Elektor International Media organized an international study trip to China from 12–21 April 2008. Participants from different countries traveled and explored China. An outstanding opportunity to get acquainted with this country. Naturally, the main focus is electronics, but there was also room for culture... Here you can read the travel journey of this unique trip!
Sunday April 20th: the Chinese Wall
Written by Margriet Debeij
Our last day in rainy Beijing is filled with cultural activities. First we are going to visit the Chinese Wall. Unfortunately it is raining very hard, but the real diehards are willing to do the big climb to actually stand on the wall. Standing on the wall you appreciate the immense size of the construction. The wall meanders over a length of 5,000 kilometers along mountain ridges in the Chinese landscape.
All families were obliged to ‘donate’ a member of their family to build the wall. More than half of the workers never returned to their families because they died during the construction. Standing on the wall is a very impressive experience, definitely because you have to make a big climb up and there were not many tourists to be seen. In this quiet environment you can really enjoy the immense landscape.
After lunch we visited a Hutong (old Chinese neighbourhood) by rickshaw. We also had the opportunity to visit a family living in the neighbourhood. With some help of our guide we had a nice conversation and the landlord even showed us his Kung Fu techniques! The man was 72 years old and more agile and flexible than a fifteen year old teenager. He was very proud of his family and showed us pictures of everyone. He said he was glad he could enjoy a well deserved rest together with his wife. In this Hutong he acted as the contact person and he solved small problems quickly and easily.
We enjoyed our last meal in a restaurant that reportedly serves the best Peking Duck in Beijing. Lots of dignitaries went before us and it was quite an experience! Unfortunately all good things come to an end. Including our trip, prepared by Cees Baaij and Xin Wang who guided us trough the whole journey. Thanks a lot guys!
Our flight from Beijing to Amsterdam went smoothly without any delays. Our first Elektor business trip has ended and will be evaluated. The preparations for the next trip will be started shortly!
Saterday April 19th: Olympic Venues
Written by Ton Nies
Due to a troublemaker we had a slight delay in taking off to the Olympic Venues. Our guide Zhung Ying Hui (we called her Mandy) talked us trough the time consuming trip on the way down. These venues are located at the end of the Dragon Line in the north of Beijing.
The most interesting buildings are the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. We visited the latter and really set foot on the tribunes used during the 50 km Race Walking Challenge. A great experience. Thanks Mandy...
During the trip we also passed several beautiful and very old buildings while my cellphone switches to the CHN-CUGSM provider. History and Today are very close together here. In ancient China an emperor drove all people out of Beijing and divided the city into a kind of chess-board. Near every road a well was dug. The Mongolian word for well is hutong. This Hutong-part of Beijing has kept its originality and old beauty while many other buildings and structures (for example the city wall) were lost in the process of becoming modern Beijing. A shame. Afterwards we enjoyed a good lunch before we visited the Forbidden City (only the Emperor and his personal attendants were allowed in) and the Tianmen Square.
These are immense places where the Emperor lived and his family and servants supported him. Everything breathes the power of the Emperor and the effort that went into pleasing him. To support him in his task Fierce Dragons were called in. These dragons have several faces and guard every building.
Too much to tell about this period, and so cutting corners for a small detail. The large marble stones used for building the palace structures were transported by sledge over ice in wintertime. The route was planned and all preparations made during the summer..... talking about logistics……..
Looking forward to stand on the Great Wall....
Friday April 18th: Visit RFID company
Written by Margriet Debeij
The first event on the programme today was a visit to the largest electronics-clustered street in Beijing. Indeed a complete street full of buildings, 4 to 5 floors tall, one even bigger than the other and all choc-a-bloc with components, microcontrollers, experimenter’s boards, ready-made modules, electric plugs, LEDs in all different colours, graphic displays and much more. Everything an electronics enthusiast can dream up can be found here!
After lunch we visited the company Sense Vision — a small and young RFID company. The company assembles RFID readers capable of recognizing different RFID texts. The RFID readers even work at a distance of 5 metres! The company has major problems getting the components from Japan on time. The tags are made by themselves and are therefore very cheap.
The most interesting aspect of this company is that they make low cost tags that work at a distance. Not a super invention, but cheap. Curiously, all the components needed for assembly are easily obtained in China, but the RFIDs are hard to get.
We finished the day with a visit to E-plaza —the place to be when you are looking for electronic consumer products. The same story here: a street with no end of shops and outlets selling consumer electronics. Laptops, screens, I-pods but also computer parts are available here. Compared with these stores, the German/Dutch MediaMarkt is a mere Tom Thumb.
Thursday April 17th: visit to an electronics market
Written by Victor van Rooijen (Netherlands)
This morning we had to be in the lobby at exactly 8.30 am because we had a very busy programme and we were scheduled to leave for Beijing by plane in the afternoon. Of course everyone was on time because today we planned a visit to another electronic market where we would be able to buy all kind of components.
From the hotel our tour first took us into an old part of Shanghai town. This was definitely worth the effort. I even forgot about the electronics market for a while. We passed tiny old streets where cyclists on transport bikes were hauling enormous loads piled up so high that it looked like the 25-floor apartment buildings that you see everywhere in Shanghai. Although the homes in this old part looked very dusty and poor, we even spotted a dry cleaners.
Afterwards we passed a palace that was built approximately 300 years ago on the orders of an important Chinese man, someone like judge Tie. The palace was built around a pond, where some of the rooms where directly connected to. It must have been a pleasure at that time to live there …
Next on our day programme was the electronics market. Everyone was allowed to go their own way and after about an hour we planned to meet each other again in the hall of the building. The electronics market consists of a modern building of 6 floors where exclusively electronics companies are established. A real Walhalla for the electronics fan.
In the booths you could find rolls of solder wire, ICs and much more, displayed as on a market. It appeared to be difficult to tell the sellers your exact wishes. My first attempts to buy a display failed, because I couldn’t make clear that I only wanted to know the price of the display. Shortly before the time we would meet again I noticed a complete department with sensors and electronic mechanical components downstairs. So I quickly purchased some flexible clutches over here.
After a short bus trip we arrived at the restaurant where we had lunch. After lunch it was time to leave for the airport. Right now we are on the plane: we probably arrive at Beijing around 6.00 pm. There the last phase of our China trip will start!
Wednesday April 16th: visit to factory locations in Shanghai
Written by Ton Nies (Netherlands)
On our planning for today were two visits to factories in the Shanghai district. During breakfast in the early morning we met another Dutch delegation from ROC/HOB. They were participating in a student exchange programme between Shanghai and Zeeland. Besides, they were busy setting up a kind of medical post for people in rural areas who recently get increasing medical care.
Next we left to cross three provinces in the Shanghai district. To get there by bus is already quite an act. You are standing regularly, within just a few centimeters distance, eye to eye with a moped rider or a pedestrian. You reach the other side of a junction at crawl speed and only with rudeness can one get on the other lane.
Downtown there is a prohibition to sound the horn (they even have a dedicated traffic sign for this) and the main through connections are toll roads and very expensive. I was charmed by the clear down-counters at the traffic lights, which show the duration of a red or green light; maybe an idea for the Netherlands??
Meanwhile the travel guides are very busy making phone calls on the bus, because agreements have a very short lifetime here and they need to be confirmed and talked through quite frequently. As we headed to the Northern part of China, it struck me that the people got a more Western size. De kindness stays Chinese though. Cards, folders or a sugar bag are handed over with downcast eyes and an ever so slight curtsy.
Our Elektor group is diverse, very open minded and willing to have fundamental discussions (body paint, Lane keeping Control, Shanghai GPS, Home Growing Systems), in where we switch between very serious conversations and raging laughter. Our common language is Germenglish (a mix of Greman en English).
As opposed to Hong Kong (which used to be English) we can fortunately drive on the right-hand side of the road again and after a while we reach the Jiashan factory. The information we get here is merely about promoting the Industrial Zone Area as a potential location for factories and of course their future workforce. Next we headed to the ‘real’ factory. In the departments we visited employees were volume-producing microphones of approximately one centimeter in size for several applications. The work is carried out using an assembly line. The miniscule connection wires (we watched them with a microscope) were individually and manually soldered to the enclosure. Although employees are thoroughly supervised I did not notice any trace of dissatisfaction. The working environment and general atmosphere seem quite clean.
The next factory we visited was located in Kunshan. The PCB drill factory was magnificent to watch. The available space is used very effectively: everything is very densely packed. Interesting detail: there was a separate room with wooden walls with squares of 10 by 15 centimeters where employees could store their drinking mug, resulting in a multicoloured mixture of diverse pottery.
After the factory visits, on our bumpy way back, we decided to see something of the architecture of ancient Shanghai town. When we got back to the hotel it seemed that the guard was not expecting us any longer: he was asleep with this head in his arms. We have seen this more often in this area, where all stores are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After this successful day we were happy to retire to our beds for a good night’s sleep.
Tuesday April 15th: Shanghai
Written by Cees Baay, the Netherlands / China
After our impressive visit to the Electronic Fair in Hong King and the trip to Shenzhen, Tuesday was focused on our transfer to Shanghai. Despite the expected busy morning traffic, the trip to the airport went smoothly and we arrived on time. De journey to Shanghai lasted approximately 2 hours and after landing on the 'local' airport Shanghai Hongqiao we were transported by coach to the Maglev train station.
The Maglev train storms over its track with a maximum speed of 430 kilometres per hour. An 8-minute flash trip is all it takes to complete its course of 30 kilometres! A real attraction which made us decide us to take the same trip twice.
During the bus trip to the old French part of Shanghai we noticed that on the shores of the Yangpu river the preparations of the Worldexpo in 2010 are in full swing. In the old Shanghai we enjoyed a late but delicious lunch at the Italian restaurant Colabo.
Meanwhile it started raining cats en dogs in Shanghai and we perceived the difference of temperature while we are currently in the southern part of China: a temperature difference of approximately 10 degrees! After checking in at the Anting Villa hotel, also in the 'French Concession', we had the opportunity to relax from our transfer day.
At 8 pm we were picked up from the hotel and walked to the Cotton’s cafe; a lively Western lookalike bar, accommodated in a villa. Here we enjoyed a local specialty drink of the owner of Cotton Ding: 'Chairman Mao' (a cocktail).
Since it was still raining and in Shanghai no cabs are available (.....) we walked through the nostalgic French neighbourhood to our restaurant where we had an extensive dinner. The Yunnan cuisine, one of the southern province of China, was a special experience. And during dinner we were observed by a Buddha!
As part of the evening programme we visited Jazz club JZ and some of us couldn’t resist the opportunity to experience Chinese massage techniques in a 'venue' at the corner of the hotel. The professional masseuses showed us that differences in languages can be easily overcome with Oriental massage techniques and lots of body language. After all, a long day that ended with a suitable and well deserved massage.
Tomorrow we will visit the province and different companies, you will read more about those visits tomorrow!
Greeting from sparkling Shanghai!
Monday April 14th 2008: visit to a public electronics market
Written by Michel Gutlich from the Netherlands
Hong Kong, a big busy town moving and swarming 24/7. Everywhere you look you see taxis, double-decker buses and pedestrians from different cultures. The neighbours of the hotel we are staying in are Sikh with their own temple. A little bit further there is a Christian church and close to the church you can find a big mosque. Multicultural coexistence we can dream of in the Netherlands.
Despite the activity on the streets, the city in general is very clean and as far as I know I have not heard a police car siren. Wherever you come, people seem very alert and attentive. Here we can learn something about ‘service’ in general and 'customer service' specifically.
A special experience was our visit to the biggest electronic market of Hong Kong. Here you can find suppliers from all over Asia: suppliers not only of personal electronics, components and audio visual stuff but also household equipment. Preferably next to each other. So it can easily happen that a juice press is demonstrated next to the procedure for lead free solder of SMD parts — no problem!
USB memory sticks were presented in a widely variegated collection. No boring little blocks with simply one colour. On the market, real pieces of art were presented. From luxury jewelry to replicas of vegetables, fruit or food that you can put into the USB port of your computer.
Masters of the Light were the LED manufacturers. From fly curtains made of a network of colourful LEDs to complete bouquets, made of the shining diode. Sometimes I wondered if there even was a market for some of these products. I couldn’t imagine who in tropical Hong Kong needs a nice pair of USB-heated bearskin toe slippers.
Everyone is clearly very proud of the products on offer. Maybe it’s wise to give some attention to the law if certain products are introduced on the European market. Have a look at the fly squatter on the picture for example — you could easily electrocute a big lizard with this size!
Sunday April 13th 22.40 (European time 16.40).
Written by Margriet Debeij
After a long and tiring trip we landed in Hong Kong on Sunday morning at 8.30 am (local time). During the bus trip to the hotel we got a first im pression of Hong Kong. Enormous skyscrapers stand out above a few of the remaining Chinese apartment buildings. Although we tried to organize everything as well as we could, some of the participants had to wait for their room but most of them could go straight through. After a refreshing shower, we all felt reborn en started to discover Hong Kong mostly on foot.
Our first visit was a 3-storey electronics shop, which was jam packed with laptops, computers, printers, I-pods, and software. Digital cameras and video cameras were also abundantly present. Unfortunately we weren’t too well aware of the prices back home, otherwise we definitely could have bought some electronics and saved ourselves lots of money. After a delicious lunch we headed to Hong Kong by ferry.
In Hong Kong we visited a museum where you could see how Hong Kong started out and developed. The museum was very impressive and I would definitely advise to visit it if you ever have the opportunity to visit Hong Kong. Unfortunately we were less lucky while visiting the highest tower: the view was limited but we compensated it with some drinks and an excellent dinner.
A very impressive but tiresome day. When we got back to the hotel everyone went to bed for a well earned night's rest.
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By ferry to Hongkong
| Enormous skyscrapers
| View highest tower
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| 3-storey electronics shop | Discovering by foot | Hong Kong by night |
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