No, the trip didn't happen

A week and a half ago I posted about a dinner with clients, and a possible trip to the Xiangtan steel plant this weekend.  Well, it didn't happen.  I'm not too surprised - that's the way things go when a client makes drunken promises during a big night out!

General weirdness

Obviously China is a very different place than Australia. Having said that, there are a number of randomly weird things that I've witnessed while living here that I thought I'd write down:

• Passengers holding umbrellas on motorbikes.   When it's raining, rather than getting some wet weather gear on, I've seen a driver on a motorbike be protected from the rain by his passenger holding an umbrella over both of them. Hilarious.

• Girls raising their voices to a high level on the phone/speaking like an old woman. A couple of my female coworkers have very soft, pleasant speaking voices. Except when they're on the phone.  Then they raise the pitch of their voices and screech like an old woman.  I don't think they're even aware that they're doing it.  I'm not sure how widespread this is, but I've seen other women do it outside of work as well.

• Both men and women getting out and about in their pyjamas.  Seen this on many occasions - someone just going for a wander over the road to the supermarket still dressed in their pyjamas.  Dressing gown usually included, fuzzy slippers, the works.  Something I don't think you'd see anywhere else.  Well, maybe Broadmeadows.

• Animals wearing clothes....even in the summer. Chinese people seem to love dressing dogs up in clothes to make them look cuter. At least that's what they seem to think - I feel sorry for them whenever I see them walking around with jumpers/vests/hoodies on.  I can understand it in the winter when it's freezing outside, but in the summer as well?  Not cool.

• You can't pump your own petrol at a petrol station. I haven't been to many petrol stations since I've been in the country, but every time I've gone, it's taken ages to fill up the tank.  This is because the stations are all manned, a la 1957.  Only the attendants are allowed to pump petrol, and there aren't enough of them. So they scurry from one pump to another while lines of motorists form up.  Not the best way of doing things.

• Guy on one motorbike pushing guy on other motorbike with foot. I've only seen this once, but I'm sure it happens a lot.  It's the motorbike equivalent of a tow - one guy driving, the other guy in front and just to the side steering a dead bike - being guided by the foot of the guy on the bike behind.  It actually looked quite impressive, although extremely dangerous of course.

• People on motorbikes carrying things they have no business carrying. Motorbikes are by far the most popular form of transport over here.  As a result, it is inevitable that people try to transport goods via this transport medium that really shouldn't be.  Giant crates stacked on top of each other, half a dozen huge water bottles, a massive stack of cardboard - those funny pictures you see on the internet with the crazily overloaded motorbikes are real, and a lot of them are probably from China.
  

• The call of nature in public. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen this.  Out running, in a taxi going out somewhere, even walking home from work - there over on the side of the road is someone answering the call of nature.  Most of the time they (always men of course) get mostly out of sight or wander behind a nearby tree, but sometimes it's just been right out in the open. Bizarre.

• Pictures with westerners. On a couple of occasions (Beijing-Tianenmen Square and Shanghai-Science Museum) I've been approached by a group of complete strangers asking if they can have a photo taken with me.  It also happened to the friends that visited me throughout the year.  I don't know what the attraction is or why the photos were requested, but it's funny every time it happens.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of for the moment.

 

Fact: dinner + clients = hangover

Last night I went out to an impromptu dinner after work with the Director of Sales and the CEO of the Chinese branch of MOX, the company that I'm working for over here.  It sounds strange when I say it out loud (or type it, as the case is here obviously), as I would never interact with that level of management in my own company back in Australia.  But over here, I'm the foreign expert that everyone loves...or at least, wants to show off to customers.  So when a client is in town that has bought (or is thinking about buying) the software that I help to write, I'm inevitably invited along to a dinner during the week to interact with them on a social level.

I have no problems with this whatsoever - the dinners are usually great fun, and it gives me a chance to practise my (extremely limited) Chinese in a social setting.  Last night's dinner was no exception.  We were located in a great spot, on the top floor of the Super Brand Mall which is right on the bank of the Huangpu River in Pudong.  Actually, this dinner was a little different, as there were only 7 people at the dinner (normally there are 10 or more) and two of the attendees were old friends of the CEO (they all went to University together). 

This revelation was shared with me pretty early in the evening, and it of course meant that there was going to be a lot of drinking and reminiscing.  When the food was ordered, I was asked what I would like to drink, and immediately said 'pijou', which is Chinese for beer.  The rest of the guests at the dinner went with a fiery Chinese rice wine which is a lot more potent.  At this point, I was given a challenge by the CEO: 

"Andrew, we will all drink one bottle of wine each over dinner. This wine has more alcohol than the beer you are drinking.  That means you must drink five bottles of beer!" 

"Five bottles?" I said incredulously.  "How big are we talking?" 

The bottles were brought out and to my relief they were only 500ml.  However, in dinners like this the problem is not so much the alcohol content, but the sheer amount of liquid that you are consuming over a pretty short period.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, Chinese dinners are all about showing your respect to the other guests by toasting them.  This meant that I was in for a tough time, as I was drinking about 200ml of beer for every toast, while the other guys were only drinking about 50ml of wine.

Not being one to pass up a challenge, I entered proceedings with gusto and before I knew it had polished off a couple of bottles in quick succession.  The food arrived and was quite delicious (peanut based dishes are a fun challenge with chopsticks after you've had a few drinks).  One of the customers was from the Xiangtan Steel company, a city which I've been to before (twice) to help them fix some problems they were having.  We hadn't met on my previous visits, but we got along so well that he invited me to go along next weekend for the formal site acceptance testing process, and then offered to take me to see the birthplace of Chairman Mao, which is about an hour's drive away from the city.  I was also promised 'spicy food and spicy girls', as the Hunan province is famous for both.  So that should be interesting if it happens.

Anyway, after numerous rounds of toasting, I had finished my five bottles of beer...and the others still hadn't finished their wine.  So a sixth bottle was brought out for me to continue the toasting.  By the time the dinner had finished at 9pm, I had drunk 3 litres of beer...in the space of only 2 hours.  I was pretty tipsy by this stage, and ridiculously full of liquid.  Sometimes we'd head out to a karaoke place or continue drinking at a bar after a dinner, but the other attendees had flights to catch early the next morning, so we wrapped it up.  Which was probably a good idea, as I don't know how else I could have physically fit anything into my stomach.  I had a terrible night's sleep and woke up feeling extremely average.  Not the worst hangover I've ever had, but worse than I was expecting to feel on a Thursday!

If I end up going on the trip next weekend you'll be able to read all about it right here. Stay tuned.

 

Trip to the doctor

Yesterday I went to a hospital to get a doctor to have a look at my knee. For those of you that don't know, years ago back in high school I had a couple of knee reconstructions.  It's been pretty good since then, and I've been playing a lot of basketball on it this year in Shanghai.

About 6 weeks ago, I landed awkwardly on someone else when going for a rebound during a game, and felt something crack inside my knee. I was fairly sure it wasn't major damage, as there wasn't much pain (if you tear a ligament in your knee, it is AGONY), but over the next few days it got swollen so I gave it a bit of a rest.  Since then, it hasn't really gotten any better. I've gone through periods of a couple of weeks with very little activity (such as when I went back to Australia), but it hasn't really made any difference. During normal activity such as walking (or even running) it doesn't seem to hurt, but occasionally when sitting it gets a bit stiff, and can swell up a little after I've been exercising.

I was getting a little worried that it hadn't fully healed by now, so did some research online and found an international medical centre at a hospital here in Pudong.  I made an appointment for yesterday, and decided to walk there since it was a nice day (and only 5km away).  The doc gave me knee a once-over and said while there doesn't seem to be any ligament damage, I may have injured something else, and suggested an MRI.  So I'll probably book one of those in the next couple of weeks once I get my insurance details sorted out (it costs more than $AUD1000, so I'm not that keen to pay for it).

Anyway, after the appointment I did a bit more walking around down near the river and took some photos.  I've uploaded a few since you rarely get to see the Shanghai skyline with blue sky in the background.

The 'bottle opener' soaring over the top of all other buildings in Shanghai

Bottle opener up close

 The Oriental Pearl tower

The Pudong skyline

The Puxi skyline. Not quite as modern or inviting, but the lighting conditions didn't help.