So I'll talk a little more about my trip to China, what we did, and how I felt about it.

It started with a 15 hour flight, which were some of the longest hours of my life. After we finally landed and got outside of the airport, I realized I was in for a tough week. The five days that we were in Shanghai was one of the hottest weeks in its history, with a real feel temperature of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit most days. That was definitely one of the biggest changes that I had to adjust too.

Since the trip was being led as a business credit, we visited five companies that gave us presentations and did a Q&A. The companies were hdt Media, a solely Chinese based company, Abercrombie & Fitch, Emerson, SJE Rhombus, and Black & Veatch. The latter four were all American companies doing business in China and other parts of Asia. During the presentations they talked about how doing business differs from America, some of the advantages and disadvantages, and really cleared up a lot of misconceptions that many people have. For instance, I was under the impression that the Chinese government controlled and limited what a lot of companies could really do, but I found out that that was not really the case. The presenter of our hdt Media visit explained that as long as the company is doing business fairly and not trying to assert itself politically, the government really will not interfere in normal circumstances.

In addition to the presentations, some of the businesses had factories that we were able to tour. It might just be because these factories were in big cities and not out in the rural part of China, but from what I saw they were extremely organized, safe, and the workers seemed to be happy to be making money.

Overall it was an amazing visit and a great experience. Next I'll talk about some things we had to do for the class post-trip and a summary of my research paper.