The Portfolios

For the last week in Shanghai, the weather has followed the same pattern every day. The morning starts hazy, humid, and brutally hot. As th day progresses, the sun comes out and bakes everything to a crispy 35 degrees C (about 90 degress F). And then around 4:30 or 5, the sky starts to darken to the point that you think it’s night time, when actually it’s late afternoon on the longest day of the year. It got so dark on Thursday that all of us in the office stopped working just to look outside, as if we had never seen the sun set on the world.

And then the skies open up. The wind blows and the rain pours, thunder and lightning crash and burn. Today is Saturday and Yoyo went out this afternoon to do her hair while I stayed home. I was on the computer doing some leftover work from the office (sadly) when the darkness came and thunder bellowed from the North. I went to the window to watch the storm come in, and was reminded of the power of nature. Looking down on the little people from 21 floors above, I could see them all scurrying to get home or to wherever they were headed before the madness began. Big billowing thunderheads rolled in fast over the building across from me, and I saw a man opposite the way doing the same thing I was: sticking his hand out the window to see if the rain had begun. We just stood there, watching it unfold, and were glad to be home.

Our good friend and fellow musician Sandro, who is from Venice and has been in China for several years, and who was a founding member of two of my bands here in China (including the immortal Fang Bian Mian) has written this open letter about the Italian Consulate in Guangzhou, where he applied for, and was denied, a job. He has asked me to spread the news of their corruption far and wide, and this is the best way I know how to do it. Read on:

My name is Sandro Cagnin, male, Italian, 30 years old and I have been living in China for 4 years now. A week ago I was in Shanghai visiting some friends and was about to book my flight back home, to spend the summer with my family; then I received an e-announcement, posted by the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canton, saying that the Italian Consulate was looking for someone who could speak both Italian and Chinese for a temporary position in the Consulate. I thought that I would have given it a try, not knowing that they had decided already to whom they were going to assign that job. I gave a phone call to the Consulate’s secretary, asked her what were the papers needed to take part in the interview and sent them all by fax. She told me it was a great opportunity to get a job there and that surely I had many chances to succeed, given my degree and my level of both spoken and written Chinese.

So I bought a Shanghai-Canton train ticket (25 hrs!) and a plane ticket to come back. The price of the fare was affordable, around 100 Euros, but considering the fact that I went down there for a fake interview it was all in all a waste of money and of time above all. The day of the interview there were only four of us and among them I am the only one who holds a 4 years long degree in Far Eastern Languages and Literatures. Two of them have got the so-called translators’ “Laurea breve” (it means short degree in Italian), a 3 years long degree and one of them did not even graduate yet: he will be the successful one for this job. Please notice that the announcement explicitly says that a candidate with a University degree would be preferred. Furthermore among them I am the only one who spent more than three years in China. The announcement says that it is required to have spent at least 3 years abroad but the secretary told me on the phone, that it was indispensable to write down a piece of paper in which you had to attest that you have been living in China for a total amount of more than 3 years, so I did and sent it to the Consulate by fax.

The interview was held by two Italian commissioners of whom only one could speak Mandarin, and a Chinese employee of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canton. After a short computer test in which you had to show that you could use Word, Excel, and were able to write Chinese characters, one by one every candidate was taken into the interview room. This means that I was not there when the other guys were interviewed, but I really think that someone who lived in China just for a few months (unless his parents are Chinese, but this was not the case of any of the candidates that day) cannot have a level of oral or written Chinese that could be comparable to mine; I feel ready to undergo whatever kind of challenge to prove this statement. From the beginning this interview did not look that serious to me; they did not even test my English, the knowledge of which was considered a preference for choosing the right person, but I had to face this fact and keep going. The two commissioners spoke in Italian telling me what my job would have been like once I was selected. Then they kept asking me personal question like it would be normal in a non-biased job interview, but this was not it.

The Chinese test was very easy for me: I only had to read and translate a small paragraph from Chinese to Italian and then interact in a simple conversation with the Chinese employee. I am sure I did well in both parts and I really doubt that the other candidates showed the same fluency in spoken language or the same knowledge of Chinese characters. The next day, after I had flown back to Shanghai, I called them up to ask who was selected: the secretary answered that by chance the guy who got the job was the same guy who was actually doing his internship in the Consulate. He lived in China for less than three months in total and did not finish his studies yet. Furthermore they also informed me that I achieved the third place out of four.

Now, I know that in the Italian state-run enterprises it has always been like that and that they are so damned corrupted, then how come nobody is talking about this? If the rule is that if you do not have the right connections you cannot get anywhere why don’t they stop these fake interviews that could give hope in vain to people who are in need for a job? I am indeed ashamed to be holding an Italian citizenship.

Faithfully,

Sandro Cagnin Shanghai, June 18^th, 2006

Shown here is the Maglev train in Shanghai, hailed as a marvel of engineering, and indeed it is. Yet due to some poor foresight by the city planners, Shanghai’s magnetic levitation rail system is completely useless.

The maglev was designed and sold as a way to cut travel time to and from Pudong Airport, which in a taxi usually takes about 90 minutes or so. On the maglev, it was and is still claimed, that trip would be reduced to seven minutes, by traveling at speeds of up to 435 km/hour (270mph). Sounds great, right? Except that the location chosen for the “downtown” station is nowhere near downtown. It’s in Longyang, which is still a good hour from the city center by subway. Which means that after you take the super-fast maglev (and pay the 50 kuai ticket), you then have to take the regular metro line or grab a taxi. Yoyo and I did it once, for the experience. Never again.

Everybody is gripped by World Cup Fever, in China and all over the world, except for large swathes of the United States. Perhaps this is one reason why the US was so unceromoniously slaughtered on Monday night by the Czech Republic. I was watching the game in a loud American-style bar while Yoyo stayed home. Both of us had worked late and had differing ideas on how to unwind after uncharacteristically long days: she wanted peace and quiet, and I wanted a drink. It was a very exciting evening, although disappointing from the fifth minute when that enormous Czech dude scored a header on us without even jumping. Overall, the game was a complete embarrassment for the USA.

The end of the evening provided more excitement: the bar is located on the 3rd floor and the front door is actually an elevator to the street. Well, it stopped between floors and me and about 10 of my friends were stuck inside it. Only for a minute, though. Brad Turley and I managed to pry the doors open and everybody escaped out to the first floor. No harm done. Probably take the stairs next time, though.

The band has been doing well lately, and had a blowout show at the Live Bar last weekend. Before that, we had a couple of great gigs at Tang Hui, made even better by Eli and Sandro being in town to help us out. Now things will be slow for a while, as Carl is leaving tomorrow, and Nate is going next week. Both won’t be back until August or so. For more pictures and artwork, check out www.organeyes.org, the website of our artist friend Nathan Hall.