It is 5:30 am and i have been up since about 4 am. I did get up at around 1 and talked to Mun on Skype which was good. Skype is the best invention since peanut butter. It is incredible how I am able to see munny and talk to her for free! Mom just got hooked up as well which has been great to keep her informed. It really is like having them in the room.
Just so you know.........these postings are showing up in Toronto time so this one will be around 5:45 pm on Saturday but I am actually posting them 12 hours ahead in Shanghai time.
Yesterday I was to be ready at 11:00 am for my first meeting with all of the managers of the Shanghai plant. I was ready at 10:30 and I laid down to read until the phone rang. It didn't ring until about 12:30 and I had fallen completely asleep. I tried to wake up on the 20 minute drive to the meeting but was still pretty groggy when I got there.
The meeting was in a hotel room on the 27th floor of a big hotel and when I got in the elevator the bellboy pressed the button and sent me off by myself. I got off the elevator and realized that there were about 50 rooms on the floor. Luckily, the door to my meeting was wide open so that when I walked by Mr. Kan saw me and waved me in. The room was smoked filled and there wasn't a window or a fan on. There were 7 managers in the room with Mr. Kan and I was quickly introduced and the meeting returned to its previous state of having each of the mangers discuss the current situation in their departments while everyone else slept or played with their cell phones. I sat there trying to grasp the situation for about and hour then out of nowhere Mr. Kan explains who I am in Chinese and asks me what I have to say. I forgot every single Chinese word that I had ever learned. I was like, " Um dui bu qi, uh wo bu zi dao ................" I also started to sweat profusely. It was brutal. I asked Mr. Kan what i should talk abouit and he said that maybe I could introduce myself. So I did my basic intro of my name and my experience in Taiwan and how I was now studying My IMBA in Toronto. Then one of the managers asked me where I studied Chinese and I was able to have a conversation with him and I stopped sweating and finished speaking. It was tough. then we broke for lunch and I ate with Mr. Kan and we discussed the meeting style and it turned out that I had some relevant experience to contribute to the second part of the meeting so during the second half of the meeting Mr. kan called on me to contribute to the conversation. I was very careful to not say too much as I really didn't understand the situation fully and I didn't want to piss anyone off.
This may have been the most stresssful day of my life and I new it was going to be when I woke up. My Chinese is going to need to improve very quickly. Hopefully today will be less stressful.
That's all for now............................................
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