And Just Like That…China

Sunday morning arrived, rainy and cold.  The car service was early as usual and I rode to the airport numb, slumped over my carry-on bag and exhausted from the trip that hadn’t yet started.

A full six weeks flew by after accepting the offer to work as guest creative director and consultant in China.  For the project, I agreed to prepare lectures for the Shanghai-based branding and design agency 3Kou and present them during a two-month tour.  Multiple presentations would be given at the company’s offices in Shanghai, Nanchang, Chengdu, Chongqing and Beijing, as well as at forums in Wuhan.

For the last month and a half, when I wasn’t repeating rudimentary nouns and verbs after Sonia on my learn-Mandarin-in-a-big-fat-rush DVD, I was diligently spelling out the finer points of topics like logo development, brand guidance and creative team management.

I’m currently sitting in a jet-lagged haze and travel details are a bit sketchy but they go something like this…  Arrived at Newark Airport, boarded plane, sat through 14-hour flight, landed in Shanghai.  Unremarkable.  Read Fuchsia Dunlop’s memoir “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper,” thought about food or, more specifically, whether I’d be willing to eat bunny rabbit brains, chicken intestines or “fire-exploded kidney flowers.”  Time would tell.  Perhaps.

During de-boarding, there was none of the anticipated H1N1 hoopla – no one directly checked for evidence of flu.  All passengers were, however, paraded past what looked like a video camera (aimed at eye level), standing next to a bullpen with a sign reading, “quarantine confinement area.”  A little guy wearing a white lab coat sat at a desk inside the ropes but seemed to be only interested in flipping the pages of a colorful magazine.

Passing through customs was painless.  The drive through the aggressively-modern Shanghai outskirts was equally breezy and exciting.  World Expo 2010 is scheduled less than a year away and architectural preparations are in full swing.

Now that I’m here, I can think of nothing better to do than crash.