International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day.

This means women all over China are currently home playing mahjong, shopping or hopefully doing various other activities they enjoy. Work wise, women usually get either a half day or a whole day off (for us, it’s half day). At SOE jobs, they are usually given different gifts and prizes for just being them. Women. At home, they are pampered by the men in their lives. No cooking, cleaning, changing diapers. How great! Think the world’s version of the US’s Mother’s Day, but with more benefits.

From a work standpoint, 世界妇女节 means that I have nothing to do after lunch. Of the 2000+ employees and 300+ staff in my company, more than 90% of them are women. Before they got their half day break, I asked the women who work under me what I was going to do without them.

“我需要你们. 没有女人这么办?” I asked. (What are we going to do without women? We need you).

Everyone laughed. No response.

It’s true though in many different areas.

• In modern society, men really need women to function. Whether you look at the stats that say men live longer when they are married or issues of sexual fulfillment or procreation or even knowing where I left my keys last night, women are very important.
• In a practical matter, how am I supposed to do my job without women? With 90% of the workforce in our factory gone for the afternoon, what do the other 10% hope to accomplish? I can’t even fill out an expense sheet without my secretary!
• Talk about Chinese work efficiency!
• Why am I even at work pretending to work!? If I can’t do anything without them, why am I sitting at work right now writing this blog?

I suggest that for the next International Women’s Day, both men and women should take the day off while celebrating women. That way, instead of pretending to work in the office where women are even more vital then men… we, as men, could make it our sole duty to pamper them for the entire day. That would be a thought.

Wait, on second thought, this almost seems too good to be true. This is like a guy’s night out (golf outing, what have you) in the afternoon. I bet there are at least a million men in Shenzhen alone, sitting around the work place playing cards right now.

三八妇女节快乐 Mom!