Archive for January, 2009

Big in China

Posted on January 9th, 2009

Last night I co-hosted the company annual dinner (as the token foreigner). Like the previous one it was a pretty big occasion with over 500 employees crammed into a massive banquet hall to enjoy three hours of variety shows, eating and drinking. Talking in front of such a large crowd for the first time was pretty nerve wracking but it seemed to go OK and the audience got a laugh out my pigeon-Mandarin attempts. I hadn’t noticed untill yesterday just how much taller I am compared to the average Chinese person here! You can guess which I am in the top picture but at 5’10″ (178cm) I’m not exactly a giant either. Suprisingly the average Chinese male is 5’8″ (172cm) compared the the average…

Deconstructing Mandarin Chinese

Posted on January 4th, 2009

One of my goals for this year is to learn spoken Mandarin Chinese. Given that I live and work in China it only makes sense that I learn the language which will ultimately help improve both hopefully. Also given that Mandarin is one of the harder languages to learn (hard as in virtually impossible if you want to read as well as speak it) I am not expecting an easy ride. Last year I read an intriguing article by the author and self proclaimed “life hacker” Tim Ferris titled “How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour“. He reasons that before you invest a lot of time on a language you should first deconstruct it into its core components by examining…

2009 Goals

Posted on January 3rd, 2009

Looking back 2008 was a pretty good year on balance. My largest personal achievement was relocating to China from London, starting a new job and effectively a new life here. I’ve been in Shenzhen for four months now and am still enjoying everyday for the most part. A few years ago I would never have imagined having the confidence to be able to do this and now looking back if I hadn’t taken the leap into the unknown I would always have regretted it. I think there’s a lot to be said for avoiding the malaise of the “comfort zone” by forcing yourself to change and by doing so learn something new while gaining valuable experience. As a record to try and energise myself…

Window of the World

Posted on January 1st, 2009

As New Years Eve‘s go I think mine probably ranked among the most surreal. After work some colleagues and myself went to the “Window of the World” theme park located in the western part of Shenzhen. The 48 hectare park contains over 130 scale reproductions of some of the most famous tourist attractions in the world including a 108 meter tall fake Eiffel Tower. In China they never do things in halves and although I’m somewhat used to brash and vulgar displays of wealth around here this takes it to another level. Above: replica of the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre in Paris but here actually an entrance to the Metro! Getting into the park proved to be a rather unpleasant experience due…

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