Jean-Hugues Depigny and his wife are from France. They have lived in China for 10 years and are known by the Chinese names Yang Peiyi and Yang An. Their home is resplendent in Chinese furnishings and ornaments.
Jean-Hugues Depigny is vice president of Airbus China customer services in Beijing. Airbus and China have been in cooperation since 1985, when China Eastern Airlines, formerly the CAAC East Regional Administration, became the first Airbus client in China. Since then, Airbus has cooperated with the China aviation manufacture industry on subcontracts and aircraft components. Other domestic airline companies have also placed orders for Airbus100-to 400-seat airliners, and the Airbus China along with two other joint venture enterprises is now established in the Middle Kingdom. Airbus also intends to invest US$80 million in setting up, together with the China Aviation Supplies Import and Export Corporation, CASCAIRBUS Customer Services-- the largest and most advanced Airbus training and support center in the Asia-Pacific region.
There are plans afoot to build an Airbus Research and Development Center in Beijing and put more than 200 engineers to work on creating a new model of civil airliner. The vice president of Airbus China customer services, Jean-Hugues Depigny, says that he and his company have confidence in China's stable foundation in the aviation industry and its group of qualified professionals. The engineers, Chinese and otherwise, slated to work at the research and development center are all outstanding aircraft designers.
Airbus China is exemplary in its efforts to be responsible corporate citizen in China. In recent years, it has sponsored the setting up of a technical library in the Civil Aviation University of China and has also established an Airbus scholarship at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Airbus regularly invites children from the Beijing Children's Welfare Institute to their Chinese office on International Children's Day to watch shows, play games, and eat cake and other treats with the Airbus staff. The company also makes donations towards surgery for disabled orphans.
Yang Peiyi and Yang An have an adopted daughter named Yumei from Anhui Province. On the day the Anhui Children's Welfare Institute notified them that it had accepted their application and sent them the photo of their then prospective daughter, they were so elated that they broke open a bottle of champagne. Yumei and her French little brother sleep in bunk beds, and most of the time play together happily. Yumei studies at a French school in Beijing, and speaks fluent Chinese and French. She does well in all subjects, and also takes classes in the traditional Chinese plucked instrument the guzheng in her spare time.
"Life in China is comfy and cheerful," Yang An concludes, happily. She finds the Chinese people open-minded, wise, and easy-going. Yang An takes Chinese classes and speaks the language well enough to bargain and haggle with peddlers at the vegetable market.
There is an association in Beijing that organizes activities and outings for French housewives. Yang An particularly enjoys trips to the graveyard where Matteo Ricci is buried. The Depigny family goes traveling around China on every holiday and festival. They particularly enjoyed their trip to Yunnan, where they stayed in the areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. The couple is particularly appreciative of Chinese young people's respect for the elderly. As foreigners living in China, they show respect for local traditions, and enjoy every moment of life in the Celestial Kingdom.
(China Today October 18, 2006)
