I was invited to participate in a “business etiquette dinner” for graduating business majors from one of my alma maters.  They asked me to wear “business attire”, so of course I showed up in boots, jeans and a leather jacket.  I made the point when I introduced myself that when you own your own business, you can dress anyway you want.  No ties at work is one of my rules for life.  Someone better be getting married or have died before I’ll wear a tie (tuxedos don’t count).  Life is too short for superfluous neckwear.

The point of this dinner was to teach the future business leaders of America not to pick their noses in public, don’t order the lobster on a job interview or get hammered on the boss’s wine.  I suppose this is all valuable advice, though I am guessing everyone at my table already knew which one was the salad fork.

In my gleefully subversive way, I enjoyed telling them about “table manners” in China (there aren’t any) and loading them up with alcohol-besotted China stories – like the time a friend stripped off his shirt and did The Worm down the middle of the banquet table.  Very athletic guy.  He got the job, in case you were wondering.

However, the one rather shocking thing was that not one of these “business” majors had held a job before.  And nearly all of them wanted to be bankers or lawyers.  I weep for the future of this country.  I told them they should consider entrepreneurship, making things for a living and an international career.  Maybe one of them had some glimmer of what I was talking about.

Do something you love, and it will never feel like work.  Don’t work for the Man; BE the Man.

I learned a great deal about business in undergrad and grad schools.  I am not belittling the value of courses in operations, accounting, marketing, finance, etc.  Some of those subjects, like accounting, I have no idea how you would learn them without a classroom setting.  But I also know that I absorbed what I did in the classroom because I already had a frame of reference and life experience to make it relevant.  I don’t know how it comes across as anything but theory otherwise.

I am not sure how successful they will be finding employment in a few months time.  I haven’t watched Andy Rooney in years, but I expect their humility will have a lot to do with that success.

Much is being written about education as the next bubble.  I know that spending tens of thousands a year to get a degree before you’ve ever put in 40 hours anywhere seems less sensible than ever.  Work for a year as manual labor before blowing $100,000 of your parent’s money (or taking on the debt – gak!) for crying out loud.  I worked in a factory and a brewery before heading off to school.  Best learning experience I had before grad school.

The graduate students were far more impressive, as one would expect.  All I spoke to had work and overseas experience.  Their program requires them to get an internship, and they were all already looking before the program even began, especially the China trackers.  We are lucky enough to have a student from Mike’s and my alma mater, the University of South Carolina, starting in Shenzhen this week.  It is a big moment to grow a company such that you can offer an internship – when we went to school there, nearly all the internships were with companies like GM or Delphi.

Tired and late – nearly 2 AM – 10 years out from my MBA and I am still working 18+ hours a day (and loving every minute of it).  But then, I’ve got plenty of practice.

More articles and weird stuff:

• Toxic Linfen – regardless of Climategate, there is still room for commonsense pollution controls in developing nations
• Think You Know China? Eight Things Foreigners Get Wrong
• Interesting talk on Vested Outsourcing – not sure if I care for the new buzz word, but worth a listen
• Fox Premiers Its First Chinese Film

Day 31 – I awoke early and found that our apartment complex had been decorated with live flowers and orange trees for the Lunar New Year.

Flowers for the New Year

We had a productive morning at the Assembly Center, working on streamlining and improving our process documentation.  I have a manufacturing background and enjoy working on such kaizen initiatives.  Where I wear out is the day-to-day scheduling and personnel management.  I can do it, but it quickly becomes tedious, especially HR (which is admittedly less of a problem than in the USA).  For the next year we will have so many opportunities to make improvements, I don’t see myself getting bored anytime soon.  It also helps we have so many new assembly-inspection-packaging projects rolling in, each of which needs process engineering to get it started.  2009 was actually a strong growth year for PassageMaker, with 19 new assembly projects launched.  Selecting tools, writing work instructions, designing jigs and fixtures, laying out the line and setting the Drum-Buffer-Rope targets is the fun stuff.  I really have an awesome job.

The managers and I head to the cafeteria for lunch, which is notable for a couple reasons.  First, they order Coca-Cola.  Now in the USA I might go six months without drinking a soda.  I don’t particularly care for them and I have alternatives I prefer in the States, such as iced tea (unsweetened with lemon, if you please).  Not so in China, where I know that sodas are safe to drink, and no one has iced tea without a pound of sugar in it (and then usually only in rare SE Asian restaurants).  So I drink sodas pretty regularly in China, but I am the one who orders them, not the Chinese.  More important to this anecdote is why my co-workers ordered the Coke.

The cafeteria was out of tea.

Being out of tea in China is like being out of wine in France or out of whiskey in Lynchburg, TN (Pop. 361).  It doesn’t happen.  It’s a sign of the apocalypse or something.  I felt like walking outside to see if the sun was going nova.

They didn’t even have any 开水, kāi shuǐ, boiling hot water, which is also commonly drunk, the concept of sanitary cold (bottled) water being a recent innovation.  This was truly bizarre.  So we drank Coke from tea cups.

How can a Chinese restaurant IN CHINA run out of tea? We drink Coke instead.

Lunch was also memorable for four dishes, one I can’t wait to try in the USA.

Beef with sweet peppers - I don't eat the peppers, but the flavor they impart on the meat is subtle and exceptional.

Spicy pork & wood ears. This was great - keep in mind this is like getting excellent food at your high school cafeteria.

Tomato & Egg soup - actually very good.

Bitter gourd (also called bitter melon, 苦瓜, kǔ guā) omelet - this was absolutely exceptional - one of the best egg dishes I've ever eaten - the gourd tastes a bit like cucumber and matches beautifully with the egg - I can sometimes get 苦瓜 at our local Chinese market and I am going to try this at home. Awesome.

At around 4 PM, things start to wind down and everyone migrates about 10 minutes away to the banquet hall, because tonight is the joint PassageMaker, SafePassage and China Quality Focus annual Chinese New Year party!  These companies have grown rapidly over the last few years, and we had about 160 people in attendance.  I tried to capture the event, but my camera did a relatively poor job.  Apologies in advance.

we had an upstairs room at this banquet hall

downstairs a much larger company was also having their CNY party

their 'stage show' was far more formal than ours

our banquet had 160 people total

each table prepare with drinks and snacks

this is about 1/3rd of the refreshments for the evening

Christina Feng, our Office Manager, did an exceptional job organizing this party. She and Marc Yue, Production Manager of the General Assembly Center, acted as our emcees

Anita Tang-Bellamy, Mike Bellamy and Julien Roger of China Quality Focus. And hand signals.

Anita Tang-Bellamy, Jesse Chang and Aileen Wang - now it's a party! Don't ask me about the hand signals - all Asian women do this.

Candy Cheng & Teresa Chen - our very effective purchasing team. Teresa also serves as Mike's right hand for company-wide operations. Again with the hand signals.

Hebe Wang, Honey Wu & Teresa Chen - I worked with this team (and others) on streamlining the format of our Product Quality Manual. I've got to find out about the hand signals.

Jesse Chang, Accountant and Master Drinker; Pramod KC from Nepal, head of Project Management for those projects that have moved into regular production ("Vendor Coordination-Export & Logistics" in our parlance); and Adam Supernant, Project Manager from Michigan. And more hand signals. WTF.

Most of the management from our General Assembly Center (the precision Medical Assembly Center has a separate team). My lao pengyou, Sabrina Liao is on the far right. I caught them by surprise, so no time for hand signals.

L-R - Dave Learn, head of Project Management for those projects still in development ("Vendor Coordination-Product Development"; once they go to production, they transition to Pramod's team). Our distinguished guests - Mike Lopez of Campus Emporium, Tyson Daniel of LimbGear, Collin Peel of Camrett Logistics, and Brian Garvin, Director of New Project Development, my sales counterpart based in Shenzhen.

Brian's wife, Ada, who also does hand signals. A wonderful lady.

Buji staff enjoying an evening away from the Assembly Center - they typically work 6 days a week, well into the night to prepare for CNY. All of them would be back at work by 9 AM the next day, a Saturday. Whenever I hear Americans bitch about "all the Chinese holidays", I kind of want to tell them to shove it. This is one of the hardest working groups of people I've ever met. In the foreground is Josephine Ji, Manager of the Assembly Center and a very competent woman. Sadly, this is clearest photo of her I got all night.

Hunan cuisine - many of our employees are from Hunan, the province to the north

hand knotted noodles in duck soup - very elegant

Mike and Teresa give the annual state of the company address and announce the new profit sharing program to raucous applause. Most of our employees are farm kids from the provinces. The idea that they were going to be able to earn a piece of the action blew them away. The party really got rolling after that announcement.

Can I get a witness? Mike had the crowd going.

Mike presenting a 红包, hóng bāo, literally "red bag", a small red envelope containing money. Typically these are token sums, perhaps as little as $0.05, meant to foster luck and prosperity in the new year. Ours had real money and each one that was awarded had more than the last. The final hong bao had over US$100. Everyone also got a bonus hong bao for the New Year.

Julien Roger of China Quality Focus was a big hit with his French-accented Mandarin.

One of the top prizes was a LimbGear t-shirt and a very generous hong bao from our guests.

Jesse Chang toasting an honored guest, Tyson Daniel of LimbGear.

All the lao wai's were asked to speak, draw names, hand out hong bao's & drink...

...everyone drinks...

...and drinks...

...and drinks...

...and drinks some more.

all are rapt with attention as the grand prize is announced

Later things got a little crazy, with dancing, card playing, and for some bizarre reason, arm wrestling.  I was reminded of the Festivus Feats of Strength.

Jesse Chang referees the arm wrestling

All in all, it was a wonderful evening.  Our guests were impressed by the camaraderie and team spirit and by shear amount of fun everyone was having.  Having seen the USA go through the politically correct wringer in the last 15 years, during which all forms of corporate sanctioned fun were done away with and replaced by silly and useless “team building” exercises, aka “manufactured fun”, it is nice to be someplace where “corporate bonding” means cutting loose and eating and drinking and dancing and, you know, having fun.  I left the automotive industry because the lawyers and the accountants and the buyers had drained every ounce of enjoyment and excitement out of it until it became a soul-draining slog.  Life is to be lived and thank God the Chinese understand that.

I recently re-connected with an old friend from B-school living in Switzerland and he is much better networked with our class than I am.  He tells me nearly all of our classmates have taken dull domestic jobs.  What was the point of getting a degree in international business, he quite rightly asked?  I know I did it to get out and see the world, to live a life less ordinary.

Some reading this will think our company frivolous.  If you get that impression, I’m sorry you missed the point.  PassageMaker, China Quality Focus and SafePassage all provide professional, affordable and reliable services in a timely fashion.  Our Endorsed Service Providers do the same.  A big part of the reason we are able to do our job so well is we still have the joie de vivre that keeps us excited about our work of helping our clients succeed.  So have a drink and Happy Chinese New Year!

Articles, articles, articles…

• Chinese diplomat:  Ties with US deteriorated recently – no, really?
• More from Reuters
• This is just wrong – Chinese girl, 9, becomes one of world’s youngest mothers after giving birth to a baby boy
• India forms new Climate Change body
• Uh oh – Fears of sexual frustration among workers in China
• Proof there is a God
• China’s Debt Bomb – as good a reason as any for Washington to quit spending so much money
• Dazzled by Asia – a different perspective, far less rosy about China’s future, and hard to argue with
• Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China – a rather silly article in Time magazine, which again reminds me why I no longer read Time magazine.  As Dave Learn put it, “it sounds like an article written by someone who read a book about China”.
• And this also popped up on the Google search (from the Business Insider) – TIME Magazine’s Ridiculous Five Things America Needs To Learn From China
• China PLA officers urge economic punch against U.S.
• Stay rates for foreign Ph.D.s rebound after decline

A little random tidbit from Dave, who is going on another Asian adventure for the Chinese New Year.  Airlines are just no damn fun anymore (from the terms and conditions on his plane ticket):

- Guests can no longer carry guns and/or ammunition on flights to or from Indonesia

Killjoys.

Day 27 – A client from the USA arrived today, one of a group of three we were expecting.  The other two were delayed by fun winter weather in the USA, so they will arrive tomorrow.  After a long day at work, I met the client for drinks at our preferred corporate hotel, the 999 Royal Suites.  Nice rooms for a very reasonable price.  The bar caters to foreign businessmen and they have the standard Filipino cover lounge singers.  Some have been there for years and it was catching up with old friends.  The Filipina hotel day manager, Queenie, looks great and I am glad to see her rising in her career with the 999.  I once spent 5 weeks living at the older 999 hotel across the courtyard, so I got to know the staff pretty well.

Day 28 – We have visitors today from [company name redacted 7 April 2011], a German 3PL based in Shanghai with offices in Shenzhen [and no sense of humor apparently].  The head of the Shenzhen office is a self-described “banana”, yellow on the outside and white on the inside.  She was adopted from China as a baby by a German family and raised in Germany and Hong Kong.  Very interesting young lady.  We have a great lunch and then they head off to tour our facilities.  Here they are with Mike heading into our medical assembly center with clean room and sterile packaging capabilities.

L-R – Mike Bellamy, founder of PM, and anonymous employees of an anonymous German logistics company that no longer wishes to be named in this blog [as of 7 April 2011], prepare to enter our Clean Room Assembly Center.  Too funny.

Later the rest of the clients arrive and off we go to the traditional first-night-in-China Xinjiang dinner.  Great time.  The highlight was the staff practicing their traditional dances out in front of the restaurant late at night.  I’ve seen them do this before, and really don’t understand it, because none are from Xinjiang and they don’t work in local costume and don’t perform at the restaurant.  But this is one of my favorite scenes from China.  I’ve tried before to take photos and this is the first time they were any good.

Dance Practice

I have no idea if the dance has any significance.

Kind of like a square dance.

They finally realize they have an attentive audience and fall out laughing.

Day 29 – Very productive day of meetings with our clients from LimbGear and our Endorsed Service Provider, Camrett Logistics.  They have a great new family of products and I expect we will see great things from them in 2010.  At night we head out for a Northeastern style dinner, normally one of my favorite styles, at a restaurant called 东北人, dōngběirén, literally “northeastern person” or “northeasterner”.  We were told it would be awesome.  It wasn’t.  The food was a warm cup of OK, but the service was bloody atrocious.  After waiting more than 10 minutes I actually had to get up to go find a waitress and mildly berate her for leaving us sitting so long with no tea.  She was embarrassed enough to come immediately and take our drinks order, but the service stunk throughout the meal.  This is extremely rare in China, where most of the time you have almost too much service.  If you are in Shenzhen, Dong Bei Ren near King Glory Plaza (GuoMao station on the subway) is one to skip.

It's not MONS beer.

Day 30 – Another day at the Assembly Center.  I am starting to feel the end of the trip and have so much to do I eat lunch at my desk.  When I lived in Taiwan, I loved the lunch boxes (bien dang in the local dialect).  Today’s take out was not the same (bien dang are more complete rounded meals) but it reminded me a bit.  A good light and healthy lunch all the same.  Now if I can just get my TrekDesk (one of our clients!) set up in China, maybe I could actually LOSE weight on these trips.

lunch at my desk - better than 95% of American Chinese food

On the way to dinner, we saw one of the more memorable sights of this trip.  We are fast approaching the Chinese New Year, and families stock up on fresh produce to last through the long holiday (1-2 weeks).  And when I say fresh, I mean live.

This is 3 chickens and 2 geese caged on top of an SUV, with cardboard rigged up to block the wind. These birds will be kept on the guy's balcony or in his yard until required at meal time during the CNY. Sorry, but this is the best photo I could get in the moving traffic and low light.

Dinner was one of the best of the trip, which is really saying something.

personal hotpots - chicken broth seasoned with garlic, ginger, thousand year old eggs - you add green onions, cilantro, miso paste and chiles to a soy dipping sauce to taste - cook the raw ingredients yourself in the broth and dip in the sauce - lamb, beef, tofu, wood ears, golden needle mushrooms, lettuce - wonderful

RAW BEEF SASHIMI with soy + wasabi dipping sauce - this is the best thing in the world - ZOMBIELAND be damned

Everyone’s tired and a little lubricated, so early night.  More adventures tomorrow!

More interesting articles:

• Hong Kong remains world’s freest economy: report
• For this American, the idea that the US government can get Google to do anything is silly
• Impressive China economic growth numbers
• An ode to the internal combustion engine
• Now IMDB is blocked in China
• From Wired, In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits
• De-industrializing Detroit
• How to Push a Dump Truck Out the Window – the wreckage that was America’s 4th largest city
• US slaps duties on electric blankets from China
• Bacteria Rebuilt To Make Oil
• We Are So Screwed – a fascinating look at financial crises
• China protests US arms sales to Taiwan

The last two weeks have been insane.  The pollution was unbelievable up until this past weekend, as bad as I’ve seen it in over a decade.  I could taste it and feel it on my teeth.  Blowing your nose was a bit of an adventure and made me wish for black handkerchiefs.

It has also been fun as the Great Firewall is now blocking Bloomberg completely and Reuters about half the time.  Several IT guys we’ve worked with in the past have left China for Thailand because the Firewall is too big a pain in the neck.

Day 15 – Customer visits seem to to be an almost daily event.  So far this trip we’ve had them one after the other from USA, France, Australia, etc.  I was running late, so I hired one of the gypsy cabbies who hang out by our apartment complex to run me across the street to the office instead of taking 10 minutes to walk.  He proceeded to pull straight out into oncoming traffic driving the wrong way down the main road and then cutting across 4 lanes of oncoming traffic to get to our side of the road.  Such is life in China.  After 10 years here, Mike still doesn’t drive.

Lunch was nothing special, though I am constantly amazed at how fatty the meat here is.  In the USA, where nearly everyone can stand to lose a few pounds, fat is bad, horrible, terrible stuff.  Here, it is where the flavor is.  And hardly anyone is overweight.

fatty pork and bok choy with garlic

lovely beef and mushrooms

At night I head off to Futian to meet an old friend who is now a rep for PassageMaker.  He was born in Hong Kong but raised from infancy in the UK, so he speaks perfect British English.  He moved back to HK on the day of the handover in 1997.  He wanted pizza and beer, so we go to NYPD (New York Pizza Delivery), an outdoor place that serves the best American style pizza I’ve ever eaten.  Really.

The owners are a couple American Born Chinese (ABC) from California who developed a dough recipe that is mind blowing.  Crispy and soft at the same time, it kicks the pants of anything I’ve tried anywhere else in the world.  All ingredients are flown in weekly from the USA.  And the beer is dirt cheap, too.  Across from our table was a skyscraper with a gigantic TV across the top 5-6 floors.  We watched TV while we ate and chatted.  My camera sucks in low light, so I couldn’t take a photo.

Sitting outside on a nice night, eating great pizza, drinking cold beer, watching a TV 5 times the size of my house and hanging out with an old friend, all for about 20% of the cost of a similar meal in the USA, I wonder why the heck I don’t live here full-time.

NYPD extra large supreme

Futian at night - the colors constantly cascade

Day 16 – Worked all day and well into the night.  We didn’t leave the office until nearly 11 PM.  Given the hour, Mike’s wife thoughtfully arranged for dinner – a meal of grilled tofu, potatoes and lamb skewers, washed down with copious amounts of cold beer.  Oh, did I mention it was on the side walk, sitting on stools that would be reserved for a pre-school classroom in the USA and eating off a plywood folding table sized for a dwarf?  It was bloody fabulous.  It cost about $5.  I love this place.

eating meat and drinking beer on the street - yang rou chua'r & toilet paper napkins

grilled tofu - really good

our dining table

our chef

delivery bike - it's a good sign of quality if the locals will order delivery - they must be doing well, as a few days later they helped me make change to pay a cab driver who was out of small money - whole operation runs on a cell phone

Day 17 – A full day at the factory.  We are working on a big order that needs to go by the end of the month, and we are using this as the first test case of my ideas for operational improvements.

The view from our factory manager's window - Buji, an industrial suburb of Shenzhen

industrial park dormatories - maybe 2500 people live and work here

Who doesn't like Corinthian columns on their factory? I know I'd like them.

Every industrial park needs a decorative fountain!

The back part of our industrial park is still under construction - note the concrete erosion control lattice on the hillside - you see this everywhere in Asia

I joined the managers from the factory and had my first meal at the park’s cafeteria.  Food was not bad, certainly not as bad as they’d told me.

Beef & mushrooms for $1

That night we picked up some prospective clients for dinner at my favorite Xinjiang restaurant.  I’d gotten them hooked up with my old friend from Taiwan as a translator and we all had a great time.  One item of note, we saw the world’s most expensive production car outside the hotel.

a Maybach at the 999 Royal Suites

Day 18 – Mike asked me to join him for lunch on Saturday.  On the way down to meet him, I passed a ballot box – the apartment complex is having an election.

The ballot box

The banner announcing the election

We head to an Algerian coffee shop in the center of Luohu.  Both of us are in the mood for something other than Chinese food.  The place has several things that rare in China – a separate smoking area and SILENCE.  The Chinese, especially the Cantonese, are not quiet people.  Going to a typical food court on a Saturday is like enjoying lunch next to a jet engine.  You get used to it (by slowly going deaf), but it is a shock for first-timers used to the USA where typically people don’t shout in restaurants.  We had business to discuss, so it was a good choice.

lunch at an Algerian coffee house - seperate smoking area for the hookahs (yes, really)

Evidently Algerians eat their gyros with french fries - a North African Primanti

Shenzhen skyline - the bronze building (two towers of the same structure) has been tied up in a corruption scandal for years and has never been finished.

That night we head to Coco Park area for Brazilian barbecue and to later join friends at Club Viva.  I love churrascaria and this one was acceptable.  The ones in China just fail on the salad bars, which is a big part of the appeal for me in the States.  However there were two items of note:  camel meat and beer urns.

Roasted camel meat - they have camels in Brazil? Very rubbery and fatty - not something I will seek out again.

The urn of beer is one of the greatest ideas of all-time. An idea America needs to adopt. And Tiger Beer from Singapore no less - my favorite!

Day 19 – despite being Sunday, we go to the office to work most of the day.  Not much of note, but a few photos nonetheless.

An accidental photo of the apartments across from our office reflected in a puddle. These are very working class apartment blocks and are fugly. Note the slapdash hand poured concrete sidewalk.

This is what I was try to take a photo of. This flower graffitti appeared today, next to the trash bin no less.

Fruit and sugar cane for sale on the street. In order to eat sugar cane, you have to hack it to length and peel it. Our sidewalk is usually covered with foot-long strips of sugar can husk.

The day ended with another wonderful dinner by Mike’s wife and the maid.  Simply magic from such a small kitchen.

Dinner at Mike's

The chefs - Anita Tang-Bellamy and the housekeeper

Day 20 – I woke to ghastly pollution.  At first it appeared a lovely misty morning, but that soon turned into choking smog that persisted all week.  That said, it was a great and productive day at the Assembly Center.  The culinary highlight was a fabulous meal at a very upscale restaurant near the factory.  The place was part of a large apartment development with Spanish style architecture, a welcome departure from the typical Chinese apartments.

the mountains are obscured by smog

This is a temple, so I am told. It is a huge sprawling walled compound like a miniature Forbidden City. I hope to visit before I leave. Note the smog.

That's Di Wang Da Sha, the tallest building in Shenzhen through the smog.

A sign for Mission Hills golf course - supposedly a great course, but hard to imagine playing in this pollution.

they literally tear down mountains here

There is an army base across from our industrial park, complete with vintage jet fighter, tank and rocket on display.

A beautiful apartment complex, with a Spanish feel, with many good shops and restaurants.

Notice the planters in the road and the brick streets.

A sublime dish of squash and mushrooms.

Savory meat buns.

Sweet egg custard dumpling - this is hot and delicious.

Sweet pumpkin and taro soup.

Day 21 – Pollution continues and is even worse.  Back early to the Assembly Center to start working on the line.  We have a big rush order of a complex assembly, around 90 parts in the BOM, and an agonizing wiring step that takes around 8-9 minutes.  No way to automate it, it must be done by hand.

First thing is to head off to B&Q to buy some decent tools to cut down on assembly time as much as possible.  For the February order I will get electrical and air tools to speed things up and allow for more people at the wiring operation, but today it is just decent hand tools.  By upgrading the tools and teaching some Drum-Buffer-Rope practices, we complete the order 5 days ahead of schedule.

B&Q is like the European Home Depot.

Because land is so expensive, even a big box has to be multi-storied. These escalators are wide and flat to allow for carts, and they make them a sale point by lining them with bins. We picked out some containers on the way from one floor to the next.

How soon until this trend of patterned appliances and cabinets takes off in the States (the refrigerator is on the left)? My guess is no time soon.

Lunch was at a North West style restaurant.

I am sad this picture did not turn out - these are some of the best preserved vegetables I've ever eaten - vinegared and salted cucumbers and long beans.

Lamb bones - you suck the marrow out with a straw.

The soybeans in the back were particularly good.

One of the Little Sheep restaurants I mentioned previously - something creepy about it.

The Source of Cherry?!

Day 22 – Another day at the Assembly Center.  A good day with more smog.  Ho hum.  The highlight though was dinner with my old friend, my lao pengyou, Sabrina.  She was Mike’s first employee 9 years ago and we have become close friends over the years.  We always go for dumplings when I am in China.  She is a wonderful project manager, a very tough lady who doesn’t take any crap from suppliers.

My dear lao pengyou, Sabrina, who wouldn't hold still for a photo.

Roast pigeon - from lunch actually, but fun nonetheless. You don't eat the heads - they're just for show.

Dumplings with Sabrina.

Wonderful sweet & sour fish with Sabrina.

The fan in the bathroom was installed upside down. You see a lot of this kind of laziness here. I once saw the grill of a DongFeng (East Wind) truck installed upside down.

Day 23 – Another day at the factory, including lunch at the cafeteria.  This time we invited members of the production staff and they played “gross out the foreigner” with the lunch order.  Good natured fun and I am used to it.  I’ve never yet backed down.  Except for the waterbugs a few years ago, but I was already recovering from food poisoning.  Oh and did I mention the pollution *cough*?

Pollution is ghastly - compare with the picture above.

So far so good - a wonderful dish of tofu and pork - the reason most people in the West don't like tofu is because they've never had properly prepared tofu.

The fish was tasty but loaded with bones - what is so hard about boning a fish?

We start to go off the rails. Pig liver soup - with valves!

Now this was just plain vile. Pig's large intestines with sweet peppers. I ate two pieces to satisfy the hosts, but this will not be on the menu again.

ahhh...hmmm

Every cafeteria needs a puppy.

This is a beer poster in our cafeteria - a work dining hall that serves beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why can we not have this in America?

Our industrial park's cafeteria.

Icky looking sweet pastries - I'll pass.

Basketball court in front of dormitory.

The outdoor pool tables (basketball court to the left, convenience store and cafeteria on right).

Another erosion control method is to pour concrete all over the hillside - really looks nice with the pollution patina.

Chinese construction site in the back corner of our park.

Our building.

Nice landscaping jarringly accented with fake plastic trees and shrubs in unnatural colors. They light up at night for extra class.

A plastic Japanese maple - why?

Pollution turns the leaves gray with soot and dust.

The industrial park gate.

I love the dragon turtles.

Tearing down mountains yields a lot of stone - EVERYTHING is polished stone.

We leave the plant close to 9 PM and the smog has rolled in.

We join Mike at the office and walk home for a late dinner.  This involves Mike’s preferred method of crossing the street – sprinting across 8 lanes of traffic instead of the “long way” using the pedestrian bridge.  Chinese pedestrians have no concept of jay walking.  The only thing more dangerous than the air in China is the traffic.

A late, lite meal at Mike's.

Day 24 – We head out in the morning to pick up a prospective client in Futian at the Marco Polo.  Dinner involves a trip out to Shekou for dinner at Tasca, a fantastic authentic Spanish tapas bar.  Spanish food is the only thing I like better than Asian cuisines.

Futian skyline around Coco Park

Futian skyline around Coco Park - note the cranes raising another skyscraper.

Futian skyline around Coco Park

Futian skyline around Coco Park - the handsome buildings in the foreground house the new McCawley's, a Nepalese restaurant, a Chinese-military-themed nightclub that is hugely popular with the locals. The Brazilian barbecue and Club Viva are around back.

Coco Park

TAPAS!

Paella!

After dinner we walk over to Sea World, an outdoor mall surrounding an old cruise ship.  This was the ship where Deng Xiao Ping signed the papers to create the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which was sort of the real starting gun for the reemergence of China.  They’ve since filled in the harbor, completely surrounding the ship.  The place is now a “Little Foreign Town” catering to expats.  My camera did not work with the lighting, so no pictures.  I am sure you are heartbroken.  We went to the original McCawley’s for a drink and then headed home.

Day 25 – It’s a glorious Saturday.  The pollution is gone and it is deliciously warm but not hot.   Mike’s in the mood for pizza and his wife and daughter want to go shopping.  The car drops us off in the heart of Luohu, in the shadow of the “Empire State Building” of Shenzhen, Di Wang Da Sha.  It is one of the best looking skyscrapers in the world, IMAO.

This photo does not do it justice. The building has twin spires and from this angle, you can only see the one. It is perfectly symetrical, so use you imagination.

Scroll back up for the pollution shot of this building from a distance.  If China adopts a better energy source – perhaps modern nuclear as in France and Japan – this a pretty attractive city.  The clear days that you do get remind you of how awful the pollution really is.

Papa John’s is the choice for today, and like many US chains in China, they’ve gone upscale and adapted to local tastes.  The dining area is an alcove of sorts, shaded with big comfortable chairs.  Kind of like eating pizza on you covered patio at home.  The recipe for the dough was substantially different than in the States, and while it was satisfying, it is no NYPD.  Looking out from our alcove a gleaming new Gucci store dominates.  A Mercedes festooned with wedding decorations pulls in to park.  To the left is a brand new Hyatt and to the right the Huaan Conifer Hotel, a Chinese hotel that is by far the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in Asia.  I spent 3 weeks there once and it is decadent.  Next door to the Papa John’s is the most badass fast food restaurant on the planet.

Papa John's local menu.

Gucci

Just married - the Chinese have embraced many trappings and traditions of Western weddings, including white gowns and bouquets of flowers. It is also common to have two ceremonies, one Western (white color scheme) and one traditional Chinese (red color scheme) in full costume.

The Huaan Hotel - this photo is a pretty good summary of Shenzhen.

The new Hyatt.

Chinese chain of healthy fast food restaurants featuring steamed food - and Bruce Lee. Told you it was badass.

After lunch we go to the Dongmen (“East Gate”) Road shopping area, which is a sprawling warren of narrow streets selling every consumer good under the sun.  It was a mob scene.  And lots of fun to see that many people out having a good time.  We buy some movies and the ladies get squid-on-a-stick (they didn’t ask me if I wanted any, *sniff*) and take it easy instead of going out on the town.

Dongmen shopping street

Day 26 – Another beautiful day.  I go across the border into Hong Kong with a co-worker, just into the New Territories, not the famous city center.  We are going shopping for American style dill pickles (yes, really) for Mike, mainly an excuse to get out of Shenzhen and do something different.  We cross the border at Luohu, and see something across the fence in Hong Kong I have never seen in Shenzhen – a grave yard.

Hong Kong graveyard on the hillside facing Shenzhen. Little mausoleums tucked into the hillside.

Today also saw my first trips on the Hong Kong MRT and the Shenzhen subway system.  So now I have an Octopus card for Hong Kong (which can be used to buy all sorts of things, not just riding the MRT, very cool) and a Shenzhen subway pass.  I rock.

Hong Kong MRT

A small town in the Hong Kong New Territories

First we went to a Chinese “wet market” selling an amazing array of fresh ingredients.  The smells were powerful and it is not for the faint of heart.  I thought it was awesome.

Know your butcher.

Really fresh fish.

Now THAT'S a cutting board!

Live crabs and shrimp and oysters, oh my!

Chinese sausages - these are awesome - especially the blood sausage on the left.

Vegetable vendor.

Tofu vendor.

Dried sea food vendor - that's dried squid - yummy. No, really. It's yummy.

Upstairs they had a food court.  As I mentioned above, these places are LOUD, but I feel right at home.  This dynamic, barely controlled chaos, coupled with incredible food, is what attracted me to Asia in the first place.  We have two 600 ml Skol beers and noodle soup.

Noodle soup with fish balls and crispy fried fish skin. Roasted garlic as the final addition is served in the spoon so it doesn't get soggy.

Hong Kong food court.

Hong Kong food vendor.

After lunch we try a number of Western style grocery stores looking for the pickles.  They are located in malls that are part of the MRT stops.  Very sensible.  Not sure which is the chicken or the egg, but it works well.  The grocery stores are 100 times better than when I was last here, but they are still thinly stocked compared to your average Kroger and are positively claustrophobic.  I can barely walk down the aisles without turning sideways.  After an hour or so of looking, no pickles.  We buy Cadbury’s chocolate for the office instead.  Couple things caught my eye.

Imported beer is big in China - a real sign of wealth and an acknowledgement the superiority of European brands.

You can buy whiskey and fine American wines in the grocery store!

Defeated we cross back into Shenzhen at the new Futian crossing, a far more impressive building than the old Luohu crossing.  Reminds me of an airport.  In this place the Shenzhen River is much wider.

The Shenzhen River, facing east.

The Shenzhen river, facing west.

We take the Shenzhen subway to meet Mike for dinner.  Very clean and efficient.  Instead of a poster in the car showing the map of the lines, they have an electronic display that tracks the progress of the train.  Very cool.  We head to a Japanese restaurant that has the craziest deal I’ve ever seen.  All the sushi and tepanyaki you can eat and all you can drink – juice, soda, tea, beer, wine, sake, doesn’t matter – for 150 RMB.  That’s $22.  I have no idea how they stay in business.  By my count, I ate $100 worth of food alone, not even counting the beer.  There is no restrictions – you can order anything off the menu.  The absolute highlight was kobe beef sashimi – raw slices of rice paper thin beef.  I ate at least 3 orders, each 45 RMB.  It was fantastic.  It is now my official favorite thing to eat in the whole world.  Note to the FDA – it is far easier to control the diet and health of a cow than a wild fish swimming in the ocean.  If sushi is legal in the USA, why not raw beef?

This restaurant is in the basement of one of the big malls in the area, CITIC Plaza.  It is a bit of a maze, so we went round and around looking for it, including an elevator with the follow sign:

This Elevator Circulates Time - new this year from Dongguan Elevator Factory #1, the Time Warp Elevator!!

Last item for today’s blog, the Japanese restaurant had cool bronze dragons on the table.  I had seen these before in Korean restaurants, but had forgotten about them.  I need to get some of these for my home in the USA.

Can you guess what this is?

very cool

That’s all for now…

• Daring blogger tests the limits
• Article with some interesting graphs on Chinese military spending
• Article on Google
• Power rationing in China
• Why America and China Will Clash
• Avatar banned in China
• chinaSMACK – this is an awesome news aggregation site sent to me by Dave Learn – a real insight into modern China
• More on Google v China

I had some customer calls this morning and got to the office later than planned.  It was a beautiful day, clear and warm and actually worked up a sweat walking to work.  Mike is very frugal (like a good entrepreneur should be) and he sited PassageMaker and the corporate apartment on purpose.  Liantang, our “town” in the Luohu district, is not upscale at all, and most Western companies are based in tonier districts like Futian and Shekou.  Liantang is very Chinese, we are the only foreigners and there is no Starbucks or other Western shops.  We do have a KFC and a McD’s, but both these brands are so well established in China they are almost like local offerings now.  KFC especially has a very different menu than in the States, tailored to the local market.  When Mike was researching our new home a few years ago, he chose this area because he could buy a house across the street from the office.  Also we are an important tenant for the landlord, so we can control the HVAC.  In many of the high rise office towers, the landlord controls the thermostat.  And rents are also much lower in Liantang.

My daily walk takes me right beside the HK border fence. There was a photo shoot going on, a local musician being photographed looking cooly oppressed and morose sitting with his guitar next to the razor wire. The more things change...

In order to get to work, you have to cross a foot bridge over the main highway.  Chinese steps are instructive.

The ramp in the middle is for strollers, carts, luggage and the very occasional wheelchair. The angle is horrendous - lawyers in the States would have a field day - but it is better than nothing and it is crudely effective.

For breakfast I went to a vendor around the corner selling a type of flatbread.  The size of a large pizza but wafer thin, it is fluffy and crispy at the same time.  I has green onions cooked into it and is coated with sesame seeds.  A real taste delight.  I bought half a pizza, cut up into bite-sized pieces and shared with the office.  All for 4 RMB = $0.60.

Flatbread for breakfast

It was a busy day in the office.  We had customers visiting from France in the morning and USA in the afternoon.  Late afternoon, my friend from Taiwan stopped by for a meeting to learn more about PassageMaker.  We gave her the run down on all the companies – PassageMaker, SafePassage, QTP Bag & Case, and China Quality Focus – and their services – Sourcing Feasibility Studies, Vendor Coordination, Assembly-Inspection-Packaging, China Sourcing Office, our Medical Assembly Center with Clean Room and Sterile Packaging, Logistics, VAT Rebate Processing, Simple Factory Audits, on-site Quality Inspections, Market Feasibility Studies, Factory Formation, and our Endorsed Service Provider network.  She has USA friends and clients contacting her to help source in China and she wants to introduce them to us.  I am confident we will find a good way to work together.  Only one dish of note today at lunch, the variation on my favorite shrimp skewer dish, this time without the chiles and salt baked, to give them an intense somewhat smokey flavor.

Salt baked shrimp skewers - I should add that is sweet & sour pork in the background. I don't particularly care for it, but it is one of the very few dishes that tastes the same in USA as it does in PRC.

I head out a bit earlier than normal to join her for dinner.  It is not uncommon for folks at PassageMaker to work until 8 or 9 PM, so I felt a little bad leaving at 5:30 PM.  My friend is in the mood for Japanese, so we head to Coco Park, a big mall and surrounding shopping area in Futian.  Our driver heads off and we are mired in a few minutes time in rush hour traffic.  Liantang is on the east end of Shenzhen, almost to Yantian, the most eastern district of Shenzhen and the location of the port.  Shenzhen was the first Special Economic Zone set up by Deng Xiao Ping when China decided to open to the West.  30 years ago it was a farming and fishing village that just happened to abut British Hong Kong.  Today it is a sprawling city of around 12 million people.  From Shekou and Baoan in the west to Yantian in the east, even in good traffic at highway speeds it can take an hour or more end to end.  The original Luohu district is crammed right up on the border and it is obvious that the city planners years ago had no idea what was to come.  The highway in Liantang running to the port that I’ve posted in the past, was built because this area was almost a suburb.  In central Luohu, the highways take crazy S curves weaving in and out of skyscrapers, and in some areas are reduced to two or even one lane.  This is the polar opposite of the planned asphalt and concrete expanses of Pudong in Shanghai.  Thus the trip to Coco Park takes around 45 minutes.

Coco Park is across the street from the new McCawley’s we visited the other night, and is a big beautiful mall.  Lots of stone and neon and every major Western brand represented.  In contrast to some of the malls in China, I actually saw people buying, not just looking.  In we go to a Japanese restaurant, which if you take the bad blood between the two nations seriously, should be deserted.  Instead we have to wait 25 minutes for a table the size of a matchbook, crammed between a large party of Hong Kongers and a couple on a date.  This lao wai barely draws a second glance, except when I take a picture of the food.  My friend tells them I am a food critic, which I guess is accurate.

We start the meal with raw beef tongue sliced paper thin.  We initially opt to cook it ourselves on a portable butane burner, but after nearly giving ourselves 3rd degree burns (the cast iron cooking plate doesn’t exactly fit the burner and keeps sliding around), we send it away for them to cook.

Beef tongue - looks lovely

Japanese fried chicken and the cooked beef tongue. Japanese food is heavy on sweetened mayonnaise, which is every bit as nasty as it sounds. The dollop of the stuff meant as a dipping sauce for the chicken went untouched by both of us. The chicken was quite good, boneless and not too oily. It actually tasted great with lemon juice, an innovation this Southern boy raised on Sylvia's fried chicken will try when I get home.

Beef tongue is a bit more unctuous than other cuts, despite having not much visible fat, and is quite good.  I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference if I was not told though.  I remember that in his book Undaunted Courage, Steven Ambrose reported that Lewis only ate the tongue and the fat of the buffalo they killed.  Now I understand.

Japanese potato omelet with bonito shavings - not good

Japanese lamb chops - pretty hard to mess up lamb

Japanese salad, with okra and daikon radish, very tasty

Japanese fried tofu with bonito shavings - pheh

We rounded out the meal with some sashimi, which everyone has seen so I didn’t bother with photos.  My friend is into dessert, so we had ice cream and cheesecake, neither of which were anything special.  The highlight for me was the Suntory beer, which I hadn’t had since my last trip to Japan nearly 12 years ago.  Suntory is an brand rarely exported (I’ve never seen it in the USA, even in major cities) and it is a good basic lager.  Just the thing for the food.

Conversation over dinner gets philosophical.  She and I have known each other a long time through a string of career and life changes.  She’s met my family and I’ve spoken to her significant other on the phone a number of times, though we’ve never met.  She and I may not talk for a year, but whenever we do, the conversation picks up just where it left off like no time had passed.  She looks great, hasn’t aged a bit.  It has been 5 years since we’ve actually seen each other.  It felt like last week.  OK, so it WAS last week at the Italian restaurant, but you get my meaning.

Life is nothing but a string of anecdotes, with book learning thrown in for filler.  You never really know anything but what you see with you own eyes, smell with your own nose, etc.  When Mike asked me to write this blog, it was to boost our search engine results.  I immediately realized I couldn’t do it if every post was a string of key words.  It had to be about life.  It really should be called “Whit’s tiny slice of Shenzhen, Hong Kong, a couple places in Dongguan and Guangzhou, a few trips to Shanghai and Beijing, Singapore from 15 years ago, Taiwan from 12 years ago Business Blog”.  I know more about China than most people, but as our rep in Brazil, Andrea Martins, who lived in China for 25 years once told me, “If you go to China for a week, you can write a book.  If you go for a year, you can write an article.  If you live there for 25 years, you have nothing to say.”

A professor of mine once introduced me to an audience at a speaking engagement as one of the happiest people he knows.  I don’t know if that is the truth, but I AM happy.  Not because I don’t have anything to be sad about, but because it doesn’t do any good to fret and worry.  I have a beautiful wife and a wonderful family, I love to meet people and make new friends.  I love what I do, because I essentially made my own path (with lots of help from everyone in my life, including The Man upstairs).  Some years ago, I made a silent promise to myself to “live a life less ordinary”.  So far, I think I’ve succeeded.

When I am at home I am happy and content.  I love Salem, VA and the USA.  I love my family and friends.  It is a beautiful small town, safe and pleasant.  Do I miss China when I am at home?  Of course.

When I am in China I am likewise happy and content.  I cannot say I love China, so much as I am fascinated by it.  Every day is a new experience.  Buying a loaf of bread or a carton of milk is an adventure.  Do I miss my home when I am in China?  Of course.  I miss my family terribly.

But there is work to do and money to make.  You put it out of your mind.  Absence really DOES make the heart grow fonder.  I know when I see my family in 3 weeks, it will be a wonderful homecoming.

One of our salesmen, David Denny and I were discussing the similar problem (on a much smaller scale) in southwestern Virginia.  Whether you care for the current crowd in Washington or not, the level of uncertainty they’ve created continues to suppress investment.  That cannot be denied.

Where are these investors going to go?  My bet is that in the future they will find a fertile garden in China and India.  Chinese and Indian students are the academic core of many American universities these days, and why not go home where the government will pay you to market the next great idea?

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot…

PassageMaker has years of experience protecting our clients’ IP, including filling Chinese patents and trademarks using our Endorsed Service Provider for legal services, Ms. Li Yan of the JunZeJun Law Firm.  All of our core service offerings – Sourcing Feasibility Studies, Vendor Coordination, Assembly-Inspection-Packaging, Factory Formation – were developed with the primary goal of IP protection.

And don’t ignore protecting your design in your home market.  For our American clients, we recommend Michael Mann and Todd Serbin of Nexsen|Pruet.

If you’ve spent the time and money to design the product, why would you not take every effort to protect it from theft?  Contact PassageMaker and let us show you how to successfully and securely manufacture your product in China.

It was either Mr. China or China Road (both wonderful books) that pointed out why China’s business environment was able to change so rapidly.  For better or worse, the Maoist era had wiped away the old entrenched power structures, including family business empires, and also eliminated most of the atrocious sexism of traditional Chinese culture.  Whichever book it was made the comparison to Indonesia and India, where business was tightly controlled by family conglomerates and outsiders had far less opportunity to set down roots, to say nothing of the limited role of women in the economy.

Though it is a gross oversimplification, and does not address all the things that went wildly, tragically wrong during the first 30 years of the PRC, Deng did have a “level playing field” to start with.  If you are going to re-light the entrepreneurial spirit of the Chinese people and try to attract foreign investment, starting from nothing is actually an enviable situation.

I am often asked about India.  With English widely spoken, the British legacy, democratic government, etc., it seems a better choice for business.  The Dragon and the Tiger have the world’s rapt attention, but for manufacturing, the choice so far has clearly been China.  I’ve seen figures quoted that China has 10 times the number of factory jobs as India despite comparable populations.  And I’ve had Indians tell me the reason they are trailing China is because they have so much cultural baggage, whereas China is in some ways like a new country.  This article in the BBC about the beating of ‘witches’ in rural India is a good example of the press that makes investors hesitate.  [Note - I admit I have never been to India and know next to nothing about it other than what you can read in a book or newspaper.  My sister travels there regularly, and through a family business, we've been doing business there for decades, but I have no personal experience to draw on.]

Expatriates often lament the hyper-capitalist zeal of the new China.  Indeed some of the Chinese I meet lament it as well, which accounts for the rebirth of religion in the officially atheist PRC.  But I find the rule of the almighty RMB reassuring in way.  Capitalism at least has clear incentives and bridges cultures.

It is not for nothing that China is referred to as the new ‘Wild West’.  Mike Bellamy was one of the few white faces in town when he arrived in Shenzhen in 1998.  The positive and open business climate allowed him to put down roots and PassageMaker was born.  And while we have long-term plans to expand into India (PassageMaker-Mexico will be first, perhaps in 2-3 years), China will remain the core for years to come.  Our services – Sourcing Feasibility Studies, Vendor Coordination, Assembly-Inspection-Packaging, Factory Formation – are all designed to help clients succeed and thrive in this crazy boom town that is China.

Despite being assured by my accounting firm on 14 October that no additional taxes were owed, when I got the call to come pick up my return on 15 October – that is one (1) day later, for all you mathematically-challenged, overpaid tax professionals out there; e.g. 15 – 14 = 1; take off you shoes and socks if you need help counting – I was cheerfully informed that I owed a rather large amount of money because they made a mistake.  Turns out that instead of actually reviewing the data I gave them around 6-8 months ago, they made some “assumptions” which proved false when one of these aforementioned tax professionals actually looked at the numbers on the day the return was due.  Somehow, I always assumed accountants were the nerds who did their term papers a month in advance.  Go figure.

Needless to say I had a grand time running to the banks and post office between 3:20 PM when I actually got the returns and the 5:00 PM mailing deadline.  Of course I had nothing else scheduled for today.  Nope, nothing at all.  These fine professionals had my information for the better part of a year and managed to get my taxes to me on the day they were due less than 2 hours before the deadline, with a surprise bill to double the fun!  Talk about customer satisfaction!

In case you were wondering, I fired them today.

This accounting firm loves to tell people all about their business consulting services, supposedly the best around.  Today’s miserable, arrogant, incompetent performance stacks up with most of my experiences with consultants over the years.  Expensive, time-consuming and ultimately an infuriating  waste of time and money.  Thus the harsh title of this post.

Selling PassageMaker’s services is engaging and thoroughly enjoyable, but it is time consuming because our services really don’t fall into any of the normal definitions.  We perform assembly and light manufacturing, but we are not a manufacturing company.  We help clients do business in China but we are not a trading company.  We never take ownership of the physical product, so in a sense we are not even a supplier.  Our core services – Sourcing Feasibility Studies, Vendor Coordination, Assembly-Inspection-Packaging, and Factory Formation – are simple in concept, but so flexible in practice that there are a thousand ways they can be customized to serve the customer’s needs.  We want to fulfill the client’s operational requirements in China; to identify, establish and manage the client’s supply chain, so that there’s a tangible service provided that adds real and quantifiable value.

Because PassageMaker falls outside of recognized business models – indeed, in my experience we are unique – prospective clients sometimes refer to us as “consultants”.  Oh, how I recoil from that label.  As someone once put it, “a consultant is someone who will tell you the time of day by showing you your own watch”.  Shoot me if I ever fit that description.

While it is time-consuming to explain the full scope of our services, the philosophical foundation – Trust & Transparency – resonates with our clients.  Many of our clients have been through the wringer in China, and our open pricing, commitment to customer satisfaction and quality of service are a breath of fresh air.

Yes, we sell a set of services, not a product per se, and that may seem like what a consultant does, but we are NOT a consulting firm. Them’s fighting words.

That better way became The PassageMaker Model of Trust & Transparency. Being honest became the core product.  De-coupling the services from the vendors was the eureka moment. The services are inspection and final assembly. The vendors provide the bill of material. In this new method, the inspection and final assembly center is 100% owned by PassageMaker so the customer and PassageMaker are no longer at the mercy of the suppliers to get the quality right at ship it on time.

There was no guidebook for this new way of doing business.  We didn’t learn it in school. We were truly working without a net.

Plenty of folks have offered snickering criticism over the years.  We don’t charge enough.  We should be marking up the product’s BOM with a margin hidden to the client, rather than just invoicing for our services.  We should finance our customers.  We can’t possibly be serious.

Well, to all our critics, we tried the traditional trading model a few times back in the day and lost our shirt, socks and underwear because the Chinese suppliers let us down, not because of something we did or did not do.  We’ve watched our friends do the same thing over and over in their trading companies.  They all failed because they left it up to the factories to hold the price, ship on time and manage the quality. If you don’t believe me, put five years of trading in China under your belt and then let’s talk.  Running a trading company means assuming astounding risk with minuscule net margins, and because you don’t own the means of production, you are totally at the mercy of your suppliers.  It is a great business model in theory; wretched in practice.

There was no textbook for The PassageMaker Model, because no one had gotten around to writing it, because no one had ever even thought of it.  Mike is now (quite literally) working on the textbook , but our Sourcing Feasibility Studies, Vendor Coordination and Assembly-Inspection-Packaging services are our philosophy in practice.  They are the controlled evolution of an idea.

There are lessons in life you have to learn by doing.  Mike and I have the scars to prove we went through the fire, but the critical point is what we did with that learning experience. Anybody can learn from their own mistakes, by a wise person learns from the mistakes of others. We didn’t just learn; we innovated. And now we leverage this knowledge to the benefit of our customers. PassageMaker is unlike any company you will encounter in China, because simply we are unlike any other company in China.

I hope you will give us a chance to show you how different we are.