It is Tuesday evening and tomorrow we fly back to the USA.  We spent the morning today taking the high speed train from Hangzhou to Shanghai.  It was very comfortable 1 hour and 18 minute ride at about 170 kph max speed (approx 100 mph).  This afternoon everybody had time to squeeze in whatever they still wanted to do in China.  This evening we had our final evening meal together as a group.  Tomorrow we depart our hotel at about noon to catch our afternoon flight.  We will take the MagLev train  http://www.smtdc.com/en/index.asp  to the airport, which goes as fast as 430 kpm (270 mph) which is as fast as any student will have travelled over the ground. 

This will be the final blog of the course.  I hope you enjoyed it.

If you see any students that participated in the course be sure to ask them to explain China to you from the perspective of a Chinese person.  They are all writing a reflective essay on that topic before next week Monday.

Our hotel in Shanghai is on East Nanjing Road, which is the main shopping street in Shanghai.  It is spring festival right now and many people are not working and most seem to be shopping.  The below is a mid afternoon East Nanjing Road street scene from today.  Note not only the number or people but also that all the hair is black.  A sea of black hair.  This stretches as far as the eye can see... perhaps a mile or so.  Our hotel is on the left about two blocks down this street. 

We had a group dinner on a boat permanently moored on the HuangPo river in the Bund area with great views of the Pudong skyline across the river.

This is the gangplank leading to the boat.

Table 1

Table 2 - note the view of the river and beyond.  Shanghai is a city of night lights.

Table 3

Everybody tucking in to their last Chinese meal.  In the foreground are Danny, Jeff, Andrew and Lance.

Roast duck is always popular with the students.  A little roast duck with sauce and small celery strips on a minature crepe.   Mmmm, good.

Dumplings filled with meat ball and broth.

During the share-funny-story-time, Danny telling the group about the middle aged guy who made himself at home in his and Josh's "open-door-policy" hotel room one evening. 

Karen and Whitney with a colorful boat passing by.  Shanghai is a feast for your eyes at night.  Every five minutes or so we were reminded we were on a boat because it would gentle sway a bit in another boats wake. 

After dinner some of the grouped walked back to our hotel on along the Bund.  The below is a view of the buildings on our side (the Bund side) of the river.  These older buildings were built by Europeans when they had concessions in Shanghai from approx 1850 to 1900.  The buildings look like transplants from London. 

Some of the students who were walking posed for a picture with the Pudong side of the river in the background.  That side has all been developed in the past 20 years and is quite different from the Bund side.  Big buildings, strange shapes, lots of moving lights.

Vendors were selling paper balloons that have a small candle in them.  You open the balloon and light the candle and let the balloon go up.  The heat from the candle carries the balloon up and away until it passes from sight because it is too far away and too high. 

Jessye working with the vendor to get it set up.

How do you light this thing?  Krista, Prof Si, Monica, Jessye and Suzanna.

The vendor back to show them how.

Holding it up right until it fills with heat

And there it goes (center right of photo - looks greenish)

Many people were buying the fire balloons and sending them up.  Here you see five of them high in the ski.  The go very high, clearing the tops of the buildings as the wind carries them off.

We celebrated the Chinese new year (lunar new year, also called Spring festival) on Sunday evening and Monday.  It involves a lot of fireworks.   I asked students to help me describe the the fireworks to an American who has not been to China on the new year.  Some student suggestions were "like fourth of july in every direction", "war zone" and "apocolyptic".   You need to experience it for yourself if you like fireworks.  Let me try to help you visualize it.  First, know that large scale fireworks can be purchased easily by anybody at a pretty low price.  Second, know that Chinese love fireworks and thus pretty much everybody purchases large scale fireworks.  By large scale I mean the type that a typical town in america shoots off on the 4th of july.  Third, know that we are in a densely populated city with no open space except the streets.  So private citizens start setting off their fireworks at dusk and it builds in intensity until midnight at which point the city is a defeaning roar of fireworks going off in every block in the down town area.  As far as the eye can see it is just fireworks.  In addition people purchase long strings of fire crackers and these are going off more or less continously all over the place.  By long strings I mean any where from 10 feet to 100 feet.  The 100 footer strings go for about 10 or 15 minutes. There is usually several of these going off within easy earshot.   This is all occuring in close quarters on the sidewalks next to tall buildings.  So the echos are deafening.  The fireworks sparks smash into the sides of the buildings if a fire work doesn't go very high.  At midnight if you are on the street you will have a large amount of both incredulity and fear.  Words and pictures cannot describe it.  If you don't believe me ask one of the students on interim. 

Oh, by the way, the fireworks and firecrackers start up again at six the next morning and continue off and on again throughout the next day.  Our head pyro, Shawn, was heard to say "I love this country!!!"

In addition to the fireworks, we had two nice group dinners including art, games and competition along with reflecting on some of the final chapters from Crossing Culture by Patty Lane (a Christian author).

We put these signs on the hotel room doors of all our hotel rooms.  It says "blessings" in Chinese.

Group dinner on new years eve with some special decorations in our private dining room.

Two chicken heads and a duck head

After dinner the class pyros (Brad, Taylor, head pyro Shawn, and Josh) got out their fireworks so we could watch them set them off.  The big thing Shawn is holding is a unit of 16 large fireworks that go off in sequence with one fuse.  They set them off a few feet outside the hotel front door per hotel permission.  Of course these guys' fireworks were like childs play compared the the other fireworks going off.  I saw probably 100 times this amount set off right outside my hotel window over the course of the evening... which was not even an important place to set off fireworks in Hangzhou.  Other areas were crazier.

After the guys set off their fireworks (along with many other people setting of fireworks) at about 9:00 p.m. we walked to the lake which the town is built around and viewed the musical fountain.

Then some of us walked a short distance to McDonalds to buy ice cream.  The cone lovers Krista, Jimelle and Whitney.

Those that prefer sundeas, Allison, Marissa and Elisabeth

Some shots of fireworks from my hotel window later in the evening.

Yes, this is what it looks like - They are going off directly above the building next door.

Oops, that big boomer got a little low.  Oh well, no harm done

Another low boomer (this happens many dozens of times).  Note the cars going by and there were people walking by unperturbed.

Image this in every direction for several hours with deafening roar.  Note the smoke from the fire works.  If you were outside your hair got full of falling debris

The next day (new years day) I took a walk with my wife Karen around the lake in the city.  It is beautiful although the weather was very overcast and cool.

Karen in front of lake with some pagoda in backgroud.  This area is an important Buddhist area in China.

New years evening we had a little class party.  Here Prof Si is teaching us how to do calligraphy.

Jeff, Emily, Prof Si and Suzanna.

Monica, Jimelle and Jessye

Krista and Taylor

This is how you hold the brush, Lee

Brad trying to figure out which stroke is next.  Taylor in the foreground.

Josh and Shawn

Josh's finished work.  The Chinese characters mean Love and Blessings.

The CALVIN stamp we had made for the occasion.

Some finished product drying

We all had red scarves for the new year.  The Chinese tradition is that the word "year" rhymes with a name of a bad dragon and you need to scare off this dragon at the beginning of each new year to avoid having a bad year.  The bad dragon is scared of red and noise.  So you wear red or put read on your door and you set off many loud fire works.

Jessye helping Suzanna adjust her scarf.

Danny and Andrew vamping, with Lance not vamping.

We then had a chop stick competition with two teams.  They idea was for each team member to pick up a small item and carry it around the table.  The quickest team won. It got pretty heated but thankfully ended in a draw and we avoided fisticuffs.

The ace, Prof Si

Lance working hard

Abby struggling, with Emily, Monica, Whitney and Elisabeth looking

Don't drop it Rachel.

Sunday morning we worshipped as a group at Hangzhou International Fellowship, which meets in the building of a registered church for Chinese nationals.  The fellowship we went to is in English and only for foreigners.  The government regulates how Chinese Christians organize and worship and does not allow denominations, but lets foreigners worship without these regulations.  But this means that unregulated churches can only be for foreigners.  In addition to these two types of churches (registered and for foreigners) Chinese people can met and worship in other places (homes, rented space, etc) as long as the meetings have 25 or fewer persons.

We took a city bus.  Here we are getting on.  Fare is RMB 2 which is about 25 cents.

Hang on

This poor guy spent the night outside and it is pretty cold this morning... about zero celsius.  As in most cities over several million people in USA, one sees some homelessness and begging in China.

These people are helping us greet the new year. You see these characters all over, along with a stylized ox.   It is new years eve today (Chinese lunar new year).  A huge holiday in China starts today.

Old building on a hill seen on the way to church.

The front of the church building.  Remember this building is owned by a large registered church made up of Chinese persons like we worshipped at in Shanghai last week.  The international fellowship we attended today is made up a a few poor foreigners who live in Hangshou and just uses space in the large registered church building.

Shawn and Taylor in a church hallway

The sanctuary.  We are all sitting in the left front.  We arrive a bit early before the regulars.

We meet a guy from Grand Haven, named Martin, with a good Dutch last name.  He is in Hangzhou teaching English and on some business.  We took our photo with him, on the left, with Krista, Marissa, Andrew, Whitney, Danny, Elisabeth and Jeff.  It was very nice to have a service in English and to see Christians from all over the world worship together... quite a few Africans, some Australians, some Canadians and Americans.

On Saturday we made a day trip by bus to Suzhou.  Suzuo and Hangzhou are described by the Chinese as the two cities just below heaven.  They are both on the Yangtze river delta and have a lot of water.  Suzhou has many canals in the city with arched bridges over them.  In ancient times both cities where the capital of small kingdoms and were rivals since they are only about 150 km apart.  Suzhou is famous for silk.

Our bus broke down on the way and we got towed to the nearest exit.  It was very cold this day and the diesel full was jelling up in the line and filter so the motor would not run.  After getting towed the driver poured hot water over the filter and line and then mixed 4 liters of gasoline in the diesel fuel tank.  That worked, so about an hour later we were under way again.  I would not recommend the gas mixing thing for your diesel motor.

Getting hooked up.

The tow truck driver relieving himself.  This is a common site in China.

Back to work

Under way.  Here we go down the road..

See you later, tow truck.  Thanks for the lift.

Monica, Jessye and Suzanna listening to our guide talk about silk production at the silk factory.

Sorting cocoons

Unwinding the silk strands from the cocoons, with Monica paying close attention

Helping to make a silk quilt

Next we visited a very nice private garden, I think it was called Lingering garden by our guide but I am certain that is not its real name.  The garden surrounds an old mansion from about 500 years ago when Suzhou was a very wealthly silk city.  There about about 50 such old mansions and gardens in Suzhou, built with profits from selling silk to Europe.

The owner liked rocks and had these natural rocks found and brought to his garden

Cold accountants Jimelle, Rachel, Elisabeth, Krista and Whitney

One of the many arched bridges you see around Suzhou.  It was considered the Venice of China in old times.

We visited an active Buddhist temple.  Buddhism looks pretty entrenched in China.  I guess that is not surprising since it has been the main religion for several millenia, with a short respite from about 1950 to 1970's due to communist revolution.

The main idol, Buddha

Burning incense as part of the idol worship.  Buddha was a man in India who died over 2400 years ago and is probably not in heaven.  More likely in the other place without any power.  So it is sad to see so many people praying to this dead idol.

Another idol.

You want to hold on to a fellow Christian in this place.  Not a bad idea in most places actually.

The tower at the temple

Monks

Sleeping on the way back to Hangzhou.

Greenhouses.  Typical countryside in this fertile area. 

On our self-directed-learning Friday some of us also went to the six harmonies pagoda.  It was built in the 1100's as a Buddhist holy place.  They were seeking the true God but nobody came to China to tell them about Him yet.  The pagoda is pretty large and impressive.  It was built at the time when Hangzhou was a leading city in China as the capital of the southern Song dynasty.  There is a lot of money in Hangzhou now and there must have been then also.  Today I saw dealerships for Ferrari, Mercedes, Maserati, Porsche and Rolls Royce in town. 

The pagoda

Climbing to the top... Rachel, Rachel, Jeff, Whitney, Elisabeth, Abbey and Marrisa.

Ceiling of one of the inner rooms.

Top-of-pagoda accounting majors Whitney, Jimelle, Rachel, Elisabeth, Marissa and Krista

View of the river in Haungzhou.  Part of the Yangtze river delta.

View of the hills from the Pagoda.

Suzzana posing on a window sill at the top of the pagoda.   Don't ask.

Group pic at top.

Karen and Prof Si

Behind the pagoda on the small mountain is an area of Buddhist shrines reachable by many stairs and pathways.  There are also dozens of small replica pagodas.

Suzanna and Rachel

More small pagodas

You probably know that China is the origin of tea.  Haungzhou is one of the famous areas for tea in China.  So in Haugnzhou we have the China National Tea Museum, which we visited.  Tea first started for medicinal purposes in China more than 2000 years ago, before the written history of China began.  Then about 2000 years ago it started becoming a more mainstream drink.   This museum traces the whole history of tea.  As long as over 1000 years ago there were tea scholars and books written on tea... how to grow it, prepare the leaves, brew it drink it, etc.  It is an important part of China's history and culture.  More important to China than baseball is to America for example, in my opinion.

We had a self-directed-learning day on Friday, so some of us decided to visit the museum and learn about tea.   Mission accomplished.

Exterior of main building

Almost everything was labelled in some kind of English, but this plaque needed some explanation from Prof Si.

Some of us found this explanation pretty interesting.  Apparantly tea can cure most of your problems.  The students were especially delighted with the penultimate paragraph.  I guess the last sentence of the plaque pretty much sums it up !

Because they are dyed.  China makes a large portion of what Americans wear.  American prefered colored clothes for the most part.  So the color happens because some business people in China decide to invest capital into dying factories.  We visited one called, ZheJiang HuaDeLi Textile Dying near HangZhou.   This company employs about 900 persons in this plant.

One of the managers explaining how they dye fabric.  The plant was idle due to the new years holiday vacation. The workers are given about a week off to return to their extended families hometowns.

Prof Si interpreting

Our host inside the machinery.

Explaining the steam system.  They need a lot of heat for the process, and electricity.  They have their own power plant on site.

Shots of the yard and buildings.  Most older trucks in China are blue.  It was the official truck color until recently.

One sees quite a few three wheeled vehicles in China... triucks, cars, bicycles with beds to haul things, and motorcylces.  Some are new, others are more classic like this one.

More company trucks.  I like trucks.

The stack from the company powerplant.  Clothes dying has high polution potential.  The acids in the washing process looked pretty nasty.  The smoke stacked looked pretty big.  We asked about this.  The manager said the stack has sulpher dioxide scrubbers and is monitored continously (every two hours) electronically by the government environment agency.  He also said they were co-owner of a new waste water treatment plant which has cost them a lot of money (he mentioned a figure which I forget).  He spoke with some conviction and detail (in Chinese) so our first impression is they take this seriously.  Of course we did not do any in depth questioning, testing or investigation so cannot vouch for the veracity of his statements.  I am certain that the government is quite focused on the environment, but China is a huge country both in terms of people and industry.  If you drive around the eastern seaboard of China it is pretty much all people and factories.  Fifteen years ago there was very little focus on the environment.  So even after a decade of increasing focus, there is still along way to go.  In a earlier meeting with an environmental consulting firm in Beijing, the manager said only 25% of waste water is treated in China yet, up from about 0% 15 years ago, but far behind 98% in the USA (if you have a septic system you are in the 2%).  I guess it will take a few more  decades to get to 98% in China.

At the entrance gate there was a cute boy whom Abby was trying to engage ... in conversation.  Here Monica is helping with language to see if he would agree to a photo.

When the camera came out several women in the area who knew the boy agreed to join in for fun.  The boy was blushing.  Here we see Monica, Abby, Taylor and Emily with their new Chinese friends.

When you follow a local person in China with a little money you will almost always find a great meal.  Our host for our day of business meetings in Hangzhou (the owner of ZheJiangShangYuan) led us to a great restaurant for lunch.  We had another feast for approx $5 per person.

Round tables in China emphasize the importance of community.  Most restaurants have large round table for eight to fourteen persons.  Two large tables are perfect for us.

Table one

Table two

Table two got involved in a competition of eating the very spice peppers common in China.  This is Jeff's portion to eat.

Rachel eating her portion, with Allison taking a picture and Abby pondering the meaning of this.

Jeff eating his four peppers, with our host looking on.  I wonder what she's thinking.

A sign in the men's bathroom.  Pretty clear.

If you need big concrete piles to put under the foundation of a big building or elevated highway then you need to contact ZheJiangXinYe (ZheJiang is the name of the provence HaungZhou is in, hence the first part of the name). This company makes steel reinforced concrete columns up to about 50 feet long and perhaps two feet in diameter.  There has been a huge number of big buildings and elevated highway built in China the past 15 years and it looks like this company has ridden that wave.  This is pretty basic industry, not too high tech, but somebody needs to make pilings to keep things from tipping over or falling down. 

The group pic in the work yard.  The new poured columns you see are for a new building which will allow for approx double capacity.

Carson and Whitney getting off the bus upon arrival.

Whitney being a buddy and extracting an iPod ear bud part from Danny's ear with a small tweezer from Jimelle.

The large pressurized ovens in which they cure the concrete columns.  The manager explaining the process.  Prof Si and Andrew listening.

Prof Si translating and showing how it all works.

You can see the end of some pilings in this photo.  These were about 50 feet long.

Inside the production facility.  It was idle to due the Chinese new year vacation.

The molds, with Prof Si explaining.

This company, ZheJaingShengYuan, makes fabric, but not by weaving.  It is made from polyethylene and made by layering and then compressing with needles so that it holds together and is strong.  This is used as the basic material for making synthetic leather used to make purses and shoes, etc.   If you have a fake leather purse or shoes, look on the inside of the "leather" and you can see it is fake because it is white-ish and synthetic looking.  That is what this company makes.  Fabric is big business in Hangzhou area.... historically it was a big silk area.   Now all types of fabrics for the world market.  One can see quite a few high end cars around.  Some people are very wealthy in this area, most are what I would call lower middle class with all of life's necessities, a few are still quite poor.

Prof Si and the owner.  Prof Si is showing the polyethelene used as input to the process.  This is made from petroleum.

The owner explaining the process

A close up inside the machine showing the needles.  They have tiny hooks on them and go up and down and pull the fibres together, but not as a weave.

The product coming off the line.  Note Jimelle's new pink wool coat she had made in Shanghai !

Bales of raw material.

Another production line for putting stencil designs on some type of poly for later transfer to fabric.

We had a group dinner overlooking the HaungPu river, which is the river which flows through Shanghai. So much good food in China!

Table 1

Table 2

River view

Danny, the tea master

What is this?

Do you eat this part?

It was Allison's 19th Birthday, so the restaurant put up a birthday message and we sang happy birthday.

Group pic after dinner

Views outside the restaurant

We visited Bristol-Myers Squibb China operations called Sino-American Shanghai Squibb, where we met with some very articulate professionals who told us about their business.  B-MS is the biggest global company of all those we visited on this interim.  They were the first global pharma company to establish operations in China in the 1980s, at the location we visited which has both offices and manufacturing.  The make drugs for the Chinese market here... one of the big drugs for them is Baraclude, for Hepatitis B which has a high incidence rate in China.  We learned about other drugs B-MS makes and sells in China, as well as the history of their operations.  When they started, the land their are on was just a field on the outskirts of Shanghai.  Now it is a fully built up area.  Since they were an early leader in being in China they have been a model used by the Chinese govt for other companies to follow.  They started as a JV with the govt being their partner, but now their partner is a company which is partly owned by the government.  Either way, they are run as a regular for profit commercial enterprise in China and must operate in a way that keeps the government happy.  So in that respect, not much different than North America and Europe business enterprises.   We also put on hair nets, booties and lab coats and visited they production facilty.  Finally we ate lunch in their employee cafeteria.  The food was excellent and they treated us to it.   So that was even better than the $1 lunch the day before !  Everybody is getting quite proficient with chop sticks. 

Comnex makes LED lights for vehicles and for emergency lighting.  We visited their HQ and production facility.  They see a lot of future potential growth in LED as the technology gets cheaper and bighter.  LED lights use less electricity and last longer, but are more expensive. 

The family pic in their impressive lobby (note the LED sign welcoming us)

Our host teaching us about LED technology.  Taylor listening intently.

Josh and Shawn in the demo room

Scary twins!!

Assembling the LED light fixtures

They test each light for a few hours in this room full of bright flashing lights.  Pretty stimulating on the eyes!

The guys were especially taken with the flashing lights.  Must of made them recall some video game.  Not sure.  The photo does not do justice, but all these lights are very bright and flashing.  Think of 50 police cruisers in one room.

We then adjourned to Comnex's guest house for snacks and further Q&A.  A very nice room... warm and comfy.

Carson with one of our hosts

Our host quizing Allison, Rachel, Emily and Krista on why they came to China.... I am happy to report they said to learn how engineering and business were done in China.  Our host predicted they would be back soon when they joined the working world.

Our host telling us that when you start your own business it is like walking into the ocean and swimming in the big waves.  Monica and Brad thinking about drowning.  He said Comnex has not drowned, but they are still in the ocean.

Things are very inexpensive in China when you get away from the city center tourist areas.  We stopped at a very local worker's lunch spot between meetings in the far out suburbs of Shanghai and got a very good lunch for RMB 8, which is about $1.10.

The women

Whitney with rice almost gone.  What about the other food?

Danny digging in

SMIC www.smics.com is the largest semiconductor maker in China, and the third largest in the world.  We visited their headquarters which is adjacent to their plant in Shanghai.  The engineers in the course got a factory tour.  SMIC was started by a Christian, Richard Chang, and strives to operate on Christian principles.  We learned about the IC market, its growth, the competion and many other things about the business.  We also learned about their extensive employee benefits.... they have a large residential campus next to therir factory where employees can live for a reasonable rent and with a good landlord (SMIC) including healthcare and good schools.  They started a church in the area also for their employees and others in the community. 

The family pic

Learning about SMIC's business

Engaged students

The clean slippers we had to put on.   The engineers wore complete pink outfits when they visited the factory, but not pics were allowed.

Andrew, size bazillion, struggling