The importance of the designated drinker.

Jeff and I underwent 10 hours of cultural training this week. Admittedly, this was an important step in our preparation to move. However, carving out this amount of time at this point in the purging/sorting/moving prep created its own stress. Jeff got off a flight from Shanghai on Friday morning, drove home, and an hour later our cultural trainer, Monica, arrived at our door. You all know how much Jeff likes sitting still, let alone doing it for four hours after a 14 hour flight! Monica could not have been more flexible and easy going, and she was clearly accustomed to people in our state of chaos.

We covered a tremendous amount of material during our two days with Monica including:

• Understanding cultural differences between Americans and Chinese (and the roots of those differences).
• Culture shock.
• Communication and context (or "what do they really mean when they say ___?"
• History and geography (where to vacation!)
• Religion/lack of; confucius and dao
• Gifting
• Chinese language and education
• Chinese core values
• US-China relations
• Banqueting

Banqueting was perhaps the most interesting topic, complete with seating charts and order/content of required toasts. Banqueting is a critical aspect of doing business in China and an important element of this tradition is copious amounts of alcohol. Apparently, one must achieve a public drunken state when cultivating business relationships in order to achieve a level of trust and familiarity. Wow. So, then, I quickly ask (as I experience gratitude for being the spouse and not the working partner in this scenario) what does the non-drinker do? Perhaps as payback for all the years I have been the designated driver, I now need to seek out some select friends who will act as my designated drinker! Yes, it is ok to not drink, but then one must make sure they take with them someone who will do the drinking for them! That, and the ability to divert attention from your declination of alcohol by telling a few good jokes or stories. I am sure Zach can help me out in the joke department? Get it??

Comments

[Denise Donahue]

I can not wait to hear all of your stories after you have been there for a bit.