Scotland's prodigal son, Frank Hossack, takes us across the Yangtze River Bridge into the wild world of big time media and two hour power lunches

Yangtze River Bridge

7:47am Emerging from my apartment complex, I filter into traffic surging onto the majestic, 40-year-old Yangtze River Bridge. The commute to Nanjing's CBD takes twice as long Mondays as suburbanites, their shopping spouses, wai di ren and peasants in general head back to the city for another week of serfdom. For me, it's a one-hour drive from our home in Pukou, situated on the north bank of the Yangtze and thus denied the benefits of internal heating and which, despite the great plans of the powers that be, still feels like living in the Witness Protection Program. At least it's quiet.
7:53 Drawing once again to a standstill, the car begins its jelly routine-a wobbling perpetuated by the Da Qiao's old steel joints below buckling in rhythm to the hammering of 21st century rush hour traffic.
7:54 Marvel at Chinese engineering at its finest.
8:01 Witness three rear end collisions on the bridge and consider the ferry as an alternative.

Car Park

8:45 The attendant admonishes me on my parking, claiming it to be bu hao kan. I counter that not only is my car the dirtiest in Nanjing, it is currently parked in possibly the dirtiest car park in Nanjing, and how and where I park will not change this.
8:47 Suitably admonished, I move car three meters to the left.

Morning Meetings

9:11 Meeting with our two production supervisors in which we discuss the afternoon's shoot and a concept for an up and coming TV commercial. I¡¯m after a "kids are killers" look and promise to cut them a DVD of examples.
11:10 Sit down for a mini conference with our GM. This is always fun as he thinks his English is ¡°real like pretty well good¡± (like what mine is). As the only laowai in the company, I need to sign off on the day's translations and eureka-we have a new record-an 87-word sentence! I spare a thought for the voice over artist who will eventually have to read it and hastily depart for a meeting, leaving in my wake a diatribe on the continual over-use of adjectives.

Power Lunch

11:53 I am invited to lunch with our GM, our marketing head and a government official who has come down from Yangzhou. Yippee! The cosmic cash machine: government sponsored propaganda films honoring hidden experimental weapons programs or multimedia tenders for the anti gravity machine project on Shenzhou 10.

The Shoot

2:14pm Lights, camera, action! Well, lights and camera yes, but today there is no sound-sync and therefore we are denied the joys of a clapperboard and its clapping shut in front of the camera. Instead, someone digs out a white board and a couple of marker pens. The director shouts, "Kai shi!"
4:13 The 35 mm film needs to go to Shanghai to be developed and so, as my colleague departs for the railway station, I remind him NOT to put the film through the X-ray machine!

Winding Down

4:49 My office window faces west. Outside the smoggy yet beautiful Asian sun is fading. It seems the city is blessed with four months of winter, a month each of spring and autumn and a heavenly six months of the famous Nanjing summer. That seems a very long way away. My best friend has selfishly decided to take the year off to travel around Australia and as I download his latest photos of sun-drenched beaches, jungle surfing, crocodiles and inverted maps. Nanjing gets cold, dark, wet and grey.
7:46 Almost kill a cyclist, and his extended family.

Home

8:39 I love cooking and am trying to write a book tentatively entitled Western Meals in China sans le Supermarch Française.
11:07 A bottle of wine, a Rachmaninov concerto and many dirty dishes later, I sleepily watch a documentary on the supernatural that reveals a common ingredient in witches' potion to be chicken feet. All is explained.

VERDICT

Frank has been in China for an amazing 15 years, first as a language student in Chengdu, then moving on to Shanghai where he was instrumental in introducing Western pop music to China via the famed Nescafe Music Time. Ten years later, he moved to Nanjing. So how do the two cities compare? "That's an easy one. Shanghai has a higher standard of living, but Nanjing has better quality of life."