Day 4 - Shanghai

Welcome to Day 4, I am now officially losing my voice, which I am sure my family will love when I get back home.  I've been teaching a training class and I am not used to talking so much and have strained my vocal cords significantly.   It hurts to just swallow at this point. 

The training has been going well and I've actually gotten quite a few questions over the past 6 hours when we didn't expect to even have 1 question.  I am less jet lagged than yesterday and hopefully tonight I will be able to sleep better than last night. 

I've determined I need to learn a little bit of Manderin as it has been very difficult for me.  Don't get me wrong, many of the people in the class speak excellent English however when they talk amongst themselves I have no clue what they are talking about.  At times I have heard "American" and "Erin" in their conversations not to know what it is about.  From a cultural standpoint it is very frustrating.  I now know that I need to be a better example when I have guests in the US that have English as a second or third language as well. 

Tonight we will be going to dinner as a group at the hotel that I am staying at so thankfully if I am feeling jet lagged I will be able to just head to my room.  Only a couple of hours and then on to my final day in Shanghai!  Hopefully the remainder of today as well as tomorrow proceeds well.

Update......

I had dinner tonight with the regional team it was the most traditional I've had yet,  it consisted of chicken feet, Duck Livers, Bejing Duck, Fish Balls and a very potent liquor. I "tried" everything, but definitely only liked some of it. So now I am eating Pringles and drinking a Coke in my hotel room!  The company was of mixed cultures, some Chinese, there were people from Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Australia as well.  The Thai colleague brought gifts for all of us and I now have a beautiful back scratcher and some other items that I am not quite sure what they do...  At first dinner was a bit uncomfortable as our Chinese colleagues continued to speak in Chinese which was very uncomfortable.  However the women were corrected by my new Korean friend that they were in mixed company and needed to speak English.  I am now back in my room getting ready to "try" and sleep tonight.  Wish me luck!!!

~Erin