02 August udpate: Well, here's a coincidence...

Lunch today was another interesting experience. We went to a very nice restaurant called "Be There or Be Square Cafe", apparently named after a very popular recent Chinese movie. The menu had lots of Western food that foreigners would really like, such as club sandwiches, spaghetti with cream sauce, and so on. They also have a lot of Chinese food. So what did we get? Would you believe, chicken feet? Yup, what a coincidence, after having just mentioned them in yesterday's update. I had to chuckle when I realized that Jenny had ordered them! And you know what? They TASTE JUST LIKE CHICKEN! Seriously, they weren't bad, once you got past the fact that you were eating chicken's feet. It's just that there isn't much meat on them, as you can imagine, and it's a lot of work to get to that meat. We also had a very nice whole fish, more frog, and a tasty egg-drop soup. And I discovered dragonfruit today, too. It's reeeeaaaaaalllly good. It has a white fruit and lots of tiny black seeds that look like sesame seeds from a bun. But the fruit is nice and sweet and a lot like a melon but not as wet and slightly crunchy. I'll have to look for these when I return to the U.S.!

We had a bit of fun on Tuesday with currency. I was talking about how to test dollar figures in the system when it became clear that I needed to say a little bit more about the US dollar. So, what I did to help was I passed around a one-dollar bill. That generated some questions about why they are all the same size and what denominations there are. We also talked about the coins. I think they had fun with that!

The US dollar discussion then became a discussion about time zones. They did mention that it's a bit strange for some of the folks in the western provinces here because of how big the time zone is and how that affects the daylight hours locally. They also told me that China has two time zones, not the one I had expected.

Now, on to other topics.

If you've never experienced the Asian style of driving, it can be quite nerve-wracking at first. I've experienced it before in India and now here in China it is quite similar in every respect except that the volume of traffic here is lower than in India. Anyway, I'd characterize the driving style as "controlled chaos". Stop lights are generally viewed as guidelines. Left turn signals, if they exist, seem to be ignored, mostly. Right-of-way rules we find familiar in the U.S. do not exist. Everybody turns in front of everybody else, everybody cuts everybody else off in traffic, and horns are used A LOT. Good thing that most cars' horns are pretty wimpy-sounding by U.S. standards. Other characteristics are that the lane markings are also viewed as a guideline (I've seen three cars routinely crammed side-by-side on a one-lane highway exit), it's quite common to pass on the left into oncoming traffic with a double-yellow line, and pedestrians and bicyclists simply do what they want to do when they want to do it and ignore the vehicles for the most part. I still have those moments of panic when I look to the right of the car and see another vehicle (especially a bus or truck) merely 3 or 4 inches away while we and that vehicle are both moving, or when the taxi driver turns left at an intersection, in front of a car that is bearing down on us quickly. But it seems to work and there is not much evidence of the road rage that would erupt spontaneously if the drivers in the U.S. drove that way all the time. Since I've been here I have seen only two minor rear-end collisions, just after they happened. But many of the cars do have bumps and dents. And we do share the road between taxis, cars, micro-cars, vans, minivans, microvans, tour buses, transit buses, bicycles, pedestrians, pull or push carts, and trucks of all sizes, shapes, configurations (there are plenty of really odd-looking three-wheel trucks), and ages.

On the way to work today I made a few mental notes of things to describe. One new and different sight was a parking-lot full of folks I noticed on the way to the office who were doing Tai Chi, which is the "soft" martial arts meditation technique where you move your arms and legs slowly around and lift your bent leg off the ground and hold it (I always think of the Karate Kid movies when I see this). That was interesting to see at 8:15am. I also wanted to remember to mention something I've seen a lot of during the day. One is that many people, mostly women, use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. You see that a lot. Some of my earlier photos probably even show it. And another is that some folks (again, it appears to be mostly the women) like to wear full-face masks that are heavily tinted and even mirrored. These are for shade against the sun, in effect, full-face sunglasses. They do look a bit unusual, though, because they wrap around past their ears so all you see is the back of their head and then this face shield.

PITT #6 : Credit card usage. As it turns out, credit cards are problematic in China. For one thing, any place where you are bargaining on price, credit cards are not accepted. Cash only. Also, I'm told that most stores and restaurants that do accept credit cards only accept cards from Chinese financial institutions. That means no American Express, either. However, the bigger mall stores may -- repeat, may -- take credit cards. I made a purchase at a mall store last week and they had to check with management before taking my credit card. The Sheraton, however, will take American Express.

Here's another travel tidbit, although not quite a full PITT, however. About smoking: despite what I'd read before making the trip, it's not permitted in offices. It is also not permitted in most public buildings, except restaurants. It is permitted in all restaurants, and only some of the restaurants have no-smoking sections.

Some more about the restaurants, also: individual rooms. I've been in quite a few restaurants during my stay that have individual rooms (private rooms) available for small or large parties. These are nice because you can get away from the sometimes-loud dining crowds and certainly away from the smoke.

And I have seen another curious practice here, too: parking on sidewalks. To be fair, some of the sidewalks are really broad. But it feels odd to see cars driving or parked on them. Last evening, Duncan parked his car on the sidewalk at the restaurant (where we were seated in an individual dining room :-) ) and the sidewalk was wide enough for two cars parked side by side and still leave enough room for lots of pedestrians. However, it can be a very slow process picking your way around a sidewalk in a car...

I ended up on my own for dinner tonight for the first time since I arrived in the office a week ago last Monday. I used the opportunity to walk to the "hypermarket" (a lot like a Meijer store) down the street. It's about a 10-15 minute walk, which was interesting in its own right. This place is on 3 floors and they sell a little of everything. I did catch a LOT of folks noticing the Yank in their midst while I browsed. One little fellow even kept peeking around the corner at me while I looked at one shelf. And then I must have done something wrong when I checked out, because a couple of the little things I'd picked out (little junk food packets was what it amounted to...some cookies and some gummy fruit) because I had to wait while one of the staff went back to the area I'd where I'd found them and separately bagged them and priced them. I will say this about the hypermarket. It was REALLY noisy. And there were at least 3 different places where the staff was pushing something to the shoppers in the grocery part of the store using bullhorns. Sheesh.

Speaking of noise, I've noticed a sign that I'm pretty sure is showing the noise level from the street, on my way in to the office in the mornings. It's a constantly updating sign like the temperature signs we see on banks back in the U.S., but it reads something like "58db(A)" when I look at it, and the 58 changed to 59 this morning while I looked at it. Those numbers are very consistent with noise level measurements and I find it quite interesting if I'm right about it.

Finally for today, a training update. We are still completely on schedule, with just one more full day scheduled and then a wrap-up on Friday. (I plan to take the team out for lunch on Friday and they seemed pretty enthusiastic when I told them about it.) We went through the test targeting and test case writing material on Tuesday and today we showed them Quality Center and talked about QTS. It went pretty good and the team remains excited about using these tools! I have learned to hang around the office working on my PC for a while because the team has been coming in to the training room 1 or 2 at a time and asking me questions. It seems to be a more effective way for some of them to ask about things they aren't following. Others have become pretty good about stopping me during the class. Today I had to explain "test flight". It's interesting to see what words or phrases might trip us up. We've also been having a lot of fun with the one that tripped us up the other day where I was "quoting" things using two fingers on my two hands when saying the word I was "quoting". I make a big production of using that each time and it’s been good for a lot of laughs.

That's it from Xi'an for today!