Today’s writing will consist of two parts. Part 1 is my day up until lunch. Part 2, deserving of its own narrative, is Lunch.
My mission on this trip was to checkout a new factory. I awoke at my normal Chinese time of 2:30 am, after four and a half hours of blissful sleep. My daily ritual began by boiling water for coffee. In the Chinese water pot, a full pot of water takes about 40 seconds to boil, roughly twice the amount of time it takes to melt your travel iron.
I always pack plenty of American coffee because Chinese coffee is somewhere between espresso and muddy rain water. I rely on Maxwell house coffee bags, same as tea bags only coffee.
After six coffees, three calls to the office, and 39 emails… I dressed for breakfast. My ritual requires that I leave the room at 6:28 am. Chinese buffet breakfast starts at 6:30 am and I’m usually the first… and often, the only one there.
Breakfast is an amazing collection of noodles, rice, dim sum, tea eggs, pastries of all types, bacon, other types of unfamiliar meats, vegetables… you name it. It’s really yummy!
A near catastrophe occurred as I entered the elevator corridor. It was still a bit dark and I did a banana peel type slip. My left leg up, sliding across the marble floor on my right foot, I regained my balance just before falling! I must have slid four feet! I looked down to discover that I slipped on some Chinese guy’s vomit from the night before. Yes, it was totally disgusting. It was odd that I didn’t smell vomit until I realized it was vomit.
The thought of me falling in the vomit almost made me vomit. Can you imagine Chinese vomit on my clothes? In my hair? OMG… I’d have stripped in the hallway right there and run screaming to my shower! I was really lucky not to have fallen… not to mention the physical harm that could have happened.
In the USA, if I’d have fallen on some American’s vomit, I could have called Edgar Snyder and sued the guy, sued the hotel, sued the company that made the marble… probably even the restaurant that made the pre-vomited food. But no, I was in China and there is no Chinese Edgar Snyder.
After wiping my shoes off on a nearby carpet, I went to breakfast.
At 9 am, our factory driver showed up in a borrowed Audi, no doubt to impress me… the American with a shoe that smelled of Chinese vomit. After a short one hour drive to the factory I was greeted with a good omen.
Rather than being greeted by the traditional Chinese stone carved lions, I was greeted by co-worker Ashley Jubach’s favorite… an elephant with a raised trunk.
I, of course, had to text Ashley this picture… the equivalent of a Chinese taunt. After a dozen or so texts of her cross continental wining, begging me to smuggle the damned thing back on a container… she finally gave up, accusing me of harassment by elephant.
I really should read our employment manual to see if I crossed the line and if harassment by elephant is really in there as she claims. I am in China though, so maybe the rules don’t apply.
Maybe I could claim that I developed a temporary case of Tourette’s than caused me to accidentally text the picture. I have been known to blurt our shit that enters my mind. You can ask anyone.
Anyway, the second good omen occurred the moment I met the factory owner. I knew right away that this would be Cammy Rickett’s account. 
He wore a very distinctive clothing brand with this logo. I asked him where he got it and he thought it was an American brand, but wasn’t sure. He offered to give me his shirt right there but I declined… sorry Cam.
After a really good meeting at the factory, my hosts invited me to a local lunch. It was there that I learned of a Chinese dining trend that took the “farm to table” concept a bit further. I’ll call this version “stable to table.”
I’ll explain more in my next installment…
Untamed Traveler 