Website construction difficulties and much-needed rain in Beijing

September 18, 2007 by admin.

I spent probably over 30 hours on Saturday and Sunday working on the Beijing Discovery Tours website, and it look slightly better, but the program that I have been using, NetObjects Fusion 10.0 seems to have so many bugs that I spent most of my time trying to get the software to do what it is supposed to do rather than actually improving the site. It’s hard enough to get things done without malfunctioning software so it was a very frustrating experience.

Outside of that, on a personal level, I’ve been back in Beijing for 1 week now and the refrigerator has been broken the entire time. A repairmen has been here 3 times already, each time asking for more money for a different part, and it still doesn’t work. The landlord is supposedly going to buy a new one for the apartment now, but he is increasing the rent by 20% in addition to the increase that I’ve seen due to the appreciation of the Chinese Yuan against the US dollar. That, along with the website software problems and the usual “acclimatization” process that has to occur after I’ve stayed for an extended period in the U.S. made for a fairly miserable weekend. Plus I don’t think I’ve seen the sun here in the week that I’ve been back, it has been foggy, cloudy or rainy every day. The good thing is that last night (Monday) we got some heavy rain in Beijing, which is something that this desperately dry region of China really needs, and the rain is continuing into today (Tuesday).

I also received my Cbiz.cn China business newsletter this morning via email and it had a very insightful article into the mindset of the Chinese people regarding government, you can see it at http://www.cbiz.cn/news/showarticle.asp?id=2487. I need to look into whether I could add the Cbiz.cn newsfeed to our website somewhere because they have some great articles regarding business in China that are very helpful to understanding what a complex country this is. Even after 7 1/2 years of living in Beijing, I feel that I’m only beginning to understand a little of what it is that is driving China forward at such a rapid pace. One thing is for certain, it is a fascinating but not always an easy place to live.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »