Editor's Note
Mr. Chen Yunshui has led an international company for more than 20 years. Although the company is headquartered in Beijing, he spends most of the year traveling abroad, covering five major states and setting up branches and offices in dozens of countries and regions. Like Mr. Chen, they are generally well educated by famous schools, have studied abroad, speak more than two languages, have open concepts, are avant-garde, are familiar with international rules, have cross-cultural communication skills, and often walk freely on the world stage. It can be said that they are integrated into an international system that transcends the concept of the state. Such people have become an ethnic group, known as "international people." "What kind of world is the world in their eyes?" The editor asked Mr. Chen to choose ten countries and regions (Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Turkey, Brazil, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan) from the 50 or 60 countries he visited to talk about his experiences and feelings. These experiences are by no means what dragonflies have seen and heard, the standard is that he himself has been many times, and has lived for a period of time, and there are some intersections in work and life with the local area, such a perspective should be completely different from ordinary overseas tourists, and there will be some novelty in talking.
The first stop in this series of interviews begins in Italy.
Jinglun Hotel, Beijing was completed and opened in September 1984
Yu: In what year did you return from Italy?
Chen: I came back in 1989, and I stayed in Italy for about half a year, because I couldn't find a way to stay legally, and I didn't want to be an illegal immigrant, so I came back. When I came back to plan to find a job in a foreign company in Beijing, I met Lao Ma at this time, and the stories behind him revolved around him.
Old Ma, born in 1949, a native of Northeast China, was just 40 years old when I met him. After Nixon's visit to China in 1972, China then joined the United Nations, in order to adapt to this new situation, the country needs a large number of professionals who understand foreign languages, so it immediately arranged for all foreign language colleges and universities at that time to start enrolling students and accelerate the cultivation of all kinds of foreign language talents that are urgently needed. In his early 20s, Lao Ma was admitted to the Beijing Foreign Chinese College to study Italian, and in 1979-81 he was sent to Calabria in Italy to study for a period of time, belonging to the authentic class in the Chinese Italian circle at that time. Italian is a small language, at that time there were few people in China to learn Italian, Lao Ma spoke Italian very well and went to Italy, and people were very shrewd and capable, like to make friends, so at that time in the Italian circles in Beijing quite well-known.
1990 Asian Games in Beijing
When I met Lao Ma, he was still an employee of China International Travel Service, but he didn't work much at the Bajing anymore. At that time, CITS was not like now, just an ordinary travel agency, it was actually equivalent to the country's outreach agency, undertaking a lot of external liaison outside of tourism, receiving visits, more like a semi-official diplomatic agency, the official atmosphere is very strong. Working in CITS all year round, it is bound to meet a large number of politicians and business figures from all walks of life in China and Italy, because all exchanges must rely on language communication, and a person who can skillfully speak two languages and is familiar with the cultures of both sides is extremely important, and resources are also very scarce. Lao Ma was not satisfied with the role of a translator and tour guide by nature, he keenly captured the business opportunities hidden in those Italian businessmen who were eager to do business with China, with his language, good communication, and familiar with the culture of the two countries, the advantages of customs and customs, organizing and coordinating various relationship resources, and soon made his "side business" flourish, and it became the "main business" in a flash. At this time, he was in need of manpower to help him take care of and take care of more and more business opportunities from Italy, and when he saw that I, a hairy boy who had just returned from Italy, had a good character and was anxious to find a job, he pulled me to toss with him. Moreover, after all, he had not resigned from public office at that time, and many things were inconvenient to show up, and he needed a competent person to help him deal with many things. For me, I can't find a job in a formal foreign company, and this opportunity feels quite suitable for me, I can contact many different people and things, open my eyes, and see the world. Then again, where in China and Beijing at that time, there was such a wealth of employment information and opportunities today?
Lao Ma had a group of Italian merchants in his hands at that time, involving a variety of different businesses, but many domestic resources could be shared. Lao Ma played the role of Chinese liaison/agent for these Italian merchants, which was very much needed for Italian merchants at that time. With the money we received from these Italian merchants, we rented a long private room at the Jinglun Hotel, bought a boss desk, a set of sofas, and the liaison office was opened. Lao Ma is a person in the tourism industry, and these hotel managers are very familiar, the room is naturally the best price, it seems to be twenty or thirty dollars a day, in the Jinglun Hotel at that time the room rate is very cheap, Jinglun Hotel is the earliest four-star joint venture hotel opened in Beijing, next to the International Trade, is the most prosperous area in Beijing.
Radaniwa of the former Soviet Union (born in 1965)
The office solved, but the traffic was still a problem, and there were almost no private cars in that era, and the high-end transportation was either temporary taxi (taxi) or long-term charter (taxi long-term charter). At that time, most of the taxis were imported from Japan, Crown and Nissan, and the price per kilometer was 0.80-1.20 yuan; if you charter it on a monthly basis, each car plus driver plus gasoline is about 7-8 thousand yuan. We couldn't afford to charter a car for a long time, and it was inconvenient to call a car temporarily, so we rented a private car from a friend, which I remember was about 2,000 yuan a month, excluding gasoline. This car is a former Soviet Union product called Lada-Niwa, called Lada Jeep in China, is a four-wheel drive car. This car is actually a new car, which was about 20,000 yuan a year, but the quality is really not good, either this is bad, or it is bad there, and finally I have become a repairman. But if you think about it, 30 years ago, 90 or 91 years ago, it was very windy to drive such a car in Beijing. So, I was both a foreign comprador of the office and a driver driving a small Rada jeep, and I did everything alone. Old horses or customers want to use cars, so I drag them around.
Yu: Living in the Jinglun Hotel and driving a Lada Jeep, it is really quite cattle.
Chen: The old horse made me acquainted with a lot of Italian businessmen, and looking back now, it was a very interesting experience.
The first Italian businessman I came into contact with was an agent for the seats of an airliner. The man's name was Luciano, his home was near Rome, and the seat of the airliner he represented was a French company called Sigma. At that time, there were three main companies producing seats for air passenger aircraft in the world, two of which were from the United States and one was Sigma in France. Luciano came to China through the old horse relationship to sell aviation seats. At that time, China Civil Aviation has begun to purchase a large number of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and the procurement of aircraft is like our people buying a house, Boeing or Airbus, selling you is a flying, but not decorated aircraft, the cabin is empty, just like the rough house, first you have to decorate, and then you have to add furniture. That is to say, what seats are used in the cabin, what fabrics are used, what carpets and panels are laid, what kind of lights, entertainment systems, toilets, etc. are used, all need to be purchased separately by the airline according to its own needs.
Tiananmen Square in 1990
At that time, China's airlines were still relatively poor, certainly could not afford luxury decoration, all in accordance with the most economical standards to do, and Chinese customers have not yet seen the world, the price of the international market is not understood, it is difficult to get the most competitive price. In 1991, the Civil Aviation Administration and the airlines were just separated, before they were called the Civil Aviation Administration, there was no airline, in order to connect with the international standards, the government and enterprises were separated, and several major airlines were established successively, Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, North and Southwest Airlines. Among them, the international routes are mainly Air China flying, while China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines do not have any international routes. I remember that the three seats in a row in economy class were probably thousands of dollars, while a seat in business class or first class was tens of thousands of dollars, which was very expensive (of course, the most economical and simple seat). If an airplane has more than 200 seats, this one seat is a million-dollar business, and the profit in it is very high, I guess. Luciano is a very shrewd businessman, who can do business, who can do things, and is very ghostly in our Chinese language. He sells aviation seats while selling the fire-retardant fabrics used on the aircraft, which is actually to provide customers with decoration solutions. Italians are very good at engaging in these things that contain design elements, which were very lacking in China at that time, any industrial products did not have a sense of design, and the gap between them and imported products was huge. These businesses taught me that everything on board is very expensive, including those food trucks, displays, kitchen supplies, etc. For example, the food truck, just such an aluminum alloy made of things, has no technical content, but it has to sell for a sky-high price.
There is also an episode, when the Xiangfan 601 Institute of the Ministry of Aviation, which is China's state-owned institution specializing in the research and development of military aircraft seats, was thinking about the localization of civil aircraft seats, and discussed technology transfer or joint venture production through Luciano and Sigma, I participated in several negotiations between them, and finally there was no result. Looking back now, it was not easy for Chinese to do something in those days.
Chang'an Road, Beijing in 1990
I saw Luciano around 2006, when he had switched to car design. Because after China's civil aviation becomes bigger, the procurement channels are different, and the middlemen slowly have no space. He later married a wife and inherited a well-known Italian car design company from her deceased ex-husband. Italy's automobile industry is very developed, not only car manufacturing, in fact, more powerful is car design. After 2000, with the rapid development of China's local automotive industry, Chinese can build cars, but the level of design cars is far from the international level. At that time, many car companies, including the Great Wall and Chery, began to entrust foreign car design companies to design cars, especially the appearance design. Automotive design is a big business, and his automotive design company has been designing and designing several very successful models for several Chinese car companies for several years. Luciano is a man who can always catch business opportunities, always stand in the wind according to the current saying, I think he is a very smart businessman, and he is also a very successful Italian businessman I know.
There was also a lot of Business Italian businessman named Portogallo, which is his surname, meaning Portuguese, but I gave people a nickname called "Raisins", but this nickname does not have any pejorative meaning, it is really his Italian name Chinese is too tongue-twisting to call, and Raisins are very catchy and easy to remember. Raisin was in his early 40s, and belonged to the kind of honest and honest person who didn't have any flowers and intestines, and I had a lot of respect for him, but he didn't have Luciano's high emotional intelligence and wasn't very good at things. At that time, he also represented several Italian products, one of which was a company that made ground-to-air communication products (airport air traffic control). The company, called OTE, was part of the Italian Selenia Group, a well-known Italian military enterprise, known for its radar. Because radar involves military use, it is a relatively sensitive technology and product, and the "Batumi" of that year was forbidden to export to China. In fact, I know that they also have ties to the military, but the relevant procurement is in the name of civilian radar. I am more involved in the OTE company's airport ground-to-air tower communication command of this part of the product sales, mainly with the civil aviation authority air traffic control department. At that time, the main technical cadres of civil aviation, including the director and deputy director, were all young people in their twenties and thirties, and I was considered to be the same age, and it was easy to communicate, because the old people were either retired, or the aviation communication technology they learned was too old, and they could only let these young people who had just graduated for a few years to do it. I remember a person in charge of the air traffic control department of the North China Bureau at that time, about the same age as me, we did many technical exchanges, and the relationship was very good. This brother later became bigger, the purchase amount was more and more, and the accident went in.
Lama Temple, North Second Ring Road, 1991
Interestingly, Raisin later married a Chinese wife, which is a transnational marriage that happened around me and witnessed the whole process. This kind of transnational marriage was not uncommon in Beijing at that time, but it was more seen in literary works and film and television dramas. This lady is a Korean lady who looks like a Japanese doll. At that time, Girls in China, especially in Beijing, did not wear much makeup, but she basically had "heavy makeup" every day, very formal, meticulous dressing, and felt more different at the time. Perhaps this image is in line with the image of the typical oriental beauty in the minds of Europeans, so that the raisins finally embraced the beauty, and the two people were very happy after marriage, had two children, and I met them on the street many years later. Chinese women marrying foreigners was a relatively fashionable phenomenon that had just emerged in big cities such as Beijing.
Raisins had more contact with the civil aviation system, and later did engine maintenance business. Aviation equipment, equipment in the country is blank, at that time all rely on imports, how much you want to purchase, how many opportunities. Although the purchase of the plane is definitely done by those powerful people, but you buy some relatively small business around the plane, that is, the eight immortals across the sea have shown their magic, including various maintenance and maintenance of equipment and so on. For these people, raisins, every business is not small.
(To be continued)
- TBC -
Text / Chen Yunshui
All rights reserved
Figure / from the network
Edited / Yu Mingfei