Monday, September 8, 2008

Bringing business to dinner


Yesterday I had dinner with my Chinese friend Nike that I haven't seen for a while. I thought the dinner (at my fave, Sichuan place -although yesterday it wasn't so good. I think we ordered the wrong dishes) was going to be all about catching up so imagine my surprised when Nike pulled out some brochures and papers and wanted to talk business? We are not really in the same branch, but still he thought we could somehow cooperate, and on it went... It was quite interesting, and when we had finished talking he put all his papers back and we started talking about basketball and fishing.

Say what you want about the timing, but one thing is for sure: the Chinese really know how to mix business with leisure. I don't know how it happened, but we have already scheduled our 'next' meeting for sometime this week?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nothing is impossible in China. I can sense that you are going to make some big bucks in next 5 years.

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a coincidence. Today I met with my chinese friend over a coffee to have a chinese/english language exchange.
As soon as we got to the cafe he started talking about his latest business plan to me and how we would open a stationary shop together and how we could share the weekend shift etc...
I didn't know (and still don't) how I'm going to tell him that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in this business venture!!

Jonna Wibelius said...

Anonymouse -you thinks so?! Haha, I can nothing more than hope that u r right!! Big buck -yes pls!

Little tiger -What a coincidence!!! I think u better be straightforward w this guy otherwise he'll go on with the planning.. and before u know it he's rented the shop and bought all the stationary... ;) asking you to do the late night shifts... hihi.

Anonymous said...

I took your advice and told him straight out. He took it really well thank god.
I was a bit afraid because once one of my Chinese friends told me that if, for example, in a friendship one person asked the another for something like a small loan and they refused that this automatically spelled the end of their friendship...
These Chinese can be hard on each other at times...