My adventure in Shanghai

I feel kinda silly writing about my journey to China, because the majority of the people who are reading this right now have already been in China, or live in China, or just know more about China than I do in general. That being said, when people ask me how my trip to China went, I usually reply "good." Most people here expect me to jump up and down with excitement, or to start rambling away about all of my exciting adventures. But, my trip to China was for business...and I stayed with a Japanese man and his Taiwanese friends, and as a result, I get the strange feeling that my Chinese adventure was about as un-Chinese as you can get. I don't know what I was expecting, and I hadn't done any research on China or Chinese culture, and I'm pretty sure that is why I felt so A) stupid, B) un-worldly, C) naive, and D) vulnerable. Usually, if i'm to travel somewhere new, I try to learn something about where I'm going...but not this time. Luckily, my host (who happens to own the factory who makes all of our gloves) is a lovely Japanese man who assigned me an entertainment manager who is supremely social and studied for a time in Michigan. I think Jim (my entertainment manager) was rather sympathetic. He helped me shop for souveniers and wouldn't let me pay for a thing.

When I returned from my day of shopping, I was treated to extensive multi-course dinners of some of the best seafood and sushi I've ever had in my life. My new favourite food is Lobster Sashimi. I also learned that I love what our hostess called "fish neck" which looked more like "fish face" to me. Paired with some daikon (cold shredded radish), it is so delicious. Although I felt a little guilty eating it while the poor thing stared at me with his dead eye.

Next time I'm going to try to get out of the city and see some other aspects of China, but I was so tired the whole time, and was still expected to keep all the projects at home still running, that I didn't have much time to do anything other than eat, drink, and talk about the future of gloves at Black Diamond.

And, I'm sure everyone's curious about the factory. The factory was nothing like I expected. It was a well-lit, small, seemingly efficient factory. I did NOT see young children sewing. I think the youngest person I saw was about 24. I didn't really talk to any of the workers other than Jim, but overall, I get a good feeling about my Chinese (or Japanese or Taiwanese) colleagues.

But, my favourite things about China? the busses that look like giant caterpillars and the bacon. The bacon is sososososoosossosososososososoooo good. At least the bacon I had at my little bed and breakfast was so good. Like I said, I'd be surprised if I actually had eaten any Chinese food, because I didn't really get out much. But seriously, mmmm.....bacon.

and I leave you with that.