Factory lunch

Interrupting the fun of Bhutan to go get back to work!  Back in October my boss from NY was here and we have had an insanely packed schedule.  Over the weekend to Taiwan, getting back Sunday night late. Then Monday a pick up at 6AM to go back to the airport to visit an outdoor supplier who is located between SH and Beijing.

At the airport I went to the rest room and upon getting done went to pull up the zipper on my jeans.  Well the zipper broke with the tines literally pulling away from the jeans (nice crappy Chinese quality huh?).  Now my zipper is broke and I'm about to start my day with a flight.  So I did the only thing possible which was to untuck my shirt and wrap my fleece jacket around my waist, making me look like an over grown teenager.  So keep in mind as you read the rest of the story that this is all done with the barn door being open!

Upon getting to the factory we find out that the local government office is excited to have us there as they want to further develop their economic zone.  So we are "invited" (read: forced!) to go to a meeting at their offices and then to lunch, where we are warned that heavy duty drinking is in store for us!

Upon entering the gov't office there is an electronic sign saying "Welcome Richloom Fabrics."  My first thought was uh-uh we are in for trouble.  Well it got better as they put us in a conference room that had over 30 chairs and we literally had name badges as to where to sit.  The name badge had my first, middle and last name on it.  This means that the gov't party has looked us up, checked out my visa, understands I live in China, etc.

 The meeting lasted about 20 minutes, all in Chinese before they took us to lunch.  Below you will see the photo of the table and the massive lazy susan.  I've been to a lot of nice Chinese places but this was one of the best settings.  In fact the lazy susan actually was motorized and therefore was constantly turning slowly.  First time I had ever seen that. 

 The funniest part was that the whole time we were eating in this nice big room and the waitresses were serving food was that a couple of additional servers were walking all around with fly swatters trying to kill the flies!

Meanwhile my fly is still wide open but hopefully covered up by my shirt most of the time.  It was only a few minutes into lunch when they tried to bring out the Baiju (Chinese fire breathing whiskey if you ask me!).  We turned that down and finally agreed on beer.  Well these turned out to be professional drinkers, priding themselves and getting us to drink as much as possible.  Each time walking around the table to greet us, cheers with us and then do the Gambei (bottom's up) cheers!

All in all a memorable experience.