The Shanghai American School Field Trip
This would be a field trip taken by the marketing department to the Shanghai American School that I am referring to. The SAS has two campuses, one in Puxi (translates to "West of the HuangPu river") and one about an hour and a half away in PuDong (you guessed it... "East of the HuangPu river")and as part of the marketing plan, we go out to each and set up an information booth on orientation day for the new students and their parents. If you can follow that last run-on sentence, congratulations, you read at a 12th grade level.
We left extra early from the hospital in a small van packed with information sheets and posters and displays of all sorts only to discover, when we arrived in the auditorium where the orientation was held, that we only had a 3'x6' table to use for the day. This is when I learned an important lesson about the Chinese (or at least the Chinese I work with.) That is, that the Chinese do not handle deviations from plans or routine very well and are definitely not experts at improvisation. Fortunately, I was able to grab my clip board and retreat to the center of the large room to survey while the marketing "team" hurled what I can only assume were profanities at each other. While things didn't go so smoothly as far as the marketing info booth was concerned, I, on the other hand, was rolling in surveys as most parents were more than happy to take a few minutes to talk to a fellow expat while they waited for their children to get back from the school tour (a truly captive audience.) Even better, I found out on the trip back that we have four more of these school fairs in the next two weeks, so I shouldn't have too much trouble hitting 200 surveys and putting that assignment behind me.
I also finally got my gym membership to Will's Gym, in the Maxdo center in downtown Hongqiao (about a 10 minute bus ride from the hospital.) It's pretty much exactly what you get at any other fitness club (or so it seems, I'm sure I'll have some interesting observations after my first few trips.) Well, I'm off to work on a secondary application or two before I head to Senses Wine Lounge for happy hour(s).
We left extra early from the hospital in a small van packed with information sheets and posters and displays of all sorts only to discover, when we arrived in the auditorium where the orientation was held, that we only had a 3'x6' table to use for the day. This is when I learned an important lesson about the Chinese (or at least the Chinese I work with.) That is, that the Chinese do not handle deviations from plans or routine very well and are definitely not experts at improvisation. Fortunately, I was able to grab my clip board and retreat to the center of the large room to survey while the marketing "team" hurled what I can only assume were profanities at each other. While things didn't go so smoothly as far as the marketing info booth was concerned, I, on the other hand, was rolling in surveys as most parents were more than happy to take a few minutes to talk to a fellow expat while they waited for their children to get back from the school tour (a truly captive audience.) Even better, I found out on the trip back that we have four more of these school fairs in the next two weeks, so I shouldn't have too much trouble hitting 200 surveys and putting that assignment behind me.
I also finally got my gym membership to Will's Gym, in the Maxdo center in downtown Hongqiao (about a 10 minute bus ride from the hospital.) It's pretty much exactly what you get at any other fitness club (or so it seems, I'm sure I'll have some interesting observations after my first few trips.) Well, I'm off to work on a secondary application or two before I head to Senses Wine Lounge for happy hour(s).
posted by Mr. Frisky | 3:03 AM
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