David's Big Adventure in China

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog. I’ve been very busy at work and haven’t had much free time for anything. In addition to the normal day to day challenges we in the process of our year-end audit with new auditors and they’re asking for many documents and explanations. I’m also working on implementing a new accounting system with the guts of it being a pig production system. These systems are new to me and I’m not yet a pig accounting expert. We just hired an American/Chinese accountant to help me with this project but the systems and pig accounting are new to her too. She has working experience in both the states and China so she should be a big help. Needless to say it’s quite a challenge and I’m feeling pretty stressed about it since it’s now almost March and we haven’t entered any transactions yet for January or February.

We started receiving pigs a week ago so finally after more than 1 year of construction we have pigs and we’ll start the breeding process in a couple months. I fired two more employees since my last update which brings my total up to 4 people in 6 months. I’m happy with the group I have now and hope to never have to fire again. It seems Chinese companies are very reluctant to fire poor performers. All of the ones that I fired were capable of doing the job but they didn’t want or care too.

During the Spring Festival time (Chinese New Year) here I went to the states to work on learning the new systems. I took a translator with me to Ames, Iowa where we spent a week working on learning and doing setup work. It was his first time outside of China and he adapted quickly to the food and the comfort of our hotel and the company offices. We stayed in a mid-level suite type hotel and he thought he was living like a king with the separate living and bedroom areas and with having a nice kitchenette. It was his first time to see snow and he had never experienced such cold weather as it got down to below 0 F. I had originally hoped to take my translator with me but our U.S. government wouldn’t give her a visa. It is very difficult for single females to get a visa even when the employer is an American company that says they need her to travel for business purposes. The guy I took already had a visa as he was already scheduled to go to the states for training at one of the pig farms since he will become part of the production team working at the sow farm.

After my week in Ames, Iowa, I went to my hometown of Richmond, Indiana to visit family and friends. I was only there a few days and I had some work stuff that I had to do while I was there so I didn’t have enough time to see everyone that I would have liked to see. My apologies to those of you that I didn’t get around to seeing or calling. I surprised my parents with my visit as I hadn’t told them I was coming. Fortunately, they were still happy to see me. I also visited with my almost 97 year old grandmother who is still going strong, my sister and her family, my brother and some other family members.

This will be a very unique year in that I’ll be seeing my parents 3 or 4 times within a one year period. They are coming here for a visit in April along with some friends of mine. I’ll be playing tour guide as we go to Beijing, Xi’an, and various places in my home province.

Until next time…….