Today we really went to China
Today we ventured with Randy to the plant in Fuyong. While still part of the Shnezhen city, it is very different from Shekou, where we are living.
The plant itself is impressive. It is in a large industrial park, not unlike those anywhere, except for the dorms. I could pick those out immediately because of the laundry hanging out the windows. Everyone hangs their laundry out to dry, neatly on hangers, orderly like your closet (well, not my closet....). The dorms are necessary because people come from all over China, away from their family and friends, to work here. Some nights Randy even stays in the dorms (but not since we have arrived).
At lunch time we rode into Fuyong for lunch with some of Randy's staff and another American guy that is working on the technology transfer from U.S. to China. The streets of Fuyong are full of enterprise. Street-level all of the buildings downtown open up with stalls, most the size of a garage bay, some much bigger, where people work and run small businesses. These can be anything. We saw several machine shops, some Randy says quite good that they use for machine work in the plant. Someone selling rugs. A barber shop. Fake Prada. Occassionally I would see a large clothing store, shiny and tile-floored, like a Limited or Gap anywhere else in the world (but not those brands). What was so remarkable to me was just how much business was going down and the variety of businesses in such close proximity. Am I explaining this adequately? On the drive out I'll try to get a picture.
We ate lunch at Randy's favorite restaurant in Fuyong, a dumpling house. He had warned me before that your first cup of tea is for cleaning your plates, spoons, and chopsticks. This is not done as much in Shekou, where the restaurants use much more modern dishwashers and sterilizers (our kitchen at Randy's home is equipped with one and I can't figure out how to use it, so I just rinse the dishes with unbearably hot water). This isn't rude, as I would have suspected. It isn't just the Americans who do this. Everyone does it. The restaurant even puts out a bowl to collect the chopstick wrappers and the dirty tea, which they remove before they bring out your food.
I joke that Randy's Chinese is fluent enough at work, where he can tell his engineers that they need to "increase the pressure at the nozzle" in perfect Chinese, but when outside of work he can't ask for a bathroom. That isn't completely true. While his work Chinese is quite good(better than many Americans that work around here, so I've heard), already his useful-in-the-world Chinese is better than adequate. He completely ordered our meal, which consisted of dumplings, tofu, potatoes, and eggs, in Chinese, specifying vegetarian options when necessary. WOW. All I can say is Ni hao and Xie Xie (and even that I mispronouce). Anyway, the food was fantastic. I was glad to get some "dofu." Despite the fact that the Chinese invented Dofu, I haven't been able to find it in the store closest to our house. I think the dish was called Ma Pa Dofu (I'll correct that later if I got it wrong)-which means Grandmother's Tofu. We also had fantastic dumplings. This was seriously the best food we've had in China so far. Eight of us for lunch, with all of our various courses listed above and a few meat dishes the others requested, cost less than $20 U.S. This is not the kind of prices you see in Shekou. Don't get me wrong, for an American, Shekou restaraunts are still relatively inexpensive---just no where we've eaten has been like that.
In a bit we'll get the company van and driver to take us back to Shekou. A big holiday weekend is coming up. Randy and his employees have Monday and Tuesday off for May 1, International Labour Day. This was unexpected, but welcome to spend some time with Randy that doesn't involve sitting tensely in a Visa office!
The plant itself is impressive. It is in a large industrial park, not unlike those anywhere, except for the dorms. I could pick those out immediately because of the laundry hanging out the windows. Everyone hangs their laundry out to dry, neatly on hangers, orderly like your closet (well, not my closet....). The dorms are necessary because people come from all over China, away from their family and friends, to work here. Some nights Randy even stays in the dorms (but not since we have arrived).
At lunch time we rode into Fuyong for lunch with some of Randy's staff and another American guy that is working on the technology transfer from U.S. to China. The streets of Fuyong are full of enterprise. Street-level all of the buildings downtown open up with stalls, most the size of a garage bay, some much bigger, where people work and run small businesses. These can be anything. We saw several machine shops, some Randy says quite good that they use for machine work in the plant. Someone selling rugs. A barber shop. Fake Prada. Occassionally I would see a large clothing store, shiny and tile-floored, like a Limited or Gap anywhere else in the world (but not those brands). What was so remarkable to me was just how much business was going down and the variety of businesses in such close proximity. Am I explaining this adequately? On the drive out I'll try to get a picture.
We ate lunch at Randy's favorite restaurant in Fuyong, a dumpling house. He had warned me before that your first cup of tea is for cleaning your plates, spoons, and chopsticks. This is not done as much in Shekou, where the restaurants use much more modern dishwashers and sterilizers (our kitchen at Randy's home is equipped with one and I can't figure out how to use it, so I just rinse the dishes with unbearably hot water). This isn't rude, as I would have suspected. It isn't just the Americans who do this. Everyone does it. The restaurant even puts out a bowl to collect the chopstick wrappers and the dirty tea, which they remove before they bring out your food.
I joke that Randy's Chinese is fluent enough at work, where he can tell his engineers that they need to "increase the pressure at the nozzle" in perfect Chinese, but when outside of work he can't ask for a bathroom. That isn't completely true. While his work Chinese is quite good(better than many Americans that work around here, so I've heard), already his useful-in-the-world Chinese is better than adequate. He completely ordered our meal, which consisted of dumplings, tofu, potatoes, and eggs, in Chinese, specifying vegetarian options when necessary. WOW. All I can say is Ni hao and Xie Xie (and even that I mispronouce). Anyway, the food was fantastic. I was glad to get some "dofu." Despite the fact that the Chinese invented Dofu, I haven't been able to find it in the store closest to our house. I think the dish was called Ma Pa Dofu (I'll correct that later if I got it wrong)-which means Grandmother's Tofu. We also had fantastic dumplings. This was seriously the best food we've had in China so far. Eight of us for lunch, with all of our various courses listed above and a few meat dishes the others requested, cost less than $20 U.S. This is not the kind of prices you see in Shekou. Don't get me wrong, for an American, Shekou restaraunts are still relatively inexpensive---just no where we've eaten has been like that.
In a bit we'll get the company van and driver to take us back to Shekou. A big holiday weekend is coming up. Randy and his employees have Monday and Tuesday off for May 1, International Labour Day. This was unexpected, but welcome to spend some time with Randy that doesn't involve sitting tensely in a Visa office!
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