From St. Louis to Suzhou

Friday, 20.04.2018

My first week of work in China was behind me and it went pretty well! I introduced myself to a lot of people and it looks like I can actually bring a lot of experience from Germany here. Many organizational projects that we implemented in HDH in the past few years still need to be done here. I'm looking forward to trying out a lot of things here.

One of my personal projects of the week was to optimize my commute home. I tried three scenarios with subway and/or taxi, and the following seems to be the ideal one at the moment. I take the Voith Bus from Kunshan to the east of Suzhou, and at the first opportunity, I transfer to the subway. It takes me under the Jinji Lake and I get off at Suzhou Center (the first station on the west side of the lake). From there, I quickly take a taxi for 15 yuan and save myself the trip around the lake with many stops and depending on the weekday, a lot of traffic. This way, I usually manage to be home before 7:00 am - strike!

Now it was Friday and the first week was behind me. I decided to stop by the small 'Family Market' at the subway station in the 'Dad section' and quickly grab a beer for the way home. 6 stations and 15 minutes, that's plenty for a cold blonde beer with a Chinese soul. I was hoping for a local 'Tsing Dao', but all I found was a 'Budweiser' from the US and A - how inappropriate, I thought. Right next to it was a green 0.3 liter bottle with a screw cap. The description on the refrigerated shelf was written in Chinese, but there were also a few words in the language of the neighboring beer's home country (St. Louisan). Anyway, it said something about 'fresh'. Aha! I confidently concluded it was a shandy. I packed both and headed to the subway. As I got on, I celebrated the green bottle opening and with the first sip, I had to realize that it was not a shandy at all, but liquor! As a native of Prignitz, that didn't knock me out immediately, but still, I found it somehow inappropriate to drink a bottle of liquor on my way home, even if it was small (I might have acted differently with Pfeffi).

Well, then I had to go with the alternative from Missouri. A can of beer! I haven't had canned beer since several World Cups! And then one from the American imperialist class enemy! As I said, it felt somehow inappropriate.

But in hindsight, a few things have become clear to me. When you compare the new Suzhou landmark, the 'Suzhou Center', with the architectural comparison to the St. Louis landmark, the 'Gateway Arch', there is a certain similarity, akin to siblings, recognizable. In St. Louis, I spent my first longer time abroad. That was in 2003, two and a half months of internship. Last year, I visited Benn, whom I met back then, for his wedding in Buenos Aires. During that time, I created two hardware blogs (photo albums, with properly printed pictures). I occasionally like to pull them out and tell anyone who wants to know or doesn't want to know about the 'Bastille Day', my meeting with Chuck Berry, or the visit to the 'Anheuser Busch Brewery', which... exactly, brews 'Budweiser'.

So now, unconsciously, I was enjoying a relic from St. Louis on my way to the Chinese 'Gateway Arch'! Somehow, a circle is closing there, isn't it?