Seminar Venue
Sui Lei-translator
Arrived in Shanghai from NZ at 7.00am this morning. Being very tired and not really awake, I let some character arrange a taxi from the airport for me rather than go directly to taxi stand. As soon as I hopped in and he went about a kilometre down the road before he started to do a deal on the tariff, I knew I was in trouble. So I agreed on his figure, hard to do much else when they have your bag in the back, and thought i would sort it out when I got to the hotel. But w then had a big argument as he wanted me to pay up front, and would not pay until we got to the hotel. I have to say it was bit scary for a while, but he finally continued and dropped me an hour later at the hotel. Funny how the final fee suddenly dropped a hundred RMT when we got to the hotel and he saw me write down his driver's number. Bluff must have worked, but an anxious start to Shanghai.
I booked in, had a shower and then had a visit from my tranlator, a young teacher from the Changzheng High School, who wanted to go over my speech with me and she was obviously appointed to look after me for the next few days. Sui Lei turned out to be a very friendly, helpful person with a good sense of humour.
She took me to lunch in the hotel with the deputy director of the Putou Education Department, and then we had a rehearsal at 4.00pm. At 5.30pm all of the guests and presenters were taken for what was to be the first of many large banquets, held in large private rooms in even larger restaurants. Quite a shock when there were piles of cigarette packets for the guests on eac table.
It also seemed that there is some kind of challenege for our host to have as many "gambays" =cheers and down your glass of wine in one go, at each of these banquets as well. These seem to happen whenever there is a lull in the conversation, and averaged at least 15 per meal!
Arrived back in my room around 10.30pm, exhausted.
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