I love Shanghai.  You will love Shanghai.  We will see Shanghai and spend three (3) full days there (which includes two full days of firm visits, one full day of seeing the sites — see below).  While you will have some free time in Shanghai, you won’t have a lot — evenings there will likely be your best bet for solo exploring and adventure.

Here is an article that just came out in the New York Times of some things to see and do in Shanghai.  The article has some good ideas, but the NY Times’ idea of a $500 being “frugal” or doing Shanghai “on a budget” for a few days for this amount is laughable.  If travelling solo, this Midwest boy could do Shanghai for the same amount of time for a lot less than $500, and have even more fun than this Manhattan based author did.

While there, as one of our three days and for some fun and culture, we will likely visit, as a group, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall and the Shanghai Museum.  We will also likely check out, as a group, the famous Bund (along the Huangpu river and right across the river from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower), the French Concession (a district left over from the Western colonial days of ”let’s carve up China” that still retains many shops and mansions with a French feel), and the famous Yuyuan Garden.  Each place, in my view, is a must see stop while in Shanghai, and I think you will enjoy them (last year’s students certainly did; at the end of the “hit the sites” day you will be pretty worn out). 

After Shanghai, up early in the morning, check out of the hotel and load the bus, and we will be off to Suzhou or Hangzhou … 

Great front page article in today’s Wall Street Jorunal, “Pigs Get the Ax in China TV Ads, in Nod to Muslims“, showing how Beijing has made the call to pull ads with pigs in them, even though this year is the Chinese ”Year of the Pig“, so as to not offend China’s 20 million Muslims, who consider pigs unclean. 

As I read this article, I could not help but think back to the recent PBS series, “China From The Inside” which I did a post on.  That show did a nice job touching on Xinjianghina, the Northwest province of China which purportedly wants independence but Beijing disagress under the subterfuge of “only the terrorists there want independence”, and they proceed to crack down on folks in this province in a way that teaches the USA what ”shock and awe” really means.   The article suggests that pulling this advertising is a ploy by Beijing to buy political capital with these folks and not inflame them even more.  I agree.   If so, a pretty savvy politcal move.  Hey, the folks in Beijing aren’t dumb.  Great article. 

On the business side, I also wonder whose head rolled in Nestle’s marketing department who made the call to spend millions on an ad campaign centered on a cute pig, without giving thought to how Beijing might pull such advertising so as to not offend a small segment of its 1.3 billion population.  This is the type of foresight and intuition that no business school class can teach you.  You either have such a skill to think ahead like this and have a Plan B in place when things go wrong, or, you don’t.

Submitted By: Stacey Westenberger

As we look to China with all of its potential for growth, physically and economically, I can’t help but be concerned about the sustainability of these conditions. Focusing on the physical environment, the urban population in China is projected to increase by over 250 million people in the next two decades (Libby). The increased consumption of resources allowing for this growth is startling and needs to be confronted. As Libby explains, the Chinese government is also concerned about the rapid growth of urban areas. However, the claims made at the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild Conference in 2004, were startling, yet seem to be far from fulfilled. “For example, Qiu Baoxing, vice minister of Ministry of Construction, People’s Republic of China, told the conference’s 6,000 attendees that by the end of 2010, all Chinese cities will be expected to reduce their buildings’ energy use by 50 percent; by 2020 that figure will be 65 percent” (Libby). Although these claims are hard to track, the China Rises video, which we all viewed last fall, was released in 2006 and the environmental issues were still a major concern.

With these issues escalating, Danish Architecture firms teamed up with Chinese Universities to create visionary proposals for sustainable urban development in Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Xi’an. (Co-evolution) These creative approaches generate discussions and begin to address the problems in China with conceptual solutions.

As the Danish Architecture Center states, this collaborative approach “illustrates the value of sharing knowledge, ideas, and experiences across borders” (Co-evolution). Denmark, with a population of almost 5.5 million people, is a much different place than China, with a population of over 1.3 billion people. However we can learn from each other, adapting lessons to culturally appropriate solutions. This exhibit won first prize at the 10th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, recognizing its importance as a subject to be addressed among the world.