Please Remain Calm

I have discovered that when someone says you will be trained in something, it doesn't always mean they will transfer useful and applicable knowledge in a timely and sensible fashion. It also doesn't mean you will be checked up on or monitored so the day is pretty much up to you. At least so far, that's been my experience. I can't complain. I've learned about concierge, front desk, operator calling center, greeters, bellboys, drivers and whatever else happens with the front of the hotel. Add in our Horizon Club lounge, and a dash of business center and you're all caught up to my need to know list.
However, the method it took to learn these things seems kind of slap dash, and makes it feel unimportant. Understandable because this hotel is busy, they deal with situations that require the managers and trainers all the time. They must go away to resolve problems, and that leaves us lowly interns to "have a rest".
They love to ask if we need to "have a rest". I swear we look anemic, or we are about to faint in their eyes because they suggest it about every hour. If anything, I am well rested!
They also like handing us large folders of the SOPs, or standard operating procedures. We love leafing through them and gleaning important things like, "Face the guest and appear alert at all times". I only picture someone never letting the guest out of their sight and creepily smiling at them.
So far, I've sat in a back office, the concierge office, the Horizon Club office, and the Business Center office. All of them are varying in sizes, things to look at (or in) and places to sit comfortably. Today's seating was a nicely furnished office room, with over sized leather office chairs. Very comfortable. I can't wait to see where I will be sitting tomorrow.

After training, we are left up to our own devices. This part of the schedule is much appreciated, and we take advantage of it. I wouldn't say we own the city yet or explored it thoroughly, but we know where we know and I think we'll expand our horizons little by little. We headed to our fancy pants trendy gym to do some trendy sweating with some other trendy folks, and had ourselves a good work out. The lockers are really fascinating, and I discovered this for two very important reasons: 1. the lockers respond to only one bracelet that has some kinda receptor to open it, and it sings a little tune when you pick the right one, and 2. everyone and their mom is butt naked in there. And I literally mean everyone and their mom. I can understand some people wanna hang out, maybe get a little breeze before suiting up again...but they dry their hair in the nude. The very, very, nude nude. My first venture in made my eyes bounce around trying to find a safe place to look. I actually let out a loud,"agh!" and before I could stop myself practically shouted, "They're all naked!".
Cultural lesson #5, or is it 60? People hang out naked in locker rooms and they don't feel a bit sorry about it.
Another thing, soap is a precious commodity that somehow most bathrooms refuse to have...hygiene adjustment: Check.
Did I mention I've used (successfully) an eastern style bathroom, aka that hole in the floor with sort of a place to precariously hover over while also not relieving oneself on one's shoe?

Grocery shopping makes me feel like an adult. Maybe I'm the only one who feels like this, but really...going into a store, picking out necessary or otherwise not items, and then paying for it is so liberating and exhilarating. Maybe paying for it isn't, but unpacking it in your home definitely is.
Next time I will describe the experience of shopping in a mart with mostly Chinese labels and an escalator...for your shopping cart.

Also, my dessert tonight had a flake of gold on it.

Plate O'Bones

I realize that I'm in China, and that I don't get the chance to do that very often. Its obvious that I won't be able to go out and get real Chinese food after this internship is over, and that I will miss doing so. However, when the head chef tells you that you should go out and eat, instead of dining at the hotel restaurant, you begin to rethink your whole approach to life. Or maybe you feel slightly sheepish, and realize...he's making a good point...
Or maybe you just decided one free meal of recognizable food is less important than going out to a strange, possibly health endangering establishment with only pictures of food for you to look at and choose from. It might have sanitary conditions, and the staff might speak English (more likely not) also, you might see flies crawling over some dead fish...but no. A cultural experience is a thing to be desired, and we must strive to have our fill before we are transported back to our own comfort zone, (aka food and health sanitation rules and regulated restaurants) but I digress.
Our head chef at Shangri-La's fine establishment of iCafe approached us interns with a bewildered look one afternoon, as we attempted to sneak in unnoticed by him. We thought we were in trouble, and he is rather a stern and intimidating looking fellow. However, he merely smiled at us and gently reprimanded us on our habit for attending iCafe each day, and even more gently nudged us out into the big world of Dalian's non-regulated food stands.
We wandered down the street in a hungry daze, hoping a friendly face would take over and guide us into a nice and delicious place to eat. No such luck. We passed restaurant after restaurant, indecisive and certainly bemused. Finally, after returning to a previously viewed stall, we picked up or chins and bravely walked past a line of employees into a mysterious and strange eatery. They first handed us a menu. In Russian. Obviously the meal was going to go well from that point on.
Cutting this short, they had us point to pictures, sat us at plastic chairs and tables and we awaited (hungrily) our carefully chosen cuisine. Our first dish, which appeared to be orange chicken was just utterly not orange chicken. It was more like sweet potato fries covered in orange chicken sauce, with tempura shrimp, about five whopping pieces. We picked at it and somehow consumed half of it before the "piece de la resistance" (but believe me...we resisted) arrived. What we picked out, chicken and broccoli, had broccoli...and a pile of sparsely meaty bones. Just bones. We stared at it in sheer dumbfounded horror. I started laughing, and we poked at it with our chopsticks. I think after that point we felt like nothing worse could happen, and there was nothing left to do but laugh. Hysterically. I wanted to run back to iCafe and tell Chef our adventure, how we had listened to him and we had been severely gypped. However, we paid for our plate of bones, picked up our pride and walked defeated and still kind of hungry, back to our apartment.

So, lesson learned. We are not quite up for unguided sampling of the local cuisine.

Also, if I didn't have it bad enough, there are like twelve hundred shopping malls, food malls and grocery stores within walking distance. Ah the misery...

Setting the pace

You know when you get to the point when you feel like the bags under your eyes are sagging, your hair is limp and your body aches like a tap dancer just practiced a kick shuffle routine on every joint?
The only problem with being that tired is the emotional withdrawal that occurs for it to happen. A week of giddy elation catches up and boy when it catches up...it makes sure you are turned into a hunchbacked, raspy voice, shriveled mess of your former self. Good news, I have some great volumnizing shampoo to assist the hair issue. Some what better news, I don't have any orientations tomorrow but there still are plans for the morning.
Saturday will be just a glimmer of an anniversary. A mere nod, drop in the bucket of our time here, yet... that's one week down.

Tonight will be a nice quiet night in, one with little more than finishing a half hearted blog post, wistfully wishing Facebook, or my laptop would work again and debating on raiding the actually stocked fridge before hitting the hay.
Seems like a normal enough night for anyone.

Today's orientation was mostly a large shuffling of myself and Heather to other locations so the trainers there could also try to find things for us to do. I spent the majority of my time eating candy, and sitting on a large green leather couch. Not a bad start to a five-star hotel internship eh? But seriously, it was a busy day for everyone, and I assume baby sitting the interns was low priority. Don't get me wrong but I'll be glad to start actually working, even if that means I just bus tables.
Oh and the uniforms are a mixture of sassy tiger and gouchos which, of course, are making a comeback!

My eyelids are protesting being open around my red and bleary eyes. It's time for bed.

Also, I am the proud owner of an aggressively bargained discounted Chinese gym membership.

"Brown Tofu" and a Modeling shoot

I figured that eventually I would come across some food I neither cared for nor cared about knowing the true origins of it. My rule was eat first, ask later. Thank goodness for that. I enjoy having lunch in the cafeteria because is has real traditional Chinese food, and its loud and crowded but that's pretty normal I think. The food varies everyday but they have a vegetable, maybe a meat and or a tofu, rice and some kind of steamed bun. I've learned quickly that fish is a great way to eat startling amounts of needle-like bones, that some vegetables look like meats, some meats look like something else and that there is no such thing as naturally brown tofu.
I sat down with my tray of delicious foods and dove into a spicy soup with tofu and egg, and then into a dish with diced "brown tofu" and other various vegetables. Let me tell you, it was delicious! I ate it so fast I barely noticed its texture variance from normal tofu. My Chinese friend (yes, I've made some!) smiled when I exclaimed how scrumptious the dish was. She laughed at my amazement of there being brown tofu, and in between laughing she said, "Its pork blood". I just looked at, and my stomach clenched up. "What?" I said slowly, wishing I misheard her. "Pork blood," she repeated smiling very big and obviously enjoying my suddenly less enthusiastic expression. I gave a weak smile back and told her I guess I better just not ask at all, ever.
Lesson learned.

Another part of being a foreigner is being well, noticeable. I get waved at, smiled at and a lot of curious looks but the event that happened today could give me a bit of a diva complex. We got to tour the city and mountain/seashore today in a company van, see the beautiful misty seaside of Dalian's mountains. Along with taking many pictures and stopping frequently we got to step of the van and explore some plazas.
Have you ever been told by a stranger that you look like a model? No? If you are American, come to China right now. They are nondiscriminatory, and hugely over complimentary. I was approached several times and asked if I was a model, and people literally ran up to take our picture! I was prepared for the interest in taking photos of us, but they acted like we were celebrities. I won't lie, I might have worked that camera angle a bit, and been a little more than proud people were excited to have us in their pictures. We even got some more surreptitious ones of us being in the background which was played off as an accident, I'm sure.

I haven't mentioned the friends we have made here yet. I cannot describe the joy it is to have these people willing to hang out, shuttle us around, explain over and over what's going on, teach us Chinese only to have to repeat it the next day, and still appear to enjoy being in our company. I think my time in China would be so severely depressing if I could not make friends with my coworkers. Immersion is best done with caring friends who have your best interest at heart. And really, that's how I feel about these lovely persons. They care about our experience here, they want to make it a good one. They've taken us shopping for groceries, down to hip hangout in a cafe bar thing, and even to a giant skate park like structure that is perfectly suitable for sliding down in jeans. Mind you, your bottom will be dirty, but the 6 year old in you will crow with glee.

In two days I will have been here a week, and I trade off from the view of thinking how long I've been here, to how little I know still about Dalian. I cannot wait to get to know this city of contrasts. Talking to one of the locals about Dalian makes me feel more at home, knowing they love living here could me I could as well. I might even join a super nice gym here (dance and yoga class included) and become even more of a native.
Talk to me in three months and maybe I'll have started smoking and rapidly firing of Chinese...(ok maybe not) in any case, I'm planning on living here to the fullest extent my Visa and I can handle.

Also, a combo washer dryer is not easy to use, and even more troubling when every direction is in Chinese. Lets just say I'm now the proud owner of mildly cleanish steam washed jeans.

Trauma and Taxis

Surprisingly I trust the taxis drivers here in China. To say the ride is hair raising though, is yet another understatement because all the hair was pulled out of various places, from a white knuckled grip.
Worse than taxi rides, taxi rides to a health center to get blood drawn with a known fainting problem. Worse still, getting blood drawn in front of four nurses, two doctors and four people one spends a lot of time with. Thankfully I didn't start crying first...or maybe I did. First we waited in a hallway that had a line of very stare-ful Asians. Or maybe they were just cranky because they had to wait standing up, and were jealous we were sitting down. I think I started feeling light headed when I got into the taxi, and my eyes started squeezing out tears about when our numbers were called up. We were lined up, much like cattle, and sent through one by one to get our picture taken...for a still yet unknown reason. They do not tell you when they take the picture. Or they wait until you think you are done and quickly snap it. Either way my picture appeared to have taken the xanax I wish I could've actually taken.
Tricia did warn me not to look into the next room where our blood was going to be forcefully drained out of our unwilling arms...I listened. It was then very noisy, things moved very fast as we were pushed into the room that look like bank tellers had recently vacated. Nurses sat behind glass windows with slots big enough for arms to pass under. Did I mention they handed me the vessel that would contain my life's force? Why not just hand me a jar for my liver too??
Next thing I know my arm is taken over by a masked face with a rubber tube. She tied it off above my elbow and that's when full panic set in. She started moving my hand into a fist and make me clench and unclench. I turned my head and my fear of passing out, and watching blood leave my body in an unnatural fashion reached its peak and I could do nothing to stop the onslaught of raw emotions. I looked at Tricia next to me and her expression mirrored my own, naked fear and tears coursing down her cheeks. I felt like we were in a movie set with all the noises and the pace quickening. Then the prick of a needle, two seconds pass and someone telling me to get up and hold the q-tip to my arm. Shocked, traumatized yet conscious I sank into a seat laughing and crying, thanking the nurses who were also laughing. Everyone else looked mildly surprised at such an outburst of emotion going on.

I have never had such a feeling. In my country, I might not be a person to a company, but I've never felt like a number, or a faceless entity. Here I felt like my being was merely to irritate the healthcare officials, and no personal attention was given to my well being after I was funneled through. What a disorientating and shocking feeling.

I knew this trip would open my eyes, and I knew that this country has very few things in common with my own, but today my eyes were opened to a new level. I saw the apartment buildings scattered across the city and I found the conditions to my standards, as squalid and uninhabitable...yet there are millions of people here, living here, working here. Obviously my idea of livable is not universal and maybe not even practical any more. So here's to a slightly more informed world view...and here's to more where that came from.

On a happier note, I finally got a tour of my fabulous (yes my) hotel, and let me say this people, its truly a place of rest and beauty. It is not overly plush or chintzy, but elegant, serene and peaceful. A true Shangri-La.

Also, I totally sat in the Governor's Room bathroom's tub. It was awesome.

Anticipation and Adulation

The anticipation of getting to know these people around me is building to a high crescendo. I thoroughly want to make these people my friends, speak their language and delight them. Maybe that's just the training I've received so far talking because I am head over heels for this hotel. I can barely contain my profusion of praise right now. I think my mom is worried about how fickle my heart is because not even four days ago I was bawling at the airport and saying how miserable I was. Now I can't stop the affluence of my admiration toward this company and these people. I would stop and listen to your warnings of drinking the cool-aid, but the sound of a stone pedestal rising from the earth would drown it out.

Have I mentioned that I'm a minority for the first time in my life? Saying that we are stared at a lot is a grand understatement. Maintaining eye contact with distant gawkers is becoming sort of a sport now, and less of an awkward interaction. We make workers stop working just to watch us walk by, bus riders giggle and wave, and the older generation stare in bewilderment and what seems to be mild disapproval. But that could just be my paranoid view on strangers glaring at me.
Maybe its just my upbringing, but I feel as though I am an inconvenience to the people I am around,  no matter their declarations otherwise. I have have noticed however, that no matter how put out they are, this new culture hardly shows a glimmer of annoyance or impatience. I have much to learn.

Wearing a suit somehow changes my perspective on everything. Interacting changes because I feel more grown up, more respectable, working because I feel productive and important, eating because I might get food on it. But when I shimmy into those dreaded panty hose, zip up that pencil skirt and put on a suit with 90's padded shoulders my being shifts into a new mode. What is this phenomenon? Can polyester and nylon actually change the chemical makeup of our brains, or is the slouching capability so limited that sitting up straighter is second nature?

Also, we made it about four blocks away from our apartment, almost bought some lipstick and came back to Shangri-La, or as I see it through rose colored glasses; Home.

Orientation, Kuok, and one mishmashed dinner order.

Let's just say I'm taking this internship incredibly seriously. As in, wearing a grown up suit, complete with elderly lady colored panty hose and pinching heels. I feel as old and grown up as can be stepping out like that. Our group got businessed up, sallied out the door and got slowly swept up in paper work, waiting, getting situated, waiting and of course eating when we could. We met wave after wave of employees we should know, remember and strictly instructed to call if we needed anything. They say call if we need...but then they look rather serious and I always do a double take...I think they mean it!

My Food & Beverage Direct is Mr. Khoo. No but really, he is cool. Youngish guy, laid back easy smile and I hope a breeze to talk to when I need help on my project.
Did I mention I have a project that will result in an analysis of the F&B department and a 30 minute presentation in front of my peers and colleagues? Also, they love the word colleague.

Orientation was picked up again in a beautiful side room meant for business meanings and maybe small debutante parties. Our HR director is petite, soft voiced and incredibly sweet. She knew our names by our faces the first moment we met her, and has since mostly remembered us pretty well. She went over policies, all of the properties that Shangri-La has...and by all I literally mean every single one. They were beautiful and luxurious, but when that clock hit 2.30 my eyelids started drooping. Then she started to discuss an owner of this hotel, his name being Kuok. Tell me how you would say that? It's probably wrong. I went for the casual sip of tea, but had to replace the cup before any liquid passed my lips. Unfortunately the other two had the same idea and it only spurred us on in hiding our smirks. Needless to say the composure of group quickly dissolved into laughter so side splitting, tears were produce in abundance. She must have said Kuok eight times in a row and my fellow interns and I could no longer hold back the immature, yet unbridled mirth. When we explained her pronunciation of the word and its slang connotations, she giggled with us and thankfully moved on.

After listening to rules, regulations, policies, ethics, codes, visions, missions and goals my head was swimming and the lack of 6 hours of sleep swamped me. Then freedom, and a rush to get back to the apartment, jeans, and dinner.

We had our first dinner experience sans a translator. It was embarrassing, funny and I think our waitress had a good laugh about it...the whole time we were there. I tried a lot of mishmashed phrases, nonsensical words hacked out, even pointing to phrases in my book. We got our meal, paid successfully and felt a sense of accomplishment. We had struck out on our own, and we survived.

Whatever this experience has in store...I'll figure it out.

Three days later.

I won't lie and say flying over 18 hours away from home, crying family and friends, leaving my apartment and forgoing school was immediately categorized as a great idea when I sat down on the airplane that whisked me away to Dalian China.
The feeling I had the morning of my trip was one more of sad finality. One that I was leaving what I knew and loved, not of what I will see and learn to love. True, its only the third day, but so far seeing what will come is slowly balancing out what I left. I felt empty of anticipation of my travels, only sadness in leaving behind people who cared about me. That first day, the flights and the running to terminals in the nick of time...the excitement that was supposed to be there was lax. I had drive to make it through the trip, and a promise to upkeep that I would indeed, have fun, and enjoy my time here...in China.

Five years ago, if you had asked me where I would go to travel, my first response, without hesitating would've been Greece, Germany, Italy...etc. Two years ago, China entered my head. I heard about the program to study in a hotel, do the training program for management and a small idea of possibility was born.
Possibility that bloomed into a definite plan. First the call out, then the interview then the acceptance then orientation for the trip, then reality set it. I was actually doing this! Crazy as it seemed, my path was redirected to a 6 month long adventure in Dalian, China. 6 months of waiting dwindled down then flew by into two weeks, one week, four days, two days, then suddenly I'm packing a suitcase that should sustain me for 6 months in a foreign company.

Did I mention how awfully underprepared I was? I packed one suitcase, which weigh a mere 35 pounds, and a backpack with odds and ends...I now know and will forever regret not packing the things I had last minute pitched to save space or weight. Unpacking was a sad affair that took about ten minutes. My face reddened at the airport when our baggage came in, and the other girls gathered their stuffed suitcases, struggling to pick them up Now I can see the wisdom in paying the price for too much. Better go with, and pay than without and regret.

Its 6am here, in my spacious and quite accommodating apartment, and I've been up since 3am due to, I assume a strange form of opposite jet lag. Let me say this...I can't think of a better way to see a new city come to life than watch the wee hours of the morning pass by. Dalian is not a large city, but its filled with tall buildings, and a vein of traffic is ever flowing. I await a new day, in my new city, to learn about a culture, and make the best of what I have been so graciously given.

Also, the food is phenomenal.