All posts by AbandontheCube

There are over 300 million Americans. Less than 30% of them have passports. That means Americans are not traveling abroad. And 50% of those who do leave the USA are traveling to either Canada or Mexico. So, why is it that Americans are not traveling overseas in larger numbers?

Realistically, money and time are the two biggest factors in our estimation as to why Americans don’t travel abroad. Airfare is costly and flying is a hassle. Meanwhile, Americans on average get around two weeks of vacation a year– not enough to get abroad, get over jet-lag and start enjoying another country. In reality, many of those vacation days are used here and there for extensions on Thanksgiving, for family birthdays or other small events, and that results in, usually, less than two weeks in one chunk for travel. Its not surprising that Asia or the Middle East seems out of reach to Americans who have around 7 days to travel, explore and return. That doesn’t sound like a vacation, it sounds like a gauntlet.

In contrast, the average worker in Europe gets around a month of vacation. By law, all countries in the European Union must allow all workers four weeks of paid vacation at a minimum. Even part-time workers who have worked more than 13 weeks are entitled to their month of paid vacation. This isn’t accrued, its a right. And that doesn’t count public holidays, which are paid days. Americans get 13 days, on average, though some companies have adopted even stricter vacation plans for entry-level employees, like the company Mike worked for in Minnesota. They told him his two weeks of vacation were “To ambitious for an entry level employee.” To which Mike said “audios!” (Chart above shows average PAID vacation days by country)

Meanwhile, workers in the USA have longer daily hours, on average, then their European counterparts. This is interesting because the average salary (even taking into account cost of living) is lower in the USA on average. For example, countries in Europe have a standard 40 hour work week and depending on the country there are laws in place to put a cap on how many hours of overtime per week and year an employee can log, according to the Federation of European Employees. And although the 8 hour day wasn’t always in place, it wasn’t until 1937 that the Fair Labor Standards Act was signed into law and the 8 hour work day (44 per week) in America became accepted as a baseline for a new standard. (Chart above shows average work week by country and gender).

Granted, there are social implications to these differences in Europe and the US. For example, Europeans are taxed at a much higher rate and companies have to sell products at higher prices to follow labor laws. However, the work-life balance in Europe does seem to be more balanced than in the USA, where success is more important that enjoyment to many. Still, the differences are drastic, and many health related problems in America are stress related, possibly stemming from overwork and lack of holiday time.

Along an entirely different chain of thought, perhaps one reason for the shortage of Americans traveling is fear. American movies constantly have foreigners as the ‘bad guys’ and a general lack of knowledge about other countries and their cultures in the US may lead many to think it isn’t safe anywhere abroad. When the media constantly cover problems abroad in uniquely terrifying language, its no wonder people think the entire world is dangerous. Meanwhile, Americans don’t speak a second language, and this limits their capacity to travel abroad with confidence. Luckily, English is the language of travel, but to many places (Africa and Asia) even English won’t suffice. The American education system should require students to learn a second language fluently by the time they graduate from High School. What language they learn should be their choice, naturally, but it holds people back from traveling, working abroad or even understanding a second worldview when they are limited to one language. Ideas are only as solid as the language in which they are expressed, so learning a whole new language is like learning a second culture, a second way of viewing the world. Americans (myself included) miss out on this when they don’t learn a second language as a child.

CNN Travel recently did a story on the surprisingly low number of Americans who travel abroad. We were excited to see they quoted several of our fellow international travel bloggers, folks like Nomadic Matt and Everything Everywhere.

US citizens can learn how to apply for a US passport.

In 2008 we lived in Shanghai and had the amazing opportunity to stay in the city over the Spring Festival (the Chinese lunar New Year). Since so many migrant workers and others had fled the city for the holiday (which is akin to Thanksgiving where everyone goes to their home state for the festivities) we thought nothing big would happen. It was freezing, it was deserted, and we didn’t expect much.

In the end, nearly ever remaining resident in the city came outside at midnight to blow something up. There were fireworks covering every inch of the sky! Old ladies wheeled themselves outside in their wheelchairs to light off fireworks and then, giggling, rolled back inside. You could buy fireworks at the 7/11, you could buy them from old ladies with carts full, they were everywhere. At midnight on the first day of the new year, the city erupted and it seemed to linger in a state of haze and loud bangs for several days.

Now its the start of the Spring Festival 2011 and we are in Beijing. It is the year of the rabbit, and thus a fortuitous year for many. The festivities were to start on midnight of the 2nd of February, 2011. We had the same concerns as we did in Shanghai several years ago as we watched nearly every shop around our hutong home put up shutters and hang signs saying “will return on the 7th.” The city was growing empty, like the set of a zombie movie. The once busy streets were now barren save for a few random cars and the poor bus drivers, whose massive slug-like machines trolled the streets in vain for people.

It was hard to find fireworks in Beijing, at least compared to Shanghai where they were everywhere. Now there were well maintained booths with knowledgeable sales staff. Prices were printed on the fireworks and fire extinguishers lined the sidewalks behind the stalls. Something massive had changed since the haphazard array in 2008. We bought a bag full of random fireworks and, when the second of February arrived, we strolled down deserted streets with a lighter in one hand and a bag of fun in the other.

We wandered for a while, a small group of us with our bags of fun, before settling on Hou Hai Lake as our destination of choice. We set off a few simple fireworks with limited competition. The police watched but didn’t say anything, just leaning on their police cars watching the fireworks against the dark sky. At midnight, the story changed entirely. The city erupted in a magnanimous and otherworldly explosion that shook water out of the lake like nudging a cup of coffee too hard. Fireworks exploded from every corner of vision, and the booms were so close together that it was essential one giant BOOM for half an hour. We set off our remaining fireworks and walked around the lake, dodging fountains of fire, escalating rockets and other projectiles at high speeds. We saw a few small fires break out as piles of debris started to reach ankle level.

Around 1:00am we headed towards home on foot. Walking down the main street we passed a restaurant that must have had a very handsome year because they had a pile of debris that reached up to the doorway. The staff were pulling out huge boxes and stringing them together. For half an hour we watched with half a hundred others as they lit box after box of fireworks. These boxes cost around one hundred USD each and contain about 30-45 individual pipes and fireworks that, in the USA, would be large enough for a city-wide display. They went through about 20 boxes while we were there, and then they draped strings of smaller fireworks over ropes strung between trees and lit them simultaneously, creating so many flashes it felt like we were inside a video game.

This year I was prepared. In 2008 I had only my point and shoot. This time I didn’t bother with the camera at all but brought out the big guns- the video camera. I walked around and, by 2:00am, I had almost 45 minutes of fireworks shows on tape, including fireworks bouncing off cars, hitting apartment complexes and ricocheting off extremely old and valuable cultural structures.The video here is not mine, which I haven’t uploaded yet, but are a prime example of what we experienced.

The fireworks and shows will go from the 2nd of February at midnight until the middle of February, and as I type this, the explosions have not diminished by much.

Folks are talking about the environment in a new way. Global warming, greenhouses gasses, Co2 emissions, and our dependency on a depleting oil supply, dependency on mass produced and imported foods. While there aren’t many people out there who think how we treat the world we live in is acceptable, there are very few willing to do anything meaningful about it. Buying carbon credits to offset your usage may be the world’s dumbest idea. So, if you’ve decided to abandon your cubicle and you are looking for a meaningful way to escape from society for a while, why not consider a year in a commune? America has many independent, organic and otherwise less harmful communities where you can exchange your labor for food and lodging. Simply put, you get to escape the cubicle but also society as you know it, and decrease your damage to the planet in a drastic way.

For starters, check out Natural Communities Magazine, where you’ll find articles on natural living, health and general well being as well as environmental protection and appreciation. “As more and more people are seeking natural health, Natural Communities will be an indispensable personal resource for people on the path to a healthy, natural lifestyle, bringing positive solutions to life’s challenges.” Based in the Mid-west, this magazine is a good place to start thinking about joining a commune or at least living a healthier lifestyle.

GrowFood is an organization that connects farmers with people who want to learn about organic and sustainable farming. Their mission is to “help grow a community of 50 million new small-scale organic farmers. That’s how many it will take to break America’s dependency on factory food.” Dependency on mass produced and imported foods has caused sicknesses to increase because people are not utilizing the foods and medicines grown naturally in their area. Meanwhile, mass produced stuff is never of high quality. GrowFood can teach you all about the problems in this area and even offers the hands on chance to learn a better way.

The WWOOF, which is the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is a group dedicated to offering people around the world the opportunity to learn.  “In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.” This is great because the average person probably can’t identify some of the plants, herbs and vegetables they eat on a daily basis in their natural habitat. If an emergency ever occurred, would you be able to find food, grow food, or raise your own meat? Less dramatically, a self sufficient farm is a great way to ensure you always have food available, and reconnect with nature.

The Fellowship of Intentional Community, although somewhat of a cult-like name, is simply “an inclusive term for ecovillages, co-housing communities, residential land trusts, communes student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives,  intentional living, alternative communities, cooperative living, and other projects where people strive together with a common vision.” You’ll find information on whats available out there in terms of places to escape from society and reconnect with community and nature. An organized directory offers the exact information you need to get started.

Should you abandon the cube, abandon society and move to a commune? I can’t answer that for you, but I do think spending some time learning about natural living, or a healthier way to look at the world is useful. Even a day trip to a commune to see another concept of community and environmentalism would be an eye-opener. While Al Gore cries about global warming, he lives in a mansion and drives a car, uses air-con, flushes toilet paper and so on. Why not try a method of actually returning to nature rather than buying your way out of a guilty conscience?

Lofted Organic Home, by Doornob Designs (image)

The State of the Union Address was January 25th, 2011, ATC reviews the plans behind President Obama’s speech.

Transportation:

One issue we’ve always been open about at ATC is transportation in America. While traveling around the world, we found America to be one of the most difficult places to travel due to poor infrastructure in terms of non-air modes of transportation. Plans to expand the rail network

Previous articles on ATC about transportation include: Amtrak- An Open Plea to the Government. USA Travel Options- Choices in Futility. The Empire Builder. 3 Things I Didn’t Miss about America. Transatlantic Options. Across America by Land.

Education:

Traveling around the world has taught us something else. Americans are not considered to be that intelligent.  This seems to be a nearly universal opinion. Obama’s speech indicated that he might agree with those internationally accepted opinions. Education in America has serious problems that need to be addressed.  I think teachers should be required to have a masters in their field as well as advanced training in teaching methodology and technology. Why not aim to be the best? We have high unemployment and a strong need for teachers, this is a great time to require more education for 1-12 teachers and to reward teachers who went out of their way to get their masters degrees, or who have learned to use technology in the classroom.

Students in Europe are way ahead of US students in many regards. They speak multiple languages and have a firm grip on science, math and geography– three of American student’s worst subjects.  In the chart they US is ranked well after Estonia, which is ironic because the average American probably couldn’t find Estonia on a map, proving my point. American students need to learn a second language fluently by the time they graduate from High School. 12 years is plenty of time. Students in Europe study for around 8-12 years learning English and as a result sound like native English speakers. In China, students go to classes all day and then spend their limited spending cash on English tutors because they know education is key. That is a lot to compete with. We need full immersion schools in the US, and teachers who are bilingual. As Obama noted, the baby boomers will be retiring soon, and its a good time to enact new laws to better the education system. Next time I travel through Europe I would love to see a young American speaking the local language and causing people abroad to reevaluate their opinion of Americans.

Finances:

Americans have a spending problem. Nobody is debating this anymore. Our debt is out of control, our spending seems to be endless and yet our infrastructure can’t compete with that of Western Europe. We have a culture of instant gratification that has resulted in an acceptance of poor-quality goods and a lack of appreciation for high quality goods you have to save up for. I don’t think Americans should have to deal with a ‘credit score’ system that rewards people who buy before they have the money to pay for the items they’ve purchased. Paying in cash by saving up in advance should be rewarded, not punished by harming your credit score. the score means that you can put yourself in debt to a larger entity, you enslave yourself into a cyclical system. I think this system needs to be re-imagined to reward people who can plan ahead, save ahead and can live without the companies that charge ridiculous filing fees, high interest and who hold the deed to your home like a mob boss until you pay up. This system needs to be re-imagined as well, so another housing bubble doesn’t result in more people losing the homes they can’t afford. I think this should have been better addressed in the 2011 State of the Union Address.

Articles ATC has posted on finances and money include: Poor Journalism & American Debt. Should you Look for Work in China- ATC Responds. China versus America: A Conversational Comparison. Why I Hate Wal-Mart.

From the most populated country in the world plans to build a mega city to house some 42 million doesn’t seem that surprising. China is already home to the largest port and biggest city (Shanghai) as well as home to the 1/5th of the world’s population. Costing 2 trillion yuan, the project to merge 9 smaller cities around the Pearl River Delta would cause water, communication and transportation networks to merge. Urban planners think the 150 projects in the planning stages to merge the cities will, ultimately, reduce pollution, drive down prices and increase resident happiness due to better transportation, lower prices and jobs.

The problem is, most infrastructure gigs are given to migrant workers. Case and point- the subway going in near my house. They quickly (and quietly) threw up a three story shack one day in an empty lot. A few days later they installed power, a day later a busload of folks from the countryside began to toss their tiny bags of belongings into tiny bunks before tightening worn out belts and starting up the construction equipment. The Beijing subway may expand the jobs market in Beijing eventually when it hires drivers, ticket sales and security, but right now the new line under construction is only bringing more workers into the city.

Mega cities may be an increasing thing in the future. Check out the work on green mega cities that was featured in Popular Science. This work was done by PopSci.com and features plans for the city as well as the good and bad news about population increases and mega centers of society. This cool city has alge farms, sidewalks that gather energy from footfalls, wind turbines powered by gusts from passing highway cars, and much more. Its really cool and the towered farms are something that could be constructed now. Take a few minutes to watch the demo slide-show that explains all the unique features of these preplanned cities using the link above.

Like the mega city plan (image right) the lillypad design by Vincent Callebaut,  tries to build on the green concept. They are floating cities that look like lilly pads, hence the name. It free floats around the gulf stream or can be anchored to near shore. Each city holds 50,000 people and is entirely self sufficient as well as eco-friendly. It was created to hold climate refuges, and its floating design makes it possible for humans to exist in what Callebaut seems to think will be a world where land is scarce. The designs are cool, and the imagery is amazing. Check it out using the link above.

I think it would be amazing if China were to use this opportunity to make a green mega city, or to start plans on a massive green city elsewhere in China. With such a massive population, these cities may be extremely useful in China, and open up more land for farming around the cities.

I live in China. I’m an American. You’d be surprised at the number one question people ask me from back home. Simply put, they ask why China owns America’s debt, when they will call it in, and why the Chinese are buying up property in the USA. They are fearful of what China will do, and frankly they are angry that a foreign entity owns US debt. I can empathize with these fears, but the reality of the situation is that the US is in a decent stance and the issue of who owns its debt is minor compared to answer the question of why we raked up such a debt in the first place.

Although we don’t usually get into politics at ATC, I feel inclined to answer the most common question we get in a public way.

Of the nearly $14 trillion the US has in debt, China owns roughly 7%. This is not a massive amount when held in light of the grand total, but it does exceed some $900 billion USD. China could, hypothetically, call in this debt and cause massive trauma to the US economy. Not so much because of what the amount would mean to the government coffers, but for the effect it would have on the stock market. The ultimate question is whether China will randomly call in this debt. The answer (in my opinion) is no.

They wont call it in because the Chinese economy is balanced precariously against the US economy. Should they call in the debt and the US economy start to collapse (or even suffer a recession of any severity) the Chinese economy would suffer because fewer Chinese goods would be purchased in the US (not out of principle, but because consumer spending would decrease amid depression fears). Looking at China’s trade partners  (source:chart below) in recent years shows how dependent China is on the USA for trade. A suffering US economy does not benefit the Chinese economy. It is in their best interest to help rather than hurt, at least at present.

The average Chinese perspective on this is contradictory to what many in the USA assume. While the Chinese are holding the debt, the US has already spent that money on tangible items. For example, the US (hypothetically) used that money to build new jets or expand defenses. Meanwhile, the Chinese have nothing to show for that money. They see the US as benefiting by taking the loan because they increased their worth in a tangible manner while the Chinese only increased their bargaining power by $900 billion USD. Since the two economies are dependent on each other this bargaining power is diminished because no real political threat has weight against the economy and the US tangible military is still formidable while the Chinese military continues to expand. Strategically, its unsure who comes out ahead in this deal. This is the opinion I hear time and again from Chinese locals in Shanghai and Beijing.

Finally, China would not have bought the debt if they thought it was a bad investment. Christina Larson, of the New America Foundation, told the associated press: “China needs a place to park its capital and there’s no place that’s as stable, easy to purchase and feel safe in as the United States.” That shows a certain confidence in the US economy. The US dollar is still used internationally and as such remains an important global asset. Buying the debt now means interest payments to the Chinese government from what they perceive to be an extremely wealthy country, despite the debt clock.

In short, the real problem with the debt isn’t who owns it but why it exists at all and how to get rid of it. Instead of the media raising fears about China’s intentions (as in image, left) they should start asking politicians what they plan to do about decreasing our debt. Running stories on the Chinese intent seems like poor journalism when you look at the actual numbers, and it is probably aimed at capitalizing on American fears to sell more papers or increase viewership and make more ad revenue. Its hard to answer the questions of how we are going to get out of debt and how to set up our system so as not to fall back into debt again. Then we won’t be selling $900 billion to any entity, foreign or domestic. This is what the journalist should focus on. Meanwhile, you can stop asking when the Chinese are going to call in the debt and what that will mean to the economy, it isn’t likely to happen.

Recently, CNN ran an article asking the question, “Should You Look for Work in China.” The article follows the story of two Texan-Americans, the Summer family, who decide to head to China for high tech jobs. It goes on to highlight that the number of Americans working and living abroad has increased significantly in recent years with a noticeable spike in 2010.

What I find interesting about this article from CNN is that they are missing the point. Americans are leaving the US because they have to. We left because we couldn’t find reasonable jobs. We could barely make ends meet working non-stop and living in the world’s smallest apartment. With insurance, medical bills, groceries, rent, internet and car payments, gas, phone, etc it was just too much to be met with two entry-level positions. And of course college loans had to be taken into consideration! Its like a massive trap designed from your childhood on so that you follow a certain outline and end up in college, and then of course in debt. Once in debt you have to work, you have no other choice! You have loans now. And then you trudge off to work to pay the loans but you have to have an apartment to live in, so now you have two payments. You have to have a means of transportation since there are no buses. Now you have three payments. If you are going to drive you need insurance. If you are going to work, they want you to have health insurance. You keep digging yourself into a ditch of debt that you can hardly pay off even working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day! And what time does that leave you for your own personal life?– a few hours at night spent exhausted while you sort bills and pull out your hair. No thank you! THATS why we left the US. There are not jobs that can support the basic needs of the American lifestyle. And it wasn’t even a life of luxury, as my friends and family can attest.

Abroad, you can live for cheaper. We get jobs that pay slightly less than in the US, but I’m not stuck paying car insurance, health insurance or any of the other things that slowly steal every pay check. I pay for a pay-as-you-go cell phone instead of a cut-throat Verizon contract that takes a Supreme court ruling to get out of. I avoid insurance payments because I’m less stressed and thus healthier and health care (barring major catastrophe) is more affordable. I use public transportation that cost less than 30 cents a ride. In short, I’m able to pay down my loans, save up some money and still build up a resume. Perhaps now you understand why I don’t like the expats who come over begrudgingly and complain about missing the benefits of America.

I love my country, and I’m a patriot, but I’m also a realist. Americans are leaving the country to find work elsewhere and this is a major sign that things have gotten out of control. It isn’t just me over here trying to make a better life for myself, its all of my expat friends who are doing likewise and thriving where they didn’t have the opportunity back home. They have time, like I do, for hobbies and self-cultivation. They have time, in short, to live life and not tread water just trying to get by. So, ‘Should you Look for Work in China?”– you should look for work wherever it is on the planet that will afford you the opportunity to pursue happiness instead of just survive. After all, that’s one of the three main staples of the American promise- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Today, I was walking down Nanluoguxiang when a women in a new model Audi decided to take a short cut out of one of the many side alleyways and turned south on Nanluoguxiang, which is a one-way road going north. She pushed her fist against the horn and honked without letting up as she forced her way through the thick, Saturday traffic of pedestrians. A group of youths of about 10-14 years old were blocking her path unintentionally. She didn’t slow down at all, but pushed the corner nose of her car into the group. They were trapped between the walls, a massive tree, several bicycles and her car with nowhere to go to get out of her way. Meanwhile, she kept honking. I managed to duck out of the way of the Audi and the smug woman inside it, thought the car grazed my hip. A boy in the pack of youths was not as lucky.

She pushed the boys like I’ve seen Mongolian herders do with their motorcycles to goats. She pushed them against the wall, some nearly falling over, with her car. One boy didn’t manage to get out of the way entirely and his foot was caught under her front right tire. He yelped, but since he was a young boy with his friends, he tried to hide his pain. I slapped the back of the Audi and yelled at the woman, who couldn’t hear me over the sound of her constant honking. An oncoming car started honking in repetition, drowning out the boy, my slapping her trunk, and the potato salesman around the corner who was being forced to pack up his stall and relocate it so she could squeeze her car the wrong way past oncoming traffic.

After a moment, she seemed to be aware that the boy’s foot was trapped. She starred at him and rolled the car slowly forward. When the boy doubled over and touched his foot she sped up, the back of the car nearly clocking the book in the head for good measure. He winced and tried to hide his pain from his buddies. He straightened up and limped away with them, not even yelling at the woman or jotting down her license plate. The boys pushed against the wall simply fanned back out and continued strolling down the street, the boy trying to keep up beside them.

Now, I was standing as close to all of this as a person could be without being one of the main players in the drama. I was shocked that the woman, about 50 with too much hair spray and a pimple-scarred complexion, hit the boys, ran over one’s foot and then drove off. She never once let off the horn. Now, is this a cultural difference that I simply don’t understand or is this woman a modern-day monster? I’m inclined to think that she ought to have been forced to take the boy to the hospital for an X-ray, or else to have apologized or received a fine for driving down a one-way the wrong direction. Instead, she probably felt happy to have made it home sooner using her nifty, illegal short cut. I’m inclined to think that I should have opened the driver’s door and pulled the women into the street to apologize to the poor boy, though that is also rude…

Sometimes I see stuff like this in China and I’m confused about how to react. Its true that I don’t and probably never will understand the culture and people entirely, and that holding a different people to my own moral and ethical standards isn’t exactly logical, but then I think there has to be a line where most human beings on the planet would agree that something was either good or bad. Running over a boy’s foot and hitting a whole group of them intentionally to save a few moments time seems to fall on the bad side.

All of this would bother me much less if someone else on the street had reacted at all. The potato salesman saw it all and did nothing but move his cart obediently away from the car’s honking. The other driver saw the whole thing, the pack of youths obviously saw it, and there was a middle-aged Chinese man in a business suit standing next to me with an amused look on his face watching me hit the trunk of the car. Had any one of them done anything I might have thought wow, this is horrible but at least the woman is an isolated case but since, yet again, no one reacted or came to the boy’s aid, I’m left thinking this was a small incident where everyone silently agreed that it wasn’t a big deal.

A few years ago in Shanghai I saw two women in a fist fight on the street over the price of one woman’s oranges and her not giving the appropriate change (so the other claimed) to the buyer. A group of over 50 quickly crowded around and watched them fight, not one person intervening.

Less than a month ago in Beijing I saw a woman on a scooter hit a woman on a bike. The woman on the bike hit the pavement and didn’t move. She was face down and we thought the worst. More importantly, a bus was coming and she was right in its path. We were down and across the street and couldn’t have reached her in time to stop the bus. A group of about seven people stopped to watch the disaster unfold, one of them was a police officer on his motorcycle. In the end, the bus saw her and swerved out of the way, the cop told the woman to get up and a passer by explained to us that in China, people act more injured then they are to try to get big money out of the people who injure them. In the end, she probably got nothing.

I once heard a rumor in China that if you were hit by a car you needed to roll out of the way because the driver is liable for medical costs but if you die, he isn’t liable at all. You often hear people talking about drivers hitting someone and then backing up to finish them off. And while these were all rumors, recently there was a media frenzy when a man in an expensive car backed over a small child (story here). He got out, saw the child, backed over him again (for a grand total of four full times hitting the child) and killed him and then drove off. The whole thing was caught on camera.

What does all this have in common?– basically I don’t understand the culture of hit-and-run, or hit-backup-hit again-and-run, and witnessing all of these examples personally makes me realize that it must happen non-stop around the city. So, is this a cultural difference I don’t understand or is this just rude and totally uncalled for?

Beijing has many amazing attractions. The Great Wall is a short ride away, the Forbidden City is at the epicenter, the entire city is flush with history and culture. One of the things that Beijing has that many other cities are lacking in China is a survival of the traditional hutong homes. The web of hutong homes are a maze of homes that take up square miles and weave around in all directions. Some of the alleyways serving the hutong homes are delightful cultural must-see locations. The main arteries contain shops to serve the hutong, public bathrooms and small restaurants. In fancier hutong communities, these alleys evolved into pleasant streets with spas, cafes and bars, and small boutique shops. Our favorite hutong community is served by Nanluoguxiang, or South Luogu Alley.

Nanluoguxiang is a beautiful street. There are dozens of great little bars and restaurants along the north-south road that attract tourists, locals and resident expats including ourselves. The Pass-by Bar and Cafe is one such place– it is a traditional hutong establishment with a courtyard that is windowed in and heated. The favorite– 15rmb french toast! Bingo!

Another adorable place we enjoy is Ned’s, referring to New Kelly. As you could guess the bar is owned by an Australian. Its a double-decker hutong that is famous for serving a giant mug of rum and coke for 50rmb. The company is great and the atmosphere low-key and fun.

You’ll also find photo galleries, full-out restaurants and cafes, and little shops. At night, the street lamps illuminate a classic hutong view that no trip to Beijing is complete without witnessing. Hou Hai Lake is nearby, and Jingshan Park, north of the Forbidden City, is within walking distance, as is Bei Hai Park. In short, located centrally in Beijing, it is a great little hutong to explore, photograph and enjoy.

Happy New Year! With the new year comes a barrage of newly affirmed goals and resolutions. Living in China isn’t always easy, there are sundry problems, including the fact that our landlord refuses to fix anything broken in our hutong apartment, which is basically everything.  I resolved to deal with the problems of living abroad in a new way in 2011. It can be frustrating and down right infuriating to deal with some people, and our landlord is definitely one of them.  Trying to understand what makes some people tick is like trying to figure out that annoying multi-colored cube puzzle. In short, in the new year I resolved to deal with these messes in a more mature way. This is a tall order since throwing internal mental tantrums was somewhat therapeutic.

Changing how you deal with something that bothers you isn’t an easy feat. Going about doing something like that doesn’t really have a how-to guide. In short, this might be a long year.

In mush happier news– 2011 brought an important new addition. We now have a Beijing stray cat living in our house. We went to the local vet and asked if they had any news about cats who needed a good home. In fact, they’d keep their eye out, they informed us. A few days later they called with news of a kitten. We went in to see her, she wasn’t exactly a kitten, but a 6-month old, fully grown cat. She stayed at the vet a week while her shots took effect and her de-worming and flea medication kicked in. We brought her home a few days ago and although nearly everything in the apartment is broken we hardly notice as frequently because we’re so happy to have the cat. We named her Tolkuchka.

Dear Friends, Family, Fellow Travelers, and Random Readers,

Merry Christmas from Beijing, China!

We’re thrilled to be celebrating Christmas from the Middle Kingdom this year. Its a different experience than Christmas back home. For starters, Santa is only featured in a few select Western shopping centers, and his presence isn’t really felt in Beijing. There are no lights on the houses, or little Christmas trees or candles in our neighbor’s windows. Christmas carols are not heard in shops or homes. There are no sales on egg nog. There is no egg nog.

Despite all this, Beijing is in a festive mood. The weather has changed and its suddenly freezing (literally). Hou Hai Lake already has its first firm layer of ice, and people will be skating on it soon. The wildlife (what little there was in the city) has receded into nooks and crannies, and people walk around with scarves pulled up to their eyes and hats pulled down to their noses. I imagine they are all smiling under their winter wear and wishing me Merry Christmas with their desperate, freezing eyes.

There are some holiday events going on in Beijing this year, but mostly they are centered around food and wine, and have little to do with the actual holiday. Luckily for us, family will be visiting our little hutong home and bringing the holiday spirit with them. We have a mini Christmas tree that we’ll be stringing up popcorn on, and we’ve purchased a copy of It’s a Wonderful Life. We’re making our own Christmas fun this year!

The Chinese don’t celebrate the New Year on the 1st. Chinese New Year is coming up (Feb 3rd) and everything will be festive and lively then. It is the single most exciting and celebrated holiday in Asia (and thus, on the planet probably). Fireworks explode from everywhere for several days on end. Two years ago in Shanghai, there were so many fireworks people were throwing them out high-rise windows and one bounced off our taxi, skidding to a stop outside the window and exploded with a shower over the entire car. Its something you can only understand by experiencing, and we’re looking forward to it with fire extinguishers at the ready.

For now, we’re signing off for the remainder of 2010 and wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll resume updating Abandon the Cube with the dawn of the new year. All our best wishes to you and yours and a happy start to 2011!

Sincerely,

Abandon the Cube

We recently did a visa run. As with many people who live in China, we have to leave the country every 60 or 90 days to reactivate our 1-year visas. We recently decided to try the Beijing-Erlian visa run rather than the traditional Beijing to Hong Kong run. Here are a few details on how to make your visa run a quick success:

1) There are loads of buses that go to Erlian, you can leave from any one of the stations, and it is easy to call ahead of time if you speak even a little Chinese to ensure the buses leave on your scheduled day. Here are the Beijing Long Distance Bus Options.Or, a few other options on how to get to Mongolia.

2) Once you arrive (and if you take the bus you’ll arrive at 3 or 4:00am) you may need to stay at a hotel for a few hours until the border opens. It opens at 8:00am. If you arrive at the bus station you can easily find a driver to take you to a local hotel. Bargain, but you should be able to get the ride and the hotel for under $12 USD. Prices should be in Chinese. The hotels are not great, ours was heated by a stove and had wooden beds and a squat hallway toilet, but we only stayed a few hours and it was much-needed rest after 11 hours on a sleeper bus.

3) Crossing the border takes patience. You have to get a cab to the gate. Make sure they use the meter, as they’ll try to charge triple what the meter would have. The cab drops you off at the border, then you have to negotiate with a jeep driver to take you across the no-man’s-land to the actual Chinese immigration building. No walking allowed!

4) You use the same jeep to get all the way to the Mongolian immigration side and then through that to the first town across the Mongolian border. Your jeep should cost about 50RMB or less. We negotiated hard and paid only 30RMB, but we also went all out and even included one of the Chinese border guards, who was extremely helpful.

5) If you want, you can easily get your jeep driver to drop you off at the city square, otherwise you can simply turn around without leaving the Mongolian border zone and negotiate with a new jeep driver to take you back to the Chinese side. Getting back to the Chinese side is cheaper and easier as most Jeep drivers have limited loads.

6) Once back in Erlian, you can take a cab from the bus station in Erliain to Beijing for around 200RMB a person. The bus is 200RMB as well, so if you want to save some time, the cab ride is 7 hours while the bus ride is a grueling 11. I prefer the bus as its a sleeper unit so you can relax, sleep and even read.

7) Your visa will need to be registered once you get back to China. Good luck!

We recently signed a one year lease on a local hutong home called a ping’an. A hutong is a cultural community of homes in the traditional style, single-level and with minimal amenities. We decided that if we were going to live in China we should experience life like a local, and thus we moved into a hutong.

Our first impressions are complex. We find that nearly everything in the ping’an is broken. The landlord assures us these will be fixed or replaced soon. We’re not bothered by this as we expect things to take more time in the hutongs.

Second, we find the Chinese style bathroom to be something we expect will take some time to get used to. The bathroom is a tiled room about the size of a closet. It has a sink, western toilet and ceramic mop bucket under the sink. The sink has no pipe, but drains free-fall into the ceramic bucket underneath which then drains into a hole in the floor. The shower is simple a showerhead on the wall, with no doors or compartment. This means that whenever you shower the entire bathroom gets soaking wet. A drain in the middle of the floor empties the shower water. Since the whole room is the shower, you can’t store anything in the bathroom, and even putting the toilet paper somewhere dry has become impossible. We’re trying to come up with a smart method to deal with this style bathroom. My idea—a wooden sauna floor so the water drains under it yet you and walk in without getting your shoes wet and tracking water throughout the house. The temporary solution—slippers for the bathroom only that you put on anytime you go in. We’ll come up with something to make this workable and enjoyable!

Living in the hutong means living in close, close proximity to a lot of people. Although we haven’t formally met our neighbors, everyone knows foreigners live here. Case and point, when I came home from the teahouse this morning where I do my internet stuff, the police were at the ping’an telling me my neighbors reported that I had failed to register as a foreigner living there. (You have 24 hours to register with the police as a foreigner living or staying in China, I had about 3 hours left on this clock when the police arrived). They were extremely polite and I told them I’d register that day, which I did. However, I think its amusing that so many people already know we are here and keep an eye on us. This can be a good thing, once we prove we are not here to be loud, annoying or disrespectful. Also, the lady who reported us was 90 something years old, and you know how old ladies need drama!

The last thing I’ll mention as an initial observation is the amount of noise you hear in the hutongs. First, animal noises. I like all of these, including the pigeons, the cats and dogs people have as pets that run around the alleys, and even the sounds of some creature at night making a nest somewhere on the roof. Being close to nature, even minimally like this, is much nicer than the total lack of wildlife in the apartment complexes. The human noise in the hutong is extreme. People on bikes go up and down the alleys throughout the day yelling things like “mechanic available!” or “trash collection!” or “handyman!” or “housecleaning service!” I think this is great, but since it is all day long, I wonder if several months from now I’ll still find it quaint and fun. Several times a day a group of old men and women walk by and I hear bits and pieces of local gossip. If my Chinese was better, this would be really cool. I hope it improves so I can eavesdrop more efficiently. They play go and Chinese checkers outside the house sitting on little stools and gossiping, which is, so far, my favorite part of the neighborhood life.

As many of you know, we were recently evicted from our apartment in Beijing. This stellar nightmare had a surprisingly happy ending when we recently signed a one-year lease on a hutong ping’an in Beijing. The misery of finding a new apartment in Beijing in the middle of the freezing winter time was hard enough, but looking for a specific thing while freezing makes it hard to stay focused. After a week and a half of searching for apartments I finally found exactly what I wanted—a hutong building.

The apartment has a living room, master bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, dining room and extra guest bedroom and an office. In short, it is the biggest place I’ve ever rented. Additionally, it is in a hutong (a traditional-style courtyard village, where the entire community is in a 1sq kilometer block). One hutong home is called a ping’an. Since the communities expanded and grew, and more people moved in, they went from being the traditional courtyard surrounded by three large buildings, to a scattering of smaller homes and apartments at ground level, usually with a maze of alleys and passageways to smaller homes. Most hutong homes don’t have a bathroom, so public bathrooms are located around the hutong alleys. Ours has a bathroom.

I was so happy when I walked in and saw the ping’an that I knew it was where I wanted to live for the next month. A German fellow and his Chinese girlfriend were living there and the place was trashed! I mean, it was the most trashed home I’d ever seen. Piles of dirt and trash were strewn everywhere, clothes were piled on everything, furniture was piled on top of furniture and one whole room was stacked to the ceiling with unused appliances, furniture, trash and clothing. I had no idea how big some of the rooms were because of all the stuff! Nevertheless, the location was so great (near a bus stop, in a cultural hutong with great access to local pubs, cafes and shops) that I didn’t care about the mess. I made an offer on the spot.

The following day the landlord agreed to my offer (via an agent) and I paid a half month agent fee and watched the landlord pay the other half, everything was upfront. The landlord arrived and we started examining the mess. She said if anything was broken to let her know and she’d fix it. I later found via testing everything that almost all appliances were kaput! As of yet, the landlord hasn’t returned to fix anything, but she assures us she will next week. I have no reason to doubt that.

We signed a lease and paid three months rent and one month deposit. We then learned that we would be paying about another 1,000RMB a month in heating as the heating system was antiquated and the ping’an inefficiently insulated. We were so happy about the home we didn’t care. We spent the next three days cleaning out the mess, and even had a cleaning crew come in to help. After the cleaning crew left the mess was more manageable. It will take quite a while to get the place up to where we want it, but with a bit of paint and decorations the ping’an will be amazing. We’re so happy with the new place, despite the heating costs and multitude of broken appliances, that we just can’t wait to have it totally ready and get settled in!

Pictures will be forthcoming once we get the basics dealt with and figure out where to put everything.

First, a little background information on rental practices in China: In general, you sign a lease and pay your rent whenever you move in. No one waits for the first of the month to move. We signed our lease on a three-bedroom apartment in Dongchang district on the 21st of September, for example. You pay your rent in China by giving one month deposit and three months rent up front. You pay your rent every three months, essentially. Our lease was unique in that is stipulated two months deposit, two months rent.

We had a hard time finding a three-bedroom apartment for us and our roommates. Once we finally did, our agent charged us over half a month rent for a finder fee. We later learned that the landlord paid the realty company a months rent, and we should not have paid a fee at all. The agent (named Sam) pocketed the money. We later learned that he was in cahoots with an agent at the company listing the apartment, a girl named Lina. (This all comes into play later!) The company listing the apartment, should you wish to avoid it, was 5i5j, one of China’s largest realty companies.

On the 15th of November, right before our rent was due for the second time, we were alerted that we were being evicted because the landlord had sold the apartment to a new owner who did not wish to rent it out. They told us we needed to be out by the end of the week. In a total panic (my parents were visiting from abroad and everyone was extremely busy) we consulted the lease and learned we had to be given ten days notice. We countered with this information and they begrudgingly accepted. They had tried to pull a fast one on us, hoping we wouldn’t be able to read the lease that was all in Chinese.

Our contact with the rental company was a 30+ year old local named Lina (aforementioned). She spoke some English, which is why they probably assigned her to us. She admitted that we did get ten days, and told us they would be free, we didn’t need to pay for them. We had until the end of the month to be gone. This was all confirmed in English and Chinese, in multiple expressions so as to erase the issue of it possibly being a misunderstanding.

It turned out Lina was telling us a series of lies to get us to do what she wanted, without any concern about the effect her lies would have on us and on her coworkers. Here’s how the misery of the eviction played out:

Lina lied about the ten days being free and the landlord showed up to collect the ten days rent, prorated. Since we asked repeatedly for this deal in writing and Lina refused, we had no evidence to support our claim.

Lina lied again when she told us all the furniture we purchased for the apartment would be bought by the landlord. When the landlord arrived she knew nothing about this arrangement. We lost all the money we spent on furniture, and had to leave it all behind because there was nowhere to move it. This was Lina’s second lie, and although we had text messages from Lina proving she promised this, the company and the landlord refused to agree.

Lina promised to find us a new apartment for free as part of the deal when breaking a lease with a client. This turned out to be a total scam run by Lina and her friend Sam. Lina showed us apartments that were so vile or so far out of our price range that she knew ahead of time we would reject them. Meanwhile, her accomplice (Sam, aforementioned) would show us nice ones in our price range. Her friend then tried to charge us a large finder’s fee, which he would split with Lina. She would make money on finding us an apartment, money being her ultimate goal here.

I confronted Lina about these many lies and immoral practices and she turned bright red and refused to answer me. She showed up at our apartment the following day with two large gentlemen from the company and told us we had to be out of the apartment that night! It was around 5pm when she arrived with her ‘henchmen’ to evict us on the spot. We told her to get lost, and told the people with her about the many lies she had told us. She denied it all, and a series of yelling spats ensued. Eventually they left in a huff, but nearly as angry as we were. We were dealing with a greedy monster of a woman who was lying to everyone she encountered. Our poor roommate, this being their first time in China, were suffering through a horrible first impression of life in China.

The following day was the 30th, and we were informed that they would come to inspect for damages and return our deposit at 10:00am. They were over an hour late, and once they did arrive we learned they had only brought half the money they owed us for the eviction (our deposit plus two months rent for breaking the lease). The landlord arrived, more agents arrived, and the new owners arrived and began measuring the walls for their furniture. There were around ten people in the house, all together, as the madness unfolded.

We informed them that Lina told us we could stay for ten days for free. The landlord was shocked and refused on the spot. Lina didn’t arrive and her coworkers refused to honor any of her promises, despite any evidence we provided. We explained to them the massive series of lies we were told and that we were extremely unhappy about the whole affair. What happened next was shocking. They refused to give us the money until we signed a form saying we were leaving. We signed, and then they informed us they only had half the money we were owed and that we could collect the rest at their office at the end of the week. One of our roommates began to get furious and explained that he would literally not leave the premises until the money was delivered. I explained that our trust was betrayed and we were extremely hurt by the whole process. The agent we were dealing with apologized for Lina’s many lies but said they couldn’t honor any of them. He agreed to get us the money within the day, and the roommate would stay in the apartment until I called to say the money was in hand. The situation had deteriorated so much that we were literally leaving a human being in the apartment for our security until we had the money. If we left, they would have no reason to honor their promise to deliver the rest of the money they owed us. Since everything they had told us so far proved a lie, we didn’t actually know if we would get the money.

Later that day I went to the company headquarters and had no problem getting the money, at which point I called and the roommate left the apartment. Our standoff having ended with us on the losing end in every respect. However, everyone I met at the company headquarters apologized for Lina’s behavior and one of the men pulled us aside and said, quote: “she does not respect herself and she does not represent the company, or myself.’ He was deeply ashamed of what had happened to us because of Lina, and he gave us his business card and said that if we ever had a problem in Beijing to call on him and he would help. He really wanted us to know that not all Chinese are like Lina and that he would help us with whatever problems we faced, as a friend. This was such a moving display that we totally forgot about Lina’s selfish methodology and greedy approach to life, and were instantly brightened by this gentleman’s offer of assistance.

The whole event was so horrific and spread out over half a month that one of the roommates decided to leave China altogether, having tired of what he saw as a place where he wasn’t welcome. I don’t blame him one bit! It was a horrible first experience in China! He claims that in all the places he has travelled, China is the only place where he has had such trouble and felt so unwelcomed, and why spend one moment of your life in a place where people don’t want you. He is now on his way to south-east Asia and the land of smiles. Mike and I decided to stay in China, and we’re sure we’ll find many, many more people like the gentleman who offered his help, than people like Lina. Good riddance to her, the only good side to this whole affair is that we’ll never have to interact with her again.

The Long Way Round

We recently watched the series Long Way Round, where Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor ride their BMWs from London to New York– the long way around. They cover some 19,000 miles in around 3 months. This show was of interest to us because we recently completed the 2010 Mongol Rally, a charity ride from London to Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia. Ewan and Charlie did a strikingly similar route though much of the same territory, stopping at many of the same sites.

Charlie and Ewan set up an office in London several months prior to their departure and hired a small staff to help plan their route, get the necessary paperwork, consult with them on border crossings, and many more activities, like writing and disseminating sponsorship proposals and calling companies for donations. These were all activities we undertook for the Mongol Rally, and oh how nice it would have been to have an office and a support crew to do so!

To train them before the ride, they hired a personal trainer. We did sit-ups in the basement. To prepare themselves for harsh border crossings they hired an ex-military safety guru to teach them basic evasion, combat training, weapons use and how to best deal with a hostage situation. We watched Steven Segal movies. To prepare for any unforeseen medical problems, a doctor was brought on board. We had several boxes of band-aids and a suitcase of pepto. To learn Russian prior to departure they hired a Russian area consultant, a visa advisor and a language coach. We got an language book off Amazon and read the history of Russia. To fund the trip, they had a room full of women sending out proposals and a celebrity actor pleading for kit. We had a proposal we made ourselves and sent to everyone we could think of– and they promptly laughed in our faces. Needless to say, we’re jealous of their support crew.

They rode a nearly identical route from London to the Ukraine as we did, passing through the Czech Republic just as we did, and stopping at the Church of Bones, which we routed ourselves out of the way to see. Along the way they had various monuments and tours cleared for themselves and the support and video crews, and his two-van support team went ahead at most border crossings and at major sites to arrange visits, viewings and make for easy passage. A lot of what they saw would not have been possible without the support crews, and yet without Ewan on the team it wouldn’t have been a TV series at all.

The show itself is inspiring and lively, and gets me eager for our next self-guided adventure travel or rally. Its hard to watch a show like this one that makes travel look so dangerous, difficult and unattainable without a whole crew behind you and then realize that with a bit of real-world thinking and prior experience you could undertake the same trip as they did, and I’m sure people have.

diss I’m not trying to the Ewan-Charlie team, as I think they have something special and love what they are doing. I just think it is sad that it takes a celebrity on a team to get publicity for it. A lot of great travelers are doing equally amazing trips and because they arn’t A-listed stars they don’t get sponsorship, recognition or free gear, and the trips don’t get publicized so that most people think travel is this dangerous and relatively pointless activity.

Abandon the Cube has undergone changes…for the better we hope. Be the first to check it out! We’re excited about the changes we’ve made and can’t wait for you to browse around the new stuff!

As I said, we added a few new pages– the foremost of which is a page of Top Ten lists about various adventure and travel categories ranging from travel foods and gear to the greatest travel adventurers and most intense adventure rally events. Let us know what you think of the Top Ten page, and if you want to add any lists or suggest list ideas, simply contact us with your ideas.

We also expanded the Events aspect of Abandon the Cube to cover more of the activities ATC participates in, from the Mongol Rally to Habitat for Humanity and teaching English abroad. Its a work in progress but we’re hoping the pages do well and attract a bit of interest. With any luck, we’ll be partnering with some English teaching programs soon to bring you the best information on traveling abroad to teach.

But wait, that’s not all! The website changes are ongoing and comprehensive. We continually update the Most Influential Adventurers page. We’ve added a few more female adventures, an area we were sorely representing previously. Suggest someone for the list by contacting us or leaving a comment be low. We’d be happy to know who you consider the world’s greatest adventurers.

As always, the resources page can help you decide if you want to abandon your cube, how to go about it and a few other odds and ends to help you ATC. We think this is a great place to expand, and we’re always looking for new travel resources and tools to add to this page. If you have suggestions for us, don’t be a strange!– Let us know your thoughts.

Finally, we have a few more destination pages coming soon! We’re excited about uploading new destination pages for the countries we visited while on the 2010 Mongol Rally. Check back soon!

Happy exploring, and let us know what you think of the changes!

We’ve been looking all over for a place to buy a ferret. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, why buy a pet when you will just have to leave in a few years and possibly leave it behind. The quarentine process for brinign animals from China to the USA can’t be easy, and besides, ferrets are just glorified rats. Here’s my retort, sirs:

Ferrets are adorable, they do a warrior dance to signal when they want to play or fight that involves rolling around upside down and tossing their bodies side to side. If all warriors did that dance there would be no war… only massive laughing sessions followed by treks to the closest bar.

We looked at other animals as well. In 2006 we owned a rabbit in Beijing, but it quickly died. It was either sick when we purchased it from the street corner salesman who was also selling fish and toilet bowl cleaner, or he died as a result of running around or soon-to-be-condemmed apartment. He died so quickly after we got him that Mike seems to think it was his fault. I’ll go on record saying it wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it did mean that this time around we didn’t want to try our luck again with a Beijing bunny.

Cats are the best option, in my opinion, but Mike is allergic. Lame. And although I’d love a dog, how could I possibly part with that or give it away whenever I left Beijing? Ideally, the most generic and cliche animals are actually the best because they interact with humans on a high level and when guests come over they are not terrified, a they might be if a ferret ran by unannounced.

To check out our options, we went to the Beijing Guanyuan Market – The Fish, Bird and Insect Market. Obviously insects and fish were out of the question (boring, loud, boring, ugly, etc…), which left birds. I’d be happy to get a bird actually, but one that flies around and is interactive, not one of the irritating and loud ones that is scared of humans. I had a cockatiel in middle school that would fly around and land on people’s heads and eat seeds out of your mouth. I miss him, his name was Fido.

Anyways, fish and bugs were out, and the birds were mostly tiny and overcrowded, with 10-20 birds in a tiny cage meant for one animal. We also saw cats, kittens mostly, in tiny cages meant for rabbits and rabbits in cages meant for rats and so on. Only the ferrets had large cages, and they wanted over $500  USD for one ferret. We really wanted to get one, but we didn’t want to party with $500 to do so. To get to the market if you happen to be in Beijing, take the subway to Fuchengmen (line 2), take exit B and head North, the market is on the right (East) hand side of the road, just inside the Second Ring Road. It is in an old hutong, so you can walk around the maze and find food, rabbits, insects, more food, and clothing.  A nice but not appetizing combo.

A lot of people are interested in how much money our website makes, how we acquired so much content for the blog, and how we created the various destination and other pages on the website. It is, actually, one of the most common questions we get about Abandon the Cube. We had a lot of learning to do once we decided to start our own website. We were not interested in making money on ATC at first. That was a natural progression once our pages started to earn rank and increase in readership. We didn’t figure out the entire process in on our own. Luckily, we had friends!

Several years ago, not long after we started Abandon the Cube, we met a couple who work very hard and have had an impressive career in digital marketing. They started their own company called Moomu Media, a digital marketing company aimed at helping people increase their website page rank through SEO, PPC, keyword-rich content and analytics tracking. They have a proven track record that speaks for itself.

If you are curious about how to increase your page rank, make your website profitable or simply expand your readership, contact MooMu Media and tell them ATC sent you. Check out their success stories and contact them via email: sales@moomumedia.com if you are interested in a consultation for your website.

Since it was my birthday week we got to do a lot of really fun stuff. After all, you only turn 27 once! Mike decided to take me to the Beijing zoo to celebrate. With the new apartment I was hoping to get a cat but one of the room mates is allergic, so a trip to the zoo to see the giant cats there was a consolation.

In 2006 our visit to the zoo ultimately resulted in one of our friends yelling at a local child for tossing his empty coke bottle into the lion cage and yelling at the other animals. We were shocked at how people treated the caged animals, yelling, throwing things, banging on the glass and generally just being annoying and rude to the animals and other human visitors to the zoo. Now, 2010, things were a bit different. You still had the occasional asshole, but those are everywhere I suppose. At Como Park Zoo in Minnesota I saw a fourteen year old boy throw a hot dog into the monkey cage. So it goes.

A few memorable events happened while we were at the zoo. First, the boy throwing his coke bottle into the lion cage (lion helpfully pictured here). The lion jumped up and began to limp around the periphery of the cage. His front, right paw is seriously injured, you can see him holding it awkwardly in the picture. We watched for a while, but it looked like a recent injury. Hopefully they have resolved it by now!

The second event was when we were attacked by the Golden Monkey. The cage, to preface, is shaped like a giant metal mushroom. You can walk under the mushroom close to the ‘stem’ and look up and see the Golden Monkey flying around in his cage from branch to branch. I was looking up at three monkeys clinging to the sides of the mushroom cage when suddenly the male monkey became aware of our presence and jumped from where he was perched, falling around 12 -14 feet until he landed directly above our heads on the cage roof. He snarled and scared the hell out both of us! He rattled the cage and showed his teeth and even pounded on the grating. He was really angry! We backed up (honestly, we practically fell over backwards he terrified us so much) and a moment later the monkey was back on the wall, acting like nothing happened. Naturally, we moved back under the overhang area and watched. A minute later he noticed us standing there and free-fell from even higher, landing right above our heads and rattling the cage and making off monkey yelling noises. It was like Planet of the Apes!

Mike pretended to get mad at the monkey, yelling at it “Don’t you scare my girlfriend on her birthday, evil monkey!” it only takes about five seconds for a million Chinese people to gather whenever a commotion is detected. Mike’s fake taunting of the evil money quickly drew a crowd…. a very large crowd. The evil monkey climbed back up in the cage and ignored everyone, making Mike look like an evil spectator and the monkey like the innocent victim. This was one evil monkey we were dealing with, here. We shuffled away eventually, when it became obvious the monkey had one that round. Don’t worry, we’ll go back to the zoo again soon and see who wins round two!

After the zoo we went over to a friend’s apartment for taco night. They were friendly enough to invite us over and one of the room mates at our friend’s place even produced an extremely large birthday cake! They hit the lights and came out singing Happy Birthday. We played cards and chatted about old times, these friends having lived in beijing since 2006. All in all, and despite Evil Monkey, it was a great birthday!

Since we finally had an apartment we were free to start looking for jobs. We set about looking in the obvious places for expats living abroad, craigslist, the Beijinger, CityWeekend and other Beijing-specific websites with classified ads. In Shanghai in 2008 I found my job on Craigslist, proving that even legitimate,professional companies post on the plebeian forums. We began to stalk the classifieds in search of employment.

Harry, our British room mate, worked at a reputable English-teaching company across town. Andrew found one-on-one teaching gigs to fill his wallet. Mike and Lauren wanted to avoid teaching English if at all possible, having already experienced the joy of teaching in Beijing we were eager to try something new and also add a new skill set on the ol’ resume. They began to search for jobs in their desired fields, holding out for a decent paying opportunity. Lauren went to four interviews and turned down four jobs due to low pay or immoral practices. One job doing marketing for an online sales company was in the final phases of negotiating the contract when Lauren learned that the goods sold online were counterfeits being peddled as legitimate, she turned down a position paying $3,000 a month. Eventually, both found positions they could enjoy for a short time while refilling their bank accounts and learning new skills.

Teaching English in China is fairly simple and extremely straight forward. Most companies are seeking people who have a bachelors degree, though they will make exceptions. They are looking for native English speakers, though again, they make exceptions and are sometimes seeking Spanish, German and French native speakers. A TOFEL is not required, but it is helpful and in higher paying companies (like Wallstreet, Berlitz and EnglishFirst) it is a huge bargaining chip. You can find more information on our resources page about TOFEL programs.

To read how to apartment hunt in Beijing, check out our previous post on the issue!

Having decided to stay in Beijing for a while, we set bout organizing ourselves to look for an apartment. We were determined to stay in the central area of Beijing, right in the middle of the expat community. Sanlitun is a great area, near the shopping, bars, restaurants and other expats. It is a great area to live about 10 minutes from, which is where we started looking. We wanted a traditional, small-town Chinese community with a courtyard and trees. We also wanted to be near the subway and have access to fresh air and sunlight (meaning, high up in an apartment). With such in mind, we got online and started looking for apartments. It turned out that apartment hunting in Beijing was a different beast than the relatively easy process in Shanghai.

First, we combed the online site listings, which revealed a more expensive bracket of apartments than we really needed. We discovered that Andrew, the Oklahoma boy from the Mongol Rally, was also staying in Beijing for a while, so we joined forces to find an apartment for three, and then, when another friend at the hostel joined the group, we started looking for four-person apartments. This dramatically decreased our options since the one-child policy means most apartments have only two bedrooms and, if lucky, an office room.

Nevertheless, we decided to meet with a man renting his apartment online. We showed up only to discover it was actually a crooked realtor who was planning on charging one months rent in commission to show the apartment for his ‘friend.’ We waited until the realtor left and told the actual owner we’d take the apartment, he declined unless we paid a fee to the realtor, which we declined to do. After several more days of looking we found a two bedroom with an office in our price range. A different, semi-crooked realtor only wanted half a months rent for commission. Thing got convoluted quickly when the actual owner failed to materialize and in her place came a small army of men and women in suits claiming to represent her. Despite the annoyance of dealing with two different sets of middle men, we decided to get the apartment. It was in a great location with a decent interior and furniture, and room for 4 people, albeit barely. This picture is from our balcony, and shows a bit of the infamous Beijing pollution.

Note: If you are looking for an apartment in Beijing, your best bet is to check the Beijinger and CityWeekend online and in print, and beware that most postings are by crooked realtors looking to take a higher commission rate off foreigners. You can also go through a local real estate company. First, you find the area you want to live in and then walk around and look for a real estate office. There is one on every major road or in most residential areas. Often, there will be an office just for a specific building or complex, and you can cut out come commission costs by going directly to the one you want.

Next time: Job Hunting in Beijing, China!

Arriving as we did in the middle of the night we had an epic sense of adventure attached to our return to China. Adding to that feeling was the fact that several ralliers were to be in the city for the next week. We got in touch with them, though they were eager to see the sights (Great Wall of China, Forbidden City and the obvious tourist stuff). We met up and went shopping with Justin, from Seattle, and two American boys from Oklahoma named Cody and Andrew. Chris, the Irishman that was a member of our Mongolian convoy, was also in town. We met and shopped, ate and generally explored New Beijing. We moved into the same hostel so we could occupy our evenings in the hostel dining hall playing jenga and smoking apple-flwvored hookahs.

Much has changed in China’s capital city since we last lived here in 2006. The Olympics, which we visited in 2008, were a huge factor. But general improvements around the city have made Beijing the figurative and literal capital. We lived in Haidian, a north-western fringe area where the universities are. We taught English at a private company there and lived in a tiny apartment that cost less than 2000RMB a month for the company to maintain. In winter, there was no heat and no air in summer. We had a pet rabbit. This time we were staying in the eastern-central area of Beijing, right in the center of the expat community. We were looking for an apartment in this area, where prices have risen around 2000 per apartment since 2006. Food, living costs, entertainment costs all went up, but an exploration of the Beijing expat job market revealed that salaries haven’t really done likewise.

More importantly, the changes were positive, obvious and refreshing. The streets are much cleaner and there is even a street-sweeping machine that goes down the main roads daily. The trash is picked up daily, and efficiently. Shopping centers are more organized, isles are wider and the people pushing carts down them are polite and smiling. The general dislike of foreigners seems to have abated. Likewise, most foreigners we saw in the first few days in Beijing were fluent in Chinese. In 2006 a fluent foreigner was an extremely rare thing. Now, 4 years later, an incompetent foreigner with a Beijing zip code is more rare.

We spent the week hitting Beijing’s highlights, souvenir shopping with the ralliers, and enjoying our relaxing post-rally down time. Having been in a cramped, tiny, dusty car for the past month, it was a relaxing change of pace.

Come back soon to read about apartment and job hunting in Beijing, as well as the trials and tribulations of dealing with a corrupt realtor.

The euphoria at being back in a land where we could speak the language, knew the customs and food, and already felt comfortable was beyond description. We sat, discussing our options, until the wee hours of the morning. A friend had agreed to let us stay with him until we decided what we were going to do. We took him up on his offer and moved into his living room.

Walking around Beijing was like returning home after a long trip. We’ve spent time in China, in our adult lives we’ve probably spent more time in China than in America, and the comfort of knowing where things are, how to get things done, and how to be comfortable were almost irresistible. The original plan was to visit friends in Beijing and Shanghai and then head to South-East Asia and eventually make it to Thailand where we’d learn a new country and a new way of life. Yet now, in Beijing, we were so eager to stay. Mike wanted to learn Chinese, to become fluent in a language he’d been learning off and on for a few years. Lauren wanted to refill her bank account with a little work, and spend some time in one place. They had been on the road for over a year and a half, having left their apartment in Shanghai on May Day, 2009. It was now mid September, 2010 and the first time they were asking where they should go.

We checked into a hostel a few days later so as not to bother our working friend by living on his couch. We took a few interviews, saw a few apartments and generally got the low down on what had changed in Beijing since we lived there in 2006. The answer– a lot! Prices were much higher, apartments were harder to find and costed around 2000RMB more a month. Salaries were lower, strangely, and yet food prices were sky rocketing.

We decided we’d like to stay for a while. Should we?– I don’t know. But we talked about it and both decided that Chinese was important to us, as was taking a break in our travels for a little while. We’d make it to South-East Asia soon enough, and in the meantime, we could wait out the winter and maybe even the spring and summer, here in Beijing, China. It is easy to get a job teaching English, and to enroll in a Chinese language school. Finding jobs in Beijing is also fairly straight forward.

Tune in again to learn how to get an apartment in China’s capital city.

With the 2010 Mongol Rally behind us, we found ourselves sitting at a restaurant in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, wondering where we should go. Should we head to Thailand, which was the original plan? Or should we hop on a train to China and see where the road takes us? It was hard to say, but after being on the road for a year and a half the idea of getting an apartment and relaxing in one spot for a while seemed more than enticing. It was just such a big decision that we decided to hop across the border and see how we felt.

We had previously met two American brothers, also on the rally, who were planning on heading down to Beijing. Likewise, the Irishman from our convoy was headed that direction and we had heard that several other teams had members heading towards China’s capital. It seemed like the place to be. We walked to the UB train station and discovered one cannot book a train ticket in advance. The American boys handed us some cash and we agreed to buy the tickets the next morning.

In the morning, we discovered you needed a passport to book your tickets, so we booked ours and gave the American’s their cash back. We hopped on the train that afternoon and settled into our crowded alley-way bunks. The Trans-Siberian train was not as impressive as one would think. The bunks were tiny, crowded and the luggage compartments were overflowing. You have to pay for sheets, and the entire train smelled of mold and dust. Despite this, it was great to be back on a locomotive and chugging along at a slow, relaxed pace. I didn’t even miss having the Saxo!

The train reached the small border town the following morning and we jumped off with our luggage and easily caught a bus across the border for a few dollars. Customs and immigration were a bit of a joke on the Mongolian side. The woman barely looked up when she stamped me out of the country along with several other people who had stuffed their passports threw her glass window at the same time. The Chinese customs and immigration were a bit trickier. I was held for a few minutes because the guards said I looked nothing like the photo in the passport. I told them all white people look alike, but they did’t laugh. Apparently I look different now than I did in 2002, and after living in a tiny car for 40 days, its no wonder I didn’t match my image. Eventually they let me through, but our bus had not waited and we were left stranded at the border crossing with our luggage, a mile or two from town.

We set off walking into town thinking it wasn’t a great start to possibly staying in China. But, just as I was grumbling about being left by our Mongolian bus driver, a Chinese driver in a van pulled over and picked us up and drove us to the train station for free. They were friendly and chatted with us the whole way. It was such a good feeling to be able to communicate again, having been useless in Mongolia on the communication front. They were so incredably friendly that they even invited us to their homes, which we declined in favor of catching the night bus to Beijing… but not before we had a breakfast beer at a Chinese chain restaurant we have always enjoyed in the past. Mike’s first epic Breakfast Beer picture in China!

Sleeper buses seem to be specific to Asia. Essentially, everyone gets a bunk-bed sleeper compartment and the top-heavy bus rolls down the street swaying from side to side. It seems dangerous and unsteady, but if you want to sleep over the 12 hour drive it is worth the small upgrade. Our sleeper bus deposited us in the middle of Beijing at 3:00am on a Friday. We walked sleepily to a 24 hour McDonald’s to talk about our options. Where should we go from here?

Tune in next time to find out what we decided…. or if we decided!