FIRST FULL DAY

Today was my first full day in country. I ended up going to the Rockwell office. I wasn’t scheduled to be there till Friday, but I woke up and decided to go. I can be tired in the hotel, or tired at the office. I ended up making a mistake there. I couldn’t believe how tired I was! Geez! I should have just gone back to bed.
Shanghai has changed a ton since last time I was here! There are certain buildings I remember seeing before, that were kind of remote on the way out there (Free Trade Zone)….now they are surrounded by other buildings…and not small ones! The drive I had on the way out was pretty tame. Maybe it was because I didn’t leave the hotel until 12:00…he didn’t seem to reckless…kind of a bummer! I was looking for a little more action on that ride.
The smog was big time noticeable on the way out! It was so low that it clouded some of the buildings. It was pretty weird. You could see where the gray of the sky collided with the off white of the smog, with a few clouds acting as a piece of lettuce in the sandwich. There are still cranes everywhere here. There is soooo much construction. I was a little disappointed in the number of bikes and scooters. It didn’t seem like there were that many…probably just because of the time of day….actually I’m sure that’s the reason.
I met with Jennifer who is our operations manager for CSM in China. We met for about three hours. I thought we were going to get lunch once I got there….then 1:00 became 2:30, finally I asked if we were going to get lunch, she looked at me confused, “I guess we mis-communicate, I already eat.”
Well, at least one of us ate!
So she asks me if I want McDonald’s or KFC. I look at her and smile, “How about Chinese?” She smiles and says she’ll have some ordered…..Now I’m thinking Chinese takeout…saw it here last time…felt pretty confident. Amazing how off I can be!
I think she had a guy in the office run over to the gas station! Because he comes back with what looks like a Chinese TV dinner in plastic wrap. It was chicken, rice, and carrots. The amazing part was the chicken! It was actually a chicken breast!!!!! The first one I’ve ever seen in China!
My co-worker Greg and I have a long standing theory about chicken in China. Both of us have been here, both eaten chicken, yet neither one of us has ever had a chicken breast here. You can get wings, thighs, drumsticks, and chickens feet…but good luck finding a chicken breast. We figured that chicken producers here just ship the breast meat back to the U.S.A and sell the rest here. Therefore no one really knew what they were missing. However, this discovery really blows a hole in that theory! I mean this was REALLY bothering me as I ate my chicken….there had to be a reason.
THEN! It dawned on me.
I am probably eating the Chinese equivalent to a Speedway cheeseburger….they don’t value the breast! They don’t like it! It’s not that they don’t eat it; it’s just that they amazingly would rather not eat it! It doesn’t ruin our theory; it just needed to be mended.
As an Ex-Pat you usually end up eating at pretty good places, or lousy places that locals like. So they aren’t taking you to a situation where you would see the chicken breast aka “The worst piece of chicken in China”…because they don’t like it. If I was hosting a foreign guest, I wouldn’t take them to Speedway for the lamp burger….neither would they. So just to be clear..THE CHICKEN BREAST IS USED IN CHINA!
After our meeting today, I took a cab ride back to the hotel. It smelled like rotten fish wrapped in a gym sock. Amazing how much I could miss that smell…it let me know I was back. This cab ride was going to be good, you know how I knew? The rearview mirror was cranked all the way up so that it was looking at the ceiling! I mean really, who needs those anyways? Highly overrated!
He was actually kind of disappointing until we almost slid into a stopped car (It’s been raining all day). He swerved left (Which was actually pretty impressive), cutting off another car (Who let us know), then yelled something at the car that was stopped, and preceded to speed up in anger! Then he had to slam on the breaks to miss another stopped car. This just seemed to frustrate him even more. (He probably had chicken breast for lunch)
Finally I arrived back at my hotel…now I wait…for day two!