First few days

In the past couple of days I have found the transition very different. It has been difficult at times because of the language. My driver here does not speak any English at all. Talk about difficult trying to express to him where I need to go. He is a really nice guy though. I will get a picture and post it tomorrow. I feel like royalty here in China. Working for Intel everyone bends over backwards to accommodate me. Everything is done for me. I don't even open doors on my own anymore. When I walk out the door in the morning the Bellman stands and greets me and opens the door. I have my driver waiting right at the front door. He runs around the car and takes my computer bag from me, puts it in the back seat for me and opens the door for me to get into the car. He has a bottle of cold water waiting for me each morning. He then takes me where ever I want to go. The second day I was here I had him take me to a shopping mall so I could pick some stuff up and some food. When we got to the store he ran and got me a cart. He followed me into the store pushing the cart. Stayed behind me the whole time as I walked the isles and all I had to do was select things off the selves and place them in the cart. He then unloaded the cart for me at the register and bagged all the items for me. He pushed the cart out to the car, opened the door for me to get in and he then unloaded the cart into the trunk. He drove me home, jumped out to open the door for me and then went to the Bellman to get a cart. He unloaded the items from the trunk into the cart, pushed the cart to the front door and from there the Bellman took the items up to my apartment. By the time I got up to the apartment the Bellman had unloaded most of the stuff into my apartment. All of this for no tip. What a wonderful culture. Actually I must say that Americans could learn from this culture on how to treat people. It is all about relationships and face. The people I have encountered have all been humble and kind and treat people with respect.

I usually visit the hotel bar each day for a quick beer, or as they call it pi juang. The first day I met the manager of the bar and he treated me like an old friend. He has even given me my own mug in the bar with my name on it so I can use that mug anytime I come in there. He greats me by name each time I walk in there and shakes my hand and spends time talking with me. Again, it is all about relationships.

I finished my immigrations paperwork today. I am now a working resident in Dalian China. I have my working visa and permit to work. I guess now I am officially Chinese. This was actually a very painless process.

After the immigrations process I decided to go ahead and head into work since I was in the neighborhood. I know my boss Rami has been asking about me all week so I figured I should make an appearance. I wasn't planning on staying all day but as soon as I showed up I was pulled into 4 different meetings and did not get out of work until about 6pm. I can see that this is going to be a very busy project. I am going in tomorrow morning early as well. Oh well, the easy life is over, now it is time to buckle down, dig in and get things started. I will start writing about both work and free time. We will see how this all mixes. I will let you tell me when I am too much one way or the other.

One last thing for today. I know I am going to regret putting this in writing but here goes. I have a good FRIEND, he has been going through treatment and a recent surgery for cancer. He sent me word today that the results have come back on the biopsy and they did not find the cancer in the lymph nodes. This is wonderful news and I am so happy for him. I know he is on to a wonderful recovery and will make it through all of this. He has a lot to look forward to in his long and enjoyable life. Praise the lord for the results. I will continue to keep him in my thoughts and prayers like so many people are.