Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Weekend in Hong Kong

We finally got around to hop over to Hong Kong for an extended weekend.  It was a great trip.  The kids got to visit a Disneyland, we got to see a unique place in Asia, where East meets West on so many levels, and we had the best meal in a very long time.  Who can ask for more?

The Air China flight to Hong Kong was uneventful.  It was code shared with Dragon Air and Cathay Pacific, it was packed, it left on time and arrived earlier, the luggage came out on time.  As I said, uneventful in the most positive way.  We took a Cathay Pacific package deal for this trip, and it's important to say: it was flawless.  We shall do it again.  The shuttle from the airport to the hotel left on time.  We arrived at the hotel, checked in and were ready to go out and hit the town in no time.

Usually, when we sign up for a vacation package, we have no dilemmas.  For a reasonably small addition to the price, you get a substantially better hotel.  I always sign up for the better (or best) hotels available.  I never regret it.  The Royal Plaza, right in the middle of Kowloon, is excellent, easily accessible to taxis and subways, and is in the middle of things, walking distance from Price Edward and Nathan streets.  We could have stayed at the Disney Resort, but the travel agent told us (and she was absolutely right) that the advantage of being close to Disneyland will be completely lost when we would want to go visit Hong Kong or Kowloon.  We stayed in Kowloon, and used ferries, buses, subway trains, boats, and feet to move around.  It was great.

We used Gray Line for the Disneyland tour.  Waste of money and even worse, waste of time.  Disneyland is easily (really) accessible from every part of town, by subway.  It's cheap, efficient, and very quick and comfortable. Gray Line took roughly ninety minutes to bring us to Disneyland.  It took us twenty minutes to get back on the subway.  For a fraction of the price.

Disneyland is like other Disneyland parks in other places around the world.  I was at the one in Anaheim California twice.  Both were great, but I like Disney in Hong Kong better.  It's smaller.  It's less crowded.  And the bottom line was, we spent a fraction of the time standing in lines.  In fact, we took some rides twice (one even thrice), without spending hours on line.  In multiple occasions, the attendants just allowed us to stay, skipping the line altogether.

If you want to smile a lot, Disneyland is the place for you.

Shiri and Guy had a blast.  I got a broken back.  We spent almost twelve hours at Disneyland, and it was time well spent.  Guy fell asleep on the subway, and had no recollection of being carried to the hotel, put in PJs, and in bed.  It must have been overwhelming.  It was for me too.

Next day we signed up for a trip around town.  Gray Line again, but this time it was well worth it.  We went to Victoria Peak, to the oldest Buddhism temple in Hong Kong, and to the Stanley market.  Stanley Market was the last stop, so we didn't even bother to take the bus back.  We stayed there.  Later we took a double decker bus to the harbor, on the Hong Kong side, and walked around some, then took a ferry across the harbor to the Kowloon side.

We rather accidentally found Dan Ryan's Chicago Grill at the shopping mall next to the harbor.  All we needed to see on the menu was ribs and barbecue chicken.  We were all set.  A full slab and a half of baby back ribs, plus two halves barbecued chickens, plus the baked and fried potatoes, cole slaw, A1 Steak Sauce.  We were home.

The kids devoured the chickens, and tasted the ribs.  In fifteen minutes, the table looked as if a pack of wolves just left, leaving behind scores of bones and leftovers.  And then the funniest thing happened.  In fact two things happened, and only one was funny, and even that – not to me.

As we finished our dinner, Dorit and the kids went to the bathroom.  As they were leaving for the bathroom, the couple sitting right next to us paid and left as well.  Thirty seconds later, a new couple was seated right next to us.  Imagine that.  A single, chubby person (that would be me), sitting in front of a table that looked as if four really hungry people just finished a large meal.  I could see in their eyes that they were actually contemplating if I was responsible for the situation on my own.  And while they were contemplating, I was starting to worry.  Because the family did not make it back from the restroom.  And atypical to me, the worst nightmarish scenarios started to hit my tired head.

They came back after a long while.  That wasn't funny.

The next morning we hit the streets and the stores.  We didn't buy a whole lot, but we did have a good time.  The local Pizza Hut, by the way, is nothing to write home about.

Bottom line: package deal with Cathay – absolutely.  Gray Line to Disney – no way.  Gray Line around town – yes.  Hong Kong - Yea!

Posted at 10:50PM May 29, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Two Years in Beijing

On April 20, 2006, yours truly had arrived in Beijing, on his own, with a job to start and a bridgehead to establish for the family who followed a couple of months later.  Two years isn't an extremely long period of time, but it is long enough to consider when reviewing periods of time that changed my life.  My China Experience changed my life and my family's life on so many levels, I can't begin to tell you.  Let me try nonetheless. taxi drivers 

• People in the street
• Never try to generalize an entire people.  I met nice people here, and people who were not so nice.  Polite and impolite.  English speakers, non English speakers, and people who think they speak English, but they really don't.  I met kind people, warm hearted people, child loving people, curious people, helpful people.  I also met rude people, impolite people and smokers.  I met highly educated, sophisticated, well traveled people.  I also met simple, poor, and very provincial people.  When you come here you must realize that you are a stranger, a foreigner.  You must accept people looking at you, staring at you, giggling at you.  If you come here with kids, particularly ones that are blond, cute and smiling, prepare yourself, many would love to take their pictures.  Don't get offended.  People are curious, and many of them saw very few foreigners in the lifetimes.
• If you're exceptional - very fair complexioned, tall, large, you may be asked for your picture to be taken with some curious Chinese people.  They are mostly harmless.  My kids are sometimes reluctant when asked for their photo to be taken.  I usually leave it to them, but I never object.
  
• Shopping and bargaining
• Everything is bargainable.  If you know how to bargain, you can get everything at a very low price.  Sometimes at a fraction of what you're used to.  But the prices are going higher, the bargaining less effective, most likely due to the Olympics.  I love the Silk Market, and the Pearl Market.  But most of all, I like the Sunny Gold market, a walking distance from home...
• A couple of tips for bargaining:
• Never indicate that you want the product soooo much.  Vendors are very sensitive to body language.  If they realize that you made up your mind to get it, no matter what, you lose.
• It's a good practice to decide how much is the product worth for you, before you start asking for the price.  The reason is that unconsciously, you might bargain in accordance with the original price presented to you.  You lose again.  Just recently I saw a beautiful old (looking) vase in the Dirt Market (Panjia Yuan).  I offered RMB 300.00.  The vendor asked for RMB 4,800.00.  I ended up buying it for 300.00.
  
• Appliances
• You can buy everything in Beijing.  All brands, Chinese, Korean, German, American.  If all goes well and the appliance works well, you'll be fine.  If you need service, you'll need someone who speaks Chinese to activate the warranty.  Without it, you'd be left with a broken appliance.
• You might think (based on recent China bashing on the news media) that Chinese brands are of low quality.  That's not necessarily the case.  Some are good.  Some are very good in fact.  And the ones you buy of "foreign" make, may very well be made in China after all...
• Before you purchase anything, do a little research, with today's consumer reports on the Web, you should have no problem understanding what you're buying.
  
• Entertainment
• DVDs - you can get originals (don't laugh, some studios understood: little money or no money - little is better) for very low prices if you go to the right places.  Buying on the streets may be cheaper, but chances are you'll get this frozen DVD frame at the most nerve wrecking point of the film.
• I've seen Harry Potter at an actual theater here.  But that was indeed the only movie I've seen here, simply because most of the imported films are dubbed to Chinese, and have no subtitles in English.  I miss the big screen and the pop corn, but learned to live without it.
• And Celine Dion canceled her concert in Beijing.
  
• Away from Family and Friends
  
• New friends, visiting family, and DVDs.  Restaurants, sightseeing, flying kites.  Walk in the park, bicycle rides and shopping.  Being away is not as bad as one might think.
  
• Children
• A variety of international schools are available for western kids.  Tuition is a small fortune.  But the education is excellent.  We send to Beanstalk International Bilingual School.  The kids are happy, challenged, and they learn a lot.  Shiri is fluent in English, and she can chat freely in Mandarin.  Guy understands English well, speaks it a little, and can chat in Chinese as well.  I find it particularly amazing, when the both of them sing nursery rhymes in the back of the car, in Chinese...
• There are parks, swimming pools, amusement parks, playgrounds, zoos, aquariums, museums, and more parks, all around town.  There's a lot of stuff to do.
  
• Transportation
• I haven't taken the subway yet.  But they're building a station near where I live (near Yan-Sha bridge, or Lufthansa Center).  For the incredible price of RMB 2.00, you can get pretty much everywhere.  Quickly, unlike above ground transportation.  Buses are crowded and slow.  Taxi cabs are convenient and readily available.  The drivers will not speak English.  And the inside of the car may have odors completely opposite the lemon-pine-forest you'd expect.
• The airport is a masterpiece, and my experience of arrivals and departures was in fact, excellent.
  
• Food
• Chinese food is great. But having spent most of my life in western countries, I still like cheese, chopped liver, fresh bread, butter, smoked turkey breast, mustard, mayo, and Diet Coke.  Beijing is a real cosmopolitan city.  You can find everything here.  Jenny Lou's is a chain of stores catering to the western population of the city.  But Carrefour, a French supermarket chain is not far behind.
• If you're ready for the run-around, you can get French baguette at the Paris Baguette, Hamburgers at Schindler's Meats, Bagels at Mrs. Shanen's Bagels, smoked turkey at the Lido Hotel Deli...
  
• There are thousands of restaurants, representing an amazingly large variety of cuisines, all kinds of Chinese, but also Pacific Rim, Korean, Japanese, Indian, French, even Middle Eastern.  Bite-A-Pita is our favorite.  The food, the owners, the environment, feels like home.
• The American fast food chains are well represented here.  McDonald's, Pizza Hut, KFC are on many corners of the city.  Most common is the (bad) coffee proudly brewed by Starbuck's.
  
• News
• When I first came here, I was getting the news from CCTV9.  The world was rosy.  Then I started watching CNN and things got significantly worse.  I learned to avoid both.
• For a while I subscribed to International Herald Tribune.  It comes from Hong Kong, and the delivery time is late afternoon.  I realized two things: 1. I was reading a 24 hour old newspaper.  And 2. I was always behind in the news.  I canceled the subscription.
• I signed up for Business Week.  I love it.  I now get bad economy news from various sources.
  
• The Internet is the best source of news for me though.  Yet, you have to be really on the alert.  When we heard that Celine Dion is coming to Beijing, we rushed to get tickets.  But when the concert was canceled, we didn't find out until the night of the show.  We're simply not tuned to the local news.  A serial killer could be working in the neighborhood, and we wouldn't know about it.  Shame on us.  But it has some good sides as well.  Not a lot of local bad news.  I can live with that.
• The Internet is almost unlimited.  Wikipedia was out of reach until a few months ago.  It's accessible now.  Same with a few other sites.  There's nothing that can't be worked around with a proxy server.
• Ayi
• In Israel where we came from, we could only afford a "cleaning lady".  The kind that "doesn't".  Doesn't do windows, laundry, dishes, ironing, diapers, floors and ceilings...  In Beijing we were able to afford a full time maid, "Ayi" that does.  Everything.  Cooking and cleaning, washing and ironing, windows and floors.  But most importantly, she plays with Guy, our five year old.  He adores her, and she loves him, and they speak Chinese to each other.  It's really sweet.  We became much more than her employer, and what she receives from the agency is only part of her package.
• But it didn't start with the honeymoon it is today.  When she started with us, she used to fold and place damp laundry in the closet, when the drying cycle finished.  She used to cook with a liter of oil every day, which she diligently saved and used the next day, until we found out.  She put wet dishes in the cabinets, and misplaced pretty much every item in the house.  She never mastered eating with utensils, but she developed a craving to cake.  Watching her enjoying cake, with chopsticks...  We love Suza, she's a part of our family now.

Posted at 09:34PM May 26, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Global Warming - a DIfferent View

It all started with some strange guy who started warning about "global warning" a few years ago.  Many heard the news item and thought - there's another lunatic with a warning.  They all remembered Nostradamus, and his friends in every century, who diligently predicted the end of the world.  Prophecies which were updated as soon as they didn't come true.  Turn of centuries, midnights, full moons, sun storms, comets, all came and went, and the earth people (that's us) remained.  They didn't repent, they didn't pray, they continued to invent new stuff which created more warnings, which never came true, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Then came the warning about the melting of the icebergs.  Some concerns were registered, particularly in the far northern hemisphere, where most residents are Eskimos and seals.  Most of the population just turned to one another and said "oh well", and went on to the local pub for a drink.  Next came a really scary news piece about the rising temperatures, and that apparently the last decade was the hottest on record or something.  Some eyebrows were raised, but most people went on to the beach, were the warm breeze took off the edge of the outstanding heat.  Life went on.

Then WNN aired some really really disturbing footage about the cities along the shores of the oceans, and that in a few years, they will all be covered in seawater.  People in those cities went outside and checked whether their windows and doors will be above the new sea level, and same for their favorite stores, pubs, parks and so on.  They also went ahead and checked that aunt Petunia's home would definitely be covered with water, and so would be the police station.  Once that was out of the way, they went on with their business.  The ones who discovered that their homes will most likely be underwater, took a few sessions with the local psychotherapist, to refresh their denial techniques.  They too went back to the annual barbecue which was producing smoke as much as the local utility's chimney.

Then the media claimed with absolute certainty that the "permafrost in Russia" is melting, and that will let out millions of metric tons of some unknown Methane gas into the atmosphere, doubling the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in a very short time.  There was some anxiety, but it turned out to be unrelated.  It was about the local football team losing miserably this season.  The people remembered from their biology classes that methane is also produced when sheep in New Zealand fart.  So, they said, what's another real big sheep flatulence?  They went on to walk the dog, who happened to have had chilly for dinner...

Then came the food shortages, which was the result of the droughts, which was a direct result to the warming of the earth, and the lack of rain.  Desertification became a word known by every single third grader.  But that was more because of that show "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" than because of the actual drought.  Some nervous breakdowns were recorded around the world, but WNN aired a piece about desert resorts, and everyone calmed down and booked their vacations early.  Prices skyrocketed.

Nobody got too excited over the "dying of the rain forests".  Many people just said they can do without them, and the rain is really needed elsewhere...

Then the earth was on fire.  Literally.  Wildfires were spotted everywhere, burning everything in their way.  But it was too late already.  The earth burned, then the ice melted, the cities were covered with water, there was no food, water was contaminated, livestock around the world died of plagues, the earth died.  So did we.

I don't know if global warming is real, and if it is how real and how quick it is.  But just in case it is, don't you want to do something about it?

Posted at 09:33PM May 26, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

Tattoos, Babies, and the Israeli Flag

The picture below broke a personal record for me. The elapsed time between seeing this picture and the first tear could be measured in nanoseconds. But that was one record broken, there were a few more. The parade of feelings and memories. Personal, familial, tribal and global all came streaming. Faces of the living and the dead. Faces of old an young, of happy and sad. Of friends and foes.

As I'm writing these words, it occurs to me that explanation is necessary. The blue and white Israeli flag, the tattooed hand of an old lady, and the chubby little hand of a baby. Many are familiar with chubby little hands. Less may be familiar with the Israeli flag. Few are familiar with old ladies with tattooed numbers on their hands.

When I was young, Israel was full of those. They weren't so old back then, they had tattooed numbers on their hands, and it was said: those with the numbers on their hands. Having this number on the hand was the clearest, gruesome, chilling evidence that these people had something in common. They belonged to a certain club. Not the kind of club you might be thinking about. Not an upper class Golf club, not a Yacht club. Not even an exceptional fraternity or sorority, although one might claim that it was precisely that. These people spent time in the darkest places ever to have existed on this planet. And they lived to tell. They were the survivors of Hitler's death camps.

The German, in their incredible effectiveness and order, kept records of every single person they ever de-humanized, and ultimately killed. Every person who entered the gates of the death camps was branded. Like cattle. They were branded with a serial number. When their turn came to be eliminated, the records could have been set straight, that this once human, professional, family person, Jew - is no longer. Mission accomplished.

But some, against all odds, survived. They rose from the ashes, they picked whatever was left of their humanity, dignity, of their families, of their former lives and former identities, and went to Israel. There, slowly, carefully, with a lot of help, patience and love, some of them were able to rebuild. To put together families, businesses, and a country. Imagine that.

I don't have a clue who the people in the picture are.  But the old hand, with the tattoo is my grandmother's, and the chubby little hand is mine. The flag is my country's. It's irrelevant that my grandmother is no longer with us, and that I no longer am a baby. Both my grandmother and I have a strong connection to the land of Israel. The three elements in the picture are combined into one big evidence - we're here to stay.

* The picture was taken by Karen Gillerman-Harel.  The picture won the contest "Israel Sixtieth Birthday Flag".  All rights reserved to Karen Gillerman-Harel.

Posted at 09:28PM May 26, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[10]

And the Winner Is.....

David Cook.  I told you.  As I said just a few weeks ago: I will get his CDs, and wait in line for a conert ticket.  David Cook rocks!

Posted at 07:48PM May 22, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

To Stroller or Not To Stroller, That is the Question

Here's a dilemma: you have a five year old, you're going on a trip and you wonder: to stroller or not to stroller.  If you decide to go with the stroller, you risk schlepping around with some extra weight, struggling to fold the damn thing at the most critical moments of the day (I swear, the thing knows when when not to fold).  In addition, you risk people making fun of your kid, and of you, for being taken for a ride.  Literally.  The alternative isn't better at all.  Guy will just stop sometime during the day, and guess what - my shoulders are a pretty comfortable chair.  It's only unfortunate that I don't have enough hair to provide something to hold on to, but  my ears actually provide reasonable handles.

A few months ago, before a trip to Thailand we had a similar dilemma, we chose to go with a stroller.  But to avoid an unnecessary waste of money, we decided on the cheapest looking stroller in the store.  The store attendant was shocked.  The stroller was apparently on display for years, only to show young parents what stroller not to buy.

To make a long story short, on the first day in Bangkok, at the Old Palace, the stroller caved in.  Guy disappeared in the wreckage and we had to get him out.  We looked around, and when we thought nobody was looking, we left the collection of fabric and scrap metal near a relatively remote garbage can.   The stroller survived the trip, but didn't make the first day in Bangkok.  R.I.P.

This time, for our trip to Hong Kong, we had the same dilemma.  The stroller strategy won again, but this time, we went to the same store, and asked for the absolute best stroller.  The attendant was contemplating whether or not to call Child Services, but the prospect of making a big sale convinced him not to.  We took a brand new, Ferrari red, ship shape, spic n' span stroller.  A Rolls Royce.  The mother of all strollers.  We were happy.  Sudden relaxation went throuh my shoulders.

Of course it didn't fit in the trunk, and of course we had to check it in at the oversized luggage counter.  But throughout all these small problems, we knew: Guy will not spend the day on his father's tired and old shoulders.  Or so we wished.

We picked up the stroller at the Hong Kong International Airport.  Guy jumped in, and promptly disappeared within.  A few minutes later, we realized, the Master Stroller caved in exactly like the old one.  The thing never made it out of the arrival hall at the airport, we dumped it near carouselle number 2.

If you are a world traveler, and you happen by an abandoned stroller, orphaned, standing alone in some corner, wondering why, you would know: the Hayardenys were here...

We are now considering artificial shoulders as an alternative.

Guy, by the way, was not unhappy with the results.  He mentioned though, that when we get back to Beijing, he would want  a new stroller.  "No comment" was my answer.

Posted at 07:17PM May 22, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Earthquake in China IV - In Memoriam

The state of Israel uses the air raid siren systems three times a year for commemoration rather than "the real thing".  Every year, on the twenty seventh day of the Hebrew month of Nissan (usually around April), at 11:00 AM the siren goes off in commemoration of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during WWII.  Every year, on the fourth day of the month of Iyar at 8:00 PM, and the following morning at 11:00 AM, the sirens wail in commemoration of the Israeli soldiers who lost their lives defending the homeland, and the victims of hostile attacks on Israelis around the world.  The expected behavior, when hearing the sirens cries, is to stop whatever it is that you're doing, and pay your respects by standing straight, your head bowing, thinking of all those who made your life a possibility.  It's a very uniting act, and it always gave me the feeling of being part of something a lot larger than myself.  For a declared atheist, this is a significant deviation from an individual point of view, to the collective.  Yet, I always thought that it is a proper way to show that you too, are part of this collective, and that you too appreciate the sacrifice.  It's an exercise in humility.

Today, May nineteenth, 2008, I experienced the same in Beijing, only many orders of magnitudes larger.  It was an amazing experience.

At 2:28 PM, exactly the time when the earthquake struck, China came to a halt.  Beijing came to a standstill.  Millions upon millions of people around the country stopped whatever they were doing, stood straight, their heads bowed down, paying their respects to the dead, to the people who lost their lives in the earthquake last week.  Lines and lines of people stood there, motionless, thinking.  The drivers were honking their horns.  Millions of horns with the air raid siren sounding in the background was indeed a surrealistic sound, and the scene was as surreal.

I can only imagine what they were thinking.  I know what I was thinking.  I was thinking how would I do if I went through an ordeal as such, and survived.  I was thinking, how would I save my family, my friends, total strangers.  I was thinking about the sheer power of nature.  I was hoping.  I was wishing.

For a few minutes there, I was part of a much larger group.  Probably the largest ever to be standing at the same time, respecting the same victims, mourning.  A lesson in humility, larger than life.  Larger than a million lives.

Posted at 09:27PM May 19, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

CNN, China, and the One-Child Policy

CNN and others have brought a very sensitive issue in recent days, in light of the horrible disaster in China.  The One Child Policy.  Here's the “sensitive” title:  “Parents' losses compounded by China's one-child policy”.

Regardless of the outstanding sense of timing in bringing it up.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with the policy.  It's inconsequential.  

What is absolutely consequential is that it's unethical to even discuss it when people, any people, are counting their dead.

But if you read carefully, can you tell what's hiding behind the relatively innocent criticism?  Yes, of course, the One Child Policy is unacceptable in Western terms.  But ask any parent, and they will tell you: it matters not how many children you have.  When you lose a child, your world collapses, your life becomes a prolonged misery.

Does CNN actually suggest that if the poor Chinese who lost their children in the disaster would feel better if they had another child?  How dare they?  How dare anyone?

What's even worse, is that given the circumstances, many families lost more than one child.  Many families lost everything.  For many who survived life will undoubtedly change forever.

My advice to CNN: use a little bit of judgment, some ethics, and a lot of sensitivity.  Please.

Posted at 09:28PM May 15, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[11]

Earthquake in China II

Lets get this out of the way first: I live and work in China, I love China, and there's a good chance that the following will not be impartial.  You have been warned.

Two natural disasters have hit Asia in recent weeks.  A major Cyclone has hit Myanmar, and an extremely powerful earthquake has hit China yesterday, May 12.  Lets try and look at how the two countries are dealing with the disasters inflicted on them.

Myanmar can't assist the survivors.  The country is poor, poorly ruled, and simply can't provide the aid necessary for the survivors of the storm to stay alive.  The government, aware of its shortcomings, isn't allowing foreign aid to enter the country and help the situation.  Worse.  The government is actually putting its hand on the aid, keeping the best to itself.  The government in Myanmar is responsible to the deaths of thousands of its own people, maybe more.  In fact, the government of Myanmar is killing its own people, denying them the assistance they need to survive.

China had mobilized help quickly.  Against the elements, against time.  The Chinese are obviously doing the best they can to reach the area, to conduct a search and rescue operation.  In Beijing people are donating money, clothes, food and blood.  From where I am it's obvious.  China, the government, as well as the people, feels the pain, and is mobilizing to help.

I have been in China for over two years.  I've visited the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors.  I've been eating Chinese food, watching Chinese movies, and drinking Chinese beer.  Always, though, feeling as a foreigner.  Yesterday, in less than a minute, I became Chinese.  As I was sitting in my office, feeling the earth shaking, fearing the worst, I became part of this great people.  Out in the hallways, and later downstairs we were all standing together with our cellphones, trying to reach our loved ones, trying to understand the magnitude of the disaster.

Today, as I follow the news, as we all realize that this disaster is only beginning to unfold, I am not a foreigner anymore.

As is the nature of disasters like this one, it will take weeks before the gruesome tally is finalized.  I fear that we have only started to understand the severity of the earthquake.  It took a few minutes, and thousands of people lost their lives, their loved ones, their homes.  And I was pretty close.  I am grateful, I am worried, I sympathize.  There are a lot of feelings going on these days.

We, at Sun China are going to organize a fund raiser for the victims of the earthquake.  It's the least we can do.  From Beijing, let me send my condolences to all who lost their loved ones, a get well wishes to all the injured ones, and most importantly, that all who are still alive and under the rubble, are found quickly and survive their ordeal.  If I was a believer, I would start praying for them now.

To the Burmese government I will say: shame on you.  Open your doors, allow foreign help in.  We don't really care what we find there, but let us help your dying people.

Posted at 09:51PM May 13, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[5]

Earthqauake in Beijing

I have experienced earthquakes before.  Living in California for a while, and even once in Tel Aviv, I remember clearly - it was not a pleasant experience.  But today was a completely different experience.  I was sitting in my office on the tenth floor of the Chuangxin (Innovation) Plaza at the Tsinghua Science Park in Beijing, China.  I was on the phone, and I found my self saying: "excuse me, but my building is moving, I think we're experiencing an earthquake".  The person on the other line yelled: "then what are you doing talking to me?  Get the hell out of there".

I went to the hallway to see a bunch of people, like me holding cellular phones, looking confused, not sure what to do.  The swaying subsided.  I returned to the office only to realize that we were advised to leave the building.  We did.  Downstairs, a large crowd, all or most holding cellular phones, was waiting for further instructions.

The All Clear came relatively quickly.

Turned out to have been a powerful earthquake, between 7.5-7.8 on the Richter scale.  That's no laughing matter.  Anyway, all is well.  It was a scare.

Posted at 04:37PM May 12, 2008 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[4]