Earth 2 Bill: Exploring Indonesia and the World of Singapore
Hello War herd. We are mono one-on-one, together, not not, via Zoom. Matt, Lisa Gleason and I, Bill Gentry are going to talk, we got another podcast tonight andI guess it's not quite night, but it's afternoon. It'll be night. By the time we're done with this. I think we're gonna talk about Shaha, Jata, Chita, and some of my experiences in Indonesia.
Did you know, set up a business in Indonesia? Did you know that Chiha, giant chita means radiant victory creation? How would I never know that victorious creation in that chiha, giant chita? It's a glorious, victorious, radiant creation. It's a great company name that we came up with. I first went to Indonesia, whether you all know it.
It basically surrounds half of Singapore in a bunch of the 10,000 islands that make up Indonesia are very close to Singapore. And then on the northern part of Singapore or Singapore being an island there is Malaysia. So, Malaysia and Indonesia are both Muslim countries predominantly filled with what they call the Malay people, ethnically Malay.
And that's debatable. I had a missionary friend who said that they're kind of on the surface Muslim, and that's not really something for me to say or debate, but, they are. It is considered a Muslim country. So I first went over there on vacation because about a 30 minute boat ride from Singapore are a group of resorts on a place called Benton Island.
And Benton Island was a much bigger island than Singapore, and it was mostly for agricultural use. There was a big city there called Tanja Penong, which I'll get into more later. Tanja Penong was the capital of a province called the Rial Islands. We would go there when we first moved to Singapore in 96, 97.
We found ourselves kind of with island fever at times and we needed to get off and, and just go and hang out on a beach somewhere. Hang out on another island. Well, at least a different view. And Indonesia is a very different place than Singapore. Singapore is like the Wizard of Oz and all these towering Manhattan buildings.
And in Indonesia it is probably the tallest building at least in Ang Penong at that time, maybe two stories. Yeah, it was a really big, exciting thing when they had their first mall and they had an escalator going up to the second floor, and so many people just stopped and looked at the escalator like, what's that for?
What are we gonna do? Well, I'm not getting on that thing. You know what it was? They didn't, it was very, very… Did they have Orange Julius? I'm sure they do now. I think the original Orange Julius was in Indonesian. I a cartel. I was gonna say the, the original owner was Trump, by the way. Did you?
That's a joke. Pete Orange ju. Anyway, so you're in Singapore. Why Indonesia? Why, why, um, you know, why did you want to go there and besides vacation, I mean, you had something in the back of your mind that, that you. We're planning. So tell me a little bit about this business relationship between you and Indonesia.
Okay. Well, we were going almost every month to this one particular resort, and we started to meet people whose families lived on the island. They knew all the things that happened on the island and at around that time back in Singapore. We, we were the factory facility in Singapore that was, was given though the really difficult small assembly jobs, really intricate and tiny pieces.
And the Singaporean, predominantly Chinese workers that we had, they even thought it was too difficult for them, and they're like, We can't do this, we can't do these little, you know, putting this piece on top of that piece. And they're, they're impossible to almost even hold in your hand. So, um, well, I thought maybe the Indonesians, maybe there's some people down in Indonesia, , this place where we go on vacation.
You noticed a small, slight stature of these people in the small thing. Very, very petite. I'd say I'll get into the factory that we set up, but I would say 90% of the ladies there were about four foot eight inches tall, maybe 68 pounds. Very petite, very friendly, very always smiling, very wonderful people, but small.
The floor supervisor was Billbo Bains. That's that nickname Billbo. The Shire anyway, you're in. Alright, so we, I, we go down there actually I go down to Tang Penong, which is about a two hour drive south of the resort area. And we're having a, our first company party we always would give a party, be it a vacation trip or, you know, like a big dance, party and games and so forth at a hotel in Singapore.
Well, our first one we went down to Tan John Pinal. It was maybe 20 of us and we got on, we get on this boss and the tour guide is this kind of heavy set, young man, 19 years old called Johannes, and Johannes was a man filled with all kinds of personality. He was ethnically Chinese, but he was boisterous and verbose and had a story for everything.
As we're driving down through the city and we went to. Ancient temples and we went to garment factory department stores. Yeah, we did actually go to some factories too, but that was, that's another, that's further on in the story. And, and Yohan said that he had prior… he's now the ripe old age of 19.
Prior to working as tour guide, he would bring exotic birds into Singapore. So what's the town address? What town are you in with this? We're in Ang, John Panoff. So he's the bird man of Tanja.
He's the bird man. Um, so anyhow, that was the first time I met Johannes. Well, about a year and a half later we've talked to some people at the resorts and I said, I need to go visit some factories in Benton. So we can scope out the possibility of maybe us doing a joint venture with some of these local entrepreneurs and find a section of their factory where they can hire and put to work 20, 30, 40 ladies, right? Yeah. So the ladies to work. Yeah. Okay. So listen, when you find this, did you, you know, did you build a structure or was, are you looking for an existing structure? Well, we're not; right now we're looking for a joint venture showing. Okay. And, and Johans is driving me around.
This was a separate trip. I go… let me finish the lady, the people at the resort say, I've got somebody who can take you around and you still have go down to Tan Joong. And it's Johanna Su Santo who meets me and he drives me around for two days. And we visit I think the most interesting one was aplastic flower factory.
Wow. So we visited this factory, we visited some garment facilities and nothing was really fitting just right. And, and so what was it like though? I mean, like a year later you go down there and it's the same guy. Well, and it's just totally coincidental, but I think it's possibly because he was probably the best English speaking guy in that volt.
But I mean, wouldn't it kind of weird though? It was very weird. It was very ironic. It was very kind of serendipitous you know? Yeah, like this was meant to be kind of a situation. Okay. So, we've spent two days looking at these factories, these potential joint ventures. Nothing is really quite clicking.
I'm getting ready to drive back to the ferry terminal cuz that's how I got there was on boat. It was about a two hour boat ride from Singapore to Tanja Penong, and Johannes turns around in his seat and he said, sir, you don't need any of those people. I'll be your guy. You can trust me. We'll set up this company together and you won't need to have any kind of a joint friendship.
I'll be your guy in Indonesia. And by the way, would you? And I gave the guy a chance probably about 2021 at the time. By the way, would you like to buy a parrot? or two? Can I got a Doto no more? I got a Doto for six on the side. John, you gotta stop that addiction. You've got exotic birds opening up this can like this.
He's got watches and birds. That's any good salesman in Asia. Alright, so John and I decided to set up this company, based upon the lead management, just based upon the bird man's work he took. Well, we would give it a shot. We would give it a start. We would start investing. You can usually, you know, after two or three or four meetings where you're doing an investigating and you're checking out the possibilities, you can tell whether this guy's gonna be really a good, hard worker or a plague or not.
Well, it turns out that he for 20, 30 years continued on of the business. I'm the one who, who left due to other, other reasons. I found a lawyer in Singapore to advise me on, you know, how I should go about this. Setting up a company in what's, call it the deep into the third world in a very small town, very a city with a hundred thousand people, Tan Penong.
That's got one traffic light and one paved road. And I, and I loved it. It was so exotic and so, you know, different from Singapore and different from America. I kind of dig, they're different. I dig the exotic. So I met a lawyer who was a Harvard graduate, worked at a firm, I don't remember at this time how I got his name and he was one of these guys, he by himself and I think also with maybe a partner.
They set up companies for large American multinationals and they, and they were set up in a way in which they're all local companies, cuz international companies, an American company with an American name in Indonesia, gets analyzed and audited and kind of bothered a lot by local government officials.
Bothered in, in not a good way, intrusive. So he says what you do is you set up a local company. I can help you with the contracts and how it gets written up. And these local companies are basically, you kind of are owning it, but through a power of attorney, it's a power of attorney type structure and it's very common, at least in Southeast Asia.
So, we came up with a name, Chiha Ja Chita, and we set up this company and, oh yeah, another point is that he said all of the big tennis shoe manufacturers, the garment manufacturers, they set up these Power Attorney type of local companies, at least at that time. 25 years ago they set 'em up that way so that if political situation gets bad in that country, whatever the situation might be, if it goes bad they can pick up and leave tomorrow and not have like, all kinds of ramifications that are gonna ruin the big mother load. It's kinda like a squat or settle. Well, yeah. You come in with your tents and if you need to, you can pack up your tents, put 'em on the back of your horse and disappear overnight.
Nobody knows where you went. So, ‘means I'm squatting for a six month. It was not part of our mother company, the electronics family business. My father was not interested at all in having a company in Indonesia because part of his World War II experience was being based in Indonesia.
He had som bad memories, so we needed this work done. I set up a joint venture with Johannes, and we started hiring people with the contract. And once we'd gotten the, the company officially ordained and stamped by the government, local company Chiha, giant Chita. So we began our process of transferring components.
Dealing with customs probably day in and day out over the years was our biggest issue. Getting parts into Indonesia and then parts back to Singapore. It's a little bit different than smuggling birds. We had, so we investigated so many different options. Well, I'm thinking of how you can get these parts into Singapore, basically free if you want, but no, we, we want this squeaky clean route.
And one of the interesting things is you learn that, when it comes to customs, requirements, regulations, customs, labelings, there was nowhere in these big thick customs books for electronic connector. So the guy there sitting at the counter who's working at customs in Indonesia will open up the book and he'll say, “electronic piece.”
Electronic piece. And over here, I see metal interconnect and, you know, and this one is a 10% tariff. And this one, here's a hundred percent tariff, which one would you like for me to pick? And so for a little bit of money, of course he, he's gonna pick the one that's most beneficial to you.
So that's kind of how it works. A lot of things are in these books are not in these books. Yeah. So that gives the the customs guy the leeway to negotiate. I like the way you put that, the leeway. All right. So,we start our business and it really starts booming and it, you know, the labor's like a hundred dollars a month.
Wow. And, um, if you start upping the labor price, then you upset the apple cart of what the standard label or labor rate is in that area, then you're gonna start having people knock on your windows or throwing rocks. So everybody…you gotta keep everything kind of out out of the radar and there's an equal follow there.
You gotta follow. Um, what's common locally? Not what you think. Oh wow. We have to pay. You can't pay. Put that an American way. You can't pay him a lot more because the other guys that get jealous, right? And then, so they'll get more than jealous. They'll get angry and they'll run you outta town. Wow.
They'll run you outta business. Okay. So we start the process and things really are going quite well. They go quite well. We go from five young ladies to 10, to 15 to 20. And then this is back in the late nineties when businesses were really booming. I mean, electronics business globally was probably hit its peak or one of its peaks in the late nineties.
And then that was kind of shattered by the.com crash of which you lived. I did, yes. Mostly driven by telecom. Well, I over purchasing, et cetera. What I was thinking is, is at the time I remember it was at this was right about the time when you say that companies were developing these big, you know, telecom was expanding.
Right. You know what I mean? They, the mon…you know, the big companies and all the routers, even our little companies getting million dollar awards. You're right. I mean, it's just blowing up all the stuff. And then you're right then. And then it came to an abrupt halt boom. One. I have one day.
Have I have a theory about that? Just one little quick note. I have a theory. This is that one. Cuz one of the big things that we were into was the n plus one, redundant hot swap stuff. And, and you know, these, these routers and these giger, they used to tell us what a hot swap is. But anyway, what would require 10 to 15 power supplies?
As this technology and the chips get faster and faster and faster. Right now, you know, you would sell a hundred of and things become so extraordinarily powerful that the market that you know before when you're selling a hundred thousand of something, now you're in the sell.
A thousand of 'em are, are less than that. So that's, to me that's the advancement of the chips and such, these things have caused Yes, the, the technology and the speeds went up, but the hardware manufacturers: they lost a lot because what, what you required a hundred of 'em to do before now you only need one because they'd be kind.
So powerful. That's my opinion. I don't know. You can edit this out. That's great. Probably, I'm curious what, maybe we'll have an entire podcast? Cut that out. Hot swap is, yeah…well we can do that. We'll have to get someone else. Isn't that a date? That's like an online dating, yeah, that piece. Okay. All right.
So, um, Business for us becomes horrifically shattered by the.com crash, I think. What year was that about? It was like 99. Yeah. And I think globally, the electronics industry dropped 40% in sales and then we were no different. But in Singapore we were still somewhat booming, but very much a lot of the assembly we were doing at Shaha, Ja Chita in Indonesia was for our French and our American factories.
So, we suddenly wake up one day and we have nothing to do. There's no business, there's no orders. So we went probably 3, 4, 5 months cuz we didn't wanna lay them off. They have a very difficult laws in Indonesia for terminating people. It makes you not, you'll do everything you can to not terminate 'em.
So we kept the business going building for inventory to start, and then the inventory was so big we couldn't be doing that anymore. And so I'm gonna try and keep these ladies busy. And how well, the ladies themselves said, why don’t we'll bring our sewing machines in from home.
We used to all work in the garment industry. We'll bring the sewing machines in and we'll start making clothes. Well, at that time I also had an idea for making ties. So I thought, let's make ties. Um, ties have the largest markup of any clothing item in the world. So that's what I'm told. They've got like a three, four, 500% markup on a tie.
Why? Why is a little sheet of of silk gonna cost a hundred dollars? Have have you noticed anybody wearing ties anymore? That's true. There are. There are a few. There are a few, mostly rap singers or something. Bow ties. Was it bow ties that you were making? No, we were making ties. I won't give the secret away, but it was, maybe I'll start up a business again someday making ties.
But we were. We were experimenting with a unique concept in making ties. And I'll leave it at that., I still have a few of them. I used to wear some, we did that for about three, four months and then slowly business started creeping back. So Chaun giant chip just going into, it’s next phase. And so let's say we were at 25 employees we held on to them and then we start growing again as a company.
And, it was very, it it's maintained a very successful, good quality rate. I mean, and nobody could beat the times and no nowhere else in the world, wherever we tried could, could we match the profitability, the low costs of these ladies? Um, in Indonesia. Well then what happens next? Poof. Nine 11 hits, no nine 11 hits and much of the Asian world that I lived in changed not overnight.
It had to do with some of the things that…let's say the American military did. American politicians at the time and things that took place in Iraq and overnight we became or let's just say,Johans went from being sort of a celebrity working with this American to this. How can you dare deal with an American?
My God, America is the is the evil. It's the devil. Devil. Yeah. I mean, it just overnight dealing in a Muslim country became very dicey and not so safe. Have you ever heard of the word pariah? I have not pariah it's a band, right? You were, you were your, he was a third baseman, third baseman for the Cubs, Johnny Pariah.
So that really was the beginning of, of what became the end of me dealing with Jeha Giant shift. It, at a point, when the trips were taking place, and I'm going over there, I'm getting a lot of angry stares. Johans is getting hassled by his friends and the Osama bin Laden t-shirts are like the most popular garments.
Is that what you got into after the ties? He was selling a of the every third male, walking around the street at Chanon. Penong had a Osama Bin Laden shirt. So, um, I started looking for ways to get out of the business. He selected Jim Morrison. Well, he was like shake, shake, cabra, or shake. Shake your booty.
One of these guys, yeah, nobody knows really exactly what he did or if he's good or not, but he symbolizes rebellion, sticking it to the man. Yes. He symbolized rebellion. So I found somebody who would buy my interest in the company. Yeah. I was another group of Americans in Singapore.
And they bought me out. But as part of the deal, they continued to support us with our needs for this very special, tiny assembly work that needed to be done by the company. So I gracefully was able to get out. I made a tiny bit of money and we maintained the great service that Joha Giant CHIPA offered us.
Is it still going? Yeah. He changed the name. I think the name is now Aurora. I don't know why. Johannes has gone on to be a kind of a big shot in Jakarta and his son runs the business. And now with all the great training he got from me and all the experience of running a business and dealing with foreigners.
He now deals on very large projects where he helps in the negotiations between the Indonesian government in Jakarta and some of the really large mining and foresting and natural elements, sort of business activities. And he's. He's now become a big shop. He's not driving, he's not driving the tour bus anymore.
No. He's got somebody driving his limo for him. John. John has gone on and done a great job and he stays in touch. She's very thankful for the me giving him that first opportunity. And I've been, , fortunate enough to, , been able to do that with some people all over Asia. And, um, you know, it, it makes you feel good when you've changed somebody's life.
That's kind of what I try to do. And what we do do in Cambodia is we change lives. What about the children? What about the children? This is what this is all about end at the end. It is all about the children. It is whether they be in Indonesia. You knowIkind of a Colors of Cambodia project in Indonesia, and they're so wary of the white man coming in and making promises and wanting to work with their children and it was like, no, no, no.
Johans and I had many great years hanging out together and, and building a business. I learned a lot.
That was my first, establishment. I set up let's call it the real third world. Did that There were many, there were several more after that. Is this because on somebody's podcasts we great experience for guy his. Thirties, we jump on how to do this, we jump timeframes, right? Blah, blah, blah. We jumped from here like the last back.
So how is this in relationship to the colors of Kip? Oh, so did this help you in setting up the, I mean, your knowledge in, in doing business and all these things helped that, or, or is it vice versa? They helped you? Interesting. That you bring this out more. That's why I'm here. I'm like the, I'm the edwick man of this.
Yeah. Thanks for bringing this up, while I was dealing with Johannes, Johannes actually was an orphan and he was taught and went to school at a Catholic school. Wow, okay. And later he changed over to Islamic religion cuz it would help his career. I'm sure he is quite serious and a believer, but, so switching Johannes, switching guys is a pretty big thing though.
You know what I mean? All that. Well, I'm not even gonna get into the God's concept, conversation. But, so I started to, Johannes introduced me to Father Anri and Father Anri who was, is one of the greatest men I've ever met in my life. He was a lifelong missionary. He was a, a Frenchman diminutive build, and he always wore a flower shirt.
And he was the one who ran this Catholic diocese this church in Benton. Padre Enri. Padre Enri. And, so almost every trip I would take over there, I would get together for lunch with the father who would smoke a cigar and we'd eat or drink a couple of big Benton beers. I thought you right without a bill.
This is a very, very good stuff for you. The father Anri, I understand has, has moved back to France, but this was here again back in the nineties and I think it was in his sixties or seventies. In the nineties, he's probably not even. So he'd spent 20 years he said in the jungles of Burma, dealing with head hunters.
And then he spent quite a bit of time on Vietnamese refugee hall missionary. Yeah. He worked for the Catholic church and then he had been in Benton, I think 8, 9, 10 years. And he set up the school and the church. I never went to one of his sermons, but we became good friends and I donated quite a bit of money the, from Posi Pai world and, and also, , prophets from Chiha, Jai shipp it to his church and his cause.
And then at one point I had started going into Cambodia and getting the idea about, you know, setting up a school, setting up some kind of a training program. And he just made this point, which resonated with me. And it resonates with me, still says, Bill, don't give money. Don't just throw more money at Cambodia.
Get so much money and so little of it gets used properly. The best thing you can do for those kids over there is give them your time. Diane finally started getting some time, got permission from the wife and the kids, and I started going over to Cambodia and offering time teaching art, which I did.
Know how to teach. I guess the other thing I could teach is golf. And did you teach that yesterday? But, did you give some lessons yesterday? Um, no, I did not. I got, I received lessons and I learned a few things. But I did, I played golf yesterday, but anyhow, that's my story on…oh, wait.
No, no, no, no. There's the last, the last thing. What was that? On, on the list? Hold on, let me…, the table. Hold on. The table of weapons. Hold on, Johnny. The table of weapons! Yes. All right. Very strange thing about the laws of doing business having your own factory in Indonesia.
One day I am coming over and I'm going to our new factory. We moved to a, a bigger factory after our first factory, which was in town. We, we bought a we rented a building outside of town on a dirt road. That we thought could go up to having 150 employees. Wow. Hundred 50 a chipa. Chita. We, yeah, Chita were prepared and we were renting out this factory for, I don't know, hundred.
That's a lot. $300 a month. I mean, everything was so cheap. So yeah. I mean, always, I've always got big dreams. So lemme tell you. So it wasn't a big deal when the.com crashed. If you're only paying 300 bucks a month to rent a place, man, you could survive a little bit at time. We were able to tread water without too much financial stress.
Okay? On the mother love, know the mothership. So here, here it is. We reached 50 employees. Okay. Okay. And so I'm coming over if somebody is picking me up. I'm just kidding. No, no. There were, there are usually, you know, there'd be a mail manager, a mail delivery boys. But the assemblers were primarily tiny, tiny ladies. Tiny ladies. So I come over to my family. Tiny ladies handling screws, tiny ladies. All enough handling crew. Let’s table the punch on here. Table. Table, the table of weapons. So I drive up to the factory, by the front door and there's, there's a guy in uniform with this big table in front of the front door and, oh, this is kind of bizarre, you know?
So I walk in and I find Johannes and I bring him back out front and I said, You're honest. What is, what's all this? I mean, there's, there's a machete, there's brass knuckles, there's a billy club, there's a couple of fists from people that are not paid the vigorous, you know, there's a you know, finger… a nail gun?
I mean, it was, no, I'm joking about that. But it was, there were these weapons on this table, and I said, John, what's going on here? You know, what's happening? He says, well Bill, those are to protect the employees. I'm like, why do we have people trying to break in? Are there gangs nearby trying to break in?
And, you know accost our lady employees? Like a tiger you haven't been telling me about this. Could have been a tiger. Could have been a tiger, yeah. Or a python. And I said, so who were these people? Who were the threat? You know, maybe we shouldn't talk to the authorities as Bill, these weapons are here and this gentleman is here.
Is the man who would use them and they're not to be used against some outsider. These weapons here are generally to protect the employees from the boss because it's not so uncommon. Got a shit, but a boss to be the one taking advantage. What kind of show? So what kind of show are you running there?
Well, I felt pretty bad, but it's law so that that table stayed there. Right? And if we went under 50 employees, we could get rid of the weapons. But I was just blown away by the fact that that's the mentality of Indonesian government, Indonesian factories were, and, you hear about this where the most wicked guy in the factory is the owner, you know, running around and a and abusing people and badmouthing them and tough.
Tough, tough situation, tough relationships between the boss, and the employees. And that's why so many people especially in Singapore, they much prefer to work for a foreign company especially a like an American company. Where they get treated so well. Wow. So that was a lesson for me, a lesson for you all.
Long live giant Chita Indonesia! It’s a great place and, I got some of my ideas for Colors of Cambodia there. Thanks to Father Enri. Give time, don't give money. Yeah. And, we'll catch you later. Hey, it's been real fun. What about the children? Listen, if you donate today, buy one, get one free $4,000, you get one of Bill's ties that he's been saving, you know that's worth way more than $4,000.
That's true. Yeah. You know. Bye. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Hey, appreciate, we'll see you.