Today we went to another City planning area. This place was about making a city within a city. Building in China seems to be much faster than it is in the US. This city area is big and they plan to finish building in less than 5 years, which makes the project less than 10 years total.
Our lecture today was about Competitive Intelligence. Here we learned about how to keep an edge on your competitors using data collection and analysis. We also learned that teaching styles in the US differ greatly from China. In China the teaching style is very much a professor just lecturing a class with little involvement. Our teacher today learned how to teach while she was in the US and took the influence from US professors, she was definitely way more interactive.
The thing that struck me as most interesting today would probably have happened around lunch time. As usual, a few of us went to the market behind our hotel to get some food. As we got there, there was an argument going on right at the entrance of the market at the dumpling shop. Arguments, despite the population of the city, seem to be very rare here. While being in China, I have only witnessed about three arguments. All of these are handled very differently than they would be in the US. Arguments I've seen in the US are very 'in your face' and borderline, if not, physical. The arguments I've seen here have been relatively calm in comparison. While voices might be raised, they aren't raised to the point of screaming out their lungs like might happen in the US. Generally it is rather one sided, and the person being shouted at is very very calm. The argument we saw today was probably the most heated I've seen. A customer was upset about something, and while he wasn't shouting he had certainly raised his voice. After a while, he took two or three trays of dumplings and dumped them on the floor. From what I saw he just turned the trays over, but didn't really throw the trays at all. While it is extreme to throw their food on the ground, if this had happened in the US the customer would likely have thrown the tray with the food on the ground, or even at the shop owner. After the argument, the customer even stayed at the scene, instead of 'hitting and running'. The police came afterward, but I didn't see what happened after that.
Here are the pictures for the day:
Presentation of the city planning model
Converter for the wind turbine as presented by Alex
Workers doing their stuff
Angry dumpling guy
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