Forget Ronaldinho :

My jaw dropped when I saw this:


A big, fat-ass, 200m2 Puma ad just above the main entrance of a frequented shopping mall in Xintiandi, in the heart of Shanghai, showing SWISS, the shirt of our national team - unserer (or with a more "rural" Swiss German accent: "öiserer") Nati!!!

My thoughts:

• Shareholders of Puma beware: Puma must be about to go bankrupt. They can only afford the Swiss to put onto their ads. No money for real soccer nations.. ;) (Oh god, I will be fried in Switzerland for this comment..)
• After a second thought it made sense: Puma was looking for the most outgoing, enthusiastic, cheering, crazy soccer fans so as to attract most of them for the showdown on July 9th in Xintiandi (that's what the Chinese part of the ad says).. Forget the Samba-dancing Brasilian mamasitas, the wipping German beer-bellies, the Mexican rumberos and (especially rumberas), the Italian ragazzi and the congenial Dutch nerds dressed in Orange, from socks to tanga to the plastic windmill on their head - It's the Swiss that know how to cheer and party.. !!! ;)
  

A little later on Monday, after the Togo game, I then noticed that:

• Puma is simply clairvoyant. They already know who is going to drink champaign from a shiny, big, golden Cup on July 9th rather than from a profan glass. ;)

In that sense: 5 more games to go. HOPP SCHWIZ!! ;)

Hunting - the digital way :

"ExoSocial" - this is what we have every month at Exoweb. In short: a gathering of all mates after work in order to discover something new while pushing some of our limits and, above all, having a good time together. Roughly 4 weeks ago we organised the most recent one: A digital scavenger hunt in Dashanzi Art District. Did you go: "Digital scavenger hunt; what the hec?!?". Here we go: the "how to" in a nutshell:

• Define a "playground"- In our case: Beijing's rocking Dashanzi Art District. In Dashanzi fat-ass, old and rusty factories co-exist with new art galleries; steaming pipes impress or irritate the "ätepatäte" visitors of fancy "haute couture" shows, expensive parfume mingles with the smell of a peaceful looking but definitely dead rat and nobody would be particularly surprised to walk pass a supersized earthworm with flames coming out of its nostrils.
  
• Split into teams: 6 à 5 or 6 mates and externals in our case
• Organise one decent digital cam per team
• Define and explain tasks to solve in roughly 90 mins
• Make sure you've got a cosy restaurant, loads of food and barrels of drinks ready once the hunting is over.
• Important detail if you like your mates: Distibute maps of the "playground" and get the cellphone number of at least one person per team.. ;)

The tasks: Shoot a picture that illustrates, in our case, "Something connecting", "Something geeky", "Something funny", "Something risky/scary", "Something agile/dynamic", "Someting representing the home country of a mate" most eloquently. Additional requirement: At least one team mate has to be in the picture (position? Go play!). Supplement: Shoot a telling group pic and come up with a group name. Well then, "Club Sandwich", "Fan Ban", "FOOART", "Hungry", "Wu jia yi" and "Zong Heng Jiang Hu" hit the road to hunt, the digital way.
Here some of the resulting pics:





"Open" Tc, A chain with a "rose" at the end reaching for a star, Two guys falling for each other, another guy falling for a fish, Stylish V-as in Vim or Vincent, Rena's scary (well, I still disagree) butt, Gary wating for snowwhite, The stretching Indian dragon, The fight of the brooms, mutely expressive Darren, Agitated "Wu jia yi" (or yi jia wu?), Park taking on the challenge, Vincent and Krishna back from a (what is likely to be risky) insight, some alternative form of dragon dancing,.. we had it almost all. Some more examples on: http://www.flickr.com/groups/exoweb/

At the end of the day, after savouring quite a tasty buffet at the fancy "at cafe" we had a look at all of them and choose the most popular in every category. Voting: Everyone has two ballons. One yellow, one black. Everyone has one vote per category. For your favourite: put your yellow balloon up in the air. If you want to censor a pic: the black one it is! And yes, Cindy is the queen of censoring.. ;)

I appreciated this ExoSocial a lot since:

• There is one blind spot less on the map of Beijing. Great, since Dashanzi is a melting pot, a place to be, hang loose, discover, flirt, play or simply have a drink or two.
• It provided me with a great opportunity to introduce my parents and my brother, the probably most exotic externals present at this ExoSocial, to all my mates and, thus, bring them closer to a big part of my life here in Beijing. A "little" hug here, a common visit to the women's toilet there -> I was very impressed how quickly my parents and Krishna were integrated/integrated themselves..! A terrific start into my parents, Krishna and my common Beijing and Yunnan trip.
• Not only I seemed to enjoy this evening - I do admit that I was a bit anxious before the game, since I did not know if this type of game pushed too many limits, was to unknown or forced creativity too much and thus, would not be much appreciated. But hey: look at Greg (below) and see why I had a blast of a time and am now sure that ExoMate do not fear the new, or being creative but rather embrace it. Geeky!! ;)
  

Do I need to say that I'm looking forward to other ExoSocials? ;)

exoweb, software, event, company, beijing

The Cup, The Cup - The world is watching, China included :

Even though China is not qualified for the World Cup in Germany the Chinese capital is down with a serious World Cup feever. Let me share some first impressions:

• BIG SCREENS EVEN IN TINY RESTAURANTS AT THE CORNER - Screens are mushrooming throughout the city. Even the tiny kebab stand at the corner in Sanlitun has installed a big screen and a decent sound system. Especially impressive: They show the games even in some of the buses!! Great way to forget about the massive traffic jam you've been stuck in for the last half-time.. ;)
• CELEBRATE LIKE THE DUTCH - What I like about the World Cup is that you can go from corner to corner to celebrate the games with the respective community and according to the respective community's style. Beijing is full of expats and currently every community organises a venue to gather in order to see their team play. So far we've been celebrating among Sombreros and mamasitas on the great roof top terrace of Bar Blu, the heavy beer drinkers wearing Black, Red and Yellow flags at Pavillion and ultra-loud, hyper tall (especially for Chinese standards) fellows wrapped in organge at Browns. It's decided: The winner so far are the Dutch: from inflatable crowns to windmills made out of polystyrene to tight tops - all in bright, proud orange of course - they were wearing it all and shouted louder than Adam talks ;)
• MY DISCONCERTING TENDENCY - If I have been consistent in something, since my childhood, then in my fervent support for the team, no matter which one, playing against Germany. However, watching my dear northern neighbours play during their first game, scoring one incredible goal after the other, I caught myself cheering (even though, of course, only internally) for Klinsmann's team... Indeed: disconcerting.. ;)
• BIORYTHMS UNDER ATTACK - Beijing is 6 timezones away from Germany, which can mess up a foodball-fan's biorythm quite considerably. Games start at 9pm, 12am and 3am. Result: People adapt their sleeping pattern or then simply cut the sleeping right away. Most impressive performance so far: Cheng Qi, a work mate of mine. He started off with South Corea-Togo at 9pm, slept for half an hour before getting up again to watch Switzerland taking on France and from then on continued straigth through to the end of Brazil-Croatia. He told me in the morning after having arrived at the office on time and looking bloody fresh and happy. My explanation: he must have dozed off during the CH-France game without noticing it; well at least I could definitely understand this...
• FIRST GAME,.. WAS LAME - I was in the most patriotic mood I can ever be in. I wore a Swiss cap, a Swiss shirt and joined the (tiny) Swiss crowd assembled at Pavillion. We sang the anthem, etc etc. But hey, after 10 mins the holderadio mood was kind of over. No drive, no passion and 80% of the passes ending somewhere, except the feet of the team mates.. The Swiss disappointed and played like the Germans used to play a couple of years ago: Defensive, boring and seemingly without any inspiration. Well, luckily the French were playing even worse and started off the World Cup like 4 years ago... "zero but et.. etc. etc (won't continue, dear French friends..;) Well then: Even though the game was as interesting as a glass of lukewarm water, the Swiss secured their first point and we had still quite an entertaining time.. in the end: is a World cup really about football...?!? ;)
• THE WORLD IS A VILLAGE AND THE WORLDCUP MAKES THIS VILLAGE EVEN SMALLER - Sign 1: The evening started off with a welcome dinner for Jitu, a new mate from India. We've never met before but he knows at least two persons I know as well. Great to have you here Jitu (even though you cheered for the French.. Dhruv, you have done a terrible job promoting Switzerland.. ;) ) Sign 2: At welcome lunch 20 persons of about as many nationalities came together. Normal, hey? Sign 3: After almost living in the same neighbourhood in Geneva, Sam -Peace- Hieber, one of my buddies at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva is now living 15kms away from me again - in Beijing, some 8000km away from home. Cool! Sign 4: I bumped into Emina, another buddy from HEI with whom I've once written a seminar paper. I had no clue that she was currently in Beijing. She was there, in Beijing, at the Pavillion, from 11pm to 2am.. Of course...! Wow! Sign 5: We were watching the games on a South African channel (Great ads during the breaks, such as for the one promoting Billtong.. in China...). Yebbo yes! Anecdote: CCTV5 (Chinese channel) emits the games with a delay of roughly 15 seconds..
• FRIENDS, BUT THEN - We started off the 25 of us. 25! Most of them I called friends (others I didn't know). But then: only 3, yes "lousy" (Dom2: this is strictly quantitatively spoken) 3 of them, supported "my side", my team, "eus Schwizerliiii".. ayayay.. Chris, Echo, Jitu, Sheila, Pierre, Olivier, Florian (well, ok, you had somewhat of an excuse... as a French... ;) ), Alinda, etc I'm shattered!!! ;) Dom2 aka Lol: I won't forget your loyalty (bought for a simple crêpes.. ;) )

Enjoy the athmosphere that comes along with the World Cup where ever you are and, .. still.. , HOPP SCHWIZ :)

A broken door is a sign of love :

Three dresses, a lovely couple, tons of food, barrels of alcohol, a broken door and lots of red: that's a Chinese wedding in a nutshell.
It's been almost two month ago since I had the privilege to take part in Rena's, my HR buddies wedding. I was pretty excited but also quite a bit nervous before going there, since I was to be the only laowai (expression employed for foreigners; with a slightly mocking tone to it) present, among what turned out to be quite a big crowd: 170 persons.

So here we go: a Chinese wedding seen with the eyes of a laowai:

• Making one's way to the bride To get to Rena, waiting eagerly on the bed in her family's house, dressed in white, beautifully rouged and wearing flowers in the hair, was easier for us than Bai Hao, her husband: While we sneaked in before the door was closed, he had to convince 3 of Rena's girlfriends - tough guardians of the door - to let him pass to his wife. Tough negotiations, I can tell you: He started off with words, minstrel-like, failed (because of the stubbornness of the 3 guardians ;) ) and then passed on to bribing. He filled red envelopes with money and slipped one after the other over the threshold into the hands of the three guardians. Oh yes, greedy they were these girlfriends. But hey, a bride is not just one of these random things to take away. Hence: negotiations continued. One more and more desperate husband vs. three greedy, stubborn but very witty guardians. After 10 mins Bai Hao tried to increase his bargaining power by showing some force. He started forcing the door. The strategy, in combination with an additional red, slightly thicker envelope worked: the guardians were satisfied and ready to open the door. BUT, the husband forgot to take one consequence of his slightly brutish negotiation strategy into account: While he did never intend to force the door open completely but to simply threaten, he rammed it enough to block it. Result: even once the guardians were appeased he could not enter the room! Result: he, together with some of his friends broke their way into the room: Minus one door, but plus one happy bride.. (and groom, of course) ;) (btw: at least the last part is not usually an ingredient of a Chinese wedding; but definitely funny!! ;))

• How to set the bride free One in the room Bai Hao was to ask for the permission of his parents in law to actually take the bride away. I admit that I did not understand everything he said, but I could clearly see his impressive bows (at least 45°) and the happy smile on the happy parents in law's face. Permission granted.
• How to dress the bride One more task to fulfil. The bride, an apple in one hand (sign for good luck) a mirror (to keep the evil spirits and/or bad luck away) in the other, wore only one shoe. So hey, what to do as a gentle husband: look for the second shoe, which was, according to Chinese tradition, hidden somewhere in the brides room. In casu the shoe was hidden in a plastic bag carried by Rena's most beautiful niece. "Handing over the shoe? Well, how much can you offer." Hehe, a small red envelope and the shoe was Bai Hao's. Well then, the bride was ready to go.
• The caravan to the restaurant Polished, black Audi A6 took the guest, a silvery Volvo the bridal couple to a nice restaurant in the neighbourhood.
  
• Marilyn and Arnold's arrival Confetti all over; Firecrackers filling the air with smoke and causing the floor to tremble; Guests in colourful dresses and at least two BIG smiles: this the arrival of the couple at the restaurant. Rena and Bai Hao said good bye to their car and hi to every single of the numerous guests. Off we go to...
• Tons of food, barrels of alcohol and a "Beni Turnherr-ish" moderator Chinese are great hosts. In order to be a great guest you have to be starving, have a lion-sized stomach and an alcohol tolerance similar to the one of anyone who has lived in Australia for an extended period of time. Some of the food was interesting and good, some simply good.
  
• Speeches and introductions The whole wedding was moderated by a somewhat Beni Turnherdesque fellow, who announced the different parts and entertained the crowd. I was especially touched when Rena's fathered welcomed the family, the friends and the laowai. ;) I really felt at ease even though I understood only 1%, which is about the amount of the food on the table I could eat before surrendering due to an imminent risk of explosion, of what he said. A great, very hospitable shu shu!
  
• A polite husband is a drunken husband Tradition wants it that the groom has to pass from one table to the other in order to welcome every guest individually. In China this means as much as: down a shot of Baijiu (pretty strong (Baijiu is generally about 80 to 120 proof (40-60% pure alcohol)) Chinese booze distilled from sorghum, although sometimes other grains may be used. Extremely potent and rather blerk in taste; actually: really bleeeeerk in taste) with everyone. A shot with 170 guests?? Well, of course the groom started of with having his drinks served from a Baijiu bottle that was, sneaky sneaky, filled with water. This game worked until he reached the table of his friends, of the same age, who discovered the trick and had no shame to air it. Hence: "Brother, let's change glasses!" Off he went.. roughly 60 more guests to go.. pants down.. and a looooot to drink. He changed colour alternatively from red to white... Well, I won't tell you that I was as cruel as to contribute to his "defeat".. But hey, he had had 40 shots already.. so what would one more change anyway.. ;) He puked and was totally out afterwards... One objective of a Chinese wedding seemed attained: spoil the romantic wedding night... Sorry Rena.. ;)
• The bride has to suffer, smilingly, as well While the groom has to drink, the bride is to fulfil any kind of wish a guest may have. We, therefore, saw Rena on the shoulders of Bai Hao, lighting cigarettes of guests who just felt like having the cigarette lit while standing on a chair, etc. Artistic and impressive Rena! Especially in a (second) red, absolutely beautiful, tight robe as you wore! ;)

To be as close to a bit of Chinese culture while participating in a great day in the life of a friend was as much of a pleasure as a privilege. I enjoyed it a lot and wish Bai Hao and Rena the best of luck and less disturbing and nasty guests and friends (at least when it come to the Baijiu) then the ones they had during the wedding... ;)


Btw: I've heard that Bai Hao is sober again.. ;)

chinese culture, wedding, exoweb, pictures

A-maze-ing family :

Everything started with my preparation for Rena's wedding: I wanted to be polite, so hey, I thought, Dom you should at least know how to call her parents, grandma, etc. Result: Dom was caught (and lost) in the maze of various titles for different members of a Chinese family.

While in Switzerland I can pretty much get along with "brother", "sister", "mother", "father", "grandfather", "grandmother", "uncle", "aunt", "cousin", "niece" and "nephew" in China I need to know half a dictionary by heart in order to be considered half way polite. Thus: A great illustration, I think, of the importance attached to the family as social unit in China and a challenge for poor laowai such as me. So let me elaborate a bit:

Wo(3), which means as much as "I", have a di(4) di (younger brother), a jie(3) jie (older sister) and a mei(4) mei (younger sister), but no ge(1) ge, which would be an older brother. Would I have more brothers they would become da(4) ge(1) ge (the oldest brother), er(4) ge(1) ge, san(1) ge(1) ge, etc.. respectively (where er(4) is two/second, san(1) is three/third). I'm soon gonna have a -- ah well, I won't tell you yet.. ;) go bug Simone my beautiful and pregnant mei(4) mei for more information.. --. Well, if Simone gives birth to a boy then he would be my wai(4) sheng(1). If she gives birth to a girl, then I would be uncle of a wai(4) sheng(1) nü(3). While, lucky me, these titles stay the same for the son respectively daughter of Andrea, my jie(3) jie, I should beware of calling Krishna’s, my di(4) di’s, son wai(4) shen. Zhi(2) zi he is! Furthermore, only a slightly ignorant uncle with a bad memory would call his daughter wai(4) sheng(1) nü(3) instead of zhi(2) zi nü(3).

While mum (becomes ma(1) ma) and dad (ba(4) ba) are easy, things become tricky again if one wants to talk about one's uncles or aunties. Not only does one have to distinguish between the brothers of one's mother on one hand and those of ones father on the other, but also pay due respect to their age compared to ones ma(1) ma or ba(4) ba. Consequently ones father's younger brother (or ge(1) ge)) becomes one's shu(1) shu while the ge(1) ge of your ma(1) ma wants to be refered to as jiu(4) jiu. "Easy" when it comes to the title of your ma(1) ma 's di(4) di, as he is a da (4) jiu(4) jiu, hence almost the same as your ma(1) ma 's ge(1) ge. While the smart asses among us conclude: "ah, then logically my ba(4) ba 's ge(1) ge should be my da (4) shu(1) shu, as is my ba(4) ba 's di(4) di", are wrong. The latter wants to be called da(4) ye (and, to complicate things even more bo(2) fu (4) in the South of China)).

But, hey the fun of a big family reunion is not over yet, since there is no real family reunion without grandparents, right? While the ma(1) ma of my ma(1) ma wants to be referred to as lao(3) lao, the ma(1) ma of my ba(4) ba would only pass me the nice, fat red envelope if I called her nai(3) nai. Same game for my ba(4) ba 's ba(4) ba who would rather drink a bottle of baijiu straight than sharing all his cock-and-bull stories with me if I called him lao(3) ye - my ma(1) ma 's ba(4) ba - instead of ye(2) ye. So far so good? Well, wait until you meet your cousins.... ;) Well, let me spare you this one.. ;)

While thinking about the above mentioned and learning some of the titles by heart I thought: Actually the Chinese one child policy is not all that bad: one's memory is going to increasingly feel like on a holiday.. ;)

Not tired yet? Well, then let me add yet another (hillarious) example of family relations that may twist ones mind (but do wonders to avoid military service ;)). Unfortunately I've got it only in French, but http://translate.google.com/translate_t may be your friend:

Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense Nationale,

Permettez-moi de prendre la respectueuse liberté de vous exposer ce qui suit et de solliciter de votre bienveillance l'appui nécessaire pour obtenir une démobilisation rapide.

Je suis sursitaire, âgé de 24 ans, et je suis marié à une veuve de 44 ans, laquelle a une fille qui en a 25. Mon père a épousé cette fille.

A cette heure, mon père est donc devenu mon gendre, puisqu'il a épousé ma fille. De ce fait, ma belle-fille est devenue ma belle-mère, puisqu'elle est la femme de mon père.

Ma femme et moi avons eu en janvier dernier un fils. Cet enfant est donc devenu le frère de la femme de mon père, donc le beau-frère de mon père.
En conséquence, mon oncle, puisqu'il est le frère de ma belle-mère. Mon fils est donc mon oncle.

La femme de mon père a eu à Noël un garçon qui est à la fois mon frère puisqu'il est le fils de mon père, et mon petit-fils puisqu'il est le fils de la fille de ma femme. Je suis ainsi le frère de mon petit-fils, et comme le mari de la mère d'une personne est le père de celle-ci, il s'avère que je suis le père de ma femme, et le frère de mon fils. Je suis donc mon propre grand-père.

De ce fait, Monsieur le Ministre, ayez l'obligeance de bien vouloir me renvoyer dans mes foyers car la loi interdit que le père, le fils et le petit-fils soient mobilisés en même temps.

Dans la croyance de votre compréhension, veuillez recevoir, Monsieur le Ministre, l'expression de mes sentiments les meilleurs.

Trop fort! Merci Olivier!!

PS: I know, I've been a lazy bastard (or "shithouse" as Mishie, charming as ever, called me) lately and did not share all that many thoughts and experiences recently. I promise to do so soonish! However, if you feel like already glancing at my first Chinese wedding (including a drunken groom), the digital scavenger hunt with my ExoMates (including externals as exotic as my parents and brother), the fantastic time I spent with my dad, mum and Krishna in Beijing and Yunnan (including a Tibetan feast and some Naxi tunes), the adventurous 14 days with a dragon and an angel (well, almost) I spent in Xinjiang (including two of my favourite nomads, Martin and Steppel, as well as a somewhat "green" driver), the drinking, sleeping, drinking weekend I spent with great friends in Dalian (including a stayover on a warship and a somewhat martial alarm clock), and and and... then you can click here and turn to the respective sets.

Abrazote!