The Richmond MBA

Monday, June 1st thru Friday June 5th:
Tsinghua University (http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/eng/index.jsp) and its’ School of Economics and Management was a short ten minute walk from the hotel.  The first morning we had a two hour campus tour.  The campus was beautiful and large, but we didn’t get to see inside any of the other buildings or dorms, which I thought unusual, though time probably played a factor. 

It was interesting seeing the differing building architecture on campus (and in the city).  There were a blend of old and new structures that seemed to make no particular sense or order in style or type.  The tour, given by two students (one, an American from San Francisco in the International MBA Program, and the other a native in the MBA Program) turned less enjoyable about thirty minutes in, as the heat of the day started baking us in our professional attire.After our campus tour we ate at one of the student cafeterias.  The food was buffet style like any cafeteria you could find in the U.S.A. and it was good, although I imagine it would get old, as they all do, when you eat it time and again.  Dessert was watermelon and you have to try, just once, to eat a full triangle with chopsticks.

We had five classes that week with five different Professors on the following topics: Mandarin, Chinese Cultures and Values, Business Communication in China, Managing Competition in China, and China’s Economic Status and Challenges.  I won’t bore you with the minutiae from the presentations, if you would like to know more, please let me know.In general, all of the professors (except the language instructor, that was strictly Mandarin) discussed and were very knowledgeable about our government and gave the appearance of taking our politician statements very seriously.  A couple even quoted President Obama and referred to his inaugural speech.  My perception is this is due to how big a role the PRC’s government plays in their daily life.  

Some of the discussions gave me an eerie feeling of big brother was watching and while I never felt personally threatened at any point, I had a hard time not challenging what I deemed violations to personal liberty and property.The professors were upfront about their government and its’ role, at least to my limited understanding.  While there was some criticism, the focus was more on the good outcomes with the bad minimized and somewhat trivialized as a small character flaw (not really different from anyone talking about their home country to foreigners).  And, other than Chairman Mao, the government was not really personalized or individualized as it is here in the U.S.A.; here a speech will be attributed to President Obama or an individual politician, a speech by a politician in China is a statement by the government.  What is released to the media seems to be deemed as backed by the government as a whole.

Another common theme was the importance of the movie “The Last Emperor”; we were often asked if we had seen it.  (I did come home and promptly watch it; I think my understanding of the film was better for having visited China and learned more about its’ culture and history directly.)

During the week we visited Microsoft, Li Ning (our ICP Company), Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and saw shows at the Heaven and Earth Theatre (acrobats) and the Laoshe Tea House (instrumental music, singing, opera, and comics).  A number of us visited bars in the Sanlitun Embassy area, near the University and traveled to a night market where the wares were fried scorpions, sea horses, starfish, assorted bugs and snakes for a dining adventure.  I only tried the scorpions, they were so small that it tasted like crunchy fried turkey skin.  I didn’t hear anything good about the starfish or snake.  I also tried a fried vegetable wrap which was wonderful, except I couldn’t taste it after I got to the spicy sauce that they barely painted on.  My lips burned from the chiles for over an hour, definitely not a condiment for those who don’t like spice.  

Alex, our student contact, invited some of us to play badminton one afternoon with his friends, where we taught them the word “whiff” because that is mostly what we Americans did!It is interesting looking back on this first week, because at the time, I felt like I was making a huge headway into learning about the Chinese culture and country.  We were exposed to so much and it was hard to take it all in. 

Since then I’ve read a couple of books that I would highly recommend: Peter Hessler’s River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze and Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present.  After finishing them I realized how little we actually touched on during the trip.  Beijing was just one city in a vast country with an extremely diverse population.  I wish I had read the books before going on the trip to possibly enable me to learn more about the individual people we met, and perhaps be able to ask better questions to connect on a less superficial level.