As promised here are photos of Inner Mongolia. I have found it very interesting that as I have communicated with everyone about where I am at these days, many people have assumed that I am in Mongolia. Well, I am very close but not quite, Inner Mongolia is just south of Mongolia but it is still part of China. I would guess that at one point they were about the same in terms of culture, it is hard for me to say now because I have never been to Mongolia, but I would imagine this area is a bit more Chinese like. There still is a locally practiced religion where they worship using some piles of stones and it is more nature based. I don't know that much about it I just asked about the stone piles which are here and there.

Kicking it in Inner Mongolia

I am realizing that as I learn more and more about the wind farm and the wind turbines that I really don't know much at all and there is so much more to understand. I don't know if a month and a half is really enough. It is really just an introduction I think. I am also finding that I need to be proactive to learn about things, and find a way of integrating what needs to be done with the international market into what I am doing here. That sounds easy until you realize that it is a little bit hard to define exactly what needs to be done for the international market. I have learned from interviewing some of the local guys who have worked with foreign companies locally that because of our quality we will need to approach customer service in a different way. Foreign companies are able to put their turbines and leave after testing them. I think that we will have to stay a bit longer, otherwise develop a very good training program, but then how we train all depends on what contries we go to too, whether or not they are already familiar with the wind industry or not. I hope that you enjoy the pictures.

Now that it has been two months, I am back to posting. For those readers who still visit here is a brief update of what I have been up to over the past two months. For Chinese new year I was visiting with many friends in Macau, I have two new co-workers from Holland, I have a new Chinese 'mom' who lives across the street and when I am in Urumqi I visit every week. These days life has taken a slightly different turn. I am working on the wind farm in Inner Mongolia. Inner Mongolia is still a part of China and I am five hours north of Beijing by bus. The farm is at 6000ft, so climbing up the turbines is a little be slower compared to back in Urumqi. I experience my first snow thunderstorm just the other day too. I am lucky because at work they would like me to become an international project manager, and I was feeling rather overwhelmed with that for a long time, now I have a partner in crime, who is one of the more experience guys in customer service and speaks very good English. So, part of my training process is having techincal classes in English right now I am working on learning how to read the electrical control drawings. That serves two purposes, one I actually get to learn the material and the other is that my coworker gets to practice his English. I feel like a sponge I am learning so much, I also feel like a marshmallow when I have to wear the padded winter clothing because it is still a bit cold up here.

The conditions are much more than I expected, because I am one of the only girls (the only one who goes out to work on the turbines) I have my own room and bathroom. The food is also very clean and they make sure that as a vegetarian I have something to eat. I haven't been able to ride a horse yet, but I am looking forward to the opportunity. That's all for now, I will post pictures shortly.

Peace out.

Yesterday was a very interesting experience, there was a large meeting for all of the domestic project managers. It was an evaluation meeting so they all had to give presentations about their projects and managerial skills, in addition to fielding questions from the audience which included some guest managerial professors. I didn't have a translator for the program so I was thankful to have done some translation on the subject last week because at the very least I was able to identify what subjects were being discussed. Sometimes I tried reading along and other times I just had to listen. It was all dependent on the person's presentation style and some just spoke too fast. It was a good opportunity to learn more about what the project manager requirements are, but I wish that I could have understood more because it would have been really valuable. I will get the presenations latter and get to think more about the subjects in depth. I did have someone around for translation for a little bit, but it was too distracting for the audience, so that didn't last very long. Either way by the end of the day my head was swimming.

What I did learn was that there is a broad range of skills and ability levels in the current project management staff, there is a delicate dance that has to be done with the wind farm owners to make sure the project is a success and developing the appropriate communication skills comes with time and experience, safety is as always the number one concern-now I really want to read the company safety regulations, and training is done apprenticeship style. What I wanted to know was whether there was any consideration of optimizing the processes. I think that what the company will be responsible when doing international projects will change a little especially in countries where there isn't already wind industry infrastructure. That is what I get to figure out.

It was also my first official company banquet. I was at a table with my soon to be colleagues and it became very apparent how much of a minority I am being a woman. There were 6 large tables approx. 10 people each and max 2 women per table. However I would be the only woman working towards working with project management. In terms of banquets it is in some ways it is to my advantage because I don't have to drink with everyone and because I am a foreigner I can get away with being a vegetarian-ha ha. It was fun to see everyone happy and the night finished off with a round of songs.

Cheers!

Here I am back in Urumqi for two weeks already...and today I made friends with some school age girls, since they are on break they have been playing outside and on my way to work I say hi and they kind of laugh. Today when I was on my way to work as I passed them, they wanted to chat so I invited them to walk to work with me, which they did, all the way (10mins) and we made a plan for to meet up on Sunday to look at pictures. On my way home from work I happened to seem them shortly and one girl gave me two pieces of chocolate...so sweet. It was a funny moment I was at the same time talking to my sister and had my phone in my hand, one of the girls asked to see my phone, then happened to hang up on Sarah...oops. These are Uighur girls so because Chinese isn't their first language so they are very forgiving that I often make mistakes. In addition they are very perceptive, one girl when we were talking on my way to work about school said that she doesn't like it when people don't notice what the cleaning ladies are doing for everyone, a really natural regard for other people.

Last week at work I spent the whole week putting together a presentation about the wind operations and management conference that I went to in San Diego. It happened to be a very valuable conference for me to go to because it relates directly to the Customer Service department for whichI am working. It gave me a valuable perspective of how things are done in the US and a standard by which to understand my company because we covered topics like wind farm management, safety (very important when I am one of the only ones who wears the safety harness), reliability data collection and statistics, and wind forecasting.

In the process of going to this conference I learned in detail about how I expect my company to finance trips and how it is actually done. I assumed at the very least there would be a company credit card to pay for things ie conference fees, but no, it is all done by cash and receipts. That means a lot of paper and glue and signatures of all relevant managers on each piece of paper and tracking down the managers for a few days and which department should pay for this and that, blah blah. If you get money in advance you have to be prepared to carry a thick wad of RMB notes (makes for warm underwear-yes you can get underwear with a money pocket, my long johns even has one). At least there is direct deposit into my Chinese bank account for my salary.

It seems that I have, after consulting with all managers just short of the CEO and President of the company, found a job position in my company which is rather fitting, but at this point feels like big shoes to fill. We are just about getting ready to do our first sales internationally, so they would like me to become the International Project Manager. When I was first invited to stay with Customer Service without a specific position the job description looked like this: 4-freaken months of managerial document translation, 3-months on the wind farm, and a few months of research plus language training for the technicians all year-round. I thought why do I need an engineering degree for tedious translation work? Thus initiating meets with all the managers, it was definitely a good process because they were able to decide on a good place for me to go; I was able to explain that for me to fill that position I would need some serious training and that I would be willing to stay with the company if I felt like I contributed valuably to the company and was learning something I was interested in. What it means at this point is going back to doing techincian type work. So the next day I was given the skill development list for mechanical engineers and the hand book for the customer service department in Chinese. I have since been doing that tedious translation type work I was dreading and been realizing that it might be a bit useful to do because it increases my industry related vocab very quickly. It also means I know exactly what's what. It really opens up a whole new world, but my eyes do get tired. I might also see if I can figure out how to do some basic reliability statistics and failure analysis. Gotta take life one step at a time. On the grander scheme of things Gold wind is intalling its first 1.5MW machine.

To see some of the pictures from my trip back home check out my Picasa web album. In short my trip was inspired by my Grandmothers transition into her next phase of existence, but in addition I took an outing to Baltimore to enjoy my little (ha ha big but younger) sister Ruth's 20th birthday, a trip to Green Acre with my parents, time at home with Nana, getting my work visa, Khela's Yosemite-styling wedding, a house-warming-disco-ball-initiating party for Sarah and Shara, the wind energy conference mentioned above, and a whole lot of Salsa dancing (ahh an addiction relieved).

Khela's Wedding

Mischief in the works

I am heading back to China tomorrow morning...ready or not here I come. I am a little bit tired after having spent a couple of days as an 'adult' at a wind energy workshop in San Diego. But there is so much to learn. Any how, more updates later.

There has been a whirlwind of change in my life in the past week. On Dec. 2nd my grandmother (maternal) passed away, she had decided that she was finished with all of the tubes and treatments at the hospital, so then it was time to go home. On that Monday when I walked into work I mentioned this to my boss and her immediate response was that I should go home. I hadn't decided at that time what I was going to do. I was still considering the trip to Inner Mongolia. However, after talking with my family and in particular my sister Sarah, I realized that in life there is always work and it is important to take time for the people that you love. So, I made that decision Monday at 12pm and was on a flight to Beijing at 9am the next morning with a direct flight to Chicago following. It really amazes me that it all came together so quickly and it was only because of the international date line that I made it back in time. I just have this feeling that sometimes in China when something is meant to happen it does. We had the funeral on Wednesday and it was so special to be able to spend that time with my whole family. It was definitely much harder to say good-bye by myself in China being there at the funeral brought closure to the process for me. I think that it also meant a lot to them that I came all the way from China for the funeral.

I will be in the US until at least mid-January. In the mean time I need to start thinking about which area of Gold Wind I want to be working in. There are so many options, but unless I have an idea of where I want to go I won't be getting much work to do. It is funny, but that is the way it works for the foreigners at my company. The options range from international marketing, technical development and problem solving, wind farm development, research and development, and quality to control to name a few. If you have any opinions let me know....

Cheers.

By poplular demand I am posting some pictures of the "Pea in Her Pod", yes the green down coat made in Xian has come out of the closet. While the picture below is not the first time the coat came out of the closet , it is often worn in the taxi. Although it is not after 10pm in Urumqi after 10pm only girls can sit in the front seat. The reasoning is that at night men are more likely to be drunk than women and make it dangerous for the taxi driver, however I have had a spontaneous marriage proposal from a taxi driver and only choose the front if I am traveling in a group. Behind me you can see my friend from work, Qiaoyuan, peeking through.

Here I am really putting my coat to use at the International Bazar in town. The largest minority in Urumqi is Uyger and this is the biggest place in town to buy representitive arts and souveniers, there is also a huge mosque. I don't think that most of the arts and crafts are made by small time business folk, but it is a fun place to visit. Outside you can get fresh squeezed pomegrante juice, sheep butter, and all kinds of nuts and dried fruits. This was a fun day other than it took us over an hour to find a taxi in the freezing cold, I don't think that I want to venture that trip in the evening again because when the sun goes down it is too cold and too hard to flag down a taxi. The poor guys with me, Thomas my german friend was not wearing long underwear and my Chinese friend Qiaoyuan had wet feet from a busted water main earlier in the day at the company.

Now for the "Pea coat" with hood action....


The "Pea coat" in a group setting...unfortuanately slightly out of place as we are in an underground sport equipment retail area.

There we have it folks, the custom made green coat in its full glory. My friends at work have said that it is too early to be wearing a down coat, but it is cold (-13C or 8F) and more layers can be added later.