It’s coming in a week late because after everyone else went
their ways for Shanghai, I took off for another Chinese city called Xiamen to
stay with friends for a week.
So for this last blog, I’m going to take a minute to recap
our last week or so in the study abroad, in which we were in Beijing and
Shanghai. And since both of those were
big cities for our trip, I’ll just hit a couple highlights in each.
Starting with
Beijing – THE GREAT WALL. Trying to
think of how else to emphasize it, and couldn’t really come up anything,
besides maybe a great picture. Oh, look at that, I have one of those too:
So can you see the Chinese characters that say something
like “stay faithful to Chairman Mao” up near the top of the mountain there?
That’s about where I got to as I tried to make the most of our short couple
hours up there. To state the obvious, the views were nothing less than
breathtaking the whole way on top of the wall.
I could probably use two thousand words describing the setting and still
not do it justice, so instead I’ll just include another couple photos and hope
they’ll do the talking.
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| I
took this at the entrance to one of the Guard Outposts similar to the one you see in this picture a little ways down the wall. |
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|
I took this also at a Guard outpost near the characters you
may have seen in the first picture. As if just building a massive wall that
spans hundreds of miles, look at the type of mountain ranges that they built it
in! The wall pretty much went along ridges in those mountains.
|
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| Coming down from
there was not easy – well, let me qualify that.
I did not want to leave, so that wasn’t easy. But actually getting off the wall was really
easy and a ton of fun, since we got to take a giant metal slide that we rode
toboggans down. At first I was like, “we’re going to ride a metal slide down
the mountain?? That sounds dangerous…”. But then when we did it, it was so neat, and such a perfect way to get off the mountain. Whoever had that idea should definitely get promoted. |
Ok, so that was my
huge highlight from Beijing. Another
really fun thing we in Beijing was cooking at The Hutong. In that, we got some great exposure to
Chinese culture through preparing a meal in teams of 2 (15 dishes) that we then
all ate. That was lots of fun, even
though I’m a horrible cook. Fortunately,
I had Bryan* to help me out.
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| Bryan
with the soon-to-be-cooked fish. Bryan and I held down things at the back of the bus all trip long. |
A funny moment from cooking at The
Hutong came when I was trashing a couple of chili peppers that Bryan decided
not to use in our meal. I walked by the station where Tyler* and Prof Aloysius
and off-handedly offered them each a pepper (ok, maybe it was more of a
dare). In any case, they took them, and
Prof Aloysius said he’d down it on the condition that Tyler did too. The conversation after they ate them went a
little like this:
Me “How’s that feeling guys? Good taste?”
Tyler “Oh, its heating up a little bit!”
John “Hmmm, I’m thinking it’s a little… fruity? Pear maybe?”
*Tyler is a history and business double major, and he’s
always got an interesting perspective to offer on things. John may have beat
him on the pepper topic though..
Ok, on to Shanghai!
Shanghai was the last city we visited as a part of this
Study Abroad tour. We sealed things off with a couple more high-caliber
business visits, including Proctor & Gamble and Unilever.
Unilever was especially cool, as we got to see a specific
part of their business that focuses on Customer innovation and insights.
Basically, that means they use some of the most state of the art equipment to
conduct market research and help get their customers (a customer for Unilever
means a retail chain that sells their products) the resources that will help
them be successful. We got to sit in a virtual reality room and walk through a
retail department mock-up, as well as visit a physical retail lab housed in
Unilever.
We also got to visit a couple cultural sites in Shanghai,
like the Bund. The Bund is a unique spot in Shanghai located on a river that
separates two parts of the city. On one side, Shanghai’s massive financial
district has been (and is still being added to) built up. On the other, there
are a number of historical buildings
that date back to English influence on the architecture of buildings in
Shanghai. The result is a fascinating collide of the modern world with history,
which is so common in China. The Bund is an especially poignant example though.
I wish that I could have gotten a picture that captured the comparison, but
since the buildings sit directly opposite each other on the banks of the river,
the camera can’t catch a wide enough view.
But included here is a picture of the financial district side of
things. I think that spire on the bank
of the river is one of my favorite buildings in the world.
Another highlight in Shanghai was the fake goods market we
visited near the subway stop under the Shanghai Science and Technology
museum. I went with a couple of the
other students, and although I didn’t buy anything for myself, I still had a
ton of fun bargaining with and for the other students. That type of buying experience is so unique
and lots of fun.
Overall, this trip was amazing, take-off to landing. Thanks so much to the Professors and all
other administrators who worked to make this happen. A special thanks to the Center for Retailing
Excellence for all of the work and support they dedicate to this trip. For me,
this was an incredibly impactful experience.
Best regards,
Nate Z.
