May 9

Long bus rides seem to be the norm here. This morning our program visited the Sunshine Insurance Group. The campus was beautiful. It is modeled after European buildings and every inch of the grounds was pristine. We walked into the building and were shocked when they took us into a lecture hall (this is supposed to be a company visit, right?). We would later learn that they also have a college on the campus for training their new employees. That was the first thing that was a little odd about Sunshine, that the campus was basically a small town; with a college, hotels, and lots of other buildings. The next was when they showed us a video about the thirteen-year history of the company. The introduction scene of the video was like a cheesy iPhone war game ad with stereotypical epic music playing in the background and scenes of nature and boats. The video talked about how the founder gave up the life he had as an important person in the government, to start the company and how heroic it was that they took eight months to start the company without pay (it’s interesting but the way the video presented it was creepy). I got the impression that the founder was seen as almost a god figure. At one point in the video, some English speakers were being interviewed but there was Chinese played over top as well as English subtitles; however, the subtitles did not accurately say what the people were truly saying. The subtitles basically praised the founder and his skills, but the people were not saying the words in the subtitles. Finally, they told us that there was a large number of employees working on the campus, but we barely saw anybody other than groundskeepers. Not even looking into windows could we find people working. Don’t get me wrong, just because I thought the experience was odd doesn’t make what their company has done in its short history any less impressive (becoming profitable more quickly than most insurance companies) nor does it take away from how incredible the campus was.

Later in the day, we visited Xiaomi, one of the largest smartphone producers in China. There we heard from a senior manager about the process of creating their phones, from partnerships with materials suppliers through selling the completed phones. He emphasized how important it is to plan each step out and know how everything needs to be done. He was also very adamant that they do not consider the companies they purchase materials from as suppliers, but they view them as partners and they want to grow alongside all of their partners. After talking with him for a while they showed us their flagship store where we could see many of their products. They don’t just make phones, phone related gear and laptops. They also sell luggage, electric razors, and my favorite, rice cookers (they were so out of place).

That night a bunch of people decided to take a cab to see a part of the city not within walking distance from the hotel. We found a really cool outdoor shopping mall, not like street vendors but nicer shops and buildings. It was a pretty happening place with lots of people, but it didn’t feel crowded and there was much less traffic than the middle of the city. It was a cool change in the nightlife of the city because in other parts we had explored most stores closed and the streets emptied around 10:00 pm.