Cord Houle: Tianjing Day 5
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.