B for Business in Beijing
My second day in Beijing wasn’t so bad. I woke up not feeling the jet lag (hydration helps counteract jet lag and I think I drank my weight in water) and quickly dressed for the business visits planned for the day. We had meetings with PR Newswire, Career International and with Dr. Xia.
PR Newswire is the agency I had to introduce to our travel group. According to their website, they are the “leading global provider of marketing and communications solutions that allow distributions of multimedia content to key audiences across traditional, digital, social and mobile channels, anywhere in the world.” We learned how they adapt to restrictions and censorship in China (Google was banned about two weeks ago and Snapchat doesn’t work. I can only access them through a VPN and that’s not worth it), as well as the types of clients they have. It was a really interesting meeting, and I’m sorry I can’t fully explain what occurred, but it was really fascinating to learn how they operate in Beijing.
After the meeting, we went to have lunch and for lunch we had hot pot! It’s like a Chinese fondue. There is a pot with broth sitting on a hot plate in the middle of the table. Vegetables and meat come to the table raw, and you can cook them the way you want. It’s common to get beef with vegetables and noodles. It’s pretty good and a large portion size! I ended up splitting the dish with Evan. It’s difficult to eat noodles with chopsticks though…I’ve almost mastered it. Across from us at lunch was a young Chinese couple who was very entertained by all of us attempting to order and eat hot pot. Gotta love meals with free entertainment!
Chinese meals aren’t very sweet. Therefore I’m often on the hunt for ice cream. I asked our tour guide where I could find some and she pointed me to a KFC. KFC in China is very different from a KFC in America. It’s a menu tailored to the Chinese palate and a place where you can find ice cream. Plus you all know I absolutely love ice cream. Anyway, I found that to be cheating, as I’m trying to stay away from eating American things and the ice cream was plain too. But it happened to be that in the same strip area as the KFC there is a supermarket! Six of us shared a box of Chinese ice cream! It was good, but still not really the sweetness I was looking for. I have a sweet tooth, can’t you tell?
Following lunch, we had a meeting with Career International. Simply, it’s a career matching service that places workers in white collar jobs. For example, if a clothing store company were to expand into China, Career International could provide them with a list of qualified people for a managerial position. I much preferred this meeting to the PR Newswire one in the sense that it was very informal and an open discussion. There was no PowerPoint presentation. As of now, I don’t have an intention of working in China (or enough Chinese to even help me navigate ordering food in the cafeteria), but this would be a good place to start with job hunting.
Our last business visit of the day was with Dr. Xia. He used to work for the World Bank and was a government official. He’s currently working in the software park. Though this meeting was a typical Chinese business meeting, I found it so boring. Jason had prepared us with the Chinese way of thought and how meetings with Chinese usually go, but it never registered in my head until then. He talked a lot about what’s he accomplished (which is fine), and would explain many things in circles and repeat himself. I struggled to find a point in the stories and in keeping my eyes open. Unfortunately, this is when the jet lag hit. It was nearing 4 a.m. Miami time! Our meeting also lasted two and a half hours, nearly double the time of the previous business meetings. I appreciated the personal touches in his PowerPoint, such as when he related things to Florida or how he inserted a picture of his niece on her 5th birthday.
After the meeting, we went back to the hotel to quickly change for dinner. The next day we were going to The Great Wall!
** I’m sorry for the posting delay. My internet time is limited here (it actually kicked me out the first time I tried to post this) and it takes about 30 minutes to an hour to write each post and add appropriate photos. I’m hoping to be caught up this weekend, but please bear with me! Also, feel free to comment or ask questions about anything so far or in the future!