At 9AM I walked into the meeting room with yesterday’s dirty jeans and sneakers full of reddish mud, and still feeling very tired. Not really the image I wanted to convey. Old J however had already explained the situation and most of the people in the room by now knew me pretty well from past meetings. As expected, the discussion went back and forth between technical explanations and price. Like the experts they were, the import-export people…

Read the rest of “The great glass curtain walls of China. Part 9″ or post a comment >>

Jan’s standing orders were not to talk price under any circumstances, but to make sure that the visit in Europe would be light on formal meetings and heavy on visits to exotic locales. It was best that he not join the group, but give Smile one week’s travel money and let them enjoy the experience in their own way.

It was better this way because although Jan insisted on meeting the group, he quickly realized that they were…

Read the rest of “The great glass curtain walls of China. Part 8″ or post a comment >>

Two weeks later the Hong Kong company had flown back to Chongqing together with the representative of an American glass manufacturer. Apparently this was their long-term partner, and the favored supplier for the job. The American sales team had already visited Chongqing several times for this project over the past year, and wanted this contract badly.

Any interference with their plans had to be stopped at…

Read the rest of “The great glass curtain walls of China. Part 7″ or post a comment >>

Arriving at the temple, our remaining giggles stopped instantly when we witnessed Jackson go into a religious frenzy, burning large amounts of incense, offering hell bank notes – a kind of fake paper money to appease the ghosts of his ancestors – kneeling on one of the red cushions and praying next to the seventy-some-year-old grannies. For my part, I thought he’d been bitten by some sudden Buddhist beliefs, while the others just didn’t know how to…

Read the rest of “The great glass curtain walls of China. Part 6″ or post a comment >>

On a miserable drizzly Friday afternoon, a minibus from the Chongqing city government turned up at the university gate, blaring Michael Jackson’s Thriller over the sound system. An import/export company had arranged the bus to drive us to their offices for a price discussion. Jackson and, surprisingly enough, several familiar and unknown faces greeted me from inside the bus. There were ten of us, including the driver. ‘Come on, we’ve decided to bring you to the…

Read the rest of “The great glass curtain walls of China. Part 5″ or post a comment >>