Ok, it’s now Sunday night and I’m actually on the plane on my way home. Just flew over Hiroshima and Osaka is approaching.
Don’t know what it is with flying and stinky feet. The dude next to me popped his shoes off right after take-off and the assault has begun. I seriously considered getting my deodorant out of my bag and putting a stripe of it under my nose like the “got milk?” adds. Then the funky air would be de-odorized before entering my body…
And, I have the worst luck with airplane seats. Usually it will be something like the tray table tilts to low to hold a drink or the headphone jack is jacked. Well, this time it’s the legroom. Under the seat in front of me occupying essentially all the space I might otherwise stretch my legs into is some video control box. So basically I can’t put my feet forward or I hit that thing. So I have to put them to the right. Sort of underneath the dude next to me’s seat. Which has its attendant complications since if I accidentally hit his feet he moves them. That’s like airing out dirty laundry. A couple seconds later the stink arrives all up in my business and my head recoils.
It sucks.
Tokyo is coming up in about 25 minutes. I bet it will be out the other side of the plane though.
Seriously though, back to the story. This will be tough since I can’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday let alone try to recall what I’ve done since last Sunday. I guess I’ve got another 11 hours stuck in this seat to think about it. Or at least until the battery dies on the computer.
So, Monday morning was my first scheduled factory visit. We drove for about half an hour in some direction and the cityscape never really seemed to change. Chinese cities don’t have a defined central downtown of high rise building like what you might see in LA or Chicago. It’s just a mix of all sorts of buildings for miles. So Sunday night was my first real foray into any sort of Chinese neighborhood. Monday morning was my second. I was a bit nervous since we drove to a very un-factory looking area. A jumble of buildings. Luke actually was just trying to drive us to the police station and then the factory guys were going to meet us there and escort us to the factory. Like the day before, the area we’d parked in was really amazingly impoverished in my view. There were these little storage shed sized openings facing the street with businesses of all types inside. One was a shop with a couple guys in there welding on and grinding stainless steel tables. Next to that was a tiny shop selling an array of cigarettes and some snacks. Next to that was a guy making vinyl windows with a chop saw and a homemade corner melting widget. Next to that was a guy making doors – cutting miters with a hand saw and attaching edgebanding with hammer and nails. Next to that was a shop that made metal things. No idea what they were. They looked like large brush guards for off road vehicles or something. Sadly, next to that was where a family lived. Imagine living in a concrete storage unit with just a couch and a TV.
The factory guys picked us up and took us to their factory. It was a four story building that looked apartment like rather than factory like. I don’t know what I really expected, but it wasn’t this. It was really rough around the edges. They took us to a little conference room and we sat and talked a bit about our needs. They gave us a factory tour. I took pictures. Honestly, I was quite let down. I really wondered what I’d gotten myself into. Were all the factories going to be like this? It was just old and felt dirty. I had too much experience with “modern” manufacturing of medical devices to accept what I was seeing. But then I had to remember where I was and what they were famous for. If you want Swiss precision and cleanliness, you go to Switzerland. If you want inexpensive, non technical mass output of product you go to China.
We were done by around two and back at the hotel at close to three. I decided to just go wander. The weather was perfect and I headed in the direction of the neighborhood. I mentioned earlier how they cluster stores together. So I walked down copper tube street, large black metal thing street, faucet street, cell phone battery street, and crazy @$%# street probably 7 times. Anneka knows that when I get enthralled in something, like an interesting site or a back scratch or something, that I hang my mouth open and stare. Usually drool comes out my mouth after a minute or so because my mind is processing information and forgets to maintain control over bodily functions. Basically I stared a lot. Not in an intrusive way, mostly. I told Luke I’d meet up with him back at the hotel and we’d get dinner at 6. Of course six rolls around and I’m a half hour away on foot from the hotel. I had to force myself to put the camera away so I could just focus on walking back to the hotel. I knew I’d have to take the plunge into real Chinese food eventually so I told Luke to pick somewhere to eat. It was a choice between a seafood restaurant or a seafood restaurant. They were just what was in walking distance since I’d had enough of driving with a novice for the day. I asked for fried rice and Luke ordered a bunch of other stuff. He thought we were feeding an army he ordered so much food. I ate what I could stand to and it didn’t kill me. I tied tofu and that was like eating margarine. Didn’t like that at all. I tried the duck. It tasted like duck flavored chicken. The pork was half meat and half fat and I felt really self conscious as I trimmed all the fat off while he just shoved the whole thing in. I guess that’s what you do if you don’t use a knife…
The Coke was good. That was like my appetizer, dinner and dessert all in one.
We were both pooped and went back to the hotel to crash.
Then I realized I didn’t have my camera. That’s a whole nother crazy story and I’m too wordy as is so I’ll spare you the details on that. Basically I thought I left it in the lobby of the hotel before dinner. That was the last place I remembered having it. I spoke to the hotel security and they said they’d look at the tapes to see if they could spot it. I thought what good would that do if it walked off with someone? I called Luke and told him what had happened and if mentioned off the cuff that I’d showed him a picture while we were walking to dinner. So that jogged my memory and I realized I’d left it at the restaurant. The hotel called the restaurant and indeed it was still there. I practically cried when I heard that. It was seriously a faith promoting experience. I’ve always believed that the good you send out comes back to you. I think some good came back that night.
Next day, Tuesday, we drove to another factory. Same as Monday, we got lost. Called the factory and parked the car and they came and got us. In a nutshell this second factory was a scam. It was a skanky building in a skanky area. I mean it was so far from what I wanted or expected I could hardly believe it. I was really getting nervous. I was 50% done with visits and thus far felt like I’d struck out.
When we were done at around 2 the factory manager took us to lunch. We pulled up to a building façade and parked. I thought I was at a farm. There, out front in cages, on display, are the ducks, chickens and pidgeons that are consumed inside. Behind those were the fish tanks full of fish and other sea creatures I’d never even seen. There were huge-ola clams with slug like heads. There were writhing green things. It was so over the top. Inside they seated the five of us in a private room. There were lots of private rooms. I guess that is how this place does it. It had the most stale smoke smell you could imagine. Like it had been smoked in for 50 years. There was actually smoke oozing out the walls. My eyes were burning, seriously. Luke knew what I’d want so he hooked me up with some fried rice and barbequed beef. It was actually really good. Except the peppers in the beef. They looked like green bell peppers but had some kick. They got tofu, again, and it came first and they all turned to me when the waitress placed it on the table. I couldn’t think fast enough to get myself out of eating it. It was like me eating the tofu was the trigger that would kick lunch off. I obliged and lunch started. I guess I should count my blessings that it was tofu and not frog ovaries or something.
I forgot to mention that the air in this particular city near Guangzhou was really choking that day. But when we left the restaurant it smelled like an air freshener. That’s how stale it was inside.
So with lunch done they took us to their molding building nearby. It sucked. It was really dirty. It was in a totally run down warehouse type area. I was so broken after this visit. I really held out little hope that the remaining factories would be any better.
What a difference a day makes.
We drove three hours east to Senzhen, a city just north of Hong Kong. Checked into the Holiday Inn there downtown and Luke went home as he’s from there. I wandered, as usual. Senzhen is essentially a twenty year old city. It was created as a special economic zone and as an experiment by the Chinese government in order to draw revenue into China by getting businesses to expand past Hong Kong. So, I wandered over to the base of the tallest building in the vicinity and was amazed yet again. In this case there was a mall there that is essentially the most upscale mall I’ve ever seen. It would rival Beverly Hills if Beverly Hills had a 7 story mall with an indoor ice skating rink on the fourth floor and whose cheapest store was a Timberland shoe store. No Vitamin World or Lens Crafters in this joint. It was all Gucci and Versachi and Mercedes Benzachi. It was just nuts. I strolled around and opted to leave since I couldn’t afford anything there and it was nothing interesting to look at. Well, except for all the people ice skating. There was this little kid there, probably
I swear on the Bible someone is smoking on this plane. Five bucks says if I go to the toilet right now someone is smoking in there.
Anyways this little boy was about 6 or 7 years old and had a coach there working with him and another couple of kids. But he skated backwards in a circle for about 20 minutes straight. I got dizzy just watching him.
I took off towards the hotel to go to bed and stopped at McDonalds on the way back. Ahhh, comfort food.
Next day we went to another factory and while their building was nothing to write home about they actually make products similar in many ways to what were trying to make and had relevant experience. Plus they just seemed to be so much more versed in the basics of Quality Systems then either of the previous factories. I was so relieved. I mean this place was still rough around the edges, but I though, I could work with these guys and I think they could do our work. After the visit the factory manager took us to lunch. By then Luke really took care of me. First dish out was some fried rice (really good) and three cans of Coke (really, really, really good) Lunch went off without a hitch. I had the rice and some beef and it was all great. Luke had taught me to use chopsticks and by day three I was getting pretty good. I’d joke with the Chinese guys that they should have to eat left handed and then we’d be on par with each other. After lunch Luke parked the car at the managers apartment complex and they gave us a ride to the airport for a 4pm flight to Nantong city. Nantong is near Shanghai and was the location of factory number four. We had a stop in a city called YuXi, or something like that. That was interesting. It was a really big city, but a poor city so it’s airport is really small and old. There’s two gates there – 1 and 2 and they’re two doors side by side that just open up to the tarmac. Kind of what’s the point? Apparently this city is famous for “small things” as Luke put it. I didn’t understand until he showed me a picture on the wall in the “waiting hall” (the terminal if you can call it that), of key chain type stuff. So key chain sized statues of liberty or Eiffel towers or leaning towers of Pisa are all made in this city. You’ve never wondered that. I’ve never wondered that. But now we know were all that useless crap comes from. And it was totally cold there. It had been warming up each pervious day and the weather in Senzhen was really nice. So, to get off the plane in YuXi and have it be dark and cold was kind of crappy. We took off after an hour on the ground and landed in Nantong. Another large city with a tiny airport. The factory picked us up and took us to the hotel. This hotel is the nicest in town and the only one I didn’t book. This city has no Western hotels. No Marriott, no Holiday Inn, just interesting Chinese interpretations of those hotels. We got in kind of late and sadly they only had smoking rooms left. That really sucked. And for the price, this place was really lackluster. We met some lady in the elevator and I guess it is her job to get guests to want to have massages. Or Massagee as they say. We shewed her away and somehow after we got back from a quick bit to eat (McDonald’s – it was late, we were tired, Luke was complacent) she found out what room I was in and came calling. I must have said “no” like twenty times. She kept saying my “friend” (Luke) told her to come. She kept saying, “you lookee, you no like you no pay.” It was truly awkward. I eventually just had to shut the door.
Breakfast was included in our rate but since this was a Chinese hotel they’re not big on Western breakfast items. They did have a guy making omelets so I got one. He didn’t flip the eggs over when he made it so when he folded it the eggs were still totally runny on top. So it was like a scrambled egg exterior with a barely warm, soft boiled egg interior.
I had orange juice and a Power Bar. The juice was like Sunny D too. So all around it was bad.
That morning we woke up to crazy cold temperatures and hard rain. I think if it had dropped another five degrees it would have snowed. To make matters worse the room I met with the factory guys in was hardly heated. So in the course of the morning I nearly slipped into a coma from the cold. That and the fact that Luke would have really long conversations with the guys in Chinese and forget to clue me in every minute or two. So I’d sit there and drift off into hypothermia. They did have a sweet Ping-Pong table in there though. We took a break and played. I held my own. I’d either totally wiff it or make contact with the ball with such a wicked side swipe that the ball would curve wildly and they’d wiff. It was totally unintentional though.
I just popped an ambien. I really need to sleep. Pray for me that I don’t pee on someone or something…
And my hands are killing me from typing so much in such a cramped position. Coach seats don’t afford you much space so the laptop is practically sitting on my chest and I’m typing on my boobs.
I’ll keep going a bit longer. If my sentences get wacky then you’ll know the ambien kicked in. That reminds me of all the ill-phrased tag lines they have here. Essentially everything in English is misspelled or just doesn’t make sense. The airline we flew on to Nantong had a tagline that said fly with them and you’ll feel, “healthy and considerate”. Huh? Like suddenly after a flight I will feel better and start being nicer to people? But, I have to give them credit. I’m sure if we tried to take an English tag line like Ford’s “moving forward” it would come out like, “Blue mask avocado donkey turning” or something like that.
Thursdays factory was a lot like Wednesdays in that they were currently manufacturing product like what we want to make. Their processes weren’t as good as the factory from the day before but their building was a decent amount better. Still rough around the edges but at least I felt like I had two viable options now. After the visit these guys took us to lunch as well. But this lunch caught me off guard a bit. They took us to KFC adjacent to a grocery store. We parked underneath the store and walked through the store to the KFC. Remember, it was cold out and we walked in the store and the AC was blasting. I felt like I went from sub zero to sub-sub zero. But the KFC was warm inside. Finally I could thaw out. When we were walking through the store I walked past a little old lady behind a scruffy glass countertop where she was selling snacks. Unusual snacks for sure but snacks nonetheless. Two in particular stood out to me – coiled up, dried snakes – heads and all on them and splayed out lizards on a popsicle stick. I just cannot wrap my mind around the lizard one. You know, with an ice cream on a stick one usually bites the end of the treat off first. I guess you do the same with the lizard but that would mean you’d chomp his dried little head off first. I wanted to take a picture of it but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it as it seemed too much like mockery of this little old ladies offering. So, I just smiled and stared. I’m sure she was as curious at me with my smile, stillness and drool out the mouth as I was of her snacks…
Ambien’s kicking in. The screens getting blurry.
Later.
I’m back. Fell asleep somewhere just after Tokyo. Woke up somewhere over the ocean with about 3 ½ hours left. So, I probably slept around 5 hours. And how crazy is this: taking off from two different cities at the same time on the same day. 9pm Guangzhou to LA and 9pm from LA to Salt Lake, both on Sunday night. That’s wacky.
Breakfast was just served. I skipped it in favor of something from the homeland, which I can now see out the left side of the plane.
After lunch the factory graciously offered to drive us about an hour and a half away to the city of Suzhou. It rained all the way there and when we checked into our hotel we opted simply to have dinner and sum up the weeks events. Suzhou is famous for its canals and temples. Friday was reserved in case it made sense to re-visit any one factory. We wanted to make sure we had the luxury to do so. Since we didn’t need to we ended up just seeing sites there in Suzhou. It was raining when we left and our first stop was to get some breakfast. You can guess where we got it. We had a cab drop us off in a central section of the city and it isn’t hard to stumble across the Golden Arches. After eating we were going to walk to a market but with the rain coming down we opted for a cycle taxi. What a hoot. It was an old dude on a really old bike taxi. With every stroke of the peddle that thing inched forward and wobbled from side to side. It had a cover over the cab portion and since it was raining and cold he put it down but then I felt like I was inside a suitcase. We didn’t take it far but it was fun to ride in at least once in a lifetime. After the market we were looking for a cab to take us to some famous Chinese gardens and stumbled across a Daoist temple complex. We bought some tickets and ended up farting around there for an hour or two. It was unfortunately really cold and quite rainy though the rain appeared to be tapering off. I’ve mentioned many times the interesting correlation between McDonalds and historically or touristically interesting sites. If you want to find a McDonalds when you’re somewhere unfamiliar just ask local were something famous is like a building or a plaza. Conversely, if you want to find a historic site worth visiting, just head towards the McDonalds. You know your close when you start seeing McDonalds trash overflowing from waste bins or simply discarded on the street. Suzhou was no exception. Adjacent to the main temple building was a McDonalds. We stepped in for a couple of minutes to warm up. We were both freezing. I bought two hot chocolates – one to hold and one to drink. I just put them up to my cheeks and warmed my hands and face at the same time. The temple was unexpected and really neat to see. I just wish it had been nicer out since they are “open air” type attractions and warm weather would make them even more appealing. After words we took a cab to the gardens we’d initially been looking for. They were built in the 1500’s and are comprised of several acres of manicured terrain with rock outcroppings and a multitude of little pond. They were once the residence of a high ranking official of the city. The buildings were neat to see and evoked a lot of the same feelings of excess that existed centuries ago among the upper class. Nearby is the Suzhou museum and we walked there. It was a really surprisingly nice find. It was built in the 60’s and is remarkably contemporary with a small but excellent collection of antiquities spanning as far back as 4000BC. It to was a great place to warm up. After the museum we took a cab over to a neighborhood where the canals are. They’re lined by old buildings just oozing character. The cab dropped us off where we could go right or left down the street. We chose right and it led into the poor section of town. Once again I was fascinated by the scene. Luke hated being there. To him it wasn’t anything new. But he appreciated it was very new to me. I don’t think it caught me as off guard as the same scenes had in Guangzhou some 5 days earlier. It was just simple, daily life of the residents playing out. There was a dude manually decapitating and squeezing the guts out of little 4 inch long fish. I felt for him as I imagine his fingers must have been freezing. There was this container of brown fluid with cooked, nearly hatched chicken eggs in it. I guess it would be like veal but with chickens. That kind of weirded me out. There were also these mammoth frogs for sale. They were offered in a buck with a net over the top to keep them from jumping away. There was great wall art there too. I know those people don’t even notice Americans or people that look different anymore. I’m sure they’re used to it. But did notice this odd man standing in front of a wall and leaning into it from about two feet away and taking pictures of it. Eventually we turned the opposite direction and went down the other half of the street which is the one I think tourists are intended to go down. It was still fun to see and was thankfully devoid of shops selling gross, trinkity crap. Luke was starving so he took off to find something to eat and we agreed to hook up later. I was late again, of course, because I strayed off wandering and taking pictures.
Then it was back to the hotel to grab our stuff and catch a train to Shanghai. The train station was chaos but the train and the trip itself were unremarkable. The train was really nice and clean and the trip took less than half an hour and cost around 6 bucks a ticket. When we got to Shanghai we took the subway to our hotel as it sits directly on top of a station. Luke was tired and didn’t want to drag our bags around in the subway. I didn’t mind a bit. I’ve done it many times before and it added to the adventure. We checked in and Luke went to bed and I went out to wander.
I was nearly killed.
Really.
I walked into an area full of street vendors. They were selling everything from Madonna lunch boxes to underwear. Those were fine. Those didn’t nearly kill me. The fried tofu nearly killed me. It was the funkiest thing I’d smelled on the whole trip. It was so bad that it wasn’t enough to just breath out of your mouth to avoid smelling it. It had a taste too. Imagine that. A smell so stinky and strong that it had a taste as well. So, pinching my nose and closing my mouth left me only the option of breathing through my ears and that doesn’t work. Don’t try it. You just get dizzy and faint if you try too long. But that smell cut my wandering short. I was really tired but felt compelled to spend every waking moment out exploring as I may never ever return there. But that tofu shizzle was just too much to bear.
Saturday I arose and went to a part to people watch before meeting up with Luke. There were groups of old ladies doing Chinese line dancing. That was kind of funny to watch. Some even had uniforms on like it was a really organized thing. Then there were people in the middle of the sidewalk or wherever, doing Tai Chi (sp?) which looked like kung fu just slowed WAY down.
Oh, that reminds me I watched a movie a couple of nights earlier that was a classic kung fu show where the fighters do all these programmed moves and the same three sounds are dubbed in with each impact. The best part though, and the main reason I watched, was the sound was about a second or two behind the action. The sort of stuff those movies are mocked for. I wondered if it was made to be that way on purpose just to add some crazy affect. It was classic though and I was enthralled in it for better than a half hour even though I couldn’t understand any of it.
I’m home now, have been for a better than a week. Still haven’t finished all this.
But, I doubt anyone will actually have stayed with this long enough to get here.
I dinked around Shanghai for the day on Saturday. Went to the area called Pudong where their tallest buildings are. We paid to go up one called the Oriental Pearl tower. It looks like a neo 30’s era Flash Gordon space ship on steroids. It was actually really pricey to go up to the upper most observation floor. Each floor is a sphere so there are windows in front of you and sort of above you and below you. So you can stand back from the edge, as those of us that are afraid of heights to, and still look somewhat down. My mind tends go a little crazy playing out “what if” scenarios when I’m in tall buildings. Like, “What if this falls down?” or “What if this window I’m peering through pops out and I go with it?” It’s all mental but, I can’t fight it. I still go up since I value the view in the long run over the fear in the short run.
Also saw something you don’t really want to see anywhere. Was walking down Nanjing street, their large downtown pedestrian only shopping street when the crowd, which was already incomprehensibly thick, got incomprehensibly thicker. People are looking up and pointing up, like superman, or maybe in China its Chinaman, was up in the sky. Well, there was some guy perched on the ledge of the building maybe 30 stories up wanting to commit suicide. No other reason for him to be there. Down below the cops had cordoned off the area and inflated one of those mondo stuntman pillows. I guess there were cops up on the ledge as well to prevent the guy from just running to a part of the ledge where the pillow was not positioned below. Anyways, I along with thousands of others, watched for a bit before I felt like, “Do I really want to see this?” I mean, if the guy never jumps then I’ve just wasted a bunch of time. If he does jump he’s going to hit the pillow and if all goes well he’ll stand up, be put in a truck and taken to the mental hospital. I left, but I kept wondering if those pillow thingies really work. They look like you’d hit it and literally bounce off like a trampoline and fly ten stories up and away from it then land on the pavement all mangled. I really didn’t want to see that.
By that night I was really pooped from all the walking. Shanghai is really large and really expansive. It was great to go to bed.
Next day, Sunday, I was going home. I did manage to make to a run through an antiques market before heading off to the airport. They were true antiques only if you stopped at the first little store and browsed there. If you went to the next store you’d see the same load of antiques. And the next store – same thing. Soon you realize that the likelihood of hundreds of the same “antique” item just happening to show up at these little stores, one next to the other for a block, is not high except that they aren’t really antiques. In fact I’d bought a coin from a person on the street my second day in China and they wanted about $30 bucks for it. I said, “No way!” So, we haggled till I got it down to about 9 bucks. I showed it to Luke later and he’s like, “You got rip off.” I said I didn’t care, it was a souvenir and likely helps that person with some income. Funny thing was he said they even recreate their own coins for tourists. That would be like someone making twenty dollar bills from like 1950, when they looked a little different then now, and selling them for twenty bucks. Is it still counterfitting? How old does a coin or bill have to be before you can re-create it?
And, everything I bought, Luke would say, “Man, you got rip off!” I bought a t-shirt that I haggled down to 6 bucks and said I got ripped off. I bought a thimble for my sister in law for the equivalent of a dollar and I got ripped off. I guess there’s a reason the hawkers target anyone non-Chinese looking to sell to. They can rip them off.
To wrap all this up – it was an amazing trip on many levels. But I was glad to go home. The flight back had me leaving my hotel at 1pm Sunday and I got home at 3pm local time the next day. That is 26 hours total travel time.
My advice if you go to China – go with an open mind. It is vastly different in many ways to what we’re so accustomed to. And, if your in Shanghai near the Cloud Nine shopping mall in the evening – steer VERY clear of the fried tofu. That stuff can be smelled from outer space.
Chris
