Qingdao is a city by a beach, a beach where overweight Chinese men run on the sand in bright blue Speedo's on absolutely frigid days. I have never wanted to be blind, but during my walks on the Qingdao beaches I would have liked to trade places with Stevie Wonder. Nevertheless, I took off my shoes and dipped my toes in the water in order to say that I did, so I did my own stripping of sorts in order to acquiesce to the powers that be....and after I had done so, I vowed to never do it again.
I spent my Saturday touring the beautiful beaches and being bombarded by merchants, beggars, and well more merchants & beggars. I am way too nice when it comes to the homeless, and upon seeing a woman with a baby with gobs of dirt oh his face, I caved in like a Malibu landslide and and put $50 RMB in their basket (about eight US dollars). Within seconds a small army of women with babies were storming after me, and because I could not outrun them with my crippled knee, I had to give each pair some financial assistance in order to flee without being attacked by a mother and her small child. On a side note: I learned a few days ago from my Grinch of a physical therapist that many of these babies are "rented" from rural villages, and are not actually the children of the men/woman that use them to gain sympathy from tourists. Even worse than this is that the sludge on the face of the baby is not because of a poor standard of living, but it is carefully applied by the adult to the child in order to get bigger "donations". Additionally, many of the families who rent children are very wealthy in their respective native villages. This is not a made-up story and is a well-known swindle in the Orient. I got served!
After escaping the relentless beggars I spotted a carnival-type game where you throw a full-size basketball at seven bowling pins from about ten feet away, and the object is to knock them all over for great financial reward. Within a few minutes there was an audience of some fifty Chinese people (I was THE ONLY white person on the beach, so that alone made me quite the oddity) and my braggadocios boasting and crossover dribbles inspired a mob of Chinese revelers to cheers and jeer me like the village fool. Every time that I tossed the ball at the seven pins of pain I would seem to knock over all but one of the adversarial bowling pins. This made me both more more determined than a competitive eater at "The Coney Island Hot-Dog Eating Contest" and as angry as Star Jones in a planet where plastic surgery is outlawed. With each miss a fossil of a Chinese man with less teeth than I have ears would scream in my grill..."LIANG KUAI!!!" Meaning that I had just lost another two RMB. I was trying everything: rolling the ball, tossing it like a jump-shot, granny-style, overhand... all for more financial failure. As the crowd grew to a ruckus atmosphere, and teenage Chinese vixens made me feel like a pretty-boy karaoke king I became relentless on my assault of this impossible game. When it was all said and done I had not knocked over the seven pins a single time...and I was $300 RMB poorer (yes that is 150 misses!)
Later that day I had my big dinner with the CEO of Asian Ops for a large company. He picked me up with his personal driver in an AUDI, and we were soon joking around like old friends. The car stopped at an Italian restaurant named "Napoli" and rather than order from the menu, Chris had them bring out his own sampling of all the best dishes. We polished off a bottle of red wine and in the hour conversation that came with the food & drink, I learned an immense amount of knowledge about the business climate in Qingdao; Chris the person and his rocket-launch to success both in the United States & in China; general tips about how to do business in China; and women, he loves to talk about women. Chris sold all of the American franchises that he owned in 2005 for huge financial reward, and was so high on the hog that he was about to retire in his early-forties. The CEO of the entire company coaxed Chris into doing the consulting for a move to China, and soon thereafter Chris decided to purchase the license rights for all franchises in China and there will soon be many. The dinner was pretty serious and I have to say I was a wallflower in the talks, as I had little to teach and much to learn...this was until dessert.
Instead of Mud Pie or Vanilla Ice Cream, the waitress brought out three bottles of Desertif alcohol and she sat down with us as did the entire female staff of the restaurant. In fact the restaurant basically stopped doing business as a whole, and only Chris, myself, and a slew of the female staff at our table were left in what at first seemed like a very packed place. A "drink yo' face off setting" came out of nowhere like a hurricane in Switzerland, and Chris morphed from serious business executive to John Daly on Spring Break right before my eyes. I had no idea this was coming, and reluctantly fired up shot after shot of God knows what. Thankfully, my friend J.P. from Korea had been training me for such an event, and within a half-hour it was Chris that was drunk as a skunk and my demeanor was still not seriously altered. I kept drinking glass after glass of water, and managed to keep my bearings about me during yet another incredibly strange exchange in The Orient. The "Gong Fu Xiong Mau" (Kung Fu Panda) Tsinghua student identification card was displayed soon thereafter and beautiful Chinese women were continuously greeting me with compliments I in no way deserved because of their love for the greatness of panda lore.
After the hurricane ended Chris demanded that I accompany him and his posse to "The New York Bar" where a rag-tag jazz/funk band belted out Kenny G hits. Our table was pillaged by other executives in the same never-never-land as Chris resided in: and owners of yachts, managers of restaurants & hotels, a C.O.O., and other prominent business figures were soon yucking it up with a gang of other expats and Chinese waitresses. I was being ordered "Scoobey-Doo" drinks which were incredibly sour and made me want to head for the hills, but to "save face" I kept up with the rest of the group. Speaking of saving face, one of the girls at "Napoli" told me she hated drinking with Chris, but had to "save face" for her manager and restaurant and therefore followed suit with everybody else. Since I am not yet adapted to the Chinese culture I decided that I wanted to "save my face" and took a taxi home so I could enjoy my last day in the city. Chris and his gang of lush executives were shocked & appalled that I would leave early, but I made up some ridiculous excuse about my knee acting up (when I really need an excuse to leave somewhere, this one never lets me down), and was soon back in bed and waking up with the incessant ring of my cell phone the following day.
The next day I realized something pretty quickly, I would never work for somebody like Chris. A heck of a nice guy, and a prominent businessman, but I am going to need to have a separation between the business & social side of things in my life. I believe that this is a major difference between the business world of the West & East, in that in the West my paradigm of work & social life is kept separate; however, in the Orient many times these two worlds are meshed into one. I believe this to be the most true in Korea, as my friend J.P. has lectured me many times on how the company you work for becomes your family, and your real family becomes secondary to your business family. I love Koreans and think they are beautiful and entertaining people, but I am certain that I could never want to work there. I feel confident that for a short-time I could handle a business project both in Korea or for a person like Chris, but for a long-term position there is just no way. Sometimes I just want to go home and watch a pirated DVD (saw the new James Bond last night on my DVD player, not bad).
I spent my last day doing more sight-seeing, even going to the Tsingtao Museum where sadly enough I was too tired from the previous evening to sip even a sprinkle of Tsingtao greatness. I also rented a cross between a taxi & a tricycle, and this three-wheeled specimen was about as powerful as a push-cart powered by overweight donkeys. I could not stop laughing the entire ride as I was still delirious from the previous day, and this inspired my taxi driver to laugh as well; thus, making me laugh harder and so on and so forth...a truly magical ride around town to say the least. I'm pretty sure I changed the destination three or four times so that he wouldn't stop touring me around by the beach, as I kept my window down and my head held higf. Upon making it to the airport, I received a frantic text message from Chris asking me to stay at his place for another week. That he had big plans and lots of huge dinners & parties for us to attend. Within seconds I received a phone call from him, I took a brief look at the Caller ID and then turned off my phone. Enough was enough and the towel was thrown like I was a battered boxer whose only chance for recovery was abandonment.
Qingdao Express is now closed,
matthew
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