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!
Love,
Leah Cecil
Miss California 2012
This pageant held worldwide! Nice one. virtual assistant
ReplyDelete