Berson & Associates

About ten years ago my wife, and then business partner, took a vacation trip to China. What we found was substantially different from what we expected; everyone was not wearing Mao jackets.

We encountered only two instances of the Chinese Government on that trip. Our guide told us to be careful about what we said in Tienanmen Square because there might be agents around. On a bus trip, when it was convenient to reroute, we couldn’t do so until the local government approved.

My next trip to China was a trade mission with 24 Chinese Americans . On the trip we met with government officials (local regional and national), high tech businesses, venture capitalists and the Beijing Olympic Technical Committee. At the latter I had an opportunity to give a talk on planning and conduct a review of their early plans.

At one point in the trip I met with the CEO of an incubator in Suzhou, near Shanghai. The incubator is more like a real estate agent leasing spaces to new and emerging companies.

After an additional trip or two we were presented with the opportunity to choose between two product lines to bring to the west; fiber optic connectors and hand held surgical instruments . The market for the fiber optic connectors was not in very good shape. A distributor in the us offered to sell us his inventory at below his cost.

We showed the surgical instruments to our ophthalmologist who told us that they were good instruments.
We went to a major conference and exhibition in Philadelphia to do due diligence. After a day we made a deal with an exhibitor to use part of their booth. We were in the instrument business.

Our ophthalmologist comments turned out to be correct. The instruments were soon soon accepted in the US. They are now used at the Mayo Clinic, Stanford University Hospital, The VA, many universities and by leading surgeons.

I have made a total of 9 trips to china.

The last was on September 18, 2010. The purpose was to visit the new instrument factory, see what new product areas they are working on and settle some business issues.

Shanghai is about an hours trip from the factory by high speed train. Thus I was able to spend a few hours at the World Expo. At one point I visited the North Korean Pavilion. The center attraction was a large video screen showing a 1000 member classical orchestra.

In the end I declined the offer to buy the collected works of the great leader in English.