Andrew Buser's UDCI Experience
Andrew Buser's UDCI Experience
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Day 24, Suzhou, Episode III: The Finale

1/31/2015

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Today we woke up and got on the bus around 09:00 for our journey into Old Suzhou. Our first stop was the Humble Administrator’s Garden. We got the luck of the draw in our tour guide for the garden; he was hilarious.
This garden was made in the Ming Dynasty by a man who had just retired from a life of politics. This garden is apparently one of the most famous in China, second only to the Imperial Garden in Beijing. After the death of this man, his son inherited the garden and shortly gambled it away. The three winners divided the garden into the eastern, central, and western portions. The divisions are made by a pair of corridors which act as walls between the portions.
We started in the eastern portion, where the entrance is. There is a well in this part, and several flower beds and small bamboo-and-thatch structures in this garden, which are used for the two annual flower shows held in this garden. This garden also holds the women’s garden, where the women would sit, talk, sew, and make music, while the men would make various sculptures and paintings for them.

The central Part of the garden is home to the various buildings that represent the seasons and are the centerpiece of the various seasonal festivals. This is also where the original garden entrance was, and where the owner entertained guests. It has a great view of a tower by a temple, which is actually about 2 miles from the garden, but through a visual trick appears to be part of the garden.
The western piece of the garden is where the Chinese bonsai garden is located. In this garden is also a tower where the family’s eldest daughters lived until they were married. There is also a building where the mistress of the garden would prepare ink and paper, while the master of the garden would use the ink and paper to write poems and paint artwork.

After the garden, we walked to the Suzhou Museum, where we saw lots of old pottery, clothing, military battle gear, furniture, poems, and lots of other things.
After wandering through the museum, we walked about a mile or so to Guanqian Road, where we got food. I went with a group who chose to visit a Korean barbecue, where it was all you can eat and drink (alcohol included) for 65 yuan (about 10 dollars). Of this group, only me and one other person decided to meet the bus to go to Suzhou Silk Factory No. 1.
We had a small group going to the silk factory, as most of the people were very tired by this time and decided to find their own way home in their own good time. The silk group met the bus at the nearest bus stop. It took a while for the bus to pull up to where we were waiting on the platform, because we had to wait for about five city buses to make their stops. There was a line for one of these. It took about five minutes to load, and when it left there was barely room for the doors to close. But after it left we were able to board and make our way over to the silk factory.
They started by describing to us the life cycle of a silk worm. The silk comes from the cocoon that the worm spins when it goes into becoming a moth. The farmers pick these cocoons and steam them to kill the worms inside. Then the cocoons go to the silk factory where they are sorted into single and double cocoons.
The singles go into a softening machine before going to a station where the ends of the silk thread are found and then run up and attached to the spooling machine. The silk is sent off to be dyed, and then comes back to the factory to be used to make silk weavings, clothing, scarves, neckties, sheets, blanket covers, and pillow cases.
The double cocoons are taken to another part of the factory where a worker soaks them to soften them, pulls out the two worms, and spreads the cocoon over a hoop. Once eight of these have been hooped, the whole unit is taken off the hoop and put onto a second, larger hoop. Once eight big layers are built up on this, it is ready to be dried and go to the next stage of the process. We got to help use some of these to make a quilt. In the old days, these big layers made from the double cocoons were used for parachutes.
After seeing part of the production line, we went to see the factory outlet store. I bought several scarves and neckties, but only ended up paying about 160 US dollars for the lot. Supply and demand again.
After that, we went home to the apartments and hung out until we all went to bed.
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Day 23

1/30/2015

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Today marks three weeks in China. We celebrated with pizza from Papa John’s for lunch. It was very good. Then Dan, one of the American students, went to the nearby Subway and bought us all cookies for dessert.

Afterwards Lauren and Jason and Gonzy and I all went to thermo. Today we finished with Chapter 3 and started Chapter 4, which is all about the equipartition theorem (don’t ask), specific heats (i.e. how much energy does it take to boil a pot of hot water for coffee), the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution (which we haven’t gotten to yet), and free energy paths (which is still to come as well).

In ASI today, we again studied time before talking about money and buying things. Today, everyone was extremely distracted, due to the fact that this was the last class in a long week, and also to the fact that it was 30 minutes (ling dian ban fen) longer than normal. Needless to say, there were several off-track “episodes” (to use a musical term) that occurred.

Due to the length of our class, all of the shuttle times had been pushed back half an hour as well. So, we all returned to the apartments, and only three of us, Cierra, Lauren, and I ended up going to Link City. UDCI has purchased a Sam’s Club membership for us, and today we got to try it out. I just looked around and didn’t buy anything, but I did push the cart for Cierra and Lauren, who both bought some things. This Sam’s Club is on two floors, with the first floor being food and the second floor being most of the drinks along with everything else. You enter on the second floor, accessed from the third floor of the mall. Rather confusingly, the Sam’s Club’s first floor exit is on the mall’s first floor, while the second floor is between the mall’s second and third floors, and is accessed from the third. This does not create problems, however, because Sam’s Club occupies a whole corner of the mall building. We wandered around the second floor, bought a few drinks (sparkling grape juice and regular Welch’s juice) before heading to the first floor. To get from one floor to the other, you use an inclined moving walkway. The walkway and cart interlock so that the cart does not go rolling down. On the first floor we bought several items of food, before checking out and leaving. We got on the bus early, and actually arrived back at the apartments at the time we would normally have left Link City. Afterward we all did our own thing for dinner. Several people headed out to a bar late at night, and apparently stayed there for a while, only returning in the early morning hours. Not being a part of that group, I went to sleep around midnight or 1AM, so as to be up and ready to get on the 09:00 bus.

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Day 22

1/29/2015

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Butter. We got up and went to lunch, and there was: toast with honey and butter. We were very pleased. It was in addition to other things, of course. There was a dish of duck, and one of fish, and one of chicken, which were rather good as usual (I don’t know about the fish, as I refuse to eat it). And there was rice and sticky buns and dessert cake. But the buttered toast and, to a lesser extent, the banana slices, were the highlights. After lunch, we all returned to the lounge and studied for our ASI quiz.

ASI today was in what I will call the lecture hall, as it is the closest thing to a lecture hall that we have at UDCI. We had it there in order to deter cheating by spreading us out, since we are all in rather close quarters in our normal room. Unfortunately, no one warned us about the change (no doubt it was either last minute, or someone suddenly became very busy or distracted and forgot to tell us). We were also not told about the time change. Just like the econ class, ASI has to stay longer to make up for lost time so that we have the proper number of hours for the week, as we are on a very tight class schedule. So today we are going from 15:00-17:00 (that’s 3-5PM), and tomorrow from 15:00-16:45.

So we took our quiz, and most of us probably did all right. Then we got into class. Today we learned all about how to talk about our daily schedule, and about how to talk about time in general. After class we all headed home. Dinner was by your own arrangement, and later many of us stayed up late talking.

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Day 21, Corporate Visits Day 2

1/28/2015

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Today we all had to bet up very early to make the 07:00 bus at the start of our 14-hour day. We rode to Shanghai, arriving about 09:00. Our first stop was U.S. Commercial Services, where a representative talked to us about the developing Chinese economy (which is a running theme in these visits) and about the flow of students, tourists, and business between China and the US.

Then we went to lunch in a little area full of restaurants called Xin Tian Di. Several of us ended up going to a Spanish restaurant (whose menu, like every other restaurant’s, had been altered to better cater to the local population).

From there we walked to our meeting with Interbrand, a company that helps other companies to develop their brand image. They are actually the number one such company operating in China. Our presenter was herself an American, apparently the only one at the Shanghai branch, and she told us some of her experience as an American living and working abroad.

After Interbrand, we went to a mall to kill an hour of time, made up of unused contingency time that had been built into the schedule. After that, we made our way to Ford China, where we were a half-hour early. We waited around in the lobby, which was rather large and has a massive ball structure built into the top of it.

We were taken up to the boardroom on floor 35, which had a large window with an impressive view. Right nearby, we were shown, are the sixth and seventh tallest buildings in the world. Our meeting was with John Loller, CEO of Ford China, and his operations manager. He told us all about Ford China, before introducing a business case. This case forms the basis of a competition, which will be between several teams competing both here and at UD. Our mission is to help Ford China market their brand, and more specifically help them to sell more electric cars in order to meet strict deadlines and guidelines set forth by the Chinese government.

After Ford, UDCI paid for our dinner at a restaurant in the seventh tallest building in the world. It was very good. I had macaroni and cheese with sliced chicken on top and a Tsingtao beer. After dinner, we all piled into the bus and headed home, arriving about 21:00. Then some people stayed up talking, and others went to bed.

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Day 20, Corporate Visits Day 1

1/27/2015

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Today we started out at 08:00 for a lecture presentation at UDCI. Coming in, we were handed agendas and signed a batch of thank you cards to be given to the various tour guides and corporate executives we would be meeting today and tomorrow. The presentations were led by a short lecture from Dr. Terence Lao, the professor for the three business classes who went to Delphi Electronics. Then, groups of students from those classes came up one at a time to give a series of short presentations, one on each of the companies we were to visit. Unfortunately, neither of the companies we all visited was willing to allow us to take many pictures, for trade secret reasons.

Our first stop today was Higer Bus Corporation, a manufacturer of a wide range of buses. They are one of the biggest and most popular bus manufacturers in China, and export to all parts of the globe as well. Their product range extends from small 20-seat short distance buses (including an all-electric model which the company is donating one of to UDCI for use as the shuttle), up to long-distance luxury touring coaches (one of which we got to examine; it was amazing). They also produce everything in between, including long- and short-distance tour buses, commuter buses, and school buses. Higer also produces a line of pickup trucks. We walked through a welcome center, where we got a history of Higer Bus, and learned the basics of their safety and environmental innovations. They also showed us their tracking system, by which the company can keep tabs on all of the tracking-equipped buses and then send the data to the operating companies. This data includes GPS tracking and various speed, safety, and operational data gathered by what is essentially an on-board black box. Then they took us into a large conference room, where they provided us with catalogues, brochures, water, and tea. They gave a presentation before opening the floor to questions. The tea was good, and I appreciated the water. I did not take any of the brochures with me, as I will never have any use for them. Afterward we examined some of the finished products and walked through the final assembly floor. We were accompanied the entire time by a corporate executive, who I believe was the owner or perhaps the CEO. He was very nice and willing to answer our questions during the presentation.

After Higer, we went to lunch at a nearby plaza. Most of us ended up going to Papa John’s. It’s more of a thing in China because their only Western competition is Pizza Hut.

After lunch we went and toured one of the three local Stanley, Black and Decker plants, where they make DeWalt tools. We were ushered upstairs to the cubicles and shown into the conference room. After a presentation and Q & A session by the Plant Manager, we were handed over to the Operations Manager for a quick stroll around the assembly floor (literally, as we never actually entered the main floor), who pointed out various parts of the assembly process and some of the finished, packaged products. Apparently, of the thousands of tools produced by this factory, 70% are shipped to America, 20% to Europe, and the other 10% goes to domestic (Chinese) markets.

After Stanley, Black & Decker, we dropped of the DSC 211, MGT 494, and OPS 301 students, and all the faculty except Professor Washington, at Delphi Electronics (who we were told makes electronic components for automobile manufacturers), before the bus (the same as our shuttle, and also an older Higer product) took us home. Afterward we hung out or slept until dinner, which you arranged on your own, and the business kids returned around 17:15. My dinner consisted of spicy ramen noodles and beef bits, which was quite tasty. We stayed up late afterwards watching TV and talking (which was a bad decision, given the need to wake up at 05:30). It started to rain around 17:00, and by 19:00 when I went to dinner, it was a rain-snow mix. It was snowing by 21:00. It will be interesting to see how well the local road maintenance department handles this, and the effect it has on our 07:00 journey to Shanghai.

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Day 19

1/26/2015

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This Monday was uneventful. We had a healthy group for lunch, nice (55⁰F) weather (albeit overcast), and everything ran on time. The most notable thing about today was that we have a different bus as our shuttle this week.

Tomorrow, our day starts with waking up to make the 07:45 bus, but unless you’re in MGT 494, OPS 301, or DSC 211, your scheduled day ends with returning to the apartments at 14:30. Wednesday, the bus leaves for Shanghai at 07:00, and we won’t be returning until 19:00, having had both lunch and dinner in Shanghai. Ironically, we won’t actually take a proper tour of Shanghai until the last part of the semester. By then we will have visited some part of the city about five other times.

Now, Economics is every day Monday through Wednesday, from 13:00 to 14:00. The econ students grumble about this. However, when Minister-Counselor Fritz came to speak last Wednesday, They had a two-hour class on the proceeding day to make up for it. They grumbled about this for most of the weekend and Monday. This week we’re all missing both Tuesday and Wednesday, which means another cancelled thermo class for me, but I’m not complaining; it was already on the schedule anyway, which means the professor won’t have any time to make up. But, the econ students had a three-hour class today so as not to lose any time. They started complaining about it on Friday and continued to do so I’m sure until after they were halfway home (they opted to walk instead of waiting the twenty minutes for the bus). I was highly amused, because I was imagining what my dad’s response to their lamentations would be. He is a college professor who teaches economics, and has taught courses scheduled as four hours from 18:00 to 22:00 one day a week. After we returned, we all studied for a while, went individually and in small groups to dinner, and the Americans helped a few of the Chinese students to obtain business casual outfits for tomorrow and Wednesday. Afterward, several of us sat around socializing and studying until it was time to go to bed.

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Day 18, Sheshan Mountain and Our Lady of Luck Basilica, Shanghai

1/25/2015

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Another 09:00 departure and an hour and a half on a bus. The basilica is on top of a mountain. We went up a large flight of stairs to the gate and then continued skyward on another extensive staircase, at the top of which is a large tower.

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We followed the path up the mountain until we reached the basilica. The climb wasn’t too bad at all. Many trails in the Appalachians and the Rockies put it to shame. The whole trail system up and down the side of this mountain is paved, sometimes very intricately. We were supposed to take an hour and a half tour, but the English-speaking tour guide was sick and we exited the church. The view from the trail and the basilica is great, but it would be better if there was no smog. From the top of the mountain, we could even see our bus!
Professor Hohman gave us a short lecture about the basilica, and we dispersed, told to meet back at the main gate around 11:50. Apparently, the basilica was originally established by the Jesuits attempting to bring Christianity to China, and became a place of retirement for members of the Clergy. However, it served as a safe house and stronghold several times in its history, including when Japan invaded China in 1937. The statue atop the bell tower is “Our Lady of Luck”, and is in the shape of the Chinese character for luck. It is the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus above her head and standing on top of a dragon (instead of a snake). This statue (except for the dragon) was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, and the current statue is a replica.

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We all wandered back down the mountain on the other trail, which we had neglected to take on the uphill climb. We descended from the basilica to a switchback trail, each turning point of which was occupied by one or two Stations of the Cross. After reaching the bottom of this, we headed down two more large staircases to a large courtyard, serving three shrines. A short climb up, and we were able to head down the trail on the other side of the wall. Three of us split off from the main group to check out a pavilion, and wandered back. The lower trail is rolling, and cuts across the mountainside on an embankment. We made our way back to the large tower at the top of the staircase, and ended up at the foot of the mountain with the rest of the group.
We climbed on board the bus, which took us to KFC for lunch. I can now say that I have eaten on the second floor of a KFC. That’s right, it has two stories. Did I mention that KFC is a thing here?
After lunch, it started raining just as we started to board the bus. It had stopped by the time we returned to Suzhou. Instead of returning directly to the apartments, we went to a large pearl and jewel market, where we all bought pearl necklaces, and several people bought earrings, bracelets, and rings. The pearls were real, but extremely cheap. A few members of our group joked that you could buy several pairs of earrings here (for about 50 US cents each) and sell them for several dollars in the US, thus making hundreds. Isn’t supply and demand a beautiful thing?
After the jewel market, we returned home and prepared ourselves for Monday.
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Day 17, Xitang (she-tong)

1/24/2015

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We left for Xitang at 09:00, this time on a different bus than the one for our shuttle. We rolled out of Suzhou through some highway construction. We were going to a different province. At the borders of Jiangsu Province, all vehicles are required to stop and talk to an official of some kind. This station looks like a toll plaza. About 500 meters afterward we had to do the same thing to enter Zhejiang Province.
We arrived in Xitang around 10:30, debussed, and headed for the main entrance.
We first went through a scenic area of a few shops and made our way to the corner of the are a bounded by old walls. We turned and headed towards what was obviously newer Xitang. We came upon the intersection of our road with another, and were just deciding which way to turn when one of the Chinese facilitators called us over to some sort of gate, which turned out to be the entrance to the historic district. Suffice to say that, unless you knew Chinese characters, and were extremely observant, this ticket booth was rather well disguised as another gate leading to another alleyway next to another run-down shop with a bunch of old guys sitting outside of it.
Once inside, we started as a whole group, but the cramped, crowded environment and the variance in how fast people were willing to move soon caused the group to fracture in to several smaller groups.
My group ended up as a pair. We wandered through all of the streets and into several of the shops. The entire area is comparatively small, but probably twice the size of the mile-long Pingjiang Road. The whole area consists of a series of narrow streets lined with shops all centered around a large, central waterway. There are several bridges over this.
We bought some lunch from a small shop, and wandered into several others. At one point, I decided to see just how rusty my archery skills were. They were pretty rusty, but in my defense, the bow was missing some of the hardware around the grip, and the arrows had no feathers. We went into a few of the museum-type attractions, including the Drunk Garden, The West Garden, and the Button Museum.

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We all met back at the bus around 14:45 and were embarked on the bus by 15:00. We came back to the apartments and several of us hung out and ordered Papa John’s, which to our happiness tastes exactly the same as it does in the US.

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Day 16

1/23/2015

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Two weeks in China. We’ve gotten into our rhythm, and so today was, again, not especially different from last Friday, except that there were only five or six students at lunch, three of which were American. The visit to Link City was essentially uneventful. This week we got dinner from another pizza place, and visited a candy store. We also tried to shop for nice clothes for the Chinese kids, who have no nice clothes to wear for the corporate visits next week. Also, there was the customary visit to the pan bread and sheep barbecue window. I didn’t do much between when we got back and when I went to bed.

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Day 15

1/22/2015

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This Thursday was essentially no different from last Thursday, except that we’re now more advanced in ASI class, which has somewhat lost its vocal music quality.

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    Andrew Buser is a civil engineering major at the University of Dayton. He is studying abroad at the University of Dayton China Institute (UDCI) in Spring 2015.

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