Ba Ba La's Second Week in Mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong

June 6, 2012, Hong Kong, the Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hotel, 11:30 am

With this post, I'm going to try to capture one week of adventure in Zhuhai, Macau and Hong Kong. Time-permitting, I'll post day-by-day details when I'm back in the states.

Today is officially the last day our "Globalization in China" course. Drs. Pratt and Swanson have done a terrific job of leading Team China through a lot of twits and turns. We've learned only too well the meaning of TIC (This is China). A tour with Montreal Bank for this morning never materialized unfortunately after many emails back and forth, so we have a free day.

I will be heading to Shenzen at 12:30 pm to re-connect with Kate Wang, one of my international students I've hosted, and a 2+2 program student at UW-Eau Claire and Jinan University-Zhuhai Campus. An-ling, her mom, will be meeting me at my hotel in Hong Kong. She doesn't speak a word of English, and I barely speak Chinese, but something tells me with the relationship we have with her wonderful daughter, we will do just fine with my Chinese translation book and hand signals.

On the last blog, I recall leaving off describing the weekend cultural tour of Shenzen, Guanshou and Zhuhai over Memorial Day weekend.

Tues. May 29, 2012, aft:
Tour of Gree Air Conditioning Company in Zhuhai. Jackie Chan of Kung Fu movie fame is its celebrity spokesperson. Master of Kung Fu ties into Gree being the Master of AC technology. Gree contributes 50 percent to the GDP of Zhuhai; so as goes Gree; so goes Zhuhai. Throughout our travels, I've seen Gree air conditioners everywhere, and I mean everywhere, except the Zunlin Hotel where we stayed which had Panasonic. They also have expanded into chiller technology, water heaters, dehumifiers, and some appliances, such as rice cookers, tea pots, etc. Their president and CEO is a woman.

The tour brought back memories of my working as a spokesperson for Com Ed in Chicago. My friends took great delight in teasing me about being outside for a TV stand-up in front of our gas-fired peaking generating station in a typically pastel colored suit, hard hat, and pearls advising customers how to conserve electricity during peak electrical times on the hottest days of the year.

Wed. May 30, 2012:
AM: I have an opportunity to visit an Organizational Behavior class by "Susan," a professor who is married to the head of the International Business School here Dr. Zhaobin Fan. Theresa, one of my buddies, is giving a group presentation on a research topic. In this course, student select a topic of interest, and then as a team, work on reviewing a published research paper, and then present to their classmates using a power point presentation. I view about half a dozen in the two hour period, and am asked to ask questions at the end of each one. I'm glad to see group/team projects as many employers have commented that Chinese students need to do more work in groups/teams to work in business in China. For so many years, they are so individually based in their studies.

AFT: Tour of Print-Rite in Zhuhai. I've never complain again about our printer cartridges after seeing the assembly and production lines of teenaged workers putting them together. Trust me, it's a very involved process. Arnauld Hue, the founder and CEO, addresses us, and answers our questions, along with Jimmy Chang, the director of international marketing. Interestingly, we are generously provided with a cover for an I-Phone with the assumption that all Americans own I-Phones. Print-Rite is an amazing success story.

PM: We meet on campus for an excellent meal prepared by the cafeteria staff at the university. Afterwards, my buddies and I practice our song in Chinese (mostly me practicing with me) for our Farewell Ceremony. After six rehearsals, we're in our groove.

Thurs. May 31, 2012:
A full day of classes today, and then an impromptu trip to Macau. Highlights: Our excellent tour guide, Jinan University student Rolland, delicious dim-sum, and the superb architecture brought to the island by the Portuguese as it used to be a Portuguese colony. Plus, Haagen-Daas ice cream, a Starbucks on the street as well as Starbucks in the Venetian casino. Lowlights: Dee-Ann, one of my classmates, is stopped at the border passage on the way back to mainland China. Her visa only allows two entrances and exits total to mainland China rather than multiple visits as she had applied for. Rolland takes her under his wing, and she is stuck in Macau for the night, not exactly a bad place to be stuck. We are all extremely grateful for our student buddies who translated. Without them, we would not have known what was going on very easily.

Fri. June 1, 2012:
Great Joy! I've been invited to guest lecture again, this time in a Principles of Management class for 20 freshman students. I successfully "test" my interactive American teaching style with them in constrast to the Chinese style of professor lecturing and student taking notes.

Update on Dee-Ann. Dr. Pratt will travel to Macau, and together they will go to Hong Kong directly, a day in advance. SIGH OF RELIEF! Everything is going to be AOK. We'll all be able to leave mainland China at the same time.

Tammy, our English teacher, provides our names in Chinese. Mine means "children's toy." Ba Ba La. Everyone else's name has greater significance, but no matter. We learned a lot from her in the short time we were together.

AFT: Two tours. One of Reminda batteries, which I am familiar with based on my work with cell phones at Motorola. Portions of the factory and assembly production lines are shut down to conserve electricity during the heat as well as give the employees a couple of days off. That is followed by W.S.M., a clothing manufacturer for many U.S. and European, Latin American, as well as Chinese brands. Fascinating to visit the showrooms, and see pictures of how the knits are truly knit.

PM: Farewell Ceremony. Laughs and tears. My buddies and I do a fabulous job with our Chinese song. Fareewll by Lu Shutaong. (I'll post the words later.)

Sat. June 2, 2012:
Back to Hong Kong on the ferry. I strike up a conversation with an American next to me in line. He is China building racing sail boats. And he has captained quite a few boats in races, including an all-female crew, in Hong Kong. He confirms what I thought, that the water is too choppy between Zhuhai and Hong Kong for sailing. He's familiar with the Chicago Yacht Club, where I used to crew when I lived in Chicago. Fun! I love the water! I love sailing! He takes off for an 11 am race in Hong Kong!

Aft: Tour of Hong Kong Island. The Peak, Repulse Bay, (fun to run along with hot sand and put my big toes in the water), Stanley Market, Sampan boat ride, Dinner at the Jade Garden, and Laser Light Show on Hong Kong Harbor.

Sun. June 3, 2012: I'll post later the details of my wonderful visit with Bill and Mary Poon, who I met on the flight out. They are native Hong Kongers, and invited me to dim sum at their club today. Really FUN!

Mon. June 4, 2012:   Two intriguing tours, worth going back another time for more information. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (I Can't Accept Cash) and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

I'm off to Shenzen.

BaBaLa

Come and visit Joni Staack's blog.

Blogging from China was blocked. We're back in Hong Kong.

2012 China Blog Pratt

Sunday/Monday, 20-21 May

3:45 departure from Eau Claire was early (especially after going to be around midnight), but it actually helped me get on China time. The flight over was wonderfully uneventful, as I slept most of the way, waking only to eat. Scott was on the same flight but seated a few rows over. After we landed, we shared dinner with Alvin, our Hong Kong tour guide, who introduced us to a new term: TIC. It means, “this is China,” and refers to the unpredictability of working with the Chinese. He had encountered some challenges in arranging for our ferry tickets to the mainland.

Tuesday, 22 May

The 4 undergrads had arrived and had been sightseeing in Hong Kong before Scott and I arrived. They are having a good time. Taking a cab from the airport to the hotel worked the best for them and made me less anxious about ensuring their safe arrival to the hotel. I took Alvin’s suggestion to pick up the grads: take a shuttle to the train and then the train to/from the airport. It worked well. The grads came in 2 groups of 2. The first group was delayed 2 hours and the second group (Greg and DeeAnne) arrived a little early.  All arrived safely and we travelled by train/shuttle back to the hotel. We met Tim and son Michael at the airport, and they joined us.

Wednesday, 23 May

Alvin arranged for a bus to take us to the ferry. Thank goodness! One of the original budget-cutting decisions was that we would walk to the ferry—bad idea. Some students travel with huge pieces of luggage and the distance was farther than originally estimated. The ferry trip was a bit rocky, as I remembered from before. We need to put “take Dramamine before ferry trip” into the pre-departure notes. Only one person sick. Susan and some of the Zhuhai “buddies” met us at the ferry station. After getting us checked into the Junlin Hotel, the buddies took us by bus downtown to buy necessary toiletries. The Chinese-American students are already starting to bond.

Thursday, 24 May

We had a very nice opening ceremony attended by the top people at Jinan University Zhuhai College (JUZC), which impressed upon us the importance of this relationship to both universities. We were surprised and humored that the ceremony did not follow the printed agenda, but that Tim and Scott were both called upon to address the group. There was much laughter throughout the ceremony. After an Oral Chinese class, the JUZC administrators treated us to an excellent lunch. One student got sick, but Pepto Bismal was available in the group and she was well enough to join the rest of the group in the afternoon.

Based on the 2011 January trip to Shaoguan, the schedule this time included some early relationship-building activities for the students. This worked great. The students took off together in the afternoon. They took a bus to some nearby islands and rented tandem bikes to ride along the shoreline. Each bike was powered via Chinese-American collaboration. I could not have planned such a great relationship-building experience.

Scott and I had dinner at a little community restaurant. The tall apartments are arranged in a U shape with shops on the first floor. The center is concrete and is the gathering place for young and old. We watched a woman help an elderly man do his walk therapy, very slow and laborious. A young boy with only a shirt on played in front of us. School children were playing kick-ball. Several small groups of people sat and visited. It was a very pleasant and relaxing evening. More people came out as the sun descended and the heat subsided.

Friday, 25 May

We had two more classes today: Oral Chinese and Chinese Culture, with a focus on the cities we will visit this weekend. Both classes were informative. The afternoon included another relationship-building time for the Chinese-American buddies. I took the opportunity to catch up on some university work.

Saturday 26 May

Took the bus to Shenzhen to visit the Shenzhen Museum, H&T International Transportation and the Yantian Port. The bus ride was nice and provided an opportunity to see some rural settings as opposed to the more affluent city environment. Shenzhen is incredible, having transformed in just over 30 years from a fishing village to a major metropolis. It's one of the Special Economic Zones that is friendly to international trade, and it shows.

A Shenzhen Museum exhibit included some 10-year span before/after pictures depicting the city's development. Amazing. The museum gift shop had 3 sections. The first was your typical gift shop with inexpensive touristy items. A doorway in the back led to a jewelry shop with nicer items. As I walked around the glass cases, they opened up the “wall” at the back of the jewelry store to enable entrance to high-market jade and pearl jewelry. When they realized I was not planning to buy anything, the wall closed again.

Yantian Port was also amazing--they move 1 million containers through there each year. It's the largest port in China. Melody, from H&T Int'l Transp got us as close as she could to the port, which was in full operation (the only port open on Saturday in China). It was mammoth.

Interesting sights:

1. The street lights in Shenzhen have small wind propellers and solar panels on them. Presumably they generate their own electricity. Very forward thinking.

2. An Asian version of a Tour de France bike race was weaving in and out of traffic on a busy freeway.

Public smoking is something that surprised me. Our hotel rooms here are smoker rooms and people smoke in the restaurant. I prefer our clean WI air.

Learning Experience: Allow at least 15 minutes between checkout and departure. They have to check each room to ensure nothing was left or stolen. I had two infractions. First, I checked out an iron and ironing board and then lent it to Sam and Chris. Our bus was held until I told them in which room to find the items. Second, the evening before I pulled back the desk chair to set up my computer. The chair leg was broken (I was glad I had not discovered this while attempting to sit on the chair!). A maid was servicing a nearby room, so I summoned her to my room and showed her the chair. Being from a customer-service society, I assumed she would call someone to replace the chair. That didn’t happen. Next, I found a service person and, through gestures and pointing at the chair, was able to communicate that I needed a new chair. That worked. The next morning, though, the hotel would not let us depart until we resolved who was going to pay for the broken chair. That discussion took close to 15 minutes, mostly between our Zhuhai faculty member, the travel guide, and a hotel manager. The end result was that we did not have to pay, but the whole discussion of both situations put us a bit behind schedule.

Sunday, 27 May

Today we travelled to Guangzhou, where visited the site of the Asian Games, had lunch with David Schroeder, the Economic Officer at the U.S. Consulate, visited the Chen Clan Academy, and the Dr. Sun Yat-sen memorial Hall. We concluded the day with a lovely dinner cruise down the Pearl River. Like Hong Kong, Guangzhou lights up its buildings and bridges with neon lights at night. Although it rained most of the day, it stopped raining for the cruise, so we were able to go above deck to appreciate the light show.

The site of the Asian Games was similar, but on a much smaller scale, to the Beijing site of Olympics. I can only imagine how spectacular the opening ceremony was. At night the site lit up in different colors. We could see it from the dinner cruise.

The Memorial and Academy were both interesting. We would have benefited greatly from having an English-speaking tour guide who could have provided us with contextual relevance. Our wonderful little tour guide spoke very broken English. Fortunately some English captions were provided.

The lunch with David Schroeder was very informative. He provided us with the “American on site” perspective that helped us interpret what we hear both from US news media and from Chinese students/faculty. Possibly of most interest to me was the depiction of China as three fairly geographic regions representing economic purchasing ability. The high-purchase consumers are located on the shorelines, especially in the Special Economic Zones. About 200 miles in exists a type of middle class (can’t remember the population number) that represents about 5 times the purchasing power of the first class. Then the entire rest of the region is comprised of the majority that have little purchasing power. China and the US need to focus on the middle-class consumer, since they represent huge purchasing power. China is focused on exports, not so much on producing for domestic consumption. One major barrier is lack of domestic freight transportation.

Tuesday, 28 May

Attended two classes today: one good, one not. Why? Personal and cultural instructional methods, content, and possible lack of confidence in English language. Interesting. The first instructor spoke better English so engaged interactively with the students, answering questions as they occurred.  His presentation compared/contrasted differences in transportation logistics between the US and China. Very interesting. The second instructor read from full-page-text slides and shut down questioning early. Her content was intro textbook content that our students have had (e.g., difference between implicit/explicit knowledge and how knowledge is diffused). One student fell asleep; others played computer/phone games. Couldn’t blame them. I would read her slide and then work on my blog until the next slide.

Lunch was a welcome KFC, even though I rarely eat there in the States. I even had an ice-cream cone…can’t remember the last time I had an ice-cream cone!

Afternoon site visit was to Gree Electronics. The visit was very interesting. They are very interested in changing the “Made in China” negative connotation to a “Gree equals six sigma high quality”) brand awareness. They don’t let anything under level 3 (out of 5 levels) out of the plant. A Zhuhai faculty member pointed out to them that their fail rate was still 3 points off six sigma. Their competitive strategy is to focus on their strength, maintain high quality, diversify only within their area of expertise (refrigeration) and outsource everything else.

Sending our questions to Susan for distribution to the sites prior to our arrival has worked out very well. Doing so has provided the spokesperson for each site the ability to research questions outside the area of his/her expertise. It also provides opportunity for translation. Even with having the questions distributed early, we saw some confusion, but the questions provided a base from which other questions were asked.

Dinner was at the Red House, where Rama and I stayed in November. Although also a school cafeteria, the food here was much better than in the student cafeteria and better than in some of the restaurants we’ve visited.

Wednesday, 29 May

Two classes again today. The first, International Investment, was delivered by Dr. Wu, who is the CFO for the Hengqin New Area, the new development area we visited on Monday. Educated at the top school in China and then at Cornell and Knoxville, he was both very knowledgeable and very familiar with Western-style learning. His fairly short presentation about the Hengqin New Area provided a good foundation for the interactive Q&A which engaged the students so much that we ran about 10 minutes overtime. That’s okay, though, because now we’re enduring the second painful reading from the instructor from yesterday (and I’m writing my blog). J

We met Print-Rite’s founder and Chairman Mr. Arnald Ho. He’s the Steve Jobs of printing. I was amazed at how genuine he was. He provided forthright answers to our questions and kept us comfortable with jokes and stories. The innovation he develops in his employees is demonstrated through the diversity of their products in a time when personal printing of documents is decreasing. He and Print-Rite were amazing.

The faculty (Scott, Tim and I) joined Yang, Jane and Jane’s family for dinner at a traditional Hunan restaurant. We’ve been eating primarily Cantonese to this point. The food was delicious. Some was very spicy and brought tears to my eyes, but there was plenty of tea to cool the mouth. I like the Chinese version of dessert after meals: fruit.

Paying in cash is a bit inconvenient for me, since I’m so used to using my debit card everywhere. One of the tourist places we visited accepted credit cards, which some of the students used; however, day-to-day transactions are cash, and the shopkeepers keep the cash in a regular desk drawer. Limited security.