Working through the weekend. Not my idea of a great time, but since we haven’t been as productive as Ben feels we should be, I won’t argue the point.

So we headed out East of Beijing to Hebei province. Hebei surrounds Beijing. After about and hour and a half we get to San He City. It’s a fairly large city, but still considered a rural area. The premises for the story we are working on is; due to the economic slowdown the Government is handing out vouchers to people in rural areas to stimulate grows. The basic idea is that if washers, fridges, tv’s aren’t being exported like they where, then the millions of rural residence can help pick up the slack.

We arrived at a small appliance store and meet a woman who was looking for a fridge for her mother. It is her mother’s first fridge. Never had one before and thanks to the 13% savings the voucher gives her it makes it the right time to buy. So after the transaction, off we go to deliver it.

Picture if you will your enjoying a nice spring morning and up pulls a very large foreign man with a camera, a translator, 3 government officials and a delivery truck.
I’m sure she would have rather had aliens land then see us lumber in disturbed her day. She was very cordial about the whole process and we where able to pry an answer about what she thought of the whole idea. She thought that it was good for the government to help local people in theses tight economic times.

Once Ben got a not so quick standup done it was back to the store to talk to the owner and get that side. It was interesting to do the whole story with 3 government officials hanging around. Not sure how candid people are in a situation like that.

Finished up around 12:30 then off to lunch. Donkey meat. Yes I said donkey meat. It wasn’t that bad actually. I wouldn’t order it, but I’ve eaten worse. There was kidney, fish, and several kinds of unidentified meats. It wasn’t all bad, dumplings everywhere and beer.

Oh well at least I got over my restlessness.