Yesterday was a busy day; we had a company visit in the afternoon with the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, which is a non-governmental organization that tries to assist existing companies with foreign investment, and attract foreign companies to invest in Chinese companies. Their office is by the Dong'an market, which is famous for it's "everything under the sun that is remotely edible on a stick" shtick. The area is also famous for the GIANT pedestrian shopping mall area that was erected for the Olympics. One can buy all the luxury brands here, from Gucci to Cartier and back again. We had a little time to wander around before our meeting with CAEFI, so we checked out the market area plus did some people watching. I didn't look at the stores because I didn't come to Beijing to buy Gucci. I came to buy dirt cheap knockoff clothes in the markets! Soon, you will be mine. Oh yes, you will be mine.
The meeting with CAEFI was interesting, although tedious because the chairman spoke in Chinese. I understood most of the operative words he used, but I did not know the economic and other technical words he used so I had to rely on Donny, who was translating. Interestingly, the chairman actually spoke very good English, which he lapsed into occasionally. His sentence structure was excellent, and he had very little accent. I don't know why he bothered with a translator, probably to maintain face. He talked about the measures they use to try to help companies with foreign investment, mostly in the form of a print publication and a website. He talked about how exports have gone done because of the financial crisis, so it's harder to attract foreign investment right now.
After the talk we had to go back to campus, where a gentleman who works for the UN I believe gave a talk on Chinese Intellectual Property rights, at least, that is what it was billed as. Instead he talked about counterfeiting instead. He said he thinks that the penalties for counterfeiting should be much more strict (i.e. death!!!) so as to act as a disincentive. He said the counterfeiters have gotten very crafty, even sewing the handbags on a truck that moves around the city so they can't get caught. He was quite candid about the state of China's government, and how they face a big potential problem in that the inland provinces are poorer than the coastal areas, and the residents are getting unhappy about the increasing income gap. It was nice to hear from someone who wasn't giving the party line all the way.
Today we had another 12 hour day, Goddard during the daylight hours and then Donny gave a talk about Chinese cultural differences. I was in my element in class because we 1) had a geography quiz in the morning which I of course rocked (Goddard made it purposefully ambiguous for a few questions, so I put as many options as possible--it was a map quiz) and then 2) talked about Chinese history and culture all day, which of course was my college major so I had a lot of insights. He also showed a picture of Shenzhen from 1975, which featured dirt roads, 1 story buildings and cows on the street. I piped up and said "This is like Mitchell/Chu family Christmas every year, when we have a slide show featuring photos from when my Dad went to China in the late 1970's and everyone laughs about how no one had running water or shoes back then." Goddard got a good laugh out of it.
I have continued to sample delicious street food--one of our Taiwanese students found a Taiwanese bakery and picked up this sort of rice bun thing for breakfast for me, plus the most delicious and creamy dou jiang (soy milk)... I will say it's tastier than my breakfast cart, although at 8 kuai it's not as cheap as the 3 kuai milk and crepe thing I normally get. Tonight I had 3 xiaolongbao from a campus vendor, I think they were made with lamb because they were good, in a slightly gamey sort of way. I also had a steamed sticky rice thing with roast pork sausage wrapped in bamboo leaf. Getting out of lecture at 8:30 is kind of a pain because all the restaurants are just getting ready to close at 9pm. I don't care to eat at McDonalds while I am here. There's a really sketchy cart down by the electronics store that sells the fried white steamed breads, so I might venture there sometime to get just the bread, but I won't be eating meat from them! I may have iron stomach, but I don't want to push it, especially so early in the game.
I have started parking my bike on campus right by the gate that is close to the hotel (just under the 4th ring road) so as to avoid parking it essentially on the street by the hotel. I figure it blends in perfectly with the 10's of thousands of student bikes parked there, so it is a good compromise to bringing it in the hotel.
Had a funny run in with one of my fellow students today in the classroom bathrooms today; the stalls are all squat johns except for one Western style toilet, which caused some consternation amongst the ladies in the group (wimps). I of course had no qualms using the squat john since I have squatted in many a john around the world, plus these are nicely maintained and clean. I had just come out of the stall and this woman (who is incredibly annoying and appears to be a terrible traveler, which I can't stand) tells me, "I just wanted to let you know that there's a real toilet here." Several very rude and cutting remarks ran through my head (uncharitable as they were) but I just smiled and said, "Thanks, but my mom's family is from China, so I'm well versed in the art of the squat."
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