CHINA QUALITY CONTROL Archives - Page 2 of 5

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Sheer Import Genius

May 22, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

So…did you know that your shipping information is in the public domain?

I’ll step up and admit I didn’t.

What’s worse, now that Import Genius is out there, finding your competition’s suppliers is as easy as using a search engine. Anything imported into the USA is a matter of public record, including the exporter (i.e., your supplier), the type of goods and your receiving address.

Import Genius is an amazing program and I will be using it for sure, but it also highlights another advantage PassageMaker‘s “Black Box” offers our clients. When you hire us to perform our Assembly-Inspection-Packaging service, that is really a catch-all term for any sort of contract assembly, product inspection, contract packaging, kitting, order fulfillment, pull-pack-ship, freight consolidation, private labelling or branding, etc. We do everything from kit mobile phone accessories to assemble vacuum cleaners.

Aside from the advantages we provide to help you control your costs, ensure your quality and protect your intellectual property, we also act as a “firewall” to protect your real supply chain. When a competitor searches for you on Import Genius now, they’ll get the name of your Chinese supplier. Think about that for a moment. You invested thousands upon thousands of dollars to establish that relationship, to tool your product and get the production going. If you are like a typical “mature” PassageMaker client, before you hired us, you were paying for at least a half-dozen trips to China a year. With business class seats, rooms at the Shangri-La, private cars, etc., that’s $20k per trip.

How confident are you that your supplier wouldn’t sell a knock-off of your product to a competitor?

If they search when you are working with PassageMaker, all they will see is our address as the exporter. So in addition to saving you on travel expenses, we protect the investment you made in your suppliers. Our motto is “Trust & Transparency”, and you can trust us to protect that supply chain. We wouldn’t stay in business 5 minutes if that weren’t true. In the PassageMaker system, you will always know who your suppliers are, who has your tooling, who has your designs, who has your money and who has your products. The transparency part only applies to you!

Well, that’s just great…it’s spelled “proofread”

May 20, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

So I spend a week proofreading my post on proofreading only to be immediately informed by an observant reader (a former professor of mine from USC no less) that “proofread” is one word. Not “proof read”, as I wrote yesterday.

I take full responsibility, as I am the only one who proofreads my blog posts. I have dyslexia, so I always try and proofread everything 2-3 times before I send it or publish it. After all, I get enough hounding from the clan in China, to say nothing of the Zen Dragon from down under, that I don’t need to make it any easier for them.

That said, my error sets me up for a good blog post today. This experience underscores what I was saying in the original post – your business documents are far, far more important in China than in your home market.

Make a mistake or an error of omission on a purchase order, and you may very well be hosed. Do the same on a Product Quality Manual (PQM), and I can guarantee trouble.

Some time ago, such an error of omission rose up and bit one of our customers rather badly. We had followed the PQM as approved, but we had not been checking a particular dimension. It had never been in the PQM, whether we didn’t include it when we drafted the document or whether the customer left it off the original drawing was lost in the mists of time, but the error had persisted undetected by all for nearly 4 years. It was never a problem as long as the vendor providing that component did their job right, but we are all human and that finally didn’t happen.

Our team inspected the product to the PQM. The error was so subtle, you would never notice it with the naked eye. The client assumed all was well and shipped the product, which immediately were rejected in the field. Long story short, everyone was unhappy and we all lost, but there was no warranty claim to be made against PassageMaker. We’d followed the approved PQM.

Our policy is we will do what you tell us in the PQM, no more, no less. It has to be this way, as the biggest problems in China are the admirable Chinese tendency to want to help too much or worse, to improvise when a problem arises.

I had a friend who was buying pillow cases in China. All the samples came in exactly 1″ too big on every dimension. Panicked, he called the factory and they told him they so appreciated the order (for several hundred thousand units), that they wanted to reward him by providing extra material at no cost! After he got his heart pumping again, he contacted our friends at China Quality Focus who went on-site and got things back on track quickly.

Doing business in China is Murphy’s Law on steroids, acid and a truckload of uncut Colombian all at once. Muse’s 1st Law is “Never Assume Anything“. Make sure if you want it to happen (or not to) that you put it in writing.

I meant it when I wrote that we LOVE getting 17 pages of corrections back from the client. It is far better than a cursory review and signature.

We have four (4) internal layers of proofreading for a PQM before it is sent to the client for approval.

The PQM is drafted by a Quality Technician, with input from the entire team, including the client.
It is then reviewed by the Production Engineer.
It is then reviewed by the Project Manager.
It is then reviewed by a member of senior management (most often by me).

Only then is it sent to the customer.

This is a time consuming process. But the alternative is terrible to contemplate. Anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time.

So make sure you proofread before you sign on the line that is dotted.

McDonald’s, also known as the “Get-Out-Of-China-Free-Card”

May 19, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

A friend and classmate of mine had a terrible time with the food in Beijing 11-12 years ago. Food poisoning was a weekly event.

He began hitting McDonald’s almost daily to give his stomach a foundation to get by on. Having had my share of food poisoning in China since then, I agree. When you’ve just spent the last 12 hours on the “China Rapid Weight Loss Program”, you are NOT in the mood for more Chinese food. A Quarter Pounder with Cheese is the most welcome sight on earth.

He started referring to McDonald’s as his “Get-Out-Of-China-Free-Card”. What a perfect name.

It has nothing to do with PassageMaker or China Quality Focus – except that if you come visit us and get sick, we will make sure you are well cared for – but it is a reality of China travel that you will miss food you would never eat when you are home. When I am in the USA, I cook Asian food 3-4 days a week. When I am in China I crave hamburgers and hot dogs. The grass is always greener, I guess.

Anyway, here are three crazy articles from ChinaSMACK about McDonald’s and the impact it has on modern China.

Chinese Netizen’s McDonald’s Happy Meal Rotting Experiment

Chinese Grandfather Eats McDonald’s For The First Time

Pretty Chinese Girls Run Into McDonald’s & Begin Dancing

On the last one, you see this kind of stuff regularly in China. What a place.

Enjoy.

Pain

May 18, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

Helped some friends move this weekend. I. Hurt. All. Over.

And by this weekend, I mean most all of it, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning. Friday and Saturday were hot and humid, but Sunday was the gauntlet. Day started early, hot and humid and ended in a cold rain at 1:00 AM Monday morning. I had some work to do and did not get to sleep until 2:30 AM, back up at 6:00 AM to help them finish before the deadline of 9:15 AM (which we made by 5 minutes).

Why am I telling you about this, a blog ostensibly about China Business and my impressions thereof? Two reasons:

I am a slightly overweight and out of shape 39 years old. I like to drink more beer than I should and my Room 101 is a gym. I have never been a good athlete, I have a bad back, so bad I had to wear a brace 24/7 for several years as a teenager. And though today I am sore all over, my legs and my back feel far better than I’d expected. I credit my TrekDesk. I’ve mentioned TrekDesk before (here and here) and I walk several miles a day at an aggressive 8 degrees of incline at 2.2 mph, which will get your heart pumping. I had not realized how well it had conditioned my legs and forced me to improve my posture. Walking while you work really does rock. I mention this because as I have blogged before, the TrekDesk is one of the best examples of our complete system of services – engineering by our Endorsed Service Provider, Contract Engineering Services; then Sourcing Feasibility Study, next Vendor Coordination and now Assembly-Inspection-Packaging at our Assembly Center according to the customer approved Product Quality Manual.
The USA’s trade deficit with China is almost universally viewed as a bad thing. But the low-cost goods China provides to the USA consumer is a reminder that any transaction has benefits for both sides. As I moved my friends’ copious amount of stuff, I was struck by how much of the contents of their home (and indeed, any American home) are now Made in China. When I was growing up, I do not remember having that many clothes. That is not to say I went about in rags; quite the opposite, my Father was successful and I had a wonderful childhood. I just don’t remember having anywhere near the sheer volume of clothing my friends’ children had. Today I have five (5) pairs of shoes. I actually make a game of trying to minimize the amount of stuff I drag around with me – Exhibit A being the extended trips to China with one (1) carry-on bag. Looking around my own house, each of my children has at least twice as many pairs of shoes as I do. All are Made in China. The prices paid for those are astoundingly low, even to me who has an idea of what they cost ExW. While I am rightly concerned about foreign competition as an American manufacturer, it would be dishonest and foolish to say that there was no benefit to the American consumer from our trade with China.

All for today, much catch-up to do having lost the weekend. It continues to rain soup, new opportunities daily. Will try to squeeze in more blogging tomorrow.

Why you always proof read

May 18, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

So I received an email the other day from the personal assistant to a businessman I know. As is my practice, I went to load her information in my address book. I noticed she had misspelled her own email address in her own email signature. I sent her a private email to let her know before her boss noticed.

This put me in mind of the importance of making sure all your business documents say what you intend them to, ESPECIALLY when doing business in a foreign language. One of the services PassageMaker offers our clients is help drafting the language on their purchase orders. Many of our clients come to us after having a bad experience or two in China, and it is amazing how vague some of their purchase orders are.

The Chinese legal system is rapidly improving and a properly written purchase order is a binding contract that can be the difference between getting raked over the coals and being the one doing the raking.

I see similar issues with design databases. Drawings are often given to us with no material specifications, no finish specs, etc. I had a drawing once from an client that specified “aluminum”. When I asked his engineer what type, he responded that he didn’t think it mattered. This for a part to be subjected to high heat and load stress – you’re darned tootin’ it matters.

We have also received drawings specifying titanium fasteners. After wasting time looking for these very hard to find fasteners, the project engineer in the USA tells us that he just cut and pasted the fastener drawing and forgot to change the material spec. Two seconds of his time would have saved two days of our team’s time.

This kind of BS is why we have Endorsed Service Providers. Choosing with the cheapest guy is very rarely the best deal.

Another area where we frankly NEED our clients to proofread is our Product Quality Manual (PQM), the core of our Assembly-Inspection-Packaging service. As Mike Bellamy says, “we are generalists; we depend on the client to be the expert”. We take the lead on drafting the PQM, and submit it to the client for approval, but once they sign off on it, that is what we are going to do, no more, no less. It becomes our warranty and if the client forgets to tell us something, once they approve the document, that is now the official record. We’ll happily amend the PQM for the next order, but if it wasn’t written down, not my fault.

Our system incorporates four (4) levels of approval before it is sent to the client for final approval. From the speed at which some clients approve the document, I know they barely looked at it. I would rather have a 17 page response as we got from one client than a signature 20 minutes later.

Doing things right takes time, but nowhere near as much time as doing things over. If your project is valuable enough to bring to market, you have time for some proof reading.

PS – I have dyslexia, and have proof-read this damn post five times looking for typos. I bet you all find at least one in spite of that effort.

Great interview with Mike Bellamy about PassageMaker’s “Black Box”

May 13, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

I can’t say it better, so here is the interview with our Founder explaining how PassageMaker helps clients protect their IP.

Mike Bellamy interviewed by Fiducia Management Consultants.

Great trip is almost complete

April 30, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

I apologize for my recent absence from blogging. I am wrapping up a month long trip to Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and it has been insanely busy and VERY successful. New clients signed (including one WHALE), several huge trade shows, a new Assembly Center, customer visits, many new foods eaten, legendary hangovers and a whopping case of food poisoning.

I have hundreds of photos and much to write about, but I also have about 600 trade show leads to follow-up, and money comes before blogging.

I will be back in the USA next week and will begin posting the travel log Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thanks for your patience.

Stand Up While You Read This! More validation that the TrekDesk is the right product at the right time.

March 9, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

Here’s a great article from the NYT by Olivia Judson about the health benefits of staying active while working. I am a huge believer in this concept, and I built my own treadmill desk some years ago with the help of my brother-in-law. I was thinking about taking the idea to market when PassageMaker was approached for a Sourcing Feasibility Study by the inventor who beat me to the patent office, Steve Bordley of TrekDesk. Over the course of the coming months, he worked with our Endorsed Service Provider, Dwight Smith of Contract Engineering Services, on the design and then with our team for Vendor Coordination / Product Development, led by Dave Learn. The VC/PD team handle the research that goes into the Sourcing Feasibility Study and should our client decide to proceed with the project, Dave’s team is then introduced, fully up to speed and ready to roll.

This project has now transitioned to Pramod KC‘s team for production. Pramod’s team manages the vendors (we call it Vendor Coordination / Export & Logistics) and coordinates to make sure our Assembly Center gets all components and performs Assembly-Inspection-Packaging to the customer approved Product Quality Manual. When all is complete, our Logistics Department arranges the shipment, often shipping directly to the client’s distributors and retailers, often in customer-specific packaging, including point of sale displays and barcoding. In short, this is not only a great product, but it is a great example of how the PassageMaker system works start to finish.

But enough about us, back to the article. Key paragraphs:

You may think you have no choice about how much you sit. But this isn’t true. Suppose you sleep for eight hours each day, and exercise for one. That still leaves 15 hours of activities. Even if you exercise, most of the energy you burn will be burnt during these 15 hours, so weight gain is often the cumulative effect of a series of small decisions: Do you take the stairs or the elevator? Do you e-mail your colleague down the hall, or get up and go and see her? When you get home, do you potter about in the garden or sit in front of the television? Do you walk to the corner store, or drive?
Just to underscore the point that you do have a choice: a study of junior doctors doing the same job, the same week, on identical wards found that some individuals walked four times farther than others at work each day. (No one in the study was overweight; but the “long-distance” doctors were thinner than the “short-distance” doctors.)
…
But it looks as though there’s a more sinister aspect to sitting, too. Several strands of evidence suggest that there’s a “physiology of inactivity”: that when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.
As an example, consider lipoprotein lipase. This is a molecule that plays a central role in how the body processes fats; it’s produced by many tissues, including muscles. Low levels of lipoprotein lipase are associated with a variety of health problems, including heart disease. Studies in rats show that leg muscles only produce this molecule when they are actively being flexed (for example, when the animal is standing up and ambling about). The implication is that when you sit, a crucial part of your metabolism slows down.
Nor is lipoprotein lipase the only molecule affected by muscular inactivity. Actively contracting muscles produce a whole suite of substances that have a beneficial effect on how the body uses and stores sugars and fats.
Which might explain the following result. Men who normally walk a lot (about 10,000 steps per day, as measured by a pedometer) were asked to cut back (to about 1,350 steps per day) for two weeks, by using elevators instead of stairs, driving to work instead of walking and so on. By the end of the two weeks, all of them had became worse at metabolizing sugars and fats. Their distribution of body fat had also altered — they had become fatter around the middle. Such changes are among the first steps on the road to diabetes.
…
Some people have advanced radical solutions to the sitting syndrome: replace your sit-down desk with a stand-up desk, and equip this with a slow treadmill so that you walk while you work. (Talk about pacing the office.)

Why yes, yes we have. It feels to good to be a radical sometimes!

I have found that walking at 2.2 mph at 6 degrees of incline is just right to really get your heart rate going and still be able to type, write and talk on the phone. So go order a TrekDesk, and if you need help bringing your product to market, give PassageMaker a call!

Child labor

March 3, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

I read with interest the recent articles (couple of them here and here) about Apple’s announcement that some of their suppliers had used child labor in the past.

What I found most interesting was the “child” part – when I was 15 I would have slugged anyone who called me a child. During the summer of my 15th year, I was working in our metal stamping plant where the highest temperature reached 103 F (40 C). I had my first factory job when I was 14 turning wheels on a lathe. My Father never read child-labor laws, and thank God for that. It was an invaluable experience that I am sad to say I won’t be able to give to my son.

I can remember in 1998 visiting a factory for a major automotive supplier in Taiwan. There were 14 year old boys working on the lines making seat belt assemblies. I asked about it and found that they were students at the local technical school. They worked half a shift on the line and spent the rest of the day in class studying engineering. Today, 12 years later, they would be around 26 with degrees in mechanical engineering and over a decade of hands-on experience. I imagine some of them are running plants in China now.

I’ve written about The Wiffle Ball Life before, a term coined by P.J. O’Rourke to denote the rather pathetic American obsession with safety, self-esteem, and never doing anything the slightest bit risky – especially if it might also be fun.

I understand that Apple is worried about its image, and I acknowledge that those eleven 15 year olds may not have wanted to be there. But there is a big difference between a 15 year old farm kid fibbing about his age to get a good factory job to help support his family and using 6 year old slave labor in an illegal fireworks factory in Sichuan. It would be nice if the amazingly flexible English language had a concise way of stating the difference. I think “under-aged labor” is more reflective of the reality of the situation.

Should you need to verify that your suppliers are not using “under-aged labor”, our friends at China Quality Focus can perform a Corporate Social Audit for €376 + travel expenses, a small price to pay to avoid the kind of (undeserved) bad publicity Apple is experiencing.PassageMaker can also help our clients, under the auspices of a Vendor Coordination contract, draft supplier agreements to reflect the social norms of their home country or industry.

A better solution would be to have PassageMaker perform the Assembly-Inspection-Packaging functions in our 100% US-owned and -operated Assembly Center. We will warrant that we meet the necessary social compliance metrics.

Give us a call before you write the press release or talk to the New York Times.

Day 37 – Home

February 19, 2010/0 Comments/in China Business Blog /by Mike Bellamy

My Blackberry Storm 2 from Verizon Wireless has been progressively crapping out on this trip. It is not a good device, and the longer I have it, the less impressed I am. In addition to the outrageous charges to receive calls – I practically had to hang up on a few clients to get them to shut up so I could call them back on my China Mobile (Verizon US$2.00+ to receive; China Mobile US$0.05 to make = VERIZON SUCKS) – this Blackberry has been regularly crashing, repeatedly uninstalling the browser which now doesn’t work at all, losing its data connection (everyone around me has full data and my China Mobile has 5 bars) forcing me to remove the battery to restart it and see if it can reacquire the data signal.

So I guess I should have known that it was not reliable as an alarm clock. Suffice it to say I am an experienced enough traveler that I don’t cut things close, so I had planned to arrive 2 hours earlier than needed. Despite the fact that the alarm failed, the sun woke me and I showered, shaved and “packed” in about 25 minutes. I say “packed” because I made the decision some days back to leave most of the clothes behind as I will be back in about 6 weeks and didn’t see the point. Because the driver is waiting and I want to get through the Huanggang border crossing before the Chinese New Year rush hour starts, everything I wanted to take got unceremoniously shoved in the bag – couple small gifts for the kids, some movies and books and medicine and out the door.

It’s a glorious morning, blue skies and lots of fast moving clouds. It is warming up fast and very humid. We head to the main Luohu border crossing, Huanggang, which I am fearing will be a mob scene. Although the official Chinese New Year doesn’t start until Saturday, many factories and offices are already closed. Around 450 million people travel inside China during the 2-3 weeks that cover the Lunar New Year season. That’s 1.5 times the entire population of the USA. And we bitch about travel around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year the blizzards in China had over 250,000 people stranded at the Guangzhou railroad station for days. I’ve been there on a normal business day, and it is no wonder they had to bring in the police to maintain order.

So I am not surprised that Huanggang is in fact a mob scene. The company driver drops me off at the stand where they sell tickets for the mini vans that run you across for 150 RMB. I usually get a limo for 700-800 RMB, but decide to try this less expensive method. In the future, I will be using the limo again, more on that in a minute.

Photos inside are strictly forbidden, and I did not feel like taking the risk 4 hours before my flight, so you will have to visualize the chaos of maybe 3,000 people with their luggage squeezed into a room designed to hold perhaps 500. There were 30+ lines for Chinese and only one for Foreigners, so getting through took a long time. They were really being critical this morning, usually passport control for a white guy takes 30 seconds, but today he looked through every page of the passport and spent several minutes looking things up on his computer.

If I had hired a limo, I would have been able to go through passport control in my own lane, never getting out of the car. 700 RMB (cost of the limo) – 150 RMB (cost of the van) = 550 RMB = US$80. That savings is looking less important all the time.

Outside I find our van and it appears I am the last man. I expected as much, due to the 3rd degree from the border patrol. Except the driver insists I am not the last, he says we are missing one. When we buy our tickets, we are given stickers with the van’s number on it so the driver can keep track. The van seats 7 passengers – 3 in back, 3 in the middle and one riding shotgun. I did not look in the back when I boarded, but I take it on faith that he is correct – they would never run these things across a passenger light, certainly not on a day like today. In the van with me are a Singaporean man, four Taiwanese men and one Taiwanese woman. The Singaporean is mighty worried about missing his flight, and after 30 minutes waiting for the missing passenger in the 80 F warmth and bright sunshine, he is starting to get hot, as in pissed. The driver placidly insists he can’t leave the 7th (which none of us can exactly remember) because he paid too, we have his luggage, and if we leave he will be stranded, as there is no way to hire a car on this side. The driver is quite right…in theory.

The Chinese was fast and very heated, but it seems the Singaporean insists there is no 7th, something none of us can confirm. The Taiwanese woman who was also in the back seat, says nothing and refuses to answer when asked. Very strange. He then opens to back and starts counting luggage. He points to different bags and the various passengers chime in to claim ownership. When he points to mine, I say “我的”, “mine” which makes him actually do a dramatic double take that the laowai can speak Chinese. It appears the mysterious 7th has no bags, so we double count, and indeed all the bags on board are accounted for by the six of us. The driver sees that the luggage is no longer an issue, but still insists on waiting. The Singaporean in now in a rage and calls over another driver from the same company who just pulled in. He loudly explains the situation and the other driver agrees to find the missing 7th, who may not even exist, and tells our driver to roll out.

Back in the car, for the the first 2-3 minutes the Singaporean loudly berates the driver, who must be a Taoist, as he is completely at peace and does not get the slightest bit ruffled under this assault. Finally the Singaporean realizes the futility and quiets down. I find the whole episode educational and an example of what fascinates me about Asia. Singapore is wealthy and sophisticated city state (I lived there in 1994 and loved every minute), and this guy acted like he was a typical rich snob from good side of town. The driver must have a special permit in order to cross the border so regularly, but my guess is he is from the Mainland. People on the Mainland, especially the older generation, have been raised to just take it. I’ve seen Singaporeans, Taiwanese and Hong Kongers pull this stunt on Mainlanders, berating them publicly, because they know they can get away with it. One of my rules for life is to show as much respect as you can to the people who wash your clothes, cook your food and drive you around, etc., because they are the ones who make your life easy. They deserve more respect than this guy got.

Hong Kong is one of the coolest places on earth. The drive to the airport is always amazing but is especially so this morning with dramatic and fast moving clouds with occasional bursts of sunlight. The natural setting is glorious and dramatic, hundreds of mountainous islands covered in verdant green rising out of the harbor. The cities and towns are built to work with the land, unlike the wholesale flattening of the hills that takes place in Shenzhen. The bridges that connect to Lantau island and Hong Kong International Airport (HKG) are brilliant – one each of suspension and cable-stayed – and the whole setting reminds me of a scale model too perfect to be believed. My camera stinks, so this is the best I could do.

We arrive at HKG with less than two hours before my flight, far less than I normally allow. I know before I even get to the airport that there is no chance of getting better seats, not so late and not on the Thursday before CNY. Nevertheless, even though I checked in online last night, I head over to the United counter and chat up the very attractive lady at the counter (in Asia it is still OK to hire public relations personnel who are good looking – it is often part of the job description) and she tries every trick in the book to get me a better seat. Nothing doing, flight is booked solid. Oh well, I appreciated her efforts and gave her a business card (she didn’t believe that I’d been in Asia for 5 weeks with no luggage so I told her to check the blog), so if she’s reading this, thank you very much for your help!

I head through passport control and security, and get accosted by the eager young folks who are always there taking a survey of foreigners to find out how much time and money you spent in Hong Kong on this trip. I am in a hurry, but I take a minute anyway to talk to them. Yes, I absolutely love Hong Kong. I would move here tomorrow if my wife would come with me. I’ve been here many, many times and will be back again soon. It’s awesome and now I have to go.

Five minutes for a quick bowl of noodles and to buy some candy bars (paid for in 1 second with my Octopus card – love it). Then up and down the seemingly endless series of escalators with the train ride to the other terminal in the middle and on to the gate. It is very humid and pretty warm and HKG, like Shanghai Pudong, is built to be big and impressive which means by the time I get to the gate, it is now officially sticky uncomfortable. It is February, so I don’t think they have the AC on, but this not how you want to board a plane. The security is far tighter than the USA, with every bag searched.

I am in a aisle seat in Economy, which means the next 14 hours will only be mildly tortuous. My seat mates speak not a word and neither do I. Both sleep through the entire flight. Just as well as I’m not in the mood. United is sticking with the 4 movie format, but at least they are good – The Invention of Lying, Where The Wild Things Are, My One And Only, and The Informant! The food sucks and is even sparser than last time. Thank God for candy bars.

Land in Chicago exactly on time, and after a pretty thorough grilling by passport control, out into the airport. For some bloody reason you have to go back through security again, which in O’Hare is less than fun. Security in HKG is MUCH tighter than in the States, but nothing for it, so shoes off and laptops out. My flight to ROA is out of one of the commuter terminals, to one with no good restaurants. Lunch at McD’s. blech.

I sit down to read the Wall Street Journal Asian edition they gave me on the plane and wait the two hours for my flight. There is a great article on Chinese Intellectual Property law that I would love to be able to concentrate on, but instead I spend this time listening to an astoundingly annoying woman tell the lady across the aisle from her nearly every detail of her life and recent travel history, including how her underwire bra sets off the metal detectors EVERY TIME (I feel so much safer now knowing they actually work). I know this because despite the fact that she was about 100 feet away, her voice was SO LOUD everyone in the terminal heard her. At least when people in China are loud and obnoxious, they are all loud and obnoxious at the same time, so the result is sort a loud silence. They all just drown each other out into white noise. Oh, how I wish I were back in China.

Bumpy flight to ROA with the annoying lady talking only intermittently during the flight. I think she was airsick. Thank God for turbulence.

Finally, almost exactly 24 hours after I woke up, we land at Roanoke Regional Airport. Out into the cold and snow covered mountains. 24 hours ago I was in 80 F weather, now below freezing. Yipee.

It’s been a great 5 weeks, but when I see the family again, I know where I belong.

Happy to be home.