After 2 weeks in Shanghai of meetings and networking around to find companies to talk about CSR at the next AIESEC conference in Shanghai next year, I spent 1 weekend in Wuxi visiting a friend (just 75 minutes by train from Shanghai). He taught me Chinese chess and i saw a big buddha plus some lakes before heading to Hangzhou (just 2 hours by train from Shanghai) to start AIESEC in one of the top 5 best Universities in China.
It was an exciting 4 days meeting the students, University and local companies. The campus is one of the best I have ever seen -1/3rd finished full of beautiful lakes, millions of trees, fancy designed buildings and so on: I walked around it lots; in the evening it was lit up magnificently (as in tastefully and stylishly -which means it would fit in perfectly in Shanghai, but not in Beijing!).
A quick day in Shanghai was folllowed by the 14 hr trip to Beijing for 4 days since the President of AIESEC globally is in town talking to us; its a fun, kind of exhausting time. Broken up by going to the Scottish Ball which hands-down beat the British and EU balls. I can promise you that if you fill me with whiskey and wine then I can actually dance fairly well (scottish line dancing is a lot of fun). On Tuesday is the train back to Shanghai (12 hrs, fast train), on Friday back to Beijing. (14 hrs) The following Friday will be back to Shanghai (14 hrs) and a local mountain (13 hrs there, 12 hrs back) that we aim to climb in the snow before returning to Beijing (14 hrs) for a week or so returning home for New Year (11 hr flight i suppose). So if trains are your thing...
Talking about AIESEC in the past few days, and its relevant, vision and strategies for China has led to interesting discussion about China itself and AIESEC's role. With 2 major trends -the external, globalisation, internationalisation one and the internally focused, student and talent development; AIESEC is important. Especially with the misunderstandings that the World has of China and of how to deal with China. What's the best job opportunity we realised right now? Advising Chinese companies on how to do business in the West (market opportunities, cultural differences etc) -since Chinese companies have no understanding of the West (the same as Western companies not understanding China until they spent millions on consultancy and research fees!)
Stay tuned for some delicious Chinese food coming soon ... with appaling service, menus in Chinese, rude customers and phlegm over the floors... to a town near you!
I'm looking forward to seeing many UK-based people over New Year (probably a house party taking place if you can come) and going to Thailand for Chinese New Year.
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