Made in China II

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.”

-Rumi

Something you hear a lot about from people who’ve been there is that China is an interesting mix of old meets new. Without time to sightsee, I didn’t really see this manifest in the much famed architecture, but I can attest that the dynamic exists because I saw a motion sensor squat toilet.  And what a surprising moment that was.  The language barrier was difficult mainly for dietary purposes- everything contains meat.  I ordered eggplant off the vegetarian section of a menu and it came swimming in minced pork.  And for the most part, there was not a lot of english on the menus, only pictures.  Some english items I could read were “stewed pig snout” and “fried duck tongue”, both of which I’d really rather avoid.  I ate a lot of bread.

The bicycle expo was a sizable affair.  It took place at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, so you know it’s no street fair.  There were around 10 atriums, each devoted to a different bicycle sector (accessories, steering and suspension, kid’s bikes, tires and wheels, electric bikes, etc)  There event was also hosting an international cycling X games competition, which was pretty rad to watch.  I was really only interested in one hall, Bicycle Accessories.  There were a ton of companies present with booths set up but I didn’t know where to find the particular company who had given me the invitation.  Turns out I didn’t need to, they found me.  Strangely enough, as I walked into the Accessories Hall, there were a couple people standing by the door (unlike the other halls) who immediately came over and asked what products I was interested in.  When I said, “horns”, they took me directly to the booth of the manufacturer I’d been in contact with.  Luck?  Who knows, maybe they were waiting for me.

It was nice to meet in person.  Just saying, “I’m in touch with a company in China” is so far removed; it sounds like business, but really so much of business is tied up in personality.  It’s not something you really notice until you close the gap.  Manufacturing, importing, exporting, all of these sectors have benefited from technology advances in e-commerce, telecommunications, and all the spoils of the internet, but they have not and will not be replaced by them, no sir.  Rita, the representative I’d been emailing greeted me and took me to a private area along with one of their engineers to view their catalog and discuss the details of my specific product request.  I would ask a question in english, she would translate to the engineer and then respond, “Of course!” as if it were a no brainer, they could do anything.  I would ask another question, she would consult, “but of course!”  For the most part, this was an exciting process, but it was made difficult by the fact that I do not speak Chinese.  Fortunately, I am more or less fluent in bullshit.  Thanks college!

A Few Helpful Translations for Business Transactions:

“Let me contact my colleagues to see how they feel about that.”
= I need to go try to find some free internet service and look up whatever you just said about payment terms because I have no idea what that acronym stands for or what you’re asking, or I maybe I just didn’t think about that at all and I have absolutely no idea how to answer you right now.”

“The sound samples are currently being remastered by our audio engineers.”
= The audio was recorded in a mechanic’s shop on my laptop, not a sound studio, so it’s kind of shitty quality right now.  I’ll give them to you as soon as I can get a better handle on GarageBand.

“I’ll need to get clearance from the finance department.”
= I can’t do math that quickly off the top of my head, so I need some alone time with a calculator and my most recent bank statement.  If I feel that I can give you more money than I’d originally planned and still be able to purchase enough produce to keep me alive, well you may just have yourself a deal.

“Can I get your signature on this?  Our legal team just sent it over this morning.”
= You seem like nice people, but I went back to the hostel after we met yesterday and had a little freakout about property rights and decided that even though it probably doesn’t have any real teeth internationally, you should at least feel some pressure to be honest by signing a legal looking document.  So I scoured the internet for hours to find and taylor a pre-written Non-Disclosure Agreement that best fits our would-be relationship.

“Sorry, the NDA translation is from Google.”
= No really, I just took the Agreement and copied and pasted it into Google Translate for Simplified Chinese.  I hope it makes sense. (No sense in stretching the truth on this one, I obviously do not have anyone fluent in legal Chinese jargon “on my staff”)

“We will need to do a little more market research and get back to you.”
= I have to learn how to set up basic tracking on my website and find out if people are actually interested in buying this thing before I give you the amount of money you are asking.  Give me two weeks to become COMPLETELY KNOWLEDGABLE in all things web based.  I know nothing of technology.  Help.