ALL POSTS BY: Blair Stilwell

Last night we had what has become an annual tradition in Shanghai, an alumni dinner in Pudong just across from the Bund.  In attendance were alumni from Owen and other Vanderbilt schools, students from the project teams, the three faculty who helped support our projects, and several admitted and prospective Owen students.  We talked about our favorite professors, our projects, networked, and hopefully did a great job of showcasing the power of the Owen and Vanderbilt community to the prospective students.

A future Owen applicant and translator for a project team demonstrates dessert calligraphy after our Sichuan style meal.

Here is the whole group.  I apologize for the bad lighting but this is the only copy I could find.

Afterwards, many of us went to Paulaner’s on the river promenade to have some beer.

Ray and Sheping (L) and Shuanghui and me (R) at Paulaner’s.

Special thanks to Wang Sheping (Nancy), MBA ’05, and her staff members, Wendy and Meiling, for organizing this and helping on so many aspects of the trip.

People keep asking what is most surprising about China.  Several people on the trip have been surprised by things I expected but other things are like the Grand Canyon — you have to experience it yourself to fully comprehend.  So here are my surprises:

• The pollution in China is mind boggling.  There are are coal plants everywhere.  Imagine sitting in Central Park in Manhattan and looking of at the Rockefeller Center with a large smoke stack right next to it, smoke drifting around it.  Wood fires are all over the countryside.  Shanghai is much better then Beijing but still worse than Los Angeles, Houston, and other cities in the U.S. known for frequent air quality alerts.
• Access to the Chinese government has been much easier than we expected.  We met with government officials twice and toured two government facilities without restrictions.  Did they clean up before we visited?  Maybe, but they have been candid about their problems as well as their strengths.
• Women have more power than I expected.  Many of the places we’ve visited are led by women managers.  For example, 40% of management at Wal-Mart China is women.  Most other Asian nations are much more male dominated.

I am uploading more photos to the photo album as I have a chance.  Thanks to Isaac and the Owen Bloggers support staff for helping us post so we can spend more time exploring Shanghai and less time on the Internet.