Back to work

I have successfully survived my first full week back in full time employment and I am loving the structure, routine and purpose that has been injected back into my life.  Although I have spent almost all of my working life employed in agencies - starting in advertising, moving to media planning and buying, then to full service, ending up in healthcare PR - I have never worked for a global public relations agency before.  However, it has proven to be a very familiar environment and in many ways it is very similar to working in London for JWT and MindShare.

For example there are around 60 people working in our office - so it is considerably larger than the past three agencies I have worked within.  This means that there are more people in the team to support you and to delegate to, which is radically different to working in a small agency where you simply have to get stuck in and do everything yourself including a lot of time consuming but essential admin.  Being part of a global network you also have access to colleagues on the ground in other markets so you have direct contacts for insight and support.   And many of the clients I will be working with are multi nationals with established PR and marketing practices and sensible budgets which allows you to develop more innovative ideas.  In the week that I have been back at work, the agency has already scooped two PR awards and it is exciting to be back into this type of environment.  As with working in London agencies, the hours are a lot longer than I have been working recently and working remotely does not appear to be encouraged.  Also it appears to be a bit of a 'sink or swim' culture - you are expected to use your initiative, put in the hours and just get on with the job.  There is no nurturing and hand-holding - which suits my nature and I'm used to that way of working from my London days.

The noticeable differences are:

1. I am the odd one out!  In our open plan office I stand out as the only one with blonde hair and blue eyes.
2. Although our contracts say that our hours are 9.00am to 5.30pm the Hong Kong Chinese tend to arrive at around 9.30am and work late into the evening.  Being someone who works more effectively in the morning, I tend to get in early and the office is a ghost town until everyone starts trickling in at 9.30am.
3. The Hong Kong locals are passionate about food and everyone will take their full hour at lunchtime - often heading to a diner serving cantonese food - which is typically some form of meat with rice or noodles.  Over the past 19 years of my working life I have rarely taken my full lunch break.
4. The first language of everyone sitting in the same area as me is Cantonese and I hadn't fully appreciated how strange it would be to understand absolutely nothing that my colleagues are saying to each other.  Having worked in open plan offices for most of my career I have become adept at zoning out background noise and focusing but I do subconsciously pick up what is being said around me and often chip in with comments.  However I can't do that at all now!  

At the moment I am getting out of bed and feeling excited about going to work.  I have my structure back, I feel visible again, I am surrounded by people all day, I am being stretched mentally and I even have an element of stress back so I don't need to create stress any more!

Working Girl in my Little Posh Dress

The grass is always greener

Having had a very welcome three month break, yesterday was my introduction back into the working world.  I had not had a break from work of more than two weeks in the past ten years and the contrast between how I believed I would use my freedom versus the reality has been quite an insight into the strange way I work.  

How I believed I would spend my free time

1. Lying on the beach soaking up the rays while my skin turned a gorgeous honey gold colour without damaging my skin or ageing me at all
2. Going swimming for an hour everyday to lose the bingo wings and flatten the stomach
3. Finishing the book I am about one fifth of the way through writing with the endless time I would have on my hands
4. Blogging from Starbucks while nurturing the perfect Americano
5. Exploring every inch of Hong Kong, eating out every night and spending very little time in our small (but perfectly formed) apartment

How I actually spent my free time

1. Looking out of the window at the grey rainy weather while applying fake tan and trying to put a positive spin on the fact that I was not able to fry myself under the sun's damaging rays
2. Walking up the Peak or around Hong Kong Zoo which generally seemed more appealing than swimming and cost less
3. Researching job sites, LinkedIn and company websites, tweaking my CV and covering letter, applying for jobs and sending introduction emails to kick-start the job hunt
4. Meeting up with numerous recruitment, advertising, PR, digital and media agency contacts in the quest to find the perfect job
5. Preparing and attending interviews
6. Developing proposals for speculative project work
7. Winning project work and project managing and copywriting a website, attending meetings and leading conference calls
8. Finding that the hunt for a new job and working freelance left little/no time for focusing on finishing my book 
9. Blogging from home as Starbucks and Pacific Coffee Company only offer 20 minutes of free wifi - oh and I've given up coffee
10. Lying on the sofa thinking I should get up and explore more of Hong Kong but the pull of watching another episode of Made in Chelsea or The Apprentice was just too strong
11. Looking around the shops and accidentally returning home with bulging bags when I was meant to be being frugal
12. Detoxing and feeling like death as my body tried to rid itself of 41 years of toxins
13. Giving up smoking without any pre-planning and sticking to it - so far
14. Feeling envious of people going to work each day and having purpose, routine and structure in their lives

The most surprising realisations over these past three months are that:

1. I crave structure and routine in my life and my default is to develop a routine to my day
2. I feel directionless and invisible without a full-time job
3. I yearn for people's company and banter and feel lonely without it 
4. I need to be stretched mentally and be around people I can learn from
5. If I don't have stress in my life, I will create stress in my life

Now that I am back in the working world I am hoping that once more I will feel fulfilled and won't find that this is simply a case of the grass always being greener.  If I ever start moaning about my job - please will someone refer me back to this blog!

Back to work in my Little Posh Dress

Window shopping in China

Looking at the weather forecast last Saturday and seeing the outlook was for rain, rain and more rain, it seemed a good opportunity to convince David to accompany me on a day trip shopping in China.  I mean, what else can you do on a rainy day in Hong Kong?  So, getting up early, we set off for the MTR (Hong Kong's tube system) armed with our passports and China visas, and headed to Luohu Commercial City just across the border from Hong Kong in Shenzhen.

Luohu (or LoWu) is renowned for its wide-range of quality knock-off shoes, handbags, wallets, watches, clothes, DVDs - you name it, if it can be copied, you can find it.  With 1,700 shops spread over 5 floors it is a rabbit warren of small stalls displaying Prada sunglasses, Mulberry handbags, Louboutin heels, Beats by Dre headphones and Panerai watches.  It seems a little daunting on arrival and hard to know where to start but I had done a lot of research on Tripadvisor, blogs and through expats living here and had a good idea of where to head and how much we should be charged for each item.  If you aren't a confident negotiator you run the risk of being ripped off, but if you know that you should be paying around 1/3 of the shopkeepers opening price, it makes it easier to stick to your guns and acquire some great bargains.

As a guide we were advised that you should be paying around the following:

Baseball hat:  £3

Polo shirt:  £5

Converse shoes:  £8

Nike trainers:  £18

T shirts:  £3

AAA quality handbag:  £60

Good quality handbag:  £35

Jeans:  £14

Business shirts:  £6

Sunglasses:  £15

This was meant to be a bit of a fact finding mission but I loved the bargaining and came home laden with shoes, handbags and scarves and spent less than £100.  On our next trip we are going to get clothes copied, suits made and I will be stocking up on more handbags and shoes.... after all a girl can never have too many. 

My only word of warning to anyone unfamiliar with China - is that your shopping is accompanied by the toe-curling sound of someone loudly clearing the phlegm from their throat, followed by the splat as it lands on the floor centimetres from your feet (if you are lucky)!

Operation Make New Friends

Wednesday this week was a public holiday - 'Tuen Ng Festival' - or the Dragon Boat Festival.  At various locations around Hong Kong the thumping beat of the dragon boat drum resonates as teams compete against each other for victory.  We decided to head to Stanley to watch the races as we had heard that there was a fantastic party atmosphere there and we knew a couple of people competing.  Ignoring advice to arrive early as the beach gets completely packed, David and I spent the morning pottering around before arriving in Stanley in time for a leisurely Vietnamese lunch in Murray House.  Murray House is a stunning colonial building that was moved from Central to Stanley in 2001 after being dismantled in the 80s to make way for the Bank of China Tower.  After filling our tummies, it was time to face the masses and initiate ourselves into the Dragon Boat carnage.

It was with some relief that we arrived on a crowded - but definitely not jam-packed - beach.  We had been led to believe that we would be entering a drunken throng of young party people - not unlike Lan Kwai Fong on a Friday night.  In contrast, there were a scattering of spectators covering the full spectrum of age groups, surrounded by the countless competing teams, and not a drunkard in sight.  The teams were grouped together in their branded kit and ranged from the serious teams engaged in poker-faced warm-up routines, to the fun teams laughing merrily as they hoarsely yelled rugby-style motivational chants.  Watching the less serious teams bantering away with each other brought on a tsunami of homesickness.  Standing, just the two of us together on the beach, reminded us just how much we miss being part of a big group of friends who accept our faults and foibles and are happy to endure our British sarcasm and relentless piss-taking - and vice versa of course.

It was a real wake-up call that now that Operation Find a Job has been completed successfully, Operation Make New Friends needs to rev up a gear.  It is not that we haven't made friends in the time that we have been here, as we have, and we have been surprised at how welcoming, inclusive and supportive the established expats here have been.  However, it takes time to get to know people properly before you can open up and truly be yourself - faults and all!

With this in mind, I suggested to David that we attended an Internations social event at the W Hotel in Kowloon.  The location certainly held more appeal than the prospect of making small talk with a group of strangers.  It was obvious when I met David to set-off for the event that he was in an uncooperative mood and was going to do his best to sabotage any chance of making friends - unless they were hideously badly behaved like he intended to be.  Arriving on time - and clearly too early - we grabbed our free cocktail and stood at a table surveying the room.  We were surrounded by a disparate group of predominantly Asian women and Western men and it looked like the early stages of a school disco where everyone is eyeing up the talent but hasn't plucked up the courage to strike up conversation.  The fact that the event on the surface looked to be a singles meet-up, only fuelled David's reluctance to branch out and talk to anyone.

In short, we enjoyed a couple of over-priced glasses of average Pinot Grigio and I was approached by a lady who recognised me from the detox programme, who we spoke to for a while, along with her friends.  Once they left to go out to dinner, the room got more and more crowded with prowling singles, beginning to bravely make the first move to start up conversation.  Without a doubt we were among the tallest people in the room, yet despite our stature we started to get jostled out of the way as people pushed to get to the bar or to get to the girl they had had their eye on for the past hour.  It was at this point that David loudly announced 'They are all so small, I keep elbowing them in the head!', that I decided to give-up and head back to the sanctuary of the Mid-Levels before we upset anyone.

So the first mission of Operation Make New Friends had to be aborted, but I am not going to be defeated!  Operation Make New Friends is going to be put into action over the next two weeks as David is away travelling in Taiwan and China and I feel the operation may be more successful without my social hand grenade husband.

Death by Vegetable

I have always been extremely fortunate to have had a very strong constitution.  There is practically nothing that will upset my iron stomach and I can count on one hand the number of times I have thrown-up in the past 10 years.  Turning to a healthier way of life and adopting a detox regime consisting of mainly raw vegan food, I believed would only benefit my well-being and help me shed a few pounds rapidly.  There is no denying that it has done the latter - I am over half a stone lighter than I was 10 days ago - but it has become apparent that my body was reliant on toxins to keep it running efficiently.  Over the past 3 days with the toxins massively depleted, my body appears to have given up on me!

It all started with what was entitled 'The Liver Flush' which was scheduled for day 8 of the detox programme.  The purpose of a liver flush is to clear fatty deposits and toxins congesting the liver and bile ducts and restore the liver to proper functionality.  Bearing in mind that I like to keep my liver working hard with impromptu binge drinking sessions, I felt that I would benefit from this procedure and despite reading what I was required to do, I was determined to help my poor liver, regardless of the sacrifices I would need to make.  Oh what a mistake!

So, on Monday - the last time I could be out of reach of a toilet for more than 30 minutes - I followed the liver flush procedure to the letter.  Starting by drinking apple juice, eating no solid foods from lunchtime and drinking one and half litres of water in the afternoon.  At 7pm I drank a revolting mixture of Epsom salts, hot water and apple juice, followed by a further glass of hot water - to loosen the bile duct.  Then between 8pm to 9.30pm I had to force down a 300ml mixture of olive oil and lemon juice every 15 minutes until all the greasy liquid was finished.  As instructed, I took myself to bed the moment I had finished the olive oil solution and lay down feeling slightly nauseous.  Within thirty minutes I had gone from feeling slightly nauseous to knowing that I was going to have to vomit and sprinted to the bathroom just in time to projectile an endless stream of oily mess into the loo.

The instructions in my detox programme stated 'Some may find it hard to sleep well tonight and some may feel nauseous, and some may start some from of diarrhoea in the middle of the night'.  At no point did it suggest that I would projectile up the entire revolting mixture.  Fortunately I felt better after my chunder - although I don't think I will ever be able to ingest olive oil again - and I managed to fall asleep.

Waking the next morning, I decided to carry on with the procedure, just in case my body had held on to any of the olive oil and lemon juice, and I took a further dose of Epsom salts, hot water and apple juice.    Then I waited for the magic to happen.  Unfortunately the magic did happen and it hasn't stopped happening since - three days later and I can't eat anything at all without it passing straight through me, and I can't leave the house for more than 30 minutes!

Again - I feel royally misled by the instructions for the next morning which stated 'you may feel more irritable than usual.'  What an understatement - how about three days later you will be feeling psychotic, hungry and exhausted.  The instructions also promised me that 'after doing it most people experience increased energy and it shows in how they look' - I feel knackered and my skin looks dehydrated and grey as I can't get any nutritional value from any food I ingest as it simply passes right through me!  This is probably not helped by the fact that detox food is high in fibre and is designed to get your digestive system working more efficiently.  As a result I have had to halt proceedings on the detox as it was clearly making the issue worse and I have swapped smoothies and raw food for potatoes, eggs (OK - so I'm not a vegan any more... desperate times and all that...) and bananas.

This vegan eats eggs

It is clear that my body has survived the past 41 years on my toxin-fuelled diet and that is what has kept it running so effectively.  Now that I no longer have caffeine, booze, nicotine, wheat, dairy (apart from eggs!) and sugar - my body can't cope.  So, it is with a touch of relief - that I will be reintroducing meat, wheat, dairy and ALCOHOL to my diet gradually over the coming week to get my body back to performing at its peak again.  So - for all of you who had your doubts about my new vegan lifestyle - you will be reassured to see that my body has rejected it... not me!

The planets have aligned

Embarking on a 12 day detox appeared to be the stimulant to positive changes here in Hong Kong.  On day one of detox I received a phone call offering me a job with a large international PR agency which I was really hoping I would get.  Suddenly a huge weight was lifted from both David and my shoulders both in terms of alleviating looming money issues, but also allowing us to put down our roots here and start making plans.  So while David has been investigating joining Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, I've been busy buying organic groceries from the upmarket supermarkets, getting my highlights done, buying good quality hair and skin products and checking out gym memberships!

As I was patting myself on the back for being offered a job I received another phone call.  This time it was the spa at The Mandarin Oriental telling me that a friend had bought me a full body massage and would I like to come in and collect my gift voucher and make my appointment.   I was so hysterical with excitement that I had almost arrived at the spa reception before they had hung up the call to me.   The luxurious decor of the spa is inspired by 1930's Shanghai, the service is outstanding, and the attention to detail is exceptional.  Having booked my appointment, I left with a beautiful silk box housing my gift voucher presented in a glossy gold bag.

My Mandarin Spa Gift Voucher

Thursday was David and my 4th Wedding Anniversary, and despite having an agreement that we were not going to exchange presents to conserve our funds, David successfully made me look like the fairly average wife - which I probably am - by presenting me with a Shanghai Tang bag.  I was first introduced to Shanghai Tang when I worked here in 1995 and shared an office with David Tang - the Hong Kong entrepreneur behind Shanghai Tang.  I fell in love with the brand then, and I love it just as much now.  Shanghai Tang sells a combination of clothes inspired by traditional Han Chinese clothing but with a modern twist, as well as household gifts, and everything is recognisably Shanghai Tang by the vibrant colours.  The bright green bag I was given contained some gorgeous Jade Dragon perfume.  Apparently jade represents virtue, calm and serenity (just like me) and the dragon is the imperial symbol of power, protection, luck and fortune (just like David???).  I bet David didn't know that when he bought it.

My Shanghai Tang Gift

Our wedding anniversary was also a notable day as the weather finally changed from cloudy and hot, to sunny and hot - transforming Hong Kong into the place I thought I was moving to!  This metamorphosis has been a great excuse to explore the numerous beaches on Hong Kong island and I have felt my spirits lift every day with the sun beating down on my skin - which is gradually turning from blueish white to a light tan.

Shek-O beach

Finally on realising that I had a job and therefore an imminent income, David and I decided to buy tickets to watch the British and Irish Lions vs Barbarians - something that we had both been keen to do but were reluctant to commit to while I was unemployed.  Watching rugby wearing a vest top, skirt, flip flops and a layer of sweat at 7.30pm was a new concept to me - along with watching rugby sober while on detox.  Rugby matches for me have always been about hats, scarves, gloves, warm socks, boots and copious lager or red wine (or both) to keep warm.  How the players coped with actually playing in the heat is beyond me - but I enjoyed watching them struggle.  Although I have to confess that the 'people watching' in the South Stand was almost more fun than the match itself.  There were several stag parties having 'stag-off' drinking races dressed in various outfits ranging from Baywatch trunks and mankinis to daffodils and Geishas.  Note to self though - rugby is best enjoyed through an alcohol induced haze!

British and Irish Lions vs Barbarians

So clearly the planets aligned last week and while my body has been detoxing, with not a whiff of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, wheat, sugar, meat, dairy or processed foods passing through my lips, life has turned a corner here and things are looking up.  Maybe the detox has cleansed more than just my body!