China - Day 46 - A (tourism) star is born

July 31
When my boss's boss asked me to give a speech about American college, I said sure, figuring that it would be more like a conversation with some Chinese college students, like the conversation I had with ZheDa students a month ago. Well, I was kinda wrong. I realized it wasn't exactly what I expected when I saw the note posted on the company billboard advertising it to the entire company. After a few powerpoint missteps (it's funny to see that those presentation issues are universal), I got started with the speech, but things got tripped up pretty quickly when I realized that most of the audience didn't speak English and I had to pause for my boss to translate the speech. There were about 25 assorted people from the company there and I'm not sure how much of the speech translated, but they did laugh occasionally, so I think it went fine. When we got to the Q and A session, I was expecting questions about American colleges, but I ended up getting many more personal questions. Apparently everyone has to ask for themselves if I have a girlfriend. Following the speech, we went to a hotel restaurant in Xiasha that I'm sure was the classiest restaurant in Xiasha (which isn't saying much). The food was fine, although it was buffet, so it was rather tepid. Overall, a strange but somewhat fulfilling day.