October 18 – October 28, 2007: The Kuffels Do China

The last two weeks of October my family came to China. Nick came to Shanghai on the 18th; we spent the first afternoon around my apartment and then went to dinner with a big group of people from class (thirteen in total: Stefano, Jerri, Kien, Jerilyn (with cousin and friend), Kimi Fan (with friend), Laetitia, Mathilde). After dinner, about half of us went to Hengshan Road and had a few beers at one of the many bars.
On the second day, Nick and I had a flight to Beijing to meet the rest of the family (9 in total: Mom, Dad, Aunt, Uncle, and the Zhous). At about 9pm we all met in the Beijing airport; and started what would be one of the best parts of my time in China so far.

My parents, brother, and I stayed in Beijing for 3 days while the rest of the group went down to Tianjin to see a new condo purchased by the Zhou’s. After seeing the Great Wall, Tiananmen, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and the Temple of Heaven, the four of us joined the rest of the group.

What would we do without Mr. Zhang? Our driver was awesome. The negotiator. He never settled for anything, and always seemed to catch the hotel/restaurant/stores trying to add line items to our bill. When the hotel staff is too slow in ‘talking to the manager”, just go behind the desk, into the office, and talk to him yourself! When there’s a traffic jam, get out and direct cars into open space so that you can get through yourself. When you miss the last exit on a freeway to is closed up ahead, turn around and drive the WRONG WAY back to the exit. These are life lessons.

In Shijiazhuang, the whole group did a walk-through of the factory and saw for ourselves what Lawrence Zhou and Florian are working on. There’s a ton going on, and its constantly changing. Part of the current happenings will give me the chance to meet and spend time with Bill Taylor, the President ITT China. ITT is an American multi-national, with most of its businesses in water resources and fluid control systems. On the way to the airport, we again had to negotiate a closed freeway (due to thick fog). We used backroads, and this was the second time I was truly scared to be in a car in China (the first was driving through a land-slide zone in a ‘micromachine’ bus at Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan Province). This time, the visibility was about 20 meters, we were going about 20 mph, and constantly swerving to avoid the trucks and cars who were using the oncoming lane to pass! Why change your driving habits just because of some fog? We were all braced for a collision.

Shanghai was the last stop on the trip, and the main focus was shopping and seeing my day-to-day life here. I showed my parents and brother the rat race that is the Shanghai subway, then my apartment, and campus. Going to campus was tied really well, right when classes were out so they had the opportunity to meet some of my friends in the IMBA program (Mathilde, Laetitia, Ben, Margot). Lawrence arranged a day-trip to on of the three water-towns near Shanghai. We went in a 20-person bus, about 3.5 hours each way. Normally bus trips like this are pretty miserable with the bumpy roads, traffic jams, loud trucks, car exhaust, etc. But this was different because we were all together and had a bus to ourselves. It’s very rare for us to have so much time together, in America its usually just for a day or two, or even for just one meal. We had lots of fun, mainly telling stories and teasing each other.