#308 Dulwich Ball

Being part of this expat community in Suzhou mean many social activities and events. Every year, the parent association at the kids' schools, called "Friends of Dulwich" or FOD hosts the Dulwich Ball which is a formal affair with a theme. Kathleen volunteers as one of the FOD officers, so she was involved in the planning of this year's ball.

The theme this year was 1920's Shanghai. Some people, like me, just wore a tuxedo or suit, but many others got into the costumes like Darren and Sonja above in the gangster suit and red flapper dress. Kathleen had her dress made at one of the Suzhou custom tailors.

The party was held at the new boat shaped Crown Plaza Hotel on Jinji Lake - a great location for a big party. There was an excellent band led by the husband of one of the Dulwich teachers. Above you can see Kathleen and a group of friends doing some kind of line dance (1920's electric slide ??). Definitely a great night.

#307 Dragonboat

Today was a Chinese national holiday - the Dragonboat Festival and Kathleen participated in and won first place in the first SIP Dragonboat Race. She joined a team of 10 Suzhou expat ladies and practiced twice a week for the last month or two to prepare for the race today.

As a team of foreign women, they got lots of attention and were even on the local news web site being photographed during one of their practices. See the article titled "巾帼不让须眉 洋太太划动中国龙" by clicking here. They had some training from one of the Chinese national rowing team's coaches and were praised for their teamwork and commitment to excellence in training. Kathleen came home complaining of fatigue and soreness each day she was out training for the dragonboat.

The hard work paid off today. Kathleen and the foreign Tai Tais were one of four women's teams competing and they won first place with a prize of 10,000 RMB (~$1,500 USD). Not bad prize money and quite an authentic Chinese experience.

#306 Rocky Monster

Juliana had a big event this week. She played a lead part in the Dulwich Junior School musical theater production titled the "Rocky Monster Show". It is a comedy tale of an evil scientist in a haunted castle with an odd cast of companions. Juliana played Mrs. Danvers, the creepy housekeeper of the castle. Many of her classmates participated and together they put on an impressive and entertaining show.

We were very proud of Juliana. She auditioned on her own initiative, devoted many hours to memorizing her lines, and delivered a stand-out performance. The children all clearly worked quite hard on the show with after-school and Saturday rehearsals for many weeks. We celebrated Juliana's performance with a dinner out at an Italian restauraunt - a true treat with none of her siblings along.

#305 Work News

We had a big event this week at work. This fourth of four motor grader product models started production this week in Suzhou. We had a product gateway review on Friday with the home office in Decatur, IL and got the approval to formally build and ship this new product.

From a personal standpoint, this nearly marks the end of my initial assignment in China. As the Motor Grader New Product Introduction Manager, my responsibility has been to manage the programs to introduce these models in China at the new factory. Of course, we accomplished this with a large, world-wide team of people, and it is a significant moment to celebrate.

Going forward from here, I think I have already written that I have been asked to stay in China for another six months or more. The next job is to launch a series of projects to further reduce the cost of these K-series motor graders. A change that comes with the job shift is a move from the Cat Suzhou office to the R&D center in Wuxi - about a 45 minute drive in the other direction from CSCL. We will not move our house, just my office.

#304 Cat Family Day

Sunday was Caterpillar Suzhou's first Family Day. Every employee was invited to bring their family to see the factory and have some fun and games. You can see the Cazzato kids with one of our motor graders and also my boss, Dan, doing his shift on the dunk tank.

#303 Safety First

During a break in my Chinese lesson at the Dio Coffee shop in SIP, I snapped these two pictures with my iPhone. As I sat on the third floor of this cafe, I watched these two guys assemble and climb the metal catwalk to begin demolition of a metal structure on the building. This activity did not look at all safe.

At the same time two guys were changing light bulbs inside the cafe on a ladder that would never pass OSHA certification. Note, this is a two person job - one guy installs the light bulb and the second guys sweeps up the shattered light bulbs that the first guy dropped.