Wednesday
This day I was picked up at 8AM on the button by Ms. Kong. She is wearing a lovely flowing and ruffled silver skirt and a ivory satin top. It would be something that I would consider wearing to a wedding. I compliment her and she smiles. There's lots of smiles but not much conversation on the way to her factory due to the lack of a mutual language other than body language.
Meet is Ms. Kong.
I found out from Andy, her English-speaking employee, that my hotel is on her route to the factory anyway so this is good.
I know that I will be there for the entire day but am not completely certain what kind of progress we are going to make or what we will be covering. I ask if I can set up my laptop on the corner of Ms. Kong's desk and they say it's OK.
The office chair is supposed to have wheels but instead, someone has taped some non-skid yellow foam on the bottom either because the wheels are gone and they don't want you scratching the floor. There is a whole in the vinyl seat cushion so every time I sit down there is a big noisy poof of air releasing from the hole. I find this completely amusing but I keep that to myself.
Gary is replaced by Andy as my interpreter. He definitely has a wider English vocabulary so it is much easier to get my point across and takes less repetition and re-formatting or simplification of my statements. YAY! Andy and I spend the first part of the day going through some of the documents I've prepared to clearly spec out what I am wanting for each pattern piece on each blanket.
Meet Andy:
We do this for awhile. I can tell this isn't exactly fun for him but he is polite. He's maybe 24? No idea. Around noon I'm asked if I would like to go to lunch now. I thank them but ask if it would be OK if I kept working. I have brought some food so I'm all set and I would rather finish the remaining documents that weren't completed yet. They say "are you sure?" and I try to reassure them that it is fine. Ms. Kong gave me some sort of sweet rice drink to help me work through lunch. It’s hot of course. I’m grateful for her kindness as I sweat while drinking my liquid cream-oh-rice drink. She is very kind.
About this time it is pouring rain in buckets. I recall that the news stations warned that additional rains could cause the damned up lake to flood areas near the earthquake. I hope everything is OK.
Andy takes off for lunch and Ms. Kong goes away for awhile. Ms. Kong returns and she and I and another employee are the only ones in the office. We are all just working away on our separate projects.
She is very kind to her staff but is very focused too. She has many projects going. There were a few assorted people popping in to show her fabric samples from her mill.
Ice and air conditioning is rare here. It could be hot and humid and you will be offered some hot tea. When I go to the bathroom, I notice that my hair looks like Medusa. Do I care? No, it’s just scares me when I catch a glimpse in the mirror.
Andy has not returned back yet so I have been focusing on completing the documents and am now focusing on the choices for the green blanket that I currently have named Spike. It reminds me of a baby Godzilla or GodZeerah. It’s easy for me to think like a kid. I am picking out the pantone green color for the blanket. As I do I come across some mossy greens. In my head I roar “THIS IS NOT A MONSTER GREEN COLOOOOOOOOOOR!”, slipping into that Snugaboo character.
I am from the cult of Snugaboo so this is perfectly acceptable mind play behavior. Plus there aren't many folks I can kid around with here. Joking with English-speaking Chinese is dicey. I'm finding that they don't know when you are joking so I try to avoid it for fear of being disrespectful or rude. I actually have tried to joke with Andy and a few of the hotel staff and sometimes it works.
While waiting for Andy to return, I overhear a phone conversation Ms. Kong is having with some customer. She is clearly not happy. She is firm and maybe even hangs up on them? This doesn't concern me. I can tell that she is well-liked by her staff and she jokes with them quite a bit. Plus Judy thinks she's fantastic. A little bit of firmness isn't bad.
Andy returns around 3:30 and we decide that it is too late to go to the textile market that day. We decide that we will do it on Thursday instead. So I continued to work on the documents. I received a call from Richard Cheng. He is the Shanghai representative for the freight company CH Robinson which is based in Eden Prairie. I learned of this company through Dan from Kindnoon. Richard tells me that he would like to come to meet me and Ms. Kong on Thursday around 11AM. This is something I tried to arrange via email with Vicki who is the MN rep for CH Robinson. So cool to have this type of follow-through. I had Andy inform Ms. Kong of this so she isn't surprised when he shows up.
I don't like it when I don't know what's coming next but this is all new to me so I am trying to just fly by the seat of my pants. For example, I would like to know how many days it will take to get all of the prototypes and the colors of all fabrics signed off on. Much of this depends on the factories ability to understand my specs in my documents or Andy's interpretation of them.
There is an lingering feeling of "I need to get back home" but I also know how important this phase is and being here will pay-off with the product quality I want. Blah blah blah and so on and so forth. I'm not depressed or anything. I just want to GO GO GO with this business!
Andy tells me that Ms. Kong will take me to my hotel around 5PM. We leave and I ask the bell hop to ask her what time I'll be picked up tomorrow and it is 8AM again. Good deal. Let's keep moving.
That night I stayed up till 2AM finishing the documents. Here are some pictures of my office (eer...my hotel room office)
I arrange a wake-up call for 7AM so I can grab free breakfast before Ms. Kong comes.
Side Note:
Sometimes I think it would be fun to try to mess with the hotel staff a bit. For example, maybe I should do some sort of odd ritual when I enter the hotel. Perhaps it is a bit of my attempt to clog dance with a curtsy at the end and a shrill whistle. If I did this every time, maybe the would think this is normal. Or maybe I would be publicly caned for some gross infraction on a Buddhist belief!
Night Night!
XXOO Sheila
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