Daybreak

This morning found us ensconced in our rooms at the Jian Gong Jin Jiang Hotel enjoying a late morning to help recuperate from the busy day prior. The breakfast here is more traditional Chinese fare with dim sum, rice, and chicken included in your am options. With ample time to explore the city, groups of students fanned out to learn more about Shanghai.

Free Time

The nearest subway station is the Hengshan Road station. Some members of our team ventured across town to a market similar to the Silk Street Market in Beijing. Many of the negotiating tactics used by the merchants at the Silk Market were in evidence here, but some new tactics were also observed. Some watch and purse sellers would invite you to a “secret” room located behind their shop where you were lead to believe that better goods were available. Another common tactic here was to offer two different qualities of the same product (poor and best). This attempt to match products with customer desires, and pocket books is representative of the overtly capitalistic tendencies of Chinese business.

In China, everything is negotiable. A price may change from minute to minute, day to day, or from one sentence to the next. Some students observed situations where the price on water went up after other students who arrived earlier lowered the vendor’s supply of water. In other cases, prices dropped dramatically when the customer walked away from a sale. Buying cheap, fake goods may not sound like much of a business lesson, but negotiating in Chinese markets is invaluable experience for American’s like ourselves who have little experience in negotiating price.

Many students also found their way to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. For the Architecture undergrads, this was a chance to peer, and point, and photograph the largest urban planning model in the world (over 600sqm). If you’ve ever seen the “Archies” out on Dexter Lawn at Cal Poly with their models, this is a bit like that, but on an absurd scale. In China, even the models of things are big.

Shanghai Live Market

To contrast the difference in food between tier 1 and tier 2 cities, our first group stop this day was at a live market near the hotel in Shanghai. This market was similar to the one visited in Suzhou, but exhibited a higher standard of cleanliness. The floors were not clean, but they were not awash in effluence as we saw in Suzhou. The smells were strong, but not overwhelming. As always, the storekeepers were friendly - smiling and perhaps amused at our cameras. It’s easy to look at these markets and think “gross” but the food is undeniably fresh. It’s not what we are used to, but you could assemble a very nice dinner from the items available at these markets.

Yuyan Garden/Temple

Our second group stop of the day was at the Yuyan Garden/Temple, located on the outside bend of the Huangpu River adjacent the famous Bund. The road to the Temple was a gauntlet of street merchants. The sheer numbers of people selling goods with the smallest of values is hard to understand, but is important to remember that China the supply of people ready and able to work is high. So where the smallest of demands for human labor exist, it would seem that workers are ready to meet it. A hotel will have people endlessly sweeping the floors and wiping the windows. A park will have security guards standing under umbrellas in what seems like unreasonable numbers, and here at the bund there are hundreds of people working the streets to make a few Yuan. What we would perceive as a glut of labor is not a glut here. Supply and demand.

The temple was similar to the gardens in Suzhou. Traditional buildings, rock work, and lions standing guard at the entrances. The Xianmingju Teahouse was devoted to the drinking of tea, and the benefits of doing so. Mark at the Hutong in Beijing discussed the importance of tea drinking in Chinese culture, and the temple helped demonstrate the longevity of the tradition. In all honesty however, the purpose of the Temple seemed to be commercial. There were thousands of people in the surrounding shops and markets, but few willing to spend a few RMB to visit the historical site.

The Bund

We traveled a short mile or so down the road to a drop off adjacent the Huangpu river for photos and to forage for dinner. Dr. Carr discussed the history of the area, the details of the French Concession (and hence the French architecture here) and the fact that communism was founded in Shanghai. Chinese flags snapped in the breeze over every building here.

The view here is a stunner, and our collective cameras fired with enthusiasm. Under the splendor of these magnificent buildings, the river sulked and rolled in a polluted broth. Many views are contrasting in China and this was no exception. Splendor mixed with squalor. Shine mixed with smudges. Look up and you see some of the most amazing buildings in the world. Look down and you see a price that was paid. The Bund is an amazing place, but it was sad to see the river flowing past.

On past the waterfront we broke off in to smaller groups and found something to eat. Some of us headed to the 47th floor of the Radisson to the Sky Dome Bar. A Tsing Tao will run you about $9 U.S. here. Yet another example of how location and timing influences price. LED lighting is widely used on the skyscrapers here and it presents an amazing effect at night. Perhaps this architectural trend will become more prevalent in the U.S. when some of our architecture undergrads get back from this trip. We hoofed it back to the bus by 9pm.

There’s Your Sign

In marketing, we talk about doing business overseas and making sure to avoid cultural snafus. Kaiser Kuo drove this lesson home when he lectured us in Beijing about the speed with which a brand can be trampled online in China if it is perceived in a negative way. On the flip side, we observed some truly amusing signs (in English) here that bear mentioning. Consider the following:

A business advertises in large letters above it’s store “Keep Moving”

A restaurant hangs a sign that says “The World Famous Home of the Famous”

A wig shop advertises “The real hair false hair specializes in selling”

A t-shirt reads “You, Ms Lee you you how much un”

We chuckle, but there is a lesson here. If you are trying to make money selling to a language that you do not speak - check your grammar. Then check it again. Now pause, before you print your ad and check it one more time just to be sure. We have no doubt that equally embarrassing mistakes are made every day by U.S. companies trying to get their slice of the China pie.

After Hours

There are small details during a life on the road that make all the difference. Several of us walked across the street from the hotel to the Jin Chen barber shop for a haircut or a shampoo. For about $7 U.S. you can get a head massage and shampoo, haircut, and rinse. It’s a 45 minute process. The folks here are pros, and the haircut may help you in your efforts to “go native” with a Chinese doo. Mr. King is the manager, and he has no qualms about staying open an extra half hour to get you taken care of. Hot weather in India is coming soon and we will be working there with cooler heads now.