Mark's Zhejiang Diary-Wenzhou, a Beautiful Industrial City

An employee of Wenzhou-based General Protecht Group pours a cupful of water into the company's innovative mains power socket, to demonstrate it's imperviousness to water on Wednesday, August 25, 2010. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/ Xu Leiying]

The day began early, at 7am with a quick breakfast of congee, a hard boiled egg and some fresh water melon. It was to be a busy day with the entire morning and early afternoon being taken up with a five hour bus journey from Chun'an county to the southern city of Wenzhou-an area of light industrial units located on the east coast of Zhejiang Province and surrounded by grassy hills, mountains and forests.

The plan was to tour a private enterprise zone which has become an integral part of Zhejiang Province's economic success story. The scenery along the route was stunning as I have already mentioned, but as we approached the city of Wenzhou itself my attention became focused on man-made features atop many of the new houses and small factories that dot the landscape as you drive into the city.

First though, I should say that it's not the bleak industrial landscape you might be imagining. The weather was hot and sunny and the rays of the sun flashed off modern steel structures laid out not as an industrial park, but more like a well designed recreational park, with manicured lawns and even the occasional pond. But what were those large silver colored barrels on the rooftops of many of the houses and industrial units? I took some photos with my digital camera and zoomed in to get a closer look. They appeared to be water containers, no doubt full of water heating up in the natural heat of the sun. They take environmental concerns very seriously in this part of China, and this would become clear again later when our group of CRI reporters toured two factories in the area.

On the way into the city I had also been baffled to see what can only be described as large silver metal spikes reaching skywards from the rooftops of many of the newly constructed houses along the road into town. Like the Pearl Tower in Shanghai each spike had a series of metallic spheres attached to it, descending in size the nearer they were to the top. I assumed they were some kind of futuristic-looking decoration, or aerials of some sort.

After lunch, we headed a short distance out of Wenzhou to meet the director of General Protecht Group, which makes up-to-the-minute circuit breakers and other cutting edge low voltage electrical devices. The boss is Chen Wusheng and instead of getting his head of Research and Development to show us the company's range of products, he took great delight in giving us a hands-on demonstration of some of the company's products himself, including pouring a cupful of water into the company's innovative mains power socket, to demonstrate it's imperviousness to water. Impressive! He also showed us a dimmer switch which works just by stroking it with your finger and some other gadgets.

You may already know the name Protecht for its victory over the American company Leviton which tried to sue the Chinese company for patent infringement and lost. It was the first time a Chinese company had succeeded in winning an intellectual property case in the courts, and is something Mr. Chen is happy to talk about at length, while reaching for another of the company's widgets to show you as you listen to the story.

Soon afterwards we were back on our transport and heading to another light industrial unit when suddenly I saw what appeared to be a small church in the distance. Then a little further along the road another identical one. What a strange design! Small, and consisting of just a gothic-style base with a tall steeple atop which sat a large crimson cross. In all I saw four of them, all apparently built to exactly the same specifications. Quite an unexpected sight and looking more than a little out of place.

Finally we reached our next destination, the headquarters of Chint Group Corporation. This rapidly expanding electrical distribution components company started life in 1984 with a staff of eight. It now employs more than 23,200 staff and in 2006 was ranked 15th largest of the top 100 private companies in China by Forbes. It's the largest power transmission and associated devices company in this country.

I was very impressed by the company's relaxing landscaped garden setting with water features and a corporate atmosphere designed to make the company's unofficial slogan a reality: 'a family business that became a family of businesses'. Single workers enjoy quarterly matchmaking parties on company premises, and employees are encouraged to stick little smiley or frowning faces on a wall calendar to show other employees how theyre feeling that day, so their colleagues can help to keep everyone in a mood that will keep everyone happy and focused on the company's new projects. These include the mass production of solar thin film technology for use in the eco-friendly solar powered cities which are a key part of Chint's vision of the future.

So, a busy day again, and another busy one ahead tomorrow here in Zhejiang, the Chinese province that has managed to successfully blend hi-tech development with some of the most beautiful natural scenery in China.

Source: CRI online