Day 2: GBBN

We all woke up around 6:30 this morning as we were meeting with GBBN partner Kimberly Patton. We met him and his new co-op Charlotte down in the lobby of our hotel. Charlotte graduated from Miami University and has two years of grad school for architecture remaining at UC. She will be working for GBBN’s Beijing office during Summer quarter. She actually sat a few rows in front of Zach and I on the plane and we had no idea. In fact, GBBN was waiting for her as well as ourselves at the airport. Oh well, we’re in China. Fifty-eight bucks split four ways isn’t so bad.

Anyway, Kim, Charlotte, and we Delts cabbed it to GBBN’s new office which is now located in a prime real estate area of the city. It’s a little strange not ever being able to see the sun through the haze. Perhaps we’ll catch a glimpse of it this afternoon. Basically what Kim did for us all today was give us a brief orientation about China and what it’s like being an American businessperson herein. We all sat down in the boardroom and we had an incredibly informative conversation. While I can’t relay everything via the internet, I will pass on to you all as much as possible.

We talked a great deal about the Chinese work ethic. The majority of people in China have a work to eat mentality. It’s not uncommon for a Chinese man to work 365 days a year. This makes it very difficult to find time to vacation or do much recreationally, thus eating out is a favorite pastime. Without a Judeo-Christian attitude about our existence, life holds far less value here. People die everyday on building sites whereas in America, it makes national headlines. They can and will be replaced. The Chinese do not like to be in debt, so if they desire to buy a car, they don’t until they can pay it in full. In business transactions, westerners often comment on how repetitive the Chinese are. It’s not that they’re trying to talk you around in circles, it’s that they wish to ensure understanding, especially considering there are more than 50 dialects in China with even the written characters varying. Procter & Gamble is the number one advertiser on Chinese television. People under 30 will give themselves a western name as they see themselves more global citizens instead of just Chinese. Beijing is growing by at least 16% per year, and most everything we see here has been built within the last 15 years. China is in an industrial revolution similar to where the US was 200 years ago. The Beijing Olympics is a chance for China to prove itself to the rest of the world. So much rides on this great event that the government is doing everything possible to clean up the city. Next week, every factory will be shut down until the olympics to stop emissions. Also, cars with even numbers at the end of their license plate aren’t permitted to drive on days that the odd ones are. Every inch of China is under surveillance, including the internet. So if you get busted driving on the wrong day, you will receive fines much like running a red light in Los Angeles (that however is not that big of a deal here).

Okay, well I’m sure that was a lot to take in, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. We all sent out a few emails to let everyone know we made it safely and then Kim took us up to the twenty-fifth floor of his building which happened to be vacant. Here we got an unreal view of the surrounding city. It’s incredible to think about how new it all really is. It’s said that you can stand anywhere in Beijing and turn 360º and seeing a crane is inevitable.

We went back down to the office and met senior project designer Jonny Hofmann. He and his wife and kids just recently moved to Beijing from the states. He speaks fluent mandarin and was a great help and source for information at lunch. Beneath the office building GBBN is in and spanning countless miles is a subterranean shopping center with floors upon floors of young hipsters cruising around shopping in high-end retail stores. We actually walked through it to get to a restaurant Kim frequents where they bought us lunch and fed us chinese dumplings for the first time. Dumplings are the shit. It’s becoming a trend that we just eat what’s in front of us despite our uncertainty as to what it is.

After a hearty meal, we all hopped in a van and Kim’s driver took us to one of GBBN’s work sites. It was an enormous residential rehabilitation will laborers running around all over the place. This was the first time we noticed that people use shovels and wheelbarrows instead of backhoes or bobcats.

After, we headed back to the office and made plans for the driver Li Ho (he’s the real deal) to pick us up at our hotel the next morning to go to the Great Wall with Charlotte and the UC crew. We then cabbed it back to Landmark and decided to walk around and find dinner. We walked around the block and found a really nice hotpot place. Hot pot is a type of chinese meal where the table has hot plates and you order a large pot of the soup of your choice to be heated very hot within. Then, a waitress brings over all the types of meat and vegetables you order and little by little boils it in the soup before serving it to you. It was so delicious. Neil’s problem with eating sauces came out and he struggled to convey that he wanted bbq sauce. This was our first time somewhere without anyone who speaks Chinese and it was quite interesting. No one really had any idea what we were saying to them, so we were reduced to thumbs ups, saying thank you and pointing at things in my little phrase book. It was actually a whole lot of fun.

After dinner, we just headed back to the hotel and crashed.