My Little Blue Dot

The driver speaks with a thick Shanghainese accent.  Yes, he is in fact from Shanghai.  He’s probably my age and has a big smile.  We talk about Beijing and Shanghai and he assumes as Shanghai guys usually do, that I strongly prefer his home town to the capital up north.  I try to be oblique rather than disabuse him of this assumption.  We’ll be together for at least the next hour.

Yet again another enormous tier-one, bank campus.  This particular client has something that’s damn good fit for banks.  Banks are, as they say, where the money is, and these bigger-than-thou campus constructions testify to seemingly limitless largesse.   The clients travelled here separately and arrived late.  My colleague goes out to meet them at the door, as they don’t have any local currency to settle the fare.

Cash seems to be a theme.  Didi’s are OK.  They’re linked to my Amex.  But one and then another ATM is non-cooperative today.  Before the afternoon meeting, we pile out at a mall a few blocks away.  No.  The Shanghai Pudong Bank will not work with an international ATM.  No there are no other ATMs in this mall.  No, the pert little Italian place will not take any foreign cards.  We’d better all pile in to Starbucks, where I know they’ll take a card.  They’ve changed the menu it seems on these chicken wraps are new.  They are dry and stuffed with things like carrots and stringy raw mushrooms that detract rather than add to the taste.

I hadn’t recognized the name of the company we were to visit.  Standing on a corner, trying to read the GPS to see if my little blue dot is moving north or south, we finally discern that we need to continue on straight.  And when I see this building, I realized that it is part of the Shanghai Media Group and that I have visited here many times, with many different companies.  I can’t imagine any of the people inside that I’m to meet though, are the same.

Dinner at Ye Shanghai.  They are kind and allow me to pile in at 4:00PM to take my call in a corner seat, even though our reservation isn’t for ninety minutes later.  I admire the glass they’ve served me a drink in with its small circles bent glass that refract the light.  Calls are becoming difficult.  Zoom is now blocked.  There is a hack, but it doesn’t always work.  And, it now seems that the Astrill VPNs are completely blocked as well.  This is crippling.  Usually you can find a server somewhere, Albania, Macedonia, somewhere that hasn’t been blocked.  But this week seems different.  Perhaps there is a software update to be had that will make a difference. 

Thursday 9/26/19