2008 - Day 8 - That is not fog!

Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 3:39 AM

Subject: Day 8 5/28/08

I slept better last night, the slightly softer bed and a good state of exhaustion helped.  Breakfast buffet, coffee, check out, and taxi to the Wuxi plant, about 30 minutes away.

Wuxi is a city of around 4 million people, is located west and north of Shanghai about 70 km, and is notorious for its poor air quality.  I mentioned in an earlier note how my eyes burned last time I was here and I can feel this is going to be a similar experience.  It is really difficult to describe the severity of the air pollution in this area but I will do my best.  It appears to be foggy all the time.   I would guess that this morning, visibility is no more than two miles.   The air stinks of diesel smoke, car exhaust, and who knows what else. Everything is grimy.  It is drizzling off and on and the windshield wipers on the taxi just smear a film onto the glass.  Some people wear dust masks on the street, most don’t.  Anyone who has an issue with the EPA needs to spend a week in eastern China.  After your eyes start burning, your nose starts bleeding (as some of my compatriots from the US have reported), and you blow black stuff out of your nose for a few days, the Clean Air Act will look like a really good idea.  I remember being a kid in Pittsburgh in the early 70’s and brushing black soot from the furniture in the morning if the windows were left open overnight.  We have come a long way in the US and sometimes you don’t appreciate it until you can see the contrast.

Overall the city looks rather old at the center and new on the outskirts.  Wuxi has been a center of investment for foreign companies for over ten years and new looking plants are everywhere, as well as some older ones.  Wuxi is on the shore of a large inland lake which used to be pristine but is now more of an open sewer.

Our plants, 2 side by side, are very clean and modern.   I met with the operations manager and several of the technical staff,  talked over lunch with about 8 of them (round table, private room, eel, stomach, bony fish, jeez I could use a burger!) about where they were from, the differences between Chinese dialects from different regions, American politics – they all really wanted to know whether I thought Obama or Clinton would win the democratic nomination.  I gave them my opinion and reasons for it.  It still amazes me how everyone I talk to on this subject is well versed in American government and politics.   I am sure not one in ten Americans could name the leader of China, let alone his opponents.

A driver from our plant drove myself, Larry, Raymond, and Michael (all Chinese coworkers I have met before) to Shanghai in a beat up old Volkswagen Santana, leaving around 5 in the afternoon.  The driver, who spoke no English, had a difficult time finding the highway and at one point stopped and started backing down the rather busy 4-lane road we were on.  I just closed my eyes, which were starting to burn anyway.  The ride was scary as usual, often reaching 120 km/hr, slow cars and trucks sporadically in any lane, the driver flashing his lights as he approached them from behind in an adjacent lane at warp factor 2, many dilapidated farm houses on the way, in clusters every quarter mile or so, manicured hedges in the median again, mile after mile of them, and the air pollution getting thicker the closer we got to Shanghai.

We got checking into the hotel, the Crown Plaza Shanghai (I stayed here on my first trip to Shanghai) and met in the lobby to go to dinner around 8:00.  I really did not feel like eating much but didn’t want to refuse as they had made clear earlier they wanted to show their appreciation for my help the past few days.  We walked to a local place (most restaurants appear to be local, the only chain restaurants I have detected are American fast food and of the Applebee’s variety.  More strange food, one was I swear and entire small squid but I am not really sure – it was rather hard to chew through and didn’t taste much like calamari.  I have decided that my willingness to eat everything they put in front of me over the past few trips is starting to work against me.  The food keeps getting stranger and stranger, and I think they are now ordering for these meals the foods they like and no longer trying to take it easy on the American.  Maybe I didn’t think this strategy through completely.

There does not appear to be any such thing as a no-smoking section in Chinese restaurants either, at least not outside or the foreign hotels and airports.

We drank beer from northern China, Harbin, which tastes kind of like water, only with less flavor. Of the Chinese beers, Tsingtao (pronounced chin-dow, available in the US) is the only one I sort of like, and I don’t care much for it either.

After dinner my stomach did not feel right.  Not nauseous, just not right.  I think my digestive system is going to revolt. Tomorrow could be interesting.

One picture from the Shanghai hotel is included.  Once again, that isn’t fog.



Shanghai hotel view