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.
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.
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