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…….

I had a nice Christmas and enjoyed two whole days off! On Christmas Eve I had a very nice dinner at a western restaurant with my girlfriend and her son and niece. The kids are both in college and speak English fairly well. We had turkey, ham, beef steak, salmon and crab salad and a bit of wine. It cost about $65 U.S. for the 4 of us, which is a very expensive meal here. They had a special Christmas dinner menu and they were decorated for Christmas as many restaurants and most of the shops are. The restaurant was packed but I didn’t see any other foreigners. Christmas here is becoming more popular. Then on Christmas day we went to a friend’s house for dinner where 12 of us enjoyed goose and home cooked western foods. Dessert was English Christmas pudding with ice cream. The men were all westerners (2 Swiss, 2 UK, and 2 Americans) and the ladies were all Chinese. One of the Swiss guys was the host and chef. I have posted some pictures for your perusal. I took some Santa hats and small gifts to the office on Christmas Eve day and the ladies were very excited to wear them and have pictures taken. The only other man in the office that day also got into the spirit.

As I mentioned last time, I feel like I started to make some good progress at work. Recently I had a meeting with the accountants (3 of them) and my translator to plan what we needed to do to finish up the accounting for 2010 and what we needed to prepare for 2011. We went to dinner in the evening along with our HR person and my gf (also an accountant). I had two coupons for 40 rmb (about $6) off the price and had someone ask if we could use them to reduce the cost. The server said that we could only use one then one of the accountants suggested that she put some of the dishes on one bill and the rest on another bill so we could use both coupons. The rest of the group agreed and started arguing with the server about doing it. She went to get her supervisor who then had to listen to 6 of them all giving different reasons and ways to do it. After about 5 minutes of harassment she finally gave in and said okay. It was so funny to watch them all gang up on her; she never had a chance…..lol. There’s nothing more relentless than a group of Chinese beancounters out to save a few bucks! After dinner I took them bowling. At least 3 of the group had never been and they all had a great time. They suggested next time that we have a cheaper dinner and/or go bowling earlier when it’s cheaper. The dinner cost about $60 U.S. for the 7 of us and the bowling cost about $35 for 2 games for each of us.

Until next time……

I’m continuing to work long hours and expect to do so until February or March. At least now I feel like I’m making progress in some areas. I have two good accountants working for me and still need to hire an experienced accountant who can speak English. I still meet new challenges almost every day. One recent challenge was getting some payments made to contractors. The banks here are to a large degree an extension of the government and there are very strict controls on foreign currency exchange. We have money in the bank in a US $ account but they only let us exchange the money into Chinese yuan under strict circumstances. We are investing a lot of money into the local economy that provides jobs and will provide food but they make it very difficult for us to spend our money. The money we have is all capital and none of it is borrowed from the bank. It was so frustrating when they were making it difficult to spend our money for the local economy.

Our business model requires very close cooperation with the government and we’ve probably had more than 100 government officials visit our sites in the past 4 months. There was a group of 80 that was supposed to visit a couple weeks ago but there visit was cancelled because the local villagers were protesting and blocked the road to our farm by putting boulders on it. Some of our managers were at the site to greet the government officials and got trapped there for several hours. The locals have protested several times but we often don’t know why. I’m just amazed by the number of government officials that come to visit. Maybe they don’t have anything else to do?

I finally got to see part of the mini-series I helped make more than a year ago. It’s showing on tv now and it’s a 25 episode series. I’m in the first episode but if you didn’t know it was me, you wouldn’t recognize me. The scene happens so quickly, you don’t really get a good look at me.

This is probably my last post before Christmas so I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and Happy Holidays if you celebrate any other holidays! It’s starting to get a little cold here now (sometimes in the low 50’s F) so I checked to make sure I had heat in my apartment and found that I didn’t so I bought myself a portable heater as an early Christmas present. I hope all your presents make you warm and happy!

Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything because I’ve been very busy working hard. Yesterday was the first day off I’ve had since October 6. The first weekend after the 6th was worked to make up for holiday time off during October 1-6, the second one was worked because my new bosses from the states were here, and the last one was spent visiting our operations in another province with the COO. AgFeed has acquired M2P2, the American pig farm company they were using as a joint venture partner on the western style pig farms here in China, and they have put M2P2 in charge of the western style farms here. So we’ve had a major reorganization that puts the Americans firmly in charge. At the same time, AgFeed has divided itself into 3 divisions and is making each of the divisions independent so we are working on setting ourselves up as if we are an independent company. In the long run this will make us more focused and effective but in the short term it’s creating a ton of work. Consequently, I’ve been working my butt off!

One of my biggest challenges is learning to work with the Chinese staff. One of the accountants was so bad that I fired her within the first 4 weeks I was working there full time. She wouldn’t do what I asked, did it wrong when she did do something and became smart mouthed when I asked her about almost anything. She spent most of her time surfing the net and chatting with friends on the net even when I was there in the office watching her. Finding and hiring staff has also been a big challenge. It seems the workers under 30 aren’t so motivated or reliable. Fortunately, my translator has been wonderful. She works very hard, is always there when I need her and helps me in many ways. If they were all like her, life would be great! I added some pictures of and from my office; just click on the pictures link on the right. The office is in an upscale complex that has a Wal-mart Supercenter in the basement. We are on the 24th floor.

Next weekend I’m going to Hong Kong for 1 night because I have to leave mainland China because my visa is only good for a 90 day stay at a time. I’m taking my ladyfriend with me. Even though Hong Kong is part of China and she is Chinese, she had to get a visa to go there. Hong Kong is in many ways still treated as a separate country. Most foreigners don’t need a visa to go there but Chinese do; Hong Kong has more religious freedom and more freedom of the press; and the tax system is different.

I’ll be emailing my votes to Nevada tomorrow and this is my first time to vote since I’ve been in China. They made it possible to vote via email this time. Yes, I’m legally a Nevada resident and own property there. That’s all for now! (October 31, 2010)

I arrived back in Nanning on Saturday morning, August 14, and went to find an apartment. A friend had pre-screened some apartments for me and took me to the best one. I liked it and thought the price was fair (about $450 per month) so I agreed to take it. I gave them a deposit and they gave me a key. We agreed to meet the next day to sign the lease and handle all the details. Wow, so far, so easy! We were supposed to meet at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning to sign the lease but they called and said the owner couldn’t be there until 1:00. I arrived at the realty office at 1:00 and waited for the owner, who didn’t arrive until about 2:40. He was sorry for being late but he was busy having lunch with some family and friends. We then went to the apartment where a total of 14 people arrived (2 realtors, 2 people representing a previous tenant who was hoping to get a refund on rent paid before he broke the lease, 8 people including the owner and his family/friends, and my friend and me). Some of the owner’s family were going everywhere in the apartment checking out every detail including looking in some of my boxes and looking in the refrigerator. Needless to say I was about to blow my top since I had only slept about 3 hours the night before (I woke up in the middle of the night due to jet lag and started cleaning and unpacking) and was already aggravated that I had to wait for almost 2 hours! I really had to restrain myself especially considering that the owner is a policeman. I did finally tell the worst offender to go back to the living room after she knocked something over and almost broke it.

The apartment is about 1200 square feet and is in a new development and is on the 5th floor of a 19 story building. It has a decent kitchen, a nice sized dining and living room area with a balcony, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I knew it was an upscale place when I noticed that the electrical wiring and plumbing is in the walls instead of outside the walls like the other places I have lived. There are no closets, only wardrobe cabinets and they only have one shelf in them so I had to buy some shelving to be able to use one of them as a dresser. I have hot water in the kitchen and in both bathrooms which is provided by a gas flow-thru water heater. The gas comes in through a gas line rather than bottled gas (another feature of being in an upscale place). I also have a gas 2 burner stove. There are more than 4000 apartments/condos in this community and there are dozens of complexes like this in Nanning. I have posted some pictures. The tall appliance in the corner of the living room is an air conditioner. I have air conditioners in each of the bedrooms and they are all mounted on a wall.

The job is going fairly well so far. There’s a lot to do since they were a bit behind on accounting matters. I have a Translator working for me full time and also 2 accountants. Lower level accountants here make in the range of $250 to $450 a month. The communication challenge is a big issue that makes it difficult to get things done quickly and there are often communication mistakes due to translation challenges. One example last week involved the words Feed Mill being confused with the word female. Getting an answer to what seems like a simple question can involve a 10 minute discussion between the locals before I get a one sentence answer. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering ordering lunch can be a 5 minute conversation with the server.

That’s all for now…..until next time!

My teaching career is over for the time being. I finished up my teaching duties on July 13 and then packed up and moved out of my apartment on the 14th. A friend is storing my things for me and I’ll find an apartment when I return to Nanning. The apartment I had was provided by the school so when I finished working there I had to leave the apartment. The office for the new job will be on the other side of town in the expensive part of town so I expect that I’ll have to pay between $450 and $600 per month for a one or two bedroom apartment.

I arrived in the states on July 15 and spent about 11 days in Indiana visiting family and friends and taking care of some personal business. I don’t have to tell you how expensive medical care is here in the states. I went and had blood tests to test my cholesterol and PSA and it cost $80. A few weeks earlier in China I had a medical exam which is required for a work visa. The exam included urine and blood analysis, a basic checkup, an EKG, chest x-ray, and liver ultrasound all for a cost of $45 U.S.

I then went to California for my annual reunion with my former Coca-Cola friends from Florida. It’s always great to see them and we had a great time. I was the host this year and spent 3 days playing tour guide as we hit some of the famous sites in the Bay area. Since I couldn’t get them all to come to China we did the next best thing and did a walking tour of Chinatown in San Francisco followed by a dim sum lunch. I’m now staying at a friend’s home in the Bay area and will leave tomorrow to go to Denver to visit a pig farm. Then on Sunday I will go to Iowa to visit the M2P2 corporate office for a couple days to learn more about the pig farm business. On August 12 I fly back to Indiana for 1 night to repack my bags before heading back to China on the 13th.

In my last post I said I didn’t want to go back to a traditional job. Well it looks like I will be doing just that. Although, maybe it’s not entirely a traditional job. I have accepted a position as an independent contractor to develop the accounting and financial reporting systems for a JV (joint venture) between an American company (M2P2 Inc.) and a Chinese company (AgFeed Inc. listed on NASDAQ as FEED). I will start as soon as the school semester is over. I will continue to live and work in Nanning with some travel to other places in China and the states. The initial agreement will be for 1 year. The strategy of the JV is to build American style pig farms in China with American style management systems to improve the productivity of pork production here. The productivity of the farms here is significantly lower than in the states. That is true for most agriculture industries here. Pork is the primary meat for Chinese so the pork market here is many times that of the states. I will still travel to the states in July but some aspects of my previous plans will change. They need me to start work asap so I will cancel my Peru trip and perhaps also my Florida trip.

Children’s Day was last week here and I happened upon a Children’s Day presentation at the auditorium on campus. I quickly snapped some pictures inside and outside the auditorium. I didn’t want to stay long inside as it was about 90 degrees F outside and with no a/c and about 500 people inside it had to be close to 100 inside. I have posted the pictures for your enjoyment. Click “Pictures!” under the heading “My Links” on the right hand side to see them.

Factory worker dissatisfaction has been a big topic in the news here recently. There have been more than a dozen suicides at a large factory complex in Shenzhen owned by the Taiwan company called Foxconn. The workers have been jumping off the top of the tall dormitory buildings. The workers work 10 to 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week in buildings where the temperatures can reach 100 degrees and the management style is militaristic. There are more than 100,000 workers at one factory and Foxconn has over 300,000 workers in Shenzhen (a city next to Hong Kong) that assemble i-phones, i-pads, many famous brand computers and similar products. The average pay for the assembly workers there is less than $300 per month even after a recent 30% pay increase. The company does provide dormitories (very basic living conditions) and food for free but fines the employees if they don’t eat all their food. Why do the employees stay there? Because it’s the best option they have for making money and hundreds of people line up every day hoping to get a job there.

There have also been strikes at some of the auto industry factories here demanding better pay and working conditions. Strikes are technically illegal here and there are reports of union members fighting with the workers over the strikes. Union representatives here really work more closely with the management and the government to keep harmony and try to prevent workers from striking. There have also been reports that censors have prevented reporting of these strikes. The strikers have been successful in getting wage increases of 20% to 35% and their pay is similar to that at Foxconn. Why does this matter to you? Expect to pay more for Chinese made goods as the costs are increasing. And that’s before the much anticipated rising value of the Chinese currency.

It has now been 3 years since I “retired” from Dreyer’s. It’s been an interesting 3 years and I’m glad I did it. I’m still taking it one year at a time and I’ll probably stay here at this school for another year. It’s become comfortable and I certainly don’t want to go back to a traditional full time job. I had the opportunity recently to take a full time office job here with a fireworks company. They wanted an American to help them with their sales in North America. The job would have been mostly about helping design sales materials, new product naming and communication with customers. I think it would be a good job but I told them I don’t want a job without at least 10 weeks of vacation/holiday per year.

A few weeks ago I was asked to help make a video promoting this province to be shown at the Shanghai 2010 Expo. A foreigner friend and I went to a nice hotel where we played the parts of rich foreigners enjoying the luxury of a very nice hotel here in Nanning. We were there for at least 4 hours and I’m guessing they won’t use more than 2 minutes of the footage they took. We were paid a small fee (relative to the time spent).

If you are interested in learning what it’s like doing business with the Chinese I recommend the following blog. http://silkroadintl.net/blog/ The author (an American) has extensive experience in China and relates many stories about his and others’ experiences doing business in China. He also provides some good insights into the culture here.

I have my summer travels pretty much planned. Here are the details:
July 19 arrive in Indiana
July 27 go to Reno
July 28 to San Francisco area (Coca-Cola group reunion 7-29 to 8-1)
August 3 to Tampa
August 7 to Peru to hike the Inca Trail, see the Amazon, Machu Pichu, etc
August 24 back to Indiana
September 1 back to China

Not much else new. Until next time….

The Chinese New Year holiday period finally ended on February 28 and with it came the end of all the fireworks. Anyone here can buy commercial grade fireworks and it seems almost everyone does. They shoot them off every day during the two week holiday period at all times during the day and night. The last night was the worst and it seemed like a war zone with the fireworks going off non-stop making it almost impossible to watch tv or talk on the phone. They shoot them off anywhere and everywhere with portions of the fireworks landing on balconies, roofs, etc. Many people are injured and many fires are started. There was one incident in the neighboring province where 19 people were killed.

Here are the headlines in the “China Daily” newspaper for the 3 front page stories for February 20: “Military not linked to attacks on Google”, “Angry man flies into US tax office”, and “Concrete actions for healthy ties urged”. The last article is basically about how Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama hurts relations with China. Do you see the theme here? Then on page 4, “Play and buy virtually for less with Facebook credits”. It seems strange that they would publish a big article about Facebook considering that it’s blocked here. Oh well, TIC (this is China) as the foreigners here say. More recently the first story on CCTV English news channel was about Google and most of the time was spent talking about all the bad things Google has done here and in other parts of the world. I sometimes download articles from the CCTV website to use in class and the last time I was on the site I noticed a link to Facebook where you can become a fan of CCTV. Why would they want you to become a fan on something they think is so bad that it’s banned??

Classes are back in full swing although my classes started a few days later than planned because their registration system crashed. I’m teaching 3 sections of International Business and 3 sections of Accounting again this semester which is nice in that I can re-use a good part of the lesson plans. Classes will end the first week of July, then grading of final exams and reports will take another week before summer vacation begins. I’ll be visiting the states this summer (Indiana, California and probably Florida) and I’ve already booked my flights to/from China and have begun planning all the details of my time there. It will be great to see family and friends again after being away for about 18 months. That’s all for now folks!

The first semester ended and I went to Egypt for two weeks of site seeing. It was quite amazing to see what the Egyptians did so long ago considering the technology and tools available at the time. I found there were some similarities in what they did to what some of the Chinese emperors did in building tombs. I flew from Nanning to Guangzhou then to Cairo with a stopover in Bangkok and arrived early morning on Sunday January 31. After checking into the hotel (located near the Nile River) I went out on my own to see some sites and then in the evening met the others in my Intrepid Tours travel group. There were 12 of us plus our Egyptian tour guide. All of the others were from either Australia or Britain with one Aussie couple who were living in Pakistan and my Brit roommate living in Amsterdam. It was a really good group and everyone got along great.

On Day 2 we went to see the pyramids of Giza which were not too far from our hotel. We rode camels from a viewing area right up to the pyramids (see the pic’s by clicking on the link on the right). Then in the afternoon we went to the Egyptian Museum and saw many incredible artifacts including some of King Tut’s stuff. Considering the quality of the items they had to display, the museum didn’t do a very nice job displaying things. Apparently, they are working on building a new museum. That night we took a sleeper train to Aswan which is a city on the Nile considered to be a gateway to the rest of Africa and home to Nubian minority people. The next afternoon we took a Falucca (sail boat) ride to an island and visited a Nubian people’s home where we were treated to dinner and a party. Day 4 we started out at 3:30 a.m. on an almost 4 hour bus ride to Abu Simbel. Per Wikipedia “Abu Simbel temples are two massive rock temples in Nubia, southern Egypt on the western bank of Lake Nasser about 290 km southwest of Aswan. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the “Nubian Monuments”,[1] which run from Abu Simbel downriver to Philae (near Aswan).
The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari, to commemorate his alleged victory at the Battle of Kadesh, and to intimidate his Nubian neighbors. However, the complex was relocated in its entirety in the 1960s, on an artificial hill made from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir.
The relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River.” After viewing this incredible site for about 90 minutes we made the bus ride back to Aswan and then went to another Nubian home where we would spend the night (see pic’s). The next day (day 6) we got back on the Falucca where we would spend the day and night on the Nile. It was pretty cold that night to be sleeping outside (high 40’s F and windy) on a boat but my sleeping bag and knit hat mostly kept me warm. You can see the picture of the “galley” on the boat which was used to feed 16 people 3 meals. There was no toilet on the boat which made me glad I’m a man…..lol!

Day 7 we went by van to Luxor and stopped to see the Temple of Edfu along the way. Day 8 we saw some sites then hopped on donkeys for a ride to the Valley of the Kings where we visited some tombs then had lunch at the home of our local guide. On Day 9 we visited the Karnak Temple and then took an overnight train back to Cairo where we visited old Cairo and the Khan bazaar. Day 11 we left Cairo and headed to Mt. Sinai which we climbed, reaching the summit just before sunset. It was a bit challenging going back down in the dark. The next day we went to see St. Catherine monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai which is famous for the biblical burning bush before heading out for our Red Sea Beach camp. We spent the rest of day 12 and day 13 at the beach relaxing. We could see Saudi Arabia about 12 miles across the water. On Day 14 we went back to Cairo, going through a tunnel under the Suez Canal along the way. Later that night I went to the airport for my overnight flight back to China.

The Egyptian people were very friendly although most of them really wanted to be friendly with your wallet. The sellers had a habit of guessing where you were from or making some funny comment such as when they saw me wearing my hat they would say “hey cowboy, where’s your horse?” They were very aggressive about trying to get you to buy something and you really had to bargain hard to get a decent price. I was at one museum and after exiting an area a security guard asked me to go back in with him so he could explain some things. I didn’t really want to go back but he insisted then after we walked back out he asked for a tip for doing the explanations …..lol. This sort of thing happened several times during the trip.

I arrived in Guangzhou late afternoon on Valentines Day/Chinese New Year and had to spend the night in a freezing cold hotel room near the airport with no valentine to keep me warm since my flight to Nanning had been cancelled and there were no other flights. I arrived back in Nanning on the 15th and went from the airport to a friend’s house where we made traditional Chinese dumplings to celebrate the New Year. Now I’m catching up on things and having a vacation after my vacation. Classes start again on March 3. Until next time……