As promised:
Started this entry on November 8th:
At Pudong airport in Shanghai awaiting my flight. The trip is over but the long haul home. It’s been interesting, to say the least.
It’s been two and a half weeks of stress and bullshit and fun. I’ve been posting all of my fun pictures to Facebook and Instagram and now I’m nervous that word has gotten around the office that I have been having too much fun. It’s not really true – I’ve been working my ass off. But I only post the fun photos, so I’m sure it looks like I just went on an exotic vacation.
Also heard word that the company might stop allowing employees to fly business class. This has me really rattled. I’m no prima donna, but I don’t think I can do these trips without the tiny bit of comfort that is business class. I know people do it, but when you’re sitting in coach for 15 or 16 hours, it’s REALLY hard to get much work done as soon as you touch ground. At least with business class you can sleep a little bit. I don’t mind flying to Europe in coach…not at all, but anything over 8 or 9 hours is fucking painful. If this is the case…well, don’t get me started on what I have to do.
I’m coming home and while I couldn’t wait to start my way back home a few days ago, I’m depressed now. I don’t know what I’m going to go home to, and I feel weird.
Guess who’s picking me up at the airport? Yep, the Bulldog. At first it was going to be SexyPants, but when he blew me off I asked the BD who said, sure, ok. I told him that I wanted Mexican food and margaritas upon my arrival. He sent me a text back telling me that we have been invited to a margarita party tonight, so there’s that.
I’m on the plane now. Actually only three hours from home. It’s been a smooth flight so far, and I like flying directly from Shanghai to home.
It’s now November 12th:
I’ve been home for a few days now. I am still jetlagged as hell. Takes me two full weeks to get over this crap, and it’s frustrating. I am exhausted beyond belief for much of the day…can’t concentrate, and can’t do much of anything but I have to! I want to recap the trip, so I guess I’ll do it in bullet points and then let you know how the reunion with The Bulldog went.
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The first part of my trip: A whirlwind of city hopping with airports and planes and vans and crazy car rides. I was gonna take trains too, but my plans were derailed (no pun intended), and I ended up rearranging some meetings. This tends to happen every trip. The thing is, when in China, you have to plan for the unexpected because it always happens. For example, I haven’t gone one trip where at least one of my flights was canceled without my knowledge. I get to the airport and have to navigate through crazy Chinese airlines and help desks. They can’t find my name…whatever. It’s always, always a struggle.
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Dinners, oh the dinners. I spent 16 nights having vendor dinners, and they are something! Full of formalities and tradition and lots and lots of food and booze. The first step is the seating, with the guest of honor (usually me) acting humble by declining the first offer to sit at the “head” of the table and then being coaxed into sitting there anyway. I’m trying to learn some Mandarin so that I can at least say a few words, and I DO know a few words that put smiles on all of my host’s faces. I can call out a toast and direct how it should be taken (they have two levels of drinking after toasting– big gulps or bottoms up!). I’m an expert with eating anything with chopsticks. I actually love Chinese food, all except for the feet/claws/hooves or sea cucumber – bleah. The rest is actually really, really delicious.
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At one of the vendor dinners, the head of the China office wasn’t able to attend, so he sent more junior members of staff to accompany me with the potential new vendor. This was the first time we’d all had dinner together, and it was a little nerve-wracking. So of course, the toasts turned to heavy drinking and laughing and fun (however broken) conversation. During conversation, my name was discussed, and the factory owner told me (via translator) that my name is too hard for the Chinese to say. Nobody can pronounce it and it’s too many syllables. So I suggested that they simply call me “P” (because my first name starts with P). Well, everyone looked around the table and sort of shook their heads and someone said, “weeeelll, no. That’s not really a good name for you in Chinese.” But nobody could tell me what it meant…or they were too embarrassed as I asked around the table. No one. Head shakes. Finally, someone took out their phone and typed into his Chinese/English translator and handed me their phone. Fart.
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In Chinese, “P” means “fart”.
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The junior guy got so drunk at our dinner that he barfed at the table. Dinner over.
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I went to Qingdao for a day to visit a factory and to also maybe, maybe squeak out a super quick visit with my brother and Chinese sister-in-law. You may know that my brother lives in China and married a Chinese woman last year. They are living a normal Chinese life and trying to have a baby. I met Amy, my SIL last year when I went to Qingdao to visit this factory, but I think I pissed her off by letting her know that she and my brother should not have taken advantage of my parents. It’s true, we are not a wealthy family and I believe wholeheartedly that she thought she was marrying into money with my brother. And ugh, he is the worst and completely takes advantage of my parents who are retired and on a very fixed income. Still, he talked them into buying an apartment for them (in her name, in HER hometown, and NO, they do not live there) and my parents paid for the whole wedding – Chinese tradition, the groom pays for the wedding. My brother is nearly 50 years old and my parents paid for EVERYTHING! Anyway, I really let them both have it when I met them last year, so I think they were afraid to meet me again this time. I don’t really blame them, but still, I traveled to the other side of the world, and they couldn’t meet me, so…oh well, their loss.
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Instead of seeing my bro, I ended up with the factory owner and a guy from my China office. I had always wanted to go see the Tsingdao brewery area because I’d heard it was really cool. The factory owner wanted to eat at the friggin hotel restaurant (it was in a Chinese Holiday Inn!), but luckily the China office guy talked him into taking us to the Qingdao Beer Street – a whole street dedicated to Tsingdao BEER! It did not disappoint any of us! In fact, the factory owner ended up having a fabulous time as he decided that I was his “American girlfriend”. Oh boy. The China Office Guy was no help, egging on the affection while we guzzled pitcher after pitcher of beer (pitchers were less than $1.00US, so…). Factory Owner Guy ordered a million street food dishes, from scampi to sea urchins and squid on a stick (yum!) , tons of beer, lots of songs from the wandering performers, and eventually and armload of flowers and teddy bears from the vendors who came by every 30 seconds. And all the while, China Office Guy was taking photos and singing, Chinese Boyyyyyfriend, American Giiiirrrlllfriend!
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Had to tell them both to stop. No more hands. No more shots of beer. End of night. Woke with flowers literally covering my hotel room. Would have been cute, but I was horribly hungover.
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This was also the first time traveling with my new boss. He’s an interesting character in that, well, let’s just say that I’m not sure how on the level he is. And what I mean by that is, the man likes to drink and party and have a good time. In fact, for most of the trip we were split up as he spent a lot of time in Hong Kong. I knew there was a party going on for Halloween in Wan Chai (the former red light district) and I also knew that he was raring to go to it. He spent much of his time searching and attending the nightlife events. I don’t blame him…I just think that for a first business trip with the company you’d think he’d try to be a little more discreet, but that’s just me. The first night we met back up in Shanghai, I told him I’d take him to a quaint little blues/jazz bar close to our hotel. I did, but I got very tired pretty early into the evening (like 11PM), so he walked me back to the hotel. Next morning, at breakfast, he told me that he went back to the bar afterwards. He did this multiple nights. He’s a nice enough guy. He’s handsome and personable, and I enjoyed his company, but the jury’s still out on whether or not it will work out with him. Truth be told, I believe he may be biding his time at my company until something better/different comes along. He’s from a different industry – there are similarities, but differences as well. There’s more, but I don’t want to spend more time on the speculations until I have more info.
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Also went through kind of a nervous stage with my new boss who clearly didn’t know who he was dealing with regarding my BIG MEETING. I have finally learned how to run these meetings in China like clockwork and I do them quite well and efficiently. I don’t know if he was nervous that I’m not a good presenter or can’t run a meeting or don’t know my facts and figures or what, but he kind of came down on me the day before the meeting. So much so that I was so very nervous before our meeting that I had to drink a couple of glasses of wine beforehand! And the meeting started at 8:30 in the morning! Yes, it was that freaking nervewracking.
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But I blew it away. So much so that he wrote this email to the CEO and other execs:
“A huge high five to everyone involved in the [Company] Meeting in Shanghai. The entire team did a fabulous job from the strategy and planning to the flawless execution. The meeting went extremely well and the [Company] team was duly impressed with our offering. [Ginger] and [Spice] did a great job and demonstrated a very high level of expertise on the account and the category.”
So while it wasn’t 100% about ME in particular, it was the highest of praise with regards to this meeting. After all, I couldn’t do this meeting by myself, I had help. But it’s super impressive to see it from start to finish, and I am the producer and director of this particular “show”.
There’s more – quite a bit more. But I’m soooooo tired of trying to finish this story that it’s annoying to me. Maybe I’ll come back and write some more, but for now…I’m finally done with China for a few months.
Xie xie and goodnight.
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