"Well I started this Thoughtlet about the Waldrons in Beijing with the previous Thoughtlet (0615.html) and describing Saturday night and Sunday, and specifically mentioning our visit to The Forbidden City in Beijing. There are 163 digital photographs and 3 movies starting at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04348.JPG, which can be listed and clicked on by going to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip. Of course, a majority of those photos are captured by myself on the first full day the Waldrons were in Beijing, including the visit to the Forbidden City (starting at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04349.JPG and ending at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04399.JPG), walking over to the old parts of Beijing at the northwest corner of the Forbidden city, taking two rickshaws through these old parts of Beijing (starting at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04403.JPG thorugh http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04427.JPG). I've heard my whole life that a picture is worth a thousand words, and so this Thoughtlet about the Waldrons in Beijing is already over 6,000 words in length.
Most of the rest of the visit I was in meetings, and so I only got to learn about the the Waldrons in Beijing through discussions over dinner, or when Andrea and I were back at our hotel room, or when I downloaded the digital photos. Of course, one of my main points in this Thoughtlet is that each of you can live through the digital photo portion of the trip by simply clicking on a link on the Internet. Andrea took nice photos of one of her her four favorite subjects (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04428.JPG to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04440.JPG).
I captured some of our meeting after meeting with the lawyers and our agent and technical support group. Since I often refer to these folks, I will put some faces to names: Yan Jiafeng (first name Jiafeng and Mr. Yan Dunshi's oldest child) is on the left (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04441.JPG), Yan Jialin is on the right (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04442.JPG), and Mike Dunn is on the left (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04444.JPG). From a business perspective, this trip was a disaster. We were suppose to complete agreements on a couple of contracts, and there was nothing but positioning and political maneuvering, somewhat on both sides of the table, and especially by Yan Jiafeng. He is so convinced GDC is going to take advantage of him, he is making it impossible to work together. And Jialin is in the middle. GDC is paying his salary, and he has cultural mores driving doing what his brother and father tell him to do. I was ready to pull my hair out by the time we left Beijing. It is so sad when people make up their mind someone is out to take advantage of them, and then they make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by how they treat the other person and how the other person reacts to being treated this way. AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH! I keep telling myself this is an important part of life, and one of the lessons Heavenly Father wants us to learn how to handle.
There was one night we were able to be together. It was the night to see the acrobatics (the digital photos start at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04445.JPG and go to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04454.JPG). Following these photos there are a 14 digital photos missing (4455.JPG-4469.JPG), which implies I did not download some, or it was in the acrobatics theater and they were all out of focus or to dark to keep.
The biggest disappointment of the trip was the driver Jialin arranged for Andrea, Joshua, and Audrey. Mr. Dong spoke absolutely no English, and was totally uncooperative. Andrea wanted so much for this trip to be a good experience for Joshua and Audrey, and the driver just about ruined it for her. This all came to a head on the day we went to the Ji Dong Oilfield. Joshua wanted to get out of Beijing and have an opportunity to see parts of China not overcome by western influences. Mr. Dong lost us, and pulled over to the side of the road and was going to wait there for several hours for us to come back. Andra finally got his cell phone and got hold of me via Jialin's cell phone. I tried to work it out, and it just seemed to get worse and worse. Joshua did find a place he had Mr. Dong stop, and he walked down the lanes and took some photos, and felt the experience turned out OK because of the photos he was able to capture. Andrea's photos from this area start at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04470.JPG and go to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04472.JPG. To top this off, the people at Ji Dong Oilfield snubbed us, and we were not able to meet with any of the key decision makers. Mike was not a happy camper.
Then when we got back together at Beijing that night, Andrea was about as angry as I've ever seen her. Nobody gets between a Mom and her babies. Even in China. And even when her babies are all grown up and have their own family. Thankfully someone had given us a card when we were at the Forbidden City that advertised English tours. We arranged for one of these tour guides to take Andrea, Joshua, and Audrey to the Great Wall. This turned out to be a much better experience than Mr. Dong, as shown on the digital photos starting at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04473.JPG, the photo of Audrey and the camel (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04482.JPG), a spectacular view of the wall (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04483.JPG), and a photo of the tour guide (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04485.JPG).
Our last night together with the Waldrons in Beijing I took them to one of my favorite restaurants, The Dazaimen Restaurant of Family Bai, where Dave Johnson and I took Paul and his classmates (../0420.html). It is traditional Chinese, and the photos starting at http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04486.JPG) and going to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04505.JPG almost capture how much fun we had that evening. Too bad so many of them were out of focus.
Things had gone so bad in the negotiations, that I just took off some time Friday and took Andrea, Joshua, and Audrey to the Pearl Market. I think this is the first time I have taken digital photos at one of my favorite haunts in Beijing (http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04506.JPG to http://www.walden3d.com/photos/China/060406_China_Trip/DSC04508.JPG). From here Joshua and Audrey went to the airport, where they flew to Guilin to spend some time with one of Audrey's friends who was teaching English in China. All in all I think Joshua and Audrey had a good time. There was a nice note from Joshua a few weeks later (0618.html), although a copy of the notes he made in China was never sent to include in this Thoughtlet. When I want to make excuses, I tell myself that waiting for these notes was the reason I have got so far behind in the Thoughtlets. But actually, my real excuses are that I got caught up in planing for Red Cove (0617.html), working on water issues in Cedar Valley (0618.html), Rachel's graduation from SUU (0619.html), making a big push on getting a publisher to look at 'An Open Mind' (0620.html), taking Rachel to Europe (0623.html, 0624.html, and 0625.html), the Nelson Reunion (0628.html), buying a new Prius and moving from the Sun to a Linux workstation at the house (0630.html), Halle Nalise Wright's blessing (0631.html), rethinking inheritance (0634.html), taking Fred Hilterman to China and the Da Qing Oilfield (0635.html and 0636.html), and numerous other things which will be described in upcoming Thoughtlets. When we visited Joshua and Audrey later, I think it was after the Nelson Reunion (0628.html), Joshua blew me away showing me the photos he took in China and the book he is working on publishing to summarize the trip. So, yes, I think Joshua and Audrey had a good time in China.
I wish I could say the same for me. Besides all of the tough negotiations, it was sad to see my relationship with Jialin become so strained. After this trip, it is pretty safe to say Jialin has lost most of his credibility with GDC management. And on the last afternoon, as we were getting ready to go to the Airport, Andrea let Jialin know in no uncertain terms how she felt about the way his friend Mr. Dong had handled showing Joshua and Audrey around. Oh well!
Of course, during the time we were in Beijing, there were also things happening at home. Paul and Kate sold their condo. They needed papers signed, since I co-signed on the condo. Mike and I visited Kerr-McGee and had a good meeting. They own leases adjacent to the Ji Dong Oilfield. They had done a lot of work with a Chinese geophysical contractor named Sinogeo. They had very good things to say about them, and so I went to Sinogeo's offices unannounced and introduced myself. The Financial VP was very much a gentleman, and treated me very well. We had a good discussion, and he took me to lunch. That night I was up much of the night talking to the president of Sinogeo, who was in Pennsylvania, and his U.S. partners, Tom and Craig Kirkwood of Penn Oil Company. There was interest in cooperating expressed. Dave Johnson later came back to China for meetings with Tarim Oilfield, and felt snubbed when he met with Sinogeo. Then at the SEG I met Tom and we reopened discussions. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.
One of the funniest things to happen this trip was on Saturday, April 15th, tax day in the U.S., and the day Andrea and I flew back to Houston. Andrea had a bottle of rubbing alcohol in her carry-on suitcase. One of the security guards opened up the suitcase and tasted the liquid. I wish I had a digital photo of the face he pulled as the alcohol hit his tongue. It was truly a classic experience.
On the way home I wrote two possible stanzas for Prime Words. The first (a) came from page A18 of the April 10, 2006 Time magazine, and the second (b) came from a movie called 'Ten is Enough,' which we saw between San Francisco and Houston:
And thus ended our trip, as we returned home from spending time with the Waldrons in Beijing."
