When the Toyota “sudden acceleration” issue arose, I was the lone guy in my neighborhood saying that it was not a Toyota problem.  It was bone-headed drivers hitting the wrong pedal, just as the Audi issue back in 1980′s was eventually found to be driver error.

Folks, coming from the automotive industry let me state loudly and clearly, NO CAR IS SOLD WITH BRAKES THAT WON’T OVERPOWER THE ENGINE.

Take a 500+ HP Roush Mustang, pin the accelerator pedal to the floor and get that bad boy up to 100+ MPH and slam on the brakes.  What’s going to happen?  IT WILL STOP.

You can’t sell a car in this country if the brakes won’t overpower the engine.  Period.  Paragraph.  End of story.

All the STOOPIDITY that has gone on the last year has been just that.  Blinkered, politically driven, UAW inflamed stoopidity.

This has been a perfect example of the “China syndrome” where every problem is blamed on the Chinese vendors.  Often they deserve it, but more often than not the client is the one in the wrong.  Not specifying proper materials, critical dimensions, product finishes, etc., is somehow always the vendor’s problem.

Do Chinese suppliers make mistakes?  Sure.  But you should always ask whether it is driver error first.

Ladies and gents, this is a three-alarm fire bell.  You are not dealing with a reputable firm if they won’t stand an independent audit.  They are a trading company or a bad factory, plain and simple.

I came out of the automotive industry, which the best crucible for grown-up business I know.  I can remember auditors from Mack Trucks, Peterbilt, etc.,  showing up unannounced to inspect our facility.  We even had an ISO audit starting when OSHA showed up for a surprise inspection.  I stood two audits in one day on my facility and passed both with flying colors.  So don’t give me your *bleeping* sob story.

A Simple Factory Audit is the cheapest insurance policy you can buy.  If your supplier won’t allow it, run screaming in the other direction.  It is only going to get worse if you stick around.

It got me think about our services.  Despite the copious amounts of verbiage on our website, I spend a good chunk of each day explaining what we do and how we do it – which is one of the drivers behind developing the upcoming video tours, which we hope to post soon.

Some time ago, casting about for a good analogy for our company, my obscene fatness landed upon the concept of an a la carte menu.  You can use our services in the typical order – Sourcing Feasibility Study (sample report here), Vendor Coordination, Assembly-Inspection-Packaging (sample Product Quality Manual here), etc. – or you can start anywhere in the process you like.  Skip the salad and go straight to the main course.  Or eat dessert first.  We are nothing if not flexible, and our only goal is to help the client be successful in China.

And now I want ice cream.  Damn.

If you’ve noticed that blogging has been slow these past weeks, it’s been because a number of trips, client visits, etc., but the main reason has been an ongoing grind of computer trouble.  I have a high-end Windows machine from one of the big American brands.  It was bought a year ago because my prior machine, a super-crappy XP laptop from one of the other big American brands had finally given up.  The new machine purchase was ill-timed as I had to get a Vista machine.

Short version, it sucks.  Vista is, was and will be terrible.  But the machine itself was not much either.  Fit and finish were poor (screen was scratched and scuffed out of the box) and like all Windows machines, the thing was crammed with bloatware.  Despite its specs, it was slow from the start.

Three weeks ago, Windows download a bunch of updates and all hell broke loose.  The Blackberry also updated its software at the same time, which caused another slew of problems.  Worst of all, Outlook, which is the only Microsoft product I prefer to use, stopped working reliably.  I tried Thunderbird but found it a poor substitute (I love Firefox though).  After four (4) different IT folks took a look, after upgrading to Windows 7, after reinstalling Outlook twice, I gave up.  My Macbook Pro arrives today.  After 20+ years as a Windows user, I am switching (back) to Mac.

Note to Steve Ballmer – when your “productivity software” is this unreliable, it is no longer productive for me to use it.

It will be an adjustment, I am sure and there will be plenty of cussing no doubt.  But I had the opportunity to play around with one the IT professional’s Macbook and his iPhone 4G, and both blew me away.  I have bitched before about how little I like my Blackberry Storm 2, how unimpressed I am with my current carrier and now I am plotting my move (back) to AT&T so I can get a phone that was designed from the ground up to interface with my computer.  When the only office you have is two devices you can hold in your hands, you just can’t afford this kind of garbage.

Why do I include this in a blog about doing business in China?  Because both my current laptop and the new Macbook were made by the same company – Foxconn – and yet the fit and finish are night and day.

I have the feeling the company who’s name is on the current Windows laptop just goes to Foxconn and asks what’s new that they can slap their name on and market.  I know that Apple does not do that.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again now – you get the quality in China you are willing to pay for.

Hi Whit!

I am no longer receiving the PM blog.?? I only have my iPhone as I have been in *********. Hope to reconnect soon.

My, I feel like a heel for not blogging more often.  Blogging should really be a team effort, and so I am happy to announce that our new intern, David Bruns has started a Sourcing Blog to document his experiences learning the China sourcing game in the trenches.

I’ve had many readers of this blog tell me to get back to food and travel blogging (yes, I still owe you the photos from the April trip) and to post some more recipes.  So since it is summer and I REALLY don’t feel like working, I am going to give you one of my favorites, “Singapore Chicken Rice”, more properly Hainan Chicken Rice, hǎi nán jī fàn, 海南鸡饭.

My most recent iteration of Singapore Chicken Rice

Now before I get into the specifics of the recipe, understand that I have developed a system that reuses the stock from each iteration for the next dinner.  The roughly 2 gallons of chicken stock I use is by now a treasured resource, having had dozens of chickens cooked in it.  To call it rich is an understatement.  If there’s a house fire, get the family out, grab the photo albums and the chicken stock from the freezer.  You will not be able to buy stock that flavorful in a store, so your first attempt at this recipe won’t taste like mine.  By the 10th or 12th time, you will start to understand why my children clamor for my chicken rice over pizza or hamburgers.

If you want to start with something close, here’s how I make a pot of stock:

• at least 4-5 chicken, turkey, duck, goose, etc. carcasses, broken or cut apart
• smoked ham hocks (these are usually available in the meat department of a grocery store, usually packed out at about a pound), and any other pork bones you may have (ribs are great)
• 6-8 cloves of garlic, crushed
• two white onions quartered
• handful of pepper corns
• 2-3 large carrots washed or peeled and sliced in half lengthwise and chopped coarsely
• 3-4 large celery stalks washed and broken or chopped coarsely
• 1 leek, white part only
• 12 sprigs fresh thyme
• 12 sprigs fresh parsley with stems
• 1 bay leaf
• olive oil
• 2-3 large boxes of chicken stock from the store (yes, really)

I crush the garlic with the flat of my knife and cook in just enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a big stock pot.  When the garlic is fragrant and before it burns, pour in the first of the chicken stock.  I was always taught to make stock with stock, so if this is your first pot of chicken stock, you’ll need to buy some.  Note there is a BIG difference between chicken broth and chicken stock.  The broth is flavored water, the stock has collagen extracted from the bones and herbs / spices and is the better choice.  If your store carries no stock, use the broth, as it is better than water.

Start adding the bones, breaking or cutting the bones into smaller pieces.  Add the peppercorns, onions, carrots and celery and remaining stock and top off with enough water to cover the bones.  Bring to a boil and skim off the foam and scum that will develop.  Reduce heat and boil for about an hour, regularly skimming the scum / foam.

Reduce heat to a simmer and add the bouquet garni of leek, thyme, parsley and bay leaf, tied together with butcher’s twine, or you can throw in loose.  Top off with water or more stock as needed to keep the bones submerged.  Cover and simmer for at least 4 hours, and you can really go as long as you like.  By 8 hours, the bones should break easily in your tongs, as all the collagen has been extracted.

Filter through a wire mesh strainer lined with several layers of cheese cloth and freeze for later.  Now that you have about a gallon or two of frozen stock, you are ready to actually make the Singapore Chicken Rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, 3-4 lbs
• 10-12 cloves garlic
• 6-8 green onions
• large piece of ginger, 3-4 inches long
• 1 small jar minced ginger
• kosher salt
• sesame oil
• dark soy sauce paste
• chili sauce
• short grain rice – I prefer Tamaki Hiaga or Tamaki Gold
• 1 bag of ice (10 lbs)
• 6 pack of Tiger beer (or Tsingtao or Harbin or Anchor or whatever – just get some beer)

Equipment:

• two large stock pots – I like Cuisinart – with lids
• one smaller pot lid that will fit inside the stock pot
• small frying pan with cover
• Zojirushi fuzzy logic rice cooker – this is an indispensable piece of equipment.  If you don’t have one, get one.  If you won’t get one, follow these instructions.  And then go buy the rice cooker.
• Fine mesh strainer
• Regency Soup Socks
• tongs
• cooler
• bottle opener

The first step is to put half the bag of ice in the cooler.  Put the beer on ice.  Make sure to save half the bag of ice (about 5 lbs) and keep in it the cooler or in your freezer.

The stock should be frozen, so set it out to thaw.  The chicken fat should have separated into a layer on top.  Scape this off into a bowl and set aside.

Rinse the chicken in lukewarm water in the sink and remove the organs and neck from the cavity.  I also cut the tail off at this point as well.  These pieces can be discarded or kept in the freezer for the next time you make chicken stock.  I always have a trash bag in the freezer to save up fowl and pig bones and scraps.

In one of the two stock pots, brine the chicken.  That is, submerge the chicken in warm water with plenty of salt.  I use a handful of kosher salt to start and add more until it stops going into solution.  Let the chicken brine for 30 minutes.

Put the frozen block of chicken stock in the other stock pot and start melting it over medium heat.

Now for the rest of the mis en place,

• take 5-6 cloves of garlic and crush roughly
• take the other 5-6 cloves and chop fine
• rinse the green onions and trim both ends, but otherwise leave whole
• peel the ginger and slice lengthwise into thin (1/8″ – 1/4″) strips

Rinse the rice – I usually make 4-6 servings using the Zojirushi measuring cup – in the fine mesh strainer until the water runs clear.  Put the drained rice in the rice cooker.

The broth should be completely unfrozen by now and the chicken fat should have melted as well.  In a small frying pan, heat the chicken fat over medium heat, and when hot, add the finely chopped garlic and at least one tablespoon of the minced ginger (I eyeball it).  Make sure to cover the frying pan so it doesn’t splatter everywhere.  Cook for a few minutes, shaking the pan constantly until the garlic and ginger are fragrant.  Pour the contents of the pan on top of the rice in the cooker.  Carefully ladle the chicken stock from the stock pot in to the rice cooker to the fill line.  Start the rice cooker.

Remove the chicken from the brine and discard the brine.  Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and fill the cavity with the crushed garlic, green onions (fold them up so they fit) and the sliced ginger.  Put the chicken in the Regency Soup Sock (what a great invention) and add it to hot chicken stock, breast down.  I use another smaller pot top to keep the chicken submerged.  Cover and bring to a boil.  When you reach a boil, reduce heat to maintain a low boil.  Boil for 10 minutes per pound.

Wash out the stock pot used for the brine and fill about half way with cold water.  If you have room in your freezer, put it in there to get really cold.

A couple minutes before the chicken is done cooking, add the remaining ice to the cold water in the stock pot.  Carefully lift the cooked chicken from the hot liquid and plunge it into the ice bath.  You need enough ice water that the chicken will be completely submerged with overflowing the stock pot.  The ice bath stops the cooking and congeals the fat under the skin, which is critical to proper Singapore Chicken Rice.

Let the chicken rest in the ice water until cool to the touch inside and out.  Lift from the ice bath and drain well.  Remove the Soup Sock, discard the herbs from the cavity and pat dry.  On a cutting board, rub the chicken well with sesame oil.  Then carve the meat, taking care to keep the skin intact.  I do not follow the Chinese tradition of cutting through the bones, as I like my teeth the way they are, so I joint the legs and wings, discarding the wing tips, and carve the breasts off whole and cut into manageable pieces across the grain of the breast.

Let the chicken stock cool and strain and refreeze for the next time.  I prefer using one BIG plastic container rather than a bunch of smaller ones – I recommend Rubbermaid.

I usually serve with Pai Huang Gua and my stir fried greens.

Give each diner a small dishes for dipping sauce.  I make mine of roughly equal shares of sesame oil, dark soy sauce paste and chili sauce.  You can also add black vinegar if you like.  Serve with a bowl of rice (make sure to fluff the rice well when cooking is done) or make a bed of the rice and lay the chicken across it for each diner.

Each bite of chicken should be dipped in the sauce.  If you didn’t overcook it, the chicken should be just done, even a bit pink – this is how it should be.  Done right, this is the most tender chicken you will ever eat.

Finally, open an ice cold Tiger beer and enjoy!

Dr. Robinson says that every business needs three key people – a Finder (sales), a Minder (accounting) and a Grinder (operations).

Although it doesn’t really rhyme, I’ve added one more to this list.  You need a Dreamer.  I am convinced now more than ever that if you lose that crazy, dynamic imagination that you find in start ups, you are through.  It may take a long time to die, but you become a zombie company.

Case in point is Microsoft and Apple.  What has Microsoft been since Bill Gates left?  What has Apple become since Steve Jobs returned?  The questions answer themselves.

PassageMaker works with start-ups every day. When I am evaluating the client, I am far more interested finding if they have a Dreamer than the other roles.  You can hire the others, but I don’t think you can hire a Dreamer.

As we approach the 234th birthday of this great country, I am still hopeful despite the current dismal situation.  The Founders were Dreamers of the first order, and as long as we hold on to that inheritance, we’ll be fine.

The last two weeks have been full to the brim with visitors from central China, Hong Kong and Germany (yes really, here in Salem, VA), sales calls, and computer crashes (my God, does Microsoft suck – Apple, I’m comin’ baby).

I have some great food and travel blogging drafted, but it is 3:15 AM, and I’ve been going since 7:00 AM yesterday, so you get some random dreck, DJ-style, like the great Instapundit (and yes that’s me hoping for some linky love).  I’ve been saving these up for a while, but they are still current and topical.

• Reuters – Google phases out Microsoft Windows use: report – GOOD; Vista is a war crime and the entire Office 2007 suite should have resulted in public hangings in Redmond.  How do you screw up Excel with stoopid menus?  I swear they could mess up a calculator.
• Financial Times – Rival tablets ready to bite into iPad lead – and they’re not even talking about the knock-offs you can buy on the streets of Shenzhen.
• The Anchoress – Witnessing the heart as it cracks – UPDATED – this is now quite dated by all the other bad things that happened in the Gulf of Mexico.  I only post it here to make the point whether you like Obama or not, having a President in the White House who the entire world (especially our Chinese creditors) see as an incompetent fool is not a good thing.
• New York Times – Virus Ravages Cassava Plants in Africa – This is quite sad, as Africa has enough problems.  I will be interested to see if the new colonial masters, the Chinese, come to the rescue with either aid or a scientific solution.  Somehow I doubt either scenario, but I sure hope I am wrong.
• AutoblogGreen – Study: Mass adoption of EVs in China will lead to tremendously higher emissions – It took me several minutes to stop laughing after I read this.  That Law of Unintended Consequences really is a bitch.  I love it when the local tree-huggers tell me about all the green technologies in use in China.  I wish I had a clear photo of the street lamps on a showpiece stretch of highway from Liantang to Buji.  The bulbs are fluorescent and the lamps have solar collectors and windmills!  They should be totally awesomely green, right?!  Except there is no consistent wind, the smog blocks out the sun and the bulbs are all broken.  Other than that, they are on the right track.
• The Telegraph (UK) – Chinese hiding three million babies a year – I know far more young people in China with siblings than the One Child Policy would suggest.  Anyway, as Mike is famous for saying, “there are 1.3 billion people in China – people be ****ing.”  Speaking of which…
• The Sun (UK) – Saying Sorry to China with Sex – Well, I for one applaud the young lady for trying to heal such old and deep wounds.  I mean, what have YOU done today to atone for the atrocities in Nanjing?  On a similar note…
• Good**** – China’s looming woman shortage: 5 possible consequences – this blog post is safe, but please note the site itself is NOT SAFE FOR WORK as the blog title suggests.  Despite the location of this post, the point is very valid – such an imbalance (India is said to have a similar problem) is a  huge flash-point as Beijing tries to control China’s rapid ascent.
• Walter Russell Mead – Marx Awakes as China Rises – an erudite end to this post.  If you don’t read Mr. Mead regularly, you should.

Actually, I have to end with some key words to boost our SEO, since that’s the original reason for this blog in the first place.  So here goes:

Contract Manufacturing, Contract Packaging, Contract Assembly – rah, rah, rah, sis boom bah!  Please feel free to contact me about our contract capabilities!

4:00 AM – good night, Irene.

My Mother passed away 25 years ago this October.  It was not so sudden, but a month after she complained of a unusually bad headache she was gone at age 44.

Her Father lived an active life until 95 and got to know his great-granddaughter.  My nephew is battling cancer today at age 6.  You don’t know how long you’ve got.

I made a pledge a long time ago to live a life less ordinary.  To plan like you are going to live forever and live like you are going to die tomorrow.  So far so good and today reinforces that pledge.

The funeral also brought home to me also why as much as I love China, I don’t live there.  You don’t appreciate the relationships of home until you see it manifest at such an event.

We’ll miss you, Lin.

Had a discussion the other day with two super knowledgeable China people. Both of these people are businesspeople. Both are fluent in Chinese. Both have been living in China for at least a decade. One is a marketing person. The conversation started with my bemoaning how my favorite restaurant in Qingdao so rapidly deteriorated, in every respect. These two people said that virtually always happens and then they proceeded to give me the chronology of what happens to so many good restaurants in China:

1. Restaurant opens with nice space, really good chef, plenty of staff, and no skimping on ingredients.

2.  Restaurant gets really popular and then chef asks for more money and when that is refused, he or she leaves. New, cheaper chef comes in and food quality starts to decline.

3.  Decline in quality from #2 above leads to a small decline in customers.

4.  Seeking to make up for the decline in customers, the restaurant owner starts skimping on the ingredients. Maybe they go from top quality fresh spices to cheaper dried spices.

5.  Decline in the quality of ingredients leads to a decline in the number of customers.

6.  Seeking to make up for the decline in customers, the restaurant owner lays off some staff and starts skimping on overall upkeep of the restaurant.

7.  Decline in customers accelerates and restaurant eventually shuts down.

8.  Owner blames new restaurant down the street for the problems.

We then started talking about how we had seen the same sort of thing with some Chinese products and Chinese suppliers of product to foreign buyers. We talked of how this sort of decline is nearly inevitable if you believe price is what drives your customers.

There is a whole lot of the above going on with Chinese companies and this sort of business is not going to endear one to Western buyers. But we three also talked about Chinese companies we knew that had very consciously broken the above mold and by having done so were thriving in both China and overseas.

Is the above what is holding back Chinese companies from better competing in the West? Is this changing? I say “yes,” to both though I think it will all take a long time.

Sadly, we see “vendor fade” too often.  Clients come to PassageMaker and China Quality Focus because after many good shipments, all of a sudden everything is garbage.  Shipments late, containers of defects, warranty claims out the wazoo.   The value a supplier provides – especially smaller suppliers – is often dependent on a plant manager, production engineer, quality manager, etc., that the Western buyer probably never even met.  That person leaves and the whole place goes off the rails.

Part of our job is to dig into the supplier and try and identify where these potential fault zones are, though there’s often little we can do other than catch the fade when it starts and take corrective action.  We can’t run the supplier’s company for him.

One of the reasons we perform Sourcing Feasibility Studies is to have a bench to go to if the first team fades.  For most customers, we recommend having parallel supply chains – at least two vendors making the components.  I often recommend that one of those suppliers be in the client’s home market.  Little counter-intuitive for a company based in China, but our ultimate goal is the customer’s success.

I highly recommend you take the time to read her post, “Chinese VAT rebates: micro and macro issues“.  I’ve subscribed and look forward to future posts.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!