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.