I had a new colleague on a temporary assignment arrive in
town on Saturday. Just happened to be here at the same time as some friends, Isabel
and Tom, were with us.
The done thing would be to socialise with this new person,
right? They’re going to know few people in town; it’s only nice to be friendly.
Help him settle in, get a feel for the place, etc.
Little quiz.
Do you:
- Meet him at his hotel, take him for a couple of beers in lively Wan Chai to chat about his background, the job etc – it’d be a bit awkward after all to throw someone in to the deep end with people they don’t know.
- Take him along to a posh meal in a swish tapas place with the group of friends you were planning to meet already; but at least pay for his meal for Face reasons, this being China and all that.
- Bring him with said group of friends to an outrageously cheap bar called the Junk Pub in the less fashionable end of the going out district of HK. Swiftly christen the place ‘JUB’, which the group regularly chants in an irritating fashion. Scare the remaining customers away. And then sit on the juke box for an hour and a half. Then move on to the classic cover band pubs until 3am, when everyone is inappropriately and hopelessly sozzled, and so pour him and yourself into a taxi. In the full knowledge he has hiking commitments 7 hours from that time.
- All three of the above.
Yeah. I went for d).
He didn’t look that fazed, was good company, and he did keep
pace with us all so presumably had a nice time. But 3 instances flash to mind
to make me wince about the impression we made.
- When in Jub, as he goes off to the loo we ask one another loudly if we’re making a terrible impression, and if he likes us or not. He comes back from the loo. Which is about 3 yards away. Behind a plasterboard wall. And announces he heard the whole exchange…and we shouldn’t worry about the impression we’re making.
- Confusion the following morning when I receive a text saying that Isabel hopes I don’t have a black eye. And I dimly recall reeling around the dancefloor clutching my face, shortly after Isabel accidentally whacked me full on in the right eye with a glass bottle when a dance manoeuver went horribly wrong.
- Meandering down a mental rabbit hole around 2am, following a mad impulse thrown out by my addled brain. Andy – mentioned before on this blog I think, also out with us – is doing some dance moves involving mimed cricket shots. At one point, as another dancer mimes ‘bowling’ to Andy, he flashes an outrageous off drive. My brain says “if that was a real shot, he’d have caught a thick edge”. I am roughly where second slip would be, if this were a cricket pitch. So I throw myself to my left and, in my mind’s eye, take a stunning catch at full stretch. Except of course it’s not a cricket pitch.
And I’ve just voluntarily, inexplicably, spectacularly thrown myself to the ground.
In front of the new guy.
Welcome to Hong Kong…?
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