Tony Talk（在线收听）

Tony Provolone: Hello and welcome to Tony Talk, I’m Tony Provolone and with me today is Robert Foster, an American living in China. Robert, hello.

Robert Foster: Hello.

Tony: Robert, we know you’r e had a lot of business experience in the United States. We understand you worked for General Motors Corporation.

Robert: Yes, that’s correct.

Tony: What would you say are some of the most memorable or exciting projects?

Robert: Probably one of the most memorable and exciting was the work that we did for NASA, the first lunar mobility vehicle.

Tony: You guys went to the moon then.

Robert: We did, yes, so to speak. We had our name on it anyway. We had been given the responsibility of designing, creating and designing a vehicle, which would have mobility on the moon. We hired a very brilliant astrophysicist from Cornell University _ Dr. Thomas Gold. Gold had the theory that the moon was covered with dust, very deep dust and that a normal vehicle would not be mobile. It would slip and slide around so we designed a vehicle with paddles on the wheels, blades on the wheels, but it was successful, and that was one of the most interesting things we did because it got us heavily involved in the whole lunar program with NASA.

Tony: You’ve also worked in China, right?

Robert: Yes, I’ve worked in China mainly in logistics area transportation and logistics.

Tony: What are some of the more interesting projects you’ve worked on in China?

Robert: Well, I think probably certainly one of them is a project that we’ve been working on with the Chinese central government to try to develop a super carrier to compete with the Western, particularly the American carriers like FedEx, UPS with Maersk Shipping Company. We’re trying to put together a consortium of other Chinese companies, ocean carriers, EMS and the post office and the railways a number of Chinese Sino-Trans and a number of Chinese carriers that would consolidate and be more effective in competing after WTO.

Tony: You did some railway work in China?

Robert: Planning work, railway planning work to improve the railways. Recommending that the rail budget be significantly increased in place of highways that more rail be built and not so many highways.

Tony: You’ve been here for how long?

Robert: Well this trip I’ve been here for one year.

Tony: What do you like best about China? Besides the food.

Robert: I think the total culture. I really love the culture. I think it’s great. The strong family, the strength of the family, the family structure. The Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year for example, the return to the home bringing the relatives together, having family dinners, cooking, shopping together. The very strong drive for education. The tremendous sacrifice that most Chinese parents make for their children to have them educated is really remarkable.

Tony: Yes, Robert we also know that you’ve done some travelling around the Pacific.

Robert: Right.

Tony: You took a sailing... You sailed around the Pacific?

Robert: Yes a group of us had a sailing adventure from the West Coast of the US to Hawaii and then to Indonesia and all over the Pacific.

Tony: So you sailed from California?

Robert: From Los Angeles.

Tony: From Los Angeles across the ocean.

Robert: Right.

Tony: That must have been really, really wild.

Robert: Some parts of it were more wild than we wanted.

Tony: Really? What was the most...Were there any dangerous situations where you...

Robert: Uh, we ran into some storms. It was fairly hairy for a while.

Tony: How many people were on the boat?

Robert: Seven.

Tony: Seven. Did you run out of supplies or anything like that?

Robert: Uh, we didn’t actually run out of food, we ran out of water for a while, and we underestimated the water because of the storm had delayed us.

Tony: What did you do about the water did you try to...

Robert: Well we got to the next island and got some water there.

Tony: Oh.

Robert: So we were OK.

Tony: Unforgettable experience!

Robert: Yes.

Tony: What did you do when you got to, you said you went to Malaysia?

Robert: Uh, Indonesia.

Tony: Indonesia.

Robert: We got to Jakarta and all around Indonesia, which has a great number of islands. And we went to an island, which is the home of the only real dragon, the Komoto. And we went to Japan and Hainan and a variety of other all around the Pacific.

Tony: Wow, it was a real whirlwind tour of the South Pacific.

Robert: Yes, very exciting, right very exciting.

Tony: That’s great! Thank you very much for your time. Thanks again for listening to Tony Talk, and we’ll see you next time! Bye, bye!

Robert: Bye, bye! CE