Design Of Park One…” The week After “

Our first presentation a great success we head into the  third week in good spirits, ready to refine the design and make whatever changes are needed to satisfy our client. At this point its obvious that means satisfying Chairman li, as his opinion is the only one that counts. Having spent more time with him now, we realize that while Charles is a nice guy but has no real authority. This is a real top down organization, the chairman ruling his people like a king or dare I say emperor.

OK just kidding…

Jake seems happy which means the koreans are somewhat happy, honestly they are a tough bunch to read…I have never worked with Koreans before outside of classmates and its an interesting scenario. Dr park is pretty funny, having more english then originally apparent, he likes to crack jokes and tease the Americans, especially Doug. His favorite words seem to be “big problem” said with a stern tone…The younger koreans are extremely deferential to him, I am told by Chris this is very typical in Korean society where males are dominant and age is respected…

Every day at lunch time the korean team all grab their lunch kits and head for the cafeteria for the Lian Bang meal.

I know I had a much better picture of these things somewhere, they were actually very cool and we all had one given to us,of course the Americans promptly forgot which ones were which and eventually we just stopped using them anyway…

We started calling Lunch break, Salt Time as the food was extremely seasoned no low sodium here! The whole company would sit in a communal break room and eat from the kitchen…After eating  lunch, Dr park just gets up and leaves his dishes and utensils to be gathered and cleaned by Kathreen, the only girl, I guess women’s lib didn’t make it to korea yet…

Just Kidding

Ok just Kidding and those gals are Japanese anyway 😛

The very real danger at lunch time was the possibility of running into the chairman who will insist on drinking Baijui with his American team… after the second incident I began to skip lunch. After the meal Lian Bang and the Korean team  all shut down and nap for about an hour Dr Park snoozing from his giant lazy boy chair at the rear of the room.

I didn’t take this pic but its too perfect not to share…

Brian is a good sport although its apparent to me he is miss-placed in his role as project manager, the guy is a good designer and comes up with great solutions for design problems, but for some reason Jake insist he try to manage the project. His English is much better then any of the other DPI team so his contribution is extremely important. Chris continues to be helpful but its also apparent he has no real authority within the DPI organization. All decisions end up going to Jake which causes some stress as he is rarely there, and not really aware of the realities we are facing…

Thankfully Doug seems to relish the increased scope of his role and pretty much has assumed the overall leadership. I guess thats kind of his ” Thang ”

Doug in Charge

Oh Yeah!

Very Exciting…

Purty!

Mini MOOSE

More and more I am being brought in to help him as a pseudo art director as well as guy doing the art… over the period of this project I will learn more about contracts and the managerial side of the business then ever before… Working on projects in Asia is a real lesson in cultural differences for a westerner, not only do you have to solve the issues of the project but you are constantly checking to ensure that what you are saying is actually what is being heard. It gets even deeper when you consider that even with perfect translation there are certain base understandings of reality that differ between English and Chinese. I assume this goes for all languages groups. Its becoming very obvious that we will need a dedicated translator for the project to move forward. The koreans are really not up to it, and the best we have ‘Sarah” works directly for our client…This difficulty is felt by everyone on the team and our particular scenario is 3 pronged, Chinese Korean and American, fun for all…

Chairman Li holding court…

hand waving and big gestures gallore…

James (Eskelletons man™) seems to be causing more issues; but as he has no english skills, its not really affecting us directly. The koreans are not so lucky. It turns out there is a lot of animosity between  Jake and James, James having somehow edged his way into this position right after Jake fired him. In fact the two of them had been working to land this project for DPI, but Jake felt James was miss-representing what DPI could do and being dishonest. To make it even better, we find out much later that James actually wrote a great deal of the contract, which at this point we still have not seen…

This guy was funny, in a not so funny way…

Lookin at You Buddy

According to Sarah who works directly for him he is aggressive and bad tempered much like what Brian told us from the beginning. Apparently he is trying to make up for a complete lack of experience with bravado and bullying tactics… Thankfully for me, I get to focus more on the artwork then the project politics, only running in to it now and then or when pulled into a strategy meet with Chris and Doug.

Due to the workload we have agreed on a complex strategy to get the large amount of design artwork produced in time for our final client review in late Aug, only 1  month away. We are bringing in another designer Paitoon Ratanasirintrawoot, an ex Disney animator who was recommended by one of Dougs many contacts, he will work with us in country for the month. At the same time Cindy White and Rhonda Counts two other ex Disneyphiles will assist from the USA. Also to round out the effort is Ronnie Rodriguez  ;whose company does live show production and designs costumes for Disney, will be providing us with some designs for the parade characters… My lovely wife who by nature of her education and life in the USA is well suited to come and assist with Doug as our dedicated translator.

Fanny in the Garden

Over There see?

Fanny has already been here to visit me and meet the team but as an added bonus it turns out a substantial chunk of her dad’s family is actually living in Shijiazhuang. Her Aunt actually lives just a few blocks from the work site…She hasn’t met them but I know we will. You couldn’t make that up if you tried…

Me and Leo Gann Fanny’s Cousin…

Me & GunnGunn

Next up the real work begins…