HothAdventuresInChina

Valentine's Day in China!

So let me start this journal entry with I love my family and friends! 6500 miles away from home and this was one of the most memorable Valentine's Day ever! My amazing husband coordinated with one of my HP Boise friends living in Shanghai; Ben and his wife Elaine, to make sure I received flowers. I have no idea how long Odis had been planning this so let me back up a little.

Last Sunday night Ben and Elaine came over for homemade chicken enchiladas, and ohh, they were soooo goood!!! Ben asked me if I was going to be in the office this week, which didn't seem at all odd to ask since my physical office time in Shanghai can be intermittent lately working with the US and India over the phone. Then again on Thursday Ben asked me what time I was going to be in the office on Friday? If I remember correctly I answered, "Yes, I'll be in, probably around noon."

Then Friday came around and I got really busy trying to plan the move back to the US. I had to run a couple of errands, then coordinate an apartment cleaning (that's another separate story) and at some point try to grab a bit to eat. So basically, I completely forgot about going into to work to meet Ben. As Zhang and I were driving back from an errand to eat lunch he received a phone call and it became quickly obvious, even in Chinese, that I was the topic of conversation since I heard "Becky" continually. Once he hung up the mobile phone, he said to me in really broken English, "Ben's driver, Elaine gave flowers to Ben's driver at HP..." OK, so I'm puzzled... I thought someone had died because Chinese don't really give flowers to each other except at funerals. But I couldn't figure out how my name was involved. The I realized Valentine's Day was close and I started to put the puzzle together. I asked Zhang, "Are the flowers were for me?" He said, "Yes, Darrell." The lesson here is, drivers in Shanghai are like secretaries in the US, they know everything so be careful if you want to keep a secret;-) Although personally, this make the surprise even better.

I finally made it to work at about 1:30 and I sent Ben a text message and 10 minutes later I was personally delivered flowers and a card all the way from Idaho! Wow, they are just beautiful.

19 red roses and 6 pink gladiolus