A New Job, Same Old Cultural Faux Pas

As many of you know, I recently started a new job as marketing manager for Shanghai Centre. I have responsibilities ranging from managing our ad campaigns and planning events for our residents to sitting on my company’s official Bird Flu Committee and choosing apartment decorations and retail stores for our complex that appeal to western, particularly American, expatriate residents. Out of the 600+ staff, I am one of only 6 westerners, only two of which are American. Needless to say, a key theme of my job is ‘lost in translation’……………


A prime example of this is our company New Year’s party. Our party reminded me of a mix of...........






American Idol (lots of individuals getting up and singing poorly in front of the entire 600 people)












a kids’ birthday party (there were games where grown adults competed to see who could break baloons fastest)











a frat party (there were organized beer drinking contests)







and the lottery (there was a lucky draw where coveted prizes like humidifiers and electric toothbrushes were given away).






The party was in full swing when I managed to fall upon what Zach and I like to call a ‘blog-worthy’ moment. During what I thought was a request for volunteers to play the pin the nose on the drawing game, trying to be the good sport that I am, I enthusiastically volunteered. Since the entire event was conducted strictly in Chinese, it took me a while to realize I had mistakenly volunteered to sing a song of my choosing acappella in front of my entire company. This completely excited the crowd, as they were eager to hear my ‘American vocal stylings’ from the new girl. After I realized I was facing possibly one of my worst nightmares, I managed to recruit my Canadian boss be my back-up dancer and sang the only short song I could think of, Happy Birthday. The crowd had no idea what I was singing, they just knew it was English and seemed to be pleased with that. Needless to say, it will be a long time before I volunteer for any ‘company activities’ without fully understanding what I’m signing up for!