7 police officers rang my
doorbell this morning. They spoke in rapid Chinese but when I began to
sweat-stutter-and-twitch they switched to English and asked why I had not yet
registered with the local police office. Register? After an efficient
encounter that bordered-on-the-absurd while still-allowing-for-an-element-of-terror,
they were confident that I was not an illegal in their country and left. A few minutes
later I left the apartment for a job interview but admittedly, looked over my shoulder constantly to see whether I was being followed.
The interview was with a
hedge fund headquartered in Chicago. I had responded to an advertisement posted
in the American Chamber of Commerce newsletter for a part-time business advisor
based in Shanghai. The opportunity seemed incredible since it would facilitate
my entry into the Chinese market on the wings of a renowned investment group.
The seemingly perfect opportunity was tinged with a subtle layer of blah-blah-blah
since the salary was low. Assuming a workday of 12 hours a day, it calculated
to about 6USD/ hour.
As I waited for our driver
on our congested-yet-charming road Fuxing Lu in the French Concession, a few
things began to puzzle me. First, how could I avoid the trickle of
blood-clogged-with-rooster-feathers that was accumulating near our doorstep,
the result of early morning decapitations performed by a roadside butcher who
suffered from high levels of repressed anger? Second, since drivers never
stopped for pedestrians at the crosswalk (read: not even for mothers pushing
baby strollers or for great-grandparents hobbling along with a cane) how did
people manage to successfully cross the roads? Last, how could I stop gaggles
of giggling women form approaching me and asking me to be their friend so “pLactice
English?” Yes, the L is meant to be there.
I traversed the road without
getting hit by oncoming traffic and in addition, arrive to my interview sans
feathers stuck on my shoes. I met with William, the director of the China
branch, and our chat was quick. In retrospect, I should have realized that the
meeting was actually silly since he spoke minimal English, did not ask any
business related questions, and spent a large part of the meeting smiling and
nodding into space. Nevertheless, I was given the job and asked if I could travel
to Inner Mongolia later that week for a business trip. Naive to China, I agreed
while giggling with joy when accepting their offer.
Although I was eager to
share the news with my husband, he was traveling in northern China with his
phone turned off. He finally called me at midnight, slurring his words as he
tried to explain that he had been given dozens of shots of baijiu (a distilled liquor
that is about 50% alcohol by
volume) and that the world seemed a bit fuzzy to him. It was impossible
for us to have a coherent conversation and I even suspect that he feel asleep
during one point of my interrogation. I vacillated between I finally extracted
the following points: he was sitting on a street corner, he was lost, the world
was spinning, and he loved me. Most importantly, he was proud of himself since
he had refused to eat the golden coin (slices of donkey penis) offered by his
host, despite the fact that refusal to share in this delicacy was considered
rude.
Horrified by the image
of him falling asleep on a street corner, I was relieved to hear sudden voices
in the background and a colleague suggesting they return to the hotel together.
It seems the time-honored tradition of gambei
in which a person is required to
take a shot of alcohol, had left a grown man battered and lost – quite
literally – in a small village in Northern China.
The following morning at 6.45
I received a call from William asking whether I would be able to travel to
Inner Mongolia that afternoon rather than later in the week. Well, I was warned
that things in China are very impromptu and a few hours later I found myself at
the airport running up and down the passageways trying to find William. Since
his English was quite poor he put a colleague on the phone, Larry. In a thick
drawl that originated from either Alabama or Louisiana, Larry told me that I
was in the wrong terminal and directed me a terminal on the other side of the
airport. Running in heels while dragging a suitcase is not opportune and I
arrived at security sopped in sweat and agitated. Lovely first impression, eh. We
rushed forwards but William then realized he had misplaced his boarding card.
The cue moved forward
slowly since security agents were busy removing an infinite supply of knives,
clippers, lighters and large-bottles-and-Tupperware-containers-overflowing-with-different-types-of-liquids
from travelers’ suitcases. Was the memo about plane security not distributed in
China? Our flight was scheduled to leave in 15 minutes so I assumed that we
would need to reschedule our trip. As we neared the boarding gate we saw mobs
of passengers milling about and were told that the departure had been
postponed. I was also informed that delayed flights in China were the norm.
About twenty minutes later the hostess announced boarding and I was, quite
suddenly, windswept and plastered to the wall by a barrage of travelers rushing
towards the plane. As I watched the elbows fly I wondered the concept of cueing
in an orderly fashion would be introduced to the mainstream. Anxious and
completely disheveled with veritable footprints on my forehead, I was the last
to board, ashamed that I had forgotten to use my well-trained New York elbows
to push my way forward.
Mental note made for the
next flight.
Our breakfast options were
fish or vegetarian congee. I suppose Congee is like pig knuckles in that,
unless you were introduced to this dish as a child, you find it a fairly unappealing since food preferences are
usually dictated by our cultural framework. So when the French gasp at the
horror of Century eggs or fried chicken claws, I imagine their Chinese
counterparts are equally horrified by snails boiled in butter or steak tartar. Despite
my pseudo intellectual-culturally-sensitive-meanderings, the smell of my
neighbor’s fish congee left me hovering into the aisle gasping. When his voracious
and noisy slurping resulted in glops of fish congee finding their way onto my seat
I decided to take a walk in the airplane.
After checking into our
rooms at the Shangri La, I was asked to join William for dinner at 6pm with
Larry, as well as Gemma, a Chinese translator traveling with the group. Dinner
was a bit odd since there a group of men joined us but, after greeting William,
they spent most of the evening huddled in a corner of the table talking
animatedly and smoking nonstop (read: lighting up a cigarette before finishing
the one already dangling from their mouth). In terms of our own group, Larry informed
me that he was an actor trying to break into the Chinese market. I could not
understand his relation to the hedge fund but imagined – again, note how naive
I was – that he had recently changed industry. I also struggled to understand how
he hoped to position himself into the cinematographic world, intrigued by his
poorly fitted and heinously dyed toupee. He wore a fake (I assume, arrogantly)
Armani turquois tracksuit coupled with cowboy boots. While I tried to divert my
attention, I could not help notice that his jacket was not fully zipped and
that three lonely hairs wriggled towards me, trying to escape their pale and
pasty domain. He, however, was very self-confident and insisted on flirting
with every woman who passed, despite the fact that he did not speak a word of
Chinese.
Gemma was a delight; a
woman of powerful energy, intentions and intelligence that had been smooshed into the physical confines of a
petite and cherubic Asian doll. Having had lived abroad for many years, she
could easily hither and thither between
Western and Eastern cultures. One simple illustration was watching her eat
breakfast at the hotel and toss chunks of granola on her rice congee.
After dinner I luxuriated
in my room, wrapped in a plush-fluffy-and-delicious bathrobe while enjoying my
complimentary basket of fruit. Room service had not left chocolate on my pillow
but rather a few salty fish candies. William was considering the purchase of a company
and I was meant to act as a junior advisor on the deal. As such, I pored over the
company’s business plan and financials until late in the night.
__________________
The following morning we drove
out to the site where the factory would be built. I was in a car with Gemma
whereas William and Larry were in another car. During this short car ride Gemma
asked whether I understood how things worked.
Still bleary eyed from my late evening, I simply nodded and then paused,
shaking my head. I extracted the following points from her brief, yet concise
summary:
-
William did
not work for hedge fund headquartered in Chicago.
-
If I looked
closely at the local website I would see that it was composed of images rather
than real text. Copied images.
-
The principal
website for the hedge fund headquartered in Chicago, did not mention operations
in China.
-
Larry was an
actor with no financial or business background, let alone acumen.
-
Chinese
companies often borrowed the name of
a reputable foreign brand. This had
happened with several luxury retail brands as well as banks.
It was a scam.
At precisely the moment we
emerged from the car, a bulldozer drove up and proceeded to dig. The sudden
overture was so clearly pre-meditated that I almost expected dancing-girls-clipping-to-emerge-pouring-champagne
to take place. After a cursory walk about the factory we walked towards the
offices for a meeting with the management. Before entering William took me to
the side and suggested that I tell the representative of the potential
acquisition that I had been sent from Chicago to make an assessment regarding
the attractiveness of the deal.
He told me to lie.
Their business offices
were neither impressive nor clean. Inside a pseudo-secretary-in-a-wildly-short-mini-skirt-offering-special-endings
offered us slices of oranges and melon. The gorgeous and colorful fruit
contrasted with the dank room in which a lone light bulb hung from the ceiling,
casting shadows throughout. I made the grave error of going to the restroom but
immediately exited, unable to tolerate the filthy Turkish hole swarming with
flies. My coffee filled bladder would have to wait.
During the meeting I
shared my takeaways from their documentation but received no more than blank
stares. William began to speak in Chinese and Gemma later told me that he
rambled off a series of lies about who I was and what I had said. Was someone
going to break my fingers during the night?
After the meeting we were
invited to a local restaurant where the back room had been reserved. I sat at a
round table with ten strangers, none of which who spoke a word of English.
Plates heaped with food were offered and, as a guest, the dishes were first
offered to me. I was desperate for a bit of rice but there was none. I later
learned that rice is considered a filler food and is only offered after the
main dishes have been tasted. I was also desperate for a napkin so that I could
hide the bits and pieces I could not fathom swallowing but there were none. There
was a man who had been taking photos of me since the early morning. He would
snap and then quickly cradle the camera behind his back, at though each move
was surreptitious. It as 11.15am and bottles of Bai Jiu (moonshine,
essentially) were ceremoniously placed on the table besides me. I suppose the
reputation for drinking Northerners have acquired is justified. I declined the
moonshine and sliced pig lung but graciously accepted a beer.
The beer was warm.
Before departing for the
airport, the ‘potential clients’ presented me with a gift bag overflowing with packages
of teas and sweets, both exquisitely packaged. I felt confused and ashamed by
my deception. At the airport I tossed my business cards into the waste bin and
decided that if my career was going to hiccup in China then the alternative was
to have a baby or even many babies. Why not? For weeks my husband been jumping about
like a frisky-puppy-who-knows-I-have-treats-in-my-pocket and asking if I felt fertile. How might I know what
feeling fertile feels like? Is it like feeling
happy-sad-intoxicated-enamored-or-constipated? While I did not know how fertile
felt, I spent 30 minutes walking
about - in my high heels nonetheless - with a small watermelon tucked under my
blouse to feel pregnant. Strange?
Perhaps. After thirty minutes I understood why pregnant woman tend to wear
flats.
