A Multinational Meeting

September 7, 2006 Leave a comment

 
Almost every month, I will be in Hong Kong meeting my clients. But this trip is very different.. it is an assembly of multi-nationalities and interesting people. The 3-day forum has finally ended…and somehow, I kinda miss some of them. There were about 30 of us – 17 nationalities – (French, Spanish, American, Philippino, Indonesian, Singaporean, HongKonger, Malaysian, Australian, Indian, Swiss, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, English, Russian, Mainland Chinese) – Wow, it sounds like a mini "World Bank Meeting" over here in HK. Of course, we aren’t in the banking business… we are smokers, remember?
 
The Hong Kong host did a superb job in blending all of us together. It was a fantastic meeting and I walked away with lots of experience. The people are dynamic … all masters in their own areas. It was all work and fun…3 packed days and 3 entertaining nights. There were times when we cannot understand each other’s language and that created a lot of jokes in the forum.
 
For example:
The French said "Let target the freaken fryers" (what he meant was "frequent flyers")
The Chinese said "Women has lower penetration" (what he meant was "market penetration for the female")
The Swiss said "We must fuckers" (what he meant was "stay focus")
The Russian said "It will be a intimate challenge" (what she meant was "ultimate")
The Singaporean said "The pig is nice" (what I meant was "the peak has a nice view")
 
There are 2 ways you can pronouce the word "multi" (mul-T or mul-tie). Of course, this is something even the Europeans and Americans couldn’t agree on. So last night, the host specially prepared a "multinational drink" for us.

Right after the drink, everyone in the forum agreed on the pronunciation. The drink added a new meaning to the word "multi".

We all had a MaoTaiNational Drink. (Enjoy the pixs)

Filed under Life in Shanghai

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