Saturday, April 25, 2009

plants and shame



somewhat unsurprisingly, my post about my plant received much more interest and many more notes of concern than when i almost killed myself. but i am happy to report that my plant has rebounded, sprouting some new leaves and even some flowers (blurry in the photo) that are very fragrant already. i still have no name for the plant, but am open to suggestions.

in other news, i can check something else off my list in china: i was told that i was "hurting the feelings of the chinese people." it actually took me a while to figure out that was what my coworker was saying to me. the short of it is that this developer in beijing is offering a discount on units in its new development if the buyer manages to woo and marry one of the sales girls. so of course i had to write that up as a headline for our monthly news publication, and when i passed it to my coworker for translation he informed me that i was bringing shame on 1.3 billion people. though my protestations that it was already in the news fell on deaf ears, he dutifully translated it. hopefully it will make it through the censors in our shanghai office.

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