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After a decent sleep (only waking up a few times on Tuesday night), I started my first day of work at Agricorp. When I woke up, I decided that I should probably shave since it had been two days, only to realize that I couldn’t find a mirror in the apartment. Not in my room, the hallway - not even the bathroom. I suppose that Chinese assume that they always look good and as such, there is no need for them. This may be part of the dental hygiene problem solved right here. My suggestion to their health department - increase the proportion of mirrors in households and the people will realize that, for the most part, their teeth are disgusting. So no shaving will be had today (and I resolved to buy a mirror at the Wal-Mart that afternoon - which, by the way, I forgot to do). We headed out for the bus - a five minute walk - and got there just in time to catch it. I had forgotten that there is a job for everyone in China and the bus supports this fact. Not only is there a driver, but there are two people sitting by the two doors to get one and off the bus that take your money (or at least watch you swipe your card). I would guess that this job represents the ultimate power trip. They can tell you whether or not you can get to where you’re going if they really felt like it. You have to tell them where you are going and it costs either one, two or three RMB - however, I doubt that they remember who they sold what ticket to so you’re better off just to pay one RMB and take the three RMB ride. Take that Beijing transportation!
We got to work and I grabbed a deep fried egg food surprise for breakfast and we headed up to the office. For most of the morning, I consumed an unimaginable amount of coffee and read about the Chinese dairy industry (which, in fact, provided me with little relevant knowledge to help me with my responsibilities this summer - but it kept me busy…my key to working success that I learned from working at the government! As long as you look busy, they won’t make you do anything more!). I met Levi the sales manager who said that I could come out with him to tour farms the next day if I wanted. Sure - no problem I thought. Wrong. Very wrong. In fact - not even remotely close to simplicity.
“Levi, when do you think we’ll leave tomorrow?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe in the morning. Possibly in the afternoon” he responds (Levi speaks about as much English as I speak Chinese - but I think he understands quite a bit).
Not but off, I said “Ok, I’ll just bring my stuff with me and leave whenever you’re ready. How long are we going for do you think?”
“Maybe we go 10 days. Maybe 20. I don’t really know”.
Hhhhmmm. If there is hell on earth - I have certainly found it in Levi. That’s just the way things go around here I suppose.
I filled the rest of the early afternoon eating gross Chinese cafeteria food because I have not gotten a chance to buy any food yet to bring my own (which may turn out to be more work and more expensive anyway, but it beats the 3L of oil you have to down with your small bowl of food surprise). Tina and I then headed to the other side of town (near the University area where we stayed last year for a bit) where I proceeded to wait in a lobby for her for an hour while people streaming in and out looked at me and made, likely, funny comments about my existence in their lobby. I also enjoyed the constant staring of the receptionist. Tina said she would be 1min. I think she meant 1hr, but the nuances of saying “just a minute” in English have clearly left her (or never met her in the first place - quite difficult to say really). Nonetheless, she eventually came out and we were off to the subway. We took the new line 13/line 2 interchange which was under construction last year so it was nice to see that, with the assistance of guard rails, it is relatively more organized to move from one line to the next (rather than a sea wave of people moving towards you in the opposite direction). Just to note as well, there are lines 1, 2 and 13, but no lines 3-12. Bizarre. We then headed to the Chinese Wal-Mart so I could get some stuff that I didn’t feel like lugging across the big pond such as a towel. I also bought oreos - something I never buy at home, but after coming back skeletal last year I figured I had to get my fat from somewhere because it wasn’t coming from the rice! Tina’s roommate bought us some Shanxi province food which was pretty good, but really spicy (and cold). I’d have it again though I think. I ended up falling asleep around 8:30 though and didn’t wake up until 6 on Thursday.
Levi & I ended up leaving the office around 10:30am for the farm. They told me that it was fairy close to Beijing - but I think I should have quantified this considering they have clients on the other side of the country. We ended up driving for 6hrs. 6hrs of awkward silence with a nasty KFC lunch (a Chinese favourite). We finally got to the farm (after passing several towns with dead animals in the road - like calves and dogs - supper?). It is a massive dairy currently with 10,000 milking cows with current construction for 50,000 milking cows to be operational this September (which means January in China). When complete, they will have a 90 cow carousal parlour, milking 4x/day. They currently use a double 30 milking 3x/day. They will continue to use the old parlour and barns until the third farm site is operational within 10 years which will house a capacity of 100,000 milking cows. Wow! Before we left the office, Levi told Robert that he would be there to help “interpret” as Tina was unable to come with us at the time. When we got closer to the farm, he told me that he was going to leave me on the farm for 3days while he went somewhere. I am not entirely sure where that place was, but I took note of the closest town and bus stop location in case I hade to get myself back to Beijing. After speaking to Robert, we finally convinced Tina to come out on Friday to give me a hand for the next week or so. I am not entirely sure if Levi is going anywhere either, because I am sitting near him as he smokes, hoarks up some nasty flehm and watches terrible Chinese TV at an unholy level of volume. I may be deaf within the next 15minutes. I am also terribly prepared for the weather here in the country. It was 30C when I left Beijing. It is 12C today here in the middle of nowhere (should have taken a hint when Levi threw a winter coat in the back of his truck - but I just figured he had poor circulation and got cold easily). Good thing I packed lots of shorts & t-shirts. Ha…ha…..ha……pneumonia…..hah…..
We had a big supper with the owner, and all the managers, and I’m quite sure they talked about me for the entire time we were eating. The owner of the farm drives (no - is driven in) a Bentley. He gave me a ride. It was worth it after all! He drove me to the on-farm hotel where we were staying for the next few days. It was awesome. The feed manager is a young guy from Mongolia and he speaks English very well. He even knew a lot of farm words (i.e. silage, milking cow, replacement heifer, dry cow etc) - but he couldn’t act as my interpreter since he was busy for the next few days. I asked him though, if we could meet Friday night so he could teach me the Chinese farm words. He said no problem - so that should be helpful (he also drinks a lot - so he’s pretty funny).
The bulldog = Levi. Talk about brachycephalics. Holy shit. Snore much? I contemplated ways to smother him last night - but it was too cold to get out of bed.
Today, Tina is coming so I am just waiting for her to get here. I figure she should arrive around 1pm and then we’ll tour around the barns. They are having a problem with IBR currently and have had intermittent cases of foot and mouth. The cool thing about being in China is that I’ll have an opportunity to see a bunch of diseases which we never see in Canada (and unfortunately, not much is being done about them either). I was talking with the herd manager last night through the feed manager and was telling him that IBR is endemic and serious management changes must occur to control the situation. He looked at me as if I was from Mars because vaccination is rarely used (similar to the attitude in humans) so this should be interesting. Regardless, I will still make the recommendation in my report - whether or not they want to change it is their problem as it only affects their production as a bottom line. I have gathered though, that the Chinese solution to poor management leading to poor production is just add more cows to compensate. The average production/cow/day is 23kg. Not too bad - but they are using nearly 60% Canadian Holstein genetics, so they really are not maximizing their genetic potential.
So - I know wait for Tina. Maybe I’ll try and find the feed manager guy and follow him around for the morning (just a note, he has a university degree in animal nutrition from China Ag - a very good school here in China - and said that, although this is a very good farm for dairy production, the feed that the cows need is just simply not available. He also said that he is trying to convince them to move to using silage more - but the economics to the farm manager does not work out he says. I will try to find some literature for him regarding the economic benefits of balanced dairy diets in terms of milk production today. He is quite smart - and I am glad to see that people like him are working here because he knows what should be done, regardless of whether it will or not).
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anonymous
non-member comment
The Bentley
I am not jealous of your food selection but I am of your new-found ride. Pennie Jev can always mail you some Colgate Total should you find yourself without. We look forward to hearing from you in 10-20 days.