AMP Treatise

A New World With Chinese Characteristics

2006-04-07T00:42:00.000+08:00

An article from one of the most interesting professors at CEIBS and who is what I believe is called, "An Old China Hand."

Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.

Yay!

2006-04-05T16:38:00.000+08:00

Chinese New Year (CNY) Shanghai 2006

2006-04-05T16:32:00.000+08:00

Well, hopefully, the suspense has now been built up to an unsustainable level and you're screaming for the real CNY-Shanghai videos. Well, here they are, with commentary. I know, what more could you ask for??

This year Chinese New Year started this year on January 28 and went to February 12 or so. For the following two weeks, China is essentially on holiday. Kind like Christmas, except for two weeks. This is also the time of the largest movement of people of the world, as everyone picks up from the cities and heads home for family dinners and celebrations, and now an increasing number of people also coming to the cities to visit relatives.

Although I can't confirm these numbers right now, but if I remember correctly, Shanghai Daily reported that net, a million people left Shanghai for the holidays. Ok, big deal, I know. But that is net of 11 million people leaving and 10 million people arriving for the holiday over the two weeks. As a foreigner here, some of the Chinese are suprised to hear that we didn't have anything planned, kind of like having a friend in the States with no plans for Thanksgiving. But, all the foreigners at school here were warned by both Chinese and foreigners that this is the worst time to do traveling in China. Hordes of people camped out at train stations across the country waiting days for their trains (snow in the North apparently doesn't help train arrival times).

Anyway, I was also told the "real" CNY celebrations don't happen in the cities, so perhaps next year I will brave the crowds.

Some more background, the CNY comes about because of the traditional Lunar calendar not the Western calendar. So every year it changes and is around the end of January to February. It is also called, strangely enough, the Spring Festival. The "red envelopes" are used during this holiday and parents give them to their kids and they have money inside. The line the kids say translates to something like, "Happy new year (gong xi fa cai), give me a red envelope!"

So well, I'm rambling on now, and you've already probably skipped down to the videos below anyway. So let me tell you about what I did for this holiday.

On the Saturday night, the remaining people at school, perhaps 20 of us, all international students, went to Paulaner, a German restaurant right on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River and right across from the famous Bund. After a few locally brewed pints and a fantastic roast pork knuckle (is 100x better than it sounds!), the place started livening up and even the Germans started to get a bit roudy. Before I get into the topic of Germans, let me take a step back.

Fireworks. In the run up to the holiday, you could literally buy fireworks anywhere. This was evident in that every night you heard fireworks going off, and I don't mean little black cat fireworks, I'm talking full on 100-200 foot high explosions. Strangely, it seemed the poorer the area, the more fireworks were going off. This, in itself, was amazing, having a light show every night of the week for the two weeks *before* the holiday. Then I discovered the Carrefour fireworks stand. No, I didn't mistype. This was no ordinary fireworks stand. They sold tons of stuff, from cheap $1 up to $100 boxes.

Fast forward a bit to the Saturday. The fireworks started at about 6am or so. For the rest of the day, the bangs of gunpowder were inescapable. Again, I was amazed. Little did I know what was in store later that night.

On the way to Paulaner (sorry for the lack of continuity, this is why I am not a professional writer), there are tons of these apartment tower complexes. In the middle of these places people were setting off these huge fireworks and they were exploding not too far from the actual buildings themselves. Quite a sight. All I could think about at this point, was how totally and unquestionably illegal all of this would be in the states, even in the most firework-friendly states. Every hour, there were more explosions than the previous one.

Around 11:30, we headed outside to watch the display from the river. There is no official Shanghai city fireworks display, which we by then we realized would have been totally unnecessary and likely ignored. Standing on the river, the sound of individual explosions became indistinguishable from the general hum of thousands of fireworks going off at the same time. Turning around 360 degrees, the flashing lights were inescapable. Individuals, businesses, and kids were all in a state of total pyromania. Although, I have never been to Iraq, or any war zone for that matter, I can guarantee that this was far more noisy and constant. In war, i believe, people run out of ammunition. But the Chinese don't run out of fireworks on CNY.

This was one of the most visually and aurally stunning experiences I have ever had. With total confidence I can say, put this on your list of things to do before you die. Also, don't wait too long because who knows how much longer the government will allow these displays (they were only recently allowed in Shanghai and Beijing). So, without further ado or delay, I encourage you to watch these two videos and however impressive (or unimpressive, as the case may be) these videos are, they are nothing like the real thing.

And you're definitely want to turn your sound on.

4th Night of Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year Shanghai 2006

Hong Kong, Here I Come

2006-03-16T16:06:00.000+08:00

We just received our exchange placements today, and I, along with two other students, will be heading off to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in September. Fifty six students, out of ~170, are going on exchange to places all over the world. Last year, only one person applied to and went to HKUST so this year I was surprised to find that the competition to go to HK was tougher than London Business School, NYU-Stern and Duke. Six people for three slots.

The process is that you apply for a certain school and if there is competition, then you do an interview with the Exchange Director and the MBA Director who decide who will go based 40% on your GPA and 60% on the interview.

Anyway, what follows are some gratuitous pictures of where I will be from September to December.

Chinese New Year & Explosives

2006-03-15T00:31:00.000+08:00

If you like fireworks, then you must visit China during Chinese New Year. Although nearly impossible to describe or even effectively show, I've found four videos that show the craziness that is this holiday. The first two below are the more mild ones. I will post the two really crazy ones when I have a chance to fully give the post the attention it deserves.

Fireworks Madness

Shanghai New Year's Fireworks

If your video is a little slow or "jumpy" hit the play/pause button to stop the video and let the light grey bar fully load before playing. This is worth it, trust me. And make sure you have sound turned on.

Assorted CEIBS Related News

2006-03-15T00:12:00.000+08:00

Ahmedabad, November 26: A team of two Chinese students on Friday won the first prize for a presentation on 'Management Beyond the Obvious: Destination Ahmedabad' at the ongoing Confluence 2005 at IIM-A. Their presentation threw up a comprehensive formula for making Ahmedabad a world-class city like Shanghai.

The two students suggested developing a quality public transportation system, making Sabarmati Ashram a cultural tourism hub, developing western part of the city as a commercial hub and eastern part as the hub for all research and education centres, and also developing some university villages. (cont'd)
CEIBS MBA Students Win Confluence Award

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Walk into any classroom at one of China's elite business schools and what you're likely to see isn't all that different from what you would find at Harvard, Wharton, or MIT's Sloan School. True, there's a preponderance of Asian faces and the occasional smattering of Mandarin. But the classes, course materials, subject matter, and even the teachers are virtually identical to their U.S. counterparts.

Indeed, in most cases the MBA programs attended by China's top students are very much the product of Western educational institutions, which in recent years have rushed to establish programs on the mainland. The idea: to tap into the enormous demand for talent created by China's white-hot economy. (cont'd)
China's B-School Boom
Business Week China MBA Section

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FT Global MBA Top 100 Rankings

FT EMBA Rankings

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SINGAPORE - Insead, one of the top European business schools, based in Fontainebleau, near Paris, opened an Asian campus in Singapore six years ago. This autumn, if all goes according to plan, it will take an additional step into the Asian market, with the introduction of an executive MBA program in China, offered jointly with Tsinghua University, of Beijing.

"The Chinese believe very strongly that China is unique and therefore they should learn something on China in China," Hellmut SchÃ¼tte, the dean of the Singapore campus, said in an interview. (cont'd)
Have foreign MBA, will travel in Chinese business - International Herald Tribune

The Problem With Blogs...

2006-03-14T23:48:00.000+08:00

I have, and I'm sure you have also no doubt discovered this probably with both glee and disappointment, discovered the biggest problem with having a blog. Providing updates to the hungry masses. This space has been "A continuing Reminder of My Failure" for the past 2-3 months. Which is not a pleasant lasting memory to leave etched in the foreverness that is the Internet. Should a prospective employer come across this area they will surely immediately drop any notion of hiring me for my neglect of both family and friends for such an unseemingly long time. For this new life woe that has now entered my life I obviously have only one person I can blame. Al Gore. However, his continuing silence in response to my angry emails regarding his invention of this electronic superhighway thingy have forced me to return from the seemingly dark bowels of Shanghai and CEIBS to let everyone know that, No, I'm not dead, stuck indefinitely inside an opium den, a newly minted billionaire too good to regard your presence anymore, or been sequestered by the Chinese government to do hard manual labor for my capitalist roader ways. Or yet at least.

Regardless, and blogging can be time consuming (ok, I may have also chosen to watch some of my Law and Order Season 1 & 2 boxed set instead of writing, but can you blame me??). What has happened in the meantime is what I will attempt to update here a soon as I can in what I can only expect will look like a stream of consciousness brain fart of random posts. So, first things first, I guess.

We are obviously well into (halfway even, I think) our second term of bschool here at the increasingly sunny and warm CEIBS campus. The new EMBA (Executive MBA, the unlucky SOBs that get to work all week then come to class on the weekends) class starts tomorrow of which there are apparently a record breaking 60 foreigners. Perhaps this as something to do with the Financial Times ranking the EMBA program at CEIBS as the number 13th in the world and where 60% of participants are top management (CEO, CFO, on the Board of Directors, etc.). Just as important (or going out on a limb, more important) is that the same newspaper upgraded CEIBS' MBA ranking from 22 in the world to 21. A positive step but a significantly slower rate of increase than in past years (2005 - 22nd, 2004 - 53th, 2003 - 96th). Logically, though, the higher you get the tougher it gets to keep moving up, but we were all hoping to break into the crucial Top 20 designation. With the Finance club, we've created a recommended reading booklist, hosted a Senior Director of the Shanghai Futures Exchange and lined up two Private Equity speakers for the next two months. Also worth mentioning briefly is that it is "internship" season, although belatedly so. The administration was not quite on the ball when informing the students of the internship deadline it was a mere 5 weeks away. Que panic mode. This is a topic I'll need to cover in more detail in the future. Also forthcoming and long over due is a Term 1 review. Stay tuned (but not too tuned in!).

Next post, will be the flip side (the fun one!) of life in Shanghai, especially Chinese New Year, which is now firmly in my top 3 favorite holidays.

Otherwise, here is a short review of the Term 2 classes and stop me if I bore you here:
Operations Management: The teacher is great and has been in China since 1980(!). The subject (mainly manufacturing) in general is interesting, but actually arranging floorplans and analyzing bottlenecks is not quite my cup of tea, I've found. Touring factories is fun, designing them... not so much. We've recently started Just-in-Time, Lean manufacturing/engineering, etc. Most brutal, however, is a business simulation that starts this Friday. Basically, we are managing a virtual factory online. The trick, however, is that for everyday of factory time, one hour of real time goes by. So from 1pm to 5pm, for manufacturing days in the factory have occurred. And this factory doesn't stop. Goes 24/7 and doesn't take a rest when we're sleeping or in class.
Management Accounting : A necessary evil. I'll leave it at that for fear of saying something I'll regret.
Strategic Management: This teacher is a raging Briton (probably an oxymoron, I know) and this class is most people's favorite but has been the most challenging. All case study based and we've looked at industries from metal container packaging, to the European airline industry to consulting services. In fact, today we had an associate partner from McKinsey, the world famous consultancy, speak to us in class today.
Business Ethics & Corporate Governance: This one is interesting but geared more for the Chinese since most of them haven't been exposed to environmentalism and business ethics like most of the foreigners have been for most of their lives. You'd see what I mean if you saw the pollution in China. Not to say my Chinese classmates are unethical or anything of the sort but just haven't had some of these things drilled into their heads like I have had.
Corporate Finance: Mostly a rehash of CFA material for me which some new twists thrown in for good measure. Our professor, Chang Chun (or Zhang Chun) is apparently quite famous in China and the editor of a respected business magazine and comes to us from the University of Minnesota.

And for your viewing pleasure, a short video from one my favorite new websites.

YouTube - Shanghai MagLev Train

China B-Schools- BusinessWeek Online

2006-01-03T05:56:00.000+08:00

OK, I admit, I've been lazy. Look for a Term 1 review in the next week. In the meanwhile, BusinessWeek has a China MBA and CEIBS special focus to keep you occupied (if you're someone who reads this to learn more about CEIBS rather then keep up on my personal life!).

China B-Schools- BusinessWeek Online

CEIBS: International House of MBAs

2006-01-03T05:55:00.000+08:00

A BusinessWeek slide show on CEIBS.

CEIBS: International House of MBAs

Sanya, Hainan Island, P.R.C.

2005-12-10T19:17:00.000+08:00

After more than three grueling months studying flowcharts, multiple regression models, and a Harrah's Casino marketing case, it was decided by five of us that what we needed was a vacation. But when to go on vacation? Who has the time and we'd all be leaving shortly for our respective homes for winter break. Luckily, the CEIBS administration fortuitously provided the students with a pre-finals study week. Perfect! We pretty much knew that we wouldn't be studying the first weekend after the last class and on Monday & Tuesday we can study on the beach, right? Library, beach, same thing. A travel agent set us up on a trip to China's Hawaii and its premier beach resort area, Hainan Island. Below are some photos of the trip.

More photos are here.
And the powerpoint we made that was sent to our MBA class is here (right click and save as to download, ~2MB).

2005-12-10T19:12:00.000+08:00

The Mangrove Tree Resort and the first hotel we stayed at. This is a bit away from Sanya. Sanya is the southernmost city in China and at the south top of Hainan Island. This is on Yalong Bay which is an exclusive resort area for the islands best hotels and each with its own private beach. The entire hotel was brilliantly designed. Essentially, the whole place is open to the air. The you can see and hear the ocean from reception, the lounge, the hallways to the rooms, and most other places. Really fantastic. Apparently, its a Chinese owned hotel, designed in the US and Japan. And the prices, at least from inside China were fantastic. RMB3000, or about US$375, got us a roundtrip direct flight to Hainan, plus two nights at the Mangrove and two nights at the Resort Intime in Sanya.

2005-12-10T19:03:00.000+08:00

Night time view from our balcony.

2005-12-10T19:02:00.000+08:00

Over the reflecting pond towards the beach...

2005-12-10T19:01:00.000+08:00

Mangrove Tree, another view...

2005-12-10T19:00:00.000+08:00

Lunch at the hotel's thai restaurant and our xiaopengyou (little friend).

2005-12-10T18:59:00.001+08:00

Jealous yet???

2005-12-10T18:59:00.000+08:00

Mangrove Tree beach. Water was clear and warm (at least once you got it). What was great was the beach was not at all crowded, a departure from most beaches I've been to.

2005-12-10T18:58:00.000+08:00

Our wondeful balcony shower at the Mangrove Tree on Yalong Bay.

2005-12-10T17:11:00.000+08:00

A Caribbean style beach side bar next to our first hotel.

2005-12-10T17:10:00.000+08:00

Our favorite post-drinking food is never too far away no matter where you are in China. However, this meat stick man was dressed in chef's whites and took his seasonings very seriously.

2005-12-10T17:05:00.000+08:00

I become known as The Guru for being dressed in a hotel robe and slippers for pretty much the entire trip. Here I am with a convert to The Guru lifestyle. I was made famous as the Guru to the rest of CEIBS after Ditan made a powerpoint presentation titled "Where is the library" which I will post a link to later.

2005-12-10T17:03:00.000+08:00

A nighttime photo from our second hotel.

2005-12-10T17:02:00.000+08:00

Dinner on Sunday night at one of the seemingly thousands of seafood restaurants in Sanya. What happens is you order the dishes you want, then you go over to this wall of tanks of fish, eels, shellfish, clams, you name it. There you can pick out exactly which ones you want to eat, then they take you behind the tanks and weigh everything and make sure you're satisfied. Then before my female companion had a chance to turn around they immediately started killing the fish with a stick! I don't think I've ever seen anyone more horrified.

2005-12-10T16:58:00.000+08:00

Fireworks where a nightly activity. Nothing extravagant but for me, fireworks never get old. Taking a picture was, however, very frustrating. You hear two go off, only to run and grab the camera and then they'd stop after 3 of them. Then they'd let off about 20 but I never went to get the camera because I assumed they'd stop after 3. Finally, we figured out that if we yelled our approval after they shot them off, they would provide us with more. Problem solved.

2005-12-10T16:54:00.000+08:00

Daytime view from our second hotel, Resort Intime (not the flashiest of names) which was populated, we think, entirely by Russians. The way to the beach was one of the most confusing endeavors we have ever undertaken and it was truly bizarre how diffult they made it to get to. At 3am Ditan and I went swimming but in our slightly inebriated state and with the others watchin from the balcony, it took us three different circles around the pool to finally get there.

2005-12-10T16:51:00.000+08:00

Wandering around on Monday night looking for something to do other than drink, we stumbled upon more Chinglish. It took us about thirty minutes to finally figure out what it said. Being MBA students, we were forced to hold a group meeting, formulate a plan for attacking the problem, then delegating duties to appropriate team members. This all resulted in a powerpoint presentation, which is how things usually end up at business school.

2005-12-10T16:48:00.000+08:00

On Monday night, after being extremely tired of doing nothing but laying on the beach, eating, and going out at night, there was dissent among the group about whether to even go out at all. But, this being our last night in Sanya, the motivated heads triumphed. At the bar, our mood was not what it had been previously. This all changed with these "hats."

2005-12-09T22:11:00.000+08:00

Ditan and The Guru once again providing the comic relief for the trip. With that face, I think Ditan was a model in the past life.

2005-12-09T22:09:00.000+08:00

We quickly found other uses for our new found playthings. These hats were fantastic. Entertaining, useful, and multi-functional! Although, I'm not quite sure what function they're serving here.

2005-12-09T22:06:00.000+08:00

Ditan xiansheng (Mr. Carpet in Chinese) reminding us once again why we gave him this name.

2005-12-09T22:04:00.000+08:00

I think I was dancing (or attempting to) at this point.

Last Day of Class

2005-12-02T09:04:00.000+08:00

Last day of class today and I’m off to Hainan Island in the South of China for a little holiday until Tuesday. Next week we have a free study week and after that, five days of exams, one for each day. So next week, I *should* have some time to provide a class wrap-up, post some more photos, observations on China, etc. Until then, I will attempt to make you jealous by providing you with links about Hainan (AKA China's Hawaii).

Smart Travel Asia
The Guardian
Times Online

Finance Club

2005-11-24T23:28:00.000+08:00

The CFO of elong.com (a chinese travel site, also available in english) who was also the the CFO at sohu.com came and gave a speech to the club today. All-in-all a very interesting speech, but it does kind of amaze me that this guy would even come to the school and on such an informal occasion to speak to what must be a relatively small group. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good thing, and probably speaks volumes about CEIBS reputation in China...

Courses for Term II and Elective List for Term III

2005-11-23T08:55:00.000+08:00

For next term, starting on Jan. 9th, we have the course names but not any descriptions. They are all required, so in a way it doesn't really matter.

Managerial Accounting
Operations Management
Business Finance
Corporate Governance & Business Ethics (<-- thanks for this Enron/Worldcom/Adelphia!)
Strategic Management

For Term III, we have this bidding process where we try to "win" our spot in classes. For students, there isn't much to it but it gives the administration a good idea of what classes are popular and which ones aren't. If there is not enough demand, then they will consider dropping some classes. Not sure what I'll take so far but I've gone from caring about the subject to caring about who the teacher is.

Marketing Research (Prof. Kwaku Atuahene-Gima)
Many companies fail not because they have poor products and services but because
of poor marketing decisions, which is itself the result of lack in-depth and sophisticated
understanding of their markets. This course is designed to enhance your competence in
marketing problem analysis and decision-making, just like consultants do. Hence, this is not a
statistics course but rather an application-oriented program that provides you with the tools to
diagnose an organizational marketing problem and to develop a solution. At the end of the
course you should be able to accurately conceptualize a marketing problem, form appropriate
hypotheses, design a study to test the hypothesis, collect and analyze data using appropriate
statistical software, interpret and present the results. This course should be a foundation for
your success in the group consulting projects (GCP).

Project Management (Prof. Mike Brooks)
Course objective:
To provide the student with a complete understanding of Project Management and it’s
application in a modern business context; the process, methods and techniques, areas of
application, and the key issues which influence success or failure.
In addition, to provide the student with a framework for managing a Consulting Project
in preparation for the Group Consulting Assignment.

Pedagogical techniques:
This module will combine the following teaching methods:

Formal lectures built around case studies
Group and individual exercises
A project simulation

Proposed coverage:

The elective will cover the following areas:
The characteristics of “management by project”
Types of projects typically encountered in a business setting and the risks to be
managed. Project types to include:

Information Technology Projects

New product/service Development

Business restructuring including process re-engineering and improvement.

Consulting projects in preparation for the Group Consulting Assignment

(including an overview of the consulting process)

Change Management Projects

The Project Management Lifecycle – key characteristics
Designing an effective Project Organisation structure
Managing the Scope of Work – Work Breakdown Structures
Managing Cost, Resources and Time – Estimating, Planning, and Scheduling.
Project Knowledge and Information Management
Project Leadership and the Project Team
Risk Management

Areas not included:

Project finance will not be covered.
The use of computer based project management information systems will not be
covered.

Industrial Economics (Prof. Zhu Tian)
The course of Industrial Economics applies economic principles to explain
and understand real-world behavior of firms, markets and industries. It covers classic topics of
strategic behavior and market structure as well as topics in technological change, internal
organization of firms, regulation, antitrust and productivity analysis.

Human Resources Management （Prof. Xiao Zhixing）
This course offers participants a deep understanding the people side of strategy and
organization, with a focus on China. It will benefit greatly those who are moving into senior
associate and manager roles in consulting and banking industry; those taking on managerial
responsibilities in multinational firms; those planning one day to launch a start-up; and those
moving into roles as HR manager.

Management Consulting (Prof. William Reinfeld)
What is Management Consulting -- history of the industry, how it differs from other
applications of management, what are the personal qualifications and qualities a good
consultant must have
Skill development -- communications (listening, talking, writing), logic, analysis,
problem solving, creativity; writing proposals, writing reports, making presentations, etc.
Business development -- market focus, selling, value, pricing, planning, branding
Management -- client management, project management, people management,
knowledge management

Change Management (Prof. Michael Miles)
This course is designed to increase the understanding and skills of participants in
relation to conceptualizing, planning, carrying out and evaluating change interventions in
human systems. It will focus on learning how to work collaboratively with clients and client
systems to identify needs for change and to ensure that the change interventions, once
planned, are accepted by the client system as legitimate and useful to the overall functioning
of the system. A special focus of the course will be on the systemic nature of change and
intervention practice. With this in mind, the course will focus on increasing participant
understanding of social change processes and the necessary system conditions that underlie
practical human systems change efforts.

The central concept of this course is intervention, a term that can be defined as the process of entering into an ongoing relationship with a client (either persons, groups,
communities or organizations) with the expressed purpose of helping them improve. The
variety of interventions which the course covers ranges from those driven by power to those
based on the development of common values and strategies by all participants. In this sense
the course is non-prescriptive in terms of the content of interventions. The critical learnings
from the course, however, will focus on how to make change work in the real world, including
practical implementation of final change processes.

The process of the course will be highly interactive. Participants will be expected to
interact both as individual contributors in a large group setting as well as members of small
working groups during class, to speak openly and frankly about their personal perceptions of
class-related experiences and materials, and to participate actively in class discussions based
on assigned readings and/or their own personal and group-related experiences from other
settings. The process of the course will also include an organizational simulation focused on
the dynamics of change in an organizational system as a way of providing the class with a
common experiential reference point. Since the course is designed to examine real-world
issues, participants should be expecting to use their own classroom, home, and work
environments as key sources of data and information for class discussions and assignments.

Course Objectives

to develop an increased understanding on the part of each participant of the process of change intervention, including the development of client relationships, client system analysis, intervention planning, implementation and evaluation;
to develop an appreciation of the systemic nature of change process, with a special focus on organizational systems;
to develop an understanding of different approaches to change intervention;
to increase the skills of participants in data gathering, change strategy development, and organization development processes, and in the use of specific tools and data gathering/analysis approaches which can be used in carrying

Investment Banking （Prof. Gao Yan）
This course imparts a basic understanding of the investment banking business as an
intermediary in the capital and merger markets and demonstrate how it serves both its issuing
clients and investing customers by focusing on several services it provides, and several
analytical techniques for solving problems. Lecture notes, cases, outside readings, and guest
speakers are used. A part of the grade is determined by class participation.

Advanced Management Accounting （Prof. Peter Clarke）
The course entitled Advanced Management Accounting builds on and develops earlier
accounting courses. The primary objective of this course is to create a sound theoretical and
practical ability in the the area of Managerial Accounting as it applies in modern service, retail
and manufacturing organisations. The course would be beneficial to all those students that
will work in an enterprise that utilises modern management accounting practices and
techniques in planning, evaluating and controling the performance of managers and related
business units.

Supply Chain Management （Prof. Thomas Callarman / Steven Brown）
The practice of supply chain management is widespread in all industries around the world
today, and companies are quickly realizing that competition is no longer company-to-company,
but supply chain-to-supply chain. Therefore, effective supply chain management is a
competitive advantage in today’s global economy. In this course the important topic is
discussed from four perspectives: supply, operations, logistics, and the integration of these
areas.

New Photos...

2005-11-22T22:58:00.000+08:00

At my gallery from a trip to Yangcheung Lake.

http://www.apaulsson.com/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=28

To Family and Friends in NYC Area

2005-11-18T15:04:00.000+08:00

I'll be arriving back in NY Saturday night December 17th and leaving to go back to Shanghai January 3rd. Hope to see everyone!

Group Meetings & "Team Building"

2005-11-16T18:19:00.000+08:00

Last weekend we had a group meeting starting at 10am Sunday morning. This, usually, is not a good sign. Or, more accurately, a sign that you're going to be spending the rest of the day in a little discussion room holed up with Excel spreadsheets, textbooks, case studies, and multiple versions of a Word document. Normally, this also includes lots of arguing, from the mundane ("I'm TOTALLY against italicizing the 3rd heading!") to the fundamental issues that should have been solved several days ago ("What do you mean you want to rethink the distribution channel!??! We settled on it last week and this is due tomorrow!"). However, things seem to be taking shape as this particular meeting involved a high level of productivity (fueled by KFC) and that I think we actually had fun. Or at least I did.

After finishing the Marketing case that we were preparing some "team-building" was in order. In the West, we call this "networking." Although, it is far more akin to having dinner and drinks than any sort of formal event. Somehow, I think it genuinely matters to the Chinese the distinction between simply saying dinner and drinks and team-building.

Hummers Overfloweth

2005-11-09T22:31:00.000+08:00

Gas prices affecting Hummer sales?? Nah....

The Mess That Greenspan Made: Hummer Overfloweth

Innovation Challenge

2005-11-07T15:19:00.000+08:00

The results of the 2005 Thunderbird Innovation Challenge are out. Our group placed 59th out of 321 submissions. Not bad at all, but Top 50 would have been super. I contend that the judges have no VISION!! The judges that reviewed our business plan left comments that we're able to read but what was strange was how many of them essentially contradicted each other. However, there was one common theme, we didn't have enough financial supporting evidence, which is to say that we had NONE! For our plan, that would have been entirely too much work and being that this was due during midterm week, we just had no time. We place 2nd out of the 9 CEIBS teams competing, with the top team at 47.

Results are here: http://www.innovationchallenge.com/ChallengeResults.htm

For Prospective Students

2005-11-02T20:46:00.000+08:00

If you're interested in CEIBS, the link above (and below) is to the new Student Ambassador program. Amazingly, I think EVERYONE speaks at least two languages so you're bound to have someone there that speaks your language. Details are provided on the website.

CEIBS Student Ambassador

Video News - Financial Video Reports

2005-11-02T13:46:00.000+08:00

This is a pretty crazy news report and video about the CEO of Apex Digital (the company that sells those really cheap DVD players at Best Buy) being forced to sign his entire company over to one of his Chinese suppliers. Not that this is common, but still an amazing story nonetheless.

Video News - Financial Video Reports

Pleased to Be Noting This Update

2005-11-01T22:29:00.000+08:00

Shangahi Stuff

Friday Night Party (AKA the Black Sexy Party)
In somewhat of a rash decision, our resident Indian decided to have a Halloween party at the school on Wednesday, a mere two days before the event was to take place. In a flurry of activity, some clever re-branding, and significant effort, the Black Sexy Party was born. I was nominated to be the DJ, which ended up being much harder than expected since the internationals and Chinese have vastly different tastes in music. Regardless, its hard to go wrong with the Jackson 5, James Brown, and Earth, Wind, and Fire! Oh, I know you wish you were there now. Also, starting the party off was a special selection of Halloween music. However, and I dare you to try this yourself, the number of Halloween songs that are actually tolerable is severely low and reserved mainly for songs you will only tolerate once a year, such as the Monster Mash, Thriller, and the Ghostbuster's Theme. The bartender actually had to go out and buy more liquor in the middle of the thing since we ran out (started with 15 bottles of liquor + beer).

Latina Masks & Knives
At the restaurant Latina (Brazilian BBQ churrascaria for those of you lucky enough to have been to one), we encountered a very, very scary sight. All the waiters/waitresses where wear masks. Now, this in and of itself is nothing to be concerned with and actually quite a pleasant sight. Until you realize that their job description is to roam around the place with pieces of meat and cut people slices WITH HUGE KNIVES! And they couldn't even see where they were going.

Space Ibiza
We got invited to the grand opening of this club, one of the more famous in the world and based off the coast of Spain on the island of Ibiza. This is really the first club I've been to in Shanghai so I can't really compare it to much else but it was really pretty impressive, at least the design. We were supposed to have a free shuttle take us from a hotel in Pudong. We got there, got on the bus, then expected to be taken right to the venue. However, we failed to ask a critical question, "Are we making any more stops?" Because the answer was yes, four! In the end, if you have the right perspective, we got a nice scenic tour of zhong Shanghai. If you have another perspective, it was a 90 minute bus ride for a 30 minute trip! But once inside, and although it was a bit far away from anything else, I was impressed. The place was an open space four stories or so high. Drinks were cheap, especially for a club, at about 25RMB for a beer. But, and this is going to sound weird, too many foreigners!!!

School Stuff

New Regime of Chinese Lessons
Tomorrow, a Dutch guy and myself start private lessons in Chinese. Eight hours per week in addition to the 4.5 hours we're doing in the classroom provided by the school. Chinese is really had but I feel like after being here for three months that I should be able to speak more. Hopefully, this will help. I just need to eliminate US$50 per week from my budget to fund it!

Finance Club President
I was elected the President of the Finance Club last week. My victory speech went something like this:

Thanks everyone for supporting my campaign for this very prestigious position. I'd like to commend my competition for the high quality that they set. There was some mud slinging and I had to throw some people under the proverbial bus in order to rise to the top, but I think you'll be happy with my dictatorship. I mean leadership. Everyone who would like to shake my blessed hand, please line up on the right. But please, no autographs. Ok, maybe some for the kids.

OK, so I ran uncontested and there was no competition. Still not quite sure what that means but I have heaped upon myself another helping of work. I know, not the smartest move I could have made!

Exchange Students
We have a new wave of exchange students her for the next 6 weeks or so. They come from Barconni in Italy, London Business School, Rotman in Toronto, McGill in Montreal, and a couple more. They have got the sweet life. Many of them have dorm rooms on campus as well as apartments in the city! Also, their course schedule isn't the most grueling ever conceived. I am not convinced I also need to be an exchange student.

New OB professor
Part I of Organizational Behavior ended two weeks ago and we're not onto Part II with a brand spanking new visiting professor. The new Professor comes from Canada and is a fantastic teacher. This part of the course is more about person to person OB and small groups, as opposed to

Course Mid-Term Results
We've gotten our Marketing report back we scored just about average. We had some problems with vagueness and having too many ideas and not enough information about each of them. The fact that we were limited to 6 pages double spaced really hurt us. I think we could have easily doubled the page count if we were allowed.

Statistics came back very good, but that should have been expected since I have a lot more statistics experience than most people. It would have been a very omnious sign had I NOT done well.

Still waiting on the Accounting exam result.

OB Part I exam went terribly. However, and I will not get into the specifics right now, the entire OB Part I course grade may get scrapped due to the exam that was given.

Finally, I need to update this space more often with less words rather than huge sporadic posts.

Space Ibiza Shanghai

2005-11-01T21:31:00.000+08:00

Saturday was the grand opening of the new exported club Space Ibiza in Shanghai. Here is the view from the 3rd floor balcony.

Paper Dancing???

2005-11-01T21:26:00.000+08:00

The two organizers of the event dreamed up three activities for the party and also a fashion show. Paper dancing was the only one that actually happened, though. And lame as it was, it was actually very funny. Every woman takes off one of her shoes and puts it in the middle of the room. Then the guys go and pick one of the shoes. He then has to go around and find out who it belongs to (the "Cinderella" part). Then they get a square of newspaper opened and laid our flat. In our case, this was the esteemed Financial Times, to which I'm sure the editors would have rejected as appropriate use for the newspaper. The couples then dance when the music comes on but have to stay within the confines of the paper. Music plays for 30 seconds to 2 minutes then stops. Anyone off the paper is disqualified. The newspaper is then folded in half and the process repeated.

Dance Party

2005-11-01T21:23:00.000+08:00

I think I have to clean the lens on my camera.

How the Black Sexy Party Ended For Some People

2005-11-01T21:21:00.000+08:00

With drunk Germans passed out in lawn chairs on the balcony in a witch hat. And leather pants.

Taxicab, From the Inside

2005-11-01T21:19:00.000+08:00

This is the inside of a cab, which I think I described before. The plastic shell surrounding the driver and all. I still haven't figured out if this is to protect the driver from passengers or the other way around. But it is quite intrusive.

Lights, Lights, and More Lights.

2005-11-01T21:16:00.000+08:00

One of the many lighted buildings in Shanghai. This particular example had all sorts of swirling colors and is really cool. But, I have to ask the question.... Why??? Not that it's not cool or anything, I just want to know who approves these things.

MEAT STICKS!!!!

2005-11-01T21:12:00.000+08:00

Among my favorite foods in Shanghai, and cheapest, was in attendence at the F1 race. This is a meat stick guy. They carry these long, thin grill things around on their bikes, pour some coal into it and then they have all sorts of meat on sticks (hence, MEAT STICKS!!). They put this spicy seasoning on top and is one of the best late night post-bar foods ever. However, its very, very important not to ask what type of meat it is. Perhaps matching pizza in the US. Also in attendence, and you really CAN'T get away from these guys are the rolex peddlers. EVERYWHERE!

Winner!

2005-11-01T21:09:00.000+08:00

Race winner and the youngest F1 World Champion ever, Fernando Alonso, 24. First year in a long time that Michael Schumacher hasn't held this title.

The Race

2005-11-01T21:06:00.000+08:00

Turn 1, lap 1 of the Sunday race. Surprisingly, no accidents.

Feng Shui

2005-11-01T21:02:00.000+08:00

A perfect example of Chinese feng shui architecture. Many buildings have holes smack in the middle in order to let the evil spirits pass through. Relatedly, traditionally the Chinese think that evil spirits only travel in straigh lines so old roads were designed to be curvy to thwart the efforts of the devils. Finally, in old homes, you have to step over a raised block at the front door. This prevented evil spirits from entering the home.

Kids Everywhere

2005-11-01T20:59:00.000+08:00

After qualifying on Saturday, we somehow took a wrong turn and ended up in the bus section for what seemed like THOUSANDS of children. They were everywhere and chatting us up in English at every chance. I mean, how many times can you answer the question, "Hello! How are you???"

Home Stretch

2005-11-01T20:55:00.000+08:00

Start/finish line of the F1 Chinese Grand Prix. Pit lane is on the left and the expensive seats ABOVE pit lane, with the still pretty expensive seats on the right. At least they were safe if it rained. Which it didn't.

CBS News | Smurfs Bombed In UNICEF Ads | October 12, 2005�17:30:07

2005-10-24T14:38:00.000+08:00

The smurf video I mentioned before can be seen here.

CBS News | Smurfs Bombed In UNICEF Ads | October 12, 2005 17:30:07

The Good, the Bad, and the Students

2005-10-21T11:50:00.000+08:00

Another week has gone and finally it is Friday and can rest my weary head by.... writing more!

Organizational Behavior I - This course is split in two and Friday a week ago we had our final exam for part I, focusing on the organizational behavior of companies as a whole. The actual class itself was good, involved lots of cases and the "learning out to think" style of learning rather than rote memorization. However, the final exam we took, well, I'll just say it was NOT an MBA level test (and I'm not saying it was too hard). So as a result, there has been a shit storm of mass emails going around school to discuss it. It didn't encompass the spirit of the course we had been taking over the last 6 or so weeks. Anyway, we now have a new teacher for the second half of this class.

Organizational Behavior II - The newly arrived professor for part II comes from Canada and is going to give our accounting professor a run for his money as the best professor here so far. This section of OB is more about individuals and groups than the organization as a whole. He seems to be one of those professors that is great, friendly, and approachable but also highly demanding of his students, which is probably the best kind. Only problem is that he's Canadian :p
Financial Accounting - We had the midterm for this class on Tuesday and of course the part I knew the worse, building cash flow statements, is the biggest part of the test! D'oh!

Elections - We finally had student elections this week and boy was it a surprise. The int'l students didn't have much expectations for high representation since we only make up 20% of the class (same as last year that only had one int'l on the committee), including the first ever int't Class President at CEIBS. However, in a huge upset, int'l students took nearly half the positions! First meeting should interesting.

Chinese F1 Grand Prix - I would be hard to say the track was IN Shanghai, since it was a good hour (free!) shuttle ride out there but alas, technically it is. The facility, although already falling apart a bit and is only 2 years old and only has 3 events a year, is quite impressive. I finally got to compare the Montreal Grand Prix to something else, and well, overall Montreal pretty much wins hands down, if only for the way F1 transforms Montreal for a weekend. Since Shanghai is so big, when F1 comes to town its more like a medium size event while in Montreal it is THE event for the weekend. The constructors championship came down to this, the last race of the year, between Renault's Alonso and Fisichella and Mclaren's Raikonnenn and Montoya separated only by 2 points. However, Renault was all but guaranteed the championship when Montoya's car was damaged by a loose drain cover on the track (see falling apart note above). The vendors selling fake merchandise and binoculars were everywhere and sometimes separated by the official vendors by a fence and 20 feet. Another plus, the food and drinks were *cheap* for an international sporting event. For what you'd pay for one hot dog at Yankee Stadium, you could get a hot dog, hamburger, and two Fosters. Not bad!

Innovation Challenge - We finished the innovation challenge paper just in time on Monday afternoon. A little stressful, especially since it was the accounting exam couldn't be ignored, but I think it came out great. Ok, our idea was great, if our actual paper is up to snuff remains to be seen. But unfortunately, I cannot reveal our task since we signed an NDA and our work is now all property of the sponsor of our question, Hilton. If we make Top 10 out of 150 or something groups, we go to Arizona and compete for 1st place and US$20,000!

I'll post some more various pictures once I can figure out why my website is refusing to let me login.

China Builds Its Dreams, and Some Fear a Bubble - New York Times

2005-10-19T15:11:00.000+08:00

SHANGHAI, Oct. 16 - Move over, New York. This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City.

That is in a city that already has 4,000 skyscrapers, almost double the number in New York. And there are designs to build 1,000 more by the end of this decade.

Once again, if you ever want to be astonished by numbers, China never fails.

China Builds Its Dreams, and Some Fear a Bubble - New York Times

Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

2005-10-17T09:32:00.000+08:00

If anyone downloads this, I demand you email it to me immediately.

Telegraph | News | Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

Classes in Chinese Grow as the Language Rides a Wave of Popularity - New York Times

2005-10-17T01:53:00.000+08:00

Classes in Chinese Grow as the Language Rides a Wave of Popularity - New York Times

Finally! Real New Post!! Plus Good News (for me)

2005-10-13T21:56:00.000+08:00

Due to the schedule of school and since it is just getting started and we all have to get used to the unusual workload, I've been a little, uh, negligent regarding the blog. Anyway, I have a far more vocal readership than I expected so if I ever want to return home, I'd best start writing. And its not for a lack of material, either.

Onto the good news. The Chinese government as UNBANNED blogspot.com so I can now view my own blog from China! Now, if that's not social progress, I don't what is!

Onward.

Innovation Challenge
There are all sorts of business school competitions in various locales around the world all with different themes and I've signed up for one with four chinese classmates called the Innovation Challenge run by the Thunderbird business school in Arizona. Basically, four companies that want free and cheap labor all submit a "case" or problem to this program. Thunderbird distributed it to all the teams last Saturday and they give you a week to work out a two page plan. Some judges then pick the top 10 tens and invite them all to go to Arizona where there is round two, except you only have like 24 hours or something, then you give a presentation. The companies involved are IBM, Hilton, American Express, and the USPS. Now, you must be thinking, well, if you have time to do this EXTRA work, how could business school possibly be keeping you so busy? Well, the answer is, we don't have time for this at all! The week we have to prepare includes one midterm, one case study report, a group project report, plus the regular course load. I'd tell you all about the questions in we got, but I agreed to some confidentiality agreement regarding the material, which I didn't read (Hey! This is China! It's easy to forget about intellectual property and binding legal agreements here), and I don't want to disqualify my group before we've even finished.

More CEIBS MBA Class Info
Business Writing and Presentations - This class was only two weeks, although an intensive one, and really added to the "shock and awe" of the first two weeks. After it was over, at least the daily schedule of classes became more manageable. The teacher in this class, a relatively young guy called Mark, was quite a good teacher. This class was more for the teacher since many, although they have decent english, haven't ever written a business report in english or given presentations in it. Anyway, despite this, I'm the last person to say that I couldn't use a little practice in these either. So, until about 2 weeks ago, most of us had a quite favorable view of the class. That is until we got our grading sheets back (one for a group presentation and one for an individual report). We were told that content would play a big minority role in these items since content was not the point, but rather presentation and proper format/structure/logical flow/etc. The grading sheets said about 20% content based grade for each. So our presentation seems to have been graded at about 40% content and the same with the individual reports. And not a single native english speaker was in the top 20 reports. And not to bash the Chinese since its no fault of their own that they can't write perfect grammatical english (ask me how many chinese characters I can write!), but judging but the quality of writing I get (more on that later), it seems a little strange. But, I'm probably sounding a little overly critical now since this is only a 1 credit course and we're really all here to learn and not lose sleep over our grades, but it's a little frustrating when the rules of the game change after you've submitted a report.

Statistics - This course continues on its very useful and entertaining tack (yes! I said entertaining!). Although the chinese have some trouble understanding the teacher, as well as some of the non-english speaking international students, since he's from the south. The most entertaining part of class is when he cracks jokes that only Americans would really understand I'm the only one that busts out laughing (my fellow American and Canadian classmates apparently have better control over themselves) . I think the class has now learned to ignore me. However, I did found out today that this happens in every class where only one or two people laugh out loud at his jokes.

Marketing - We had a really interesting group case project due today about Brita water filtration. Ok, so it doesn't sound interesting, but it was in that nerdy, business school kind of way. Anyway, this is where many of the tensions inside groups started to reach their breaking point. Although all the international students are pretty cross-culturally minded, being in a group of 4 or 5 chinese who work in a totally different manner than we're used to can be a frustrating experience. Part of the reason we're here yes, but I'm not sure if we all expected this. The int'l's past time has become complaining and telling stories about our trials and tribulations in the group meetings, if for no other reason than to vent. Some examples:

A group coming to an agreement on a plan, the int'l leaving and then all the chinese staying behind and changing everything.
A particularly forward and direct int' student being essentially cut out of his group because he was not at all participating in the group the way the Chinese expected (here harmony, patience, and balance, even among these young, future leaders of China, are more important than a direct and more confrontational approach).
A group arranging group meetings with the sole purpose of having a meeting.
Spending 12 hours on a Saturday in a single meeting.
Taking 2.5 hours with the only task being delegating duties for individual work!

A bit of cultural sensitivity in the approach to group meetings goes a long way. And this is not to say that all the chinese get along perfectly either or that the foreign students are perfect either, its just that since no group really has more than one int'l student, its hard to these stories. In fact, in the second case above, it was pretty much all the int'l students fault he was cut out. However, this is the most trying experience of being here so far, it really is an expected inital result. There are entire companies, studies, and reports about cross cultural differences and especially in societies as different as the West and China, they are bound to play a central role.

Anyway, part of being a native english speaker means that I'm the final proofreader (or, editor is probably more appropriate) for all written reports. And this isn't just changing an "a" to a "the" but more like translating one form of english to another. Not that I mind necessarily, since I'm not about to turn in something with sub-standard english since its so easy (but time consuming) to correct.

Financial Accounting - Mr. Xu continues to somehow making account funny as hell and interesting. Well, since I'm familiar with accounting, sometimes I have trouble keeping my eyes open (especially after a 3am night), no matter how hard I try. Although I do have a finance compatriot who I can count on being on as bad shape as I am. Coffee here is critical! The professor spares no one in his little accouting tirades (US GAAP? Stupid! Chinese GAAP? Stupid!). But the pace has been pretty quick, and even I'm a little worried about the upcoming midterm on Tuesday. The other students state of confidence can be more aptly described as alarm, despair, anguish, terror, panic, and gloom. And I may be underestimating. Accounting is one of those things that seems pretty simple on the surface with clear rules and theories. But its all the little details, and there are tons, that get intimidating. We have a group project (a different group's is due every class) due at the beginning of November on *warning accounting speak* the effect of capitalizing research and development expenses (OK, calm down accountants, this is just for demonstration purposes only!).

Organizational Behavior - We have a midterm... ah... tomorrow but its not one of those classes where there is anything to memorize but supposed to be learning "how to think." We basically get a case to do individually for 2 hours that we have to analyze.

So, I think that's all of them. Oh, no Economics, but nothing especially interesting to report there expect that I aced the first quiz, which was a nice mental boost considering I suck at micro-economics. So in general, classes here at CEIBS are moving along and it seems we've been in them for half a year when its only been 6 weeks. It's a little tricky managing the workload, which is intentionally higher than we're able to deal with since we also have to learn to prioritize and set time tables, etc.

Culture Points
There is so much to say under this general heading so I'll just say a couple of things. China is the land of contradictions. You can't generalize the Chinese, as easy as it is to do physically, it can't be done across regions and provinces and even cities. The culture is incredibly diverse so your impression of China will hinge greatly on where in China you go.

One the more frustrating things you experience here is that you can go to a store, restaurant, or other business and ask a question to four different people and get four entirely different answers!

The students in the group meetings tend to be a little more more generally political than in the US. What I mean is not political in the overall sense of government issues, but in the group setting. There are definitely subtle strategies going on all time and I'm guessing this results from the sense of face and status. Hopefully, more on this later.

Fireworks at on the Huangpu River
Last week was National Week, as I've mentioned and one night I happened to be at an apartment on the Pudong (east) side of the river having dinner on a balcony (where we inadvertantly ate snake. I've always wanted to try it but getting 2/3rds of the way through a meal before realizing you're eating snake was a little anti-climatic. I was hoping to experience it by going to one of those specialty places where they skin it in front of you and serve you four dishes all based on that snake finished off with a glass of snakes blood!) when a ferry stopped in the river (and by no means a big one) and it just started firing off fireworks in an impromptu display which went on for 10 minutes. They really do fireworks right here! Not to mention that during the week holiday you could hear fireworks going all night long, but officially organized and by individuals.

The Language
Still making what seems like slow progress but I'm at the point where I can go about the easy and daily things in life without looking bewildered 100% of the time. More like 95% of the time. But that's a step!

F1
And finally, F1 comes to Shanghai for the 2nd Chinese F1 Grand Prix. We'll see how it benchmarks against Montreal.

And a final note in order to end on a good one, I really love it here. If I sound critical, its not entirely intentional but, the difficulties are a little easier to talk about than the great things. But I'm quite satisfied with the school, the students (all of them!), and Shanghai. I don't think I've said it yet, but if you ever have the opportunity to make it here (here being anywhere in China), don't pass it up!

Shanghai, a Far East Feast - New York Times

2005-10-09T11:57:00.000+08:00

Shanghai, the new restaurant town. I can't say that I've been to any of the places mentioned in this article, being that there are tons of restaurants here, but the local chinese places seem worth a shot, if for no other reason that a NY Times restaurant reporter went there.

Shanghai, a Far East Feast - New York Times

Lax

2005-10-03T20:45:00.000+08:00

I've been a little lax posting here since school really got into swing, but I have the week off here for National Day (or more appropriately Week) I will do some updates.

Shanghaiist: This is why they build walls around cities

2005-09-29T09:41:00.000+08:00

National Week in Shanghai. 83 million people. The photo is amazing.

Shanghaiist: This is why they build walls around cities

Week II

2005-09-16T19:46:00.000+08:00

Week two ended for us today, or actually yesterday for Section II since we have Friday off. Some sections have mornings off, or afternoons off, but we basically have a full day of class Mon-Thurs and all of Friday off. Except, of course, Friday morning was when my room was scheduled to be cleaned. There are maids that come around every two weeks and give the bathroom a once over. What luck I had when she came knocking at 9am this morning. I was forced to send her away in the interest of my continued sleep, which shows where my priorities are, I guess.

Business Writing and Presentations
This two week class ended for us on Tuesday when we had a 1,500 word report due on cultural differences between countries. We had four options (none including easy ones like the US or China) and had to write a recommendation to an imaginary client firm on the cultural and business differences between cultures. I chose the Sweden/Thailand option. Being Swedish, this should have been easier than the others, except for the fact that I've never actually lived there. Anyway, the purpose was not really on the content but on effective report writing. This wasn't as big a deal for me as it was the Chinese since this was probably one of the first business reports many of them have had to do.

Saturday morning we have to give a presentation on one of four topics, ours being Shanghai Tourism.

Food
The food here is fantastic, and I'm not even talking about the city of Shanghai. Next to the cafeteria there is a small restaurant which goes by many names (cafe, canteen, fandian, canting, and strangely, cafeteria). They have soda, bottled water, coffee, beer, and wine. But most importantly they have a great Chinese food menu and also a small Western food menu. The Western stuff is hamburgers, pasta, salads, etc. The usual suspects. That's good when you really get sick of cafeteria food. But the far better option is the Chinese food, and this isn't the General Tso's kind. I've basically been eating there for lunch and dinner (except for the occasions we go off campus) everyday. My current favorites are the stir fried beef with spicy green peppers, spicy chicken with nuts, and spicy tofu chili (cubes of tofu with some ground beef in a red sauce, called ma pu dou fu). Notice a theme there? We usually get a group of people together and order several dishes and the total usually comes out to about 15-20RMB, or about US$2. This is really unbeatable.

Economics
This is the one class I didn't comment on last time, and well, not much to comment on except that unlike the other classes this is your regular old microeconomics class. If you've never taken an economics class before what this entails is imagining situations that never happen in life and applying theory to understand them. What I mean by this is that you have to make assumptions like:

Assuming nothing changes in a situation
Assuming people are omnicient
Everyone always acts rationally

In english, what would the price of wheat be if technology never changes, people consume the same amount all the time, and pigs could fly. Not that the class itself is bad but just basic microeconomics! All you angry economists can email me your strong worded responses to the email address on the left of this page.

Group meetings
Like I said, all the international students are split up evenly among the Chinese classmates. Really, I wouldn't have it any other way, but there is some frustration here. The cultures are so different that inevitably there are difficulties. Some students have adapted better than others. One guy in particular, went into his group meetings and was direct, opinionated, lacking in compromise, and pushed really hard to do things his way. The end result was not pretty. Its much more about consensus building, which can take far longer than I'm use to doing things back at home. But that's what all us international students are in China to learn. What I have learned is how incredibly motivated and smart the Chinese students are, though. They really go out of their way. The problem is that if you can accomplish something in one hour, they say to themselves, this can't be that easy, we haven't worked hard enough, we have to keep working on it for 3 more hours. So that's the level of work ethic we're dealing with here. They do work really hard all the time but sometimes not the most efficiently. And not that I had low expectations, but they continue to impress me with the way they think and they're creativity. Once they are in small groups, they somehow become far more creative than they do when in a classroom.

U.S. probes Bank of China

2005-09-09T00:28:00.000+08:00

Another reason why Foreign banks have no idea what they're doing when it comes to buying stakes in Chinese government banks. The Royal Bank of Scotland might regret buying 10% of this bank.

CNN.com - Report: U.S. probes Bank of China - Sep 8, 2005: "t"

Secretary-General of the Council of the EU and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy

2005-09-06T22:32:00.000+08:00

Full press release for the visit we had today. I think the most bad-ass part of this was that, paraphrasing now, he said to us "Yeah, I was with the most powerful men in China yesterday, it was cool, now I'm here and pretty psyched, the school is not only great but also important for both the EU and China, and oh yeah, tomorrow I'm meeting with the most powerful men in India, thanks for let me stop by."

Now, since I really know nothing about the EU, here is the link to his wikipedia entry and you can click and found out precisely what a Secretary-General and a High Representative actually are: Javier Solana without me having to lie to you.

Shanghai, China, September 6, 2005-This morning Secretary-General of the Council of the EU and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Mr. Javier Solana visited the Shanghai Campus of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and spoke to over 300 assembled diplomats, faculty, students, alumni and sponsors about the China-EU Strategic Partnership. This was the second visit by a senior delegate of the EU to CEIBS in less than two months, a first for any business school worldwide, after EU President Jose Manuel Barroso visited CEIBS last month.

In his speech today, Mr. Solana emphasized the importance of cooperation between the EU and China in their bilateral relationship and that both are working together on the issues outlined in their strategic partnership. He cited CEIBS as an example of this cooperation and encouraged students to take advantage of their positions and opportunities, "to make the world a better place". "What has been done here is of great importance," he said of the school that is a partner between the Chinese government and the EU. "I have closely followed its development as an international centre of excellence."

This was the first visit to CEIBS by Mr. Solana, who spoke openly about his meeting in Beijing yesterday with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, saying it was a good and warm meeting with frank exchanges. Mr. Solana discussed the strategic partnership that was launched two years ago, saying the meetings held yesterday proved they, "really do have a partnership which is growing both deeper and wider".

The visit of Mr. Solana to the CEIBS campus follows the announcement that Nobel Prize Laureate, Robert M. Solow, has confirmed to teach at CEIBS next semester.

Please note that Mr. Solana's speech will be posted online shortly. To receive a fax copy, please contact tmichele@ceibs.ed.

Finally, this blog has now reached more than 2000+ hits!

Class Notes

2005-09-06T22:09:00.000+08:00

A brief rundown of my classes, and let me emphasis brief since we've only had one class of each so far.
Statistics: This is not your run of the mill college stats course, which seems to be a general theme of classes here. Instead of drilling into our heads all the fun formulas for standard deviation, chi tests, and multi-colinearity, this is more geared towards using practical statistics in business. We we'll be using Excel and other programs to do most of the calculations for use while we concentrate on figuring out what the hell the results mean rather than how to calculate them. This is really the kind of course that all colleges should teach to business students because the boredom and confusion level should be significantly less. Also, like other classes, many problems will be case based. Teacher is from Tennessee, which some of the Chinese students aren't too excited about since he does have a little bit of that drawl. For me, this isn't a problem, especially since I have to hear Australian, European, and Indian accents from my fellow students.

Marketing: This teacher came highly recommended from the 2004 class and turned out to be true. A very novel approach for this class, and especially the more fact and memorization-oriented Chinese students. There will be no memorization and doing it won't help, since this class is supposed to teach us how to THINK about marketing and learn techniques rather than having to memorize volumes of marketing jargon. Very welcome class format! Mostly case studies.

Business Communication: British professor who is here for only two weeks so this is a short class and thus intense. We have a 1500 word individual paper due next week, plus a 30 minute group presentation. The point is not to research a topic thoroughly and learn a lot but more learn how to write a proper business report and give good presentations. This one is pretty easy for international students since we've been doing this for a while.

Financial Accounting: Chinese professor, which initially worried me since I remember having foreign teachers in engineering school at Lehigh that were very difficult to understand, who is a riot. Really. Yes. Accounting class is the one I have laughed in the most. I can't say I expect this to continue, but here's hoping. Again, this is case based and not about learning how to tranlate balance sheets into income statements into cash flow statements but more about analyzing these statements and drawing conclusions, instead. This does not bode well for helping me study for the CFA since that is far more technical, but at least this class will be able to keep my interest! We will, however, be reading lots of annual reports.

Organizational Behavior: This is taught by a Spanish professor who was also part of orientation and is entertaining. This is more about how business organizations work and will require lots of reading and, yes, case studies.

Economics: First class is tomorrow.

So overall, I'm really quite impressed with the faculty as well as the class formats. I was worried this would be all brute force memorization of information but instead is much more of a thinking man's approach rather than a something that would be far more boring.

And finally, some really interesting news, next year CEIBS... well, I'll let them say it:

The visit of Mr. Solana to the CEIBS campus follows the announcement that Nobel Prize Laureate, Robert M. Solow, has confirmed to teach at CEIBS next semester. Nobel prize, bitches!

Ok, I added that last sentence in.

First Days of Class and I Remember Why I Preferred the Working World

2005-09-06T21:54:00.000+08:00

First two days of class have now come and gone. The schedule of classes seems to be a bit random, though, and I'm not quite sure how long it will take to get used to. Monday and Thursday are the same, but that's it, and only so for the first couple of weeks. The entire 180 person class is divided into groups of about 60 and we all will be in the same classes with that section. First up for Section II on Monday was Statistics (what a way to start a monday morning!), Marketing, lunch, then an afternoon of Business Communications (writing reports, doing presentations, etc, this one is only 2 weeks long and pretty intense as a result). So this is 6 hours of class plus 1.5 hours of Chinese after that. Today was even worse, 8:40 start and an 9PM finish. The Secretary General of the EU equivalent to Condelezza Rice, apparently) came to school today and that just extended the whole day to be way too long.

And I remembered why I preferred the working world to school, I can stop for dinner when I need it at work! It is now 10PM and I just got back from having dinner after a 6 hour marathon afternoon/dinner session. Literally, Financial Accounting from 1:30 to 4:50, then Chinese class from 5 to 6:30, then Organizational Behavior from 6:40 to 8:30. THEN, group meetings!! And its only the second day!

El Dorado

2005-09-05T22:56:00.000+08:00

The final day of orientation ended with a game called El Dorado. The idea was for the professors to trick us into thinking that we should be competitive but the reality was, they wanted, and we needed, to work together. The game was to find a treasure and each team had different information that we needed to trade with each other. I was volunteered to do the negotiating and after about 45 minutes, I had gather a bunch of info but the more we gathered the more I realized how much we were missing. Eventually, we managed to pull all 10 groups together to solve the problem and this was by far the most stressful of the "tests." However, we did manage to not fail!

Orientation Day 1-3

2005-09-04T15:00:00.000+08:00

The majority of Orientation was based on team building and a concerted effort to "break" our competitive spirit but using very effective, if devious, methods. Everyone at this school and all top MBA business schools has gotten there by being competitive and especially for Westerners its been part of our lives since pretty much the beginning. So the school realizes this is a problem since, at least during the program, they want us to work together and not against each other and the result is this Orientation.

Day 1 was simply, basically identifying your personality and putting it together with your group members (which are assigned, one International student for every group).

Day 2 was more interesting. There were 3 games, Win As Much As You Can, Cave Rescue, and 5 Tricks.

5 Tricks: You all sit in your new group and are given a sheet of paper with instructions for a card game, a little like Hearts but much simpler. So you have 10 minutes to learn and practice it, then the real game starts and the twist is there is NO talking. So you play for 10 minutes and the 2 winners go one table forward and the 2 losers go backwards to another table. The rest stay put. So effectively, the next round has 6 people from 3 different groups. You start playing and you quickly realize that some people didn't really understand the rules and the result is general, albeit silent, chaos. Tempers flared, people threw up their hands in frustration, and some laughed. Afterwards, it was revealed that every table had been given a slightly different set of rules for the game and the morale of the story was that in International business, everyone comes to the table with a different set of cultural rules and expectations.
Cave Rescue: Here you are given the profiles of six people stuck in a cave and you have to evaluate who to rescue first, one at a time. All different nationalities, race, sex, and age. Some were outstanding citizens, some were "losers" and some had great social benefits to society but weren't necessarily good people. The idea here was that different people set different priorities for who they would rescue first, the Chinese generally preferring the rescue the old, then women, then men. I finished my individual rankings in 5 minutes but it was funny watching the Chinese really trying hard for the full 20 minutes looking for the "right" answer.
Win As Much As You Can: Basically a game theory excersize. You picked an X or a Y and what the four partners at each table collectively picked (without talking to each other) determined the pay-out of money. YYYY meant $1 for everyone while XXXX meant -$1 for everyone. The trick is that if you're selfish, you pick X but if everyone can pick Y you get a good payout. However, all it takes is one person to pick X and they get $3 while all the Y's then lose $1. So its based on trust and all that. The group I was in quickly resorted to backstabbing and dishonesty!

Crab season under way

2005-09-03T13:31:00.000+08:00

I'm looking forward to trying this if I can justify spending US$50 on two crabs...

Crab season under way

Orientation Day 1 (Official Count)

2005-08-31T20:46:00.000+08:00

Today was team building day.

For the next term, I will work with the same 4 people on all class projects (rather than having a different group for each class, which would be a scheduling nightmare). They intentially split up all the international students so most groups have one international student (some have two now, since we have 40 foreigners).

We took a personality test and learned about team dynamics, somewhat interesting but spending all day doing it was quite tiring.

Had dinner at a Japanese place that was grossly overstaffed (12 waitresses greeted us at the door!). Now, time to study more Chinese.

Pictures

2005-08-30T19:09:00.000+08:00

Uploaded some more pictures to http://www.apaulsson.com/gallery of our orientation. It was a little weird. Supposed to be a team building workshop but felt more like kindergarten for MBA students since we spent much of the time making and sailing our boats plus making a really, really long fabric dragon.

And We're Off!

2005-08-30T10:50:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend and Monday, the other 120 students descended onto campus. As if learning the names of 60 people in a month wasn't hard enough, there are now another 120 people's faces who now require that I learn there names.

The first orientation day consisted of a registration in the morning, then a introduction to the administration, then a couple of speeches, followed by "cocktails."

The speech, paraphrased, went something like this, "You are the best in China, work hard, don't cheat, set an example for the rest of the country."

The "cocktails," as they were labeled, were not really cocktails at all but more like finger foods & soda. We were all expecting at least some beer and wine and were quite disappointed to find only the non-alcoholic type drinks. This was remedied by a trip to the canteen for 8RMB Tsingtaos.

We've also gotten a lot material, the most interesting of which is a student profile book that has a picture and background submitted by each student. The school had previously requested we submit 200 words and a "non-portrait" photo. But I assumed a non-portrait photo was supposed to be a fun one. So yeah, now I'm the idiot in the hat who looks like a lunatic.

This morning we had our statistics and calculus assessment test. Really not that bad at all, I thought, and so I don't expect to be taking the "remedial" course (that's that they called it! Remedial! Probably the main reason I don't want to take the course).

I'll give some more detail on the makeup of our class later. But for starters we have people from China, US, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, North & South Korea (Yes! North! Seriously), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guatemala, Canada, India, Ireland, Australia, and Thailand. Although, as expected, the Chinese number around 140 of our 180 person class.

Random Baiyunyuan Notes & Aussie Barbie

2005-08-28T18:28:00.000+08:00

Some random notes I wrote down during the trip last Monday

The Chinese students put on music over the bus's horrible speaker system for almost the entire 4 hour bus ride. It was pure torture. Four hours of what was basically Easy Listening 101.7. Kenny G, Bryan Adams, Muzak with "Chinese Characteristics" (literally! Elevator music! That's bad enough for the 20 seconds you spend in an elevator, much less four hours). Although, I would prefer this hands down over the Chinese karaoke singing I heard a couple of weeks ago. But seriously, why Kenny G???
Table Manners: On the way back from the waterfall the first day, it eventually ended up with the 4 international students walking all the way down (the rest cheated and took a bus), and the conversation quickly turned to the table manners of the Chinese. The Indian didn't really care because he said in India you always eat with your hands, but for the two Spanish and myself, the manners are somewhat appalling, at least initially. There really are very, very few rules regarding who to do (and not) when eating in China. Feel free to spit any bones or undesirables right onto the table, no need to even lean down, either. Many times, you simply get a little tiny bowl and thus there is no room for anything else, hence the spitting. And you can throw out all the years of "no elbows on the table" rules. Doesn't matter. Smoke whenever you want and feel free to hawk loogies on the floor, too, especially if you're inside! What's funny is, you find yourself adopting these mannerisms and when I go back to the States, everyone will be horrified, so you've been duly warned. Yes, I expect to get thrown out of the house during Christmas at home.
After the 4 hours on the bus, then the 4-5 hour hike up to the waterfall, we finally made it back around 5:30 for dinner. Siddhartha immediately retrieved an armful of beer and before I knew it, I was being toasted individually by every student. The odds were NOT in our favor. 3 drinking internationals and 25 toasting Chinese. And they don't just want to toast, either. "Chug with me! We finish bottle!" Oh god. It was a drinking fiesta, one which Eduardo did not survive. I did, however, "gain much face" by drinking 8, 9 or 10 750ml bottles of beer, besting the nearest Chinese student by double. But they were relentless so this wasn't really my choice! I literally had to hide at points.
After a while, a fire was started and soon thereafter, and I have no idea if this is common or not, a congo line around the fire. Another couple of hours and everyone was taking turns jumping over the fire. But, they did this in a kind of limbo/jumping hybrid style. They'd sort of limbo up to the fire under some sort of imaginary limbo bar then take a leap of faith. Leg hairs were singed. I can't remember if I participated in this activity.
The Redneck Chinese Jetski Boats. Of Death. On Tuesday, after the 300 meter climb, they had these insane boats and drivers. You got in, while the driver was shoveling water out of the boat, put a death grip on the side handles, and before you know it, the driver is careening around the lake turning so often and fast the boat nearly becomes vertical.
And of the 25 or so names I learned on the trip, I have now forgotten them all. Awesome.
Chinese Breakfast: They simply just do NOT understand the western concept of breakfast, which is to say something different than you'd normally have from lunch and dinner. Nope, its the same things you eat during the rest of the day, rice, rice porridge, beef, fish, vegetables. This is perhaps, next to rural toilets, the worst part of daily life in China. Thank you Carrefour for your selection of international cereals.

Just now, we came back from an all you can eat Australian BBQ. It was heaven. 80RMB (US$10) for sirloin steak, filet mignon, sausages, chicken, ribeye steaks, lamb chops, and vegetables. Oh, and that included one free drink. Of course, these are no NY Steakhouse cuts, but hell, you have to be thankful for getting any meat that is too big to hold with chopsticks here.

Not that I'm really complaining, because it really is great here. Just... ah... different.

Oh, and I think I'm now used to coming within inches of my life during every cab ride. I've even started to goad drivers to go faster. This will probably be my undoing.

One more thing! At Lion's Bar, a small little pub-like place near the school and our new favorite place, we were introduced to a new and apparently very typical Chinese drink. Chivas Regal mixed with bottled green tea and ice. It was actually pretty damn good, give it a shot if you're adventerous and can find bottled green tea. Or if you're just an alcoholic looking to introduce more antioxidants into your diet.

2005-08-24T21:52:00.000+08:00

Ok, stop reading here. I kinda messed up the posting order of the pictures here. So skip down to the picture with an Indian guy in a blue shirt dancing in the aisle of a bus. When you get to the bottom of that, return here.

2005-08-24T21:49:00.000+08:00

The ancient fisherman's village and monument... place. Featuring many statues, chinese characters, and an unexpected 300 meter climb up the mountain. Actually, everything on this trip was unexpected since we weren't really told the agenda and we didn't bother to really ask.

2005-08-24T21:47:00.000+08:00

This village was a monument to a fisherman. Basically, the legend is this, a fisherman and his buddy were childhool friends. Then the buddy went onto to be emporer and invited his fisherman friend to come and help him run China. The fisherman refused because he said he would rather fish. And, um, that's it. Not sure if we four international students were missing something or whether its really that simple.

2005-08-24T21:44:00.000+08:00

This was the starting point for a climb up 300 vertical meters, with stone statues stone slabs covered in chinese characters. Most of them were famous poets during various times in Chinese history.

2005-08-24T21:41:00.000+08:00

I particularly like this photo, not only because its cool, but if you look at the figure on the left, I will dare you not to see the striking resemblance of his facial features to a generic Simpons' character!

2005-08-24T21:39:00.000+08:00

By no means the official name, at this site excursion they were giving boat rides. And by boat rides I mean Redneck Chinese Jetski Boat Rides. Of Death. Seriously, if you imported a family of back water US southerners here, with in weeks, I bet this is exactly what they'd be doing!

2005-08-24T21:36:00.000+08:00

These boats went nearly vertical. I really don't know how they stayed afloat, but a telling sign was watching the driver pour out bucket after bucket of water between leisurely cruises.

2005-08-24T21:34:00.000+08:00

I don't know where the hair dryer came from, but it was heavily used as most people got unexpectedly soaked.

2005-08-24T21:32:00.000+08:00

Don't know who this guy is but he has a fishing pole and a couple of fish, and some scavenging birds next to him so I will go out on a limb here and say he's some sort of fisherman.

2005-08-24T21:30:00.000+08:00

The end of our second day excursion and the barely sea worthy craft we were on. Many tired faces here, and after stopping for lunch, everyone but me fell asleep on the way back home. So, of course, I was forced to write on all their faces in permanent marker.

2005-08-24T21:27:00.000+08:00

After being twenty minutes late, and also the only person late, for the 7:30 bus departure from CEIBS, Siddhartha was forced to dance in the aisles to cheesy Chinese pop music. If that had been me, they would probably have thrown me from the bus into oncoming traffic.

2005-08-24T21:25:00.000+08:00

This is our "hotel" and was not that bad, bathrooms aside. They definitely packed the rooms in upstairs and trying to find your bed while drunk was like playing blindfolded hide-and-seek.

2005-08-24T21:22:00.000+08:00

After the four+ hour bus ride, we finally arrived for lunch, which in China, is never a ham and cheese sandwich. On the menu was chicken soup (not the kind you're thinking, basically a whole boiled chicken in some flavored water), snails, a whole fresh fish, pork, tofu, soy beans, and spicy beef. And, of course, the ever present chinese sticky white rice, which despite having all the time has not gotten old. I've actually started looking forward to it, except for breakfast, which is a whole other issue.

2005-08-24T21:18:00.000+08:00

After lunch we headed out. Destination: Unknown. I just followed everyone else and hoped it wasn't to some "burning of the foreigners" ritual no one had warned us about. And I know what you're thinking. No, that bridge definitely was NOT confidence inspiring. And it didn't help when people started jumping up and down on it in what I could only view as a preview of the foreigner burning ritual.

2005-08-24T21:15:00.000+08:00

A giant character carved in the side of this mountain and it means "dragon." Or so I was told.

2005-08-24T21:12:00.000+08:00

On the hike, we were frequently crossing a stream over and over. The water was relatively devoid of life, though, and I don't know why. Aside from the bamboo and with a little bit of imagination, this place could have been the Appalachian mountains. This was actually a little surprising to me since I expected a lot more "Wow, what the hell is that??" moments.

2005-08-24T21:09:00.000+08:00

What I'm guessing was the goal of our hike up the mountain, but I have no idea since no one told us anything! And it wasn't as much a waterfall as it was a really, really steep stream. And unfortunately, no one provided comic relief by falling in the water. It was actually a really nice place and hike.

2005-08-24T21:06:00.000+08:00

Someone managed to scale the rock walls near the waterfall and pick these flowers, although I have no idea what kind they are. He then gave it to the Spanish girl in our group, who, proceeded to be quite embarrassed, especially after everyone started a "Give him a kiss!" chant.

2005-08-24T21:02:00.000+08:00

Dinner after our long day travelling and walking. We dined al fresco. I actually managed to take this photo before we devoured it, finally. There is duck soup, basically a whole duck boiled in some water and not taken apart or anything. This requires immense chopstick skills to eat from. Also, frog, sweet cucumbers, young bamboo, whole freshwater fish, that stupid green spinachy stuff that I eat every damn day now, two types of pork, and tofu. The frog was kind of like a mix between chicken and fish, more flaky in texture than chicken, but the flavor was a little bit of both. Anyway, I didn't go hungry.

2005-08-24T20:55:00.000+08:00

This was the toast that caused the ensuing 5 hours of crazy chinese partying. You can see these beer bottles are closer to our American "40z" than our 12oz bottles in size. If, also, not in taste but far, far more cheap. 3RMB per 700ml bottle, which works out to 40 cents or so.

2005-08-24T20:52:00.000+08:00

There were three puppies roaming around the place. Strangely, there were no mommy or daddy dogs. I'll let you make your own conclusions.

2005-08-24T20:51:00.000+08:00

This is where it went all wrong for Eduardo. Cigar in mouth, he was tipping the jar to get every last bit of the homemade "wine" in the jar. It wasn't really wine, but more along the lines of moonshine grain alcohol. He spent the next 2 hours in the bushes swearing.

2005-08-24T20:49:00.000+08:00

Our party provided all night entertainment for the villagers of this very small area. I guess they hadn't seen 25 drunk chinese and international students in a while. A fair trade for the good they served, though! Now, I just hope they didn't also give us the gift of dysentery, hepatitis A, or japanese encyphalitis.

2005-08-24T20:46:00.000+08:00

Half of the group (the cooler half!) at Tuesday's Dinner at Little Sheep after we got back to Shanghai.

2005-08-24T20:45:00.000+08:00

Dinner was at "Little Sheep" a chain restaurant originating in Inner Mongolia and specializing in what they call hot pot and pretty popular all over China. You basically have a heated pot of boiling water and aromatics (garlic, onions, and other weird unidentifiable things). Ours happened to be split in two, a mild side and a hot side. And yes, the red on the left side is all chili peppers. You then order a variety of raw foods, then cook them yourselves in the boiling soup. Our featured dish was pig brain, which wasn't half bad!