Tales of the unexpected

Once upon a time there were a bunch of Norwegians who decided to move to China for the soul purpose of promoting their very own mystical land of fish, fjords, coast and arctic. They expected to be met by curious and awe-stricken eyes, questions concerning the cold and dark and fascination about polar bears, blond hair and white skin. For the most part their expectations were met, however on their little journey out to the far East they soon realized there were certain situations they were a little less than prepared for.

Jeanette (to some of us known as Jean-Luc) is one of the many gorgeous guides working in our little sail-covered forest. She spends day in and day out smiling, taking pictures and welcoming our most valued guests. The other day she was standing in the smokey mist at the entrance part of the queue doing her thing - smiling, nodding, "huanying nin", "ni hao", "yes you may take a picture", smile, nod, welcome etc etc etc.... As guest nr 3,856 entered the pavilion Jeanette once again prepared her welcome speech but was suddenly stopped as a somewhat overly-enthusiastic little (20yrs old perhaps) Chinese girl stopped and pointed at her face. As she fervently pointed at Jeanette's figure she jumped wildly up and down and at the same time spinning in place and shouting at the top of her voice "PIAOLIANG PIAOLIANG PIAOLIANG!!" ("beautiful"). As this was not a situation we had been briefed on in our very thorough cultural communication session, she politely smiled and ushered her new-found groupie through the mist and into the coast where she could sail on through the pavilion.

The very same day Jeanette also had an incident as she guided some of our VIPs through the "secret" tunnel to the beginning of the pavilion. Half way through the corridor she was stopped by what can only be described as a very unexpected sight: a Chinese lady in her underwear. Turns out the apperally-challenged woman was sick of wearing her lovely pink cocktail dress and had decided that a skirt and a top was much more suitable for her day out at the expo (go figure....DUH!). Jeanette was faced with the challenge of how to culturally appropriately ask the lady to please put her clothes on and get the hell out of there. Three words were used (as Jeanette is not completely fluent in chinese....yet...), "xi shou jian???" (bathroom???).

Before the opening date we had many sessions brainstorming potential questions. We must admit though that some of the questions we are faced with on a daily basis makes those sessions look like we might have been served better had we just had coffee and talked about "Sex in the City".. My favourite questions include "why is your hair not yellow?", "is there snow in Norway?", "How much does a polar bear weigh?", "is there a real polar bear in the pavilion?" (whereby Kristina replied, "yes, but it only comes out at night"), and "how can the Norwegian economy be so strong when you hardly ever work?". It is always a challenge not laughing when answering these questions, but then again, Norway is pretty far away, so I suppose they are all valid questions.

That's it for tonight folks! Behave, don't do anything I wouldn't do, and watch out for hungry polar bears!

Trine:)