Wednesday Jan 13 2010
Well gee: I'm a bit drunk I suppose, but still coherent enough to type without penalty, so I figure it is best to record how my day went while it is fresh in mind. What a great day, though!
I woke up, wrote my previous entry, and waited for what seemed like hours until my roommate and project leader, Garrett, was up. I would have wandered in the very near vicinity of the building, except for the fact that I had forgotten to get a pair of keys (one for the flat and one for the complex), and so I spent the time writing my blog entry so that I could copy+paste it later that day at work. Garrett came out of his room fully dressed (great-coat and all), and so I was glad I already had the dress shoes Mom had bought me at Alek's wedding on. We went down the stairs (we're on the sixth and highest floor) and into the bright, crisp Shanghai morning.
Garrett asked me "Do you have favorite breakfast you like have?" and offered to stop either at the bakery right near the apartment complex, or a convenience store further down Yunyao Lu. Although a bit of bread sounded good, I wanted to practice my Chinese street interaction skills more, so I indicated I would like some cereal from the convenience store. And so we walked, and I pointed out blindingly obvious things like "boy, traffic laws are a formality here" and "in the States, it is unusual to hang your panties out your window" and such, mostly making Garrett laugh.
We stepped into this semi-claustrophobic 7-11 equivalent, where Garret indicated that we could find cereal or maybe a biscuit. We went to the right aisle, where we found granola-type stuff. I made a comment (which I now kinda regret) that usually I prefer Corn Flakes, or other 'normal' kinds of cereal. He asked if maybe I'd prefer a biscuit: thinking of the kind you get at KFC, I thought that might indeed be a good breakfast with some milk and honey and replied in the affirmative. Unfortunately, I soon realized (when he went to the snack aisle) that not only was I facing a Chinese language barrier, but also a British one: he was talking about cookies. Knowing that I'd have to write a blog post explaining to Mom why my first breakfast in China was a package of Oreos if I took the easy way out and just bought them, I instead navigated a needlessly overcomplicated conversation culminating in an arcane "instant" substance that apparantly turned hot water into yummy cereal. Satisfied, and performing my first 2.80 yuan transaction (thank god that Arabic numerals are used on the register's display), my boss/roommate went down Yunyao Lu towards South Wuning Lu, where the office is situated, roughly 4 blocks away.
We're on the third floor. We walked in and I met my first coworker: the receptionist, Grace. She is native Chinese, and very likely native Shanghaihese: she has auburn-red dyed hair. She knows only a little bit of English, but I can tell she is quite a characterful person. I made a special point to remember her name, since I guessed that she would be the one who would order lunch and make coffee for me (I was right) and so I have made sure to be extra nice to her, especially since the room she sits in seemed quite cold: I always greet her by name and wave whenever I go through. Garrett then took me left down a hall, then right past a frosted glass wall with "AFM Games" stenciled, and then a quick left into the studio.
Houston? We have a ping-pong table.
The workplace is in two salient sections: the larger floor that has the ping pong table, and the smaller adjunct floorspace that doesn't. The ping-pong room has artists on all the walls, who are also masters of retrieving and deflecting (often with their heads and chairs) ping pong balls: I have come to appreciate how exemplary in their stoicism they are in the face of hollow plastic spheres hurtling towards them at speeds of approximately 60kph, and they are surely about as brave as the intrepid jaywalkers of Shanghai.
The other floorspace is where the game-designers work: our space has the door leading to Garrett's office, and the ping-pong room is where Eric's office is (I learned later that Eric is actually the one responsible for the whole of AFM Games: I had had him confused with Sean, who I met later in the day). Here, I was introduced to several people at once by Garrett. I actually felt quite trepidated, since I wanted to make sure I gave a proper personal greeting to everyone, but because everyone's desks were facing the walls and I was in the center of the room, I almost felt assailed by greetings from all sides, and really very much tried to meet them all non-generically. Sadly, I was unable to achieve such a herculean feat of tact, so I prioritized meeting the people nearby Blake, who I met in person for the first time.
Although it probably isn't of any illustrative value to most who will read this, Blake is almost exactly the same in carriage and manner as my best dormitory roommate of college: Neal Finne. As a result, I felt very comfortable and able to communicate with him. I also met Chris and Li Hao and 'Jason'. Garrett said he'd be in his office if I needed anything, and Blake took his cue and introduced me to much of the staff.
(In writing this, I realize that this is actually going to get quite long if I go in this much detail. However, I also realize that it'd be best to write too much than too little. If you are getting a little weary of this wall of text, the short version is that I had a pleasant day at work, wherein I played much ping-pong and essentially set up my workstation so that I could be ready for tomorrow. Later this evening, I was taken out to dinner by Garrett along with all the programmer-types to a fancy-shmancy-with-fancy-on-the-side dinner at the same table as the Uber-Boss, where I got quite drunk after several strategically targetted "Gang-bai"'s against me and have returned tipsy to write this blog post. For more details, please, continue reading).
Then next came a flurry of introductions: although the programmers were a bit more 'forthright' with introducing themselves, the artists in the ping-pong room were a bit more reserved (possibly they predicted how wildflung my ping pong was at times, and their instincts to dodge and hide were perking up) but Blake did introduce me to the two (rather cute) girls first, then the various guys. I was impressed by the variety of the computer monitors: everything from 3dsmax to World of Warcraft were in attendance. Blake then took me to the rec room, and showed me how to get hot water and warm water (apparantly, due to the undrinkability of tap water, any 'fresh' water you will get is actually quite warm since it has been boiled: throughout the day I was caught off guard by the fact that my glasses of water were actually a bit hot to the touch: I anticipate I will come to appreciate ice-cold water even more in the weeks to come).
We went back to the studio, where the tech-guy was waiting. He asked Blake if he should install English XP on my workstation, and after a bit of fussing I caught the gist of the question. In a perhaps masochistic twist of fate, not wanting to burden the man with reinstalling an operating system onto a computer (an onerous task indeed), I indicated that I needn't have the OS reinstalled, and that my familiarity with the OS would be enough to use it. (As a result, I learned that Chinese have a word for "Save" "Load" and "Close" that don't begin with S, L, or C, and so the keyboard shortcuts are different... which meant that I had not the slightest clue which button in the menus went to what, being in Hanzi and all. I still haven't admitted I haven't the slightest clue what button I'm pressing when trying to do rudimentary things like clicking "Okay").
Thankfully, I have this laptop, which I am now immensely grateful that I have: for a few months I was wondering if I had maybe splurged unnecessarily with my graduation money, but truth be told this laptop (along with Blake) are my linguistic sanity-hold now.
About an hour later, Sean came in, another programmer. Around this time though, I had mixed my "cereal" and found that it was only passingly edible. Thankfully, Blake came over and said he was going to Carrefour (a French chain) to get stuff, and invited me along. Obliged, I left with him out the front (making sure to wave-smile-greet to Grace) and down into the noon-tide of Shanghai. We turned the corner and walked down South Wuning Lu, towards a 10-lane street.
It was here that I learned that Blake is absolutely, stark-raving mad.
In the states, there are these things called pedestrian walk-signals, where there is a little white guy who essentially says "You can walk now, and you won't get brutally mauled by a ton of metal". There is also a big red hand that says "You can't walk now, or you will get quite brutally mauled by a ton of metal". I had always taken these portentious signals as something heeded by all but the most callously foolhardy, and a mark of common-sense in its purest, most distilled manifestation.
Blake, it'd seem, has quite a callously foolhardy take on all that, and is simultaneously mad and an exemplar of bravery.
Images of Ian being thrown 20 feet by vehicles on repeat on my mind, I found myself standing amidst swirling vehicular tranist from a combination of a desire to "do as locals do" and "Blake *must* know what he's doing, right? And he counts as a local now... right?!"
Harrowing indeed, but the fact that an old-old lady had enough confidence in me to use me as a meatshield--er, as an escort-- gave me the courage to not cower in the middle of the melee. And so we reached Carrefour.
You know how, despite the widespread proliferation of music and (hopefully) musical aesthetic taste, supermarkets and department stores have a notorious taste in music? Well, we in the States are walking on clouds compared to the psychotic chorus permeating this Fred-Meyer-esque market. I don't even know how to describe it more precisely, so I won't. Suffice to say that after realizing that Blake is actually quite a celeritous walker (another trait he shares with Neal), I acquired a carton of milk and a new cellphone. He got a thing of olive oil (he's a vegetarian, so ends up having to cook his meals a lot more often since in China, although meat entrees are at a touch of a premium, most foods are soaked in broth of some variety) and we headed back to the office. The ten-laned street, in a stroke of mercy, had a little green guy letting everyone know that it was safe for Ed to cross.
And so we returned. Here, Blake went off and did something, and I came to know Chris and Sean, the other two Englishmen of the studio besides Blake. We largely met over the ping-pong table: they are both rather good, but apparantly Eric and Garrett are *quite* good. Chris is a larger fellow who comes from the Isle of Man: he was quite impressed when I told him I knew where exactly it was, and we've largely bonded over the bits of trivia about Britain I've picked up from Richard: he was *quite* impressed that I knew what Weetabix was. He seems really nice, and has British sensabilities that I feel a bit familar of: he reminds me in many ways of Richard's brother, Mark.
Sean fit into my categorization of "online blake, british chris" by being "american sean", and is tall with auburn hair. He is a bit more social, and very easy to get along with, having a friendly but not overly-familiar manner. He has a goatee, and so is the only person I noticed at the studio other than me who has significant facial hair. He is also the guy who "spikes" the ball in ping-pong, and is the cause of many an artist's flinching.
In lieu of overly long, possibly awkward introductions, we all played ping-pong. And I don't think I need to say anything more than that I learned quite a bit about the people who played by seeing how they played ping-pong. Blake holds back until he's sure the opponent is on his level, Chris plays reservedly and cares about a good, close game, and Sean plays best when his mind is on other things.
(Oh geez, this is getting really *quite* long! I'll speed up a little to get to the dinner scene)
The last person I met at the office today is the wonderful Tracey: the official translator for the bosses. She is wonderful not only because of her sanguine attitude, but also because she is friendly and (also!) fluent in English. She took me to the local police station (yes, all police stations are exactly alike) to register my residency. They didn't offer to copy the deed Garrett had passed along, so we had to go to a copy shop that also sold candy, porn, and beer. Me and Tracey got along just great, and she helped me fill out the form (I'm coming to realize that the English "translations" on signs, placards, and forms are often just about the most abyssmal amount of effort I've come across in an official capacity).
After that, we returned to the office and I had a meeting with Garrett, Blake, and Tracey about the Design goals of the game and what he hoped I could help the studio accomplished. I felt very confident and excited about what I feel I'm able to do, and tried to communicate this to Garrett, inbetween lessons in 13375p34k to Tracey in an attempt to subvert perhaps her English skillz.
(I am sober now, and think I deserve a round of applause for writing all of the above tipsy).
The rest of the day was me pretending to work, to be honest. My goals for the day were more of the social kind, like remembering everyone's names, setting up my workstation, syncing it with my desktop, playing ping pong, and figuring out the appliances in the rec room. I made a special effort in the second half of the day to meet the non-English people on the team (like my deskmate Jason and Li Hao (also known as Fox)).
Sean invited me along with Blake and Chris to go for a walk to the local convenience store. Chris had no coat for the weather for some reason, so we had fun teasing him as we meandered to the store. Once there, Sean got Warm-Coffee-in-a-Can and Chicken Ham sticks, Blake abstained, Chris got a bit of a snack, and I got a 7-up. Chris mentioned that a building was being torn down when he came in to work, and that he wanted to see it, so we went.
Alright: I am absolutely convinced that China has no equivalent of OSHA or labor safety regulations, since I was almost sidestepping welder sparks: the building looked like it had been bombed out, except it was full of de-construction workers. Apparantly the Army had been brought in earlier in the day to do the demolition. It was a sight to behold: men hanging over the wall-less floors chopping off the floors beneath them, hanging from rafters they were cutting off (on the wrong side, no less). It was comical. Chris said that in the UK any given spot'd be violating at least a dozen regulations: I quipped that they'd prolly de-construct the building 20 times faster, at least. We had a good time walking back.
(I'm really very tired: I will finish this blog in the morning.)
Towards the end of the day, I heard that I was to go out to dinner with the bosses and my immediate coworkers, in what Chris told me was "His attempt to prove that he is worthy of me, and so earn my respect". The notion struck me as odd, since we had been getting along quite well, and I didn't think any sort of prostration was required of him, but I didn't mind the gesture I suppose. And so we went out into the Shanghai night down the block past the "Men's Club" (I'm not sure what the place is, but I imagine there are some questionable things done in there) to a third story restaurant.
Fancy.
We were going to sit out in an open room, but when the Uberboss came, he talked rapidly to the waiters and we were rushed to a private suite. There, we had a myriad of trays on a large lazy-susan, with only a few dishes being identifiable to me. In clockwise order, it was me, Blake, Chris, Sean, Uberboss, Eric, and Garrett. Apparantly we were being served fancy beer, but I still was kind of confused that the Budweiser I was being poured was considered 'fancy' at all. It was fine I suppose, although I ended up having much more red wine.
There's this thing that sounds like "Gang bai", and I came to learn it is verbal weaponry: you may aim it at a person and they have to match how much you drink. Being 'new guy', I found myself being alpha strike'd by people at the table with friendly, mischievous toasts of "Gang bai!". I had never seen a person have a shot of wine, but it'd be a common sight directed towards me. The Uberboss made a point to do it every five minutes. I'm grateful I'd picked up a little bit of a tolerance from recently having an occasional beer lately, since I didn't particularly want to get silly-drunk.
The food was great, everyone loosened up, and many embarassing stories were told. It was really very great, but I am having difficulty describing the scene, because we mostly just talked a lot and were generally merry. I walked home with Garrett, wrote a bit, and went to bed.
This morning, I explored a little bit, cementing a mental map of my immediate neighborhood. I mostly retraced my path of yesterday, visiting Carrefour and buying a pepsi after I had gone to a convenience store and gotten bath materials (getting overcharged: I added the cost up before I went up, but neglected to look up 'too expensive' in a phrasebook and hadn't written down my summation, so I let it slide. After all, $3 for soap, toothpaste, and a bottle of shampoo is really quite reasonable anyways, and I didn't feel particularly Ebeneezer when I woke up this morning.)
Now I'm at work, and should probably get to work.
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