EPT
the sun is setting now, but I arrived here from Zurich at 11am and I'm here for the weekend for a business meeting.
VIENNA
Other than Paris, there is no city that I ever particularly wanted to visit, but Vienna is where one of my favorite movies was shot, 'Before Sunrise'. Sappy movie I know, but it came out when I was university student and with the next 2 movies, it's pretty much been on the same timeline of my own life, so it's special to me like that. So tomorrow I plan to be stupid and try to visit some of the places that were in the movie and be a tourist and take some photos. ^^
I have to say though, in the first 1hr of being in Vienna, I've had one of the best coffees and ice cream I've EVER had in my entire life. Really! And things are extremely reasonably priced here, overall a really great city thus far- my hotel is just right across the UN buildings, so I'm about 10 mins out of the city center by train, but so far so good!
I ended up coming to Europe last week Sunday, but the airline I was on lost my luggage for 4 fucking days, so I ended up buying a set of ill fitting business clothes (cause I was wearing a track suit) and had a meeting in Malmo Sweden, where I froze my ass off, but the meetings worked out well.
MALMO
We ended up flight from Zurich to ....Copenhagen! Wtf right? But there is a 20min bridge from there to Malmo Sweden and so I got to go to 2 countries in one day. keke. I'll be going back to Sweden at the end of next month, Malmo and Stockholm which I was told there are so many hot chicks in Stockholm so I'm looking forward to it.
The only interesting thing that happened was in Malmo; actually I was there to do a presentation for about 30 business people, but when I did the presentation, the reaction I got was a bit muted. Thing is, coming from Korea and being in business where I rarely work with women, I think that my presentation wasn't really appropriate for the Swedish business people. While there was only 3 women in the presentation, they gave me slightly weird looks, and the guys looked scared of the girls a bit, so when I'd make my jabs at humour, they wouldn't really laugh.
KOREAN OFFENDER OF SWEDEN
Anyways, being the Korean that I am, I continued and end the presentation to some polite applause. And so what I did I say that was so offensive?
Well, I put in 5 pictures of some of the models we were using in our marketing, of course the models weren't really dressed all the way, and, I make jokes like I travel so much I can't see my wife, but that is ok cause I have less stress that way and she wants to divorce me anyway. etc. Just self depreciating jokes mostly at my expense. Or how much we spent to get x number of celebrities at an event, but of course it was all just female celebrities.
So after the presentation we go for a break and the guys are coming up to me and saying how much they really like the presentation, but then they would look around to see who is looking at them saying it. And I'm thinking to myself that it's weird cause their bosses who were there had a great time and they are like 60 plus, so I'm still wondering what is wrong.
By the time the other speakers finish and we're outside for a smoke, the other speaker who is Swedish says, 'hey, you're presentation was great, but this is Sweden, you can't say or present that way here.' And I'm like, 'what way?' and he's like, 'you can't make jokes about your wife or have sexy girl pictures in your presentation and then make light sexual jokes about it,'. And I'm like, 'Oh shit, of course, I'm in Sweden where there is this equality thing going on. Oh man.'
Keeping in mind it has been over 12 years since I did a public presentation outside of Asia; so before I could apologize more, the other speaker says,' but you killed the presentation, everyone was really impressed. ' And I'm like, ' um, so I didn't just offend everyone?' and he like, 'of course you offended the women, but I think they were more annoyed than anything plus they know you're not from Sweden, but the guys, no they loved it, but they couldn't show it, they are scared of the reaction from the women.'
SWEDISH AND STRIP CLUBS
So what I learned was that a Swedish guy would never, over his dead body, ever admit to a Swedish girl that he has ever gone or would go to a strip club even. But the first thing that every Swedish guy does when he leaves Sweden is go to a strip club lol. So by they time we go for drinks, I of course get confronted by one of the ladies in the presentation and she asks me and tells me, that she isn't a feminist, but that my marketing should include more material that would attract women, and to that I reply that the product is mainly used by men, so it's all a matter of priority when I have x number of dollars, why would I try to use those dollars inefficiently, but that I agreed that should I have a large enough market share I would look towards making things more equal for sure. Then one of the guys asks, 'is it possible to visit you in Asia, where do you recommend?' And I said, Macau for sure.
They of course are now interested as hell, so they ask me, 'what is so great in Macau' and I tell them, 'listen boys, if you come to Macau and if I take you out, the one day, when you're an old man and your grandson asks you what was the best time you ever had in your life, you're gonna say, 'kid, you're lucky you're even born cause the best time I ever had was in Macau and I almost didn't come back to Sweden!' To that all the boys cheers and laughed, and the girls gave me a dirty look and we all got wasted together on that cold night in Malmo, Sweden. ^^
But I'll say this, since Swedish women are so freaking hot, I'd suffer in equality too for that kind of Swedish love! I understand you Swedes! It's a hard life! keke.
I hope I have an interesting story about Vienna by Monday ^^
Prost!
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Sachertorte_DSC03027_retouched.jpg/800px-Sachertorte_DSC03027_retouched.jpg)
