First Week

Well the first week has been pretty interesting to say the least. I got into my room on Sunday night (the 4th) and got settled in. Started looking around and noticed we have some mold growing on the walls. Crap. This has been an ongoing issue. I cranked my AC down like I like it and set up shop. I have two bedrooms for those that don’t know. I decided the first night to sleep in the master. Bigger bed, but hard as a rock. I couldn’t sleep a damn in it. It felt like I was sleeping on a box spring. I woke up probably every 20min throughout the night. Goto take a shower in the morning and I have a lot of hot water, but the shower head is not flush to the wall. I hear from a lot of the expats debate about whether the Chinese rushed this construction or if they cut corners, I can tell you they did. Not huge stuff, but if there were two screws that should go in, they put one. Doesn’t seem big, but when you tug on something a little, one screw doesn’t hold as good as two.

Work wise, things have been really good. The people are very nice, very friendly, and willing to help me out with whatever. I’ve met a lot of people and am still having trouble remembering everyone’s names. We have 4 Italians, 1 South African, 1 Filipino, 6 or so Americans and many more Chinese in my group. It’s like UN when you think about it. My desk however is a bit of a mess. I came to a desk that someone had been using. So I had all of their crap everywhere. I was told that the problem is in that we are gonna be rearranging everyone’s desk when the manager gets back from his home leave, next week. So for now I have just had to deal. I can deal with that, I can’t deal with the crappy chair. It’s a mesh chair which provides no support for my back whatsoever. When he gets back I’m gonna work on getting myself a new chair.

On Wednesday this week I finally got an opportunity to go out into the construction site. I got to walk around and see some engineering marvels at work. In all fazes of construction you can see some massive equipment, massive amounts of dirt, and tons of laborers trying to get these plants built. It’s wicked impressive. Spent about 2hrs roundtrip sight seeing which was awesome, sweaty, but awesome. Again, the Chinese stare, but I’m getting used to that. But it is obvious I am not built like a China man. The reflective vest (same thing the street constructors wear) that they got me is a 4XL. I mean, I might be fat, but I wear XL clothing, sometimes even L, never that big. It’s a little big on me, but I guess the 3XL is way smaller, guess I will have to deal and/or lose weight.

The only other things going on are that I will be moving out of my current apartment and into the on-site hotel for about a week, so they can come clean my place and hopefully get rid of the entire mold issue. Let’s see how it goes. The one thing we were told by the Owner via our HR Director in China was that they said the mold problem only happens in the rainy season which supposedly ended yesterday (yeah right), that the Chinese deal with it (so what), and that if we had more people in 3 bedroom apts that it wouldn’t have occurred (what?!?!?). Guess with more people the more spores they breathe in, and that would prevent the mold from growing on the walls? Whatever. When I do move back in I am also calling to get the extra channels. Watching BBC and CNN in English is nice, but when those are the only two English speaking channels, you get kinda bored. So they have 4 channels to add, woo woo!

One funny thing that happened recently was that I had to go into town to get some passport photos (need 8 for my work visa…) and to hit up the grocery store. As I am walking around, my rockstar status is obvious, even so that an old man came up to me laughing and started to rub my belly. He was so happy he got to do that, I think it might have added 10 years to the end of his life. I’m glad I could be of service! Supermarket was another experience. They have a lot of flashy packaging with bright and pretty colors, but almost none of it shows what is actually inside of the box and the pictures never show any food, unless inside of the box actually contains a big smiling China man’s head…. The smells in certain sections were also impressive. One area in particular had a collection of dried seafood with mosquitoes and all (minnows, bigger fish, sting rays, etc.).

I leave you with this last nugget. I am at the grocery store, looking for cleaning supplies. While being followed through the store by a 20 something year old guy smiling, laughing, and just staring at me. He walks near me still staring and farts really loudly. I look at him, and without blinking an eye, I fart right back. He starts dying of laughter and runs away (I assume to tell all of his friends, or to avoid my stench). Either way, we had a bond there for a second.

El Cubanito, bridging gaps with other cultures through bodily noises, since 1983…