It’s truly amazing to think back on my time in China. It’s hard to believe it even happened at all now that I’m back on the other side of the world in my tiny town. I know that all of the memories I made, lessons I learned, and friends I met (more like family really)…
Tag: Plus3 China
Check out all the Plus3 China blogs below!
Somehow, airport security in China is slower than the TSA.
By the time we got to the final day in China, it was weird because on one hand it felt like the days flew by, but on the other, it seemed like forever ago that we left the US. It was bitter-sweet to be leaving (but more bitter really) since I fell in love with…
I finally had cheese!
By day three of Shanghai, pretty much everyone was feeling the fatigue caused by almost two weeks of going nonstop (especially since many of us had had a very long, but very fun, night the previous evening). So we boarded the bus for the two and half hour ride out to the Yang Shan Port…
Blog #4: Our Glorious Chairman Mao
Today was going to be our last day in Beijing. We visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Temple of Heaven, so it was certainly a packed day. Walking through Tiananmen Square was the weirdest feeling because we all know what happened there, but almost no one in China knows about it. I remember…
Our Final Day in China
Today was our very last day in China. I’m sad to be leaving China and all the friends I have made but, I am also kind of happy to be going back to normal life at home. The flight however I am not looking forward to. This morning we went to the Yu Garden, which…
Day 11: The Yangshan Port
Today was our second last day before the long flight home we’re all starting to dread. We had a very early start this morning for the long drive to our last company visit. On the bus ride to the port we had guest speaker who was a former student at Pitt who had moved to…
Yeah I don’t know anything about engineering.
Day 2 in Shanghai started off with one of my favorite visits of the whole trip: the American Chamber of Commerce (or AmCham). I really didn’t have the highest hopes going into it because you hear chamber of commerce here and just think of a bunch of people talking about pretty boring stuff. But the…
Reflecting On My Time in China
I’ve been back in the States and started my new job and I still can’t believe I was just in China only two weeks ago. It feels like a completely different life from now. I really went into this trip knowing if I had expectations based on stereotypes of China from the American media I…
Entry #11 An overview
One of the key parts of this trip was discussing ethical issues for my profession. Being ethical is a huge part of being an engineer because you are creating products that keep people safe and help keep them alive. The key lesson from the trip came from Horiba. They were showing us their sales and…
Day 12: Gardens and Goodbyes
Our final day was spent in the morning at the Yu garden. The Yu garden was built by a son to please his parents and if I were his mom I would be very happy. It is absolutely a gorgeous place. I am just going to have to let the pictures speak for themselves on…
Entry #10 The final day in China
Sadly, today was the last full day in China, which was very sad, but I was a bit homesick after being gone for two weeks. It was sad to leave Lilian, Dora, and Nancy in China and they were sad to see us go. In the morning we learned about how the population in Shanghai…
Entry #9 The edge of the world
Today started off super early at seven AM when we took the bus to a port outside of Shanghai. We met a woman from Pitt who went to China for her job in marketing. She talked about her experience abroad and how hard it is to move countries. She said it’s very hard to see…
Entry #8 Got a look at Chinese business
Today we went to two companies based in Shanghai. The first company we went to was American Chamber of Commerce. They talked to us about the effects that the trade war had on their company. The Chinese companies that they were working with started to pull out because the trust between America and China was…
Entry #7 Shanghai is Spectacular
This was our first full day in Shanghai and it completely blew me away. The day before we went on a river cruise to see the city and it was lit up like a Christmas tree. We also learned how Shanghai is laid out with West Shanghai being old and East Shanghai being new with…
Entry #6 An incredible sight to see
The second day in Xi’an started like any other day by getting some of the fabulous breakfast that the hotel had provided for us. On the bus ride to the Terracotta warriors our tour guide Kevin talked to us about elements in China. In the United States we only have four elements, earth, wind, and…
Entry #5 First day in Xi’an
On the first full day in Xi’an we went to the children’s village on the top of a mountain outside of Xi’an. The children’s village was started in nine-teen ninety-six to help children whose parents have gone to prison with an education, a good life, and preparing them for the future. The kids at the…
Day 11: A Pilgrimage for Coffee
Today was our visit to the Shanghai Deep Sea Port, one of the biggest ports in China and a hub for trade in the country. The drive was about two hours, so a Pitt alum who lived in China was invited to come and speak with us on the ride there. Her name was Sarah,…
Entry #4 Tiananmen Square and the Temple of Heaven
Today was the last day in Beijing. I was feeling very American so the only thing I ate for breakfast were Rice Krispies. After breakfast we went to see Tiananmen square and the forbidden city at the center of Beijing. Tiananmen square is the third largest square in the world, and one of the most…
Entry #3 Huawei visit
On the third day of the trip we went to our first company Huawei. We visited the research and development center in Beijing. This company visit blew me out of the water from the moment we stepped into the building. It was a marble building with an enormous chandelier hanging above. After we entered the…
Entry #2 Balling in Beijing
On the second day in Beijing we went to the Central university of Finance and Economics and attended a lecture about big data and data analytics. This lecture emphasized how rapidly the smartphone market was growing in China. In the year two-thousand there were only two million smartphone users in China. By the year two-thousand…