11 Apr

Suzhou Old Town Tour and Brugg Cables Visit – Shanghai

By Jann Stutz and Julian Jorns

After a long day of travel from Shenzen to Shanghai and a quick trip to the world famous and impressive bund, day 15 of the on-sight seminar marked the first day of company visits in Shanghai. Exactly speaking, not Shanghai, but Suzhou, which is a city fairly close to the multimillion metropole. The Insight China delegation made its way to Suzhou early in the morning to see the beautiful Humble Administration Garden, where many pictures of the amazing pavilions, flowers, bridges and ponds were taken. To close off the morning activities, Insight China went to the Pingjiang Road, an Unesco World Heritage in the city of Suzhou, and enjoyed all the delicious street food offered there.

In the afternoon, we were invited for a company visit at Brugg Cables Southeast China in Suzhou. Mr Zhang, the CEO, warmly welcomed us with an introduction speech, held in German. Several presentations allowed us to gain insights into their ropes, belts and high voltage cables accessories productions. The theoretical part was followed by a tour through their production sites, which further explained the unique products. It was very interesting to learn about the highly developed operations of Brugg Cables, which have successfully established themselves in the global market. We were amazed to learn, that their products are of key importance to one of the biggest buildings in the world, for example the Empire State Building in New York. The day was rounded off by a wonderful dinner with employees of Brugg Cables. Together, we enjoyed delicious food, red wine and could exchange ourselves with each other.

09 Apr

Tencent and DJI Visit – Shenzhen

By Michael Kayser and Philipp Leuenberger

After the days in Chengdu, getting in touch with China’s culture and a leisure Day in Shenzhen, the two company visits were on our today’s schedule.

In the morning the delegation went to Tencent, the third largest global internet company around the world. There we had a tour in the exhibition hall.

The company was founded in 1998 and launched QQ, a free instant messenger, in 1999 and today, it counts more than 25 billion users. 2011 the Company launched WeChat. Up to now, more than one billion users are restarted for this messenger. WeChat is not only used for communication, it is also used for payments, doing appointments with doctors and rate them or donate money. Afterwards, we had lunch in the cantine of Tencent.

In the afternoon the delegation went to the offices of DJI. They are producing high-quality drones for the consumer and the professional market. A member of the Shenzhen Technology University (SZTU) showed us the different products and the company’s history. He explained how the drones developed from a “do it yourself” frame to a fully autonomous aircraft. He also showed the commercial grade drones who are used in movie production or the spraying of crops.

After the office tour, we went to a flagship store of DJI to see the drones in action. In a cage, an employee showed how easy they are to control. Some are even controllable by hand gestures which the drones process with AR (augmented reality).

After these very impressive company visits, we enjoyed an ice-cream to end the hot day.

Many thanks to Tencent and DJI for showing us their impressive businesses.

06 Apr

Panda Research Base and Jinli Market – Chengdu

By Tobias Gerhard and Miranda Memeti

After a long and exhaustive bus trip the previous day, day 10 gave us the opportunity to relax a little bit. This day, a very special creature was the center of attention – the giant panda. An animal only living in China.

After leaving the hotel in the morning, our guide Susi took the chance and used the 40 minutes bus ride to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in order to teach us a few panda facts; did you know that pandas eat around 40 kilos of bamboo a day of which only 20% finally are digested? Or did you know that these days, there are only around 2000 pandas living in the wild? However, arrived at the research center we had to find our way through the massive crowd, which visited China on this particular public holiday. Despite the huge number of visitors, we saw them all eating their bamboo and simply being lazy; from the very little baby pandas to the grandma and grandpa pandas.

Other than planned, the afternoon was culturally influenced, too. After having lunch at the Jinli market, the delegation had the oportunity to buy souvenirs. However, it seemed that some of the delegation members were the most popular objects on the market. Pictures of us were taken constantly.

The evening was leisure time, but the mahlrity of the delegation took the opportunity to casually celebrate Lauro‘s acceptance at a Swedish university for his master‘s degree.

05 Apr

Buddha of Leshan – Chengdu

By Rrahim Gashi and Benjamin Mak

Day 9 started with a special laundry service provided by our local tour guide Susi. Afterwards, we began our long journey to Leshan Grand Buddha and Lingyun Temple. The whole trip was covered by the bus service provided by the tourist agency. We started our journey at around 0800 am but due to the traffic jam the schedule was delayed. Nevertheless, our tour guide Susi did an amazing job by being flexible and adopted to the situation successfully. She quickly changed the schedule by having lunch before visiting the tourist attraction. The meal was served in a traditional round table and each person tried to make their own combinations. Afterwards, the whole delegation entered in the coach again and finally drove towards the mountain of Leshan’s Grand Buddha.

Arriving at the foot of the mountain, we had to walk couple of stairs before enjoying the overwhelming natural scenery of Chengdu. It was a blessing to see more healthy landscape after the dry scenery of Lanzhou. As a result, the air quality was better as well and there were no masks needed. At the top of the mountain, we had the chance to get a decent view of the Leshan Grand Buddha, which was built in the rock. The construction is impressive by its size and accuracy. The legend says that the city was plagued by floods, whereas a monk once suggested to build a buddha into the rock of the mountain as spiritual assistance. He started the project and created a fund to raise financial assets for its construction. Surprisingly, after the Buddha was built, the rivers stopped to overflow and the whole land was finally protected and fertile. The locals adore the Buddha and believe deeply in its spiritual power. Nevertheless, scientists found out that the reason for the protection from the floods might be due to the stones, which fell in the river during the construction and therefore changed its past streaming behavior.

After the long visit to the Buddha including the temple, the travel agency has organized our dinner as well. Our tour guide Susi already prepared the reservation as well as the preferences for each person’s soup taste for the hot pot dinner during the ride back to the city. Thanks to our tour guide we could really relax the whole ride and got back to the city at around 8-9 pm.

The delegation went straight to the hotpot restaurant and we were shown to our very own room for dining. After entering our dining room, we saw a lot of small hot pot stoves for every single person with the preferred soup, which we could choose between not spicy, very spicy, mix or vegetarian.

The dinner was excellent and on top, all the beverages and food were all inclusive. Later, we went back to the hotel and were finally having some spare time after a long rich cultural day.

03 Apr

星期二

By Jonas Bürgi and Leandro Di Salvatore

After having had Breakfast, the Bus driver took us to the nearby TianShui Huatian Science and Technology Park. With about 400 employees, and more than more than 350 Million-yuan average annual investments (50 Mio. USD), the TianShui Huatian Science and Technology Park is one of the most significant employers in rather small TianShui (roughly half a million people live in urban TianShui). The company is mainly producing semiconductors for low to medium voltage devices, for example mobile phones. After an introduction to the company, we got to make a tour around the vast manufacturing and managing facilities.

Before eating lunch at the excellent restaurant of our hotel, we visited the FuXi temple. This temple has a quite big significance in the Chinese schools of thought, as it has been one of the first homes to FuXi. Fu Xi is what we would regard as a legendary emperor from the distant past, despite that he is also the “founder” of Yin and Yang.

In the afternoon, we visited a Start-up Accelerator / Coworking Hub (天水市众创空间暨电子商务中心) outside TianShui. This business hub provides consulting to local companies, provides space and facilities to start-ups and organizes Pitching events. The range of present companies reaches from individual enterprises to medium sized companies who ship their products all over the world.

The day closed with a trip to Maiji Shan, where we hade a look at a Buddha Statue and enjoyed a nice short hike and a great view before returning home to find an amazing dinner waiting for us. What a great day that was!