In Transit: Shang-hi to everyone

Et enfin! A massive ni hao from Shanghai, which has been home for the last six days. The list of things I like about the ‘hai covers a bit of the basics, but a lot has happened since I got here—I had my first night out in this lovely energetic city, my first day of work at Riviera, went to gorgeous Hangzhou on Saturday, and, as of an hour ago, joined a gym! That last one is rather important, I think, because you simply can’t avoid delicious food here, and I would prefer not to have to ask for a seatbelt extender on my flight back to St Andrews. I have a feeling that I sweat a lot of it off, but I want to savour the tastes of China without fear of turning into a large white hippo.

So last Thursday, the night after I got here, one of the other interns was leaving after a four-month stint here and decided to organise a get-together at this place called Shiva Lounge, where Paul (one of the people who help me set up the internship and flat) knows the bartender Danny. Danny was nice enough to give us a two-for-one deal on Pimms, and it was actually really tasty because it was made with ginger beer and not that foul Morrison’s lemonade. A day in and Shanghai had already shown me something amazing—I now knew why I’ve detested all the Pimms I’ve drunk at St Andrews. Shiva also has some brilliant-sounding cocktails, and when two of the other interns—Jessica and Prudence, my flatmate and coworker at Riviera—got pina coladas, they looked sublime. I did have my first day of work the next day, so I wistfully closed the menu and told Danny that I’d get one some other time. In the blink of an eye he had made another pina colada, passed the cocktail glass into my hand and told me that it was on the house. Really, not a terrible welcome to a new city—especially compared to Natasha’s, Joe’s and my infamous welcome to Sfax, Tunisia, where we checked into what appeared to be a crack den, got followed by a slightly crazy guy, saw the slightly crazy guy get beaten up by the police, and spent the rest of the night giving a statement while they took our passports into another room.

A few hours after that pina colada, I woke up unusually bright-eyed for my first day as an intern at Riviera, which is about fifteen minutes away by taxi on Haui An Lu by Suzhou Creek (for some reason I feel a bit embarrassed that I haven’t seen the creek yet; all of my lunch hours have taken me in the other direction). I think it’s housed in a refurbished warehouse from the early 20th century, which of course brings to mind all these romantic images of old Shanghai, the Paris of the East, and its fantastically debauched ways. I was introduced to Henri, the key accounts manager and the person who interviewed me over the phone—I remember it quite clearly; if I’m doing academic work in my room I’m cross-legged on the bed, but because my landline doesn’t stretch that far, I was twirling around on my office chair somewhat awkwardly and wondering if the floor would be more comfortable. I suppose I should have taken a more thorough look at the website before I got there, to have some faces to attach to names—but the whole office seems quite nice. I have my own little table and white leather office chair, where I tap away on my laptop. Again, I’m not used to working in office chairs, but it would probably be wildly unprofessional to request a beanbag on the floor or something. Still, I bet when all the major CEOs have made it, once they’ve ushered their clients and colleagues out of their vast mahogany-panelled offices, they just flop on the couch and work with their laptops perched on their stomachs (kind of like I am right now).

The actual work I do as a marketing intern is the creation of proposals for major events for international corporations, especially hotels; for example, my main project right now is two proposals for Christmas galas at a few Marriotts throughout Shanghai, and I’m also working on the grand opening of the St Regis in Lhasa (yes, the Lhasa in Tibet). I do a little bit of research on the hotels (for example, I need to know whether or not the Hongqiao Marriott’s grand ballroom can be divided up into multiple sections, or what the main foyer’s dimensions are like), a bit of research on the market they’re aiming to attract to a given event (Christmas galas tend to be a bit more family-oriented than other events, but the Chinese, obviously not being overwhelmingly Christian, see the holiday more as an excuse to go out and party), decide on a concept and theme, and then formulate ideas as to how to translate the theme into an event (communications/PR, entertainment, decoration, food and beverages, giveaways, etc). I put all of this together in Powerpoint presentations, which are then pitched to the clients. Bang.

It's fun stuff, and I stumble across some really random s*** on the internet while I do it. Take this Caribbean Christmas gala theme. Today, for instance, I had this idea that there could be a performing magician, but, in keeping with the theme, he could be a sort of Haitian black magic voodoo-style magician. Very shortly thereafter I found that if you search for ‘voodoo’ on Google images, you will get some REALLY weird stuff. I also found out that this company makes a knife block in the shape of a voodoo doll; when you’ve stored all of your knives, it looks as though they’re stabbing a little orange person. A cool idea if you’re in the knife block-manufacturing business, but I don’t think I’d want it in my own kitchen.

As for something like the St Regis Lhasa grand opening, it’s obviously a bit different and, in some ways, more complicated. We also can’t exactly meet with clients in Lhasa for the morning—for those of you with hazy map skills, it’s a two-hour flight from here, plus you need special permits from the government in advance before going there—so I would presume that we’ll be doing conference calls from Riviera’s meeting room. It goes without saying, though, that I would have LOVED to go to Tibet on business!

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Isn’t the last thing Tibet needs a luxury hotel like the St Regis moving in? Well, from an historical/cultural/anthropological standpoint, yeah. Again, though, if I started making strident, obnoxious American-style objections about it, that probably come off as just a tiny bit unprofessional. As I proofread the proposal that had been put together, however, I realised that St Regis is really committed to making this a truly Tibetan hotel; there’s nothing about it that says ‘Han Chinese’. The grand opening features lots of traditional Tibetan dancing, music, food and general festivities and really seeks to give guests the chance to experience the local culture. Most touching, I found, was that the Hong Kong billionaire who’s financing the whole thing owns one of the world’s largest collections of Buddhist art, and is shipping them up to Lhasa to create a Buddhist Art Museum as part of the St Regis, so that guests and locals alike can take pleasure in viewing all these amazing artefacts. In addition to all that, you can’t deny that working with St Regis is rather cool. Perhaps they offer young blonde interns a discount? Or the loan of one of their trademark butlers?

Obviously there’s been more than just work; coming to Shanghai and just staying in the office would be a travesty! But I’m afraid that I’ll have to write about Hangzhou tomorrow, because it’s already half past midnight and I’m trying to get in a good sleep before tomorrow. It’s a full day, including a Mandarin lesson during my lunch hour (normally reserved for veritable culinary adventures around Huai An Lu!) and a ladies’ night in one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai that overlooks the Bund and features free champagne. Needless to say, there won’t be much time for a siesta.

Here are some pictures of our flat, though. It’s a really perfect little place, plus it’s on the eighth floor, which is extremely lucky. Ba, the word for eight, sounds like fa, the word for wealth, so all of China is clamouring to have eights in their life. Even airlines try to make their flights in or out of China as lucky as possible—my flight from Doha to Shanghai was 888, as was my flight from Beijing to San Francisco. The number four, on the other hand, is considered unlucky because in Chinese (si) it sounds very similar to the word for death. I’m not superstitious, but as they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.