One Who Moved Out to Get Rich

“No, you are wrong; it is flowers, wrist-watches, and wine”, she replied. I did not know that I learned it from her.

As the Chinese proverb goes, "don't listen to what they say, go see", we continued watching the movie; it was called "The Devil Wears Prada", its theme fittingly connected us to yet a short discussion about money and wealth. “I prefer to stay rich and healthy instead being poor and sick”, summarized Hong her ingenious opinion.

By the time we finished watching the movie, it was late in the night. Before I retired to bed, I grabbed my laptop to browse through my emails. As if driven by intuition, what caught my eyes straight away, was an email from my bank about an investment company that had suffered severe losses in value. I remembered another email from an Australian administrator sometime back alerting me of a company that had filed for bankruptcy, and that he had been asked to start the process. On reading this one, I immediately contacted my two British financial advisers Alan and Michael from Shanghai; they advised that my company was not affected. Amidst many thoughts, Hong came to the door, trying to distract me with a conversation. I took that opportunity to ask for legal advice on this since she is a lawyer.

I explained to her how I had been alerted that my Australian finances had plummeted to the bottom. But my financial advisers assured me that the investment in question was protected against losses in value. I got information that if I did not generate money, I would at least get my capital investment back. I was still confident since Deutsche Bank managed the funds and because it is commissioned by one of Australia's oldest financial companies.

Hong advised me that if the company was to go bust in Australia, I could at least sue the financial advisers In Shanghai. She suggested that it was vital for me to get another adviser to manage my funds.

She explained that private individuals were not allowed to do business directly with financial institutions. "Organise all relevant documents so that I can advise you further," she said.

Hong had a somewhat similar experience. In Germany, she was surprised one day to find that her bank statement with Deutsche Bank, showed "no funds available". She knew she had not emptied her account to the last penny. Inquisitive as a detective, she vowed to find out how this could have happened. "No funds available, yet I know I had not withdrawn all the money!", she wondered. She privately carried out her investigations. Eventually she found out that the day money was withdrawn from her account; she was in Bonn writing entrance examinations to obtain university qualifications. She further discovered that when she was still sharing a flat with two Arabs and a Chinese woman, her bank details were secretly copied.

Evidence indicated that it was the Chinese woman their roommate who did it. She faked Hong's signature and presented it at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. Because many Asians have similarities in features, it was easy for the Chinese woman to forge Hong's signature. Hong was determined to finish it all. After a long, arduous task, efforts paid off. The bank finally refunded her stolen money.

Every night before I retire to bed, I check on the share price index, at least before the end the day. Today it is not all good news; prices have gone into minus. Amidst thoughts, the small voice in me is referring to what my financial advisers have always said, that it is normal for share prices to go into minus. I must be patient and wait for them to rise again.

I am about to go to the bedroom, but still feeling a bit troubled by the share price news. As if to revenge for my coming back home late, when we went to bed, Hong turned her back towards me, I had no choice but to coil my left palm around her breast. It perfectly fitted inside. I consoled myself by saying after all " A breast in the morning dispels all worries".

In a speech after church wedding in Germany, I mentioned that as far as I am concerned, I care less about whether Chinese women have small breasts. Her breasts fit in well into my palm, and I am comfortable with it, I don't need anything more, end of the story.

Whenever I hold my wife's breast in my palm, I contemplate about many different things between China in the East, and German in the West.

• In China, when I turn the garden lock around on the left, it closes, when I turn it on the right, it goes up.

• If I wanted to have a shower, I turn the blue tap on, for hot water, and a red tap, for cold water.

• On Christmas day, churches in China are mostly decorated yellow and red, while in Germany, they are decorated white. In a Chinese church, there is no collection box during ceremony. In Germany, you need to be prepared to give during and at the end of worship. Indeed, travelling is an adventure.

• At conferences, Chinese officials and company representatives are more flattering, while in Germany they talk more about figures, data, facts.

• In the West, they use Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram and others, while Chinese have WeChat and Weibo.

• In China, when stock markets blink red, it means prices are going up, green means prices are going downhill.

• Magnetic compass needle in China shows to South, whereas Western compass points to North.

I am looking at my watch; it is six o'clock in the morning. I hear sounds of the morning birds chirping. I can only imagine what they are saying. The temperature outside is about 10 degrees Celcius. It is cold inside the house, because of the single glazing thin walls.

Hong is feeling a bit chilly, and maybe it is the reason why she kept on coughing throughout the night. The kitchen and bathroom are colder than the rest of the house. I asked her why she wants to keep

the house cold all the time. She replied that in her childhood days, there was hardly any heating in her parent's house.

"Living and working in the cold and sitting on the couch wrapped in a winter coat, were quite normal for us as kids", she replied.

Hong studied the German language entirely. She even knows the insulting and gossip words. We communicate more using German rather than English or Chinese languages. I need time to practice the Chinese language, but Hong is impatient with me. I asked her how she came to learn all these colloquial words in Geman language; she replied that she used to read Bildzeitung daily. I could not hold my laughter back on hearing her talking about reading Bildzeitung. I asked whether there is an equivalent of a German Bildzeitung in China, I got no response we left it at that. My busy working schedule prevents me from concentrating on learning the Chinese language.

Away from work, when I am with Hong, we commonly use German language, in that case, I have no pressures of leaning complicated Chinese language.

When we talk about busy working schedules, at times, I sit back to reflect on the strenuous work during the past week. I remember one time I was sitting with my American Boss in his office in Shanghai. We were to meet to discuss how to improve the headcount in the company. His budget had been cut and instead money was allocated elsewhere. He looked so worried, saying that he did not even know how he was going to pay wages to his employees, not to mention the cost of headhunters and bringing old and experienced people on board. He was worried about what would happen to scholarships of those gifted Chinese students.

“Yes, that was the situation. I think we need to tighten our belts”. My boss said resignedly.

The day before, I was at the Global Sourcing Board for a conference call with the head office in Germany. Unfortunately, they did not inform me early enough. I then had to organise the essentials quickly and do all the calculations at night in the hotel. I was lucky, I finished in time. Delivery notes were written in Chinese.

Knowing the language, saved me.

Shortly afterwards, I received an email from Germany asking for a quick translation of those notes into English language. A German manager was supposed to travel to a Chinese supplier the following day, therefore, there was a need for urgent support in requesting the necessary information for subsequent cost calculations in English and Chinese languages. I did not have enough time to forward the email to a German-speaking Chinese in the Shanghai office. I used my specialist knowledge of English and Chinese to do it myself.

However, I could not send this file since I was still driving. I had to wait until I reached the office. It was nine o’clock in the morning, but luckily, no one had complained yet.

“I cannot understand this.” I heard myself talking to myself.

“Why do people do things at the last minute, and heap the pressure on others to finish them?”

In this case, I would have imagined that travel plans were already in place and fixed beforehand. I wondered why these German managers do not want to speak. English; after all, we are an international company. Or are they just lazy for the sake of it, simply because they want their work done by others? I tried to raise this issue with one German colleague in the office one day because I was upset about it. I was not surprised when he answered that all emails were written in German anyway. He said that a new colleague in the company once tried to impose the use of the English language, but

the proposal received an adverse reaction among the Germans. The colleague was upset and left the company.

Taking you a little bit back, my American boss in Shanghai had also proposed cost-saving measures, by merging several offices on the higher floor into one. It would then mean that an entire floor was to be given up, including my office. My boss argued that I did not need that office anyway, since most of the time I am out meeting suppliers or attending meetings with buyers in the office at our production plant in Taicang. I disagreed with this decision. I told him that it would be difficult for the management team to hold together if I was far away in Taicang and that it could no longer be possible for me to attend team meetings that were so close to him.

A few hours later, I had been allowed to retain my office in Shanghai.

My wife Hong was the happiest person on hearing the good news about keeping my office in Shanghai. She praised me for being brave and fight on for my cause, hmmm? It was not fighting for my cause alone; I was instead fighting for both of us. “I am doing all I can to get a foothold in China,” I told her.

I am preparing to go to work tomorrow. Despite being a Sunday as well as a public holiday, it was designated to be a working day. I am quite happy working on Sundays because then I would push buyers to work hard, and to get more time to send out invitations to the many meetings.

As it is the case in Germany, office working days are Monday to Friday. Working hours in China are regulated by law, not to exceed forty-four hours a week. In exceptional cases, people do also work on weekends and public holidays.

Additional to eleven public holidays, staff gets five to fifteen vacation days, depending on seniority.

The difference to Germany is when you work overtime, you get paid at least one hundred and fifty per cent of the total wages. If you work on weekends, and you are not compensated, the payment rises to at least two hundred per cent. There are cases where people are paid three hundred per cent on public holidays.

The Chinese New Year, also known as CNY, is globally referred to as Lunar New Year. This festival is called the Spring Festival in mainland China. It is one of the several Lunar New Years in Asia.

Observance of this festival traditionally takes place from the evening preceding the first day of the year, to the Lantern Festival, takes place on the 15th day of the year. The First Day of the Chinese New Year begins on the new moon, that appears between 21 January, and 20 February. Every year, this date is different.

A few days ago, Hong and I went to Shanghai. We had gone to attend the GCC monthly meeting of the German Chamber of Commerce. It was here that for the first time, I met a new evangelical pastor in charge of Greater Shanghai area. The Shanghai Metropolis assigned a small church in the Western Qingpu district, which I like calling Qingpu church. The pastor in this church delivers divine services of the Chinese Evangelical Church, called the “Three-Self Church”. In China, religion is sensitive, because the philosophy of faith, and that of the state, do not auger well. However, there are now a few officially recognised religions in China, with strict instructions from the state. It includes, among others, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. Many followers of other religions are still persecuted in China today.

According to history, Catholicism made the first attempt to start missionary work in China in the 13th and 14th centuries, but their mission was not successful. The protestant missionary came to China at the beginning of the 19th century. Unlike Catholicism, Protestantism was moderately successful, although initially on a plodding pace. Five years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the present Evangelical Church started operating under the name the Three-Self Church.

Hong told me how the name “Three-Self Church”, came about.

“During the Cultural Revolution, everyone concealed their religions.

Buddhas destroyed, instead, Mao’s images hanged. If you wanted to survive, you had nothing to do, but to cooperate with the Communist Party. The only opportunity for the Evangelical church was to break away from the Western organisation, and all its influences. The church got buildings to operate from, and members were advised to look for finances (self-financing), to expand. The name ‘Three-Self Church’ came from there”.

The current membership of this church is difficult to figure out, as there are countless registered congregations in addition to state recognised and gazetted churches. However, according to statistics carried out in 2013, in Germany, Catholics and Protestants were almost at per with each other, with nearly sixty per cent of the total population. Germany has a small number which coincides with the people. The estimated six per cent of Christians in China fits well into the vast Chinese population.

Also, in Shanghai we met Peter Kreuz, a catholic pastor whom we had known for a long time at the German Chamber of Commerce Abroad meeting. Kreuz’s church is called CCPA (Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association). To be officially recognised in China, CCPA church had to be renounced from the Pope. It is not a trifle in this faith, which regards the Pope as the head of the Church.

Peter Kreuz now works in Anton Rebe’s company. Foreign priests in China do not get work permits. They only get short term visas, since they do not work for the Chinese church. They work for a legalised company and put it on their name cards.

Hong is already preparing for the Chinese New Year. She wants to spend it will all her relatives. I will present a speech in Chinese or in Suzhounesian, which will be stressful for me because they understand my Chinese, I don’t understand their Suzhounesian.

However, I am always grateful for their warm reception as a family, to a ‘Laowai,’ a Chinese name for foreigners. It is rare in China because Chinese people are always suspicious of foreigners. History maintains that they have all the right reasons to do so, and perhaps these are one of them.

Struggle for land possession in China only benefited a few, leaving many scrambling in a quest for the same. The first Opium War in the middle of the 19th century resulted in the cessation of Hong Kong to Great Britain. A few years later, France also came in during the second Opium War, which forced China to drop opposition to international trade relations. At that time, the Chinese’s economy had collapsed, which saw the end of its dominance in Asia. Great powers such as Germany, Britain, Russia, Japan and France, used this opportunity to compete for dominance, in dividing China.

At that time, the Qing government was in a severe financial crisis.

The Chinese’s economy was not strong enough to sustain itself. It, therefore, had to borrow money from Western countries, pledging to surrender its marine customs. As a result, significant powers gained control of Chinese’s finances, opened branches of banks throughout the country, handled capital exports and issued banknotes. They manipulated and dominated the Chinese economy.

In just five years after 1895, there were nearly a thousand factories in China. They dominated railway construction, ship transportation and mining.

Astonishingly, until the end of the 19th century, the US had played no role at all in the conquest of China, but that was not going to last long, because it proposed that it should be given equal advantages and opportunities in the Chinese market too. They accepted the proposal without any conditions, which later resulted in it becoming entrenched in China. In the 1930s, however, China put up resistance battles against Japan. During World War II, with its allies together, it brought Germany, Italy, and Japan to their knees.1 Briefly that was the story. I wanted to give you a synpopsis of what happened. Let me now go back to the Chinese NewYear Festival.

I will use the upcoming holiday as an opportunity to practice Chinese language, prefereably on my notebook. Soon it will be Valentines Day again. As if she had read my mind thinking about her, Hong wakes up and comes to me. The temperature outside is about 14 degrees Celsius. She is still having a little bit of a cough, I think of advising her to visit a a doctor.

The Chinese New Year is dedicated to the horse. Many legends and folk tales surround the origin of the twelve zodiac signs. Many other ethnic minorities do not adopt the animal selection and its order that is mostly used in China. There is a popular legend that Emperor Xuanyuan once announced that twelve animals should form his imperial bodyguard. The animals use rabid means against others, to secure the best place. This unfair struggle used to be organised through an order in which animals would be arranged.

There is another legend of a day being divided into two-hour cycles, where the selection and ranking of animals would depend on which one was the most active during these cycles.2

Hong was born in a horse year that repeats itself every twelve years, which is why she customary wears red underwear. According to the Chinese culture, wearing red underwear, drives away evil spirits, at least to some extent. There is also another belief to the contrary that the year of the horse is not as good as the Dragon year, since only half as many children would be born in this year. Whether that is true or not, I don’t know, at least, I would not tell Hong.

In a sense when you think about it deeply, those who believe that being born in a horse year may not be desirable, I could somehow agree with them. I see that a newly born horse would seem restless, struggling to move and searching for adventures. In that case, the year of the horse would fit to be described in juxtaposition to a newly born horse, as exciting, being adventurous and lively. On the other hand, it could also be symbolically interpreted as struggling to live, being stressed, or yearning for help, which would mean going through hard times. In comparison to that, I try to give my wife, as much as possible, the space she deserves, without restrictions. She is not a type of woman you can put down anyway. As a modern person, I have no problem with it. What is essential to me is to have financial security and freedom, as a horse also stands for. Financial independence is vital in life. Having stated that though, I always avoid being seen to be a materialistic person.

I once asked Hong, whether she knows about big people such as Merkel, Cameron, Holland, and the Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, being born in the horse year.

"A female Prime Minister as Merkel in China is more than a dream. It is a far-fetched hope It could be possible maybe in future, not now", she retorted. Hong told me that in Chinese history all Emperors were male, except Empress Wu Zhao, who was accused of poisoning her husband to come to power."

It is now time to go jogging along the river. The weather is not all that pleasing. Smog is worst this time of the year. The sun has no choice but to struggle to pierce through thick smoggy clouds. In China, around this time of the year, the weather is bleak, which sometimes makes me uncomfortable. All I can see right in front of me now is a one big grey mass of smog. When local people see me jogging in this weather, they take me for being mad.

"That is the problem with foreigners", I heard one of them retorting, they did not expect me to know the Chinese language.

Anyway, I am not too much bothered about what people say. I will continue jogging, as long as it helps me to keep healthy and fit.

Anyway, nothing much to worry about, because after the Chinese New Year celebrations, Hong and I will go for a holiday in Thailand.

After jogging, I return home and go straight to a cold bathroom to take a quick shower, and afterwards get some brunch, after which I will check on my emails. Many of these emails are from German Chamber of Commerce Abroad, or from LinkedIn, the international networking site for businesspeople. I also received many New Year's Festival greetings cards. This evening we must go to the pharmacy to buy a cough mixture and tablets since Hong is still not feeling well. We will then head to a restaurant to have noodle soup next door to our house.

I like noodles because you get the opportunity to choose recipes, amongst them. Another thing is that eating noodles saves my wallet because they are too filling, although sometimes I don't like the way they prepare the food. They mix too much glutamate, an additive that helps to enhance their taste. Being used to Western rather than Oriental cuisine, when I eat food with too many additives, I develop heartburn, making me feel uncomfortable. However, there is another way you can avoid that. You can order a special meal without added glutamate; I do that a lot. You can also go to restaurants which prepare fresh dishes, other than order food deliveries. Anyway, after our evening meal, we head back home. On our way, we pass by the bakery, to buy my favourite alcohol-filled confectionary. I enjoy these snacks while watching a movie. Hong, who is not a good fun of movies, would be surfing the internet. While concentrating on watching movies sometimes, Hong comes to interrupt me with her unending Chinese jokes, which I don't find too funny. Is it because I don't understand them?

We have had our meal; it is now time to go. Usually, before I go to bed, I make sure that I don't forget to gulp a glass of a herbal mixture given to me by Li Gengnan, my father-in-law. This mixture with more than 50% alcohol is too strong, but it does not only strengthen life, it increases libido and potency of a man too. Of course, you must believe in its effect. The mixture comprises of expensive ingredients, some of them being, a deer's penis, or a snow dog, from the mountains. It also has a high content of traditional liquor, which makes it to be more expensive. Women are however not usually advised to take this mixture, for fear of them going into a sexual frenzy.

Traditional Chinese medicine, such as acupuncture, has been proven to have cured many people whose conditions had been described as “incurable” by medical doctors. I also personally do meditation practices such as Qigong, to bring my Qi into harmony with my body, to enjoy good health. An appropriate application of breathing exercises can also regulate a smooth flow of Qi. I usually get swamped at work on Thursdays, which is why I do not return home before seven o’clock in the evening. Today, Hong has already prepared an excellent dinner at home, with lovely Western herbs.

The aroma in the house aroused my appetite for dinner.