A few years ago I visited Hangzhou, a small and rather beautiful city in mainland China. I had recently made a new contact who lived there and I was keen to meet up with him and talk business. We had spoken several times on the phone but never met. Before I embarked on the trip, I gave him a call and asked if he was free for lunch.
“Are you paying?” he asked.
“Of course,” I told him. “I can expense it.”
He quickly accepted my invitation and turned his attention to the question of where we should go. I was not familiar with the city, so I let him pick the venue. He excitedly picked an up-market restaurant with a view of West Lake, a beautiful location, but one that leads to a large jump in prices.
I got there a little earlier and studied the menu. But when he arrived I saw why he was so careful to check I was footing the bill. He had brought his wife along with him — and she had brought an appetite.
He was an outgoing chap and we talked about the market and the banking system in China. His wife, who was not working for a bank and totally had no idea what we were talking about, got bored rather quickly. But at least she wasn’t hungry.