迷失的老美

It all seems like a great idea at first doesn’t it? Why piss away all that money on extra luggage, or air freight? With the mail service, you might be even more worried if you are shipping anything large, and the sticker shock can really hurt.

You go off to USPS, UPS and Fedex to check pricing…. all service to China is ONLY air-mail, and as such means that it costs a few hundred bucks to ship… ouch.  It’s just personal effects, a few things that you really care about, but the rest… mostly junk.

Then the realization hits that you *could* mail it, but you would have to have it sent to a friend’s place, which would introduce more variables into the mix that you really could live without, and if you lug it with you as checked, good luck fitting it all in a taxi or hotel room..

So… the notion of sea-freight hits.   An LCL of 1 cubic meter for $164 to Tianjin? It sounds like a steal, but it’s not and here’s why.

The port will only allow bonded companies to handle your shipment.  They pay out the ass for trucks that are registered and allowed within the facility… and they have minimum charges (don’t bother checking around, they are all 3500RMB).  And as a fun side, they are only going to deliver to you personally.  In order to avoid getting hit for duty on everything, you must be a resident here, and that shipment must go to you and only you.

THC and Port charges… say hello to another 1784RMB, this is not negotiable and is what it is.  If you needed time to finish getting everything settled for your residency, you are going to get hit with storage charges as well… another 1086RMB in my case.

Quarantine/customs inspection: 400RMB.  Flat fee, non-negotiable.  This is what they charge to look at the packing list and decide….

Customs duty.  Despite being a resident, and this being personal effects, there are certain items which still get hit for duty.  Mainly electronics, furniture and appliances… in fact, here’s a nice rundown:

Duty Guidelines
• Furniture – 10%
• Books-10% (for returning Chinese)
• CDs, VCDs, DVDs –RMB30 per piece. (may be subject to customs screening)
• Alcohol – below 12% @RMB50 per bottle
• Alcohol – above and inclusive of 12% @RMB250 per bottle
• Foodstuffs – 10%
• Electronic luxury items – 20% – see below for examples

So, this adds up fast, as the dutiable prices don’t distinguish between new and used items, broken or intact.  There is no leeway at all here, no bargaining and receipts for actual price of the item make 0 difference to the outcome.  That $268 monitor you bought on sale is $732 as far as they care and they are going to hit you for $150 on it…. the same as if it were a laptop.

So, as you can see by now, it ain’t cheap and my 7 year old laser printer ends up costing me 600RMB… enough to have just bought a new one.  My glass and steel L-desk (made in america) which does not exist here in any serious way only cost me 100RMB in duty though, and that’s reasonable as I only paid $35 for it…. and was the primary reason I went with sea freight in the first place.

So, in the end I got sapped for 8270RMB on this side, plus the cost of the palletized box (another $50) and the ship cost ($164) for a grand total of $1425.  The only reason I didn’t just abandon the shipment was because of the other goodies inside.  Rather than deal with excess baggage fees (which are definitely not reasonable anymore), I filled that cubic meter box as full as it would go with literally everything I could….

To have repurchased everything here:

Printer (a good one)- 1000RMB (optional), Monitor – 3500RMB, Bike lock – 1000RMB… leaving me with a budget of about 3000RMB to replace all my good clothes, a columbia coat, and other irreplaceable keep sakes, not to mention a desk… which was the whole reason I did this in the first place!

Excess luggage would have been a better deal, as it would have worked out to approximately $11 a kilo, minus the giant box, about 80 kilo total, 3 boxes for everything.  $880 in baggage fees and no one at customs caring… leaving me with an interesting task of storing it all for about a month or so.  The 8270RMB figure was unknown to me, so it sounded insane.

Shipping via fedex or USPS…. somehow ends up more expensive.  Shipping via air-freight… would have been smarter (and about half the cost).

The lesson to learn from all this is simple.  When shipping an LCL to China, do it via air-freight, and when it comes time to declare items for customs, be vague as all hell while leaving one or two items sitting there for them to suck a little tax on.  As long as they get some, they are basically happy and satisfied, trying to skirt by with none at all…. not gonna happen.

Sorry for the long long long delay in updating… yes, it’s been a year.

In that time, I have accomplished most of my goals for 2009, and now it’s time to make some for 2010.

I am back in Beijing again, woohoo.  Came back On July 1st 2009, lived for 6 weeks in a hotel while waiting for my apartment to be ready to move in.  Unfortunately, it was not the apartment I actually wanted, but after SIX WEEKS and watching average rent do nothing but increase, there was no real choice.

I am now Chief Rep for Rockhopper in Beijing, I have 100% full and complete control over my residence permit and working papers as  well.  After last time, that seemed the prudent thing to do and I have effectively done it.

I am also now driving in Beijing… yes… in this insane traffic, I am now part of the problem  It’s not really all that bad, despite what it looks like.  People do amazingly stupid things, but as long as you keep your cool, stay fluid, and adjust, it’s all ok.

Jude moved out of LA shortly after I did (good riddance) and now she is up in San Fran with her guy.  So it looks like we both are living out the dream at long last.

In the time since moving here I have shed a solid 35 pounds and am looking to shed some more and get my body to where it should be…  yes, new years resolution, typical… watch it not happen.

Resolution for 2010: I am going to be building up more business for Rockhopper in China and try to jsutify the existence of the rep office apart from me avoiding paying taxes to the US and a higher standard of living (that is also far more secure) than I could get in the US.  This time it’s for good! No going back!

I am also in the process of getting my damn seafreight forwarded to my apartment, it’s been half a year and it’s starting to drive me insane.

Also, the big event worth noting… I finally beat Sallie Mae and forced a settlement! It’s really not all that difficult to force their hand into that situation and in this economy, it’s more or less the best thing to do.  Can’t delve into details here directly, but hit me up if you need advice.  Furthermore, hit me up if you need advice on any of the following:

Seafreight to China, Moving pets to/from US/China, Setting up a legal presence in Beijing, Market Research in China, Driving in China, or generally anything to do with living in or relocating to Beijing… over the years, I have managed to do most of the insane stuff and learned the ropes (while praying never to have to do it again for myself).

On that note, I am now driving in Beijing and the snowfall tested my skills with successful results.  It’s more or less similar to driving in LA, with a few significant differences.  Firstly, no signaling to be expected at all, people do not ever stay in their lanes.  White plates and black plates… might as well just let them do what they want to because they are never going to get a ticket of any kind either.  Tailgating is taken to an extreme and signage is more like “labeling” rather than useful information.  There are no standard interchanges and it’s all ad hoc flyover-style with the prudent information of “how the hell do i navigate this mess” being given last second.

Happy New Year and here’s to a successful 2010!

I would post more on this, but my host managed to get my IP blocked in China thanks to the shared server (I suspect the FLG site had something to do with that), but with a new fast VPN up and running, I’ll be posting more now

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.