We started off today with hitting up a three story indoor market. They had tons of knock-off stuff here...from bags to jeans, shirts and watches. We all ran around negotiating with the sellers and getting good deals. A lot of people bought luggage and filled it with tons of stuff to bring home. I restrained myself, but did end up getting a few bags, scarves and a Lacoste shirt for Bryan. It was pretty fun, and a lot less intense than the other silk market in Beijinng.
After the market we got lunch on a ship restaurant and then headed to the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. When we got there, there were about 200 children practicing for a New Years celebration show - so cute. We went up to the second highest level of the tower to get a full view of Shanghai. It was pretty cool because they had pictures of the city sky-line all the way back to the early 90's...you could really see how quickly and how much the city has grown. The view from the tower was awesome.
Next, we headed to the Yu Garden Market - it was this huge old-style bizarre of shops, restaurants and food vendors. Lauren an d I walked around to find tea, paintings and a wooden box she was looking for. We really got the bargaining down and got some really good deals - it was fun.
After the market we headed to our farewell dinner at one of the more famous restaurants in Shanghai. It was a really nice send-off. When we got back to the hotel, a few of us walked to Pizza Hut with our tour guide, Vicki. I was so surprised how nice it was - really an upscale Italian chain for them. We got a few pizzas and a few bottles of wine. It was nice to chat with Vicki and everyone. After that I went back to the hotel and hung out with everyone. We were so beat that nobody was really up for going out. We stayed up for a while but probably headed to bed around 1:00. Overall it was a good day, but I was feeling pretty tired just gearing up for the long trip home.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Day 10: Shanghai
We started off today with a lecture on "The Global Economic Recession and the Chinese Economy" at Fudan University, the university that my professor did his undergraduate work at. The guy giving the lecture was pretty good, albeit a bit unrealistic about China's future economic plans in my opinion. He talked about their plan for increased investment in public housing, rural infrastructure, transportation, R&D and industrial and rural home support. He forecasted that this year that their GDP would be fueled by 25% government, 25% social and 50% consumption. What about exports and investments? There are certainly some serious implications to think about if China breaks away from exports - particularly for the US. I doubt that they will completely stray from this model anytime soon, but it's something to think about none the less.
After the lecture we grabbed lunch and then did some walking around on Nanjing Road - an old shopping street. It was really crowded, but such a nice day. We also walked along the water on the Bund - really cool to see a view of the city during the day. Next, we walked to Deloitte and sat through what was one of the worst presentations I have ever seen. The poor guy just read his powerpoint slides with his back to us... very slowly in broken English. His knowledge of accounting was limited, so he couldn't really even answer people's questions.
Next we went to the "New Heaven and Earth" area to walk around. It was almost like Fanuiel Hall - tons of little shops and restaurants with outdoor seating. After walking around for a while we went to our last company visit at McKinsey. While we were there, we met with the author of one of the books we had to read for class "Operation China". It was interesting to hear him talk about the transformation of China over the last 20 years and his opinions on where it was heading.
After the lecture we had free time, so a bunch of us decided to stick around the New Heaven and Earth Area to walk around and find some dinner. We ended up stopping at this packed restaurant/bar. We sat outside and ordered all of the American food we had been craving (Nachos, Baked Brie, Mozzarella sticks, steaks) - it was awesome. Glasses of wine were also buy one get one free for happy hour, so that was pretty sweet. It made me wish that Boston had happy hour specials. We also met 2 Canadians who were traveling with Disney on Ice. We had a pretty long dinner, so after we were done I went home and crashed.
After the lecture we grabbed lunch and then did some walking around on Nanjing Road - an old shopping street. It was really crowded, but such a nice day. We also walked along the water on the Bund - really cool to see a view of the city during the day. Next, we walked to Deloitte and sat through what was one of the worst presentations I have ever seen. The poor guy just read his powerpoint slides with his back to us... very slowly in broken English. His knowledge of accounting was limited, so he couldn't really even answer people's questions.
Next we went to the "New Heaven and Earth" area to walk around. It was almost like Fanuiel Hall - tons of little shops and restaurants with outdoor seating. After walking around for a while we went to our last company visit at McKinsey. While we were there, we met with the author of one of the books we had to read for class "Operation China". It was interesting to hear him talk about the transformation of China over the last 20 years and his opinions on where it was heading.
After the lecture we had free time, so a bunch of us decided to stick around the New Heaven and Earth Area to walk around and find some dinner. We ended up stopping at this packed restaurant/bar. We sat outside and ordered all of the American food we had been craving (Nachos, Baked Brie, Mozzarella sticks, steaks) - it was awesome. Glasses of wine were also buy one get one free for happy hour, so that was pretty sweet. It made me wish that Boston had happy hour specials. We also met 2 Canadians who were traveling with Disney on Ice. We had a pretty long dinner, so after we were done I went home and crashed.
Day 9: Shanghai
Today we had some free time in the morning because our first company visit rescheduled. It was nice to be able to sleep in and get things reorganized. In the afternoon we had a lunch meeting with Wing, a Bentley alum and 2 CEOs who started their own businesses in China. It was nice to have informal discussion with people for a change, rather than the presentation style of the company visits.
The first guy we talked to was Ed - he has a company that deals with managing customer experience. Basically, we works with companies (such as hotels, restaurants) to train employees and develop standards for customer experience. Although he does some customer satisfaction surveys, they don't do any qualitative interviewing or focus groups. It was interesting to hear him talk about the Chinese attitude towards being detail oriented in regards to things like proof reading or resumes. In Europe or the US we would be sure to check a document for typos, but in China it's just not the case.
The second guy we talked to was Will - he heads up a private equity firm with offices in Beijing and Shanghai. He talked a lot about how blurry the rules were around business practices when it comes to dealing with the Chinese government - nothing is ever the same or simple. He also talked about the importance of personal relationships. He said that he does a lot more socialization with his clients outside of work than he did in the US. This is his primary mode of growing and maintaining his business.
After lunch we went to an EMC research and development center. We met with a sales guy there. I didn't realize that EMC stored 2/3 of the words data - yeesh. He talked a bit about their employee recruiting and work life. He also talked about how they're releasing their first consumer use storage product and the relevant challenges associated with that in the Chinese market.
After the company visit we went to eat at a Japanese restaurant - great to have a break from Chinese! It was another one of those all you can eat deals...but the entire menu was in Chinese (with pictures, of course)...we basically just pointed at a bunch of stuff we thought we wanted and waited to see what came out. The food was really good and we had tons of it. They also gave us plenty of beer and hot sake - a few people tried to do sake bombs, but the cups were too big and got stuck in the larger glasses... it was actually pretty funny.
Next we went to an acrobatic show. There were tons of contortionists, gymnasts and dancers. Although the story-line of the show was pretty lame, the people were definately talented. We got to see 5 motorcycles drive inside this ball - apparently this is the world record for something like that, so it was pretty sweet.
After the show, a few of us decided to go out to a bar and meet Wing (the former Bentley grad) and Ed, one of the guys we met with for lunch. It was great because they had a deal where it was open bar for like $15. We stayed there for a while and then headed to this other lounge-type place. The whole place was covered in marble, and they had pretty good martinis. I tried to do some salsa dancing...I don't think I was all that successful..haha. Overall the night was fun - there was such a mix of people out, it kinda felt like I was in Boston.
The first guy we talked to was Ed - he has a company that deals with managing customer experience. Basically, we works with companies (such as hotels, restaurants) to train employees and develop standards for customer experience. Although he does some customer satisfaction surveys, they don't do any qualitative interviewing or focus groups. It was interesting to hear him talk about the Chinese attitude towards being detail oriented in regards to things like proof reading or resumes. In Europe or the US we would be sure to check a document for typos, but in China it's just not the case.
The second guy we talked to was Will - he heads up a private equity firm with offices in Beijing and Shanghai. He talked a lot about how blurry the rules were around business practices when it comes to dealing with the Chinese government - nothing is ever the same or simple. He also talked about the importance of personal relationships. He said that he does a lot more socialization with his clients outside of work than he did in the US. This is his primary mode of growing and maintaining his business.
After lunch we went to an EMC research and development center. We met with a sales guy there. I didn't realize that EMC stored 2/3 of the words data - yeesh. He talked a bit about their employee recruiting and work life. He also talked about how they're releasing their first consumer use storage product and the relevant challenges associated with that in the Chinese market.
After the company visit we went to eat at a Japanese restaurant - great to have a break from Chinese! It was another one of those all you can eat deals...but the entire menu was in Chinese (with pictures, of course)...we basically just pointed at a bunch of stuff we thought we wanted and waited to see what came out. The food was really good and we had tons of it. They also gave us plenty of beer and hot sake - a few people tried to do sake bombs, but the cups were too big and got stuck in the larger glasses... it was actually pretty funny.
Next we went to an acrobatic show. There were tons of contortionists, gymnasts and dancers. Although the story-line of the show was pretty lame, the people were definately talented. We got to see 5 motorcycles drive inside this ball - apparently this is the world record for something like that, so it was pretty sweet.
After the show, a few of us decided to go out to a bar and meet Wing (the former Bentley grad) and Ed, one of the guys we met with for lunch. It was great because they had a deal where it was open bar for like $15. We stayed there for a while and then headed to this other lounge-type place. The whole place was covered in marble, and they had pretty good martinis. I tried to do some salsa dancing...I don't think I was all that successful..haha. Overall the night was fun - there was such a mix of people out, it kinda felt like I was in Boston.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Day 8: Shanghai
First thing in the morning we took a 3 hour bus-ride to Shanghai. Even though it was a long ride, it was nice to have some time to relax and read a bit. Shanghai is such a modern, beautiful city – a lot of the buildings remind me of something I’d see in the Jetsons.
We started out with lunch (in a giant banquet hall type-place as usual). We got sweet and sour chicken, french-fries and spring rolls…I was so excited J. Next we went to IBM. It was interesting to learn about their history as a company and more specifically in China. They also talked a lot about the challenges they faced entering the smaller markets in China. We had a lot of time to ask questions, so it was good. We also got a tour of some of their office areas- that was pretty cool too.
We started out with lunch (in a giant banquet hall type-place as usual). We got sweet and sour chicken, french-fries and spring rolls…I was so excited J. Next we went to IBM. It was interesting to learn about their history as a company and more specifically in China. They also talked a lot about the challenges they faced entering the smaller markets in China. We had a lot of time to ask questions, so it was good. We also got a tour of some of their office areas- that was pretty cool too. After the company visit we went to a 10 story mall. We walked around for a while and then hit up dinner. Turns out that it’s common for Asian countries to have their better restaurants in a mall. We had tons of different dumplings for dinner (this is what Shanghai is known for) – they were so so good. I’m really liking Shanghai so far – the food is good, the bathrooms are western (normal toilets, toilet paper, AND hot water/soap) and the restaurants, meeting rooms and lobbies I’ve been in so far have been heated!
After dinner we went on a river cruise. It was awesome to see the city all lit up, I really enjoyed it.
Day 7: Hangzhou
Today we started off the day with a visit to High Tech Zone, another science park like company, similar to the one we visited in Beijing. We met a few of the companies in the zone and sat through a presentation. It was decent, but nothing spectacular. Even though I have a cursory knowledge of IT, servers, mainframes…a lot of it was over my head. At one point one of our speakers referred to us as “geniuses from Bentley” so that was pretty cool…haha.
Next, we visited State Street Bank. Basically, this branch developed technology for other State Street branches and select clients. They were really excited to have us since they have had a few Bentley interns at this office in the past. Also, State Street sponsors Bentley’s school of Ethics and Social Responsibility. The talk was good – I learned about the constraints of conducting banking in a city like China.
For the night we had free time. About 12 of us met up and got a late dinner at an Italian restaurant in the city. It was really nice to have a change from Chinese. We got a few bottles of wine and had a long dinner. Believe it or not they didn’t have chicken parm, haha. I got some eggplant parm and a green salad – so good. After dinner we went back to the hotel and chilled out in someone’s room. It was pretty low key, but good to just hang out.
Day 6 in Hangzhou
Today was a pretty long day. In the late morning we headed to the airport to catch a flight to Hangzhou. It was only a 2.5 hour flight, but the whole ordeal of getting 20 people to the airport, checking in, boarding, etc. was pretty tiring. We arrived in Hangzhou (just South of Shanghai) around 4:00 in the afternoon and met our tour guide Joe. Right away I noticed a drastic difference between this city compared to Xian and Beijing. The roads and sidewalks were spotless, the air was clear and there was tons of greenery. As we approached the city, the highway was lined with modern, multi-colored houses that were all different (yet all the same). Joe told us that each house was for 5 people – I couldn’t believe how much space people got. The city seemed to have an orderly, carefully constructed, communist feel to it that continued to the downtown area. The sky scrapers and cityscape seemed modern and calculated.
After driving for about an hour we got to our destination for the night. Our professor told us to dress warm because we were going to walk around a lake and then head to the “Song Dynasty” show. We got out of the bus and walked towards this area that looked like a cross between Disney world (without the rides) and King Richard’s Fair (yet Chinese) – weird I know. When we got to the gate we were bombarded by Chinese tourists . They were so excited to see Americans that they wanted pictures with all of us. Little girls were running up to get pictures with the “American girls”. It was such a weird feeling. Our professor told us that they would most likely go back to their villages and show off their pictures with the Americans. We didn’t sign any autographs, but we were kind of celebrities there for a few minutes, haha.
We got in and had a little over an hour to walk around. Even though it was dark and freezing out, we still had a good time. There were tons of people dressed in traditional Chinese garb serving food, hosting game tables and selling trinkets. A few of us wandered off and found this giant playground. We played on this huge thing that had rope nets, wooden bridges and swings. Next to the playground was this awesome human-sized hamster wheel. It was like a Japanese game show – two Chinese people would get in the wheel, one would inevitably out-run the other, one person would fall and then the other would fall. There were tons of people around laughing - none of us tried it though. After the fun times at the playground we couldn’t find anyoneeee – leave it to me, this was like my 3rd time getting temporarily lost from the group haha. Our tour guide finally found us and then filled us in that everyone was inside one of the restaurants in the fair drinking tea – we had no idea.
After some tea we headed to the show. We had the front 2 rows of seats in the theater (which wasn’t heated!). The show was awesome – tons of dancing, intricate costumes and acrobatics. Most of the songs were in Chinese, so I didn’t understand much of the story-line…but it was still cool.
Day 5 in Xian
Today we arrived in Xian at 8:30 am. I was pretty groggy from the train and not looking forward to carting my bags through the station and to our new tour bus. Thankfully the station wasn’t nearly as hectic as the one in Beijing- outside was another story. When we left the train station there were hundreds of people waiting around the doorway for arriving passengers- all looking pretty impoverished and dirty. We had to push our way through the crowd of people – it was really scary. We got to a white truck and loaded up all of our luggage … I was afraid I was never going to see my stuff again! After our luggage was packed in we walked about a quarter of a mile up the street to our tour bus. The air was thick and smoggy, even more so than Beijing. The area was dirty and filled with trash…we passed multiple people going to the bathroom on the side of the street- such a change from Beijing.
When we got to our bus we met our tour guide for the day- Key. He gave us a brief history of Xian and told us about the old city wall, 9 miles in diameter. It’s the largest, oldest one still intact in China. We checked into our hotel (The Hyatt!) and it was really nice. We all quickly showered and then headed on our way to the Terracotta Warrior excavation site. On our way there we stopped at a factory that creates authentic warriors. I got an archer (guy kneeling – he was my favorite).
We got to the excavation site and it was amazing. I can’t believe that these thousands of terracotta warriors were discovered in 1974 by a few farmers – and that tons were still intact. It was an amazing discovery because it revealed a lot about the advancement and skill of early Chinese sculpture as well as the use of helmets in war. Amazingly, the creation of the warriors to protect the emperors tomb (which took something like 4 decades) was never written about anywhere in Chinese history. We spent a while walking around the 3 pits of warriors. I was surprised at how cold they had to keep the excavation sites, I guess it is because any artificial temperature control would ruin the artifacts. 
After we were finished there, the planned day was pretty much done and we had free time. A bunch of us jumped at the chance to get some American food at the hotel restaurant. I was so excited to have some margarita pizza and a Caesar Salad. Wasn’t the same as home, but still good. After dinner we hung out and then did some walking around to a few local shops. Our hotel was in a really central location so it was fun. I crashed at around 10 because I was so beat from the past few days.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)