Sichuan and Me
Sitting in this cramped seat inside an Air China airplane is really uncomfortable. All these chinese around me. Well, to think of it, it’s not actually weird having chinese surrounding you. I comes from Malaysia anyway. It’s good to have a close contact with the homeland of Malaysian chinese, which is China. To tell you the truth. I find China mystifying. This land holds 1.5 billion human being of various ethnicities that it is unfair to generalise people of China. Some of the ladies here are beautiful indeed.
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I’m on my way to Chengdu, to meet the clients. Went to Guangzhou first (transit) before proceeding my way in an Air China fleet. I had waited in Guangzhou airport for four hours. As usual, journeys aren’t completes with little things that happen which coloured my travel. In one of the forms given by Chinese customs, there is one particular that addressed on your health. I guess to combat the spreading of bird flu virus or something related, they’ll have you declare your current health condition. I had ticked "cough" box. I don’t know why I ticked that. Maybe I was intimidated by the legal wordings on the form, warning visitors of prosecution or whether I’m just damn too "skema". I had a bit of coughing since last week. Flu as well. That day, it only reduces to coughing. I can’t hold these coughs, and afraid I might throw out one in front of the custom officers. I was taken to a small room. All eyes of various human race (Japanese, chinese and caucasians) were casted on me. I was there as a celebrity. The small room is in fact some sort of quarantine room. I had my temperature checked, my throat checked, and being interrogated of my current health problem in detailed. I was afraid that they might keep me in that room until my flight home which is 2 days later. Luckily, the officer let me off after taking contact details.
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I had my first chinese tea at the airport coffee shop. Really great. This land had seen civilisations thousands of years ago. One of the first human civilisation to surfaced on earth.
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My worries started the next day. To give presentations to customer. At first I did not feel any pressure. They don’t understand English. I had the China Office manager as a translator. Every words that came out of my mouth was translated in Mandarin. The connection to the client now has a barrier. That barrier is Wilson, the manager in our company’s Beijing office. The client, they are like any other customers in Malaysia. Demanding. Always pointing to mistakes. Hentam gila-gila. Although I do not understand a single words they’re saying, their facial expression, the sound and intonation of their voice revealed everything. My manager translates in a softer voice to me, but I very well understand the pressure cooker situation I had found myself in. I did managed to get out of the rut. The details in explanation on how I managed that would involved some technical engineering mambo-jumbo and I’m sure all of you wouldn’t want to read this crap.
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After presentation is my time to enjoy China before I depart tomorrow morning. Yes, I am in China now. The land of oppurtunities. I’m inside my hotel room, resting after that battle I had. My boss was certainly relaxed. I know that he had done this thousands of time (more than 30 years of experience). This is only my second client meeting. Nothing much to this writing today.
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Cheers guys.
