Pudding and Chopsticks

I thought this door was interesting so I took a photo of it.

Apparently from what I learned today, today is Buddha something or other. Not to disrespect but I can’t find anything online about today being important. But anyway.

How do I know this, well, I ate lunch at a Buddhist Temple. Yeah weird. It was pretty cool. Lots of incense burning, people praying. I didn’t take any photos because really, I didn’t want to get kung foo’ed by a Buddhist.

Don’t cry, because I took a photo of a cool looking sign.

Ok so here a story about quality here in China.

Factory A gets contacted to make a new product that they have never made, but basically it’s just a small version of what they have been making for years. Their quality is not good. They have been getting better but it’s still not even close to American quality or the top-level factories making the same product. They have fixed certain issues with tolerances and materials. Improving everyday.

New client sends a sample from another factory, factory B. This factory is worse than factory A. So Factory A sees the sample product and now gets it in their head that actually they are a really good manufacturer because they are better than factory B. But what they don’t realize is that they both suck and factory B just sucks more. The sample contains the same issues that factory A has been fixing. Now factory A starts to question why they have been fixing these issues, why they have been working harder, and striving to do better, when factory B doesn’t have to. They also start to think that they are the best manufacturer ever because their product is superior to factory B.

This all leads to a feeling of content and laziness. The quality starts to go down hill because they think that they have finally made it and don’t have to fix any more issues because there are people who are worse off then they are. They don’t feel the need to innovate and now buckle in for a period of doing nothing and coasting along. Quality goes back down, eventually is just as bad or worse as factory B and the cycle starts again. Factory B becomes A and A becomes B.

The above happens too with product samples from the best factories. Products that are the best come into a factory and get torn apart. Why do we have to fix this issue and spend so much time on it if the best company in the world sells products that have the same problems or worse. Well, think of it like this. Ford gets an Audi to check out, they buy it and bring it into their factory. Ford’s engineers take it apart. They start to question why they have been putting so much time into specific aspects of design or manufacturing. Why do we have to make the car quieter inside? The boss (Ford) wants a db level of 70 but the Audi has a measurement of 80. Audi is more expensive than Ford, and supposed to be a better car. Why then are their cars louder and more specifically why do I have to work harder to achieve 70 when the Audi is 80. That’s the thinking.

What the factories and factory workers haven’t the slightest clue about is that, better product attracts better clients, attracts more clients, and more money. The top-level companies can sell defect products or slightly sub par products because they are the leader. They can get away with it. But when you are the underdog. You have to work twice as hard to climb the ladder and know one in China understands that. If they do, then they are the top-level companies. Because that’s what it takes.

I’ve read a lot of news lately about China trying to innovate. It’s going to be really hard. Really hard. The above problem compiled with a thousand others that are culturally specific are going to hinder them. Don’t misunderstand me, America is not the best, China is not the best. But one can hardly argue about the difference in education and it’s relationship with innovation and technology.

But one of the biggest problems is employee attitudes here. Boss in America, make it 70, employee, yes sir. You pay me I work. Boss in China, make it 70, employee, can’t do it, too hard, why, you don’t pay me enough, can’t be done, etc etc etc, argue, argue, yell, yell, dinner drinking, ok I’ll make it 70.

Awesome.

I blogged before on the old lady that looked like the walking dead and how every dam morning I get woken up at 6am by screaming, howling, and other weird noises outside my slider (read it here). Well they were at it right on time at 6am again today. It looks like the old lady is doing better and can walk a little bit. They weren’t really helping her as much this time but as a side effect they have gotten louder with they encouraging rants.

July 17th.

July 25th.

Maybe the Chinese are on to something in the area of physical rehabilitation. I just hope that my kids that I will someday rear and father, put through college, give money to, and do all the loving things that fathers do will someday wheel me around so that I can at least gaze upon women 1/4 my age. That’s what a good kid/grand kid is for.

This is something I struggle with. What to do in some types of situations. This is one of them. However they acted the same way I did, so, I am assuming that my response was appropriate.

The situation is as follows.

I walked into Starbucks and ordered my Venti Mocha Frap and Chocolate Muffin. I then walk down stairs to find an outlet. I strutted my stuff down the stairs to drive the girls wild because I saw a few girls at the bottom. After acting extremely dapper, I noticed that there were 3 Americas sitting near where I planned on setting up shop. Now, this is fine. No big deal. However what becomes awkward is that probably in the entire city there is, and I am just guessing, maybe less than 100 Americans. In China the percentage of Americans is super small. Out of 1.4billion people probably less than 300,000 are Americans. I can’t check this because there are really no hard numbers on this. So just a guess.

My questions is this. Should I of said, hello, what’s up, what’s clackalackin or just do nothing like in America. I picked the latter as did they. They talked about baseball and some other non interesting junk. They were probably all pissed because there were in a place where no one understood them and what they were talking about and then this handsome white stallion shows up (me) and now they have to censor their conversation because I speak English. Either way they bailed shortly after. Which was good because there were obstructing my view of all the beautiful girls that were no were to be found.

Oh well all well that ends well my Grandma would say.

First a photo of something I usually see everyday. A person on a three wheeled motor bike kinda of a thing. Collecting styrofoam and whatnot. I think to get money out of it.

Anyway I went to a new Sichuan restaurant last night. Photos of what followed.

Corn.

Little beans with something seaweedy or green, I’m not 100% sure. Good though.

Ah yes. Meat, fat, peppers, and the hotness.

Chicken, 25% edible awesomeness, 75% teeth breaking bones.

Fish hot pot, Booya.. This little vat of intestine tickling goodness made the tear ducts sweat.

Spices. Not sure what they are. I probably could look it up on the internet. But I’m just that lazy not to.

So that’s it. Overall it was good. The other place maybe a little better. This place was hotter and score awesome points for being on a barge.

This week coming up should be a good one for food. Some people are coming into town and that usually means good food, drinking and generally doing things that would get us arrested in America.

Not don’t get me wrong. I love me a scooter. Jumping scooter, scooter burn outs, racing scooter. I’m all for it. However scooters that go too slow and or drive where I need to drive/go, I don’t like.

In example, this. In the south of China there are a ton of cars so in the major cities you can’t drive scooters. Finally outlawed them and actually enforced it. But here in the middle or there abouts of China, you can. This is both a major problem and a safety issue. As you can see from the above photo the scooters are driving on the side of the road among cars, well, there are cars, but just not in the photo.

What really chaps my ass is this, there is a SCOOTER ROAD just to the right. That’s not a damn sidewalk. It’s for scooters. So how about this, get you slow ass scooter up on that road damn out of my way, either that or transplant you little 40cc scooter engine with a 600 gixxer and start pulling 70mph cat walks. Either way is fine by me.

What this photos can’t show you is this, scooters run red lights, swerve all over, weave in and out of traffic, cut people off, go down the wrong side of the road, go slow, and generally don’t follow any and I mean any traffic laws at all. NONE. Whenever you drive you got to make damn sure that there are no scooters around and in your blind spots. Either that or carry around a bunch of money to pay off all the people you hit on scooters.

After I moved to Vail I learned something. Well actually it was after I was there for a bit. After I became a local of sorts. Yes there were people that lived there their entire lives and are local or native, but then there are the people that live there, work there, and become almost indistinguishable from a “local” person. When you become one of these “locals” you probably don’t know it until something happens. The tourists come.

I was everything but born in Vail. I worked there, lived there, knew people and hung out with people that were born locally. I hung out with people that were in the valley for over 20yrs. On all accounts I was local. I realized this one day, maybe a year into my 3 year stint when the tourists came.

You live somewhere year round you start to think of the place as yours, my valley, my mountain. Then the Texans, tourists, outsiders come and you feel like a swarm of locusts has descended upon your home. I have the same feeling right now in China. The city that I am in is hosting the World Choir Games. So there a tons of foreigners in the city.

What does this make me feel like. I’ll be honest. I’m no longer special. No longer one of a few but a one of the many. I am grouped into the tourist crowd. I can no longer speak Chinese because I am grouped into the nonspeaking crowd. I am an outsider for the next week. I don’t like it. I also don’t like the fact that tourist come in and do whatever they want. Trash the mountain, China, Vail, whatever it is. It’s polluted by the tourist. I suppose that at one point I made people feel the same way. Although I am much more respectful then some people.

I want to speak Chinese, learn the culture, etc.. Not just roll in take advantage of what have you and roll out. Yes this is a generalization of a lot of things. But it is what it is.

I’m sure right now the Chinese people looking at me are thinking the same thing. What the hell is the white guy doing here. Taking our jobs, dating our women, making more money then I can. Guess it’s just the way it is.

Even when there is a new foreigner in town. You start to feel like you’ve lost some of your specialness. Ans lets face it, we all want to be special, stand out, be given attention.

Life is just one big competition. There’s no way around it.

Yep, I’ve been here for over a year and haven’t seen a proper explosion. Sad really. But Friday I did. The city I live in celebrated 2500yrs. You read that right. 2500 years of kicking out the Chinese vibes. Ha you thought North America was all big and bad for 518yrs.

Anyway here are the photos to prove to all you skeptics that yes I did see fireworks.

I swear to everything that has an atom in it I will yell out the slider if I see them doing this again. I can’t take it anymore. Every morning at 6am they are out there, from what I can gather, exercising a decrepit old lady and yelling at her simultaneously. Thus waking me up each and every damn morning.

Put her back in the wheel chair and go back to bed. Let the money makers sleep. Aaaahh..

Well, I got to go to Taiwan for some business. Which means I got to travel. Well I guess that’s what it usually means when you have to go somewhere. So it was my first time to Taiwan, an island off from China and south of Japan. What follows are some photos.

We flew, what was a surprise to me, a big airplane for what was a short flight. 2hrs or so from Hong Kong. The spicy sauce was good. The orange things were funky, the hot dog fish stick was good, and the little patty was mostly a rubber disk. Taiwan isn’t looking so good right now.

Off the plane to a bus to get to the high speed train. The bus was all green which I found interesting.

Bam. I love going fast and the train did just that.

Taiwan uses Traditional Character for it’s writing system. China uses the same character but they have been simplified. I can read some simplified but the traditional ones, too much work, heck with it.

Part of me.

We traveled the entire length of Taiwan, which took something like an hour and a half. I don’t remember. But it rained on part of the journey. And at 300km/hr rain looks cool.

293km/hr. Good stuff.

For dinner I ended up walking around and finding a place that looked good. They had English on their menus (never a good sign) and spoke Chinese (most Taiwanese do) so I plopped a squat and ordered up.

The first thing you notice is that most of Taiwan is clean. Unlike China. Also when you order a chicken dish it has meat, no bones, good quality like the States. Needless to say the food was Chinese but I didn’t have to wade through a bizzilion bones to get to a sliver of meat. It was all meat. Awesome.

And Hot. On a further note I about ruined my underwear when the girl brought over a trash can to put trash into. Good thing too cus in China that trash goes on the floor hun.

This sauce has to be the best ever. It made my mouth numb. That’s the good stuff.

Can’t go to Taiwan without eating some Taiwanese sausage. It’s good, weird, and looks like bad things all at the same time. You also get to eat massive amount of raw garlic at the same time. Which I find awesome.

Shrimp the size of bananas.

After dinner, beers, and what not I was all feeling good and took a photo of this. I don’t know what it is but it sure looks cool.

And this.

Hey mom, dad.