Day 2 in Shanghai was filled with more excitement! Once again, I woke up and went to the gym for an early morning workout followed by a complimentary breakfast at our beautiful hotel. The breakfast at our new hotel has been by far the best yet as it offers things that we are much more accustomed to in the United States like Waffles, French Toast, Donuts, and Omelets. Following the late morning, we boarded the bus and headed off to the East China University of Science and Technology which was located just 15 minutes from our hotel. Once we arrived we were greeted by one of the Deans of the school who gave us a presentation regarding the history of China as a country as well as differences in the business culture between the US and China. This was things like how people view the world and how they want to operate their businesses. Next, we dove into the impacts of the ongoing trade war between the US and China with regards to President Trump’s recent comments and actions. We mainly dove into China’s reliance on the United States for things like food and crops as well as technology from Silicon Valley. This is due to the fact that China has 1.4 billion people which is over 3 times the population of the United States and they do not have all the room to grow crops to feed all the people. She joked that “when you are in the United States and see a lot of people you ask what happened, but when you are in China and see no one you ask what happened”. Additionally, most of the biggest technology companies and products come from the United States. The need for this constant relationship is vital for the global economy and something she really stressed. Next, we dove into the history of China and how China is currently set up. We learned that China has 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, and 661 cities. On top of all this China also has 2 special administrative regions which are Hong Kong and Macau that operate slightly differently than the rest of China since they were British held areas until later in the 20^th century. You even need a special visa to visit these areas. We then dove into the how the political environment of China effects business and how the country has developed from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, the current president, in terms of globalization. Finally, we discussed the political impact of Xi Jinping recently eliminating the term limit for the presidency in China.

Following the long presentation, we then met some of the best English-speaking students at the university and broke off into small groups to go explore the campus and get some lunch in the cafeteria. Liliana, Ben, and I along with our guide got some normal Chinese food and discussed some of the differences between college in the United States and college in China. Our student loved us and kept on remarking about how handsome we were, and even ask me if I had a girlfriend. We even got a good laugh out of the fact that she thought that Liliana was from the United States due to her very good English.

Following lunch, we made our way back to the classroom where we played some games with the students from the university. Some of their students performed some traditional Chinese which were very impressive. Following the games which provided some great laughs, our student took us and bought us ice cream which was very nice.

Once we returned to the hotel we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Liliana as she returned back to her university right outside of Shanghai. It was a very hard goodbye because we got very close over the trip from the bonding on site visits to all the help she gave when I was not feeling well. Fortunately, however, we have each other’s WeChat in order to still stay in touch as she is going to NYC next week as well as Pittsburgh in August. The trip would not have been the same without her! Following our goodbye some other students and I traveled to the “Shanghai Times Square” and visited some huge malls with some of the world’s most famous brands. It was really cool but most of the things were way outside my price range.