I met up with a co-worker at Eastek as I exited the terminal. Justin, a young sales representative, had just returned from a local meeting and was heading back to the factory himself. This came as a surprise as I had expected Austin, a co-op student in his fifth month, to pick me up. I would later learn a mini bike accident changed this plan and left my passage into mainland in the hands of Justin, now in his fourth year living as an expat. We collected Sam, the other new co-op, within minutes of my arrival and quickly grabbed a shuttle to the border. Oddly this wasn’t a shuttle in the American sense of the word. Upon paying for the passage we were collected by a van, the three of us were the only passengers, and we departed immediately. Anywhere else this would be called a taxi, but I have a feeling this wording and prepayment is done to avoid some sort of licensing necessary to be a taxi driver/company.
The China border required a few more forms to be filled out and your bag to go through what I would call a high speed x-ray, if they noticed something array with a bag I think it would be a struggle to catch the owner as they may already be halfway out the door. But overall it was another rubber stamp job, in an out in a number or minutes with the most worry once again reflected in the surgical face masks worn by the border workers.
The car ride allowed some time to chat about the local scene and how the nation had developed greatly even in the last four years that Justin has been residing in it. A car pulling into the highway from a dirt road on one exit about ten minutes from the border was normal Justin explained. He said locally they are called “salmon” because they drive on the wrong way of the highway, similar to salmon swimming upstream to spawn. Privately I was a little confused, it simply looked like the guy was pulling out from a road that had been there since before the highway was built and was attempting to adjust to the urban sprawl that has landed in his back yard. But no more than five minutes later I understood what Justin was saying as a truck in the break down lane came at us from the wrong direction. The man on the dirt road wasn’t turning out as I had assumed, but instead was turning around at an opportune point to head back to a previous exit.
We arrived at the factory a little past midnight local time, it was located in a surprisingly developed area when compared to the emails I had received that made it out to be in the middle of no where. With little hassle we got into the rooms which we were assigned to, both in the “manager building” with what I can tell to be only one other resident presently. I was later told this was partly due to the location next to the “guard” dog pen which used to wake people until the only dog large enough to guard anything moved off with its owners departure from the company. I passed out with little trouble aside from the intermittent internet reception that hindered my nightly loveline radio show reruns. (Picture is flags flying in Hong Kong, taken at a later date)
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