Floyd's first trip over

October 5 and 6 – On Sunday morning I flew from Boise to San Francisco on small commuter jet. In San Francisco, we boarded a 747 for the flight to Beijing. The plane was very full, especially of Chinese returning home. My first impression of the Chinese people are that they are very impatient and pushy, almost to the point of being rude based on our culture. I found this out as we were loading. One older Chinese man actually physically pushed me down the aisle when I would stop to let someone put luggage overhead. As I watched others, I observed the same behavior.

When I got to San Francisco, I switched my watch to Beijing time. They fed us lunch right after we left San Francisco and then I tried to sleep as long as I could. I napped with a few sound ones until about 6:30 AM Beijing time. I tried to watch several movies, but oftentimes, people were standing and blocked the view. I did see most of Speed Racer, thinking of the grandkids a lot. There were other movies as well, but I did not really get into them. They played 3 full movies and part of the 4th. All were free.

The flight from San Francisco wasn't too bad. The route took us up over Anchorage, Alaska, then over Russia, then Korea and finally into China. We crossed the International Date Line so we lost part of a day and I actually arrived in Beijing on Monday afternoon. The weather was nice and sunny and unusually clear for Beijing. I was able to see a lot as we flew in.

Once I arrived in China, I was met by one of my main contacts that I will be working with (his name is Yuqun Wu, with an American name of Wilson) and a driver. We went to the Cargill office and I met with the GM of China. After the meeting we had dinner and went to the hotel. I am in just a regular hotel, the Beijing Holiday Inn Lido.

I then basically stayed awake until I went to bed last night at 9:30 Beijing time. I slept fair, other than I woke up at 1:30 AM and thought it was time to get up. I forced myself to stay in bed and napped until 5:30 AM when I got up.

Oct 7 – We went to look at housing this morning. They have some fairly nice one bedroom apartments associated with the hotel I am staying at. They are small, but functional. They even have a combination washer and dryer. They offer housekeeping 3 times a week. We then went to the office and had a meeting and made our travel arrangements for the week. The office staff took me out to a big lunch as their guest. It was a traditional Chinese lunch with many different foods. The Chinese food here is much different than what they sell us in the states. Some was good and others were not things I would not necessarily try again. One was pigeon. They pickled it in vinegar before they cooked it, but served it cold. It didn’t make the grade. After lunch they took me to a grocery store so I could see how dairy products are marketed. The shelf space for dairy is quite small. Fluid milk use is minimal. The one thing they consume the most is drinkable yogurt. I had some for breakfast and it was good. They eat very little cheese or ice cream. I didn’t see any butter.

In observing the people in the stores, I was amazed with the Western influence on the clothing. The teenage girls dress just like the teenagers at home. The adult women also showed the Western influence in styles and colors. If I didn’t look at the faces, I would have thought I was at home. There are very few overweight people, much different than in the states.

This country is definitely different. It is hard to not just go to the faucet and get a drink of water. None of the water is potable. When you ask for water in the restaurant, they bring you hot water unless you ask for water with ice. The drivers are nuts. You couldn’t pay me enough to drive over here. The pedestrians have NO rights. The cars will run right over you. You have to be very careful. Also, the percentage of people that smoke is quite high and smoking is allowed in many places.

The weather today was cooler and cloudy. It was also quite hazy today, more typical of the normal conditions.

Oct 8 – We flew to Jinan in Shandong province. There we met with the dairy team and visited a dairy farm. They are trying our feed and have not been with us long. We toured the dairy and then met in the office to discuss what we had seen. This reminded me a lot of Japan. Forage quality is very poor and there some real traditional biases about not feeding forage or feeding certain levels of concentrates. It will take some teaching, but there is so much to be gained. The opportunity to help is so great over here. After riding in the car with the locals, it is scary. Take the worst cab ride you have had in Las Vegas or Mexico and they look like safety instructors compared to the drivers in China. All of the intersections are like figure 8 races with cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, mopeds and pedestrians. It is absolutely crazy.

Oct 9 – We drove up to Taian and visited some more dairies. One was very interesting. It had about 700 to 800 cows, but there were 34 owners. They took their cows to a common milk parlor and weighed the milk through weigh jars. Some of the owners had as few as 10 cows. As we drove into the dairy compound, there were several small plots of ground being worked by what appeared to be a husband and wife. They were planting winter wheat. Also along the roads we would see cobs of corn that were drying. The people would shuck the grain and then spread it out to finish drying. Some of it will be ground for their own use and they will sell the rest. As we flew over some small villages, you could look down and see where they spread kernels along the side of the road to dry. It is amazing to realize they basically do all of the planting and harvesting by hand.

For lunch, I had eel. It was good, but not as good as what we had in Japan. For dinner tonight, we had a big variety of food, from oysters to duck soup. I am really getting an opportunity to taste a variety of real Chinese food, not the stuff we buy in the states. The hotel we stayed in was a Ramada and was very extravagant.

Oct 10 – We drove out to the Taian fed mill. I spoke to the sales staff for about an hour before we had to drive back to the airport to fly back to Beijing. We got to Beijing in the afternoon. I am scheduled to do some sight seeing tomorrow. I’ll let you know what I get to see.

Oct 11 – Today, Christina Chen, the Assistant Manager, Marketing Communication, China Coordinator, Public Affairs, a young lady that works in the Beijing office, took me on a tour of Tiananmen Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square), The Forbidden City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City) and the Olympic Village. We started at 10:00 AM and I got back to the hotel at 8:30 PM. I was tired, as we had walked a tremendous amount during the day. It was very interesting seeing some of the areas that I had seen on television – Tiananmen Square during the protests in 1989 and the Olympic Village during the 2008 Olympics that were just held. The Forbidden City is the area where 24 different emperors resided during the Ming and Qing (pronounced Ching) dynasties. It was a great lesson in history. I was really tired when I got back to the hotel. I actually slept through without waking up due to the time difference. The Chinese do not understand personal space. They push and shove and try to get as close to you as possible. It is that way in line, on the planes, on the trains, for that matter everywhere. It is taking some getting used to.

Oct 12 – Today is Sunday. I looked around Lido (pronounced Lidoo) Place, as this is the area we will most likely be living while in Beijing. It is a fairy decent area, not what we are accustomed to in the states though.