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Back in China again - ask me anything (1 Viewer)

moleculo

Footballguy
So I'm in China for this week and part of next week. currently in Qingdao, which is on the coast due west of Korea. I had never heard of this town until fairly recently, but this town is huge...10+ story buildings all over the damn place. Apparently this is the largest port in Asia, and a tourist spot as well.

My hotel is near the beach in the city, but my factory is about an hour away in an extremely rural area. Driving in, you see fields of corn, peanuts, fruit trees, and other crops I can't identify. The farmers use the roads as a hard surface to thresh and then dry their peanuts - it's a little odd to be doing that type of work on the road but whatever. There are cows just wondering around, and lots of country folk driving around on plow/mini-tractors. Tons of wind turbines as well - all over the place.

It occurs to me that the Chinese have more freedoms than Americans do. i mean, sure they don't have freedom of speech/press/ etc, but no one in America has anything meaningful to say anyways. Here in China, folks aren't held back by restrictive governmental regulations such as:

  • you have to drive on the right side of the road
  • you have to yield to traffic and/or pedestrians
  • one car per lane, or one lane per car
  • no passing on the median
  • no livestock or crops on the roads
seriously though - traffic is something else here. it's insane what these guys do. I know Chinese have a bad reputation for being bad drivers in the States, but they are actually excellent drivers - everyone assumes everyone else will drive wherever the hell they want, and they do likewise.

The food is...interesting. Everyone in our group sits at a big round table with a giant lazy susan in the middle. The waitresses bring various dishes and put on the lazy susan...someone spins it aorund, and people just pick off whatever they want. You don't fill your plate first, you just eat from the communal dishes. It's a little gross. no rice here, but lots of dumplings and sea-food. Today at lunch they served mutton (freshly butchered in pain view of the dining room) and some soup with what I have to believe was intestines and liver. I didn't eat any of that. At dinner, they served fried pigeon. With the head included.

As far as work goes - these people are made to do manual labor. The rank and file Chinese folk are extremely hard workers, and from what I can tell, would be doing manual labor on the farm if not for the factory. Culturally, they are more about fitting in and getting the job done than trying to "be happy" or "find fulfillment" or whatever. I don't see any way Americans can compete with the Chinese in terms of pure manual labor.

anyways, I'm open to answering any questions anyone may have. Bored in my hotel for right now. Will be up for a while. if I don't answer, its because the internet is really unreliable (or I've gone to bed).

 
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Do they all look the same?
Reminds me of a funny story. When I was in college, we had a guy from Japan on our soccer team. One night we were all sitting around having some beers, and he was having a hard time remembering our names. His comment:

"Sorry I can't remember your names so easily. You all look the same."

We were dying. :lmao:

 
what have you been pooping in/on?
this part of China seems to have regular toilets. I have seen the flushing hole in the floor on previous trips. It's possible the only places I've been on this trip cater to Westerners. The factory I'm here to see (in the sticks) was just built within the past couple of years.

 
I've been to Changchun a few times (Northern China)

Your assessment of the driving is spot on...I was amazed we made it from the airport to the hotel without an accident

The food is definitely interesting...most of the places we went to were more upscale. I'm pretty adventurous but noting was really all that crazy either (maybe live shrimp for hot pot) or them bringing out a live fish in a bucket to confirm was ok for dinner

Avoid the Flavor Tang restaraunt if you see one

I did see someone try to smuggle a live crab through the airport...it got loose right as I was going through security. I heard a lot of screaming and pointing and thought I had done something wrong but just the crab

 
Interestingly, one of the best Chinese places in the Charlotte area is near you in Ft. Mill (Lee Cafe).
#knowledge I will have to give it a try, been looking for a decent place.

So you are going to a fairly new facility, is it comparable to American factories in terms of safety, cleanliness, clear work areas, etc? I was just at a world class factory in Berea, KY and wonder how that compare to a Chinese model. Is it a more personal heavy factory or are there machines that do most of the work ala assembly line stuff?

Also, do you have the opportunity to go to a ghost city? I think that would be surreal

 
Interestingly, one of the best Chinese places in the Charlotte area is near you in Ft. Mill (Lee Cafe).
#knowledge I will have to give it a try, been looking for a decent place.

So you are going to a fairly new facility, is it comparable to American factories in terms of safety, cleanliness, clear work areas, etc? I was just at a world class factory in Berea, KY and wonder how that compare to a Chinese model. Is it a more personal heavy factory or are there machines that do most of the work ala assembly line stuff?

Also, do you have the opportunity to go to a ghost city? I think that would be surreal
this is a suppliers facility recently built. It's a hell of a lot cleaner than my own companies production floor in Ohio. Most safety equipment is in place, I saw proper quarantine for defective material, I saw halfway decent 5S layout, I saw a near clean-room for assembly, I saw proper machinery for lifting, etc. This is an injection molding/electronic assembly facility. It's hardly state-of-the-art; if it was we probably wouldn't afford them.

It's definitely more manual labor here than automation.

a couple of tidbits: the labor rates have gone up 10% every year for the past few years...that is to say, nearly doubled in the last 7 or 8 years. Our facility in Shanghai has trouble with high turnover because of location - most employees can't afford to live near there and take a shuttle bus to work - it's about a 2 hour each way commute. They go home for Chinese New Year and just don't come back.

Property values in Shanghai, by the way, are comparable to San Francisco. The guys I was talking to believe property values are manipulated by the government and aren't all that thrilled about it.

 
Do you know how much longer the maintenance break will be going on for?

 
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Interestingly, one of the best Chinese places in the Charlotte area is near you in Ft. Mill (Lee Cafe).
I'll have to keep an eye open for it. We've been partial to Ming Fu in Waxhaw.
Was speaking in terms of authenticity. That and Great Wall on Carmel Road are the two that my Chinese fiance and coworkers always want to go to.
honestly, I think I like American version of Chinese food better.

We had a talk today about food that they like that Americans won't eat. It started with mutton guts and organs, but included mice, monkey, donkey ("you don't eat donkey? What you do with donkeys then?") pigeon, snake, bear, etc.

 
Did the fog roll in yet?

Last I was in Qingdao the drive from the airport was nothing like you describe, because it was so foggy yu couldn't see more than 50 ft in front of your car. Mind you, that didn't stop the driver from going at a pretty good clip...

I'm sure if you explore the city you'll find McDonalds

There's a pretty good English pub by the seaside that I liked. Apparently the hang out for the teams participating in the sailing events at the 2008 olympics.

London, Liverpool? It did have a Beatles vibe to it along with the maritime decor.

 
srsly, is your browser censored for certain sites, or can you surf to whatever you want there?

 
Did the fog roll in yet?

Last I was in Qingdao the drive from the airport was nothing like you describe, because it was so foggy yu couldn't see more than 50 ft in front of your car. Mind you, that didn't stop the driver from going at a pretty good clip...

I'm sure if you explore the city you'll find McDonalds

There's a pretty good English pub by the seaside that I liked. Apparently the hang out for the teams participating in the sailing events at the 2008 olympics.

London, Liverpool? It did have a Beatles vibe to it along with the maritime decor.
You sure it wasn't smog? American news make it sounds like it's China's national health epidemic.

 
srsly, is your browser censored for certain sites, or can you surf to whatever you want there?
no facebook, and nothing in the google eco-system works - i.e. gmail, google maps, google, translate, etc. It really neuters my Nexus5. I can get to those sites via my works VPN, but I can't get VPN on my phone. :kicksrock:

I don't even try other sites on my work computer.

 
Did the fog roll in yet?

Last I was in Qingdao the drive from the airport was nothing like you describe, because it was so foggy yu couldn't see more than 50 ft in front of your car. Mind you, that didn't stop the driver from going at a pretty good clip...

I'm sure if you explore the city you'll find McDonalds

There's a pretty good English pub by the seaside that I liked. Apparently the hang out for the teams participating in the sailing events at the 2008 olympics.

London, Liverpool? It did have a Beatles vibe to it along with the maritime decor.
You sure it wasn't smog? American news make it sounds like it's China's national health epidemic.
Qingdao gets fog like you won't believe. And it rolls in from the ocean which is a big hint

PS China is big.

 
Interestingly, one of the best Chinese places in the Charlotte area is near you in Ft. Mill (Lee Cafe).
I'll have to keep an eye open for it. We've been partial to Ming Fu in Waxhaw.
Was speaking in terms of authenticity. That and Great Wall on Carmel Road are the two that my Chinese fiance and coworkers always want to go to.
honestly, I think I like American version of Chinese food better.

We had a talk today about food that they like that Americans won't eat. It started with mutton guts and organs, but included mice, monkey, donkey ("you don't eat donkey? What you do with donkeys then?") pigeon, snake, bear, etc.
I'm not really allowed to have American Chinese food, but that isn't a bad thing at all. Most of it differently cooked normal meats along with some odd veggies.

 
Do you know how much longer the maintenance break will be going on for?
You really aren't fielding these questions very quickly
:shrug: our guys don't take maintenance breaks. They do have a national holiday coming up in early October. I swear - the Chinese get more vacation days than we do.
Thanks for trying....I looked it up myself. 10 more minutes and we can raid again. Best of luck getting back to the USA

 
Do you know how much longer the maintenance break will be going on for?
You really aren't fielding these questions very quickly
:shrug: our guys don't take maintenance breaks. They do have a national holiday coming up in early October. I swear - the Chinese get more vacation days than we do.
Thanks for trying....I looked it up myself. 10 more minutes and we can raid again. Best of luck getting back to the USA
oh, that kind of maintenance break...there has been no break here. Must have been a US server thing.

 
srsly, is your browser censored for certain sites, or can you surf to whatever you want there?
No New York Times, Google, Facebook, Youtube, Flipboard (wtf?) and I'm sure I'm missing some others. But that's what I remember not being able to access last month

 
Did the fog roll in yet?

Last I was in Qingdao the drive from the airport was nothing like you describe, because it was so foggy yu couldn't see more than 50 ft in front of your car. Mind you, that didn't stop the driver from going at a pretty good clip...

I'm sure if you explore the city you'll find McDonalds

There's a pretty good English pub by the seaside that I liked. Apparently the hang out for the teams participating in the sailing events at the 2008 olympics.

London, Liverpool? It did have a Beatles vibe to it along with the maritime decor.
You sure it wasn't smog? American news make it sounds like it's China's national health epidemic.
Qingdao gets fog like you won't believe. And it rolls in from the ocean which is a big hint

PS China is big.
I'm sure it was fog, but I grew up in SoCal in the 80s when it was sometimes difficult to decipher between smog and fog.

I was more curious to find out if smog is a big problem in all major cities in China. Some American news portrays millions of Chinese city-dwellers walking around coughing and keeling over in the streets.

 

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