Days 27-30 – Plenty of hard work and plenty of visitors

I’ve already returned to the States a few days ago, but the last couple weeks in China were so hectic, I am filing these posts late. Days 31-37 to come shortly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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