on corporate culture and customs

Our New York fund manager (J.) spent this week working out of our office. He seems like a likeable-enough fellow, mid-forties, or so, jocular, gregarious, generous, in that way that I'm starting to believe are unique to Americans and Australians. He insisted on taking us all out to dinner last night, and we obediently reserved a table at Simply Thai in expat-heavy XinTianDi, because J. professed a weakness for Thai food (Manhattan's best, he insisted, was Wondee Siam. James, if he's reading, feels vindicated.) J. first wanted to scope out the Tourneau shop across the way. I accompanied him while he (naturally) scoffed at expensive golden ticking goods. At dinner, he ordered two pitchers of mango mojitos, taking a lot of pleasure in explaining a mojito to the girls, and pouring out generous glasses to Donna (the unanimous cute one) and Qiang, our new VP. Everybody sipped politely, not really enjoying it, but saying that they did.
I understood what J. wanted at dinner. He would have liked nothing more than to see one or more of us get a little soused, loosen up a bit, tell some crazy office stories. He wanted to hear about our boyfriends and our social lives. He wanted us all to become friends. It was very American of him. He wanted to go to a karaoke bar following, not understanding that the girls' understanding of karaoke differed significantly from his and mine. He asked Flora what she liked to sing, in that insisting, aggressive American way that borders on flirtation, in an effort to put her at ease. ("You're a karaoke fiend. I can tell. You're trouble.") I could see that he wasn't really putting anyone at ease. Flora gave the response that Chinese people often give because they think you're looking for a particular answer - that is, the safest, vaguest, most uninformative response. (-In this case, "I like to sing everything." This condition is still endlessly frustrating to me. It makes information near-impossible to extract information.) J. pressed further, to no avail.
Afterwards, J. asked if anybody would like to grab a drink following dinner, as I suspected he would. The girls declined. They thought it was the polite thing to do. J. insisted. I wasn't sure what to do, because I understood that the actual polite thing to do would be to accompany him, but felt it was a little weird for me to go alone. In the end, after much negotiating, I dragged Flora, Donna and Michelle along. J. wanted a bar recommendation; again, the girls were painfully reluctant to give one. In the end, we sat at ARK for a couple of quiet rounds. I tried to be as fun as I thought appropriate. I drank whiskey to accompany J.'s tequila order, while the girls tentatively sipped pink and blue cocktails. I indulged his questions about everybody's marital status.
At one point, J. sang the praises of some ice-blended beverage at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. He happily said he'd buy one for everybody the next day, because we "had to try it." The girls chorused "no thanks, it was much too kind of him." Another uncomfortable disconnect, where each party was trying their best to be nice in best the way they knew how. "I'd love one," I declared, even though a frappachino would be a seriousset back to my current commitment to minimize love handles via minimizing artificial sugars. "Let's all go in the morning."
All in all, a bit of an awkward evening, although I cannot deny the satisfaction of paid-for designer Thai food and neat whiskey and speaking about New England and New York.

more olympics fan fury

At the risk of alienating readers in the field of sports journalism, I offer the fatuous below, from Dan Wetzel, a sports writer for Yahoo!:

The powers that be were so drunk on the possibility of Chinese markets that they just decided to ignore every red flag. This made no sense back in 2001 when the vote was taken. It makes less as it becomes clear that all of China's empty promises of progress aren't just being broken but are being replaced by a frightening totalitarianism.

Not that there will be a full boycott. There is no courage in the West with this much corporate money at stake. In years past the IOC has banned nations from competing in the games due to human rights issues (South Africa) and made incredible threats on host nations (Greece nearly bankrupted itself on security costs), but no one dares ask anything of China. . .

The Chinese even have given up on the bold promises about how there will be no disturbances. They're trying to ban live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square, and they admit suicide squads might be nettlesome.

In less draconian concerns, the pollution is said to be horrific, the food untrustworthy and just recently the Chinese began installing that cutting-edge technology known as the "sit toilet" at some venues after discovering that the rest of the world isn't too keen on squatting over a hole in the ground to do their business.

Apparently, they've replaced the 'journalistic integrity' portion of the curriculum with Racism and Douchbaggery at whatever uncredited clown college this moron attended. I'm not generally one to get up-in-arms about these sorts of things. Two confessions to drive the point home: 1)I'm unregistered to vote in the States, and 2)the entire motivation behind my applying for Asian Culture housing, was, admittedly, to score a single in the palatial Moore Dormitory sophomore year of college. I've never identified too-too strongly with traditional Asian stereotypes for a number of reasons, ranging from exceptional height to mediocrity at math and music. I'm by no means ashamed of my heritage - I'll just say I generally find flaunting of cultural identity a bit contrived. My views on 'issues' are very middle-of-the-road, frequently fair-weather, and pretty much only expressed for the sake of debate during fits of substance-abuse-fueled-argumentation. So take these disclaimers to heart, and know that when I say 'Dan Wetzel - you're should be fucking fired,' it's with a completely qualified and totally rational voice.

Thanks to Jerry, whose YALE PHD CANDIDATE letterhead carries a lot more helluva lot more clout than mine ("WILL EAT ANYTHING FOR MONEY"). Read his complete ownage of Weztel and his exclamatory employer here.

the weekend roundup

I've gotten into the bad habit of posting others' material, rather than generating my own. So, here's a hot-off-the-press update of my weekend, which was particularly ex-patriot-hued:

Very, very occasionally - say five to six times per year - I get a surge of urge to party my face off. I'm slowly recovering from this weekend's festivities, which started off a little unpromisingly, Friday night, when I, like a good ward, accompanied my uncle to the Shanghai stop of Celine Dion's world tour. He'd received tickets from a friend of his, and we sat politely through about six songs at the (extremely impressive, third-of-the-way packed) Shanghai Outdoor Athletic Stadium before admitting that we both wanted to leave. (Funny how despite having a very clear impression of her name and her face in my mind, I realized that I didn't know a single Celine Dion song besides the 'Titanic' theme) I got home, feeling a little dancy from an hour of high-piped soft rock and a little drunk-hungry from many, many weeks of sobriety. So I headed out solo to live hip-hop night at Park 97 Upstairs (above), where I got just a little too much of each to suang said cravings. There was some famous disc jockey (apparently, one can achieve international renown at spinning) mash-up-off going on in the unbranded first story, as well.

On Saturday, I went exhibit hopping in the French Concession, setting the nice weather off to advantage by getting lost all over three districts. The most interesting was the exhibit of German photographer Roland Fischer, best known for giant, glossy, blue-splashed, shoulder-deep portraiture:

I happened past a pub on my way out, and caught the reflection of the FINA Short Course World Swimming Championships on the television screen inside. I immediately canceled my remaining gallery appointment, ordered a happy hour doublet of Heinekens (the Chinese are still getting the concept down) boarded a barstool, and watched kindred spirits from third-world countries compete in sprint freestyle and butterfly events for an hour before heading home.
Sunday morning brunch was had at the local expat favorite Element Fresh. It's a Chinese-owned-and-run chain, but is tuned to the hip foreign palate, featuring fresh smoothies, cobb and nicoise salad, and fruit-and-lean-protein paninis served on earth-toned parallelograms. Afterwards, I stocked up unnecessarily on baguettes and roulades at the neighboring PAUL, a trendy upscale French boulangerie. I certainly felt at the height of yuppie glory as I boarded the subway, laden with label loaves and filled with prettily-garnished, low-fat hangover cure.
This is quite a popular weekend itinerary in all major cities, I suppose, but not one that I ever completed in New York. It would have been a little more enjoyable if I didn't feel like kind of a big tool, dancing and eating at posh venues full of wealthy and beautiful young French and Swiss folks.

concessions?(!!)

Yesterday's brief and uncharacteristic dabbling into current affairs appears to have elicited a very exciting response from Beijing - blogspot.com, BBC online, and, wonderfully, WIKIPEDIA have been released from virtual bondage, and are free to supply opt-in celebrity gossip and knowledge to the masses. Huzzah!

the olympic games / national shame?

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're aware that this summer's Games are being held in Beijing, and that the recent violence in Tibet has brought a number of the Chinese government's diplomacy policies into the already critical eye of the global community, and subsequently, under attack. The controversy is a clash of several titanic forces, from Security Council government entities to powerful corporate sponsors of the Games and its participants, including, notably Nike. Olympic hopefuls have in recent months voiced concern over the air quality in Beijing, and now, athletes find themselves faced with the possibility of an Olympics boycott.
With regards to this, I defer to my childhood hero, the egregiously hot, if not particularly eloquent Gary Hall Jr.:

"A 10-medal winner, Mr. Hall said he avoided speaking about politics, but he has been outspoken on subjects related to doping in sports. “There’s a time and place for the issues and causes,” he said. “The Olympic Games and politics don’t go together well.”

I'm more interested the way the Chinese government would react under a real threat of boycott, or - heavens! - a boycott. It's a feisty ruling body, struggling, it seems, to reconcile its iron-fist policies with China's rapid economic - and thus social - development in the year's following China's re-opening of its doors and ports to the West. Western culture is ingrained as superior in Shanghai, as a result of the city's fling with Europe during the Opium Wars, during which the various parts were de facto segregated.
Today, the former French Concession District is still the trendiest and most expensive area for young people to convene (Shanghai's SoHo, if you will). The pricey clubs and restaurants ensure that foreigners are the most common patrons, because ex-patriot salaries are much, much higher. Import taxes keep foreign products absurdly expensive as well (36 rmb for a Nivea chapstack at Watsons! compared to 6rmb for a local brand), which make them highly desirable to citizens of a country rising rapidly out of poverty. Foreign film and television are immensely popular as well (I hear a lot about 'Prison Break').
American visas are thus notoriously difficult for Chinese citizens to obtain, because, somebody once explained, the government wants to keep its people from deflecting to the glamorized States. This, however, places the old Party between a roc and a hard place, you see, because the thing Chinese and Chinese-Americans are MOST sensitive about is losing face. And as a not-first-world country with near-first-world influence, the Olympics are an ideal venue to show the world that China is more than ready to hang with the cool kids. Only, unfortunately, there are a number of certain indisputable barriers to entry (freedom of the press, for instance) that the Chinese government can't risk even attempting to sweep under the rug, because to do so would undermine the core of its authority.
So, yeah. It'll be interesting.