Profile: Hannah Tomlin
GLP Shanghai Blog
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| Hannah Tomlin, Business Administration |
Blog 3
Friday, March 20, 2009
It’s now Friday, and I feel like this week is passing faster than any other week in my life. It’s become routine to wake up early in the morning, participate in the company tours, meet Chinese students, shop and bargain for an hour, eat an amazing Chinese dinner and stay out late experiencing the nightlife. Although we are not sleeping very much, we are all so excited about the many things to do and see that running out of energy has not been an issue.
After a 90-minute bus ride on Wednesday morning, we arrived at the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong University. We had prepared several presentations for the students, including information about recent events in America, California, Los Angeles and USC. The SJTU students in return presented about Shanghai, China and student life at their university. I found it particularly informative to learn about China from a student’s perspective, as it was more relatable.
Lotus Supermarket, which was the first corporation to enter China after the Cultural Revolution, gave a presentation in the afternoon. We learned about what factors contributed to the success of the company and heard about their plans for the future, including recreating the corporation’s image as a hip, young company.
Finally, we had dinner with the SJTU students we had met earlier at the Banana Leaf restaurant, which had excellent entertainment along with great food. However, the night was not close to being over. After becoming friends with the SJTU students, we decided to meet up with them later in the evening to go to a karaoke bar.
On Thursday, we woke up early to tour the Baosteel factory. The plant was huge and the Baosteel representative spoke while the bus drove us around to different key locations at the plant. We all enjoyed watching the steel get processed; although the factory buildings were large, there was a surprisingly small number of workers in them and most of the process was automated.
When we left the steel plant, we went to lunch at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel. The buffet style assortment was by far the best meal we had eaten thus far in Shanghai. After lunch, we attended a panel of USC alumni who were involved in several different aspects of business in Shanghai, from design to management. They gave us a great deal of useful information involving future success in the business world, such as customizing our resumes for each job application and following up on our resumes with phone calls.
After a free afternoon of exploring the local sights, we were taken to a Chinese acrobatic show. The acrobats were amazing, and performed feats like balancing several platters of glasses on their heads. There was also an 8-year-old boy who could bend his body into a circle, professional jugglers and a couple who performed a dramatic duet on long pieces of silk fabric. Following the show, we were free to explore on our own and visited several different venues including the 87th floor at the nearby Hyatt, which had an amazing panoramic view of Shanghai.
Today, we woke up early to visit Ingersoll Rand, an air compression plant that has a partnership with Baosteel. Baosteel provides Ingersoll Rand with the steel to create the air compressors, and Ingersoll Rand provides Baosteel with the air compressors to cool the processed steel. After a quick tour of the production factory, we had a question and answer session that granted us insight into China’s views of the current economic situation.
Blog 2
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
After three months of preparation through classes and research projects, we have finally arrived in Shanghai. We’re ready to experience another culture, learn about the differences in corporate structure and culture, and enjoy the fantastic nightlife and shopping that China has to offer.
Our trip started out in the crowded international terminal at LAX, which was currently undergoing construction. Our flight to the Seoul-Incheon airport with the Beijing GLP group was scheduled to depart at 12:10 a.m. on Friday night. However, once we had boarded the plane, there were still two hours of technical difficulty delays to wait through, followed by a thirteen-hour flight. This is when it really hit me that we were going to be immersed in another culture; all of the announcements explaining the setbacks were in Korean and Chinese with limited English details.
After a brief layover at the Seoul-Incheon airport, we broke off from the Beijing group to catch our flight to Shanghai. As Shiingwu had promised us, the international airports of Korea and China were exquisitely designed, making us a little ashamed of LAX in comparison.
After collecting our baggage, we departed the airport using the MAGLEV- a magnetic levitation train that travels at speeds of up to 431 km/h. After the long flights, we were all ready to rest and get settled in our hotel, but our charming tour guides, Tina and Stacy, quickly informed us that we had to be ready in twenty minutes for our first street market experience in the Old Town section of Shanghai.
Upon arrival at the street market, everyone was overwhelmed by the exotic smells, the amount of items for sale, the sheer number of people that filled the streets and the constant sound of people negotiating in both Chinese and English. We were left alone to explore for a few hours, and we all broke up into groups, eager for our first taste of negotiation in Shanghai. After learning through experimentation, it soon became apparent that you were getting ripped off if you paid more than half of the initial asking price of any item. We learned several phrases in Mandarin in our class, but the most useful one throughout the trip was “Tai gue le,” loosely translated to “Too expensive!”
On Monday, we began our company tours, starting with a cell phone manufacturer in Jiaxing. After viewing a model of their plant, we spent about an hour learning about the plant’s vision for future products and the corporation’s values; we also spent time playing with the cell phones the plant currently manufactured. We learned that all of the assembly workers live in dormitories next door to the factory and we toured one of the rooms.
After participating in a market research study at a local mall in the afternoon, we were joined by several students from Fudan University for dinner. They were all proficient in English, and we discussed our classes and interests, as well as personal lives.
We continued our tours of companies on Tuesday, starting with the Green Tree Inn Hotel chain. Alex Xu, the CEO of the Green Tree Inn Hotel Company, was our first guest speaker this semester. It was extremely gracious of him to come speak to us and host us at his hotel. We were given a presentation about the Green Tree Company, which detailed their business model of providing high standards at a low cost; it also detailed their plans for future development and franchising.
In the afternoon, we were taken to the Shanghai World Expo center, which was a great privilege. We had done research in class about the World Expo, which will be held in Shanghai in 2010. Unfortunately, although China reserved a place of honor for the United States, it is unclear whether or not America will fund a pavilion in the World Expo. After seeing all of the planning and preparation that has gone into the upcoming event, I hope that the US participates and returns the respect China has given us.
Blog 1
March 9, 2009, Los Angeles
Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Hannah Tomlin and I am from San Jose, California. As of today there is officially one week before we leave for Shanghai and I absolutely cannot wait to begin this fantastic experience.
For the past several weeks, we have been learning about different aspects of Chinese culture, from the rise of materialism and the middle class to globalism from the communist viewpoint. Our class has had the opportunity to hear from several amazing lecturers, including the current Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles, Zhang Yun, and of course, our faculty advisor, Shiingwu Wang.
Although we have received a great deal of information about China throughout the past eight weeks, I feel that the experience in Shanghai will mean something different to each of the participants and that no one is really sure exactly what to expect until we arrive. We have learned concrete details about China, including current events and etiquette, but a significant portion of our classes was devoted to determining the proper attitude with which to view our trip so we can gain as much as possible from this opportunity.
This is my first trip outside of America and England; I look forward to being temporarily immersed in a culture that is very different from those I have experienced my whole life. I look forward to sharing this rewarding experience with the other members of my global leadership class and to blogging more about Shanghai as I discover it.