Update #1 Monday, August 14, 2006

Terry's Adventures in China - Update #1 Monday, August 14, 2006

Ni Hao (Hello) from China,
I think you probably all know by now that two weeks ago I set off on my biggest adventure yet and moved to China to work. A year and a half ago Ford asked me if I wanted to work in Thailand and I decided that going to work in a foreign speaking country with a very different culture was exactly what I wanted to do at this point in my life. Unfortunately that job didn't work out, and I spent a lot of effort since then trying to find a way to make it happen at Ford but I didn't have any luck. Then, in May, a friend of mine, Joel Stueck, told me that he was moving to China. I told him I wanted to go with him and he told me to send them my resume. Within a week I had an offer I couldn't refuse. It wasn't easy to quit Ford, but, as one of my friends kept saying to me "what are your dreams worth?". It was time to take a big step and go make my dreams come true. The company I now work for is called PAC Group. It is a small company (400 people worldwide). We do project management and consulting for other companies. I work in the powertrain division doing pretty much exactly what I did at Ford. I am currently working on a project in Liuzhou, in southern China. Even though the city has about 1 million people (3 million in the greater Liuzhou area), it is considered a small town in China. It actually does kind of feel like a small town.

I put my house up for sale in June - it will take a long time to sell it in Michigan and I will lose quite a bit of money, since so many people have lost jobs there in the past year. When I returned from the UK in 2002, I found that I didn't like any of the stuff I had put in storage for 3 years and I sold it all at a garage sale. I told myself then that if I ever did it again, I would sell everything. So, I put my car up for sale and just before I left in July, I had an estate sale with the help of 5 really really good friends - I could never have done that by myself. I called it my "liquidate my life sale" - it is very difficult to get rid of almost everything you own. But if it didn't have sentimental value, it was sold or given away or thrown away. It is amazing what people will buy!

I quit Ford at the end of June. It was very sad. I worked there for 14 years and it was a great job. I have lots of really really good friends at Ford and I hope to stay friends with them for the rest of my life. It feels like I got to visit with and say goodbye to almost everybody I know. The same day I quit Ford, I left on a one week vacation to the Uk. I caught up with probably 40 friends in Scotland, Wales and England. Then I had a few parties in Michigan saying goodbye to my friends at Ford and others I knew in Michigan. And the last week of July, I went home to visit my mother and family and the same night that I left for the airport, I went to my 20 year High School Reunion. It was awesome seeing everybody again.

So, I arrived in Shanghai China on July 31st. On August 1st, I met one of my new colleagues, Bill and we both went to have a physical which is required to get our residency and work visas. I met some of the PAC people in the Shanghai office, and then one of our Chinese colleagues, Frank, took Bill and I around Shanghai for half a day. Shanghai is a huge and beautiful city. It is the biggest city in China with a population somewhere around 30 million people in the greater Shanghai area. We went up in a sky needle and there are apartment buildings as far as you can see in every direction. You wonder what in the world all these people do.

The next day I flew to Liuzhou and started work. I am currently living in a hotel, but my friend Joel and I will share a really nice 5-bedroom apartment. We should be able to move in later this month. I can't wait because the beds in the hotel are really hard and the beds in the apartment are really soft. I am looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Work is very interesting and I am starting at a good time. It is a new factory built by a joint venture between the Chinese government, GM and a Chinese auto maker called Wuling - the joint venture is called SGMW. The equipment is very modern and latest technology (CNC machining lines and palletized somewhat automated assembly line.) The equipment is mostly installed now and next week we will start the final prototype build which will be machined and assembled on line. Job 1 is August next year. They seem to have all the same issues that we had at Ford, so the job isn't too hard.

It is interesting communicating with the Chinese. Most of the engineers speak pretty good english. The operators speak none. We have several interpreters that help out with meetings and help us westerners get things done when speaking Chinese is reqiured. GM's standards seem very similar to Fords. The next few weeks will be a big learning curve for me - and them.

Outside of work I am finding it very interesting and fun as well. There are at least 20 expats working here from all over the world. We do a lot together after work, so I have spent the last two weeks meeting people and learning my way around town. The first weekend we went to a beautiful city called Guilin - about 2 hours away from Liuzhou. Like Liuzhou, Guilin is surrounded by beautiful limestone mountains and huge rocks sticking up from the ground, they are called Karsts. We visited a large cavern with stalagmites and stalagtites and colored lighting, etc. It was very nice. The park also had a zoo and in the zoo they had Chinese animals including Panda bears, funny looking monkeys and a tiger. I paid $2.50 to go sit on the tiger. He started growling as soon as I went into the cage and I started to think it wasn't such a good idea. But it was ok. His fur was not very soft at all.

This past weekend I went running along the river for about an hour and saw lots of people fishing. Fred (also working at SGMW) and I took a cable car up one of the Karst mountains which is perfectly situated right at the bottom of the horse-shoe river that Liuzhou is built on. There is a wonderful 360 degree view from the top. It is awesome! There are also some caves in that mountain. On Sunday we went to a local park which is surrounded by the Karst mountains. We climbed up one of the mountains to see the view, saw a bridge built in the architectural method of one of the local minority communities, rented paddle boats to tour around one of the lakes, and Joel and I paid to be put into 8-foot high plastic bubbles and pushed out onto the lake. Now I know what a hampster feels like. It was impossible to stand up on the water so we just kept falling over all the time. It was very hot inside the balls though and we were soaked when we got out. It was a fun day!

I think I am going to love it here. The weather is in the upper 90's, the humidity is about 100%, but they have air conditioners so it isn't too uncomfortable most of the time. If you venture outside you just have to sweat. And I love the food! In the south of China the food is supposed to be very spicy, but so far I haven't found anything too hot for my taste. I wanted ADVENTURE, and every day is an adventure! I hope to start my chinese lessons again this week. I also found out that there is a mountain bike club in town. So once I move into the apartment, I will buy a bicycle and try to join them for some riding in the beautiful scenery around Liuzhou. I can't wait to learn the language so I can make friends and be a little more independent.

By the way, there is an internet calling program called Skype http://www.skype.com/ which allows you make phone calls over the internet for free, or call landline and cell phones. A Skype call from China to a land line in the US is only 2 cents per minute. Sign up and we can talk to each other for free.

That is it for the first two weeks. I hope you are all well. Write when you get a chance. Take care.

Love Terry