Cigars are good for you

It has been a long drive out from town, and our destination seems unlikely to have been vaut le voyage. Despite stopping for lunch on the way in a gigantic hot-pot restaurant down the street, we are early. The driver pulls up in a dusty parking lot next to the provincial city bank where we are meant to be presenting a detailed proposal on risk management to the bank’s new President. The bank is an existing client of our Beijing-based consulting partner firm. The personnel entrance is in a grimy wall with the rusty steel door propped open. Wind-blocking plastic strips hang in the doorway as if it was the kitchen entrance to a low-grade Chinese take-away.

We push our way past the plastic flaps, and a guard looks perplexed. We have arrived in the bank’s lunch break; the whole bank including the boss. Someone helpfully offers to store us while we wait, and we follow them up several dark and gritty stairways to be installed on an old stuffed sofa in what seems to be the messy smokers’ corner of one of the floors. The only thing modern here is the computers, reasonably new Lenovo’s sit on every dilapidated and mismatched piece of furniture in the room. People wander up to us every so often and smile awkwardly while they refill their tea mugs with hot water from giant pink plastic thermos bottles on our coffee table.

Vicky is working her mobile and eventually we are fetched by someone, taken down the hall and ushered into an executive office with equally unappealing furniture. The three of us squeeze onto another silly sofa and the President makes his appearance. Mr Hua (let's call him) comes in, thin and alert looking, accompanied by another officer who is introduced as the head of IT. They are the first two people we have seen in suits. They pull up two chairs from a missing dining room table, and we get down to talking.

After introductions from Vicky and Melonie, Mr Hua launches into a long speech, punctuated with much grinning and gesticulating. He is leaning forward on his chair; legs spread wide, hands flapping, eyes looking keen and intense. He chain-smokes, lighting each new fag from the end of the last. The man has the most improbable hair. It is too tall somehow, as if a black furry animal has curled-up on his head. Not understanding a thing, I am fascinated by all this. Vicky however is listening intently, mumbling interjections from time to time and rattling notes on her mini-laptop. Melonie keeps remarkably quiet. I think he looks pretty pleased, the body language seems good. But when Mr Hua pauses for a drag, and motions for Melonie to translate a summary for me, I discover that Vicky has been roasted on a spit. What I took for good body language was simply animation: he has looked at the results of our partner’s consulting work to date and decided it was pretty bad – sloppy, ill-suited to their needs and unprofessional in general. While Mel is explaining this to me I notice that Vicky is indeed squirming. He jumps up and goes round his desk, coming back with a pile of bound reports, thumping them down on the low table in front of us. These are the project documents delivered thus far to his predecessor. He flicks through them, cigarette wagging in his mouth, pointing out various chapters and bits that have especially offended him, and Vicky takes even more notes. Eventually the flow of smilingly-delivered complaints subsides, and he indicates slyly that despite his opinion, the regulators have told him that in fact our friends are meant to be really quite good. So, on their say-so, he has decided to give our partner a chance to fix things and get off to a better start with him.

He turns his attention to me at this stage, asking to my astonishment whether the tulips are out yet in Holland. He turns out to be an ING fan, having worked in the bank where ING holds a stake, and has been to visit. We talk about some mutual acquaintances, and as the atmosphere eases, he reaches for yet another cigarette. I seize this opening and proffer my cigar-case to him, hoping that if he lets me smoke one too it will keep me awake – it is post-lunch jetlag time. He is delighted by this, and his IT man also grabs one. They are hefty Dominicans, and I take them through the clipping ritual. Soon they are busily puffing and the room, already lightless and dingy, goes blue with smog. Vicky wrinkles her nose but is obviously relieved at the distraction. At least that she is no longer an object of abuse.

The cigars have marked a dramatic shift in the meeting. They have restored the President’s mood, and he begins talking about other issues. New avenues open. Nearly an hour later we have collectively decided that there is much to be done, for all present, and everyone is elated. We emerge from the clouded meeting room dazed, not only by smoke but by the potential for interesting business here in this unlikeliest of settings. The President waves jovially as we stumble back down the stairs, to the plastic strips, fresh air, and sunlight beyond.


(March 2009)