One story exemplifies to me the fact that the Chinese seem to have no difficulty with simply creating ideas and concepts out of "whole cloth", with no regard for relationship to reality.
A colleague and I were at a hotel in Wuxi, a modest city of four million, and realized that we needed (by Chinese standards) some money. The staff at the desk indicated that across the street there was an ATM.
We dutifully went to the corner, and found the local ATM, part of Bank of China.
I obtained some funds, and then my colleague placed his card into the machine, from which it refused to come out.
No amount of code entry, banging, or other efforts could dislodge it.
We went back to the hotel, and told the English-speaking receptionist that the machine had essentially eaten the bank card.
He looked at us, and calmly announced, "Well, it is after 9 o’clock at night."
Then, clearly feeling he had provided a complete explanation, he smiled and went off to do something else.
My colleague and I looked at each other in wonder, and said "Of course, it's after 9 o’clock. That explains it".
And began to laugh.
Learnings and lessons:
The Chinese will explain anything with any story that comes to mind. Truth and accuracy are not necessarily part of the explanation.
And when there is something inexplicable, I find that reminding myself that somewhere in the world it is after 9 o’clock to be very useful.
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16 men, 32 valves
At one facility, where they were performing extraction of colored active materials from liquid, the core operation involved flows of liquid through enormous pipes, with glass windows set at intervals so that they could check the flow and the color of the liquid.
At the appropriate point, the flow had to be diverted, to collect product of the right color.
The system was reasonably complex, as each of the 16 flow pipes, each with two valves, for a total of 32 valves, spread throughout the facility, could contain a different stage of the fluid.
After review, I asked to see the flow meters and color sensors, along with the software that controlled them. We wanted to see how they made sure the product moved appropriately.
The supervisor laughed, and through the translator, said that a computerized system cost too much, and was not flexible enough for the variations.
Instead, as he pointed out, they had 16 persons on the floor at any given time, each assigned, as his sole task, to one of the flow pipes and the control of its 2 valves. This staff was trained to open or close the valves when the color was correct.
The realization that staff was so inexpensive took time to digest and accept.
I never was able to accept the obvious lack of control or records, which raised, as I tried to explain to the supervisor and his colleagues, all kinds of quality issues.
Learnings and lessons:
Inexpensive staff makes possible an entirely alternative approach to work and operations.
Appropriately controlling staff, and maintaining documents related to their action, is not easy, nor is it a routine part of the Chinese system.
