Day 12

Today brought two more company visits: with Kotoni, a shoe manufacturer, and Bristol Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical giant.  We had to arise early in order to check out and be on the road with enough time to get to Kotoni.  It turned out that it was mostly unnecessary to leave that early (we arrived an hour early) but you never know with Shanghai traffic.  The shoe manufacturing facility was very interesting.  They do much of the work by hand, aided in part by machines.  We met with Ernie, an Italian shoemaker/designer and with the son of the company owner, Chris Liao.  Kotoni makes shoes for a variety of companies and lines, including Dockers, some other cheaper brands as well as some like Kenneth Cole and other lines priced at $300+.  For the most part, the shoes are made via assembly line with hand stitching and assembly.  Machines were used only for jobs like pressing the bottom of the shoe on, and for material cutting.  Another old Italian shoe designer showed us around the factory.  Both of the Italians had previously made their own lines of shoes in Italy, and the older one had even owned his own factory.  They knew quite a bit about shoes.  Actually, whenever we walked past, everyone would be looking at our shoes; they are definitely shoe people there.  My Dockers say 'Made in China' so it's possible that they were made at the plant we visited today.  My shoes aren't made of 100% nice leather with a leather insole, which is what they specialize with here, so mine might have been made elsewhere.

Bristol Myers Squibb provided us with food in their worker's cafeteria.  They were very good to us and had a nice conference room setting.  I had been looking forward to BMS for pretty much the entire trip because it relates so closely to Chemical Engineering.  Unfortunately the place we visited was a packaging facility that didn't actually make the drugs or have a local R&D lab.  We met with a Hong Li, a non-scientist.  It was interesting to hear about the business aspects of the pharmaceutical industry in China, and BMS's role, however I left a bit disappointed.  I asked a couple of questions about the process, "How many chemical reactions does a typical drug go through before it's finished?" and "What suppliers do you get your raw materials from?"  He really couldn't answer either of them for me.  I realize that he was not involved in either the development or the process, but I still wasn't satisfied by his general supply chain answer.  He couldn't even give me an order of magnitude (1, 10, 100…) for the number of reactions a typical drug goes through.  I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the visit, but in general, most of the places we've been to have been much on the business side in presentation content.  Business is very intricately tied to engineering, so I'm definitely still able to learn a lot.  Probably a lot more than I expected to about business, which has been good.

We caught our train at 6:20pm after the meeting.  We were plenty on-time this time, which was good.  It was only two hours long and the time went quickly.  In Nanjing we left the airport and saw a musical fountain and hotel mounted laser system.  Nanjing is much smaller than both Shanghai and Beijing.  The district that our hotel is in is older with smaller shops and less of a night life.  Our room looks over a river though, which is quite beautiful.  We took a walk this evening and saw some shops.  There are quite a few along the waterfront and we had a good time taking pictures and that sort of thing.

It was a long day, so I'm going to get some sleep now.  Tomorrow we visit Sun Yat Sen's tomb and have some self-directed time.  Night, night.

Day 11

Church this morning was at Hengshan Church, which means 'eternal mountain' in Chinese.  We had our headphones again, and the English section where we sat was in the balcony.  The back balcony extended along the sides of the sanctuary as well, so the second level could hold quite a few people.  After church a man came up to us, I was standing next to Tim who is 2.07 m tall, and remarked in very broken English about Tim's height.  That is becoming a very common conversation starter for pretty much anyone Tim meets.  We talked a bit, but his English was very difficult to understand because it was mixed with Chinese.

For lunch we found a food court near our hotel.  In Chinese food courts there is pretty much no place to sit and eat because of all the people.  There is a cashier that you order from, but it's all in Chinese, with only barcodes to identify the foods.  We had to order with the cards that were by the sample plates because it would have been impossible otherwise.  When we finally ordered and got our food there was still no place to stand, so we walked around a bit looking and finally found a place, standing in the middle of the busy, crowded room, along a column with a small ledge for the trays.

The dishes the food was on were large and made of metal, insulated by a chunk of wood; they were not to be picked up and held for long.  Three of us ordered the same thing, some pork with vegetables, but Will had noodles.  Our dishes came with a bowl of rice that we could place some food on to bring to our mouths.  No such luck for Will.  That might have been the most awkward meal to eat ever.  He had to bend down and grab noodles, with chopsticks, each time he wanted to eat anything.  We're getting good with the little buggers now, but not that good.  Lunch was good, and afterwards we went back to the hotel for a bit of writing and reading for our journals.

Now I know you're not supposed to venture out into the unknown alone, but that's exactly what I did.  You can tell that since I'm writing this that everything turned out ok, so don't worry about that.  Marshall was feeling pretty tired, so he wanted to rest and pack his clothes for our travel tomorrow.  Initially at about 1:15pm, I set out to find English corner in People's Park.  That's where you can go to speak in English with others in order to practice.  I didn't really know where it was, but I set out anyway.  There are many nice parks nearby, so I went through one and took some pictures.  From that park, I could see the People's Park, so I headed on over there.  On my way there I heard some English: "Hallo, excuse me, how are you doing?"  I turned around, and there were three Chinese, a guy and two girls.  I started walking and talking with them; I can't remember what it was about, but we just made the normal chitchat.  We talked about where we were from, what we were doing in Shanghai, that sort of thing.  Eventually they asked me where I was going, and I said nowhere, just looking for English corner.  They were going to a tea presentation.  You go and taste several types of teas, and there is a lady who tells you about the history of the tea.  When I asked about price, they said it was free, so I decided to go with them, suspecting a scam, being very cautious.  We walked for a bit and then entered what looked like an old mall and went upstairs.  We went through a glass door, then into a small room with an ornate wooden table, made out of the root structure on a tree.  It was varnished and very smooth.  We sat on small benches and eventually the lady came in.  She spoke only Chinese, but they translated a bit for me.  Right away there was a menu, and boy was I surprised at the prices--that there actually were prices.  There were many teas, but they cost money.  Apparently there was also a sitting fee that everyone had to pay, just for being there.  I kind of stammered some things about wanting to speak English and going to the English corner, and telling them that I had no money, but I did stay and had one kind of tea with them.  I guess I thought they tricked me into coming and spending money trying teas, when they had said it was free.  So after trying one tea, a ginseng tea, I made it clear that I would only be having that one tea, and then I would leave.  They wanted to stay, but they had the lady give me a bill for the tea.  I cost me 79 RMB for the tea and sitting fee.  That's pretty close to $12 that I was not planning on spending.  I didn't want to be impolite, but I also didn't want to stay and have more tea, and even still I wasn't sure if it was a scam or not, so I just left.  The tea was fantastic though I will admit; it was sweet in the throat and smelled wonderful.  The smell and taste stayed with me and in my sinuses for quite a while.  I'm have no idea if it was a scam or not, but the people were very nice and I did enjoy talking with them.

I made my way back from the tea place, to the park where I had been.  Kind of aimlessly, I wandered through it, taking some pictures and just looking at the people.  There were large groups of men gambling and playing cards along a small pond.  People were playing games, including badminton sans net, as well as just sitting around talking.  The park was very beautiful and had trees, rocks and water everywhere.  I came across a very large gathering of older people with signs in Chinese.  They were all talking with each other and showing pictures.  I knew from our GM meeting (we talked about much more than just cars there) that they were parents trying to find dates and arranged marriages for their children.  People I talked to later said that it is a new thing, for the parents to find mates for their younger, working children.  They were in Chinese, but they showed birth date, height, weight and interests that they had, usually accompanied by the salary that they earn.  Apparently it's not too common; there were many people there though.

I kept walking for a bit, taking pictures and just looking around at everything and everyone.  Inadvertently I found a sort of lover's lane.  It was a small stone path leading up to some rock outcroppings that I thought looked cool.  I left there pretty hastily.

Eventually I found English park.  There was a very tell tale sign: Cedric's dreadlocked head.  There were some other Calvin students there talking, so I walked up slowly, just kind of looking around.  A Chinese man came up to me and asked me if I spoke English.  I replied, "Yes" and he asked me where I was from.  We kind of kept talking for a while, just the two of us, until some other people walked up, and formed a circle.  That's what English corner is, people form groups and just talk about things.  As the American, native English speaker, I was the center of attention.  The talk went from me back to the Chinese, then to me and back and forth and back and forth.  I think I talked there for several hours.  There were men and women, young and old.  At the beginning a child came up a said hi.  I really wanted to talk to him, but the man I was talking to would not stop, so the boy walked back to his parents eventually.  We talked about so many things.  Usually when a person first came to the group, they would ask me about why I was in China and for how long, and then they would ask what I am studying.  I brought up my Chinese sister and uncle, and they were very interested in that.  At one point one of the men who spoke the best English said, "So she's just a banana."  I asked him what he meant by that, and he said yellow on the outside like the Chinese and white on the inside.  Katie however is not just a banana; she's a very beautiful one-of-a-kind banana.  I really enjoyed talking with so many people; it was very new to me and very exciting.  They came from all walks of life, and two of them were even chemists working in the pharmaceutical industry in Shanghai.  There were some very interesting personalities there: an economics professor, a small soft spoken lady, a taller well spoken man, a loud boisterous skinny man, two young girls an old GM factory manager and some young professionals.  When I left, there were four Chinese left, and at one point there had been probably 12 gathered around me.  I could not have enjoyed this afternoon more.  A little after four o'clock I told the rest of them that I had to go for dinner.  I didn't know what time it was, but I didn't want to check my watch and risk being impolite.  Though it was four, and I could have kept talking I decided to head back and see what Marshall was up to.

On the way back, two more Chinese walked up beside me and started talking to me.  They wondered if I was Russian, but I said, no, that I was American.  They apparently were in Shanghai on holiday also.  We only talked very briefly, but the tall man and short woman were very nice to me.  It's really great to be able to talk to people there and not have them sell you things.  It really is.  After leaving them, I headed for the underpass that would take me to East Nanjing road.  Right before I crossed the street, four students said hi to me.  I said hi back and kept walking, but then turned and decided to talk to them for a bit.  They were from a Qingdao, right along the Yellow Sea, between Shanghai and Beijing.  They were university students.  There were a brother and younger sister, and what I assume were friends who were a couple.  The couple was studying English as well as the older brother was also studying economics.  The younger sister was studying traditional Chinese medicine.  We talked for a bit about what we were doing in Shanghai.  The four of them were visiting the sibling's older sister who worked there.  Like most of the other Chinese I've met, they were nothing but hospitable.  They mentioned that tea show like the first group did.  That kind of made me think the tea house thing was a scam because both groups had gotten my attention and not me theirs.  However, I asked Yang over dinner and he said that it was actually a real thing, and even more common and cheaper in the south where he was from.

My final Chinese contact on the way back to the hotel was a young woman who accosted me briefly.  She started out very similarly to the others, then called me handsome, which made me immediately suspect that something was up, because let's be honest…  She asked if I would like her to accompany me for the day.  Luckily I politely declined, citing a dinner I had to be at, which really was an honest excuse.  I learned an important lesson today: trust no one who calls you handsome.

Our group had dinner in the hotel's private room.  There were three guests: a couple who was teaching English in China (one Calvin grad) and a business man who helped businesses move to China to access the market here.  There were some good conversations with two interesting different perspectives about living and working in China.

Tomorrow will be busy as we have to check out early and be ready for a business meeting.  Bristol Myers Squibb is the second company and probably the most interesting for me.  It will certainly be the most relevant in light of my internship in Germany this summer.

Good night.  By the way, I don't have time to proof read these much, so sorry about any errors in grammar or spelling.  I am trying to limit stream-of-consciousness writing though, attempting to follow some kind of chronological order.  Also, sorry for the long post, but it was an exciting day.

Day 10

This morning we had some breakfast in the hotel, and then went to a tailor/fabric market.  I had been taken for a ride in the last market, so this time I was going to haggle much better.  I bought a wool coat for myself with my birthday money, and some other things for the family.  I got much better deals this time and am pretty happy with my buys.  I also got a set of six chopsticks; I'm growing quite fond of using them, so I'll have to try and continue to use them in the States.  Haggling is really quite fun; some of the prices they give you are ridiculous and it feels pretty good to get them to go lots cheaper.  For instance, the lady I bought chopsticks from today offered them for ¥140, which is about $20.  They were nice, but not worth near that much.  I got her down to ¥40 by walking away and insisting on the price (more like $5.70).  Like I said, I've paid too much in the past, but I think I did ok today.  After we got some buys, we headed back to the street to go home.  There was a lady making, tortilla/egg/vegetable things that folded like omelets, for ¥4; they were really tasty.  Street vendors make some of the best food around here, and it's usually pretty cheap.  You would pay a lot more than $0.56 for the thing I had, back home.

We took the subway back to our hotel.  The subway in Shanghai is priced based on your destination, which is different than Beijing, which was ¥2 no matter where you went.  It's pricier in Shanghai, but still very much the cheapest way to travel.  When we arrived at East Nanjing Street, where our hotel is located, we emerged into some of the biggest crowds that I have seen since arriving in the Middle Kingdom.  There were people everywhere, much closer to my expectations of the place.

At about 2pm, Will, Marshall and I decided to go to the Yu Garden.  Instead of taking the metro, we walked, taking a very circuitous route.  We got to see quite a bit of the city and the many, many people that are here.  For some reason there seems to be more people than usual in Shanghai today.  Probably because it is a Saturday.  We walked along the river for a bit before cutting in and going through a small park in the middle of the city.  To get there we walked right through a construction zone and no one paid any mind to us or the other Chinese on their way through.  That reminds me, on the way to the market, we saw an apartment complex being ripped down, not 20 feet from the road, by a front end loader.  It was kind of ridiculous.

Eventually we made it to the garden, through a packed skinny alley complex featuring the traditional roof style and structure.  It had been repurposed to hold many vendors and stores.  The garden set us back ¥30 but it was entirely worth it.  The buildings had been restored, and had been some sort of large house/palace in the past.  It was full of beautiful stones, stonework, plants, pools with fish, trees and even a random orange cat.  The place was quite expansive, and apparently we bought our ticket, and entered at the exit; we kind of went against the flow for about half of the time.  There were many Europeans.  We haven't met many Americans yet, most white people speak other languages, that I've seen (there was a large delegation of French people at the fabric market this morning, many of whom were not haggling, and getting taken to town by the Chinese prices).  There were even small water falls in the garden and it was full of pulchritudinous old pagoda-like buildings with the old style roofing.  We spent quite a bit of time there before walking back to our hotel by another way.  This time we took a very indirect route, and I had no idea where we were until we hit Nanjing road.  Marshall had the map and apparently he knew where we were the whole time.  Before going all the way back, we grabbed a bite to eat at Yoshinoya again.  This time they gave us disposable wooden chopsticks, quite a bummer.  At this point we were pretty close to the hotel.  I was taking a picture, and Marshall and Will walked off far enough that I couldn't find them.  I assumed they went to the hotel, so I went back myself, but the room was empty.  They got back a bit later, and apparently they had gotten stopped by some Chinese who wanted to talk to them, which is usually pretty great, unless they're saying, "DVDs, watch, bag?"  This time however, they talked for a while about normal stuff, then when they thought they were in the scam-clear, out came the infamous, "We're art students, would you like to buy our art?"  That actually happens quite often; Marshall and I even had it in the Forbidden City.  Hopefully we can talk to some Chinese strings free tomorrow though at English corner.  We'll see.

Tonight we went to an acrobat show in the Ritz Carlton, where the U.S. presidents stay when they visit Shanghai.  It was incredible.  They were balancing plates on their noses and doing all sorts of contortions while balancing on their hands and feet.  Jumping and rolling and spinning were all done in many different ways and extremely amazingly each time.  A magician did some card tricks, and there was a very humorous knife throwing skit.  A bunch of the women used sticks connected by a string to do pretty amazing things with hourglass shaped objects, spinning, catching and throwing them.  There were a couple of pair performances; the two spun around on ropes that were lifted up and down at various points.  It was like they were flying sometimes.  The last act involved many instances of persons being catapulted into the air using a teeter-totter like apparatus.  They landed on each other's shoulders and at one point there were three people standing on the man on the bottom.  Each performer was in the absolute best condition a person could be, from the men to the women.  The ladies probably weighed around 100 lbs, but I bet they could each lift several times more weight than I can.  I could not be more impressed by their performance; had they allowed taping or pictures I would have taken full advantage of my camera.  I suppose I could have snuck a few, but the effort they put into their acts made me reconsider.

Altogether it was a very full day today.  Tomorrow we meet for worship at 10am and have the rest of the day for self-directed learning.  It should be a blast.  Buenas noches.

Day 9 (2)

Day 9

Today we visited one company, GM.  We were there the whole day and got to tour their production facility.  When we arrived, we met with David Reeck, an engineer who is involved in finding reliable part sources.  We talked with him about many things, including life in Shanghai, his job, his team and general questions about the company.  After talking the whole morning, they let us have lunch in the Canting, their cafeteria.  My little group had some lunch with one of his engineering staff, a materials scientist, who studied in France and knows French, Chinese and English.  After lunch we went to the production facility and talked some more with him about Shanghai.  Then we got a tour of the line.  No photos were allowed, which is quite common among the companies we've visited.  Mr. Reeck told us about the "English Corner" in one of the nearby parks.  On Sunday, people go there to speak English with each other to better their skill.  A bunch of us are going to go there to speak with the people, and help them better their English.  It's a great opportunity to talk to young Chinese and help them brush up on their English speaking as well.  I'm rather looking forward to that.

After our company meeting, the Jens, VanDrunens and some of us went to the "really tall buildings" district.  We went to the top of the SWFC Observatory, a massively tall tower in Shanghai, which is one of the tallest in the world.  It cost the equivalent of around $24 American, but it was definitely worth it.  The views were astounding.

We were hungry after the tower exploration, but we continued to explore anyway.  Discovering new parts of cities is becoming much more enjoyable and far less nerve wracking that it used to be.  Subways and taxis are plentiful, and we haven't gotten lost yet (hopefully never will).

When we got off the metro from the downtown area, a girl sat down by me and had her friend take a picture.  This happens quite a bit, but finally this time, I got someone to take a picture with my camera.  Eventually here friend sat down next to us as well, and we got a group photo.  Interactions like these are really quite fun, and I'm looking forward to meeting even more people on Sunday.

On the way back to the hotel from the subway, Joe, Cedric and I stopped at Yoshinoya's, a Chinese fast food joint.  I had bowl of rice and pork with vegetables on top, it was quite tasty and filling.

I'm pretty tired now, tonight I think we're going to watch a movie and finish our journals for the deadline tomorrow.  I have some reading to do, and even though I'd like to be out and about exploring, I think it's time to get some good rest tonight.

Tomorrow we're going to go to a fabric market, and I might have a wool coat made.  We'll see how much they cost, and if I can find a place that will exchange my $ for ¥.

Night, night.  I think I'll let my pictures do the talking this time.

Day 8

This morning was our first morning in Shanghai.  Our hotel offers a complimentary breakfast included in the price of the room, so there is no spending money at McDonalds, or buying breakfast foods from a supermarket.  The buffet is very nice; there is a good mix of both Chinese and Western dishes (it is quite strange still to have sweet boiled lettuce in the morning though).  After breakfast this morning we visited SMIC in Shanghai.  I did the company briefing for this one.  They are a semiconductor fabrication company, relatively new (founded in 2001) and growing quickly.  Recently (last 2 months) they switched CEO's, so this is a bit of a unique time for them.  Dr. Chang, the founder and a Christian stepped down, and Dr. Wang succeeded him.  Many in the company are Christians, including those that talked to us, however Dr. Wang is not.  The company is not officially "Christian" but the atmosphere is certainly suggestive of Christian ideals and behavior.  SMIC is quite impressive really.  They have created a housing community for their workers, complete with a K-12 school, restaurants, stores and other necessities.  It's really quite the place, and a good environment to work in.  We didn't get to tour the plant, because the area they usually let visitors see was unavailable.  I was really disappointed at that, because it would have been awesome to see the inside of a semiconductor foundry.  The discussion really didn't get very technical for us engineers, we had questions that we couldn't ask the PR guy or the assistant, but the business aspect of the company was still interesting.

We got lunch from a place that was kind of like a worker's mess hall.  The food was ok, but it was rather low quality.  The meat had all sorts of bones in it, some of the "meat" was just breaded bone, but it filled us up alright.  There was a weird dish that looked, tasted and felt like little cubes of fat.  I didn't partake much of that.  It was horrible.  It's always nice to sit next to the one guy on the trip who doesn't like vegetables.  It's really mystifying, but it's great because you can have his food.  He says he takes a multivitamin, but I'm betting he gets scurvy at some point in his life.

After lunch we visited Comnex, a manufacturer of LED systems.  They build solutions primarily in the signals industry (lights for cars and buses); in fact there most profitable products are the signals for U.S. school buses.  When we first arrived they brought us to their showroom, which had four walls full of blinking, bright LED lights.  They have quite a variety.  We then toured the various stages of production for any given solution, from pretesting components to final product assembly and testing.  They use both automated and manual methods, because like I said before the labor in China is cheap (why pay for an expensive robot, when people will do the job?).  Emma and Ellen were our guides to the plant and Fe? explained much of the process to us.  He was only two years out of school with a bachelor's degree, but was a very important part of the company.  He went to school and learned about almost everything that the company does, he is a very good fit.  Arriving at Comnex, we noticed a sign welcoming Distinguished Guests from Calvin College; we never did meet them though.  The people at Comnex were very gracious, and provided for us very well.  Nearly every company we have visited has fed us well, and the excellent snacks at Comnex were no exception.  I really enjoyed my time there, and at the end they even gave us parting gifts of mugs for each of us.

After arriving at the hotel in the evening we set out for a late dinner.  I went with the Jens, VanDrunens, Ben, Joe and Amanda.  We decided on a hotpot place.  You order what's pretty much a bowl of soup, then meat and vegetables, which you put in the bowl to cook, in that order.  The bowl is heated by a small stove-like apparatus, and when the meat has cooked sufficiently, you pick it out, and dip the food in a sauce which you can pick.  You pick the sauce much in the same fashion that you might at Mongolian Barbeque in Grand Rapids, just by adding a mixture of them to a small bowl.  The meal was excellent, and afterwards we shared tea and kiwi milkshakes for dessert.  Ben and Joe shared a kiwi one, as well as the Jens; Amanda and I had a tea shake, and so did the VanDrunens.  It was pretty good, kind of strange to taste green tea ice cream though.

The rest of the party went back to the hotel after dinner, but Joe and I decided to walk around a bit.  The night before, I and another group of guys had gone to the river, so Joe and I chose to walk the other way.  As soon as we were free of the street vendors things got much quieter and more peaceful.  We walked for an hour or so, just taking in the sights and some pictures.  Joe had said earlier in the trip that his family had been missionaries in Nicaragua and he knew some Spanish; I asked him if we could speak in Spanish for the rest of the evening, so we did.  It was good practice for the both of us, and quite a bit of fun to try and work around things we could not remember how to say.  Plus, we doubted many Chinese knew Spanish (not so useful in Asia).  Shanghai is quite beautiful at night and there are many lights.  I wish we had more self-directed learning sometimes; the company meetings, though interesting, take up quite a bit of time.

We have another big day tomorrow, visiting two GM sites.  Goodnight from temperatures that are finally reasonable and not bone chilling.  And by the way, the last picture is of some Wall-E-like fire hydrants.

Days 6 and 7

We visited ASIMCO in the morning and Vermeer in the afternoon on Tuesday.  ASIMCO makes engine parts for use in commercial sized truck diesel engines.  The plant we visited manufactures the fuel injection system.  About 80% of the employees live in on-campus housing.  The facility has been repurposed by ASIMCO and involves machining parts to very small tolerances.  The company employs primarily Chinese engineers (hydraulic and mechanical) and technicians.  Some of the precision machines we observed cost in excess of $7 million.  We were not allowed to take pictures in the plant, which is common, however we were allowed to take pictures of the lobby area, and of their mission statement poster, which I found particularly interesting (first above).

From ASIMCO, we went to Vermeer Beijing.  Vermeer is based in Pella, Iowa and is family owned.  The man we visited there heads up their Asia division, and is a Calvin alum.  Mr. Blouwkamp provided us with lunch and gave us a summary of the company.  We then split up into groups with his management team.  The engineers got to go with a young engineer who was an excellent guide.  Though he was young, his knowledge of the company was fantastic, and he could answer every question.  His English was very good, and though he has only been with the company since 2008 after completing his Master's Degree, he is very much an important part of the team (already representing the engineering division).  Vermeer Beijing is involved in producing trenchless drilling machines, which allow cable to be drilled and pulled from point A to point B underground, without disrupting the surface.  When they began in China, the company would modify their American designs for the Chinese market.  In some cases they still do this, however in many cases it is necessary to engineer solutions for specific markets, such as China and Japan.  In China, there designs are copied extensively and cheaply.  Chinese clients do not want all of the automation that U.S. customers require (no shortage of manual labor in China) and they do not want to pay for more features than they need.  For this reason, Vermeer engineers solutions very differently here than in the U.S.  They are much more focused on cheaper designs that meet but do not exceed specification.  When they started in Beijing, the company owned 90% of the market share in trenchless drilling tech, however today they own about 5%.  A goal of the branch is to increase that share, which was lost in the time after cheaper Chinese solutions began popping up.  The production facility we visited can produce 4 drilling unit simultaneously.  It is not large, but they will be moving to a larger facility soon which will let them increase their output.  I really enjoyed the Vermeer visit.

 

We went back to the hostel after visiting Vermeer and waited for the train to come.  Our train for Shanghai left at 9:20 and we nearly missed it.  The compartments in the train were rather small, but they were so much better than trying to sleep sitting up.  I played some Rook with Tim, Derek and Amanda before going to bed.  We arrived in Shanghai at 7:20 the next morning and had to be ready to get off the train when we got there.  It was interesting having to get up and dressed for a meeting on the train, there were certainly no showers involved.  We went right to our first meeting.

Our company visit was with the bun supplier for McDonalds in China (also for some KFC and Burger King).  Mr. Jamie Gong, the operations manager of the plant gave us a presentation before we toured the plant.  We had to put on two hair nets, shoe covers and a coat similar to a lab coat before we could enter the floor.  They are very serious about cleanliness there, for good reason.  We saw the process from beginning to end, from the dough preparation to the bun formation, cooking, slicing and packaging.  We were even allowed to eat some of their buns and English muffins.  Initially, we asked if we could have some of the rejects that were coming off the line because of cosmetic effects.  They gave us some of those graciously, and even had some fresh packaged buns for us to eat when we got back to the presenting area.  We ate buns today that were literally just off the line.  They hadn't even been sliced yet (SO GOOD!).  The bunch of us looked pretty ridiculous.  Check out the professor's blog if you would like to see pictures.

The next company we visited was EMC² which is an information systems company.  They design, build and manage information structures which store protect and manage information so it can be accessible, searchable and shareable.  They work with banks and financial services firms, manufacturers, healthcare and life sciences organizations, internet services and telecommunications providers and many others.  The company deals with both hardware and software solutions and is moving more toward information management.  Competition includes IBM, HP and Dell.  We got to talk to the leader of the China division today.

After our visit, we went to our hotel in Shanghai (East Asia Hotel), put our bags away and went to find dinner.  About 10 of us guys went exploring first though.  We found a mall, and by the time we had left, there were only six of us.  We decided to try a Chinese Pizza Hut for dinner.  Pizza Hut is a much higher scale and classier place in China than in the U.S.  They serve intricate desserts, pastas, rice dishes, wines, appetizers and of course pizzas.  We ordered three large pizzas, one was popcorn chicken, one bacon and boiled red cabbage, and the final had many different meats.  There were definitely tastes on the pizzas that I had not tasted before.  I've become a fan of Chinese pizza to be sure.  The water they serve is free, but they serve it warm, kind of strange for Americans used to safe tap water.  After our dinner, we did some further exploration.  We walked down the main drag for a while, until we got to the river.  The entire time we were out though, we were hailed by innumerable vendors trying to sell us anything and everything.  One guy tried to get us to come to his store.  He brought us around a corner and to a dark street.  His shop was dark and the windows were completely barred over.  There was no way any of us were going inside, so we kept walking, and after a while he stopped following us; not before trying to sell us many illegal, illicit and illegitimate things though.  Eventually we made it down to the river and got to see the skyline at night.  It is truly magnificent.  We got some good pictures, and when we were heading back, we even saw fireworks.  They were probably in practice for the Expo, which is taking place in Shanghai later this year.  Not exactly sure what it is, but it looks like it will be big.  The bun bakery we saw today was made the official bun seller of it, and they were quite pleased, so it must be important.

So our first night in Shanghai is over, it was quite enjoyable.  Tomorrow we visit SMIC (the company I researched, which manufactures semiconductors which are used in every computer) and Comnex, an LED manufacturer.  That will be very interesting from an engineering point of view.

Good night.