Tania in China

Tuesday, Oct 10 - Banquet

I woke up at around 6:30am, with only a half-hour interruption at 1:30, so I am beginning to get caught up on my sleep. For about the first 10 minutes after getting up I think the "room-bobbing" problems has gone away, but no such luck. I end up bobbing through my entire day. Even though I have been waking up early, I have not been able to find the energy to visit the gym or the pool yet during my stay - I still have been feeling very foggy moving through my day.

I head off to work at 8am, and what a difference! No elevator traffic jam at all. It also gives me a bit of time to respond to email and to blog before the rest of the team gets into the office. We are still at a point in the project that we are having to wait for other people to complete tasks before we can begin our install, so we spend the morning defining what needs to get done before we can get started, and other logistical tasks. The office is still very warm, but at least today I am wearing short sleeves so it helps a bit.

For lunch we head back to the hotel to the buffet, and they have a really nice spread of Chinese and Western dishes, as well as desserts and ice cream. You know that really struck a cord with me! It seems expensive when you compare it to our other restaurant experiences, but it is still not bad at around $7 a person. Also, you don't tip in China. Not taxi drivers, not waitresses, not hotel maids. It has taken me a little while to get used to that - tipping is so engrained in the American psyche!

The afternoon is pretty much the same as the morning, although we are able to get to the point that we can begin getting some work done tomorrow morning. I ask Luigi, my co-worker from Australia, what he is doing for dinner, and end up getting myself invited to dinner with him as well as two of my Chinese co-workers. I didn't know until much later in the evening that this is a "thank you" dinner for Luigi taking the guys out while they were at training in Australia! I was SO embarassed! But what a dinner it was!

The restaurant was a 20 minute walk from the office; it would have been 10, but we were in the middle of rush hour. You are really taking your life in your hands if you dare to walk anywhere during Chinese rush hour. Pedestrians have to watch out for every car, bike, and mo-ped, because there is no way that any of them will be watching out for you. It is a madhouse, only compounded by the construction of a subway in Nanjing which has multiple lanes on the main streets blocked, and all the traffic squished into the remaining lanes. Not a sport for the faint-hearted! The restaurant was beautiful, and would have had a very nice view of the lake if the subway construction were not running right past the windows with 10-foot walls.

We met the wife of one of my Chinese co-workers, and Luigi and I let the Chinese in the group completely handle the ordering of the meal. Little did we know how much food we were in for! The meal started with a selection of dishes from the "cold dishes" cart - we got a spicy salad made with some type of shredded root vegetable, a plate of peapods in a garlic sauce that was REALLY tasty, and a bowl of chunks of watermelon and apple is a sweet, creamy sauce. The fruit was actually left until the end of the meal. Then began the parade of hot dishes. They were brought out in ones and twos, with around a 5 minute break in between. We had everything from real Peking Duck with the plum sauce and pancakes, a whole fish served with the head and tail on the plate, a soup containing fish and pork meatballs, Arabian-style grilled beef, bbq pork short ribs, baked chicken, vegetables with cashews, deep-fried tofu medalions, and even a sweet and sour pork that would have been at home in any Chinese Take-out in the US! I lost count at 18 dishes - we were stuffed , but the food kept coming!

The Chinese commented about how fast Westerners eat. During this meal the Chinese could end up waiting for minutes after a dish had been served to have the first bite, then they would have a bite, put down their chopsticks, and rest a while before taking their next bite. Once all the dishes had been server, Luigi and I were all done eating, but our hosts spent another 20 or 30 minutes eating tidbits from the dishes covering the table. It is a completely different concept of dinner!

The last two dishes were a steamed cake made of dried fruits and nuts with a hint of coconut, and an egg custard in almost a phyllo-dough tart shell. The cake was tasty but rich, but I have to find somewhere that makes the custard tarts - I think I could become addicted! The meal was served with tea and beer, but drinking was not at all the main focus of the evening. We shared a 24 ounce bottle of beer between 3 of us, and we still didn't finish it.

Leftovers were packed up to take home, and it was explained to me that even just 10 years ago, no Chinese would be willing to ask to take home leftover food - it would cause them to "lose face." It was around 8:15 by the time we headed back to the hotel, and a much quicker walk since rush hour was over, even though there was still quite a bit of traffic on the street.

As much as I wanted to I couldn't head straight to bed since I needed to participate in an audio conference at 9pm with the US, so I trudged up to the office. By the end of the call I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and it seemed like quite a long commute back to my hotel room where I could crash into bed and fall straight to sleep...

posted by Tania @ 10:30 AM