The Rule of 10

I think I'll try this rule of 10 thing, I'll try to keep updated content every 10 days or, when my comment list reaches 10.  I don't know why I like playing these little games.

Great news at work... looks like our company will have an extremely strong hand with the Formula 1 in Shanghai.  CRAZY!!!!!  More on that later... but until then, a teaser:

So I found out that a bunch of people here in Shanghai think I'm quite the hottie.  I shouldn't be bragging though (and I'm not).  The thought actually makes me feel really dirty.  My friend McKenzie told me last night while partying at Park 97 that a bunch of guys have been asking about me.  FUCK MAN.

I am also a member of the Autobots now. 

You can call me:

SPRINGER!

BTW, Happy bday to Kirb!

Getting It

I'm slowly starting to get it here.

Weekends are an extremely expensive endeavour, especially since I'm such a socialite and find myself bouncing between groups and jumping bar to bar to meet new people, have a drink and catch up with old friends.  For those of you who know me, you'll know me to have a relatively debonair and free-wheeling attitude when it comes to buying drinks for friends, new and old.  My wallet will attest that on any given night of partying, 95% of what I've brought will be used up, with the rest saved for the cab ride home.  Things still haven't changed.

But in Shanghai, there's an added twist, because in Canada, girls will still (no matter how small the odds) be quite adamant in buying drinks for guys.  Girls taking their own initiative there are a rarity here.  I can't remember the last time a female bought me a drink here on her own initiative (except for Gigi, but she's from Toronto).

Shanghai is truly a male dominated society.  Guys will leer, heckle, grab and grope women much more than they would dare to in Western societies.  This male dominated society is also one that creates the expectation in females for males to pay for everything... absolutely everything.

I've been recently partying with a group of Shanghainese chicks every once in a while who've got this formula down pack.  Everytime I'm at a club that they're at, they'll have a bottle of Johnny Walker or Absolut sitting at the table, with a bottle of red wine right beside.  They never spend a dime.  Usually, it's a couple Taiwanese or Hong Kong businessmen that dish out the cash.  It's no wonder a couple of these girls can also speak Cantonese, a dialect not native to Shanghai.  I've bought them drinks on an individual basis before, but now I'll be much less cavalier when I'm around them.  I had free drinks all weekend because of them.  Some chump HK businessmen bought a couple bottles for the table and here I roll in with a couple of my friends drinking away.  The girls don't seem to mind, probably because I'm so good at drinking games (and because they think I'm cute )  hah!

And to top things off, my bosses know exactly how much I'm paid and whenever we go out together, they have that moral obligation to keep their staff treated well.  It also helps that they know most of the bar managers at the places we hang out at and drinks come at an extended discount.

So what if I'm a bar whore sometimes?

Sex, Drugs and Shanghai

In this city, I have seen, heard and been witness to things that I've never ever seen, heard and been witness to before.  I thought that I was quite naive about things in life, but never before was I so off the mark.  I'm much more naive than I thought I was.

The whoring and prostitute hunting doesn't stop at the old white businessmen that frequent the clubs like Park 97 or Guandii.  I recently found out that even some of the people I admire most have a completely different conception of prostitution and cheating on loved ones... a different interpretation, I'd say.

The weed smoking, e-dropping and cocaine snorting isn't something that you just hear about from friends or from watching the news.  These last couple of weeks have made me realize just how fast Shanghai can be.  Hearing of friends getting beat up or people having a gun pointed to their heads, friends of friends being thrown into jail and friends of friends of friends being kidnapped are just a few of the crazy stories that I've been hearing about.

My mom brought me up very well, but my fear is that I will change.  What ifs have been lingering in my mind.  Accepting what I've been taught as immoral behaviour has crossed my mind.  Maybe I'm just too damn conservative.  Or maybe Shanghai can get a little fucked up sometimes.

I only wish these were urban myths.

Drunken Times

So it was payday on Thursday.

Finally got out to party.

Didn't drink too much, but I had mixed a lot of different alcohol and played drinking games for quite a bit.  Started off with some beer at Andy's and ShiWen's house, then Gin and Tonic with Tony and Kev at Facebar, then off to Pegasus and met up with Frankie and some other friends had another beer, some vodka and orange juice and then a bottle of red wine.

That night, I had wine spilt on me.

I was playing drinking games and kept losing to this girl, I swear she was cheating.

By two, I could hardly keep my eyes open, made my way to the door and stumbled onto the street to grab a cab.

Then when I got into the cab, I puked on the floor of the seat.

Then out the window all the way home.

The next morning, I realized that somewhere along the way, I lost my cellphone.

And got to work 2 hours late.

Hmm... would you bang a Vulcan?  I would.  Enterprise is so cool!

Time to Breathe

So the conference is finally over... I finally have some time to breathe, eat and sleep.  I didn't write too much about what it was about on here, mainly because I didn't have enough time, but the whole purpose of doing the conference was three-fold.  I like saying "three-fold".

Firstly, I'm a strong believer of extra-curricular activities during the school year, and because of the apparent lack of it here in China, I wanted to create a platform for students here to get involved and have fun while at the same time learn how valuable an experience like this can be to the development of your inner self.

Secondly, entrepreneurs are a driving force behind any economy, always the first to try out new ideas, first to take risks when the economy is down and are drivers of human advancement.  Many students don't believe in working for a start-up, or aren't driven enough to think about starting a company up themselves after a couple years of work, some thing that China desperately needs as it continues to grow.  Conferences like the one that just occured this past week will hopefully encourage people to look at things in a different light.

Third, to show students that a project like this is entirely possible.  There were so many doubters in the beginning.  So many skeptics, complainers and non-doers.  Reflecting on all that has happened, I think all that has occured has made my staff realize just how possible a dream can be if you work at it.  Our conference ran on a budget of $150,000 RMB, consisted of 7 days of lectures, discussions, company visits and activities, and over 80 delegates from Canada, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Singapore and the United States.

Of course that's not all, there are some hidden agendas as well.  It provided me networking opportunities with multinational corporations, gave me exposure to working with the Chinese and management of them, allowed me to practice my Mandarin on a more formal setting, gave me a glimpse of the bureaucracies in China, and provided me with a handful of good friends.

I wasn't able to actually attend too much of the conference since I had to work, but some of the highlights included:

- taking 90 students to a restaurant that gave 10% of them food poisoning, of which about half had to go to the hospital
- me sleeping at the office for 3 consecutive days because work deadlines and coordination of the conference gave me absolutely no time to do anything
- the fear of being abducted by the People's Army because a speaker I didn't screen for an event I ran started to bash the government of China's judicial system during a 20 minute presentation (fuck I was so pissed)
- finding a full page story of our conference in a Chinese newspaper (and my picture!)
- over budgeting and having an excess of 60,000 RMB left over (over $10K Canadian)

I guess the conference wasn't all that exciting.

So in the next 2-3 months, so far we'll be involved with:

Sep. 14 - Moet & Chandon and LVMH fashion show
Sep. 27 - Grand Opening of The Warehouse (and viewing of the Lotus Elise)
Oct. - Paul Oakenfold in Shanghai
Nov. - Paul van Dyk in Shanghai

Right now, it is 10pm.  I'm sitting in the office, looking through Xanga sites, chatting on ICQ, listening to Norah Jones and downloading the first two episodes of Star Trek Enterprise.

Egads... I've passed my 1 year anniversary of being in China (August 27, 2001).

Happy birthday Mom, Marv, Daphne and Rodge.