The main purpose of this trip to China was to take part in the 10 year anniversary of the starting of the company. Nov. 2004 Mary started production of a couple small parts in some spare floorspace in the much larger Eti as part of a joint venture between Titan, that we worked for, and Eti.
She has now built it to 2 plants and about 130 people.Most of the people that are in the pictures have been with the company most of that time. Her management staff is very loyal and her turnover rate is very low. She is proud of the fact that most of her management employees have been able to buy cars and many have been able to buy a house. Mary and the people that work for her have worked hard and have built a very viable business that is different from most other Chinese molders and as a result are now in a position to grow significantly. She is planning a third plant late next year. So this party is a recognition of the 10 year mark and a jumping off into the next 10.
The party was held in Zhuhai as that is where the first plant is and most of the people.Chinese company parties follow a general template. Speeches, entertainment provided by employees, prize/gift giving, and dinner with lots of drinking. Plant was shut down on a Tuesday for this and it started about 4 in the afternoon with Mary’s secretary and the company driver acting as masters of ceremony.
Mary started it off by giving her speech.
Her HR manager consulted with her about an issue while dressed in her dance garb.
Her and Mary’s secretary were the main organizers of this event. With the first speech out of the way it was time for the first entertainment which was a dance routine by members of the staff. (accountants, engineers, production supervisors etc.) Here is the last few seconds of that entertainment.
It should be noted that that may be a bit much to our western norm this is the cutting edge for formal entertainment in China. There are hours of stuff like this on the TV for the New Years entertainment.
Then it was a speech from Head Lee the plant manager.
Then it was some singing from one of the employees.
Then James Wong gave a speech. James was a driver that picked up Mary at the airport the first time she went to China and has been with her since. He now works in purchasing and his wife also works at the plant.
Then he sang a song.
There were during the event drawings for gifts. Here are the winners of a backpack, the first level prize.
There was more singing, a duet by these 2 girls.
Then it was time for the head accounting guy to sing a song.
And then he was joined on stage by Mary for a duet.
There were some more prize drawing and then a dance number to some Korean pop dance music song that generally was considered to be the best act of the night.
That pretty much wrapped up the program. There was a fair amount of picture taking.
So it was into the elevator to go to the dinner activities.
The first person I saw was James Wangs youngest daughter all ready to party down.
The venue.
Mary took a couple bottles of her expensive wine from the winery we were at this summer but that was poor planning on her part because they quickly disappeared with all the toasting that takes place at a Chinese celebration dinner.
Like this
And this
And this
And this
By the end of the night some people looked as wasted as they were.
And finally there were just a few people left with Mary discussing things with the 2 plant managers, (Johnny with his back to the camera if anything was more wasted than Head Lee and he is the nephew of Mary’s sister’s father in law (Ashley’s grandparents) and they just happen to be in Zhuhai this week so he also had to meet up with them while nursing a massive hangover) At the table Finance, purchasing Quality Control and HR are still holding in there. Since I had managed to keep my total toasting down to about 3 glasses I could still drive so shortly after this picture the party broke up and we headed home for the night.
It was and epic event and everyone seemed to have a good time.