However, when the IT team is motivated to re-post a sales brochure to freshen up the homepage, I guess that is a sign I best get moving on the blogging front.

I will try to re-establish my blogging discipline, with at least a few posts per week.

In the meantime, here is the article that got me off my duff (hat tip to Dan Beach, aka, “Canada Dan”):

China’s ‘miracle’ Shenzhen marks 30 years.  I first visited Shenzhen in 1994 and at the time never imagined it would become my second home.  How different it is today than the ugly, gray city 16 years ago.  China has a long way to go, but the distance it has traveled has been astonishing.

Other fun stuff:

• MSNBC – Clinton says world must respond to N. Korea
• Financial Times – US warns over Beijing’s ‘assertiveness’
• DER SPIEGEL  – Interview with Economist Nouriel Roubini: ‘We Will Have Even More Crises in the Future’ (hat tip Matt)
• Real Clear Politics – Depression 2010? (whether you agree with him or not, this future is not clear or bright – there is much excitement yet to come I fear)
• Reuters – Factbox: Sources of tension between China and the U.S.
• Reuters – China and U.S. look to close world’s biggest trade gap
• Reuters (again) – Clinton avoids China disputes, hands out teddy bears (avoid confrontation and carry a teddy bear – not exactly what the Teddy for whom the bear is named advised, but then he never had to deal with being in debt to your competitors)
• CNBC – US Plays Down European Crisis but China Worried (as they should be)
• USA TODAY – Private pay shrinks to historic lows as gov’t payouts rise (that’ll work)
• Reuters (yet again) – How Greek debt crisis could save America (God, I hope so)

Maybe get to some travel blogging tomorrow.  Or not.  You’ll have to check back to see.

And by this weekend, I mean most all of it, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning.  Friday and Saturday were hot and humid, but Sunday was the gauntlet.  Day started early, hot and humid and ended in a cold rain at 1:00 AM Monday morning.  I had some work to do and did not get to sleep until 2:30 AM, back up at 6:00 AM to help them finish before the deadline of 9:15 AM (which we made by 5 minutes).

Why am I telling you about this, a blog ostensibly about China Business and my impressions thereof?  Two reasons:

1. I am a slightly overweight and out of shape 39 years old.  I like to drink more beer than I should and my Room 101 is a gym.  I have never been a good athlete, I have a bad back, so bad I had to wear a brace 24/7 for several years as a teenager.  And though today I am sore all over, my legs and my back feel far better than I’d expected.  I credit my TrekDesk.  I’ve mentioned TrekDesk before (here and here) and I walk several miles a day at an aggressive 8 degrees of incline at 2.2 mph, which will get your heart pumping.  I had not realized how well it had conditioned my legs and forced me to improve my posture.  Walking while you work really does rock.  I mention this because as I have blogged before, the TrekDesk is one of the best examples of our complete system of services – engineering by our Endorsed Service Provider, Contract Engineering Services; then Sourcing Feasibility Study, next Vendor Coordination and now Assembly-Inspection-Packaging at our Assembly Center according to the customer approved Product Quality Manual.
2. The USA’s trade deficit with China is almost universally viewed as a bad thing.  But the low-cost goods China provides to the USA consumer is a reminder that any transaction has benefits for both sides.  As I moved my friends’ copious amount of stuff, I was struck by how much of the contents of their home (and indeed, any American home) are now Made in China.  When I was growing up, I do not remember having that many clothes.  That is not to say I went about in rags; quite the opposite, my Father was successful and I had a wonderful childhood.  I just don’t remember having anywhere near the sheer volume of clothing my friends’ children had.  Today I have five (5) pairs of shoes.  I actually make a game of trying to minimize the amount of stuff I drag around with me – Exhibit A being the extended trips to China with one (1) carry-on bag.  Looking around my own house, each of my children has at least twice as many pairs of shoes as I do.  All are Made in China.  The prices paid for those are astoundingly low, even to me who has an idea of what they cost ExW.  While I am rightly concerned about foreign competition as an American manufacturer, it would be dishonest and foolish to say that there was no benefit to the American consumer from our trade with China.

All for today, much catch-up to do having lost the weekend.  It continues to rain soup, new opportunities daily.  Will try to squeeze in more blogging tomorrow.

Since my return from China two weeks ago, I have been working like crazy trying to bag all the new business raining down on PassageMaker, SafePassage and China Quality Focus.  The world economy is not out of the woods but we are definitely seeing an explosion of new RFQs, led by Australia.  They are booming exporting the raw materials for China’s industry.  Let’s all raise our glasses to Australia!  More on that later…

I have been picking away at the travel log in my minimal spare time, but here are some interesting articles (some a bit old, but nonetheless).

• Nixon wasn’t so bad after all – USSR planned nuclear attack on China in 1969 – and Tricky Dick stopped World War III.  This is the kind of stuff you do as President that you can’t talk about, you have to hope historians get it right.
• From Instapundit, a link to great blog about Japan, Ampontan.  Today’s post is called Lame and Shameless, about ridiculous Western reporting on Japan.  I am reminded of Andrea Martins, our representative in Brazil, who was actually born and raised in Beijing, the first and only Caucasian I’ve met who truly speaks native-level Mandarin.  She told me once that if you visit China for a week, you can write a book.  Stay for a month, you can write an article.  Live there for 25 years, you have nothing to say.
• Every once in a while you need to remind yourself how utterly insignificant you really are – Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists are stumped as to why.
• Every once in a while you need to remind yourself how great your life really is – N.Korean women up for sale in China: activist.  Tragic and terrible.  I hope China steps up.
• Interesting article from Mother Jones.  Yes, really.  The Last Taboo.
• The New York Times finally realizes that many jobs aren’t ever coming back – The New Poor: In Job Market Shift, Some Workers Are Left Behind.
• Speaking of vomiting…U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit.  (hat tip to Dave Learn)
• Dear God, let’s hope so – N.J. gov. sets tone for US – I have heard Christie speak, and it is QUITE refreshing.  He sounds like a no-nonsense CEO sent in to save a company on the ropes.  Math doesn’t lie.  There is no money tree.  You  have to cut spending.  However, if you could just raise taxes on The Real Housewives of New Jersey and leave the rest of the state alone, I think you could sell that.  My God, what tacky people.  The rise of China should be seen as largely a good thing, and maybe the Chinese economy will grow larger than the USA’s, but that was never a foregone conclusion.  Our current political leadership across the board seems hellbent on making sure it happens ASAP though.  As someone who has business interests in both USA and PRC, I just wish the USA would quit shooting itself in the foot.  We businessmen would be just fine if we knew from one day to the next what was coming out of Washington.
• Globish – I love it.  What a great word.  And the author nails it; I have had similar experiences many, many times in the Chinese-speaking world.
• And finally, I can’t resist – Dog on the menu for Chinese astronauts.  Actually, dog is pretty tasty, though I’ve only had it prepared in Korean restaurants in China, so I haven’t tried the Chinese version.  Have to put that on the to-do list.

This got me thinking about what a bargain USC was.  I got an MBA ten years ago for around $1600 per semester.  Contrast that with the graphs in this WSJ article.  An 80% increase in one decade.  Really.  I am starting to think education might be the next bubble that pops.

As I wrote about in my previous post on the subject, with the US economy in the tank and government borrowing and spending with historic abandon, young graduates should at least consider looking outside of the USA for job opportunities.

If you are interested in an internship in China, feel free to contact us with your resume.

Many young souls seem to want to be bankers or lawyers, as though these are highly lucrative careers that guarantee a sweet life in the Hamptons.  Certainly they can, but most bankers and lawyers slog along without ever making the big bucks.  Moreover, they are careers without a real product that you can point to and say “I made this”.  I tried explaining there are no safe corporate career paths anymore, and believe me when the cost cutting starts, they start in middle management.

I remember reading an article written by a British MP maybe 20 years ago that has formed part of my philosophy ever since.  At the time he was writing about the challenge posed by Japan to the British manufacturing base, what was left of it anyway.  I am going from memory and as the article predated the internet, I have had no luck finding it.  But the quote went something like this,

British Leyland did not go out of business because of the Japanese.  It failed because it made dreadful cars.  Our economy today is almost entirely based on people in London trading bits of paper.

Real economies make things.

Did this make anyone substitute “Chrysler”, “Chinese” and “Lehman Brothers” in their heads?

The issue has been much debated of late about whether China’s economy is a bubble, perhaps the greatest bubble of all (see here, here, here, here, here and here).  Certainly the yuan is undervalued.  Certainly much of what you see in the Chinese cities is pastiche – empty buildings abound in any major city.  There is vast overcapacity in many industries, driven by cheap loans from government banks to drive development and keep unemployment manageable, similar to the government role in the Japanese and Korean economies during their early growth periods.

But my mind and my gut keep coming back to that quote from the Brit – “real economies make things“.  There is real manufacturing know-how in China and it grows stronger daily as they gain more experience.  The infrastructure and man-power are real.  These are not paper assets that vanish in the blink of the eye like the billions lost in the last two years in the USA.

Does the Chinese economy need to make adjustments.  Yes, indeed it does.  So does the USA.  And as with all things, we will all be forced to one way or the other.  But the knowledge gained in this Chinese industrial revolution will persist and remain a real asset even if the bubble does burst.  Japan is still the #2 economy despite 20 years of stagnation.  They have not fallen back to the misery of late 1940′s.  I am confident China will survive as well, even with their monumental challenges.  They have come so far in 30 years, I just don’t see them giving up, and when the world economy does recovery, they will still be the largest source of low-cost manufacturing capability on the planet.

And future bankers of America need to remember it is a whole lot easier to move a financial center than the infrastructure required for manufacturing.

PS – If you have never watched Top Gear, I highly recommend it.  The 30 minute episode on British Leyland is well worth your time, if only to remind yourself of how awful cars used to be.

A gloomy mood might seem to be justified at the moment. Unemployment is nearing 10%. We have just witnessed a bitter financial crisis, a series of debt-deepening bailouts and a bruising fight over health care. Conservatives fret that we’re running out of time to tackle the entitlement crisis. Liberals fret that we’re running out of time to tackle the climate crisis. Roughly 60% of poll respondents say that America is on the wrong track. Meanwhile, China has resumed its torrid economic growth and has become for the U.S. what Japan was in the 1980s—the seemingly unstoppable Asian force that will soon leave America’s economy behind.

How to respond? “Declinists have always projected America’s imminent demise,” the editors of Newsweek wrote earlier this month. “For a change, they’re onto something.” Joel Kotkin would disagree. In fact, he is in a cheerful mood, in part because he has been thinking less about the present than about the near future, when the news, he says, is likely to be much brighter, at least for America.

“In stark contrast to its rapidly aging rivals,” Mr. Kotkin writes in “The Next Hundred Million,” “America’s population is expected to expand dramatically in coming decades.” He points to a slowly rising birth rate and to the continuing in-migration of young workers from poorer countries. Most of America’s population growth between 2000 and 2050, he notes, “will be in its racial minorities, particularly Asians and Hispanics, as well as in a growing mixed-race population.” No other developed country, he says, “will enjoy such ethnic diversity.”

For Mr. Kotkin, population growth translates into economic vitality—the capacity to create wealth, raise the standard of living and meet the burdens of future commitments. Thus a country with a youthful demographic, in relative terms, enjoys a big advantage over its global counterparts. In the next four decades, Mr. Kotkin observes, “most of the developed countries in both Europe and Asia will become veritable old-age homes” because of stagnant population growth. And the economies of these countries, already devoted to a vast welfare-state apparatus, will face crushing pension obligations—but without the young workers to defray the cost.

Inevitably, Europe and Asia will decline, Mr. Kotkin predicts, and America will thrive. Indeed, the U.S. will emerge, he says, “as the most affluent, culturally rich, and successful nation in human history.” What about the billion-person behemoth across the Pacific? Not to worry. Mr. Kotkin thinks that, by midcentury, China’s one-child policy will cause it, too, to suffer from the burdens of an aging population.

If Mr. Kotkin is right about America’s “next hundred million” people being the key to its happy destiny, where are these people going to live? In the suburbs, he believes—and why not? For most Americans, Mr. Kotkin writes, the suburbs represent “the best, most practical choice for raising their families and enjoying the benefits of community.” He adds that, even with one hundred million more people, the U.S. “will still be only one sixth as crowded as Germany.” In short, there is lots of room to grow.

Mr. Kotkin’s vision of America’s next four decades—expanding, browning, adapting and thriving—is largely convincing. He’s no Pollyanna, however. He worries especially that upward mobility is more difficult than it once was and that class polarization is a real possibility, because a knowledge economy like America’s tends to widen class divisions. The result is “an expanding affluent class of the highly educated, a stubbornly impoverished population, and a shrinking middle class.”

Here is one area where Mr. Kotkin might have said more. The collapse of the family in America’s underclass persists—with more families than not headed by single mothers. Mr. Kotkin is delighted to report that the family in America is taking ever new shapes, adapting and “resurging” in different forms. This claim may well be true for the broad middle class. But in that stubbornly impoverished sector, the family isn’t resurging at all. America’s relatively high birthrate—a source of national strength generally, as Mr. Kotkin says—contains a large percentage of out-of-wedlock births. In some urban neighborhoods, the rate stands close to 70%. The most “successful nation in human history” still has some work to do.

Mr. Schulz is editor of American.com, the Journal of the American Enterprise Institute, and co-author of “From Poverty to Prosperity” (Encounter, 2009).

The demographic challenges of China are indeed real and as Mark Steyn pointed out in his much darker book, America Alone, demographics are destiny.  What concerns me (and I imagine the Chinese government) more immediately than the aging is the dearth of women.  The combination of the one child policy, modern medicine and Chines cultural preference for boys has led to tens of millions of men who will never find mates.  The women simply weren’t born.

Some of this is offset by female immigration from other Asian countries, mainly Vietnam and the Philippines, but that is only an option for someone wealthy enough to pay for a wife.

In short, I am not afraid of China.  It is a dynamic and fun place, much as Japan and Korea were during their booms.  But America can only fail if we defeat ourselves.  Sometimes I think some of us are trying…

What I found most interesting was the “child” part – when I was 15 I would have slugged anyone who called me a child.  During the summer of my 15th year, I was working in our metal stamping plant where the highest temperature reached 103 F (40 C).  I had my first factory job when I was 14 turning wheels on a lathe.  My Father never read child-labor laws, and thank God for that.  It was an invaluable experience that I am sad to say I won’t be able to give to my son.

I can remember in 1998 visiting a factory for a major automotive supplier in Taiwan.  There were 14 year old boys working on the lines making seat belt assemblies.  I asked about it and found that they were students at the local technical school.  They worked half a shift on the line and spent the rest of the day in class studying engineering.  Today, 12 years later, they would be around 26 with degrees in mechanical engineering and over a decade of hands-on experience.  I imagine some of them are running plants in China now.

I’ve written about The Wiffle Ball Life before, a term coined by P.J. O’Rourke to denote the rather pathetic American obsession with safety, self-esteem, and never doing anything the slightest bit risky – especially if it might also be fun.

I understand that Apple is worried about its image, and I acknowledge that those eleven 15 year olds may not have wanted to be there.  But there is a big difference between a 15 year old farm kid fibbing about his age to get a good factory job to help support his family and using 6 year old slave labor in an illegal fireworks factory in Sichuan.  It would be nice if the amazingly flexible English language had a concise way of stating the difference.  I think “under-aged labor” is more reflective of the reality of the situation.

Should you need to verify that your suppliers are not using “under-aged labor”, our friends at China Quality Focus can perform a Corporate Social Audit for €376 + travel expenses, a small price to pay to avoid the kind of (undeserved) bad publicity Apple is experiencing.  PassageMaker can also help our clients, under the auspices of a Vendor Coordination contract, draft supplier agreements to reflect the social norms of their home country or industry.

A better solution would be to have PassageMaker perform the Assembly-Inspection-Packaging functions in our 100% US-owned and -operated Assembly Center.  We will warrant that we meet the necessary social compliance metrics.

Give us a call before you write the press release or talk to the New York Times.

Not that China is necessarily our enemy, but they are certainly a competitor, and I don’t normally borrow money from my competitors.  Some interesting articles covering all sides of the USA declining(?) debate and other silliness.

• America On The Rise – I sure hope so, and the author’s demographic points are very valid
• 10 Mega-Themes That Spell The End Of Western Dominance – for a contrary view, if a bit overly pessimistic IMAO
• How America Can Rise Again – a very good overview of our dynamic creative culture and moribund political system – he had me until he started pointing to the Carter Administration as his example – please – but overall a very worthwhile article (hat tip to David Bradley)
• Foreigners cut Treasury stakes; rates could rise – if the US government was spending this borrowed money on upgrading our infrastructure, that would be one thing…
• Foreign demand falls for Treasuries – more detail
• Jitters over China’s waning taste for T-bills – more if you can stand it
• Uncle Sam vs the Dragon – this is a good strategic overview
• EXCLUSIVE: Help Wanted — ‘Arrogant Americans’ Need Not Apply – worth a laugh
• Flip-flop diplomacy with the Dalai Lama
• The Global Debt Bomb – interesting interactive report – I feel like I need an aspirin
• China to release pollution-fighting fish in lake – and this is just odd

Sorry nothing more for today, too much catch-up from Chinese New Year.

More articles and weird stuff:

• Toxic Linfen – regardless of Climategate, there is still room for commonsense pollution controls in developing nations
• Think You Know China? Eight Things Foreigners Get Wrong
• Interesting talk on Vested Outsourcing – not sure if I care for the new buzz word, but worth a listen
• Fox Premiers Its First Chinese Film

Day 31 – I awoke early and found that our apartment complex had been decorated with live flowers and orange trees for the Lunar New Year.

Flowers for the New Year

We had a productive morning at the Assembly Center, working on streamlining and improving our process documentation.  I have a manufacturing background and enjoy working on such kaizen initiatives.  Where I wear out is the day-to-day scheduling and personnel management.  I can do it, but it quickly becomes tedious, especially HR (which is admittedly less of a problem than in the USA).  For the next year we will have so many opportunities to make improvements, I don’t see myself getting bored anytime soon.  It also helps we have so many new assembly-inspection-packaging projects rolling in, each of which needs process engineering to get it started.  2009 was actually a strong growth year for PassageMaker, with 19 new assembly projects launched.  Selecting tools, writing work instructions, designing jigs and fixtures, laying out the line and setting the Drum-Buffer-Rope targets is the fun stuff.  I really have an awesome job.

The managers and I head to the cafeteria for lunch, which is notable for a couple reasons.  First, they order Coca-Cola.  Now in the USA I might go six months without drinking a soda.  I don’t particularly care for them and I have alternatives I prefer in the States, such as iced tea (unsweetened with lemon, if you please).  Not so in China, where I know that sodas are safe to drink, and no one has iced tea without a pound of sugar in it (and then usually only in rare SE Asian restaurants).  So I drink sodas pretty regularly in China, but I am the one who orders them, not the Chinese.  More important to this anecdote is why my co-workers ordered the Coke.

The cafeteria was out of tea.

Being out of tea in China is like being out of wine in France or out of whiskey in Lynchburg, TN (Pop. 361).  It doesn’t happen.  It’s a sign of the apocalypse or something.  I felt like walking outside to see if the sun was going nova.

They didn’t even have any 开水, kāi shuǐ, boiling hot water, which is also commonly drunk, the concept of sanitary cold (bottled) water being a recent innovation.  This was truly bizarre.  So we drank Coke from tea cups.

How can a Chinese restaurant IN CHINA run out of tea? We drink Coke instead.

Lunch was also memorable for four dishes, one I can’t wait to try in the USA.

Beef with sweet peppers - I don't eat the peppers, but the flavor they impart on the meat is subtle and exceptional.

Spicy pork & wood ears. This was great - keep in mind this is like getting excellent food at your high school cafeteria.

Tomato & Egg soup - actually very good.

Bitter gourd (also called bitter melon, 苦瓜, kǔ guā) omelet - this was absolutely exceptional - one of the best egg dishes I've ever eaten - the gourd tastes a bit like cucumber and matches beautifully with the egg - I can sometimes get 苦瓜 at our local Chinese market and I am going to try this at home. Awesome.

At around 4 PM, things start to wind down and everyone migrates about 10 minutes away to the banquet hall, because tonight is the joint PassageMaker, SafePassage and China Quality Focus annual Chinese New Year party!  These companies have grown rapidly over the last few years, and we had about 160 people in attendance.  I tried to capture the event, but my camera did a relatively poor job.  Apologies in advance.

we had an upstairs room at this banquet hall

downstairs a much larger company was also having their CNY party

their 'stage show' was far more formal than ours

our banquet had 160 people total

each table prepare with drinks and snacks

this is about 1/3rd of the refreshments for the evening

Christina Feng, our Office Manager, did an exceptional job organizing this party. She and Marc Yue, Production Manager of the General Assembly Center, acted as our emcees

Anita Tang-Bellamy, Mike Bellamy and Julien Roger of China Quality Focus. And hand signals.

Anita Tang-Bellamy, Jesse Chang and Aileen Wang - now it's a party! Don't ask me about the hand signals - all Asian women do this.

Candy Cheng & Teresa Chen - our very effective purchasing team. Teresa also serves as Mike's right hand for company-wide operations. Again with the hand signals.

Hebe Wang, Honey Wu & Teresa Chen - I worked with this team (and others) on streamlining the format of our Product Quality Manual. I've got to find out about the hand signals.

Jesse Chang, Accountant and Master Drinker; Pramod KC from Nepal, head of Project Management for those projects that have moved into regular production ("Vendor Coordination-Export & Logistics" in our parlance); and Adam Supernant, Project Manager from Michigan. And more hand signals. WTF.

Most of the management from our General Assembly Center (the precision Medical Assembly Center has a separate team). My lao pengyou, Sabrina Liao is on the far right. I caught them by surprise, so no time for hand signals.

L-R - Dave Learn, head of Project Management for those projects still in development ("Vendor Coordination-Product Development"; once they go to production, they transition to Pramod's team). Our distinguished guests - Mike Lopez of Campus Emporium, Tyson Daniel of LimbGear, Collin Peel of Camrett Logistics, and Brian Garvin, Director of New Project Development, my sales counterpart based in Shenzhen.

Brian's wife, Ada, who also does hand signals. A wonderful lady.

Buji staff enjoying an evening away from the Assembly Center - they typically work 6 days a week, well into the night to prepare for CNY. All of them would be back at work by 9 AM the next day, a Saturday. Whenever I hear Americans bitch about "all the Chinese holidays", I kind of want to tell them to shove it. This is one of the hardest working groups of people I've ever met. In the foreground is Josephine Ji, Manager of the Assembly Center and a very competent woman. Sadly, this is clearest photo of her I got all night.

Hunan cuisine - many of our employees are from Hunan, the province to the north

hand knotted noodles in duck soup - very elegant

Mike and Teresa give the annual state of the company address and announce the new profit sharing program to raucous applause. Most of our employees are farm kids from the provinces. The idea that they were going to be able to earn a piece of the action blew them away. The party really got rolling after that announcement.

Can I get a witness? Mike had the crowd going.

Mike presenting a 红包, hóng bāo, literally "red bag", a small red envelope containing money. Typically these are token sums, perhaps as little as $0.05, meant to foster luck and prosperity in the new year. Ours had real money and each one that was awarded had more than the last. The final hong bao had over US$100. Everyone also got a bonus hong bao for the New Year.

Julien Roger of China Quality Focus was a big hit with his French-accented Mandarin.

One of the top prizes was a LimbGear t-shirt and a very generous hong bao from our guests.

Jesse Chang toasting an honored guest, Tyson Daniel of LimbGear.

All the lao wai's were asked to speak, draw names, hand out hong bao's & drink...

...everyone drinks...

...and drinks...

...and drinks...

...and drinks some more.

all are rapt with attention as the grand prize is announced

Later things got a little crazy, with dancing, card playing, and for some bizarre reason, arm wrestling.  I was reminded of the Festivus Feats of Strength.

Jesse Chang referees the arm wrestling

All in all, it was a wonderful evening.  Our guests were impressed by the camaraderie and team spirit and by shear amount of fun everyone was having.  Having seen the USA go through the politically correct wringer in the last 15 years, during which all forms of corporate sanctioned fun were done away with and replaced by silly and useless “team building” exercises, aka “manufactured fun”, it is nice to be someplace where “corporate bonding” means cutting loose and eating and drinking and dancing and, you know, having fun.  I left the automotive industry because the lawyers and the accountants and the buyers had drained every ounce of enjoyment and excitement out of it until it became a soul-draining slog.  Life is to be lived and thank God the Chinese understand that.

I recently re-connected with an old friend from B-school living in Switzerland and he is much better networked with our class than I am.  He tells me nearly all of our classmates have taken dull domestic jobs.  What was the point of getting a degree in international business, he quite rightly asked?  I know I did it to get out and see the world, to live a life less ordinary.

Some reading this will think our company frivolous.  If you get that impression, I’m sorry you missed the point.  PassageMaker, China Quality Focus and SafePassage all provide professional, affordable and reliable services in a timely fashion.  Our Endorsed Service Providers do the same.  A big part of the reason we are able to do our job so well is we still have the joie de vivre that keeps us excited about our work of helping our clients succeed.  So have a drink and Happy Chinese New Year!