For the former MG Rover workers based in China, Friday night is curry night.
They may be 6,000 miles from Birmingham, but Longbridge workers have found a little bit of home in China.
Trevor Mortimer, from Selly Oak, spent nine months in the last year helping set up the engine making facility at Nanjing Automobile Corporation’s (NAC) new factory.
He said: "It’s the family you miss the most. But the food is brilliant, there is everything you want.
"We’ve been able to find a curry house, a good one, called the Punjab. Friday night is Punjab night; it reminds us of home a bit.
"The only thing I miss is roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. You can’t find that anywhere."
Trevor, aged 57, is one of 30 workers who have been drafted in by NAC in the last year. Some carried on working for Powertrain when MG Rover collapsed, finishing off engines and were then retained by NAC when it bought the company.
Others were recruited later to help with the training of staff and setting up the machines and processes to make cars and engines.
Trevor was enlisted to help identify spares and the different parts for the machines which have become damaged or lost in transit from Birmingham to China.
"We helped to pack it all up in England, so we had more of an idea of what they’d got than they did. They didn’t know what they’d got. If there’s a part missing from a machine, we will know what it looks like. This can save time."
Every day at 7.45am the group is taken by minibus from their hotel to the factory in Pukou on the outskirts of Nanjing.
They return at 6.30pm – depending on the traffic across the Yangtze Bridge.
Trevor, who worked at Longbridge for 39 years before it shut down in April 2005, said: "The traffic here is horrendous, and so is the driving. You wouldn’t want to drive over here.
"We get taxis, buses and trains. The taxis are so cheap, its 60p from one side of town to the other."
Trevor said he had enjoyed meeting the Chinese.
"But the Chinese are wonderful. They are so friendly and young people are so eager to learn, especially English.
"Most of our time when we go out is spent talking to them because they want to learn our language."
The friendliness paid off for the group when a waitress from one of their favourite bars invited the engineers to her village for the Chinese Spring Festival.
"It was about an hour and a quarter outside the city, it was pretty basic – the toilet was a hole in the field.
"They cooked us a meal, the whole village came to have a look at us and say hello.
"Six of us went, and the really small children would come up to you and speak perfect English."
Vernon Stretch, aged 58, from Droitwich, also went on the trip.
He said: "It was like a brick-built barn and the girl’s mother and father couldn’t speak English, but they made us feel so welcome.
"You could tell from all the smiles on people’s faces they were pleased to see us "They cooked a fantastic meal for us, and they were toasting us and we were toasting them.
"We took some wheat wine and some Cadbury’s chocolate, but told them they were for after we had left.
"The Chinese don’t like you giving anything. They were saying ‘you are my friend, you don’t need to do this’."
Unlike the others who kept on working at Powertrain after the closure in April 2005, Vernon lost his job. He was unemployed for three months and came to work for NAC in December and has been in China since January.
"It is good. It is very easy to slip into this way of life. I thought it would be difficult and I would be home sick, but having the other guys here already to show me the ropes has helped.
"I miss my family, and it’s hard when my wife has little problems at home like when your fence blows down and you are not there to sort it out, or the car needs an MOT.
"But I like the culture, the fact the shops are open late at night, as long as people are in the shops they will stay open.
"You have to haggle though, there is always a discount. Here we are the foreigners and we appear to be a bit of a novelty.
"We are always getting stared at, not maliciously. You feel very safe when you go out, people want to stop and take photos of you."
So what are the Chinese like to work with?
Roy Lea, aged 53 an equipment technician from Northfield has been working in China on and off since April 2006.
Roy said: "The Chinese are OK. The young kids want to learn quickly. The majority of them speak a little bit of English, so there isn’t much of a problem."
So can you speak any Chinese? "Idiaa," said Roy, which means a little apparently, and inevitably samping pijou which means cold beers.
Roy manages to keep in touch with his family via the internet and has seen his seven-month-old granddaughter Tilly via webcam.
He said: "It’s hard being away from home for so long, I miss the family. I haven’t seen Tilly for a long time, and my daughter is expecting a baby in July.
"I’ve seen Tilly on the webcam but only in passing. She is so quick now."
And what is it like working in a factory which features so many echoes of the former Powertrain engine plant which was packed up and shipped from Birmingham to the other side of the world?
Roy said: "The building is absolutely the same as Powertrain in Birmingham. When you go around here it is just like walking into the old East Works.
"It is all laid out the same, only slightly bigger. Inside some of the machines there are documents and pieces of paper from Longbridge, but the machines have been re-sprayed.
"It’s new in here so it is going to be cleaner. In winter it's freezing cold, but in summer it is baking hot. "
Trevor said: "The humidity in the summer was unbearable, your clothes would be soaking wet, and it was 38C and 95 per cent humidity.
"If there’s a problem, the Chinese just flood labour at it. We couldn’t afford to do that in England.
"The Chinese think we are millionaires, because they earn about #200 a month, but we are normal working people."
Trevor said there was also a different culture when it came to problems.
"I’ve tried to tell them about the ‘Brummie spanner’.
There used to be a machine the electrician would hit when it went wrong and it was fine.
"But over here they strip it down, and find there’s nothing wrong with it."
Engine technician Bill Cragg has been looking after the production for the KV6 engine.
The 58-year-old from Bromsgrove, said he was heartened to see MG posters around the city.
"It gives you a good feeling, seeing all these MG signs about, its shows the name is carrying on when 18 months ago the name was dead."
Bill also missed his family, but also Aston Villa. "I wasted my season ticket this year. I saw the fist couple of games in August and a couple of games in September and that’s been it. I was really looking forward to this season with Martin O’Neill in charge, but there you go.
"It’s sad when you walk around here and think about what happened at Longbridge. I wouldn’t say I’ve shed a tear but it does get emotional sometimes when you are walking around and you think about all the people who used to work there.
"The other downer is the other lads. I’m surrounded by Bluenoses."
