迷失的老美

Another backdate, but almost up to date now.

So, I came back with a hot job prospect at LRW.  You can tell by the title that that fell through like a rock.  I was overconfident and it bit me in the ass.  In retrospect, however, it was a good thing that I didn’t get that job, despite the good pay it offered.  Turns out it was a burnout position in a department with 80% turnover.  I’m sure I would have been able to handle it, but it was more of a “cog in the machine” job, which is something I cannot handle.  I frittered away money and time, moving from the motel into a weekly rental which was overpriced on the notion that I could move at anytime.  A rental car on the basis that it is impossible to buy a car without a job first and the rentals were not too expensive… compared to taxis at least.  I did about 3-5 interviews a week all over LA.  Waking up, driving across the valley to pick up Jude and let her get some driving practice in on the way to school, hanging out at Starbucks and hitting up every opening there was.  Lots of interviews, no biters.  Like a damned curse.

I finally landed a part-time gig at a call center as a last resort, or out of desperation at least.  $10 an hour, the lowest of the low in market research.  It was motivation to work harder in landing something real.  I don’t need to go too much into detail, but I am going to list the companies which pissed me off.  They are the ones who called me in for interview and NEVER responded in any way at all, which is just disgusting.

So, fuck the following companies, and yes, I am naming names:

Magnify360 - Benoit: You had me in twice and then ignored me and lied to me about the position

OTX - Ryan Murillo: Not a fit for the position that I wasn’t going for and then ignoring me

ABCSearch - Dan: You called me in, were enthusiastic and then nadda, bad form

ePoll - Michelle Waxman & Susam Butler: The first had me do actual work as a follow up and I got no response.  The second expressed great interest in me and then nadda, again.

There were a few others which were not as severe, and I can forgive them.  But those above, if you find your names on this blog and want them removed, provide me with feedback and we’ll see.  Until then, names and companies stay mentioned.  Assholes.  I paid good money for gas and parking to haul my ass over to your offices on your time schedule.  Spent the money to dryclean the suit and have it pressed.  An interview is an investment and the very least I expect back is for you to tell me why I was not a fit and maybe even give me some advice.  Do that for me and I will respect you regardless of the outcome.

(Flash forward to present time, I have a job now, it is a good job, 1099 status, but it’s a company I am really digging and is full of great people.  I hope to go far here)

It’s really not all that difficult, if you can believe that, and here it is.

1) You need to have the rabies shots up to date and no fresher than 30 days from departure.
2) You have to have the burgundy book for the cat.
3) There must be a health inspection done at a vet that is certified by the government, and then you wait 3 days to get a stamped and certified document. This is good for 14 days, then you have to do it again.
4) Take this document to the export building and get an export certificate (this is actually free)
5) At this point, your cost is about 300 RMB
6) Airlines - DO NOT FLY A DOMESTIC AIRLINE. none of them accept pets, you are going to have to fly a US airline.  And you must alert them in advance, like when you are booking to ensure they have a space open for the cat.
7) The carriers they sell in the pet shops do NOT meet airline requirements. Just go to the airport and buy a carrier, it costs $50
8)Cost for bringing a pet on board is 900RMB and covers all connecting flights.
9) Upon arrival to the US, you show your certs and that’s it. Done.

As for #7, I got back from Yinchuan and decided to take care of the carrier early.  I had already reserved one when I found that they sold them.  So, I thought I would just go pick one up.  3 hours later I had one.  I had to go upstairs to the office and find the hidden airline office.  Then hunt someone down during lunch.  He informed me that YES they have it right there, but to pay for it, I have to go downstairs to the counter, which is past customs, which means filling out a customs declaration.  By the time I got there, the guy was gone… of course.  There were other people, but they could not help me, for there was only one person at the entire service desk with authorization to accept payment and he was missing.  It was $50 and they demanded 400RMB, which is a bullshit exchange, but whatever, I did it just to save the confusion and hassle.  I gave it to him, didn’t bother with the 发票 and let him handle payment when the other guy got back.  Seemed reasonable to me.  That was the only real pain in the ass for the process.

Well, another backdate, but lots of stuff to cover.

From the previous post, you can see that I quit my job and worked on getting out of China.  Why not just leave immediately? Because I had a plan, and that plan was to get Jude home for Christmas.  Said plan failed due to timing problems.  The issues were getting her accepted by a credible US university fast enough to start Spring Semester ASAP.  With her English scores being borderline and a few certain strings needing to be pulled, I had her ditch the agent she was using.  The agent had done nothing for her and was actually hurting her cause.  An all out hunt for a good school began and we found three.  After much pushing and late night phone calls Cal Lutheran gave her a conditional acceptance upon completion of an English program.  The English program we got lined up was at CSUN.  But Cal Lutheran was only a failover choice.  It’s not a good school to be honest and the major was not great either.  The trick was that an actual degree program would result in a much easier visa, whereas an English program alone would be much more difficult.  We rushed on this one, getting them payment about 30 minutes before they closed for Christmas break and the materials came in time for the visa interview which we scheduled as an emergency to get an appointment for the last day of the year.  Woodbury accepted her as well, but the timing was wrong.  No way to get materials in time and no way to change the visa without completing the first part at CSUN.

Jude went through her interview like it was nothing.  Again, consider some strings pulled, but I was still nervous as hell.  Once her visa was done, we ran off to Yinchuan again as a final “trip home”.  In retrospect, not a great move on my part.  But I appreciated the trip and managed to pick up things that I wanted to take back to the US.

Getting me to the US was fun as well.  Getting that visa changed over to an L without a trip to Hong Kong was surprisingly simple, although pricey.  Getting tickets was easy as expected… getting cheap ones was not.  And getting all my junk back to the US was another pain in the ass.  My Trek, books, clothing, other assorted things of mine and Jude’s all were going to be ocean-freight shipped, but that would have required me to get up to Dalian, dragging everything with me, stay there for 3 days to clear customs with my passport in hand and *maybe* getting a spot on the ship.  No, I went with air freight in the end.  It was twice as much, but 10 times simpler.

Other things, could not come back.  My wonderful spice cabinet that I designed and had commissioned, it had to stay with the apartment.  Too big to move, too specific to the space… it was the coolest thing in the kitchen and I miss it.  The washer/dryer.  The beast, the wonderful beast.  I had to sell it off.  I was trying for 8000, then 5000, and then I got an offer for 4000.  Then moments later I got an offer for 6000 which fell through and then the 4000 offer didn’t want it anymore.  In the end I unloaded it for 2500 to a fellow expat who does not teach English, is a long-timer and is married locally.  He wanted it for the same reason I got it and would appreciate it.  That is payment on its own… in a way.  We managed to squeeze it into a taxi somehow and I gave him my Vacuum Cleaner, Oven and some dishes.  Spices, I sold off for 600 RMB.  How I managed that, wow, I have no idea, but good deal on that one.  And Petey… he opened a bar, I traded him the waffle iron, George, the transformer, Bread maker and a few other misc. stuff left over for a bunch of booze as a sendoff.

More than “kinda” painful to be ripping apart my Chinese life like that.  Really, very painful to see all that go after so long.  But no choice in the matter at that point.  The cat tree and other kitty stuff, I gave to Ting Ting and we hung out for a weekend together.  糖糖 is a good kitty and 婷婷 would appreciate it, and I know she and 糖糖 do.

I saw Sophie for the last time, had to say goodbye, and it was painful in some ways, even now, but I was confident of my move.  I know I will be back, so it’s not goodbye, it’s see ya later.

And then for the complicated part: Etienne (what? you think I’d leave her?)

Getting a cat to the US from China is sorta complicated, but not too bad in reality.  The next post will describe this in detail for easy linkage.

Well, everything set to go and in order, of course there were complications at the last minute.

I was running a bit late due to a landlord who showed up late and got stuck in the worst traffic of my life.  And I am talking bad, even by Beijing standards.  All 5 rings were bumper to bumper.  I gave myself 120 minutes, it took about 110.  Yes, you read that right.  I got checked in, through security, to the terminal and onto the plane just before they closed boarding in about 30 minutes.  This was bad juju, because Jude had been waiting for me for an hour and her friends didn’t get to see me off.  This sucked, but at least we made the flight to San Fran.  Where we got raped by security on our transfer to LAX.

Once all was in order at LAX, it was just a matter of picking up the cat, waiting for a shuttle and picking up the rental car.  Waited about 1 week for luggage to show up from the air frieght and that was another fun runaround between the warehouse, customs (much prayer involved), and back to the warehouse.  I hate LAX by the way, for so many reasons.

And that is how you get back to the US in one piece.

Another backdated post…

So, we got back in Beijing on a Monday and I just took the day off to rest. Beijing seemed bland, sorry, but it did. It represented everything that I disliked about what was happening in Xinjiang. I craved Kvass, and no one knew what it was. The 新疆办公室 had a restaurant and they didn’t even know what it was. No one from Xinjiang worked in the government representative office for Xinjiang. That was odd. My delicious 串 no longer tasted as good, well, Yinchuan did that to me more than anything else, but Xinjiang sealed the deal.

Back at work, I got a massive project dumped on me. I say dumped because yes, it was dumped on me. DeAgostini, putting together a F-86 mag with companion DVD. This was a pitch more than anything else, trying to land a long-term contract producing it on a regular basis for 100,000 RMB an issue locally. It was a 2-month project and was guarded by the boss with hostility. Needless to say, by the time I was freed up from the celeb research for Dewar’s, it was slowly dumped on me. First it was the video sourcing. At this stage I demanded to be in the loop fully and found that there was not only no loop at all, but the 5 weeks prior had been wasted. There was a timeline, but nothing, not even planning had been started. It was literally ignored for 5 weeks with 3 weeks left to act. I sourced pictures and video from the Pentagon, the RCAF, Australia, Pakistan, Taiwan and Japan. I found a writer for the magazine and an English editor and voice-over talent who also polished the script. I scripted the animation which got handed off to a handful of amateurs working out of a net cafe. We even flew them in, had the boss explain it all and deliver his version of the translated brief.

Well, crunch time came and the animation was wrong, the footage was short, the designer couldn’t read English or even begin to comprehend it, and it was the middle of the night with me being screamed at for emailing everyone with a copy of the script which I was told was final… but ended up being the wrong one (I was given the wrong one). I take the hit, and am being threatened with my job regardless of the completion of the project.

So, step back a second and look 20 days prior to this. I was hit up by a recruiter at LRW for a position in LA. Jude was planning to get to LA for school in the Fall and it seemed too much like fate. Overconfident of the new job, I was no longer ripe for taking abuse from the fuck.

Back to the threat. I stayed silent at first and went back to work. The boss hovered over me, ripped out the router and killed my productivity, I no longer had network and neither did anyone else. Claiming that I was wasting time chatting… no proof, because I had been working another one of those infamous 600-hour months. Solid work, no bullshit. I go back to working on the video with my own method of completing the shortest sections and most complete sections first. No, this was not “right” apparently, it must be done in sequential order because the dumbass didn’t understand how a DVD works. Media mogul, my ass. The threats grew harsher and he started demanding a confrontation, goading me to violence.

This was the final straw, I quit right there and started gathering my stuff with the mention that I expected my salary for the month on time, my severance pay and overtime for me as well as the rest of the staff. He responded with a death threat, screaming, spitting, more screaming, shoving me around physically (yes assault) and not allowing me to leave. I responded by calling the police. Actually, he called 119 first, which was frivolous, claiming that I was trespassing. I picked up the phone and explained what was going on, they told him it was not an emergency and to not call them.

So, about 3am and I have the cops downstairs. I lead them up where he lies and claims that he does not even know me and I never worked there. I give them my card. He responds saying that he fired me months ago for “refusing to work”. I show them client emails from 2 hours ago. He bribes them. I demand my work permit and he is stupid enough to say that he paid for it while claiming that I was dangerous. Cops gave me the address and phone number for the Bureau of Labor.

And, as this is a backdated post (it is actually July now.. yes, I AM that lazy), I am going to sum up everything else to get it out of the way and limit it to one post.

The boss actually refused to accept that I quit and refused to fire me. His idea was one of blackmail instead. Despite unpaid overtime, serious amounts of unpaid overtime, and as a counter to any charges I was prepared to file, he decided to sue for me being late. I frivolous lawsuit, but one that could be dragged on and on. His plan was this:
1) File charges against me
2) Serve me papers via Kuaidi that I would have to sign for
3) Use the fact that my visa was almost up as a declaration of “flight risk”
4) Use this “flight risk” as a way to have my passport confiscated until the case was resolved.
5) Ensure that with my lack of passport that I would be unable to leave Beijing, leave China, legally work, extend my visa or even make adequate preparations to leave China.
6) Use the fact that I am not working or able to have an income to destroy my ability to defend myself in the Chinese courts.
7) Bankrupt me and have me beg for his mercy and come crawling back, probably working for nothing to pay him off.

HAHAHA, yeah right. This is ME we are talking about. I ensured that step 2 never happened by not answering the door. Fail plan is fail.

This left me free to use up my 1-month left on the visa to prepare my departure, secure a new L visa from a visa agent (which has all kinds of fun involved that I am not going to relate for legal reasons), and get out of China on my own terms.

I tied him him with a shitstorm of legal issues, the rampant piracy, money laundering, gambling operations, drug dealing, tax evasion and of course the death threats with the Embassy CC’d on everything. All I wanted was a letter of release to give me my 30-days to prepare to leave and I would have been happy with that. Yea, that didn’t happen and the request for it resulted in more headaches which took some time to resolve. Payback’s a bitch.

So, why did it happen? It happened for a few reasons.
1) The abuse. It was always there, never a single word of praise, never any reparation for the extra hours and sacrifice of any semblance of a social life outside of work. He hires young, exploits and makes you feel like shit no matter what good stuff you turn out. As the only foreigner, I was a convenient punching bag.
2) The entrapment. In all the time I worked there and pulled in some serious work and innovation, I never got my promised raises. At the same time I was reminded of my complicated visa situation. I saw what he was going to do coming from a mile away.
3) The headhunters. I had been getting calls and emails from real companies for a while and LRW was the best one yet. I had to go for it, I knew I was going for it and my plan was to get back to the US for Xmas, finalize it, get back to China, give notice, help transition and then leave gracefully. Well, that didn’t happen and I knew it wouldn’t given 1 and 2.
4) Jude. She was the only thing in China giving me any motivation anymore and she was leaving. Work had stripped me of my social life completely and she was pretty much “it” for me. Add onto that the fact that if we won the contract for endless DeAgostini Mag/DVD work, I was going to be running it in addition to everything else. It was off focus from what I wanted to do, and there was nothing I could do about it. Time to leave.
5) The glass ceiling. I was #2 in the company and no promises ever happened. No insurance, no raises, no profit sharing, no bonuses from work I brought in, no benefits. There was nowhere to go but elsewhere and #2 was screwing that option for me.

So, it happened and it was bound to happen anyways. I knew that even if I had played the game the right way, I would have been attacked the instant I gave notice… because I made that company work and ran the only thing with a future.

So, with that out of the way, and me speaking from the future, I get to give the “other side” of events.
After I left that night, the boss picked up a computer, threw it at the wall and called the cops claiming that I had thrown it at him and ran away. He wanted to file a false report and had the goons in the office file false testimony. Well, just his luck, it was the same police who came back and laughed at him. They had seen me off and made sure I got back home ok. In fact, at one point they turned off and headed back and had another car escort me. Guess this was that that was. Oops.

2 weeks after I left, everyone with any talent left with no advance notice. They were sick of the shit too and knew that my leaving meant that he would be overseeing everything personally and micromanaging them… which is something that I had worked out of them and they liked my management style.

Mojo has died, cutting off operating revenue from the company and resulting in 5 people being fired.

The social insurance premiums which are paid in part by employees and in part by the company (this is law), were collected from the employees, but never paid by the company. Yep, he just stole their money. They were thrilled about that one.

My platforms were left 99% operational, but with me holding onto everything else in terms of documentation and roadmaps. This is the price that is paid for never getting me a company computer and forcing me to pay for and use my own personal one. Good luck finishing something you never understood and the programmers all leaving under bad terms.

Pretty much everyone who matters in any capacity has since left the company and there is little left of it now, apart from massive overhead and a lack of talent.

Again, I am backdating this post to stay chronological.

We got to the airport early in the morning, a tiny tiny airport with only one flight… which goes to Urumqi. It really is more of a train station atmosphere than anything else.

We took off, we landed, and Jude’s friend met up with us to go to the hotel to drop off our stuff and take us over to her home. It was a great hotel, but our rooms… not so much. Mine was complete with the harassing calls in the middle of the night for “massages” coming from the “salon” down the hall. I unplugged the phone.

We hit the bazaar and bought a little, hit up a lover’s point covered with locks, the park and finished up with a huge dinner and show after resting at her home and meeting the family for a few hours. We needed to get off to see the sights and signed up for the hotel tour group thing.

Big mistake… The bus was “cheap”, kinda. 200 or so kuai per head, but the entire experience was one of “ok, stop for 30 minutes and then get back on the bus” and a fun version of “democracy” where there was a vote on who wants to go to see a random tourist trap and pay an extra 20 kuai for the honor. Of course it was much too early for half the bus to be awake and most of the rest didn’t really care either way. So, 10 people raise their hands and that was enough. Freezing cold outside and if we didn’t want to pay we had to get out and stand by the road for half an hour.

So, we saw the windmill farms, a site dedicated to some musician, Flaming Mountain, the Karez, Jiaohe, a vineyard slash birthplace of Afanti and a fully certified authentic Uighur household. Needless to say, it was all more or less bullshit. The windmill farms were the only real thing to see, but it was more of a roadside momentary stop. The musician site was a replica outpost that looked more wild-west than anything else and was made of concrete and freshly painted wood… they were busy building more authentic old buildings while we were there. Of course, ignore all that and wander off behind the warehouse where they store extra junk to sell to tourists and you see a massive mound which is actually the ruins of an ancient outpost. No fences, no signs, just bulls which you have to try not to piss off. I wish I knew more about that and less about the singer or whatever he was.

The Flaming Mountains are part of The Journey to the West, you know the one on TV all the time with the monkey, pig and monk off to retrieve the Buddhist teachings. Anyways, there is now a giant thermometer stuck in the ground that is surrounded by tourists taking pictures and ignoring the mountains. Camel rides for obscene amounts of money and overpriced junk that is identical to all the other overpriced junk everywhere else.

The Karez is pretty damned cool. It is underground irrigation coming off the Turfan Basin and allowing for oases in the middle of the desert. This, however being China, was not the focus of the site. Nor was its history of over 2000 years. No, the main focus seemed to have been on the fact that Mao inspected the site at some point, and by inspected, of course they meant he came, poked around, had pictures taken and put up some plaques. This was a continuing theme in Xinjiang, playing up the importance of the PRC while taking a dump on real history.

Next on the list, The Jiaohe Ruins. Again, a very cool place being ruined by tourism. We got 40 minutes to wander around, with the walk from the bus to the beginning of anything interesting taking 10, with the bathroom located conveniently on the opposite side of the parking lot… so that bathroom break had to wait. It’s beyond ancient, and as such, most of it is completely blocked off and no one is allowed to wander around off the wooden-planked path. This is another place that would be great to come back to if you were willing to off road a bit and come around the back side of it. Click the wiki link if you want to know more about the place, but it was one of my favorites. Just not enough time.

Off to the vineyard and the birthplace of Afanti. Now, this was, by far, the best stop on the tour. Not because of the site, which was fake and not even a real vineyard, but because of the mutiny on the bus. Me and Jude were trouble makers and busy trying to spread dissent about the timing, the endless demand for more money, and how fake everything was. We were still pissed about that first democratic vote. Well, we lucked out. A fellow tourist was there with his fiance and had been on the tour before. He remembered going to a different place down the road with a gorgeous vineyard and was pissed about being taken to this place instead. It got fun. The bus heard that they were being cheated and demanded to go to the other place. It was instant mutiny. Everyone was suddenly pissed about being cheated, pissed about being constantly hit up for more and more money, and pissed at the tour guide. She pulled the guy off the bus and paid him off to agree that it was a real vineyard. I used this chance to demand money back from the “authentic Uighur house visit” which was an extra 10 a head. I had given her a 20 and she tried to give me back a 50 and demand change. I decided to be an asshole and demand my 20 back, not that I didn’t have the 30, but I really didn’t feel like giving up my small bills. Hey look at that, she had that 20. Entire bus laughed their asses off at the prospect of a foreigner verbally bitch slapping the tour guide. So, we got off, wandered around the fake vineyard and checked out the Afanti house. The Afanti house was a new construction and the fake mud-straw covering didn’t cover down far enough, so we could see the brand new brickwork. There were two doors, one was open and showed some humble setting, the other one was not even a real door and peering through the window you could see it was a storage shed.

And onto the “Authentic Certified Uighur Home”. It was a singing, dancing, you get a small slice of watermelon and one bottle of water affair while they get you to look like an ass. Me and Jude wandered around instead and saw a real vineyard over the wall and had a much better time than anyone else. The Afanti vineyard had pissed off some tourists far more than the tour guide expected and people started calling the tourist board to complain. I suggested they mention that a foreigner was on the tour too and was very upset, they liked the idea and included it in the report while I was cracking up.

I took this opportunity to drag us over to the Fubar for dinner and a nightcap. This is a great place with great atmosphere. The prices are Beijingish, but the atmosphere is Western and worth every penny. I don’t normally plug places, but this is THE place to go if you are in Urumqi and want a semblance of home. It’s a also a great place to meet up with serious expats, land some work and get advice. One of the owners is the FIRST foreigner to EVER get a drivers license in Xinjiang, that should say something about the quality of the tips you can get.

Got back to the hotel late and decided we would just hire a taxi for the next day instead. The extra cost was worth it.

A friend of a friend had a car and we shelled out 500 for the day. Tack on 95 each for the tickets to Tianchi and it was a great day. We had all day to wander on Tianchi. I led us up the wrong path, a steep, abandoned path leading up to a small abandoned temple covered in monkey shit, but it was all good. I thought that the path would lead down on the other side, but it didn’t. It was still an awesome view and worth the hike. The path thing was annoying, they put in cement stairs and paths on the mountain. Yes, stairs on the mountain. It was not agreeable and Jude agreed. So, we wandered off the path and hiked alongside the river. The water was clear and pure and we drank it straight. The best water I have had, it was a little sweet from the pine it filtered through on it’s way down. Wandering off the path led us to a man in a small yurt who lived on the mountain. He hooked us up with hot water and water bottles.. which we promptly lost in the river in an attempt to cool them down unfortunately. Hiking off the path DID lead to some disappointment unfortunately. The river abruptly ended and we found that it was coming from pipes. The waterfalls were artificial and if you look closely you could see the joints in the concrete texturing. We got into a nice snowball fight on the bridge and went off to find a scenic spot that was mentioned on half the signs. We found the wrong spot. It was a “future” spot that was not yet complete. Migrant workers dumping their trash, ruining a natural pool to make it more “exciting”. Seriously, it pissed me off to see it. It’s a mountain, it’s good enough on it’s own, leave it alone. The big payoff of course, is the glacial lake on the top of the mountain itself. It is massive, but obviously polluted now from the tourists. We were pooped, bought some overpriced drinks, hopped onto a tourist street car and over to the lift. Hike up, ride down and get to see everything from a few hundred feet suspended in the air. My camera, unfortunately got broken on the first day at the Bazaar, got bumped into kinda hard and the LCD broke. So, Jude has all these pics :(.

We spent a good 6 hours on that mountain and it was amazing. Tourist groups got 2 hours. 30 minutes just to wait for the lift, an hour or so at the top and ride back down. Learned later that they paid 300 a head for that experience. So, we came out ahead.

That night, we FINALLY had kvass and 手抓饭. I had to call home about it right then and there. Kvass is a honey beer. It is literally Honey and Hops, it’s mead. 手抓饭 is rice pilaf with lamb. Add in some 串 and 馕, and it did NOT feel like China anymore.

Again, back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep before going back to Beijing. Determined to come back here again and venture out to Hotien and hit up that desert of death on my own time…. and chug more of that Kvass.