By Mike May
During a recent two-week trip to Asia, I had a chance to eyewitness life in a distant part of the world, which I had never had a chance to visit. It was a memorable fortnight, to say the least. During my week-long excursion to Shanghai, China followed by a week in South Korea, I worked for the scoring team of Wellington-based R2 Innovative Technologies, which is the official scoring provider of the LPGA Tour. Our first stop was the Buick LPGA Shanghai Championship at the Qizhong Garden Golf Club in Shanghai followed by a week of tournament golf at the BMW Ladies Championship at the Seowon Valley Country Club in Seowon Hill, Republic of Korea (i.e. South Korea).
During my time in both countries, I quickly appreciated the value of being able to speak either Chinese Mandarin and Korean. I speak neither language, but I was able to communicate. It helped that many of the Chinese and the Koreans do speak some English. I tried my best to learn a few words of either native language, with limited success.
A few of my ‘big-picture’ takeaways during my two weeks in Asia revolved around roads, housing, airports, food, and coffee.
Both the Chinese and the Koreans are big-time builders who know how to construct a superhighway or two or three. When our delegation made the commute from the airports in Shanghai and Seoul to our respective tournament hotels, we traveled along many interstate-like highways and through many ‘spaghetti junction-like’ interchanges. Each roadway was an impressive engineering feat.
In Shanghai and in greater Seoul, millions of residents are living in massive vertical high-rise apartment complexes. With so many millions of people living in those two countries, especially the greater Shanghai area, it’s understandable why it’s necessary to go vertical to find housing rather than expand the housing in a horizontal direction.
The airports in Shanghai and Seoul are modern, top-notch tributes to trans-Pacific and global transportation.
It became abundantly clear that American diets are far more conservative and limited than our Chinese and Korean counterparts. While navigating a section of Shanghai during my Friday night in China’s biggest city, I walked along a thoroughfare that was lined with restaurants and food vendors which were selling food, much of which I could not recognize.
Finally, when you compare life in China and Korea with life here in the U.S., people may speak different languages, wear different types of clothes, and eat different types of food, the one common trait that they all share is a good cup of coffee. Throughout Shanghai and the greater Seoul area, you’ll find many outlets where you can buy and enjoy a hot cup of coffee. My favorite sign was in Korea which stated that it sold Coffee and Pasta. That was an interesting combination. As you would expect, Starbucks has a presence in both countries.
As for the two LPGA golf tournaments, China’s Ruoning Yin won the Buick LPGA Championship and Australia’s Hannah Green won the BMW Ladies Championship. While coffee was in plentiful supply, both players chose to celebrate their victories with, I believe, French Champagne.
