Control Design – May 2019

also reported on world events, including
national news items of the United States,
such as the California wildfires.
When you walk about the city, you
see basically happy people. Everyone
goes to work, earns their pay, goes
home, pays their bills and buys their
cars and groceries and other goods, just
like in any other country. Many busi-
nesses are privately owned, alongside
government-owned businesses. The
agent who brought us into the project is
an independent Chinese agent, Lucius
Hong, director and managing executive
at Smartech International Commercia
in Hong Kong, but the factory and most
of the other equipment suppliers are
government-owned.
Driving through the city I noted that
everyone has cars manufactured in this
decade. The only older vehicles I saw
were taxis, all Hyundais and Volk-
swagens, and vans. The most popular
American car brand I saw was Buick.
Very few Chevrolets or Fords were there.
There were a lot of Mercedes, BMW and
Audi vehicles. I even saw a Lamborghini
parked at the hotel one day. Apparently,
there is no lack of prosperity.
The person who drove us to and from
the job site had a brand-new Nissan,
and, thanks to the new graphic displays,
he could enjoy the use of the Chinese
language in his information access.
I also wondered how the Chinese can
use a standard cell phone when they
have a “picture language.” I learned the
pictures actually just represent sounds,
sort of like our characters do, except
they are harder to draw. One way they
do it is to type English letters to create
the sounds these Chinese characters
represent, and then the phone supplies
them with a suggested matching list
of characters from which they select
the right one. The other way is to turn

the phone on its side which opens up a

manual-drawing screen, and then they

just draw the character with a finger.

“What good did that do me?” you ask.

The Chinese use an app on their phones

specially written for China called We-

ControlDesign.com / May 2019 / 31

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