Juliana Simon A Day in the Life of the 2006 AAGLP in China Shenzhen, China May 16, 2006 7:30 am We’re now on our 10th day of the MBA AAGLP trip to China, and the trip has been fantastic. This day begins like all the other AAGLP days have so far—with a great breakfast at the hotel. What makes the breakfasts great is that the hotels provide a large variety of foods to try, offering both the Western staples such as bagels, muffins, and eggs as well as what would be considered more typical Chinese breakfast fare. I do not normally eat much for breakfast back at home, but here I have made a point to eat more. Not only are the days long, but it’s interesting to try something completely different. This morning, I had a plain white bagel with cream cheese along with some papaya and star fruit. The more adventurous try dragon fruit, but I found that its name is more interesting than its taste.  9:00 am After a short bus ride, we arrived at our first stop of the day—the Wal-Mart Supercenter.  We started in the business office where we were given an overview of the business and an opportunity for a question and answer session with one of the unit’s vice presidents.  The presentation was especially interesting due to the difference in Wal-Mart’s strategy in China compared to that of the United States. It would seem that the philosophy of offering a one-stop shop with the lowest prices would translate the same anywhere in the globe, but that is not necessarily the case in China, where most citizens live in small homes, have no cars, and like to buy fresh foods. This makes the large purchases associated with one-stop shopping much less appealing and places the smaller, regional shops on equal footing with the larger retailers such as Wal-Mart. As a result, we learned, the top 30 retailers in China have only a 7 percent market share. 10:00 am Following the presentation, we were able to tour the Wal-Mart Supercenter and the Sam’s Club, and I must admit, I never expected a trip to Wal-Mart to be one of the highlights of AAGLP, but it definitely was. One reason was that the presentation did a great job of illustrating the difficulties that Wal-Mart faces in China and the strategies that they have adopted to compete. It was interesting to see those strategies in action in the store—such as the Tai Chi class being held off to the side as we walked through the entrance, which we now knew was in large part an effort to attract the grandmothers to the store as a way of improving the total shopping experience. Another reason the Wal-Mart trip was such a highlight was that it is one place for which I have a complete reference to a counterpart in the United States and could directly compare the differences. I think this provided a much better feel for the true differences in the cultures. The store looked like a Wal-Mart, and even if all of the signs had been covered, I would have still known it was a Wal-Mart. Yet, it was different. The fruits and vegetables were very different from those one would typically find in the United States.  The most notable difference for me was the addition of the live fish section. The China Wal-Mart offered live fish, shrimp, crab, and even turtles that customers could place into a plastic bag and take home to cook. It was hard to imagine that something that would seem so strange to us, such as picking out a turtle to cook for dinner, is as commonplace in China as buying milk is to us in the United States. 12:00 pm Lunch today was sponsored by Wal-Mart and attended by its senior management team.  They were gracious hosts and took us to a very nice restaurant in the area where the servers kept bringing out tray after tray of food and imploring us to eat delicacies such as bamboo shoots and cow tongue, one of which, I will say, was considerably better than the other. Nevertheless, it’s the experience that matters, and I am now proud to say that I have been to China and eaten cow tongue. 3:00 pm After lunch we boarded the bus and headed to Luen Thai, a factory in the development district that makes clothing for customers such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Liz Claiborne, and Abercrombie & Fitch. The factory was an impressive sight. It was a complex of large buildings, with each one dedicated to a different function. The sewing building was filled wall to wall with tables where hundreds of people sat hand stitching clothing with lightning speed. Another building held samples of all sorts of materials and fabrics that were used for quality testing, and one other section of the complex was dedicated to employee housing.     Despite the routine work being done for hours on end, the atmosphere in the factory was very positive, and our guide explained that in China, work in such a factory as this was considered a very good job. In addition to their wages, all of the workers lived on the factory grounds and had all meals provided as well. This was an interesting experience as it really drove home the impact that globalization can have on the international market place. 7:00 pm Tonight I went out for dinner with a group of friends from the program, many of whom are Indian and had heard of a great Indian restaurant that was not very far from our hotel.  I love Indian food and was looking forward to the experience. I was not disappointed.  The green vegetable curry I had was awesome, and all of the Indians in our group agreed that it was the best Indian food they had ever had outside of India. It was also fun to talk to my classmates outside of the school setting and get to know everybody a little better. Despite the long day, we stayed at the restaurant talking for quite a while. It was interesting to discuss the places we had been that day and find that almost everybody had come away with similar reactions.