Last week I went to China on business. I started out in Shanghai where I was charged with speaking on behalf of my organization at a couple of events. The first was totally goofy in a completely Chinese way. Taking place at an exhibition booth in the middle of a chaotic flooring convention, this “award ceremony” was organized as a media event/celebration for a company that had achieved certification for its improved environmental performance. While underlying the event were serious messages (i.e. this company has demonstrated leadership in corporate social responsibility by doing its part to curb to source wood responsibly and thus lesson the destructive impact of China’s wood industry on the world’s valuable forests), these were lost in the midst of wacky ceremonial chaos.
The event began with a couple of giant dragons, one yellow and one red, enacting some kind of ritualistic dance/fight as a band played loud clamoring music punctuated with incessant symbol crashes. Note that we were in the middle of an exhibition hall, so we were competing both sonically and visually with hundreds of other exhibits. The overall affect was cacophonous sensory overload. Following the sparring dragons, a troupe of acrobats performed a gravity defying series of human pyramids, flips and inversions.
Then I became part of the show. I joined the company’s Chairman, the charismatic Mr. Lu, in front of a massive form draped in shiny red cloth that was perched at the front edge of the elevated exhibition platform. Before a sea of journalists and photographers, we synchronistically pulled off the draping to reveal a giant dragon of intricately carved wood. At the moment of the unveiling, buckets of multi colored confetti showered down upon us as scores of camera flashes furiously popped. My jaw hurt from smiling my trying-not-to-laugh smile.
I then joined the other “VIPs” on the platform for speeches and the presentation of the certificate. Addressing the threats made by China’s burgeoning wood products industry, I praised the company for doing the right thing for the world’s forests. Since I had to pause after every couple of sentences for translation, and the competing entertainment threatened to drown me out, I don’t think my speech, or any one else’s, had much impact. Indeed the audience was already thinning, no doubt lured by more enticing spectacles at the other booths. (Half naked Chinese girl groups, for example). At the conclusion of the speeches, I presented Mr. Lu with his certificate as more camera flashes popped.
Afterwards I was interviewed by a TV reporter and had my photo taken with one of the exhibit’s “guards” who was dressed like a warrior from the Tang Dynasty. (Ok, I confess, I don’t know my Chinese dynasties but “Tang” sounds good)
I didn’t think that the next morning’s event would be any more formal than this one. I was wrong. I spent too much time searching for a Starbucks near the hotel venue, and was almost late. I waltzed in, Starbucks in hand, five minutes before the scheduled start. Suddenly I found myself being whisked onto the dias with nary a moment to wipe off my soy latte moustache.
The VIPs were arranged on a platform in front of about a 100 attentive people. I was in the first row with some serious looking flooring executives and government officials. The event was a public relations exercise about a new partnership between an American and a Chinese company. While there was a simultaneous translation system with personal headsets at every seat, mine didn't work and I was constantly fiddling with it in order to get some Chinese audio. When I couldn't understand I did my best to synchronize my smiles and claps with everybody else's. Since most speakers talked about expanded market share and increased global brand awareness, my little environmentally-centric speech was either a breath of fresh air or a note of dissonance, depending on your perspective. Oh well. After that little ordeal I was relieved when the host company treated us to a delicious 5-star buffet lunch, which filled my belly for my afternoon flight to Beijing.
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