October 10, 2024
I2/1: 中关村 → 首都机场
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While I have received very minimal payments for some of the things I've done with national media, the stuff that counts as "work" is almost entirely at the provincial level.
So, even having been warned by a colleague that the Very Important Collection of TV Stations who I'm kind of deliberately not naming in this entry have a tendency to be (in her words) "stingy twats," I'm still not at all prepared for what happens today.
I'm expecting something casual so I take the "arrive before noon" message the way anyone from Hainan would and get there around 10:15.
I figured I'd be waiting.
I didn't figure it would be until 11:45.
Had I know that, or had any idea how much of my afternoon they were planning on eating up, I'd have brought snacks.
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Even before we go into the large meeting room, I can see that, in addition to being the only foreigner, I'm also the worst dressed. Once in the meeting room, I'll peek at the forms filled out by the guy sitting to my left and the lady on my right, and being as we're all supposed to be company owners and I recognize the names of both companies¹, I'm thinking, by inviting me, someone did a really bad job at researching what sort of people they want on this show.
Of course, I'd already gotten that impression during the bit where I'd been talking face to face with the fellow who I'd been having phone calls with.
"What benefits do you think you'll get from being on national TV"
None.
"How will being on national TV help your company?"
It won't.
The meeting is supposed to be an in depth intro to the program and the selection process of who, having made it to this round, is going to go on to a next round and what will happen in filming.
It reminds me of nothing more than that one time Mike and I ended up at a timeshare presentation.
And, because I'm the only foreigner, I've been put in the front row. Which means that, even if it won't be until after the meeting is over that I have to stifle my inclination to laugh at their offer, I can't be fussing with my phone.
Most media programs that I do stuff with pay me. Some of them pay me quite well. None of them, including the other "now scheduled for likely filming date" program with the same Very Important Collection of TV Stations, have ever asked me for money.
At most, and only when I was do something nakedly promotional, they asked me for free event tickets.
So, um, yeah, even if they are willing to mark it down lots on account of my being a small business owner whose business doesn't get customers via advertising, I would still be saying "no" if half or more of the zeroes in the CNY 300,000 price tag were gone.
It's past 5pm by the time I start biking towards O & A's. Ignoring for a moment that I've skipped lunch and will be needing to take a meal break, there's no way I'm getting all the way over to their side of the city before it's too late to sociably drop by².
I pick a cheapish place in the airport hotel district 8 or 10 kilometers away from them. Okay, maybe "cheap" is a better description than "cheapish."
I'm in bike trip mode, my standards are effectively non-existent, and if I get rejected I not only have recent Notices on my side, I've also got Consumer Protection Law guaranteeing me a much nicer place at someone else's expense.
Other than the initial problem in finding the hotel and the massive amount of beer fumes the manager kept breathing in my face, everything was incredibly civilized.
No one was interested in listening to me try to explain that "no, really, you really can take me" but there also wasn't any yelling, and Beer Breath's very obsequious behavior towards the person who seemed like the kind of person that was going to complain about this included proactively offering to both pay for my upgraded room at a "more suitable hotel" and telling me to cancel the original room for a refund.
The app he decided to use to get me a room elsewhere is one of the many that is waiting until they get in trouble for ignoring the Ministry of Commerce Notice that calls out "online travel platforms" as one of the specific places that are not allowed to not allow foreigners to book hotels and my English name would not go through.
So, with me standing there, he called the new hotel. Told them I was American. Told them I was on a bike. Asked if there would be a problem. Confirmed that there wouldn't be. And booked me in under my Chinese name.
However, as my life can be summed up in five words: "and then it got weirder," when I got to the upgraded hotel, the first words out the Front Desk lady's mouth were "we can't take foreigners. You need to go somewhere else."
"No. I don't. Not only are there no restrictions, it's literally been less than 20 minutes since I listened to the guy at the other hotel call you on the phone and ask" at which point she goes "oh, was that you?" because foreigners on bicycles at 10pm is totally a perfectly normal occurrence, asks for my passport, clicks on the foreigner component of the hotel guest registration system that she obviously already knew how to use, and registered me.
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¹ Not that I see either of them as needing translation but I kind of wish I'd had the opportunity to try to get their contact info.
² Having already used them as a mail drop and bag storage point where I couchsurfed once on my way out of Beijing, I don't personally feel like the bottle of wine I bought them is anywhere near enough return niceness to be showing up late at night and sufficiently without existing lodging that they might feel obligated to offer
Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 1,154 km (717 miles)
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