From Ashley

Blog #3

Working in China has thus far been nothing like I expected. The office
environment is incredibly loud, chaotic, and super casual. For
example, the workers just yell between cubicles…when they’re right
next to each other. I was told I had to be here exactly at 8:30, I was
running late today and got here at like 8:40 and was the first one
here! Then apparently Tuesday is shorts day at work (I didn’t get the
memo and wore dress pants to again be very over dressed.) Wednesday is
apparently jeans day (I wore shorts so I guess tomorrow is my jeans
day!) Ironically, yesterday the CEO of the company called out one of
the girls for her outfit. Sure…you’re probably thinking for possibly
having on shorts. No it was because he thought her necklace didn’t
match her outfit. (First off it’s China and anything goes, and second,
it didn’t really look bad.)

Speaking of the CEO, he called me directly to ask me to teach the
other girls how to make healthy cookies and muffins. (Not sure where
I’m supposed too, but we’re going to IKEA to get cookie jars?) He
said, “he wants his colleagues to be happy and healthy first.” Sounds
great right? That includes constant nagging that the 4 single girls in
the office (me and 3 Chinese girls all around my age or younger)
aren’t married to men from Stanford yet. Apparently that’s my mission:
to go back to the US, meet a man from Stanford and bring back his
friends for Miwi, Nancy, and Cassie.

Back to the cookies…I’m thinking they might be for the party I’m
hosting next week? (Not excited about that…but what can I do?) Or it’s
his subtle hint that I’m a fat American and need to eat better so he
tries to Americanize it? Not really figured that out yet. Or maybe
it’s his master plan for the Chinese girls to learn to cook American
food for their future husbands, because he told me I need to learn how
to cook Chinese authentic food if I’d even considered having a Chinese
husband. Not really sure, but we’re going to IKEA and the grocery
store one day, and I have his permission to get whatever I need
regardless of cost.

After the discussion of cookies, he also told me that we're going to
start playing 30 min of Classical music in the morning, and everyone
walking around the office...to be healthy (yay so excited!) Then after
this they turned on music...but so far it's been Christmas music and
Josh Groban, and I can't help but wonder if this is because I sit with
my iPod on to block out the noise and chaos?

It’s also really interesting how different the CEO is than I’d
expected. First off, he runs a decently large Canadian energy company
so I never expected to meet him. We’ve had 3 conference calls and he
came to meet me the other day (also, this is like my 3rd actual day
here). Then, everyone is told Chinese people are humble and quiet. He
is the definition of eccentric with money (that he told me he doesn’t
want his children to have, so he donates Chinese art to the world.)
He’s always on like a manic high, I feel.

But as of now I’m not complaining. It’s an interesting job combining
my two main areas: art and international communication. I just hope
that it leads to something good (the past two interns now have awesome
jobs in Beijing), so hopefully it will. And hopefully this foreign
party with wine and ice (that we have to special order cause no one
uses it here) will go well and some foreigners will actually come.
Fingers crossed.