May 2011 - Day 5 - Swim trunks and antibiotocs are all you need to swim in Suzhou

May 2011 – Day 5

A few interesting bits from the past couple of days in Suzhou and Shanghai:

I sponsored a dinner Tuesday night for my customer’s Suzhou leadership as well as their Asian distributor personnel; around 30 people total.  As we were all gathering for dinner, the President of my customer's Asia division pulled me aside, thanked me for extending the invitation, and then insisted on paying for dinner.   This is where developing some understanding of Asian business culture comes in handy.   I could have insisted that I pay, but that would have shown disrespect to someone of higher stature.  I could have agreed immediately, but that would have made me seem insincere.  The correct approach was to refuse his offer a time or two, and then insist  that I can pay at the next dinner which will occur on Monday in Shenzhen.  I fully expect to go through the same argument at that time.  We will see.  I did, however, buy 2 bottles of top grade Baiju for his table which I think he appreciated.

Dinner that night was quite good; held in a nice restaurant on the lakeshore in Suzhou.  It was an unusually clear day.    The lake is beautiful but I am told you don’t want to swim in it, not without a healthy dose of antibiotics anyway.

Most of the food was not too unusual (by Chinese standards anyway.   I had some really good eel – no that is not an oxymoron; pork belly, prawns, and something I thought was rings of squid, that is until I saw a picture of the same dish in a menu 2 days later in Shanghai and found out it was really pig intestine.  It tasted pretty much like squid. 

Wednesday in Shanghai, Stan and I were in a Starbucks having some coffee when someone yelling caught our attention.  Looking around we saw the source of the commotion; a Chinese man dressed in a sequined cowboy hat, cowboy boots, ridiculously large sunglasses, holding the largest cell phone I have seen since about 1990 – either that or he was screaming into the menu – I couldn’t really tell.  He kept going on and on like “I demand apporogy!  You know what I talkeen about?  You must apporogize”.  After a few minutes of this he got up and left.  You do meet some odd characters over here.

Thursday night in Shanghai, Stan and I went to a bar district, had some dinner and wandered about a bit.  Some interesting bar names; Blue Sky Bar (optimistic considering the air quality I think); Big Bamboo, Yes Bar (and all this time I have been going to “No Bar”), and my favorite – Club Lady Gaga! 

Friday we head to Hong Kong.  More later