Shanghai

Cheryl Rogers is one of the account directors here at Wieden + Kennedy London. Except at the moment she’s not here, she’s in Shanghai. We’ve only recently set up W+K Shanghai and, with the win of the Nike account in China, things there have been manic. We got a call to ask if anyone could go over to help and Cheryl volunteered to spend a couple of months over there on secondment. So, at the start of the year, she packed her bags and headed off to seek out new life, new civilization, etc. She’s promised to send us regular updates and I thought I’d post them on here so we can compare life at W+K London with how things are at W+K Shanghai. Here’s the first message from Cheryl:

I am freezing my ass off and am existing solely on coffee and takeaways (chinese – such a cliche) and don’t think anything could quite have prepared me for the madness that is W+K Shanghai, but it’s all good.
I have to admit I haven’t seen much of the city apart from my apartment, Starbucks and the office, but it’s early days and I’m just settling in.
Everyone here is really nice and yes I am being looked after, although they were a little bit too happy to see me! This was quickly explained via a six hour status meeting two hours after I landed. (Translating stuff makes things seem twice as long – but at least I’m learning to speak slower and think about what I’m saying before I say it – which is a novelty!). Apart from that the work is great and the scope of the projects we’re working on is pretty amazing.
I headed across to Nike today and they have a great view of the city (if you can see it through the smog), even if it came with two nail-biting taxi rides to and from. I was reminded by a local that cars didn’t exist here 6-7 years ago and that completely explains the no road-rules policy – it’s each man for themselves and no colour of traffic lights is going to stop them! it was nice to get some perspective, though. I wander through washing lines to get to work, so it was interesting to see the ‘other side’.
I’ve taken a few snaps and will send them through when I get a chance, internet here is intermittent at best and never again will I take it for granted.
I’ll keep in touch,
Cheryl x