Having just loaded out 4 hours earlier, I didn’t get any sleep the night before we left for Chongqing. I slept most of the way from Chengdu, which was only 4 hours. I woke up from time to time, only to notice bits of China country side. Most of the rocks are covered in moss and the grass is so lush. It is beautiful. It makes you think how beautiful all of China use to be.
We arrived in Chongqing, the largest city in China. I think it is something like 30 million people. It is surprising how small it feels. It is very hilly and the 3 major rivers in China that make up the “3 gorges” largest dam in the world surround it. It feels like San Francisco when you are driving around and walking up hills.
We went straight to the theatre to investigate the theatre. We had been told that it was a brand new theatre; however, it was more like a brand new government hall. There was a fly system, but it can o
nly travel at one speed. SLOW!!! The flooring in the theatre is the most beautiful I have ever seen, to bad they had to lay down carpet for us to load in on. Yep, all my cases that have wheels on them were loaded in on carpet. There is no loading dock, so you have to ramp up 6 steps to get into the theatre. We asked for work lights and they turned on every light in there rig. We then asked them just to turn all the lights off, because there really isn’t any room for middle ground when you are dealing with Chinese...
I don’t get it, but asking for a simple thing such as, “take out the house lights” seems to take 2 hours. And the best part was that anytime we needed into a door, it would be locked. So it was an ongoing process to keep doors unlocked. And when the guy came back, he had 100 keys on a piece of wood, so it took 10 mins to find the right key. When I say everything in China takes 10 times longer than in the states I mean it. So we took 6am- midnight on Tues, 9am-11pm on Wed, and 9am-1pm on Thurs. to finish load in. If we had been in the states it would have taken half that time. Another great highlight was when we found out the power they were running was 139/245 volts. The response we got was that they used so much power in the building they ran all there power HOT. If y
ou don’t know regular power it is 110/208Volts. So they had to call the electric company and come out to shut us down for a half hour to fix that little problem. And it is still 132/230. When in China, don’t expect perfection. Or if you do, expect a 20 min discussion to make it happen.
We arrived in Chongqing, the largest city in China. I think it is something like 30 million people. It is surprising how small it feels. It is very hilly and the 3 major rivers in China that make up the “3 gorges” largest dam in the world surround it. It feels like San Francisco when you are driving around and walking up hills.
We went straight to the theatre to investigate the theatre. We had been told that it was a brand new theatre; however, it was more like a brand new government hall. There was a fly system, but it can o
nly travel at one speed. SLOW!!! The flooring in the theatre is the most beautiful I have ever seen, to bad they had to lay down carpet for us to load in on. Yep, all my cases that have wheels on them were loaded in on carpet. There is no loading dock, so you have to ramp up 6 steps to get into the theatre. We asked for work lights and they turned on every light in there rig. We then asked them just to turn all the lights off, because there really isn’t any room for middle ground when you are dealing with Chinese...I don’t get it, but asking for a simple thing such as, “take out the house lights” seems to take 2 hours. And the best part was that anytime we needed into a door, it would be locked. So it was an ongoing process to keep doors unlocked. And when the guy came back, he had 100 keys on a piece of wood, so it took 10 mins to find the right key. When I say everything in China takes 10 times longer than in the states I mean it. So we took 6am- midnight on Tues, 9am-11pm on Wed, and 9am-1pm on Thurs. to finish load in. If we had been in the states it would have taken half that time. Another great highlight was when we found out the power they were running was 139/245 volts. The response we got was that they used so much power in the building they ran all there power HOT. If y
ou don’t know regular power it is 110/208Volts. So they had to call the electric company and come out to shut us down for a half hour to fix that little problem. And it is still 132/230. When in China, don’t expect perfection. Or if you do, expect a 20 min discussion to make it happen.
Picture (Hotel lobby- Mariott Chongqing)
Picture(The "key guy" at our venue. And yes, he had to go thru every key to find the right one to let us in every day)
Picture(The cutiest kid ever)
Picture(How you carry things in China. Hey, the guy just bought his home stereo system, how else do you get it home?)
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