Foot Massages and Tea Dates

(I wrote this on Tuesday night. I am finally able to get on to the blog site. I am now in Nanjing and about to spend the next three days here.)

Today was another extremely long day.  I just realized earlier why my last two blogs were written in the morning; it feels like 6:00 pm to me, not 6:00 am.  So, now I am attempting to write the blog at 9:30 at night.  It feels like I pulled an all-nighter and just made it through breakfast.  I’m on the verge of crashing, and have been since four o’clock, but I can’t let the jet lag get the best of me!

The two company visits today were extremely top-notch.  I had no idea that they would be set up as nicely as they were.  I am not going to talk too much about the companies, because most people are not as interested in business as I just recently became, but I will say a little.  The first company that we visited was BASF.  They are a huge company that mainly deals with chemicals.  Wow, I am exhausted.  I’ll just say that the 2010 sales for them were 69 billion euros (The guy presenting was from Holland).  We talked to the Senior Vice President of the Construction Chemicals for the Asia-Pacific Region and Stefan Dreher, the Vice President of Innovation for Asia-Pacific.

During the end of this company visit, we were able to eat lunch on the BASF campus.  The lunch was good, but one food item completely turned me off.  It was absolutely disgusting.  It’s basically like this big ball of fat.  My teacher says it is all protein that comes from gluten, but protein or not, the texture of it is like a ball of fat.  I feel a gag coming on.  It tasted so bad that I am skipping dinner ha.  My teacher loves it though, so who knows.  Chinese food is really good, just not this.

I noticed a little craving for American food today.  It is only day 3!  I do like Chinese food, but it’s just weird eating completely different when you have been eating one way your whole life.

Yummy!

Two things really stuck out today.  The first thing was the tea date that we had with our friend in the tea shop just off of Nanjing street (really busy street in China. Many shops).  I told her on Monday that we would be back later in the day, but we were not able to due to time constraints, so going back today was much anticipated for me, and probably her too.  When we arrived at the store, she was really happy to see us.  Right away she started getting some tea ready so that we could all sit down and drink it together.  She was genuinely excited to see us, and we were excited to see her. 

Just thinking about her makes me wish that I could somehow help her out.  Don’t get me wrong, she is very happy and extremely nice, but she works from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM every day.  I’m not sure how many people come into her store, but she seems like she waits around in there a lot.  She is just one of those people that you can tell really value your time with them.  Anyways, her home is about two hours away on a plane from Shanghai.  We asked her if she wanted to go to America, and she said when she is twenty four.  Turns out, she thought we said married.  She is twenty-two, and thinks that she is too young to be married, but she wants to be married by twenty four.  Her English is good by my standards;  we can communicate a little, but it is done with a lot of effort on both sides of the table. 

This is the tea table. She is using her translator on her phone.  We all miss her already.

Before we left, I bought the tea set.  It was selling for 68 Yuan, but I gave her 100 Yuan.  She didn’t want me to give her so much money, but I really wanted to give her that.  So, she gave us all about 20 grams each of two different types of tea.  I think that because they are so used to Americans bargaining, when we pay them more than they ask, it means so much.  I could talk about this experience for a long time.  We are all friends and I hope to see her again whenever I get the chance to come back.  She says her English will be better next time.  I have around five years to come back before she is gone.  I want her to see America. 

The second experience today that stuck out and was a great time was a foot massage.  China is like no other for these.  You would think an hour long foot massage would be expensive, right?  It is unbelievable, and it is less than a fast food meal.  I paid 45 Yuan for a foot massage!  That’s about 7 dollars haha.  How legit is that?  Too legit to quit!  I’m about to get a few more of these while in China.

If you watch Seinfeld religiously like my family and I do, you will laugh at this.  I feel for George Costanzia and completely understand his massage experience.  Okay, so we walked in this back-alley foot massage place close to our hotel (None of the people in the place spoke English).  There was enough room in there for about 6 people to get massages.  I think these people massaging lived in the basement of this place or something.  Anyways, I go in there, sit down, and wait for a few minutes.  I see three girl massagers, all of which were taken up, and then one guy.  Hmm.  The guy walks over, gives me a hot tub with ginger in it to soak my feet in, and then starts massaging my leg. I think it moved haha.  They move up pretty high on your leg while your feet soak.  I was not down with this.  Thankfully, Kirsty, one of my friends that I went in there with, let me borrow her girl.  I was so happy when this happened!  I did not want my first foot massage experience to be from a guy.

 The girl that massaged my feet was an absolute beast.  It was a pretty intimate thing, I must admit, but she was working my feet like she was trying to make the white man cry.  It was sooo intense, yet it was still sooo good. A foot massage is such a delicacy.  I felt like a king in there.  Despite me struggling at times to handle her strength, I enjoyed this hour greatly.  I also got in a leg massage with it, but just the lower leg.  This was my favorite part of the entire thing.  I must have tender feet, or from what I hear, Americans are just not used to how Chinese massage—the more intense, the better.

Tomorrow we head out of Shanghai and head  to Suzhou for a company visit and then to Nanjing for a three day stay.  I will miss Shanghai and all of the people I have met and taken pictures with (Chinese love taking pictures with us whites).  Shanghai has been about as fun and perfect as it can get.  I believe the rest of the trip will feel the same.  If I am dreaming, don’t wake me up!