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.

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.

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.

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.

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?