Night at the Opera

Thursday night, Mr G hosted us for an informal farewell banquet as we are leaving Hefei on Friday. It was pretty much like the other banquets only with paper napkins and drinking glasses full of VLL (vs the fussy shot glasses).

Afterwards we attended a Chinese opera down the street.


The opera, while in all Chinese, was quite entertaining. It covered a host of universal themes --- husband losing all the beans gambling; wife mad etc. A government official in the audience participated in one of the duets and did an outstanding job.

Singing, I think, is a prerequisite to success in the government and corporate sectors of Chinese society.

I made the mistake of saying I needed some of the shoes featured on one of the acts. The next thing I know they had led me off mid-show out the building. We walked down an alley and up 5 flights of stairs to an apartment where the costume maker lived. He pulled out a whole host of shoes and I felt compelled to buy some even though there were none my size.

Perhaps my lovely and fashionable wife can start a new trend back home (better not wear on rainy days though):

Customer Appreciation Day

On Wednesday, our Chinese Business Partners held their annual customer appreciation day at a hotel-like venue across town. They invited us to attend as representatives of our ongoing global partnership.

The awards ceremony itself was fairly brief but packed with pageantry. There were the hostesses in their red ball gowns and a sound track that sounded like something from a 1960's Western. Mr G and Mr B gave energetic speeches and introduced a panel of government officials and company leaders. Then they awarded plaques to their honored customers and we moved on to the next stage -- the super banquet next door.


Lots of moving around and celebration during the lunch as guests toasted on another. On the table the usual broad array of dishes. The pigeon was quite tender and tasty (farm raised):


After lunch, we took a brief rest then headed back to the office to continue work on our project.

That evening, our Chinese Business Partners said that we would be on our own for dinner. We asked for a recommendation on a restaurant serving western fare (had hit the wall on Chinese). One of the local guys had a recommendation and volunteered to walk us over, but we didn't want to put him out so we just asked him to write down the name and draw a map.


We failed to remember that there are about 10 restaurants on every block and nothing was matching up to the characters scribbled on the paper.

We were definitely out of "5 Star" China at this point and there were no English speakers to be found, but we showed the name to enough people that we got pointed in the general direction. Finally, we stopped in a police station and the young officers ended up walking us down a back alley to the target place.

Something got lost in the translation at the office as this place had no western fare at all. Our appetites were also diminished at this point after the sites from the alley so we headed back to the hotel to launch plan B.

After speaking to the concierge, we determined that the best hope for western food was at the Hilton a few miles away. We jumped in a cab and headed over.

The Hilton was very nice and we did manage to find some western food on the menu of one of the restaurants. Sitting there we realized that we had not seen one other non Chinese face in this city of nearly 5MM people in the 3 days we had been here ---- definitely a different world.

Banquet on the Lake

Tuesday night was our official welcome banquet in Hefei. There was much speculation during the day on who would be the host and, accordingly, the required level of VLL consumption. Things were looking good as the early reports were suggesting Mr G as host --- only mildly pushy on the VLL.

Earlier in the day, we encountered an example of the serious bare belly or 'bang ye' problem highlighted by my lovely and well-read wife (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/21/world/la-fg-china-bellies-20100821)


The banquet that night was held at a very beautiful restaurant located in the middle of a lake right in the center of town. The dining room was on the second level with windows to the lake (shrouded in drapes) and a large diorama depicting an enhanced view.

Mr G was, in fact, the official host --- until Mr B walked in shortly after the start. Mr B was fresh from another banquet and ready for action. He quickly dismissed of toasting with the tiny toasting cups and asked us all to raise the filling beaker instead. As you might expect our hopes were dashed at that point.

The weird dish of the evening was another soup --- this time fish lip soup. As you might imagine the cooked lip involved a bit of cartilage and some very soft fleshy matter --- not an appealing texture but the flavor wasn't bad.

One of my colleagues, enlisted the server to start filling her beaker with water --- probably a wise move but it put her at a disadvantage for the next phase of the evening: karaoke!

This was our second round of karaoke in Hefei (see April highlights from Trip 1). This round was at another karaoke place as equally elaborate as the first.


Mr G, who is an outstanding singer, was there and fortunately he brought his English speaking son who was home from college in the UK. That gave us another person to put on stage for the English songs (Mandy, Lady, Santa Claus is Coming to Town etc).

The departure, as always, required a guide --- did we take the elevator up or down to get into this maze?

Returning to Hefei

[Okay --- that's not really Hefei, but rather an ad for another real estate development on a billboard outside the airport]

Sunday, I met up with colleagues back at the Beijing airport to board a flight to Hefei in the Anhui province (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hefei). This is one of the cities that I visited on my first trip and we are returning for meetings with the project team for the next few days.

As always, on the flight, they served a meal. This time it was 'hamburgers':


This was not like any burger I had seen before. The smell of the meat and the ongoing turbulence (something you always seem to encounter on domestic flights) kind of ruined by appetite. I did try a bite however, but would not recommend if you have a choice.

Sunday night, we had our first banquet of the trip and a return to the Vodka Like Liquid or maotai featured so prominently in Trip 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_tai). They do like their VLL here in Hefei. It seems like a lot of the people in Beijing have moved beyond it, drinking more red wine, so we didn't have a lot of it on trip 2.

Fortunately, we started dinner a bit late, so the toasts were kept to a minimum --- just enough to take on what appeared to be an aorta floating in the soup featured.



Back at the hotel, it was time to relax with some Chinese TV. You try and figure this one out!

[Internet access has been somewhat of a problem here so postings may be intermittant]

Trip 3

Seem like I was just here, but I'm back now for round 3.


I flew from Chicago to Beijing this time, leaving around 8PM Central. The entertainment system was on fritz so I it was 13.5 hours of silence. Good thing I had a book.


Not sure if it was the lack of diversions or timing but this time I actually slept on the plane and arrived in Beijing at 11PM Saturday. The family sitting behind me showed up at the same hotel three minutes after I arrived --- weird in a city this big (stalkers).


The in room snack involved the multi-colored cookie cakes with cream filling. Think I've seen these before.



It's been raining so the skies are clear and its pretty cool. Hey! this place is surrounded by mountains!


I am headed back to the airport this afternoon to meet up with my colleagues and travel to the Anhui province. We're not 100% sure where we are going as our Chinese business partners have made all the arrangements. Just hoping for some tasty weird things to eat!


More later.

Trip 2 Wrap

Sunday we wandered out in the late afternoon. The first stop was a shopping area just off Tiananmen Square that looked a lot like Main Street Disney.

One block away and the scene changed considerabley. No souvenirs for the kids here!

How about a yogurt that has been sitting in the sun though? (quite popular)

We decided to move on to the Wangfujing area which is a bit more upscale.

We rested for a while at an outdoor cafe and drank beer. Then it was on to Snack Street which started off tame enough (glazed fruit)

Then we moved on to all of the unrefrigerated meat --- starfish, snake, centipede sticks and beetles (gurgle):


I'm headed home soon, so putting a bow on Trip 2. Thanks for checking in!

Off to the Wall

On Saturday we headed out to see a section of the Great Wall at Mutianyu. We were led by tour guide Catherine and driver Mr Li.

Mutianyu is about 90 minutes from Beijing. We stopped midway at the Jade Factory which was a bit like an upscale Stuckey's minus the gas pumps. It was packed with tourists from India and the Middle East. They did have some nice pieces...

S0ldiers along the way...

Mr Li was a great driver and clearly committed to maximizing our time at the wall -- lots of weaving and horn honking on the drive up the mountain. I captured some of the excitement on video but couldn't get it to upload. Here's where we almost have the head-on with the tour bus (in a rush to the Jade Factory no doubt).

At the ticket office for the wall, we faced a decision: take the Gondola or Chairlift or walk up the pathway. Somehow we settled on option 3. It was foggy (smoggy?) and you couldn't really see the wall from the entry and it didn't look too bad...

I knew we were in trouble when Catherine stopped dead in her wedgies and said she better meet us there. Didn't want to hold us up and all.

About an hour later, we reached the actual wall (starting point was village in background):

Our European collegue suggested we head up a bit higher to see one of the towers about a 1/4 mile up. It looked to me exactly like two of the towers downhill to the right, so I opted to hang out with the elderly chinese beer vendor (who hauls his goods up the hills each day).

The wall itself is truly incredible.

And the trip back down was much easier:

If you find yourself here in the future, I strongly suggest options 1 or 2: