So here’s their shizzle my mateys. After that weekend, no partying for a while. Good gravy. Then again how many times have I said that. Also, all week we could see blue skies in Shanghai. Now this my friends is an event because normally it’s just the haze of pollution blocking out Apollo himself. But when there is typhoon is Taiwan and the winds are blowing, we shanghainese get to gaze at the blue wonder, cloud figures and if we are so lucky see a coupla twinkles in the evening. Good times. You have no idea how much it helps with the heat and your overall mood to see blue skies until you haven’t seen any. At least for me. So now I know how depressed those poor bastards in the Matrix were. Live underground with no sun for a lifetime? Fuuuuuuuuuck that…..please plug my defeated ass into the matrix and make me Jordan.
Anyways, so last time I wrote this, I was on my way to JEDA (Jiashan Economic Development Zone) where one of our plants is located. We had a meeting with one of our suppliers for our automatic tank cleaning machines. We’re having some problems. Back later entourage time.
Oh boy, that was addicting. I gotta stop these DVD binges. Well anyways, you know what I’m excited about Rosetta Stone Chinese. Heard good things about it. Well we shall see. Wanted to buy that sucker for a long time. So back to the Jiashan meeting. So Jason our intern who speaks English and Chinese fluently, is the translator and he has a cast of a freaking thousand talking to him, and my man is getting pissed because everybody has a different opinion about what’s wrong. The German salesman who doubles as an arrogant prick, is also getting legitimately frustrated. There was foreman for the plant production personnal who was only recently hired and he doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but to because of his position he feels like he should be the fucking expert. Now these are the guys who fuck shit up. The idiot who is in position but does not know the details of the operation, but cannot humble himself because of his ego to admit that he doesn’t now what the shit is going on. This is true everywhere, America, Europe, but especially in China. A person will say he understand you, and says yes, but he doesn’t in reality have a clue. Now part of it is due to translation, but a lot of it is due to the fact that admitting you don’t know of course is embarrassing or “losing face”. So cutting through the bullshit sometimes is more than half the job. Well that was the point of that whole story. In the end, we got some of the conclusions, but not all. Oh and get this, the German does a presentation the day before and at the end of the presentation, he shows random porn. How freaking unprofessional is that? (no ladies were present in the room).
Oh man I had this stuff called lions head for lunch, and what it is a giant meatball (2in diameter). Good stuff. So tender. I have to start taking pictures of these dishes. So because everyone the team turned int heri mntly reports in time, the bosses take us out to dinner to this pretty nice Italian place. Pane e vino. They had this pancetta (fancy word for bacon) and oil dressing that was pretty darn good. Anyways, so this was probably the first time a lot of the team has tried Italian like this, or maybe Italian period. And for a lot of people, even a filet mignon didn’t taste good to them. It’s just not what they are used to. And etiquette wise, you know you gotta think, how much Chinese etiquette does an average college graduate in the U.S. know? So like I said, it works both ways, but if I worked for a Chinese company, I sure as heck would make it a point to learn. Also, I think the company should provide cross-cultural learning on basic stuff like dinner and meeting etiquette. In China, if a phone rings anytime, most people will answer it. Meeting or even during a one on one conversation. I’m used to it now and don’t care, but visitors have been known to get annoyed.
Check it out, a guy I played basketball with works for an ad agency that represents a major show company. He was gracious enough to let me check out his work and sit in a couple of meetings. The difficulties of the Chinese market, (active life isn’t a part of the culture, parents’ priority is education over athletics), how the relationship works between the ad agency and the client. Pretty cool stuff. Since I’m an obsessed sports junkie, this stuff was pretty cool. I need to start training for a Beijing half marathon in October. Better get on my damn horse and start running. Need to find a track. Maybe if I can psych myself into doing it, Shanghai full marathon in November. Yeah who knows this will be one of many unfinished projects in my life. Add it to the fucking list right? I can’t wait to train in this pollution. Playing ultimate Frisbee here and man after a sprint for the disc, my lungs are on freaking fire. I mean holy cow it’s like my aioli are getting seared or something. It hurts to breath in heavy. Apparently I’m going to get used to it or so the guys on the team say.
Oh and I figured out why I got sick last weekend, it was the milkshake I had after Frisbee. It’s a pretty good restaurant; apparently I can’t handle their milkshake. Wasn’t that good anyways. You know what is pissing me off, sometimes I feel like I’m getting by a cabbie or the driver takes a wrong turn or like this past Wednesday, the restaurant screws up our order and we wait over half an hour to get food, and I don’t have the skills to argue with them. Work in progress. Oh and since there are different accents and shanghainese is different than mandarin, the some cab drivers pronounce the street names differently. Differently meaning, Mandarin is a tonal language. So different tones have diffent meaning. And something simple as “Ma” can be pronounced four diffent ways for four different meanings. So when I tell them the intersection where I live, it can be an adventure sometimes because I get the tone wrong without realizing it, and they are all sorts of confused. It is getting less frequent now. Allright that was a boring ass blog. Next time kiddies, next time. Oh and if anyone knows some private equity or venture capital contacts, you gotta holla at me.
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