HAN'S LASER 209 older brothers were forced to do farm work in the fields in order to support their younger brothers and sisters in school. When the Cultural Revolution ended and China seriously turned its attention back to education, Gao placed 79th in the county-wide exam to enter senior high school. Gao recalls that when he was in high school, his family would give him 12 buns and tell him that they had to last him for a week. In senior high school, Gao quickly rose to the top of his class, and his academic achievements in high school earned him a place in Beijing's prestigious University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, where he majored in aircraft design and the application of mechan- ics. After graduation in 1989, he secured a teaching position at Nanjing's University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Gao and his family were so poor that when he decided to get married, none of his family members were able to attend the wedding because they did not have enough money to pay for a train ticket to Nanjing. As time went on, however, Gao eventually managed to help all of his siblings attend university. Two obtained doctorates. Laser Marking Machines In 1992, Gao landed a job in Hong Kong to work as a technician on laser marking machines. Laser markers, which cost around $80,000, use laser beams to emboss patterns and logos on a variety of different products ranging from ordinary buttons to shoes, bags, and acces- sories. Although laser markers were beginning to be used on assem- bly lines in the West, there were fewer than ten machines in all of China. In Hong Kong, where laser markers were in wider use, it was widely acknowledged that they added value to the manufacturing process, but the downside was that they often broke down. Trying to get a manufacturer to repair one was a nightmare. The average wait for a technician was around eight weeks, and while the machine was American Management Association / www.amanet.org