Day 5 – Last Day in Dalian

 

Mystery Solved: It’ a KFC outlet.

Today is my last day in Dalian, working with Neusoft.  Both of my traveling companions have now returned to the US.

Today was more of the same at work:  mostly working with the Neusoft to iron out details in the interface from my test cases to their infrastructure.
I also met with the liaison from my company to Neusoft to discuss other aspects of the relationships between our two companies.  (He works for my company and spends 2 weeks of every month here and the other 2 weeks in the US.)
I was alone for dinner so I just ate in the hotel.  I walked around outside for a while, but my leisurely stroll pace didn’t match the hustle of people heading home for the weekend.  The sidewalks were quite crowded–it reminded me of Manhattan.
I made some notes yesterday about some general topics to relate in this email/blog so here they are:
*  Driving habits:  I find the driving here to be somewhere between the (relative) orderliness of the US and the chaos of Indian driving.  There is some horn-honking here and some amount of disregard for traffic regulations, I feel here I can cross the street without being killed.  Of course, as anywhere, I have to watch for cars.
*  When I mentioned to one person that I was going to visit Tiananmen Square he told me his story:  He was a senior in college in 1989 when the pro-democracy demonstrations were taking place.  He and his friends wanted to participate, but felt they should at least show up at the lab at school to make an appearance first.  When he got to the lab, his professor scolded him saying, “What are you doing here?  You should be joining the demonstrations!”
This is the same guy who told me, when we were comparing India to China,  said:  “India has one thing that China does not:  democracy.”  (Since I’m writing this in China–behind the government firewall, I’ll be interested to see if it gets out.)
*  It was explained to me that there are competing telecom companies here, but they are all owned by the government.  Is it the best or worst of both worlds?  Competition + government control.
*  I cannot find decaf coffee here.
*  The traffic lights here flash green before they turn yellow, thus giving drivers a two-phase warning of impending red light.

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