Living in Beijing sometimes reminds me of staying in hostels. Every week, I somehow end up meeting new people that all start by asking the same questions.

“Hi, what’s your name?”

“What are you doing in China?”

When I mention I work at Microsoft here in Beijing, within five questions I’m inevitably asked, “so Microsoft sent you out here?” Occasionally, someone will just be the straight-shooter and ask, “are you on a package?”

Ah-ha. Ex-pat lingo. Let me talk about the three types of working ex-pats.

Working to Live – Most of my friends fall into this category. Typically these are people that love China or feel called to China and found some job to support their habit. They show up on tourist visas and look for work on the ground, usually teaching English. The work is technically under the table, so every few months a 3-4 day run out of China is needed to get a new tourist visa.

Transferred Professionals – This is the category I fall into. We’re a group that love China or feel called to China and created a win-win for ourselves by finding a job to advance our careers at the same time. We have residency, get paid in local currency, and pay taxes. The pay puts you squarely into the local middle class, though in absolute amounts you’d probably be making more back at home.

On Assignment – Ah yes. Highly coveted. People ‘on assignment’ are sent by their companies because of a specific need here on the ground. For Microsoft this means that the job found you and not the other way around. As you imagine, people in this category are senior and/or being groomed for a future position. Since these folks didn’t necessarily want to be in China, they get compensated appropriately. You get paid in $/£/€. You get a very generous housing allowance. The international schooling for your kids is paid for. You’ve got the retirement benefits of your home country and bulletproof health insurance. You get the driver. Sometimes you also get a hardship allowance and your spouse gets an allowance for his/her social activities. This is what it means to be ‘sent’ out here and be ‘on a package.’ It means bank.

—–

Answering clearly the ‘why are you here’ question is very important to me. Sadly, most of the time, this question isn’t so much getting to know who you are, but really just ascertaining your motive and/or social status. My replies are swift—no, I wanted to come and transferred out here; no, I’m not on a package.

Especially in Beijing, it’s easy not to live in China. With all the international-grade offerings of malls, housing, and restaurants, it’s easy to lead a life exclusively inside that international community and have the local communities, people, and culture just fade into the background. That’s not why I’m here. China’s grreeeat! I’m here to grow, here to see, and here to connect with China—as hard as that can be sometimes.

Bede told me that New Zealand was a great place to see a bunch of different terrain in a short distance. I totally understand what he means—KM after KM of beautiful topology on these little narrow two-lane roads that crisscross the whole country. The idea of highways or motorways just doesn’t exist here and I couldn’t be more thankful.

Here’s a selection of eye candy from around the country.

I’m currently in the neat little mountain town of Hanmer Springs, population 900. Hanmer feels akin to what ski towns probably used to be before monstrosities like Vail and Whistler came into being. It smells exactly like Whistler here—crisp fresh mountain air with the sweet smells of a wood fire and the hint of evergreens.

Despite highs of 3-4 degrees C (about 38 degrees F), I decided that a) no way I was leaving Hanmer without romping around in the mountains and also, b) mountain biking was the way I was going to accomplish this.

It had rained, hailed, and snowed yesterday—so the trails were sopping wet, slick, and muddy. I thought this was just fantastic. The guys at the rental shop set me up on a week-old Specialized XC with full suspension, disc brakes, and fat nubby tires, then sent me packing down single-track trails.

This turned out to be really hard work—pedaling up these trails was a huffer and wet super-slick tree roots perilously slid me sideways. But the reward was wicked—big clearings from logging activity with beautiful views followed by downhill stretches down single-track trail. About midway through it started raining, which turned to snow, and suddenly I found myself alone and pedaling through a snow-falling forest. Incredible.

With the single-track turning to gullies of water runoff, I had to stay active on the brakes—thank God for disc brakes—and ended up right where I began after two hours, closely resembling a drowned rat.

Loved it. Will do again.

Before and after!

This was the view at 8:00am standing on the docks of Picton, NZ looking out into Queen Charlotte Sound.

My dad did most of the planning for this trip as I’ve been bolting around all over the world. In the last three weeks alone I’ve been on three continents and spent about 35 hours in the air. My dad is really more of an urbanite than the outdoorsy type and I was therefore a bit surprised when my dad suggested we take a ferry into one of the islands of Queen Charlotte Sound, and hike 15km (nearly 10 miles) from Ship Cove to the Furneaux Lodge where we’d be picked up.

I was so proud to see him troop on through. The first 30 minutes were a pretty decent climb up to the top of a hill, followed by never ending set of undulations as we circumnavigated the island from the sides of its hills. Total hike time was about 4 hours, terminating in a bar serving fantastic brie and chicken burgers with cold beers.

As far as views goes—my dad sure knows how to pick a hike!

New Zealand is a leading wine region for Sauvignon Blanc and as a result, my dad has studied it extensively. As an analog, my dad is about as a crazy on wines as I am about coffee, ‘cept he’s been at it a lot longer.

About five years ago, my dad introduced me to the Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. He described it as a wine with a cult following, with limited quantities that made it hard-to-find. When I finally had it, it was brilliant—light and refreshing, with something that just made it glide off the tongue on the finish.

Later on, knowing Cloudy Bay earned me a lot of street cred with Barry Givens, my first boss at Microsoft, when I ordered it at dinner during WPC ‘05 in Boston and Barry found himself reading about it in his magazine on the flight home. (Having Cloudy Bay at WPC has since become an annual tradition.)

Hence, no trip through New Zealand for us would have been complete without touring a view vineyards. Dad decided on Allen Scott, Saint Clair, and of course, Cloudy Bay.

Each winery had a “cellar door” where they showed us a list of wines to taste from. Allen Scott and Saint Clair had different levels, which ranged in quality/price. This was interesting, as we were able to try a Sauv Blanc blended from multiple grape blocks and produced in quantity, then move to sample one sourced from a single amazing block of grapes. The flavors explode off the palate and the way the liquid runs down your tongue is incredibly different. Both are great in their own right though. At $20-30+ per bottle, the quality already impressive.

The real surprise for us was the burgeoning Pinot Noir. New Zealand PN has been emerging in recent years and having sampled an ‘07 at each of the wineries, I can say that these guys are onto something. It’s really tough to find a good Pinot Noir (it’s notoriously tough to do well), but the single-block PNs we tried were amazing. It’ll be a few years until they’re consistent at an export quantity, but look out for this one.

All in all, if you haven’t given Sauv Blancs from these three winemakers a chance, now’s a good time. In the case of Cloudy Bay, I’ll pass on the suggestion of skipping the ‘08 vintage (cold weather year) and waiting around for the ‘09. And explore the wines when you make it down here!

After being a little sticker shocked on prices for hotels in Wellington, NZ, I was finally able to convince my dad to try out a hostel for a night. Look at that smile. I think it worked out pretty well.

I’ve always found hostels, typically filled with interesting characters to talk to and hang out with to be quite ideal for me. Even on business trips where I’m traveling alone and found myself bored (read: lonely), I’ve been known to find a local hostel and plop down on a couch in the lounge.

We decided to stay at the YHA Wellington City, which is super-nice for a hostel, well maintained, and spotlessly cleaned. Oddly, as soon as I took a look around I felt like I was in a college building…reminded me a bit of the HUB. It dawned on me the next day that they’re using the exact UW colors—a soft glossy yellow on the walls with bright (real dawgs wear) purple accents.

We sprang for the twin en suite, so we had our own bathroom (Dad’s pre-req) and it worked out nicely. They even gave us nice towels. =)

Bonus points for nice common spaces—if you’re ever in Wellington, the YHA comes highly recommended from me.

As hinted previously…currently in New Zealand with my dad for a two week holiday!

We started off by meeting in Auckland (dad from Denver and me from Beijing), then to Napier via Rotorua, Wellington, Picton (where we are now), Hamner Springs, Christchurch, Queenstown, and back home!

At left: Goofing off in Wellington.

http://www.twitter.com/nanoflux/

Real-time updates at:

http://www.twitter.com/nanoflux

Anyone know what’s on the stamp?