Shanghai – KPMG, TSMC, Farewell Dinner

We started off today with a trip down the street to KPMG China, which I was really excited about because I will be working for KPMG in two countries this summer (the United States and South Africa). It was really excited to hear Mark Lavalle talk about his experience as an expat in China with my future employer; he and his team of other senior managers talked about their unique reasons for being in China, most of which had something to do with developing both themselves and the local office. I know from personal experience that KPMG always strives to make its international network of member firms more cohesive, and seeing the Chinese firm operate with such similar values and culture to other offices I have visited in the world was really exciting for me. After the presentation we had the opportunity to eat lunch with Mark, and he was also extremely easy to talk to. He provided a very honest perspective on both challenges and perquisites of being a westerner in a country like China, many of which regarded his family and their opportunities/compromises as a result of living outside of the United States. As someone interested in possibly being an expatriate myself, I took this insight to heart and will hopefully be able to use Mr. Lavalle as a resource should an opportunity like this arise during my career.

After lunch we headed to our final corporate visit of the trip, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). As a result of a unique network connection with Calvin’s father, our group had the opportunity to tour a very high tech facility that quite honestly looked like something out of a movie. Everyone had to wear special suits, shoes, gloves, and hairnets, as well as enter through an air shower to ensure that no dust particles got on the silicon wafers. We saw how the company employed a strategic combination of automation and manual labor to create the lowest possibility for errors in the manufacturing process. Following this was a presentation more on the business aspects of the company including an analysis of its strategic position compared to competitors like Intel and Texas Instruments.

Our final event of the trip was a farewell dinner at Banana Leaf where we had one last great meal and a lot of fun dancing around. We took the opportunity to present our chaperones with gifts from the World Expo and say some final goodbyes. Looking back on my goals before the trip, I can confidently say that believe I accomplished them all throughout our stay in China. After this trip, I hope to use my new knowledge and professional skills to be a better performer this summer as an intern as well as next year as I finish out my senior year in college.

Shanghai – Bosch, GE, Abbott Dinner

After a well-needed good night’s rest, we headed out for our second business professional day of corporate visits. After a great breakfast in the hotel, our first stop was Bosch United Automotive Electronic Systems (UAES), a subsidiary of Bosch with operations in China. We sat in a really neat meeting room – it was an interesting cross between western interior amenities and eastern architecture. The presenters shared their experiences as expats from Germany as well as some fundamental information about Bosch worldwide. Afterwards we got a tour of the factory and saw a lot of the automobile testing the facility conducts for other parts of Bosch worldwide, followed by a quick lunch near our next stop.

After lunch our next visit was to General Electric’s China Technology Center (CTC). My group was responsible for briefing/debriefing and presenting gifts to our hosts. As a result of our research we learned that GE China has ties to University of Illinois via Dr. Xiangli Chen, the president of the facility (and an alumnus of Illinois). Dr. Chen and his PR specialist Nancy again emphasized the importance of localization when conducting business in China and how GE is moving towards actually producing products it plans to sell to the Chinese market in China, a part of its “In China, For China” effort. Following the presentation we participated in a brief tour of the lobby while hearing more about GE China’s contributions to the conglomerate’s advances in energy around the world.

For dinner we watched a brief presentation from representatives of Abbott Laboratories in China, after which we each had the opportunity to sit in a group with a professional from the company. My table ate with the controller, a native of Hong Kong who had experience with financial operations all over eastern Asia. We discussed on a more informal level what it is like to have a management role in such a dynamic environment (he mentioned that he had been to the United States and Europe multiple times on business). Despite his professional success, he was one of the most approachable people I’ve met while on the trip which was both impressive and motivating for all of the students present.

Shanghai – World Exposition

After we arrived in Shanghai early in the morning, we had to blitz-change into business casual for our visit to the World Expo. I didn’t really know too much about the expo before we went, just that it was divided into a company part and a country part (one on each side of the Huangpu River). We spent the morning on the corporate side – our small group saw a group of Shaolin warriors, which were very impressive. We also visited the space exhibition and the Coca Cola stand before it was time to take the ferry to the other side to see the countries. We also wanted to check out GM’s “Take a Drive to 2030” exhibit, but it was too far away.

The other side of the river was a really neat experience – almost every country from around the world had a big exhibit (they called them “pavilions”). Some favorites included Spain, Turkey, the Netherlands, China, and Saudi Arabia. We didn’t get a chance to see too many pavilions from the inside, but we walked a ton to see almost every one from the exterior. On a whole, I was really impressed with how much infrastructure Shanghai had implemented to accommodate the extra visitors (there were an estimated 300,000 people while we were there, and in July the city expects over 400,000!). Some implements we noticed included a lot of additional pedestrian walkways as well as some permanent new pavilions like the China one, which was extremely impressive. After about seven hours of straight walking on the country side, we headed back to the hotel.

Our final stop of the night was a nice (slower paced!) walk from the hotel eastward toward the Bund. The Bund is an area on the Huangpu River with a great view of both sides. The west side of the river (the Puxi side) has some of the older and more developed buildings, and the eastern side (Pudong) is home to some newer, more modern buildings built in the last 10-15 years. Both sides were very impressive, and the weather was absolutely beautiful – perfect for a relaxing touristy night out. After lots of group photos we headed back to the hotel for some tea and well-needed rest for corporate visits in the morning.

Travel from Zhangjiakou / Wangfujing Street in Beijing / Train to Shanghai

Today was mostly a travel day with a small stop in Beijing on the way to Shanghai. Unfortunately, it was the last day we traveled with Mr. Wong, our trusty bus driver over the last week of the trip. Luckily, my room had hot water in Zhangjiakou so I didn’t need to shower once we got to Beijing. A group of us went to a mall on Wangfujing Street and tried green tea shakes at Dairy Queen (per Darcy’s recommendation) and they were really good. After that we enjoyed the free time and walked around the pedestrian area looking at exotic foods like seahorses and scorpions (we weren’t brave enough to try any, but Fei did). We rounded out our time with a visit to a small market to barter for more souvenirs – not quite as good of prices as the Pearl Market, but still pretty cheap nonetheless. After a few hours we all met up and headed to the train station for an overnight trip to Shanghai.

Zhangjiakou – Potato & dairy factories, rural Mongolia, night festival

Today was one of those days with so much stuff packed into it that you can hardly believe it actually happened/fit into less than twenty-four hours. We started off by going to a rural dairy farm in inner Mongolia, but on the way, our bus ran over a rock and got a flat tire. This was quite a spectacle, seeing as we were kind of in the middle of nowhere. However, an auto shop was nearby and we were back on the road within an hour. We headed to a factory that produces potato powder, an integral ingredient in things like potato chips. The CEO indicated pretty explicitly that he would like to work with us in the future especially concerning his efforts to enter the blueberry market. We also visited a factory that processes milk and adds flavors and packages it for end consumers.

We ate lunch at our hotel in rural Mongolia, and it was neat since there was a Chinese wedding happening at our restaurant (as a quick note, we learned that brides usually wear red in China since white is normally reserved for funerals).

Then began our true experience in rural inner Mongolia. Our first stop was a wind farm which looked pretty normal. The grasslands of Mongolia are perfect for harvesting wind energy, so it makes sense why the Chinese government installed a wind farm in this location. After that we visited an animal market, the largest of its kind in China. This was the first time we really felt like spectacles in China. When we went to observe how people negotiate (secretly, using their system of interlocking fingers under their jackets), all of the locals swarmed us and started taking pictures with people who were really tall. It was weird to think that this might be the only time they would see people from America/not from China. On top of that, we were surrounded by cattle, sheep, and everything in between.

Our excursion continued to a small village off the beaten path where a family of about seven people lived. Mr. Bing, the deputy mayor of the whole region, arranged for them to take us into their home and we had Mongolian milk tea (unfortunately not as good as Hong Kong style, but close). We also watched her prepare a special noodle dish with what looked like a lot elbow grease (very labor intensive). It was really neat to be welcomed into a household, especially one that was rather modest and not really suitable for fifty guests. After taking pictures with the family and saying our goodbyes, it was off to the big festival area for our final stop of the night.

The last part of our excursion was a visit to this big festival/carnival-esque area in the grasslands. When we got there we were welcomed with music and dancers who put scarves around our necks and greeted us with horse milk liquor (not as nasty as it sounds). We then exchanged songs and dances from our respective cultures while drinking milk tea and having some Mongolian finger foods. It was very cool to experience local traditions in such a pure setting. Afterwards we had some free time to go horseback riding and shoot archery, after which point the real party started. Jack, Tabi, and Erum all got to light the giant bonfire and start the giant dance line that went in a circle around the fire. We conga-lined and danced to music that was a cool combination of techno and traditional Mongolian music. They also brought out lamb for us to eat which was delicious. Unfortunately around 10:00 PM we had to leave and go eat dinner, and most people were so tired they went straight to bed. I’ll be the first to admit I was a little skeptical about visiting a rural village, but I’m pretty sure this will be one of the best highlights of the trip.

Beijing – Silk Market, Olympic Village, Great Wall of China / Trip to Zhangjiakou

Today was our first real sightseeing day, which was really nice. We started the day off at the Silk Market, a smaller version of the Pearl Market we visited on Wednesday. I bought some nice knockoff sunglasses and then it was off to the Great Wall. As for the experience of climbing the wall, all I can say is WOW – pictures really can’t do justice to how impressive the whole thing is. Elise did an awesome job of making sure we took lots of pictures, which was good since I’m usually bad at remembering to take out my camera. After running down the wall, we got some Magnums (kind of like Dove bars, but you can’t get them in the U.S.) and headed up to the town of Zhangjiakou.

In Zhangjiakou we ate dinner at our hotel, which included a ton of great Chinese food, Zhongou beer, and rice wine liquor. After dinner we got Chinese foot massages, which included a boiling bowl of water to submerge our feet in, lots of oil, and fire. After all of the masseuse’s tricks, our feet felt much better from all the walking we had done. The massage made us all so tired and relaxed that we just went upstairs and fell asleep once our heads hit the pillow.

Beijing – Motorola, BP, Peking Duck Dinner

Today started with a trip to Motorola’s operations in China, and it was our first day in business professional. It also happened to be our first day of 34°C (about 93°F) weather. So, it was quite a scorcher!

Once we got to Motorola, the structure of our visit was a little different. It started off with a short presentation on Motorola China by Dr. Ching Chuang, the director of Motorola’s R&D institute in China. After that, we saw an interesting panel on working for multinational companies, which definitely applies to me and my job this summer in South Africa. After this panel we participated in a case study having to do with communication across departments, nations, and cultures. It was neat to work with engineers and CS majors to come up with some solid recommendations for the communication problem in the case. After all of the presentations we got feedback from the Motorola employees on our ideas supplemented with additional ones based on their experiences with multinationals. The team noted (and I agree) that the presentation was a lot more student-oriented than the other ones we’ve been to so far, and that could be because the Motorola professionals are used to speaking for Chinese students with less exposure to corporate settings.

Lunch was really good (as usual) typical Chinese food. Afterwards we headed to BP China where a PR representative talked to us about BP’s operations both in China and globally. I found it interesting that he very directly addressed the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, especially since it doesn’t directly affect BP in China. On the whole, he was extremely animated and kept us engaged the whole time. He had a really interesting backstory that included part of the “reeducation” from the cultural revolution, and he got his foot in the door by studying Spanish at a Chinese university and learning English on his own. Just the ability and willingness to share this with us was really cool, in my opinion. It definitely made him seem more approachable and added to the great presentation we experience under his watch.

For dinner we had an authentic and traditional dish, Peking Duck. There is a very particular way to eat it that includes really this pancakes and cucumbers, but it is definitely for good reason – it was excellent! They also present the entire duck as a sign of sophistication/exoticness. We sat at table with representatives from Motorola, and we had a really nice chat about life after college in the U.S. versus China (specifically with regards to the job market) and it sounds like prospects are relatively similar for business majors in both.

Beijing – Temple of Heaven, Walmart, Pearl Market, Beihang University

Today we started off with some touristy sightseeing trips which were really fun. Our first stop was the Temple of Heaven, a Taoist group of buildings that Chinese emperors used to pray for favorable harvests. In the center of the harvest there is a large, circular building that houses the Altar of Heaven, and this is surrounded by a wall known as the “echo wall”. On this wall, two people can stand on opposite ends of the circle and hear each other talk at a normal volume – very cool. The temple itself was also really beautiful, even with all the tourists.

After the temple we visited the Pearl Market, a big knockoff market for all kinds of goods (jewelry, clothes, sunglasses, etc.). A friend and I had a great time bargaining down the price on some purses and scarves for friends back home – I only wish we could have spent more time there! It sounded like everyone else had some great finds as well, so overall it was a good morning.

After the pearl market we traveled to one of the two “high-efficiency” Walmart stores in China. We were surprised with a very warm welcome from many of the Walmart employees outside of the store, which was really neat. We heard a presentation from Andreas Schulmeyer, the Senior VP of Strategy and CFO of Walmart Asia. He was another expat and alum of Illinois. He talked a lot about Walmart’s expansion strategy, and I found it interesting that Walmart increases value strategically through maximizing sales, not profit. He also talked about difficulties implementing Walmart’s American supply chain model in emerging markets like China and India, or in acquisitions like Walmart’s operations in Japan. He then directed us on tours of the store with his store managers. Having worked in grocery in high school, I found it very interesting how many of the energy-saving implements affected perishable goods. For example, covers on the meat wall not only conserve energy, but also most likely reduce shrink via the use of more controlled temperatures. Overall I was very impressed with the store, and everyone really enjoyed the chance to stop there.

The next part of our day included a visit to Beihang University, a largely technical school in Beijing with some business students as well (our own College of Business has recently started an exchange program there). After a short presentation from both universities, we broke into small groups and the Chinese students gave us a tour of the campus. I was absolutely floored by how beautiful the gardens and parks were despite the university’s location in such a giant city. (Beijing has around 15 million people!) The classrooms were very similar to ours, but I found it interesting that many of the buildings were built with Soviet assistance in the 1950s – the communist bloc architecture was very apparent in the older buildings. We had a great dinner with everyone, and I am always happy to see that students are really pretty similar no matter where they are in the world. We shared a lot of common interests, and I found out that my Chinese host is considering Illinois for grad school! We exchanged contact information and I definitely hope to keep in touch.

The last part of our day included a trip to the Olympic Village, which unfortunately was closed. However, it was nice to see Beijing a little more on our own terms and we hope for the possibility to see the village again, perhaps on the way to Zhangjiakou on Friday.

Tianjin – Boeing Tianjin Composites, John Deere

Today was our first day of corporate visits. We started off with an early breakfast (really good – it was a mix of American and Chinese food) and then headed to Boeing Tianjin Composites Co., Ltd. (also known as BTC). We heard a presentation from Doug Gisselberg, an American expatriate who has worked in Tianjin as the Product Services Manager since 2005. He talked about how BTC is a subsidiary of Boeing with a 12% stake owned by AVIC, another Chinese supplier. I found it interesting that BTC gauges its success based on Boeing Corporation’s exclusive (or lack thereof) use of its products in new projects like the 787 Dreamliner. He also discussed the strict quality control standards in place for the factory floor workers.

After the presentation we saw a lot of what we talked about on an actual tour of the factory floor. It was very apparent that labor is a lot cheaper in China, as a lot of the finishing work that would normally be automated had actual people working on it instead. Overall it was very evident that the cultural work ethic and drive to succeed positively affects BTC’s dependence on human capital in the Chinese market.

For lunch we went to a great seafood restaurant and interacted with Daniel St. Martin, another expat (and Illinois alum!) who is the general manager of the John Deere joint venture in Tianjin. He talked a lot about the challenges of managing a business in China as well as what we can do to distinguish ourselves as we enter the workforce. Most people agreed that he was very well-spoken and extremely successful for his young age. After lunch we visited the John Deere tractor factory, which was not operating due to the slow summer season. However, we still got a feel for the assembly line procedures which produce tractors for Chinese agriculture.

Following our visit we said goodbye to Tianjin and departed for Beijing, our destination for the next three days. After arriving we stopped for dinner at a Hong Kong-style café. It was interesting to note that this was the first time we ate at a restaurant with a menu and traditional server style in China. I discovered I love the Hong Kong-style tea with milk, even though most people thought it tasted weird. So far Beijing looks like a really interesting city, and I can’t wait to see more of it in the coming few days.

First Night in Tianjin

Today was pretty short since our flight was delayed and a lot of our time was in a bus on the way from the Beijing airport to our hotel in Tianjin. Luckily there were no holdups in immigrations or customs, and we got out of the airport pretty quickly. The transit system right around the airport was really nice, and Darcy commented it looks a lot different from before the 2008 Olympic Games. On the bus we met Brian Kwok, our guide who coordinated most of the trip. He told us a little about his background as a Chinese travel agent and some more about Chinese culture. He started his business in Los Angeles after graduating from USC, and he decided to move his operations to China after realizing the large potential for business in the travel market in China.

Around 8 PM we got to Tianjin and went out to dinner at a “hotpot” or “firepot” restaurant. Hotpot/firepot is a Chinese meal where everyone sits around a table with boiling water and spices in the middle. A server comes and puts raw meat in the water, and then you take it out with a spoon when it’s done cooking (usually when it begins to float). You also have your own little bowl of sauce to dip the meat in. We had beef, lamb, and whole shrimp (eyes included!) and it was super spicy and really good. One thing we learned was that “whole” animals (e.g. eyes on the shrimp) are considered more exotic, so it looks like we got some pretty fancy stuff.

After dinner we checked into the hotel and walked around the city a little, but most people were really tired so almost everyone went to bed pretty early to rest up for our first day of corporate visits.

Flight from Chicago to Beijing

I’m sitting on the plane right now on the way from Chicago to Beijing (somewhere near the North Pole), and I’m kind of mentally gearing up for the next ten days in China with the Technology & Management Program. As far as expectations go, I’m hoping to learn more about how our corporate affiliates conduct business in China as well as global business as a whole. I also hope to experience some cultural difference between Chinese and American culture, especially because I don’t have a lot of experience in Asia. Admittedly, most of my knowledge of China comes from news, reading, and preconceived stereotypes, and I hope to supplement all of that through the lens of first-hand experience. Finally, I hope to become closer with our T&M class, especially some of the engineers whom I don’t know as well. Overall, I am getting really excited and I think this is going to be a great trip.