From a Hotel in China

What an exhilarating day today!  We traveled for 7 hours and toured three plants sourcing many components for the J Truffles line.  Traveling at high velocity in a car can be a terrifying experience if not in complete control.  For 7 hours today I realized that one can be terrified even at a very low velocity and even while standing still.  Today was more excitement than a high octane theme park. Now arriving back at my hotel, I am almost speechless and relieved to find myself no worse for the wear with the slight exception of temporary deafness.  I am hoping that auditory nerves can heal overnight. 

There are a couple of unwritten rules when traveling in China:

a. One can never speak too loudly.
b. One can never honk too much.

Once I knew these rules and reset my expectations, I found China to be invigorating. The first road game I experienced I call “Chicken”. If you enjoyed playing chicken as a teenager on a narrow country road back home, then you are going to love it on a freeway. In China, they play Chicken like full time professionals. They don’t even find it that exciting. I, on the other hand, had seven full hours of continuous unexpected thrills on the roads. Despite the fact that I have very short fingernails, there are significant nail marks embedded in the back seat and overhead handle of our light weight sedan.

People keep smiling at me as I smile at them. As soon as the muscle spasms begin to relax in my lower jaw unclenching my teeth, they will see a warmer, more natural smile which will better express my elated feelings of being alive.  Hallelujah! I am now walking on the ground out of reach of vehicular dodge ball. 

I wish all of you could be here to share this awesome experience with me.  I am logged on to the internet in the business center to memorialize this day.  I am being charged 13 Rmb per hour which equates to about $1.50 per hour which is a good thing because my fingers still sport white knuckles and are suffering from involuntary movement as I type. 

I know that women are masterful at being multi-tasking experts: But today I witnessed on more than one occasion, the driver of our car, Mr. Tan, attempt to run down a few pedestrians or an oncoming bus while screaming in loud and animated Mandarin at a vendor on his cell phone.  BTW, did you know that the sidewalk can also be used as a “car pool lane” in an emergency? And you don’t have to specify the emergency type. If I may translate the idea of what he said into perfect English, it would be something like this: "Hey, what’s up Joe? Don’t even think about telling me you won’t be ready.  I have a customer in the back seat of my car at this very moment and he is counting on you to deliver the impossible.  If you think you are going to let me down, then I will go get three other suppliers that will get it done. I thought you would see it my way.  Thank you for pleasing my guest whom you have never met. Thank you. Bye now."  I turned to Mr. Tseng seated in the back with me and asked him if he was the good cop or the bad cop between the two of them.  To which Mr. Tseng replied:  “He is bad cop, I am the worser cop."  “Man I love this place!” I thought as I closed my eyes waiting to feel the bump-bump, as we rapidly approached a bicyclist and some random strollers in front of us. The bump never came. 

Happy Sunday to everyone!  Thanks for letting me blog a little.  I feel much better now. I was tempted to use a little sarcasm tonight but I refrained.  All seriousness aside, I did have a great day and it was very productive too.  I truly cannot speak highly enough about Mr. Tseng and Mr. Tan. They have been a lot of fun to be with and they are extraordinarily skilled in what they do (with the possible exception of driving). Come to think of it, we did not collide with anyone or run over anything. They are skilled at everything. Their whole staff is top notch at sourcing, follow up and quality.  I am very excited about this new vendor relationship.  Good night all.