Archive for the 'Hangzhou' Category

Temples and tea plantations

Published on July 22, 2009 in Hangzhou. 15 Comments

It’s been awhile since I last updated; things have been really hectic around here and work has been ramping up. A couple weeks ago I sustained injury #2 in China, this time on my right ring finger. I was checking out some industrial fans in a factory outside Hangzhou (for a project at work) and while leaning on one of the fans my finger slipped through the casing and got sliced by the fan blades. The doctor at the hospital chuckled at the sight of me again. He fixed me up right and it looks like I’m off to a full recovery:

more battle wounds

This past weekend I got a chance to check out some places outside Hangzhou which I hadn’t seen yet. Accompanying me for the adventures was my friend from Stanford, Juliet Rothenberg, and her Chinese teacher from Shanghai:

: the three musketeers

We first went to check out the Lingyin Temple, a buddhist temple located in the mountains northwest of Hangzhou. One of the largest in China, the temple was established over 1600 years ago. The structures were beautiful, and the Buddha in the main hall was the size about the size of a small building! Although there were monks living in the monastery there, the temple seemed to be more of a tourist attraction than a place of worship. As most everywhere in China, the place was packed:

main hall of Lingyin Temple

the monks could ball, yo

a pagoda in the courtyard

The topic of religion is a touchy one in China. Due to their complex history and thanks in no small part to the Communist Party, the population today is generally atheistic. The other day my boss (who is nonreligious), chastised the country’s lack of faith and lamented that “Chinese kids these days begin to lie at a very young age, and grow up not learning how to distinguish right from wrong.” In the US, where faith is generally cast in a favorable light, I’ve always looked to highlight the violence and hate caused by religious fervor around the world. However, in the face of China’s extreme corruption and crime, it’s tough to argue against the positive effects of a religious populace.

After seeing the Lingyin Temple, we decided to tour the neighboring Longjing tea plantations to try our hand at some authentic Longjing tea. Unfortunately I have absolutely zero knowledge of teas, so it was rather difficult to appreciate their quality. The fields where they grew the tea leaves were quite pretty however:

tea fields

a worker at the tea plantation

All in all, thanks to the great company and cool sights, it was another awesome weekend in Hangzhou. On a side note, earlier today I got to witness something which I’ll likely never see again my lifetime–a total solar eclipse! It was completely dark for about 6 minutes around 9:30am, and hordes of people gathered outside to watch while fireworks littered the air. Awesome!

- Pu Anren

The zoo and Chinese theater

Published on July 7, 2009 in Hangzhou. 55 Comments

This weekend I decided to stick around Hangzhou, sleep in, and see some of the main attractions in the city. On Saturday I went to the zoo with my host mother Meixue and a friend from Stanford, Nanette Le, who is also interning in the area:

Nanette, Meixue and I

The zoo, like everything else in China, was rather bizarre but a lot of fun. The animals were kept in mostly deplorable conditions (save the panda, who was living the life). I’m used to American zoos where the exhibits are large and you have to look for the animals in their expansive artificial habitats. This was not the case in the Hangzhou zoo; even the bigger animals like the tigers and lions were in small plexiglass boxes the size of bedrooms. However, this made things very easy for the zoogoers — in a short 100m walk you could see about 30 different animals!

Here’s some blue-chip photos from the trip:

a curious creature

"please get me out of here"

the deer slums

Lion, bear, and... vegetarian?

There were a lot of animals which you would never see in an American zoo due to their ubiquity in North America, like pigs, racoons, and a large collection of dogs:

the Chihuahua; a species on the brink of extinction

And of course, it would be a Chinese zoo without this bad boy:

Panda!

The following day, Meixue took Nanette and I to a Chinese theater. There were some outdoor plays, but the main attraction was an hour-long indoor performance. Luckily, the indoor play was more of a visual experience (i.e. there was no Chinese dialogue I had to wade through), and it was really something else. The actors often interacted with the rambunctious audience, and the stage was a crazy blend of electronics, laser lights, costumes, and water effects. It’s tough to describe it in words, so here are some pictures:

I’m used to quiet, reserved plays where the audience sits still and stays quiet (god forbid someone forgets to turn their phone on vibrate). In contrast, it was wild in the Chinese theater; people were constantly talking, smoking, drinking, and snapping photos. Awesome!

All in all, thanks to the great weather and good company, it was a fantastic weekend in Hangzhou. Luckily there is still a lot to see around here…

- Pu Anren

Medicine and Transportation

Published on July 1, 2009 in Hangzhou. 8 Comments

First of all, I’d like to thank everybody for reading the blog! The response has been overwhelming. Unfortunately I can’t go into more detail about my workplace than I already have due to NDA, so I’ll try to spice up my personal life here in order to keep it exciting.

It seems like a million things have happened since I last updated slightly over a week ago. Last Monday after work I went to play basketball with some coworkers (the first time in my life where I was one of the tallest players on the court) and got accidentally elbowed in the head, which opened up a gash above my forehead. My host mother took me to the hospital to get it stitched up, which was an interesting experience:

operating table

The hospital was a little dingy but all of the doctors and nurses were very nice. I waltzed in without an appointment and got my cut sewn up within about 15 minutes. After that I was given some amoxicillin (anti-infection) capsules and a tetanus booster shot. The total for all of these services? Around ¥80 RMB, or about $12 USD. Not to mention, I went in for free check-ups several times in the next few days to make sure there was no infection. The biggest nuisance from the whole ordeal was the bandage I had to wear on my head, as if people didn’t stare at me enough already…

my head bandage

You always read about how bad the US medical system is, but I didn’t expect “third-world” China to put it to shame like this. I would have waited for hours to get such treatment at any US facility, and the bill probably would have been at least a hundred dollars, even after copay! I’m not an expert on healthcare, but there is clearly something wrong with it in the States.

Another major development this week included the purchase of an e-bike in order to facilitate getting around town. E-bikes and scooters are very popular around here, and as a result, dirt cheap. I was able to pick up this model for a little over ¥1200 RMB, or about $170 USD. I doubt you would even be able to get the bike frame for that price in the US:

my new ride

As a budding engineer, I have to include at least some technical details. The electric drivetrain is an interesting piece of machinery:

batteries and rear drivetrain

The setup for these types of bikes is pretty simple. This particular model is basically just a 2-pack of 12V lead-acid batteries hooked up to a motor controller and in-wheel electric motor, which is also chain-linked to a set of pedals in case you run out of juice. I am still intrigued at how cheaply they are able to make these things. Some of the lower-quality models sold for under $100 USD! The scooter store also had some higher-performance lithium-ion models available in the $400-$700 USD range. Most of the people at Astronergy get to work either by bike or scooter:

bike/scooter parking structure at Astronergy

It’s nice not having to get into a car every time you want to go somewhere, and it also makes more sense from an environmental perspective. Why in the world do you need to lug around a 2-ton hunk of metal every time you go from point A to point B? It’s also more carbon-friendly to use energy generated from power plants (even if they are coal-powered), since they operate at higher efficiency regimes than your typical internal combustion engine. That being said, I don’t see Americans changing their driving habits anytime soon…

- Pu Anren

A week’s work

Published on June 22, 2009 in Hangzhou. 14 Comments

I’ve made it through my first week of work without breaking anything expensive, so I consider it to be a success. I’m working at a company called Astronergy, which is the solar division of Chint Group (an electrical and power generation giant in China). The company is only three years old, so a lot of the PV products are under development or are just recently ramping up. Here’s some pictures of the fabrication facility where I work:

campus 2 astronergy plant

campus 2 lobby

my office! a little sparse at the moment...

my office... after a bit of arguing they reluctantly agreed to let me keep my macbook

The company is considered a “start-up” due to its youthful age, but this term is very different from the loosely defined one I’ve grown accustomed to in Silicon Valley (Astronergy employs hundreds of people). Solar cell production relies on economies-of-scale; the larger the factory the more likely you’ll be able to manufacture at competitive prices. The company specializes in a variety of Silicon solar panels, ranging from thin-film tandem “micromorph” a-Si/µc-Si cells to conventional polycrystalline and monocrystalline Si modules:

monocrystalline Si cells

polycrystalline Si cells

tandem a-Si/µc-Si cells

They also plan to manufacture a line of translucent tandem Si modules, which are really cool. These are for potential use in window or skylight applications. If you look at the close-up image, the absorber layer isn’t actually transparent, it’s just arranged in very thin strips:

unframed translucent a-Si module

translucent module close-up

My technical title is “Process Engineer” for the thin-film Si division, which means I’m supposed to help iron out kinks in the manufacturing line and see what can be done to optimize the process. My first week mostly consisted of getting to know my co-workers and figuring out the factory layout, as well as the equipment. Unfortunately I can’t take pictures inside the super-secret factory from fear of being shot by executive order of Hu Jintao, but suffice to say that it is very cool. The entire fab is a ISO 14644 Class 7 Cleanroom, so I have to put on a gown, hair net, face mask, shoe coverings, and gloves and then go through an blowdry room before I can even enter:

the latest in cleanroom fashion

I’m accustomed to making small samples in a lab and then running them through various tests, so walking through the fab for the first time was a really eye-opening experience. Nothing is touched by hand, and the PECVD and laser-scribing machines are the size of large bedrooms. In contrast to a laboratory setting where performance is paramount, here at the factory the overriding factor is quality control. It’s clear that I still have everything to learn about how solar cells are made in the real world!

- Pu Anren

A day at west lake

Published on June 15, 2009 in Hangzhou. 13 Comments

As I quickly found out from everyone here, the biggest tourist attraction in the area is the West Lake in downtown Hangzhou. After an interesting breakfast composed of an oatmeal-type concoction and mibao (a sort of bread filled with some sugary stuff), Meixie and her husband dropped me off at the lake for the day to do some wandering (they had to run some errands).

The locals weren’t messing around. The lake was gorgeous. There were many old-style Chinese buildings littered around the surrounding park, and the hills in the background facing west were very beautiful. Looking the other way, the lake against the backdrop of a modern Hangzhou skyline provided an interesting contrast. Interestingly, it seemed as if all the non-Chinese tourists were fixated on the pagodas and old statues, while the Chinese tourists were instead snapping photos with the Hangzhou skyscrapers, the future of China, in the background. I don’t want to delve too deeply into that, but you get the idea. Here are some choice pictures from the trip:

After cruising around the scenic parts of the lake, I walked around downtown Hangzhou for a bit. The city was nice, albeit kinda noisy — Chinese people are quite fond of the car horn. However,

As I quickly found out from everyone here, the biggest tourist attraction in the area is the West Lake in downtown Hangzhou. After an interesting breakfast composed of an oatmeal-type concoction and mibao (a sort of bread roll filled with some sugary stuff), Meixue and her husband dropped me off at the lake for the day to do some wandering.

The locals weren’t messing around. The lake was gorgeous. There were many old-style Chinese buildings littered around the surrounding park, and the hills in the background facing west were very beautiful. Looking the other way, the lake against the backdrop of a modern Hangzhou skyline provided an interesting contrast. Interestingly, it seemed as if all the non-Chinese tourists were fixated on the pagodas and old statues, while the Chinese tourists were instead snapping photos with the Hangzhou skyscrapers, the future of China, in the background. I don’t want to delve too deeply into the philosophical meanings of that, but you get the idea. Here are some choice pictures from around the lake:

After cruising through West Lake, I walked around downtown Hangzhou for a bit. The city was nice, albeit rather noisy — Chinese people are quite fond of the car horn. In addition to cars, there were bikes, motorbikes, mopeds, gopeds, scooters, and other miscellaneous 2-wheeled vehicles. The roads in downtown Hangzhou are, by any measure, massive. The average width of the roads was about 8 lanes, clear signs of some serious urban planning done beforehand:

typical street in downtown Hangzhou

they like their bikes

a spirited game of... something

Hangzhou is one of China’s new cities, born as a result of the massive migration of farmers and laborers from surrounding rural areas. Cranes and constructions crews were visible on every block, as were American restaurants and stores. Stores like Gucci and Versace littered the lakeside streets, and it wasn’t unusual to see exotic italian car dealerships:

cars that go fast

three places every child should visit daily

At first I was convinced that these stores and dealerships were filled with fake goods. Upon further inspection however, the cheapest suit I could find ran upwards of ¥10,000 RMB (about $1500 USD). Which begs the question: where is all of this money coming from?

- Pu Anren

Archive for the 'Hangzhou' Category

Temples and tea plantations

The zoo and Chinese theater

Medicine and Transportation

A week’s work

A day at west lake

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