An American on business in China, Employed in Australia seeks Indian Business Visa

Warning: Do not try this at home! Oh wait, this wouldn't be a problem at home...

Have you ever wondered what you'd get if you mixed Chinese bureaucracy with Indian bureaucracy and asked an American employed abroad to navigate it? If you did, it was probably a nightmare. So let me tell you my waking version.

First of all, the Indian embassy in Beijing has outsourced their visa processing. Yes, that's right, the Indians outsourced to the Chinese. The Indian embassy is a lovely new building next door to the US embassy, 美大使馆, which is easy to find and all taxi drivers know. The Indian visa processing center is in the next district, the address on the website is in English and google maps has no idea where No 5 Dongshuijing Alley is. I made a poor taxi driver go in circles in Beijing traffic trying to work it out and finally got someone on the phone to direct him. Once there, I went in the front and was promptly shown around the back to a crowded multi-country visa processing center. Thankfully they spoke English and they gave me a checklist that started me on what I consider to be a visa scavenger hunt for all the items on the list.

I remember fondly when I thought the application in Australia for a Chinese visa was hard. Those were the good old days. Now I long for the terse but efficient ladies on St Kilda road that took my form, letter and photos and returned my passport in 2 days.

I spent an entire day attempting to collect all the material for the business visa and discovered that I need an Original copy of a letter from my employer. But my employer is in Australia and I'm in Beijing, and I have 1 week before I need to leave and it will take one week to process the visa. Not going to happen.

So, what do you do when faced with a system that is not designed for your situation? You work around it! So now I'm going to fly to Mumbai as a tourist, and when they ask me why I have a snowboard with me I will tell them it is because I want to ride down the Taj Mahal and promptly get kicked out.

Summer Down Under

I just spent almost 2 months in Melbourne. Probably my longest single stay since I moved.  What have been up to that has kept me from my blog? So glad you asked!!

Underwater Adventures:

In December I became Dive Certified to 18 meters at Bay Play in Portsea. I dived the Pope's Eye and was lucky there were no nearby boat motors as I bobbed to the top. But I survived the strong current and taking my mask off in open sea water. Next up: diving with sharks in the Melbourne aquarium, live aboard on the Great Barrier Reef, dive trip to Hawaii with my bro, and cage diving with great whites with Sara.

Australian Sights:

In January, one of the hottest months in Central Australia we did a camping/hiking trip to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta and King's Canyon. It got up to 43 C/105 F. I learned that aboriginals don't like us to use the translation DreamTime to describe their creation stories since they feel so strongly that they really happened. I have photographic proof of the Devil Dog's presence at Uluru and a newfound respect for a very old culture. If you go, do not climb the rock. There are plenty of rocks to climb nearby and you are polluting the watering holes when you do.

Did you know that Australia has 500,000 wild camels and exports thousands of camels per year to the middle east? All that from a few over worked camels let loose 100 years ago.

House Hunting:

With predictions of continued over saturation in the US housing market and a ever growing immigrant population in Australia, it is time for me to buy a real asset in my new land of opportunity. I'm exploring in Prahran, Richmond, Fitzroy, Carlton, North Melbourne and South Yarra.

Working:

My regional team has expanded to include a Mobile Product Manager in Melbourne, Data Strategy Director in Singapore and Data Asset Manager in Beijing. I'm hiring an Email Product Manager in Australia to drive our Enterprise Email offerings in APAC. I have really come to appreciate the global reach Experian has and I work with amazing people at the local, regional and global level.

Next Up: working in Beijing and Snowboarding in Japan

Year end musings

I just spent over 2 weeks working in Beijing. It is my fourth visit this year and I am feeling a bit sad to leave this time. I have come to enjoy the rhythm of life in this sliver of China, despite the never ending American Christmas music soundtrack at the hotel.

It might be because I can now direct a cab driver to my office without showing him a piece of paper. It might be because I had enough time to enjoy the social life Beijing has to offer (and make great new friends!). It might be the amazement I still have for a country that pulled their cities into the 21st century in under 3 decades. 

I won't miss the smog, the traffic or the spitting. But somehow the graciousness of my hosts and the energy of the work environment makes it all worth it.

Two years ago at this time I was sitting in New York, dreaming about the next phase in my life. I set my sights on Australia as my base and Asia as my challenge. I started learning Mandarin at a stuttering pace and figuring out how to become an expat. I moved in April to Melbourne and was on a flight to China in June. My shipment from the US arrived in July and I have not regretted the move since.

Today I have a multi-entry China visa and a pile of frequent flyer miles. When people ask me where I am from, I hesitate. I am a global hobo. I was born in California, schooled in New York and now live in Australia 50% of my time and Asian hotels the other half. 

There are days when I feel a bit lonely, but usually I am too busy meeting new people to feel that way for long. I have met oil rig workers, barristers, engineers, researchers, developers, salesmen and students. They come from all over the world and have great stories. We are united by the ease of travel in this hyper connected world and the common English that is spoken by international travelers. 

I have learned not to make assumptions about the meaning of the words I speak or hear and I am always prepared to clarify a misunderstanding. The only thing that comes through universally is kindness. 

Last month a new mate went out of his way to give me a ride in the pouring Melbourne rain. Today a stranger let me go ahead of him in line because I was clearly in a hurry. I have had my colleagues regularly go the extra mile to make sure I can get my job done. Once, a stranger rescued my stuffed angry birds from a bullet train in Japan.

So as I wander this world looking for the welcome signs for hobos like myself, I always remember to smile and express my gratitude to all the people who make it possible.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my family, old friends, new friends and colleagues. As always, I look forward to a brighter year than the one before, but this one will be hard to beat.

恭祝圣诞, 并贺新禧

Single White Female Seeking Redwood for Friendship and Nostalgia

I grew up in a somewhat remote part of California, where the tallest trees in the world grow over 300 feet tall and live for thousands of years. They are the Coastal Redwoods, also known as Sequoia Sempervirens in Latin and 加州红杉木 in Chinese (literally "California Red Tall Tree"). They are also called living fossils because they are so ancient. Fossil remnants of their genus have been found around the globe in the same latitude, but until 1944 it was assumed that California was the only place they still grew natively.

My aunt Gladys, who lives in Humboldt county and visits the ancient redwood groves regularly, sent me a brochure she found from the Save-the-the-Redwoods League about Dawn Redwoods, Metasequoia in Latin and 水衫 in Chinese. These are a Northern relative of the Coastal variety whose fossils have been found in various places including Japan, Greenland and parts of the Canadian ice flows. This varietal was thought to have become extinct 20 million years ago, but in 1944, in a secluded valley in the Szechuan province of China, botanists discovered the first living Dawn Redwood. This is a scan from the brochure of one of the redwoods found in Hubei (spelled Hupeh in the caption) province in 1948.

So I was inspired to find to visit this unique discovery in Western China and ended up encountering redwoods in unexpected places along the way.

My first surprise came in the Botanical Garden in Australia. My first week exploring led me to the California section and there was an unmistakable redwood growing in the middle of Melbourne. It is probably not wet enough here for coastal redwoods, instead it is the Giant Sequoia varietal.

During one of my Asian trips I spent a few days in Japan. After an amazing meal at an upscale Japanese restaurant, I realized that their entry way was decorated by a large slab of redwood. My hosts didn't understand my excitement. But there is something quite reassuring about finding rare touches of home in far flung places.

Upon my return to Australia I attempted to find a tour company that might lead me to the Western province mentioned in the brochure since I am not yet so fluent to trust my skills outside a Tier 1 city in China. I stumbled upon a site that advertised exactly what I was looking for, but a few years too late. The tour company had hoped the lure of Redwoods would get California travelers to visit China, but apparently we are far and few between, so the tour is no more.

I then travelled to Beijing for work and while jogging in a well manicured park in the CBD, what should I encounter? Why, a Dawn Redwood, of course! A small specimen, but doing it's best to represent a proud genus.

I could now say I have accomplished my goal of seeing a Dawn Redwood in China. But I'm not quite satisfied. So I showed my brochure to a friend who is from a Western Chinese province and sought his advice. The brochure was all in English, so it took us a bit of searching and creative translation to figure out that 'Mo-tao-chi', supposedly the discovery site in Szechuan province from the brochure, was really 谋道溪 (in pinyin "mou dao xi") which literally translates to "seeking the path to the creek".

This does not result in any clear directions to the place and Google maps is quite confused by the search, but I know I am getting closer and hope to see a much older specimen in my later journeys to China.


During our search we found out that in Nixon's famous visit to China in 1972 he brought seedling redwoods from California. These are now growing in anywhere from 18 to all of the provinces of China depending on which article you read. So now I need to find at least one of those as well.  Because of how rare redwoods are, they are also known as Pandas in the world of Chinese Botany. 

As a return favor it seems that someone brought a Chinese Dawn Redwood to Massachusetts. So if you can't get to China, at least you can see one in the US, it is now over 50 years old and thriving in Mt Auburn Cemetery

Fukushima - personal perspective

I'm no expert in energy in general or nuclear power. I'm just a traveler and observer and this is what I see about the reaction to Fukishima.

I work in Asia Pacific, a massive area that contains billions of people who all approach life a bit differently. My job is to find solutions to problems that cross as many boundaries as possible and when they can't, optimize locally. 

I just spent almost two weeks in Beijing during their best season, Autumn. There were actually days I saw the blue sky and enjoyed walking outside - but still the ash fell on my keyboard and made me take notice. And those were notable because of their rarity. Beijing is not the worst in terms of air pollution in China; Linfen regularly disappears from satellite images because of the pollution from coal factories. It has been shown that the smog from China impacts California, compounding their own locally produced problems. The three of us who spent more than a couple of days in Beijing all ended up sick - all side effects of pollution.

I arrived in Tokyo carrying my cold and spent 24 hours sleeping it off. When my body recovered I opened my window to a view of the famous Shibuya intersection. Famous for how crowded it is. And yet, there was the blue sky. The mega city of Japan bustled with people and industry, yet it was not choked by coal. Why? Because a large portion of their power is nuclear. 

Fukishima was a horrible lesson in how risky nuclear power can be, and now 76% of Japanese want to reduce their dependency. Understandable given their recent tragedy. But what if the poll were phrased: "Would you rather have continuous air pollution that makes your people sick or the manageable chance of a nuclear meltdown?" I say manageable because despite the system being as complex as it is, and despite all the earthquakes and human mistakes over the decades of Japan's growth, this is the first time they came this close. If anything, this should serve as the warning light on the global control panel for nuclear plants to improve, not shutdown. We get better when we make mistakes and we learn from each other. If we give up on this technology that we know so much about we probably go back to the dirty, cheap choking coal, because, sadly, the next generation of energy sources is not ready to produce the amount of energy we need. 

Perhaps this is just what Japan needs to be the ones who produce that new energy source that does. They are restricted in their energy use here and barely made it through the summer without blackouts. Necessity is the mother of invention after all. I'm all in favor of that, and wouldn't it be ironic that their use of nuclear power led to their freedom from it. No one can plan innovation, we can simply do our best to create environments that allow it to happen. And then hope that a miracle (like a near meltdown?) happens.

Penguin Orgy

Yesterday was a gorgeous, clear, crisp winter day in Melbourne. So I decided the weather was cooperating enough for a trip to Philip Island today. I picked up a few tips for those who have never done this and aren't going with a local.

The first is that if you tell your Android phone to 'Navigate to Philips island' it will give you a route that takes 59 days, includes tolls, a ferry, and passes through Japan. This is *not* the right island. Thankfully the island I was seeking was only a two hour drive from Melbourne. So I took out my Flexicar Honda Jazz with a picnic lunch and faced my first tollway/freeway experience on the left.

The nice thing about the M1 tollway is that it is full speed for all lanes. No tollbooths, just glowing overhangs that make your toll device go beep really loud when you go under them. I'm not sure if they check speed at the same time, so I was a good girl, 80km/hr feels slower than it sounds. It rained for most of the drive down, but I was rewarded with a magnificent view of the ocean when the sun broke through in that glorious stormy way.



Philip Island is on the Bass Straight which is 350 km of water between Australia and Tasmania. It is home to the 'Little Penguin'. Sometimes they are known as Fairy Penguins, but that is not correct according to my guide. They are the smallest of the 17 penguin species and the only ones that are blue and white instead of black and white. So they are clearly fashion forward even if they aren't fairies.

Penguins were the reason I went to the island. But they don't make an appearance until nightfall, so I sought out the other scenic attractions first. I was told to visit the Koala habitat, so that was my first stop. Koalas are not native to the island, and humans have done a lot of work to make this home viable for them. In the past they flourished so much they decimated the Eucalyptus trees on the island. The informative panels made reference to our own trajectory in this regard. But I have faith that we are better at managing our habitat than an animal that sleeps 20 hours a day. In fact, we have turned our ingenuity to making sure they survive despite their very poor evolutionary choice of eating only eucalyptus leaves. They spend hours eating leaves to get as many calories as we get from a bowl of cereal.

I actually saw one move more than it's head this time, which was nifty. But mostly I spent the afternoon sighting furry lumps in tree branches. The highlight was hearing a Kookaburra and watching some magpies fight over a female.

I arrived at the Penguin Parade grounds at the allotted time and learned the following things that they don't tell you on the website:

1. If you buy the Penguin Plus tickets and don't want to shop at the gift shop for an hour, get there about 30 min before sunset. The birds don't appear until all the light is gone


2. If it is wet that day, bring some plastic to sit on, better yet a blanket


3. The penguins do in fact parade right by you (and 1-4000 other humans) without seeming to be perturbed. So much so that they get right down to business within minutes of arrival. The sounds of penguin lust fills the air and one pair even gave us a show in range of the lights.

The video you can buy detailing the lives of these lovely birds has a label that says 'mature themes', but the website has no such warning about the live event.

It was a really neat place, and worth a trip from anywhere in the world. I didn't take a penguin home, but I did get an intimate view of their land lives, which is really better since they clearly have no shame.

The Angry Bird Saga

---

The beginning

Some of you may not know about the Angry Birds phenomenon, so read up and this will make a lot more sense.

My friend inspired us to decorate our cubes with a theme. Her theme was "it's a jungle in here" and she found a plush angry bird that made bird noises when squeezed. It was so popular that it became clear we needed the whole set. So I was charged with acquiring more plush angry bird characters while in Hong Kong, and possibly even a large slingshot to take aim at our friendly sales team across the room.

The hunt

I was only supposed to be in Hong Kong for 5 days, but thankfully my time was extended, because it took a lot of visits to various markets before I found what I was looking for. I tried Central, Mid-levels, Stanley Market and then finally had success at Trendy Market and Ladies Market.

Trendy had mini ones with slingshots, which are loads of fun, but mostly recoil back on you instead of hitting your target. I hit the jackpot with one stall that had birds that were twice the size of my head. I bargained down to $50 HKD, which is about $6.50. In my excitement over my find and bargaining I neglected to consider how I would carry such a thing home with me.

My bags were already stuffed, so I determined to test the limits of carry on allowance on international flights. I showed up with a big pink plastic bag full of plush angry birds and pigs and ready to make my case that they would compress well in the overhead bin. The Hong Kong staff are clearly used to overstuffed shoppers and I was given no grief. I was safely on my way to Tokyo with the giant red angry bird overhead.

The separation

I dragged that pink bag of birds on the bus from Narita airport to Shibuya, by cab to the office, then to the train station and finally on the train on my way back to the airport for my flight to Sydney. I put the bag above me and ended up in a conversation with my neighbor. At Terminal 2 I got up to unlock my bag because they warned me to do this before the stop and then got off promptly at the stop. About halfway up the escalator I realized that I had left the bag above my seat on the train.

The rescue

Quite unexpectedly, the gentleman I had just met on the train offered to run down and get the bag. But he was too late and my birds departed for another terminal. I figured that was the end of that but my new friend encouraged me to ask the staff and miraculously we found someone who spoke English fluently. She called ahead and told us we had to pick it up from the next terminal. I was worried I'd be late if I embarked on another journey, so he went in my stead and promised to meet me at the Qantas checkin.

And to my relief, there he was not long after I checked in, with my pink bag full of angry birds in hand! My hero!

The outing

The birds were well received in Sydney and participated in our first quarter celebrations. After an incident doused the angry bird with beer we took him back to the hotel.

The theft

Now that the team had bonded with the bird it was even more important that he arrive safely in Melbourne. So I became worried when the checkin woman was giving the guy ahead of me a hard time about luggage allowance. Thankfully I got the nice one and away we went. The flight was completely full and I crammed the birds in the overhead bin. After a rough landing I awkwardly maneuvered to get my birds out and was confident I had my pink bag well in hand. But wait, it feels lighter as I'm walking, and oh no! The big red angry bird had fallen out of the bag.

I ran back to the gate and found the attendant to be highly amused as she radioed "can you see if there is an angry bird on the plane". the whole plane emptied before the answer came: some boys had taken it! So I ran for baggage claim and wondered how I hadn't seen them go by with my large red angry bird held captive.

The end

I scoured the crowd, which was limited to just our flight and slowly but surely gave up hope. I stood at baggage claim feeling sad that I had lost the big red angry bird on the last leg of my journey. Then the attendants came by and asked if I had gotten my bird back, I shook my head sadly and the woman from the plane said, "there they are, they have it". And with a chagrined look, a 20-something guy pulled my bird out of his duffel bag.

When I got in the cab I told him not to let me leave the cab without this bird in hand. He did not seem amused, but he just didn't understand the saga of the angry bird.