Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 141 - 138 Lingyan Shoe Industry (@Number One Mo Fan)

Chapter 141: Chapter 138 Lingyan Shoe Industry (@Number One Mo Fan)

Yan Yan’s older cousin’s shoe factory was also a small workshop when it was established, and at that time, Aunt had just become pregnant.

Yan Family’s grandfather passed away early; at that time, Yan Yan’s elder uncle was twenty, and Yan Dabang was just eight years old.

According to the elder uncle, when the grandfather was alive, he was very concerned about his eldest son’s marriage and had already chosen names for his grandchildren, declaring that if it was a boy he would be named Yan Ling, and if a girl, she would be called Yan Yan.

Yan Yan’s elder uncle was named Yan Dingbang.

In the era when the elder uncle was born, the founding of the country, names like Dingbang were quite common.

Those who had lived through the era of war knew the significance of peace the best.

Neither Yan Yan nor Yan Ling had ever seen their grandfather.

The early death of their father was also the fundamental reason why Yan Dingbang’s family was so poor they could hardly make ends meet.

To some extent, Yan Dabang was brought up single-handedly by his elder brother, Yan Dingbang.

Besides having to support his brother, Yan Dingbang also had to finance his education; this was why Yan Dingbang did not get married until he was well into his thirties.

Yan Family’s grandfather was an educated man who had attended private school, which was evident from the names he picked for his grandchildren.

The name Ling Yan comes from two lines in the fifth of "Thirteen Poems of the Nan Garden" by Li He of the Tang Dynasty, "I invite you to ascend the Ling Yan Pavilion briefly, like a scholar who could be a marquis of ten thousand households". fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

It is a poem about establishing a nation and securing peace, and it resonates somewhat with the names that Yan Family’s grandfather chose for Yan Yan’s elder uncle and father.

Had Yan Dingbang’s wife given birth to another daughter right after Yan Ling, she would certainly have been named Yan Yan.

However, after giving birth to Yan Ling, Aunt never became pregnant again.

Four years later, Yan Yan was born, and Yan Dingbang gave the girl’s name, Yan Yan, to Yan Yan.

So why was she not named Yan Yan but Yan Yan?

Even though it was already the 21st century, many Wenzhou people, when naming their children, still relied on the elders to consult the temple, and Yan Yan’s grandmother did precisely that.

Reportedly, the grandmother had taken Yan Yan’s birth information to a highly respected master, who, whether it was said that Yan Yan lacked water in her elemental balance or something else, unequivocally indicated that Yan Yan’s name should contain water and definitely avoid fire.

Yan Dabang had no vivid memory of his father and thus did not insist on using the character Yan; eventually, they changed Yan to Yan.

This was the origin of Yan Yan’s name.

One wonders if Qi Yi could have come up with such a magical connection as the fate that unfolded after the spring festival of 1073 if Yan Yan’s name had still been Yan Yan.

Unlike Yan Dabang, whose memories of their father were vague, Yan Dingbang always reminisced about the youthful days when his father was alive.

Thus, when the elder uncle established the shoe factory, he did not hesitate to name it Lingyan Shoe Factory, which was later renamed to Lingyan Shoe Industry. The suffix of the company could change, but the words Ling Yan were absolutely essential.

Today’s Lingyan Shoe Industry, from its name to its buildings, from its equipment to its office building, exudes a modern aura.

Yan Dingbang felt that his son had been in the United States for too long and was completely out of touch with the actual situation.

If Lingyan Shoe Industry couldn’t be called modern, Yan Dabang thought, there would be no genuinely modern shoe factories in the world, at least not domestically.

Elder uncle saw the form of modernization, while Yan Ling saw its substance.

For instance, Lingyan Shoe Industry didn’t even have an HR department; the previous cashier assumed the role of HR.

How could a modern large company not have a proper HR department?

The accountant and cashier at Lingyan Shoe Industry had been with the factory for over a decade.

The accountant had some family connection to the Yan family, and the cashier was the child of a friend of Yan Dingbang.

When they arrived, they were both quite young, but then – quite unintentionally – the accountant and cashier took a liking to each other and became a family.

Even for a particularly traditional family business, having the accountant and cashier from the same family can be unacceptable unless the boss’s wife takes care of the accounts personally.

After the accountant and cashier married, the accountant remained an accountant, and the cashier became the HR.

In other words, at Lingyan Shoe Industry, most positions, besides those of factory workers, are created based on personal need rather than company need.

And after becoming HR, the cashier, besides no longer having to do cashier’s work, continued doing mostly the same things at the company.

Mainly eating, chatting, and drinking tea.

When it comes to hiring, Lingyan Shoe Industry mostly relies on friends’ recommendations and acquaintances’ introductions; with hardly ever a need to fire anyone, the HR position is essentially idle.

Although Yan Dingbang was quite strict with his son, he followed the principle of harmony begets wealth with others; if there’s no work to be done, then there’s no work. There’s no point in firing anyone.

The solution for the accountant and cashier becoming a family was to hire a new cashier and let the original one find something else they wanted to do.

That was the "modern" state of Lingyan Shoe Industry.

Of course, this isn’t to say that those recommended by acquaintances are necessarily unskilled or incompetent; at least the young team responsible for foreign trade at Lingyan Shoe Industry performed exceptionally under their manager’s leadership.

Otherwise, Yanling Shoes would not have weathered the winter of the manufacturing sector unscathed.

The manager of Lingyan Shoe Industry’s foreign trade department, Qin Shaohua, was recommended by Yan Dabang to his elder brother.

Qin Shaohua was the former deputy manager of the foreign trade department at Yanlu Shoe Machine and was highly proficient in business and quite unorthodox, but he wasn’t someone who "obeyed superiors" very well.

Qin Shaohua needed his own stage to make his way in the world and was not the sort of person suited to be a deputy manager of a department.

Because of differing philosophies with the manager of the foreign trade department at Yanlu Machinery, the manager and the deputy often fought incessantly.

Yanlu Shoe Machine, although it also had some elements of personal management, was much more standard compared to Lingyan Shoe Industry.

Yan Dabang, recognizing talent, was nonetheless in a quandary as the friction between the two tigers of the foreign trade department at Yanlu Machinery was severely affecting the department’s daily operations.

Lu Bingran then came up with a solution; he proposed the younger talent, Qin Shaohua, should go work as the manager of the foreign trade department at Yan Yan’s elder uncle’s company.

In this way, the talent would not be lost to another company, and the internal conflict within his own company would be resolved.

The foreign trade department was an oddity within Lingyan Shoe Industry.

The department ran with high efficiency, and Qin Shaohua had absolute say.

Since Yan Dingbang didn’t understand foreign trade and had never really intervened, coupled with the impressive performance of the department, Qin Shaohua had almost the standing of a co-owner within Lingyan Shoe Industry before.

That’s why, even though Yan Ling believed the family shoe factory shouldn’t be taking OEM orders, the number of OEM orders at Lingyan Shoe Industry was still increasing.