Day 8 Coming Home

Day 8 was hustle and bustle the way that the last day should be. Simon picked me up at the hotel first thing and presented me with my take home gifts. First was special green tea that is supposed to help Rocco’s joints for tennis. Along with the tea, his wife sent along some special herbal pads that when pressed on your elbows, provides soothing relief after a match. I thanked him and asked how he got his wife to do such helpful things? In a conversation earlier this week, he shared that his wife is working long hours right now. She has a job in the hospital system and the government is ready to provide extra aid to help in the poor economy as long as they fill out thousands of pages of paperwork. She is working 12-14 hour days. I said welcome to the club. He shared that his father and mother live in an apartment below them and help watch their 3-1/2 year old son. Otherwise he and his wife would be very stressed with all the work. Simon also ahs to travel frequently for our work so having parents nearby is great.

We went to the office and worked all morning and then went out to lunch at the Pizza Hut which is on the bottom floor of our office building. They have all sorts of weird topping combinations that we can’t get in the USA. They decided to get two pizzas: One vegetable pizza including corn and greens but with some type of sausage rolled into the crust, and one cheese. I, of course, opted more for the cheese. Good choice, but I did try one piece of the deluxe that was pretty bad. They can even screw up pizza for heaven’s sake. Looking back over the trip, the only real pain I had to withstand again was the food (as if I hadn’t whined enough the last 8 days). And we even ate much Western food compared to a usual trip, but I just dread eating here. Oh well, it’s just a situation that I need to let go. OK Let go. Our luncheon discussion centered around our kids and families. I checked how Estelle sick son was doing and she said he’s a real pain to get to take his medicine. As I told Estelle about my kids she commented that we Americans are so lucky to be able to have more than one child. Estelle, Jane and Simon all have one boy-that is their quota. They remarked that the government allows the rich to buy a multiple baby permit. It’s about 100,000 RMB (that’ s $15,000). Then they also cannot declare them for taxes and must pay for all their education. The women especially were dying for a little girl to pamper. Estelle said she sometimes dressed her baby boy up in pink clothes just to pretend he was a girl. We all laughed and suggested she get that out of the way now that he’s still a baby. I told them that maybe they’re boys will marry a nice girl and they’ll get their baby girl later in life. They didn’t think that would happen-you know Mom’s and their sons. We headed back to the office and I packed up and left. I gave them a little thanks you speech and told them how proud our company is of the Beijing office.

I caught a taxi from the office, and breezed through customs and awaited the delayed flight for an extra 45 minutes at the gate. I did get a funny email on the way to the airport. Jon emailed that he just returned from a walk in the shopping area near the hotel. He said he heard a loud shout from across the street. “Hey, Jon from Birmingham England!” Yep it was the young effeminate calligrapher from Sunday night’s walk home. He ran over a starting trying to convince Jon to come to his “studio” for pictures . Jon said he walked very quickly, almost ran, back to the hotel to get away from him.

The flight delay allowed me time to write this last journal entry. I hope my crazy 8 days provided some enjoyment for those friends and family members stuck at home. After reading all this I’m wondering if it makes you all want to travel or just stay home and listen to my exploits. Until the next wild wonderful trip, it’s journey worn Brian saying over and out!

Photos of #1 Beijing Peking Duck Restaurant

Day 6 Extra Photos of Immaculate Conception Church

Misc Photos-Jon Day 7

Jon struggles with Lunch, but loves his dinner at Hard Rock Cafe

Day 7

Jon, Simon and I began Day 7 with a trip to another prospective supplier in a Beijing suburb named Xianghe. I had visited this shop in 2007, and thought they had some potential but they didn't quote well for some reason and never recieved any orders from us. Now that we have more China business that fits their capability and now we have Simon on board to help, a return visit was warranted. As we strolled down the new 8 lane tollway at 160 Kilometer/hour (that's 100 MPH) I asked what the blinking red light in the median was every 1/4 mile or so. Simon explained that there was no speed limit on this new highway modeled after the Autobahn in Germany, but that camera's took photos every so often just to track your driving. If they see a car doing something unsafe they can fine you. Well that's an interesting new concept of big brother is watching? Anyway we reached there quickly, obviously, and went in an toured. After the tour we met in the conference room for discussions. Like yesterday's last photo from Shahe, Xianghe also had no conference tables in the conference room-just big long leather couchs with coffee tables in front. As Jon lamented, how the heck do they expect us to properly review a drawing slouched back in a couch with big drawings sprawled out on a little coffee table (already loaded with the customery green tea upon arrival)? I explained, relax-things are just different in China, but he didn't buy it. Jon has a difficult time accepting doing business in China in general. Being a Brit, he'd much rather do buisness in former British colonies like Thailand, and India for low costs. But, he's a good manager of business and understands the need to develop world markets, but it doesn't mean he has to like it. Personally I prefer doing buiness in China than other low cost markets. First of all we have Simon and office and a staff that can assist greatly, but secondly, they think like we do in a general business sense. The Chinese are born capitalists, which is pretty funny based on their goverment position of Marxism. Like Americans, they love to work hard to achieve the best business results possible (meaning making money mostly) Whereas most other parts of the world, especially Europe, view business as a "have to do activity" between my free time. Europeans always make sure they get plenty of rest time, tea time, holiday time etc.

Anyway, I digress. The couch meeting went fine and it was nearly 11:45am as we concluded and Simon suggested we catch lunch with Mr. Li, our host, before we traveled back to Beijing. Jon and I both had about enough of Chinese food, but wanted to be good guests so we said "Sure". Mr. Li took us to the local fine dining restaurant, again that looked identical to yesterday's "special #1" Chinese restauant. We were again ushered up into a separate room with big round table and heavy red Chinese lion prints everywhere. While Simon and Mr. Li chatted in Mandarin, Jon and I chatted about how the Chinese decor was surely ostentagious by any standard. I commented that when I think about dining, I long for the cool tans and blended earth tones of a Bravo Italian restauant. Jon readily agreed commenting, "I'm sick of red".

Jon and I made it very clear to Simon. We feel like we just got up, we're not ready to eat really, but we'll play along so just keep it light and simple. I mentioned to Simon that I remember from my last trip that Xianghe was home of Chinese pizza. This consisted of a flour tortilla with pounded meat inside and fried. I recalled that other than being cut pie shape, it was nothing like pizza, but preferrable compared to the normal fish head dishes. Simon and Mr. Li began ordering which always takes like 10 minutes of discussion with the waitress. Jon and I laughed at how "into" food the Chinese are. I mean come on it's lunch.

Well, first of all, what yet comes into the room but a bottle of Mai Tai. As the waitress unwraps and opens the bottle, Jon and I groan to Simon "we can't drink that lighter fluid again" today please just pour us a obligatory half of a shot glass. Simon calmly explains that Mr. Li ordered it to show his friendahip. It's very important to share liquor in their eyes. Like usual, we toast each other in regard to our two great nations, the day of being together, peace and justice for all-and down a shot of gasoline. When Mr. Li tries to reload our glasses, Jon and I turn them upside down and explain that drinking to Westerners must wait until evening. To which Simon explains that unfornately their custom is that a bottle of MaiTai cannot be left undrinken at a business outing or it's bad Karma. "Drink away guys "we say in return. And they did. Shot after shot over the hour lunch until I could tell Simon was slurring his words. When he went to translate something and spoke Chinese to us and English to Mr. Li. I knew we were in trouble.

Meanwhile, here came the 16 trays of Chinese specialty foods. I'm not sure what part of "too early for lunch" didn't translate. The choices today were more reasonable, no hearts or anything, but just general another table of difficult to enjoy entrees. I commented to Jon that I wondered how much all this cost? In the USA Chinese restaurant it would have to be at least $200 with the 14 dishes and bottle of liquor. Jon then watched the 'invoice" -that's what they call the check-exchange of cash. Jon said Mr. Li put down 300 RMB ($44 USD) and got some change bank. Amazing!

We said our goodbyes, loaded into the Mercedes and zoomed back to Beijing. Simon had slowly come back to himself on the ride home. He kept apologizing for being drunk and we said "no problem -better than us". We talked and summarized the trip on the ride home and decided that we're bascially done and that I have too much work back in Ohio before my vacation next week so I would depart Tuesday-a day earlier than planned. Jon agreed and wanted to leave also but then he called his travel agent back in England and found his ticket was non-refendable and non-changeable. I offered to stay then, and he said, "No -go back and Simon and I will just have one extra afternoon to visit the sites of Beijing like the Bird's Nest stadium and the Water Cube from the Olympics". But to complete the trip we wanted to visit our office downtown that Jon had never yet been to. We arrived at the office and met Jane Zhang, our China Sales agent , and Estelle, our office manager (secretary, bookkeeper). One of my job responsibilities is holding the title of Chief Representative of the Beijing office. It's a fancy title the really just means I have to be the American in charge of offically signing everything. I didn't even personally interview Estelle before we hired her last year-Simon and Jane did. It was good to spend some time in the office to interact and close some issues and I was pleased with her approach and her spoken English.

I was quite surpirsed to see Estelle at the office. Earlier in the day Simon had called the office and Estelle did not come to work because her 18 month old son was ill. In fact he was coughing so badly she took him to the ER and they kept him overnight. She felt compelled however to come into the office this afternoon because Jon and I were visiting. Again I was very impressed with that dedication but told her many times that afternoon to go home and take care of her family. We did snap this cool photo with all of us to show the three legs of Bronx International.

At the close of work, Simon suggested we go to the Hard Rock Cafe for our closing dinner. We readily agreed to Western food and headed over. It was a nice dinner discussion based upon Jon and I bantering about England vs USA rockers and general Rock -n-roll reminicing. We also pointed to photos all around the room to see if Jane and Simon could identify anyone. They only got Elton John and Elvis Presley correct, but Jon and I admitted that's two more than famous Chinese we could identify. Jane told a story about how she attended a John Denver concert in a Chinese park in the 1970's. Jane recalled the tickets were very expensive, like $3, but she had to go because she liked him alot to which we explained -he's not a Rocker and teased that she could get thrown out of this restaurant for discusing him.

We came home about 9 pm and headed straight for bed. Tomorrow I'm Going Home!

Xianghe

SHop

lunch

office

dinner

leave early

Office pic

Day 6

As usual, the days in China are a bustle of activities and stories and this one was certianly no different. Simon picked me up in the Mercedes at 9:30am to go to Mass at the South Cathedral of Nan Tang otherwise known as Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mass ended being at 10:30 so I went in and prayed. Simon at first came in but then his phone kept beeping with messages and he said "Brian, is it OK if I wait outside because I'm not quite sure of the process in here" I smiled and said that's fine. He's such an engineer, what process was he studying today? A funny side story is that Simon asked to come to Mass at SFX in Medina last year. We attended the Life Teen mass and he enjoyed the modern music and "ceremony" as he called it. But he did say he was a bit concerned because he's officially a member of the China Communist Party and he's not allowed to go to church. I assured him there were probably no communist spies in Medina so clap away.

I prayed for the 45 minute wait before Mass and then noticed quite a large crowd had gathered and the church was packed. Again this was the only english speaking mass in Beijing. As I sat up from the kneeler the Chinese gal next to me said. By the way, you're in the choir section. You probably missed that note posted in chinese on the side of the pew, she said with a smile. She quickly said, It's OK you can stay here, I just wanted you to know when we pull out all our portable microphones and start singing. I looked around and there was no place to move anyway, so I said OK. The priest asked at the opening for all of us visitors to stand and be welcomed, and there were about 20 or so out of the maybe 500 in attendance. Like my last attendance, the Mass was beautiful. Very well planned and inspiring. It happened to be the second stage of Rite of Initiation for new members to be baptized at Easter vigil. He called up the candidates and 20 people and their sponsors came forward. I thought it was a nice large number as we usually only have 1 or 2 a year at Easter. After mass I walked to the back and Simon was waiting stuffed in a corner. I asked him if he knew there were this many Catholics in Beijing and he said, "I'm amazed, I had no idea". In closing, I could go off into a long discussion of how the Pope Benedict is trying to reinitiate the Catholic church in China into full union with the Rome and the Chinese goverment interaction, but that's all secondary to the basic facts. People of faith gathered, praised and worshipped and there is only One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church for the last 2000 years and it's made up of people from all over the earth. That's much more important than which congregation reports to which organized religion.

We loaded back up and went to the hotel picked up Jon and headed to a lunch with our vendor and Mercedes sponsor -the Shahe Metallugical Machine Company of Beijing or just Shahe for short. Simon said they were planning a large Peking Duck lunch for us. As we arrived to the restaurant, the driver stopped we noticed a face to face shouting match between a large old man and a 40ish man. As we got out, the old man quit fighting and ran over to the Mercedes. It was Big Guo himself, the owner of Shahe. That created an uneasy feeling right off the bat. I could tell we were in for a treat if our sponsor nearly fought in the parking lot. Simon said he was upset that the other man took the special parking spot that Big Guo was reserving in front of the restaurant with his body. I already had suspected Big Guo to be an old time Emperor mentality business owner. Why would you send a new Mercedes to pick up your client if you were shrewd businessman. Usually owners who show off assets are too shallow to understand price of doing business. We're here in China because it's lower cost-not because we like Peking Duck. He obviously tipped his hand that we're still paying too much is he can afford a Mercedes.

We were led upstairs to a special party room, and gathered around a large round table that was at least 10 foot in diameter. We exchanged greeting and cards with the csutomary bows and then sat. Immediately, the head waitress (of which there were about 10 servers) made a special welcome in english to our guests from America and told us that this was a famous Peking restauarant serving only the highest guests in China including last year's Olympic Committee, President Bush and on and on. OK all that may have been true, put it sure reminded me of 25 other Special #1 restauarants I've been to in Beijing. Shortly the table's perimeter was full of dishes of Chinese cuisine, each one announced and placed in order. The list included Duck hearts, Duck wings, Duck Feet, Fried Duck skin, and Duck brain soup. OK I made that last one up, but the thing in the soup sure looked like duck brain. The rest were all true and as usual I was the lucky reigning member of the Bronx party who got to try each one first and smile and say, "Oh that's good." For drinks we were served first a special 25 year MaiTai. MaiTai in China isn't like the fruity Polynesian MaiTai's in the USA. This pure grain alcohol you could smell from across the room. Thank goodness it was expensive and each just had shot in two toasts and back and forth.

They also served their special Apple cider with vinegar. It actually wasn't that bad, and then a bottle of chinese wine that was pretty bad. The French and Italian wine snob visitors must love that.

Then they came out with the Roasted Peking Duck on a big platter. It was about the size of a 10 lb Turkey. Jon shared with me that the reason it looks so large is that they stick a high pressure hose up the duck (which end he didn't know) and it helps separate the skin from the body making it roast better. He said he read it somewhere.

I again being the guest of honor, was invited to come forward and cut the ceremonial first piece. They stuck a Chef's hat on me and a carving knive in my hand and I sliced as camera's flashed and people clapped. Give me a break. My face was red as a beet.

We sat back down and the waitress showed us how to dip the duck in a sauce and place on a thin flour tortilla with what looked like celery. Then carefully wrap the tortilla up to form a Peking Duck Gordita.

By this time my stomach was starting to hurt-seriously-like a sour stomach-go figure. I gutted it out and got the heck out of there.

We boarded back into the cars and went to their plant. We've been using Shahe for about a year now and they have done a tremendous of high quality, on time delivery at a price about half the USA. We've loaded them up pretty good from our office and Jon has been getting much pressure to let then quote work for his UK office because our profitabilty has been dwarfing his office. A plant tour revealed that we had been about all they were running recently. Our products were on every machine. After the tour we sent back in to office for a engineering meeting and new project review. Long and short of it was that they have a good technical staff and do a fine job. But the business owners were a family of loonies. We have been hinking about buying them out and running the place ourselves, but that's a big step and we must be careful.

We left about 6pm and went back to the hotel. Jon and I ventured out by foot to the local Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The streets were filled with people before and after dinner. Most seemed to be tourists, but from China not the West. We can tell because they run in packs with a guy holding a flag and they wear different color ball caps to keep the groups together. We are amazed at the stores along this walk and the business activity, and again we're talking the big expensive names like Rolex, Gucci, Armani. Jon and I stopped by a Haagen Daaz on the walk home and a young effeminate man began chatting with us. "Oh my Gaawd", he explained he loves that the USA and Britain would send two men to their city. We quickly shut down that converstion and went home to bed.

Day 5

Well today was my last day in Bangkok. I traveled to Beijing on a 10:00am Thai Air flight arriving PEK at 4pm. The morning started out a little rough. I went to check out of the hotel and couldn't find my Corporate Mastercard in my wallet. I really wasn't panicking or anything, just wonderin' where I left it. Thinking back, I hadn't used it at all Friday and Anucha paid lunch and Jon paid dinner. That left the dinner Jon and I had at Bully's Pub Thursday night. I recalled that I put my card in with the bill's leather folder. The waitress took it and came back. I signed it, put in the tip and she took it. But I didn't remember picking out the card. Jon and I were chatting heavily about work and I just got distracted. I figured it wasn't a huge deal and it was too early to call the Pub at 8am. After I got to the airport I called and yep they had the card behind the counter (along with 3 others people left over the past 2 days). I'm guess I'm not the only weary traveler! I called and cancelled the card and checked and no charges were made, so all ended fine. But it's just a headache you'd rather not experience on a day of travel.

Since we had some extra time to get to the airport, Jon and I chatted about taking the scenic route to the airport going around the river front past the large, famous Buddhist temple. Jon had not had the opportunity to tour like I did so it was a nice idea. Jon set up the plan with the Concierge while I took care of the credit card issue. We jumped in the cab and headed off. The hotel was downtown and close to the temple, and I estimated about 5 min ride. After about 15 minutes, I asked Jon, are you sure you set this up with the Consierge? I think we're headed right to the airport. We looked up and noticed that yes we were already half way to the airport on the major highway. Oh well we said- must not have meant to be. I teased Jon a little about his Consierge discussion and asked him if he tipped her or not, in response to Jon 's earlier teasing that he thinks I lost my card on a late night party run which I obviously hadn't invited him on.

As we arrived at the airport since we had plenty of time, I sauntered around admiring the many large Buddhist statues along the concourses. Each had a plaque with the story of that Buddha. (Recall from my earlier Blog that Buddha's are simply sould that return to earth if they lived a particularly holy life) After about my third stop and discover, Jon chided me that he was calling the Pope and reporting me. It gave me the opportunity to ask Jon about his faith. He said he had no organized religion in his life or his family. He has a nice family, wife of 23 years, 3 kids-sound familiar? He said he has no problem with God, but that we humans just don't seem to know how to make religion work. I left it there and didn't probe further. He knows I'm pretty into my faith and made a comment earlier this trip on how he admired it. A related side story is that back in 2004, Jon had his chief engineer Pete Clarke visiting our office from the UK. Pete started having severe pains in his side and we ran him over to Timken Mercy and sure enough he had appendicitus. By the time it was all set up for surgury, it was 6pm. I stayed with him up in his room until his procedure, prayed with him before he went in, and stayed until he was out of recovery and called his family with reports throughout. It was obvious to me that was the right thing to do, but Jon says Pete still brings it up when people bash me in the UK office for being too concerned about business first. I am pretty serious about making money for the business I admit.

Anyway, back to Bangkok. We got to the gate and I asked jon to take one last photo for memory next to the latest Buddhist statue. I thought it'd be fun to make the hands folded gesture in memory of my trip.

After arriving in Beijing, we breezed through baggage claim and immigration. Beijing built three new international terminals for the Olympics last year. They weren't open on my last trip and I was quite impressed. Probably the highest tech and most beautiful architecture in an airport. Simon Wang, my employee from our China office was there to meet us. Simon is a great employee. He speaks perfect english, he's an engineer and technically smart, he has good economic business sense, and best of all, he is a good stable person (cares about people). What a find for $35,000/year, and that's well paid in Beijing. We traveled to the car and Simon reported that Mr. Guo our main vendor has let us use his new Mercedes S Class for the weekend along with his driver Mr Li. We loaded up and took off downtown in style. I was afraid to put my feet on the mats the car was so new. Jon was raving about the car and it's special features. I must admit it really was pretty cool. Some of the features I'd never seen like electronic control on the rear seats for multi posotion reclining and automatic window controls that raised and lowered a separate screen for sun control. As we strolled down the highway and went to the restaurant, Jon and I noticed that many high value automobiles are on the road around. Much more than cleveland or Birmingham England. We both were amazed in the tremendous change from year to year. When I first traveled to China in 1998, I was the only car in town. with 5 million bicycles around the car. Now 1o years later, not a bike in sight, but plenty of Merecedes, Porsches, and Jaguars and Bentleys.

We stopped off and unloaded at the downtown Crown Plaza hotel. The rooms are very beautiful and well appointed for $150/night. We quickly reloaded into the Mercedes while Mr Li waited out front of the hotel, he didn't wanted to park it obviously. Simon had planned a special dinner just for me-he proclaims we're going to TGIFridays! Simon knows full well I can't stand real Chinese food (especially up North where everything is sour tasting). He said, Mr. Guo is planning a big dinner tomorrow and that I'd better get some Western food in now. Simon knows me well and I appreciate that. We had a nice Fridays meal and as we walked out to the car, a small boy about 6 years old comes up holding a hat. He was kind of dirty around the face and looked like a steet urchin. I was shocked. I haven't seen that in Beijing before. I reached for my wallet and remembered that only had 100RMB bills ($35). Simon quickly pulled out some bills and dropped it the little hat. We scurried back to the hotel in our Mercedes, unloaded at the hotel and Simon and Mr. Li.

As I prepared for bed, I did my Lenten journal and nightly prayers. The little boy returned quickly to my mind. It's quite obvious that God sends people into our lives for a reason. That 30 second encounter re-centered my world. Reflecting on the big picture, here we are in China, doing business in the newly forming world heirarchy, and then clearly see that we are called to notice the children. What are our responsibilities as adults to create a better world for them? And I'm talking better not wealthier. For as it says in Matthew, "Store up your treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys; nor thieves can break in and steal; For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." With all that has transpired in the last 6 months economically, it appears the world is in self correction. Seeing that our desire for earthly treasures in the West is now driving economic abundance in China should make us stop and ponder. Where are we headed as a people of God? I know we can't necessarily change the overall economic picture. But one person at a time, we need to act responsibly with our gifts. As I head into the week of important business dealings, this little boy will be in my mind.