I had dreamed to leave the Nanjin Tankers Cor., for which I had been
serving for 10 years, and to take part in the group of Chinese seaman
exporting since I graduated from maritime colledge.

There was a surge of interest for going abroad arisen from the bottom
of my heart by a radio officer's experience in a foreign company. And
then chance came at last, after two times of telephone interviews, I
was accepted by the Ocean Tankers company(OTK as below), flied to
Singapore and boarded M.T Ocean Opal, a tanker with a deadweight of
36,000 tons, in 2001.

To be frank, there had been a little nervous when my dream became
real. I asked myself more than once: "Can I in a short time adapt
myself to my role and this new environment consisted of both foreign
and Chinese peers? Though I have been pinnind down on English over 10
years." Luckily and consequently, by my hard working and the help
from some kind-hearted colleagues, I earned a position in this new
place and relieved myself from the uneasiness and unassurance
torturing me at the beginning.

I have fulfilled two contracts in OTK until 2003, performed as third
officer and second officer respectively. The halo of mystery and
inaccessibility of a foreign company has faded away in my eyes,
converting into an idea of just so-so. Compared to my former Chinese
company, from a view of as a shipping company, perfections and
imperfections, regularity and irregulaity, standard and non-standard
are interwoven with a symbosis togather; but mostly it is the im-,
ir- and non- if you want to draw a conclusion for the OTK. It
sometimes is hard to imagine that somethings illegal and abnormal
were conducted by such a well-claimed large company, which doesn't
match to the good image the OTK has been associating so much
endeavour to recreat and improve.

I apperciate very much that the OTK has offered me an opportunity to
verify my quality and tolerance, which has built up a strong
confidence in me to challenge myself, sharpen my skill in a better
company. At the time when I am going to bid a temporary farewell to
it, it is my desire to present my standpoints about its image. And I
am pretty sure my views are representing the common ones held by most
of Chinese officers, who have declined to return after only one or
two contracts of working for the OTK.

I remember once I was on Ocean Opal, ready to cast off from Tankstore
terminal, talking with a pilot named Chen. Having had an English
conversation with me, He asked me interestingly: "Why did you choose
the OTK? And not those good and standard companies?" I told him that
I was short of the experiences of working abroad and quite dark about
the management system of a foreign company, plus just at that time I
did think the OTK was not so bad. He turned up his nose at my
response: "Singapore is shameful for having such kind of garbage
company as the OTK." And he even wanted to introduce me to another
nice company called PIL. It was from then on I have paid a particular
attention to how the OTK adminsters and operates its buinesses,
trying to link it with what I have learnt and witnessed.

Firstly, there are many aspects on which the OTK is worthy taking
safety into a serious consideration. I observed once during
ship-to-ship operation in West OPL, that my ship was fastened with
two VLCCs - Majulah 1 and Lu San, and a sister tanker - Ocean Amber
togather on a single anchor chain of Majulah 1, which had almost
reached bejond its maximum holding capability and posed a threat to
vessels nearby. It was perhaps so common a practice for my senior OTK
captain that he just shrugged his shoulders and turned a deaf ear to
me, a junior officer's suspicion on safety, and had not arranged a
watch on bridge or kept engine ready for emergent use.

As a junior officer, I prefer to work and study under the tuition of
senior officers with excellent quality and professional performance,
which will contribute to my future and absorb more knowledge. It is
absolutely contradictory to this idea if you are working with a
captain, who even wears his sandals at the presence of a pilot,
talking blue jokes and those unintelligible junky English he
describes as "the OTK's Slangs." It is a regret to say that I have
co-operated with three Korean captains and two Russians, two Chinese
chief officers, one Korean and one Ukraine though, only one Korean
captain named Im Bong Hag and one Chinese chief officer named Xu Lin
had really impressed me with their devotionism and professionalism
(and I assume they be counted as a race totally different from those
majority of the OTK's senior officers). However, it is also that this
two persons have declined to return after only one contract. The more
common practice is, as a junior officer, I had to squeeze a time to
prepare some master's files and monthly reports from my own busy
working schedule. I cherish this good opportunity to get a peer into
the master's file system and how he handle it as well. Here I want to
put an emphasis on - I had never ignored the existence of a captain
even I had done a favor for him; nevertheless, in no way does my
respection to a captain's authority mean he can make a show of his
power in front of his inferior without any reasonal excuse at any
time! Perhaps, this is why I had an unhappy rememberance about a
Korean captain called Kim Seung Man during my stay on Ocean Opal.

The OTK's working conditions stands out as tough and arduous from
other shipping companies, especially for its tankers engaged in oil
transferring between inner terminals of Singapore and WHS and those
smugling tankers in Tai Wan Strait. The shipping schedule is tight in
Singapore, one laycan ofter another. The average interval for one
voyage was usually two or three days at the busiest days when I
stayed on Ocean Opal, shuttering between loading and unloading,
coping with various inspections among limited off-watch times (how
hard you can imagine when you are working on a grandma tanker for
whom you should gloss over all her wrinkles and aged signs). "Loading
more, discharging quicker, running faster" seemingly has replaced the
OTK's policy "Health, Safety and Environment" and become the motto of
operators and bunkermen. As for crew's health and the safety of a
ship they have been thrown in the air. In Tai Wan Strait, the brave
Russian Ivans ride on waves of 6 or 7 metres high; their small
smugling bunker barges leap onto the peak and smash into the valley
a little now and a little then; they would rather heave to sea back
and forth at the cost of oil consumptions than search a nearby
harbour to take a refugee from bad weather. As a Chinese, I take the
fact of that I have served on a tanker engaged in a business that has
undermined my country's economy as an real insult to myself; however,
I was unable to fully supress my eagerness for cash. I am fairly sure
that this is my first but also the last.

I have also gained a useful benefit on how to manage a grandma ship
during this two years in the OTK. I appreciate my foreign co-workers'
devotionism very much(though they are not professional so much), and
crew's attitude towards work. These crew, receiving a salary far
below the standard of market, exposing themselves to the scorching
sun of middle east and fighting the mountainous waves of Tai Wan
Strait, have endured without any complaint to work for at least two
years, during which including the possible fact of even not having a
shore leave.

It occurs to me that there has been an inclination in the OTK to
classify its ship's officers according to their origin - the first
class is Koreans, the second Russians, the third Chineses and Myammar
and the forth Indonesians. I have been defending the image of Chinese
seaman more than once in front of those self-approbation Koreans and
Russians. Yes, I admit there are not so many excellent senior
officers in the contemporary Chinese seaman market. But if you want
to pick out randomly some elites from a group of over 600,000, and
those who stand out in the crowd will excel far ahead their
counterparts both from Korea and Russia no matter whether on the
stand of quality and quantity. However, why is the OTK unable to find
out suitable and competent officers in Chinese market? The reason
are: first, most of elite graduates from maritime universities are
recruited under the flag of COSCO or other major large shipping
groups every year; the rest who have performed less qualified in
their academic years have no choice but seek employment of various
agencies; second, the group of leadership in those large companies,
out of the aim of prevending seafare accidents and securing their
position, will try any possible way to hold onto elite officers(think
about it - who would like to leave a standard company owning a large