Massage, Client, and Shijiazhuang hotel living

I have made it to Shijiazhuang and have adjusted to hotel living life with my teammates.  Our hotel is plain, but clean and we are all on the same floor so that is nice.  I am having a good time, Filippo and I met with our client, a testing machines manufacturer, yesterday and the day before.  They seem nice, but don't speak much English, our main contact speaks some English.  We are learning that when you are working with Chinese people we should ask a lot of questions because they don't share much until you ask.  So I am asking them a lot of questions.  Also I am writing the questions in emails so they understand exactly what I am asking.  We were able to find a problem to work on for them, they want to export to other countries and expand their scope, so we are going to help them with an international marketing and support plan.

English speakers are not common, so it makes it difficult when you want to order something or find something, especially since they use characters instead of letters.  It is really funny to walk around town because everyone stares at us, I think they look up to people with western culture.  Today we worked today and then this afternoon we went to a massage parlor for a $10 massage that lasted 80 minutes.  You leave your clothes on and friends, boys and girls, are put you in the same room private room with couch-like chairs.  They do a lot of work on your feet because the Chinese believe that your feet are a pressure point to the rest of your body.  They had a TV on the whole time, it was interesting, but relaxing.  The massage place is right around the corner so I think I am going to take advantage of it while I am here.  

We went for a walk after we got done with our massages and through a park where everyone was doing Tai Chi, it's like Yoga but standing.  Then we found a huge fruit and vegetable market, it had live fish, all sorts of vegetable, noodles, different types of dumplings and rolls, it was really neat. People are very polite and they are also really helpful.  I feel really safe here, so that is a relief.  You just have to be careful crossing the street because there are a lot of motorized bicycles and cars running around and they seem to have the right of way.  The bikes even have their own hand warmers which I think is ingenious, see my picture.

We are starting to plan many trips around the country to see as much as we can.  It is really great that we are able to go to a city that does not have a lot of foreigners and really immerse ourselves in the culture as well as learn about the cultures of the people that are with us.

Sara