Post-trip Reflection

Final Reflection Post: China MBA Trip

June 2011: Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing

It has been a couple weeks since I got back from China and I am still trying to digest everything that I saw and experienced there. It was a great experience that I will never forget and I will often refer back to in both my professional and personal lives. Professor Carr mentioned that if we were to write a reflection paper three to five years from now, it would probably be a lot more insightful and we would really be able to appreciate everything that we learned there and how it has applied to my life. I agree with him, so these are my first reflective thoughts, with many more to come in the future and perhaps my thoughts will change as time progresses.

The one major thing that I keep thinking about since we left China is the way that they consume their food, especially their meat. Being a agribusiness graduate, this was very interesting to me. They have historically not preserved their meat and not packaged it at all. My favorite comparison is the visits to the wet market and the visit to Sealed Air. The wet market was a glimpse at how food has been historically sold and Sealed Air is part of the future of food in China. I feel that the United States could sell meat to China once their demand grows. The trend for countries is usually that when people make more money, they eat more meat and tend to eat more expensive meats, such as beef, as their income increases as well. Sealed Air and other companies like it are doing the leg work in educating the consumer on the importance of packaging and preserving meat. Other US producers will then be able to enter the market easier.

One “best business practice” that I noticed while in China was how sincere and courteous our hosts were. My favorite visits were Sealed Air, Measurement Specialties, Baidu, and the Hutong. During these visits, and others, our hosts made us seem that we were very important and not just some random visitors. The tradition of giving gifts to everyone is just one part of it; it was obvious that they prepared for us and put together excellent presentations. They also all listened to us, because they genuinely seemed interested in what we had to say and offer to them. This was very refreshing and made the trip a great experience. I feel that a lot of businesses could learn something from these kinds of hosts.

One of the speeches that stands out in my mind is when Emily from the Hutong said that she is addicted to the fast pace and ever-changing environment of an emerging economy like China. She said that when she goes back to North America, buildings are still being built after years in construction, whereas in China a building can go up within the month. When I came back to the US I started looking around and sure enough, what Emily said was right on. It amazing me how efficient the Chinese are when it comes to things like building infrastructure. I acknowledge that a lot of their efficient comes from top-down government and doesn’t need to be approved through a budget and a vote, so they are able to get things done a lot quicker. Perhaps there is a lesson here for developed countries that have a tendency to slow down progress, good and bad, by having so many regulations in place, California especially.

This trip was definitely fast paced and challenging, requiring us to be flexible and resilient. I felt that I did a great job at adapting to the situations and trying to take away something from each experience. I also felt that the fast-pace of the trip was necessary to accomplish everything we did and it actually did not feel overwhelming.

During the trip I was pushed outside my comfort zone many times. The crowds at all the major attractions, subways, and streets were very uncomfortable and I felt that I had my guard up more than usual. However, after I got into the mode of protecting myself and my stuff, I was never scared or felt that I wasn’t safe. I learned that you have to be more aware of what is going on around you but that it is not overwhelming.

Negotiating at the Silk Market and other places was also uncomfortable at times and presented an opportunity for me to do something I had really ever done before. When I went into the situation, I was excited and nervous to start negotiating. Once I did it a few times I created a strategy which helped me to get the price I wanted and build my confidence. Now I feel that when I go into a situation where I have to negotiate I will have some confidence, even though it won’t be the same kind of negotiating as I was doing in China.

The Chinese culture and the American culture have so many differences. Some of the cultural differences that I experienced included the general Chinese demeanor, the way they prepare and eat food and the way that they conduct business. Their food safety standards are way below the regulations in the US. It is surprising that they have not had more food scares and outbreaks of disease. I suppose this is attributed to the fact that right now, they are pretty localized. Localized meaning that their food does not travel far from the place where it is consumed. Countries tend to have a cyclical cycle in which undeveloped countries start as localized then moving to globalized and when they can afford to, they go back to localized. China is in the stage where they are localized and they are moving towards globalized. The US is in the stage where they are globalized and are trending towards localized.

Some of the shocking things to me included their idea of sanitation and lack thereof. Some of the Chinese people do not have a lot of concern about food safety or sanitation of food preparation areas. But when I thought about it longer, it occurred to me that the United States might have been that way many years ago when we were a developing nation. I also saw people peeing in the middle of the streets and babies walking around with a hole in their pants and no diaper, so that they could go to the bathroom at any moment. Again, I will be interested to go back there in a few years to see if this is still the case. I am sure they have already come a long way in the last few years.

The second difference is their demeanor and the way that affects how they do business. The perception is that they are introverted and do not express how they are feeling internally and that business can be hard because of this reason. Westerners assume that people will speak what is on their mind whereas Chinese will not and they will instead internalize their feelings which can cause conflicts in a business setting as well as a personal setting.  My experience in China however, was that the people I met were very outgoing and would say exactly what was on their mind, especially in a small, personal setting. The students I met at English Corner and at the business schools were very outgoing and often talked more than I did. Perhaps my sample size was too small, but my opinion is that the younger generation will be more American in their style on communicating in a personal and business environment. It will be interesting to go back to China in several years to see if they have fewer differences to the American than they do now. I felt as if they are slowly Westernizing and in a few years, the cultural differences will hardly be noticeable.

For me, China means opportunity. 1.3 billion people is a lot of potential customers, if you can create a product that they will all need or want you will be a success. The problem is that the Chinese are still developing. Sometimes it is easy to forget that they are still a developing nation in which most people live on less than $2 per day. The Chinese’s middle class is growing fast however and cities are moving west bringing more and more people out of poverty. Soon, the idea of selling to every Chinese person will be on every entrepreneur’s mind. It is a market that is waiting to be tapped.

What surprised me the most about China was how much I liked it. I was not expecting to feel as comfortable as I did there. Shanghai was my favorite city and I could picture myself living there if I was asked to. I would also like to go back to China to experience some of the other cities in the outer areas of China. I thought it was good that the trip covered the cities that it did because it served as an introduction to China, wetting the appetite to go back and try more (places that is, not food).

There were definitely good and bad parts of the trip, which is expected in any experience where you are pushed outside your comfort zone. The good experiences outweighed the bad and most of the bad was attributed to me getting food poisoning and was not under the control of the trip supervisor or planner. During every learning experience you are going to face adversity and it is really how you handle the situation that affects if you can grow and improve yourself or not. The one thing on the trip that changed who I am is that I was able to handle difficult and uncomfortable situations and still enjoy myself and learn something in the process. The fact that I was able to enjoy myself in that situation lets me know that I will be able to handle more situations like that where I am expected to perform under circumstances that are not familiar to me.