My first time traveling this far north to visit a client.
I always get excited about visiting another province. After all, there aren’t many jobs that let you roam around like this. Wherever the clients are, that’s where we go!! (Smile.)
Don’t worry! It’s farm-raised.
I really was a bit worried. (Shrug.) Tonight we ate Chinese sturgeon… Isn’t that supposed to be a national treasure?
The client had been the general manager of a state-owned enterprise before leaving to start his own business. I’d thought a position at a state-owned enterprise would be pretty prestigious, but since he hadn’t engaged in corruption, his salary over a decade earlier had made for a rather difficult living.
It was quite something to hear him refer to his wife as his “airen”—literally, his “beloved.” We’d usually say “my girl,” “girlfriend,” or “wife.” I really don’t hear such a poetic way of putting it very often.
And finally, since we were in northeastern China, there was no escaping the baijiu.
