Super Long Post: Part I

The past week has been an absolute whirlwind. I can barely keep pace. I haven’t posted for a variety of reasons…some of it has been exhaustion. Some of it has been work-related. Some of it has been spazzy internet in my room. And a lot of it has just been the occurrence of a few very upsetting issues that I don’t really feel like talking about…so I’m just gonna write to pass the time.

So…I’ll do what I can. We start with the boring. I’ll break this into pieces, because I’m sure no one wants to read all of this at once, if you read it at all.

My Life at Work.

I was ushered into a big M&A deal this week. Chinese company. UK financiers. Weeklong negotiations to be wrangled over in our conference room. Titans. Locking horns. Fierce battles over millions of dollars...

…let’s just say not quite.

I did spend approximately 30 hours locked in a tiny room with a company executive, a private equity manager, 2 Chinese counsel, my boss, an associate I worked with, and a few other various characters who came in and out. That much is factually true. Except for a few moments where our client was turning red and on the verge of jumping over the table and strangling the little Chinese man who was suddenly asking for an additional hundred million dollars after a year of negotiations…the entire fiasco was actually quite boring, and more frequently infuriating. The infuriating part was that the Chinese PRC lawyer who was on our team was an absolute waste of oxygen.

Don’t get me wrong. The guy was a real sweetheart. A lovely older gentleman with a sunny disposition. Unfortunately, he had the type of voice that lacked any crispness or clarity. Sort of a human foghorn-like irritating bleat. And he refused to enunciate. And his accent was atrocious (apparently even after 20 years in the US.) And he seemed to have a real talent for saying irrelevant things, or repeating exactly what he had said two sentences ago. Over and over again. I am certain, and I mean certain that we spent an extra 6 hours locked into that conference room because that guy consistently, persistently, and unceasingly tried to interject himself into conversations, make stupid jokes, in the midst of the most fruitful moments of negotiations, and endlessly mistranslate from Mandarin to English, and back again. As a result, instead of asking a question and receiving a response, a question would be asked in Chinese, the attorney (we’ll call him Jackass) would misunderstand the question, mistranslate the question (even though he wasn’t the translator…), receive a confused clarification from his (rightfully) bewildered client, and then he would promptly mistranslate the response, releasing free radicals of confusion and misunderstandings and mistaken issues for the next hour. Of course, when the question would finally be reclarified after 30 minutes of careful explanation…Jackass would promptly say exactly the confusing thing he said the first time. And another hour would lapse.

…And my anger would slowly grow. I refuse to work with Chinese lawyers until this older crop of dinosaurs disappears…

…And that was my week. A long week of endless meetings. And because I was surrounded by big dogs. I was one tired pup who sat around all week having no idea what was going on…I will say that I learned a lot, that the experience was valuable, and that I was very impressed by the other attorneys on our team. But Jackass’s presence alone was enough to make me boil.

…and so we move to the slightly less boring.

My Life (because of) Work.

Being a summer associate in a branch office is a very different experience than being one in the main office. Besides the fact that the entire branch is contained in a tiny office space half the size of a single floor of the home office, the “summer events” are also much more informal and much more personal, and in some cases, much more extravagant. There were two events this week. The first, was a day-long trip to Macau. The second, was the Hong Kong Handover Anniversary celebration. We begin with Macau.

This is the 5th year (in front), the 1st year (in back) and his girlfriend (right)

Macau is an island off the coast of China. I always knew there was such a thing as Macau, which was vaguely Chinese, but I never knew what it was. As I understand it, Macau was a Portuguese colony since a very very long time ago, and returned to China in 1999, much like the way Hong Kong did in ’97. As a result, though, Macau has a very pervasive Portuguese influence. The architecture of the old city is very European, the central attraction is a large cathedral facade, and the Portuguese language is pervasive. And the island is beautiful. The contingent consisted of Me, another summer (guy), the other summer (girl) and her boyfriend, a 5^th year associate and his fiancee and mother in law, and a first year associate and his girlfriend. We hopped on the Turbojet ferry from the Hong Kong docks, and an hour later arrived on the shores of Macau. We immediately jetted across the island to a fantastic restaurant that served Macanese food, which is an interesting hybrid between Portuguese and Chinese cooking. Deep aromatic sauces, pervasive use of garlic, wine, butter, spices, fresh meats and fishes, crispy hot bread, bottles of white wine, and fantastically Chinese ingredients with more European influences. So I ended up gorging myself. (Part 1.)

We then set off for a long walk through Macau’s older city, which as pictured below, is actually a European-looking area with tons of tourists and tons of people. It was interesting, and an absolutely beautiful day…but nothing really interesting enough to report. (Except the fact that I made my fellow summer do this to a cannon…merely by declaring “Frat boy Photo time!”, to which he immediately complied.) We spent some time roaming around the old city, eating random deserts (chilled milk jello, Portuguese Egg Custard tarts which are ohmigodsomuchbetterthanIcouldhaveeverexpected, and, of course, egg rolls), and really just passed our time in the city.

This is the chilled milk desert and eggrolls.

Afterwards, we immediately went for another meal at a famous ol’ place called Fernandos. In the cab ride over, in typical form, I had a heart to heart with the cab driver. Apparently, the guy had swam across the ocean to Macau in 1979 to escape the poverty and Communism. It took 3 hours, in the middle of the night, to avoid being shot by the Chinese shore guards. Unreal. Besides the sheer danger of swimming for 3 hours through the ocean, once you leave the harbor it’s just open water on all sides. I don’t see how it would be possible to swim in a straight line across the ocean and actually not stray off by a couple of degrees and end up swimming to your death into the open water. I’m so impressed.

Anyhow, we had a phenomenal, incredible Macanese meal at Fernandos, which is some sort of super famous (again, rightfully so) restaurant, which had the feel of like a barbecue restaurant with checkered red tableclothes and huge pitchers of sangria (gorging myself Part 2)…and then the event was over. As we left the restaurant we all split up, and the 5^th year, his fiancee, and the mother in law called it a night, and hopped on the ferry back to Hong Kong. The rest of us stayed.

What I didn’t mention about Macau, is that it is in the process of becoming Asia’s Las Vegas. Yes. There are casinos. Tons of casinos. Enormous casinos like the Venetian, the Sands, the Wynn, and other staples of any huge casino strip have started to consume the skyline, and the glamour and luxury of Vegas exists within the four walls of these casinos. So, since it was Saturday night, we figured we should give the place a whirl. We gave our best shot to slots, blackjack, roulette, and eventually several types of Scotch in celebration of the guy summer’s birthday, which he quietly announced after midnight. And so we had to make the night more special. If only with MacAllan’s 18. (and me betting nearly 80 dollars on the 2 to 1 column in Roulette as a birthday gift to the kid. Which we promptly lost. And I promptly regretted. Magnanimity’s a bitch.)

(There isn’t a whole lot to describe about the night. We won. We lost. We lost some more. We lost a little bit more. We won. And then we lost. And then we caught the 3 am ferry back to Hong Kong.) And thus, was Macau.

And so we move onto the 10-year Handover Celebration.

I admit I did not take this picture. Mine didn't turn out so well.

So the basic History of Hong Kong is this (which I assume you already know.) Hong Kong was a British colony. Blah blah blah, there was a flurry of wars over opium trade, trade with China, and other economic issues, and Hong Kong was essentially the British gateway to China. And in 1898, Britain and China signed an agreement that Hong Kong would be handed back to the Chinese in 1997. (I find it crazy that countries make agreements with such long timeframes…and that they are actually upheld.) And so, in 1997, amidst enormous fear, trepidation, and concern for what the future held, Hong Kong was returned to China. On July 1, 1997.

Fast-forward to July 1, 2007. Hu Jintao flies down to Hong Kong. 18 million HK dollars (>2 million USD) are spent on the firework show. Boats absolutely fill the harbor to watch the firework show to celebrate the 10-year anniversary. The event, not technically a summer event, was our participation in the festivities of the night. The firm had rented one of the most famous “junks” in Hong Kong: An enormous wooden sailboat, fully equipped with silken sails of deep maroon lashed to enormous bamboo frames. This boat was by far the largest junk in the harbor. The night was to consist of hor d’oeuvres, dinner, and unlimited quantities of wine, beer, liquor, babies, children, families, music, fireworks, and celebration. Oh, and Cuban cigars. (I had 2. 1 Partagas and 1 Romeo y Julieta)

The weather was beautiful. The night was clear. The fireworks were spectacular, ending with a jarring barrage of mortars. The beer was plentiful. The talks were pleasant. The boat was amazing. And the night was, altogether, quite nice. The boat rocked gently in the water as the older children (6-8 years old?) let off huge party poppers, and the babies (and there were like 10 babies) were rocked to sleep…as the adults had their own version of playtime. I remember eating excessively, drinking excessively, smoking cigars excessively, and having long talks with a partner and counsel. ) I had to remind myself what everyone always said about partners and summers…which is that they will never be this nice to you again. The moment you step into the office as a junior associate, the wall goes up, and you can’t be friends for 8 years. Which actually, I think I prefer.)

But all in all, was an amazing night to sail around Hong Kong Island and have some of the best seats in the house for the 10 year celebration…even if we were, on other days, not entirely Hong Kongers ourselves.