And so the nightly ritual began. The man seated opposite the door was the host and held senior rank among the attendees. As a perpetual guest of honor, Clay Biggs was confined to sit to his right. Opposite the host was something like a second in command. Other guests and employees were sprinkled over the remaining seats at the large round table. There were clearly rules associated with the placement of each and every individual, but aside from the specific seatings mentioned earlier, the rules were unclear to Clay. There were twelve seated this evening. On other occasions, they would sometimes use a nearby dining room with a table for thirty.
Unlike the typical round table at any Chinese restaurant, the “lazy Susan” in the center of this table rotated automatically making for a merry-go-round style buffet. It was fun and the decor was fine and intricate. An adjacent seating area with well crafted rosewood furniture allowed a few of the locals to smoke heavily and pre condition the room with the proper ambiance for what was to come.
Starter dishes started to appear on the lazy Susan, served by office employees that doubled as butlers during these special occasions. Which is to say that they were serving dinner, drinks and hot tea pretty much every night, as far as one could tell. Clay wondered why the managers of this semiconductor foundry ate their lunch and dinner at work. Maybe it was considered a perk. Whatever the case, it was clearly not an optional affair.
Despite his complete inability to understand more than a few words of mandarin, these marathon affairs carried on night after night, with the others quite happy to have Clay there, as something only slightly more interesting to them than an empty chair. A man named Gene was seated to Clay’s right and as a low level staffer he had ascended beyond tea server strictly due to his English speaking skills, which were quite good.
But Gene was not a professional interpreter, nothing of the sort, and was therefore incapable of keeping Clay apprised of any details of the spirited conversations that rose in volume and intensity with each passing moment. A series of grunts issued from the leadership figures and suddenly chopsticks were stabbing away at the chicken feet, fresh cucumber, sliced mystery meat and spicy peanuts, among other assorted starters.
One particular dish arrived and Clay was immediately troubled. It was obviously something from the insect kingdom and the fact that two plates of these critters were added to the moving carousel implied that this was considered a staple rather than a rare delicacy. At that moment, Clay missed home so much. “Gene. What is that?” He pointed at one of plates as it approached, or rather as they approached.
“This is…..I don’t know how to say in English.” Clay suddenly realized his folly, taking an interest. It did not go unnoticed and immediately there were calls and instructions circulating, at which point Gene scooped up a few with a spoon and dumped them on Clay’s plate. Oh god no. Up close, these things looked enormous. They were like giant cockroaches that had been de-winged and relieved of their legs. Clay stalled, pressing for more information.
Upon further back and forth with Gene, Clay started to get the picture. They were larvae from the cicada fly and apparently in season and quite expensive, not to be wasted. With all eyes upon him, pursed lips suppressing laughter, Clay opted to use chopsticks. With his limited skills, perhaps he would not be able to get one of those buggers into his mouth. Alas, this night his skills were in superior form. It was as if the thing jumped onto his approaching sticks and clung for dear life. As the juicy looking thing moved toward his mouth, Clay became just another observer.
Clay didn’t recall anything after that, the experience obviously blocked out in the name of sanity. But he did recall chewing it. Thank god it was chewy, and crispy on the outside. Clay’s imagination was that it would be filled with some sort of disgusting goop that would explode in his mouth and taste other worldly causing him to gag and then vomit violently. On the contrary, the first thing out of his mouth was, “tastes like KFC.” The room broke into hysterics. Clay had earned some sort of badge of honor which qualified him to eat and drink with this rowdy bunch for a long time to come.
In hindsight, eating the bugs was preferable to what was in store. Now, the main point of this gathering and in fact the main point of every gathering of this management team, was to get totally shit faced on the most vile alcoholic beverage ever concocted. Baiju. The name meant white wine. But it was nothing like the white wine you know and enjoy. This stuff was entirely rank and harsh and downright sickening. It had this overpowering aroma that caused the untrained nose to immediately trigger the gag response.
While the smell was a challenge, the taste was next level. If you had ever wondered what it might be like to swallow acetone or some comparably toxic liquid, this would be a safer way to satisfy such a curiosity while still getting a realistic experience.
Tonight, Clay was informed, they had brought out the “good stuff,” Which in their minds was strictly a function of alcohol content. Fifty six percent. Each place setting had been previously equipped with the proper lab equipment to handle such an active chemical - a fifteen milliliter vessel that looked exactly like a miniature wine glass, and a small pitcher with gradations along the side. Clay was told this particular pitcher was ninety milliliters. Two staffers, each toting a bottle of the “good stuff” started to fill the tiny pitchers working from opposite sides of the table. This manufacturing company was “Lean” as semiconductor producers usually are, and in the science of drinking, they had likewise organized an ideal pull system.
Now with their proverbial Kanbans filled to the brims, the program commenced. Without prompting, everyone poured themselves a full glass. After that, there was a lot of conversation. Every time Gene updated Clay about the content, it seemed to revolve around Baiju and drinking. Facts, superstitions, anecdotal accounts, all of it was related to baiju as several of the chain smokers continued to enhance the ambiance. No one touched their glasses, though. Instead, hot dishes with authentic but sometimes odd fragrances, started to flow in from the kitchen. Once there were sufficient platters revolving, to be considered a selection, the leader to Clay’s left gave the order and everyone started to dig in.
Most items had no serving spoons. This was rural, western Shandong province, an agricultural area. Formalities such as avoiding the spread of germs, were not a thing. So everyone just poked, prodded, and scooped. Clay noticed that the host, tonight a government visitor, liked to poke and prod nearly everything on a plate with his well used sticks, before settling on a choice of fatty meat or a broccoli floret, as if he were testing to see which ones were dead or alive. It didn’t help Clay’s appetite one bit. Luckily, every new dish was presented to the leader first and that made Clay second. He watched carefully which items had been touched and which remained untouched, as if he were counting cards at a blackjack table.
Clay was relieved to have cooked food, consisting mainly of ingredients with which be had some familiarity. He knew the importance of getting a good base of oily food tucked away in a hurry. And, it wasn’t a moment too soon. The government boss started to enunciate in elevated tones as he grabbed the tiny wine glass. He was issuing the instructions for how these ninety milliliter pitchers would be dispensed, according to Gene. He would issue six toasts, which meant that the pitcher would be empty according to Clay’s calculations. Everyone held their glasses up as the talking continued. It must have been a few minutes and Clay’s arm was starting to get tired. He missed the good old American way of just sipping at one’s leisure. This was structured and disciplined. But they all seemed to enjoy it. It was the way they knew.
Finally, Clay saw heads jerk back as the shots were taken. It looked involuntary, as if the baiju literally had a kick. There were grunts and exhales, some looked perfectly at ease, others grimaced. Clay downed his and tried to look unaffected but to the onlookers he was certainly among the grimacers. Oh, did it burn. And it was sickly sweet smelling. Absolutely nauseating. Unlike red wine as a perfect accompaniment for certain foods, baiju invariably ruined any perfectly good meal. As the burning liquid cut through the food Clay had just eaten, he felt like he suddenly had a full-on case of indigestion. Luckily there was always a chaser of hot tea on standby and he noticed that many of his dinner mates likewise used the tea to wash away the horrifying sensation.
Clay somehow made it through the sixth glass, which didn’t take long, and he was staring at an empty pitcher, somewhat relieved. That was until the pull system went into effect and the pitchers were immediately replenished. Now what? Gene informed Clay that the second ranking person, sitting directly across from the host, was now in charge. Clay thought, OK, that must be the end of it. But then something very disturbing happened. One of the junior staffers walked in with a sealed cardboard box. He opened it and started pulling out bottle after bottle of the “good stuff”, lining them up on the side table. Clay started doing math, while it was still within his grasp. Each bottle was 500 milliliters, so for twelve people it required just over two bottles to serve one round. A case held six bottles. So far, they had two cases going. If they finished it all, that would be a full bottle each. No, that’s way too much people.
And it was. Too much. Clay barely recalled transcending a full bottle. He was told the next day that there was even a switch to beer after that.
It all seemed like good fun, and as Gene and others had emphasized, it was critical to build relationships in this way, so called Guangxi. But this was all a ruse. Clay was a device design and process expert. He was spending two weeks in an extensive audit of every aspect of this wafer foundry and the backend packaging operation in the adjacent facility.
The strangeness of the food, the sights, sounds and smells, were a challenge to his intense concentration. The rock hard mattress and purposeful absence of coffee, it was all completely deliberate. The incessant and excessive drinking above all, was taking it’s intended toll on Clay’s mental acuity. Somewhere in all of this precisely orchestrated confusion, Clay lost his edge and he missed something. Something he would normally never miss in a million years. There were added circuits in the wafer die, and there were added steps in the packaging process.
The ARM processor, which was to be produced by the billions by this Chinese manufacturer on a contract basis, and sold globally by Clay’s company, was now equipped with extra features, free of charge, compliments of the Chinese government.
Russian intelligence tried its best to use its own components, especially in any sensitive applications. But alas, they were so hopelessly far behind. They simply had no other choice. Their recent design choices, which required high processing power in a small package and low power consumption, led them to the same ARM processor that was built in China. The Chinese company was certainly entitled to over produce this component by a massive amount and develop a secondary counterfeit market, weren’t they? Of course the contracts said otherwise but so what. Who would know?
Russia, Iran, North Korea and many other such restricted countries scooped up these and other such gray market devices while the product companies scratched their heads wondering which customers were responsible.
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