First full day in Beijing

Today was our first full day in Beijing. In the morning we all met up for breakfast in the lobby – it was a huge buffet, similar to the one I experienced in Korea, but not quite as nice. I couldn’t bring myself to have dumplings and noodles for breakfast, so I stuck with toast and fruit.

The day started off with a trip to Peking University, where we met our guide Rebecca. She took us through the university and to our lecture hall. The architecture there was amazing … the section we were in had architecture from the Ming Dynasty – all of the buildings looked like old Chinese palaces. Tons of students were ice skating on the large pond in front of the building – our guide told us this story that the original founder of the school felt that the lake was so beautiful he called it “no-name lake” because it was too beautiful for a name. We also saw tons of students on bikes and walking to classes.

Our lecture hall was gorgeous. I was expecting a typical room with small stadium style seating and a podium up front. Instead, we sat at this long, ornate Chinese table, almost like a board room. We had these huge, heavy wooden chairs that were too heavy for me to even push in. Our first lecture was on the economic and social history of China. The woman giving the talk was really engaging. We learned a lot about the various dynasties and stages in China’s history and how the country's history and values impacts business relationships.

The professor lecturing shared with us a few interesting reactions to some current events in China. First she brought up the opening ceremonies in Beijing for this past year’s Olympics. While we all said that we were impressed by the ornate ceremony, she disagreed. Her reasoning was that she felt the ceremony was too narrow in scope and that it did not reflect the diversity of Chinese culture (she felt that it only reflected the 95% dominant Han). She commented that in other countries the ceremony was more world focused, something that is important for the Olympic games. She also talked about last year’s earthquake in western China. There was some negative attitudes towards US and other international companies with offices in China that did not quickly make charitable donations. I was under the opposite impression, since I heard a lot of news about the outpour of support for the victims and for the area’s restoration. It was interesting to hear her view as a person living in China at the time.

The second lecture was on Confucianism. We learned all about the central values of this philosophy and how these ideals play into Chinese business relations. Much different from the US, they place much importance on establishing deep, personal relationships before starting any business relationships. The idea of trust, respect and hierarchy are still present in Chinese culture and business today.

After our lectures we went to lunch on campus. Lunch was very similar to dinner the first night, with the round table and many dishes of food. The food was slightly different, but good. Way more than I’m used to eating for lunch.

After lunch we went to TUSpark or Science Park. This is the technology center of Beijing and holds companies like Google, Microsoft and a bunch of small start ups. There model is to combine larger international companies, smaller start-ups, and a university to create an environment of prosperity. The smaller companies can learn and benefit from the larger ones and vice versa. Companies have the benefit from recruiting from the university..you get the idea. We had a few lectures there from some small start-ups. It was interesting to hear about the transition that China is trying to make: from “made in china” to “created in china”. China has historically been known as a manufacturing hub, whether it’s cheap toys, clothing or electronics - so many products are made here. It is a huge initiative for the Chinese to create intellectual property (IP) products. It actually only makes up something like 5% of their total business. To hear them talk about the innovation and education opportunities available in the US was humbling.

After the company visits at TUSpark we went to a large technology market in downtown Beijing. Basically it was a 15 story building with every electronic you could imagine (laptops, cell phones, cameras) and tons of people heckling you to buy stuff from them. It was really uncomfortable because we all clearly stood out as tourists…I felt targeted. After about 5 minutes of that, a group of us decided that we wanted to go outside and walk around for the hour of time we had. It was absolutely freezing out (probably like 10 degrees). We walked around and hit up a Chinese McDonalds and Starbucks. We noticed that drivers have no regard for pedestrians, even with walk signs...so that was interesting.

We went to dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant downtown. Again, we sat at a round table while plates and plates of food were brought out. This time I tried lily root, which was really good. Although the amount and variety of food was impressive, I’m still not used to eating this massive combination of meats and veggies at once.

After dinner we went back to the hotel. A girl from across the hall and I decided to go out and do some exploring around the hotel. We walked in every direction and found shops, street vendors and a few restaurants. It was nice to get out and check out around the hotel and to see the city at night.

I’m dead tired right now, so I’m going to head to bed…tomorrow is another long day (Great Wall, Jade and Silk Market.. yeah!). It’s nice to have such full days, but really tiring at the same time.

Even though I’m missing some stuff from home, I’m already really glad I decided to take this trip. Yay.