Looking back on the
trip, as well as my expectations essay (in-class assignment), there were a lot of things that
surprised me, as well as things that I expected. One of the things that I
expected was for the Chinese natives to be really fascinated with me and
everyone would want to take pictures, not only because I’m an American, but
because I am also a black American. I heard that many Chinese natives find our
fashion sense weird and our overall look to be intriguing. I realize that being
an American who only knows English puts me at their mercy at times because they
can insult me right to my face. Luckily, I really do not care. The pictures theory
was only sort of true. I did get a lot of photo requests, but it was mostly in
tourist attractions and the rural towns we would travel through. What did these
two places have in common? They both had Chinese natives who probably lived in
countryside towns instead of the more modern and diverse cities like Beijing
and Shanghai. The natives in the big cities gave me a glance, but didn’t
overreact like I thought they would. It makes since though. Beijing has a
basketball team with quite a few African-Americans roster. They also probably
see a few of them in their cities for tourism and business ventures as well. A
lot of rural Chinese people do not have TVs and there is very little to compel
an African-American businessman/woman, athlete or tourist to go there. A couple
of the people I took pictures with said that I was indeed the first black
person they ever saw in person. I do know that when you are in a foreign
country but you live in a hotspot for globalization and modernization, you tend
to meet a variety of people.
One of the major motives for this trip was to get an
understanding of how the Chinese conduct their business and compare it to how
Western countries, like America, conduct theirs. We got to visit both state
owned and privately owned enterprises so we got to see both sides of the
Chinese industrial coin. What surprised me is that from multiple accounts, we
learned that in China, the relationship between the boss and employee is of
upmost importance. I remember we saw a slide which abstractly showed the
difference between the boss-employee relationship in America vs. China. The
American slide had silhouettes of multiple people. The center person towered
over everyone else and made them look like ants. The China slide had a center
person who was only slightly bigger than the rest and you can tell that the
other people in the slide were subordinates, but still were acknowledged by the
man/woman in charge. What we heard from the guest speakers pretty much
confirmed what we learned in class. When making business decisions, the Chinese
really emphasize the team element. The boss still makes the final decisions and
is still in charge, but the people in the circle allowed to add their inputs
in. In the American business model, the individual is emphasized and the gap
between the boss and the person in charge seems to be bigger. One of the heads
of the AMD plants said that he would be willing to get to know an employee for
a full year in order to build a healthy relationship between the two of them.
Other topics that were often talked about during the trip
were the opportunity of starting a business in China, what it means to go
international for business and understanding the Chinese market. What I already
knew is that if you have a popular product being sold in China, you will be
making a major profit. China is home to over 1 billion people, so if you can
provide a service or product that is popular to the Chinese consumer, their
market is worth looking into. Then, you have the angle of a business that is
already successful in its home country but decides to go into the Chinese
market in order to expand. Companies like PPG, GMC, and AMD have done this.
Another example is the abundance of American fast food chains we saw during our
trip.
Part of going international with your business is
understanding if and how you will adjust your product(s) to fit the desires of
your new market. For example, when we had a Q and A session with Shanghai GMC,
they said that the Chinese consumer very often wanted small cars because of the
size of the people in the car or for those people with smaller families. So,
GMC produced an extra small version of a Buick that is sold to match the wants
of the consumer and is not sold back in the states. In the Chinese version of
American food chains, I saw a lot of rice dishes and Chinese sauces that
supplemented the typical chicken or pizza. When these food chains expanded,
they probably sampled some of the Chinese population and asked them what they
eat. I know when I eat at restaurants that serve foreign cuisine, I tend to
look for food I am familiar with so I do not take too much of a risk. The
marketing departments probably were thinking this as well and wanted to mix
their foods with typical Chinese cuisine so there can be a since of familiarity
with the consumer while still selling their typical product.
Chinese college life was something I was looking forward
to witnessing as well. XULU was more of a sit-down lecture with lunch
afterwards, but I did enjoy my time at Peking University. In hindsight there
weren’t too many things different from a typical American University like Pitt.
They had typical sized lecture halls. Their dorms and convenience stores looked
normal as well. The dining hall was packed. But, I expected this because during
our INNOVATE lecture class about college life, we learned that all the students
tend to eat at a certain hour, so the dining halls tend to get crowded. What
did surprise me was the intense security at PKU’s gate. They had intimidating
officers and you had to show your ID just to get into campus. At Pitt, anyone
can step foot on campus. The only places we have any serious security are the
dormitories.
Overall, I really enjoyed the trip. I learned that China
is a really interesting market to test if you have an idea, the resources and
the time. Having a start-up in China now seems not as impossible as I once
thought. I loved seeing both state owned and privately owned businesses and
learning how they make business decisions differently. The historical landmarks
were beautiful and I would love to go back to china before I leave this Earth.
I feel that I have a better sense of business in China now. So, I feel that, at
least for me, this course has accomplished its goal.
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