My China Years
One of my colleagues from Westinghouse had established an extraordinarily close friendship with a very senior executive of a major Chinese steel company. The executive was particularly impressed with Westinghouse’s technology and we started to receive substantial major orders from China. We hosted many dozens of Chinese engineers in O’Hara Township and, afterwards when we had relocated to the south of Pittsburgh as AEG. I made many visits to China and was always impressed by the courtesy afforded us by our Chinese hosts. Unlike those of many of their US counterparts, the steel plants were scrupulously clean and polished, which is certainly not the natural state for the processes involved. Because of the success of the projects, resulting from close cooperation between the Chinese engineers and our own, we received major orders from many of the major steel companies in China.
Reverting back to 1984, still at Wean United, I had joined a delegation of Wean people visiting China. We were part of a consortium led by SMS bidding a project to Baoshan Iron and Steel. At that time SMS was focused on rolling mills, not processing lines and so they turned to their former licensor for assistance. The Chinese seemed to favor meetings next to important Western holidays and we arrived in Beijing in mid-December. The old airport was old, the road to the city was old and our hotel, supposedly a Western-style hotel was far from its claimed 5-star rating.
Breakfast was served in the hotel but was always a gamble and a fervent hope that one’s eggs might be cooked enough to stay in one place and warm enough not to turn one’s stomach. Dinner was served at a distinctly Chinese-style restaurant just behind the hotel. Since I had had no previous need to eat with chopsticks, I asked for a knife and fork. My dear friend, Frank Kyes, suggested that if I wanted to eat at all in China learning how to use chopsticks would be an immediate priority. I did.
Our meetings were in a building next to the hotel in an unheated, unventilated room. All Chinese smoke continuously and the atmosphere was unbreathable. I was still four years away from giving up smoking and contributed to the haze. Whereas Frank had warned me to put on every piece of clothing I brought with me, it was bitterly cold in that room. We were served tea in large mugs each of which had a cover. Periodically a person, thought to be female, arrived and replenished the hot water in the mugs, but one’s initial allocation of tea leaves was to serve for the entire day. Said person either threw open the windows allowing some of the pollution laden air from outside in or she lit vast amounts of incense. The latter failed to achieve anything positive.
The meetings seemed as if they would drag on through the Christmas holidays, but on the 23rd it was declared to be over and we scrambled over to PanAm to see if we could get back to Pittsburgh in time. We were lucky. December 24th: Beijing early morning, land in Shanghai, on to Tokyo, change planes and depart late afternoon, arrive San Francisco/Seattle/Dallas/Newark/wherever, clear formalities and finally board a flight to Pittsburgh. I arrived home late evening on Christmas Eve, but my chest was in such an upheaval, plus the jet lag that I don’t remember much except that I was home.
A few years later I returned to China and the changes were vast. New airport, new roads, excellent hotels, shops etc. On that first return trip we were to fly to Wuhan, a major industrial city. We stayed in Number 8 or 9 or 6 Guest House, I can’t remember which. It was a multi-storey communist style building, but the elevator did work. Heating was considered decadent. Hot water at all but the most convenient times between 0500h to 0600h every morning was not necessary. I remember sleeping in every article of clothing I had brought with my heavy overcoat on top of the bed. Bathrooms were en suite, but due to the ambient temperature were only very briefly of service. Meetings were held in a similar but distant building, equally unheated. In later years we found a very satisfactory hotel on the other side of the Yangtze River. Despite the hour’s commute from the meeting building across the bridge to the hotel, it became our new home away from home.
My last visit to China was several years after I had left Cegelec and joined SMS. I took some colleagues to meet our good friend Liu Ji, who had moved from Wuhan to take over as the head of Anshan Iron and Steel. We flew into Beijing and were hosted to a fabulous private luncheon by Professor Sun Yi Kang, Liu Ji’s mentor and technical advisor. The visit to Anshan was certainly memorable, as my last visit to China, since I was treated as a VIP by Liu Ji and his staff. It was extremely flattering and I was very grateful. So ended my ‘China Years’ from 1984 to about 2002.
Reverting back to 1984, still at Wean United, I had joined a delegation of Wean people visiting China. We were part of a consortium led by SMS bidding a project to Baoshan Iron and Steel. At that time SMS was focused on rolling mills, not processing lines and so they turned to their former licensor for assistance. The Chinese seemed to favor meetings next to important Western holidays and we arrived in Beijing in mid-December. The old airport was old, the road to the city was old and our hotel, supposedly a Western-style hotel was far from its claimed 5-star rating.
Breakfast was served in the hotel but was always a gamble and a fervent hope that one’s eggs might be cooked enough to stay in one place and warm enough not to turn one’s stomach. Dinner was served at a distinctly Chinese-style restaurant just behind the hotel. Since I had had no previous need to eat with chopsticks, I asked for a knife and fork. My dear friend, Frank Kyes, suggested that if I wanted to eat at all in China learning how to use chopsticks would be an immediate priority. I did.
Our meetings were in a building next to the hotel in an unheated, unventilated room. All Chinese smoke continuously and the atmosphere was unbreathable. I was still four years away from giving up smoking and contributed to the haze. Whereas Frank had warned me to put on every piece of clothing I brought with me, it was bitterly cold in that room. We were served tea in large mugs each of which had a cover. Periodically a person, thought to be female, arrived and replenished the hot water in the mugs, but one’s initial allocation of tea leaves was to serve for the entire day. Said person either threw open the windows allowing some of the pollution laden air from outside in or she lit vast amounts of incense. The latter failed to achieve anything positive.
The meetings seemed as if they would drag on through the Christmas holidays, but on the 23rd it was declared to be over and we scrambled over to PanAm to see if we could get back to Pittsburgh in time. We were lucky. December 24th: Beijing early morning, land in Shanghai, on to Tokyo, change planes and depart late afternoon, arrive San Francisco/Seattle/Dallas/Newark/wherever, clear formalities and finally board a flight to Pittsburgh. I arrived home late evening on Christmas Eve, but my chest was in such an upheaval, plus the jet lag that I don’t remember much except that I was home.
A few years later I returned to China and the changes were vast. New airport, new roads, excellent hotels, shops etc. On that first return trip we were to fly to Wuhan, a major industrial city. We stayed in Number 8 or 9 or 6 Guest House, I can’t remember which. It was a multi-storey communist style building, but the elevator did work. Heating was considered decadent. Hot water at all but the most convenient times between 0500h to 0600h every morning was not necessary. I remember sleeping in every article of clothing I had brought with my heavy overcoat on top of the bed. Bathrooms were en suite, but due to the ambient temperature were only very briefly of service. Meetings were held in a similar but distant building, equally unheated. In later years we found a very satisfactory hotel on the other side of the Yangtze River. Despite the hour’s commute from the meeting building across the bridge to the hotel, it became our new home away from home.
My last visit to China was several years after I had left Cegelec and joined SMS. I took some colleagues to meet our good friend Liu Ji, who had moved from Wuhan to take over as the head of Anshan Iron and Steel. We flew into Beijing and were hosted to a fabulous private luncheon by Professor Sun Yi Kang, Liu Ji’s mentor and technical advisor. The visit to Anshan was certainly memorable, as my last visit to China, since I was treated as a VIP by Liu Ji and his staff. It was extremely flattering and I was very grateful. So ended my ‘China Years’ from 1984 to about 2002.