Tuesday, April 16, 2013

HARLEM SHAKE

Hi everyone!

We just had Orientation last weekend and I was able to get the contestants to join me in my shenanigans! You'll see what I mean with this video.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Miss California 2012 in China!

(from the American Pistachio Blog)

您好我家安全在中国的奇妙之旅这是这么多的乐趣促进海外开心果!  That translates in English to, “Hello!  I am home safe from the fantastic trip in China!  It was so much fun to promote Pistachios overseas!”  It is a huge honor to be an APG Ambassador and I am so grateful for the memories made this year.  APG has already sent me to France and China, but in a couple weeks, I am going to New York for a tradeshow and then Barcelona next month to visit and thank our customers in Europe.  These trips have opened my eyes to how many people are eating American Pistachios around the world!  This was my first time to China and therefore, my first 13-hour flight!  My flight was long but I was all equipped with the plane’s on-demand entertainment, so I was taken care of.

Watch my China video here: 
(Sorry about some of the audio issues.  My iMovie was not working properly while uploading my video…)

Our trip to China lasted for 10 days and it went by way too fast!  I got to travel along with Judy Hirigoyen and five other pistachio growers.  I had a blast promoting with Judy, Danielle Kusmak, Jim Zion, Jeff Gibbons, and Rudy Hernandez!  We were an awesome team!  During our trip we visited Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.  As we traveled around, we saw bus stops, billboards, and posters with the American Pistachio logo everywhere!  SMH International in Shanghai did an amazing job at advertising our product and made our events a success!  Thank you, SMH! 

Now that you have hopefully seen my video blog above, you have seen how we were constantly promoting American Pistachios no matter where we were.  I want this written portion to enforce what you watched.  As I write, you will see some timestamps where you can go back to the exact part of the video that I am talking about.  Enjoy!

In Shanghai, we stayed in the beautiful Shangri-la Hotel, which is right on the coast by the Oriental Pearl Tower.  During our time in Shanghai, we visited malls and shopping centers where we did promotional events.  Sample bags of pistachios were passed out and our APG team was called up on stage to interact with the audience and talk about the nutritional benefits of pistachios!  Lots of excitement!  We also did interviews with food magazines and Restaurateur Magazine.  We all were able to talk about the industry and nutritional facts about pistachios.  The convenient thing about China is that its citizens are very conscious about their personal health and being that we were in China promoting a healthy snack made it more worthwhile.  Our last event in Shanghai was a nutrition seminar where we were able to educate them all about how healthy American Pistachios are.

We got to Guangzhou a couple hours later and there, we did more promotions!  Our workload never disappeared!  Guangzhou was very different than Shanghai.  First of all, the climate was very humid and warm.  There was a lot more greenery and it didn’t feel so much like the city.  It felt like Hawaii! I love that climate, so I loved being in Guangzhou.  We stayed in the luxurious Sheraton Hotel and it was so nice.  We visited a couple malls to do more events and more presentations about American Pistachios.  The second day we were there just happened to be my 23rd birthday!  I was so excited to turn 23 in China, but I had no idea that Judy, the growers, and SMH had things planned to help me celebrate!  My day couldn’t have started any better because Judy and the team gave me a beautiful Swarovski bracelet!  Wow, what a thoughtful surprise!  Our first task of the day was to attend another nutrition seminar, which was a lot of fun.  Later in the day, my job was to do an interview with China’s Lifestyle Channel.  During my interview, the growers visited the wet market where they got to experience an everyday farmer’s market in China.  They sure got to see a lot of interesting foods and had an amazing adventure!  While watching my video blog, you can find my experience with the Lifestyle Channel @4:42-6:25.  They had me taste some scrumptious Pistachio treats like cheesecake, crème brulee, cupcakes, and others!  Little did I know that they had a plate of pistachio cupcakes waiting for me as a birthday surprise!  They treated me like royalty.  Later that night, we had a dinner reception (@7:00 in the vlog) with our Chinese customers.  It was so nice to see the people that package our pistachios in China!  Judy and the growers were able to show a video about how we process American Pistachios and then we were able to do a Q&A session with the audience.  Just when I thought the night was over, I heard the audience singing the birthday song!  They brought to me a beautiful cheesecake with a lit up candle.  What a lovely surprise!  I had the best birthday ever!! Thank you, China!

Here’s a small video from Guangzhou:

Our final stop was Chengdu (watch it all @9:50 in the vlog) and we were there for less than 24 hours.  When we first got there, we had a little time to do some sight-seeing!  We got to visit the old part of Chengdu, which is over 200 years old.  We ate lunch at an old teahouse and it was delicious.  While we were waiting for our food we noticed that instead of getting bread and butter like we do here, we got a bowl of pistachios!  Even better, we noticed that they were American pistachios!  It was so cool to see how they incorporated our tradition of pistachios into their ancient tradition of drinking tea!  The thing about the food in Chengdu is that they put an extremely spicy pepper called “Hua Jiao” and funny enough, it sounds like “watch-out!”  This pepper is definitely something to watch out for!  The Hua Jiao pepper is native to Chengdu and it is in every dish!  I typical dish in Chengdu is a bowl of tofu that has been soaked in this numbing pepper oil.  After the first bite with your chopsticks, your mouth is on fire, but after a while you can’t feel it because your mouth literally goes numb!  After the Hua Jaio Tofu, came Hua Jiao Noodles!  The fire in my mouth lasted during the whole meal!  I got addicted to the adrenaline rush and the aftermath was a burned esophagus, but it was SO worth it! 

After our exploring in Old Chengdu, we participated in a huge mall appearance where we passed out bags of American Pistachios and took a LOT of photos with the customers there!  Later, we got to visit the Ole Gourmet grocery store and they had a beautiful display of our American Pistachios ready to be bought.  Sadly, our last event in China was about to start.  It was our last press conference and I couldn’t believe how fast time flew by!  We finished the press conference with lots of questions with the press and then lots of pictures with the American Pistachio mascots.

My time in China ended way too quickly.  Looking back at the amazing things we got to do makes me so happy.  Again, it has been a huge honor to represent the American Pistachio Growers.  If you are a grower and are reading this, I thank you for all the hard work you put forth in producing a delicious food!  Not only do Americans love our pistachios, but I have been able to see how people all over the world love our pistachios too!  Among some of the Chinese phrases I learned, I learned how to say Pistachio!  Here it is phonetically: Kāixīn guǒ, which is pronounced “Cay-Shin-Guo”.  I had to practice this a lot so I could show the Chinese citizens that I know a little more than “Hello!”  They definitely got a kick out of my Chinese speaking skills! J  I thank you APG for bringing me to China to help you promote American Pistachios.  It was a privilege to be on your team there.  Stay tuned for more adventures as I travel to New York and Barcelona.  Talk to you soon!

For my China Photos click here: 


For more China videos, scroll my Tout page here:


Love,
Leah Cecil
Miss California 2012