Final Summary Journal Entry

1)        Ethical Issues In My Profession:

 

            The largest difference between the United States and China is the form of government and how they interact with the economy.  This difference alone can set the tone for many business environments.  The clearest example of this is the respective wage rages in each country.  The wages of a Beijing worker are much lower than any employee in the United States.  The Chinese wage rates would never be allowed in the United States because it would be seen as unethical, however they are accepted in Beijing.

Another example is the environmental pollution.  We’ve all heard about it and now having experienced it, it doesn’t just sound like a news topic to me, but a real issue that should be taken care of.  The reason it seems like such an issue to me is because in the US it would be seen as unethical because of the amount of harm it does.  In Beijing, it’s simply another aspect of life because it’s been like that for so long.  The first time this issue, at least as far as I can remember, really took the spotlight was when the 2008 Olympics came around.  Instead of addressing the problem, the government tried to pretend the problem was the growing number of cars when I am convinced they knew the problem was the incredible amount of coal burning because it is simply obvious that this is the real issue.  They attempted to control the pollution by limiting the number of cars on the roads, this proved to be an ineffective attempt.  I remember reading the shock that the athletes went through when they arrived to train and compete; some were thoroughly concerned for their health.  In the United States we have environmental groups who protect against issues such as this and the government knows to keep it under control because it is extremely unethical to care so little about the health of your population and so much about the profits being made.

            The general working conditions in China are also much lower than those of the United States.  For example, and I’m sure this example will be used by all of us, the problems that surfaced at Foxcon.  If at any point a company of such stature, or any stature for that matter, were to be accused of such horrible working conditions the problem would be fixed immediately due to the level of unfair treatment occurring.

Also, many people believe that sending jobs over to countries like China is an unethical decision.  I absolutely understand why a company would do this; it saves money, increases profits, and probably increases output levels.  Yes, it takes jobs away from Americans, but I don’t think this in itself is an ethical issue.  The ethical issue is simply the devastatingly low wages and poor working conditions being suffered by the Chinese workers that are employed.  Details such as these can alter business models to incredible degrees and I believe these small details are outcomes based on the form of government and their involvement in the economic system.

 

 

2)        Education Breadth as Professional Development:

 

In today’s increasingly global economy, a broad education and understanding of cultures is absolutely necessary no matter the industry or location.  A broad understanding of cultures is especially important in the world of business because every business environment includes human interaction across borders.  For example, if I were to work abroad in Beijing I would need to not only understand the language, but understand the culture and the business environment in order to be a successful, respected employee.

The one area where American’s are falling farther and farther behind is language study.  It seems as though almost everyone in the US speaks only English.  However, I know from family that in Europe people speak maybe two to four languages on average and in China I would think many people speak their own dialect and learn Mandarin in school.  More and more going as far to study and learn English, the international language of business.  As soon as you can open yourself up to a different culture and learn the language, you create many more job opportunities and become a more sought after candidate for many positions.

I myself am a Global Management major, minoring in Chinese, and receiving an East Asian Studies certificate.  I am absolutely certain I would like to work abroad in China in the future and have Chinese be a part of my career for the rest of my life.  Therefore, I am preparing myself by attainting a major that will allow me to understand international business and I am opening myself up to the culture by taking specific classes, and by studying abroad in Beijing and Shanghai.  I know the best way to make myself attractive in the business world’s job market is to open myself up to outside culture and truly learn to understand it.

 

 

3)        Lifelong Learning, Continuing Education as Professional Development:

 

A college degree is just a way to get your foot in the door.  One’s grades and degree don’t tell employers what their capable of, they illustrate your ability to learn and the general knowledge you have or how suited you may be for a certain position.  I believe that the knowledge we gain from attending college is just the knowledge needed to understand just enough so that we can continue to learn on the job as we gain experience.  With a business degree I will be able to understand the content presented to me, but experience and continued learning will allow me to understand how to make good decisions and become successful.

I know personally from my parents how true this is.  My dad has always worked with technology and when he first began working, it started with tasks such as having a computer send a sentence from one screen to another.  Look at technology today, he has had to learn on the job and grow as new technological advances surface.  This evolution is evident in every job market today, especially in a global market.  This is because international relations are always changing and this is something we have to adapt to and understand.  These adaptations aren’t taught to us in school, but through real world experience.

College is how we transform from kids into adults, adults who are prepared to dive into the real world.  In college we face many problems for the first time, we meet new people, learn how to interact and work with others, and practice many skills needed for the future, we just aren’t aware of this.  In college we learn how to grow, adapt, and learn.  These are the lessons we take on with us throughout our entire life, both personal and professional.

 

 

4)        The Social Environment and Professional Life:

 

The social lives of the Chinese, at least those in cities, are very similar to ours back in the US.  It is evident that social class is determined by salary, more so in Beijing than in the US.  I did expect to see this because I read in many books that this was the case.  We didn’t get to see a lot of this because the district we lived in, Wudaokou, is primarily a student and young professional district so many of the residents were at similar points in their lives and levels of success.

The Chinese were aware of American news, entertainment and political issues to a very high degree, just as we are of their news.  The only question I still have is how well informed they are of their own political issues.  Due to the communist government and possibility of censorship at any moment, I wonder if their knowledge of Chinese political issues is skewed in the direction their government would like it to be.

            Also, it is extremely important to be aware of contemporary issues that relate to the global economy because they directly influence the work environment we participate in, therefore, they directly influence us and our decisions.  Many issues, such as taxes and major political decisions, have a large scale impact on business industries.  Having such an interconnected global economy means each of these decisions effect the view other countries have on us.  And the views that countries have on each other impact their relations and how they interact, which then impacts the overall business climate between countries.  This is why contemporary issues must be understood in order to be successful in a business environment.

 

 

5)        Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams:

 

Having played team sports my entire life, mostly basketball and soccer, I value teamwork more than any other skill.  Without teamwork I would have never found success and without sports I would have never learned to work so well in a group setting, which will allow me to be successful for the rest of my life.  Many people believe teamwork means everyone doing equal parts and coexisting perfectly, I’ve directly learned that this is anything but true.  Teamwork means working on specific areas that allow you to perform at your best, while accepting and giving help to and from others when it best suits the group.  Not only that, but it takes either one or two leaders and those leaders have to understand how to let moments of brilliance shine through, which means encouraging individuals to personally step up and shine when it’s needed.  It requires a balance of selfishness and coexistence in order for a team to thrive.  All members have to be confident in themselves, but respect certain boundaries and other member’s opinions.

            For example, I worked on a part of the project with John, who’s an engineering student while I’m a business student.  He put all of his ideas down first and then I put mine.  After this we each corrected and challenged each other’s ideas.  I would point something of his out that I thought was flawed and we would go back and forth trying to prove our case.  By doing so we either made necessary changes or realized why a certain detail was correct and should be used.  Due to the small confrontations caused by the confidence we had in our own ideas and the ways in which we challenged each other, we were able to create a better final product and fully understand each aspect of it.  We each allowed the other to say everything we believed, fight for our case, either found agreements or proved our case to be correct, and trusted each other when we proved that their idea was best considering their field of expertise.  We challenged each other but were able to coexist in a creative environment, which allowed us to create a final product we could both be proud of.

            I think the biggest challenge in this approach is making sure to not take anything personal and respect that it’s simply professional and to better the project.  I am able to get into a “mode” like this and then once the work is done, shut it off and be personable again.  However, some people cannot take this approach because they cannot separate feelings from business.  In order to take this approach, which I think yields the best results, everyone must be able to respect each other’s differing opinions, communicate professionally, and respect each other’s personal strengths.

Saturday, May 19th

Well right now I’m writing from my quiet hotel room in Pittsburgh.  This morning, I mean it’s been almost 30 plus hours but technically it’s still Saturday, I woke up and went for a walk yet again.  Not much to talk about at this point, I’m back home but missing Beijing already.  I woke up and it was my last morning so I wanted to spend some time walking around the neighborhood to take in the sights and smells one last time.  Wudaokou actually felt like my Beijing home at this point and it was sad to be leaving.  I went for one last U-Center run to pick up a few items and then had a solid breakfast to prepare for a long day.  Literally, it was going to be a 36 hour day with a lot of traveling.  It was sad to say our goodbyes to our chaperones, but I’ll remember this experience for the rest of my life and always keep in touch with the people I’ve met.  After sitting on the bus while driving to the airport I realized something, look at us now.  Two weeks ago we didn’t even know each other and couldn’t have been any more awkward when we were with each other.  Now we’re talking, laughing, and enjoying ourselves as if we’ve known each other for years.  The best part about the flight home was that it felt like it was only two hours long, I thankfully slept for a good 9 hours, unlike the flight to Beijing where I didn’t nod off for a second.  We all said our goodbyes to each other as our luggage appeared in baggage claim, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to come on this trip with.

            Now that I’m sitting in my hotel room I Pittsburgh, I can’t wait to go back already!  Not only that, but my enthusiasm to study Mandarin was revitalized and I can’t wait to spend this summer studying the language.  If it all works out, I’ll spend a semester next year in Shanghai and then the summer after my Junior year back in Beijing for an internship.  Keeping my fingers crossed that all my hard work up to that point allows me to take part in that amazing opportunity.

            There’s only one more thing I have to say, and that’s thank you.  Thanks to Pitt for offering this program but mostly thanks to Vanessa and Dr. Gao.  I highly doubt there’s a single chaperone for any trip that’s as helpful as these two people were.  They couldn’t have been any more suited for their job and couldn’t have been any more helpful to us.  They really know everything there is to know, they gave us a heads up on important things, but didn’t spoil a single surprise and allowed us to experience Beijing on our own.  I honestly couldn’t be any more thankful for them and everything they did to make this the best experience of my life so far.  Thank you.

            Well…now I’m sitting in my hotel room…at 1 am (it’s finally Sunday)…WIDE AWAKE…with nothing to do.  Hopefully I’ll adjust to the time change as fast as I did when I arrived in Beijing.  This was an incredible trip; I made great friends, experienced an incredible city that cannot be summarized, and will always remember Plus 3 Beijing.  Thank you so much to everyone who was involved, especially Vanessa and Dr. Gao.

Friday, May 18th

I woke up early this morning and went for a walk, I had been taking morning walks periodically throughout the trip and decided I only had two more mornings left so I was going to take a walk each day.  I got back just in time to have some breakfast before having our final class of the trip.  It was about family structure in ancient and modern day China.  My favorite part was when the presenter showed us a lot of pictures of her family and told us about each of her family members.  And they are a smart family!  I couldn’t even count the number of master’s degrees and there were at least 3, maybe even 4, Ph.D. graduates (not representative of the average Chinese family to any degree).  After the class we presented our project.  I was happy with how the presentation went and definitely proud with the idea we came up with.  I wanted to come up with an idea that was different from anything presented before us and I think we definitely accomplished this task.

            After we finished presenting our projects Vanessa warned us to remain in groups and be safe for our last night out because of a situation that occurred earlier that week.  Apparently a British man attempted to rape a Chinese girl in front of a bar and out in the open at Houhai, the district we were in earlier in the trip.  Well, it was reported that it didn’t take more than a few seconds for a hoard of Chinese people to attack him and protect the girl.  Due to this, there was a possibility that we be pulled aside and checked by police officers to make sure we were not illegally staying in Beijing.  Also, it wasn’t going to be safe at night if any of us were along because the general population was extremely aggravated by this and had a horrible opinion of anyone British.  The problem is, us Americans look like we could easily be British.

            Once we were out of the classroom most of us went over to the Recreation Center for some lunch because they previous meal we had there was very good.  After lunch I chose to pack all of my belongings and prepare for tomorrow so that I wouldn’t feel rushed at all when traveling the next day.  Eventually the time for dinner came around and we all met in the lobby so we could walk over to the restaurant.  Personally, this was my second favorite meal.  I thought the food was delicious.  We took some pictures as groups, with Ruby, and with Vivien; then we headed back to the hotel.  On the walk back I found out that Ruby would be traveling to a few cities in the US and so we made plans to meet up when she is in New York City, hopefully we get the chance to!  Later than night we hung out in Joe and Brian’s room and then left for LaBamba, yet again.  I decided to head back to the hotel a little early because I know how bad of a traveler I can be if I’m exhausted while flying and I absolutely wanted to avoid that at all costs.  All in all, it was a nice, relaxing day.

Thursday, May 17th

This morning was our final company tour Lenovo.  This tour was definitely the most interesting of any we had been to.  For starters, Lenovo’s products are much more oriented for an audience such as ourselves.  The technology was very cool and relevant because it’s all technology that we use every day.

            First of all, our tour guide spoke flawless English, may have even been better than mine!  I was surprised at how well he spoke and was curious to how he learned so well.  Later in the tour he told us that while working at Lenovo, all employees are only allowed to speak English in the office.  I was amazed by this simply because I compared it to being at home.  Can you imagine and entire headquarters of a company back home only speaking Mandarin?  I sure can’t.  We’d have some sort of complaint to why it’s not “fair” and not enough people would have this interest in learning the language anyway.  This tour consisted of flashy lights, entertaining sounds, the evolution of their products, more flashy lights, games, and videos.  Basically it was one big sales pitch, and it worked because I’ll always remember the name Lenovo now.  Money well spent guys, congratulations to the marketing team that designed it.

            Next up was my favorite meal of the trip, by far.  We were finally going out for some Peking duck at a very classy restaurant (supposedly one of the best in Beijing).  Peking duck is fantastic; the skin may have been my favorite part.  It was very fatty, sweet, and almost tasted like crystalized sugar.  I also thought the duck bone soup was very good.  It was interesting; it almost tasted like milkier turkey soup, if that even makes sense.  All together it was an awesome meal, definitely my favorite of the trip and I can’t wait to have it again sometime in the future.

            Once we finished lunch we walked back because the restaurant was basically on Tsinghua’s campus so we were very close to our hotel.  We had a bit of time to rest and then had another class about Chinese politics.  I enjoyed the lesson, just like I enjoyed the others, but it definitely felt very long, probably because all of us were extremely exhausted by this point in the trip.  Then I worked on the project due the next day regarding a business idea that would fit into a Chinese market.  We came up with a basic computer system that allows individual households across the country to report smaller government corruption to the central government.  It’s a bit complicated so if anyone’s interested in the smaller details about the idea, feel free to ask me.  Then once everyone finished working on their projects we went out again, the usual, and had a great night as a group.

Wednesday, May 16th

Today was a very early morning since we had multiple company visits.  The first was an alcohol distillery that was very far outside the city.  I thought it was very interesting to see because Vanessa told us that this was more representative of factories in China because they utilize people power and assembly lines.  The only part of this tour that I will absolutely never forget is the smell.  It wasn’t pleasant and it was way too strong.  As soon as we were finished here we took a bus ride to visit Jangho.  This company makes some type of coating for buildings (to be honest it was a bit over my head).  This was more similar to the Capital Bio visit; it was big, new, clean and impressive.  The tour guides were very professional and had a translator who had decent English, only problem was that she spoke very softly and was tough to hear inside the assembly area.  After our second tour, the individuals from the distillery treated us to lunch at a nice restaurant and the food was…interesting.  But was pretty good to say the least, I enjoyed myself.

            Once we finished lunch we went back to the hotel and changed for Fragrant Hill.  Don’t be fooled by the name, maybe in China it is, but in the US this is not a hill.  It’s a mountain.  Part of the group took a ski lift to the top, I considered doing this but decided to climb instead.  As soon as I got to the top and met up with some of the others who took the ski lift, they said it was swinging due to the wind so I’m definitely happy with the choice I made, considering my fear of heights.  Again, we had beautiful weather for a day that really required it.  If we didn’t have such amazing visibility we wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the incredible view from the top.  Beijing is HUGE.  It seems like it goes on forever and doesn’t stop.

I had a lot on my mind today and so I quietly sat by myself and enjoyed the view.  When I was up here looking out at all of Beijing I realized how far I’ve come and how lucky I was to be in such a place.  I took my time on the way down and took a bit of a detour with Drake and Megan.  We ended up passing by this adorable little Chinese girl a little ways off of the path.  I said hello to her and she smiled and waved, it was something so little but I’ll never forget it.  It just goes to show that even when you’re on the other side of the globe, people are nice and generally the same everywhere (once you ignore a few cultural barriers).

Tuesday, May 15th

After a slower day yesterday, we definitely had a much busier day today.  First thing we did was wake up at about 9 to head over to the Bird’s Nest for a tour.  Of course our bus driver managed to miss a sign saying that his bus wasn’t nearly small enough to pass the clearance at the end of our small, one lane road…lets just say this caused a few problems.  He ended up trying to back out and no cars behind him were helping whatsoever, I actually think the car directly behind us kept moving right up behind us and only making matters worse.  Then once we were backed out of the one way road we managed to cause a huge backup while attempting to make an unreasonable turn into a busy intersection.  Welcome to Beijing everybody.  Anyway the Bird’s Nest was amazing, the architecture was incredible and it’s easily one of the coolest looking buildings I’ve ever seen.  It was evident that this building was created to show off what they were capable of and attract attention.  I could picture the opening ceremony again and remembered the shock that set in at the end when they revealed that everything we had seen was done by the use of people power and not a single computer was involved.  Nowadays the Bird’s Nest is used for a bit of a different purpose, that being Segway rides around the track.  This was fun but also frustrating because they had speed constraints so I was fighting it the whole time.  I thought I was just horrible at riding them because it was my first time, then someone said they noticed the speed control and I felt better about myself.  At least I knew it wasn’t my fault I was so bad at it.

Our tour took longer than anticipated and so we had to get a quick KFC lunch so we wouldn’t be late to our company tour at Capital Bio.  Again, like many buildings in Beijing, the Capital Bio building was stunning and the inside was beautiful.  It was a big step up from Tsinghua Solar.  The introduction to the company was very professional and direct, he did a good job of explaining the products because I was able to follow along easily, despite how advanced all of the technology was.

Eventually, after a very long bus ride through some dirty side roads, we made it back to the hotel.  We had very little time to change before leaving for a Kung Fu show.  We took the subway again to get to the show, the cool part was that we took the subway during the middle of rush hour and had to switch trains twice.  At least I thought it was cool.  This is the time of day when you realize how many people actually live in Beijing, and there’s A LOT of them.  20 million is only a number until you’re actually here, never mind when you’re on the subway at rush hour!  The show wasn’t bad; it was interesting.  My only complaint was that it was the most “touristy” thing we did throughout the entire trip.  And that’s saying something considering the famous tourist attractions we visited.  Anyway, a Kung Fu show is apparently the one place in Beijing that every single white foreigner goes to, because of that I knew it was going to be geared towards tourists.  It was basically a ballet with moments of impressive Kung Fu skills and backflips.  It was interesting, but too much of a tourist attraction.  I want to feel like I’m in Beijing, not on a cruise ship stop.  All together it was a great day and we saw some pretty cool stuff.

Monday, May 14th

Today was definitely another slow day, not a very exciting one but I was glad to have a bit of a slow day since the lack of sleep was starting to catch up to me at this point.  We were able to sleep in a little bit because our class wasn’t until after 9 am.  I don’t remember the professor’s name, but I was holding in laughter the entire time to be honest.  He felt the need to make a strange sound that surfaced when he tried to clear his throat, which apparently is every 3 seconds.  I couldn’t tell you why, maybe it was the lack of sleep but for some reason I turned into a 10 year old over night and thought this was hilarious (thankfully I managed to hold in all of my obnoxious laughter).  Anyway, the class was about Chinese economics, this lecture definitely required an intellectual level that was much higher than the others, it was more complex but I managed to follow along pretty well.  Especially considering my extreme lack of interest in economics to begin with.  After class we had a short break to change and grab some food before our tour at Tsinghua Solar.

We were told Tsinghua Solar was a small company, but that’s an understatement.  The introduction we received from the PowerPoint presentation was rough, you could tell that this wasn’t the person’s job and he was definitely caught off guard having to give us this presentation.  After the presentation we left for another room in the building that was filled with their products.  A bunch of people seemed to be impressed or interested in the solar water heaters, mainly engineers, but this didn’t exactly fit into my array of interests.  I’m sure it’s amazing technology, however, it’s not something I can personally appreciate as much as other people.  It was interesting to see how a small company functions in Beijing.

After the visit our group split up into two, I chose to go back to the hotel and then go to Grandma’s Kitchen for a good meal.  Grandma’s Kitchen was probably the closest one can possibly get to American food in Beijing, and it was surprisingly really good!  I managed to find chicken strips in China, which was a small personal victory; it was definitely different from home, but still very appetizing.  Eventually we finished and went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else.  We went out, to LaBamba of course, and I had a relaxing night and enjoyed a delicious quesadilla.  I went back to the hotel a little bit before everyone else because I was feeling very tired and wanted an extra hour of sleep that night.

Sunday, May 13th

Today, Sunday, was our day off from company visits and classes and due to the Great Wall yesterday I cannot even put my level of soreness into words.  It was nice to have a day off, however, it was anything but a day off in terms of activities and how busy we were.  We woke up in the morning and went to the pearl market for some shopping.  I had yet to find many items that interested me so I was set on finding something to purchase this time around.

            Ruby took the entire group on the subway to get to the pearl market.  I was pleasantly surprised with how new the subway system looked and it was very clean, plus it was extremely simple to ride even without knowing the language.  The ride was definitely long, but Beijing is so spread out that I was anticipating this anyway.  The pearl market was pretty much the same as other markets, which I think are all cool too so I definitely enjoyed this one.  It was another indoor market and was either 4 or 5 floors, and just like the last one the higher floors were higher quality items.  There was a stand with Beats by Dre, obviously fake, but they looked incredibly real so I was definitely interested in getting a pair.  I ended up haggling the price down to about 70 RMB which I was happy with.  After this I walked around for a while and eventually made my way to a floor with a lot of clothing.  I spent quite a bit of time here and ended up buying 2 t-shirts and two Polo shirts for about 350 RMB.  Not too bad considering how real they look.  I finished up early and went over to KFC with Matt for some lunch, which is very different from KFC here in the US (I think I like it better in Beijing).  Also, picture the lines and level of noise in a busy McDonalds…now multiply that by at least 6.  I couldn’t tell you why, but for some reason they absolutely love KFC.  Then we waited for the group to finish up and of course everyone wanted to go to KFC for lunch so I just sat outside and talked with Ruby for a while.

            After lunch Jasmine, Matt, and myself decided to head straight back to the hotel rather than visit the Temple of Heaven, due to the amount of walking we were warned would be involved.  I’m definitely glad I made that decision because I was able to get about an hour or so of much needed rest before going to the Water Cube.

            So, I didn’t know until this morning, but there’s apparently a water park inside half of the Water Cube.  I wasn’t all that excited to go at first because of the cost, I didn’t think it was worth the money.  However, we were able to purchase tickets at a fifth of the price, way to go Vivien!  She seems to know about or automatically get any discount for everything you can think of.  And thankfully she called cabs for us so we wouldn’t have to take the subway.  She was ten steps ahead on this one considering it took maybe a quarter of the time it would’ve taken on the subway.  I volunteered to sit in the front seat so I could watch the mayhem that is driving in Beijing.  Apparently each individual driver isn’t as bad as you’d expect.  When we are walking we just get to see every car making crazy decisions, but every car isn’t driving like this all the time.  It was still fun to sit up front and watch because he did almost hit a few people at one intersection.

            Trust me on this, you may think the Water Cube is big, but it’s bigger than you could imagine.  The outside looks incredible and I found it interesting that it wasn’t flat; each of the sections came outward like a bubble.  The water park was cool, but the appeal of it was that I was swimming in the same building as Michael Phelps.  The coolest part about the building was that from the inside you could see out, but not the other way around.  Everyone’s favorite slide was this red one that placed you into a fully enclosed capsule and the floor dropped out from underneath your feet.  Then you would slide down a very steep incline and shot up into a loop.  The funny part is that not everyone makes it and you end up going backwards and there’s a small exit at the point where those who don’t make it will settle and can get out.  I personally could not get myself to go on the ride, I would have loved to but there was no way I could get myself closed into such a small capsule, I’d be way too claustrophobic in that situation.  All in all, today was a very good day.

Saturday, May 12th

Today we went to the Great Wall.  It takes quite a while to get there because the closest section, named Badaling, is about an hour to and hour and a half away.  The bus ride was extremely interesting; I spent the entire ride looking out the window taking in what I saw.  We began driving through the usual, crowded city streets, which were actually part of our daily routine by this point.  As we got farther out of the center of the city, the areas were less populated and obviously more residential than the center of downtown.  However, in an instant it seemed to change.  There was a minute or two of open land and then all of a sudden we were surrounded by the general American image of China.  There were small rural areas with rundown buildings and then miles of poor workers, farmland, and villages, all surrounded by the amazing backdrop of the mountains around the city.  It’s unfortunate that on the average day nobody can see the mountains from the city due to smog.  We eventually arrived, parked the bus, and then walked through an insanely crowded, pedestrian street with endless shops and stands selling items that are found at any market.

I honestly can’t think of much to say because it’s something that you have to see and do yourself, it truly can’t be summed up in a blog post and even pictures don’t do it justice.  It’s incredible how it weaves up, down, and side to side over and around such mountainous terrain.  The Great Wall is incredible to say the least, it is an exhausting, all day event.  I’d consider the steps to even reach the Great Wall alone a hike by themselves.  Not only that, but all last night and into this morning the weather was very rainy.  Due to this, we had incredible weather on the best day possible.  The visibility was amazing and it was even cool outside for the first half of our hike, we couldn’t have asked for better weather.  As we were going up, everyone got more and more tired and eventually we reached a point where we could individually decide to climb farther or take a rest.  This was an easy decision for me, of course I chose to climb as far and high as possible…I’m at the Great Wall of China with visibility that provides amazing views, it’s not as if I can just come back next month and climb a little higher.  As we got higher the group got smaller and smaller, eventually it was just Pesce and I.  We got high enough where there was only one other person there and then nobody else beyond that point, thankfully she was there because we were able to get a few great pictures.

Then it was time to climb back down.  The funny part was that I sure felt like I was walking uphill for most of the way down (How’s that even possible?).  And of course during our descent we bumped into a tour group from Duquesne at one of the wall’s “checkpoints” or “guard towers”, a few of the girls lived with, and were friends with, someone from my high school.  Everyone did a bit of shopping before getting to the bus, including myself.  I was able to get a few Great Wall souvenirs for my family and friends.  The most comedic part about bargaining was when someone is stubborn at one stand, just walk two stands over and find the same item but tell them what the other person charged and they end up competing against each other and I get to save a lot of money!

Eventually we all got back onto the bus and drove back to Wudaokou (the neighborhood our hotel is in).  Vanessa and Dr. Gao brought us to an American style buffet.  I had already been to this buffet a few days earlier and knew this wasn’t going to be a very good meal.  I couldn’t appreciate the gesture of bringing us to an American buffet after such an exhausting day any more than I did, but the execution of this plan wasn’t quite there (but hey, now they know for next year).  Once we were all finished with lunch/dinner everyone took a nap to refuel for another fun, yet exhausting, night out.

To sum up today, all I can honestly say is that the Great Wall isn’t to be looked at through pictures or described through a conversation; it simply has to be seen in order to be appreciated.

Friday, May 11th

Today we had the opportunity to tour the Summer Palace.  Unfortunately it was raining on and off so it wasn’t the best day to have a tour of a cultural site, but the fact that the weather was cool for a tour that involved so much walking made up for it.  At first I thought it was pretty interesting to be there and it was very pretty, but once someone told me that it was all man made (even the lake and hill itself) I was thoroughly impressed by what they managed to build from scratch.  After climbing the hill and walking the length of the palace we took a boat ride back to the entrance, which was very nice.  This is where we met more Chinese tourists who seemed to be infatuated with us.  After the boat ride, and just before the exit, there was a shopping area surrounding a body of water with some interesting souvenirs and the option to have your English name translated and written in Mandarin.

Next we all got back on the bus and headed over to the U-Center for some lunch.  Again, it was a fondue style restaurant where you cook your own food.  I personally wasn’t a fan of this one because of the flavor of the sauce and I wasn’t feeling all too well at this point and didn’t have much of an appetite.  Wasn’t my favorite meal, but I’ve had worse.

We all had plans to go out later that night; unfortunately they fell through without any of us know it.  Everyone chose to take a nap at around 5 or 6 and rest up after doing so much walking earlier.  Next thing we know, it was morning and we were all having breakfast.  Our naps ended up lasting a minimum of 10 to 12 hours, but considering it was our day to tour the Great Wall, nobody seemed to complain one bit (we knew we had an exhausting day ahead of us).