Long Time, No Write

I've been keeping busy! As in, yesterday I was in the office for 12 hours. There is no official 'clock in' or 'clock out' time here, at least not so far as I have been told. Nor, as far as I can tell, is there an official 'lunch time'. I tend to eat when everyone eats (usually ordering into the office, eating, and going straight back to work) and leave when most of the marketing people leave (this is where I sit--some of the consultants will have left an hour or two before, some stay much longer). The effect of this is interesting in an psychology/economics sense--I at least feel a strong pressure to not take an hour for lunch, to arrive early and to leave late, so as not be seen as a slacker. Larry, of course, as CEO, essentially lives in the office (he has two full wracks of clothes here, and no permanent address in Shanghai). Fortunately, Jason, Malinda's cousin (Malinda is Larry's niece--convoluted enough enough family for you? And Jason, as we found out last night, is actually a second cousin, or a cousin a few times removed) arrived a couple days ago. He's a Cornell student here for a couple weeks to intern too and we're sharing a desk and projects...ahhh hooray for having someone to 'manage'--but really, he's good fun and insists on things like a lunch hour, which I hadn't even realised I was missing (a little too easygoing, perhaps?).

In any case, Larry's new book launches in Beijing tomorrow so the marketing area has been a-flurry over getting ready for that, and we've been getting sucked in. My primary job has still been data collection and analysis, and either Larry or I finally figured out what he was going for so I've been getting statistics that are maybe even useful! And, as its the end of June, probably endlessly updating the office data. But as much fun as spreadsheets have been ("a learning experience...") we're moving on to greener pastures! Larry is decidedly NOT tech savvy (both a good and bad thing) so we've got the very general assignment to "create an internet presence" and "do 'viral' marketing" etc. You know, the stuff young people and small companies do for cheap with big results...maybe. I worry that without maintenance (you can't just 'create' digg, twitter, and facebook accounts, you've actually gotta do stuff with them!) this effort will be half-hearted and ineffective, but there are some basic things (a wikipedia page! online photos!) that we are working on right now that are actually kinda cool, with the bonus of forcing me how to use the sites and do some basic HTML. I think Larry also wants us to do some astroturfing, aka fake 'grassroots' campaigning, like spamming forums with "I just discovered this new book!" kinda stuff from 'unrelated people'. Morally questionable, but again, probably a great thing for me to know. Giving me lots of new ideas for theatre marketing...

On the social front, have been meeting some cool people. Randomly have gotten to know a bunch of the dancers from the US pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, and that's been great for having people with some sense of ART AND BEAUTY IN THE WORLD in addition to money money money. Also, they're pro dancers. Like, music videos and broadway shows pro. Which is awesome. And last weekend I went to a party on a boat with them, hosted by the Spain Pavilion, and that was pretty sweet--free alcohol, and ON A BOAT! What else? I've been eating for about 10RMB a meal (that's about $1.4) which makes me happy, and I have hilarious interactions every time I try to do something as simple as buy fruit from a fruit stand...I got enough basic Chinese to ask for things but not nearly enough to understand the responses.

Half-formed thought-of-the-week:

Don't blame the West. Westernisation of Chinese culture, etc. Or at least, don't blame it exclusively. Blame urbanization at an incredible pace. I've been reading shanghaiexpat.com, an expat forum, and a lot of the complaints are about 'rudeness', spitting in the streets, littering, doing 'private business' in public, not saying sorry, etc. Some of the responses have said "hey, it's a cultural thing", but the best ones have said "look at any early-stage city, or cities with a lot of migrants from the countryside. Habits that in the country are fine or even best-practices in crowded cities become disruptive. People need time to learn how to live in cities. Give China a generation or two. The government is trying to 'rush' 'civilizing' behaviour for the Olympics and Expo...this will come by itself in time." It's an interesting thought, I'll be fascinated to see if it is proven correct.