Meet the newest member of our family

(Guys at my regular fruit and produce stand)

Nope, not one of "those" emails :)

After 5 years of taking taxis, subway, bus, mototaxis, biking, and just plain walking, I broke down and bought a scooter. What made up my mind was not having income, paying 80rmb (~$12) round-trip 3x a week to go to jiujitsu, and seeing the taxi tolls add up.

So, I did a little research and found out that you can get electric powered cool Vespa-styled scooters for about 3400rmb or about $500. You get a lot of bike for that. Mine will do 55km/hr, is fairly zippy (any faster and I could get into trouble), comfortable, and has a range of supposedly over 50km with each charge. I chose the smaller of two models because I could get longer range and also to get something that is a little lighter and more maneuverable. Best, it's almost totally silent and gives off no emissions. Shanghai's moving to more of these and I think it's great.

I put on about 25km today and have the following conclusions:

1. A lot of crazy drivers (car and bike) out on the road. People turning left from the middle lane, running red lights, stopped in the middle of the road, trying to defy laws of physics... and this is just from day 1. I will definitely have to be driving defensively.

2. It's cold...I need a quality jacket and gloves. I also probably should get a filtration mask -- sucking in everyone's emissions not cool. I'm going to start wearing my skiing helmet. Pretty sure this breaks some sort of motorcycling etiquette rule, but hey, a lot of drivers wear velvet horse jockey helmets, so it's not that bad!

3. When you are riding on the road, you really feel alive. I was reminded of a college and Army buddy's description of riding his bike from Harvard to MIT back when we were going to ROTC -- "It's like a live frogger game!" I will definitely get to know the city a whole lot better this way and looking forward to it.

[Update: after 50km]

Discovered that the battery gauge is unreliable and that effective range is about 40km. Discovered that bike is difficult to push.

Project Startup: Business Launched Today!

It took 5 months, but we finally had our official opening on Sunday's Wellness Works fair!

We set up the booth at about 10am -- most of the other 30 vendors had already finished setting up. It was tough to fit all the stuff needed for the booth in one cab so we took one of the Expo minivans. Fortunately, with 3 interns (plus a

boyfriend), and my wife there, we got set up in only about 15 min. I think the booth turned out fairly decently. Several people who came by the booth during the day mentioned that it looked well thought out and pretty professional :)

We had a good location -- central, with no one to our back and no one competing on either side for signage. Our booth had essentially a backdrop with our logo on a field of green, then two self-standing banners. On the 1.8m table itself, we had a display of 9 common household pollutants and a guessing game where people had to match the pollutant to the proper

name and health effects. Not probably the most fun game, but at least it was an easier way to break the ice than a straight sell. On the right hand side, we had a lucky draw where people could win gas-removing green plants (we brought a snake plant, a peace lily, and several aloe veras), vouchers for free lead testing, vouchers worth 250 or 500rmb, and one grand prize of a free complete home assessment worth 2000rmb (around $300). Also on the table, we had a fair promotion flyer, brochures in Chinese and English, frequently asked questions, and a sample of the completed report as well as a raw Chinese test company report.

There wasn't too much traffic in the morning. At first we found out that it wasn't that easy to get people to leave their personal information. This is probably that we just didn't ask for it. I had

initially planned to offer a lucky draw to people in exchange for them going through a quick little mini-assessment, but in the future, the better idea is probably to just get them to leave a business card and a sense of what they are interested in and then follow up later. I was one of four speakers to give a little talk ("Indoor Environmental Quality in China: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly", but last minute the venue changed. I am not sure if that was the reason, but there was low turnout and only about 10 people (besides our staff) were there. Fortunately, there was pretty good interaction and people asked a lot of good questions and it generated 2 leads who later came to the booth. I also found that one of the best ways to quickly get people to understand the value we add is to show them the Chinese report, which is pretty bare and just has numbers, and then show them our report, which has an initial customer profiling and recommendations on what to test, then graphical test results based on both Chinese and international standards, and then analysis of problem sources and recommendations. People understood that much more than anything else we showed or explained. We really should show this more, but I would be careful to release it as an electronic source, because it could be copied.

Chinese Marketing 101: one big takeaway is that having young, overly formal-dressed, nervous looking Chinese staff hovering definitely drives away traffic. I watched expats literally look up at the booth then veer away. When Sarah, the blonde foreigner was there by herself, she got tons of traffic.

There were other competitors and potential

partners at the fair and I went over to meet some of them. There were air purifier representatives, a water purifier company, and a health retailer. Fortunately, still no sign of anyone else doing anything like what we are doing. It was interesting that several of the representatives from the other companies said that they had heard of us, and at least one rep said he wanted to meet up later to talk about working together. Really is a small community or else word spreads quickly.

At the end of the day, we had 7 potential customer leads, of which 3 are highly likely to convert into test projects. The most interesting one was a guy from sweden who is having a mold problem and was almost begging us for our help. Unfortunately, we don't know too much about mold outside of what I've learned in books. The good news is that there is almost no one else in China who does, so we can at least add some value. When I went into his apartment to take a look (he lived in the apartment complex that was hosting the fair), I felt like I was walking into a tropical jungle. Mold loves humidity, so it wasn't hard to be able to tell him that no matter what he does, it won't be successful until he can reduce the humidity.

Since Sunday, I have been able to meet with the retailers, who want to partner with us to certify their products and co-market, and will be meeting with an air purifier manufacturer tomorrow in order to work out some sort of referral relationship. The tough thing will be finding a balance between keeping our independent third-party position, while also offering downstream solutions and being able to make some money off of it.

I also did a lot of research on mold to be able to advise the customer with the mold problem. Followed up with a call today and we spoke for about an hour. He is very happy to have someone to talk to and is an "ideal" customer. Not only is he a good customer, but if we succeed with him, we can almost certainly get more business in that apartment complex and he will probably be a good advocate. I sent a proposal earlier tonight.

In the next few weeks, we will need to keep ironing out our processes, do good work to get a solid reputation, and then start expanding our marketing channels. Once we hit about 10 customers, I think it will be time to pull the trigger on full-time staff and some investment on test equipment.

The website is live too and that's a whole another animal -- adwords, blog maintenance, promotions, cross-marketing, search engine optimization... take a look and let me know what you think. Send me a message if you don't know the website address.

It's better to burn out than to fade away...

Last night I went to feed the fish and tossed a couple pellets in. Normally, these are snapped up right away by "Jaws", one of our four fish, the one I've been training to be a goldfish piranha by giving him bloody mosquitoes I've slapped. He didn't bite. I looked around and couldn't find him. We have a lot of rocks and junk in our rock tank, so it's easy to miss a fish. The longer I looked, the more the sinking feeling grew. I didn't want to, but I looked down on the ground around the tank.

See, back when we got Jaws, he had er, a little too much bounce in his step. The first night, he jumped out of the tank twice. Then he seemed to settle down or realized that might be hazardous to his health. Every now and then though, we still heard the "bloop" sound of him doing a Free Willy. I looked around and was relieved to find no dead goldfish. Then I thought maybe our cats might have snagged him. Or the ayi (cleaning lady). No luck. Finally, I pull back the curtains, and there in the shadows of the corner, I see a shadow that looks like... a fish.

I wimped out. I made Sarah look and left the room. "It's him" she goes. I never thought I'd feel bad about a fish (we've probably flushed a dozen down the toilet in the past 18 months). But this guy was a survivor. It was a real bummer. And as I watched the other fish, I wondered what they were thinking. "Hey where'd that other guy go?" or did they think he escaped to freedom, kind of like in "The Running Man"?

Rest in peace little dude

Project Startup Update Week 19 - First customers!

They say that one of the major milestones in starting a business is the getting the first customer. I guess you could say we achieved that this week (inked the deal but haven't taken payment yet). Although I initially thought that the first bite would be from a friend who would be a test customer, it turned out to be another company in the health & wellness space. This company has been operating in Beijing for a few years now, has done well in selling retail health products and recently expanded to water and air. They decided to private label a water filtration device (healthily priced at over USD 1000). Yet, amazingly, they didn't have any R&D or test results to show how well the filtration device was doing! Normally, when you certify a water purification device through an agency like the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation), you undergo rigorous testing for device quality, safety, marketing truthfulness, and most importantly, contaimination reduction claims. They didn't get this certified (it's not a requirement in China, surprise surprise), and so had no idea whether this was working or not. They had gone to a water testing company in Beijing and were not satisfied. When I pressed for details, they said that it was because the company gave them no guidance on what they should test, didn't seem to do it scientifically, and just gave them a report with no interpretation.

This was great because their experience is exactly what we are trying to address. So, I spent probably close to 20 hours either meeting with the product manager, giving them free advice about Shanghai water, different filtration systems, researching the certification process, advising on contaminants and health effects, then suggesting different courses of action. The good side effect of this is that I learned a lot in the process. Probably put together the only 6 page statement of work for a $1200 project in existence, hehe. Although it took almost 2 months, this week they finally gave the go-ahead on a fairly comprehensive water comparison testing. If we do a good job (which I'm pretty confident we can deliver), not only do we establish credibility with our testing partner that we are doing real business of a healthy size (~$1200 project), we also are building a future business partnership with this client. They've talked about selling or pushing our testing services in their retail store and we're also interested in them being the fulfillment partner for some solutions.

Today, we also had our first residential customer! It was my childhood best friend who's lived in SH for 6 years. Recently married and expecting a baby AND having just moved into a new apartment, he and his wife, had two good reasons for getting tested. Of course, even if he wasn't interested, I would have leaned on him pretty hard, since I was his best man :) I ran them through a questionnaire about their building profile, health conditions, symptoms, etc. They didn't raise any alarm bells, so I recommended a middle of the road sort of package, focusing on air particulates, VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and lead identification, which are all particularly relevant to expectant mothers. The inspection went smoothly, except that it was a little long (2 hours long). His results will be pretty baseline.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are running a friends and family special, which lets us fine tune our procedures, reports, etc, get feedback, and hopefully spread word of mouth. In exchange, friends and family get tested at near cost. I just sent out the brochure in an email on Friday, and the weekend has been pretty quiet, but hopefully there will be some nibbles in the next few days.

Last mini-milestone: we officially completed our business incorporation in HK last week! Why incorporate in HK? Setting up a wholly-foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) in China is a long, iron-bound process, and making any changes to equity ownership, etc is painful. So, many companies set up a holding company in HK and then make changes through that. The HK process only took about 2 weeks (and $1600 or so). Pretty cool feeling to have the corporate stamps and embossing tool. I went a little crazy and ran around embossing everything in sight :)

China taxes are weird

I got a call from the agent who is helping me incorporate both the Chinese and the Hong Kong company.  The HK company has to be set up as a shell company to own the Chinese company because trying to make any changes to the Chinese company equity ownership is apparently a pain in the ass.  Also, there are some tax benefits.  In any case, I'm shelling out an extra $1700 to set up the HK company and an extra $1300 in fees every year for accounting and business license.  Not real happy about it, but it will leave me the option and I won't kick myself down the road if I need to get investors.

Anyhow the agent tells me that the business district she was going to register me in has arbitrarily changed its preferential tax policies.  Despite the tax law change in 2008 that unified taxes between Chinese and foreign companies, each local govt still has the ability to do little dope deals.  So, since their main objective is to attract investment, the govt of Fengxian had a sweetheart deal with my registration agent to refund 30% of my revenue tax (5% of revenues) and 15% of my business profit tax (25%) back to me.  Quite a good deal and I wasn't expecting it at all.

Unfortunately, Fengxian decided to reduce this by half.  So, now I'm asking the agent to go searching for greener pastures.  The agent obviously doesn't want to do it because they have a special deal with that district, but they should be shopping around for their customers.  It's really surprising that the agents don't bring this up as a selling point, because that could be VERY substantial over the long run depending on the size of the company.

But I guess it also makes sense because it's probably not something they want the central government to know is going on...

 

Pound of sweat

I've just sent off draft one of content to my web page designer.  I tell you what...I think anyone in marketing should have to go through the process of creating a website -- from layout to content.  The content has taken me the most time -- probably close to 40 pages in content, complete with graphics, photos and source references (of which I am guessing I'll probably want to delete about half for skimmability)  But, the layout has been the hardest.  

Maybe I'm just totally left-brained, but doing the home page mockup kind of left me feeling really drained.  I'm just not creative.

Back to the point -- this whole exercise forces you to think about who your customers are, why they give a rat's ass about your website, products, and services, and forces you to prioritize.  It was actually a really useful process.

Let's see what the designer thinks though...

In other news, got intern #1 working, who although he's an undergrad senior, seems to be pretty sharp.  Nice not to be a one-man band anymore.  Two other master's candidates, both at Jiaotong's Environmental Studies dept, to call up tomorrow.  I like how some Chinese students put their photos on their resumes.  In some cases that works to their benefit.  Other times.... heh

All work and no play makes me a dull boy

A few days ago, I decided to take a day off and finally check out what the World Expo was all about.  The Shanghai government gave every legal resident household a free ticket and 200rmb to thank them for putting up with the construction and preparation but the ticket expires in Aug, so I had to go by today.  I didn't do too much homework - just went online to check out the buzz on some of the best pavilions and then printed put the schedule of events, which seemed to be pretty repetitive and small-time.

Took a cab to West Yanan Lu and wanted to catch Line 4 to Luban Lu, one of the Expo entrances on  the Puxi side, but I forgot that two lines both run off the same track and lost about half an hour . Doh! At least this happened on a day when I wasn't in a rush. Might as well get used to waiting.

10 min walk from subway stop and I was there. Lots of space for queues but no lines, through security in 5 min (don't bring liquids or lighters).

Went to check the event calendar and found there was a Gracie Brazilian jiujitsu (what I train) demo at night!
Then I started wandering in a general direction in that area. 

World Expo Museum - skip, just some audiovisual screens on past exhibitions, not even a narrative

Pavilion of urban footprint - not bad. Supposed to be the evolution of cities, but there are just a lot of static displays and no narrative our explanation of significance.  Actually there are a few videos that had some text, but no one was reading.  Kind of like drive-bys.  Looking at how many cameras are going off around me though, I guess this is what the chinese market wants. Photo opps and cheesy disneyland-like displays.  Been there, done that.  It's a little depressing to see especially around the displays that atte explaining concepts like sustainability that more chinese could be exposed to.

Japan Commercial Pavilion - only had to wait 17 min for this one, even less than the 30 min posted. It was a series of about 7 short marketing pieces by japanese companies.  Some were gee whiz (3D), others emotional, what's funny is that you had no options on what to see. Just had to watch all.  The highlight was that a few (about 10%) of the visitors won an invite in their gift bags to visit the"worlds most expensive bathroom". My luck held out and I had one.  Other than a solid gold toilet, however, this was no different than any nice Japanese office bathroom.

Next, I decided to go check out a different area. I went to Area B, Oceania and Asia, taking the free subway one stop.

Australia - impressive red block building very much in character with the Outback. I have been to Australia a few times and spent a fair amount of time there, but the line was short. the 360 theater was technologically nifty but lacking in content.

NZ - Virtually no wait.  I was drawn by the polynesian/mauri dancing performance, but they actually had a decent pavilion.  I thought it didn't do a good job capturing the amazing scenery and overemphasized the cities, but I guess that was intentional. to offset that though, they had this sort of landscape on top that even had a live wall of plants.  air seemed cleaner.

Philippines - No wait either.  given the recent killings of HK tourists due in part to police incompetence, I would have expected some backlash and one of the workers said that that there had been some response, but mostly not nasty. this pavilion was very accurate to how I know the philippines. Focused on music and disorganized.  But one thing made this a favorite for me: free massage.  Yep, masseuses from the Shangrila Hotel gave 10 min massages. was very nice.

Given how the lines were so light and after some food court workers told me that this was the fewest people they'd seen in awhile, I decided to go spend my remaining time this trip on the more crowded things.

Made my way to China. That building is imposing. Holy cow. Best place to take good photos is from the neighboring sky bridge that connects to all the retail and restaurants.  Unfortunately I couldn't get in because I hadn't pre-registered.  They give those out every morning at 9am at all of the gates.  I asked one of the info booth volunteers which gate had the fewest people and she said gate# 2, on Puxi side.  I also checked out Macau's pavilion from the outside but couldn't get a good photo. It is in the shape of a rabbit.  As one China blogger put it, didn't a single person on the Macau committee stop and say, "Wait a second, it's a fucking bunny??"

Turkey - 10am min wait, nifty architecture, and almost like a museum inside. They are also the first I'd seen to use bluetooth to send details as you walked through the pavilion.  Good idea.

Ireland - the "look how many famous Irish there are!" pavilion. I waited 15 min  which was about 10 min longer than this exhibit was worth. nice grass on the outside.

England - I mainly went just to see the building architecture. There are fiber optic cables all on the outside, supposedly each with a seed inside.  The net effect is that the pavilion looks like a fluffy koosh ball or maybe a dandelion. This is one design concept that must new seen to be believed.  It really does look shiny and round from a distance and then hazy up close. My camera even had a tough time focusing! There was still a big line and I've seen enough of the UK, so have it a skip.

France - this was the last pavilion I had time for and it was worth it because I can definitely say that without a doubt it was the most impressive pavilion I saw all day. First, it looked nice outside. Sophisticated, classy, cubist.  Wait was less than 20 min. Inside the courtyard, out looked a little like a French estate garden.  The theme was the "sensual life" so obviously there was a lot of emphasis on indulging the senses. The thought that came to me as I was walking through was a science and technology museum (which I ve always loved). Lots of overactive exhibits, lots of pizzazz for a reason. There were booths that had smells, lots of surround sound, and one cool thing was that they had the kitchen of the attached french restaurant integrated into the exhibits. 

After this, I had to get to the BJJ demo, so I got back over to E District. It was a pretty good show put on by another local school with attendance from fighters from Brazil and Abu Dhabi.  They did have random dancers, doing everything from traditional Chinese dress to Brazilian Carnevale costumes to cheerleader outfits which was weird.  Mixed in with bloody scenes of mixed martial arts, ultimate fighting championships and hard hitting demos, they also had some wushu and soft flowing taichi performances that really looked more like a dance performance.  Weird.

So 9 exhibits in about 10 hrs plus watching two shows was a pretty good day.

Week 11 of Project Startup: Two steps backwards, one step forward

I've just returned from a couple of chaotic weeks in Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and then Taiwan again.

I was first in Taiwan for my grandpa's funeral. It was a short (20 hr) bittersweet trip. Although sad to see him like that and sadder to see how broken up everyone was, it was amazing to hear some of the stories about him and how he touched so many people's lives. I also got to meet relatives I never knew before.

Went on to Indonesia to spend a week with my cousin. She's just recently gotten certified as a scuba diver and I was excited to try to help introduce her to the underwater world. We spent 5 days doing the beach thing in Central Sulawesi at a German-run place called Prince John Resort in Tanjung Karung, and then decided to "rough it" a bit by going out to a remote national park. It was definitely an adventure and merits its own blog entry. I'll post it later :)

Then back to Taiwan for my high school best friend's wedding. I was the best man, but I think I actually took the duty more seriously than my friend! Typical exchange -- Me: "Hey K, what's going on with the rehearsal?" K: "Um, rehearsal?" It was in a gorgeous location, Taiwan's northeast coast, at a resort called the Leo. Other than some thunderstorms that interrupted the reception dinner at inopportune times, things went well. The afterparty went on pretty late and I didn't go the distance because we had an early morning flight the next morning and Sarah decided to call it a night early.

I came back to Shanghai ready to get a jump on the business again, and checked in with my assistant/intern as soon as I got back. She had two pieces of unwelcome news. First, the two local Chinese companies that I had met with before leaving and had counted on to be my subcontractors had both backed out. We had good meetings and I thought that they were both onboard to do the environmental testing for us. So it was a bit of a shock to find out how they had responded to the letter I asked my assistant to write to them. One company contact seemed impatient, like he couldn't be bothered to provide us the information we were asking for. The other guy, a young manager that I got along well with (we were both former military), inexplicably said that he had heard we had contacted many companies and didn't want to do business with us. Very disappointing news.

Then to pile on to this, my intern, H, who has been invaluable in every aspect, but mainly in dealing with translations and business development with Chinese partners, informed me that her Ph D advisor was putting her on a full-time project in Wuhan in a week and she'd be unavailable to continue with the project. Not good news.

So, that was the two steps back. Within the first couple of days after I returned, though, I did make some progress. I met with the website designing company and we hashed out a plan. Since the website is such a big part of marketing and customer education (and demand creation), I was happy to have a plan in place. For $1500, I'll be pretty happy if we can pull this off without too many complications. Second, I was able to get some more information on incorporation. Registering my company is actually a pain in the ass. In the US, you can easily incorporate for a couple hundred dollars. In China, it costs about $2000-10000, depending on what agent you use and where you incorporate. Also, many WOFEs (wholly owned foreign entities) first incorporate in Hong Kong and then make that holding company the parent company registered for the China WOFE. This is to givev more flexibility around changing equity ownership and in moving money around. However, this is an additional ~$2000 to setup and an additional ~$500/yr to do the accounting/tax filing, even if you don't even run money through the HK entity. So, I had to figure out whether the pros outweighed the cons. Usually, the best way to get answers is to ask potential consultants or agents who are hungry for your business, so I talked to about 5 of them, plus an accountant. I was left more confused than when I started. What complicates things is that since I'm a US citizen, the IRS taxes me on my global income. So, for most people, it makes sense to move profits to HK in order to lower their tax bill. However, as far as I can tell, it really doesn't matter if you're a US citizen because you have to report global income from dividends no matter where they're distributed. There's probably some way to game the system, but my tax guy in the US is a pretty straight shooter and won't tell me.

Anyhow, still a work in progress -- hope to have our first customers in about 3 weeks.

Trip report on WG / YeYe's funeral

 Hi everyone, thought I'd share my notes on how this weekend's funeral
went.  Please excuse typos as I had to write this all on a mobile
phone (touchscreen keyboards suck).

Wai Gong funeral service trip
(7 Aug 2010)

Flew out on a direct flight from Pudong (less than 2 hours). TSA was
smaller than I thought. Caught Fang4 hang 2 bus to Keelung from bus
stop# 3 outside Terminal 1 and was in Keelung 30 min later. Getting a
cab was a little awkward because the cabby was an elderly guy who
couldn't read my street directions and I didn't have pinyin. I
eventually arrived comfortably before the service and it was nice to
see Mom and all the uncles.

The space for the service was pretty industrial and kind of loud, but
it was done up nicely with wreaths all around and seating set up for
about 100 people.  Mom introduced me to a number of people. Zhong Hui
and San Shu Gong were the main people I remember.  I changed into my
suit and then as the church choir rehearsed, the family had a small
service by WG's casket.  He looked small and childlike, with only his
face showing. It bothered me a little that I didn't have a strong
emotional response, but I think its because it just didn't seem like
WG at all. During the private service, some of the uncles broke down.
It was hard to watch.  Zhong Hui was particularly broken up.

The service started soon after, with about 70 people in attendance.
It was a Christian service with hymns, prayers, intermixed with
eulogies and testimonies. Mom gave a really good eulogy that touched
on his biography and how he was as a father and husband.  I had the
chance to speak as well.  Here's the English version:
_____
Greetings friends and family. I am HHW's grandson and am representing
the younger generation.

Many today have talked of Wai Gong's generosity, his great deeds, and
loyalty, so I'd like to speak of his humor and playfulness.  There are
two short stories I want to share.

When I was a boy, I spent a year living in Taichung with WG and WP.  I
was a very naughty boy.  Not a lot of people in their 70s would be
willing to take on a 7 yr old boy, but I think WG really enjoyed
having a kid around.  I would climb above a doorway and refuse to come
down until WG said, "I beg you to come to dinner." He always did this
in a joking way and it was a private joke between us for many years.

My cousin Stephanie also told me a story.  She and my uncle HZ Ming
often would take WG shopping at the nearby grocery store.  He loved to
cook and loved to go shopping. This time they got separated and they
couldn't find WG.  After searching everywhere, they feared he had hurt
himself.  Finally they decided to call Wai Poh at home to tell her
what was going on.  Guess who answered the phone? WG.  He said, "You
guys were so slow that I just came back myself."

We will remember WG not as a 100 yr old man, but as a grandpa whom we
liked to introduce to our friends because he was "cool".  I am sure
that as WG is in heaven by WPs side he is surely teasing her with a
grin on his face like he did over a lifetime.
____

There was a really good slide show set to music that Uncle Larry and
Aunt Ann arranged.  It demonstrated all different aspects of WGs life
during different phases, whether as a young man or in Yangzhou just
before he passed.  The most memorable was a short clip of him playing
chess with an old friend.  The friend was saying, "let's take a
break." WG looks at his watch and says, "stop stalling, let's go!"

Finally, Uncle Larry thanked by name many of the family and friends
who had helped out during the past few months.  Yu Jiu Ma, Dr. Dong,
and Hsu Zhong Bo and Hsu Zhong Dao were singled out for contributions.

Following this, the family went to the casket to lay flowers on WGs
chest and say a final goodbye.  It was heartwrenching.  We formed a
line to say thanks to those who had come to the service.  Then we took
the casket out to the hearse to go to the crematorium.

That night we had a big dinner.  I got a chance to meet many of our
Taiwan relatives, from Zhong Yi, the baby faced 42 yr old youngest
brother who is building a camera distributorship in TW, Zhong Dao, who
retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Information branch of the Army,
and Sun, Zhong Hui's husband, who was a ordnance guy until he retired
as a full colonel.

As funerals tend to be, there was laughter and good memories.  The
next morning, I had to head to the airport early, but the rest of the
clan headed to Taichung to see Tai Gong's grave.

It was a good way to go out and everyone contributed something to help
out.  I was really proud of our family.

--
Louie Cheng