After five straight days of being treated to beautiful sites with deep history full of breathtaking views it is now time to get back to the studying part of studying abroad. Today, my classmates and I found ourselves visiting another university. The East China University of Science and Technology!

Before I get into our wonderful visit, allow me to do a brief run through of our unreal hotel. Boasting the largest room and best views of the three hotels I have stayed in so far was already a great start. But include the beauty salon, massive gym, sauna, bowling alley, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and racquetball courts took this hotel over the top. It was basically a resort in the middle of the metropolis that Shanghai is. Once again the continental breakfast blew my mind away as it was one of the best buffet style eatings I have ever ate. I could get used to this! One could almost spend entire days in the hotel alone. Me on the other hand, I still want to make the most of my time so I will be trying spend my time exploring the city.

Now, back to the East China University of Science and Technology. Today’s visit was a lot of fun. Meeting with peer students and living a partial day in their life was awesome. I really enjoyed our lecture today. Specifically, I enjoyed having the opportunity to ask Dr. Regina Huang, our professor, questions. She answered in a way so personal and with answers so developed I felt as if I had just done a research paper on the topic. My first question came to mind after she mentioned that across all the different markets China is becoming, or already, fully integrated, besides finance! This is my area of study so I really wanted to find out why. After I asked, I learned that due to China’s history of having a centrally planned economy, financial markets are in no place to thrive. Even with China moving towards a market driven economy they are so far back in the game compared to the rest of the world. Something that could potentially help grow the financial markets would be if experts from across the world where to come into China and help develop the financial structures to create stock markets as well as other financial institutes besides just banks. She mentioned that’s all the Chinese people think about when finance comes to mind. Anyways, so why don’t these experts come in and help China? China has really low wages in comparison to other wages found in these countries with thriving financials markets. It would be tough to convince financial experts, who are surely above average wages in their respective countries, to come and try to set up a whole new aspect of an already stable economy when taking into account all they would be leaving behind as well as fear of failure. Dr. Huang also mentioned that before when their current markets took a fall the government pumped money into the markets to help stabilize the economy. To me, this sparked a follow up question. Keeping in mind, she had already mentioned that the Chinese people were skeptical of investing for a plethora of reasons including lack of knowledge, not being as ambitious with risk, and not trusting the economy. I asked how having the government pump money into the economy to cover up the downfalls only halt the progress of a developing financial market? She refuted saying it was only a one time deal. However, being in the stage their markets currently are in it would be interesting to look more into this. I wish I could have stayed and talked to her for hours as she was extremely knowledgable, I couldn’t stop thinking of questions, and that topic was right up my ally, it is too bad we had to move on to the rest of our lecture. After lecture we had a meal with a student, Emily, of ECU which was excellent. Emily also bought us ice cream after due to the 95 degree, humid weather, extremely thoughtful and not necessarily, but extremely appreciated as well.

After getting back to the hotel and showering the humidity and sweat away, some friends and I went shopping. We went to the Shanghai Times Square which was basically a street filled with shopping malls and eateries on both sides. Some of which was affordable, most of which will only become affordable once I become the successful professional that my future entails. Regardless, seeing some of the pieces from the most coveted fashion houses found across the globe in person was so much fun to me, even if I could not buy. It was better than only having the runway pictures to look at. One of my favorite brands, Rhude, was also featured in one of the stores. This was quite shocking to me as their global stockist is extremely limited and I did not seek this out, I merely stumbled upon it halfway across the globe. Some of my favorite pieces I saw include a pair a grey cargo pants from John Elliot Co, a beautiful leather jacket from Saint Laurent, and a bomber from Balenciaga. Something that shocked me was that while exploring one of the stores I found a pair of sweat shorts branded with a US city. That alone is not that uncommon as I have often seen NYC, LA, and sometimes Chicago across various articles of clothing on locals throughout the trip. However, I have never seen a Pittsburgh branded article of clothing anywhere outside of Pittsburgh…let alone in Shanghai! All in all, today was a very fun and extremely humid day!

Tomorrow brings our first Shanghai company visit, a logistics company working out of the Yang Shan Port.