Telestone "Team-Building Adventure"

I would tell you were I spent my entire day today if I had any clue. Actually, the Great Wall was right next to it, so I guess that means it had to be north of the city, but wherever it was, it was definitely the setting of one of my favorite days here thus far.

I woke up at 4:50 am this morning to go to a “team-building” day with my company. This was originally a beach trip when I first agreed to go, but I figured Chinese team-building would have to be a memorable experience no matter what, so I decided to stick with it, even though Pato is in Shanghai this weekend, so it’d just be me and the Chinese folks.

First hiccup happened when the bus I usually take to work (after the biking to the subway and subway transfer) didn’t come for 30 minutes (they usually come about every ten), so I had to call someone from my work to text me the location of my work in Chinese to show a cab driver. That didn’t work either, but after a somewhat extended phone conversation, she seemed to be able to convince him of where it was. Because I took a cab instead of a bus, I was about 30 minutes early in my empty Saturday morning work parking lot, so I grabbed some breakfast from a street vendor and hung out waiting for the rest of the “team” to arrive.

After everyone got there decked out in their “outdoors gear” (for my supervisor that meant hot pink “Dolce & Gabanna” t-shirt and denim visor), we finally took off in our little charter bus about 7:30. Thanks to the 4:50 wake-up call, I was out pretty quickly, and when I next woke up, we were passing donkeys and sheep frequently. Things got pretty entertaining pretty quickly once we reached the place. You have to realize that all of the following takes place in Chinese, meaning I understand nothing and basically just imitate what everyone else is doing while they laugh at me. So first, we made “weather sounds” by rubbing our hands together and clapping and slapping one another on the back, and a played a couple of other little games like one where when he said a certain word, you try and grab the finger of the person next to you (at which I obviously failed miserably at because since I can’t understand the instructions I have no idea we are even listening for a word, much less what the word is, until after my finger was bleeding from my boss’s fingernails). After some yelling of some Chinese words in unison, we split up into two teams and did the classic make a team name, flag, cheer, and pose (that might be a Chinese addition). As far as I could tell from the picture on our flag and their attempted explanation, my team was the “roaches”. Regardless, everyone was SUPER enthusiastic and I was SUPER amused.

Our team pose. We're a cockroach. Can't you tell?

One of these names is not like the others, one of these names just doesn't belong...

From there, we took off for the day. For the next several hours, we hiked through a river (that means soaking wet tennis shoes and socks from about 10:30 am onward) and stopped ever so often to solve a puzzle or complete a task or something. My favorite was team jump rope. Please just try and get a mental picture for a second – these are 20, 30, and 40 something year old Chinese business people and engineers. Jumping rope. Together. Anyway, the river ran through a valley out in the mountains (like I mentioned earlier, right next to the Great Wall), so the views were gorgeous and it was a really, really enjoyable, albeit pretty arduous hike (although not apparently arduous enough for them to ditch the sun umbrellas, by which I swear I'm going to lose an eye before I leave this place...)

JUMP ROPE!

Hiking action...

Besides the awesome scenery, the highlight of the day up to that point was probably the following conversation:

Melody (a co-worker): Keer-steen (that’s me), you very tall but I still think you look like trout.

Kristyn: You think I look like a what?

Melody: A trout.

Kristyn: A trout?

Melody: Yes. A trout.

Kristyn: Like the fish?

Melody: Yes. In your face.

Kristyn: Hmmmm. Haha. (awkward pause because I don’t really know how to respond to this

comment). Ohhhhhhhhh. Wait, A CHILD?!!?!?

Melody: Yes, a choud. (I know, you wouldn’t think these two words would sound the same, but

trust me, Chinglish has a phenomenal ability to accomplish the seemingly unlikely).

Kristyn: Ok. So how about this weather…?

However, the most memorable moment of the day title was soon usurped by the few seconds during which my head was literally stuck between the wall of a cave and my co-worker’s butt. Why were you in a cave, you ask? Well, that would be because about 3:30 pm, just as we’re wading through the deepest part of the river (like thigh high), a storm hits. And we’re not talking breeze and a light drizzle. This is thunder. Lightning. Torrential downpour. Lovely. So basically everyone panics (in Chinese, might I remind you), and I find the “cave” (cave is a misnomer if it evokes an image of spaciousness of any kind – niche would probably be a more apt description) in which several of us take cover for a while. That is, until I discover that my head is ensconced in an elaborate tangle of spider webs and an inhabitant of said webs is about to attack my face, at which point I quickly attempt to remove myself from the niche, which is how I got myself into the cave wall- head – butt conundrum with which the paragraph began.

Trying to stay out of the elements (not dry...it was way too late for that...)

Anyway, we survived the storm (though much of the stuff in my soaked backpacked is a little worse for the wear), and we were then soaked and cold and still had about an hour and a half of hiking up a mountain ahead of us, but all was made better by the chocolate someone had brought along (“because it will warm you up” – I wasn’t aware of Hershey’s nuggets’ ability to change body temperature until this point… ;) ).

The day wrapped up with a big traditional Chinese meal back at the base camp. Like most of these kinds of family-style meals, there were literally 20 dishes on the table. Now usually, this is great for me, because statistically, there have to be at least a couple of things that I like, so I camp out on those, and life is good. But tonight, as it was me and all the Chinese people, they were all really curious to know exactly what I thought about EVERY dish, which meant I had to try every dish and then creatively come up with a different excuse for why I didn’t want more of it.

Overall, it was a pretty fantastic(ally entertaining and hillarious) day. I’m completely wiped out (I didn’t get back home until 10:00pm tonight, and I’m pretty sure my feet are more shriveled than they’ve ever been, having been encased in wet socks for 12 hours now) but now I’m good and bonded with the co-workers, and this might just be my favorite picture from the trip so far...