Today? Holy Cow is the only
descriptive term that crossed my mind today. After the #4 experimental
middle school I mentioned in previous post we were able to take a short
break to catch up on some jet lag. We (escort officers) were invited to
a special lunch and cadets sent off to have lunch in the hotel
cafeteria.
Many
years ago I lived in Japan and learned a lot about eastern culture
including the importance of meeting, greeting and trading
business cards. We went to a private lunch room with the Secretary
General of Shandong Province. The Sec. Gen is equivalent of a chief of
staff combined with all business authority. Shandong province is 96
million people so it was a very important lunch event. Just a side note
here, as an escort officer we are along to provide direction, safety
and support as needed to our cadets and basically stay in the
backgrounds much as possible and really be as unseen as possible since
these events are cadet focused and not the escort. Here in China we are
being treated as the leader and in the forefront of everything also
being from the US has put me right at the front of the groups. At lunch
I was placed to the right of the Sec. General which is the place of
honor which means minimum 6 toasts received and 3 to be given all
through translators. If you understand Eastern culture you will
understand that doing the right
thing the right way is extremely important to leave a good impression.
Well after I don't know how many dumplings, oysters, snails, donkey,
fish, Chinese shrimp (looks like crawdads) we survived the lunch without
any cultural mistakes. . .whew.
So
back to the hotel and another break before dinner at 6pm. This is
where it turns into HOLY COW. Dinner at 6 pm and we had multiple people
knocking on our door to get to dinner early. I am rooming with the
Canadian escort officer that was at lunch with me. We left wondering
why so much attention to getting to dinner early when we were ushered
into a separate receiving room with incredibly beautiful chairs,
woodwork and lace on the chairs. Now I know how the president and
secretary of state feel when traveling this part of the globe. Each
chair had a nameplate and again I was on the right of the leader. This
everyone in the room was someone of a power broker/politician/leader of
the province the Leader was the province chairman plus vice chairlady
and 2 Peoples Party consultant leaders plus the people from our lunch.
TV cameras, reporters with cameras filmed the entire thing for the
record and evening news programs. The conversations/speeches all
centered on cultural trade an education between our countries. I did
not know that besides being an escort I am also the ambassador and lead
speechmaker for this group. So 2 days into this great trip 5 speeches,
2 formal dinners and many, many political leaders met I am very
impressed with what we are doing here.
After
dinner tonight there was a briefing meeting for all the escort officers
and cadets and we were informed on the next few days itinerary and that
we would have a police officer and political officer traveling with
us. We were also informed
that before we did anything we have to check in with our guides or
political representative or translator/guides and we have to pass to our
leader anything we want to give to our hosts. Yes it is different here
but trip is great. Both cadets are fantastic and enjoying it and they
also got to try all kinds of food as well.
That's it for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment