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October 29 – Yesterday I worked at the factory until about 2 pm, then I returned to the hotel and went for a long walk. I walked by the barber shop where I had my hair cut earlier in the week and some of the staff immediately recognized me so I stopped for a photo or two. I also walked by the little porno shop and I managed to wake up the proprietor and get his photo. He was none too happy (maybe to be woken up?) and so I told him I would delete the photo, but of course I didn’t tell him that I would do so after spreading it onto the internet.

I had dinner with the local office manager and his long time associate, who once worked for our home office in the states. To get to his area we had to drive all the way to East Shanghai, about an hour or more one way. His wife and two daughters, both born in the USA, were also there, fresh from their Halloweiesen outing at the local compound. It was a very nice neighborhood, very reminiscent of any US suburban locale; complete with strip malls and low level townhouse style housing.

Today was again spent with the local office manager, this time in a town called Zhou Zhuang, a very famous tourist attraction here. It is a coastal town originally built in 1086. The town is known as the “water town” because it was built in an area with so much water that you almost needed a boat to get from place to place. Many of the older structures and homes have been preserved and serve as a cultural bridge to the past, with emphasis on the Ming and Qing dynasties. There is entertainment, artifacts, and handicraft demonstrations that recreate the atmosphere of the olden days. It is probably a little too commercial for me. There are trinkets and souvenir shops in abundance and the vendors are quite aggressive in hawking their wares. With some help from my manager friend in arguing the price in Chinese I managed to buy a bracelet for my wife that listed at 1370 RMB, but sold for 350 RMB.

October 26 – Well I had to change hotels today, from the Hotel Sentosa to the Yuehua Hotel. The access to the internet had been spotty at best since my arrival, but yesterday and today it had been non existent.

When queried, the hotel flunky (er, manager) said that it “was not a hotel problem”, it was the fault of the internet provider. Because another westerner had told me the access in his room was ok, I asked if I could try another room. The manager said that others in the hotel were having such problems and so he didn’t seem interested in obliging me. So I told him to prepare my invoice, at which point, believe it or not, he still didn’t realize that it was indeed the hotel’s problem. Alas, a “world class hotel” (it really is excellent in all other aspects) without a clue.

Later the manager’s boss, a pleasant sounding young lady, got my phone number from my local office and called me at work, begging me to come back to their hotel. I guess they finally realized that with another 10 days or so, at $90 a pop, their internet problem really was their problem after all. After several rebuffs she even offered one free night’s stay if I would return. But being the stubborn old fart that I am, I finally had to hang up as politely as one can do so.

Even though I didn’t need one, I got a haircut just to meet and interact with the locals. It took two people, one for cutting and one for washing (before and after) and the total time took about 20 minutes, a job my wife would normally do for me in two or three minutes, given my lack of a requirement for such activity. The bill came to about $4.50 US. Later I also got a foot treatment (at least I do in fact have feet) which lasted about one hour, believe it or not, for the same price. This place is crawling with these two types of shops over here, I don’t understand why the need.

In this city the majority of people seem to live in these four or five story townhouse type buildings, maybe twenty or so units in length. It must be that almost everyone in the building is allowed to have his own little business shop on the ground level, they are typically 12-15 ft wide and maybe 30 ft deep. Perhaps they were intended for storage or as a garage, but have been turned into shops, I don’t know. Other typical businesses include mini variety stores, cigarette shops, rice shops, etc. I have even seen one that looks to be a porno shop, only 7 feet wide x 10 ft deep or so, just enough for the owner to fit his futon, his TV, and his walls full of wares.

October 25 – The days are starting to blend together, it is hard to tell one from another. On Sunday I had a real problem not feeling well, still feeling the after affects of something I ate on Friday and perhaps my colon problem is acting up again, I’m not really sure. And to make matters worse, the weather until Monday had been overcast, humid, and smoggy, so much so that it was difficult to breathe. But on Monday a cold front came thru and it actually got chilly enough to require a windbreaker in the evening. The weather has since then been almost perfect, the best since my arrival.

On Monday evening I had dinner with Mr. Zhang, my engineer friend from the local office. We returned to the site of my earlier steamboat disaster and I am happy to say that all turned out much better. We had the type of broth pot which is divided into two parts, one for zsechuan style and the other for more normal style. We ate only from the spicier side and I enjoyed almost everything he had selected from the menu. When the “shrimp” arrived they turned out to be live crawfish, much smaller than anything I had ever seen in a restaurant before. Reportedly from the Yangtsee River (but maybe from local fish farms?) they were busily trying to crawl out of their container when they arrived at the table, but into the hot pot they went and although really too much trouble to de shell and eat, I enjoyed them nonetheless.

I am getting much more comfortable with my surroundings and the neighborhood, I now know where to find the nearest supermarket or pub or rice shop or variety store, none of which seem to be run by Pakistanis, by the way. I think I might try a hair cut tonight, just to meet more locals. It is really fun to see them interact with a westerner. Several times I have been approached in the street, usually by a parent with a small child, who want only to say “hello”, this particular word being the first thing out of their mouth.

On Sunday I found an enormous park not too far from my hotel, it seemed to be a botanical garden or something similar, although there appeared to be some commercial development associated with it. But the weather was humid and smoggy, so much so that I couldn’t really enjoy it. Perhaps I will return now that the weather has improved.

October 20 - Another day at the factory. For dinner I returned alone to one of the small local restaurants that I had enjoyed some days ago. The meal wasn’t quite as good and I started noticing some after affects rather soon this evening.

October 21 – Another day at the factory, but being Saturday I stayed only until 2 o clock or so. One problem with working Saturdays here is that we are already one day ahead of the home office, so if anything comes up we then get two days ahead in order to get correspondence back.

The dinner last evening continued to wreck havoc with my innards all day and so my bum was feeling chafed from so much activity. I spent the afternoon looking for preparation H or a reasonable facsimile. With the language barrier it was interesting trying to get my point across as to what I was searching for. I finally managed to find something, after embarrassing myself in front of two young lady clerks in the pharmacy of a neighborhood supermarket, making some awkward hand signals in the process.

In the evening I finally managed to find the courage to try one of the KTV (karaoke) bars that are so popular over here. The young hostesses were only too happy to see a foreigner come in and they managed to get me to drink more beer in one sitting than I have done in many years. Needless to say it was a big mistake, mainly because my system had not recovered from the trauma of the previous day. Tomorrow is probably going to be a long day.

October 18 – Yet another day at the factory, the day went by much faster because I got good feed back from the home office on a number of issues and there was a batch of machines here that needed to be inspected prior to shipping.

There are about 25-30 people here at the factory, almost all of whom are quite young. Only one of these is female, a young girl who has some administrative duties in the office here. She is an interesting girl to watch, she seems quite spunky. Every now and then I will hear her screaming out at some of her male co workers downstairs, my office being on the upper floor. I think they are continually teasing her about something but she will have nothing of it.

Every morning I bring in to the office crew the left over fruit from my hotel room, along with a few pastries off the breakfast buffet, and occasionally I drop in a roll of toilet paper from the hotel room also. I leave them with her and she doles them out as she sees fit. One day this week she tried to pay me back at lunch by bringing in a burger from the local Macdonalds, saying that I must miss my western food. It was a sweet thing to do, but I had already had my lunch (yuk) and the burger was not that good anyway.

Last week in Shanghai I had found one of my favorite Chinese food items, a little round egg custard pie, but I had not been able to find any here in Nan Chow. Well someone mentioned that they were available at the KFC, so off I went to dinner there. Lo and behold I found them but the quality was not good, they had some raisins mixed in and weren’t very tasty. But the chicken finger wrap was surprisingly good, quite spicy.

After my walk I took a shower and headed downstairs to the hotel’s karaoke room. I peaked in but decided not to bother, too noisy for me. So, just another nite with my favorite beta fish I guess.

October 19 – Still another day at the factory, every morning the factory manager stops for his breakfast, which he buys from a street vendor. It is a large diameter pastry, sort of like a crepe or a fajita shell, which is filled with some spices and a sauce, perhaps a peanut sauce. I am sure I will get up the courage soon to skip part of my western style breakfast and try it.

October 16 - Another day at the factory, this time with the help of a local from the SW Shanghai office. He was much more helpful in translating some of my ideas and questions to the factory manager. I still have no internet access although at least I could get into my web mail system and send some e mails. The weather here continues to be very good, warm and hazy each day, but not too hot, with a very good breeze. I haven’t seen a drop of rain since arriving in China.

At breakfast each day and whenever I eat dinner I have noticed the hotel has a Dolly Parton CD playing on their sound system. When I first heard it I was very pleased because it has some great songs and it made me feel right at home. But after 8 or 9 days it it is starting to wear a little thin. But I met a young Austrian who has been here since July and he says it has been playing every day since then so I guess I am stuck with it.

October – 15 – Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest and relaxation, but I had written a politically sensitive e mail yesterday and after it made its way into certain hands I was off to the office late in the morning to exorcise some ghosts. Fortunately my companions were late in calling for me so I had the good luck to see the arrival at the hotel of a bride and groom to attend their reception. Their arrival was marked by a surprisingly large firecracker display along with a healthy dose of confetti.

Yet another day at the factory.....

October 14 – Yet another day at the factory, although we worked only until early afternoon, at which time I went back to the hotel. I went for a much longer walk around the downtown area here. The city is named Nan Chow (not sure of the spelling) and it is much larger than I had first thought. It reminds me in many ways of Indonesian cities but it is a little cleaner and appears more civilized. The roads are full of not only autos but also bicycles and motor bikes and pedestrians. Their method of navigating around one another appears as utter chaos to the outsider. In some of the main streets they have small lanes devoted exclusively to bicycles and motor bikes.

I found a large bookstore but unfortunately they had no books exclusively in English. I have finished two of the three novels that I brought with me so I am desperate for more reading. Seventy TV channels of Chinese programs and the absurdly biased CNN foreign edition (the CNN domestic version is bad enough) just don’t make it for me. Still no mugs for my wife’s cousin.

I went into one of the neighborhood massage centers, anticipating it would be something like we had found in Singapore years ago, something our Australian friend there liked to call a f—k shop. What a surprise, I had a full 40 minute session, fully clothed both parties, from a young male masseur, all in the presence of other male and female customers within the same room. There are three or four of these centers placed strategically around the larger hotels here, each one having the business name spelled out clearly in English, unlike most of the other local businesses, whose signs are exclusively Chinese. So needless to say it was not what I had in mind, but the experience was interesting if not thoroughly enjoyable.
Before dinner I found a small, almost empty pub and went in to hoist one for “Alvin”, my late father in law. I found myself playing pool with one of the locals and carrying on some semblance of a conversation with the bartender and barmaid, neither of whom spoke more than a word or two of English. They were both quite pleasant but I couldn’t tell if their interest in this western stranger was genuine or if they had some scam that they were cooking up. So after two beers on an empty stomach I was not feeling too spry so I went back to the hotel and went to bed very early. Because I am still not totally accustomed to the time change, it does not really seem all that early each nite. It gets dark quite early here, this location must be on the far eastern end of this particular time zone.

Language problem.....

I ventured again into a neighborhood restaurant for dinner. It turned out to be another steamboat place. Steamboat is a style of dining in which the table is equipped with a gas fired heating pot full of aromatic vegetables and herbs in a boiling broth. You then add your choice of uncooked ingredients (meats, other vegetables, ets) from a pre selected list. .

It was much more crowded with locals so I assume the food was better But you couldn’t prove it by me. Because of the language problem I didn’t know what to order and so I mumbled something in English about chicken. And so when the steamboat stuff arrived they ended up throwing a whole chicken into the bloody pot. I don’t know what they expected me to do with it. The meal, including a big bottle of beer, ended up costing 70 RMB, about $10 or so in US money.

October 13 – Yet another day at the factory. The factory manager brought his daughter to work, hoping that she could act as a translator for me. She is a sweet girl but I don’t think she will be too effective. I am sure he is proud of her because she speaks some English, but I don’t think it is good enough for my needs. But I gave her a list, in English, of my favorite Chinese foods, to translate into Chinese so I can bring it with me whenever I try to eat in a local fan gway (rice shop).

In the evening I tried out her translations in a nearby rice shop and they worked to perfection, albeit with the help of a local who spoke almost perfect English, via some experience in Alabama. I had both noodles with Peking meat sauce zshechuan style string beans and both were quite good. The meal, including a big bottle of beer, set me back about 30 RMB, about $4.50 US. Unbelievable!

Working...

October 8 – We left the downtown hotel early this am and headed for the one closer to the factory, stopping first at the Southworth Shanghai office. A surprise to me was that 6 people were working there on a Sunday morning, but probably because the president from Portland was on his way there for an evening board meeting. They had bought a China mobile phone for me, it has a lot of bells and whistles that I will never take the time to figure out. I still can’t get access to my Southworth e mail

On the drive there it became clear that Shanghai is much bigger than I had anticipated, about the size of Sao Paulo, but without the traffic nightmares, at least as far as I can tell. The new hotel is about 35 km from downtown Shanghai and we even passed thru some farming areas in order to get there. The hotel itself is even better than the first one, and it has cable internet access in the room. Unfortunately I still can’t get access to my Southworth e mail system, maybe the Southworth server is down for the weekend. It’s ironic that the only way I can communicate with Southworth Portland is via Phyllis’ yahoo account, despite all the high priced IS staff on board in Portland.

The area around the hotel is much less crowded, with many residences on all the nearby streets, typically three and four story flats. There are a few KTVs (karaoke bars) here also, but other than these it is going to be difficult to get in any trouble here. The hotel menu is a strange mix of western and oriental food, and my first meal here wasn’t so good. Unfortunately there doesn’t look to be many other good choices around.

Just a few observations on the last few days here:

From all the people I have seen here I have noticed only one small tattoo on one young girl, perhaps they are not permitted.

Despite western rumors to the contrary I have seen a few dogs and cats on the streets.

Except for the major shopping zones in Shanghai the place really reminds me of Indonesian cities, lots of motos and bicycles still being used, lots of the same sites and sounds, including horns being honked continuously to try to avoid collisions.


Some of the infants here are equipped with pants that are open in the crotch area to allow wetting and pooping without having to dispose of diapers. How they manage the human waste itself I have no idea.

October 9 – This is the first day at the factory. It is really two separate buildings side by side, one a machine shop where the parts are cut and processed and the other where they are welded and assembled. There are about 24 workers in the factory itself and another 4 or five in the office area. The machine shop is fairly well equipped, the machine tools look to be in good shape. The flame cutting of the legs is fairly impressive, but the leg drilling looks to be a little dated.

The factory was supposed to have wi fi access but it doesn’t. And to make matters worse I can’t get on the internet from here with their cable line either. It looks like this is going to be a long month. The shop is currently so busy that they are working 7 days a week at 12 hrs per day.

I had both lunch (yuk) and supper (yuk) here at the factory and worked until 6;30 pm and caught a taxi back to the hotel. I still had internet access at the hotel, thankfully. I had requested a phone call from the IS guy at 9 pm to talk me thru my mail connection problems. But his computer had crashed over the weekend so he didn’t call and I fell asleep waiting for him. I woke up at 2 am and called him myself, with the result that I could now at least get onto my web mail system.

October 10 – I worked on my e mail system until about 9.30 am and then went back to the factory. A quiet day here because the managers that were here yesterday are at a trade show and so there is no English spoken here today. I took some photos of the outside of the factory that I will post also. I didn’t want to take photos inside for fear that the workers would think I was spying on them. There is still no internet access from here.

I again had lunch at the factory, another gourmet experience. I had dinner at the hotel and met some Mexican people. Mision Foods is starting up a new plant here and so there are many Latinos and other ex pats working here. After dinner I went for a long walk and discovered that the area is much more commercial and crowded than I had found to date. I found a very nice street for shopping but couldn’t find a suitable coffee mug for my wife’s cousin, a prerequisite for most traveling that we do these days.

October 11 – Another quiet day at the factory, at least until the executives from the home office arrived in the pm. We met with them and then toured the factory, they were pleased that much progress had occurred since their last visit in June. For dinner I ventured alone into a nearby restaurant that turned out to be a steamboat joint, an experience which we had some time ago in Singapore. The meal was quite good except for the appetizers of pigs feet, not very appetizing if you ask me. The local wait staff really got a kick out of my willingness to try the food and also appreciated my limited Chinese skills. It was a small but clean café and I was of course the only westerner in the place.

October 12 – Yet another quiet day at the factory. The Chinese crew here really seems to have its act together, at least for the few particular models that I have seen being produced this week. Almost any manufacturing or quality advice I can give them is really secondary in nature.

Each day here I have breakfast buffet at the hotel and lunch is provided by the company at the factory. The buffet is really well done, with a large selection of all types of dishes, both western and oriental. But many times the western style dishes are rather poor imitations of what we would really get in the west. The factory lunch is a styrofoam
box lunch with much sticky rice, a tiny bit of meat, and some bland vegetables. Sometimes I feel as if the styrofoam itself would be more appetizing.

Working in China....

A glimpse at my life for the next month or so.

View of farm land next door as seen from office
Interior of my office, notice the bed. Wonder why?
Entrance to the plant as seen from inside. Building on right is weld shop, building in background is not ours.
Disproving a myth
My taxi back and forth to work,
sometimes used to transport parts from one building to the other.

The trip...

October 4 – The trip started out fine with a nice flight from Portland into New York City. But upon landing at Laguardia it took a decided turn when the 8 year old boy sitting next to me decided to throw up all over himself, fortunately missing me in the process. And it would only get worse, as evidenced by the next leg between New York and Chicago, in which the American Airlines flight was cancelled.
The American agent was very helpful in rebooking me onto United’s similar flight to Shanghai via Chicago. He even took the trouble to retrieve my bag off the American flight and bring it over to UA so they could put it into their system. A problem arose however because the second leg, Chicago to Shanghai, had been overbooked, leaving me to be on standby after landing in Chicago. But before facing that dilemma we had to sit on the tarmac in New York for about four hours because a bad weather front was moving thru Chicago and the airport had called a “:ground stop” for all incoming flights.
We finally reached Chicago and by then of course the flight to Shanghai had already left without us. So we had to wait in line (actually three subsequent lines because the United people were so badly organized) to get rebooked for about fours altogether, after which it was about 8 pm central time. While in line I made the acquaintance of two oriental ladies, one from Burlington and one from New York. The one from New York was also traveling to Shanghai and we later found ourselves together all the way to down town Shanghai.
Upon finally reaching the head of the line to a United agent that I presumed could help me, she tossed me off back to American because her own people had erroneously accepted my earlier rebooking from American. Needless to say I was by now very angry and I almost went off on the poor lady. To make matters worse, in the confusion over the issue, she inadvertently kept my ticket jacket with my bag claim check that United had given me and I didn’t discover the fact until I had made my way to a different terminal in which American was located.
By now, about 9 pm, the lines at American had dissipated, and they were very helpful in rebooking me onto their corresponding flights to Shanghai on the following morning. Having now discovered the bag check being missing I made my way back to the United terminal to look for it, but of course the United agent had now also gone missing. So I got the number from the United baggage service people so that if it went missing in Shanghai I could at least have something to trace it.
The American agent in New York, anticipating me having a problem when I reached Chicago, had authorized a hotel room for me if needed. But with the big upset in the schedules due to the weather, all of their rooms had been claimed by the time I was ready to claim mine. So I made my way to the hotel booking kiosk to find a room, and after a few tries, I had to settle for a room at Days Inn near O Hare. Not a bad place if you don’t mind the White Castle restaurant, adult book stores, and drug dealing activities being nearby. And of course they were out of toiletries, such as tooth paste. But after a shower and change of underwear, I was ready to face the next day, probably only having to worry about my main suitcase not making it to Shanghai.
All in all a really bad day at the airports, but so typical of traveling these days!
October 5 – The American flight to Shanghai went very smoothly, with the service being very good. The seat was not particularly comfortable but the food wasn’t too bad. I was seated next to the same oriental lady from New York, who had booked into that seat separately by mere coincidence. Unfortunately, the bag from United did not get onto the American flight, a fact made known to me earlier, so upon arrival in Shanghai I had to wait an hour or so for the United flight to land.
The airport in Shanghai is relatively new and is remarkable in its similarity to the airport in Singapore. I am sure the Chinese copied many of their features from the Singaporeans. While waiting near the head of the queue for a taxi the oriental lady from New York, who had been at the tail of the queue, asked if she could cut in line and share my taxi, offering to pay the fare as an inducement, an offer I couldn’t refuse of course. And it proved helpful in speaking to the taxi driver in order to direct him to my hotel. I arrived about 6 pm local time.
The hotel is very nice but I had a bad experience with the bellboy. Finding that I was in China for the first he scammed me with one of the oldest tricks in the book, one that I had heard about long ago but had since forgotten, and one I was too tired to discover until it was too late. He handed me seven US quarters and asked if I could take them in return for their Chinese equivalent. Anticipating that I would have only large RMB bills (100 RMB in this case, about 12.50 US) to do so, he would give me change in smaller RMB bills. But of course the smaller RMB bills were from an earlier edition and are no longer in service, and with me being unfamiliar with the nature of the bills, it was buyer beware. So I was out about 10 bucks.
This hotel is in the central shopping district, an area called the “Bund”. At night it is similar to the Ginza in Tokyo but it is not as large, not as bright, and not as clean. The architecture here is not particularly interesting, they seem to have an interest in illuminating the top portion of their taller buildings, so much so that it gives a gaudy effect. I went for a long walk in the area and it was very crowded with people, this day being one of their important national holidays. Nevertheless all the stores appeared to be open. Being a westerner I was approached numerous times in the street by strangers, some selling copy watches or something similar, but most selling sex, or perhaps scamming by claiming to sell sex. In any case, with the above mentioned experience with the bell boy I was not about to enter into any such discussions. I had an ice cream cone and then a beer, hoping to stay up long enough to overcome the time change. Shanghai is exactly 12 hours time differential from eastern time USA.
October 7 – This was a day of rest and relaxation waiting for my work companions to arrive from the USA. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was very good, but maybe a little expensive. I found a good rice shop at lunch time and ordered one of my favorite dishes, string beans zsechuan style. It was better than any of the ones we have tried in the USA. I enjoyed it so much that I went back later for dinner and the cashew chicken was equally good. Both dishes were also very inexpensive, maybe $12 or so total for two meals, including a beer. I spent most of the day out walking and taking photos. I had particular fun with some of the strangers and street people that I met. The only negative of the day was the surprise that the hotel does not have direct access from my computer to the internet, either wireless or direct cable. They only have access in the business center using their computers, making my communications almost useless because I could not get into our office e mail system. My companions arrived safely late in the day and we made arrangements to meet in the morning and transfer me to another hotel closer to the factory.

Russ's 1st trip to China starts on Oct. 4, 2006