hangzhou's West Lake instead.

The Inevitable Post about Learning Chinese

I've now been living in Shanghai for six months, and it's inevitable that I write about learning the language.  Even before coming to China, I knew that not being able to really speak Mandarin but looking Chinese would be a hurdle, and I was right -- every day is a challenge when I communicate with people who look at me as if I have ten heads.  People really just don't seem to understand that it's possible to be Chinese but not speak the language.  I posted this video in a post I wrote before actually arriving in Shanghai, and it can't be stressed enough how true it is (except substitute Japanese for Chinese), even if the video presents the situation in an amusing light:

Differences Between Expats & Immigrants

Ever since I arrived here in Shanghai, I noticed there's a huge expat community here.  The magazines TimeOut Shanghai and City Weekend are every expat's guide to the city; they review restaurants, put up the latest happenings, list events, and so on, all in English.  One common thread that pops up regularly is how the expat community is in a constant state of flux, mostly because people continually come and go.  This got me thinking about the differences in the terms "expat" and "immigrant."

I renamed this blog "Expat Hoch Zwei," which is the English term "expat" mixed with "hoch zwei," which in German means "squared."  Expat squared because I was an American living in Germany who moved to China.  But am I really an expat squared?

The Oxford Dictionary defines each as follows:

expatriate (noun) - a person who lives outside their native country.
immigrant (noun) - a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.

I don't have images that would go well with this topic.  So here's an image from Zhangjiajie I took.

Chinese vs German Bureaucracy: A Comparison

The New York Times recently wrote an article about the Chinese middle class and the maze of red tape citizens here experience.  For example, the article talks about married women having to get a mandatory birth permit which actually expires after two years, and applying for student loans require as many as 26 official seals on various documents.  Although I've only been here for five months, I totally get that article.  And the funny thing is that I thought German bureaucracy was terrible.  It really isn't.  Here are some of my observations comparing the two, though of course this is only just scratching the surface.

Some of the paperwork required as a foreigner here in China.

Pictures are Worth 1,000 Words

I know I haven't written recently much, but there are so many topics I still want to cover that I haven't gotten around to: the pains of changing my visa, the difference between being an "expat" and an "immigrant," the joys of being an American-born Chinese person and struggling with the language, starting work in a Chinese office...but I admittedly haven't gotten around to it.  I'll get to those in the future, I promise.

What I've actually been doing a lot of recently is taking photos in the subway.  I have a 45-minute commute one way, so I have a long enough ride that I can people-watch.  And people-watching in the Shanghai subway is...interesting.  For one, everyone is on their smartphone watching videos and they ignore people they're with or forget to actually get off at the correct stop.  I even learned the term for these people in Mandarin -- 低头族 (ditou zu), smartphone addicts, or I think the literal rough translation would be "those who keep their heads bowed."  (I learned this from listening to some podcast)

There's been some really funny/odd/disgusting things I've seen in the subway, and I've sent them to some people swearing I need to start a blog or hashtag, #shitiseeontheshanghaisubway.  So here are things that I've seen and observed.

There's the odd exception:

I took this photo today in the Lujiazui subway station at rush hour.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shanghai, Lujiazui is the financial district.  Normally at rush hour, this station is overflowing with people shoving and elbowing their way onto the escalator, and it's total chaos.  Today, it was like an apocalyptic movie with it being the first day of the Chinese New Year holidays.  There was hardly anyone in the station.  I basically just went around taking pictures of the empty city, but this is the empty station, which is very rare indeed.

5 Apps Making My Life Easier in China

One major difference between the first time I moved abroad and this time around is having a smartphone.  Admittedly, I was a bit slow to jump on the smartphone bandwagon and only got one at the beginning of 2014.  My main reason to finally cave was because working at a tech company, my colleagues would laugh mercilessly at my old school Sony Ericsson, but I also wanted a new compact digital camera.  I figured I'd just get a phone with a great camera, which is why I decided to get *gasp* the Nokia Lumia 1020, a Windows Phone.

Since getting here to Shanghai, I've really come to appreciate having a Windows Phone because the native apps aren't blocked here.  Frankly, I don't get how Android works in China since the majority of Google services are blocked; even Gmail has been blocked via protocol (supposedly it's working again, but I haven't gotten any emails from my Gmail account on my phone for days).  Some may argue that there aren't any good WP apps available out there and everything is being developed for iOS and Android.  This may be true, but by doing some research and following sites like Windows Central, I've found some great apps that have helped me greatly here in China.  Here are five apps that have made adjusting to life here much easier.  (Note that I'm not including photo apps here because although they're great to have, these apps are really about adjusting to life here in China.)

Discovering Shanghai via Its Vinyl Stores

Not only have I been figuring out how to buy vinyl on Taobao.com, I also decided that in a city as big as Shanghai, there had to be some interesting record shops I could discover.  Again, the mentality is that maybe I can find interesting releases here easier than I could in Europe or North America.  But actually going out and finding local record shops was also a good way to go exploring the city.  I'm a huge proponent of public transportation, so this was also a great excuse to just ride around the metro.  Shanghai is full of so many enormous malls and chain stores that seeking out some hole-in-the-wall, locally owned stores just really appealed to me.

Admittedly, I first started searching online, entering "Shanghai record shop" and "Shanghai vinyl store" into Google.  I got a few articles, but most of them were from about two years ago or so.  Realizing how quickly the city is changing, I didn't expect all of them to still be around since it seems like two years here is an eternity.  Taking this article as my main point of reference along with this blog entry and this discussion on discogs.com, I mapped out six record shops I wanted to visit, all of which were on the Puxi side of the city.  (As an aside, one of the reasons why I'm writing this is to have updated information about these places out there.)

Based purely on location, I decided to first visit the so-called "lamp fixtures market store" because the nearest metro station is also on the 7 line, which is the closest line to where I live.  I found the market and the place where the shop supposedly was, but it looked closed.  Disappointed, I left and went to check out Uptown Records.  Similarly, I found the building where it was, but it too was not open.  I wasn't sure if it was right or not because the entrance is beneath a residence building and it looks like you'll get murdered (see third image below for reference). At that point, I wasn't about to trek out to the other stores only to end up feeling like I wasted a whole day in case they weren't open.  This was last Tuesday afternoon, and Uptown Records supposedly opened at 2.  I was there at around 2:30 in the afternoon, so I figured it must've just been a fluke.  Dejected, I went home and left the other shops for another day.

Determined to figure out if these two stores actually were still open, I searched the internet for contact information and wrote them in English and Google-translated Chinese.  The lamp fixtures market one wrote back saying he was still open.  I knew Uptown was still open because when I was there and trying to figure out if I was the right place, I asked an old lady outside the building if she knew the store.  All I could understand was that the day I visited, either the store wasn't open or was opening later.

Figuring Out Chinese E-Commerce Websites

Now that I've been here for about a month, I'm starting to get into the daily grind of living in China. Most of my time is spent job searching, discovering the city, or doing mundane tasks like grocery shopping. The latter two are always an adventure since there's something new I'm going to learn or discover. For most people, shopping online is nothing difficult, but living in a country where my literacy is very limited is a challenge.

In the last few years, I started buying vinyl records again because I like having the physical product. Quite often, new releases also come with an mp3 download code so I can listen on whatever digital device of my choosing. Additionally, I like a lot of music from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, so I just enjoy having the original records, which I have to buy secondhand. About two years ago or so, I went with a friend to Utrecht for the Mega Record & CD Fair where I looked for a lot of old Beatles records. I realized then that being an avid traveler, I could always go hunt for record shops while on vacation and perhaps find releases that would normally be harder to come by.

With that in mind, I thought that looking for records here in China would be interesting since western music isn't common here, and therefore, if there are releases that I could find, they're probably rare and/or fewer people are interested in them. Moreover, China is closer to Japan, which comparatively listens to a lot of western music, so finding Japanese releases here is easier than in either Germany or the United States. Having thought this out, I decided to try out Taobao.com, China's answer to eBay and Amazon. Essentially, it's an e-commerce site that connects small businesses to people and you can find everything under the sun there, including secondhand wares.

Job Search & Interviewing Adventures in China

I've now been in Shanghai for about four weeks keeping myself busy by looking for jobs -- sending out resumes, going to job fairs, doing interviews, and networking a lot. It's definitely been a learning experience and at times has been surprising, frustrating, and enlightening. There are some commonalities between the United States, Germany, and China, like having to send a CV and cover letter, dressing for success, and all those other things you'll find articles about on LinkedIn. I wound up getting my own business cards printed here because I had read that handing them out here is more common than in the U.S. or Germany. I have to agree that this does seem to be the norm here, but as the last time I was on the job hunt was when I had finished my master's, it's a bit different selling myself with my work experience. But there are three things that I've noticed are very unique to my experience looking for a job here in China.

(As a quick side note, I don't have any fitting images to work with this entry, so I'm just adding ones I've taken around Shanghai because they won't end up with other blog entries anyway.)

Looking up at the Jinmao Tower in Lujiazui, the financial district of Shanghai.

Spotify vs. Taylor Swift vs. The Listener

I know that recently I've been posting a lot about moving to Shanghai, but with the news going on regarding Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify, I needed to throw my two cents into the conversation and go back to talking about pop culture.  So bear with me.

In case you're living under a rock (or in my case, living in China and a bit far removed from western pop culture news), Taylor Swift released her fifth album this week, 1989.  However, the album isn't on Spotify; in fact, she pulled her entire catalog from the streaming service except for one song.  She explained:

"In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently."

Even so, her album is setting records, her decision to keep her music off Spotify is being intensely debated, and basically, you can't escape Taylor Swift in the media.

As a free Spotify user, I'm torn.  I don't actually listen to Taylor Swift, and, wanting to know what the hype was about, I checked out the first single off 1989, "Shake It Off."  (I keep thinking it should be "Take It Off," but then I remember that was from The Donnas.)  Because I can't listen to it on Spotify, I decided to turn to Vevo and watch her music video, which I happily discovered was directed by Mark Romanek:

First Impressions of Shanghai

I've been in Shanghai for a little over a week now.  I haven't even scratched the surface of this enormous city, but I do have my first five impressions.  So here they are:

1.  Shanghai is like living in the future.  

Or Blade Runner.  Seriously.  This is what the city looks like on a beautiful sunny day fairly free of smog:

The skyscrapers are so high, and everything is just so futuristic and shiny.  The Oriental Pearl Tower (the TV tower thing on the left side of the photo) sort of reminds me of what Disneyworld thinks the future should be like in Tomorrowland.  If you don't know what I mean, take a look at this picture I took in 2009 from Hong Kong Disney's Tomorrowland.  The Oriental Pearl Tower totally belongs in that weird idea of the future.  Next time I get around to taking a picture of the city at night, I'll be sure to post it since I'm positive it will definitely look like Blade Runner.

Some thoughts about moving to a new country (and packing for it)

As I enjoy my last day in Düsseldorf, there are lots of thoughts going through my head.  I remember the first time I moved abroad back in 2005 as a college student -- I actually sobbed to my mother for three hours.  Maybe more.  I recall wailing to her, "But why am I even going abroad?!  I feel comfortable where I am and I like it here!!  What am I doing?!?"  Nine years later, eight of which have been spent outside the U.S., I can only laugh at my college self and think, "How cute."  Because honestly, I wouldn't change the last nine years at all.

I have the feeling that in Shanghai, I will constantly be comparing it to my German experience.  I realize though that this is unfair.  Düsseldorf consistently ranks in the top 10 most livable cities in Europe, if not the world, according to the Mercer Quality of Living Survey.  On the other hand, China ranks as the number one country for expats according to the BBC.  But does living as an expat actually mean a good quality of life?  I don't think it necessarily does, but this will probably be one of the bigger questions I answer in China.

One thing that worries me about living in China is being Chinese-American, but my Mandarin is only so-so.  Of course, I'm eager to improve it, but there is an expectation that if you look Asian, you speak the local language.  It's a common problem in Asia that I encountered in Beijing, Tokyo, and Kyoto.  The attitude is, "Why don't you speak the local language?  You're Asian!"  This video sums up my experience really well:

I'm going to be an expat squared. Or expat hoch zwei.

It's been awhile since I wrote about being an expat, but it turns out I'm moving to Shanghai on Thursday.  Yes, in 72 hours I will be sitting on a plane on my way to China.  It's kind of crazy to think that after eight years of living in Germany, I'm moving to a new country and not back to the U.S.  I never thought I'd actually have the chance to move to China even though I've been saying I would like to do it for a really long time.

You might've noticed I've renamed this blog from "Deutschland, na klar!" ("Germany, of course!" which was basically the title of my German grammar book in college) to "Expat Hoch Zwei," which is a mix of English and German.  It means "Expat Squared."  I actually wanted to rename it "Expat Squared," but doing a quick Google search brought me to another blog that someone else got to before me.  Oh well.

So, tschüß, Düsseldorf:

The question is...what have I been doing up to now?

How a steak & potatoes girl became a staunch supporter of Meat Free Monday

Yesterday was the UN Climate Summit in New York City, which basically discussed what the world can do to slow down climate change.  I've always been a green person that's taken interest in the environment, trying to conserve and not produce waste.  But I love steak and potatoes.  It's one of my favorite meals.  When I was in the U.S. this past August, this is what I ate and it was probably one of the best meals I've ever eaten:

I don't regret it one bit.  That was a really, really delicious steak.  I will admit it -- I like to eat meat.  Even so, one particular group that I've become a staunch supporter of is Meat Free Monday.  The idea behind the group is simple: the livestock sector (read: meat) is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, and by reducing the amount of meat we consume, we can make a difference.  By having one meat-free day per week, we can reduce greenhouse emissions significantly.  I've actually gotten so used to not including meat in what I cook that I actually do the reverse -- I eat meat maybe only once a week, if that.  So how did a steak & potatoes girl end up eating meat so rarely?