Anya Schiffrin

A recent New York Times story about high-end U.S. retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Tiffany marketing directly to wealthy Chinese visitors reminded me of some of the extreme Chinese shopping I’ve witnessed in Europe. Stopping in the Zurich airport branch of Sprungli on my way home from Davos, I saw a Chinese man (who spoke no English at all) spend $900 on Swiss chocolates. Offered a free taste by a saleslady as a courtesy for buying so much stuff, he waved it off. Apparently he was not actually a chocolate lover but just buying gifts for some lucky friends. On the tube in London I saw Chinese women en route to Heathrow with the most enormous Louis Vuitton shopping bags and clocked the resentful glances of their fellow passengers. It reminded me of how Americans abroad used to be rich and universally loathed.

While Chinese tourists in the 1 percent may be living large, for those in the 99 percent travel is often less luxurious. Evan Osnos’s clever piece in the New Yorker last year described his trip on a tour bus with a group of Chinese rushing through Europe and eating Chinese food. A Chinese friend once admitted to me that she regretted missing out on Italian food during an organized tour through Italy; in Peru a tour guide told me that the Chinese were famous for bringing their own food. Clearly there is an opportunity here for a canny tour operator, and based on my last weekend in Savannah I’d like to suggest that Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans be added to the list of must-sees for the nouveau Chinese tourism market.

After my trip to India with my parents last November went off mostly without a hitch, I was ready to travel with other people’s parents. So when my young friend Dandan announced that her mom – who teaches at the Shanghai Maritime Engineering College – would be making a maiden voyage to the U.S. in time for Dandan’s graduation from Columbia, I invited them both on a girly weekend I had planned with Nguyen To Hong Kong (another Columbia student I spend a lot of time with) as a last treat before the two young women graduate and leave the U.S.

The ladies took an energetic approach to Savannah sightseeing, and we went through the guidebook at a rapid pace. No stone was left unturned, including the carriage tour of the stately, tree-lined squares, the tours of the old houses and the torpid alligators in tanks at the Crab Shack (too lazy to even open their mouths to eat the “treats” offered by tourists).

Adding to the amusement was the homespun commentary provided by Dandan’s mother and translated by Dandan as her mother does not speak English. (Dandan’s mom is named Hong, but is no relation to Hong Kong.) Hong’s name means red, and her sister was named “blue.” “My parents have no imagination,” Hong said, explaining that her enterprising sister changed her name to “intelligence.”

Here are some of Hong’s views on the Savannah highlights she enjoyed:

Breakfast grits at Goose Feathers Express Café & Bakery: “My congee is better.”

A long wait for lemonade at the landmark Gryphone Tea Room, which is housed in a gorgeous old pharmacy lined with wood shelving and now owned by the Savannah College of Arts and Design and staffed by its laid-back students: “Just like the Cultural Revolution. The service was so slow then.”

Fort Pulaski, which was filled with locals dressed in Confederate uniforms and ladies in hoop skirts and where you can see the cannons being fired on Saturdays at 3 p.m.: “Like the Great Wall of China. but flatter.”

The pan-fried whiting at Sisters of the New South: “Pass the hot sauce, please.”

The tour of the 18th century Green-Meldrim mansion designed by New York Architect John S. Norris for Mr. Charles Green, who arrived in Savannah in 1833: “He started with only $2, and he became rich. I like this independent American spirit.”

When we arrived at Wormsloe Plantation, which is famous for its driveway lined with oak trees dripping with hanging Spanish moss, and took a three-mile walk in the woods, Hong’s reaction was: “How much did the tickets cost? In China only senior officials would be able to walk in such a big, empty place with fresh air.” She was surprised that admission was free and intrigued by our system of using taxes to help fund our national parks.

Arriving at the beach on Tybee Island, Hong gasped: “So clean and quiet. Chinese beaches have so much litter.”

Coming from a big and bustling city, Hong loved the parks and the fresh air. She was impressed by the unhurried pace and the friendliness of the Savannahians, who kept asking us where the women were from and whether they were enjoying their hushpuppies. Coming back to crowded and dirty LaGuardia Airport on Sunday was a bit of a letdown, and we all agreed that, apart from the abundance of fried food, Savannah was a wonderful place for a weekend getaway.

“Such good manners. In Shanghai everyone is always rushing,” was Hong’s final verdict about her trip to the American South.

PHOTO: Entrance to Wormsloe Plantation, Savannah, Georgia/Nguyen To Hong Kong

Despite being a cynical New Yorker, I was charmed by Bhutan on a visit there a couple of years ago. The beauty of the unspoiled scenery, the rhododendrons in bloom, the mountains and the monasteries — all were uplifting. The quiet intelligence and the thoughtfulness of the people we met were inspiring. Bhutan is  a country of  traditions and pride in local culture. Visiting the villages we saw astounding feats of archery, which is the national sport, and we took long walks with a local guide who also happens to be a serious cyclist and has helped spread mountain biking throughout the country. One scene stayed with me: Walking to a monastery one day we passed a man sitting on a mountainside doing embroidery as he looked out over a dramatic view of cliffs and mountains covered with trees. With him was a friend who peered over the embroiderer’s shoulder as he stitched. We went for a long walk, and when we came back a few hours later, the two were still there embroidering and watching.

Peace and quiet and the time for leisure must surely be part of what makes people happy, and the Bhutanese have become famous for popularizing the concept of gross national happiness (GNH), which is a favorite cause of the current prime minister. The Sarkozy commission (which my husband co-chaired) also worked on the subject and in 2009 issued a report that provided a framework for how to think about going beyond gross domestic product and how to measure success in a broader way.

The Bhutanese are out in full force this week for a conference on happiness. There was an all-day meeting organized by Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia University on Sunday, and on Monday diplomats from all over the world met at the United Nations to discuss what constitutes happiness and how it can best be measured and promoted. The star of the morning was Costa Rica’s president, who spoke about the country’s conservation laws and the need to protect the environment. It was also agreed that altruism, compassion, social life, feelings of belonging, political stability and good health are essential to happiness. The Bhutanese spoke of the importance of community and their program of introducing meditation into schools to promote contemplation, concentration and quiet reflection.

There are, however, people like me for whom complaining is essential to happiness. The right to kvetch doesn’t seem to be part of the happiness indices, and that could explain why the French, who live in a civilized society filled with good food, a strong social safety net and rights for workers – but who also find great joy in complaining – report only average levels of happiness.

The right to be unhappy and to tell people about it is, of course, related to political freedom. Also important is the feeling of equality and fairness. According to the Sarkozy commission’s findings: “If inequality increases enough relative to the increase in average per capita GDP, most people can be worse off even though average income is increasing.” Studies have shown, too, that there is a connection between inequality and health, so people on the bottom of the income pyramid are often less healthy and probably less happy, as good health is one of the top causes of happiness. Even in wealthy societies, the rich are happier and in better health than the poor.

But the proponents of happiness also stress that income accumulation is not conducive to happiness, and striving to become rich can cause unhappiness. This is where I began to get confused: How can poor countries be happy if they know there are richer ones? And is it fair for the rich countries to tell poor ones that happiness does not lie in becoming rich? Couldn’t that be interpreted as kicking away the ladder, in the same way that countries like the U.S., which consume far more than their share of resources, now lecture fast-growing countries like China about their carbon emissions? For the world to buy into the happiness agenda there must be some understanding that happiness should not come at the expense of basic needs. Happiness is a good thing, but essential to it are fairness, healthcare, social mobility, education and jobs.

PHOTO: A girl holds a parrot in Gundonovia at the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) some 132 miles east of La Paz, Bolivia, March 17, 2012. The indigenous peoples who live in Isiboro Sécure have been protesting plans to build a highway that would bisect the park. REUTERS/Carlos Vargas

As a wife, I am always interested in other wives. So I couldn’t resist reading an email that came in this week from Columbia University professor Myrna Weissman calling on Nobel laureates and “intellectual leaders” to write to President Obama and urge him to appoint our Columbia colleague Jeffrey Sachs to the position of president of the World Bank.

In her letter she argues that:

Professor Sachs has been a trusted advisor to dozens of heads of state for two decades, and is the foremost expert on tackling poverty and promoting sustainable development in a globalized world. His vision for the World Bank is one the world desperately needs — making the World Bank the nexus of a global network of government, the private sector, academia, science, and civil society, working together to deploy innovative technologies and solutions for development. He has an astonishing track record of helping to scale up the fight for public health, disease control, food production, and access to basic lifesaving services such as clean water, always using a science-based approach, and consistently getting powerful results when the ideas are actually carried out (such as the scale-up of malaria control in the past decade).

Signing off as the “Widow of Marshall Nirenberg, Nobel Laureate 1968,” Professor Weissman adds: “I know that Marshall would have been a supporter as well and he often would sign letters for issues he felt strongly about.”

The informed reader seeing this letter would immediately think of the important questions of economic development, how to end world poverty and the sustainability of Professor Sachs’s Millennium Villages project. I, of course, thought about wives and what role they have to play in the pressing debates that preoccupy their husbands. My mind drifted to famous spouses: Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Callista Gingrich, Denis Thatcher and Elaine Wolfensohn, wife of former World Bank President James Wolfensohn. All have had to find a way to balance their interests with those of their powerful spouse and to carve a niche for themselves.

It’s not easy. Some have been treated with derision and scorn. Others, like Denis Thatcher, have been praised for keeping a low profile and quietly supporting their partners. Some wives cultivate an interest in causes that are “acceptable” for women, such as education, obesity or, in the case of Sarah Brown, wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, maternal mortality.

Wives who don’t take on a worthy cause are criticized as superficial or shopaholics. Wives who do weigh in on their husband’s work are often portrayed as meddlesome or manipulative. Wives who take on a cause are sometimes resented or criticized for being dilettantes pretending to have expertise. I pondered this dilemma for a few days and finally decided that the willingness of Jeff Sachs to tell the world he wants the job of World Bank president is brave, but that Professor Weissman’s decision to step up publicly to support Sachs and invoke the name of her husband while doing so was braver still.

PHOTO: Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University speaks about potential geopolitical implications of the financial crisis at a panel discussion hosted by the Economist magazine at Pace University in New York, October 16, 2009. REUTERS/Nicholas Roberts

After the heady days of the Arab Spring last year, it is now Burma’s excitement that’s in the news. Aung San Suu Kyi is hard at work on the campaign trail, political prisoners are being released, and there is talk of the European Union lifting sanctions and the World Bank returning to this Southeast Asian country, which has been isolated from the West for decades.

Visiting Burma for the first time in 1994, I found it the most frightened place I had ever been. I wandered alone for a week in this gorgeous country, the only tourist admiring the historic Buddhist paintings on the walls of the famous temples of Bagan. I visited the market in Rangoon, where women whose faces were decorated with white circles of crushed bark sat smoking fat cigars. In whispered conversations, people  told me how afraid they were of the military government and then moved away quickly because they did not want to be seen with a foreigner. Everyone who went to Burma in those days was haunted by it: the lush landscape with its thatched huts, the gentleness of the people, the loneliness of their existence and the quiet desperation. The problems seemed intractable: the poverty, the corruption and the total lack of freedom.

I returned in 2009 and sat in on a conference organized by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific aimed at discussing development policy. Government officials showed up wearing their military uniforms, and the conference delegates were advised not to mention poverty lest they offend the regime. The delegates spoke in euphemisms but gently urged the government to spend more on health and education. There was a blackout of official media, but even so we were told the meeting was a breakthrough because it was one of the first times that development policies were discussed in a (somewhat) open forum.

How different then to return last week and find the whole country buzzing with excitement. It was like Egypt in the first half of 2011 — before everyone got depressed. Everywhere we went, strangers spoke of the return to democracy. Journalists told us that the press censorship has become more relaxed, academics spoke of plans to rebuild Rangoon University. Foreign donors are looking for health and education projects to fund, Buddhist monks — who have played a key role in the fight for freedom — told me that democracy is coming, and government officials said they will keep raising spending on health and education and asked for economic and policy advice. They even said they will move toward a managed float of the currency and to unifying the black market and official rates of the kyat. A Vietnamese diplomat who I have known for years said that Burma is much further along than Vietnam was in the beginning of  its transition. “Myanmar is opening up to democracy first and then will reform its economy. We opened up our economy first,” he said.

The excitement was everywhere. On the same flight I took from Singapore was, coincidentally, Ronald Findlay, a Burmese economist who had left 43 years ago and was coming back for the first time. He was greeted at the airport by a group of smiling people and quickly ushered into the VIP lounge. We waited there together for the arrival of Hla Myint, a prominent development economist now in his nineties who was also returning for the first time in decades. Hla Myint was treated with great courtesy and later escorted in a wheelchair for an hourlong meeting with President Thein Sein (who took office in 2011 and is credited with the reforms). Our first night in Burma we were invited for a dinner at Yangon University, honoring Ron Findlay and Hla Myint. Their former students and colleagues turned out in full force, eating a vast assortment of deep-fried snacks in a little garden whose trees were draped with colored lights. The retired academics in their flip-flops and long sarongs were close to tears of happiness as they saw their old professors again. “You have no idea what this means,” a wrinkled old lady told me as she gazed at the scene. After dinner, a guitar was brought out, and the group sang Bob Dylan and Joan Baez songs and even a chorus of a song called “Pagoda Blues,” written by a Burmese economist.

Contrasting with the humble scene at the run-down university was the new construction and lavish spending of the elites who have gotten rich from their government connections. Coming in from Singapore I struck up a conversation with a young woman who had been educated in the U.S. but returned to work for the family trading business. As she got off the plane, she reached up to the overhead compartment and brought down a Dior shopping bag the size of a small refrigerator. “My mother just went shopping in Singapore, and she bought so much she couldn’t carry it all,” this young woman told me. She went on to explain that the choice of Dior handbags is better in New York and Paris than in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Burma is grappling with the kinds of questions that bedevil societies in transition: how to create jobs for a generation that missed out on education, how to deal with an entrenched class of cronies who have hidden their money in banks in Singapore and Dubai. There is not much hope that these elites will surrender their wealth and agree to pay taxes, but there is hope that they will at least fund some educational initiatives and perhaps a museum or two.

It is impossible to know how things will turn out — whether the transition will be real or whether the new freedom will be followed by more repression. “I am a grumpy old man, and I will believe it when I see it,” one friend told us. But he was the exception: The Burmese are embracing the new opening and pushing through as many changes as they can.

To my great surprise this year, the Davos registration forms arrived with a space for Davos Wives to fill in our institutional affiliation. Having written last year about the humiliations of the blank badge, I’ve decided to take full credit for this major step forward for womankind: the recognition that we have lives outside our existence as the Wives of Davos men. My editor Chrystia Freeland is now waiting for a change in policy that would allow Davos mistresses to also list their affiliations.

When I wrote my column last year, I didn’t expect the outpouring of responses from Davos Wives, but I was delighted to find myself buttonholed by many in my cohort who longed to share their experiences of being snubbed at Davos.

While walking down the Promenade of Davos Platz on a sunny winter morning looking for a place to have a decent cup of hot chocolate (tip: better wait till you are in Zurich), I was approached by a Davos wife I’d never seen before. She thanked me for saying in my Reuters columns what she and other white-badged wives had been thinking for years.

She got the absurdity of our situation and knows that the way to cope is to laugh. “I love the snubs,” she said, and then explained how she handles the working lunches. “My strategy is to sit at the end of the table because then only one man is ignoring me while playing with his smartphone.

“The worst was the time I put my bag down, went to get a drink, and then realized I was sitting next to Abdullah Abdullah, who had just lost an election. He didn‘t come to Davos to talk to me, so I got up and moved to another table to sit with some wives.”

She put me in mind of a few other snubs that my own obliviousness had led me into in the days before. As soon as we arrived at the Caixin magazine breakfast, the organizers grabbed my husband and steered him away from me. It was 2:45 a.m. New York time, and I was not at my best. Not knowing where to go, I followed and then sat down next to him, my laptop balanced precariously next to a plate of old ham and a pot of tepid tea. I didn’t realize that I had cheekily invited myself to sit at the speakers table until a China expert from New York City who was at the panel called one of my friends at home a few hours later to report on my pushiness; said friend kindly relayed his comments back to me on a Skype call.

The next evening, entering the Indian cocktail reception on my husband’s arm, I saw a photographer maneuvering to get just the right angle. Helpfully I turned so as to avoid having my hawk-like profile immortalized — only to find that all his maneuverings were aimed at getting me out of the way so he could shoot my husband with a group of more important people.

In these situations, I laugh my head off, but the Promenade wife said stronger measures may be needed.

“It’s that deep-down ambivalence. Every year I sort of hope he won’t get invited. I think we need a therapy group or a spiritual group. I look with envy at the Muslim prayer room. We need a spiritual group,” she concluded before continuing down the Promenade.

It’s a well-known fact that men behave badly at Davos. The alcohol, the chance to rub elbows with and even talk to other VIPs, the excess amounts of testosterone, and in some cases the joy of a limo ride from Zurich Airport all give rise to a competitive atmosphere in the hothouse known as the World Economic Forum.

Less widely discussed is the fact that the edgy atmosphere sometimes crosses over into overt unpleasantness and sexual aggression. Single women at Davos report that at times they are prey to unwelcome advances that range from annoyingly uncomfortable to downright threatening. It’s not that surprising, given the fact that Davos is a truly male-centered event.

In quiet corners of the Convention Center, I’ve heard a few ugly stories whispered to me by the women involved, and the men in question don’t come out at all well. There is the former U.S. government official who spent a couple of days trailing around after a decidedly-not-interested single friend of mine — to the merriment of onlookers, who could not avoid seeing the unwholesome spectacle. There was the evening at the gala dinner, when I saw a glamorous blonde being hotly pursued by a drunk Swiss man who spent hours with his arm draped over her shoulders trying to entice her into joining him at a nearby piano bar where they could be alone together.

A journalist friend described being followed late one night by a man claiming to be a Morgan Stanley banker. She was trying to get back to her hotel room after a dinner and, of course, the shuttle was nowhere to be seen. “You know how hard it is to get a taxi if you are not someone important,” she told me, as she described the scariness of walking down the Promenade while being pursued by the man who was hoping for a night of passion.

Perhaps the newfound respect for women at Davos (we wives even get to list our affiliation on our name tags this year) will give rise to a more female-friendly environment. I’m not holding my breath, however.

PHOTO: Visitors attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, January 25, 2012. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

I am starting to think that the average lily-livered man may not be able to face the vicissitudes of life at Davos and that we women are much better suited for the event’s rampant paranoia, ego smashing and petty humiliations.

Because we are Davos Wives, we know how to cope. A more important husband means more blatant snubs for the spouse and that means more hilarity. I loved the  gorgeous prime minister’s wife  who , after reading one of my columns last year, approached me, laughing. “Thank you so much,” she said. “This stuff happens to me all the time. Often the security people won’t even let me get into the car with my husband.”

Meanwhile an aggressive and hard-hitting London QC came to Davos one year and folded after only a few days. He refused to return the following year despite the entreaties of his friends who were attending. “It’s awful. I don’t even want to like it,“ he said. “And besides it’s probably passé and Klaus Schwab is just sooooo……”  Yes ? And what exactly  is your complaint? We Davos regulars all know these things, but they are beside the point.

The point is that Klaus Schwab convenes more important people in one place than anyone since the Congress of Vienna. And it actually does get better. Everyone hates it the first time. If you really can’t stand it, then take the afternoon off and go skiing. (Of course, that introduces a host of other Davos issues, but one might argue that the humiliation of falling on the slopes is far more bearable than the ego bruising that goes on indoors.) There’s also the logistical confusion, made worse by the recent redesign of the conference center, which moved a number of key venues to different parts of the hall.

Among the many mysteries of Davos is the fact that my husband — who can normally never find his shoes without help — is transformed into an intrepid explorer at Davos, taking me by the elbow to find all the necessary back routes, highways and byways so as to ensure that we get to the Google reception on time. In fact why does someone who is always in bed by 11 p.m. even want to go to the Google reception?

First timers always say they are baffled and bewildered by the logistics and never know where they should be. Even agreeing to meet at the coffee bar raises the question of which one. I can usually be found in the airless basement nibbling on a stale croissant but have been told that behind closed doors there exists a well-appointed partners lounge where legendary seafood platters are served. Naturally, I’ve never been inside.

So Davos people, it’s time! Pack the moisturizer (the single most important cosmetic, Davos wife Laurence Pasicoff Heyblom assures me) and get yourselves to Zurich Airport. Now that we’ve been downgraded from an Audi limo, I’ll see you on the shuttle bus.

PHOTO: A member of Swiss special police forces stands on the roof of a hotel during strong snowfall in Davos, January 24, 2012. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

What is the pre-Davos season like in your household?

Planning for Davos starts quite early in the year. Months before it actually begins there is the inevitable jockeying for spots on desirable panels with important people, a frantic glance every day at the e-mail to see if any interesting dinner invitations have come in, and a hunt for a hotel room in a location not too far from the conference venue. Wives like me don’t have to do any work at Davos so I just think about packing. Moisturizer is crucial, since the mountain air is so dry, and I will try to rustle up a couple of respectable outfits that I can wear by day and at the evening dinners as well. Then there is footwear. You can carbon date Davos Wives by their shoes. Newcomers tend to wear attractively dainty heels. Veterans like me have given up. I don sturdy shoes and try not to slip on the ice.

What are likely to be the main themes at Davos this year?

Davos tends to be more interesting during periods of social upheaval. Confronted with facts that threaten his worldview, Davos Man loses some of his smugness and becomes a bit more confused. Founder Klaus Schwab is always interested in the zeitgeist, so there will doubtless be many panels about the global protests, the euro crisis, the Arab Spring, and Occupy Wall Street. How Davos Man will respond I don’t know. My favorite comment during a panel on global warming a few years ago came from a businessman who reminded his audience that one upside to global warming is the ease of drilling for oil under glaciers. This year there will be more security, plenty of gloomy observations about the state of the world economy, questions about whether China can maintain its expansion, and so on. We’ll also see a lot more conservative heads of state at Davos this year, since so few social democratic governments survived the elections and turmoil of 2011.

How do Davos Wives occupy themselves while Davos Man works?

We go to any panels we can actually get into. Usually that means the ones about art and science, which Davos Man tends to skip. Last year’s panel on the pollution of the world’s seas was packed with wives. When we can’t get into a panel we may repair to a local café for hot chocolate or sign up for the perennial horse-drawn carriage ride to a fondue restaurant up in the hills. If all else fails, we can always prowl the halls of the conference center, hoping for a sighting of Bono or Tony Blair.

Are there any Davos Husbands lurking about?

Every now and then one spots a Davos Husband, gay or straight, but he’s a rare species. They are often mistaken for Davos Man and tend to be good sports about their role as trailing spice. They don’t join Davos Wives in their traditional activities. I suspect they are on the ski slopes or watching panels. I hope to meet one this year.

What do people talk about at the dinner parties?

The men discuss economics and the women discuss how they feel about being Davos Wives. Some swear they won’t come back but they usually do. We trade stories of snubs and panels we couldn’t get into. Davos is a competitive place; there is always much comparing of notes so people can learn which events they didn’t get invited to. Gossip is a valuable currency—as it is everywhere—so any juicy examples of drunken midnight misdeeds are passed around pretty quickly. A lot of untoward groping goes on after hours and that is discussed quietly rather than openly.

How’s the nightlife?

Davos encourages bad behavior. It comes from the hot-house atmosphere of high-powered egos, the high altitudes combined with too much drink. All sorts of people who would never stay up late can be found—cocktail in hand—at the Google party, the Time Warner reception, and the gala dinner on Saturday night. It’s usually too loud to have a conversation but they try. Last year one businessman held forth about his travails in Russia and kept the crowd entertained with a lengthy description of how he lost his company to the tax authorities. That passes for a gripping evening at Davos. There are always a lot of men who become “geographically single” when they arrive, and even the nerdiest expert in anti-malarial bed nets or obscure financial instruments fancies himself a player the moment he steps foot in the Zurich airport. Late at night, these men can be found eyeing the local talent, and there are rumors of at least one baby being born nine months after a night of passion at Davos.

We roared with laughter yesterday at David Henry Hwang’s latest play Chinglish which is in previews at the Longacre Theatre after a successful run in Chicago. Anyone who has been to meetings in China, done any business there or met a government official will recognize the hilarity of the miscommunication that results from two countries divided not just by culture but by language. The folly of poor translation has not been rendered so incisively since the famous scene in “Lost in Translation” in which the extensive instructions given by the Japanese director of a whiskey commercial that Bill Murray is acting in is reduced to just a few words.

Chinglish is about the adventures of a befuddled businessman from Cleveland who tries to get a contract to produce signs for Guiyang City’s new arts center. He is taken to meet a Minister who can hand out the contract but the Minister is being pressured by his wife, who insists that the contract be given to her sister’s husband. Not wanting to offend, the Minister dissembles, the vice minister steps in and the play effortlessly moves to its final conclusion. Along the way there are promises of long meals which are interrupted by the inevitable trill of the cellphone, massive misunderstandings about everything and translations that just make it all the more confusing.

The interpreters veer from repeating things that aren’t mean to be said. Translating the friendly remarks about the Midwest made by officials of Guizhou province, which is in the center of China, one interpreter announces, “We despise the coastal cities of Shanghai and Beijing.” Key points in the contract negotiations are muddled up by an interpreter who turns out to be the Minister’s smart alecky nephew and the help given by an English teacher turned  business consultant only makes things more confusing.

It all turns out right in the end (sort of). But along the way we laughed at the confusion and sympathized with the pressure the minister faces as well as the desperation of the Cleveland businessman who is the archetypical innocent American abroad. The sign company becomes a metaphor for the perils of international (mis)communication and adds to the humor as the clever stage sets include real-life examples of confusing Chinglish. Hwang’s light touch with the script and sense of the absurd keeps the whole audience amused.

Chinglish is a very different play from “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs,” which we saw on Friday performed by Mike Daisey at the Public Theater. This is an earnest recounting of Daisey’s experiences visiting the Chinese factories that produce iPhones and iPads for Apple. Daisey is shocked by what he finds: child labor, overcrowded dorm rooms for the workers, obscenely long shifts and toxic chemicals. The material is familiar — it reminds me of my time in Vietnam in the late nineties covering the poor working conditions and low pay at the Keyhinge Toy Factory in Danang which produced toys given away with McDonald’s Happy Meals. But it’s good to be reminded again that Chinese workers are paying a very high price to gratify our insatiable love of the consumer gadgets that keep us connected in this globalized world.

Photo: A man wearing a red star cap, stands outside of a McDonald’s restaurant on Wangfujing shopping street in Beijing October 21, 2011. REUTERS/Soo Hoo Zheyang

By Anya Schiffrin
The opinions expressed are her own.

Things have come to a pretty pass when the right to assembly is respected more in Egypt and Spain than it is in the US of A. I am of course referring to last week’s  pepper spraying of a group of women who were enclosed in a police pen and the Saturday arrest of 700 people who strayed into traffic as police ushered them on to the Brooklyn Bridge. The police responded by saying they had warned the protestors away from traffic lanes.

The fact that it took the New York Times more than a week before they started treating the protestors seriously was also shameful.

Having read the press reports my husband and I decided it was time to see the protests for ourselves so we went down to Wall Street yesterday and found about 1,000 slightly-drenched but enthusiastic people carrying signs, making music and being careful not to step on the flowers in the middle of the square. The protestors were clustered in groups listening to several speakers. One of the speakers was from the 15-M protest movement in Spain and another was Jeff Madrick, the lefty economist who has written extensively on the financial crisis.

Unlike  the Madrid protests, electrical amplification is forbidden at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, so the protestors formed a human microphone which had hilariously unintended results, making the 6pm teach-in on economics resemble children in a one-room schoolhouse dutifully repeating their lessons.

As Jeff Madrick was introduced, a group of about 100 people in the audience repeated the introduction and his speech so the conversation went something like this: “Jeff Madrick is an editor at Challenge Magazine” and the crowd chorused “Editor at Challenge Magazine.” “He was fired from NBC for his radical views” was repeated by this human amplification system. “The ban on bullhorns even on a quiet Sunday afternoon when Wall Street offices were empty was commented on by my husband, Joseph Stiglitz“:

The fact that that you are not allowed to use a bullhorn on Sunday is outrageous. There are too many regulations stopping  Democracy and not enough regulations stopping bankers from misbehaving. You should have the right to walk down the street and express your views without being sprayed with pepper spray.

In many cities around the world, we’ve heard people say the protestors are young and have no proper plan for how to get us out of the world economic crisis. The coverage on September 25^th by Gina Bellafante was an example of the dismissive way the protestors are regarded.

But the crowd yesterday was not particularly young and many there had reasonable concerns — about healthcare, economics, and social justice. They asked some flakey questions (abolishing the Federal Reserve and the use of the dollar) but for the most part they were thoughtful and engaged.

Given the high levels of unemployment in Europe and the US,  the threats to government spending and planned cut backs on budgets for government health care and education while bankers and corporate executives continue to receive large bonuses and report record profits, it’s not surprising that regular people are outraged. It’s taken a while for angry citizens to take to the streets. But whether they are ignored by the mainstream media or not, the protests will surely grow and spread.