Ramblings

Sometimes this blog winds up  not so much about business in China, or social life in China but about life in China in general.  Let's face it plenty of China bloggers do a great job of discussing a lot of issues, if you don't believe me,  just check the blogroll to the right.

Some bad news, father in law had a heart attack a couple of days ago, he's resting comfortably, but probably will need surgery.  Was taken to the local hospital in Changping (in Dongguan) and stabilized, luckily they got him there in time.  Apparently hospitals like this are like any large small town hospital, equipped to do emergency stuff, get folks stabilized, but major surgery is sent to larger cities. In this case off to Guangzhou should any major stuff be called for.   I'll follow this one, as for us expats, health care is a primary concern, and we worry about the quality of care we would receive in such an emergency.

On other bad news, a friend and past business associate was diagnosed with cancer, evidently a rare form of stomach cancer on top of that, signet ring cell cancer.  Now if you knew this person, this is something you wouldn't expect, maybe, as one entry in  his blog puts it.

Cancer? Come on man, you can do better than that.
Nearly blowing your head off after chucking a burning spear into an abandoned well filled with decades of methane-producing rotting vegetation. That shit is more your speed.
Piloting your Jeep through hairpin donkey trails haphazardly cut into the sides of 500-foot high granite cliffs. Big, ankle-slapping brass balls, that one.
Eating dicey curries in back-alley Hong Kong lucky sailor wok shops. Pure Purdom.
Sorry it took so long to get back to about your latest attempt to buck life's odds. I was just waiting for something with a bit more of an, I don't know..., "Erik edge" to it.

ChinaFUBAR's also a cancer survivor, so we understand what's going on, and our prayers go out to Erik and his family.  By the way, we opted to do treatments in Hong Kong instead of repatriating back to the U.S. and seems all worked out well. Cannot say good enough things about he Hong Kong Adventist Hospital Cancer Center.

On the China Business side, had a conversation with a Sourcing Manager for a major U.S. retailer, in charge of hardgoods, fashion accessories and Footwear.  The discussion about the supposed "mass exodus" of factories in Guangdong came up, and although he deals with quite a few vendors by the time you combine all his areas of responsibilities, he's not hand any of his vendors yet come and say they are moving to other provinces, other countries. etc.  Is this whole "we're leaving Guangdong" a big knee-jerk reaction?  Stay tuned China-watchers.   He did mention that his product costs have risen about 15% and they've had to absorb the costs.  I expect that will only last so long.

About it for now.

Another China Fubar Day

It's cold and rainy here in Dongguan, and I've got a honkin' bad head cold.  Tylenol Cold medicine ain't cutting it, so later  head down to get some GanKang, or what ever the name of the Chinese brand cold medicine is.  Works great, stops the nasty stuff without drying me out totally.

Still haven't heard feedback form the job interview, although I have one with a different company on Monday in Hong Kong, Need to get rid of this cold before then.

Today will be spent on the sofa, under a blanket. Probably watching old Marx Brother's movies. 

Nothing intelligent is going to happen today. I can pretty much guarantee it.  How do you call in sick from semi-retired?

Where Next Part 2

Sunday I mentioned one of the possibilities of the next place after China being the Philippines.  I'm sure that may have elicited a bit of laughter from China Business watchers, and to tell the truth I was a bit skeptical myself when the idea first came across.

However, one of the "breakfast crew" send over this article from The China Post by Howard Lin, entitled "Businessmen Find Haven in Central RP Amid Rising Costs"

Because of the problems of higher labor costs, taxes and the appreciating Yaun, many Taiwanese businessmen are looking for other manufacturing locations.

They might want to listen to some of their fellow entrepreneurs who have invested in the Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) in the central Philippines.
As with any location, problems exist, but to hear Taiwanese investors tell it, Filipino workers are obedient, loyal and easy to communicate with, and companies benefit from tax breaks, freedom from political interference and a pristine natural environment.
The MEZ, established on Jan. 15, 1979, is one of four government-owned zones under the administration of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA). Covering a land area of 150 hectares, it is only 500 meters away from the international airport and 14 kilometers away from a port.
The zone,which began with two tenants in 1980 --TMX Philippines, Inc. and Fairchild Semiconductor -- was home to 108 companies employing 49,943 workers as of the end of December, 2007.
Among the 108 companies operating there, 54 percent are Japanese, 16 percent are Filipino and 12 percent are Taiwanese-owned businesses.
The Philippines often trails behind China, Vietnam, Indonesia and India as a "hot" destination for new manufacturing investments, in part because of concerns over labor quality and personal safety, but Taiwanese investors in the MEZ have found Filipino workers and the environment provided by the Philippine government to their liking.

There's more to the story, and some great tips on how to deal with Filipino employees, and quality of life in general.

Will be interesting to see if this becomes a viable alternative manufacturing location in the near future

Honoring the Fallen

Somehow, I hadn't heard the news about the 3 minutes of silence honoring the victims of the Sichuan earthquake.  So I was a little surprised, when, at 2:28 P.M. here in Dongguan all the horns and sirens started.  We were at the China Telcom office paying our phone bill, everyone stood, the security guard snapped to a salute, all, including myself bowed our heads and said prayers I suspect each in our own ways. 

There's a lot of discussion going on about China's response to the quake, and I suspect the west was a bit surprised at the completeness and overwhelming competency displayed.  I know a lot of us "twitterati" and armchair China observers and bloggers were very impressed, if not somewhat surprised ourselves.

The next three days will see a period of mourning, something unusual for China, made even more remarkable by the fact that flags will be flying at half-staff to honor the fallen civilian population. This is the first time in the history of China that flags have been flown at half staff for any reason other than a leader's death. A great  blog post by Paul Denlinger goes into more detail about this, as well as reaction to the western media and U.S. based Twitter discussion.  It really points out a lot of misconceptions that stateside-based people have about China.

Also, there will be a 3 day entertainment blackout, all non-news television, gaming websites, and many entertainment venues are to shut down.  Imagethief has an interesting article about the shutdown, as well as some other reactions to some of the Twitter posts of folks such as Robert Scoble and company. Elliot Ng definitely does a bit of a number on Mr. Scoble

As always, our friends at Shanghiist have all the news regarding the 3 days of mourning, as well as some heart wrenching tales of motherly love.

So, keep the victims in your prayers, there will be a long rebuilding road ahead.

Where Now?

Used to be, a Shoe Dog was a person, usually a male that worked in the footwear business. Most of the time working retail, back when you had full service shoe stores, they would be the guy measuring your feet, making sure the shoes fit properly before you left the store, etc. Basically, Al Bundy from "Married with Children." He was the atypical Shoe Dog, most of us weren't married to Peg and had kids like Bud and Kelly, although most of us would have liked to date Kelly Bundy (after she became "legal" of course.

Maybe the free-standing self service shoe store has gone away, but there's still plenty of shoe dogs left, and these days some of us are wondering where we'll be working next.

Sundays, is our usual weekly gathering of an "old farts club" breakfast, guys in the shoe business here in Dongguan that get together on Sundays and complain about just about anything but mostly how the eggs are cooked, and compare notes on the shoe industry in Dongguan. Thing is,our group used to have as many as 8 to 10 people, However the ranks are dwindling as people are calling it quits either through retirement or just too difficult to make a living.

This weeks topic after the earthquake discussion and why China could do such a good job with rescue/recovery but the US could totally muff Katrina response, was "where does the business go next?"

Raw material, labor costs, energy costs and petroleum are getting more expensive, but yet, shoe companies are still asking for price CUTS in order to get even better profit margins. Which means, if they were paying $12.00 a pair last year, they want to pay $11.75, even though the RBM has revalued, labor has gone up, etc.

In addition, locally in Dongguan, seems the city government has decided that they would rather not have low tech labor intensive industry in the city, so they are not renewing some factories business licenses. Plus, the 7 year tax break is coming to an end for many factories. Coupled with the Z visa situation, and it's becoming increasingly attractive to take the footwear business elsewhere.

Some countries discussed:

Vietnam - Issues with labor strikes, inflation in the areas of food and energy, combined with infrastructure issues make this once attractive alternative worthy of a second thought. Sure, Nike has put a lot of production there, but they tend to carry their own infrastructure, and are having to deal with strikes at some of their plants.

Indonesia - Once a major shoe manufacturing country, some companies are taking another look. In the late 80's there was a lot of political unrest, and everyone pretty much pulled out during the 90's. However, seems things may have stabilized and companies are thinking of returning.

Thailand - Another major shoe manufacturer in the past, has just signed an agreement with Japan to end duties on footwear. Decent infrastructure, but a bit expensive and labor can be an issue. However, many footwear companies still have offices and production there.

Philippines - Some folks starting to look back at this country, a lot of Filipino shoe technicians in China, but too early to tell what the results will be.

India - Our groups thoughts - many have tried, most have failed. No one wants to be the ground breaking company. Also the feeling is India would rather bypass the low tech shoe industry and go for high tech industries directly.

So, we're all keeping flexible, and counting the days until the rest of us can retire, probably to China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines.

Going Bamboo anyone?

Earthquake in Sichuan, China

So we're a little late on reporting this one, down here in Dongguan we didn't feel the earthquake at all. Some reports of people here feeling the quake, but I suspect it depended on where you were and what you were doing.

To recap, about 2:28 local time yesterday, a quake about 7.8 on the Richter scale hit at Wenchuan in Sichuan province, some 92km northwest of Chengdu. This is about 850 miles away from Dongguan, so it's fairly distant. However, it was felt as far away as Beijing, Shanghai, and as far south as Hanoi and Bangkok.

Video shot during quake (or aftershock) from Sichuan University in Chengdu (H/T Shanghaiist)

Shanghaiist has been giving one of the more detailed running accounts of the quake, as well as links to a lot of other sources of information. News Now is also a good source of information, picking up news feeds from over 30,000 different news sources and updating every 5 minutes.

The other big news is how much of a role Twitter has played in all this. China Herald, and One Eye'd Panda both have informative articles on this. News has been quicker coming out of blogs and Twitter feeds than the traditional news sources. With a combination of Twitter and an IM program such as Google Talk one can keep pretty well up to date on the situation.

Our hearts and prayers go out to those affected.

12:50P.M.

CCTV Video from Center of Eartquake Zone

5:33 P.M.

From a poster named Aren, posted on a China BBs this is the Google translation http://twurl.nl/uvleth WARNING This link contains some very graphic photos!

Uncle Bob

Mozzie Season

Oh fun, it's time for the National Bird of China to come out, the ever-present mosquito. A little late this year because of the drier than normal weather I think, but we suspect it only made them faster and more agile.

Now, when I bought this apartment on the 14th floor (ok 13F if you're superstitious about the number 4, as the people that numbered the floors in my building are) everyone said, "oh great, you won't be bothered by mosquitos, they don't fly up that high"

Uh Huh, someone forgot to tell that to the mosquitos. I have a friend that lives on the 24th floor of his building, and his place is a veritable anti-mosquito fortress, coils, electronic mosquito bats, nets, etc.

But I digress.

So, I ask my darling wife, who buys into this little bit of urban mythology, why the apartment has so many mosquitos if they can't fly up this high.

Her response - "They take the elevator"

Now this leaves me with a mental picture of a heard of mosquitos, getting on the elevator at the ground floor - not the sub basement parking garage level as I suspect if they can't fly very far above ground level they can't fly below ground level - and using their little beaks to press the button, hit "13F" and make their way up to our level. I'm not sure if they wait until we open the apartment door then rush in, or simply fly under the gap between the floor and the door.

Now, the real issue is, can the little buggers actually fly up to the 14th floor, and if not why?

First, one has to take into account aeronautical stuff, like altitude etc.

Apparently, our apartment building sits at approximately 70ft above MSL, add the 14 floors at about 10 ft a story, and you get the apartment at an altitude of about 210ft above MSL.

Given that I grew up in St. Louis, MO, altitude 630 feet, and we had plenty of mozzies there, I think the altitude limitation doesn't count.

Which leaves me believe the "wives tale" means that the mozzies are too lazy to actually fly any distance above about say, 40 ft above ground level.

So, to get up to my 14th floor apartment, they patiently wait for the elevator, and hitch a ride.

Sounds like a good candidate for an episode of "Mythbusters"

And that's the nonsense for today.

Uncle Bob

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Some interesting "China Fubar" moments came the last few days.

First, it was discovered that the flags for the "Free Tibet" movement have been coming from a factory in Guangdong province.  Even the anti-China stuff gets made in China.  What a surprise.

Second, seems the protester that attacked the girl  in the wheelchair in the French section of the torch run was Chinese, and was seen and photographed earlier with some folks holding Chinese Flags.  Popular sentiment is now that he was a "plant" to stir up anti-Tibet sentiment.

And enough of the Tibet nonsense,  Enough people are making careers out of writing for that one.

On the local front, seems the local Dongguan government is in the process of installing CCTV cameras (and I'm not talking China TV) just about everywhere.  Their goal, is to have a security system "modeled after Russia and Eastern Europe" Huh?   From the viewpoint of an old geezer that remembers doing "duck and cover" drills back in the 60's, anytime anyone models anything after Russia or Eastern Europe, especially security stuff, it makes one a bit nervous.  Kind of like being on Vegas casino security, except when you're walking the streets.

On the other hand, I hear they were able to catch some pick pocket/purse snatcher that grabbed a purse on a city buss (caught on camera and  tracked by GPS) by following him with this new surveillance system and catching up to him post haste.  Good for the coppers! Another bad boy settled down!

And for me, the job search still goes on.  This whole new labor law, revalued RMB and now the visa rules is making things tough in the employment world.  Currently working on 3 job possibilities, an done possible consulting/temp work gig.

I'm also investigating a career in the trucking industry back  in the U.S.  After driving in China for 2 years, I think I can deal with that.