Had Myself A Merry Chinese Christmas

When my boss told me that he was taking me to China with him, I thought he was messing with me – a hobby he came to pick up on and thoroughly enjoy in my few short weeks at the office.

Although he didn’t hide his disappointment at my inability to speak fluent Mandarin, he decided to take me anyway, along with the Company Group Director and Chief Financial Officer, to serve as his Executive Secretary for a 5-day trip to Hangzhou.

The only downside was that I would not be able to spend what should have been my first Christmas in Dubai – in, well, Dubai.

But the pros outweighed the cons by as much miles that separate Dubai from Shanghai (1,383 – thanks, Emirates in-flight show).

For one thing, my boss, for all his 25-year-old-ness, is an odd combination of the enlightened millennial Managing Director and the ridiculously scrupulous aristocrat of Pre-Revolutionary France. Although my official designation is his Executive Secretary, more often than not, I was anything but that. I was stuck with mundane tasks like punching holes, stapling, and photocopying files – brainless tasks that made me feel alienated to my officemates who knew exactly what to do the minute they punched in at 8 in the morning. The Hangzhou Business Trip was my first real shot to live up to my designation, and Christmas in Dubai with friends and loved ones was going to have to wait ‘til next year.

For another thing, despite having a previous 1 and ½ years’ work experience as an educator, to my boss, I am an inexperienced fresh graduate with no sense of post-university direction (I’m not making this up – he actually served me up some life coaching in my job interview a.k.a. the worst job interview of the century – see Dubai, Thus Far). I didn’t have a whole lot going for me, besides my English fluency, ability to think on my toes, and willingness to learn… and sheer dumb luck.

So you get the picture. I was the wannabe heroine eager to prove herself worthy of the daunting challenges of… A secretary? Okay, a bit anti-climactic, really, if I put it that way.

I had applied for a Chinese VISA earlier this year and was turned down. It was a big blow to me, and I had my doubts when my second application was made less than a week before the scheduled trip on the 21st. Yes, the boss had me booked a two-way Emirates Airline ticket to Shanghai (and told me to get “warm clothes and thermal underwear” – direct quote) before the VISA approval. So I did the former and ignored the latter.

I got my approval on the 20th .

I packed 5 days’ worth of work clothes and stuff. Even though I’ve been traveling the last couple of years to make it easy – even enjoyable – for me, it was a trip of many firsts all the same: first trip to China, first wintertime travel, and first business trip ever! I used to stress over the itinerary of my leisure trips, but it was nothing compared to the stress I felt on the day of my flight.

I left the flat at 6 in the morning and arrived at the airport ten minutes later. I checked in my hand carry-sized bag (a feat worth mentioning) and waited for my flight with Mr. B, the Indian Chief Finance Officer, and Mr. W, the Jordanian Group Director. It was actually a lot less awkward than it sounds right now. Mr. B, more often than not, treats me like a child – a very mischievous child who needs to be protected from herself at all times. Mr. W sees me as a child too, but knows I can take on tough stuff, so he lets me be myself. I can safely say that I’m more comfortable with Mr. B, because I spend most of my time annoying him to give me more work in his office. But Mr. W’s all right too. I helped him put together some box files for the trip, and he appreciated my detail-oriented-ness (he’s notoriously known for his OCD in the office). Early on, I spotted Mr. W’s personality quirks like compulsive shopping (he bought a bottle of men’s cologne from Dubai Duty Free an hour before the flight) and chain smoking (anywhere between 20 to 30 sticks a day). I was in awe of the man.

The boss himself, Mr. R, gave us a ring at around 8 and told us to come on up the Emirates Airline Business Class Lounge. He pulled some strings despite our economy tickets, and before long, I was gobbling up omelets and veal bacon strips and rubbing elbows with fancy passengers all waiting for their next jet set destination.

On my part, I busied myself pocketing free Emirates Airline giveaways like bag tags, combs, dental kits, and fashion magazines until my backpack zipper went nuts.

Flight EK304 took off for Shanghai at 9 in the morning. It was a 7-hour flight filled with nothing but tasty snacks and Disney movies.

We arrived in Pudong International Airport at 9 p.m. China time and made a quick stop to omnipresent Starbucks. The boss got me a green tea latte which I soon came to regret on the coaster when I spilled it on my plain white shirt, thus effectively turning me into Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”

Even on the freeway, the road trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou was a solid 3 hours. I gotta admit it was awkward being around Mr. R for such a long period of time. Even though he was way closer to my age than the middle-aged Mr. B and Mr. W, still, the guy gave me the creeps. For a while I chatted with Joy, a sales assistant of the Chinese company which hosted our trip. She was 23 and still new on her second job, and we had a heck of a whole lot in common. I asked about China, and she asked about Dubai, and it just felt so good to talk to a girl again. When we finally ran out of things to say, I switched on the reading light and started rereading Patrick Suskind’s novel “Perfume: Story of a Murderer” for the nth time. Mr. R saw me do so and was pleasantly surprised that I read (a personal affront!) He asked what kind of books I read, fiction or non-fiction. At first, I thought about impressing him by saying non-fiction, because I pegged him for a non-fiction reader. But then I decided to stay true and tell him I mostly read fiction, and it turned out to be the right answer for him. Next thing I knew, he was shoving me a 360-page James Patterson novel to read. Work was piling up fast! I thought, “Man, I need to finish this book in 5 days or less, so I can impress the boss!”

So I read. I didn’t sleep in the 3-hour trip to Hangzhou. I occasionally chatted with Joy when my eyes got sore from reading in the moving coaster, I ate gummy bears and gummy worms, and I kicked off my boots and read like my life depended on it. Luckily, James Patterson is a masterful storyteller, and I sincerely liked the colorful characters and the engrossing storyline that intertwined them all in this big complex web of crime and madness. In retrospect, I would have enjoyed it even more had I known he was going to give the book to me anyway.

We checked in at the Sofitel West Lake at 2 in the morning. Joy took care of booking us 3 executive rooms and 1 fancy-schmancy suite for Mr. R. The bellboy, an elderly Chinese man, mixed up the bags when he loaded them in the hotel trolleys. I spoke my first Chinese sentence with him to sort out the mess, and he broke into a big half-appreciative, half-amused smile.

My hotel room blew my mind. Never in my whole life had I had a 5-star hotel room entirely for myself! Oh, I’ve checked in 5-star hotel rooms before, but I always had to share it with my middle-class family. And when I traveled on holiday, my friends and I could only afford 3-star dormitory-type accommodations.

I immediately dove for my bed and spent 5, 10 minutes just reveling at my sheer dumb luck. One day you’re fighting your way to get a stifling hot jeepney ride home; the next day you’re taking an all-expense paid trip to China just to document business meetings.

Shit really does happen when you least expect it.

I unpacked my things and hung up my clothes. I had enough foresight to plan my outfits for each day, because the last thing I needed was to stress over what to wear on a busy morning. Nobody has ever heard of a tardy secretary! I set up my makeup kit, prepared my work bag, took a nice long shower, and snuggled in bed by 3 a.m.

I had about 5 hours of sleep. I got up. I had a buffet breakfast, and then I made my way down to the hotel lobby 15 minutes before the set hour of 10 a.m. To my dismay, Mr. R was already there nursing his coffee. He gestured for me to join him in the bar, I told him I was just going to sit in the lobby and read, but he made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t used to having the pleasure of his company turned down. I dragged my feet to the seat next to him and started reading the book he lent me again. A quick word of advice: When anticipating awkward moments, always have a book on hand to stuff your nose into. Mr. B and Mr. W joined us shortly, and they also wanted coffee. It was too bad that for all Sofitel’s talk of being a 5-star international hotel, most of its staff could hardly speak or understand English. I had to translate “coffee-to-go” and “no milk” in broken Chinese. In fact, I mistakenly asked for fork instead of spoon, but still the staff got my meaning, and my boss had no clue about my embarrassing mix-up. For all intents and purposes, I was a perfectly adequate translator.

Because of a pick-up mishap, we were 30 minutes behind our schedule and only arrived at 11.30 a.m. in our hosting company’s sprawling office-and-factory compound.

Because it was a Chinese company, it put a premium on good food and actually houses a restaurant at the ground floor to spoil guest clients with delectable Chinese dishes. It’s too bad that Mr. R has a weak stomach, that Mr. W simply hates it, or that Mr. B is a vegetarian, but it meant more food for me, so I kept the lazy susan spinning busily. Mr. R thought it would be funny to bully me in front of the hosting company’s representatives by announcing to everyone (first in Arabic, and then in English) that I ate absolutely anything. But I was too hungry to be upset, so I just kept chopstickng my way through the Peking duck and steamed fish and beef stew and stir-fried vegetables.

Check out Mr. B totally faking it.

After lunch, the meeting started, and, chunked with the site visits and travel time and Costa coffee run, it lasted until 5 minutes to 6. I can’t talk about the meeting without divulging company secrets, but I can describe what I did. I took down the minutes of the meeting and backed them up with my Microsoft Surface Sound Recorder app; I routed the attendance sheet; I checked with my boss and colleagues if they were all right and comfortable; and I made small talk with them when necessary – the first two were my main tasks, the last two I did out of the goodness of my heart.

Our hosting company’s sales technical manager had dinner with us in one of Sofitel’s eat-all-you-can restaurants. For once, the tables had turned and it was Mr. B tagging along behind me, so I could tell him what food he could eat without jeopardizing his vegetarian diet. It was depressing to pile so much food in my plate and see Mr. B practically stranded in the salad bar. I chopsticked my way through the main courses and dug in strawberry cheesecakes and green tea ice cream for dessert.

Mr. W was very busy talking business with the Sales Tech Manager, Mr. B was like a kid on Christmas Eve with his vegetable hot pot, and I was playing with my second round of desserts when Mr. R came over to our table and handed me lollipops. I kid you not – my boss actually gave me lollipops. I was flabbergasted, but I really do love lollipops, so I took them with a muffled yippee.

I went up to my hotel room at 8 and worked with the data I collected until midnight. I tried to work just as hard as Mr. R and Mr. B and Mr. W, because I didn’t see the trip as much of a business trip as that of a privilege, an opportunity, a make-it-or-break-it moment. I worked on the minutes of the meeting, and when I was through, I also read a few pages of that James Patterson novel until I fell asleep

The next day, I tried to convince myself that I ought to have less anxiety than the previous day, because I more or less got the hang of my secretarial tasks already. Still, I had a hard time swallowing my breakfast, Mr. B, Mr. W, and I waited for Mr. R to come down from his suite at 9 in the hotel lobby. When he didn’t, Mr. W decided to call his room and the breakfast hall, but he couldn’t reach him. Mr. B also couldn’t reach him through his mobile. When Mr. R finally did pick up, he said he was down with something, and he had to bail on the meeting that day.

The three of us spent another whole day at the factory, not unlike the one we had on the previous day. We left the factory at 5, spent a full hour on the road, and had dinner with Mr. R in the same restaurant as last night. The three of them talked business throughout dinner, while I kept to myself, feasting on, yes, you guessed it: more strawberry cheesecakes, green tea ice cream, and lollipops.

Then I went up to my room and worked until midnight again, processing all the data. I saw a habit in the making.

The next day was another full day at the factory. The discussions grew more heated, with each side pressuring the other to give in. It was like watching a live-action power play, and any fan of the Game of Thrones would have been as entertained as I was, documenting the whole thing on text and photos and audio.

It also happened to be the 24th, but I didn’t see how I could have a proper Christmas Eve while on duty. I went up to my hotel room and mentally braced myself for the loneliest Christmas ever when Mr. B phoned me from the reception and told me to come on down for dinner. When the elevator doors opened, Mr. R was pacing impatiently and asked me where my trench coat was. I told him it was upstairs. He told me to “Yalla” and get it, because we were dining out. I pressed the buttons back up, because really, I was just too happy to get some fresh air, even though it was the freezing variety.

Joining us for dinner were Karon and Terry, a brother-and-sister tandem running their own furniture business. Mr. R struck a deal with them and invited them to join us for a very unconventional Christmas Eve dinner: 95% vegetables (for the vegetarian Mr. B) and 0% pork (for the nominal Muslim Mr. R). Karon and I only started chatting when Mr. R told us to order whatever we wanted (Karon and Terry shared a fish stew and I got steamed shrimp dumplings). At first, Karon and I only talked about Chinese food, but then we quickly jumped to China in general, and Dubai too, with all the cultural differences between the two worlds we come from. She and her brother were so easy to be with, that I found the nerve to ask Terry to hold up my wide-angle action camera less than an hour after we sat for dinner, so I could take us a couple of Christmas groupies.

It’s really true what they say about food bringing people together.

Mr. R ordered a bottle of French white wine for the occasion. Mr. B politely declined (the first time I saw him deliberately disobey Mr. R’s orders!) After we Gan-Bei-ed our first shot, Mr. B poured his share into my glass, and I gratefully gulped it down. Karon and Terry had a shot each and nothing more, because they would be driving home. That left just me and Mr. R, but mostly me, drinking wine in the weirdest Christmas Eve dinner of my life so far – I was in China, I was with total strangers, and I was having so much fun. When I got more tipsy, I started quoting Jesus in the Bible for Mr. B who was Christian but was fasting on the days leading up to Christmas. I told him that Jesus would forgive him because he was all merciful. I told him Jesus drank wine too. And I topped it all off with direct quotations from the Last Supper (“This is the cup of my blood. Come on, sir! Do this in memory of him!”) Mr. B was undoubtedly scandalized by my blasphemous behavior, but I was bent on impressing Mr. R with not just my work ethics but also my drinking skillzzz. Mr. B cautioned me to take it easy, but Mr. R told him to let me enjoy myself, because he was also paying me to be good company (aye-ay, cap’n! Hic-cup) He bragged about how he used to drink like a fish too when he was my age (um, right, 3 years ago?) and how I was never going to outmatch him anyway. That’s when Mr. B shook his head and said that I already did outmatch him, and I slurred when I told Mr. R that I was on my umpteenth glass, and I challenged him to a duel.

Oh. My. Gosh! I almost didn’t want to get out of bed the next day. What the F did I just say to my boss over Christmas Eve dinner? I was positively mortified! And yet, I had to get up some time. It was Christmas morning, which meant that I had to pack up again, because we were flying back to Dubai that night.

We checked out of the Sofitel after our last breakfast buffet, and even though it was Christmas Day, we had work to do in the factory once more. On the coaster ride there, I whispered an apology to Mr. B for my appalling behavior the previous night and promised to never drink again – at work. But Mr. R was a very keen listener, and he told me what his father would always say: “The past is history, the future is a mystery, and today is a gift.” I guess that meant he forgave me for my intoxicated insolence, so I decided to push my luck and point out that his father committed plagiarism with that one. I also told him that there was a continuation to the quote: “Today is a gift… that’s why it’s called the present.” I’m almost sure Mr. R’s dad got it from Kung Fu Panda.

It took 3 more hours, but the deal was finally (finally!) closed on Christmas Day. After the contract signing, we said goodbye to our hosting company (and I asked Joy and Grice – the Sales Manager – to have a souvenir selfie with me) and were taken to a last-minute shopping spree at the silk strip and this charming little tea shop at the heart of Hangzhou.

The silk strip was the very picture of China, complete with Oriental-tiled archways, little tea houses, men playing mahjongg on the streets, and silk shops left and right.

Mr. B promised his wife he’d get her silk, but he almost broke his promise when he found out a meter cost 180 yuan. Mr. R said he’d take care of the bill, so the 3 of us set about picking silk designs. It was a whole lot of fun! Too bad we weren’t able to get the shopkeeper to give us a discount – Joy said you had to haggle before the silk was cut, not after. That’s a local travel tip, by the way, if you’re ever looking to buy silk in China.

The tea shop was the kind of place you’d always dreamt of running ever since you were a kid playing tea party. It did not just sell tea of all shapes and sizes (the best quality cost a whopping 8,000 yuan per kilo!), but it also sold tea pots, tea cups, pre-loved clothes, accessories, and clay figures of Chinese lore like dragons, babies born from lotuses, and a couple of Buddhas.

Now, if there was one souvenir I wanted to bring home to Dubai, it was a Buddha. I wanted to recreate a Zen space on my desk, and I’d already asked a friend to give me a fortune plant for Christmas. A Buddha was just what I needed to welcome good chi in the New Year! I snatched one of the Buddhas from its clay brethren and went to the shopkeeper, this really cool Chinese woman who was preparing tea for us to sample.

Me, Joy, and Mrs. Jun Yue

When Mr. R saw me pay for the Buddha, he asked what I was doing (which was a weird question because it was already pretty obvious). He told me to “not be an idiot” – a direct quote again – and that he’d pay for it together with the tea he’d buy. I was too grateful to take offense. I told Mr. B to rub the head of the Buddha for luck, and he did so, until Mr. R told him exactly what he was doing, and Mr. B was mortified with his act of worshipping anyone besides Jesus. I think it’s safe to surmise at this point that Mr. B doesn’t see me as an exemplary Catholic. I mean, I do practice Catholicism, but I don’t see why I can’t rub Buddha heads or read the Qu’ran in my downtime.

We spent about an hour in the tea shop. I took a 15-minute video of the events that transpired: the tea picking, Mr. B mimicking me as I taught him to say “Ni hao ma?”, Mr. R telling me to take a photo of him with his phone (and then complaining about what a suck-y photographer I was), Joy pressured into haggling, me asking the shopkeeper if I could have her lollipop for free, etc.

And she said yes!

We left the shop at 6.30 and took the freeway back to Shanghai for our 11 p.m. EK303 flight back to Dubai. The 3 hours on the road burned me out, so when I thought that nobody was looking, I skillfully rearranged the luggage in the backseat and curled up like a baby. I only woke up when Mr. R called me by my complete first name instead of the nickname I loathe the most and which he has taken to call me with (besides “retard” and “idiot,” of course – terms of endearment.) We arrived in Pudong International at 9 p.m. and It. Was. Freezing. We were in such hurry to trolley our things inside, that I made a rather poor thank-you-and-goodbye to Joy and the driver, and they deserved so much more for putting up with us for 4 whole days.

While waiting for my flight, I popped in one of the nearby souvenir shops to buy my flat mates and closest office mates some mooncakes, matcha cookies, and tea biscuits. After that, I had the longest flight of my life, 10 whole hours just waiting for my in-flight meals and watching “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “The Princess and the Frog.”

Mr. R, Mr. B, and I arrived in the Dubai International Airport at 5 a.m. on December 26. It was a Saturday, which meant that I just missed the office weekend (we only get Fridays off every week), which also meant that I had to report for work that same day. But it was all good. Like I said, the pros outweigh the cons, and I have a very good feeling that the Hangzhou business trip is just the first of many more to come.