Day 2

China day 2
(I’m exhausted so I’ll keep is short)

I’m currently writing this on the bus after a great lunch (more to come on at tomorrow). The trip to BX glass was quite the journey - around a 2 hour bus ride. Seeing the production facility really sheds light upon the working conditions in china. The factory operates 24 hours a day, employees lived on the production grounds, and work 8 hour shifts at minimum- not too different from the US but the conditions looked pretty rough. The breakage rate for the glass product is virtually zero, as all broke glass is recycled into the oven. The managers biggest challenges are market prices and costs. They were dramatically affected by the financial crisis, having to shut down 5 of their 7 lines and reducing their labor from 4000 to 1000. Their biggest market is Europe and America. I have a feeling that I’ll be purchasing some BX products when I get home.

Lenovo was a product marketing experience. Our speaker actually used the opportunity to get some feedback on a new marketing campaign, essentially turning us into a focus group. Lenovo is obviously not interested in the US, as the are more than 3 times the consumer base located right here in china. It also opened my eyes to just how global business is becoming. For example, our speaker, Cole, is from Sunnyvale and wound up in Beijing working for Lenovo via a third party employment placing agency. Furthermore, one of the upper level marketing executives of Lenovo we will meet on Friday is a graduate of Santa Clara University, a great opportunity to develop some guang xi.

Blowing off some steam was needed, so the whole group decided to go check out the long strip of street meat vendors. Menu items ranged from fried bananas to dog. Yes, dog! there were also snakes and scorpions that made the ones we ate look like babies. We continued to explore, taking a stroll along the promenade of Beijing. Trying to exchange my fake Tag Heuer watch for a real one as unsuccessful. Again, people were doing the “stand in front of the Americans and pretend to take a picture of myself but really trying to get a photo of them” tactic. Soon after, we came across a Szechwan restaurant off the beaten path. 9 dishes and a crate of beers later, we decided to head back to the hotel. Day 2 in the books.