[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 17 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Day seventeen would be our final full day in China. Moreover, it would be the last time I would have to hang out with many of my classmates for some time, as most of us were spreading across California, the rest of the US, and internationally, upon our return home. I had become more melancholy as the trip started to come to a close, but the final day truly brought out the sentimentalist in me. I noticed that I took almost exclusively “people” photographs that day (street scenes as well as shots of my classmates), and spent quite a bit of time just thinking about things.

The highlight of the day for me was definitely our visit to an antique market, though I doubt most of the goods being sold would qualify as “antique.” I spent most of my time taking in the sights and sounds, photographing what I saw, attempting to find a gift for my wife, and generally reflecting on my time in China. I took a lot of photographs of the vendors sitting in their section of the market, waiting to engage customers. Despite the packed confines and massive number of stores and patrons, very few vendors were pushy. In fact, from a pleasantness standpoint, it was one of the best shopping experiences of the trip.

I didn’t buy much but spent a great deal of time at one individual’s booth. I was fascinated by a stack of vintage propoganda posters he had. As I leafed through each one, he would stop me and describe (in a mix of Mandarin and English) what was going on in each image. He also kept pointing to the dates on the prints, which were all 1966 (the beginning of the Cultural Revolution).

To say that he was both proud and attached to the prints would be an understatement. I ended up purchasing twelve, a first edition english version of Mao’s writings (also printed in 1966) and mini-versions of The Blue Lotus, the edition of the Adventures of Tintin where he visits China. After a quick search, I found out that the versions I purchased, which are small pocket-sized books with black and white pages on the inside, are pirated versions of the book (check out this BBC article), and that legal versions of the comic books were not allowed to be distributed in China until 2001. I bought them for purely nostalgic reasons, having read the comic book series as a child, but am glad to have the pirated twist as well — it makes them that much more eccentric.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Beijing | Antique Market | Silk Alley | Pearl Market

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 16 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Our trip was beginning to wind to a close — day 16 would be our last day of business trips, and our second to last day in China. Before the day closed, we would visit the Summer Palace, Tsinghua University, Sun Microsystems, and the English Corner at Renmin University.

The final two destinations for the day stick out in my mind as two of the more memorable and important experiences of the whole trip. Sun Microsystems at first appeared to be just another company visit where we would receive a host of information about the company and its strategy and operations in China. The meeting turned out, however, to be an incredibly frank and candid discussion (well, it followed a short info session…).

Mr. Wang, VP of Software Global Engineering (Greater China), led the presentation and Q & A session, and will remain in my mind as one of the more forthright executives I have had the pleasure of interacting with. If you happen to chance by this post, Mr. Wang, Thank You again for your incredible generosity, in both the time you spent with us, and the honesty and openness your answers contained. Mr. Wang handled and responded to some pretty tough questions with excellent advice and wisdom — providing a valuable and fitting end to our score of business visits (the calpolymba.com link at the beginning of this post provides a great overview of the session with Mr. Wang).

My experience at English Corner was phenomenal, which was the sentiment shared by all of my trip-mates as well (er, that it was phenomenal for them as well, not just for me…). For the uninitiated, English Corner is a regular gathering at universities all throughout China. Students and locals get together to practice their English and socialize.

I was initially a bit hesitant about the experience, as a pack of 30 or so MBAs from California might rub some of the regulars the wrong way. Evidently our presence there was welcome as nearly everyone from our group could be seen surrounded by throngs of people — students and locals — within 5-10 minutes of our arrival.

I spent much of the first 15 minutes trying to take photographs but was constantly pulled into conversations. At first the questions were primarily conversational covering topics such as the weather or from where I came. After a while, though, the conversations started to turn a bit more meaty, due to an effort by the students and professionals I was talking to as much as my own. We talked about politics, religion, life in the US, life in China, their stereotypes about the US and Americans and much more (the US stereotype conversation was unsolicited, very much appreciated, and quite eye-opening for me).

I noticed that after a while I found myself talking to the same 4 or 5 individuals, but there seemed to be a fluctuating crowd of another 5-10 people listening in at any given moment. During one of the more casual points of the conversation, I embarrassed myself (but hopefully did not offend anyone) when the conversation turned to film. I asked if anyone was familiar with the work of the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who is one of my favorite directors. None of them had heard of Kurosawa, though a few indicated that they had heard of a few of the films that I rattled off which he directed. Reciprocating, they quickly asked if I had heard of any of their favorite Chinese directors. Unfortunately, none of them sounded familiar, and I even confused one with a Korean director that I like. Looking back it was a casual and fun conversation about film and personal tastes, but taken into context (Japanese/Chinese relations, the political and cultural environment of Beijing, my naiveness about some of the things they were fairly proud of, etc.) I regret having not exercised greater sensitivity.

The conversation quickly moved on, and we were able to touch on a number of more serious topics such as the Cultural Revolution (Tibet came up during that portion for about 45 seconds but then never resurfaced), the current economic climate, and how they perceived American’s freedom (this was mostly centered on my ability to “effortlessly” travel, as one of my new friends put it). The emotional high I had when heading back to the bus, and well into the evening, was unforgettable. Similarly, the mass of questions I have about the experience as well as what life is really like for the individuals I got to know that evening, will gnaw at me for a while.

*(Here is the link to Gary’s post that I referenced in the images above.)

As an interesting side note, I had considered giving out my email or website to a few of the individuals I met at English Corner. I realized, though, that it would be pointless for me to do so since my website was blocked in every city that I visited. It was a strange hiccup that made the experience all the more surreal. I had this sense the whole time that the conversation could shift dangerously into controversial territory and government censors would swoop in from all sides and slap a gag on me and put ear plugs in the ears of the individuals I was conversing with. I was unsure as to whether I was being paranoid, or if the students and citizens I was talking to are even aware of the suppression of information, or if they did know, and were desperately trying to glean information from us by the most subtle methods possible. At times, internally, I wanted to start screaming or making a scene about some politically taboo subject, just to see if my paranoia was valid. I have looked back at the situation many times since my return, and still feel unsettled and unreconciled about this subject.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Beijing | Sun Microsystems | English Corner | Freedom

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 15 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Day 15 holds some of the more memorable highlights of the trip. We headed out into the morning mist from our hotel, walking for about fifteen to twenty minutes, and ended up at the gates of the Forbidden City. The several story wall that stood at the entrance to the city, sporting another several story structure on its shoulders, was quite formidable and worth the visit in its own right. After passing through the gates, however, I continued to reach courtyard after courtyard after courtyard of amazing views. The city within Beijing seemed to go on forever, and offered as many nooks and crannies as massive courtyards and buildings.

A moderately long bus ride, segmented by a somewhat surreal stop at a tourist lunch compound in the middle of nowhere, took us to our second highlight, the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall. The trek to the top of the western section (I think it was the western side) was quite a hike — I was very grateful that the weather was far more temperate that day than we had previously experienced. Periodically during the hike up, I would turn around and check my progress, and found myself continually in awe of the structure. It was hard to imagine what life would have been like patrolling any of the sections I had walked up, let alone what it was like to have built the wall in the first place, stone by stone.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Beijing | Forbidden City | Imperial Palace | Tiananmen Square | Great Wall of China

Just a quick message for my China trip cohorts that might be stopping by here… I uploaded all of the images that are from the trip on this blog (including ones that have yet to be posted here) if you wanted to check any out. I spent a lot of the past week or so looking at everyone else’s — we have some awesome photographers in our group! Be sure to upload some if you haven’t had a chance.

- Tsingtao.

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 14 on calpolymbatrip.com]

The combination of the overnight train ride, the few rather sleepless nights prior, and general travel fatigue must have set in on our fourteenth day. We arrived at the Beijing train station in the early morning (7am I think) and made our way through the huge mass of passengers all departing their trains at one time. It seems that every single train in the country gets into Beijing at the same time, and oddly, nobody seems to get crushed in the dash to surface from the station…

We arrived at our hotel, were given a few hours to ourselves and then headed out again for a few company visits. Though I had my camera with me, I didn’t take any photographs during the “business” portion of the day.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Beijing

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 13 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Still in Suzhou, we would make a short business visit before we boarded the bus and headed back to Shanghai. We had a train to catch in the late afternoon that would take us overnight to Beijing. Another overnight trip that would put us in a new city early in the morning — my disorientation was sure to continue.

In addition to a great deal of culture and history (the gardens as well as a number of temples and other cultural destinations) Suzhou also sports an industrial park that has a curious twist. The park is a special partnership between the provincial government and the government of Singapore and sprawls over 288 square kilometers just outside of the downtown portion of the city. The logistical structure of the park is very innovative, both from a literal transport/logistics standpoint, as well as in terms of the special assistance and benefits businesses can realize by locating in the park (check out the MBA blog entry for more details about the park). We were treated to a rather informative presentation from the park’s director.

I took a lot of photographs outside the headquarters of the industrial park and have some thoughts about what I saw (check out the photo captions below). It was definitely a little surreal standing in the massive courtyard of the park headquarters, watching an insect die, and seeing the rest of the landscape rather barren of activity…

After a quick lunch, we were treated to an important modification in our planned schedule. During our last night in Shanghai, our group connected at the dinner hosted by Alex Smayda with Jason (I regrettably do not remember his last name), an executive with NatureWorks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cargill. I was very interested in the sugar-based plastics the company produced (as opposed to the petroleum-based plastics that we see everywhere) and was very grateful to have had the opportunity to hear Jason’s presentation. We also heard from a representative of UNIC, a plastics extruder and pellet manufacturer that is working with NatureWorks to produce PLA plastics in China. Alex Smayda, through recent developments, sells PLA plastic coat hangers (using UNIC and NatureWorks) to Wal-Mart. …It’s all starting to make sense (I hope!).

The UNIC factory was somewhat toned-down from what I would have expected. It appeared to be more of a warehouse than a factory, though there were several rooms of workers emptying plastic pellets into machines. We experienced similar ventilation complications in one of the rooms, as we had at previous factories, but to a much lesser degree. You could definitely tell that you were breathing plastic fumes of some sort (either particles or fumes from a heating process), but there was far more ventilation than in our previous encounters.

Later that evening, our second overnight travel experience proved to be just as fun as the first. The night train from Shanghai to Beijing really gives you a glimpse about life in China, though I imagine we were traveling with a relatively privileged subset of the population. The cabins throughout the train were quite nice and upscale — my understanding is that the more regularly used trains are bit more uncomfortable (e.g. no cabins, more people, older cars, etc.). Suffice it to say, our two small-quarter, four to a cabin with bunk beds experiences couldn’t have been more different. The first was quirky, dirty, and gave little confidence that we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the canal all night due to technical glitches (we were being towed the entire way, after all), yet probably indicative of how most travel is like for the majority of the Chinese population. The second was upscale, clean, relaxing and very western, but probably enjoyed by only the middle and upper middle class. Both experiences were phenomenal and much appreciated.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Suzhou | Shanghai | Beijing | NatureWorks | Cargill | UNIC

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 12 on calpolymbatrip.com]

The boat trip from Hangzhou to Suzhou was quite an experience but left me rather disoriented. We docked in Suzhou at 6:30am and took a bus to our hotel. Arriving early in the morning, especially after several days of little sleep, left me wondering what time it was despite repeated glances at a clock. I took the first real nap of the trip that morning, and woke up a few hours later to set out with our group again.

That afternoon we toured one of the many extravagant gardens within the city of Suzhou. The one we visited was quite large and very well maintained. One of the more interesting things I saw were countless man-made cave/rock structures throughout the garden. Imagine a bunch of rocks cemented together in a semi-organic manner to create a structure containing both internal tunnels and rooms as well as external stairways on the outside to the top. Each one I explored was unique, some stretching down to a stream, yet all seemed to serve dual purposes as janitorial storage areas — almost all had brooms, mops and other equipment stashed inside.

Similar to our experience in previous cities, we made an effort to visit the “old” part of Suzhou. In comparison to our other, more history-centered visits, Old Suzhou was a bit of a letdown. It was far more touristy than other areas we had seen, and eerily empty. …Until you veer off the main stretch a block or two. The areas just beyond the tourist spot were bustling with locals and sporting a mix of construction chaos and buildings in decay.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Suzhou

Just a quick note about the image captions that I have been including and making reference to for all of my recent “China” posts. They appear when you click on the thumbnail for each image (the screen is darkened, and an enlarged image is displayed with the caption underneath). If you do not see the caption and are taken to an enlarged image displayed on a white page, JavaScript must not be enabled in your web browser and you will be unable to view the captions.

[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 11 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Our eleventh day turned out to be one of the most memorable and enjoyable ones for me. We toured the West Lake of Hangzhou, visited a tea plantation and accompanying small village, and then took an overnight boat trip up the Grand Canal to Suzhou. Similar to my previous posts, I include the bulk of my commentary in the photograph captions.