IDF – Our first working week in China happened to coincide with the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shanghai. This event is how we do our technology transfer from Intel’s R&D to the industry. (sidenote: Lila was responsible for the expansion of IDF internationally – including China – waybackwhen.) The Intel invasion made our transition week much better!
At IDF, we unveiled the 2nd generation classmate PC – designed by Lila’s team. It was very exciting with lots of positive press worldwide and several of our key S/W and OEM partners in attendance.
Karl also his first round of meetings with his team and with Dell. Having worked with Dell about 10 years ago, he was happy to discover their style of business is the same across the globe. In fact, he knew several of the Dell guys who are on assignment from Austin. Small world!
TRANSPORTATION: We are learning to communicate with the drivers – who are great. Car time has been useful for naps & work, especially given that everything is at least 30 minutes away. We were told by multiple people that the metro is more predictable – once you actually get on board. You may have to wait 3 or 4 trains during commute hours before the “people shovers” can squeeze you in. No wonder there’s so much construction on building subway lines across the city!
SURPRISE DETOUR: We made a left turn out of our building for the first time. Imagine our surprise to find a small neighborhood of lane houses with paths small enough only for bikes and people. Once you make it thru the buildings, there’s a small street with fresh vegetable stalls, a butcher, a store with tubs of fresh fish swimming around, a side-walk soup restaurant, and a mini grocery store. What a wonderful find!
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS: Walking home from one of our dinner adventures, we were stopped by a father and son tourists. They asked us for directions to one of the bars. Since we were such experts on the area, Karl took the effort to direct them down the street, along our path home. It turns out we pointed them to the wrong place, but they wanted to thank us for trying – so they offered to buy us a drink. We had a great two hour discussion over drinks on jobs, work ethics, and what to study (for the college aged son). We exchanged contacts and hope to find more random encounters like this going forward.
And finally… the infamous nail polish search
Everything in China takes more effort and more time. It’s compounded by the inability communicate. For example, Lila’s manicure was wearing off. She found a towelette that had made it in her suitcase. Despite all efforts, it only removed the red from 1 hand. At 7am, she walked to the grocery store. Closed. Walked to convenience store – didn’t have it. Mr Shen (driver) picked her up. They made 1 stop at the foreigner’s grocery store: no luck. With limited Chinese, held up her right hand “don’t want.” And color free hand “want.” She made swiping signs on her fingers. Driver Shen said, in limited english, “I help. 10:30. here.” Lila makes it thru a customer meeting with trashy finger nails, then meets him at 10:30. LOW AND BEHOLD! He has brought the same exact dark red color of nail polish. She paints her nails and is done with it. In the meantime, he went to another store and got nail polish remover – delivered when he picked Lila up at 5pm.
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