What a Surreal Night

This blog has no theme in particular other than recording what was a very unusual evening for me.

A couple days ago, my friend and I took a little excursion to Beihai Park, which I've blogged about before, but felt like going to see on an uncloudy day. We were just walking around enjoying the scenery when she got a call from a friend inviting her (and subsequently me) to dinner with a potential client of his. This guy is in the private equity business, so he frequently wines and dines potential customers per Chinese tradition.

You see, in China business gets done a certain way. If a business is interested in working out a partnership or acquiring a client, a business representative is required to wine and dine him. They are expected to treat him and other potential guests to a quality meal that can run 10,000 RMB. Then, if the client expresses interest in having something to drink, the representative is obligated to buy him quality bottles of alcohol, as many as the group wants to drink. The representative also has to drink however much his guest wants him to drink, and is expected to be able to tolerate it. The total is now around 30,000 RMB. Finally, the representative has to present his potential partner/client with a gift to show good faith, and after dropping so much money on dinner, a cheap gift just won't cut it. So the gift also has to be in the tens of thousands of RMB range. This guy gave the example of a Louis Vuitton bag for the partner/client's wife. Grand total: potentially 60,000 RMB for one meeting, and this is only one of multiple meetings.

With all this information in mind, I realized that I had been invited to a dinner where the cutesy panda shirt I was wearing wasn't really going to cut it. So we rushed to the Xidan shopping area and I picked up a cheap (but nice-looking) black turtleneck at Zara. None of the shoes worked so I just had to hope the turtleneck, dark wash jeans and black-ish Uggs made the cut.

We taxied over to the Marriott, where the restaurant was located, and met the rep (as he will now be known). We were ushered up to the 25th floor Executive Lounge where we met the rep's client of the evening, a diplomatic guru who had some incredible stories about Ahmadinejad (apparently they're acquaintances and apparently Ahmadinejad is just a stupid front man for the Supreme Leader?) and under-the-table deals with random Middle East countries (he referenced Iran-Contra, then said he called in a personal favor to skew some other arms deal). The lounge was serving a full array of drinks and snacks, so I helped myself to a small glass of wine and a nice handful of those Coca Cola gummies that I'm positive were only there for the kids.

Dinner was next on the agenda, so we went downstairs and had what was actually an excellent meal (of course). The diplomat insisted that he knew what people all over the world liked since he has spent so much time in so many places, so he insisted on ordering to suit my Western appetite. He ordered a beef dish that was actually incredible, if a little on the ketchup-tasting side. When I told him I was from Texas/Nebraska, he said he knew it. The dinner continued along that vein, him dispensing his incredible knowledge on us, and having us drink this kind of Chinese alcohol called 黄酒 huáng jiǔ (yellow liquor). I didn't really like it so I only had a couple sips. And so the dinner passed with me nodding and smiling and looking appropriately interested/impressed.

After dinner wrapped up we headed back upstairs to the Executive Lounge where I had an incredible latte from their coffee machine. I may have added gratuitous amounts of chocolate and cinnamon. As we sat down at one of the tables, we were joined by a gentleman who had apparently seen the diplomat around the Lounge in the past few days. This gentleman was in Beijing to inspect some airplanes his bank was reacquiring. He had actually been pulled out of retirement to come do this, and only came because he thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He actually left his wife back in Pittsburgh for their wedding anniversary to do this trip, but he said he was Skyping her every day and made sure their four kids were around her for the anniversary. This man was so down-to-earth, so sweet, and so reminiscent of a grandfather (which he is) that I almost cried.

Anyway, Mr. Diplomat, who categorically refused to answer what it was he really did, finally said he had to go watch his Arsenal game and took his leave. At this point, the rep, who is a very close friend of my friend (the reason I was there), invited her, Mr. Pittsburgh and me to his friend's wine-tasting bar. Mr. Pittsburgh had his wallet stolen that morning at Tiananmen and was a bit down, so I think the rep was making a friendly gesture. I can say I really appreciated it. A fifteen-minute taxi ride later, we were at this friend's wine bar and began to while the night away with what even I could tell was excellent wine.

We discussed so many things that I don't even know where to begin. He told us what it felt like being a Westerner in Beijing for the first time and I told him how I felt the exact same way when I arrived. We exchanged our thoughts on the Western perspective of Beijing and the difficulty of learning the language (he could only say "Ni hao" and "Xie xie" so far). Learning about China has been so periphery for the average American for so long; I think when many Westerners come to China they are completely blindsided by such a drastically different culture. I know I was. He told me he admired me for what I was doing, immersing myself in China, and that he was going to strongly encourage his grandchildren to learn Chinese when he got back.

After a long night of cultural exchange, history lessons, economic forecasts and general thoughts on life, we finally said good night around 4 AM. We took him in a cab back to his hotel and made our way back to Peking University. All in all, it was just a very... surreal night. But I have to say, Mr. Pittsburgh, bless his heart, was one of the sweetest men I had ever met, and very much reminded me of some of the things I love best about Nebraska (and Texas), and that's a genuine caring and respect for people, even complete strangers. I love China, and I absolutely love being here, but I'm still very happy and very thankful to be an American.