Sacha Gera: China Study Trip ~ Beijing...Part 2/4

It was the night before the trip and Geeta (my wife) drove a classmate and me up to Toronto to crash in an airport hotel so that we wouldn’t have to fight Toronto traffic in the morning. We were excited to say the least, and it was tough sleeping that night. The next morning, a number of classmates converged at the Continental airlines gate at Pearson International Airport. You could feel the excitement in the air that morning, although you could also tell that many in the class had been up all night packing and were exhausted.

My flight was composed of two segments, Toronto->Newark and Newark->Beijing. Upon landing in Newark, we had about an hour to connect flights. I sat down with some friends for a quick lunch and somehow we lost track of time. Yup… we almost missed our flight to Beijing. How embarrassing! Having the Continental boarding reps scream at me for being late didn’t make me feel any better, but I admit that I deserved it. Generally throughout my life, I’m the type of person who is quite timely, and relies on myself. I’m also the type that does a ton of research on our destination, follows a schedule to a tee, and often leads the group on a travel trip. This time, however, I decided that I would take a back seat, do absolutely no research on the destination, and would rely 100% on my classmates. I figured that there were enough type-A leaders in this class and that I could easily sit back and relax. Guess I didn’t get off to a good start ;)

The 14 hour plane ride to Beijing was enjoyable. I was sitting with two of my Team 5 teammates and close friends, which made for a comfortable and fun ride. As we landed in Beijing, my neighbour and I observed a puffy cloud that spanned for roughly 100 km around Beijing. It seemed like kind of an odd-shaped cloud as it had a number of pillars (like plumes) jetting out of the tops of the cloud. It didn’t take us long to figure out that this was not a regular cloud, but a pollution cloud engulfing the city. Those pillars jetting from the clouds were emissions spewing from factories! Upon landing, the pilot came on the PA and announced the current weather in Beijing; “cool and smoky.” It was hard not to laugh at that. I had never heard anyone use the word ‘smoky’ in a weather report. The Lonely Planet (popular travel book) reports that one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking 70 cigarettes.

I shared a taxi with a couple of mates on the way to the hotel in Beijing. The taxi driver spoke no English and all we had was a name of a hotel. About 10 minutes into the trip, we realized that our taxi driver didn’t know where to go. On top of that, it appeared as though he was illiterate and couldn’t read the Mandarin title of our hotel (apparently 40% of taxi drivers are illiterate in China). My mates and I struggled to figure out a way to convey the location of our hotel to the driver, and after much struggle we found a suitable method. My friend had an iPhone with an English to Mandarin translator. We would type sentences in English and the phone would sound them out in Mandarin. That seemed to work and we finally arrived at the hotel.

After a couple of days, it didn’t’ take me long to formulate some initial thoughts on Beijing. For one, the infrastructure was far beyond what I expected. The highways were in excellent condition and very new, the airport was efficient, the subway was second to none, and the road system seems to do a fantastic job of handling 4m cars. There was some obvious real big $’s spent on the city in preparation for the Olympics and it showed. It wasn’t just the Bird’s Nest (Olympic Stadium) or surrounding Olympic Park, the entire city had benefitted from the Olympic spend and it showed. The pollution on the other hand was out of control. It appeared foggy and hazy on most days and often times one couldn’t see the sun. The only time I had ever seen it so bad or worse was in India. Apparently, Beijing had implemented ‘Project Blue Skies’ in an effort to curtail automotive pollution whereby only even or odd number license plates could drive on specific days (most families were buying two cars with one even and one odd numbered plate to get around it). Based on the air pollution and particular matter in the air, it was difficult to judge whether the program was effective or not. Overall, the city had a historical and political feel to it as opposed to a commercial one. In some ways it felt like a big, historical capital city with a few thousand military personal roaming the streets, and was less commercialism than expected.

Picture: Beijing freeway and pollution (left), soldiers (right)

What was interesting on a personal level was the fact that after a few days in Beijing I felt more confident about the possibility of living in an Asian city or reaching out beyond North America as a possible place to live in the future. I realized that the city was in fact quite liveable and that I could function just fine independently if I needed too. In some odd way navigating the city via public transit, bartering with aggressive shop keepers, struggling with the locals over language, dealing with corrupt taxi drivers, and getting lost on a couple of occasions, was a huge confidence builder. The trip was already having a positive effect on me and an in addition I felt that I was forming strong bonds and friendships with my classmates. I already knew that this trip was worth it and that missing it would have been a big mistake.

Beijing is a city of 18m in the metro area. It’s expansive and spread out and well connected with infrastructure. The boulevards are very wide open (very Paris-like), and the buildings are spaced out which seem to make the city feel very non-dense. I must admit that I was expecting a heavy population density, and big crowds everywhere, but I found that Beijing was quite the opposite. I still can’t figure out how 18m people live in the city. Where does everyone live? Sure the city is filled with thousands of mid-rise buildings, but few skyscrapers, and it only took about 20 minutes to get into the outskirts of the city. Frankly, in my opinion Toronto appears far more congested, dense, and expansive for a city of roughly 5.5m in the metro or 1/3rd the size.

The following are some of my highlights from Beijing:

On the first night, a group of us hit a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we experienced authentic Chinese food and beverages. What a fantastic night it was; one in which we had a nice meal, drank lots of local beer, and shared a number of good laughs with some good friends. The entire bill for eight of us was about $45 CDN; we couldn’t believe it! Definitely a night I will remember.

Picture: Eating out on the first night

On the first full day, a group of us set out to do some sightseeing in Beijing. We covered a wide footprint of the city and nailed most of the top sights: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Silk Market to name a few. I like to do a lot of sightseeing on trips and one my biggest pet peeves is when I’m with a group of people and we aren’t moving quick enough such that we miss seeing out on sights, or if someone gets tired and alters the plans for the day. What I realized on this trip is that most of us in the program are very similar in nature. Most of us have the travelling and sightseeing bug implanted deep within us; perhaps this is a common trait amongst successful Ivey applicants? Not only did we function as an efficient sightseeing group, but there were no expectations of each other. If someone wanted to depart or do their own thing there were no hard feelings. Anyhow, what a great day!

Picture: Tiananmen Square

Hitting the Silk Market for the first time was insane. Silk Market is a famous market in Beijing where you can buy a variety of goods ranging from clothing to jewellery, and where no fixed prices exist. It’s bartering nation! Having Indian origins and having visited India a number of times, I must say that I was used to the aggressiveness and bargaining ways of the store keepers. I think a number of my classmates, however, were blown away and overwhelmed by it. In terms of bargaining, the prices were very elastic! Generally, one could bargain down to 1/8th of the starting price and sometimes even more. A classmate and I spent a number of hours trying to finish up my shopping list that my wife gave me, and it was tough and tiresome to say the least. The two of us recently took a negotiations class and functioned in a good cop/bad cop manner, and it seemed to work very effectively for us. After a couple of hours the two of us were feeling exhausted, and I had a pounding headache from all the screaming and insanity in the market. By the end of it I had so much stuff that I had to buy an extra suitcase. It was only day 2 and I was up an entire suitcase…argh! We decided to grab a coffee at Starbucks (yes: Starbucks is everywhere in China and is a bit more expensive than here) before looking for a taxi to the hotel. Getting a taxi home was a horrible experience. No driver wanted to take us home on the meter (as per law) and instead they were trying to set a fixed price which was roughly 10x the normal amount (they claimed that it was cheaper in rush hour). It wasn’t the amount of $ that they were attempting to charge us, but rather the principal of being cheated: We refused to set a fixed amount. The two of us decided to walk out of the Silk Market district (roughly 15 minutes out), and we finally found a driver that put the meter on (although we needed to repeat it to him in Mandarin about five times before he actually turned it on). I think I speak for most of the class when I say that taking taxis in China is not a pleasant experience!

Another highlight of Beijing was the ‘Cultural Plunge’ activity that we all had to take part in. Essentially, as part of the China Study Trip elective we were assigned to learning teams and had to partake in the ‘Cultural Plunge’ whereby our team was allocated a budget and had to complete a number of activities. As part of those assigned activities we had to engage in a personal service, barter and buy a good, do something kind for a local, take part in a local activity, and visit a number of locations around Beijing (to name a few). One of the memorable parts of this day was meeting a rickshaw driver and having him join us for lunch. He took us to a local Chinese restaurant where I had the best Chinese food I’ve ever had in my life. What a cool experience.

Picture: Lunch with local rickshaw driver

On the last couple of days in Beijing we had an opportunity to listen to a number of keynote speakers including an executive from South African Breweries (SAB), a partner from IBM Global Business Services (consulting), and an executive from Fruits and Passion (Canadian retail chain expanding in China). We learned about the do’s and don’t of conducting business in China. For example, we learned about how the different levels of Chinese government play an active role in influencing business, including taking investment positions in many of these companies and forcing joint ventures on foreign multinationals. We also learned about how joint ventures play an important role for foreign businesses entering China, particularly in the areas of establishing government relations, and setting up operations. It’s was obvious to me after only a few days that China was a force to contend with lots of business opportunity. If you can't beat them you might as well join them.

I guess I didn’t mention much about our visit to the Great Wall of China and the Olympic Stadium Tour. What can I say other than it was incredible and very memorable. Climbing that mountain up to the Great Wall and taking a toboggan back down (almost like a bobsled) was something I’ll never forget. Checking out the Olympic Stadium was also surreal having just watched it on T.V during the summer.

Video: Sliding down from the Great Wall of China



Picture: Olympic Stadium-Bird's Nest (left), Great Wall of China (right)


Stay Tuned for Part 3 of 4; Shanghai.