Day Nine

Today was another awesome day. I went out and visited a site with AP which was about 2 hours out of Shanghai. Shanghai seems to stretch on forever but it had 23 million people. The site is going to be a 1500 sow unit. One of the biggest differences here is that they have the boar stud, gilt developer, gestation and farrowing barn, nursery, and finisher all on one site. The construction of them is a lot different than how we do it in the states. Almost everything here is manual. The walls are about 16 inches thick because they lay a red brick wall then cover it with plaster. They do this as it is cheaper than cement. The frames are almost all metal. I have hardly seen any wood used anywhere. They have shallow pull plug pits that drain into a lagoon. All of the ground is leased to families from the government for 70 years. So when they build hog facilities they lease the land from the people who are farming it. Then hire those who where farming it to build the building and raise the pigs. This works but means that construction of the barns is never near the quality it should be. Also that the people who are raising the pigs often don’t understand how to properly do it. This is why they don’t reach the production numbers that we do in the states. They are outfitting the barns with the same technology as we have in the states for controllers and feed lines. Actually, they are using cooling cells which are not readily used in our area yet but they are farther south than we are. It was 96 here today and all the locals say it is still cool and it will get hotter. I might just cook while walking outside. Another thing they do different here is using mostly coal to heat the barns. They use it because it is cheap and available. My meals again were very good. For dinner they took me out for Chinese. I had one of the spiciest pork dishes I have eaten so far but boy was it GOOD! I think I might just stay here for the food Americans don’t know how to cook  I might just not like our food because it is going to be so bland when I go home. I had supper with Joe and Wendell from GSI, they took me to the walking street and we had Mexican. It was good but it did not compare to the other foods I have been eating. After that we hung out in a few places on the walking street talking with some of the locals. It was very interesting and once again it proved how many misconceptions I had about China and the people. They are honestly so much nicer than the general American. It is also fun to say hello to them in Chinese as it catches them off guard. I wish I knew more but I am learning a bunch but it is so hard to remember it as I have extreme information overload.