Par Ernie Tadla

Ainsi le gweilo a obtenu sur un vol de la Chine d'air. Il semble que j'étais la seule personne non-Chinoise sur l'avion. Le choc de culture a commencé là. L'air Chine de vol n'est pas comme le vol Air Canada. Nous prenons nos conforts occidentaux pour accordé et n'apprécions pas vraiment ce que nous avons jusqu'à ce qu'il ait emporté. C'était une bonne, progressive première introduction de phase pour moi. Prenez tous que nous sommes employés à ici et frappez-les en bas de trois entailles. L'espace, service, qualité si salles de toilette, allocation des places, ou nourriture. Je n'ai pas souffert, mais me suis rendu compte que j'étais comme un type de ville allant rendre visite à des cousins de pays à la ferme. J'allais d'une société développée à une société se développante. Ils essayaient de se rattraper par rapport à nous, et faisaient un grand travail, mais n'étaient pas là encore.
 
Seulement avec mes pensées, je me suis demandé et me suis inquiété. Dans quoi était-il I s'entrant ? Les douleurs d'être seules étaient profondes. Il serait pendant quatre mois avant que Lovy me joindrait. Sans elle sur mon côté, j'étais à la pitié de d'autres et de mes propres meanderings mentaux. Est-ce que Dan et son terril et Peter de Wu d'associés, m'accepteraient ? Le personnel chinois m'accepterait-il ? How would I order things since I didn’t know the language? Would I succeed? How would I begin? What would I do?

Then the “what ifs” started. What if they don’t accept me? What if I don’t succeed? What if? What if?

Then, as always, I fell back on my foundation blocks.

Number one: my strong, deep, spiritual roots and beliefs that there is a Higher Power of Infinite Intelligence. It had brought me through sixty years of highs and lows and was not going to abandon me now.
 
Number two: my whole life has been a journey of new beginnings, opening new territories, introducing new products, starting new divisions, being a pioneer, going where few or none had gone before.
This was my destiny. I was good at it. This had been my whole life.
I had the same doubts and fears before each new adventure and experienced the quiet self-satisfaction of getting the job done while remaining authentic to my values, purpose and beliefs.
 
“Lighten up, Ern,” I told myself. “Enjoy. Believe. Have faith. Remember your past successes. What happened then will happen again, in China.”

Living in Richmond for twenty-seven years and my Asian experience with QLT had prepared me for this adventure. Lovy’s newfound zest for life after her kidney transplant provided me with the back-up support and steadying influence I needed. The Richmond Chinese shopping malls and dining emporiums were also good preparation.

A distinction should be made here. Most Chinese people in Vancouver and Richmond were Cantonese from Hong Kong. While they are Chinese and Hong Kong is now part of China, politically, there is a cultural gap between Hong Kong Chinese (population, seven million) and Mainland Chinese (population, 1.3 billion) as pronounced as there is between the East and West. Chinese people from Hong Kong and Guangzhou speak Cantonese. In Beijing and Shanghai, Mandarin is the spoken language, although each city has its own dialect, as well as cuisine.

I deplaned at the Beijing Capital International Airport about 8 p.m. The airport was what you would expect for a city of sixteen million people and the capital of China. It was new, impressive and packed with wall-to-wall people. I was swept up in the flow of the crowd and found myself at the arrivals location. The lights were bright and the crowd noisy.

It seemed that a group of people talking Chinese made more noise than a group of people talking English. O’Hare in Chicago, the busiest airport in the U.S., seemed uncrowded and quiet in comparison. The Vancouver airport similarly seemed silent and empty.

Someone in the sea of people awaiting arriving passengers was holding up a sign with ERNIE TADLA. PPI. What a welcome sight. The forty-minute drive to the PPI office was quiet, no idle conversation due to my lack of Chinese and his lack of English. I gawked at the night scenes, lights, and traffic, and the tension built, as we got closer to the office.

Dan and his partners, Wu Bing and Peter Xiao, met me, warmly.
The Beijing PPI office was off the main street, down a lane and was an eclectic blend of Chinese design, L.A. flare and an expected film industry atmosphere. The building had been constructed around two large trees, to protect them from destruction. It was 9 p.m., but the office was busy with animated people yelling to each other.

The Chinese reputation for hard work is well earned. They work six and a half days a week, putting in twelve to eighteen hour days, often working into the wee hours of the morning. This was not a slave labor camp. Many staff are from the countryside and live alone in small, simple accommodation. The office community provided them with space, bright lights, camaraderie, social interaction, friendship and excitement. Sometimes, even romance. Each company must provide a staff kitchen and cook.
 
Dan and Wu Bing took me to inspect my new apartment, my home for the next three months. It was nicely furnished in a non-Canadian way. Everything was new and strange, but I approved. They seemed relieved.

The next day I was introduced to Helen (English name), who would be the first of several intelligent, quick, English-speaking Chinese ladies who would be my executive assistants. They provided for my survival, not only doing my administrative work and translating, but guiding me in dealing with the Chinese staff. Helen was pretty, smart and friendly, and originally from Inner Mongolia.

 The original plan was that Lovy would join me after my ninety-day probationary period was over and I had moved to Shanghai. Dan was then to leave for Los Angeles where he would begin producing and directing his first feature length movie Cookers, for the U.S. market.

Before Dan left for LA. he had me draw an Osho Zen Tarot card from his deck. I drew The Fool. The interpretation read:
“Moment to moment, and with every step, the Fool leaves the past behind. He carries nothing more than his purity, innocence and trust. At this moment, the Fool has the support of the universe to make this jump into the unknown. Adventures await him in the river of life. Your actions may appear ‘foolish’ to others, or even to yourself, if you try to analyze them with the rational mind. But you are in the place where trust and innocence are the guides, not skepticism and past experiences.”

I had never heard of Osho Zen Tarot cards before. My boss, who I had questions and fears about, the whole China excursion, all my previous inner talks and questions were swept away by the obvious glee Dan and Wu Bing showed when I drew my card. Up until then, I had been a closet spiritualist, particularly with this hard-driving, hard-nosed New York entrepreneur. This was the beginning of an additional level to our relationship, a wonderful, rich alliance, strictly business, but also a deep friendship with Lovy and me, which extended to the spiritual level. They were also on a journey, an odyssey, as it were, looking for more than material success and the glitzy glamour of the entertainment world. Several times before I left for Shanghai, they took me to a fantastic Buddhist retreat north of Beijing, a hallowed place where we experienced a traditional tea ceremony, talked into the night, meditated and replenished our souls together.

When Lovy arrived, she and Wu Bing immediately hit it off. We were quite the team, all so different and yet connected so deeply in the next phase of our journeys. Even then we knew this was not a long-term deal, but we were there to make the best of it during the time allotted. And we did.

When Lovy and I celebrated our 40th anniversary, I wanted to celebrate it at the Buddhist retreat, but foreigners couldn’t get reservations because it was close to a Peoples’ Liberation Army base.
Funny how I had to come to godless China to find the next step in my spiritual growth. I read further on The Fool card I had drawn.
“Be a fool in the Taoist sense, in the Zen sense. Don’t try to create a wall of knowledge around you. Whatsoever experience comes to you let it happen, and then go on dropping it. Go on cleaning your mind continuously; go on dying to the past so you remain in the present, as if just born, just a babe. Your soul will become more crystallized.”

The Perfect Universe was unfolding just as it must. I was in the right place at the right time. All was well. An earlier mentor told me that whenever I came to a cross in the road, one path would be easy and one more difficult. The difficult, less-traveled road would be where all the prizes were. Let the adventure continue.

OK, enough of that stuff, now, back to business. Dan and Wu Bing were working sixteen to eighteen hour days. Dan was a typically dedicated entrepreneur, committed and devoted to building his business, driving and bringing his staff along with him. I was left to fend for myself and make my own arrangements. Anything I asked for or asked about was quickly and efficiently provided. But I had to ask. I was in a totally hands-off situation.

Now, for the first time in forty years, I was without my Lovy. I missed her dearly. I was alone in a strange country, a super-charged work atmosphere, without language and therefore communication ability. This was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I really missed Lovy around meal times. I was a past generation husband with no cooking, laundry, or ironing skills.

So, my first morning in Beijing, I woke up with food on my mind.
I ventured out onto the busy street. I noticed breakfast stalls, with people ordering, leaving, or sitting at makeshift tables and chairs. I watched. It smelled great and looked good. I edged up the stall and hesitantly pointed to what I wanted. Since I’m not sure how to handle the chopsticks, I ordered a wonton soup-like dish. Later, I ordered a great smelling and looking flap of fried dough with egg, a layer of filling, plus spices, etc. It was delicious and then I walked to the office.

This was quickly followed by my initiation rites into a new culture — the Yellow Emperor’s revenge. My digestive system was not familiar with the new flora and fauna of this strange place. It responded in typical expected fashion. For weeks, I lived with the most horrific case of diarrhea. In anticipation, I had brought Imodium, but it was ineffective. I suffered horribly until I figured out two things.

1. Don’t eat at the street stalls. The food smelled great and tasted wonderfully. Everyone else was eating it. I wasn’t concerned about hygiene, but maybe I should have been. There certainly were no food inspectors visible.

2. Before leaving Canada, my doctor gave me three only capsules of the powerful antibiotic, Cipro, the drug of choice in the U.S. during the anthrax scare after 9/11. Cipro can knock out your e.coli bacteria and/or anthrax often with one dose. Repeated, unmonitored usage probably has the potential to knock out your kidneys, and liver as well.

In China, you can get any prescription drug available in North America without a prescription. So, I was able to carry an ample supply of Cipro at all times. The misery of severe, long-term diarrhea and its urgency took priority over any possible future long-term damage to my kidneys or liver. I would worry about my kidneys tomorrow; today I needed to know where the nearest toilet was. With Lovy carrying one of his kidneys, maybe Dana would be willing to share half of his remaining kidney with his ex-Cipro Dad.

The beauty of life is that everything passes. Eventually, the diarrhea passed. I then learned that I had earned entrance into that group of foreigners who survived this rite of passage. I had earned my stripes. My stomach lining was now aligned with the local Communist Chinese bacteria and other assorted creatures.

I found the Chinese people, both at PPI and on the streets, friendly, warm, smiling, and helpful. Again, as in Richmond, only more so, I was a visible minority. Whenever I spotted a foreigner, I asked, “Where are you from?” I looked forward to talking with another English-speaking person. But often they were from Germany or France and didn’t speak English.
PPI was a member of the American Chamber of Commerce-Beijing and I attended their meetings for the three months I lived there. The members had difficulty believing the economic growth figures the Chinese government was posting. Actually, the Chinese government often understated the numbers because they understood that these would be challenging to other governments in the Western world.

Beijing is the political and cultural center of China while Shanghai is the financial and business center. You can compare this to Washington, D.C. and New York City or Ottawa and Toronto. All the foreign embassies are in Beijing with consulates in Shanghai.

Beijing residents are hard working, friendly and helpful to strangers. They’re a happy people, but also serious and sincere.
Shanghai is different. The minute I stepped off the plane, I felt the rhythm, the energy. It was throbbing, dynamic, and full of hustle and bustle. Everything moved faster. The same sense you feel between Ottawa and Toronto or Washington, D.C., and New York. I never experienced entrepreneurialism and capitalism to the degree I did in Shanghai and China in general. Even though it’s China’s largest city — population twenty million — it seems to be all stores. There were blocks and blocks of small, family-run businesses with sleeping and eating quarters behind the store. Because of the high level of entrepreneurialism in Shanghai, you have to be careful dealing with some small shop owners when negotiating (everything is negotiated, except in retail stores) and receiving change — something you never had to do in Beijing. Some will take advantage of the awkward gweilos. Their feeling was that they couldn’t trust the foreigners, so why not take advantage of them first?

There was brashness in the air, a sense that all things were possible. Shanghainese have a character of their own. There was a we-them feeling. Shanghainese business people are sharper than anywhere else in China. The women are beautiful, snappy, confident, sharp, directed and vibrant. It is something in the air. Shanghainese have an attitude; a positive, self-confident attitude.

Shanghai is a coastal city 2,100 miles southeast of Beijing and is therefore much warmer, almost tropical.
 
Because many of our clients were U.S. companies I became active in the American Chamber of Commerce-Shanghai (AM-CHAM). The Chamber was a robust and dynamic business-networking hub for over two thousand American companies providing a complete package of services for U.S. companies in Shanghai. It had 1,400 company members and 3,400 individual members, adding 80 members a month.
AMCHAM-Shanghai was a powerful base for me. As anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it. I got involved and participated across the board. Among the services provided members:• they lobby the Chinese government on behalf of U.S. business interests in China;

• help you stay informed on Chinese in China. China veterans share their experiences via speeches, panel discussions, committee events;
• a full spectrum general business and industry specific training for yourself and your staff through conferences, workshops, training sessions, speaker events;
• an exposure to high level executives from the U.S. visiting their company plus high ranking government officials from Washington D.C. who were always invited to speak to us at a luncheon or dinner meeting;
• network with your peers through working on 19 committees ranging from manufacturing, marketing, transportation and taxes. I took an active role on the marketing committee and later the training and education committee. I was also asked to serve on the ethics committee vetting members who stood for election to the board of governors;
• on-line job recruiting;
• network with clients at any of 250 events a year. I took advantage to promote PPI and DMG by staging several well-attended events on
o TV commercial creative design
o the production process
o what to look for in selecting an advertising agency
o what to look for in selecting a PR/events management company

• through the above events I was asked to conduct in-house presentations at companies like GM, SC Johnson, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy PR, Gallup, 3M, The American Management Association-Shanghai (AMA).
• closed monthly briefings by the U.S. consulate general.
 
AMCHAM was a fantastic support and resource in helping me get established. The networking with other English-speaking people from the U.S. was a source of familiarity and strength. The caliber of people was outstanding, and I remain friends and in close contact with some of them.

AMCHAM-Beijing had a different culture than AMCHAM-Shanghai due to the city profile. Shanghai was more member active, having more events in a week than Beijing would have in a month. With Beijing being the capital and Shanghai the business center, this was reflected in the membership, their interests, and activity expectations.

My lifestyle was different from the folks with global multinational companies on an ex-pat package. I lived and worked in the city’s hinterland with the common folk. While I say I worked for a U.S. company, the only thing American about it was the founder and creative chief and he was in the U.S. All the rest were Chinese. This was the secret of his success. He understood, accepted, and had assimilated the Chinese way. He is perfectly fluent in Mandarin and even had the thought processes of the Chinese.

I also joined the Shanghai Rotary Club. It was an underground operation, not officially recognized by the Chinese government. The government does not recognize any non-business organization that takes its orders from outside China. The same applies to the Roman Catholic Church.

We had a lively and robust group and I enjoyed the networking, friendliness, and fellowship of our weekly meetings. I have many fond memories of my Rotary in Shanghai experience.

Lovy joined me in July. We were the only gweilos in our district of a few million Chinese people. She dove into the local environs, doing her shopping with the street people and in the wet-markets, using her smile and non-Chinese body language skills. Being a gweilo made her a target of any sharpshooter stall owner when it came to negotiating for her groceries. However, other Chinese ladies and men hovered over her, curious about what the gweilo lady was buying and they would raise a storm when a storeowner cheated her. Such is the warmth and sensitivity to foreigners away from the centers.
 
In China, everything is possible and negotiable. They begin by quoting a high price; you offer a low price and then the game seesaws back and forth until you both arrive at an acceptable figure. I had to learn how to start the bidding low enough. I invariably started too high from the bottom. Sometimes, when I was in a hurry, I felt I didn’t have time to bargain. Since the opening price was acceptable, being much lower than I would have paid at home, I would quickly agree to pay the initial asking price. The shop-owner would have a disappointed look in his eye. I thought he should be glad I paid his top, un-negotiated price. No, he missed the fun of bargaining. It’s a ritual and social skill making buying and selling interesting and exciting.

For the Chinese, there is much conversational palaver that goes with the give-and-take. Reasons for giving a better deal range from how large a family they feed (uncles, aunts, grandparents) to how influential and large their network is that they can bring so much more business to them, if they give you a good deal. For me, without knowing Chinese I had to rely on my hand-held calculator or writing my price in ink on my palm.

China was fun and I was glad we came.

Next week: Chapter Four: About Lovy.

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