After breakfast, we went to the Summer Palace, which was basically the emperor’s beach home. It was something straight out of a movie. It actually reminded me of one scene from Star Wars. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be there all alone either. We started playing with a shuttlecock with a local man, so a few people bought one to play with for the rest of the trip. That reminds me, the currency exchange here is insanely favorable to the US dollar. These shuttlecocks were only 75 cents each at a tourist location. Waters are always less than a US dollar, while meals were typically less than 5. Then, we checked out the Temple of Heaven, which was where the emperor would pray. It was awesome to see all of the history that Beijing had to offer. We saw places that the emperor would go hundreds of years ago. We went on a sleeper train to Dalian that night. We had soft sleeper seats. The way this works is that everyone got in a room full of two bunk beds so you could sleep on the train. It was actually really comfortable to sleep in. It came with a pillow and blanket too. We all drank a lot together and had a fun time on the train.

On this day, early on in the morning, we flew from Dalian to Xian. Once we got to Xian, we rented bikes for an hour and went on a 14 km ride on a wall that separates the inner city and outer city. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip, along with one of my favorite cities. We learned some local dialect from out tour guide. I also learned how cheap Xian is relative to places like Beijing and Shanghai. The sunset during the bike ride was beautiful, and then we went at night to a local fountain show, which is the biggest in all of Asia. This place was called the Big Wild Goose Pagoda North Plaza. Before the show, I got my favorite meal of the entire trip. It was quite simple, and cost less than 30 yuan each (about $4). The meal included a chinese hamburger, a bowl of noodles, and deep fried sticky rice that was topped with brown sugar sauce. The reason we checked this place out was because one of our friends, Steve, knew a friend from Xian who recommended we go there.

Today, we went to the Rockwell Automation Dalian Facility. There, we heard a presentation about what Rockwell does on a national level. Then, we learned a bit about what the China branch does. After that, we were given a presentation about international business. The woman who gave this presentation told us an interesting joke, which was “people who speak three languages are trilingual; people who speak two languages are bilingual; people who speak one language are Americans.” This joke was funny yet very memorable. I did not realize how privileged Americans are when it comes to learning other languages. In China, virtually every student has to learn English. Even street signs all over Asia are translated in English, which makes life much easier. This speech also made me want to pursue international business in China. I want to learn how to speak the language, despite how difficult that task may prove to be. A career in China or one that commutes to it is one that I am definitely interested in as of today. After the presentations, I was assigned to a group that was led by Bruce. Bruce was a regional manager at Rockwell, and seemed pretty young to be. He said his English name is Bruce because he likes Bruce Lee. He was a pretty cool guy. We got a tour of Rockwell, which had some really nice facilities in it along with a great view. We had lunch nearby the office that was delicious. I talked to Bruce a lot. He told us about the education system and how the price of education actually tends to go down as you get older. He also mentioned how he was the second child of his family, meaning he was a ridiculously high expense for his family at the time. He said he was lucky to live since many second borns were killed off. He also said that the regulation for kids changes a lot (like right now, Chinese people can have two kids without being taxed.) He also mentioned that his father was fired by the government after his birth, which was pretty insane to hear. Bruce seemed to recognize how extreme Chinese culture can be. He also mentioned how he does a lot of business with Americans, so he has to speak a lot of the English language. I also asked him how important learning Mandarin is for international business, and he said that it helps but the culture is just as important. This was a great experience for me since I got to talk to locals of Dalian. Rockwell did us a huge favor by hosting us. After, we went to a cool spot of Dalian. There, there was an amusement park and a great view of a bridge that was just built in the past year. I went on a few rides and had a good time. The scenery was unreal. It looked like we were surrounded by castles. After, we went to a very fancy dinner with Xinli’s friend who is the CEO of a landscape and real estate company. We took a fancy Mercades there. Xinli told us that his friend’s recent deal got him 50,000,000 yuan. The location of the dinner was unreal. Only some of us got to sit with Xinli’s friend, while the others sat with his son. The man could not speak much English, but was very nice to us. We ate great food and had a lot to drink. Xinli’s friend told us a lot of traditional Chinese sayings. One of the dishes at the meal was a whole fish that was given as a gift. Xinli and his friend also exchanged gifts. It seems that the reason that this man hosts all of us is that Xinli paid his son Tom’s phone bills while he was at Penn State. This once again showed the importance of relationships in the Chinese culture. After the dinner, we got a couple booths at a local club. This club was very cool. Girls that worked there were walking around everywhere with bottles and what not. We also danced on the dance floor, which moved to the beat of the song that was playing.

After waking up, we went to a building surrounded by water called the National Center for Performing Arts. Our tour guide in Beijing was a man named Mike. When first walking in, we were under a layer of glass and water that made an awesome moving design on the walls. Then, we went inside the massive building and got to tour all of it. After that, we walked to Tiananmen Square and saw the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. I did not realize what we were getting ourselves into. The line was very long, and people were buying flowers for the tomb. When we first got in there, people were bowing and kneeling to a statue of him. It was definitely a culture shock, and at first reminded me of North Korean society since this man was known to be cruel. After, we saw his actual body held in a casket. I was told to be quite during this part out of respect to Mao Zedong. It was a very serious atmosphere. I talked to Xinli after seeing Mao Zedong and he thought Mao Zedong was a good man. He even said he cried as a kid when he died. Apparently Chinese society was like that of North Korea back then. Xinli said he felt that he was “brainwashed.” After, I saw a woman continuously bowing to the building religiously. After doing this, we walked through the Forbidden City. This place was huge, and it’s hard to believe it was opened to the public only around 100 years ago. I thought it was going to be much smaller than it actually was. At the end, we were at the top of a hill at the heart of Beijing. This showed all of the completely massive city of Beijing. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe that if it weren’t for this trip I probably would have never been able to take in Beijing. In the afternoon, we went to Wangfujing Street. This street had strange seafood, fried spiders, insects, and other things that were crazy to look at. Some scorpions on a stick were still moving. I ended up having a fried scorpion after Jack tried a couple. I’m glad I did it. It really only tasted like a potato chip. After doing this, we went to an acrobat show that was very impressive. At the end, there were 8 guys all riding motorcycles in one globe. After getting a dumpling dinner, some of us went out to the MIX club, which was a lot of fun.

First, I flew from Newark to Hong Kong. We got two meals on that flight. Then, when arriving in Hong Kong, I used US money to buy some cheap food. It was chicken, mushrooms, and other things inside of rice. I didn’t really like it, and the soymilk that came with it wasn’t too great either. This made me think that food in China wasn’t going to be that great. I also didn’t realize how Hong Kong uses a different currency than the rest of China. After getting food, we bought a bottle of liquor to drink between some of us. This was funny because it felt like 7 PM to us, while it was 7 AM in Hong Kong. The airports were remarkably large too. They almost looked like a small town was put inside of a building. After flying from Hong Kong to Beijing, we met up with Xinli, checked into the hotel, and went to a hot pot restaurant near us. They boiled a pot filled with water and spices in front of you, while you got to choose whatever you’d like to put in it. It was good but not great in my opinion. However, some of the food later on in the trip was amazing

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