First Day in the China ODC Office

This is the reception area at the office of the China Offshore Development Center (ODC) in Xi'an, China.














(L-R) Lisa, Rocky, Magus, Terence. Lisa is a tester and the others are dev/testers (for automation - Bill Long).















(L-R) Raul, Shawn. Both are testers.














(L-R) Helena, Sunny. Both are testers.














Iris (below) is also a tester.
















I'll have more photos to show of the remaining staff as soon as I feel comfortable that I can match the names and faces for all of them! The remaining staff is made up of developers, BAs, and project managers.



This is the view from my hotel on a better (sunny) day. About 20 minutes later it was fully overcast again. ...
















The folks I met at the office on Monday are all very friendly. We had a nice group discussion and then I broke out of that into smaller groups, mostly aligned by role. The team's English skills range from OK to pretty good. All can speak at least a little English and at least understand about half of what English is spoken to them.

Lunch today was another fine Chinese restaurant. I'm told this one is Anil Urs' favorite. The dining experience is unlike anything around Ohio that I've experienced in Chinese restaurants there. For one thing, the meal is "communal" in that there are a collection of dishes ordered and shared around the table via a large lazy-susan sort of setup. The food itself, as you might expect, is also considerably different. I tried eel today (not bad), seaweed (also not too bad), and the fish was served only after the table's "leader" gets to inspect it, alive, in a bag at the table. The fish is then gutted (that's all) and steamed. It's served with head, tail, and fins intact. The fist was pretty good too!

That's about it for Monday...more to come Tuesday!