Day 3 started like any other day. I woke up around 7:00, got a shower, and went down to get some breakfast. Breakfast is always fantastic, by the way. Today we were going to be going on our first company visits of the trip and everyone was especially excited because we were going to be visiting Huawei today. Huawei is the 3rd leading smart phone manufacturer worldwide and they are very popular in China.
We left for Huawei and it took us about an hour and a half to get there by bus. When we walked in, I was, honestly, taken aback. The building we walked into was extremely nice; almost kind of like a five-star hotel. The very first thing they showed us was a huge screen that had 16K resolution. I swear the video almost looked better than real life! Also, the first room they took us to was like a scene out of Blade Runner, so that was trippy to see. The lady that toured us was a pretty high-ranking employee in Huawei, and she took us through an exhibition of all the things that Huawei is currently manufacturing or developing. They talked a lot about their research on 5G network and they said that they were about 8-12 months ahead of their most direct competitor for 5G research, so hopefully we’ll have a new 5G network soon enough.
Some of my favorite things that they showed us were the 16K screen, a robot that you could move and make kick a soccer ball through motion capture, the display of all their phones, and the Blade Runner like room. After showing us around, they took us to a conference room where they gave a presentation and gave us a chance to ask some questions. The conference room was almost insane! It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The setup was really nice and they served us coffee, tea and some fruit (dragon fruit and cantaloupe) and desserts. I asked them about how the recent trade war affected their business operations, but they basically said that it didn’t affect them as much as you think it would have. That was kind of an underwhelming answer.
The last thing about Huawei was the bathrooms. I don’t think I will ever see a nicer bathroom in my life. Each stall had a toilet that opened automatically as you approached it and the toilet was just really comfortable. Also, each stall was decked out with lotion, mouthwash, nail file, comb, and stuff like that, so that bathroom will probably be the best bathroom I see in a while.
After Huawei, we got lunch at a nearby restaurant that was in a mall. The mall was massive and it was seven stories, so that was interesting to see. The lunch was good as always. After lunch, we went to visit VIP Kid which was a company that signs contracts with teachers to teach Chinese kids English through online classes. The contracts work kind of like Uber and their contracts with their drivers.
The culture and environment at VIP Kid was completely different from Huawei. They are a relatively new company that started in 2013, so their office space isn’t that big. The tour of VIP Kid wasn’t all that special. The Q&A session was very long though. Everyone had so many questions to ask. We probably asked close to 100 questions.
After getting back, we had dinner in the hotel. Dr. Li ordered us all dumplings which all were very delicious! After dinner, we took the subway to the Olympic Village. The subway was not nearly as busy and confusing as I thought it would be, so that was good. While at the village, some of the guys and I met a Chinese kid about our age that studied in San Francisco for a couple months, so we talked to him for a while. The Olympic Village was cool too! The Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube were the highlights of the village and they were worth checking out even though we couldn’t go inside them.