2015年12月22日 星期二

My American Client

My American Client

Written by Li-Chang Kuo
Jennifer Lawrence’s famous movie—‘The Hunger Games’ in which there was a saying: “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.” This meant the ruler gave his hunger people something good. And ‘Yield Benefit’(讓利) became the popular words in the recent years. 
Reminiscent of 1966, every early morning at 2 o’clock, I went to market to help a stall to kill ducks and inject water into the skin of dead duck body; after closing the stall at noon, I went back my own machine shop to produce the sockets, tie clips, rings, oil lamps and other scattered orders, how hard I’d done the expenses still much higher than income. Until one day in November as I felt into a dead end, I prepared to go out and expect to find a purchasing order, when I opened the wooden door, a huge figure almost filled the narrow gate, an American handed over a piece of paper to me and asked, “Can you make this stuff?” When I realized that written in dense drawing was just a fine eyelet which my most familiar work, so I told him that “Come back the day after tomorrow, I’ll give you a sample in same size.” Because I must build a new set of deep-drawing progressive die for sampling as his drawing shown. He really came back the day after tomorrow, looked like very exciting as received the sample, then he’s gone and came again next day to point out a long line of defects to be improved, then to and fro a month, he eventually exposed a satisfied expression, and I had finally received a first purchasing order from him and took five working days to finish it. In that year, the money I earned could buy ten thousand square feet land at Park road of Tainan, and when I paid back the debts to those uncles and aunts in the Yamuliao Market(鴨母寮市場), they astonished but proud to say: “Your family will turn over!”
If you dared to stand up in the arena, American will never have mercy on you because you only 13 years old in 140 cm height, he still follows the game rule to treat you, so there is not the thing concerning ‘Yield Benefit’; conversely, if you’re looking for peace you must dare to face the challenge and be able to meet the requirements, and then you can win the respect to get rid of the plight, and enjoyed the first good year in 1967. President Eisenhower once said: “Peace was purchased only at the price of strength.” I showed my strength to my American client, the strength delivered my family from poverty to rich. In 1974, I was building my ‘Cheng Kuang Precision Industrial Co., Ltd. ’ at the side of Salt River in Tainan, Premier Minister Chiang Ching-Kuo entered my property, and gave me four words ‘Benefit Use Care People’(利用厚生) that meant “You are good at using the resources to benefit the people.” And encouraged that “People through voluntary service to country is a good thing.” Soon after, my American client who was in the name ‘AVNET’ to list on the NYSE, it’s said that “He provided 80% of TV Antennas to the world.” And I supplied him 90% what he needed. Many evildoers came to lobby that “Ha! Do you know that Avnet earned one US dollar, you just gained one NTD?” Attempted to cut off my American client’s supply line. In that year, the exchange rate was 1:40, it meant my American client earned 40 times of what I got; however, my family had turned over and my production line kept expanding by what I got; especially, I could use the rest hours after I worked 18 hours a day to study at the night junior high school till college, not only got wealthy but also supplemented those required knowledge and degrees, and I passed the examination to be a Reserved Officer as served in the army during 1976-1978. 
In 1979, my American client invited me for a dinner in the Twin-Tower of New York City, he expressed his gratitude for he started his business in a few sum of money and I never asked any penny of developing new products, at last, he genuinely appreciated that he met an excellent suppliers as well as a partner in Taiwan.
Vietnam had fought a tragic war with the United States of America, although Vietnam still listed as less-developed country today, but this October, they have courage to face the high standard agreement—‘TPP’ which dominated by the United States. On the contrary, we saw Taiwan authority’s indecisive, public sector is failure in the policies, and private sector is into a moral crisis from the food security issues, the society full of the drifting thought and missed an opportunity to challenge ourselves, the prospects are out of consideration, Taiwan will be left behind.