Those days...

I never write what i experience but these days have made me so empty and lonely that i have no one to share my thoughts. So here i am with my thoughts and writing what made me think and think but gave me nothing in return....
I came to china in year 2004 with 5 more Indians to lead a IT team and work for Joint venture company. Dint know much about china and its culture but the excitement of going to China was high and the offer was good. My mother and family were little scared as it was time of SARS.
Some how i convinced my family that how i can support them financially and since my mother was ill that time and lot of money was required for her treatment. So all in all i joined the team and landed in Beijing.
It was cold in Beijing and i felt Beijing have air conditioner every where. i was told that the office is in shandong province and company has hired Car for remaining journey. Somehow fighting with cold i reached to the destination with my team in early hours of morning.
We all wanted to sleep as the journey was long and dint get chance to spread our legs while sleeping but we were informed that we have meeting after 2 hours so we should be ready.
I am a vegeterian(i left eating meat 4 years back against animals killing) and when i was offered food at round moving table, i was so surprised to see the variety of non-veg dishesh they can serve(they can almost eat any things which moves) but the host were kind enough to arrange vegetable for me and told me that if you want to work in china and survive then i must learn to eat non-veg, i must learn to drink. I was informed that is is chinese culture and i should follow them as leaders do.
All in all, next 3 days went in completing all the formalities and meeting and learing how to match with chinese culture.
It was time to join office but to my surprise the office was not ready and i was suppose to lead the techical team of the company as Vice General Manager. I was told its a new Joint venture(JV) company and we are its first team so we will together design the office according to our standard.It was again a learning process and challenging to do startup something new in a country where i can not communicate.
finally we got things done with lot of confusion and misunderstanding but it was as i said a learning experience.