Zai China

From 10,000 Feet

July 30th, 2010

Before I delve into sharing the fun and excitement of our entire wedding week’s worth of events, I think it’s valuable to provide a 10,000-foot view of our plan to show how everything fit together. That way if you can’t see the forest for the trees during the next gazillion or so blog entries and pictures, you can revisit this one and get re-oriented!

So first, here is a list of people from my side of the family who made it to Beijing for the week:

My mom, dad, and two brothers
Two aunts, two uncles, and a cousin on my mom’s side
Three aunts, two uncles, and two cousins on my dad’s side
Three personal friends (one of whom did all of our photography!)

Tian's parents had a lot of names to remember, so we made them a simplified family tree complete with pictures of family and Chinese phonetics for names. This is an English version.

On Tian’s side, things were a little more complex with people coming and going. Joining us at the hotel were her parents and her best friend. Then she had her two sets of aunts, uncles, and cousins living in Beijing. During the week of sightseeing, Tian’s extended family had to work, so it was mostly the American crew gallivanting around with us, Tian’s parents, and her best friend. The rest of Tian’s family and local friends joined us for our actual wedding day’s events.

Next, I’ll provide a day-by-day view of the actual itinerary as it happened. That way you can see how all of the big events fit together.

Everything took lots of coordination, but Tian and I truly enjoyed the opportunity to host so many family and friends!

Saturday, July 31

Check-In at Hotel
Summer Palace
Group Dinner (Dai Ethnic Food)

Sunday, August 1

Late Breakfast (Re Gan Mian)
Language Activity: Pick Chinese Names & Introductions
Tiananmen Square
Forbidden City
Wangfujing Street
Catholic Mass at Chinese Church
Group Dinner (Peking Duck)

Monday, August 2

Tai Chi Lesson
Jian Bing (Chinese Pancake) Lesson
Bachelor & Bachelorette Party & Dinner
All Group Karaoke/KTV

Tuesday, August 3

Great Wall
Dinner (Hot Pot)

Wednesday, August 4

Ceremony Rehearsal
Free Day
Dinner (Chuan a.k.a BBQ Skewers)

Thursday, August 5

Prep, Flowers, Hair, Makeup
Formal Pictures
Ceremony
Reception Line & Champagne
Dinner
Performances
Dance Party

Friday, August 6

Calligraphy Lesson
Jiaozi (Dumplings) Lesson
Silk Market Trip
Group Dinner (Yunan Specialties)
Chinese Lanterns
Ho Hai

Saturday, August 7

Goodbyes
Check-out of Hotel

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We Aim to Pease!

July 23rd, 2010

The Pease family – my aunt, uncle, and one of my two Pease cousins – were the first guests to arrive in Beijing. They had booked an extra tour of China for the week before our wedding, and they started from Beijing. So we met up with them one night before they left on their trip and celebrated Andrea’s birthday over dinner and dessert. We hadn’t seen them in person in nearly 1.5 years, so it was extra fun to catch up in a small group setting before the big week.

Tian, Dan, and I with our cousin Amy.

We went for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. We knew it would be adventurous, but we didn't expect to see this on the menu. Hmmm...only 29Y a serving.

We had a great meal and great time.

Despite her commitment to chopsticks, the server brought Andrea a fork during dinner. Thus a new phrase was coined, "to get the fork." It jokingly applies when a Chinese person goes out of their way to accommodate a foreigner without it being desired, implying some type of "culture fail" on the part of the foreigner.

We indulged ourselves for dessert and tried 6 different types of cakes. What better way to celebrate birth than with an overdose of sugary goodness?

Posted in Food, Marriage, Zai China | 2 Comments »

Wedding Planners

July 22nd, 2010

As most of you know, the plan for celebrating our wedding is a bit unconventional due to the international nature of our marriage. In fact, from beginning to end, it will probably take over a year to celebrate fully. It started in June 2010 when we went down to Wuhan to get formally registered, and then it continued a week later in Xiaogan where we held a big reception with all of Tian’s local family a friends. Then in August, about 40 family members from both sides converged on Beijing for 8-days of fun and the formal ceremony. Next year, we hope to hold another fun reception in Minnesota for all of our American family and friends.

So at the same time as we were renting an apartment this July, we also were planning madly for the August wedding. By this time the biggest pieces had already fallen into place like where to hold the ceremony, which hotel to rent, and who was coming. But with two weeks to go, literally hundreds of details still needed to be figured out from arranging a DJ for the dance to picking the restaurants for the rest of the week. While we knew it would all be worth it, we also were beginning to question our sanity for planning eight days of festivities when most couples settle for one weekend.

Planning the wedding was a lot like doing a puzzle…except we had to first imagine the final picture, figure out if we could find real pieces to make that picture, revise our vision based on the available pieces, negotiate for them all, and finally assemble it one piece at a time.

A lot of people in China (and the US!) hire a wedding planner to take care of all their details, and many people were stunned to learn we weren’t using one. In fact we considered this option. However, we decided against it because a) it was expensive; b) we were planning eight days of events not one; and c) our vision for a bicultural wedding would not be the same as Chinese event planners were used to arranging. Finally, for as much work as it was, we also enjoyed putting our own personal touches on everything.

As we were planning, we faced many challenges:

I was teaching English summer camps during the day, which was good for the pocketbook but also meant that I was not able to run as many errands.
We were trying to create a very custom experience, not just for our wedding ceremony, but for the entire eight days. This meant that at every turn we were trying to ask businesses to do something a bit different from what their industry was used to accommodating.
In China, prices are always negotiated. This is good in one sense because you can usually bargain down. But it’s challenging in another sense because you have to spend extra time on getting a good price for things. When time is in short supply, it can get frustrating. It also is frustrating because the prices usually go lower for a Chinese person than for a foreigner.
In China, taking reservations far in advance is uncommon. In some respects, this is good because it means a lot of places, people, and services are available even as things get close to go time. However, it is also challenging when you want to lock something in but cannot. We heard the words, “We’ll talk again in a month,” or some variation of them, quite often. This cultural difference also means that no matter what we did, a lot of the details had to wait until the last minute.
Some venders have no problem not following through with an agreement (especially a customized one) and also not telling you about it. So as it gets closer to the time you need a particular service, it’s critical to check in with all of them proactively.
The language barrier for me was significant when discussing most of these planning issues. I found myself being able to understand a lot of things better when listening to Tian and the venders talk, but I definitely could not communicate our needs effectively.
All of the above challenges meant that a lot of the logistical planning challenges fell on Tian to navigate. She was the one who had to share our vision with venders, communicate their needs back to me, finalize a plan, and then bargain them down in price. At points she would understandably say, “I wish you had to make this call.” I wish I could have too.

One thing did help make our planning go well. Dan, my brother and Best Man, came back to Beijing after a trip to Vietnam around July 20^th. He was excited to help us refine our ideas for all sorts of things and to run errands. He also planned an awesome bachelor party (more on that later). We really appreciated his energy and his help.

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New Digs: Outside

July 16th, 2010

One of the things I like about our complex is that it has nice outdoor areas and green space. It is the perfect place to eat your morning “jian bing” or people-watch after work. Here’s a view from one of the windows nearby on our floor.

The nice green space outside of our apartment building.

Many residents in the building have lived in the area for a long time. They spend their days outside chatting. Several women use old baby strollers as their walkers. Super cute.

This concludes the tour of our new apartment. If you’re in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by for a visit.

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New Digs: Part 2

July 16th, 2010

From the entry way, take the door to the right to get to our bedrooms and the bathroom.

The main bedroom.

Unlike last year, our second bedroom actually has a real bed and real closets. It also has a panda bear.

The bathroom door depicts the tropical paradise that awaits inside.

The bathroom functions pretty much the same as our last one, but the tiles stay on the walls here. We will miss our old heat lamp this winter though.

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New Digs: Part 1

July 16th, 2010

Our new apartment is in the same complex as our last one. We really like our location because it is close to both of our schools and because there are a lot of restaurants, grocery stores, and other entertainment nearby. It’s also close to the part-time jobs that I hold on some evenings and weekends. Being near our first apartment also meant that we could move into our apartment little by little this summer without having to hire a mover.

Without further ado, here’s a quick tour of our new apartment:

The entry way. The door to the left is the kitchen. Straight ahead is the living room. To the right are the two bedrooms and bathroom.

The kitchen is smaller than our old one but much better. The best part is that there are no pipes in the cabinets!

The left side of our kitchen.

Last year, our kitchen window looked into the second bedroom. This year, we look right into our neighbor's kitchen (and through their extra storage space).

The view from the opposite side of the large living room. The walls are painted classic Chinese white.

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Sofa So Good

July 16th, 2010

As you will see in my next post, our apartment is bigger and in better condition overall than our last apartment. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t ways it needed to be touched up (and still does). One of the first conversations Tian and I had when moving into the apartment was about the couch.

There are two reasons we value a nice couch. First, after a long day of teaching, both Tian and I like to sprawl out there. Second, when we have guests stay overnight the couch is nearly always in use. Unfortunately the original couch that came with the apartment was fairly old, uncomfortable, and generally not conducive to the type of sprawling or sleeping we envisioned.

The original couch was narrow and had four separate sections.

So, as if we didn’t have enough to do this summer, we decided to go used-couch hunting. We found a nice one online, but oddly the owner couldn’t be bothered to take the measurements and give them to us over the phone. Still very interested, we decided to make the 1-hour commute to his place to risk it and check it out. When we got there, we measured it and it turned out to be just a touch bigger than we hoped, but we ended up getting it anyway. The best part is that the guy’s buddies delivered and installed it for only $12 that afternoon. We are very happy with the couch, as have been all of our guests thus far.

We can't imagine our place without the new couch.

Posted in Apartment Living, Zai China | 4 Comments »

Rental Racket

July 15th, 2010

As I mentioned in the last blog entry, looking for an apartment online was difficult. One of the reasons was rental agents. In fact, it turned out that no matter how we went about looking, the rental agents ironically made it difficult. It turns out that this is all part of their plan.

Rental agencies make money in all sorts of sly ways. But the most visible to the would-be renters is that they charge an entire month’s rent simply for telling you about the apartment. From the renter’s perspective, they don’t add any more value than that. They can’t even show you the apartment at more convenient times because the owner always needs to be there anyway. So you literally pay them for the privilege of knowing that apartment is available.

Rental agents dress up nicely, but the devil also wears Prada.

Now you may be thinking, why would anyone go to a rental agent if they could just connect to the owner directly? This was our thinking all along.

Well it turns out the rental companies handle this first by giving the owners every incentive to sign on with their service. The obvious benefit is that the owners now have a representative who shares the same goal…getting the highest possible price. Other benefits include not having to post your own phone number publicly, not handling the back and forth with prospective renters, reaching a wider market, and getting assistance with legal contracts. Even though you still have to show up for showings and to sign the contract, some annoyance is avoided. And the best part of it all is that all of this service can often be yours for no extra cost because the renter pays for it.

For the business plan to work though, rental agencies really have to make sure that prospective renters cannot find owners in other ways. In other words, they have to do everything they possibly can to coerce owners to sign with them, which in turn forces renters to use their service for lack of other options.

So to bring it back to searching for apartments online (which I talked about last blog), it turns out that it is not just prospective renters watching the listings. Rental agencies are also scouring them literally every second looking for new owners to represent. Then those agencies cold call the owners and literally “harass them” (as one owner we talked to put it).

This rental agency has three walls lined with computers for, among other things, scouring the internet.

To give you a sense of how cutthroat the rental industry is, here is an example. Tian found an apartment we were interested in that was posted by the owner online. She quickly called them up and we set up a time to meet. When we showed up, an agent with another perspective renter came in behind us. We toured the apartment for five minutes and decided to go for it. As soon as we walked back out to tell her, the owner told us the agent had struck a deal with her. In a period of five minutes, even though we had technically gotten there first, the agent had made the pitch, delivered a customer, and made a month’s worth of rent off of him.

In the end, as time was getting thin and as apartment prices were trending upward with every passing day, we decided to go through an agent. But we went through an individual rather than a company, which ended up being good. While we didn’t explicitly pay for a monthly fee, we are confident that it was just included as part of the monthly rent and that the owner paid it. Ultimately though, we were quite happy with the apartment we found. More on that later…

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Truthiness in Advertising

July 15th, 2010

After partying in Xiaogan for the week, Tian and I headed back to Beijing. We had about a month left before our formal wedding celebration in August, and our to-do list was incredibly long. In addition to preparing for the wedding full time and working jobs part time, we also had to find, rent, and move into a new apartment.

Ok, I’ll back up for a second. You may be wondering why we had to move. Well, last year we signed a one-year lease on our place, so it was up in mid-July. Before starting the search, we actually did inquire about staying in our same apartment because we like the location and the price wasn’t bad, but the owner informed us that rent would be going up 25% next year to an absurd price. Despite our best efforts to negotiate, she had none of it.

One of the big rental websites.

So that meant we had to look elsewhere. And look elsewhere we did (actually it was nearly all Tian). The first resource we tried was the internet, specifically three websites that somewhat resemble Craigslist. But a few problems emerged. First, the properties moved incredibly fast, so the actual available inventory listed on the site wasn’t that big. Second, many of the properties were posted by agencies, which require a one month’s rent service fee when you move in (more on that swindle later).

However, the worst part about looking online was actually that it often did not give an accurate view of the inventory. We found after visiting a couple places that the owners and agents sometimes purposely embellished information about apartments to make them more attractive to potential tenants. Then when you showed up at the apartment it would be completely different than advertised. Photos were by far the most used method of embellishment, and I’ve posted some examples below.

This is the picture of the bathroom provided online.

The actual bathroom. Just a little different.

The picture of the bedroom given online.

The actual bedroom.

The street level advertisements were similarly unreliable. We learned from experience that signs posted on the street or in storefronts giving information about specific properties were almost all hooks. Either the properties were fake, or they had been rented out a while ago and were no longer available. They served the purpose mainly of getting customers to come in and talk to the rental agents.

Free standing apartment rental ads outside of ad agencies were also unreliable.

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Double the Happiness

July 5th, 2010

One of the symbols most widely associated with weddings and marriages in China is the symbol of “Double Happiness.” The symbol’s name comes from the fact that it is literally two characters of the word “happiness” placed together side by side. Often times they are accompanied by the symbol for male (dragon) and female (phoenix).

The "Double Happiness" symbol in a special paper cutting.

In China, newlyweds always place this symbol in their house, most usually near the major doorway or in windows, in order to announce their marriage and love. Tian and I wanted to do something similar in our home, but we also wanted the sign itself to mean something more. So we decided last year to stitch our own. It was a fun project and an excellent way to pass the cold winter, especially given my bum knee.

Stitching is a good activity when buried beneath blankets.

As we worked on the project, we had plenty of time to think. We decided to have fun reflecting on what we could learn about married life from doing cross stitch. Here is our top ten list:

Sometimes you both want to sew, but there is only one needle.
Sometimes you can catch a mistake in time and fix it. Other times you need to recognize it but just look ahead.
Sometimes you have to specialize and then support each other. Tian often had me tie the knot and start the thread. I liked it when she threaded the needle.
Sometimes you won’t know the beauty you are making until you finish and can look back on it.
Sometimes it’s better if you don’t follow the plan.
In stitching, as in life, the big picture is only as beautiful as the thousands of individual pieces that comprise it.
Sometimes your partner may have a different method that makes no sense to you.
As in cross stitch, you can and should work on your marriage while doing other things at the same time.
Sometimes it takes teamwork to undo a knot.
It takes time and commitment to make something beautiful.

It took us the better part of four months to finish the cross-stitch. When we were done, there still remained one concerning task…cleaning the guiding lines off the fabric. At the time we bought the kit, the saleswoman sold us the pen promising that it would wash off in soap and water. But we wondered if she was telling the full truth, if it would come off completely, or if maybe we already took too long. Luckily, with a night in a soapy water bath, the pen in fact came out. We breathed a sigh of relief.