5.6.2008 My Older (but much shorter) Brother
May 6th, 2008 Posted in UncategorizedToday we went to the Nanchang nursery owned by Mr. Chen. It turns out that Mr. Huang runs the Jiangxi branch of the Blue Sky business. The night and morning went more smoothly than expected. I can see how someone living in a very large city could pidgeon-hole themselves into one area of the city and never leave. I can see that in some of the people here I think.
This morning, I was going down to have breakfast which (I was told) was on floor 2. The dude in the elevator, a rough-looking 50-something business man with a buzz cut who has smoked one too many cigarettes in his life, looked at me, saw my meal ticket and that I pushed the button for floor 2. He made an eating motion to ask if I was going to breakfast, and when I nodded, he held up 3 fingers to tell me it was actually on 3rd floor, not floor 2. Interesting first, that he simply assumed there was a language barrier, and second that he was so ready and willing to help a “lao wei” or foreigner.
It is easy, being a foreigner, to believe that people here do things for you (like my host picks me up and arranges things for me) because you’re foreign and don’t know the system. However, I don’t think that’s the case. I think the Chinese people just do these things for friends and who they deem to be important to them. It looks like the same happens for any business person waiting here in the lobby.
The lobby of the hotel is littered with businessmen from China, but it reminds me of a group of kindergarteners sitting around waiting for their mothers to come and pick them up from school. Much of what makes me think this way is the unflinching ability of them to stare at you long and hard, not realizing or culturally not concerned that this might be rude. I think that’s very similar to a young child who will stare or ask anything because they don’t know better. Some people are very apparently staring at me or shooting me covert glances as if to say, “What are you doing here and who the heck are you?” There’s also a lot of phlem being hacked up and spat almost everywhere I look.
I was picked up by my host, Mr. Huang Mu Min and a designer who works for him and the driver at 8:15. We drove out to their nursery, the Huang Ma nursery which I learned is 150 hectares and by the Fu huh river. There are 8 designers and 10 construction managers, as well as 200 nursery employees who work in Jianxi province for Mr. Huang and Blue-Sky company. The whole province brought in about $3,200,000 last year.
The nursery we went to was about 40km away from Nanchang and we drove through some really poor and desolate towns. I know we joke about people being barefoot and pregnant, but here you actually see this. Many of the townspeople aren’t wearing anything on their feet. This may partially be due to working in the rice paddies right now, or just that they don’t wear shoes.
The buildings all seem to be very bland and not built to last. Brick and concrete don’t seem to be put together to last structurally.
We took a tour of the nursery and it was a pretty nice place. I was told this is going to be a “tourist” nursery so people will come here to relax and boat and be in a “natural environment”. It will definitely be nice, and big and it’s all being built right now. I’m told it will be done in a year and will look really nice in about 2 years.
They will be growing and selling nursery stock from the area as well as using it as a visitor center. That goes along with Mr. Chen’s vision of 5 things that the nurseries should be used for. A group of older gentlemen came out and talked with Mr. Huang, and I found out that this was the Jiangxi flower association. After a tour of the nursery that included showing them up to the dike of the Fu huh river, we all went to eat at a local restaurant. The flower folks came in and we all had a good time. I ended up drinking some beer with everyone again and did my little song and dance. It was a good group.
After that, we drove around and saw another nursery, very close, called Wha bia nursery which iss about 600 acres. This nursery is only for planting and growing trees. We also visited a local tea plantation which was very nice. I got to witness tea being harvested, and it’s a bit different from the little Chinese man you see in the tea commercials picking nice tea leaves to stick in your tea bag. They use a vacuum and hedge clipper setup and basically mow the tops of the tea bushes off. Sorry if I ruined your solid gold impression of the tea industry.
After this, we went to a local park and drove around in the farming area a bit. It was really run down and I took a few pictures.
There is definitely a language barrier between Mr. Huang and me. We both get along really well and I think we would be good friends if we lived close together. He is a pretty happy guy and gets things done. A good person to know.
As we drove back to Nanchang, Mr. Huang fell asleep and I got some more photos of the area that I didn’t want to take while he was awake. I don’t know if I should feel bad or not taking pictures of the run-down areas of the countryside, but I didn’t want to completely alert him to what I was photographing.
Mr. Huang had to work in the afternoon, but I went with his driver and designer to Tong wan guh (a 1400 year old building in Nanchang) that has been turned into a tourist attraction. It was pretty nice, and we walked through the whole building. The museums weren’t much to look at (you’d have to be fluent in reading Mandarin to understand any of it) but the view from several of the floors were awesome. You could see the whole 360 degree view of Nanchang from that building. It was definitely worth the trip. Inside on the top floor was also a stage and performance of some traditional song and dance of the period.
There were many Chinese tourists at this building and you could tell they were with a group by the brightly colored hats they all wore. Each group wore a different color (the same color as the leader’s flag) and they marched around listening to the leader talking about the building. It was sort of funny to watch, but I know that’s what I’ll be doing when we go to Beijing and some of the other places. I don’t look forward to the lack of ‘on your own ness”.
We had dinner at a nice restaurant with some of Mr. Huang’s designers and his office manager. They were all very nice people. Mr. Huang asked me to pick out one dish so I picked one out that looked spicy and hot. He asked if I really wanted that dish, and when I said yes, he said ok. Well, the damn thing was blistering hot, but it had really good flavor. It was a pepper and beef dish. I could certainly eat it, but I was sweating rivulets and many of the Chinese people at the table wouldn’t eat it because it was too hot for them. J
At any rate it was a good evening. We all toasted many times, and I spoke what little Chinese I knew. Then it was time to go back to the hotel. It will be an early morning tomorrow when I go back to Hangzhou.
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