China: Baoding

Moving on to Baoding, where the headquarters for our potential customer is located.  Amazingly, things seem to be even cheaper here.  Lunch for 7 people (we picked up a few more on the way) was $15 total!  And 2 nights in a classy hotel was around $100.

I literally never had any idea what we were doing or why we were at an office. I tried to listen to Jacky's translation in Japanese, but for the most part it was a lost cause--everything was in Chinese or Japanese. Even the itinerary mailed out before we left was in Japanese, so I could read times that we were scheduled to do "stuff", but I didn't actually know what the purpose was!!  (We had lots of things planned like: meeting with potential Transfreight China carriers, greeting current Mitsui partners, scouting locations for a Transfreight office, looking for a parking lots for tractor trailers, manufacturing & warehouse visits, and of course, our potential customer meeting.)

We were quite a sight to see though.  In Baoding, we had a convoy of 3 identical black cars.  (Why we didn't stick with the minivan and add a car to transport the new members is beyond me...)  Imagine seven people stepping out of these 3 black cars all wearing black suits in rural China.  The basic difference was that the men each had a different color tie, and my suit had a skirt.  Regardless, we commanded a certain "presence".  In fact, when we were touring an auto factory, the people on the line would actually stop their job to stare at all of us!  (Not for a moment, either.  The staring lasted until we walked away...)  Ummm, hello, we're here to see you how you work!  LOL.

Driving in China is pretty crazy.  Not up to India's standards, but close at times.  The main issue was that infrastructure is half-built.  You'd be cruising on a decent 8-lane road, and then suddenly it would turn to dirt with cement pipes in an interscetion and no lanes, signals, or right-of-way!!  When merging into traffic from a parking lot, our driver never once looked, stopped, or yielded to oncoming traffic.  It was totally bizarre!  I also saw a few cars and trucks going the wrong way on the nice divided roads, and no one even seemed to bat an eye at it!!  Tag and I would just look at each other and roll our eyes!

Here's more classy food presentation.  Chinese people really like to dig out and eat the cheek meat of the fish.  They say it's the most delicious... I think I'll just take their word for it...

I had some other interesting foods this trip like pig ear, duck bone (flavored with salt), and plenty of black seaweed (you know, the kind that boosts my magnesium and lowers my stress!).  I even had some soup that smelled like and tasted like Spaghetti-O's... Yummy!!  Dessert was never served.  By Friday, I was really dying for a biscuit cookie, spoonful of ice cream, even mango pudding!  Anything that might contain some sugar!!  Overall, Chinese food is much oilier than Japanese food and much tastier.  I was well fed, even without chocolate.

The final night, we had dinner with the potential customer and celebrated with the customary Chinese wine.  This "wine" is actually liquor with a proof that ranges from 80-120.  Strong stuff for sure.  They weren't going to make me drink it, but I did so voluntarily (you know, anything to close a deal... well, almost anything...).  The guys didn't have a choice, since it's actually a Chinese ritual to have a drinking "battle".  It was clear but tasted and burned going down a lot like brandy!  Before taking each mini-shot, you must "challenge" someone else at the table to drink with you.  (Generally someone from the opposing company.)  The eldest members are picked on the most, supposedly out of respect.  The men from the opposing company declared me a "strong drinker and good with my chopsticks"... like I haven't heard those two comments before!!  By the way, there were no hangovers from this crazy drinking battle.  Had I know that earlier, maybe I would have had even more "wine".

At one restaurant I heard the "Happy Birthday" song playing, which I thought was awesome.  The first time... then they continued to repeat the song the duration of the meal.  Apparently, this was the background music.  Tag and I were cracking up.  I guess they really don't know what the words to that song means!!

Maybe they are not good with the alphabet in general.  I was registered as "Keirer" at the hotel.  This was the name taken straight from my passport.  How you get one word "Keirer" from "Kerri Lynn Green" is still puzzling to me!!

Baoding was a much smaller town, yet it seemed to be more polluted than Tianjin.

As much as I complain about the hot weather in Nagoya (by the way the heat index is still 96 right now and it's 10pm), at least the thick air I am breathing in Japan is clean.  This polluted air had me blowing black snot out of my nose all week :(

Cool dragon at the entrance of our hotel.

Oh yeah, another reason to be happy to be back in Japan? 

Decent bathrooms. 

In China all they had were squatty potties.  (No handicapped stalls at the end with normal toilets like Japan.)  Even at restaurants, hotel lobbies, and company visits they did not offer toilet paper, soap, or a way to dry your hands.  Good thing I come prepared with tissues at all times so I didn't have to drip dry!!  The TP thing seems so basic to me.  I can't believe no one in China thinks they should provide this item!

And what is it with Asia and hard beds?  I could have thrown a towel on the marble floor of the bathroom and been just as comfortable.  No wonder these people like massages so much.  Their backs must be really jacked up...

At one point during our trip, I saw a store called "one yuan store".  (Yuan is Chinese currency.)  I really, REALLY wanted to check this place out, but we never had any time.  I had images of things dirt cheap, like crazy toys with lead-based paint or hand-stitched Nike shoes.  That place could have been a total gold mine since 1 yuan is about $0.15!!

China: Tianjin

Welcome to Tianjin! China's third largest city.  Tianjin is in the northern area, unlike my visit to Guangzhou in January, which is in the southern area.

Tag and I were met at the airport by Jacky, my fellow Mitsui trainee for the first 2 months I was in Japan.  We were greeted with a Buick "Shanghai" minivan, and I was delighted to see that they drive on the right side of the road!  I even saw a few Buick Enclaves, and it made me excited to be reunited with Clifford (my big red car)!

Not all of the cars in China are cool though... check out these crazy turquoise taxis!!

Tianjin is known for gouza (dumplings), so the first meal we had was entirely of a variety of dumplings.  I never know what I'm going to find inside one of those babies, but pork, beef, or veggies, they were all delicious!  I think it's better than actually seeing the food! 

Most food in China is quite tasty, as long as you don't see any faces or ask what it is!!  On Tuesday they served us a giant pot of boiling sakana (fish) to share. I took my portion and was not too happy to realize that the bones were still in it. The Chinese guy next to me decided whatever he didn't want to swallow (bones, etc.), he would just spit out directly on the tablecloth in front of him!!  While eating my fish, I glanced at the pot and thought I saw an eyeball.  Sure enough, they must have just dumped a couple of whole fish in the boiling pot. Upon closer inspection, other people had fins and tails and a giant head on their plates! I guess I should consider myself lucky that I only found a few bones.  Jellyfish was also served with every meal, but I declined to eat it.  I've has enough of boiled rubber bands for awhile!

Things are cheap here. A nice lunch for five was less than $30 total. My room service dinner was less than $4. I got a massage at the hotel spa for less than $50. (Although Jacky recommended I go to a local massage establishment since they were less than $3 there, but I declined.) 

The massage was a little wacky.  They made me take a shower beforehand (not a bad idea since no one knows what deodorant is here either). Talk about a full-body massage... it even included my breasts and buttocks! This may have been weird before I started bathing naked in public, but by now this wasn't so shocking to me.

So far everyone I've come across has terrible English. (Shame on me for not even attempting to learn a few words in Chinese before I left!) The extent is "hello?" and "OK?", which made the massage quite interesting. And I wasn't sure what I was really going to get for my room service dinner because it took 3 people to take my order of "fried rice with shrimp". I bizarre thing to me was that the menu was in Chinese, Japanese, and English, so that's how I knew what to order!  Eating in restaurants in person is so much easier because I can point to the menu.

In general, I don't like the attitudes of the Chinese people. They are rude to each other... cutting people off in traffic, nearly running pedestrians over even when they have the right of way and are even in the crosswalk, blowing smoke in my face, pushing on to elevators before people have a chance to get off, and answering their cell phones (all with loud obnoxious rings) in the middle of meetings. It seems that no one has heard of "silent mode" or the concept of "letting it go to voicemail"!

I had forgotten about the terrible air quality in China since my last trip in January. There is smog everywhere because of major air pollution. I can only imagine how much worse the situation is going to get as the country keeps on expanding, selling more cars, etc. Some people on their bicycles even have nets over their entire head. I don't know if it's to protect from the bugs, smog, dust, or what?! Out my 6th floor hotel window I can barely see one block. Oddly enough morning and night have the worst visibility. I guess the sun tries to poke through during the day.

 

The smoking doesn't help the air pollution either. Everyone smokes everywhere, which means even I reek like an ashtray when alone in my smokey hotel room. Meeting rooms, offices, elevators, restaurants, cars, there is no non-smoking area that I've seen!

Construction is rampant since this is a growing city, but unlike Japan or US, you will never find a orange barrel or construction barricade. There are just piles of construction material in the middle of the highways (yes, seriously), and workers walking all over the road as if there is no traffic. I watched one guy stand on a pallet and then have a forklift raise him to the second level of a building under construction. Also, no hard hats or other protection equipment... what happened to the Safety First motto?!

Tag keeps making fun of me because it's not sunny, yet I always have my sunglasses on outside. The one time I decided not to wear them, I got a face full of dust and grime that I was trying to blink out of my eyes for the next 20 minutes. So I've decided to just be an American diva and not take anymore chances with the wind!

You can't drink the tap water in China, so I am back to brushing my teeth with bottled water. Also, the Chinese prefer everything hot or room temperature, so couple that with the "no ice policy" and I had to say good-bye to cold water for 5 days.

The internet through the hotel is highly regulated, and I couldn't access a lot of the sites I normally would, including facebook, blogspot, or google. I was accessing some things through my mobile phone, but Tag told me his personal cell phone bill was $2000 last month because he used the internet a few times to email his wife when he was here!!  That's insane!!  So I stopped that activity in order to same Mitsui some coin.

Check out this carrier car!  I was so impressed by it's efficiency, carrying 10 pick up trucks at once.  Then Tag noticed that there is also a police car in front of it, so maybe there is an overloading issue!!

Here's another full load.  You see this kind of stuff all over the streets of China.  They are big into the recycling business.  I thought it was just garbage they were hauling around, but it's actually cardboard to be recycled into paper.  Most overseas containers bound for the US come back to China filled with cardboard or plastic bottles.  I had no idea!!

Tag has been in China for over 7 weeks in the past 6 months, and he's never seen a blue sky or the sun due to pollution!!  So when we woke up on Wednesday to clear skies I had to take a picture of it!  It was like a miracle after all of my complaining!!

More to come as we move to Boading for the second half of our trip!

Quick trip to Hong Kong & China

On Friday I went to China and finally saw some familiar faces from Mitsui and Transfreight. We had a full day of visiting our sister company, Transfreight China, and a plant tour of their customer, Toyota China. Both facilities are in Guangzhou, but there were no flights into Guangzhou, so that's why I had to fly into Hong Kong and then take a 2-hour car ride.

You may recall in a earlier blog that I said Hong Kong is part of China, but not really. I don't have much to say about Hong Kong since I was there for a whole 6 hours. It was dark when I arrived and still dark when I left, but in Hong Kong they drive on the left side of the road. So when we went through the border of China, then the road switched to driving on the right side!! Every time we came to a toll booth, the driver had to put the vehicle in park, get out, walk around the car, and swipe his card! The whole thing was so silly!!

After a hard day's work, we went out for a traditional Chinese dinner where 12 people sat at a round table and shared food from the center. It reminded me of Japan because the dishes never seemed to stop coming. There were so many options, and you could just grab whatever you wanted with your chopsticks! I tried pretty much everything except this fish head below. They really wanted me to dig out and eat the cheek meat, but I declined. The theme the entire night was "This dish is really good for you." Uh, well, I didn't see anyone else scrambling for this cheek meat after I declined it! I think they just mess with me some times to see much how I will believe!

Oh yeah, one plate of chicken came with even the head on it!!

After dinner we walked around the streets of Guangzhou, checking out the sights and window shopping. The Chinese are preparing for the New Year on February 14th, and they often celebrate this holiday for a whole week! Everyone loves the Year of the Tiger!!

Me and my trainer, Kawakami. I thought it was so funny to see Pizza Hut in Chinese characters!!

In one area there was a row of glass boxes and you could see a street below. This is the original street from the "Song Dynasty" from the years 960-1279 A.D.!! It's crazy to imagine the depth of the history in China and that so much of it still remains!

Trees decorated with lights and red lanterns for the Chinese New Year.

The company "361 Degrees" is a big sponsor of the Asian Olympic games, which will take place in Guangzhou in late 2010.

I love these cute cartoon characters supporting the 2010 Asian Olympic games, too!!

China was very interesting, but the air quality in Guangzhou is terrible. Visibility is poor due to smog and haze, so much you often can't see the top of skyscrapers and towers. I heard that one Mitsui guy from Japan lived there for 7 years, and when he came back his doctor told him he needed to stop smoking. But this guy wasn't a smoker!! His lungs were damaged from sucking in all of the secondhand smoke and dirty air!

You had to insert your room key in the hotel elevator and then select the floor you wanted to go to. My companions are convinced it's because the Chinese government is tracking everyone and wants to know when you are in your room or not!! It is a little sketchy... when I tried to used the internet, many sites were completely inaccessible, such as facebook, youtube, blogspot, and others!

Finally, I wasn't sure they were going to let me leave China. The Immigrations officer was really studying my passport and then me, and then back and forth again. Finally she asked "Is this really you?" I said yes. And she responded by saying the photo didn't look like me and that person was fat!! My travel buddies thought this was hysterical! I was kind of offended, but then it's better to hear that I look fat in an old photo rather than hearing that I look fat in person, I guess! I pulled my hair back, tried to form a double chin, and finally they let me get on the plane!!

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles...

Sunday starts a busy travel week for me. I am taking a business trip to Singapore and China and by my estimates I will be in: 1 train, 3 planes, 2 hired cars, 1 bullet train, and countless taxis. I will also be in 5 airports and have to clear Immigration & Customs 4 times!!

Here's another geography lesson. (You can click on the map to make it larger.) Singapore is in the tropics close to the equator, and I am looking forward to temps in the 80's! Next, I move on to Hong Kong and then to Guangzhou, China. Weather in those areas should be high 50's or low 60's.

Now your next question, I'm sure, is: Isn't Hong Kong part of China?! I've gotten quite the education this week, and the answer is: technically Yes, but for all practical purposes No.

Check out the map below; the yellow line indicates a "border" crossing. Hong Kong is actually a S.A.R. of China, which stands for Special Administrative Region. They have their own currency, passports, parliament, and legal systems. Americans are allowed in Hong Kong without a visa for up to 24 hours, but as soon as I get to the yellow border, I will need to show my visa documentation to enter China.