One of our Program Assistants, Yina, took several of us souvenir shopping.  Poornima (India), Priscilla (Brazil), Krishnan (India), Dada (Philippines) and I had a blast.  Learned that there’s no negotiating with the shops, but the prices were very good.  It’s always surprising and comforting to see all of the major stores:  Bulgari, Rolex, Lululemon, GAP, Dunkin’ Donuts, H&M, etc. alongside local Beijing (BJ) stores.  Tomorrow is our anxiously awaited day trip to one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world; the Great Wall of China.  Woo Hoo!!!  @citizenIBM, #cscchina42, #IBMCSC

After a great day at work finalizing our workshop plans, eating another amazing home cooked lunch (eat your hearts out other 3 sub-teams), walking more of the grounds and using some of the outdoor fitness equipment, we begin our journey home.  At 5 pm, the SZF driver takes us to the Metro station (15 mins).  We catch Line 6 and ride it for 9 stops to transfer to Line 2 for 2 stops and exit at Dongzemen Station (45 mins).  Then we walk another 12-15 mins to our hotel.

Crossing that major boulevard is one of the very few stressors in my day.  Pedestrians are dodging cars, busses, scooters, and bikes that are completely undeterred by humans trying to cross when the light turns green.  It’s like dodging Formula One cars intent on getting to the checkered flag first while you’re trying to get from the sidelines to the inside of the track.  MADNESS.  Hard to describe, so check out the little video I made crossing the street and posted to Twitter:  https://twitter.com/harrietshakir.  Comment and let me know what you think 🙂

I am a late blooming animal lover.  My cat, Starsky is 12 years old and struggling a bit with me being away.  My need to express love for a furry friend was satisfied when I met 2 puppies the size of newborn horses, Da Fung and Da Ka.  After lunch, we walked the immense SZF grounds.  Our informal tour took us to the area where Da Fung and Da Ka live.  They are huge and gentle 11 month old puppies who love to be petted through the gate of their very large fenced area.  They also have access to an even larger open area with a shade tree that Da Ka enjoys.  Those pups brought all of us so much joy.  The President’s assistant, Ms. Bai loves these pups and allowed us to pet them thru the gate. They ate it up, and so did we.  Ms. Bai said if she opened the gate, their enthusiasm would see them charge and inadvertently knock us down with affection.  While looking into he happy eyes of Da Fung, I could see she was right.  He loves the attention and I loved giving it to him.

Work saw us planning our workshop for next week.  We got word that Dr. Zhou and Ms. Zhang from Third Hospital needed to reschedule their interview for Monday.  It was a good day!

We reviewed the Statement of Work with the President of the SZF Olds Apartment and her assistant.  She wanted to modify the scope to include content creation of a new contract for residents with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).  While this requested change is outside of our scope, we will find a way to deliver value around the topics of safety and risk mitigation which are driving the request.  We discussed the need to create an Ecosystem between SZF and other AD organizations that are part of the CSC China 42 overall mission.  This was well received.  Finally we discussed the President’s vision which was very helpful.  I feel so blessed to be part of helping this vision come to life.

Did I mention that we have incredible home made lunches prepared daily to meet our dietary requirements?  This is amazing food that the other 3 teams don’t get to enjoy.  It makes up for the fact that we travel the longest to our client.  Seems like a fair trade 🙂

I pass out when I get to my room.  The biggest thing in here is the bed.  The problem is that I wake up and stay awake for far too long, so I’m rest broken.  Adrenaline is driving me…need to get this under control.

Oct 16 – Tuesday.  I’m gonna get fat!  Great homemade lunch for us again today at our client location.  We had many vegetables along with fried smelt.  Monday’s fish was Hair Tail (face of a fish, body of an eel).  We worked in our conference room this morning getting organized for our daily stand up, we’re using Design Thinking; along with documenting edits to our Statement of Work (SOW).

We headed over to the IBM office.  There are clearly marked roadway lanes, but car drivers, scooters, bike and pedestrians clearly don’t think they apply to them.  At times, it feels like a Formula One raceway.  I’m learning to adapt:  I close my eyes on the freeway, I walk boldly into traffic now as my new friend Nikki has taught me, and look in front and behind me for scooters when walking on streets and sidewalks.  Lots of horn blare loudly, which I’m learning to block out, as I learn to stop hitting the imaginary brake in whatever seat I’m in.  Did I mention that I’m scared.

The IBM Ring (brand new Client Center, Research Lab, and office space) is absolutely amazing.  WOW, WOW, WOW.  Hard to describe all of the cool stuff we saw and did, like the Galaxy 2, but it felt a lot like Star Trek, right down to how some doors open/close.  As a #cscchina42 Team, we had a roundtable with other IBMers there to discuss CSC and Work-Life Integration thanks to our @citizenIBM citizenship manager, Winnie Song.

Even with all of the high tech, the most rewarding part of the day was the opportunity I had to see the web developers working on my Ecosystem projects; whom I met in Littleton, Massachussetts, USA:  Tina, Faye, Amy, Ivy and Gavin.  Mary, the manager, took me around and introduced me to several squads and I had the extreme pleasure of saying “THANK YOU” in person, on behalf of our Ecosystem and DBG Teams, to the amazing developers who are helping the IBM partner Ecosystem accelerate to Software as a Service.  This team ROCKS!!!

Oct 15 – Monday.  We started the day at the IBM Beijing Pangku Office which is viewable from the Olympic Park.  There is so much pride here.  We don’t all speak the same language, but we’re IBMers, so we’re connected and we know it.  Rode with the client to our worksite in the afternoon and had an amazing homemade lunch.  Two of us on SubTeam 4 are pescatarians (Nikki and me) and 1 is vegetarian (Sandip).  Many dishes were placed on a lazy susan and eaten family style.  You help yourself to small amounts at one time and put on your small plate.  When you finish, you get more.  Small pieces of food can be eaten directly from the lazy susan, if desired.  It feels like years past having family dinner.  No one is on their phone, no business is discussed, we talk about the foods we’re enjoying and how they’re prepared.  We commune as human beings and get to know one another.  It’s wonderful.

After lunch, we discussed changes to the Statement of Work (SOW) and sought to understand what our client really needs.  We needed to clarify our roles as process consultants vs Alzheimer’s Disease subject matter experts.  Once done, we were able to set the right expectations.

#cscchina42 had dinner as a team in the hotel.  We were all beat from our day, the challenging air quality, and the commutes back from our clients.  It was Darlene’s (Dada) birthday and we celebrated and sang Happy Birthday in Mandarin and then devoured her cake that Tian brought in.  We let Dada keep her 8 cupcakes, but they surely looked good 🙂

Oct 13 – Saturday was a day of exploration for CSCChina42.  We toured Beijing.  We visited the Olympic Park, saw the Beijing Olympics “Birdsnest” National Statium, and climbed 10 floors of short stone steps to view the Forbidden City.  It was a fascinating glimpse into a culture that is thousands of years old.  This is the most culturally inspiring part of being in China’s capital city.  We also went to:  Beijing National Aquatics Center, Jingshan Park, Qianmen Pedestrian Street.  It’s the first day that I’m paying attention to air quality but not really noticing any effects on me.  However, I did note that those short, stone steps really winded me and I had to take a couple of 30 second breaks that hurt my pride.  I’m fit for goodness sakes!  Got about 15,000 Fitbit steps in, so it was a good day.  A number of my colleagues are wearing masks and I’m thinking:  “is that really necessary?” although I could have used one when we stopped for a couple of colleagues to use the public “toilets”.

There are clearly marked roadway lanes, but car drivers, scooters, bike and pedestrians clearly don’t think they apply to them.  At times, it feels like a Formula One raceway.  I’m learning to adapt.  I close my eyes on the freeway, I walk boldly into traffic now as my new friend Nikki has taught me, and look in front and behind me for scooters when walking on streets and sidewalks.  There is lots of horn blowing, which I’m learning to block out as I learn to stop hitting the imaginary brake in whatever seat I’m in.

 

 

 

Oct 14 – Sunday was a full day 9-5:30 in a large conference room of a neighboring hotel to have our CSC orientation.  Brandon, the Program Manager from Pyxera and Winnie Song, IBM Citizenship Manager for China hosted us.  Fun “Bingo” ice breaker that got #cscchina42 to learn more about one another.  Brandon took us through the logistics guide focusing on our goals for each week with our clients.  Winnie also shared her perspective on this and how we’re only the second #csc team to have a common theme working with multiple clients where we can create synergy where it doesn’t currently exist.  What an amazing opportunity.  This is life changing work.  Have to thank Lisa Jensen again for pushing me to apply.  It’s hard for me to sit all day like this, so I get up and jog in place from time to time.  The team has seen me do this on weekly Webex calls, so it’s not so odd, but for me…health first and it’s all IBMers, Pyxera, and our PAs.

I’m anxious about exchanging my USD for RMB and we ran long in the orientation, so couldn’t hit the Bank of China before they closed at 5.  I want more RMB in my WeChat wallet.  It feels like a security blanket since not all places accept credit cards and I’ve been told to be cautious about potential scams with 100 Yuan bills.  Preparing for Murphy’s Law, if I have the RMB in my wallet, I won’t need it.  It’s when I don’t have it that Murphy will show his unwelcomed head 🙂

7:38 am Saturday morning finds me in my studio apartment hotel room here in Beijing.  The hotel/residences that will be my home for the next 29 days is nice and the size of a standard hotel room in nearly every US major chain hotel.  My compulsiveness means that I’ve completely unpacked 2 large suitcases and 1 carry on duffel bag to set up house.  It also means that I only slept fro 4-7 am since my circadian clock is off.  The flight from 1:45 pm ET Thursday to 2:45 Beijing local time on Friday was on time and successful.  Had the pleasure of meeting 2 of my 14 #ccschina42 colleagues:  Mike and Elaine at Detroit Metro Airport as they made their connection.  It was an unusual and heartwarming experience flying with other #ibmcsc colleagues that I’ve met in video conferences for 12 weeks prior to arriving in Beijing.  I’ve completed more than 50 hours of assignments and meetings in preparation for this assignment; covering everything from cultural adaptation, to design thinking to useful mobile apps.  I had great  preparation to become a @citizenIBM.  So imagine my surprise in finding out that I had to be fingerprinted, twice, to get through China Customs.  Wonder how that little nugget escaped documentation.  The second surprise came when checking into our hotel/residence and I had to surrender my Passport & Visa so that my travel could be registered with the police and other governmental agencies.  My Beijing arrival on Friday definitely testing my cultural adaptability training.  Let’s see what Day 2 brings…Hello Beijing!