If you want to skillfully overcome all the hurdles in private and professional life in China, just get carried away by the inter-cultural and action-packed experience between “East and West”. Get deeply soaked into the humorous and exciting stories about money, luck, intrigue, love, power, sex and business.
DISCLAIMER
Names in this ebook, people, companies, as well as places, are all fictitious. Similarities to the living or deceased persons, as well as Chinese or Germany company names, are all purely coincidental and not intended.
Shanghai, in the Spring of 2020
KangHan YUAN
All provinces as well as the main mountains in China and the seas of China (Source: GTEC Publishing House):
All major cities and rivers in China (Source: GTEC Publisher):
CONTENTS
A BREAST IN THE DAWN AND WORRIES ARE GONE
IF YOU HAVE A LADYBOY IN YOUR POCKETS, ....
ALL IS UNDER CONTROL ON THE SINKING SHIP
TAKING A SHOWER FOR TWO, SAVES WATER AND TIME
BETTER SECRETLY CLEVER THAN WEIRDLY STUPID
WHO LAUGHS LAST, THINKS TOO SLOWLY!
THERE IS ALSO A LIFE AFTER BIRTHDAY
ORDERS FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE EXPORT WORLD CHAMPION
STOP! NO ONE MOVES. I'VE LOST MY BRAIN
IN THE LONG RUN, ONLY POWER WILL HELP
GOING TO THE LAND OF THE FRANKS
List of keywords on Chinese culture and traditions
Recommended GTEC E-books And Books
A BREAST IN THE DAWN AND WORRIES ARE GONE
It is precisely one o'clock, on the morning of January 2014. The weather is chilly. A plastic bottle of hot water is warming my feet, while my wife Hong is lying next to me. "Hong" means "red". The red colour was significant at the time Hong's parents were still working as civil servants and party members for the Chinese government. That is why red as a colour was immortalized with their daughter's name.
Hong is a beautiful woman, medium height, with a voice sounding a bit deeper than most Chinese women. She attributes the roughness in her voice and character, to her childhood experience, when she was separated from her mother, to go and spend days with relatives. Her parents used to travel long distances to work many hours in the field, during times of the Cultural Revolution. It is quite evident that she lacked maternal affection; perhaps this is the reason for her provocative behaviour and constant screaming.
Taicang is a small Chinese city in the north of Shanghai. It is one or two hours drive to and from the city centre, depending on the time of the day. However, because of a busy schedule at work, I sometimes spend a few days away visiting my suppliers, making suggestions for improvement, filling out forms, and much more.
From time to time, I visit the offices of the Asia headquarters in Shanghai. I mostly go there to calculate the costs of shopping parts, and to prepare notes for the upcoming board meeting in Germany headquarters. I work with senior buyers of the individual product groups in the purchasing department of Schluckauf company, operating in Shanghai, Taicang and Anting. I have a local employment contract, same as the Chinese living here.
I rented an apartment and negotiated a chauffeur-driven mid-range service car from Shanghai-Volkswagen, on the grounds of being able to concentrate better on my work. To drive a vehicle in China, you must have a Chinese Driver's Licence, because neither the German nor the International Driver's Licence, are accepted here. Chinese people living in Germany, are lucky because their driver's license is acceptable at least for the first six months, so long as the notary certifies it.
I do have a Chines driving licence. Chinese driving test examination questions are like the German ones. When you present the German Driving Licence, you are only required to take a theory examination, but the traffic rules are different. All employers in China are aware of this. Since they prefer seeing their employees getting to places of work, they have no choice, but to abide by the rules. As a foreigner in China, when you get involved in an accident, you should know that you are on your own. The language barrier problem makes it more challenging and time-consuming. I experienced this several times in my former company in Shanghai and Suzhou, around 2008.
My current company has two offices, one in Shanghai, another one in Taicang, where the production plant is situated. Being a newcomer here, I am not yet utterly conversant with many tasks and processes, and therefore, I am unaware of benefits for individual top buyers. I always work under pressure, to deliver excellent quality service to the head office in time, with no excuses.
Sometimes when I have too much work, Hong decides to go to her parent's home in Suzhou to avoid being bored. The city of Suzhou has a population of approximately ten million inhabitants. It is two hours bus drive west of Taicang, near the third largest inland lake of the People's Republic called Tai Lake, baptized the "Venice of the East", because of its many canals. The right connections by express trains highway and Grand Canal, make Suzhou one of the fastest-growing cities. It is one of the so-called Boomtowns. Suzhou is also in the rankings of the oldest cities in the Yangtze Basin. With more than two thousand five-hundred-year history. It is the cradle of the Wu culture, tracing its foundation to the legendary King Helu of Wu.
Hong told me that she chose to name herself The Empress of Suzhou, because of her family name, Wu. There is a brief story about it; this is how it started. Once upon a time, there was a small village in Suzhou, where everyone was named Wu. It followed a legendary story of Jingniang Wu , a girl kidnapped from Suzhou, but later rescued by Emperor Kaiser Song, the brave