"So they seized the whole thing, all of it, and it stayed there.
"China could be like that in those days."
His client, Ricoh, was contacted to sell its photocopiers in Friendship stores. The government-owned stores sold imported items as well as top-end Chinese art and crafts.
Thanks to its monopoly, the stores could charge well above country-of-origin prices and accepted only foreign currency. Guards prevented people of Chinese appearance from entering.
"Negotiations got to a point where they didn't want to pay for the photocopiers so our clients turned around and said, 'That's OK, we won't worry about that - we will now sell the toners, the papers and that sort of stuff to run the machines.'
"They said 'No, we're not interested in that. We don't want them to work ... we want to pull them apart and find out how to make them.'
"That was the end of that deal.
"Those were the really bad old days and everything was suspect. When you crossed the border you took bottles of Black Label and cartons of Marlboro cigarettes and left them at the security counter at Beijing airport and they would open the cabinets and stuff them with all the other Black Label and Marlboro cigarettes and then stamp your passport and off you went."
Sam Jackman first trained as an architectural designer after being "a bit lost" when leaving school in Wellington.
"A cadetship came up with Fletcher Construction and then I was really keen on interior design work so I joined Nova Interiors - ID Design Group - and I moved to Auckland.
He designed supermarket interiors for Foodstuffs but wanted something more "and I loved working with their ad agency".
He was offered a job in Australia, becoming an account manager at Foote, Cone & Belding.
The world of advertising was "absolutely brilliant".
"I found my niche. I really enjoyed the creative process, dealing with clients, the marketing side. All of that thing was really, really exciting and I was working with some good national clients - Paint and Paper which was the retail arm of Dulux, International Harvester and McCulloch of Australia with all their dealerships.
"I used to go to wood-chopping shows with my boot full of chainsaws and introduce McCulloch chainsaws to all these forestry guys. It was a hell of a lot of fun and I really, really enjoyed it.
"Then Ogilvy & Mather in Hong Kong heard about me. They came down from Hong Kong and we had a chat and a couple of weeks later I was there, setting up the retail division of O & M."
Hong Kong was still "terribly British" but also "a very raw environment but terribly exciting".
His key account was IKEA along with associated Scandinavian brands and every two years it would review its agency, taking along Mr Jackman to several agencies.
"If there were issues we would say 'Right, we will put it out for pitch' ... in those days most agency contracts were two years anyway."
With his wife, an advertising agency creative director, he moved to Singapore where he used his Hong Kong contacts as an personnel consultant to the advertising sector.
For Bately Ads, the creator of the Singapore Girl campaign, he became account director for several international clients and then took a similar role for McCann Erickson looking after clients "from Denmark to Saudi to Japan".
"A lot of travelling."
Fatherhood saw a return to New Zealand in 1995 and a different direction, starting the Property Valet Company which prepared houses for sale.
"People were valeting cars but there was no one valeting houses.
"We had 42 contractors and did everything from pools to painting to electricity to lawns to tree work to paving. You name it we did it."
A death in his partner's Hawke's Bay family saw them "park" the company and move to the region to help look after family.
They bought 3 acres near Havelock North, that had been in her family since 1923 as part of Waikaha Station, and created Millhills Lodge.
He became involved with the Havelock North Business Association and became more involved, on the encouragement of Adrienne Pierce.
He joined the marketing committee and went on successful membership recruitment drive and became president.
He was instrumental in the resurrection of Hastings District Council's Great Things Grow Here marketing platform, which failed to take root regionally at its 2014 launch.
Hastings District Council went on to use Great Things but other councils did not.
Mr Jackman told Hawke's Bay Today last month that Great Things had "huge legs, but it just needed tweaking".
He wrote a strategy paper for Hastings District Council and was hired as a marketing adviser and worked with Ahuriri design house/ad agency Band to make a wider and more compelling story, with a website-linking QR code providing global marketing leads.
The central theme was a celebration of Hawke's Bay business success.
"We have all these amazing businesses here. The whole point of this is to tell these amazing stories on how good we are nationally, internationally and at a local level."
Great Things was relaunched and embraced by all councils.
"We are starting to tell one single story which encapsulates what we do really well - we grow things here and that's right across the board.
"We have great schools, creating great opportunities for kids and international students. We have a great health system, we have great growers, we have great infrastructure and we have innovative thinkers. Those are all compelling stories that we have to keep telling.
"The other part that is important to me is community engagement - telling our story locally, so people start understanding how good we are. That creates a sense of pride, which is very important."
When asked if he would consider starting an ad agency in Hawke's Bay he said he liked what he was doing too much to change and was already exercising his creative urge.
"I'm working very closely with some clever people at the moment. I work with Band a lot, they are great. The creative balancing between Al and I is perfect, so we make a really good creative team on our own."
While he moved to Hawke's Bay out of necessity, he is here to stay.
"I think it's a great place. I enjoy being here and Hawke's Bay has a real future. I think is an exciting place and it is full of extremely innovative people with innovative product.
"When you start fishing around and dig deeper into what people are doing here - Plant and Food Research, Hamish Whyte's Furnware, the frost machine guys, Rockit Apple, Bostock, Hawk Packaging for example - it's incredible."
