Hey, everyone. Welcome to China.
Can you guess where I'm standing right now?
Let me give you three options.
I'm either in Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai.
If you guessed Shanghai, you got it right.
Let me just tell you some interesting facts about this place.
It's the world's largest city with about 25 million people just in the city limits.
Now, I come from the city of Chicago.
Chicago's a pretty big town,
I think, in the U.S.
But Chicago's only 3 million people. Think about that.
25 million people just in the city limits alone.
If you expand that to the metropolitan area,
there's 35 million people here in the Shanghai area.
It's just incredible. Another interesting fact about Shanghai,
it has the world's longest metro system,
over 360 miles of metro tunnels under this city.
You need that if you've got 25 million people traveling around the city at the same time.
Let me just tell you another interesting fact about Shanghai.
It's the financial capital of Asia.
Some people think of Shanghai as the New York of China.
Not just because the financial market's here,
but also because it's a little more Westernized,
a little more modernized.
It's the favorite city for expats in mainland China to live and work.
Now, let me just tell you a little bit about doing business in China,
and generally doing business internationally.
Two things you have to keep in mind.
One is you've got to be flexible.
I'm not even supposed to be here today in Shanghai.
I'm supposed to be in Qingdao.
My flight was canceled.
I had a full day layover and so I thought
let's take advantage of the time and see the town.
You just have to be flexible and expect changes to happen.
The other thing when you're doing business internationally is you have to be adaptable.
You've got to realize that the norms and the culture in
your country is going to be different wherever you are
doing business in the foreign country.
I can't think of a place that's much more different from the
U.S. than China and East Asia.
The culture is different, the food's different.
But as long as you're adaptable and you're
mindful of your norms and the norms in the new country,
you're going to have a great time and you're going to enjoy it.
One important aspect of doing business in another country or culture is the food.
Understanding how to eat, what to eat with,
all the customs involved with the food is really important.
It might make the difference between making the deal, for me,
joint venture, or even just continuing a relationship. Let's eat.
So in this course, we're talking about global business.
And because our corporate partner,
Double Star, is based out of China,
we're also going to be spending time learning about China,
the culture, the economy.
And when I think about China,
there's a few themes that stand out.
I've been here a few times,
and some things kind of pop out to me that you need to know about,
especially as you're doing your project with Double Star.
One thing that's clear is scale.
The size, the sheer size,
the sheer scale of everything in China,
not just the number of people.
But you go to cities like this,
like Shanghai, and you think 25 million people.
How do they get around?
How do they have jobs for everyone?
How do they distribute food to all the people and all the places?
You just think about the scale,
and how that impacts every single aspect of society and the economy and business.
So in China, everything is done at supersize,
everything is done at the huge scale.
The other thing that I think is interesting about China is this contrast
between rapid change and ancient culture.
So, if you came to Shanghai 30 years ago,
or some cities like Shenzhen,
hardly existed 15 years ago and now it's eight,
10, 12 million people.
There's been so much change in China in the last 20 years, 30 years,
even the last 15 years,
and yet you combine that with this ancient culture.
They've got so many historical artifacts,
so many cultural artifacts that come from 2000 and 4000 years ago.
And so you see these blending of the new culture,
new business, new economy,
mixed with this ancient culture.
And there's just, in some ways conflict,
in some ways this melting pot of the old and the new.
And you see that all over in China,
and you're going to see that as you work with Double Star.
The old culture working with the new culture.
It happens at the people scale the older generation working with the younger generation,
as well as ideas and how they do business.
Andrew AllenDirector of Action Learning
