We had another full day of meetings with our NA Senior leadership. The team in Shanghai and Singapore were presenting to them on their FY12 plan. I presented mine in July, so it was nice being apart of another groups presentations.
I had a one on one meeting with my VP, which was a great opportunity, and a really good conversation. He game me some good feedback, and points to learn from as well.
After our day of meetings, we went back to the black market, and did some more shopping. We met the entire team from Shanghai and Singapore for a traditional Chinese Dinner. We were again in a private room with just our group of 20. We had 2 tables, and the food never stopped coming. All the food is put in the middle of the table on a "turn style" and you just move it when you want something else. There were veggies, prawns, beef, chicken, tofu, all sorts of meat, fish, soups, noodles, rice... the food never stopped coming.
The most interesting part of the meal was the "Plate o' Pig." There were 4 different items on the plate, and I was told to try all 4. I asked if I should know what I am eating before I try it or after, everyone decided after, and my thoughts were the same. I tried all 4 to find out I had just eaten pig ear, lung, tongue and intestine. The tongue was probably the best, then the lung and intestine. The ear was terrible..... exactly what you would expect the texture of cartilage to be.
The other interesting part of Chinese culture is their drinking beer rituals. You don't casually drink beer at the table. If you want a drink of your beer, you toast someone else at the table. If you want to finish your beer, or you want someone else to finish their beer, you toast "Gam bei" and you both have to literally chug your beer until it's finished. It is a traditional Chinese toast given at dinners and banquets, the translation is "dry glass" or "bottoms up." The tradition is to show honor or respect to your fellow diners by approaching them with a personal thought, and then ending it with "gam bei". By tradition if you can't finish the glass you lose face with the other diners. The other traditions are "sui bian" = drink as you please or "sui yi" = drink little or "ban bei" = drink half the glass. I will tell you this much the only one I heard was "Gam bei."
Because of the amount of Americans in the room (4 of us), we were the easy and quick targets for the Gam bei. They would line up at our table, and ask us to Gam bei 4 or 5 of them at a time, 1 on 1. It was interesting, and thank goodness I am from Milwaukee! Susan (my coworker from Singapore) said she really admired the amount that the people from Milwaukee can drink. She then asked me if we are all born this way, or if we train a lot. My reply "A little bit of both."
After dinner a few of us went to a Chinese Karaoke Bar. Again, you are brought into a private room just for your party. There is a flat screen TV, and you pick all of the songs you want to sing. Traditionally female "escorts" would enter the room to hang out with the men, but since I was with them, they didn't enter our room. If you are interested in any more Chinese culture, let me know... much more to tell... may not be blog appropriate!
Another fun night in Shanghai.... Milwaukee people sure do know how to have a good time!
One on One Gam bei line up
The women in SSO
Look at all the food!
Tons of food
Does this look like a scene from Rush Hour?
I was much better at the tamberene then the singing!
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