Wuxi made some woozy, and we saw silk

Woke at 6:30am today. Breakfast was Chinese noodles, French toast, ham, sausage, hashbrowns. People who went to the SOS nightclub last night had fun—the Champ (one of our classmate’s alter egos from South Bend) made an appearance, I heard. I bought a stringed musical instrument called an erhu from a street vendor for 20 yuan ($2.50). I think he came down from 50 yuan, but I really don’t know. It will be cool for my instrument wall, when I own a house someday. Now, we’re on a two-hour bus ride to Little Swan, which manufactures washing machines and dryers. Mostly site visits today and we actually can see some SUN through the clouds.

Stopped in Wuxi (city) for the Little Swan visit. Watched a video and had a 20 minute Q&A with the general manager. They make washing machines for GE and have many other partnerships with companies like Siemens and Electrolux. The general manger was informative—Little Swan is the #1 brand in China (70^market share). Dryers are made in Canada, as the Chinese hang all their laundry out the window or on their porch. Toured the showroom of washers, fridges, commercial washers, water heaters, etc. They didn’t permit us to go on the scheduled factor store because they said there workers were “on lunch.” Pretty sure that wasn’t the reason. Most likely, they didn’t want us to tour for some reason after reviewing our resumes. Hmm. Lunch at Wuxi was at an area hotel. Many restaurants here in China have tanks of fish in the front room or in the dining room…when the fish are dead in some tanks (as they were here), that is not a good sign. We had a whole fish and shrimp (with head and tail) and mushroom/tofu dishes. Had some egglike custard (tried), tomato and celery soup (fine), cooked spinach, kung pao chicken (good). Also had some beef dishes and a sticky sack-like tofu dish. After finishing our meal, a classmate noted that we weren’t served the local delicacy, Wuxi BBQ ribs, which they made for us 20 minutes later. Unfortunately, after visiting the bathrooms, I wasn’t all that hungry for it. The 2nd floor bathroom was so bad I almost vomited. Went downstairs and the smell of decades-old dirty bathroom was not much better. Did not wash my hands there nor touch anything, as I’m sure they wouldn’t come out cleaner. (Amen for hand sanitizer!) Isn’t there some correlation between the cleanliness of the bathroom and the cleanliness of the kitchen. Most disgusting bathroom I’ve ever seen and my least favorite meal thus far on the trip. I hardly ate anything.

We drove two hours back to Suzhou—heavy traffic and at one point, it was a free-for-all game of chicken where no one was paying any attention to the lanes. Went to the silk factory and learned the process from larvae to worm to pupae to silk filament. Takes about 72 days and the worms are fed mulberry leaves. The silk extraction, spinning and weaving were absolutely fascinating, and we got to walk through the entire facility. I tried pulling the silk into layers for a comforter. It’s surprisingly a lot stronger than one might think!! Of course, this was followed by a factory store with exorbitant prices. Started with a showroom of comforters (most expensive), table runners and clothing, and finally scarves and ties (cheapest). Didn’t but a thing, as I’m sure I can find cheaper items in Shanghai. Tried on the Chinese traditional jacket (with horizontal knots and ties), It was $90 and not exactly something that would blend in in SD, MN or Indiana.

Back to the hotel and dinner was on our own. Adam, Katie, Megan, Beth, Kathryn, Nicole, Molly and I went to Pizza Hut, as did 25 others in our group! Americans basically took over the restaurant, which was decked out for Halloween. Had Supreme pizza (stuffed crust) and Pepsi. Good and cheap. We had ordered extra pizza sauce on our four pizzas (sauce is scant on their pizzas here), and they ran out of sauce for our other MBA friends, who I think got ketchup.

Returned to the hotel and we went out for karaoke. Gabe ordered a private karaoke room (he speaks impeccable Mandarin, from what I hear) for about 15 of us. The songs were all 10-15 years old, but it was still a blast. Menu was in Chinese and so was the karaoke computer at first. So, Gabe and others helped us navigate the drinks and the music. Spent about 3 hours here and left just after 12:30am. It was like a karaoke hotel with 30-40 private rooms per floor. Ours had a video screen, bar table with stools, 2 couches, 2 tables, and 6 single sofa squares. The bathroom here was funny because the doorway entry was about 5’5” and I felt like Alice of Alice in Wonderland ducking into the bathroom, which had a much higher ceiling inside. Last night in Suzhou.