A Run

Dec 08 2009 – Time to pack

It’s time to leave to China the day after I completed my last deliverable for the second electives season. The China study trip is worth 0.5 a credit – as big as an elective course. Packing was a little bit of a challenge because we are allowed to carry only one suitcase (for check-in, max 20 kg), a handbag (max 5 kg) and a laptop bag, to be able to fulfil the domestic flying limitations in China. I bought two Hundred Chinese Yuan from the Masonville Mall in London-ON, just sufficient for the CAB ride from Beijing Airport to the Hotel. Incidentally, one could find better exchange rates in China, at least as cheap as 15%. The VISA to travel to China was originally arranged by the China Study Trip Student senators in collaboration with Mike Consular (Visa) Express Services, Montreal. Canadian and Indian passport holders do not need a visa to enter Hong Kong for short trips.

The China study trip officially beings on the 12^th Dec and ends on 10^th Dec, including visits to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen and Hong Kong. I will be going to India after the China trip and return to Canada early Jan. The month long trip includes flying in Air Canada, Air China, China Eastern, Jet Airways, Jet Lite, King Fisher and British Airways.

All set to leave...

Dec 9th and 10th 2009 – En transit from Toronto to Beijing

Dec 9th marked the end this year’s unusual winter. Historically, in London ON, winter begins early November and it snows heavily between November and February. But, this year saw a bizarre winter and it didn’t quite snow big until now. But the day I left London, saw some serious snowfall and I was excited to watch the city white. But what worried us was the fact that flights from Toronto were delayed at least by 60 to 90 minutes. Luckily, my flight to Beijing left on time. It’s an Air Canada Boeing carrier flying between Toronto and Beijing nonstop. Some of my friends did miss their connection flights at San Francisco and they had to leave the following day.

The flight service in Air Canada was just about average. The 14 hour nonstop flight was wasn’t as brutal as I had expected and we finally landed on the 10^th at Beijing Capital International Airport at about 5:00 PM. Certainly, it is one of the best airports in the world. I couldn’t resist myself appreciating the architectural marvel, the soaring aerodynamic roof and the subway trains for internal navigation. After completing the immigration formalities, we headed out to take the taxi ride to hotel. Taxis in Beijing are quite reliable and the only challenge with them is that the taxi drivers do not speak even a single word in English. We kind of managed to explain the destination with the help of hotel names written in mandarin. Thanks to the China study trip senators for advanced planning. First impressions of Beijing were quite impressive. Some places looked like India but I have to admit that the buildings and the infrastructure are way better. After 45 minutes, we reached the Oriental Bay international hotel. We paid about 75 Yuan for the taxi.

A bunch of students that came in the same flight of mine headed out to Houhai for dinner that night. It’s a lake surrounded by variety of restaurants and bars. The Houhai lake was frozen and it was as cold as Canada. I understand that finding vegetarian food is going to be a challenge in China. The fact that most of them do not understand English and that they consider Egg as vegetarian rendered things worse. I managed to survive anyway. The traffic in Beijing is worse when compared to Canada but I could easily understand that it was better than in India. Cars seemed to dominate the streets as opposed to two wheelers in India. Traffic was a kind of cultural shock to my North American class mates. Nevertheless, I was so glad to find some serious crowd after a long time.

Dec 11th 2009, Friday – Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and Karaoke

Friday was not a part of the official China Study trip and my class mates were arriving at Beijing at various times and a group of us decided to head out to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Just that the heavy winds blew us off and was very cold the entire day.

Gugong or Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial Palace for five centuries across two dynasties, the Ming and Qing. The palace spans across an area of approximately 7.8 million square feet. We were told that the palace complex consists of more than 900 buildings and over 8000 rooms. This palace was established in early 1400s when the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing (North capital) from Nanjing (south capital). The entry fee is about 40 Yuan. Overall - an impressive one. Tiananmen Square is a place of historical importance in China. 'Tiananmen' literally means gateway of heavenly peace. It also has the 'Mausoleum of Mao Zedong', the Chairman Mao memorial hall. The place marks several significant Chinese events such as Tiananmen Square protests of 1976 and 1989, May Fourth Movement in 1919, the proclamation of the People's Republic of China by Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949, etc. Later the afternoon, we headed out to the Houhai for lunch and Karoake party.

Dec 12th 2009, Saturday – Great Wall of China, Bird’s Nest and Dinner with Tsinghua MBAs

The China study trip officially commenced on Saturday, with 76 students, 1 faculty, a local guide and two buses. The day started off with an hour drive to the Great Wall of China section in Mutianyu. The entry fee is about 40 Yuan. We had to climb through steep stairs and the Chinese proclaim that if you could climb the Great wall, then you are a real hero. To me, it is an experience of life time and the fact that the wall spans over 6000 km is unbelievable. We were told that the wall was originally built somewhere during 700 BC and 200 BC and was renovated by the Ming dynasty in 1300s AD. On the way down, I took the exiting toboggan slide chute.

In the afternoon, we visited Beijing National stadium - Bird’s Nest. It is said to be the world’s largest steel structure worth over $400 million, constructed using more than 100,000 tons of steel. The stadium was being prepared for the snow season carnival when we visited. We also had glimpses of Water Cube, Olympics Tower, Pangu Building(7 star hotel) and the Ling Long tower.

Later, we had dinner with Tsinghua MBA students. Tsingua School of economics is one of the top business schools in China which runs an international MBA program in collaboration with MIT Sloan School of management.

Dec 13th 2009, Sunday – Cultural Plunge

Sunday has been quite an interesting and a challenging day. We were on our own and had to complete a cultural plunge exercise without the local guide or pre-arranged buses. In groups of four, we were given tasks such as finding locations, involving in a bargaining purchase, understanding benefits of a Chinese herb, appreciating the local cultural flavour from tourist spots such as temples and courtyards, experiencing weird Chinese foodies etc. The fact that not many Chinese understood English made things challenging. Overall - a great day to understand and comprehend the local culture.

Following is compilation of my experiences from the day:

Yonghe or Lama Temple: this is place is also known as the temple of peace and harmony. The main Deity is a tall structure of Maitreya Buddha. There were quite some similarities to temples in India, but I was surprised to find that people wear footwear inside the temple unlike in India. I also found some statues similar to Indian Hindu Gods like Hanuman and Kali Maatha. My North American counterparts were surprised to find the way people worshiped with incense sticks.

Hutongs: These are kind of narrow streets formed by lines of courtyards. We had to learn the Chinese pronunciation of three such Hutongs. Hutongs represented Beijing’s cultural significance but having said that, we understood that many hutongs were demolished in mid 1900s to commercialize.

Tian Tan or Temple of heaven: It is a complex of Taoist buildings constructed during the 1400s. The religion practised is Taoism. On a side note, the major religions practised in China are Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. More than the magnificence of the temple, what I appreciated is the variety of activities around the temple. People were happily dancing, singing and playing a variety of games all over.

Photo with a person in uniform: This was the toughest thing to do without knowing the local language. We had at least ten requests that were turned down by men in uniform, such as police men, military men and security guards. Anyway, we finally managed to find someone in the Tian Tan temple.

Xiushui or Silk Market: This is perhaps one of the best tourist attractions in Beijing. It accommodates over 1500 stores more than 20000 people visit the place every day. We were told that over a million people visited market during the Beijing Olympics. Our task was to bargain a price and buy a gift item. We were advised by our Chinese classmates to start with price as low as one tenth of what the shopkeeper lists and negotiate upwards. It sounded similar to the experiences that I’ve had in India. Later we went to a medical shop and completed the herb buying exercise. We bought a local herb that cures digestion problems. Finding a shop where we can find herbs, and understanding the benefits was a tough deal without knowing the local language.

Shorts Building: Another task during the day was to locate the Chinese Big shorts building around the silk market. Later we discovered that it was the CCTV (China Central Television) building. I’ve never seen building of this kind and I loved the architecture.

The one exercise that we postponed is experiencing weird Chinese cuisine. I had a friend of mine in Shanghai who actually took us out to a local Chinese restaurant and ordered some brilliant stuff. There was a hot pot in the middle of the table with two kinds of soups boiling. We received a variety of partially cooked dishes. We then cooked them in the hot pot and I loved the food. Meat eaters enjoyed more than the veggies and the highlight was a live turtle. It literally moved its limbs and head in the plate – kind of seriously gross. Altogether, we paid just 130 Yuan for 5 people.

The day ended with the dinner with Ivey Beijing Alumni.

WOW!!!

Dec 14th 2009, Monday – Chinese Business Environment

Understanding the way Chinese businesses operates has been one of our top agendas of the trip and Monday was quite an important day in this regard. The day started off with a presentation from SABMiller (South African Brewery) – one of the world’s largest brewers with sales over $21 billion. The second session was an alumni panel discussion on the successes and failures of China market. We had three Ivey alumni participating in the discussion panel. Finally after lunch, we had a presentation on Chinese economy. There were representatives from the Canadian Embassy in China. Later in the evening, we took the China Eastern Airlines flight to Shanghai.

Dec 15th 2009, Tuesday – GM Factory visit and Yu Garden Market

While Beijing is obsessed with the Chinese cultural flavour, Shanghai is more westernised. Beijing has about 17 million people and Shanghai about 20 million. One could easily witness exceptional skyscrapers and some are better than their counterparts from developed countries. Forenoon, we went to the one of the Shanghai General Motor’s production lines. They had a very efficient process and the production line produced 2 cars every three minutes. To me, it was quite obvious that there was a lot more room for improving automation. But the availability of cheap and massive labour force must have rendered things this way. Later, we visited the Huangpu River, Bund and the Yu Garden Market. We had some free time in the afternoon and I met my undergrad buddy who is pursuing MBA from CEIBS (China European International Business School, Shanghai). Finally, we had the dinner with Ivey Shanghai Alumni.

The one thing big that shook me at my hotel room in Shanghai is the fact that the bathroom walls were transparent –Eventually, I figured the remote switch to control the curtains. Whew – sigh of relief ;-) Hee Hee !!!

Dec 16th 2009, Wednesday – Presentations, Seafood and Acrobatics

We had a series of presentations and panel discussions on Wednesday. The topics included real estate bubble in China, super trends of future China, presentation on Dupont China, etc. For lunch, we went to a seafood place where people had to choose fish fresh pools the restaurant cooked them fresh. Luckily, I found some veggie stuff as well. Later in the evening, we witnessed a brilliant acrobatics show.

Dec 17th 2009, Thursday – Baosteel and Maglev

On Thursday, we visited the Shangai Baosteel Corporation Factory in the morning. I understand that the steel factories are typically huge and this is the first time I am getting to witness one. Baosteel employees more than 110000 people and it has over $21 billion in revenues. Baosteel is the one that supplied steel for the construction of Bird’s nest in Beijing. The factory has the capability to produce over 20 million tons of steel annually. We also had a company presentation in mandarin and a classmate of us, translated in English. They are located very close to the port of Shanghai and they have some serious location advantages.

In the evening, we took the Maglev (magnetic levitation) transport to reach the Airport. The train took about 7 minutes to complete the distance of around 30km, with a maximum speed of 431 km/h. We were told that the train achieved a maximum speed of 501 km/h during a test run in 2003. This technology is however, slower than airplanes because of the air drag, which is comparatively less at higher altitudes. I read in wiki, that this technology can achieve speeds of over 6000 km/h if deployed in an evacuated tunnel. Interesting!!!

Dec 18th 2009, Friday – Huawei, Great Wall computers and Hitachi

In the morning, we visited the Huawei Factory and had several presentations on supply chain, human resources and Huawei’s business in general. The one thing that impressed me in all of the presentations is the fact that we could literally witness several aspects that we learnt at BSchool, such as joint ventures, economic policies, etc. Later in the afternoon, part of the group visited the Shenzhen port and the others went to Great Wall computers and Hitachi.

Dec 19th 2009, Saturday – Hong Kong

We left to Hong Kong from Shenzhen by bus and I loved the scintillating scenery. . It was a 2 hour drive including all required immigration checks. In the morning, we had presentations from the Hong Kong Canadian Chamber of Commerce on economy and public policies, a session from HSBC on Asian debt and equity markets and a panel discussion with Ivey Hong Kong alumni about life at Hong Kong for expatriates. The China Study trip officially concluded. Overall - an incredible one.

Later in the evening, some of us visited the Victoria Park and the Kowloon side of Hong Kong in a ferry. Next day, I took my flight to India.