Inspiration

I always find that I am happiest in my life when inspirational people surround me and I can learn from them and grow. In the past, besides my parents, I felt like this when I was on the Oxford Entrepreneurs committee at university. However, I have felt like this in China when I am in the company of the CEO and execs of my company.

Luckily for me, my CEO invited me to join him to visit one of his clients who owns one of the largest women’s clothing manufacturers in China. They used to just export for company’s such as Levi’s and others, however now they are focusing on a more domestic strategy and have grown from very few stores to 300 stores across China in the last 5-10 years. My CEO was travelling in from a different city in China, so I travelled with Eric and David from my office. I asked them both about how they chose their English names. Eric said that his language teacher chose his and he was fine with that, David said he chose his own name because it began with D and so does his Chinese name. I asked them about their own Chinese names as I knew that these usually have a deeper meaning. Eric’s Chinese name has 3 components, each representing the sky, the sea and the land, so his is quite complex, however David’s Chinese name means Victory. I told them that my name meant ‘honey bee’ in Greek and they laughed and said ‘That’s not really as good as Victory, is it?’ I didn’t know where to put my face! Afterwards, I asked what a good Chinese name for me would be, I wanted mine to mean something but they said that the direct translation for Melissa would just be: 梅利莎 (Pronounced ‘Mei Li Sha’).

Eric and David were also making me laugh because we had got a 25 minute cab to the manufacturer’s location and they were saying that whilst this is still in Shanghai, this is a ‘middle of nowhere’ place and that we would be stuck here forever, because there was no chance a cab would EVER go past! (Luckily my CEO had a driver).

The 'middle of nowhere' place we arrived was actually really nice. The floor I went onto was a design studio and had really interesting clippings everywhere, sketches on the wall and even inspirational posters - in English! After my CEO arrived, the meeting commenced, I made sure I greeted the host company’s CEO standing up to show respect. I listened to the whole meeting in Chinese whilst sipping my boiling hot green tea and trying not to choke on the tealeaves, or even worse get them stuck in your teeth! As the meeting was in Chinese, I used this rare opportunity to analyze everyone’s body language and try to ‘read’ them, as I vaguely knew everybody’s motives for being at the meeting, I wanted to see if they matched up to their actions. The power dynamics also became clear through this, which was really interesting.

After the meeting, Patrick (my CEO) asked me to join him for dinner; he took me to an amazing Japanese restaurant called ‘Sun With Aqua’, in a very stylish area (on top of the luxury stores) on the bund. There were 2 beautiful Sharks in a large tank in the reception; he reassured me that these were for decoration, not for dinner! There is a stream of water runs through the restaurant, ensuring that the "qi" (energy) flows throughout. There is also a huge aquarium giving the whole place an upmarket underwater feel.

 

At dinner, we discussed a whole range of topics, one interesting aspect, that has fascinated me since I got here was the effect of the one child policy. As most parents only had one child, these children were pretty doted upon by their parents, meaning this generation have been dubbed ‘Little emperors and empresses’. So, this would imply a spoilt generation, but the actual impact of this appears to be that the pampered boys are much more effeminate (comparatively to the West) and gentle, whereas the girls are much more dominating and bossy - they know what they want, and they expect to get it. I think that this stereotyped gender role reversal is so interesting!

I had heard once before, from my friend Bruce, that Chinese women, particularly in Shanghai will not marry a man unless he has a house. My colleague Eric expanded on this and said that there are three basic requirements for any Shanghainese woman considering marriage. These are:

1.      A house with no debt – meaning no mortgage!

2.      A nice car

3.      Decent cash flow

I found this amusing and said ‘Well surely every girl would like this, but don’t people fall in love?’ My CEO said of course they do, but a man would feel like a loser if he were of marrying age and didn’t have these things, so he would lose face by even considering himself as worthy of marriage. A woman would perhaps even be willing to wait until he had these things, if she loved him, because how could they move into the marital home together if there was no home, and it would just be too embarrassing to rent! He also told me that in China, parents and in-laws have a much larger say in relationships. This is so much so part of the culture that there are even dating programmes on TV where parents go on shows with their daughters in order to choose a man to date. I found this very droll, but he said that from a Chinese parent’s perspective, most say ‘If you don’t have these 3 requirements, how do you think you will be able to look after my daughter?’ I found this fascinating. I think China is becoming more endearing daily, the land of bossy, domineering women that will not even entertain a man without LOTS of money. Priceless! However, my CEO did say that the inevitable consequences of this are that most beautiful young women marry much older wealthy men. I am surprised by the contrast of today’s general consensus of wealth and aspiration compared to yesterday's ideals of communism, where the desired outcome is for everyone to be ‘equal’. There is no divorce law legally recognized in China either. 

The Japanese meal we had was amazing, for starter we had mango and tofu soup, which was actually really nice! The traditional Japanese way to consume soup is to drink it from the bowl, however Patrick luckily requested a spoon for us both! Then we had some sea bass (my favorite), which was cooked to perfection and coated in real butter! After this we shared some sushi (California roles) with tempura (deep fried vegetables) and then came the raw fish platter. I was a bit nervous about eating raw tuna, because it literally looks like a raw steak, however I tried a bit of everything and it was all amazing! We finished up with some green tea ice cream and some sesame flavored ice cream. It was probably one of the best meals I have had in China. 

I had a brilliant evening and found it intriguing to hear such an international perspective and viewpoint about China and all sorts of topics! I think if I had a friendship group of inspirational people like this in China, I would really enjoy living here!