Days 6 - 9: Mercedes Plant, Forbidden City, The Great Wall and lots more :)

Visiting the Mercedes Production Plant in Beijing was actually a spontaneous decision made by our teachers. They requested a visit and we luckily got this opportunity on Friday.

The Mercedes Plant located in the suburbs is huge: more than 100.000 m2 of assembly lines, stamping, painting, etc. They produce there the C-, E-, and GLK classes. Unfortunately it was not allowed to take pictures inside the plant because I would like to show how neat, tidy and perfect this production plant looks like (did they clean before we came, or do they have such a strict policy?). In any case it really fits to their "motivation to strive for perfection" as they claim.

The bus dropped us at Tian'anmen square, the biggest square in the world. However it is only a flat piece of concrete without any shadow or interesting sights. Only the history of this square is of great interest (but strongly censored by the Chinese government and not searchable on Chinese search engines). The surrounding buildings of the square compromise the Forbidden City, the National Museum and the Hall of People. We went to the Forbidden City, a large scale palace with a long history. It is "the" tourist trap of Beijing I would say, thousands of people were there (but only a handful of Western looking ones). The Forbidden city stretches around 2 km from North to South and around 700 m from East to West. It is quite a walk to see only a few buildings inside of this huge sight! But we soon found out that the interior is not interesting at all and that there is not really a museum-style building there... so you basically can only look at the facades which more or less look the same all the way through the Forbidden City.

On Saturday we visited the Great Wall. It is located in the North of Beijing and really deserves its name. It is very steep since it was built on mountainous areas (or at least at the place that we visited). The wall itself is not really high, but it was enough to protect from angry Mongolians riding on horses. Like in the Forbidden City, there were so many tourists, it was really crowded.
We soon had to learn that it is actually a hiking tour since we did not expect that it would be exhausting to visit a wall :) And unfortunately it took so long to go there by bus and back to the hotel, so it took all day ...

On Sunday we went to the Silk Market and the Pearl Market. The Silk Market it is shopping mall for tourists I would say... There were not many stores that sold silk and everything there was overpriced, even the souvenirs seemed to be precious... and signs on the walls said that we must not bargain with the shop owners (we did not care and still bargained, but did not buy anything at this place).
The Pearl Market was way better. There you can get bags, shoes, trousers and a lot of silk (more than in the Silk Market). Starting prices are much lower there, but still we bargained a lot. You can buy there a really good silk tie for 7 € (or probably even less, if you really want to bargain hard). The market itself is totally messy and too crowded so if you are scared of many people squeezed together in small places, you should go in the early morning to avoid these masses of people.

Yesterday (Monday) we again went to the Pearl Market once more. We split soon, because I wanted to send my postcards and do sightseeing and so I took the metro towards the UIBE university to meet with Olesya and our Chinese tour guide from the University. The tour guide helped Olesya and me to send the postcards from the post office. Afterwards we went together to visit the white pagoda close to the forbidden city and we walked along a lake and through some parks, climbed little hills and took tons of pictures there (the sunlight was perfect). I really had a great day! ... and also we had Beijing duck (such a good dish) in the evening with other friends from Steyr!

Soon, I will be leaving... today it is Tuesday, my last full day here. I can't wait to fly back home, however I really enjoyed this extraordinary trip in to another world!

Enjoy some of the pictures that I took:

Mercedes Benz Plant

Tian'anmen Square

North entrance to the Forbidden City

Beijing Duck (prepared in front of guests)

The Great Wall

People struggling to climb

Masses...

Silk Market

Don't trust these signs...

Pearl Market 

Assortment of Chinese food (very fresh and tasty)

A walk through the Park on Monday

White Pagoda

Wish you good luck Olesya, may your wish come true

Forbidden City from top

Day 4 and 5: Chamber of Commerce, Embassy, Clubbing and strange food!

I have had two really interesting days full of company visits, lectures and interesting people. But also new cultural insights and a visit to a club were part of the plan.

We had a lecture on consumer behavior from a Chinese marketing teacher and would we should be aware of when marketing products in the Chinese Market. We learned that Chinese used to love buying very expensive and exclusive stuff (all luxury brands that you can imagine) and that showing status is much more important in China than in Europe. People here have a greater entrepreneurial spirit and seek for financial successes in order to satisfy materialistic needs mostly. This is totally different to the European lifestyle of creating self-esteem, self-actualization and buying "joy and experiences". 

The Austrian Chamber of Commerce gave us a great and humorous presentation about the challenges for Austrian companies in the Chinese market.  The two presenters were keen to provide us details from an Austrian perspective. Finally we can now compare between the Chinese and the Austrian view about the development of China. The meeting at the Austrian embassy was in a rather comfy atmosphere and focused mainly on the automotive industry which is one of the biggest drivers of China's economy. After this long day we went to the club... and that was pretty amazing!

Good clubs in China are extremely expensive. However, one of my colleagues has good contacts and we could get in for free. Furthermore, European people usually get in for free anyway (as I was told). 

We would have had to pay 6000 € (yes it is really 6 k) for two small tables without seats and without any drinks. Luckily we did not even have to pay for drinks since one bottle of liqueur (and I am not kidding here) is 300 €. In the middle of the dance hall there was a stage and there were different shows all the time. We had really a lot of fun there and were observed by the Chinese clubbers with great curiosity. Since we had a tight schedule today as well, we were not drinking much and left a reasonable time to enjoy the next day as well. 

The next day we visited BMW and had presentation (it really seems to me that it is all about the automotive industry in China) and a Chinese automotive supplier. Interesting to me where the two different forecasts from these companies. So BMW forecasts a rapidly growing market for electric vehicles whereas the supplier does not believe in a great growth rates in the electric vehicle market. In any case, electric vehicle owners in China have more privileges such as prioritized parking spaces.

In another meeting, Raimund Löw (ORF correspondent) told us about Chinese media and his work in Beijing. We had the opportunity to ask him a lot about his experiences in dealing with the vast media landscape in China. Furthermore he compared the challenges between working in Europe and China in his position.

Strange food in China: I tasted starfish and snake, but some people even tried Seahorse and Scorpions. Have a look on the pictures and make your own judgement :) 

Snake tastes a bit like chicken and starfish smells like any other fish but the meed looks really different. Anyway, have a look below!

Austrian Chamber of Commerce (Foreign Affairs department)

Austrian Embassy

Some of my colleagues

Clubbing

BMW meeting

Handing over a little present to Raimund Löw from ORF

Chinese automotive Supplier

Strange Food 

Scorpions

I guess thats lamb (no dog!)

"Pauze" dumpling

Some kind of bird?

Third Day: Vice president of UIBE, KEBA company trip and Summer Palace

Waking up, quick breakfast and off we went...

Today we had a lecture hold by the Vice President of the UIBE University. It was not that interesting as yesterday, especially because it was a cold and dark morning which me feeling quite tired (and I still feel jetlag).  Also, it was hard to follow, however I stilled enjoyed it. Interesting to me was the number of students in China and the rapid increase of people with an academic degree. Nowadays Chinese universities teach more than 30 Mio. people and many more will follow. After the presentation we had time to ask some questions (most of us tried to avoid raising political questions though).

Straight after the lecture we went to the Austrian company KEBA. They build ATM machines for banks and are very successful with their business in China. We had a guided tour at the production site as well as a presentation about the ATM market followed by a small discussion. This market has an extremly high growth rate in China (25 % per year). The overall market share, however, is still small, but the company provides best technologies and services.

After that visit, we went to the Summer Palace, a huge place: acres full of temples and buildings, a big lake, hills, bridges, islands, many boats... it was pretty amazing although the weather was not! What I did not like was that many buildings were not refurbished well and that besides the nice facades there was not much interesting inside these buildings... It was becoming already dark when we went there, so dont expect very good pictures...

We decided to go to a restaurant later on. It has 4 floors, a huge variety of food and big portions at a low price. I randomly chose 3 dishes which looked nice on the pictures and had quite good luck. I did not have lunch so I was really hungry, but it was too much!

Have a look on the pictures of today:

UIBE Vice President

KEBA

Notice the time difference

Different country, different needs

Summer Palace