First Day of business

Ok, so I'm really at the end of day two, but lets back up a bit shall we? My first order of business on China Thursday, the morning after I arrived, was to contact two factories for a client who wants a production line in Asia. My cute contact, Kelly and her nice boss, Mr. Deng, picked me up at my hotel. From there he gave me a tour of his two factories. He is very proud of them. Yes, they are in a dodgy part of town (think Harlem, NY without the good parts), but the people were nice and his factory was relatively clean, neat, and blocked off from the neighborhood. We talked about China and the US and they offered me lots of coffee ( I was compelled to accept, uh oh.) and we sat down to create. No. I sat down. They kept demanding "sit down please", so I sat. Then another girl came and talked with Kelly. And I just watched. See, Kelly is the only English speaking person there, so they did a lot of talking among themselves. They probably knew that the carrot juice people and the hotel people each ripped me off pretty good and they were deciding it was their turn. Did I have "Stupid American" written on my forehead? I think so, because the other girl looked at me and gave me a laugh/smile. You know what a laugh/smile is, don't you? I was in trouble.

Finally they turned their attention to me and gave me a price. I won't disclose the pricing or the product, for this is a top trade secret, but I will tell you one thing. In China, you never accept first price. Everything is negotiable here. So we had a nice conversation, me, Kelly, and the other girl. Mr. Deng went away. I think he was laughing too hard. So when all was done and all the formal niceties were performed Mr. Deng and Kelly escorted me to my next location. But before they did, nice Mr. Deng fixed my laptop charger plug so that it would fit in Chinese power outlets. Thank you, Mr. Deng. You saved me 6 bucks and a lot of hassle .

So onto my next location. Mr. Deng volunteered to drive me to my next factory, an acrylic factory near the center of Guangzhou. It was appreciated because it was a good ways away. We arrived at the factory and it was not as I expected. It was very small and unkempt. The people were nice, but no one spoke English - my contact had not arrived. Disappointed, I accepted the offered coffee (uh oh) and allowed them to show me around the factory while I nodded my head and said yes and said shi-shi (thank you) every 30 seconds. It was not an unpleasant experience, but I couldn't understand a word he said. So I took my leave of factory, ready to hail a cab (cabs are everywhere) and Lo'! There was nice Mr. Deng outside the door with his car! He had waited for me and offered to take me back to my hotel. Well, I had only scheduled two appointments in Guangzhou, and I wasn't going to leave it unseen, so I graciously rejected his offer, but asked if he could show me the way to the city center. Kelly, politely pointed out that I didn't know any Chinese and most people in Guangzhou do not speak English. What her eyes were saying was that I was a crazy American! She said that I would get lost. I said I know, and that was what I wanted. Now, her brain was confirming things with her eyes. I had her write down my hotel name and address in Chinese and they reluctantly put me on a taxi to take me downtown. Thus ended my first day of business in China. But what happened in town, you ask?...