Went to IKEA with Wendy and Yifan, again. This time, we just get there to buy a mat.
This one:
I was an IKEA fan, at least the first time I found my name on BusinessWeek, I was presented as an IKEA fan. Going to IKEA was the best time for Wendy and I in 1997 and 1998. However, even a hardcore fan like me may no longer enjoy the shopping experience as we grow older.
When we managed to go through all the sections (even when we know all the shortcuts in the maze), we are still very tired. We feel more strongly when we waited the long line to check out. What a huge and successful business they have built in Shanghai! Everywhere is full – restaurant (Sweden Meat Balls) is full, and today’s IKEA almost reaches its designed capacity. That is the reason they now have stores in 4 cities, and planning to open another one in Pudong, near my home.
When we finally got a taxi in the rainy Saturday, Wendy complained: “Why this city is becoming more and more unpleasant? What a nice experience in IKEA, but with increased number of customers, it is just so painful to go there.” She is very true. Shanghai is becoming more and more crowded these days.
Yifan Fell Asleep in IKEA
The highlight of the trip was Yifan fell alseep in IKEA. He lean his head toward and Wendy and quickly, he fell asleep. Thanks to IKEA’s “Help yourself” Policy, I found a big bed, and put Yifan on the bed.
He slept so sweet, and so deep! I was with him for about 30 minutes. There are many customers there. They were generally very surprised to find the little boy sleep sweetly on the bed. Some thought it was a toy boy, and when they found out it is real, some shout out. Sometimes, even several people gather before Yifan and saw him sleep. I am a very proud father. At this time, I just found out people generally loves children, especially infants. They also feel sweet when they saw Yifan.
P.S. My rule of thumb: 100% of women or 30% of girls show interest in Yifan when I bring him out. 30% of men, and 0% of boys show interest in Yifan. Well. It is not because of Yifan (a boy). I would say, generally, females are more interested in infants, or children. This is the finding of my 5 months of fatherhood.
Count me firmly in the 100% category whenever you “bring him out” here on your blog!!
:-)
But, Jian Shuo — after the last post when you wrote about how tired Wendy is right now, I’m surprised you didn’t say that she fell asleep on the bed right next to Yifan in the middle of IKEA ;-)
you’r really a father of love and…..statistical mind…
Yifan looks sweet, you should bought a better camera to record the growth of your little lovely boy.
hey, i have a book of erwitt eliott which have a whole record of the growth of his two daughter, maybe i could send you the picture.
http://images.china.cn/images1/200708/401480.jpg
Hah, as a recent father of a now 1-year old son, I fully agree with you, Jian Shuo Wang. My wife sometimes has to teach night school classes and therefore, when I finally arrive home from work, I am often the one taking my son Henry out shopping. While there are some mostly older gentlemen (and a few younger men, especially if they have girlfriends) who smile and wave at Henry, it seems that half the women in the shop will flock in my direction when they see Henry in the stroller! A bit awkward at times, I am married after all. ;)
By the way, on an unrelated but very important (for me) topic: Does anyone here have suggestions on the best software to use, whether freeware or commercial, to interconvert between Chinese characters and pinyin Romanized script, to facilitate reading and writing in the Mandarin language journals for professionals using Chinese as a second language?
My company is increasingly encouraging us to not only read Chinese, but practice writing some of our brief engineering technical reports in Mandarin Chinese, since Mandarin is already becoming such an important language for engineering and science communications. Same thing at the university in my town– the engineering students are getting basic Chinese courses now, in addition to the German-language training we get for the German technical literature. I myself am still an early-intermediate Chinese learner I suppose, though a number of my colleagues can speak quite advanced-level Mandarin. However, they still have not yet mastered the writing.
To accelerate the Mandarin reading and writing process, I’ve noticed in some other firms, that the engineers and chemists who publish in Mandarin, often use some home-grown software programs to rapidly convert the character-based text in Mandarin-language journals into pinyin equivalents which they can read at their current stage of Chinese training, while they continue to improve their reading skills for the characters. Similarly, when they write an article in Chinese, they start by writing it in pinyin and then use software to convert it to the text in Chinese characters (which is then proofread by a Chinese native-speaker).
Some German companies especially have become skilled in this. Since German is another of the important languages for publishing technical and scientific work, many of the German engineers and researchers are learning Mandarin to improve their understanding of the high-quality peer-reviewed Chinese technical literature, which in turn helps them in designing projects and publishing their own papers in a German journal. (On my recent trip to a company in Bielefeld in Germany, the company had cleverly recruited dozens of Chinese engineers who were also fluent in German, to help teach the German engineers and design the Mandarin-reading publishing software.)
Of course, most of this pinyin-reading and writing software is custom-designed by people in the companies themselves, which is why I’m wondering if there is more general-access software available for publishing. Obviously, any free downloadable programs would be great, but I’d be willing to buy commercial software for Chinese character-pinyin conversion if it would help at least in training for publishing in Chinese. Anyone have experience in this?
Why not try the story book for the Chinese kids. You can read and learn to write Mandarin according to it. it is also quite cheap and available in all the supermarkets. Ha, Just for your reference. You can have a try it until you find the sofeware you are finding.
Indeed, I see plenty of customers nodding off to “Never-Never land” on the latest IKEA sofa-bed in Beijing.
Do they have the 4 Kuai 宫保鸡丁 special in Shanghai as well? The students & labourers here come in by the busload just for that meal!
Yes. That 4 RMB chicken is very attractive.