My second to last day had me waking up bright and early at 7:30 am. I was more than a bit tired from checking out the Shanghai nightlife the night before as well as just exhaustion I built up from the trip. Still I was in the last stretch of the trip and Dr. Li was counting on me to bring my A game to this company visit.
We did have a two hour bus ride to the Yang Shan Port so everyone thought they could go right to sleep, however we were surprised with a visit from Sarah, a Pitt Alumnus who now lives and works in China. She first studied Chinese and proceeded to do a study abroad in Shanghai just like us. She clearly fell in love with China because she decided to stay, I personally am not brave enough to do that. It would definitely help to know the language before coming over to China because I’ve never been more lost in my life on this trip. Not only can I not speak Chinese but also not being able to read sets me back a lot too. After my two weeks here I can really commend Sarah on her bravery for working and living in such a different place than Pittsburgh. She did talk about how she felt living in China helped her grow, and how getting past the initial hardships she faced developed her character and work ethic. Like in VIP Kid, its nice to see where Pitt alumni are now and where their different career paths have taken them, even across the world.
Even though it was a two hour bus ride I don’t remember most of it because I was fast asleep the rest of the time, but by the time I woke up the bus was stopped at not our final destination, but a beautiful view of another of Shanghai’s ports. There were more shipping crates than I could count and I knew I was getting just a glimpse of the sheer size of the amount of business and industry that is headquartered in Shanghai. And to think that this port is just one of many that are in Shanghai, and even more span the coasts of China.
When we finally arrived at the Yang Shan Port and were warmly welcomed by the Shanghai Lingang Group. The Shanghai Lingang Group is a 100% government owned and provides warehouse services to other companies. It’s funny because the port we visited earlier and marveled at was actually the Shanghai Lingang Group’s competition but is also completely government owned. I did somewhat confuse me how the two still competed even if they were both owned by the government but then again there are a lot of economical things that confuse me when it comes to the Chinese government. We got a chance to go up close on one of the docks where cars were being unloaded. There are so many cars on the ship that it’ll take hours upon hours for workers to go in and drive them individually off the boat. Our somewhat short day was ended once we returned to the bus after having turtle for lunch, leaving me with one more day in China.
