Trip to Dongguan, Part I (originally published 03-23-05)

I have no idea what the stars had in mind for me today, but not much went right, for sure!A day with a big headache today! It started right away this morning: in class, I was no good, I might just as well not have been there. Yesterday afternoon, I had rehashed all the new vocabulary, written each one at least ten times in my exercise book, and what for? Nothing had stuck, the headaches took it all out!In the second block of lessons, one of my classmates remembered that he had some headache pills in his traveling kit, and two pills popped into my mouth, together with half a bottle of water, managed to clear that head of mine up again, about another hour later. It felt like being let out of some invisible prison! Everybody else was more or less sluggish today, too: they were tired from yesterday's climb up the Chang Cheng! Call it the Great Wall in English! (See!? Not what you were already thinking!) And one third of the class had not even bothered to show up at all today!Then, as I pedaled homewards on my little red bike, fighting against another nasty cold and strong wind, I neglected the big brick pillar, as I wanted to maneuver the bike between the big yellow trash dumpster in our yard, right by the bike sheds, and said brick pillar: I hit it with the handle bar, and this made my bike tilt and kick me, or more precisely, my head, right into that darn brick pillar. Result: a big gash over my right eyebrow, bleeding like a pig- it also gave a big 'clank' as I hit that hard stone! Maybe my head is now slightly cracked? I would not be surprised at all! Who knows? I can't believe how much blood was flowing down my face, it dripped all over the yard. Now there are traces of my DNA stuck to those old courtyard tiles, big splotches that were red at first, but look quite brownish by now. I stopped the bleeding by pressing a Kleenex, all wadded together, to my head for a while. Then, I managed to carry the bike upstairs and washed my face and hands, to get rid of all that caked-on blood of mine! What a mess! Well, now, I look like I had a big fight with some nasty guy or thug or other - oh well, I can always say that the other guy looks much worse! That'll help! So, you see?! I should have stayed in bed this morning! But other than that, all is hunky dory! And there is hope that I'll survive, so don't buy flowers and cards just yet!Actually, what I really wanted to write about today was my trip to the south of China, to the city of Dongguan, in Guangdong Province. This is where Eltek is planning on setting up its Chinese laboratory, so Ed was there to work on the registration of our business in China. It is a multi-step process, and somewhat lengthy, but we are getting through it one step at a time. I had not yet been to our new location, although I had been to Dongguan once before. However, that time, neither Ed nor I knew that we would choose this place for our Chinese laboratory place. We had thought of Shunde initially, another city not too far from there. However, luckily for us, we changed to Dongguan, as it has better connections via rail to Hong Kong, as compared to a ferry service in Shunde. Real estate is also still lower here, which serves us well, not to mention that this city is extremely more dynamic and modern. I got a good feeling from being there, right off the bat, when we went there last year to buy lab equipment from a local manufacturer.The trip to Dongguan started out with a taxi ride to the airport in Beijing, then 2 hours of waiting for check-in. So I found myself a spot to sit down and open my study books - not an easy task in Beijing Airport, as there are no seats anywhere, except in the gate areas. I managed to claim a smooth, stainless steel surface at the side of the check-in counters, at the very end of the row of counters. I guess, they had a little space left over, too much to ignore and too little to squeeze another desk in, so the just built a smooth surface there. It suited me just fine: I popped my butt right on to it, then dumped my backpack and got out my book and exercise pad, and a pen. With my feet conveniently propped onto my suitcase in front of me, on the floor, I decided I could survive there for those 2 hours to kill. I had just begun to immerse myself into my Chinese vocabulary, when I felt a pair of eyes poking me in the back of my neck. I turned around and looked straight at a young guy, standing on the far side of that metal surface I was sitting on, leaning on his elbow and trying to peek into my books. As I looked at him, he smiled and stepped back a little. The classic 'ni hao' brought him back again, and he answered me, too. Then, he asked what I was doing there. "Homework, Chinese language studies", I replied. "See? Here!" And I let him have a look at what I was writing. He seemed to have nothing better to do, so he took the book and read over what I had been writing. By now, he had come out from behind the counter space and sat down next to me on the box. He volunteered to tutor me through my last lesson, and we repeated it together, quite well actually! I felt we had spent some quality time together, but it was already late enough to hurry to the check-in. Those lines were packed! As I finally got to the counter, there he was, and chucking those pieces of luggage onto the belt that carried them off to the planes. So that was his job here! He saw me and waved at me, with a big wink-wink of his eye to boot! Nice fellow! The young woman at the check-in talked to me in English right away, I guess it is obvious that I am a 'lao wai', I could not pass for a Chinese woman if I tried! But I teased her anyway: "how did you know I can speak English?" I asked her. She laughed and said "you look like you can".She offered me to sit in the emergency exit row, and pointed towards my legs, with a big grin. "Thanks for taking care of my long legs, I like that!" I told her, and she laughed and nodded: "yes, long legs!" Once on board, I settled in my aisle seat in the exit row, enjoying all that space in front of me. Just as I was doing a good and thorough stretch, one of the flight attendants walks up to me, and after the 'ni hao', says in English: "Do you speak fluent Chinese?" "No, why?" "Because you are in the emergency exit row." "Yes, and so?" "Oh, if you do not speak Chinese, you must move to another seat." "You are joking, right!?" "No, not joking, you must speak Chinese, can you say something, please?" Well, taken by surprise as I was, nothing Chinese came to mind, no matter how hard I tried to scrape my meager Chinese linguistic possessions together. So, I tried for a charming smile, and saying, "please, I think I can handle the exit very well, should that be necessary. Just let me stay in this seat, please!?" Oh no, this one is Mrs. Perfect, and she cannot just pretend I can speak fluent Chinese, or, she could pretend she did not notice that I was not Chinese. or that she had asked me about my Chinese language skills - no no, she declared she was going to find another seat for me! I turned around to look for myself: aaarrrghh! This plane was already totally full! But then again, she would probably make me swap seats with somebody! Rats! I did not want to give up this nice spot, just because I could not speak fluent Chinese! I decided I'd just go for it straight, and told the attendant exactly that. "I WANT TO STAY HERE! I DO NOT WANT TO SIT SOMEWHERE ELSE, PLEEEEEEAAASE!!!" I think I must have reached her deep down inside, or, she forgot, or she pretended to have forgotten, or nobody wanted to do emergency row exit duty - whatever it was, she did not return to chase me off my seat - the minutes ticking away and the captain announcing to all sit down and buckle up. Saved by the bell! I kept my seat! Yeah! The other two people, next to me in the exit row, were both Chinese, so I figured they would know what to do should we crash land! But anyhow, chances are, that in case of such a predicament, there might be no need for that skill, as usually planes do end up in little pieces and with no survivors who might want to use the emergency exit! So what is all that joust about anyhow! Don't worry, be happy! And let me sit in my exit row seat! Now that we were airborne, I got out my exercise books again, to make good use of the three hour long flight. My row neighbor, in the window seat, who had been reading a newspaper, turns his attention to me: "Are you studying Chinese?" comes the question. "Looks like it! I am just a beginner!" And on the rim of his newspaper, he starts to write down little exercises, which I know all too well, from daily drills: a e I o u, ai ei ou ao, an en on un, ang eng on gung, and so on, neatly written one below the other, and he pushes it over to me, ticking his index finger on them. I understand and oblige: "here, read those for me!" I do the exercise, he is happy. Now, he wants my book. He thumbs through it. Aha, very good! comes his assessment. Well, I am happy that he approves of the teaching methods of our university! The young woman in the middle seat looks over, too, and they start talking together about me and my studies, as I can tell from looks in my direction and lots of pointing to my books. She is very cute and smiling. The two of them keep talking about texts in my book, with such deep interest as if they themselves were going to study Chinese, too! For the next two hours, I have two tutors who have nothing but my best interests at heart, and are very tough and unforgiving on my attempts to squeeze out of a question of vocabulary here or a spelling exercise there. No way, I have to do each and all of them! I surrender! Ok, let's do the entire lesson one more time! And off we go for another round! So, I make a mental note to myself: A great way to practice Chinese is to fly around China aboard airplanes, non-stop! Way more efficient than attending classes with 15 other 'lao wais' who don't know how to pronounce anything any better than I do! Or, maybe I should live in a Chinese airport! Remember the movie, where a Russian guy gets stuck in an airport in the USA, because his papers are not clear? Well, just like that guy!Evelyne, the Chinese woman's English name, promises to stay in touch with me and keep tutoring me after she gets back from her one week trip, so now I look forward to seeing her again in Beijing this coming weekend. Ahem... (clearing my throat), yes... there was something else I wanted to say, right? Oh yes... THE trip to Dongguan.. Well, you'll have to read up on part Two to get to that. Right now, I think I am done for today!Good night, y'all!