Emerging Markets: Beijing

Travel:
I will spare all the grueling details, but as the highlights are as follows. Because our flight was delayed out of Newark, I was able to spend some time visiting with my generous brother and sister-in-lawI in Jersey City. Also, I never really experienced new years eve in 2010. As the date changed for us as we traveled over the north pole/international date line, but who knows what time that was, as I was likely asleep. I over-prepared for the 14hour long haul flgiht from Newark NJ, over the North Pole, and into Beijing China. Instead of reading, or playing video games, I took advantage of the extensive movie collection available on these long haul flights.

Free Day:
Because of our travel delays our free time in Beijing was cut short. We didn't make it to the pearl street market, or the summer palace, but we did venture out into the Beijing subway to make our way to the Olympic park to see the Olympic Stadium (Birds nest) and Water-cube. Two things stood out to me: 1. They were using the birdsnest as a winter festival. for about $2.50 USD (15 Chinese Yuan) one could enter the gigantic stadium for their snow festival. Using snow machines they had built a small ski hill and tubing hill, provided facilities for snowball fights, snow laser tag, snowmen etc. Seems like an odd use of such an amazing facility. 2. The facilities seemed run down a bit. Some of the buildings looked like they had closed their doors after the Olympics and nobody had touched them since. Closed up, unused and in general disrepair. Still it was interesting to see.

Later that evening a group of us went to visit one of the "5 Treasures of Beijing" the Peking Opera. We were warned that this production is unlike western opera. The style if singing is ... not what we are used to. I understand that this form of entertainment was developed in the late 18th century, and I respect it for what it is, but still I found the story to be boring, and the singing annoying at best. But we were allowed to see the performers applying their makeup before the show. Also, there were some entertaining 'acrobatics' in the second half that kept me from falling asleep. (Why did I think that going to stay awake in an opera after waking up at 2AM two days in a row to travel around the world.... not to mention the jet lag.)

Cultural Visits:
As standard 'must-see' sites in Beijing, our group of 72 people ventured out on a cold day to visit Tienamen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall of China. Note, in January, Beijing is VERY cold. The mote surrounding the forbidden city is completely frozen over. Up on the Great Wall, it was much much colder.

Chinese City Gate at Tienanmen Square

visiting the Forbidden City

on the Great Wall of China - Badaling Section

Business Visits:
Because of the size of our group, not everyone visted each business. The group I was with visited Sinopec RIPP (Research Institute of Petroleum Processing).

At Sinopec, #7 on the Fortunes Global 500 list, we were warmly greeted by a team of their Research Executives and were given a summary presentation of Sinopec, and then guided on a tour of their research facility in Beijing. This Chinese state owned oil company employs 600,000 (ExxonMobil employes 100,000) and seemed to me to be about 30 years behind the times. While making good progress since the 1980s they still lack effeciency and quality/safety standards that we come to expect in the US. While some of the equipment we saw was new, the facilities were delapidated, and not safe as open containers of chemicals and fuel feedstock were openly stored.

While in Beijing we also visited Beijing Hyaundai. This joint venture between the State Owned Enterprise and Korean Hyaundai Motors produces automobiles solely for the Chinese automobile market which continues to grow. We took a tour of the factory that produces Sonota's, Elantra's, and SUV's. This factory was a modern marvel. The automation and process engineering were facinating. A new car rolled off the assembly line every 66 seconds and from start to finish only took 7 hours to build a single car.

I will post later about my adventures in Shanghai.