UMD LSBE Study-in-China 2009

Today we went to the Dynasty wine place. I was in for such a shock. When I was in Qingdao we went to a winery, let me tell you that I wasin for a big surprise to see the Dynasty. For some odd reason I had thought that all these places are the same. The one in Qingdao actually looked like something that came out of the movies. So automatically I thought everything was the same in China. For the Dynasty one I have to say the chairs were better than the one in Qingdao. I also thought that was really intersting was how they package their bottles. For how much money they make I feel like they do not need people sitting around putting in the divders or like the pamflets. I feel like this is odd because your could just use machines to put the things in. Another thing is that I just assumed for a company that made such money they would have an English speaking person on hand. Not that I minded or anything. One thing that I did really like is how they made us put on the blue slipper things over our shoes. I think this is a very good thing because it shows how clean they are with the people that are around the wine making part.

Posted by lauxx106 at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday in class we talked about some customs in China that foreign business people need to know when doing business here. Business dress attire is the same for men in both America and China; dark colored suits without any loud colors. For women, it is proper to wear conservative clothes. If they do wear a skirt, it must be below the knees. They also need to wear neutral colors. It is very important to make a good first impression.

We also talked about proper procedure for accepting and handing out business cards. It is very important to hand out the business card and accept it using two hands. When you receive a card you must always read the card; if you don’t it is insulting to the person who gave it to you. Even if it is written only in Chinese and you don’t understand it, you must take time to fake read it.

One of the big topics we talked about was “Mian Zi”; the English translation for Mian Zi is face. In other words, it is the image that one portrays to other people. Mian Zi is very extremely important to Chinese people. Business cards tell a lot about a person in China. They build up the Mian Zi of a person. In America, we only give the title of our job, name of the company, phone number, etc. In China, they give every qualification that they have in order to increase their Mian Zi. In America, it is not essential for a millionaire to sit first class on an airplane. However, in China, if a rich person sat among the commoners, their Mian Zi would go down, degrading their social status. Mian Zi tells a lot about a person; it is the vibe they give off to others. It tells other people their status in society.

Posted by oconn298 at 9:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dynasty Group started in 1980 when Remy Martin and Dynasty started the first joint venture enterprise in Tianjin. It used to produce 16000 bottles a year and now it now produces 40 million bottles a year in a fully automated production line. This is one example of how a foreign company can make an strategic agreement with a Chinese company and see how it has propered almost 30 years later. It shows that doing business in China is a great thing for a company that is looking to expand their sales or are just looking for a new start. Since this connection has been going on for almost 30 years and is still profitablr and going on, it says that both sides know what the other side wants. Chinese culture is one of the most difficult countries to come into and do business. There are certain times of the year that would look bad if you asked for a meeting during that time saying that you did not do your homework before setting up the meeting. Now, there are just about every Fortune 500 company having a production facility, a subsidiary, or just a sales office somewhere in China but specifically in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, or Suzhou. One of my cousins, who has been working in Suzhou and now in Singapore, has been over here for at least five years. He works for RTP Co., which was a small private company headquartered in Winona, MN, has done business here very well. He helped start both production facilities in Singapore and Suzhou and it seems that everything he did was right. He must have done his homework before coming overseas.

Posted by benn0326 at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We started off the day touring the Dynasty wine headquarters. It was nice to see their production line, and get a look at their business model. You can defiantly tell that a development like this could only flourish in recent Chinese history. A company like this would probably not work too well in an old and poorer China. Only with recent economic prosperity over the last couple decades do you see posh, and expensive companies perform so well in an economy like China.

Lecture with Dr. Li in the afternoon proved to be very beneficial, learning about how to conduct business in China. Most of us will likely interact with Chinese business, or practice our business in China at some point in our careers. With globalization happening all over the world it is ever more important to learn other cultures business norms.

Jun, Tracy, and Angel took us out to a hot pot for dinner. It was by far the best hot pot dinner on the trip. One thing I have noticed while in China is the great service we have received. Considering there are many workers out there that can replace unproductive employees, you see these service people work with a constant smile on their face. I’ll admit in America you can receive really good service with your servers constantly smiling, however the Chinese servers seem really sincere in their want and need to serve you as a customer. Many of them are very gracious to have the opportunity they have, and take full advantage of it. I think this difference in service between America and China has roots in each country’s economic past. Considering how poor China once was, I think there people are more gracious towards economic prosperity than we are back at home. This is because we are use to it. We have really not experienced great poverty ever in our lifetime. Even many of our parents have lived in rather prosperous times. We have to go back to our grandparents or even further to realize any type of extensive poverty like China has faced for much of their history.

Posted by korm0025 at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s class talked more about the differences between the two cultures in the business setting. It was full of dos and don’ts with things like small talk and dinner seating. How people present themselves is extremely important in the culture. Position in society is very important in the society and should be reflected by how the person acts and displays themselves in public. It is considered taboo for someone who can afford personal drivers to take a public bus, as it contradicts their status in society.

From talking to the student from Nankai University today it became apparent that they face a completely different set of pressures in the schooling. Unlike Americans they don’t work their way through school their family pays for it. In return however it is expected that the children will take care of their parents when they retire. This leads to an extreme pressure on the youth of china to perform exceptional in order to support their elders as well as their lifestyle. It is expected for the two heads of the household to take care of the grandparents (sometimes more than one set) as well as the children.

For lunch we visited a market which was great after our morning at the Dynasty Wine bottling plant in Tianjin. At Dynasty we were able to sample $250 wine and $1500 Brandy. When we visited the food market we were able to see how a large number of middle class Chinese citizens eat. This market was very busy and populated by food stands selling all sorts of fresh produce and meats. There were live holding tanks full of fish and frogs for sale. The market had small walking areas along the various shops and was nothing like anything I have experienced in the states.

Posted by houl0072 at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cheating is one of the reasons that are why Chinese do not want to give. A foreigner will not understand that until he/ she actually live in china up to couple years. Cheating could be range from small to big. And when I define small to big, I am saying cheating could be a beggar or a man like government member. For the majority group of Chinese, they will not give money to those guys who beg to them. Although, we somehow used to give a little to them; but we are not do it anymore after some of the negative news expose. News were about a person being a bagger is not because he do not have the ability to work, it is because of he is being lazy to work.

Lie is other reason why people do not trust each other. Give money to those people where live in a poor area that they can able to survive. That is good thing. There is something wrong between collect money and sending money or materials to the poor area. We are not known the one who holds the amount of money will steal us money or not. News has proved that kind of situation. We give the faith to the one who collect ours money, but he/ she cheat on us and lie to everyone who live in the poor area.

These two facts make people not going give as much as before. We are given the heart to help those poor people, but we do not receive what we should hear about. The entire message we get is lying and cheating.
When I still in china; once our high school have a donation that collect money, food and warm clothes to those people who live in poor area. Because of the negative news, I lost my honest on donate money to such event. Instead, I just donate my old clothes to them. I feel worry my money is not use in the right way. Even now, I still cannot trust.

I am not saying nobody will go to give. Most of the time it is depends on how good you see a person or you may just do it by your heart.

So, that is what I know about some reasons of Chinese not give too much. We are just live in such environment. Psychology has explained that human behavior is shaped by environment. The society makes us to behavior like this. And I think this kind of behavior would still continue. It is not easy to change. China stills a very long way to go.

nothing to write about yesterday, but today do. If you read this journal, you can see that I use “we” a lot. One typical point to recognized me as a Chinese.

Posted by liang133 at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While talking to my Mom on Skype the other day, she had commented that I refer to food a lot in my blogs. Either about what I had ate that day, where the group went out to eat, or how much the food was that we had bought. I told her that I do not intentionally mean to blog about food so much, but now after thinking about and having gained a bit of understanding about food in the Chinese culture I can understand why this topic occurs so often in my blogs.

In China people often greet each other by saying "吃饭了没有?" (Chi fan le mei you?) which literally means "Have you eaten yet?" but in the context of a greeting it merely means "Hello" or "How are you?" The person who asks this is not actually curious as to if you've eaten or not yet. I wish I would have known this during my Chinese classes at UMD this last year. Almost everyday our Chinese Professor would come into class and ask the class "Have you eaten yet?" We always just assumed she was making sure that we were staying healthy and eating, or that she was very curious as to what we ate for lunch. The confused look she would get on her face after we would say to her "Yes we are SO full," makes so much more sense now.

Today Professor Li gave the group advice for if we are every unsure of where to eat. He told us to follow the people and eat where the people are. Now I notice that everywhere we have gone there have been a lot of people around. Even when I think about food in the context of holidays in America it involves people ... family and friends. This is especially true in China but not just for holidays. Food brings people together and creates community among them. It makes sense why food is such a big deal in a culture high in collectivism such as China.

Posted by mcdon419 at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to the Dynasty Wine Co. to have a tour. So we can have a basic understand about what does their production line look like. Basically from what I saw, this wine production factory doesn't hire many workers, because mostly are machines works. Maybe that's why I cannot see they set up any cameras. Then we tried two very expensive wine from the Dynasty. One is the red wine which cost about $800 dollar, and a Brandy which cost
about $1500 dollar. For me, I think the Brandy is better than the red wine. Too bad I cannot finish it, because I didn't eat anything for breakfast. After the interesting lecture presented from Teacher Li, I went to find the restaurant which I spent more two hours and still couldn't find it from few days ago. This time, thanks for Mr. Yang's telling me about the direction of the restaurant. This time, I finally found that little evil restaurant and I just spent 15 minutes walked from the hotel. The food is very cheap and delicious there, I ordered three things and the total are 25 Yuan. But still have many left, so I packed the rest and bring them for Jun. But still, there is something bad about this restaurant. That is, you need to wait at least 20 to 30 minutes to be seated during the dining time. In the restaurant, about 95% are students, because this restaurant is located in the Tianjin University. Next time, you might want to go there and have a try, and they have Chinese style Spaghetti. I haven't try it yet, but I am sure I will go there again soon,

Posted by liang106 at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today at the Dynasty Wine Factory was very interesting. On top of being able to taste a bottle of seven hundred dollar wine and a fifteen hundred bottle of brandy, we also got to see how the factor actually operated. I have never seen firsthand an actual factory production line so walking through and being able to see all the machines and what they did was amazing. It was really interesting to see how by having all those machines that could do what a human worker would but much faster is astonishing. The amount of money factories save in labor must be huge. There were still obviously workers present because they had to make sure the machines kept running properly, but most were sitting there talking with one another or on their cell phones. The advancements in technology today are crazy, and to think that things continuously keep getting more high tech. It makes me wonder some day if relatively all manual jobs will be taken over by machines, because so many already have. This can also raise the question of where does machine production end, because with the rate of people with no jobs being already high, and improvements in technology rates also being high, where will our unemployment rate be in fifty years from now?

Posted by walte275 at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I walked around Tianjin and visited the University with the chinese students, Angel and Pass. I was surprised by the employee housing set ups. I saw a small brick home with chickens feeding on the grass in front of their home. Angel just said that this is the home of someone who works at the University. Later that evening we went to the roof of our hotel and find people's clothes hanging up there drying. Again I thought maybe some guest needed more drying space, until employees kept coming up and changing ina shed like place. This was definitely different. As the night went on we came to realize that someone actually was living on the roof of the hotel, we assume it is an employee. They were watching TV and just hanging out in a little shed on the roof. I am still surprised by the housing conditions of people in the city. Pass took a student up to the boy's dormitory and it held six beds in the size of a room smaller then what would be seen on a typical American public University.

Angel and I discussed dating in China. She said dating does not really occur. If you decide to start a relationship you should expect it to last about 3 years at the least. The only interaction prior to dating is done in class. I imagine it is hard to get to know someone in China of the opposite sex. She enjoyed hearing about school dances in middle school and how we stood on opposite sides of the room. She said that they never had dances in high school either.

Posted by vaudr001 at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we were fortunate to ask questions about the China's financial industry and receive answers from people who work first hand in the field. I was most interested in hearing their opinion's of how America is dealing with the financial crisis. Since their banking system is controled by the government I wanted to know how they viewed the different bail outs. From what I could gather they first off think it is done in completely different contexts, since China has always had governmeent involvement. They basically viewed the bail outs as a way to control the financial industry. I wish that they would have gone into further detail on the comparisons of US's involvement using bail-outs and how the Chinese government is involved in everyday financing.

Posted by vaudr001 at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, we experienced our third hot pot meal of the trip. This I thought by far was the best we have eaten yet. For our table we at a variety of vegetables, lamb, beef, frog, fruit, squid, and weird eggs. The most special part of our meal was the warm reception we received from the restaurant. We received free fruit and other dishes as a welcome to there establishment. This came as a surprise to both us and Angel since in China you do not receive things for free often. It was also another test to my stomach of trying very spicy food along with different foods I cannot even fathom. The food that was very unique at first looked like a fruit with jello surrounding it. I was dead wrong it was a special dish served only for this week’s holiday. It turned out to be an egg type food. At first I was all excited to try, but once it entered my mouth I was in for an interesting drink. I did not enjoy it at all because the texture, taste, and smell didn’t not mix well for me. I thought taking a sip of water would help, but it only made the after taste worst. I was proud at my self knowing I have tried everything that has been put in front of me and will continue to embrace this amazing culture. It was also challenging to cook each item since they each took a certain amount of time and grabbing them with chopsticks just made Angel laugh. I look forward to the next test my stomach will endure in our remaining days in China.

Posted by hackw001 at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about China's business cards. Professor Li talked about this today and it really interested me. The Chinese use business cards in the same manners as in the U.S. The way the business cards are structured and handed out are a little different than the U.S. They serve the purpose for telling people about your business, what type of work you do, and hopefully they will contact you in the future to do business. So those purposes are the same as the U.S. They are also supposed to be engraved in gold to make it stand out which is kind of like the U.S. because I believe the U.S. people do that as well so their card has some more power. A major difference I know is what type of information is on there. In the U.S. you put your name, profession, and contact information. On a Chinese business card not only do they include this but much more. They include stuff that would be on your resume. For example, if you serve on a committee in your profession you put that on there. So they put a lot of extra things like that. I like that a lot because than you know more about the person and I believe that would make it more comfortable to do business with someone that I felt like I knew more about. Another difference is the way you accept the card. You give your card with both hands so that the text is facing up so the guy accepting the card can read what is on the card. The acceptor also receives the card with both hands and is suppose to skim over it quick. If they don't it is an insult and they won't be happy with you. I like this because it shows you are interested in what this person does. The last difference I notice is that the text is centered on the card. I like this as well because it looks more professional. They are some differences and similarities and it's amazing to see what they are.

Posted by charl094 at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On day 6 in Tianjin we toured the campus. One of the first things that became apparent was how boys and girls were separated. They had their own dorm halls and neither sex was even allowed into the others. Upon more investigation, apparently girls are not often able to socialize with boys growing up. And often times College is the first real time they spend time with the opposite sex. Often they meet in classes and may do some social things outside of class. When a couple decides to date it’s a huge decision because a relationship will usually last for three years in China. The couples we have seen are usually noticeable, they will often times wear matching outfits. The dynamics of relationships and dating in China are completely different than what they typically are in the states.

Another thing I noticed while I was on campus was that most students never need to leave it. They have everything they need from bike repair stands to food markets right on campus. Their only need to be off campus is when they want to do something special. This is completely different from Duluth especially because other than classes students really don’t have any need to be on campus.

Posted by houl0072 at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After talking with Tracey, June, and Stephen one day at lunch, a difference between Chinese and American relationship history immerged. As an American, we are used to having, in most cases, several different girlfriends or boyfriends before we get married in our early to mid twenties. Americans generally like to play the field and tell ourselves “there are many fish in the sea.“ It was interesting talking to them because when asked if any of the three of them had a girlfriend only one said yes. They spoke about it a bit and said some people by their early twenties have never had a significant other. In the case of the three of them, one said they had a girlfriend, one said they have had a girlfriend in the past, and the other said that they had never had a girlfriend (but will have one some day). Collectively, they said that usually people wait until they have completed the university before dating and settling down to get married. Just interesting to think about and to see the differences. Another good day today, looking forward to another one tomorrow!!

Posted by fergu222 at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I grabbed a newspaper yesterday on the flight back from Xi'an and found an interesting article. I think we were all dumbfounded the first time we got charged for a plastic bag. Well, come to find out, in China there is a ban on free plastic bags. This was done to save energy and protect the planet. So far, the initiative seems to be working. In 2006, 50 billion bags were used, consuming about two million tons of oil. In 2007, 60 billion bags were used consuming 2.4 million tons of oil. The ban was enacted in 2008 and usage dropped to 20 billion bags and .8 million tons of oil. Wal-Mart alone reports distributing eighty percent fewer bags in its 106 stores. The ban is working and people have adjusted to it and either bring their own or make do without. The State Administration of Industry and Commerce is the enforcement agency and non-compliance is costly. Retailers caught giving free plastic bags are subject to fines up to $10,000 yuan (about $1,500). I like to see that China is taking action to reduce oil consumption and become more green. There are other incentives, like tax breaks for vehicles with motors under a certain size. The Chinese economy and industry have come so far in the last twenty years. Cars are becoming more and more common. A close eye needs to be kept on pollution and these levels need to be kept in check to help the environment.

Posted by jopk0002 at 11:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we started back up our classes and our daily field trips. The day started off with breakfast as usual and before getting on the bus I decided to go back to the room and grab my backpack. Upon returning to the lobby about 5-10 minutes later I had found that the group had left without me. I was left alone “Home Alone” style in China because there was a miscalculation during the head count on the bus. Luckily upon reaching the Tianjin McDonalds, roughly 3 blocks down the road my classmates realized I was not there. They turned around and came back and got me which I was happy about because we were on our way to a Winery where we got to taste wine and brandy. A few days ago I had a conversation with one of the Chinese students about China’s one child law. The student I spoke to was one of two siblings, she had a younger brother. She explained that her parents had to pay a onetime fee or tax on her brother. I believe the tax was roughly $1500. I explained that I only had one sibling myself but have friends with families consisting of up to four children. I also talked about how there a craze in America going on is families with multiple children. I told the student about some families that have 8-12 kids. They were really surprised on how people in America could care for and take care of so many children. I tried to explain how there are special services for families under those types of conditions, but the more technical my English got I could tell I was losing them in the conversation. My Chinese student friend said that many of her friends are only children and that even in China you can easily tell the difference between a child who has a sibling and one who is a single child. This aspect is common in America as well, I can often pick out an only child without asking if they have siblings or not.

Posted by sett0070 at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our first day back to our normal routine after the holiday weekend. We had a change in schedule that switched our visit to the winery to 9 am and class to 2:30 pm. We left for the winery at 9:05 thinking that we had everyone until someone mentioned that Jeff's birthday was on Friday and nobody responded. We then realized that Jeff was not on the bus; we had a miscount because Margo's mom was on the bus with us. It was a good thing we realized early, we were only about 5 minutes away from the hotel when we did. Jeff was playing real life "frogger" trying to cross the street to get to our bus. That's one thing that is quite different from the United States. We yield for pedestrians when we're in our cars or on bikes, and cars yield to bikes. Here in China the cars have the right of way, then the bikes and finally the pedestrians. This makes street crossing a more involved activity, you can't just cross the street if the crossing sign is green, you'll inevitably be hit by a motor vehicle. Cars will usually yield if you're a part of a decent size group, but if you're alone they're pretty unforgiving. I can't wait until I'm back in the states and can cross the street based on the light rather than trying to play real life "frogger".

Posted by stra0532 at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I am going to blog about how we started off the day right. We got our wake up call at 8:20 in the morning got up showered and hopped on the bus to take us to the Dynasty wine factory. It was about a 40 min drive in the hot bus cramped in the back seat so I was very happy to see the sign for the winery. When we got there we were taken into a lecture hall looking thing but with big comfortable seats. This is where they gave us a little history bout the Dynasty winery. It has been around since 1980 and has been growing into a big company. They sell about 40 million bottles of wine each year. They are in the process of making a huge castle looking building that will have a lake and a golf course behind it. We didn't get to see this because it was not finished yet. When we walked into the bottle processing factory it was all ran by machines and it was really cool to see first hand how it was so automated. It was also interesting to see how many people where sitting around doing nothing. It looked like the easiest job ever. After the bottling process we went down into the wine cellar which was nine meters below ground. This is where we train a glass of when that cost about 750 U.S. dollars. IT was very good even though I am not a big wine drinker. The Cellar was huge it just had barrels and barels of wine. She told us that most of the wine stays down there for at least 3 years before it is bottled. After this we went to the brandy cellar were they gave us a shot of brandy that was 10,000 yuan which is about 1,500 U.S. dollars. It was good but very strong and when you don't eat breakfast before going it doesn't sit well in the stomach. After the brandy part that ended our tour of the winery. IT was really fun to see the operations of a company like that.

Posted by ritt0123 at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Both days were free days. Friday was my sleep and resting day and also a two hour question and answer session with some on Dahui's college friends. It was an interesting lecture since it was first hand information. Each of Dahui's colleagues had very insightful topics to discuss. It was nice having them talk since they work here and can tell us first hand work experience. After they spoke, it was back to sleep! I think that i slept for at least 15 hours on Friday. I didn't go out with the group to AliBaba's or the dance club. I did see the sun come up Saturday morning which was kind of nice other than the fact that it was at 4:30 in the morning.

Yesterday, Saturday, was another low key day. Lots of sleeping! Pass & Angel took us around campus which was cool. It seems a lot more spread out that UMD. Also, just about all UMD's building are connected in some way. One of the coolest buildings on campus was just built last year for a competition. I can not remember what Angel said it was for. Some of the group went to play basketball while Steve Ashley & I went to a pizza place. We walked in but could not understand the hostess and she could not understand us. We thought it was closed because there were no lights on and no one else was in the place. We kind of figured out that we wanted to eat so she sat us down. It was an interesting time ordering since we could not read the menu, we could only point and that really didn't work either. We saw garlic bread in the menu but I guess it was not available when we were there. The pizza ended up being very cool and it was one of the few places we have gone to here that actually had very cold beer! After walking on campus in the hot sun, a cold beer was all that we wanted. It was very refreshing and I would definitely go back and get a different pizza with some cold beer!

Posted by benn0326 at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday a few of us students got a tour of Nankai University from a few of the Chinese students. It was very interesting to see their campus. Many parts were breathtakingly beautiful, and others were quite run down and poor. I got to go and see what a dorm looks like as well. Pass showed me his dorm room where he and 5 other students stay for school. He even talked about how it was poorly furnished and very old, yet he was more than happy to have the chance to attend school and stay in his dorm room. I learned that they tend to group students together in rooms based on their focus of Study. Pass and all of his roommates attended many of the same classes, and all had the same focus of study.

After our tour we proceeded to play basketball. It was an exciting game. I noticed again that the Chinese students were not too aggressive in their playing style, but they had very good jump shots. It was fun to build closer relationships with the Chinese students and get a glimpse of how they live life on campus.

Posted by korm0025 at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a free day yesterday so we just took it easy at the hotel. I had pizza for the first time in weeks and it was everything I hoped it would be. I have been noticing a few things while I’ve been in China. For one, traffic is controlled chaos. Nobody uses blinkers; the lanes don’t seem to matter; and there are hundreds upon hundreds of bicyclists and pedestrians making things even more difficult. The funny part is, however, that I have seen a grand total of one accident then entire time I’ve been here. I think that this is because people drive slower so even if there is a little love tap here and there the damage is minimal. Another reason is that drivers are so much more aware over here than they are in the States. I don’t see too many people driving with cell phones, doing their makeup, or reading newspapers or magazines. When people are driving, their main task is just that, driving. People have already blogged about lines at fast food places (or the lack of lines that is). People just stand in a cluster of people and you better be on your toes because people will step right in front of you if you leave too big of a gap. Chinese people are a lot more reserved than Americans, there is no doubt about that. I rarely see Chinese people being loud and boisterous. They do not want to stand out from the crowd. They want to blend in and not make a big deal about themselves. Americans, on the other hand, want to make themselves as unique as possible. We are loud in public sometimes at the totally wrong time like in class or at a quiet restaurant.

Posted by oconn298 at 7:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every direction that you look there is something new getting built or renovated. Whether it be a skyscraper or business getting fixing a few things. The amount of skyscrapers that are being built, whether their business or living complexes, makes me wonder a few things. First, is how is there funding for such construction jobs. To me there must be some very rich people, hence the saying the rich get richer and poor get poorer. It also makes me think how much do the works get paid, and what happens when the building is complete. Since the cost a labor is generally low here I cannot imagine many Americans working for wages that are probably paid here. Also, since there are so many people here do the workers keep there jobs and have to look elsewhere. The last thing I found interesting is the renovation McDonalds has done on their exterior and interior. In the one week we have been here they have almost completed their transformation. They wait till night to start working to avoid the amount of people they would run into during the day. Lastly, I will not be surprised to see even more buildings going up in Shanghai, like we did in both Beijing and Tianjin.

Posted by hackw001 at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our second "free" day and we didn't have anything scheduled to do. We went to a nearby pizza place for lunch today and their pizza was pretty good. In China they seem to either go easy on the sauce or not even put sauce on a pizza, I don't exactly know why this is, although it does seem like the Chinese do not use much of the tomato sauces. This can also be seen if you go to McDonalds or KFC and order a large fry, they'll only include one packet of ketchup with your order. I'm not sure how many people can consume a whole large fry on only one packet of ketchup in the United States, but here they seem to manage fine. Most of the Chinese people I see that have fries eat them plain without any kind of sauce so maybe that is the reason why they only include one packet with your order. Anyway the menu at the pizza place was all in Chinese so we didn't know exactly what everything was, and we ended up getting a chicken and red pepper pizza which was quite good (even without sauce). Anyway tomorrow we start class again and we get to go to the winery which I think will be quite fun.

Posted by stra0532 at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Jeff, Dylan, and I went to a few of IT malls. For the afternoon, I was just traveling in the heaven.. Tons of computers, cpus, motherboards, flash drives, mp3 players, and laptops. This is the place I never seem in the US. One thing I am very sure now after today's window shopping, no matter how much the price the salesman told you. It's always not the real price, because when I was in the mall and walking pass by a computer store, a sales told me a price for a laptop. Then after I left that store, another guy from another computer store just next to that one told me a price which is 1000 Yuan lower than that one for the same computer! So always keep bargaining when go shopping in the mall. Tomorrow we are going to have our first trip to a company, so excited!

Posted by liang106 at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I’m in a group in a foreign country sometimes it is easy to forget that I am a minority in that foreign country. Then I traveled to Xi’an and had a moment of realization - I am completely and utterly alone as the minority and it has never been so apparent! A couple of my questions after a weekend in Xi’an are:
1) Do Americans have a “rip me off” stamp on their foreheads? OK, so I think Americans in China have a “rip me off” sticker on their foreheads. We talked about trustworthiness in class the other day and here is where I just have an issue with the Chinese culture. Why did a cab ride cost 100 Yuan, when it was only supposed to cost 80? Why did the woman at the bus stop try to make us get on a bus that would have cost 300 Yuan when the bus we were supposed to get on, for 7 Yuan, was only yards away? Why didn’t she help us instead of try to rip us off? Then, we are shopping at some shops outside the museum and they are telling us that all the other stuff is crap but theirs is “hand made.” I thought we learned in class that when marketing products, the Chinese culture doesn’t say one is better than the other. I am just having a hard time trusting any people in China and think that everyone is trying to rip me off. I don’t like this feeling.
2) Does the same supposed discrimination that happens to the Chinese in the US happen to us in China?
I noticed today, as we were walking through a courtyard lined with shops, that all the shop owners know enough English to yell “Hello, come look at my shop” to any white person that walks by. Too bad for them, there were a lot of white people at the Terra Cotta Warriors today, but I would bet only a handful of them spoke English. Then, we are trying to get on our plane and the woman taking tickets actually made us wait until a small group of Chinese people got on board. Obviously, these are just a few things, but I wonder if I would notice more things if we were here longer?
Anyway, the trip to Xi’an was great. Very rich in history! I can’t wait for another day tomorrow!!

Posted by fergu222 at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today after lunch Jack, Jeff, and I went to a few of the Tech Malls around Tianjin. I was in geek heaven! There were motherboards, graphic cards, cpus, and other electronic equipment everywhere! These malls were much less extreme than the tech markets we went to in Beijing. By less extreme I mean that the sales people do not come and grab you and push towards their products, but here they usually will just say hello and ask you what you are looking for. A lot of the electronics in these malls were much more expensive than if you were to buy them online or in the States (except the DVD's priced at 6 Yuan each ;) ). What also was amusing to me was how in the markets they would sell pirated DVD's, software, music, and video games like it's a lemonade stand. If that happened in the states the RIAA and MPAA would show up with a SWAT team. Being in China affords me the opportunity to experience little things like this that I wouldn't be able to in the United States ... and I'm glad I get to experience them.

Posted by mcdon419 at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we got to walk around the Nankai University. It was very different from the UMD campus we are use to. First of all it was much larger, with many more facilities than you could even expect. The amount of dorms they have is ridiculous, especially knowing they have four students in each dorm versus the normal two that we typically have. They also have many more outdoor activity centers than we have back at UMD. Pass and Angel walked us around the campus from the west side to the east side showing us the different buildings and dormitories. The restrooms on campus were also very disgusting, back at UMD they would be required to up kept and maintained. I did enjoy walking through the campus though because they had a lot of beautiful scenery. Even though all their rivers that run through the campus were disgusting and green, over all it was very nice. As many of us have discussed before the architecture alone amazes us. UMD has a very nice campus, but I would love having a campus like the Nankai University; with a few alterations.

Posted by walte275 at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I visited Xi’an on my two free days. Xi’an is about two and a half hours west of Tianjin by plane. Xi’an is home to the Terra Cotta Army (among many other things), which was ordered constructed by China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. The Army was discovered in 1974 by some farmers digging a well. Little did they know over 7,000 clay, life-sized soldiers would be discovered along with 130 chariots and nearly 700 horses. Much of the discovery has yet to be unearthed. The museum consists of three pits where excavation is still occurring on a daily basis. Many of the statues are broken due to pillagers trying to overthrow the Qin dynasty years later. They ransacked the site, and set fire to the wooden structure that sheltered the soldiers after construction. The broken statues are painstakingly restored and placed strategically back into place once finished. This experience was very unique and like nothing we have seen thus far. There were hardly any English-speaking people in Xi’an and communication was difficult with hotel staff, and bus and taxi drivers. Picture pointing, hand gestures, nodding, and making airplane noises and using my arms as wings seemed universally understood but still did not make it an easy trip. It was, however, a fun and educational side trip while we had a couple day break from lecture.

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Thursday we attended a lecture which included an overview of China’s economy by Nankai Professor Qi Zheng at the hotel. The lecture provided extensive coverage of many aspects of China’s economy. The Chinese economy has been growing at a staggering rate of 13% in 2007, 9% in 2008, and a projected 6% in 2009. Professor Zheng seemed discouraged that China’s GDP was on the downward slide. The rest of the world is experiencing a recession, thus negative GDP growth. Therefore, by my calculations, a 6% growth in GDP is rather attractive in the state of the current worldwide economy. Another positive sign for the Chinese economy is that 1st quarter 2009 retail sales were up 15% year over year. In the US, 1st quarter 2009 retail sales were down year over year. Yet another positive indicator for the Chinese economy is the number of office buildings (skyscrapers, if you will) that we have seen being constructed. Between Beijing, Tianjin, and Xi’an (visited during our free time), there are dozens upon dozens of buildings being constructed. Professor Zheng pointed out that concrete and steel production are actually down, but just based on my own non-expert opinion, things really seem to be rolling in China. This country is definitely moving in the right direction and is a force to be reckoned with.

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about recreational basketball in China. This is almost the same as the U.S. but a little different. The kids here love basketball. They try to model themselves after a professional NBA basketball player. They are very knowledgeable about the NBA game. You can ask all of these kids who is playing in the finals game right now and they would be able to tell you the answer plus more. They could tell you who plays on which team and almost most of their stats. They absolutely love the game. If you walk by a basketball court here in China you notice that all of the hoops are full of kids playing. It is hard to find a spot for you to play. If you walk in the U.S. you are almost guaranteed a spot. They play outside here and very rarely inside because they don't have indoor courts. They suffer through the heat while they are playing and I give them credit because today I couldn't handle the heat anymore but they still wanted to play and pushed through it. The pick-up games they play are similar to the U.S. They keep score but their seems to be more of an emphasis on playing for fun. Nobody gets mad or very competitive. You play competitively and try hard but to them it doesn't matter if you win or not. They basically just want to have fun and they get a very big smile on their face when you tell them that yes I will play with you. Their style of play is similar to the U.S. other than that there seems to be more of a trend towards team play. They pass the ball a lot more and take shots only when they are wide open. Today I noticed that a kid was wide open and still passed the ball before shooting. These goes for most of the students other than Pass but he just loves the game so how can I blame him. This kid is so passionate about the game that I wish more students in the U.S. would be as passionate about sports as him. I have had the best time so far playing sports and getting to know these kids. They are great and I am so excited to see what else they have to offer in the next week.

Posted by charl094 at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our second free day in a row in Tianjin. A few of my friends and I went wandering around and walked through three different electronic malls. Unlike in America where the retail stores are all consolidated under one name and brand China’s stores are all independent retailers competing with one another. They purchase the space within the building to sell their products. Many of the retailers sell the exact same products so the only differentiation they can offer is price, which is why bargaining is possible in many of China’s stores. The thing I have noticed though about almost all of the stores I’ve visited is that you can’t tell who is a customer and who is an employee. They typically do not wear a name tag or even a similar shirt to identify them as an employee. In the stores random people will come up and start talking to you about the products and it takes a while to register that they are sales people. The malls always seem to be extremely packed with people but it is impossible to determine how many are shoppers and how many are employees. I’m sure the workers at the mall can identify the shoppers much easier, especially when a bunch of white Americans come wandering through. Luckily in China there is no concern on finding an employee to answer a question. As soon as you look at a product they start talking to you trying to pull you into their booth. On a few occasions I have been physically pulled into a booth by a salesperson trying to have me look at something that I am not even remotely interested in. I have learned that the best tactic is to not make eye contact, look at products you are not interested in, or say hello to anyone. I will never complain about the one Target employee coming up and asking me if I need help finding anything ever again once I get back to the US.

Posted by sett0070 at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Security - a little different than the USA. The first thing I noticed about going through airport security in Tianjin was that they did not make us take our liquids out of our bag. They did say that we couldn’t have large amounts of liquids, like a pop or a water, but they didn’t need our stuff segregated into Ziploc bags like in the USA. The second thing that surprised me was that we didn’t have to take our shoes off to go through the security checkpoint, but everyone did get “wanded“ (you know the wand metal detectors) once through the big metal detector. I was impressed that I did have my bag searched, for my electric toothbrush, on my bag’s trip through the checkpoint, so at least they were looking at the X-ray monitor! That much cannot be said for the security checkpoint at the Terra Cotta Army Museum in Xi‘an! The Museum had a BIG sign posted that told us NO liquids were allowed except for non-alcoholic beverages. Shane and I both walked in with shampoo, conditioner, water, toothpaste, etc. without an issue. Our bags went through the scanner, but who knows where the monitor was, or even a person to check a bag if it had something dangerous in it. I guess if I look at the security measures I witnessed during out trip to Xi’an, they weren’t too bad, but they weren’t too good either. I have a better appreciation now for our security in the USA but that’s not to say I don’t feel safe in China. My trip to Xi’an was fantastic! I can’t wait for the rest of the trip!

Posted by fergu222 at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to a western restauant. I thought this food was very good. For the pizza I think that it was better tasting than the Pizza Hut they have over here. The spagetti was just okay. For the salads, I thought that was horrible. I think it is really interesting to see what kinds of food the Chinese people have came up with. In the states we have Amercanized Chinese food and it feels like it is totally different from what we eat over here. Where as the restaurants here that serve Chinese Amercanized food, the food is similar but taste different. I wonder if somebody actually opened up a real American food would people be willing to get the food.

Posted by lauxx106 at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Dahui's friends came and talked to us. Origninally I had thought that it was going to be boring. But it ended up to be really interesting. The thing that really surprised me the most is when one of the guys were talking about the jobs. Like how it use to be where they would hire people outside China before their own people. Now its the opposite where they hire Chinese people before the outsiders. This is interesting because now it feels like in the economy in the States, if you are Chinese and can speak and write you have the leverage above everyone. This is interesting how the business world is revolving. Another thing that was intersting to me was that I did not know there was such thing as a VIP thing. This is interesting becuase I thought all banks just treat their customers all the same.

Posted by lauxx106 at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, we meet with Dr. Li’s friends. They are have the same college major MIS as Dr. Li, but they are not work in the MIS area. All of them are doing job on finance. Dr. Li‘s friend Zhou said, it is hard to find a job that would match with your major. Somehow that is right in china because of super high supply of college students every year. If you do not want the job, someone else that has different degree but still can fit on the job will take over your seat. And Zhou said, you should always set gold for yourself. Once you have gold for yourself; you would do better in your life.

I remember Mr. Hou is work at SPD bank, in the position that serves with VIP customer. It is not everyone could be a VIP unless you have more than six million RMB. Mr. Hou will do suggestion for those VIP customers to how to use their money efficiently. With this information, I noticed that where do those rich people go for saving, loan or investment. There is always a branch that serves those rich people because they got some market power in the local market. It is interesting to listen to them, which are something we cannot learn from school.

We are not have a busy day, there is so much free time after we meet with Dr. Li’s friends.

Posted by liang133 at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s class was lead by some professionals from the financial services industry. I was intrigued to find out the current state of the financial services industry in china. One of the large drivers of the growth is all the construction projects in china that need funding. Another area of growth is the personal wealth of the individuals within the banking system as the standard of living level increases for many Chinese. I was surprised to find out about the relatively immature derivatives markets in china, consisting primarily of swaps and forwards. The US has an extremely advanced derivatives market with the ability to design instruments to hedge against almost any event, including weather. The professionals were all really knowledgeable and provided a unique firsthand perspective at the thoughts of many financial service professionals in china.

Later that night we visited a local bar known as Ali Bah Bah’s. This Bar was located down a dark alley near the university; on the outside, it had no lights and would have been very easily passed had we not known were to go. It was interesting to find out that in china, places cannot be a bar. They can only be labeled as restaurants that serve beer. This means that they were subject to laws that govern restaurants. The place was full of mostly international students as it was a local hang out for them. After getting smoked a few times at foosball, we sat around and talked with our new friends from the Nankai University.

Posted by houl0072 at 6:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday afternoon during our free day we were visited by Pass and Tracy from the university. We spent time watching the movie Matrix, and we showed them pictures on facebook. We got to show them some of our hometown friends. After showing them this Pass showed us something very interesting that Nankai University has set up. They have a similar social networking system to facebook that is run by Nankai. I thought it was interesting because it gave them the capabilities to post pictures, talk with other students, make friends, and communicate throughout the campus. While signing on it showed Pass friends that were currently online at the time. One of the names of the students was MonsterJam! We also learned that Tracy tried to get the name T-Mac first, but it was already taken. This made me think if a social networking system like this could work at a smaller University like ours. One problem would be other networking systems in place like facebook, myspace, and twitter. Would people want to switch or even take the time to use the system. I thought it was an interesting setup and I am sure there are others like it else where.

Posted by hackw001 at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The last couple of nights we went to a local bar that has a lot of international people who frequent it. I really enjoy speaking with people from different parts of the world. They are always very interested to learn about American life and I love hearing about their countries. It is pretty amazing how many people know English in this world. It is also kind of sad how most Americans can only speak English (in some cases people know bits and pieces of Spanish or German, etc.). I wish I knew another language good enough to be able to carry on a conversation like so many international people can. However, like a lot of us have been saying, what is the point of learning another language when so many people around the world know English? If one is working for an international company and has direct contact with somebody who speaks another language, obviously it is important to know the basics so that you are not clueless. But for somebody who is going to be in Minnesota for the rest of their life and doesn’t speak to anybody but Americans there is no reason to learn another language.

I was speaking with an Irish guy that has lived in Tianjin for 7 years teaching Korean elementary students Chinese as well as English. I was asking him about life in China and he had some interesting things to say. He said that he lives very well over here. However, unlike in the US or other developed countries, he doesn’t have health insurance or a pension plan. So his future is uncertain. I asked him if he knows how to read Chinese characters. He said that he knows a few but there is no point for him to try to learn more because most things (like newspapers, magazines, and street signs) are written in both English and Chinese. He said that knowing the spoken language is 100X more important than knowing Chinese characters.

Posted by oconn298 at 1:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about some of the stuff I learned from the professionals, especially the SEC rules and regulations. I really wanted to know whether or not they had strict rules like the U.S. I learned that after the 1998 Asian Financial crisis that the government came up with some strict rules. Some of the rules that are required is full disclosure and the disclosure is an annual thing. It is not just a one time disclosure rule. There are also different rules for different size companies. The big corporations are required to release information on a regular basis and more disclosure than the smaller companies. Some of these rules seem similar to the U.S. and it is amazing to see how that works.

Posted by charl094 at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today here in Tianjin was a very relaxing day. Other than having a Question and Answer session with a few professionals in the banking industry, the day consisted of whatever we wanted to. For most sleep was of first priority. I got to try the Chinese burgers for the first time today for lunch, I heard many good things about them so far so I was excited. I believe my expectations were set to high to start because I didn’t enjoy them that much, they were ok. But, it was the trip to get the burgers that I found interesting. On our way back we had to walk close to the buildings because there was a car driving on the side walk, which for one I find very strange. So while walking on the side of one of the buildings we walked down a ramp, we then realized it was a handicap accessible ramp. That was the first handicap accessible ramp I had seen in the two weeks we have been here. Back home its required for every company and business to have handicap accessible everything, from ramps, to parking spots, to bathrooms. It still amazes me how simple things like that can be so different in different areas of the world.

Posted by walte275 at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was a very nice and relaxing day (first one in a while and best one overall). We had some Chinese bank employees come from SPB Bank to answer some of our questions. I was surprised when I learned that 3/4 of them were MIS majors in college; being that they're in mainly the finance industry now and only one of them had a finance degree. This really does illustrate China's need for persons with a finance degree and I see how far organizations are willing to go to get them. They also nicely explained how the Chinese economic situation was performing, and it is doing relatively well compared to the rest of the world. The increase of the value of RMB has affected the export companies in China the most and is causing a lot of them to go out of business due to the fact that foreign countries have to pay more for their goods because their monetary unit is worth significantly less than it used to be compared to RMB (hence the Chinese goods are costing them more money). It is amazing how well China is thriving during this economic downturn, it's probably one of the few places in the world that currently is doing alright.

Posted by stra0532 at 7:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I finally didn't hear my alarm from my cellphone, I can keep sleeping until I wake up naturally. What a forgotten wonderful feeling! At the afternoon, Teacher Li has invited his friend who are professional in the finance and banking areas to have face to face discussion with us. I personal think that I learn the most from today's short discussion. From today's discussion, I noticed that, the global financial crises does't seem to really impact the Chinese banks. One reason for that might be most banks make many loans to the government for their project. And the interest they get for these loans are one of their majority incomes. The other thing we need to remember is, sometimes the major we have chosen in the college is not really decide the job you have to do in the future. And finally, like Mr. Zhou said, no matter where we go, where we work, we need to set goal for ourselves and go for it. Then one day we will success. Then one day Teacher Li might ask us to speak to his students, if he can wait. :)

Posted by liang106 at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our group is coming from a country where our status quo demands everyone must strive to "keep up with the Joneses" in order to either move up the social class ladder or live above your actual means. Your social status is judged in America by the car you drive, how many cars you drive, the house you own, the clothes you wear, if you have a butler/maid, etc. Now I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, but merely noting the differences I see between the American and Chinese culture. "Flashier" people in America who wear their their status on their sleeves have either been ascribed this social status (wealth passed down by their families) or have achieved it through means of hard-work their entire lives (or have massive amounts debt). I've noticed in China that this is not as true as it is in America. People here almost seem to base their social status on inherited characteristics and achieved statuses, but not to the point where money is involved in determining your social class. I understand their are actual social classes in China: poor, middle, and rich. But since this is a culture high in collectivity, people seem much more modest. I could be way off base here but I guess this just makes for some good questions to ask in the next lecture with Professor Li.

The last thing I've noticed in China is that majority of the wealthier people in China either drive a jet-black Volkswagen, Mercedes, or BMW. Very rarely do you see luxury cars such as those in any other color. Usually in America we do want to "keep up with the Joneses" but not always necessarily follow suit. I do not have a point here, but this is a merely an observation that marvels me.

Posted by mcdon419 at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we got to talk with some banking professionals from China. It was very educational to learn how they operate and perform business in the banks within China. One thing I noticed is that they all seemed to look up to the way in which the US operates its financial system. They all seemed to have great confidence in the US financial system. I also learned that they are not as heavily involved in the derivatives markets as the US banks are, which implies they takes less risk in their financing activities. I personally do not see our government’s intervention in the financial system to be very beneficial. In fact I am very worried with the extent to which they have become involved with the banks.

I personally believe the Chinese have a better foundation in their financial system in regards to the amount of leverage that their banks possess. In America we seen the financial collapse happen in part due to the great amount of debt that the banks carried. This reckless risk taking has had very adverse effects on the US economy. In China they seem to be more conservative in their financing and investing activities. The Chinese seem to be less risky in terms of their financial practices versus the US. They may look up to the US now, but I feel that soon the rest of world will look at the Chinese’s ability to save more and spend less as a more practical way of operating business, and economic practices. Of course it is very early to tell which method will be successful, but with great risk comes great responsibility. The US financial system I fear will never be the same as it once was. I soon see China becoming the top power in the global economy, a power that the US has been for so many years. In spite of global economic recession, the Chinese GDP is still predicted to grow at 6-7% for the next year. This may be quite slower than recent years; however it is still substantial growth. All economies will face tough times in the next couple years, but I feel China is better prepared for the tough economic times versus the US. However, considering the US’s great influence on exchange rates and other economies my prediction may prove to be wrong.

Posted by korm0025 at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our first “free day” since being in China. Last night we went out to a local bar called Allibabas with some of the Chinese students from Nankai University. I was able to have a few really good conversations with some of the students about various topics. One of the topics I found to be most interesting was that of working while in college. Back in America it is very common if not expected for a student to have some sort of job while attending school. In China it is the exact opposite. They explained to me that so much time is devoted to school that they can’t find outside jobs. I spoke to the students and told them that while in school I worked only 1-15 hours a week and that was considered relatively low compared to other students. They were surprised and thought 15 hours was a lot. They couldn’t understand how we can balance both school and work. I asked if any of them have ever had a part time job and most of them said no. I then described how I have had about 5-6 different jobs since I was 16. The students asked if the school helps you find a job and I told them that at UMD there are roughly 1200 on campus jobs which are created especially for students. I also told them about how our school has a work study program and there are links on our website to help UMD students find job openings around campus. In America it is often necessary for students to work to earn enough money to pay for school and other living expenses. The Chinese students told them that all their education funding comes from their families back home.

Posted by sett0070 at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was sports day at Nankai University for us. We played badmitten, ping pong, and basketball with the Nankai students. The Chinese students welcomed us with open arms. They were very excited to meet us and see what American students are like. The first thing I noticed was their odd American names; one kid was named “Pass”, another was named “Re-pass”, and a third was named “Pass Pass”. There were some normal names like Jarrod and Evan. Obviously they do not know a lot of American names but it was kind of funny to hear the names they came up with. The Chinese kids were very good at their racket sports. I played ping pong with a student named Mickey against Dan and a Chinese student named Evan. I noticed that they were really good at putting spin on the ball while Dan and I were better at hitting it hard and flat. The students had a lot of questions about American culture. They kept asking me about the American Pie series; they had seen American Pie: The Naked Mile and were shocked when I told them that American students do not run naked. We exchanged email addresses after the activities were over. When we were leaving everybody had a smile on their face. I think the Chinese kids really liked us because they gave us hugs as we were leaving. I hope we can stay in touch with them.

Posted by oconn298 at 4:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today I am blog about how the nightlife is in China is the same as most of the bars that I go to in the states. Last night we went to a bar that was called summerset. When we walked in they were playing American music and everyone was dancing around. This is like most of the bars that I go to in Duluth and in the cities. Everyone is having a good time socializing with each other. The other bar that we went to called Alli Babas was more of a restaurant not a bar. We didn’t realize this at first so we were being very loud and yelling at each other. We quickly found out that we could not do this because there was a family that was living up on top of the bar/restaurant that complained about the noise. It was still loud so the cops actually came to the place and told us that we had to be quiet. This was the first time I have been to a bar where the cops had to come because it was so loud.

Posted by ritt0123 at 3:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While at AliBaba's, we were sitting around a table and telling others to chug some or all of their beer. While they were chugging, everyone else was yelling. It was fun at the time, but a little later the cops showed up at the restaurant. I would say it was for sure our fault they came. Also, the owner came over to our table and told us to be quiet since it was after 10 and we were in a restaurant. I later had a conversation with Dahui about how we were acting. When we were yelling, Dahui wanted to come over and tell us to be quiet. He again wanted us to learn from our mistakes. Chinese drinking culture is a lot different than what we are used to in the US. On any given night in the US, we can go out and be loud with loud music. The main difference is that we can not drink outside or drink in the taxi or bus. I am amazed that anyone can drink and drink anywhere they are. You can walk down the street with a beer, but you will most likely never see a Chinese person walking down the street with a beer. The Chinese people will not go to a bar and be loud as we were.

Posted by benn0326 at 2:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am trying to figure out if women aren’t very into sports over here. You always hear about the Chinese Women’s Soccer Team but what else. The other day when we went to the university we started in the gym playing bad mitten and ping pong. It was all guys originally playing in there until Angle came and played ping pong with us. Then we went outside to play basketball and the basketball courts were completely full but still no girls. Margaux and I were the only girls playing basketball, and you could tell they didn’t often play with girls. Granted we were the best basketball players it was still really hard to get them to pass us the ball. Margaux and I came up with an agreement that we would let each other be wide open so they would pass us the ball, and then if we got it we could shoot. Very rarely did one of the Chinese students pass us the ball still, when we got the ball it was usually from one of our American guys. After we each had a few shots and still missed that even limited the number of times we got the ball as well. It is understandable that they wanted to win, but everyone keeps saying that men and women here are actually on the same level when I just don’t see that.

Posted by walte275 at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a great Birthday. After class I was able to go over to the University and just play games. I played bandmitten and then basketball. Ashley and I noticed that we were the only girls out playing basketball. I wasn't exactly surprised by this but I wish that I saw more females partcipating in "male" activities. Ashley and me played on opposite teams and left eachother open to see if we ever get the ball passed to us. Let's just say it was rare. For the evening we wwent to the Korean Barbeque next door and then out to Alli Babas. My question is how are birthday's celebrated in China?

Posted by vaudr001 at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the sports day i made the decision to play basketball with the Chinese kids. There streetball is a little different then how we play in the states. First off, when warming up if you make the basketball you do not get the ball back (change) the person who gets the rebound just takes the next shot. Also when playing a game if a team scores a basket, the get to keep the ball aka make it take it. It was very fun playing but i am definitely sore from yesterdays activities since we playe not to 11, 21, 31, but 45! It was crazy and i thank mother nature for giving us rain so i did not die on the court. There is one huge difference when it comes to American basketball and Chinese basketball. Americans are a lot more aggressive when it comes to the game. We definitely bump bodies more, rebound better, and make more contact in a usual play. I noticed, besides pass, all the Chinese students were very timid when it came to the game. When getting a pass and having an open lane they would not drive the basket, but take the open jumper right where they were. Also if i were to be aggressive enough i could have gotten every rebound. The last thing that made the game much more interesting was playing on the stiffest rim ever. Even John missed a few lay ups during the game, also the nets had niether chain or silk nets. I look forward to playing with pass and his friends again.

Posted by hackw001 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about the nightlife of China. From the first 2 weeks of going out I have noticed some things about how the Chinese people party. There are many clubs out there and it seems like a lot of the people really like to go out and dancing. Drinking is involved but I don't believe their main goal is to get passed out drunk. Like Dr. Li was telling us people feel embarrassed for someone when they are drunk so I don't believe it is something they like to do. The dancing in these clubs is kind of like the U.S. where there is dirty dancing but I see the dancing here is more contemporary as well. You don't dirty dance, you just dance with them. I like this style a lot. It is hard to describe but I am sure you know what I mean. Also, the DJ's in these clubs are very good. They know what music to play and how to keep everyone involved dancing. They play a lot of Techno and American music. This shows me that the Chinese really like our Hip Hop style of music so they use it over here. Lastly, the bands they have are amazing. They are very linguistic and can speak 3 or 4 different languages. They can sing many songs in different languages and it is really neat to see how they accommodate the foreign people by singing in all these languages. I have really enjoyed the club scene so far and I am excited to see what else is out there.

Posted by charl094 at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I noticed another ambulance go by with the lights on today. Yesturday there was one with its lights on. I feel like that it is so pointless with these things. What I don't understand is why have the lights on and the sound going if nobody moves or pay attentions to them. Even more werid is they stop at the stop light or wait for people to move around them. It feels like they are a normal vehicle except it has flashing lights and sounds.

Tonight for dinner we went to the Korean bbq. This was most definetly different from the one that I went out to Las Vegas. I noticed how we had someone cooking for us. There was always somebody serving us. We were never left alone for more than a moment. I think that is so awsome that we do not have to tip. Otherwise we may have went poor just with the tipping seeing how impressed we all were with the servers.

Posted by lauxx106 at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today our class was on economics and marketing. The bulk of the lecture was talking about Chinese GDP growth rates and economic trends within china. This was a very interesting, albeit dry lecture. The professor did a great job to identify both positive and negative trends within china. Some of the positive trends are its growth rate even in the face of a global recession and Chinas high amount of foreign reserves. Some of the negative things mentioned where the high leverage to exports during a economic downturn and a slowdown in housing purchases and starts within china. A major trend that was pointed out was a fundamental shift in Chinese policy; this shift was that the government would start to focus on expanding the domestic consumption part of the GDP and scale back the reliance on exports. Once the majority of Chinas GDP is no longer reliant on foreign purchasing of Chinese goods, the currency will be free to fluctuate. This would most likely result in an appreciation of the Yuan to the US dollar.

After Class I had my first visit to a Chinese McDonalds. The McDonalds was BUSY, there was nowhere to sit and a mob in front of the counter. A woman with a picture menu was walking around taking peoples orders and writing them down on a piece of paper for us to give to the cashier. This made the whole process a lot easier and painless. I am happy to report that if anything the food is less greasy over here than in the states but tastes just as good. The fries were fresh and hot and the big-mac was just as it is in the states. It was a little nice to give the stomach break and feed it something it is used to.

After lunch we went to the university to play some racquet sports. Ping pong and badminton to be exact. I realized that Ping Pong in china is not the same sport as in the US… haha. But badminton was great! One thing that all students shared was that we all loved to play sports. Their favorites were ping pong, soccer, and basketball. Many of the students paid attention to the NBA playoffs in America and probably knew more about the players than I did. Overall we shared a lot in common with the students from china and they were all easy to get along with.

Posted by houl0072 at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was a very interesting day. It was Margo's birthday so we went out to one of the fancier restaurants we've been to so far, which was right next to the hotel. The food there was fantastic, especially the marinated beef; everything was cooked at your table on a coal fire pit which they brought out and placed in a receptacle on your table. The most amazing thing about it was that for how upscale the restaurant was it only cost us around what a fast food value meal would back in the states. They also played birthday music for a while in Chinese as well as English and the cake we had was unique but very good. Later on we went out to Ali Baba's with the Chinese students. I was astounded by the skill of some of the foosball players that were there. Hanging out with the Chinese students was one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Most of them are pretty quiet except for Pas and Tracy, both of which were quite fun and at some points got pretty wild. Pas seemed to be a big fan of tapping his bottle on yours so that your beer would overflow (I don't know if it was a good idea for us to teach him that). The night had to be one of my favorite experiences thus far, being able to hang out with Chinese students our age and have a great time.

Posted by stra0532 at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s lecture was interested. Professor bill taught us an economic class about china economic market. From the estimated number of export, china becomes the third market in the world. Also, china’s GDP has growth up since twenty century. And china becomes one of the highest GDP in the world. There are somehow getting some problem why become so strong in couple years ago. We look at the GDP per person, china is ranked 107. That is why people see GDP person rather than GDP. With 1.3billion population live in china, china cannot get a good average of GDP while there are so much more poor people than rich people. So, when we divide the GDP and 1.3billion, we would expect a low average of GDP.

In the middle of the class, I felt my stomach hurt so badly. Although, I try to drawing some picture to relieve my hurt, but it still hurt. With the hurt, I cannot listen to the professor and I just want to get out of class earlier. Class still going on, but my stomach still hurt when time past. Finally, I cannot sit anymore. Then I went to bathroom for a toilet. I felt some embarrassing when I go to bathroom, everyone just look me. I just want to go bathroom because I cannot hold it anymore.

that is what i get today~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

In the afternoon, we went to the university to play sport with those Chinese students. I went to play basketball with Alex, dj , and Margo’s brother. Her brother is super tall and strong. He just reminds me Michel fell. The one who won eight gold in the Olympus game. We have a game together; Margo’s brother is play like machine. He just do whatever he want when he plays and no one can stop him while he is moving.

And today is Margo’s birthday. Happy birthday………………..

Posted by liang133 at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Shane and I have found out, the hard way, just how difficult it is to travel within China - using ctrip.com. It isn't as easy as making a reservation and knowing everything is done. It took us two different internet accounts, three different credit cards, an unknown number of phone calls, and an extra fax in order to make reservations to get to Xi'an for two days and one night. I never thought that traveling within a foreign country that I am already in would be so difficult, but apparently foreigners traveling around the country by plane is not as easy as if we were doing it within our native country. Passport information needed to be provided as well as a local mobile phone number. How many foreigners do you know with a cell phone from China? Not many!! Then, we had to send in an authorization form including copies of the card holder's passport and credit card into to ctrip.com to confirm our flight. Thank goodness for the Hanting staff that made the hotel booking process easy; the only thing that has been easy about the trip to Xi'an thus far!! I think, looking back, if I would have known that this was such a pain in the butt that I still may have tried, but this blog should stand as a warning to any others that may want to travel within China by plane. It isn't as easy as it seems and be prepared to be frustrated!

Posted by fergu222 at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we spent a couple hours on playing sports in the Nankai University. I was very excited, because I can play badminton there! I was enjoyed playing the sport for two hours, although my shirt got very wet and my body got very sticky. I hope we can do the sports activities more often. After that, I went to Mr. Li for dinner. When I sat down on, the waitress gave me the menu and I ordered their famous California beef noodles. After the waitress put the order to the kitchen for about 20 seconds. A bowl of hot and delicious noodle came straight to me. So next time if you are in a hurry, don't go to KFC or Mcdonals. Go to Mr. Li, it is faster than the fast food and it tastes very good too. Also it is cheaper than Mcdonals, I only spent 11 yuan and felt so full. At night, we went to the "A Li Ba Ba" with the Chinese students. It was my first time to go to a bar. And Dan and DJ bought me a Qingdao, my first beer I ever have in China. Hey guys you are the men! I am very appreciate that.

Posted by liang106 at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our fourth day in Tianjin and if finally cooled off! Something I am noticing that really upset and annoys me is the lack of Clocks there are in this country. China is more polychromic when it comes to time which means they aren’t as time oriented as Americans are, but I can’t find a clock anywhere. There isn’t one is any of the restaurants we have been in, there isn’t one in our class conference room, and weirdest of all there haven’t been clocks in either of our hotel rooms. I used to get teased because I always wore a watch and become upset when people were two minutes late. Since then I have stopped wearing a watch and I have gotten a little better, but being in China is a whole new test for me. People who know me from home know I need to know what time it is and since I don’t have a watch in China and I don’t have my cell phone you can understand how frustrating this experience is for me. There aren’t even clocks in the hotel lobby, I keep looking around for them but rarely find one. Chinese people value time differently than do Americans. We Americans like to stick to lists, order, and specific date and times. In America if we say we will be there at 5:30, we will be there at 5:30. In China if you say 5:30 that could mean anywhere between 5:25-5:45. Typically in China they run on the later side of the time spectrum. Our group has been running late to a few different activities throughout the trip but we have been told to not worry and that the Chinese people will not be upset if we are a little late. In fact they may not be there waiting for us anyways.

Posted by sett0070 at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What a great day ... after lecture this morning we went to the University to play ping pong and badminton with a few Chinese students. Ivan, one of the students taught my how to play ping pong with a "penhold" grip on the paddle. This is typically the preferred way of holding a ping pong paddle in Asia as compared with the "hand shake" hold in western culture. It was as if I had to completely relearn the game from scratch, but I wasn't too bad after a few games. Ivan even taught me a couple new serves which also took a while to get the hang of.

After supper at the Korean BBQ, next to the hotel, we all went to Ali Baba's which is a restaurant/bar where a lot of international students hang out. Quite a few of the Chinese students who have been coming to lectures in the morning and ones we played sports with this afternoon also came with. It was great to get to socialize with them. We did a lot of talking of cultural differences and even similarities. We all were laughing when they (Tracey, Pas, and Jun) would talk about scenes from the movie American Pie (which is more popular in the US, and a few of them have seen before) or when we would try and learn new phrases in Chinese. It was great for all of us to get along, talk, laugh, and have a good time.

Posted by mcdon419 at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, our group enjoyed a couple of hours of sports activities at Nankai University with the students. It was an enjoyable experience and a good time was had by all. Sports are one of those things that are understood universally across all cultures. We chose from badminton, basketball, or table tennis. I spent the majority of the time on the badminton court, watching the birdie sail through the rafters on multiple occasions. It proved to be a good workout for “the old man” of the group. My right shoulder is killing me right now. Does anyone have any Ben-Gay? There was plenty of laughing and camaraderie that occurred on those courts today. Any minor cultural barriers that may have existed before we stepped foot out there has now vanished. The only barrier that might still exist is the language barrier, but we have a ways to go before that is overcome, just a few thousand characters and phrases to learn…I am extremely impressed at the abilities of the Chinese student’s to speak English. I think I mentioned yesterday that Tracy has been working on his English for eight+ years. I have been practicing Chinese for eight+ days and am still not very good. I still wonder what I was hollering on the streets of Beijing (thanks, DJ) the night we all went out. Today was a great experience. This trip just keeps getting better and better. Every night I go to sleep (or, pass out more like it-from all the activities) wondering what the next day has in store for us. What will tomorrow hold???

Posted by jopk0002 at 6:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was sports day, and it was a blast! One thing I noticed is that the Chinese students do not express their competitiveness in the same manner that the American students do. The Chinese students seem to focus more so on what they’re doing right, and what they’re doing wrong instead of getting caught up in any emotions that may arise. They lack to a point some of the competitive fire we admire in America, but they make up for it with their analytical like approach to sports games.

Also, I noticed that the Chinese students were extremely nice and gracious to us. They seemed to appreciate our company very much, The Chinese students were very eager to learn more about America and our culture back home. I met some students today that I will never forget. We became instant friends and I felt like one of their kind. I finally saw what Dr. Li was talking about in regards to when the Chinese people let you into their group. I also figured out that I am not as good as I thought I was as Badminton. This Chinese student named Earl had me running all over the court and made me look like a fool. Earl showed great politeness throughout the game and complemented me whenever I made a good shot. He was a wonderful opponent to face. Today was an amazing experience, and one that I will hold close for ages to come.

Posted by korm0025 at 5:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday in class we talked about cultural differences between the US and China. The topic I found most interesting was how Chinese people and Americans use and interpret language differently. Americans are very direct in their language. We tell people our opinion when asked for it and we think in a “me, me, me” manner. Chinese people area collectivistic society. They think “we” first. When you ask a Chinese person for their opinion they tend to beat around the bush. Dr. Li said that Chinese people used to get frustrated with Americans because we told them exactly how we felt and they would read too much into it. Also, we learned that Chinese people have in-groups and out-groups. When people are in their out-group, they expect people to say please and thank you. However, if you are in somebody’s in-group, they get embarrassed when you say please and thank you for ordinary things like opening a door for somebody. This is very different from American culture where we throw out a please or a thank you every chance we get it seems like.

Posted by oconn298 at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to some historical chinese place. I thought that it was interesting because its something you would see in the States. I think it is kind of odd to see something like this in China. It is so tourist that I think it is just a little ridiculous.

The boat ride was interesting. I thought that it was a good thing thing that we took the ride. The reason being is that we got to see all the bridges. But getting there was kind of nasty. I mean I have seen rivers but this one was interesting nasty. I thought that was kind of sad to see a dead fish loating bottoms up.

Class was really interesting because we all got to interact.

Posted by lauxx106 at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before class, we learbed what our chinese names would be. The chinese students initially shared their ne=ames and what they represent. Christina told me that since her birth date was on the 14th, very unlucky, her parents names her Good Luck. The girl Joyce's name seemed to imply that her father wanted a son to ensure that the family money would be passed on. I like how the names represent something so literal.

After c;lass we went and purchased Chinese burgers. The thing that I noticed for the first time since being here is that they have no taxes on food or anything that we bought at the markets. This then made me wonder how does the governnment raise money? Do they have income tax, property tax, or are businesses taxes. In America taxes are partly used to create programs that will help the lives of its citizens like Welfare. In class we were told that volunteering or giving back to the community was rare. So I guess what I really want to learn more about is how does the government operate over here.

Posted by vaudr001 at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the second day of class and was kicked off by a great lecture by Professor Li. He talked about the cultural differences between Americans and the Chinese and how those differences come into play in both social and business settings. He stressed the importance of GuanXi, a term that also showed up in the book I read before we left for China. GuanXi is all about the relationships you build with people be it friends of partners in a business venture. This theme is one deep seated in the Chinese culture and one that should be learned by anyone tempting to do business in china. The turnover rate for expat corporate executives in china is about 50% largely due to them no learning this single important lesion.

After class we went for lunch and a couple of the Chinese students brought a few of us to one of their favorite places to eat. It was a Korean BBQ buffet where we could get all kinds of meat as well as desserts. Surprisingly, this place didn’t have chopsticks… we were forced to eat with the old fork and knife. The waiters came around and would lop off hunks of this meat or that onto our plate and move on. The chicken hearts and cow tong weren’t bad but what really through me for a loop was when they brought out their version of German sausage. While it tasted very similar to a sausage link it was the fact that we were being served this in China. The food was great even if the slight western theme to some of the dishes and lack of chopsticks weirded me out a bit.

After lunch we were off to a market that was reminiscent of those back in Beijing; except for one thing, everything in this market was much cheaper than anything we paid for the stuff in Beijing. This market was in a cultural market that sold a lot of traditional objects like tea sets and chopsticks. The shops were less abrasive and the prices they quoted you where much closer to the fair prices for the products. The whole market looked quite traditional and in Tianjin this markets buildings are some of the only building I have seen that look traditional. Most of Tianjin seems to have cranes building huge buildings as far as the eye can see. Chinas dramatic growth over the past five years doesn’t seems so crazy when you observe a skyline of cranes and half built skyscrapers.

Posted by houl0072 at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Teacher Li mentioned yesterday, today's class will be the most interesting. Indeed it was. We talked about the differences between Chinese culture and communication and other Western countries. At the afternoon, we went to Hai He and took a boat for tour. Then we went to the Ancient Culture Street to go shopping. And I found some very interesting thing between bargaining in Tianjin and Beijing. Which is, in Beijing you usually have to bargain with the sales once by once. But in Tianjin, when Dylan was watching in the Chinese chess, the sales was offering 180 Yuan at the first time. Then the sales us if we are really interested to buy the chess or not. Then we said maybe. Then she said that she could give us a lower price, 110 Yuan. Then we said we will think about it and ready to leave the store. And then the sale just offered another lower price for only 80 Yuan. I can see that that's the lowest price we can get, but I want to tell you we get this more than 50% off price with a conversation without any bargaining for less than 45 seconds. So here is one little suggestion for bargaining, sometimes if you can't get the price you want, you may just leave, and then there is a very big probability that the sales will offer you a lower price.
Tonight, when I was watching TV, I saw a channel was posting a conundrum, and the interesting thing is they were offering cash for people the tell them the answer. Here is the question: When you buy it, is black, when you use it, is red, when you are done finish it, is grey. (This is a living good) HInts that the TV give us: people tends to buy the darker one. we usually use it more often during the winter.

Posted by liang106 at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have all seen and talked about the terrible drivers here in China, but I still cannot grasp the concept that police rarely ever have someone pulled over. The only times that I can recall seeing police officers was if they turned on their lights to try and get through traffic faster, or when there lights are off and our taxi drivers cut them off as if they were any other car. I understand that bicycles can also drive on the street because they can do that as well back home. But when you have two lane one ways and the bikes are going the wrong way down the road just riding through traffic how can that not be illegal. It makes me wonder what the point is for them to even have one ways. Back home you always see people pulled over whether it’s for speeding, no seatbelt, drinking and driving, or wreckless driving. We have seen many signs throughout the streets that imply these rules, but have never seen anyone pulled over showing that the rules are actually enforced.

Posted by walte275 at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At Beijing Bullet Train Station
In the Classroom with Chinese Students
In the Classroom with Chinese Students
In the Classroom with Chinese Students
At Tianjin City Planning Exhibition Center
At the Highest Tianjin Ferris Wheel

Posted by Dahui Li at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Going to the market today was quite interesting. The prices there were significantly lower than the markets in Beijing even after negotiation with the people at the Beijing markets. I purchased a custom made poster with my name in Chinese written on it (as did many other people) with a box for 20 yuen. I also purchased a relatively inexpensive but quite cool looking katana, wakizashi, and tanto set with a stand for 180 yuen. I figured I could put them in either of my bags but the katana turned out to be larger than both of the bags. I'll have to try to mail at least the katana back but I will probably try to mail them all back since I'm not 100% sure that I can have them packed on the plane in my checked bags (but I'm pretty sure I can, I've checked knives and things before and the swords are not sharpened). Hopefully it won't cost too much to ship these items back to the United States. I don't imagine it would be more than the cost of the swords themselves but I guess I'll find out when I go to the post office. I could just mail the katana and pack the wakizashi and tanto away, they both will fit in my bags (the wakizashi with a little bit of finagling, but it should fit).

Posted by stra0532 at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never thought a 40-years-old Chinese guy can still have jump shot.

At Beijing Unversity, our group played basketball games against Chinese students from Beijing University. One team with a majority of Chinese students was defeated so badly (5 vs. 0) that Dr. Li was not willing to wait courtside. Thanks two or three assists from Alex, Dr. Li shot 4 out of 5 and beat the winner of the first game 5-2. See how the old guy is stepping up and shooting!

Posted by Dahui Li at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today really emphasized the importance of relationships among individuals within a culture and cross-culture relationships. This morning Professor Li gave a very interesting lecture on cross-cultural communications between The United States and China, focusing a lot on "Guanxi" which references interpersonal relationships that are based on trust, mutual benefit, and long-term orientation. After lecture a few of us went with a few Chinese students studying here at Nankai University to a barbecue restaurant. The students who took us were Stephen, Tracey, and Jun. It was great getting to sit down, have lunch and talk with them. It turns out Jun and Stephen are also MIS Majors so we had quite a bit to talk about: comparing MIS courses offered at Nankai University as compared to UMD, courses we were taking, and goals we hope to achieve after graduating. I look forward to talking to them and getting to know them further. I also look forward to playing some sports tomorrow at the University!

Posted by mcdon419 at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What we have today is a super good lecture from Dr. Li. We are discussing about how west people meets east. We know that there are many differences between west culture and east culture. Maybe somebody does not care about how those culture works, but is importance for company want to get in either country. Once the company holds the culture on hand, it will able to be surviving in other country. I am not saying the company will be play very successfully, but it will stay longer at least.

When we in the part of We versus I, I am very agree with that. In American, people would pretend me as one. On the other hand, Chinese people pretend them as ours. That means American people would like to express their own thought rather than have a discussion to get an agreement, such as Chinese. Sometimes is very easy to realize who is Chinese and American when they are writing a paper. As Chinese, we vary to put up an idea as itself; we would try to make the idea as everyone’s. But American would usually express one’s own idea. Somehow Chinese people would tend to the “we” part because of the environment in china. Teachers are not teaching as to be single or unique. Like me, I am using many we in this journal because I already in this we thought.

Although, I am being study base on Chinese environmental; but there are many expression in my mind. I think that is because of ART. Art is a way to express you to think outside the box, try to be unique or special. One of my accounting teacher even said that, business with artiste are the best partner in the economic market. Without a mind that makes you think outstanding, you will not able to get rich in this world. So, I took couple art class and I am very enjoin it. It is a good to expose you idea first on the paper then go to do it. Somehow, I felt that my thinking is some kind of different with those Chinese that come to UMD. I think Art gives me a power to think every possible idea. By not going to block any thought appear in my mind, I am more likely to try every new thing.

Posted by liang133 at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I am going to blog about the difference in two markets, the Beijing and Tianjin Culture Street. The Beijing markets have people that are way more persistent. They hardly let you walk down the street without getting yelled at to come look at their product and how they have a good price. They seemed to be really pushy and it made me not want to buy their product. Today we went to Culture Street. This was very calm and peaceful. The people weren't pushy and just let you walk around. The prices seemed also to be cheaper here as well. I enjoyed the market a lot more because it was actually culture stuff they were selling. In the Beijing market they were selling Ipods, cameras, watches, etc. Most Americans don't need stuff like this because we have a lot of it already. The Culture street had stuff that was handmade and really represented what type of culture they were. I really liked that about this market a lot. i didn't even bargain any prices because I felt so comfortable and relaxed that I couldn't do that to them. They also had put a lot of time into what they had made and it wouldn't have felt right to bargain their prices. I didn't mind bargaining in Beijing because they were so pushy and sold fake stuff, like their watches and sunglasses. That is the differences I see in two markets thus far.

Posted by charl094 at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This blog is not about today in particular but it was very noticeable for me today. Steve and I walked to McDonald's for dinner and almost got hit by bikers, moped-ers, and cars. When walking, you need to pay more attention than anyone else on the road. Drivers could care less about walkers since they are in cars and are bigger. I really never feel safe when on the sidewalk since I guess you can drive and park on the sidewalks. Also, when we were eating, we sat by the window and watched the intersection near McDonald's. The arrows directing traffic really don't mean anything. The color of the arrows also don't mean anything. Cars and buses won't even stop when their arrow is red when they are taking a turn. I am amazed that we haven't seen anyone injured since we have been here by a car, bus, or even moped. It just seems that the drivers are way more attentive than drivers in the US. If we were to go through a red light, we would for sure get pulled over and get a ticket.

During class this morning, Dahui showed us a picture of a line and then a picture of people cluttered around an entrance. This is the same with drivers, when turning there could be five cars cluttered up wanting to turn when there should only be one car turning at a time. I can't believe that they are not accidents every five seconds in China. Chinese drivers must just be better than we are.

Posted by benn0326 at 6:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day three in Tianjin was very fun. We learned a great abundance about the difference between Chinese and American culture during Dr. Li’s lecture. One thing I have noticed while in China is that the people here are more reserved than back home. Considering our group which can be very loud and boisterous at times, you rarely see Chinese groups act in such a loud manner. We american are often directly, or indirectly seeking the spotlight and looking for eyes to come our way. In china you see quite the opposite as most people seem to prefer to shy away from the spotlight and stick to the crowd. This observation of mine obviously comes from the fact that China is much more of a collectivist society than that of the US.

Also, I have noticed that the Chinese people tend to stick to their own business more so than at home. Considering the great abundance of people in such a large city like Beijing or Tianjin it makes sense. You could also say you see the same in say Chicago or New York. However, I would say in China you really see people mind their own business. I really admire this aspect of Chinese culture and wish I seen more of it back home. Some people may view this as being impolite or rude, but I think minding you own business is usually the most polite thing to do.

Posted by korm0025 at 6:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few of us enjoyed a delicious lunch with some of the Chinese students today. It was a very enjoyable experience for all involved. I think we were as excited to hear about them as they were us. It was intriguing to hear similarities and differences in our two cultures. For instance, we were explaining that Americans drink beer socially and they did not quite understand until Jun said “like we drink tea in China.” Yes Jun, as a matter of fact that is correct! We tried a variety of dishes from chicken heart to squid to German sausage. It was all quite good (I was too stuffed to try the cow tongue!!!). The experience was more than the food. I truly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Jun, Tracy, and the tall, skinny gent (I didn’t catch his name). The students were very easy to communicate with-I was amazed at how good their English speaking abilities are. Tracy was the comedian among us. One of our group asked him if has eaten dog before. Not only did he tell us yes, he told us how to best prepare it! Eating dinner with them was an eye-opening experience for me. It helped me realize that we all have very much in common and the cultural differences are so minor, they hardly bear mentioning.

Posted by jopk0002 at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first want to say I respect everyone in China that has to do their own laundry. Today I attempted for the first time to do my laundry by hand without a machine. Since many people in China do not have access to machines or cannot afford to use a machine they have to wash everything by hand. After listening to others I figured the best way to go about doing my laundry is washing and letting the clothes sit in the sink, then rinse with in the shower, then hang in the shower. To wash my clothes in the sink I used a tide bar that I purchased at Wal-Mart in Beijing. It seemed to work well in getting out the dirt and making the clothes smell somewhat decent. The problem I had while washing was keeping the water from getting all over the floor and from making me soaking wet. At which I accomplished neither of these. I had to wipe the floor and change my shirt after I was finished washing my clothes. Since I was not thinking that I had to rinse my clothes as well, I preceded to get my other shirt wet while rinsing the clothes in the shower. After doing this for the first time, I have come to the conclusion that it will probably be my last. So I will try to find any possibly way to wash my clothes that will not cost me as much. So I feel bad that many Chinese people do this by hand. I assume that they have the technique down a lot better than me so I am sure its not as difficult. So I and everyone in the U.S. should be thankful that we get to use such great machines that I took for granted growing up.

Posted by hackw001 at 6:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today I am going to blog about the safety precautions that the Chinese have. The whole trip overall and today I have noticed that the Chinese workers are not very safe. When you look up at the sky scrappers that are being built all around China you will not find much safety equipment that they use. Today I saw workers on top of what looked to be a 35 story building walking across steel beams that couldn't be much larger then a foot wide. They didn't have a safety cord or harness attached to them all that was below was a thin netting that was there to stop falling debris from falling to the ground not falling people. This would never be the case back in America. You would be strapped in with a harness and safety line. Another thing that I noticed today was when we went to McDonalds For the THIRD time since we have been in Tianjin there was workers working on the outside of the building. They were welding off the sign for the building and I couldn't believe what they were wearing. There was sparkes flying every where they didn't have eye protection on at all and were wearing what looked to be slippers. This did not seem to be very smart on there part and they could have been injured very easy. It just show how different China is from America in trying to prevent injury.

Posted by ritt0123 at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Walking on the street with three Chinese students provided another couple of scary moments today. Two of the students had bikes, but they all walked with us. As we were walking I was again amazed at how frantic all the pedestrians, bikes, and cars are. The crossing signal says to walk, and in the US you can for the most part do what the sign says, but in China you must still yield to the cars and the bikes. If the cars don’t look like they are going to hit you and the bikes are swerving then pedestrians have the right to walk. As we were walking I asked Tracey (one of the Chinese students) how many people get hit by a car here every year. Jokingly, he told us that everyone gets hit by a car at some point in their lives, but in all reality he thought that every year about 1 million people get hit by cars. This peaked my interest, so I did some research. Here is a paragraph from car-accidents.com:

“China is the world's most populous country with over 1.3 billion people, about a fifth of the earth's total population. According to official studies there are about 450,000 car accidents on Chinese roads each year which cause about, 470,000 injuries and 100,000 deaths. The total cost of these crashes was 2.4 Billion dollars. The study concluded that 92 percent of these accidents were due to bad driving skills. These figures are disputed by a World Health Organization (WHO) study. The WHO study reported that the actual number of fatalities on China's roads is more than twice the official figure or about 250,000 killed each year. This study estimates that 45,000 people are injured and 680 killed on China's roads each day! Road traffic crashes are believed to be the leading cause of death for people 15 to 45 years old. The direct and indirect costs of these accidents are estimated at between $12 to 21 billion, or about 1.5 percent of China's GNP. This accident rate means that roughly 20 percent of the world's fatal car accidents take place in China. The Chinese Government has formed a new ministry committee and introduced a major new Road Traffic Safety Law throughout the country in an effort to reduce the accident rate.”

I can believe and have fully seen with my own eyes that these figures tell the truth. Watching the drivers in this country, I would have guessed the figures to be much higher. It is terrifying to walk the streets of China and I hope that the Road Traffic Safety Law will help protect more lives.

Posted by fergu222 at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our third day in Tianjin and our second day of class. We have Chinese students from Nankai University come join us every day to join in the discussions. We were able to talk to them about some differences between student and professor relationships between our two countries. In china a student must address their professor formally by calling them Professor or Li Lao Shi. They were all very surprised and shocked by the fact that we all call our professors by their first name. It is considered extremely rude and disrespectful to address in any other way. We then explained to the Chinese students that it is very uncommon in the United States for a professor to want to be addressed formally. We explained that many teachers ask us to call them by their first name. We went on to say that we even would call our high school teachers by their first name; however, it is less common. Along similar lines we discussed one another address adults in general. For many of the US students they described how they call their relatives by their first name as well as their friends’ parents. Calling a friends parents’ by their first name was split roughly down the middle on the American side and unheard of on the Chinese side. Other topics discussed were dating among the Chinese population and Americans opinions on Chinese beauty. The Chinese men said they like liken round eyes while the American men said they like small eyes. One of the male Chinese students also said they like tall girls, but our definition of tall varied. We considered a tall girl 5’9-5’10 while the Chinese students thought 5’5 was tall.

Posted by sett0070 at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know that the lack of safety is something we have all noticed since being here in China. Today when we were at the Ferris Wheel a women came up on her bike with a baby. The baby looked to be around the age of just under 1 years old. If she had stopped fast of been bumped into something hard the baby would of been jolted and been given whip lash. For a culture who values having a family and only able to have one child this surprised me. I am curious if an accident occurs and you lose your child are you allowed to have another one? I guess what surprised me the most is if I could only have one child I would be doing everything I could to keep it safe and healthy.

While riding the Ferris Wheel we saw a construction site and with the same topic of safety I am curious at how many ppeople die a year from accident related deaths, Is safety not as important here because population control is in need?

Posted by vaudr001 at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we have the first class with Professor York; he is graduated from university of geogeria in United States. His lecture is not quite good as I first image. At the beginning of the class, he talks himself where did you go to school, how good the university that he attended and how many degree he have gotten. Once he begins with his main part of his lecture, I felt the difference. Although he graduated from United States College, but his lecture still have some Chinese style. Or maybe there are something I have not learns yet. I am totally get confuse when he talks how to calculate the number with excel, that point is total out of my mind. I thing this lecture should be change for next year because it is confuse us and put everyone into boring, unless someone noticed what he is talking about. One thing I want to point out was when he talks about his graduated school. He is making strong point on the schooling ranking. For me, I do not thing to mention how good the school you go is a good point. For American people they may think people with well English speech are good rather than people just with good education. This is my point.

After we finish with the morning class, I with couple people go to have lunch Dr. Li. We went to a restaurant that serves many kind of dumpling. It taste very good but they do not have a very good hot souse with it. I like to eat dumpling with some hot souse with it. But, it stills a very good dumpling for lunch.

We also went the Ferris wheel in Tianjin. It is the biggest and highest wheel in the world. And these wheels just build in 2008. So, that is a pretty new Ferris wheel. We get a free ticket for everyone; and that is so nice that we do not need to pay. It is a cool when you inside the ferries. You can almost look at the whole Tianjin city. it is so fun to have this trip.

Now, I am getting tire and just want to go bed. I hope to have a fun time in class.

Posted by liang133 at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we had our first lecture class. I think the professor is very good, but I believe most of us cannot really understand. Because we have not never reached those stuff before. After class, I went to have lunch with Dr. Li, Curd, Dylan, Jun, and Christina in the dumpling restaurant. We just spent 14 Yuan per person and got 90 dumplings on a table. And we left the restaurant so satisfy. At the afternoon, we went to ride the Tianjin Eye, the biggest fear wheel in the world. Though it is very low, but the view is just great. At night, I was planing to go to a restaurant I found online. But I still cannot find it after I spent at least two hours. I feel so sad. Maybe I should just go to Mcdonal, KFC, or Mr. Li, which they are all very close to the hotel next time.

Posted by liang106 at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the first day of class and I found out through conversations with students that even they fall asleep in some of their more boring classes! The lecture today was good it was on my field of study finance. We discussed efficient frontiers and portfolio theory which was interesting to probably only me. I am really excited for tomorrows lecture on cultural differences by professor Li.

Today was one of the first days I summoned the courage to cross the busy streets numerous times. I would say I have gotten better at negotiating traffic and figuring out were in a busy intersection to stand and how to negotiate drivers intentions. Dr. Li explained that in china eye contact with other drivers is important as it is primarily how they communicate with each other and determine whose turn it is. It is interesting that a society that doesn’t use a lot of body language relies on it for such an important act as driving.

In the afternoon we visited the world’s largest ferris wheel. The thing was bigger than many buildings around it and took 30 min to complete a single loop. Apparently such an amazing spectacle commands very little respect as it attracts only about 500 people a month… this is crazy because the capacity of the behemoth has to be close to at least 250! I am sure the people whose jobs it is to sit around all day and man the wheel don’t mind though perhaps they like the quiet.

Finally, to finish off the day we decided to visit the campus for the first time with plans to spread ultimate Frisbee to china. The campus is huge, taking 25 min to walk from one end to the other. We finally staked out some prime real-estate in a corner of the soccer field next to the running track. Although we played for quite a while we were never able to draw any curious people in to play we only drew a lot of stares. I think when we get more acquainted with the students we will be able to play more activities and draw in more people but until then I guess we will have to suffice with stares.

Posted by houl0072 at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For lunch a few of us went to McDonald’s. I got a couple of much needed double cheeseburgers which hit the spot better than I could’ve dreamed of. The food I tried was almost identical to the food in the states. A couple people from our group went there to eat late last night and said that college students were studying; much like students in America study in coffee shops. We asked our guide, Monica, why the students did their studying at McDonald’s. She said that they are not allowed to bring food into the library so they go to McDonald’s instead.
This afternoon we went to the City Planning and Development Museum. It was very similar the city planning museum we went to in Beijing. I am glad we went here early on in our stay in Tianjin; now I have a better idea of the layout of the city.

After the city planning museum, we went on the Eye of Tianjin; it is one of the largest observation wheels in the world, topping out at 35 stories high. The wheel gave us an unbelievable, 360 degree view of Tianjin. As in Beijing, there is construction going on everywhere in Tianjin. It seemed that there were cranes next to incomplete buildings in every direction.

When we returned to the hotel, Dan, Jun, Cord, and I decided to go on campus to toss the frisbee around. I am very glad we did this because it was our first look at Nankai University. The campus was huge! We didn’t go into any of the campus buildings but they seemed nice from the outside. We walked past one building where people were carrying out buckets of water; Jun said that the building was where the students showered. I’m not sure if there were other shower buildings around campus; regardless, they had to share showers with hundreds, if not thousands, of other students. This is very different from the typical US campus. At UMD, we had one bathroom and two showers for every dorm floor (about 16 students). We also got to peer inside dorm rooms. They have 8 students to one room. It was hard enough sharing a room with one other person at UMD. Sharing a tiny room with 7 other people can’t be too much fun. However, there are so many people in Tianjin (and Beijing for that matter) that the students must be used to always being around a lot of people; so maybe it’s not as bad for them as it would be for me. We ended up playing frisbee on the soccer field. A lot of people stared at us—I doubt they had ever seen anybody play disc before—but they shared the field and let us have some space even though the field was crowded with people playing soccer. It seems like people are very active here. Every basketball court, tennis court, and soccer area was filled with people playing. Also, never in my life have I seen so many bicycles. Dr. Li told us that Tianjin has the largest bicycle population in all of China. This is because Tianjin is very flat, making it easy to get around on a bike.

I am still having a great time here. Time is just flying by! I can’t wait to see more of Tianjin. Tomorrow we’re going on a river cruise in the afternoon.

Posted by oconn298 at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s lecture was very interesting even though there was a lot of information about financial markets, and I have not taken any finance classes yet so it was hard to pay attention. I asked Tracy, who was the Chinese student who sat close to us during class, if he knew what was being talked about. He said that he didn’t know much of what was going on because he was an HR major so he wasn’t very good in finance, and also he was hard for him to understand the professors English and how fast he spoke. I was also really curious how the Chinese people their English names, and especially how Tracy which is commonly a girls name, decided he wanted that to be his name. Tracy seems just as excited as we were about playing sports with one another. He seemed like a very cool guy and I look forward to getting to know all of them more as the class goes on.

Posted by walte275 at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we visited the Tianjin city planning expo. This was very similar to the city planning expo we visited while in Beijing. At these expos they provide possible architectural projects and small models of the city. These models are done with great precision and detail of the city. It is very interesting taking a bird eye view of the lay out of the city. It gives you an eye opening experience on how big and advanced this city is. First off, there buildings are a lot more interesting and creative than buildings in the U.S. Seeing these possible plans for building such places like museums, libraries, art galleries made me realize do the Chinese have all the creative juices in the world or are they just superior architects. Professor Li brought up the point that architects in China are one of the top paying jobs around the country. It shows in the beautiful plans that the Chinese people will get to choose from. The buildings range in size, shapes, and colors while battling for the same location. Seeing how beautiful these models are gives me the idea if I open up a bar or restaurant I will be hiring someone from China.

Posted by hackw001 at 8:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We started our first day of class today, and learned about portfolio diversification. We touched on the efficient frontier and how to calculate the weights of a portfolio in excel using certain constraints. I had just learned this material in my Investments class so it was kind of brush up on material I had already been taught. I found the lecture to be very interesting though, and learned more about how the Chinese financial markets work. One of the slides during the lecture displayed market growth for different indices and we seen that the Shanghai index grew like 300% in terms of capitalization from 2007 to 2008. That kind of growth is remarkable in any market! After seeing all of the construction taking place though amidst a world recession I can start to fathom how such growth took place.

We also got to ride on a 120m tall Ferris wheel today which gave us a magnificent view of Tianjin. It was very fun to see the whole city from such a high height. One thing I noticed while in China is how much the older people exercise. Everywhere you look you can see older people doing tai chi, biking, or jogging in some form or another. In America you see old people work out, but not at the same level as you see in China. I wonder has this always been the norm, or is it a recent fad?

Cord, Jun, Kevin, and I visited the Nankai campus in the evening to play some Frisbee. The campus was very nice and also very large. We also got to see inside the students dorms. Amazingly they had 8 students per dorm room. We only had two per room at UMD with a room that was twice or three times as big. I can’t imagine what life would be like in such a small room, especially for someone my size!

Posted by korm0025 at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about the sports on the Chinese T.V. There is one channel or maybe two that is designated for only sports on the t.v. Before every game it is similar to the U.S. to the fact that they have an analysis of what could happen in the game, strategy the teams are going to use, key players, and starting lineups. Than the game begins. The games that are included are: table tennis, badminton, basketball, and soccer. There always seems to be either soccer or table tennis going on. They tend to show the basketball games in the evening around 7. This is usually a re-run of the game that was played earlier on during the day. They don't have commercials during the game or timeouts so you can get through the basketball game in roughly a hour. It is really sweet because you can watch the whole game without having to sit down and watch it for 3 or 4 hours when you watch it live. Of course you can't understand what is said because it is Chinese but it is still cool to be able to watch some of your favorite teams and se what happens to them. The soccer and table tennis games are fun to watch because it is always on and they are sports I don't know much about. So I can sit there and watch them and learn something. I really like table tennis because I am amazed how good they are at the sport. So the sports on t.v. are sweet other than they are in Chinese.

Posted by charl094 at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we finally go to start our classes here in Tianjin, China. We are taking class that are taught by professors through the Nankia University and our one and only Dr. Li. Today the class was taught by a professor from the university. It was a hard first day of class because I didn't understand what the teacher was talking about. I was expecting the class to be more of a class about the Chinese culture and how they do business but it was more about finance. This was hard for me to follow because I have not taken any finance classes yet. We also got to finally meet some of the Chinese students which I found to be cool because I have been waiting for that since we have been here. For lunch we went back to McDonalds because we all enjoyed it so much the night before. It was just as great as the night before and most of us think it is even better here then in the U.S. After lunch we went to the city planning building which was pretty awesome to see. I couldn't believe some of the things that they want to do with the city. After that we went to the Ferris wheel that was so big I couldn't believe it when I saw it. When we got to the top i stood up and I was a little nervous knowing that I was in a Ferris wheel that was about 400 feet above the ground. After the the wheel we went back to the hotel and just made our own dinner and worked on the paper that is due Friday.

Posted by ritt0123 at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have noticed that the Chinese people show a lack of nonverbal communication as a whole. Nonverbal communication plays an important role in our daily life and sometimes can convey more meaning and power than actually speaking. Americans are very vibrant in their nonverbal communication. For instance; head nods, hand gestures, and facial expressions can imply anything from a call to action to a person’s mood. The Chinese people seem to be more reserved or at least the gestures are less expressive. I am not sure what the reasoning behind this might be. I assume that is the way that people are raised and is deemed culturally acceptable. In the United States, you are continually told to “express yourself” and “be yourself.” In China, the message seems to be “blend in and don’t make a fool of yourself.” I think this is unfortunate because nonverbal communication can speak volumes about a person’s thoughts and feelings without verbal interaction.

I have also noticed the lack of politeness in some of the areas we have visited. For instance, if someone bumps into you, the likelihood of an “excuse me” (in Chinese, of course!!!) is almost nil. ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ are definitely not as common in China as in the United States. Good luck crossing a street in a crosswalk while you have the ‘walk’ light. One takes their life into their own hands when crossing the street, especially when alone. Just a few observations...This has been a fantastic trip so far; I have thoroughly enjoyed it thus far. We are all looking forward to the second day of class tomorrow!

Posted by jopk0002 at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our first day of class. It was really interesting because this was the first time I have attended a lecture that I did not understand what was going on at all. Another thing was i was really surprised how cold it was. I think that it was interesting to see the proffesors senior student there with him. The reason why I thought that was really werid was because she is like a TA and I never see the TA together with the teacher in one classroom so that was different for me.

We also went to the Tianjin planning center. I learned that all the smart chinese people become the aritects because they make the most money. I thought this was interesting because in the states you would barely make any money doing this job. I thought all the models were pretty interesting to look at. I was really sad to hear that we could not try out the 4D place.

Posted by lauxx106 at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first day of class I found to be quite interesting. I was happy to see that the professors here, like in the US, use Powerpoint for their presentations. Professor Qi Yue was very easy to understand and was very personable. I was very happy to meet some of the Chinese students for the first time today. They all seemed a bit shy, but opened up once we started asking questions. I was a little disappointed that they weren’t as interested in us as we were in them, but I think that will come as we all spend more time together. Speaking of interaction, today was the first day that the language barrier really hit me. When talking to the Nankai students the language barrier isn’t so bad because they have studied some English, but I was in the City Planning Expo today and tried to speak to one of the high school students and had no luck. She told me that she spoke some English but wasn’t able to understand the question I asked her, even after I repeated it several different times in a multiple of ways. Also, in the Expo, I noticed that English was not displayed much. The Beijing City Planning Expo had everything in English and Chinese so we could understand what we were looking at, but today no English. Without Dr. Li, I would have been lost. It has definitely come to my attention that Tianjin is not nearly as integrated with the English language as Beijing. Chinese is a very unique language and I think I would like to learn more in the future!

Posted by fergu222 at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Tuesday, was out first day in class just not in the University but at our hotel conference room. We had a few students from Nankia U joining us for the lecture. A professor, who got his PHD from University of Georgia, teach us our first lesson. He was comparing the US stocks, bonds, and mutual funds to the Chinese version of the same. It was a little confusing for me and I have take four finance classes. Some of our students probably had no clue what he was talking about if they had never taken a finance class. After a little while, I kind of started to get the hang of what he was talking about. After class, we went to a city expo which had some cool architectural designs for future buildings such as a new library and art museum. After that we went to the "Eye of Tianjin" ( http://english.sina.com/life/p/2009/0407/231894.html) At its peak, we were just under 400 feet in the air which is 35 stories high. We were above move of the buildings that were around us. They are not kidding that it is the eye of Tianjin. You could see for miles except for the fact that is was foggy out, oh wait I mean smoggy out. I was a little nervous at first since it was so huge walking up to it, but I got over it and had an amazing time on it. It took about 30 minutes to do a complete revolution. I am glad that we got the opportunity to go on it, it is like a once and a life time experience!!

Posted by benn0326 at 5:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we had our first lecture in the meeting room downstairs in the hotel. The lecture was given by Professor Yue Qi on the subject of "Mean-variance efficiency and diversification contraction" and Portfolio selection ... Yeah, it was way over my head as well. The couple finance majors in the group seemed to know what he was talking about quite well, but Professor Yue spoke on a level to which everyone in the group could grasp the essence and objective behind the material. It's quite an honor though to have such knowledgeable professors to give lectures to our group.

After the lecture we were given a couple hours to eat lunch and relax. In the afternoon we went as a group to the Tianjin City Planning Exhibition where we saw future projects which are currently under construction and also the city layout on a 1:1000's scale model similar to the one we saw in Beijing. At the end of our day as a group we got to see the city from a birds eye view from the Eye of Tianjin, a ferris wheel which towers 394 feet high. It took approximately 30 minutes to go a full rotation on the ferris wheel. I will admit ... as we ascended higher my heart was beating a bit faster than normal. Once at the top though it was a great view of Tianjin.

Posted by mcdon419 at 5:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we had our first day of class, which was a fun experience. I'm still searching for a new power cord for my computer, so I'm stuck using the hotel lobby computers until I can find a replacement. Before I came to China I had thought it would be a lot easier to obtain electonics such as a computer power cord. I don't know if it is the fact that we just havn't been in the right places or if it is actually that hard to locate one here. I have seen tons of them being sold on ebay from China and have even purchased one in the past. The internet really does have a dramatic effect on business, being able to purchase items from a specific dealer in a specific location from anywhere in the world. I suppose it doesn't help that I can't read Chinese or understand much of the language. Hopefully within the next few days I will be able to locate and purchase a new power cord for my laptop.

Posted by stra0532 at 4:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our first full day in Tianjin; also we started our daily class. For lunch today some of us went to McDonalds...and it was amazing. Just like any McDonalds at 12 PM it was packed. People continued to push and try and budge by my defensive line standing is getting much better. When I reached the counter the cashier just hands me a placemat with all the food on it. All I had to do was point at the food I wanted. I decided with the classic Big Mac value meal. The food was awesome; the two main differences I notice between the Chinese and American McDonalds are the level of grease and the serving size. The Chinese food was much less greasy, which I liked. The fries didn’t turn the package see through from all the grease and the burger didn’t drip. Also the fries were a lot less salty then the one in America. I order a large drink and fries with my meal and found that the serving size were different. The large in china is the medium size in America, just goes to show how fat we Americans are getting. On a similar note about being a fat American we went to Pizza Hut one night in Beijing and found out that in China it is a fancy, sit down restaurants. There were ten people in our group and we order 6 large pizzas between us, which should feed about 18-24 people. We got some stares from the people inside the store as well as the waiter taking our order; he seemed a little surprised on how much food we were actually eating. I personally don’t care if I get stared at for eating large portions, when I’m hungry nothing gets in my way. I do believe however that one of the main contributors to American obesity is our portion sizes. At some restaurants the serving sizes are ridiculously too big. Another possible factor is the concept of the “clean plate club” which means you have to finish all the food on your plate.

Posted by sett0070 at 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday we started the day off by getting on a high speed train that took us from Beijing to Tianjin. It was crazy to be on because it was traveling around 220 MPH. It took about 25 min to go 80 miles. I wish that we had a train like that from Duluth to the Twin cities because I would go home a lot more to do laundry and have my mom cook some good food for me. Once we got all settled in at the hotel we went to the grocery store which was called E mart. IT was a very unique experience because we all went in and were very confused of what the food was. Most of us got a lot of chips because we knew you couldn't go wrong with that. It was also hard to shop because our hotel rooms don't have fridges. After E mart we had a welcoming from the school that was fun but was really hot in the room. After that we went back to the hotel and played cards and then we decide that we needed a midnight snack so we decided to walk to the McDonalds down the road. When we got there it was much different then the ones back home it was a place to hang out with friends. I got a big mac and it was amazing i have been waiting for one since I got here. Overall it was a great first day in Tianjin

Posted by ritt0123 at 8:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday we arrived in Tianjin by a high speed train. The train at top speed went 210 miles per hour. It was amazing to look outside the train and see how fast objects went by. When we got into the town, we went to E-Mart for my first time. It was difficult shopping there since everything was in Chinese and I did not want to ask Jack or Jun about everything that I wanted to purchase. After E-Mart, we walked into a bakery that had some amazing looking breads, doughnuts, and sandwiches. I got a sugar twist doughnut and it was very good. Before dinner, Steve, DJ, and I walked to a place called Hanks Sports Bar & Grill. We met Hank who is from Chicago. He owns a western style restaurant which has steaks, tacos, Chicago style hot dogs, and burgers. He said that he was going to roast a pig leg on Sunday night which sounds like a great idea. After dinner, we came back to the hotel and had some people in our room to play cards. We eventually went to McDonalds and had some great food. We sat next to a delivery biker who had some helmets which we decided we wanted to put on and take pictures with! It was a lot of fun. Now class time!

Posted by benn0326 at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was a day of firsts. We went on a train that was able to go as fast as 360 km/hr. I loved watching how the scenery changed from beijing's metropolitan to farm looking fields. On the way we also spotted a christian church and i was extremely surprised by that. I may be wrong but I thought Lisa told China's population of christian's was 2%. The church was quite large and beautiful in the middle of a field.

Once we arrived in Tianjin we were introduced to our new Chinese guide, Monica and Bessie. Their english really good. So at dinner we asked many questions about what Western enertainment is popular in China. Because of the internet they said that they did know South Park. Friends and U2 were some of the all time tops over here too. I am extremely excited to meet with the chinese students and be able to learn what is like for someone my age over here.

Posted by vaudr001 at 6:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we arrivd in Tianjin. This is my first time to be in this city. I thought it was really interesting to find out that this city has the most bycycles in the world. After that comment was made I notice that there was indeed alot. Feels like every parking spot was taken by a bike.

While we were driving to the hotel, we all notice the intersting signs. Some of them were just plain funny. I think it is really interesting how they come up with things like that. My question is do people actually follow it? I mean we seen a sign that saids do not jump over the fence, but yet there are still people we seen jumping the fence and crossing the street.

We also went to the emart. This was a pretty interesting experence to see everyone go nuts because we all couldn't read or anything. So basically we all guess at what we were buying or just buy the American things that we all know it was safe to eat and not die from it.

Posted by lauxx106 at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back home McDonalds is considered a fast food restaurant. People stop there when they are on the road, in a hurry, or just craving that type of food. Here in China when you go into a McDonalds it is always packed no matter what time it is, and many people are in there studying. That is very weird to see people studying in McDonalds at midnight. Most people back home study in libraries and if its during the day you may see many people at Starbucks or that type of restaurant, but never McDonalds. It was just a new way of seeing a difference in our cultures that came as quite a shock to me.

Posted by walte275 at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we arrived in Tianjin, and the train to get here was awesome. We topped out around 333 km/hour which is roughly 200mph. it took us a little more than 20 min to travel 80 miles. This made me wonder why the US doesn’t have any high speed rail systems like this. The train was comfortable and super clean. It certainly would make commuting from Duluth to the twin cities much more convenient. I find that the US’s resistance to mass transit compared to the rest of the world, especially china to be old thinking. Maybe if the American way has changed and green is becoming vogue we will see a rise in the amount of interest America has with public transportation and ways to cut emissions.

After we arrived in Tianjin we visited an E-mart, a store similar to Wal-Mart but based out of Korea. This store had many employees ready to assist with any potential problem. However, when locating products for you they would always lead you to the product and try to sell you the most expensive one. This abundance of employees combined with their attempt to push certain products made me wonder who was paying them. Did the companies of the products they push have contracts with the stores to try and raise the amount of sales of that product or was it a deeper more cultural reason? The number of employees was excessive and which is very different from American companies that try to cut costs by eliminating as many redundant positions as possible. So the major difference I saw at the store was the large number of employees standing around and there constant attempts to try and sell you the most expensive product where quite different than what is common in most American stores.

Later that night we had an amazing meal hosted by the school we are studying at and afterwards we found an American sports bar. This bar was owned by a Chicago native who was thriving by bringing American style meals of mashed potatoes and steak to both Chinese and ex-patriots. His bar was very reminiscent of many sports bars in the states and was littered with jerseys from American sports teams. It was great to see how this Chicago native is able to carve out a living by catering to the novelty of the experience to the Chinese and the comfort of the experience to many foreigners.

Posted by houl0072 at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the last morning that we stay in Beijing. At eight in the morning, we take the bus to the train station. I heard that the station in Beijing was rebuild because the Olympus Game. As the bus approach to the train station, it is a huge and modern station in front my eyes. I do not belief a station like that until I saw it. Looks like a very modern train transport station as cool as in some of the video game. We get the train tickets from Lisa, then we say goodbye to her. The seat in the train is very comfortable. And I do not feel anything moving when the trains start to go. It’s just a very smooth train with 319 km per hour. From Beijing to Tianjin is about 45 minutes. It is felt just cost few minutes because I play game in the time we are in the train.

Other thing I want to say was last night. I and my brother jack went to Xidan. It is a major shopping area in Beijing city. There are a lot of stores and couple of shopping mall. And there are many fashion people hand out there. I and jack are go inside a shopping mall. We saw that there a street dancing competition going on. Those dancers are come from other city’s university students than Beijing and they dancing very professional. We do not watch the whole dancing match because we need to go to eat. That is why we come here. Foods are very amazing in this shopping. There are 5 floors in this mall and each floor has couple store is for food. We ate noodle are our main meal and have toast for desire. It is interested to go to this mall; kind of like HongKong shopping mall.

Last thing I went to mention for today is my hair. I am shy to show to everyone because I have a bad haircut. Although everyone want to see it; I would not going to show everyone until when………………………………………..

Posted by liang133 at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today marks our first day in Tianjin. We boarded a high-speed train from Beijing to Tianjin this morning that topped out at 334 km/hr. It was rather fast!!! It took about twenty minutes to travel about ninety miles. I have been truly amazed by the public transportation since we have been here. China has around 1.3 billion people to move around and they do it well. Between planes, trains, and automobiles (buses), people can get around from destination to destination. The grand majority of people still do not own a car, but ownership has increased by over 300% in six years. In Beijing, there are now over three million cars in a city of around sixteen million people. In addition, there are nearly twenty thousand buses in Beijing and thousands more taxi cabs. For a city of its size, traffic seems to move quite well. We ran into a number of traffic jams, but considering the numbers of people moving, I do not think they were too bad. While the traffic could be quite crazy at times, we saw only two accidents in one week of extensive travelling in Beijing. Tianjin is about four million people smaller than Beijing and is the bicycle capital of China according to Dr. Li. There seems to be less cars on the road here in Tianjin. We have not been around the city too much, but this observation may be due to more bicycles on the road. For those that do not own vehicles, public transportation is the way to go. It is a cost effective and efficient alternative to owning a vehicle. Bicycles are also a viable option, if the distance to travel is not too far. For many, owning a vehicle is a status symbol and not a necessity, as it is in the United States.

Posted by jopk0002 at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Upon first arrival in Tianjin it was obvious that the city is smaller than Beijing. From the train, it seemed like it wasn’t spread out quite as much and the buildings weren’t built quite as high. Tianjin, in the short time we have been here, has shown me some differences between it and Beijing. The first thing that I noticed was that there is not as much grass, shrubs, or well manicured flowers on the side of the road as Beijing. I really enjoyed the flowers and nature in Beijing so the reduction in it in Tianjin is a small disappointment for me. The second thing I noticed is that the architecture of the city is quite a bit different from Beijing. Beijing has a lot of buildings that have the old feel, the kind of buildings that remind people of the Forbidden City or the Summer Palace with their unique roofs and colorfulness. I did notice that there is some of the unique architecture, just not the abundance there is in Beijing. Also, the city seems a little dirty and run down. Sure there are some beautiful buildings, but thus far I have noticed a lot of lack of maintenance and dirtiness. This may be an unfair assessment since Beijing was prepared for the Olympics last year, and maybe the rest of the City isn’t as bad, but it is just my first impression. Lastly, I noticed on the roads that the number of really nice high end cars was reduced. The taxis were a different color and a lot of them had an emblem on them that I had never seen before. The cars seem a little bigger here, more semis and trucks but all of the cars and trucks on average seemed a little older. I didn’t expect the difference in cars, so it was interesting to see. Overall, I am looking forward to learning more about Tianjin and the uniqueness it has to offer.

Posted by fergu222 at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, after we say good bye to Beijing. Then we went to the new train station to take the train to Tianjin. The train is very fast, it goes up to 300 some kilometer per hour. And it is very steady, it wouldn't always shaking. It only took about 30 minutes from Beijing to Tianjin. I think the hotel is much better than Beijng's. The only thing I am complaining about is, how come the bathroom is completely open. At the afternoon, we went to the E-mart to buy some necessities stuff. After I checked around the market, I found out everything is much more expensive than two years ago when I was back in China during the summer. After we went to checkout everything. I was very confuse about
why everybody bought so much stuff. Then I found out, we are going pay for the lunch and dinner by ourselves for the rest of the two weeks. It looks like I might need to go to the E-mart soon, because I am sure I cannot survive more than three day for the food bought today.

Posted by liang106 at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am so excited to be here in Tianjin, and to meet the various professors and students. The bullet train we took from Beijing to Tianjin was probably the fastest land based transportation that I have used. We don't have anything like it in the United States that I know of, we do have some light rail but nothing that approaches the speed of these Chinese bullet trains. It felt like we were in an aeroplane but on the ground at the same time. The scenery flew by so quickly I couldn't believe it. I took a nearly 10 minute video of the train ride which turned out quite well, showing the impressive speed that these trains reach (330 kph / ~210 mph). Of course we do have things that can reach this speed in the United States but they're either aeroplanes or professional race cars, nothing else that I can think of that exists in the United States reaches speeds this high. I can't wait until tomorrow when we meet our first professor and our fellow Chinese Nankai University students.

Posted by stra0532 at 8:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well…today we left the friendly confines of Beijing and took a high speed train to our new home for two weeks—Tianjin. I like our hotel better here in Tianjin. For one, our air conditioning is 10X better than in Beijing. In Beijing, our hotel controlled the air; they didn’t let the temperature in our rooms get down below about 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 degrees Fahrenheit). Second, we now have two internet connections which is much better than the slow single connection in Beijing. Third, we found Hanks Sports Bar and Grill in Tianjin. They have tap beer, frosty mugs, and hamburgers. I plan to frequent Hank’s in the next two weeks whenever I crave some good old American grub.

Today we went to the E-mart to do some grocery shopping. It had pretty much the same layout as any American grocery store. However, they had way different food. American grocery stores have entire isles dedicated to cereal and cereal bars; in the Tianjin E-Mart, they had like 3 full isles dedicated to cookies, cookies, and more cookies. Also, they have what seems like a hundred different flavors of potato chips—ranging from regular chips to blueberry flavored potato chips (yes, blueberry)

I am really looking forward to begin class in the morning. This is the greatest experience I’ve had in my life. The culture is totally different and I love it. Words can’t do justice to all the things we have done so far on the trip.

Posted by oconn298 at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The first day in Tianjin was absolutely great! One thing I first noticed was the humor that Tianjin uses with their road signs. Tianjin often uses humorous graphic portrayals of what or what not to do when driving. For instance, their drinking and driving sign has a crashed car inside of a wine glass to discourage drinking and driving, which I found quite humorous. One thing I also noticed was that the grocery store here contains a great number of chips and crackers. Since being in China I have not ate a great deal of any of these two items so I was surprised to see such a great abundance of crackers and chips in the grocery store.

I have to say that Tianjin has left a lasting impression on me after only a day. Considering I was feeling rather sick my last day in Beijing the change of scenery has been real encouraging for my health. I am finally back to efficient bodily strength and ready to enjoy Tianjin to the fullest. I can’t wait to start class tomorrow and learn more about China, and Tianjin in particular.

Posted by korm0025 at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we left Beijing and headed to the city of Tianjin by train. We traveled by high speed train which reached the speeds of 334 Kilometers per hour which is roughly 207 miles per hour. We have only been in Tianjin for less than a day and already I notice a difference in the way I am treated by the locals. Beijing is a large city, 15 million, and has had a lot of contact with foreigners lately due to the 2008 Olympics. In Tianjin however they have not. Shortly after getting off the train in Tianjin I began to have my picture taken over and over again by the Chinese people. Some of my fellow students can speak Chinese and were able to translate. The Tianjin people were saying that they have never seen a white person before in person and thought it was funny. They were taking pictures and asking us to pose with them. Tianjin is slightly smaller with a population of just over 11 million and I find it strange that many of the locals have never seen a white person. We are treated almost like celebrities, being constantly stared out when in public. Also people laugh and giggle at us when they walk by, I’m not sure what they are saying but I know they are talking about us. I just find it interesting that you can travel a mere 26 minutes by train from Beijing to Tianjin and receive such different reactions in public. I don’t mind being stared at, in fact I find it pretty funny myself. If I can tell my picture is being taken I try to smile or make a funny face in it or say “hello” to the person talking the picture. Today is only the first day but I have a feeling I am going to be continued to be stared at a lot over the next two weeks. Also the number of signs in English is greatly reduced compared to those in Beijing. Lastly the few people we have come in contact with thus far have had very limited English.

Posted by sett0070 at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was our first day in Tianjin. Already I can tell that it is a smaller city (Only 11 million people as compared to 15 million people in Beijing). We took the Beijing to Tianjin Intercity Rail which reached up to 335 KPH (208 MPH) in speed. It only took 20-30 minutes to arrive in Tianjin from boarding the train in Beijing. We saw a bit of farmland in between the cities which was interesting. The smog did not clear up outside of the city as much as I thought it might, perhaps because of the short distance (70 miles) between the cities. It was a relaxing ride until we arrived and had to walk to the bus *DUN DUN DUN* which ended up being miles and miles away, or so it seemed. My first impression of Tianjin was that there is less traffic and the people tend to show more emotion when people say "Hello."

After shopping for necessities and the E-mart (mostly junk food and hoards of Koala Yummies) we went to eat dinner with two of the Professors from Tianjin who hosted the meal. It was a hot-pot style where your pot of water and vegetables are heated by a flame and after the water starts to simmer you can put meat into the pot and let it cook for a few seconds then take it out right away to eat.

Posted by mcdon419 at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog briefly about the differences and similarities in the two cities thus far. I already notice that Tianjin has less people than Beijing. The way the people act is more laid back and not in a rush. There is some rushing involved but it is not near as bad as Beijing. The structures of the buildings are not as modern as Beijing. I have a feeling this has to do with that Beijing had the Olympic games last year so they had to modernize more quickly than other cities. I am not saying Tianjin isn't modern; it's just that the buildings don't look as nice as Beijing. Those are some of the key differences I notice already. The main similarity I see is that of the driving. The driving here is the same as Beijing; there just isn't as many drivers. The food here is also the same as Beijing; the difference is that here seems to be better tasting than some of the food we had in Beijing. I also notice the beds are still hard but not as hard as the previous hotel we stayed at. Another difference I notice is that between the two hotels that there isn't a separate room for the bathroom. The two areas are basically combined. The last difference is that we have two Ethernet cables and not just one, also the internet here is faster than Beijing. I am sure I will see more similarities and differences in the future as more days come in Tianjin.

Posted by charl094 at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we got to experience one of the fastest if not the fastest in the world. This train was unbelievable in the fact we reached speeds up to 330 kph. Our trip consisted of leaving South Beijing to Tianjin. To cover a little of 70 miles it only took us around 25 minutes. It was an awesome experience that made me think about if Minnesota was to build a similar transportation system from varies places, for example Duluth to the twin cities. The main reason why they probably wouldn’t bother is that Beijing and Tianjin have 15 and 11 million people respectively. This would raise the concern of whether it would even be profitable. While arriving at the train station it was set up similar to an airport. Yet they only had a few destinations. It was rather cheap, but there are not nearly enough Minnesotans to sustain an operation like that. I thought it was cool how the train gave you updated speeds along the way. One thing I noticed were advertising billboards that did not really make sense to me because it would be so easy for someone to miss the companies message because of the speed. Riding this train was an awesome experience and worthwhile and just reiterated my feeling of how different there culture is from ours at home.

Posted by hackw001 at 7:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is a pretty easy day for today. First, we go to a Beijing college. That is one of the top colleges in china. There are about twenty thousand students graduated from this college. Twenty thousand students is just 0.0002% of Chinese population. So, you can imagine how good the student is in this college. The university looks kind of old, most of buildings are design of old style. We sit on the bus and go through the university because everyone is tire for walking. Finally, we stop at the university dinning center and try to look around, but the door is lock. That is sad. The dinning center is next to a field. We see amount of people playing basketball and some people in our group want to play with them. So, we go into the basketball field. Some people join a game with those students, also Dr. Li.

After we finish visit the college, we go to a zoo to see pandas. I think these panda are crazy when I first see the panda. Panda looks so stupid; they are just lie down on floor doing nothing and look kind of sad. Panda is looks so funny to me. I don’t why I just laugh when I watch them. If I have to give a reason I would said they are so cute with stupid.

So, we do not have many going on today. Just have a rest before go to Tianjin. I hope I can have fun when we study there.

Posted by liang133 at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was a relatively short day however I did learn a valuable lesion. Chicken stomach is way better than cow intestine! We started out by visiting the Harvard of China, Peking University. This college was in many ways similar to colleges from the states except for a few differences. On major one was that they have four people to a dorm that is often smaller than those found back home. Another difference was that they can only take their college entrance exam once so it is much more stressful for youth of china. There were however many similarities such as they did seem to love to take breaks from studying and play sports such as basketball. They also seemed to like to socialize outside of class like many Americans.

After the university we went to the zoo. It was like many zoos in America except that they had a multitude of pandas. The pandas were in there cages and habitats enjoying the sunny day. an interesting observation was that the guard rails were small and easy to bypass making watching kids who might have a naive idea even more important. The big cats were also really cool to see including the white tiger. For dinner I went to a lower class restaurant for some food that average Chinese person would eat. A lot of it was really good but the cow intestines weren’t that great.

Posted by houl0072 at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Sunday, we visited the Beijing Zoo. We were all pretty excited to see the Pandas and large cats. The zoo sits on a beautiful green space that is well manicured. The Beijing zoo originally opened to the public in 1908. Its age shows, given the condition of some of the attractions. Many sections have buildings that are in poor condition. I am more concerned about the conditions for the animals as opposed to the visitors. I was a little disappointed in the small cages, especially those that house the large cats. This section of the zoo definitely needs to be updated. Large cats need a more natural environment to thrive in, especially when living in captivity. The enclosures were smaller than an average hotel room and did not appear to have water. In addition, there seemed to be quite a bit of trash and foreign objects in some of the enclosures. This can be dangerous and poses a hazard for the animals, if ingested. I did not observe many employees and zookeepers at the zoo. The Panda enclosure is the main attraction and seemed to be set up well. I would guess that the Panda enclosure had been remodeled within the last ten years. There was a larger, more natural environment for the Pandas. It appeared that the Pandas could go inside or outside as they pleased.

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Saturday we visited Wal-Mart in Beijing. It was a unique experience, much different than in the United States. I am not a big fan of Wal-Mart in the United States in the first place. However, I found this visit to be both entertaining and educational. There were employees standing in the aisles to help, sometimes three to four an aisle in the cosmetics department. I was amazed because in the US, there are about five employees working in the entire Wal-Mart Supercenter! The store was at least three or four floors with escalators connecting the floors. There were quite a number of people in there, but it hardly seemed like it because of the sheer size of the building. The layout was much the same as in the US. I had a little trouble finding some of the things I needed because everything is in Chinese. For instance, I found the Tide detergent just fine, but was not sure which kind to get (i.e. with or without bleach, etc.). I was a little flabbergasted when at check-out the cashier charged me for a plastic bag. I asked her to take it off and carried my purchase. I assume they do this to cut down on waste? Another highlight for me was the Dairy Queen Blizzard that I purchased in the Wal-Mart. I miss the sweets!!!

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to visit the Peiking University. It is so nice and big. And they have a lake in there. Then we also played basketball there. But I didn't go play, because I am suck in basketball. Next, we went to the zoo and watch the pandas. When I went to see the panda, many people around me were yelling at the panda about the damn panda do not move an inch even it climbed on the tree.

At night, Jun went to take a hair cut after dinner. And after more than one hour's work. He looks like just got hijacked.

Posted by liang106 at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today for one of our activities we visited the zoo in Beijing. The highlight of the zoo for me was seeing the pandas. These pandas were used during the Olympic games in Beijing last year. Even though the adult pandas were sleeping and did not move much the young pandas were hilarious. The young pandas were playing right in front of the glass or eating bamboo. They also had bags you could lift to see how much a panda weighs when they were a new born, six months old, one year old, and two years old. The pandas were not the only exotic animal at the zoo. They had many different species of birds from all over the country. These birds were looked quite different than those in the states. Many of them had bright colored feathers and were very pheasant like from my perspective. Another highlight was seeing both orange and white tigers. These animals were magnificent beast that we were able to see up close. The one problem with the tigers and leopard was the cages they were in. These cages were dirty and no bigger than 20 by 20. The leopard seemed very agitated and was pacing in its cage. The conditions the animals lived in were poor in my mind in places. Other than the cages the lion and tiger pit were covered with bottles and trash which I assume were thrown in by spectators. I would say that the zoo here was very similar to ones I have visited in the states. The Beijing zoo had more variety of species and it was cool to see animals I would never see otherwise. The type of families at both zoos were also very similar with families bringing there young children. It was a cool experience, but I wish could have visited the aquarium we didn’t though because of the extra cost. For how exotic the other land animals are I am sure the marine wildlife would be just as interesting.

Posted by hackw001 at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tonight we decided to go out for some American food. We were all craving some greasy pizza so we decided to go to Pizza Hut. The Pizza Huts are nothing like the ones back home. It is like a very nice sit down restaurant. The pizzas are much different then the ones that we are use to back home. As a group we can to the consensus that the pizza are already pre-made and they just have to put them in the oven. You had to order a certain type of pizza and we could just order a pepperoni pizza like we wanted to. They server spoke English well and still didn’t know what pepperoni was. I found it weird that all of the pizzas came out at different times and not all at once so we had to sit there and watch everyone else eat while we were really hungry and of course our pizza came last. It was a good experience to go try something that we had in the U.S. and to see the differences in how they work and how they food is different.

Posted by ritt0123 at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This evening when we were at pizza hut we were given a little slip with a number on it while we waited for a table to be set for us. Later we read the bottom of the ticket and it stated something on the lines on you will be sat based on whether your elderly, have kids, or are disabled. I was very surprised to see that because back home it defiantly doesn’t matter. The only way you can get sat first is if you have reservations, many people would get very angry if someone got sat before them back home. I also was under the impression that here they kind of look down on disabled people, so seeing that they would get to be sat right away was interesting as well. People get very angry over very simple things back home, and here everyone seems to be more laid back and less uptight.

Posted by walte275 at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our last full day in Beijing; tomorrow morning we catch a train for Tianjin. Today we visited two more places in Beijing, the first was Peking University, and the second was the Beijing zoo. I thought because of China’s one child law that there wouldn’t be that many children running around, I was wrong. There are children everywhere, especially at the zoo. The children are running all over the place, bumping into you and their parents have little control. They are usually just smiling as they chase after their kid who is yelling while they run through crowds of hundreds of people. Along these same lines is children safety in China. Kids are on the back of motorcycles weaving through heavy traffic during rush hour wearing no helmets and are not even strapped in. I have also seen a few cases where children are on their parents’ laps in cars while driving. At the zoo where it is very crowded American parents will be very strict on how far their child can wander or go, in China the kids were running all over the place. There really aren’t any strollers, the kids are typically being carried by a parent or are walking. Today we were at the elephant exhibit and a little boy climbed under the first of only 2 fences and was just running around in front of the elephants while the father just stayed on the other side of the fence kind of paying attention. In America if a child snuck under a fence and got close to an elephant parents and even bystanders would have sprung into action trying to save the child. One reason for the lack of safety in China is that they have a naturally take lower levels of risk. Americans love taking chances and risk whereas the Chinese are more comfortable playing it safe. One other factor contributing to the lower level of safety precautions is that the concept of suing someone isn’t as prevalent as it is in the US. Many laws and rules in America are set in place to protect companies and individuals from getting sued later on.

Posted by sett0070 at 9:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about the driving I have seen in my first week. The driving here is more uncontrolled than back in the United States. There seems to be very few rules. They seem to not have a sense of what a lane is. They sometimes will stay in their lane and sometimes just drive in the middle of both lanes. They weave in and out without looking over their shoulder; they only use their mirrors to switch lanes. I don't know how they cannot check over their shoulder because there are so many cars in the streets and people seem to be riding most of the time in your blind spot. They also can pull U-turns right in the middle of the street. Most of the time they just pull out onto the road without even an opening. They just push themselves out there and hope for the best. People are constantly crossing the streets and they seem not to stop for anyone. You pretty much have to get out of the way of a driver otherwise you may be hit. Today I saw something very interesting on our way home from Pizza Hut. We were in the taxi and we were going to turn left onto a street. The car in front of us was also taking a left. Our driver pulled right around him from the front and took the left before him. I could not believe this. It was probably one of the more scary things I have been involved in. This type of driving would not be allowed in the United States. You could be fined or even lose your license for awhile. I don't know how they get away with it, but it honestly blows my mind.

Posted by charl094 at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to the Peking University. I was really surprised on how big the campus was. Not only was it big but it was also really pretty. Interesting to see how many bikes there were around. I also really like how there is lake right on campus to.

We also went to the Bejing Zoo. This zoo was huge. I thought it was really weird to see the tigers in such small cages for how big they are. Another thing that was really surprising was seeing how it was very handicap accessable. There was even signs that was pointing out where the handicap places were.

Posted by lauxx106 at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One thing that I have noticed here in Beijing being a diabetic is that many of the restaurants and even some stores do not have diet or light cola, and sometimes do not even have water. When I was at KFC a few days ago I couldn't get anything but regular pop, because they did not have bottled water or diet pop. I am curious as to how many diabetics there are in a city such as this, and having dificulty obtaining low or no carbohydrate items for meals. I have seen coca-cola light but only at the larger grocery stores; the small markets and restaurants do not seem to carry such an item. I am quite excited for the bullet train and the trip to Tianjin tommorow.

Posted by stra0532 at 8:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We went to Peking University today. The campus was very nice—from what they let us see anyway. It is Sunday so the students were outside doing a lot of activities to keep busy. They had an area with like 5 or 6 basketball courts; we were lucky enough to join in a game. In the first game, we played an all Chinese team and we completely dominated. We actually had our lungs and energy and ran away with it winning 5-0. In the second game, however, our late night on the town and lack of sleep caught up with us. We lost like 5-2. It didn’t help that the other team got a secret weapon—Dr. Li.

After Peking University we went to the zoo. We only spent like an hour and a half there but I still got to see the animals that I wanted. They had several pandas including some youngsters who were munching on food when we were watching them. The rest of the pandas were sleeping when we saw them. There was one panda passed out in a tree 15 feet in the air. How that fat panda even climbed up that tree is beyond me. I noticed that there were quite a few plastic bottles and other articles of trash in the animals pens—something that wouldn’t fly in the US.

Today was our last day in Beijing and tomorrow were off to Tianjin. It’s going to be fun to ride the high speed train there. It will be nice to see another part of China.

Posted by oconn298 at 7:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, we went to Peking University and the zoo. The zoo was amazing and seeing the Panda Bears definitely made my day. The cultural differences that I noticed was the upkeep of the outdoor animal cages. I saw multiple water bottles that had to of been purposefully thrown into the cage. Back home I wouldn't say that the animals are taken care of perfectly but my goodness the cages were gross and small. The other differences that I saw were how parents let there children run around more. Do they not fear kidnapping? We also saw a boat ride that was just whipping people and looked really dangerous. Is it because of all the people here that they avoid safety regulations and don't mind the idea of thining the numbers through accidental deaths.

Posted by vaudr001 at 5:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was an eventful day even though I stayed back from the group. I got to watch my first basketball game when I was in China. It was an exciting game to watch LeBron James made a last second three pointer to when the game. Then Andy, Dan, and I walk over to the KFC to get some food. The KFC is so much different then the ones back home. They have almost a completely different menu but I feel like the food is much better. Then after that we came back to the hotel to find that the power was out. It was very hot in our room and we didn’t have the Internet or any power to charge our computers. This made me really mad because it last all day and night. It even made us switch rooms for the night because when we got back from going out the power was still out. It was a great time going out with the group I had one of the best nights I have ever had. It really brought the group together and it was awesome to see that a big group like that could get along with everyone and just have a good time.

Posted by ritt0123 at 5:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 5 was a relaxing day at the hotel for Steve, Dan, & I. Since I didn't go out Friday night after my massage, I was up early with the group but stayed back to do some research for our paper and get a start on the paper. I was able to find both companies online but one was all in Chinese so Jun is going to have to help us translate it to get information. I also watched the Cavs-Magic game which was fun. LeBron hit a game winning three at the buzzer! Can't get much better than that. For lunch, we walked down to KFC which was amazing. Dinner last night was interesting. It was a lot of work trying to fish out some of the ingredients such as the dumplings and Kevin was having a difficult time with the hard boiled egg. After dinner, we went out on the town of Beijing. We went to a club that had bumpin' house music. I think that it was one of my favorite nights since I have turned 21 at bars. There were lots of people dancing and enjoying themselves. We left the club and a couple Korean kids wanted to start a fight with us for NO reason. They must have just wanted to say that they were in an international fight or something lame like that. I got back home to my room and it still had NO power. The gentleman at the front desk told Steve and I that we had to move rooms. I was not having that at all. There was no possible way that I was going to move all of my stuff at 3:15 in the morning. I more or less told him that we are not moving, but he gave us another room anyway.

Day 6 morning was a little rough after not getting a lot of sleep and the room being hot as hell. Steve stayed in the other room and thought that I was there the whole time last night. He woke up at like 7 discombobulated and came back to our real room. I thought that it was the engineer coming to fix the power like the front desk dude said to me on a couple hours earlier. After this, we headed off to Peking U. They had a very nice campus, but I wish that the student were able to swim in the lake, but our guide said otherwise. It would be a great way for students to cool off during the day. The Beijing zoo was a good time. We saw pandas, tigers, lions, bears, and some foxes. When we were looking at the bears, a bird decided that it was a great idea to take a crap on my shoulder, which I thought wasn't very nice of him/her.
We got back to the hotel around two for a much needed and appreciated nap!! We are off to Pizza Hut for some American pizza!!!! I am looking forward to something really greasy!

Posted by benn0326 at 4:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Beijing University is a gorgeous campus covered in nature. I guess I was quite surprised to see how spacious and nice the campus is. I thought a University Campus in Beijing would be similar to that in the US: lots of traffic, buildings everywhere, no real defined space that campus can cover, and somewhat ugly. I was expecting Peking University to blend in to the city, but it really has its own defined space. I really liked that it has an entry gate so that no unnecessary traffic can come into the campus. The campus buildings all looked fairly nice and I liked that some were historical buildings. The amount of space allowed for nature on campus was the part that really surprised me. The campus has ponds and trees and walks through park-like spaces. I was, however, surprised to hear how many people have to share a room. At four people to a room, there isn’t much space to study or for privacy. I think the generous amount of nature maybe partially makes up for this lack of personal space.

Posted by fergu222 at 4:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning we hit the bus right after breakfast and headed for Peking University in Beijing here. While remaining on the bus, we took a tour around the campus. We got off the bus to go shoot some hoops at the outdoor courts. A few group members ended up playing a game of basketball with students who attend Peking University. After that we went to the Beijing Zoo. It was interesting to see the Pandas, which symbolize peace and good fortune in Chinese culture.

A Giant Panda at the Beijing Zoo

Posted by mcdon419 at 2:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 4: Yesterday was a pretty relaxing day. One thing I noticed different about China is the color they use for their stocks. Red means the stock is up, and green means the stock is down. Dr. Li told me they do that because red is the color of fortune.

Day 5: We went to see Peking University today and it was a very beautiful campus. We also got to play basketball with students there which was a blast! We won the first game, but the Dr. Li stepped in for the second game and whooped us up.

We then visited the zoo, and while there I noticed that the young children had no clothing covering where their butt was. I was told they do this to potty train their children at an early age. I wish we had a similar method in America. One thing I have really noticed is that American kids are babied much more than the Chinese. This is only after a few days of observation but I feel my hypothesis will prove to be right as I see more of China.

Posted by korm0025 at 1:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was really neat going into the Wal-Mart here in Beijing. It was a very large store with different sections that we have back in the U.S. For example the one that caught my eye was the meat section. They had tons of smoked and dried meat hanging for people to buy, and they also had raw meat sitting out only on ice. That was very gross to me because I just thought about all the bacteria that can spread through meat. Having raw meat sitting out only on ice and not covered would never be allowed in the states because of food regulations. They also had a very large section for eggs that was weird for me as well. There were many different types and colors of eggs and they had examples of what the insides looked like. On some I didn’t know if there was mold or that was just what the egg looked like. Seeing those examples would convince me not to buy them. It is just strange how the same company is set up so differently in different countries. Not only Wal-Mart is like this, there is also KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut here in Beijing that is very different from the ones back home. It is very understandable though seeing items need to be appealing to the market they are in.

Posted by walte275 at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I am going to talk about dinner. Dinner was one of the better parts of the day today for me. We went to a local restaurant and Dahui helped us get all set-up. They make you put money on a card and then they just deduct from that card what you ordered. After your meal is over they give you cash for the remaining balance on the card. This was a new style of business I have never seen and thought it was a great idea. Now talking more about the food. We were all sitting around table with burners in front of us. You ordered a certain type of soup that you wanted. They poured it into your pot and made it start boiling. Next, they came around with a choice of meat you could order. The options were chicken, beef, shrimp, and lamb. All three were very good. Finally, they had a big plate of vegetables which even included Duck Blood. The Duck Blood was very gross I could not eat that. So with all of this food you throw it into the pot and let it cook for a minute. After it was done cooking you fished it out with chopsticks. This was kind of a workout trying to get the food out of there. Most of it was very slippery and tough to get with the chopsticks but after awhile you were able to do it.

Posted by charl094 at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Capital museum was extremely interesting. My favorite aspect to learn about a society is anything related to marriage and family. Chinese I have realized are extremely superstious and traditional. When a wedding occurs both the groom and the bride are carried in a square room by four people. the groom's room is definitely lass decorated then the bride's. The part that intrigued me was the meal that is had after the husband and wife have after their first night together. It is dumplings, dates, peanuts, and walnuts. This is a very superstious meal the dumplings are to bring them luck on having a male child first. The walnuts i believe were to have longjevity and the dates are am not completely certain were to deal with fertility and when they were to begin there family. Peanuts i thought was great because it means to have various genders. So to have one of each gender. With the one child policy are ppeanuts even necessary?

Posted by vaudr001 at 7:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to Walmart. It was interesting to see that in China Walmarts are set up the same. But the set up is different then the States. In the States, I have never seen a two story Walmart. Where as in China it seems to be a common thing to have 2 stories. Another thing that is different is the way they get up and down the floors in China. They have an escalto except the thing has no stairs and its either going straight up or down. You can put your shopping cart on it and it would not even move or anything. The reason being is it probable has some magnetic thing on the escaltor.

Another place we went today was to the Capitol Museum. What amazed me the most was how handicap acceisable it was. Every floor I went on there was a handicap sign everywhere. I thought this is really interesting. This is showing how China is maybe slowly but surely trying to make there public things handicap accesiable.

Today, while we were walking, I noticed here and there, there are trash cans but they look like they are not used very often. Or at least some look like that while the others are really full of garbage. Then today was the first time I notice that there was a guy pulling around a blue thing with his bike. The blue thing is for putting garbage in. I think this is interesting to see this is because its already been the fifth day and this is the first time seeing it, especally since Beijing has so many people that it could have alot of trash and I was expecting to see more of those kind of carts. Another thing I noticed is how alot of the bikes are not locked up. I think this is interesting considering that back in the hometown, my family said everybody steals everything so we always got towatch out. But the bikes were not locked up. So this is interesting because I wonder if people get afriad that somebody might steal it at all.

Posted by lauxx106 at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is May 23rd; my foot is sort and feels heart after I climb the great wall yesterday. We still do not have a very good break and have to go to visit the Beijing planning exhibition hall. It is a place that shows how the Beijing city transportation works as a neural network. There has a multi-media hall and we watch a 3-d movie. It looks super cool; I just feel I am inside the movie. On the 3rd floor, there is a model of Beijing’s city master plan is 302 square meters with the scale of 1:750. It is surrounded by a 1000 square-meter area of a series of elevation photos. This exhibits the ancient style of Beijing as a historical city and the modern Beijing of the future.

The second part of the day is going to visit the capital city museum. As I see, this museum is super huge. There are total of 4 floors inside the building. Many things are very unique; all is made from old passion of china. But this is not the interested part that I have for today. After we finish the visiting, I go separate from the group. I am going to 798 art zone by myself by having an address and direction from Lisa. First, I go to take a subway20 minutes. Then I take the bus for around 20 minutes. I was so happy to see the 798 side when I sit on the bus and said to myself, I did it. For the second time be in the 798 art zone. I decide to get a deeper look for it. I go along the road and see that it is much more people here today.

After finished walking at 798 art zone, I walk the city a little bit, and I ask people how to get to the subway. Although, some people do not know; but with talking with them, I feel those people are nice. During walking on the city, I had taken some very good pictures!

may be some people think those are no sens at all. but in my view, that is very cool picture.

As I keep walking I see a Out Back Steak House~~~~let's go out back tonight~~~~~~~

Posted by liang133 at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, we went to visit two museums. In the first, we watched a 3-D movie there. The movie was very nice and the seat is so comfortable. So I felt asleep. Thanks for the nap I had during the movie time. So I had energy to visit the second museum. I thought the second one is more interesting than the first one. Because I had learned many history. For examples, people in the ancient China cannot ride on a sedan no matter how rich you are, unless you are the official. So they just can ride on a car. Although sedans are not really comfortable, but it stands for power. But on the day of marriage, the wife can ride on a sedan. One interested is, at the past, if a man want to married a woman, he and his family are not allow to see girl what does she look like. They only get the information from the matchmaker. So the husband never know what does her wife look like until the day they get married.

At the afternoon, we went to Wal Mart for a walk to see the differences between U.S. I think the biggest difference is Chinese Wal Mart has two levels.

At night, I went out for dinner by myself. When I got to the restaurant, I suddenly realize here is Xi Dan, the place we skipped to go today. I felt very happy, so I decided to check there around before I went to dinner. And I found out this place is totally at a different level compare to the other shopping areas we have gone to. No matter the price, quality, types, and the sale's education are much higher. But still, there are a lot of teenagers are going there shopping. After I finished my dinner, then I decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. But it took me at least a half hour to wait for a empty taxi! Because there are so many people at there.

Posted by liang106 at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we got some great information about Beijing, the history of the city and future for the city as well as a look at its historical artifacts. There city unlike most American cities was original built around the theories of Feng Shui as well as having a location that made it more defendable, backed up against mountains. Beijing also has had many emperors grace its streets, with the first dynasty gracing back two thousand years. Beijing has a strong cultural heritage it seeks to preserve as it progresses forward. The museum we went to today was a lot like the ones in the states but with a focus on Chinese culture. It was a beautiful building with stunning architecture.

We also made a spur of the moment stop at a Wal-Mart. There Wal-Mart was way different than the ones in America. They had a lot of shops with it such as DQ. Wal-Mart here also had two levels with an awesome conveyer that people would bring shopping carts on to go from one level to the next. The meat department, by far bigger than the ones in the US, had all sorts of fresh meat and butchers on hand to cut it up for you. It seemed like freshness was key here as many produce and fresh meat stretched over half the second level. There was not so much prepackaged meals. I think this is due largely to the Chinese culture placing so much emphasis on home cooked meals. Socializing seems to be largely done at the dinner table so it would make sense that food plays a big role. I also bought a bar of tide so I can wash my cloths in the bathtub. In china hand washing clothes is still a big thing. So big in fact they had an entire isle and some end capes devoted to hand soap. I am looking forward to trying it out!

Dinner tonight was also unique, for about 6 American dollars we got a plate of meat and probably 2 pounds of vegetables. We then had a heating pad boiling soup that we dunked our food in to cook it, kind of like fondue. I felt bad because we got so much food that I was only able to eat MAYBE half and in china where resources are scarce and many people live in severe poverty, and I was an American wasting so much food. It’s a theme we all try to keep with while we are in china, not wasting anything.

Posted by houl0072 at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went and checked out a couple of museums. First was the Beijing city development center. There we watched a 3-d movie of the transformation of the city of Beijing from ancient times to the present. It was very interesting to see how and when all of the landmarks got built. Also in the development center they had small scale 3-D replica of modern Beijing and the surrounding areas. For the first time on this trip I feel like I have my bearings a little bit in Beijing. Seeing the 3-D replica model of Beijing gave me a mental map of the city I did not have until today. It would be helpful for the students who go to China next year to see the development center in the first couple of days so they can get a better idea of where everything is in Beijing.

After that we checked out a Wal-Mart. Many things were the same, but there we some differences. For one thing, Wal-Mart had two floors. The top floor was a grocery store like a Cub foods or Super-One. The bottom floor had everything a regular Wal-Mart would have. One thing we observed is that in the US Wal-Mart is marketed and perceived as a bargain store. However, in China, the cheapest food and clothes are sold by local vendors; not by a superstore. So, Wal-Mart is a more expensive retailer. It still has cheap prices compared to other retailers in Beijing like Nike, Apple, and stores like that, but it is not nearly as cheap as buying food and clothes from street vendors.

Today was good but im really looking forward to tomorrow...we're going to the Beijing zoo. Pandas anyone???

Posted by oconn298 at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, we were sitting around the table at lunch and I commented how nice it was to not have my cell phone constantly ringing at my side. That made me watch for cell phone use here in Beijing. From my quick survey of the people on the street, it seems cell phones are not as big of an addiction in China as they are in the USA. In the US, everywhere you look you see people on cell phones; walking down the street, riding on buses, driving their cars, etc. People in the US cannot stand it if their cell phones are not attached to their ear or, at the very least, to their hip. I have noticed that the people in China do not do this. Sure, I occasionally see people on their phones while driving or walking, but the abundance of this is much less than the USA. It seems that China is catching up to the US in many areas, but cell phone use still has a long way to go to become an addiction! I wonder how long it will take!!

Posted by fergu222 at 7:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today after visiting the Beijing city planning exhibition we went to a Wal-Mart. Let me say that the atmosphere in Wal-Marts in China are much different than the Wal-Marts in the United States. Having spent a lot of time in Wal-Mart in Hibbing, MN during my senior year in high school (Not much else to do besides stay home or go to a movie) I noticed many things that were different between the countries super-super markets such as Wal-Mart.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the Wal-Mart here is there is a lot of smaller shops. Whether or not they are owned by Wal-Mart, I do not know. The next difference I noticed is that there are 2-4 employees standing in every aisle of the store with the exception of the food section. From a business standpoint this makes me wonder how much each employee is paid, having so many, what seemed to be, idle workers. Another difference I noticed is that their deli is strictly comprised of different meats. There is very little if any salads, pastas, or other dishes. Also in the food section, the meat is chopped and hung unwrapped out in the open unlike in the United States where everything is wrapped up tightly or behind glass. The last main difference that I noticed is their is very minimal "impulse buy" sections in the store. The first one I noticed was on the escalator going down into the personal care/cosmetics section, which had various products along the sides of the railing going down and up the escalator. I figure that this only gives the shopper a few seconds to choose whether he or she will want to buy the product or not and I assume the majority of the time that human impulse behavior will allow the person to buy the product more often than not. The next impulse buy section was at the checkout and guess what was on it ... American candy and gum. The racks were very small too, I assume this is set somewhat proportionally to the number of Americans that shop at the store. And of course ... many of us couldn't resist the temptations of Snickers and Skittles.

Posted by mcdon419 at 5:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we visited the local Wal-Mart in Beijing. Their Wal-Mart is very different from the stores in the U.S. The first thing I noticed is that there were numerous stores within the store that sold different products. The most surprising thing about it is how they have all their raw meet sitting in the open. This was surprising since I have to assume that it cannot be clean or last long while being in the open like that. There was also a butcher cutting portions of meet for people in the middle of the isles, which was pretty cool. They also sold what looked to be dried meat of various animals which is not sold like that in the U.S. They also sold a lot of food from other countries unlike in the U.S. They had candy from all over the world for example. It also had two stories where three escalators taking people up and down. It was a cool to see what there normal retail stores look like. I prefer the set up in states because of the cleanliness, organization, and less craziness than the Wal-Mart in Beijing.

Posted by hackw001 at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our fifth day in Beijing and we continue to have beautiful weather. The most interesting thing we did today for me was visit a Chinese Wal-Mart. Because I am a marketing major I have learned about Wal-Mart in many of my classes and how they have had to adapt their image in different countries. From my observations I was able to identify a few key differences. The first thing I noticed was the different products that are sold, for instance, the Chinese Wal-Mart sold a much wider variety of food products. They had produce, a Deli, and other food departments typically not found in their American counterpart. Also, this Wal-Mart was two floors which is a difference. Customers still shopped using carts however when they wanted to change floors there was a slanted moving walk-way which was shopping cart accessible. The Third thing that I noticed was that these Wal-Marts are much cleaner, friendlier, and have wider aisle. The clutter in the Beijing was nowhere close to the clutter found in many American Wal-Marts. I also was told that the main customers of Wal-Mart are different between the two countries. In America Wal-Mart customers typically are on the lower end of the income spectrum. Wal-Mart shoppers shop there because it is all they can afford and do not typically shop at other large retail stores like Target. In China it is the middle class who are the primary shoppers and go there for convenience. One final difference between the two are the physical locations of the two stores. In American Wal-Mart is typically all by itself, away from other retailers and large urban areas. The Beijing Wal-Mart was smack dab in the middle of city.

There were also many similarities between the two countries stores. Both emphasis low prices and have the smiley face as a mascot. They promote rolling back prices as well. Also both stores have similar layouts related to floor plans and lighting.

Posted by sett0070 at 5:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was the first day that not all of our group was with us on our regular class outing. We went to Wal-Mart which was quite interesting in China. The escalators there had some form of magnetism which allowed you to bring your carts up and down them and were also sloped instead of having actual stairs like back in the United States. Also Wal-Mart had multiple levels unlike in the U.S. which so far that I've seen only have a single level. Also here in China the Wal-Mart had multiple employees in a single aisle such as in the shampoo section. There were also many representatives here in China from different vendors such as Huggies, Nestle, etc advertising their products and offering samples. I had my picture taken with one of the Huggies girls, which was quite fun. Another thing I noticed about some of the products here in China is that they will package them with a free item, but unlike the United States that item can be completely unrelated to the product itself. For example I saw batteries which came with a free spoon; usually in the United States the product will have some relationship with the free item, but here it seems that it can be completely unrelated to the item in question. I can't wait until we take the high speed train to Tianjin!

Posted by stra0532 at 5:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday we went to the Great wall it was an awesome experience. I thought that I would never be able to say that I climbed the great wall in my life. When we first got up to the great was so tired that I did not want to go any farther but when the rest of the group decided to go up to the very top I thought this was a once and a life time opportunity to be on the great wall so I sucked it up and kept going. It looked like it was never going to end when I was walking up to the top of the wall but when I got to the top it was the greatest feeling ever. The view was awesome everywhere you looked. There were mountains surrounding us with the great wall in the background. This was by far the most fun day I have had in china I got to climb the great wall and become a super boy.

Posted by ritt0123 at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, we went to the Great Wall of China and climbed to the top of one part and became SUPERMAN!! I didnt expect that ther would be a million stairs that the Chinese had to climb. It seems as though there wouldnt be enough time to set up an attack if it were a surprise attack. The soldiers were probably wearing some sort of heavy equipment or armor on them and would make them tired real easily. They must have been in some great shape. I was worn out before we even got to the wall. But, once we got to the top, it was stunning. The views in every direction were beautiful. The mountains in the background will be great background pictures on my laptop. To end of my evening, we ate some more delicious street food and then I was off to my full body massage. It was my first massage so I thought that it was amazing. Last night, after the masseuse, I could hardly move because my body felt so good. Now, I am looking forward to my next massage!

Posted by benn0326 at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to blog about the Great Wall. This was definitely one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The hike up there was really tough. I could really tell that I was out of shape and hadn’t done much for a workout since high school. Once we got to the top, you had an amazing view of everything. I just stood there in shock looking at the great view there was and I thought about how back over 2,000 years ago, that these ancient people were able to build such a massive structure. I was amazed by everything it was really cool. Next, we walked around on the wall. We went to the highest point we could. The walk was long and hard but we made it. This part was really cool because they had said you shouldn’t go pass this point but we kept going and we saw just an amazing scene from the top. It is very hard to describe how it looked; pictures would only do the justice. On our way down we took a chute which was really fun, but it didn’t last long enough. This was a slide basically that you drove a cart down on. You could go faster or slower by either pushing a stick forward to go faster, or pulling it back to go slower. You had to lean into your turns and if you didn’t you had a good chance of falling. We had one person fall, Kevin, because he was coming up to somebody really fast and almost took them out so he had to bail off of his cart. He was the only one to fall from the whole ride, but that’s fine. It was very cool day and I can’t wait for today, to see what else there is to offer.

Posted by charl094 at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The great wall was an experience of a lifetime. Compared to any trip I have made in my lifetime, this was a day I will never forget. The hike feels like a never ending trek that had only compared to long practices in track in high school. It was interesting to see how well of shape the Chinese keep the wall in places. I truly understand why they do not maintain the entire wall since its over 6000 miles long and probably impossible to maintain. Since we climbed up the wall, we were able to slide down. These tracks were comparable to alpine slides but the tracks were metal. During my run I unfortunately saw Kevin slide an entire turn which looked like it hurt bad. He was able to bail correctly to avoid serious injury and got back on the sled like nothing happen. After we trekked the Great Wall, we ate at a restaurant in Beijing. This was a meal I wouldn’t forget because I felt I was on fire from within because it was the spiciest meal ever! Besides there very good lamb skewers, my first bite of chicken and broccoli contained the special red peppers. This kept my face flushed, heart burning, and what seem to be everything burning. It did bring be to try other foods such as chicken stomach which was very good and stemmed peanuts which hit the spot. The journey at the Great Wall was an experience I will truly not forget, and I look forward to encourage everybody to make a visit out here.

Posted by hackw001 at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last nights dinner was so great. I loved the slow cook scewers. I'm not sure which was favorite but trying blood was definitely a new taste for me. It tasted fine and I am not sure what to compare the flavor to. The thing that surprised about the dinner was that this was the medium heat bowl. American food does not even have anything remotely that spicy. Also at the restaurant I noticed another child with the open hole bottoms. I asked June why they do that and I believe that he said it was easier way for the kids to go number two. So that was a huge culture expectational difference. Women have problems with feeding their children in public but here they can have their kids being openly potty trained. Are women able to breast feed in public places here?

Posted by vaudr001 at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was an awesome day. We went to climb the Great Wall. Beside, the temperature was not high. It was very good for hiking. It took me about three hours to walk to two towers away from the top. It was a shame that I can't hike to the top, but it was a very good experience though. One reason I can't go farther is because of the time, and another major reason is, the government haven't develop for the last part of the Great Wall. So the road are cover by many trees and grasses, and also very steepness and slippery.On my way back, I felt very tired and thirsty. So I bought a bottle of water from a woman who selling drinks at almost the top of the Great Wall. And she told me that she walked two hours to get here everyday. At night, I went out to have dinner with Christina. We went to a restaurant called "Lu Gang Xiao Zhen". Although it was kind of expensive, but the restaurant is very pretty and their desserts are fantastic!. And there are many fancy bars and clubs near by this restaurant. And I saw that many teens are going there.

Posted by liang106 at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was one of my favorite days so far. The food at the farmer's restaurant after seeing the Great Wall was amazing, probably only second to the lunch we had on the first day. I was surprised by how many foreigners were at the Great Wall; I had thought that it would be mostly locals due to the economic crisis, and people not having the money to visit the Great Wall. You could speak English there and at least half of the people you met would understand what you were saying. I was surprised how so many of the Chinese people lived in villages such as the one we visited today. Before that I had thought that the majority of them lived in cities such as Beijing which is what made the cities themselves so large. One house that we visited only had a concrete slab on one side of the room with a blanket over it for bedding; I don’t know if I could imagine having to sleep on a concrete slab myself.

Posted by stra0532 at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is a nice weather today, too. Not much to say about it. We got a very tough time for today because we are climb the great wall. Just like the name say, it is a great wall. The great wall itself is 6000 miles long. It’s as far as Minnesota to Japan. During hiking on the great wall, I can see that the stair is super stepper. That make it so hard to climb and I get tire pretty early. I with couple people climb to the far end, and on the end said it’s do build up yet. But I still can see the wall continue to the north, I guess. Although, I fell tire for climbing, but it’s worth to see all those view from great wall. this time i climb at a different part of the great wall from 10 years ago. it is pretty a amazing to see that different view of the great wall.

I do not very interest on telling the middle part of the day. It is just a boring period on the bus. One thing is super make me high that we go to the 798 art zone in Beijing city. There are so many artists located in the 798 art zone. Also, some of the artists have their own store show their art works and selling art works. It is a pretty good place that shows the modern art work to the public and I am very interested in it. I with some people go to the 798 art zone. It is a different of feeling of outside the Beijing city. To say 789 art zone is unique rather than isolated from the city in my world. On the road, I see an artist that I know about on a pose. So, I take a picture immediately. It’s so awesome to see that. ShenShu, the artist I heard before and she is an heir designer also. I like her because she is a very cute little lady. If I have some free time on this trip, I would go to take a taxi and go to 798 art zone by myself. I want to look at very place in the 798 area. Maybe I can spend a whole day here; I love this place.

my artist:Ｓｈｅｎ　Ｓｈｕ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｐｉｃｔｕｒｅ　ｅｄｉｔ　ｂｙ　Ｊｕｎ
It is getting me mad right now, because we just stay at the 798 art zone just twenty minutes. I am so sad when I leaving that place. Lucky I have get some pose card, but I feel that is not enough for me. Anyway, I still mad about the time that we spent on 798 art zone. After us leaving, I, dr. li and some group people are going out to eat. I think we get some pretty good food, but it just tastes a little bit too hot for me.

I looking for tomorrow and I want to get free early, so I can take a taxi to go out, yeah!!

Posted by liang133 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today’s travels brought us to the Great Wall. Originally built (started) around 200 B.C., this structure is an engineering marvel. Many parts have been rebuilt since then, but that doesn’t take away any of the aura surrounding it. In fact, the majority of the rebuilt areas are still hundreds of years old. It took millions of men to build and also took the lives of thousands due to intense working conditions and lack of food. After climbing to the top, which was longer and harder than it sounds, the views were absolutely amazing!!!

Unfortunately, many sections of the Great Wall are falling into disrepair. Not many people realize this due to the fact that the grand majority of the Wall is very rural. Incidentally, the sections we observed and presumably other more reachable sections are kept in good condition, considering the age of the structure and importance to the tourism industry. The challenge is to what extent the wall can be (or should be saved). At 6,000 miles in length, it would be nearly impossible to keep the entire section in average (and safe) condition. Surely, it would cost billions and require the manpower of thousands of people.

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to the Great Wall. It is unbelievable how they could build such an impressive structure over 1000 years ago. The views were breathtaking and the walk, well the walk literally took your breath away—those stairs are steep and there are many of them. Instead of having everybody walk back down the wall, they had a bobsled/luge track we could ride down for 40 Yuan. This was a ton of fun and a nice rush—especially when my brakes went out after I got a little air (I was going a little fast) and I had to bail out because I was about to crash into Jeff. Luckily I only suffered a burnt knee and some huge black streaks on my white shorts.

After the wall we toured a copper pottery factory/ shop. We were taught how the copper pottery was made step by step. At the end, we got to browse through their huge store. Inside the store were some of the most beautiful works I have seen yet. There were pieces ranging from $10 US dollars to over $50,000 US dollars! They had some of the coolest globes I have ever seen—to bad I’m a poor college student and couldn’t drop the $1,000 US dollars to purchase one.

Although today was very long I had a great time. I can’t wait to see more on Beijing tomorrow!

Posted by oconn298 at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our fourth day in Beijing and we got to finally see the Great Wall of China! As we spend more and more time in Beijing I am starting to notice the lack of animals, more specifically, dogs. I didn’t see a dog at all in Beijing the first day or so but since then I have begun to see small dogs on the streets. I was wondering why there seemed to be such a low dog population. One explanation could be is that dogs can be expensive and many people to not have the disposable income to support and care for a dog/pet. Another possible reason is that the culture itself is focused on dogs or pet ownership unlike in America where a common phrase is “dogs are man’s best friend”. One final explanation for the low dog population is that here in China people eat dog. I hope this isn’t the case. Even though I have begun to see more dogs in the city they are all small dogs, like Chihuahuas or other small mutts.
Another thing I have noticed around the city related to animals is that they are often not taken very good care off. As a dog lover it is hard to see a lonely dog wandering the street or a dog tied to a chain lying in dirt by itself. Also these dogs are not as well trained as their American counterparts. We were advice not to try to approach or pet them, which is also hard for me. Many of the dogs are poorly groomed and have shaggy, dirty, nappy coats. There doesn’t seem to be a leash law in Beijing which makes it difficult to identify a domestic pet with a stray on the street. One positive thing I have noticed is that there seems to be no dogs dressed up in clothes, an annoying hobby of American dog owners. Also I have yet to see any dogs being carried around in purses or designer dog bags.

Posted by sett0070 at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we climbed the Great Wall of China! It was quite a hike up the stairs to the top, but once we got up there it was worth it. The view was amazing.

On another note, I thought Mexican food I have tried in the past was spicy, but WOW, tonight Professor Li took several of us out to a local food market only a couple blocks away from our hotel. We tried different meats such as chicken, pork, beef, and lamb, all of which had a unique spice and taste to them. We also ordered a mixture of foods which was cooked and prepared in a large bowl. Professor Li picked the "ingredients" for it (chicken stomachs included), many of which were a mystery to us. It was very good but incredibly spicy. The entire meal for 11 of us was very inexpensive (about $4 USD each), very tasty and very filling. The way they cooks cook right on the street reminded me of the State Fair in Minnesota which only happen once a year. But this is daily in China.

Posted by mcdon419 at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day four ended with Dahui Li trying to kill half the group with spice! But in all honesty it was amazing. I would never be able to get that kind of food in the states or as spicy; chicken stomach, not bad.

Today we climbed the great wall which was great, except when we got to the top there was a gondola that brings people up and a freaking alpine slide to get to the bottom. The say in china that climbing the wall makes you a man, so wanting to prove myself, I climbed it to become a man. After I had proven I was a man I decided that since the Chinese don’t say anything about climbing down the wall that the alpine slide was probably most efficient way to get down. Want to make sure this didn’t lessen the magnitude of what I was on or the history behind the wall on the way down I decided to let out the famous words of the great Mongolian Leader Genghis Kahn, Weeee…

After the wall we got a nice slice of humble pie, we stopped in a village that apparently shows how close to 70-80% of people live in the country. They had stick fences and little running water. There was refuse scattered around and a bed that was no more than a pillow and a sheet on top of cement slab. This was way different than anything in the states, and made me wonder how they do it in the winter with little more than a sheet as there front door. After the typical village we stopped at the art district in Beijing I have to say that unlike the village, it reminded me a lot of back in Minneapolis. The art studios were modern along with many coffee shops which is unusual in a country that drinks tea.

Posted by houl0072 at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Has anyone noticed the lack of homeless people (or just people begging) on the street in China? It has been a few days in Beijing and I have only seen about 4 people begging on the street. In a city this size, I was expecting there to be a lot more homeless people on the streets. What I have noticed is that Beijing has lots of jobs that maybe we wouldn’t consider necessary in the USA. For instance, when we were at KFC yesterday we actually left our trays at the table without clearing them. In the US, we have been taught to do this ourselves to save the food provider money. Another example was a women actually walking the streets sweeping along the curb. I have seen street sweeper trucks in Beijing, but in the US we would never have people wasting their time when a machine could do the work. Also, the amount of markets and vendors everywhere is just crazy. I have to wonder if some of these people are homeless or starving only we cannot tell because it looks as though they have a job and are making money. How many homeless or starving people are there in this country?

Posted by fergu222 at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to the Great Wall. Even though it was my second time to the wall, it still amazes me how the wow is so interesting. Of course it was still hard work going up and scary for me to come down. I was really surprise coming down on the slide things. I was expecting it to be scary but then I realized that it was alot of fun. One thing I did notice is that there was not as much tourist around. Last year on the part that I went on, there was always somebody a few steps ahead of me. Today there was a lot of open spaces that was in front of me.

Another thing we did was go to see where the majority of the population lived. I thought it was interesting how everyone reacted to the way of the living. For me it is just natrual to see the places. The reason being is that my grandparents use to live in a place like that down in the South. To me this is not unusual to see things like the glass on top of the walls or see the places look like mini efficencys.

Posted by lauxx106 at 6:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we got to visit the Great Wall and it was absolutely breath taking; very tiring to say the least but well worth it. When we finally got to what we thought to be as far as we could go we saw people farther ahead of us. There was a sign saying no one was allowed past but we assumed it would be ok if there were other people there. Now back in the states there would have most likely been security standing there making sure no one actually went by, but here the sign was all the warning. When we went out there we assumed the reason they didn’t want us there was because they hadn’t kept that part of the wall as maintained as the rest. We were just careful but it’s funny to think they expected only a sign to keep people away. Also, towards the end of our stay at the Great Wall we took a slide down to the bottom instead of walking. They may have something like this back home but it would be much more regulated. First of all there would be no way they would have the sleds built to go as fast as these ones, they would have been set at a much slower pace. They would have also most likely been on a sturdy track so they weren’t able to tip over. I wouldn’t be surprised either if back home we were required to sign a waiver saying we are at our own risk when riding down and they cannot be sued. There are also many things here in China in general that don’t seem as strict and regulated as back home.

Posted by walte275 at 6:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Great Wall was an amazing experience today. I am absolutely amazed at how it was even built! Considering the size of the wall, it is hard to fathom that it was done without modern technology. I also understand why they say you are not a true man unless you climb the great wall, because it was a heck of a workout making it up there!

While viewing the villages by the Great Wall it gave me a better perspective on how the majority of Chinese people live. In Beijing you constantly see nice cars on the roads and get the impression that China is very rich. However the majority still lives in poverty and relies on farming to provide for their family. We often take for granted how nice we have it back in the states, so it was very humbling to see how hard some of the Chinese people work in order to maintain for their family.

On a lighter note, I have falling in love with the way of doing business in some parts of China. The negotiation process is one that I could never get sick of. Being able to bargain prices is like a dream come true to me. I have come away with many great deals so far and am excited to bargain for some more.

I like China more and more each day, this has already been an experience of a lifetime and I have only been here for a few days. I can’t wait to see more!!!

Posted by korm0025 at 6:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday was very cool. First we went to the 12th annual Chinese high tech expo at a huge convention center. There was a lot of sweet technology. My favorite was the sense touch technology. It was a touch screen where you could use your hands to grab pictures or videos and warp them any way you wanted—make them bigger or smaller, wider or taller, or move them from the left side of the screen to the right, etc. This is going to be the technology of the future. I’ve already seen it on news programs but in the near future it is going to be in businesses all over the world. It will make presentations a lot more interesting and interactive….it was very, very cool. Also, at the last moment we came across a booth with these cool new headphones. My entire team bought a pair—for a third of the market price nonetheless. The new headphones are very cool; it sounds like you have subs in your ears when you listen to them.

I had my first real shopping experience yesterday as well. We went to a huge mall with five floors and a ton—I mean a ton—of clothes, jewelry, art, and anything else you could think of. Andy, DJ, and I pulled of some nice negotiating (I think anyway…). We each bought some jerseys. At first, the lady tried to sell DJ just 1 jersey for like 120 Yuan. After like 10 minutes of bartering we had managed to negotiate 3 jerseys and the matching shorts for only 130 Yuan. Dr. Li told us to go low but I never thought we could get 3 shirts and 3 shorts for basically the same price as her initial offer for just 1 shirt. After we shopped a bit we tried to find a bar to get some beer. We walked by about ten bars looking for a deal on some beer. After not finding a great deal we settled for the same price we could have had ten bars—and ten blocks before—it was still delicious though.
Before we went to the kung fu show Dr. Li took us to a local restaurant to get a snack (even though we just ate dinner). They had lamb shish kabobs which were absolutely amazing! Before coming to china, that was the type of food I was craving—local favorites for cheap. I watch those travel channel shows and wanted to cure those cravings I was having for great local food from a place that locals eat at.

Well…that’s all for today. Today is the great wall. I am pumped up about it!! Although my legs probably aren’t so excited; however, we do get rewarded with beer once we reach the top!

Posted by oconn298 at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by oconn298 at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On day three some more differences between the two cultures became apparent. The first that I saw was at our first stop for the day, the technology expo. Here we were required to walk through metal detectors. While n America people dread setting them off, in china, almost everyone set them off. And after people set them off they were very quickly padded down and let to continue on. Once in the expo i saw many booths demonstrating new products; however, some people were more interested in the fact that Americans were there. We were photographed numerous times by people within the expo.

The second difference I saw was at the KFC where we had lunch. At KFC we stood in line to order but apparently we were the only ones. Most people just crowed the counter pushing and shoving their way to the front. If you were indecisive someone else would step in and order. In china you have to be on your toes and act quickly or someone else will push their way in front of you.

The third difference I noticed was at the temple of heaven, in the garden before the end gate of this amazing place people grouped up to play cards and mahjong. Apparently the retirement age here is lower than in America and people like to buy year-long passes and socialize at this park. People were also dancing to traditional Chinese music in a clearing while others played a Chinese version of hacky-sac. This was the first time I saw socialization at a large scale in China, and was quite different that what I have seen in America.

The final difference I noticed was at dinner. While we sat waiting for dinner, the waiters where getting a “pep” talk from there manager. She was telling them that the good servers will get to wait on VIP’s and will receive a bigger bonus. After this pep talk they sang which seemed quite unusual. They were singing a song called “tomorrow will be better” which seemed like an unfortunate name for a song. After singing one of the waiters offered me a gift which I gladly accepted. The gift special, it was a pin that paid tribute to the earthquakes that killed millions.

Posted by houl0072 at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is a very excited day to me, Because we went to the Expo., where we can see the newest technology in China. In the Expo. most companies are from China, and we can see many famous international Chinese companies like Lenovo and Haier. In the Expo. I found something interesting, it is a alcohol mixer and pouring machine which made by a Chinese university. That is very creative, and I think it is very nice to have that little thing in our home. According to my personal experience, Chinese technology is always a step behind the world, but after I visited this Expo. it totally changed my mind. What an impression! There is TV company called Changhong, is starting to produce plasma TV, which there are not much companies are producing in the world. And the quality is very high. Also I found out there are many companies are planing to be public, so that they could spread their market to other countries. Before we left the Expo. our team just cough a product show from Lenovo showing their newest laptops. The laptops are very attractive. But according to what I see, many people are to come for the laptops, but the show girls.

Posted by liang106 at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My lunch experience at KFC was pretty intereseting. First I go to use the Toilet and as i am about to enter the las stall a woman comes up and pushes me aside and takes my stall. It felt like how the traffic works here you are responsible for always being on your toes and if you are not quick enough you lose your spot. After I used the toilet I went to wash my hands and a man was there cleaning his dentures. i was fine by this but as a side question What are the dental plans in China? Now I am on my way to order some food. The pointing menu system helped a lot but again 3 people cut right in front me when I went to make my order. I dont know if I am supposed to say something or just except defeat. When I watch people in there cars honking they do not seem angry just stoic. americans get so angry when it comes to being on the road but so far I have heard honks but no real sign of anyone being upset. So back to line cuts, my first reaction was very American to get angry and want to fight back. Then I thought that maybe the Chinese understand that getting angry is silly and instead just be quicker and be responsible for paying attention cause otherwise you will be cut off.

Posted by vaudr001 at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Time pass so fast, having a very good REM (deep) sleep is awesome, but the wakeup call is awful.
Ah, I just kitting. With a very nice day and temperature is cool today; I think is a pretty good day to go out. My mood does not stay long when I heard that we need to do a group project. Our temper just went down immediately from heaven to hell.

Today, we go to China international exhibition center. There are many company join in this exhibition. Those companies are trying to show their most professional product to those people who interested in it. I think this product show would some kind will affect company’s profit, because there might be many people try to seek product for sell or make a partnership. We need to write a group project paper for this show. So, I am better not tell much here and let you guy to enjoin our group paper more.

After we visit the china international exhibition center, we went to a market. It is in the area of Sanlitun bar street. The market is just like the day we went to the Hong Qiao market. Everything you can low price, but I have a little sick of it. So, I design to go out and seek for some interesting stuff. And I actually find it a when nice market just like a fashion mall. There is so many branch of store like Nike, Adidas, Izzue, b+2a Apple and BMW are very famous store in china. The place is so nice that I would rather go to this mall instead of that kind of market. Maybe some people like go begging for price. Sometimes I feel good to do it, but I would rather choose to shop in a fancy mall.
We also go to temple ofheaven. If I get the information right, this temple consider for someone who want to go to heaven. In the old Asia, there may be just the king could went to the temple and have a ceremony to help the king go to heaven. The design of the whole temple is from button to the top. The road to the temple is quite flat but it’s a little of step in true. It is mean form earth to heaven. We are so tire at the time that we are climbing to the temple. So, I did not pay so much attention in that part. it is fun to go all kind of those places, but it just quite a busy for a day to visit so much places.

Many of group goes to watch a GongFu show after lunch but I did not. May be I do not have the mood to see on today. So, by stay on bus and waiting for those guy coming out; I and my brother go to a place that you can get online. It’s just next to the GongFu show. With a internet, a hour pass very fast. And more fast I am in my hotel room now.
I do not have pose any picture, hopefully i can get my picture tomorrow and going to upload.

Posted by liang133 at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The influence of the Western world is apparent in many ways in modern day China. “Western toilets” are the first thing that comes to mind. Many of the modern facilities accommodate Westerners by offering these “creature comforts” that we take for granted every day. In addition, Western music seems to be relatively popular in China. I was amused by the people taking our picture and videotaping us today while at the Tech Expo. We had people following us (our group) around snapping multiple pictures at a time. I assume this was because we are Americans. Either that or I am really funny looking. I guess it could be a combination of both. It also appears that Chinese clothing is designed to look like Western wear. There seems to be many imitation brands to either look like American brands or that are a blatant copy. Sometimes the copies are rather noticeable, with the name brands spelled incorrectly, or some other mismatch with the logo.

Posted by jopk0002 at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was another great day in Beijing. We attended an expo that had just about everything you could think of in consumer electronics as well as renewable “green” energy. My group chose two companies to write a report about: Yeil Electronics (yeilelec.com) and VR Vision. Yeil Electronics has a brand new type of headphones. It sounds like you are listening to 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound with a subwoofer. If you put the headphones on a table and play music, the headphones will move around because they are vibrating from the bass. I don’t know how safe it is for your ears, but they sound great with techno and rap. They also had a pair that was able to go under water. Since Apple has not developed a waterproof iPod, I chose not to purchase that set of headphones. Well I am writing this post, I am listening to the headphones and love the sound quality of them. Since I purchased them at the expo, they were only $15 compared to open market where they are $45+. VR Vision is a Chinese company that developed a touch screen surface that is similar to Microsoft Surface but not as advanced. It only has touch screen technology and nothing to do with Bluetooth for your cell phone or able to swipe a credit card for payment. It also costs a lot less than Microsoft Surface so it would be more feasible for the common person or business to purchase.

Posted by benn0326 at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I noticed how that majority of the signs I seen were all pictures. Like for example like all the road signs, there was no words on them just pictures. At the expo today I noticed the fire extinguisher had a big picture over it instead of a sign just stating that there is a fire extinguiser. Or like how where it saids there is no smoking, they have a sign that is with a cigarette that is crossed out. For no photography there is a sign with a camera crossed out. Another one is if there is no cars allowed then there would be a car crossed out. This is interesting because I am so used to looking at the signs and then there are words for you to read.

Another thing I noticed is that everyday since I been in Beijing I have seen at least two different people in wheel chairs. The past times I have come back to China I rarely see any handicap people let alone even seeing any one at all. To me to see that there are actually handicap people coming out is a good thing. It is good to see people are starting to come out regardless of their disablilty. I am happy to see that even though China is still not handicap accessable, people are actually coming out to see the world.

Posted by lauxx106 at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I would like to take a look at our evening activity which was the Kung Fu. It was an awesome experience and I want to compare it to other shows I have seen at the Ordway in St. Paul. I have seen a variety of shows there over the years, and there are both similarities and differences. Both kind of shows have been very professional and have entertained me. I want to first start with the differences. First, shows at the Ordway are usually longer so they usually last 3 hours with an intermission in between. Also there is a lot more singing involved with Ordway performances. Also they actually sing the songs unlike the Kung Fu which mouth it which I only believe its that way because of the amount of performances they have. The Kung Fu also gave an action packed performance that kept you on the edge of your seat wondering what would happen next. Unlike the Ordway which usually perform stories you have heard of before so you know the general direction that the play is going. Finally, you were allowed to bring in beer which wouldn’t happen at a Ordway show. There were a variety of similarities between the two as well. First, the use of the same actors/actresses, throughout the show performing a variety of different roles. Also there were a lot of quick costume changes and scene changes throughout the performance. They both also provided a clear storyline that you could follow during the performance. Overall I prefer the Kung Fu performance more because it provided a lot more excitement, action, and was shorter than previous shows I have seen.

Posted by hackw001 at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today was quite an interesting day, I especially enjoyed the Kungfu show. There are a couple of aspects of the Chinese culture that can be relatively annoying if you are not used to them. The first is how lines do not seem to mean anything to any of the people in China (at least in Beijing). Today at the KFC restaurant I was waiting in line to order my food, and had just gotten up to the cashier, when a man who was next to me (not even in the line I was in) started to order from the cashier in front of me (and of course his order was huge). This took about 10 minutes out of my time while I had to wait for him to get his order and finally order myself. You can also see this aspect when you see the traffic on the street. People will switch lanes right in front of you and honk their horn if you don't back off. The second aspect is how people will walk right in front of you when you are trying to take a picture. In the United States most people will back off and go around or wait for you to finish with your photograph, in China some of the people will do this, but a lot of them will walk right out in front of you as you are trying to take your picture.

Posted by stra0532 at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a good night of rest I was ready to see more of Beijing. We started off with the technology expo which was very educational. Some of the technology there was simply amazing. The touch screen seemed to be a big hit. Technology like the touch screen seems to be the way of the future. I could see so many possible ways that companies could use that for their business practices. Again the Chinese marketers were working in a very aggressive manner trying to lure spectators to their displays. Although they were not actually selling anything in most cases, they used the technology expo as a marketing tool for their business.

We then ate a KFC for lunch. The food was very good, but I think that the KFC in China has a little bit more spice to their meals than the American version. Also, next store we seen a Pizza Hut which looked like a world class restaurant. This was quite the site to see. In America Pizza Hut is a huge and successful company, but it is not considered high class. However, the Pizza Hut we seen in Beijing looked like a 5 star restaurant.

We winded down the day with the Temple of Heaven which was another display of magnificent ancient Chinese architecture. Following the Temple of Heaven, we seen the Kung Fu show which was very entertaining. Kung Fu is viewed as a major part of Chinese culture. Dr. Li said that as a young boy they would do Kung Fu for gym class. If they practiced Kung Fu in gym class you know it is very important to Chinese culture, comparable to how Americans view baseball or football.

Tomorrow is the GREAT WALL, I can’t wait!!!

Posted by korm0025 at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we did a lot of fun activities. But the one that really stuck out to me was the Chun Yi the Legend of Kungfu. It consisted of many different aged Chinese dancing, singing, and doing kungfu moves. My favorite part of the show was when they did the acrobatics and the girl was hanging from the guys neck swinging around in a circle. It was crazy to see them doing this because they where very high of the ground and it must have taken a lot of strength and practice to make sure that she would fall. I also liked when the guy laid on the swords and had the nails and the guy with the concrete lay on top of him while another guy smashed the concrete with a slug hammer. This was crazy because he showed us before hand that the swords were real by smashing a concrete block with it. I found it amazing that he didn't get hurt or he wasn't in pain. This was just one of the many fun things we have done so far and i can't wait for the rest of the trip.

Posted by ritt0123 at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the first day we arrived in Beijing we have all noticed how crazy the roads are; and I don’t mean the structure I mean the drivers. From the busses to the cars and bikes it still amazes me we haven’t seen an accident. Busses are always pulling out in front of one another and not letting each other in, and the cars just have to watch out because the busses would pummel them. A few people have also been to Mexico and compared the driving saying they never thought it could get worse than it was there. We have now actually found worse drivers. I can’t even imagine having to drive here, if you have any amount of road rage you would probably find yourself squished in between two busses, because you wouldn’t have a clear mind to think about what to do. Even walking across the street is a scary experience that most people would like to avoid.

Posted by walte275 at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I kept a close eye out today for people wearing flip-flops and just as Professor Li had told us, no one was wearing flip-flops with the exception of a couple girls walking around the Temple of Heaven.

What interested me today was learning about the socializing in China. Where I grew up in northern Minnesota, a lot of the retired people would socialize in cafe's over a cup of coffee or bars. For certain retired people in Beijing it is common for them to purchase a year pass to the Temple of Heaven for 100 Yuan and meet with other retired people toward the exit of the tour and play cards. We noticed many people (who Lisa said) were all retired and gather to play cards every morning, go home for lunch, then return later in the afternoon. Obviously this isn't true for the majority of retired people in Beijing otherwise the place would be much too crowded, but they do certainly have their own sub-culture of retired people.

Posted by mcdon419 at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our third day in Beijing was just as exciting and exhausting as our previous two. We did a little more sightseeing as well as visiting the 12th Annual High Tech Expo. A strange thing I have been observing is that there are little parks spread out all throughout Beijing, They are located sidewalks on streets or in courtyards. They are painted blue and yellow, similar to the park equipment in the US. The major difference is that I have never seen a child use the parks and equipment; it is always adults, typically men. You will see grown men in suites doing crunches and pull-ups in these little parks/gym areas. Kids aren’t even present. I’m not sure if they are bored or seriously trying to get a work out during one of their breaks. There are typically three to five different pieces of gym equipment and they are usually lined up on the sidewalk. I haven’t been able to figure out if these parks were intended for children use and they just get commonly used by adults instead or if the city built them as cheap work out centers for the city’s population of 15 million. The city isn’t overweight by any means; in fact, Beijing is the largest biking city in the world. Also traffic is crazy here so many people choose to walk instead of drive cars or take other forms of transportations like the 500 bus routes the city of Beijing currently offers.

Posted by sett0070 at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, I realized again that Beijing is a beautiful city. I find the city to be very well taken care of. The bushes are always manicured, the lawns are always watered and cut, the flowers are always weed free and beautiful, and the streets are always clean. We were walking through the Temple of Heaven today and I saw the first bit of litter I have seen since we arrived in Beijing. The thing that I find most odd about how well the flowers are taken care of and how well the lawns are manicured is that no one ever sits on the grass. I noticed today that when Americans would be lying in the grass or playing games in the grass, the Chinese are sitting or standing on the concrete doing the same. I have noticed that there isn’t that much grass in Beijing, and what is there is it’s only for show, not for use. Is there some special belief or superstition about sitting or walking on the grass in China?

Posted by fergu222 at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was another sweet day in Beijing. I am going to talk a little bit about the expo. The expo was really neat. It was sweet to see all of the new and improved technology out there. The one thing I really would like to describe is the electronic/T.V. projected book. This book was really fascinating to me. It was projected down onto a podium. The projector is like the projected big screen T.V.'s. So you load the textbook, probably by DVD or something of that sort, and it loads onto the podium. You can read it clearly and to flip the page you just move your finger over it. I couldn't believe someone had come up with that. It was really sweet.

Posted by charl094 at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Its only the second day in Beijing, and I am already all conjested up. It is amazing how poluted Beijing is where as in the States I never get conjested unless I am sick. The sad thing is that because of the pollution you cannot even see that far, where as in the States you can see as far as your eye sight lets you.

I have noticed on this trip that all of the places we go to eat the waiters and waitresses are very nice. I feel this way because I remember last year when I went to China, I always had to ask for things on my own where as here I don't even have to move for anything except to grab food.

I really enjoyed the Silk Market. I thought it was so awsome to be to learn about how all the silk thngs are made. It took me forever but I finally decided to buy the blanket. I am really excited about my purchase cause I just figured out that I only spent like 83 dollars and I can use it for a long time. Where as in the states I buy at least a new blanket every 4 months for the same price and the qualitly not that great.

Posted by lauxx106 at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cruise on Kunming Lake in Summer Palace around the temperature of 85F
Lunch at Dai Nationality Restaurant with nobody knowling how to correctly eat fried and seasoned shrimp (this group people peeled off the shell)

TianAnmen (Missing Dan, Kevin and Dr. Li)

Lunch at Dai Nationality Restaurant (with Dai People Performing HuLuSi which is a traditional Chinese music instrument)

Luck and Fortune Red String from Dai People(righhand for female, left hand for male, donot flip over)
Team USA of Frisbee (or Flying Pan in Chinese) at National Olympic Stadium

Excellent job at Making Silk from Silkworm Cocoon (The manager would like to hire the group to replace their current Chinese employees because we made the silk so quickly)

Tasting Tea at Dr. Tea's Teahouse (End up purchases magic teasets and teapots that change colors into pictures of Great Wall and Panda, and miniature baby boys that pee after putting in hot water

Posted by Dahui Li at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I arrived in China at about 2:30 am I was coming off about five hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, to add to that I was only able to get another two hours of sleep when arriving at the hotel. Tired and running on fumes I awoke and headed to breakfast. The food was superb and really gave me a boost for the day. I was finally in China and ready to explore!

The first trip of the day was to the summer palace. Wow, what a beautiful site to see. Magnificent architecture and breathtaking natural scenery to complement the man built structures. We then headed to the Beijing version of Silicon Valley. While there I noticed that the Chinese salespeople were very aggressive trying to sell their products. I have faced some aggressive sales people in America, but they had nothing on the Chinese. With fierce competition the salespeople were in your face trying to lure you into their store every chance they could.

After a delicious lunch, with world class shrimp we headed to quite possibly the coolest stadium in the world. The Olympic stadium was a once in a life time experience and one that I will never forget. While there I noticed that the Chinese people were more reserved while visiting the stadium. We American students fled on to the field as if we were seeking attention from the crowd, playing sports, and jumping around. Two Chinese kids joined us for one toss of the Frisbee but then returned to the bleachers. It was as if the Chinese people viewed the stadium to be sacred in some sense.

One other aspect of the culture that I noticed to be different form Americas was the driving. I was absolutely amazed that I did not see an accident. There were numerous close calls, however the drivers seemed to be well aware of their spot on the road and only had close calls, no accidents. My experience with driving is pretty much limited to the Midwest so I cannot speak for Los Angeles or New York; however it is hard to imagine that the drive in a similar manner like the one I saw in Beijing.

What an amazing first day in China!

Posted by korm0025 at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Day Two:
Day two like day one started out at 6:30 again. Our tour guide Lisa is wearing us out, at night we don’t even have the energy to go out! Well I did my normal routine and headed for breakfast. Breakfast was great, and today they even had cold milk and cold water for us. Unlike Americans, who enjoy cold breakfast, Chinese people only like Hot Breakfast and don’t really east cereal and milk. We started out by going to the summer Palace, where we saw the summer retreat for the emperor. This place was massive, much larger that the Forbidden City and included a lake. This was like a beautiful park within Beijing. There was a lot of greenery and the smog levels for the day were quite low. We were told not to talk to any vendors because last year a man was punched by a vendor for not buying his goods. This didn’t surprise me much as many of the vendors will follow you and do anything to get your attention. The vendors are not like street vendors in America, they are much more abrasive and much more persistent.

We decided to climb the Tower of Buddhist Incense, a large tower overlooking the lake. The climb was treacherous, and required us to scale many stares passing huge statues of Buddhist deities along the way. When we finally made it to the top however, awaiting us was a giant statue of Buddha himself as well as an ice-cream vendor. So after admiring the statue and the amazing view I treated myself to a Popsicle. The ice-cream was a little different than the stuff from back home; they had flavors such as pure sugar and pea’s. Weary from my climb I opted for the one with cherries on the wrapper. Opening it I was happy to find out the Popsicle was indeed cherry and quite delicious.

After that we visited another market, a tech market, where yet again I was accosted by all types of vendors trying to sell me every electronic conceivable. The vendors were as abrasive as the vendors at the summer palace; they would form walls to herd you into their stores. I am convinced that when I leave china I will be able to ignore anyone. While very abrasive I do enjoy the markets a lot, you just need to know what you’re looking for before entering as perusing the goods is a sure way to get endlessly solicited. From here we had lunch, again it was great! There was even live entertainment, including people dancing and singing.

After lunch we visited the Birds Nest and Water Cube from the 2008 Olympics’. The birds nest was teaming with people, however most stayed out of where the sun was shining through as it was an exceptionally hot day. Deciding that being here was a once and a lifetime opportunity, we broke out the Frisbee and took up the half of the huge arena that was empty to toss it around. While we had the eyes of easily a couple thousand people on us we did not get too many people that wanted to join in. only a couple people were brave enough to toss the disk around. It seems that Chinese are a little more reserved than we are and preferred not to draw the attention of an entire arena upon them if they can avoid it. This once and a lifetime opportunity to play Frisbee in the Birds Nest was easily the highlight of the day, and it also showed some divide between the two cultures.

After Frisbee we went to a state run teahouse and silk museum where we got enlightened as to the nature of Chinese traditions and history. It is easy to see how proud China is of their history and how much they love to share that history with others. After that we wrapped up the day with some dinner at a neighborhood restaurant where for the first time since we got to China, our meal didn’t end with fruit.

Pictures from Day 2

more pictures soon!

Posted by houl0072 at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i got little problem to post

pLay with your EYE~~~~~lol

ok, that is enough for today~~~~lol

Posted by liang133 at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After our second exhausting day, I’ve noticed numerous examples of something that concerns me. There seems to be a disregard for human safety in China. For example, a very small percentage of bicyclists wear helmets. I think I could count on one hand the number of people that I have observed helmets being worn. Some of these bicyclists have motorized propulsion, which generally leads to higher levels of speed that is more sustained than on a traditional pedal bike, increasing the risk of injury. In the United States, I believe numerous municipalities have enacted legislation requiring head protection, sometimes only on children under a certain age. At the very least, head gear is highly recommended and many police/fire departments hold clinics and/or seminars on the benefits of such practices.
While at the Summer Palace, we went for a short boat ride in which I did not see a single personal floatation device. If this were in the United States, not only would there be a PFD for every individual on board, detailed instructions for use would be distributed before departure. Granted the risk for someone falling overboard or collision with another vessel may be low, I was still a little surprised to see not so much as a throw ring.
There does not seem to be any enforced capacity on public transportation. I’ve seen a number of buses with so many people on them, there are people standing in the aisles. This can be hazardous, especially if a sudden maneuver is required to avoid a traffic accident. Sudden maneuvers seem to be required on every city block with the amount of traffic on the roads, greatly increasing the risk of bodily injury.
I am not sure if the lack of safety features is seen as a major inconvenience, a cost-saving measure, or just plain laziness; the point is that many injuries and surely some fatalities could be prevented with simple safety measures. Even such things like buckling the seat belt while travelling in an automobile are quick, easy, and free; but do not seem to be practiced by a very large percentage on a normal basis.

Posted by jopk0002 at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I woke up this morning at eight when the alarm went off and had a great night sleep with a little help from my buddy Yanjing. I was looking forward to getting some breakfast but not looking forward to the hot milk and water. To my surprise, Dahui had asked the hotel staff for cold water, milk, and juice. After breakfast, we headed to Summer Palace which was a lot of fun. I ran to the top of the hill where the Emperor lived. If the Summer Palace was the Emperor’s summer home and he also had the Forbidden City, I wish I would have been him! We were able to catch the last couple minutes of the Lakers-Nuggets game on a very large TV outside. This will probably be one of the only times we are able to watch American sports. I am still amazed by the way people drive, walk, and bike. It feels like we are going to get in an accident every five minutes. I may have to change my driving habits when I get back in the states. If I have the bigger car, I have the right away. I am still amazed that our group was able to walk on the field of the “Birds Nest” aka the Olympic Stadium. I will never forget being on the field and will have a mental image in the head for years.

Posted by benn0326 at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 20th, this is the second day that we are in Beijing city. With a nice and sticky lovely morning call, we are going out with the same time as yesterday. The “Summer Palace” is the first places we are go to visit. It’s three times bigger than Forbidden City, I heard from Lisa. There is a huge lake in the summer palace. I imaging maybe as huge as UMD. One of the most interesting find that I love in the summer palace is a show of professional painting by some Chinese professor. Those painting are very shooting me up, I watch it and I just want to take it away! I love art in personal and I got art design as my minor. Looking at those professional painting gives me a though that painting can be create by this way.


this is summer palace,

the upper two painting are neat~!

i remember i saw this guy's painting before, but i just cannot get his name out of my mind

this painting would be my favorite, use very simple like to create woman's texture, couple line makes the painting alive. it looks so ~~~! if i got money, i will go for and buy it!

I am moving very quick. So we are after lunch by now. Next place is Bird’s Nest, where the Olympus ceremony takes place in china last year. This building would be my one of favorite. Bu just looking at the design, I cannot imagine how those guy build up a building like this. As you go inside the Bird’s Nest, it is other huge place that I have see for today so far. It is fun to see, and we play some out door sport today, so nice! And the water cube is good, but we do not get a chance to look inside. That is sad.

Then, we go to a tea house, it is a cool place. Those lady makes free sample tea for us to taste, and teach us to drink a typical tea with a typical way. Also we go to sew house, I just fell that sew is so comfortable, and I buy a very special type for one of my high school teach.

Posted by liang133 at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Going to the Bird's Nest today was one of my favorite events. Being in the location of the 2008 Olympic Games was a very fun thing to experience. I can't believe that the Chinese people invested so much in a stadium that basically had only one purpose and that was to host the Olympic Games for 2008. I can't imagine how much money and time went into constructing the Bird's Nest, but I suppose now they are receiving revenue from tourists such as ourselves. Also playing frisbee with most of the class members in the middle of the arena was quite enjoyable. While we were at the Bird's Nest I was also asked to take a picture with the mother of one of the Chinese ladies who was touring the arena. This to me seems very different from the United States where you wouldn't usually ask a foreign stranger to take a photograph with you. The Chinese people seem a lot more friendly and upfront than most of Americans when you meet them for the first time, even if they are strangers.

Posted by stra0532 at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to visited Yi He Yuan, the Summer Palace. Then we went to a very special restaurant for lunch. I said it is special, because there are performers performing shows like singing and dancing,to the people who come to eat. It is very interesting, because I never seen this kind of restaurant in American. Then we went to a Chinese electronic market. In this market, you can almost find every product make from every company. Through these two days' experience, I found out some good thing about Chinese market. It is you can always find the same thing you want to buy from many sellers and you can compare the price between them and find the best price, service and coverage. Also you might found out it was kind of noisy when every sales is asking you to buy something. But I think is understandable, because there are so many competitors in the same place and selling the same things.

Posted by liang106 at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dan and I finally arrived in Beijing early this morning after a couple of delays. I am very happy to be done with airports, airplanes, and security for a while.
After lunch we went and checked out the Olympic stadiums. We got to go inside the Bird’s Nest which was a very cool experience. We got to walk around the concourse and even on the field. Dan happened to have his disc in his backpack so we decided to go ahead and play catch on the field. Being able to walk on the field in one thing, but to be able to toss a friz is quite another. At first I thought somebody was going to tell us we had to stop; after we tossed for a few minutes we realized nobody was going to stop us. The coolest part was that after just Dan and I played for a few minutes everybody else from our group joined in. We broke into a huge circle and played catch for like a half hour. Before today, I had never stepped foot on a field of that magnitude—let alone played on the field. Just thinking about all the great athletes who were on that field less than a year ago in the Olympics put me in awe. There were a ton of other tourists in the stadium as well, but we were the only people who took advantage of the field and played on it. I thought it was very cool that there were hundreds of people watching us. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to play on that field. I wonder, was it the first time somebody tossed a disc in the Bird’s nest??

Posted by oconn298 at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We did a lot of fun and memorable things today. The place I want to talk about was our visit to Dr. Tea. It is interesting that Chinese people when they get thirsty choose to drink tea while Americans of course drink water. The reason why the Chinese do this is because tea is very healthy for the body. I found the presentation very interesting from the pee pee boy to the taste testing of different teas. They made it interesting with funny presentations, taste tests, and a variety of information about tea. The different teas had a specific way of drinking the tea for maximum taste and should take three sips to finish. Also males and females were to drink there tea in a different way, with there thumb and index finger on the sides and middle finger on bottom. The difference between the sexes is male’s hands are closed and females are more open. Examples of how the tea helps the body are: Dispel effects of alcohol and nicotine, regulate blood pressure, lower cholesterol, lose weight, help the skin, good for digestion, restore energy, and relieve headaches. I thought this was an interesting presentation that gave me a better understanding of tea in the Chinese culture. I have always associated tea with either the Chinese or Western European cultures.

Posted by hackw001 at 7:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by oconn298 at 7:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Bird’s Nest is everything I expected and more. I never would have thought they would let us down on the main grounds and especially allow us to play and goof around. It was so much fun taking pictures and playing Frisbee. I was expecting someone to come up and tell us we had to stop but that never happened. It was weird looking under the turf and seeing sand, I expected it to be cement for sure. The seats in the Bird’s Nest were very interesting. If you looked closely you would notice they started out mainly red seats with a few white seats scattered among them. Then it was about half and half as it got higher up, and at the very top it was mostly white seats with a few red ones scattered in. We asked Professor Li why they were like that because there was no significant pattern to them that we could see. He explained to us that they did that so if they didn’t sell many seats when you looked the white seats made it look fuller. They didn’t want to be embarrassed by having it look like no one attended the event that was being held, so the white seats helped with that problem. That’s why they were scattered all around. The gift shops were ok there was no reason to have more than one though seeing they both carried the same exact souvenirs. I really enjoyed being at and seeing the Bird’s Nest, and how many people can say they played Frisbee in there other than us!

Posted by walte275 at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our second day in Beijing and we continued to do many touristy activities. My favorite thing we saw was the Birds Nests which was one of the Olympic Stadiums for the summer 2009 games. The attached picture is of me in front of the stadium. One thing I am beginning to learn is that there is not a lot of social order when it comes to large public gatherics. People push, budge, cut lines, and bump into one another constantly. As an American I have a hard time not getting upset when people bump into me without saying sorry or excuse me. There are just so many people where ever you go that often times the only way to get to where you want to go is by pushing people. Even though I still get a little upset when someone bumps into me I am getting better. I am also beginning to be a little more proactive and push back. It's a crazy environment to be in at times and sometimes you got to just push your way through.

Posted by sett0070 at 7:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am going to write about something that I will never forget. Just being able go to the olympic stadium was exciting enough for me but then to be able to go out on to the field was priceless. I am curious if it is a cultural difference that the Chinese tourist stayed more off to sides and in general seem to act more reserved. I am not sure if this a cultural difference or just an age difference.

I am curious what the expectation for people of our age group to behave like in China?

Posted by vaudr001 at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well this morning, once again, I did not expect to have so much packed into one day. We started this morning out like yesterday, with breakfast at the hotel. When nine o'clock rolled around everyone met for the bus to take us to the Summer Palace 颐和园 on Kunming lake. The breeze off the lake was a nice change from the hot weather yesterday. After taking many pictures by the entry point the group decided to hike up the stairs to the top of the palace. It was an amazing view from the top. It was also incredible to be able to enjoy the heritage and learn the history of the building.

Similar to yesterday (and I suspect the rest of the trip to be the same), many Chinese nationals would blatantly stare with wonder and curiosity at the group. I did find out though that these stares are not stares with any negativity, but probably that they do not see many foreigners or are very curious. I also found out that with a brief "你好“ and a smile, they quickly return the greeting with a Ni Hao and an even bigger smile.

Today there was a man at the Summer Palace entry who was writing Chinese calligraphy on the walkways with a water brush. He talked to Professor Li and Professor Li told me he wanted to know my name. I said to him "我名字 Dylan" and he shook my hand and laughed, then drew the characters for my name on the walkway. He also did this for Ashley and Troy.

After the Summer Palace we had lunch (which was excellent by the way) then went to visit the Birds Nest, where the group ended up playing frisbee on half of the field. Many people were taking our pictures as we were playing and even a couple people came and wanted to play briefly. After visiting the stadium we got to walk through the electronics market in downtown Beijing and also experience a tea ceremony at Dr. Tea's Tea house. Bringing my camera into the electronics market was a mistake I soon found out. The sales people in the market noticed my camera noticed my camera and flocked me wanting to sell me either a new camera, a laptop, or lenses for my camera. After the market and tea house we went to tour the Silk Road museum.

All in all this was another great day to focus in on the culture and differences between American and Chinese culture. One thing I noticed that is quite different is at the restaurant the waiters and waitresses would stand and watch as you eat your food. After eating we were socializing quite a bit and as we were talking I was also wondering if the waiters and waitresses were getting angry with us, because the more we talked the longer they had to stand.

Posted by mcdon419 at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I thought I would blog about construction and safety. Between yesterday and today I have noticed that there is construction happening everywhere in this city. The neighborhood that we visited for lunch yesterday was alive with the hustle and bustle of construction crews, the Forbidden City had many workers that were working on scaffolding trying to restore the buildings, and while in the downtown sky cranes are almost always visible. The thought of all this construction brought to mind what the working conditions are in China, and then while we were in the Summer Palace, Professor Li pointed out a man working on scaffolding without safety equipment.

Safety, the thing that every US company strives for, can be taken for granted and it has been apparent to me in China today. First was the man working on the scaffolding in the Summer Palace without any harness to keep him from falling and without any other workers with him. If he were to have fallen or become unstable on the scaffolding, there is no thing or person there to help him The next thing that I saw that bothered me was that the boat we rode on at the Summer Palace had no life vests for either the workers or the customers. The vessels were still constructed of wood and susceptible to damage, but no life boats in case of sinking or crashing into another vessel. The workers got on and off the boat stepping over the water, without bumpers large enough for them not to get squished if they fell in the water. Scary!! The last thing that I noticed different from the US, and maybe Duluth in particular, is that a street sweeper did not have a crew protecting them along with. In Duluth, every street sweeper is followed either by a truck with lights flashing or with another street sweeper or even cones or signs if it is a big job. The street sweeper I saw today was all on its lonesome and didn’t have a single warning sign on it for its protection. Not to say that there aren’t any safety precautions taken here, but they are hard to spot. I did see today some window washers that were hanging from the top of the building but must have been attached to the line suspending them. I was surprised that they didn’t have a platform to stand on, however. I also noticed that workers standing next to the road, like grass waterers, did have on orange reflective vests so that they were slightly protected. Steps in the right direction!!

Posted by fergu222 at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The second day here in Beijing was amazing. We got up early and went to the “Summer Palace.” That was very cool. We were able to climb up to the top and have an amazing view over the whole palace. Next, we took a boat ride over to the other side. On this side, I took a picture with very good looking Chinese girl. Her family told me I had to pay 10 U.S. dollars but they were only joking. We saw that there was a big screen T.V. right in the middle of the park. They had the Western Conference Finals game on between the L.A. Lakers and the Denver Nuggets. That was cool to watch some basketball in the U.S. here in China. Next, we went to a electronic store. This was interesting. We saw a variety of things. I learned that many companies contract with each other and rent out a space in the building. They all compete between one another. This is the reason there is so many people there and over 10 sections of the same thing. After that, we went out to lunch. This was very exciting for me. They had dancers who danced during lunch. They were very good looking Chinese women and wore very revealing clothes. You could definitely tell that there are more guys than girls on this trip because all of the guys started taking pictures and really getting into it. The food was very good and I enjoyed it a lot. After lunch, we went to the Olympic Stadiums. This by far has been the most exciting thing I have done so far. We were able to go to the “Birds Nest,” which was really amazing. We got to play Frisbee right on the Olympic Stadium floor. All I could think about was how this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and how many great athletes were on this floor. We saw the “Water Cube,” which is where Michael Phelps set many records. Everything we saw there was amazing. After that, we went to a tea shop and silk museum. This was interesting but really didn’t excite me that much. Finally, we went to dinner at an amazing restaurant. This meal is by far the 2nd best meal I have had. There was plenty of food and spicy food to go around. I don’t think I can eat anymore for awhile. Overall, today was good, it just became really long and tiresome due to the heat, walking, and the nonstop moving. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store.

Posted by charl094 at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we went to the Summer Palace it was a very awesome place and had some great views over looking the lake. We hiked up to the top of the empires house. It felt like the stairs were never going to end. But when we got to the top it was an amazing view over looking the lake and having the mountains in the background. This is where I got some of my favorite pictures. It was also nice because after the long hike up to the top there was an ice cream vendor that I was very happy to see when I got there. It was a hard climb up but it was very rewarding when we got to the top and i was glad we decided to do it.

Posted by ritt0123 at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is a excited day, I have many first time experiences. I first time had Chinese breakfast buffet, I first time went to the Tian An Men square, and so on. It was a very good experience to have a meal in traditional Beijing House, a Four-side unite court. Also, the food is very good too. Then we went to the Hu Tong for a walk. In the Hu Tong, there are many interested stores and many bars. At night, we went to Quan Ju De to eat Beijing Duck, it was very delicious. Now we will never feel shame to leave Beijing.

Posted by liang106 at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our first day in Beijing was great! We started out with a breakfast were I drank hot milk and ate fried chicken. The milk wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated; it tasted sugary like warm creamer. We boarded our tour bus and set out for Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and in the process nearly killed at least 5 people on bikes. The Square was much larger than I had expected, and our visit happened to fall on the 20th anniversary of the riots 1989. After entering the Forbidden City I was also amazed by how big that place was. The amount of history present was almost overwhelming and this combined with the fact that the place was restored to as good of a condition as it is made the trip a once in a lifetime event; unfortunately, my camera died half way through. I think the best part of the day came after the Forbidden City however; it was when we went for lunch. We all got into rickshaws and traveled through the side streets of Beijing. It was here that we saw a more true representation of life in the city.

We saw all sorts of houses in serious need of renovation as well as shop fronts that were at this time nothing more that piles of refuse. We ended this initial ride through these streets at what appeared to be more of an alleyway. We followed our great guide Lisa through a serious of turns through some more traditional houses into the courtyard of a traditional family house in Beijing. We were then led into a room with two tables and proceeded to sit down in this building complex that was by American standards, rundown and lacking of basic amenities. What awaited us was a big surprise to us all as plate after plate of the most delicious Chinese food we have ever eaten was brought in. It was simple home cooking but the blend of traditional ingredients and spices makes me wonder if I will ever be able to each Chinese food back in the states again. This meal far surpassed my expectations and even beat out our dinner tonight of peaking duck as the best Chinese cuisine I have eaten.

After dinner we went to the markets to try our hand at bartering for goods. I was not prepared for how abrasive these markets are. Many times we were grabbed at and even blocked by sales people trying to sell you every counterfeit product under the sun, which today gave me an unfortunate sunburn. From fake Rolexes to knockoff Diesel Shoes everything was there. While it was a bit abrasive and at times draining, there were deals to be had. My greatest accomplishment was talking down an item from 800 Yuan to a mere 110 Yuan or about $16.92. While I did buy a few items customs will not be hearing about suck as a pair of Foakleys, overall I tried to stay away from knockoffs.

After the markets we went to a fancy restaurant where we were all way underdressed and brought into a back room with two tables again. While this might have been to separate us from all the finely dressed patrons, it was nice to have our own room to experience the new food together. The peaking duck and many other foods we tried were great. Probably one of the better meals I have had but surprisingly still didn’t beat out the other meal we had in the back alleys of Beijing.

ill add pictures soon

Day 0: "The plane ride"

Wow, 48 hours into this trip and I have already gotten my tuition’s worth. After waiting for the plane to board, three hours after I arrived at the airport I promptly waited in line to take my seat. There was a message over the loud speaker asking anyone who had been to Mexico in the past couple weeks and traveling to Shanghi to come to the ticket desk for a “special announcement” basically they were not going to be allowed to board. When I finally got to my seat I found myself in the middle of the center row in a Boeing 747. The trip started out well, I was sitting next to great people and after some conversation I found out that one of them was an aid to Minneapolis mayor R.T. Ryback. Little did I know at the time I was sitting a few feet away from him. I introduced myself and explained that he had spoken to me and a group of Wells Fargo interns last summer. After a little bit of conversation we discovered we were headed to the same technology expo in Beijing. The rest of the flight went alright with the in-flight movies as wells as the pills of Dramamine I was popping the whole way there to put me to sleep.

When we finally arrived in Tokyo, 12 hours after we left Minneapolis, we had to sit on the tarmac for another hour and a half as the Tokyo health officials in there hazmat suits checked over everyone’s documents and scanned everyone with a thermal camera. Finally we were allowed to get off the plane and rush to our flight to Beijing. This time I wouldn’t leave anything to chance, immediately I took 2 Dramamine and tried to fall asleep. While my efforts were hindered slightly by a particularly cute two year old hating everything about life I was able to put my ear buds in and eventually fall asleep. This was no easy task as she expressed her anger by screaming at the top of her lungs and using the back of my seat as the target of her aggression through long successions of kicking tantrums. Finally we landed in Beijing and to more health officials in hazmat getups. After passing another temperature check we were allowed into the country. As soon as we arrived at the hotel I immediately brushed my teeth took a shower and passed out.

Pictures:
Mayor R.T.

Health Officials with thermal scanners.

Engrish

My favorite picture of the day!

Me

Posted by houl0072 at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I never imagined we would be doing so many different things today. From going to the Forbidden City to eating a meal in a Chinese family setting to shopping at some local markets and bartering for items to finally having dinner at the Peking Duck Restaurant. Today was very fun and filled with many different things, but it was also quite exhausting going to so many different places.

The first place we went today was to the Forbidden City, where we learned many different things even though it was sometimes difficult to understand what Lisa was saying at times. At first it was quite fun seeing all the things in the Forbidden City, but it was getting tiresome to walk around for extended periods of time in the heat so I'm glad we left when we did.

After the Forbidden City we rode rickshaws to attend a family style meal at a local family's home. The food there was amazing; it was one of the most delicious meals I've had in a long time. The hostess was very nice and allowed us to look around the areas of her housing unit.

Then we headed for one of the local markets where we purchased many different things. I bought a digital picture frame and a converter for my laptop's power cord (which I still can't get to work), I'll have to buy a new power cord tomorrow or something. I also purchased a set of nice chopsticks (hopefully when we're done I'll have mastered the use of them).

Beijing is an amazing location, I'm surprised to see so many bicycles piled up in one area and how much construction is actually happening even during this time of a worldwide economic recession. Hopefully there will be more interesting things to experience tomorrow and during the course of the rest of this trip.

Posted by stra0532 at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The seven o’clock in the morning with a nice and hot weather, but I just fell tire when I weak up. I am in Beijing now, but we suppose be in Tianjin city for now because the H1N1 that our study aboard group have to stay in Beijing for seven days, just for sure we don’t carry any of H1N1. I and my roommate went for a breakfast at around seven thirty. Those foods are good for my type, but I don’t very sure everyone does.

bike is one of the major transportation in beijing, even in other city is the same~

tree is everywhere in beijing, looks nice and heathy~

After we done our breakfast, we met Lisa, who is our leader for Beijing city trip. We fallow Lisa and went to “Tian An Men Square”. We saw many interested things and huge amount of people walking there. Also, we went to the Forbidden City of Beijing. Things are changed, I said. Once I had been to Beijing but it's totally different that I see today compare to what I remember when I was ten. When we finish the tour of Forbidden City, everyone seems hungry and tire. So, Lisa leads us we to have lunch at a very traditional type of family. We are almost shock by what we saw of the rough road, pretty old of house and the smiles of everywhere. When we first taste those Chinese traditional foods, it would be another talking. It is taste very good.

very busy traffic in Beijing city

KFC in Beijing~~yeah!!

"Tian an Men square" and the center point of beijing city~! Mao always seems cool to me~~lol
the forbidden city is super huge and so lot people ~!

we found a 4 stars bathroom inside the Forbidden city, Nice!!

inside the man bathroom have a very interesting pose, it said keep close to toilet it is better for everyone, some kind like this meaning, i do not know very much~~~lol

The most interesting part for today was we went to Hong Qiao for shopping. We heard that we should dealing with the price. Every seller sells its product at a super high price at the beginning, but we knew that is not possible. So, we need to dueling with those sellers and trying to get a good duel. For me, I think I did not do a very good job at first. I bought a USB charger for my PSP for twenty yuan. Although I just pay five yuan less than their ask price, but I fell too bad to get the as low as you want. The Hong Qiao market sells a lot of thing, the mp3, game, t-shirt, and bag are the most main product in Hong Qiao market. It is a very interesting place to go if you are like to dueling with price.


a tee i bought for 25yuan, i think was a pretty good dual, those are written by hand, also,you can ask the boss to add any letter you want to appear on the tee...!

e~~~not much to say about with my USB~~i pay 20yuan for than,maybe is a little bit too hit, or maybe the seller is pretty,i just pay for it 囧~~~~！！！！！
The end of the day, we went to a restaurant to eat duck for our dinner. It was taste super good but I cannot eat a lot of them. Once you finished couple of them, you will begin sick of it. I do not know dose anyone has the feeling as me. Actually, the duck is very delicious and feel tire as you approaching to finish. And now, I just want to take a shower and go to have a dream. Then I would be ok to ready for tomorrow.

Posted by liang133 at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today had more adventures packed into it than I had/could have expected. After the great breakfast provided by the hotel this morning, we took off for Tiananmen Square. This was an incredible experience to be able to walk through the gates and into the Forbidden City, something that would not have been possible in it's time. After touring The Forbidden City we went to visit a local home for lunch.

Among instances that varied from my initial expectations included transportation and the markets. I did not expect transportation to be so ... competitive I guess you could say. Another instance included the food. The food greatly surpassed my expectations, the food at the home we visited today was especially delicious. The hosts were incredibly nice. The markets were very interactive places to practice the little bit of Chinese I know. I found many market workers surprised even by the few things I could manage to say in Chinese.

Everything is still very surreal and I feel as if I'm walking around the city with my jaw hanging down. I expect this to continue, as we will be experiencing more and more things throughout the next 4 weeks.

Posted by mcdon419 at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was our first day in Beijing! Weather was great! Food was great. Couldnt have asked for better. Today we went to the tianmen square then we went to the forbidden city then we went to a little mini town, then we went to 2 different markets to buy stuff. For the tianmen square I got to stand in the middle of the Beijing city which I thought was pretty cool. At the little mini town we got to ride in a thing with a guy riding a bicycle pulling us around. This was pretty tight considering I was so tired and the wind felt great. Too bad I couldn't have someone pull me around every where. At the first market I bought a pearl necklace.

Posted by lauxx106 at 9:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What an amazing first day! After an exhausting trip over here, we were greeted with extremely warm sunshine for our first adventures in Beijing. We started the day at Tiananmen Square, moving on to the Forbidden City. There is quite a bit of history here and we jumped right in on day one. The architecture is truly spectacular, and I have around 120 pictures to prove it.

I have to say that the food is absolutley amazing. After thinking that I was going to starve by my lack of ability with chopsticks, that has all but disappeared (they really aren't that hard to use...). We had dinner at the home of a family here in Beijing that was absolutely tremendous. We wrapped up the night with Peking Duck at a local restaurant. All was very good, I am happy to report.

I am amazed at the mass movement of people in Beijing. Many use bicycles and other forms of public transportation. It is interesting to me that someone will think nothing of riding their bike in front of a multitude of buses and other vehicles. We observed dozens of "near misses" of people nearly being run over, or buses nearly colliding.

That's it for now...More to come later.

Posted by jopk0002 at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What an amazing and busy day in Beijing. The Forbidden City was surprising in how large it ended up being. When we first went into the city I was not expecting the city to keep going and going as it did. I loved everything the arcitecture was so intricate but my favorite area in the city was the ancient trees I loved that they were clearly old by looking at the leaves and the trunk. After visiting the city I had no idea what to expect by a traditional chinese family lunch. I cannot even explain how much I loved every kind of food that were given. everything was absolutely perfect and i think that experience will be my favorite part of being here in China. I know that the shopping will not be my favorite. Between the bartering and constantly being chased and never able to just browse it was just too overwhelming. Overall all this was an amazing first day

Posted by vaudr001 at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, our first day in Beijing, I want to write about the things that I noticed throughout the day that either took me by surprise or was just different than our culture. The first thing that I noticed about Beijing is that there are a lot of trees throughout the city. I was expecting a city like Minneapolis where there are no trees and everything is covered with asphalt or concrete. I really like that Beijing has a lot of plant life because it makes it feel more like home, maybe more welcoming. The second thing I noticed, while we were in the Forbidden City, was that there is no abundance of children at tourist areas. In America, it seems that if you go to any attraction for tourists that there are a lot of kids with their families. I am not positive of the reason for the lack of children in tourist areas in China, but my inkling is that it has something to do with the single child family. It could also be that we were there during the week and that was the reason for a lack of kids. Thirdly, I wanted to point out was the lack of animals I saw on the street. It seems strange to me not to see people walking their dogs or playing fetch with their dogs in the park. Even in New York City there are dogs everywhere. I did notice that as the day went on I saw more and more dogs (a lot more once dark came), but was still taken aback at the lack of pets. Lastly, the whole people vs. bikes vs. cars thing was hard to get over. It seems to be that bikes rule the road here, but are not afraid to speed up to get in their way. People have no fear when it comes to traffic. I can’t imagine standing in the middle of merging traffic, but I have seen it done a couple of times today. The combination of all of these factors really had me intrigued throughout the day. I am sure that I will get used to these things throughout our stay!!

Posted by fergu222 at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I woke up this morning on a piece of plywood (more or less) which they call a bed over here. Went to breakfast and didnt use the chopsticks like Dahui wanted us to do, I said since he wasnt around, I could get away with it. We went to the Forbidden City, which was cool, then off to probably the best Chinese meal in my life. There was beef, pork, dumplings, cucumbers in some great sauce, and a couple other delicious dishes. I did use the chopsticks at lunch and it was pretty easy after a couple tries. We went to a couple markets, but the only thing that I could find was a couple good beers. We had a decent dinner at Peking Duck and now looking forward to some sleep!

Posted by benn0326 at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today was, are first full day of activities in Beijing. I first want to start off talking about the flight over from Minneapolis. The thing that stuck out to me was the quarantine checks that were administered to us by both Japan and China airports. They checked us for symptoms of fevers. The Japanese used a video that I presumed was checking our thermal energy and the Chinese used a device that checked our temperature through a gun by our forehead. The Chinese method was easier and took far less time. For today’s activities we went to the Forbidden City, 2 markets, home cooked meal, and dinner. Forbidden City was amazing in many ways. The size of it was unbelievable and seemed never ending. The architecture was also amazing with the hand paintings and way it was set up. The amazing about it was that it was completed in only 16 years from 1406-1420. There were two dynasties that ruled both of which lasted around 300 years. That was an unforgettable experience, but so was the home cooked meal. For this we ate at a traditional Chinese home and was served a traditional Chinese meal. This was honestly the best Chinese food I have ever had and probably ever will. There was such a variety of meats and veggies. There was so much food we couldn’t even finish. It also was a cool experience seeing a traditional Beijing home and well as side streets. This was only the first day and I cant wait to see what is ahead in our next 28 days!

Posted by hackw001 at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)