The China saga

I recently returned from my working holiday in China. Well it certainly wasn't a holiday but an experience well worth having.
My company was to design and program a refrigeration plant (we later found out to be an ice cream factory!) and our trip to China was part of the final stage where we were to commission everything so they could start manufacture.

This project began over twelve months ago and I was heavily involved in the design of the electrical system from the beginning. Over the course of the past year we designed then refined and refined again the electrical drawings to meet the clients needs. Then in the latter stages I was handed the responsibility of programming the SCADA system (a siemens WinCC product which allows an operator to run an entire plant from a PC).

Bags packed, we were on our way to Xian in central china. There was the boss, the head electrical engineer (responsible for the complete PLC program), an electrician (to make any field wiring changes) and myself. Working with us we had one mechanical/ refrigeration engineer who would ensure the refrigeration system worked at optimum efficiency.

After landing in Xian airport and requiring information, the first thing I noticed was the difficulty in communicating with the locals. Their english was limited and my Chinese was best described as a mute Bruce Lee movie (in other words non existent!) This would become a familiar problem we encountered throughout the course of our stay.
The other notable thing (which at this stage I didn't take much notice of) was the over cast day. Which as time progressed it became apparent that as much as it may have been cloud on some days, it was definitely pollution the remainder. After 8 days of not seeing a blue sky, you really begin to appreciate the rainy but sometimes sunny Melbourne!

From the airport we headed to the Hotel, I fine place called the Garden Hotel in the heart of Xian.
The hotel had everything that was to be expected and great scenery from my window. The food at the restaurant catered for both local tastes as well as western though it didn't take long to see if you wanted value for money you were best ordering the local dishes. The spring rolls, pan fried duck, pork and Singapore noodles were the winners. The rib eye steak was 100grams of minced something were not quite sure of and left you needing to order another main.
I imagine the staff here thought we were giant pigs as each evening most of us generally ate an entree and two mains! The thing you don't realize is their mains is only large enough to fill a Chinese person, ie imagine your dinner plate cut in half with food and that's how much you were being fed (not enough!). On top of this we weren't so lucky as to have a lunch break so eating was generally reserved for mornings and nights.

Everyday we had the same routine, up at 6am, breakfast, leave at 7, arrive shortly after 7.30, work till 7.30, arrive back around 8 - 8.30, eat dinner and be in bed by 11. Repeat this 8 days in a row and you can quickly see the fairy tale work away trip with the boys was more resembling a horror trip to another country.
Of course there were upsides to. I had the pleasure of learning a little bit about a new country and a different culture. And you have to look at the funny side of things like how they string together bamboo ladders and build their site sheds for the staff.




Here is an after picture of were the some of the staff were housed until a pretty big storm came and decided to shift their accommodation to a new unknown location.
The staff were surprisingly indifferent about the events and I think that is one thing I admire about the Chinese I had met. They were pretty easy going about most things, not worrying about that which they cannot change. That even seemed to be the case for employment and wages. Working 7 days, up to 12 hours and earning around $20 dollars a day seems for us incomprehensible. But they do it and most have a smile on their faces as they know little different. Its hard not to feel a little pity but what do you do when your countries population is around 1.3 billion!
Once again you start to appreciate how lucky we are in this Country.

The last evening there we finished earlier and had a brief look around the city before getting Teppanyaki (figure that out??).
Its much nicer at night with all the trees lit up, the people are out in the streets dancing together with what looks to be exercise classes or Tai Chi. The city felt more communal with all sorts of activities and there was a strange sense of security here. Something I find foreign here in Melbournes CBD at night time.

All in all a beautiful place, the only downside being the thick constant smog. It puts into perspective what our future may hold if we choose to ignore climate change and the health of our environment. Maybe all politicians should spend a week in China!