Personal Reflections Reportmbastudent.baf.cuhk.edu.hk/download/download_area/MBA6080A B… · 2008-2009 June 8-12 2009 MBA6080A Business Field Study – Mainland, China Personal Reflections

2008-2009

June 8-12 2009

MBA6080A Business Field Study – Mainland, China

Personal Reflections Report

Professor: Ms. Ping Ping Fu

MBA6080A Personal Reflections

Page 2

Content

Chan Pek Ieng, Pauline .................................................................................................................................... 3

Chan Tak Hung, Terry ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Chan Tsan Jim, Jimmy .................................................................................................................................... 12

Chang, William............................................................................................................................................... 17

Chen Yi Yin, Sophia ........................................................................................................................................ 20

Chow Bo Loi, Paul .......................................................................................................................................... 25

Chow Wing Yee, Vivian .................................................................................................................................. 28

Chu, Chung Ngai Inness ................................................................................................................................. 31

Fraissinet Lise ................................................................................................................................................ 38

Fung Ching Oi (Olivia) .................................................................................................................................... 43

Fung Sin Cheung, Edmund ............................................................................................................................. 47

Ho Ka Man, Kaberlina .................................................................................................................................... 50

Lam Tze Kin, Eagan ........................................................................................................................................ 54

Lee Tsz Yeung, Michael.................................................................................................................................. 58

Li Sum Yi, Yvonne ........................................................................................................................................... 65

Li Wai Chung, Owen ...................................................................................................................................... 68

Lui Ching Man, Esther .................................................................................................................................... 72

Mak Ho Pong ................................................................................................................................................. 77

Ng Man Fai, Catherine ................................................................................................................................... 80

Or Shuk Kuen, Irene ....................................................................................................................................... 83

Tse Chun Ho ................................................................................................................................................... 86

Wong Kok Meng, Joe ..................................................................................................................................... 89

Wong Lai Yee, Jodie ....................................................................................................................................... 93

Wong Wai To, Oscar ...................................................................................................................................... 96

Wu Shuk Ling, Iris ........................................................................................................................................ 103

Yang Huajun, Frank...................................................................................................................................... 107

Yong Wai Ling, Winnie ................................................................................................................................. 111

Yuen Koon Chi, Christine ............................................................................................................................. 115


Page 3

Beijing City (photo by Pauline)

Tsinghua Science Park (photo from web)

Beijing road (photo from classmate)

On the MTR platform (photo from

Inness)

Wangfujing (photo from classmate)

Chan Pek Ieng, Pauline

中國情．中國結

－北京遊學之隨想

My Chinese Heart 我的中國心

It had been 12 years since my last visit to Beijing. The city had

changed so significantly since my last visit. Places such as

Wangfujing and Qianmen had transformed into modern shopping

areas; MTR system had expanded from two lines to eight lines.

There are many more tall buildings and highways. I was so

impressed to be in this urban and international capital city.

Before this trip, I was expecting to see a new look of Beijing after

the Olympics and visit outstanding enterprises to know their key

to success in doing business in China. But much more than that, I

got the chance to come across with fabulous people who shared

their stories which were beyond what we normally saw as an

outsider. Thanks to this journey, I learned more about China – my

home country.


Page 4

Beijing national theatre (photo from Inness)

Waiting for flag rising ceremony at 2:30am (photo from Inness)

In Tiananmen (photo from Inness)

Today, China had become a 'bright spot' in world economy.

Witnessing the rapid growth of China’s economy in the past

decades, I am so proud to be a member of this big nation. As our

country is becoming stronger and taking more important role in

most international decisions, I am so passionate to know more

stories and the reason behind the big change.

This trip provides a very good chance for me to know more about

China through interacting with excellent Professors, outstanding

CEOs and fabulous locals and students. This is also the first time

that I can listen to point of views of so many excellent Chinese

people and share their valuable experiences.

After this trip, I knew more about my country. The more I learnt

about this country, the more I love it and the more I can feel my

sense of belonging to it. Never did I feel so proud of China and

Chinese culture than before. Never did I feel so strong a sense of

being Chinese than before.


Page 5

Beijing Olympics opening ceremony (photo from web)

The opening ceremony of Games for the disabled (photo from web)

Discussion with Ms Dong Mei during class break (photo from Inness)

Beijing Olympics opening ceremony (photo from web)

The Beauty of Chinese Nation 美麗的中國人

Chinese is one of the most amazing civilizations the world has ever

known with history of more than 5000 years. Confucianism and

Daoism greatly contributed to the beliefs and philosophical nature

of Chinese nation. Through these philosophies, Chinese people

gained many morals and ideas such as honesty, hard work, and

concern for others that helped them progress as a people. It also

brings about the uniqueness of Chinese people in term of the

value, behavior and belief.

With the marvelous opening ceremony and complete success of

the Beijing Olympic Games, the world was amazed by China’s

capability to host grand activities. It successfully deepen the

world’s understanding of China's social customs and culture as

well as showcase China's ever growing international status and

prestige. Nevertheless, the effort behind this indisputable success

which Ms. Dong Mei shared with us was the most touching part. I

was so amazed by their on-time completion of renovating

dormitories for Games for the disabled/handicapped within 24

hours; it was also shocking to know that they reprinted 200,000

brochures within a few hours time. The extreme cooperativeness,


Page 6

CEO forum (photo from Inness)

Dinner with GM Ms. Li (photo from Inness)

The CEO Forum (photo from Inness)

Friendship between Prof. Fu and GM Ms. Li (photo from Inness)

fortitude and unreserved contribution of all Olympic participants

had made what sounded impossible became possible. I strongly

agree the saying that, maybe, only China and Chinese can make all

these happened.

Meeting with Ms. Li, General Manager of Nirvana Resort Beijing,

and other two outstanding CEOs also reward me with many

valuable lessons. Ms. Li is a live example of successful Chinese

leader. She spent her career in tourism for more than 40 years.

Experiencing high tides and low tides in life and career, Ms. Li

reminded us that successful leaders must have a strong character

and firm belief in one-self. This character can be in-born or

developed through learning. She also emphasized the importance

of good personality and mora lity for one’s well being. All these,

re-assured me of the importance of ethics and trustworthiness on

the way to success.

Ms. Li also shared with us her philosophy of running success

business and organization – self-alignment. She runs her business

in the way that matches her personality. She shared her values

and beliefs among her co-workers and developed that into her

company culture. In this way, Ms. Li can also love what she do and


Page 7

Young Chinese girls celebrating for Beijing Olympic Games 2009

(photo from Internet)

Smiling face of a little girl who experienced earthquake

“小女孩，你的微笑不獨天真可愛，而且代表了中國人向世界宣示：我們是何等頑強的民族!”

(photo and quote from http://stephenau.info/category/life/)

Chinese is a nation of collectivism. People in China have very strong National Consciousness.

be consistent in her business strategy because she does not need

to violate her personal values while making business decisions. I

was especially impressed by Ms. Li’s idea of consistency. It

reminded me of times when I found conflicts between personal

values and company interest. Ms. Li’s point will be a good

guideline for me when making choice in work and in life.

The CEOs also demonstrated the Chinese management style of

mutualism which is very different from the western individualism

style of management. They emphasized self-discipline of the sub-

ordinates which is also a philosophy of Confucianism. People

centric, the CEOs built trust with their sub-ordinates and show

care about them. This humanistic way of management motivates

people in the company to work for a common goal and for the

well-being of the company. It is believed that the best

management method is to set the company system and rules in

the western way and to manage people in the Chinese way. The

success of such management style can be shown by Ms. Li having

almost half of her sub-ordinates working in her company for more

than 20 years.


Page 8

The morning sun (photo from Inness)

Tiananmen before sunrise (photo from Inness)

The flag rising ceremony (photo from Inness)

A Bright Future 明天會更好

All the good characters that I found in the outstanding people

that I met are common but unique among Chinese people. The

hardworking and fortitude character of Chinese people

contributed to the fast growth in economy of the country. Self -

disciplined and people oriented way of thinking give the motion

for the country to grow stronger. Consistency and honesty are

essential conditions for ethic development.

I believe that these characters are some of the most important

key factors that lead to great success of the China. These

precious values shall be passed on and more widely spread

within the nation through education and country policy. I hope

that beauty of Chinese nation can give a positive impact to

China’s development as well as the world development.


Page 9

Blue sky without cloud at Capital

Steel

Yellow sky, why?

Chan Tak Hung, Terry

Beijing 2009 – We are Ready!

The story started on 14 June 2008, the first time in my life and the

first day to come to Beijing, I took this picture inside a taxi in the

evening. I still remember that it rained suddenly and heavily, forcing

me to change my plan from visiting the Olympic Stadium as close as

possible to become seeing this place just inside a taxi. When I firstly

saw this giant building, I was amazed that China was developing so

fast within a short period of time that we could use our own

technology and manpower to organize the first Olympic ever in

China. However at that moment, I still had doubts whether China could organize it successfully and

smoothly, and what positive influences that Olympic would bring China and its citizens. Although I hated

raining, but this time I liked it so much. This was because the sky was yellow with bad air quality and I

could see nothing, really nothing when I looked through the window from the office in

the afternoon. I wondered why the air quality was that bad and could not figure it out.

Meanwhile, I talked to the taxi driver, happily asking about what Olympic would bring

to the citizens when the car was jammed on the road. The driver told me that the

Government had implemented a new policy prohibiting vehicles to be used daily but

alternatively. However, I still wondered why there were still so many cars on the roads.

With so many unsolved questions in my mind from the first visit, I brought them back to Beijing again on 8

June 2009, nearly a year after my first visit. The first thing surprised me was that I finally could see the

blue sky most of the time! Additionally, I visited the same place - Olympic Stadium and the Water Cube

but I felt completely different and was so proud of China. Not

only because China had organized the most successful

Olympic Games ever in history, but also because the Games

demonstrated our passion, ability and determination to

achieve a difficult mission together with all Chinese people in

the world. This Olympic Game really brings Chinese people

together, becoming them more united than ever before (e.g.

volunteers from different cities helping the Olympic Game

operated smoothly, and everyone in different cities of China

welcomed the torch to come during the relay) towards an

objective of organizing the Olympic Game – One World One

Dream “同一个世界同一个梦想”, and to develop the whole


Page 10

country moving towards the theme of Beijing Olympic – Green, High-technology and People Olympic “绿

色奥运、科技奥运、人文奥运”. I believe that these core values coming from the Beijing Olympic

explained why and what made Beijing change so much within recent years.

As a result, I have categorized my observations and feelings under 2 dimensions extracted from the

Beijing Olympic themes namely Green & High-technology, and People with “One World One Dream”.

Green & Technology – Reducing pollution by technology

After visiting Hanergy and Taiyanggong, I discovered that the technology

level of China in generating electricity through environmental friendly

ways are mature and up to international level. The most impressive thing

was that Taiyanggong’s power generator is located inside Beijing City

without polluting the environment nearby! This zero pollution will also be

achieved by the new plant of Capital Steel. This is because the Government

was trying every possible way to reduce the pollution by relocating the

plant of Capital Steel to somewhere 400Km far away from Beijing city.

Furthermore, even after the Olympic Game, the Government tried to

reduce pollution in city by prohibiting vehicles to be used one day per

week. All citizens welcomed this measurement as they also observed the benefits bringing to them – Blue

Sky. In their mind, they are willing to scarify a bit to gain back the unpolluted environment. This sense is

very difficult for Government to educate their citizens but Beijing did it well!

People with “One World One Dream” – Passion to contribute to China

Throughout the whole study trip, I saw lots of Chinese talents coming back from western countries for

work and education to China. For instance, David from CICC, the Business Director from Google and

Professor Liu. These returnees have excellent background but choosing to work in China and even

scarified better salary in overseas. They all are Chinese coming back from different parts of the world and

share the same dream - using their expertise with strong passion to contribute to the development of

China market. This “One World One Dream” concept really touched me and I seldom to see this

happening in Hong Kong. In addition, this concept of contributing to society was also observed through

meeting with CEOs in Daoxianghu. I had dinner with Ms. Li Hong, the General Manager of Daoxianghu and

learnt how to think positively during the bad times (e.g. if the sky doesn’t fall after 3 days of the bad

things happened, that bad thing is over!), and how we

should focus on our job (e.g. when we try to work hard and

devote to our job, other things like rewards will come

automatically). Besides, I totally agree with her philosophy

of improving ourselves, forming a family and contributing to

society “修身齐家治国平天下”. Sometimes we should not

be too focused on the short term benefits but need to do


Page 11

Queuing up at 0300 for flag

raising

something good for our friends, family and society. To conclude, I trust that China has very good talents

already and what they need is a platform to perform – We are Ready!

What’s more? Let’s love our country – we are all Chinese

I still remember that Professor Hua told us that Hong Kong has

responsibility to train up talents for the country. This facilitated my

thinking of what we should position ourselves to our country. I think

that having a heart loving our country is important but seemingly it is

still week in our generation owing to our growth in British Colony for

many years. However, after queuing up in the very early morning for

watching the flag raising at Tiananmen, I got a stronger sense of

awareness to develop a heart to love our country. This sense of

awareness further reinforced my passion to work as an HR person in China. Although the HR system is not

very mature in China now but I have stronger desire to apply what I have learnt contributing back to the

China market!

The last but not the least, I would like to thank Professor Fu’s arrangement during the trip and all of us

enjoyed the whole process very much! Although the course is over, I am so sure that every time when we

look at the photos of the trip again, we should remember a strong relationship built among us, which will

be lasting forever!


Page 12

Photo 1: Arrival at Beijing Airport

Chan Tsan Jim, Jimmy

Introduction

It was my third visit to Beijing. Last time it was exactly ten years ago, and I was also on a study tour at that

time as well. Nevertheless, I was greatly impressed by the tremendous changes that had taken place in

Beijing since then. Upon arrival to the new airport, the outlook of the marvelous Terminal 3 gave me a

very warm feeling, as it looked almost the same as the one in Hong Kong. In fact, I think that it was even

more spectacular as it had successfully blended some Chinese elements into the modern design, which is

the perfect example of the new “East meets West” style of architecture. In addition, the street looked

much cleaner than before, and my friends in Beijing also told me that the weather was getting better with

less “sandstorms” as it had been several years before.

Highlights of the Business Field Trip

1. The Lectures

One of the lectures that impressed me most was the

first one we took in the Tsinghua campus, with

Professor Hua Ruxing as our guest speaker. Professor

Hua’s speech was very inspiring and he shared with us

lots of first hand information as he has personally

visited so many places in different parts of China. He

thoroughly understood what is now happening in the

changing landscape of current Chinese Economy, in

particular, the difficult situation after the recent

financial tsunami. He completely changed our views to

this global financial crisis, as well as giving us a new

perspective to why it happened. He also talked about

the different effects it has on the Chinese economy and

the counter-measures that the Chinese government is

now doing to sustain growth despite the difficult

climate in the world economy. He explained to us that the US citizens lived a lifestyle that relied too much

on credit cards and loans from banks that makes them so

easily forget the basic values of income and expenditure.

He was also very confident in the Chinese Economy that

it will continue to expand no matter what the external environment is. After listening to his lecture, I think


Page 13

I have to be especially careful whenever we make the investment decisions, that we have to really look

back and think whether it is the real economy that is growing at such a quick rate, or is it just another

bubble?

Another lecture that I found particularly interesting was the one by Ms Dong Mei, who shared her

personal experience on Beijing Olympics. She had worked for it from the application, the planning and the

execution stages. She gave us a holistic view on how the entire event was planned first, and then she

shared the difficulties she encountered during the execution stage and the many unforgettable memories

that she had during the event, for example how she was able to resolved all the different requirements

from different countries the multi-cultural atmosphere that they have created within the Olympic village,

and also the “miracle transformation” of all the guest rooms that has taken place between the Olympic

Games and the Paralympic Games that was just two weeks afterwards. We were so impressed by the

great enthusiasm of all the volunteers to help making the event so successful, and also we could all feel

the great pride in Ms Dong to be able to participate in the organization of such a great event. Although I

have never organized a huge sporting event before, I could felt the great joy in her words as well.

Moreover, as a sports lover, I really hoped that although this time I was not being selected as a volunteer,

I hope that I would be able to participate in such a great event one day. This is my dream.

2. The Company Visits

In our first company visit, we visited the Hanergy Group which was formerly known as Huarui Group.

Focusing on the new development of green energy in China, this privately owned business has been

investing a lot of money in building hydro power plants and wind farms, which they described as the

“base” of the company. Besides the “base”, the company also has two “wings”, which was the

development of new energy and the other was the energy service team. As I am currently working in the

energy sector as well, I was greatly impressed by the vision of the company, to become the most

Photo 2: Photo Taken after the lecture on Marketing Communication


Page 14

influential clean energy provider in the world, and also the great enthusiasm in building a greener

environment. Personally, I thought that this company had a very promising future as it was going in line

with the current government policy, as well as the world’s trend on greater concern on climate change,

carbon emission and cleaner energy generation methods.

We were also able to visit some of the forerunners in the technology field like the Taiyanggong power

plant and the GreenTec Corp. For Taiyanggong, they showed us some of the most recent engineering

works that incorporates the state-of-the-art green technology such as combined cycle natural gas

generation plants, noise reduction to less than 55dB(A), and emission control measures that were even

more stringent than the standards adopted in North American and Europe. It was a truly impressive

blending on how human could make use of the available natural resources to improve the quality of life

while minimizing the impact to the environment as a result. I was by all means amazed by the fact that

they could build such a huge power plant right in the middle of the city. In Hong Kong, I think this would

never happen as we would be up against a lot more opposing force from the local communities, the NGOs

concerning environmental protection and also the political parties. In Mainland China though, we not only

have the technology, we also have a government who is willing to adopt the technology and to prove that

it can really works. I found that this is one of the reasons why this country is truly remarkable.

3. The Tour

On the first day, we were given a tour around the hottest tourist spots since last summer: the Olympic

Stadiums. Although the rain was pouring pretty hard, our passion in visiting the “Bird Nest” and “Water

Cube” didn’t fade at all. Overwhelmed by the beautiful outlook and the amazing construction of the two

most beautiful stadiums in the world, we were in particular attracted by the great atmosphere that still

exist inside the stadium, that gave each of us some extra energy to run around and took pictures like we

were the athletes competing in a the summer games. This was a great experience for all of us, in

particular when we would soon have a lecture on the Olympic Games by Ms Dong Mei in the next couple

of days.

Then we went to have a quick tour in the Tsinghua university campus, in which several students from the

Tsinghua MBA program accompanied us and took us for lunch as well. It was a really great experience as

we enjoyed talking to them and sharing our study experiences. It seemed to me that they had a much

better connection with the industry, as they often hold seminars and sharing sessions with the industry

leaders and they have plenty of social activities with the alumni as well. For the benefit of our studies, I

think it is also crucial for us to have similar types of activities to enhance our bonding with the industry

leaders, both local and overseas. We can make use of our alumni network better and improve our

personal connections as well.


Page 15

Photo 3: Gathering with CUMBA Alumni

4. The Gatherings with Tsinghua MBA students, CEOs and CUMBA

Alumni

We were also very pleased to have several dinner gatherings with the Tsinghua MBA students, CEOs and

CUMBA alumni, respectively. For example, we were able to learn about the culture of Tsinghua MBA

programme through the interactions with the current students, we also exchanged our views on some of

the current issues such as the impact of Olympic Games to the Beijing citizen’s life, and also how they felt

during such a poor overall economic situation. I remembered one of the students told me that “Because

we were graduating from Tsinghua, we have no worries at all even at the worst of times”. This

summarized how much self-confidence and pride they had as Tsinghua University students. As a CUMBA

student, I think we ought to have the same kind of pride in ourselves as well as we are also studying in

one of the top business schools in the Asia Pacific Region.

In the dinner meeting with the CEOs at Daoxianghu, we have a very wonderful sharing by the two

professors in our table. They gave us a lot of insights to how those successful Chinese business leaders are

managing their companies. In addition, the sharing by the three CEOs, Mr. Fu of East Asia-Pacific

Investment Co. Ltd., Ms Li of Daoxianghu and Ms Jiang of Beijing Nightingale Corporation, really showed

us how real CEOs should be like. I was deeply moved by Mr. Fu’s saying that one’s road to achieve


Page 16

greatness should be “修身, 齊家, 治國”. Being the perfect example of his own words, he has shown us all

the qualities required to become a great leader, e.g. the personal charisma, the knowledge that he has

gained throughout the years and most importantly the persistence to strive for higher quality. We should

try to learn more from these great CEOs and apply what we have learnt in our daily lives, it would

definitely benefit us a lot. The final night was a dinner gathering with CUMBA alumni working in Beijing. I

was very delighted to be able to get to know so many alumni and they were very open and shared with us

their own experiences in working in China. In particular, I had a long discussion with Mr. Michael Ma. He

was a very successful businessman and he told us his story of success, from the formation of the business

model, the R&D process and how he successfully secured his first customer and started the marketing

campaign. He also shared his key to success: to do what is most interesting to you and to work hard on it

until you become really successful. These words would be very important to our future career as well.

Conclusion

It was absolutely a fabulous week for all of us. I simply ran out of space to write our happy moments in

watching the orchestra in the National Theatre for Performing Arts, the flag rise in Tiananmen, and also

our tour in the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City and also the Great Wall. However, we would never

forget the lessons that we have learnt during the course, the visits, the laughter and also the joyful tears

that we had. It was particularly fruitful to have Professor Fu as our leader, who did tremendous work to

make this trip so rewarding and her continuous effort in improving our learning experiences also showed

us that she shared the traits of the great leaders as well. We have had the most memorable experience in

our MBA life so far, which I hope we can make use of it in our courses that we will take, and in our future

career and life as well.


Page 17

Chang, William

This China trip which happened during the second week of June-2009 marked special days for my 2-year

CUMBA study. Since it was the last course for some of my classmates, apart from fabulous learning

opportunity, we also treasured it as our memorable graduation trip! Although incidentally I have spent my

first visit to Beijing on my company’s incentive trip a month before, where I didn’t expect too many

satisfactions from repeated sightseeing things, it turned out to be inspirational comprised of unique

experiences gained from lectures, company visits, meeting people as well as my own experience.

Lectures were the most enjoyable part for me, despite I am a keen “sleeper” in HK classes. Thanks to

those top lecturers from Tsing Hua, their extensive and specific knowledge on China issues was merely

essence and first-hand information related to Chinese government core strategies. I appreciated Prof. Hua

systematically diagnosed the cause and effect of the Subprime, introducing Green GDP, and shared his

insight that Zhejiang province as the economy thermometer etc.. All these are innovative and fruitful

suggestions for me. Besides, Ms. Dong Mei not only brought up her unique backstage stories, most

impressed me was her personal value to be tough and persistent towards her commitment. On soft skills,

she demonstrated her articulate and fluent expression during presentation, as well as delivered precise

and answer-to-the-point feedback during Q&A section. This inspired me very much on how to gain credit

and respect from people within a speech.

Apart from the lecturers, it gave me lot of memory recalls on Tsing Hua campus and also the students

there. There are many historical buildings which symbolized the development of this world’s top ranking

school. Although the facilities there are a bit old fashioned, it was interesting that eagerness on

knowledge exploration feeling can be sensed all around. Even a person like me can be attentive and enjoy

the lecture. It’s very true that characters of the school brewed the students’ characters. Sharing with

Tsing Hua students gave me a very different feeling versus Hong Kong’s, nevertheless they have different

ambitions, most were concerning about the national development direction in mid to long term. Their

scope of thinking reminded me about how my career development should be, should I just focus on local

market preference or should I consider industries focus of China? Definitely the latter will be more

prospective and sustainable, with the fact many visionary commentators have started worrying about

sustainability of Hong Kong’s industries competitive edges.

It was the first time I visited mainland company, and not only one, but several in a row. I have to admit

initially I had little bias towards mainland companies, that they are less formal in terms of organizational

structure as well as working environment. Obviously my perception was quite wrong, while actually from

Hanergy and CICC offices, I found they were merely similar to many MNCs with formal people dealing

manner, meeting agenda and decent working environment, which made all of us disciplined in order to

preserve Hong Kong students’ image! In several company visits, I noticed they have common core value of

putting people and contribution to the society on top priority. This is highly related to their passionate


Page 18

leaders and visionary missions, which drive the company succeeding inline with the national’s direction,

thereof benefiting the social needs. I believe this characteristic is as precious as defining successful long-

term development of a nation, especially in nowadays capitalized world. It is not difficult for companies to

make profit by investing in short term promising industries, by squeezing all possible from their

employees and makes no contribution to the society. This situation is somehow happening in many Hong

Kong family businesses with high staff turnover rate, low ethics standard and low sense of social

responsibility. On one hand I’m appreciative to see China managed to grow with many of those wonderful

companies, on the other hand, it further alerted me that local Hong Kong companies really need

aggressive evolution on their values and social commitment to sustain competitiveness in a long run.

Another essential element in this trip was meeting with the CEOs, this again was precious experience for

me to learn about mainland leaders style and philosophy. The short dinner chat with Mr. Fu was very

fruitful. It seems most successful people have unusual encounters and being versatile with life. What

came to me then was the question whether an ordinary person like me can stand for such success? How

about 50% of it? Further got in touch with Mr. Fu, I realized it’s not the matter of how differently you

experienced and how multi-talented you are, but all originated from the personal values you hold, how

much you want to achieve and share with others. If you learned earlier your specific values, try to develop

further, how much you shared will be rewarded. Therefore he never asked for salary information even

though he was given a very good offer eventually. Mr. Fu also cited a critical strength of himself, which is

to observe different incidents, discover and connect the relations underneath the seemingly different

phenomena. For me, who likes to learn about the truth behind a phenomenon, his suggestion was

inspiring, and I believe this concept is essential for anyone, be scientists, sociologists, economists or

businessmen. Mastering this concept can always put you in pioneer position anticipating threats and

opportunities.

To conclude this trip, I would say it’s more worthwhile than what I’d paid. It offered me valuable chance

to look clearly today’s China in terms of the business sectors, their leaders, core values and development

direction. I’m impressed many of the suggestions portrayed from these talented people are so visionary

and long-term oriented, in certain sense even more advanced than western philosophy. This is probably

due to the embedded beauty of the tradition Chinese wisdom and values - to make changes for sustaining

the equilibrium and 「以人為本」. During this financial Tsunami, what I’ve observed is not only how bad

the western concept failed, but more importantly how essential Chinese philosophy may have achieved to

prevent such crisis. Although I don’t possess specific political stance, I am confident to see current China’s

capitalized socialism can thrive in the upcoming decades!


Page 19

Be proud of China – My first visit to flag raising ceremony at Tian An Men Square.

- End -


Page 20

Chen Yi Yin, Sophia

Before the trip

The main reason why I chose to apply for the CUHK MBA to upgrade myself was its cutting-edge courses

design and good networking in China Business. With our shared language and ties, and also the

knowledge I’ve gained from these MBA courses, I hope to leverage these advantages and previous

working experiences to accumulate my competence for future development in Greater China. “China

Business Trip” was the first course I took for my China Business concentration. Through the course

description and itinerary distributed by Professor Fu, the seven-day trip would be packed with lectures,

company visits, networking activities, social gatherings as well as sightseeing. I thought it would be a good

opportunity to expose myself to a wide spectrum of issues related to China business and also to get more

connections with China practice. Especially after Beijing held the Olympic Games, I believed that during

this trip, I could broaden my views and get much information about the development, and also the

tangible and intangible changes in Beijing in the past few years. I was so looking forward to knowing how

Beijing looked like after the Olympic Games!

The stunning new Beijing airport and the environmental changes

Landing at the world's largest airport, the Beijing Capital International Airport, I was stunned by its

gorgeous, world-class design as well as its amazing infrastructure. The terminal has walls of glass to let

natural light into the building during the daytime, and it makes the airport looks so big and bright. Under

a certain amount of light I even couldn't see one end of the building from the other because it's really big!

It also surprised me that the airport building has integrated environmental control systems to minimize

energy consumption and carbon emissions. Although I just got rid of the final exam and presentation one

day before we left for this Beijing trip, this tremendous scene made me forget all the fatigues and also

blew off my minds. I was so excited and couldn't wait to start my explorative journey in Beijing even it

was my second time to visit this city.

Before the Olympic Games, I’d heard about the immense environmental challenge facing China’s capital.

Although I didn’t have the opportunity to witness the drastic pace of change that had gripped Beijing in

the city’s efforts to ‘Green’ the Games, I was so glad that I could revisit Beijing to experience its changes

after the Olympic Games. In its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing made a commitment to host a

‘Green’ Olympics. Bold environmental promises were made by Beijing’s bidding committee, including

efforts to improve air quality so that it meets Chinese and World Health Organization standards, to use

more renewable energy and natural gas throughout the city, and to implement stricter vehicle emission

standards.


Page 21

Since our group project was about the environmental improvement in Beijing, during this trip, I paid much

more attention not only to the changes of the environment made by the government and the corporate,

but also tried to observe the citizens’ behavior and awareness toward the environment protection.

Compared to my previous travel experience in Beijing three years ago, seeing the overall environmental

improvement in Beijing did impress me, especially its nice air quality, high green area coverage, and also

the clean and convenient transportation system. Much more of Beijing’s efforts and successes are evident

throughout the city. For example, Beijing has added four new rail lines and strengthened vehicle exhaust

emission standards, in an attempt to clean up its air. Beijing has also launched a fleet of around 3,500

buses running on Compressed Natural Gas. I heard that this is one of the largest fleets of this kind

operating anywhere in the world.

These Beijing’s achievements represent the world’s best environmental practice — a huge leap from the

existing polluting or destructive technologies and systems currently in use throughout the developing

world. The Beijing government has put lots of resources and efforts on each dimension of the

environmental improvement. In this way, Beijing has been able to show that making the transition to

more sustainable approaches is possible when a concerted effort is made. Also from the speech given by

Ms. Dong Mei during this trip, when she shared her valuable experience and observations of organizing

the Olympic Games, I felt so touched by Beijing’s passion and determination to improve Beijing’s

environment to host this mega event.

How to continue the effort

Everyone would agree that the Olympic Games have left a positive environmental legacy for Beijing.

However, environmental protection is a nationwide effort. Successful environmental achievements of the

Olympic Games should continue to be extended not only in Beijing but throughout China after the Games.

Civil society in China needs to recognize the important role it can play in taking direct environmental

action. Environmental protection is a major issue concerning everyone’s health and the nation’s future.

Hopefully, people won’t be conceit about the temporary achievement. The improvement of the

environment needs the combination of governmental determination and civil support. Only


Page 22

then can the ‘Green’ Olympics have a real impact on helping China to truly ‘Green’ its cities – today and

tomorrow.

Other memorable experiences of the trip

1. Olympic Sites

Although it rained heavily and it was a bit chilly on our first day in Beijing, visiting the Olympic Sites was

one of my most memorable activities in this trip. Before visiting the Bird Nest and Water Cube, I’ve learnt

that Beijing had spent billions of dollars and also much human resources on the construction work. ”To

see is to believe”, when seeing this spectacular, it reminded me the memorable scenes of the Game I saw

from TV. I felt very touched when imagining that I was there seeing the games when staying in the Bird

Nest and Water Cube.

2. Tsinghua University


Page 23

We had a campus tour on Tsinghua after visiting the Olympic Site. Before meeting those Tsinghua MBA

students, we heard that they were quite busy on preparing their final exams and oral presentation for

their individual thesis. So it might be a burden to them to spare time to tour us and stay with us for lunch

and dinner. However, they gave us the warmest welcome and showed us around their campus on such a

rainy day. They were quite open and kindly shared their learning experiences in Tsinghua as well as their

observations after the Olympic Games. I was impressed by their humbleness and enthusiasm and really

appreciated their nice treats. I’m glad that I can keep in touch with some of them after coming back to

Hong Kong. In addition, I was delighted that we got the chance to have lunch at Tsinghua’s student

canteen to experience what the students eat. The foods there were so diversified and cheap, and the

taste was much better than my original expectation.

3. Management Values and Concept

In the past, I knew few about the Chinese Communist Party and also the communist members. I only

knew that “Serving the people” was a standard slogan within the Chinese Communist Party. During the

company visits in this trip, I learnt more about how their members executed this slogan from the

managers of some Chinese enterprises or SOEs. I was so impressed by the commitment of those firms to

serve the community and also their mission for China. For example, the CEO of Greentech showed us his

desire and mission to make China a cleaner place for people to live with the big slogan on the wall at the

entrance of the office building; and Dr. Wu, the head of the company’s research department shared with

us his experiences in environmental protection. Throughout his speech, I did feel his passion and love for

this country.

In addition, when visiting Hujing Hotel, I was so impressed by Ms. Lee’s story and her core values in doing

business. I can feel that she treats people from her heart and is always willing to help people to overcome

difficulties. And she always shows her empathy and concerns not only for the customers and her staff, but

also for the society. Both of the customer loyalty and staff satisfaction of her business are quite high, and

most of her senior management staff have followed her from since she started up the business even

when during the difficult SARS period. I think the key success factor of her life is the consistency between


Page 24

her words and actions. “Walks the talk” philosophy has built up a trustful relationship among her staff and

customers.

As Professor Gao of Tsinghua MBA told us in the lecture, to understand and respect the core values and

culture of the Chinese Communist Party is the first step for a global enterprise to go into the China Market.

No matter how big its brand or how strong its market competency is, if a multi-enterprise ignores the

importance of the Chinese Communist Party, its business won’t make a success in the China Market.

Conclusion

The things I’ve learnt from this trip, not only from the knowledge in the lectures, company visits, and the

CEO meeting, but also from all the classmates in this course. I’m so glad to meet many new friends from

other classes and I really miss the days I spent there when learning, playing, drinking, singing, sightseeing,

and…with all of them. I will definitely treasure this valuable relationship in the future. Moreover, this trip

also broadened my views on China and I made up my mind to keep sharpening my capabilities to seek a

career in China. Last but not least, I would like to thank Professor Fu’s great efforts in organizing this trip

and the warmest caring during the trip. I’m sure all of us have learnt a lot and viewed this trip as a

precious experience of 2009.


Page 25

Chow Bo Loi, Paul

Being China’s capital city, the name “Beijing” should not be uncommon to most people across the

world. With the help of 2008 Olympic Games, the international spotlight not only focused on

China’s historical athletic achievements but also its economic, social and political changes.

When international multimedia was amalgamated with numerous appreciation and criticism on

China’s development, how much did we understand about China? As part of the Chinese

community, how should we prepare ourselves to deal with the drastic changes of global

economic, social and political environments? These questions had driven me to select the China

Business Study.

Touring around the Beijing city we could easily identify a lot of

ancient structures which recorded the climax and the decline stage

of China. To recap our memory about modern China’s history we

have selected Beijing city development from past to the future as

our group project. On the social and economic development

perspectives, we had the

opportunity to communicate with

professors and students from Tsinghua University, as well as

companies’ management from different industries to share their

experiences and successful stories. The experiences we learnt

are affluent and diversified. In the following paragraphs I

summarized the most remarkable experience we learnt from the

trip:

What did 2008 Beijing Olympic bring to China?

In Jun 2009 National Audit Office announced the 2008

Beijing Olympic Game had made a profit of more than 1

billion Yuan (USD146 million), However, the benefit from

Olympic Games seemed far behind its

monetary value. From environmental

protection to civic education, the

impact of Beijing Olympic could still be

found nine months after the Olympic

Game. Blue sky and queuing in the

ticket counters, which used to be “impossible” to China city in the past, had

become “possible” with the help of Beijing Olympic. Perhaps the next

question to Chinese people would be how could we substantiate our habit

and to influence remaining part of China and also our next generation.


Page 26

When the 2008 Beijing Olympic was well recognized

internationally, the numerous difficulties encountered

were always overlooked by general public. In the

Olympic experience sharing session, Ms Dong Mei

shared with us the sweet and sour she tasted throughout

the Beijing Olympic preparation process. On top of her

valuable experience, we could feel her strong aspiration,

tolerance and persistence personality which led her to

overcome those challenges and contribute to the success

of the Beijing Olympic games.

Since the 2008 Beijing Olympic was closed I have heard a lot of appreciation from our overseas

colleagues about their unforgettable experiences in Beijing Olympic, and I believed these honors

should devoted to millions of volunteers / participants like Dong Mei who made the China Olympic

dream come true.

From university students to corporate CEOs, how did Chinese people live

their life to influence the society?

Established in 1911, Tsinghua University has been one of the most renowned universities in

China. However, the history of the university seldom attracted our attention until we visited the

eldest academic building 清華學堂, which was established as the compensation refund from US

Government under 庚子賠款. Although most Tsinghua University MBA students had already

worked for 3-5 years, their initiatives to learn never diminished over time. Through our

conversations, we noticed that their passion and aspiration to learn were the common characters

of the university which led them to their academic achievements, even though their university

facilities may not be comparable to those government universities in Hong

Kong.

On the night of 11 Jun, 2009, we had the opportunity to share the unique

successful stories of three Chinese CEO. Different from traditional

corporate finance theory, they never placed company value maximization

on the first priority. In contrast, their way to success was built upon

effective human relationship management. Their care for the employees,

customers and the society’s needs successfully influenced each interested

parties working toward the organization goal. In particular, experience

from Ms Li Hong, General Manager of Nirvana resort Beijing would be a

typical example. After taking over the management of a poorly managed hotel with zero cash

balance from the local government, she alerted the only way for hotel to survive was to reform.

With limited monetary resources she had to rely on her employees to rebuild hotel image and

occupancy rate. After several years of struggle and contribution of each employee, the hotel was

turned around and successfully rebranded as a holiday resort. Her road to success had never

been smooth but her persistence and aspiration never offered any chance for her to give up.


Page 27

From Multinational Company to State-Own Enterprise, how did business

enterprise survive in the rapid changing China Market?

During our field trip we visited various types of business

entities with different background; they all shared their

success experience. One typical example is Google, a US

based multinational company providing internet web search

services and related products. To breakthrough the cultural

difference and capture the booming internet market in China,

Google put together both mainland China and Hong Kong

engineers to customize the web page and search engine

which suit the Chinese internet users need. Its flexible and

creative corporate culture enabled her to build up its customer base and to compete with local

service provider such as Sohu and Baidu.

Different from Google, Beijing Capital Steel Corporation is

a formerly state owned enterprise which focuses on

manufacturing various steel products. Migrating from a

traditional planned economy to a competitive international

market environment, Beijing Capital Steel Corporation had

to deal with the increasing market competition environment.

In a factory of over 80,000 employees, balance between

efficiencies,

effectiveness

and employees’ interest was not an easy job. In our

discussion with Plant General Manager and our tour

guide, we sensed their pride to be part of the Capital

steel Corporation. Their commitment and

enthusiasm toward their jobs were good learning

points to most Hong Kong people, even though their

working environment may not be very attractive to

Hong Kong people.

In the five days Beijing tour, we heard different individual’s and organizations’ successful stories.

Through our observations and discussions, we found that their key elements to success were

relatively simple. From corporate management perspective, company strategies tend to focus on

satisfying country, customers and employees’ need and they seldom put the company’s interest

on first priority. From individual perspective, they were equipped with Chinese traditional

character namely patience, persistence and enthusiasm to learn. When we look back into our

Hong Kong situation, do we and our company equipped with similar characters? When we were

working hard to meet our company target, how could we drive our company and social culture to

align with our country’s growth? That would probably another challenging questions we need to

deal with from now on.


Page 28

Chow Wing Yee, Vivian

Beijing Self Reflection

After seven memorable days in Beijing with 30 CUMBA students and Professor Fu and her assistant Kathy,

this trip became one of my most memorable experiences. From Summer Palace to Great Wall, I got to see

it all and do it all.

It is difficult to use words to describe my experience there. I learnt so much during these short 7 days. I

learned about culture, friendship and myself. It was an exciting adventure that will be very memorable

and hard to match for many years to come.

Upon arrival at Beijing airport on my first day I was so moved by the grand lustrous architecture. The

strong architecture combined with Chinese elements of decoration makes it a unique and welcoming

arrival. Though it was my first visit to Beijing, it was already starting to feel like home.

Thanks to my wonderful classmates, not long after my arrival we traveled together to visit the Summer

Palace. Wow, that place is spectacular. It was so hard to imagine that in ancient China Chinese people

were able to build such wonderful man made lakes with the technology and equipment they had. The

scenery was so touching; we watched and admired the view as the sun slowly set across the horizon. At

that moment, I wondered what else I would be seeing and learning in the next 7 days.

On the second day we started with a visit to the Olympic site. I had seen the photos and watched the

images on TV, but nothing compares to actually standing right in front of the Bird’s Nest. I was baffled in

admiration! It sparked a hint of regret that I had not purchased Olympic ticket to witness its glory during

the 2008 Beijing Games.

Other than the Summer Palace and the Olympic village, my most favorite event of the whole trip was

spending time at Tsinghua with the Tsinghua MBAs. Though it was raining and gloomy, it all warmed up

once we met up with Tsinghua MBAs. They are so friendly and welcoming. They took great care of us, so

willing to help in every way they could. They took time and attention to answer all our questions and in

such detail as well, I could see they are so proud of their university. I really appreciated the time and

effort they took to lead us on a tour of their school.

I was truly moved by the warmth and enthusiasm they shared, they even lent us their bicycles so that we

could enjoy a bike ride through the campus. This was absolutely the best moment during the trip, as I

have always wanted to take a bicycle tour of Tsinghua, Frank and his friends helped make it come true.

They truly are a great bunch of students and I will treasure these memories and remain friends with them

for a long time to come.


Page 29

Our bicycle tour of TsingHua.

The lecture with Professor Liu also taught me a lot about Chinese culture. She encouraged us to think and

understand Chinese behavior in a whole new light. I begun to see the miscommunication between China

and foreign countries are due to a lack of understanding of the culture and beliefs. I learned that the first

step to being successful in a foreign country is acceptance of its culture and learned that to survive in

China I had to be more versatile and goal oriented. This was a valuable lesson for me and will be useful for

future career aspirations.

I was especially interested in Google, with its impressive environment and the east meets west culture. I’d

expected Google office to be different in China, but I was quite surprise that it adopted American culture,

such as the cafeteria, massage facility and the decorated work environment. The blended culture makes

me want to work there as well, the staff showed a warm welcome and I was very touched by the effort

they put into showing us their company.

Capital steel site is like a private village with many factory buildings combined with greenery, shrubs and

lakes. However, the big powerful place will be torn down and moved to another location. It is a shame

that after all this construction and years of development the blood and sweat that have gone into this

place will be abandoned. It’s a very impressive site. I was very surprised and amazed at the organization

especially with its lakes, greenery and Chinese culture built into their environment.


Page 30

We were also given the opportunity to walk through their steel factory. It was dark, hot and steamy, but

very memorable. I was so surprised at the steel works, the conveyor belt carrying the large sheets of steel,

heating it up and cooling it down and shaping it into large sheets ready for transport and shipping. The

staff and employees at Capital Steel put much thought and enthusiasm into showing and communicating

the company structure and process. I am sure the future site for capital steel will be one of the best in its

field, and I hope I will have an opportunity to visit it someday.

I’ve mentioned my most memorable and enjoyable moments on this trip. But nothing compares to the

lessons I’ve learned about myself on this trip. I learned that willingness to learn, and remaining open-

minded to new experiences will allow me to be exposed to different environment. I also learned about

teamwork, our group worked wonderfully well together, we were all striving for the same goals trying to

learn and research as much as possible.

Lastly, the friendships that developed on this trip, the bonds that were formed during these 7 days are

ones that will last and I’ll treasure forever. I deeply appreciate all the effort Professor Fu put into the

organization and planning of this whole trip. Without her, I would not have been able to learn and gain

such rich experiences.

On a final note, Professor Fu paid attention to details during every point of our journey. From organizing

company visits, to ordering the dinner dishes, she went above and beyond her job as a professor and took

care of us with motherly attention.

I especially felt Professor Fu’s warmth and motherly affection when she poured us tea during lectures. All

her effort and hard work are noticed and appreciated by all of us on this trip. “Everything she did, she did

for us”. Kathy’s hard work was also much appreciated. She was constantly running back and forth to buy

us fruit and snacks and helping us to take photos, without her help we would not have such a comfortable

and enjoyable trip.

The success of the trip is due to the combination of a great group of students and enthusiastic Professor

Fu. I’m very grateful for this trip; my first time in Beijing was spectacular and delightful!


Page 31

Chu, Chung Ngai Inness

June 2009 China Field Trip

Self Reflection Report


Page 32

Why I took China Field Trip?

Although mainland China is so close to Hong Kong, I

admit that I always had hesitation to visit her due to bad

impression like the dialog boxes shown. It can’t deny

that I’m not a Patriotism supporter due to the

colonization of Hong Kong. However, I found the trend

of having leisure travel and seeking jobs in mainland

China is getting much more popular especially after

Beijing Olympic games. Also, I have observed the

international role of China is becoming one of the major

economy systems in the world. Glad that CUMBA

provides the opportunities for me to visit and explorer

the mainland China. With exploring attitude and curious

on patriotism, I was carrying a mind of “West meet East” to take the China Field Trip.

What have I found in the trip?

I found there are 4 crucial elements in the trip: Academic

theory, networking, Olympic touch and commercial visits.

1. Academic Theory

Three interesting lecture has been attend. They were:

Economy of China

Marketing in China

Managing Competition

Different inspirations have been well received. For the

class of economics, actually we are quite familiar with

what and how the sub-prime crisis happened, but I

found there was inspiring when professor Hua gave us

same piece of information but in different angle. For

instant, the consumer habit in western is pretty

depending on credit basis. This really showed to me

the culture different did trigger different consequence.

From micro-economic point of views, Western people

prefer to spend money whatever they can. Instead of

It’s not

safe at all

Hygiene is

poor People are

rude


Page 33

using cash, they prefer to pay by credit card. Similar concept applied on housing issue. Western people

loaned money without evaluating their own capability. On the other hand, Chinese inclines to save money

regardless how will spend the money in the future. The saving money concept is not only maintaining in

workers or middle-class, but also to farmers. I was shocked that farmers even saved money in their own

refrigerator. Although it might be hilarious, they seem to do the right things especially banking systems

are now collapsing. From macro-economic point of views, I found the sub-prime crisis actually did minimal

impact to China. Instead, it became a great opportunity for China to further strengthen her own economy

in order to catch up and become one of the major economic systems of the world. There were 2

interesting points raised from Professor Hua, one was Asian countries have potential to establish a united

currency. The other one was Hong Kong Chinese actually can contribute to the growth of China. And I can

see the attitude, mainland China looks welcome to Hong Kong Chinese to contribute together with a

brighter future for China.

Another interesting class was about Marketing in China by

Professor Liu. First of all, I realized what the totems of

China are: Dragon, Lion, China Leaders, etc. Secondly, I did

enjoy the lesson as Professor Liu showing a live case on SKII

issue. It allowed me realize we do have to localize our

marketing strategy to avoid unnecessary conflicts by deeply

understanding and respecting long historical country like

China in a humble manner. But I found the most impressive

stuff was not on the content that delivered by Professor Liu,

it was her attitude and the way of delivering. I always have

an impression that Chinese teacher/ professor is always

being absolute. No question and challenge can be accepted

from students. But Professor Liu allowed asking us question

and was patient to answer all of them. I did impress by the

interaction teaching method and hence I amazed to feel

the change of China not only on economy, but

also on the education system.

It was a fruitful session of Managing

competition in China by Professor Gao.

Although I had quite amount of questions

against his concepts, I still admired how

knowledgeable of Professor Gao that allowed

to understand the ways to cope with the

fierce competitions in China market.


Page 34

2. Networking

Frankly speaking, Professor Fu did a great job on managing the network sessions in order to allow us

meeting different tiers of people in China. That really made our trip becomes perfect! As a quick recap,

we have met:

Tsing Hua MBA students

CU alumni

3 CEOs

Having lunch and chit chatting with Tsing Hua MBA students, I found they are very dynamic and

competitive. “In order to study Tsing Hua, we had to pass through several stages and competed with 6

million of undergraduates to get limited MBA seats” said by David, Tsing Hua MBA student. It told me how

good qualities the students have. Also, I found they were pretty good in English and open minded. Besides,

each of them has good vision and talkative even when one of us asked about their views on the sensitive

issue on 04Jun1989 should be redressed or not, they might not speak up their views. I do feel somehow

freedom of speech has happened in China. And Hong Kong Chinese shouldn’t be overconfident any more

as the competitive advantages are getting less and less. I have even understood the living standard of

Beijing from Tsinghua MBA. For

normal undergraduates, their month

salary is around RMB5,000. For MBA

graduates, they might have around

RMB10,000 per month. They told me

RMB10,000 per month in salary is

already classified as middle class in

Beijing. This can be another fact that

the living standard of Beijing is getting

closer and closer to that of Hong Kong.

I was so glad to be able to meet with quite a

number of successful businessmen of CU alumni. To be a

successful businessmen, Michael Ma (馬立平) from Beijing

Cytech System Ltd, has demonstrated how passionate for a

business owner should be. And Stephen Li (李德偉) who

was our EMBA alumni had given valuable advice to prepare

several core competencies to run business in China. For

instant, we have to be dynamic and helpful. If suggested

solution or idea is not working, we should keep trying on

finding work around. Instead of thinking to beat down


Page 35

others, we should care about others and help each other. This is the business culture in China. Addison

Chan (陳振雄) from digiMarket told us his story on how difficult it was to get into China market in the old

times. However, he didn’t regret and even advise us to start our own business due to China is now in fast

growing stage and tons of opportunities are waiting us to explore. That’s really fantastic!

The most impressive session should be the three-CEO dinner gather and forum. They had demonstrated

different characteristics to us especially Li Hong (李翃). She was a kind and humble leader I have ever met.

She made me realize that earning money is not the only factor to be a successful leader. I always had

difficulty to understand why there are people willing to serve a company more than 10 years. From Li

Hong, I could understand it would be an honor to follow a staff-oriented leader like Li Hong. She does care

about each staff preference. Ever more, she cares about staff’s family. I believe the loyal of staff has

developed not only to the leader, but also to the company. In Hong Kong, we always hear a lot of

discussion and argument on the matters of Patriotism. Everyone has own definition and has yet

impressed to me. I felt so shock that none of the 3 CEOs mentioned the word “愛國” in their speech.

Instead, all works and thoughts they were showing actually all about how they love and care about the

country. One is trying to build a chain of animal pharmacy, including a research center, a large-scale

factory and 100 animal hospitals to help farmers who making a living by raising animals. The other one

runs a corporation specializing in hospital uniforms but does a lot of things for the community, like school

for kids whose parents are AIDS victims. These can show the contrast between Hong Kong’s Patriotism

and mainland China’s one. How powerful it will be if Hong Kong Chinese can humbly learn from mainland

China about Patriotism? I believe Hong Kong might become more harmonious and constructive rather

than verbally argumentative once they have heard 3 CEOs speech. For myself, I was inspired that

contributing to society is something more meaningful than neither getting famous nor wealth.

3. Olympic Touch

With the Olympic effect,

Beijing has really changed a

lot. They now have reliable

subway and taxi system

which is vital for the growth

of tourism. Air quality is far

better than what I heard; at

least I can see the blue sky

during my stay. Quite a lot

of international brands on

fashion, vehicles,

restaurants get into Beijing

citizen’s daily life which

show their higher level of

living standards. Beijing


Page 36

citizens are polite and they are willing to queue. Both new massive construction facilities like Bird Nest

and Water Cube can integrated with Chinese traditional 風水 so well and lining up together with Beijing’s

heritages. Dong Mei showed us the back scene stories of Olympic which made me even more proud of

what Beijing did. The story on changing the facilities for disable sport players in Olympic village within 24

hours was so magnificent. It taught me a very good philosophy as well. Whatever we decide to work out,

we should stick to the plan regardless how difficult it is. To sum up, the Olympic Games changed my

impression of Beijing, of China totally.

4. Site Visits

We did quite a lot of site visits which allowed us to understand what current commercial practice is in

Beijing. Quick sum up on our visits:

Hanergy

Google

Taiyanggong

GreenTec

Capital Steel

CICC

Hanergy’s corporation vision and professionalism did impress me a lot particularly the corporate motto:

因祖國強大而強大 and most of the staff have MPhil or Master degree or even Doctor degrees. Google

has an impressive working environment such as having snacks you can eat all over the place and have

excellent leisure facilities and open areas. But the crucial factor is the people who were working. I can see

the harmony and cooperation between western co-workers and Chinese c-workers. Both Taiyanggong

and GreenTec gave me new insights on the way of protecting environments like utilizing new technology

in energy generation and consumption. CICC has demonstrated to me their ambitious vision and their

management philosophy, always fight for the best. Capital Steel is the most impressive, to me,

corporation in the field trip. First of all, it is unforgettable about the production line of thin steel. The

production line is so massive and it is automated with efficient labor force deployment. I do treasure to

have chance to visit such a production. Secondly, it is unbelievable that whole family members are proud

of working in Capital Steel especially the story about the father and son both worked together. The


Page 37

culture of “首鋼人” is something HK commercial world lacking of. Thirdly, Capital Steel has established a

lot of facilities to her staff like school, college. This can show how corporate treasure staff as an asset.

Conclusion

After the trip, I found there are three key factors for me to be a successful leader in the future. Firstly, I

should carry a humanized (人情味) managerial philosophy. The happiness and satisfaction in the

workplace can magnify the staff loyalty carrying high morale and productive atmosphere and culture. This

definitely can learn from the way Li Hong managing her hotel and from Capital Steel. Secondly, I should

equip myself not to be short-sighted focusing profits and reputation only. Although I still can yet say I feel

I understand the norm of Patriotism, I do realize a successful corporation should be able to contribute to

the growth of the community and improve the people’s living standards. With these in mind, I believe I

would further explore what are the reasons for corporate management to join Communist party. Thirdly, I

shouldn’t belittle the role of China. I have changed my mind a lot during the trip, and realized that

mainland China is so close to us and we should grab this opportunity.

To Sum up, although China field trip has ended, it is just a starting point for me to further my exploration

and gear up myself to face future challenges and try my best to figure out the ways to reward the

community.

Thank you Professor Fu!


Page 38

Fraissinet Lise

Before I moved to China, my favorite author and photographer, Robert-Emile Canat wrote in his latest

book China, vagabond emotions: “China is more accessible now than ever before, nevertheless, the

Chinese Universe, still quite far away from ours, does not become obvious in a few weeks, a few months

or even a few years!...It requires a lot of modesty, deep thinking and patience. It takes time, a long

time…and above all, a certain sensibility, a sixth sense, just like a connivance spirit, to get to know

China.”

Initially, I did not pay too much attention to this statement as I could not really get the sense of it, but

somehow it remained in my head, and slowly, very slowly, the more I get to know China and Chinese

people, the more I understand what Robert-Emile Canat meant.

Being a Westerner, this trip to Beijing was much more than a class field trip to me. It was a step further in

discovering and understanding China, my classmates and myself. On the first day of the MBA, back in

September, a year 2 German student told me: “The MBA is not only what you learn in class, it really

changes you as a person.” Again, I could not clearly understand what he meant, but the more I get to

know my classmates and the more I learn about China, the more I perceive my own behavior: cultural

differences have changed from stereotypes to meaningful identity. Paradoxically, getting deeper into

China forces me to analyze deeper my own country and myself and I realize how misleading perceptions

can be.

Dear Pr Fu, for you to fully understand what this trip meant to me, I need to give an initial input on how

China is still perceived by many Westerners who don’t know China, some points may sound rude or totally

misplaced, but I just want to be fully open so that you really appreciate the differences in me brought as a

result of the trip.

I will not expend on this part, but I will give you a list of images that exist about China and Chinese people:

- The first image of Chinese people that comes to a westerner is: a bus, full of Chinese people, who always

stay in group, are loud and take thousands of pictures anywhere and prefer to be in the picture than

capturing the beauty and spirit of the monument by itself.

- Chinese people are said to never make decisions and always follow and obey their leader.

- Chinese people are said to be very traditional and to attach a lot of importance to their history.

- Chinese people are said to be bright, very hard workers and very competitive.

- Chinese people are said to be humble and resilient.

- Chinese people are said to be careless of others and to show no feelings.


Page 39

- Chinese wisdom (Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and all spiritual martial arts) are highly recognized

and valued in the West.

- Chinese art, symbolism, food is highly appreciated. Antique Art is highly valued in the West..

- The five thousand years of Chinese history, the Empire and Republic fascinate people.

…

As presented by Dong Mei, the key words of the 2008 Olympic Games were Friendship, Excellence and

Respect. Those 3 simple words perfectly describe what Beijing evokes to me and I will divide my report

around those 3 topics.

Friendship

For the first time in my life, I was the only Westerner in a group of Chinese people (coming from Hong

Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China). For the first time I could see what was happening from inside. I

cannot thank some of my classmates enough for the effort they made to include me, to welcome me, to

care about me in any occasions. The MBA classes and sharing this week in Beijing with some of them,

made me realize that there is a strength of care and attention that people have for each other in a group

of Chinese people that we do not have at all in the West, even in a group of close friends.

We do not give as much attention to the others as I saw people do with each other during this trip, and

they are only classmates! Western people only see it from outside. If they could see how nice,

respectuous and caring people are within those groups, the perception of Chinese behavior would totally

change. This is how I also understood the mystery of the thousands pictures! Something that nobody gets

in the West. I love photography and I only take pictures of things that I think are worth it and I usually

prefer to take pictures for what they mean: if I take a monument, I take it on its own. I do not want to

have people standing by, just to show they were here; if I take a person, I would make a portrait or a

person in action. Once again, for the first time I was part of those mysterious Chinese pictures and I

realized I had missed the point: these are not pictures but experiences, they are integral part of the trip,

the joy, the feeling of the group, showing the friendship, the excitement, and carrying it after the trip to

be shared, to be commented upon. They would probably say my pictures are boring and they would be

right!!!

Professor Gao said that the advantage of China is its talented people and I could not agree more. People,

then systems, make the difference, as he said. I was not supposed to be part of this trip, but adaptability

is a strength of China and thanks to you, Haina and Pong, this was made accessible for me.

Excellence

I found excellence everywhere in Beijing. I was over impressed by this safe, modern, spacious, clean city

with lots of parks, trees and lakes and by the professionalism and entrepreneurial attitude of all the


Page 40

companies we visited. From the airport to Tian An Men, all you see is modernism and dynamism, who

could imagine that this city is part of a developing country?!?

As Professor Liu mentioned, the market in China is changing rapidly, so are the infrastructures and the

people. I did not know Beijing before the Olympics, but their performance during the games, the image

they gave to the world, and what is left after the games (language learning, behavior change) show that

China is learning very fast. Through its architecture, old and new, Beijing imposes excellence: from the

Forbidden City to the Olympic city, throughout history, those buildings are just breathtaking.

Excellence also comes to my mind when it comes to the financial crisis. Of course, as reminded by

Professor Hua, China has already faced various crises that were quickly under control and solved by the

central control and actions from the government. Even though China is opening up after WTO, it has

managed to maintain a safe attitude, to balance short and long term goals. China has a long way to go on

environmental issues but the government is committed, a strong emphasis is put on Green Energy and

this is also used to re-boost the economy post crisis. Beijing gives me the feeling that China is on the fast

and right track forward due to an active government that people trust and follow. This recent crisis has

illustrated that this approach is the proper way to solve it and it makes me wish that Europe would show

more faith in the government and that a community approach was taken rather than an individualistic

one. Europe has a lot to learn from China on this point.

All the CEOs we met incarnated excellence, showing us that success in life can only be measured by how

positively you impact others, how you look forward and turn tough situations around and how consistent

and faithful you remain to your own deep values.

Since I was a little girl, I have always been passionate about great civilizations that made our world; hence

I had two dreams that seemed so unrealistic at that time: see the Pyramids in Egypt and see the Great

Wall. China seemed like another universe to me, like a legend, where people lived upside down to me, on

the other side of the globe and where, we were told, people had built such a long wall, yiwanli

changcheng, that if you wanted to measure it, you had to tie a thread to a star. The day before coming to

Beijing, I was in Shanghai at the CEIBS conference, where John Perkins (author of the Confessions of an

Economic Hit Man) said “You, Chinese people, just make miracles,” and I could not agree more. And for

me, the first miracle I could relate to in China was the Great Wall that had fascinated me so much for such

a long time. It was, hence, so unbelievable for me to be able to go there and stand on this wall so many

years after hearing about this infinite man-built miracle, this proof of Excellence-driven achievement!

Respect

I experienced very mixed feelings on this point. Once again I had my own approach to what in my mind

should be respected and in Beijing I started understanding that people could show respect by different

means that we don’t always perceive correctly. In Europe, we treasure, value and protect our heritage

from history, our towns are more famous for what they used to be and traces of the past than for what

they are now. As a European person, I am very sentimental when it comes to “old stones” and heritage

from our ancestors. Knowing only Shanghai and Hong Kong, I feel very sad when I think of all those traces


Page 41

from the past that were simply destroyed to build new infrastructures and to develop the economy. Again

in Beijing, MBA students from Tsinghua told us that there were plans to rebuild this University to give it a

more Western look…why? Why would people want to replace this strong, powerful identity and beautiful

buildings by soul-deprived Western buildings? Over the week end, I looked for the minor part of the town

where you can find old houses and get a feeling of the old Beijing and felt so sad again when I saw that

part of it was in the process of being destroyed to put a modern building instead. In my mind, Chinese

people are attached to their tradition, so I did not understand this trend, apart from economic reasons. It

is a discussion with one of my classmate that made me realize the different way of thinking: we were in

Capital Steel, on the bridge built for Deng Xiao Ping’s visit, I was saying how lovely this bridge was and

how sad it was that it started deteriorating and that probably in 10 years it would not be there any more!

My classmate smiled and answered: “it is OK, we have to move on and change, they will build something

new and different”! The idea of not keeping this bridge here made me feel very sad and at start I was

shocked that she felt so easy about this. Then I realized: that is why China is moving on so fast, so

efficiently and is adapting so easily, taking over most of the developed countries!

Chinese people keep thinking forward, they look towards the future, they say: life is not behind us, it is

ahead of us and we have to be part of it, no need to look back. Then many other things became clearer in

my mind. A few events that I did not pay attention to in the past or that I did not understand became

clearer, just because of this very short discussion. I realized that Chinese people don’t leave their tradition

behind to move forward, they move forward and include their traditional heritage in a modern way,

making it an entire part of their future and of future generations: when building the Olympic City, as Dong

Mei explained, they designed the entire plan with the 2 dragons facing each other upside down, one in

water, one in stone (hotel); the new Opera Dome is again built in a way that uses the reflection in the

water: symbolized Yin and Yang appear. I do not know of any other country able to include and re-

dynamize their traditional beliefs into their economic development! In the West, our cultural heritage is in

the past and will stay in the past. The new culture is developed in a new form but does not carry symbols

from the past.

Another event had really impressed me: on the 20th celebration of Tian An Men, a few young students

being interviewed about their feelings towards this event replied “It is in the past, it does not mean much

to us and we do not really know what happened. It belongs to History” I was quite shocked as in Europe

we learn China’s story at High school and we are left with a strong negative view on the communist

actions and Tian an men event. I thought: “How is it possible that this person has moved on when I still

have strong feelings about this, even though it is not my country, not my story, not my people who died!”

Thankfully, through this trip, through the lectures and the discussions with Professor Fu and explanations

from my classmates, I understood that there were also many positive things done by the Communist

Party that are not taught in the west, that the Communist Party has now evolved into a totally new

balanced party that people want to be part of, and most importantly, Chinese people have this ability to

look forward and leave things that belong to the past in the past. We do not know how to do that in

Europe and I think that says a lot, even today looking at the economic growth and the way the economic

crisis is being managed. Things are currently tough everywhere but what I see in China is that people are

showing solidarity and willingness to move forward, they trust their government and will soon get out of

this crisis even stronger than before. Europe is too eager to protect what they have had so far, they want


Page 42

to move forward but without compromising anything they already have; Europe is looking backward

instead of jumping into its future.

I said I have mixed feelings because on one hand I am very impressed by this attitude and I know this is

the way to move forward, but my heart is also so attached to the history that made our world, that I am

always nostalgic and sad when I see that something is about to disappear. Over the week-end I went by

the busy lake surrounded by cafes and restaurants in central Beijing and I was observing an old man who

seemed to be meditating, an old book on his knees. His attitude and traits were so noble and he looked so

sad, I thought he could have been from the first republic and witnessed all this history that remains a

mystery to me, something I can only read in books. While I was watching him, two young guys on roller

skates arrived, laughing and speaking very loud, Ipods in their ears, dressed like trendy westerners and in

tow seconds, I saw the new Chinese generation taking over what I always had in mind when thinking of

China since I was a little girl: the ancestral and eternal China with its five thousands years of history, the

Empire and the Republic, who had such a strong and proud identity. What will be left in 20 years when

this old generation has gone, apart from the forbidden city and Tiantan to remind people of their past?

But I guess the entire world is gradually going global, in many years we may just be the same outside, and

culture will become global, only our history will be different.

It is probably our common future and we should not view it as a loss, but as a natural evolution. Being in

China will certainly help me to learn and to improve both my skills and myself as a person. I am proud to

be part of this MBA, to have met those fantastic people who are somehow always teaching me something

every time I see them. Most of my western friends here have no Chinese friends and I feel so lucky to

have some, without them, without the MBA, without this trip, it would not be possible to progressively

get to know China and to start being part of it. This trip was for me a fantastic full deep bath in what China

is on the path to become and I thank you again for this opportunity.


Page 43

Fung Ching Oi (Olivia)

Introduction

From 7th June to 14th June 2009, it was a memorial journey in my life, my first time to Beijing. I am glad

that I can visit the capital city of my country. Before the trip, we chose a topic that we would like to

investigate during the trip. My group’s topic is about environment protection and we hoped that we could

gather as much as information we needed from both corporations and local people. Also, I personally

expected to understand more the economic environment in China as I did not know China very much

even I was born in China and moved to HK when I was very small. I also hoped to understand doing

business in China. Because of CUMBA, I visited different companies in Beijing and attended many

excellent lectures. It really widened my view and inspired my thinking. Especially the relationships (ren, 仁)

which means humaneness and the righteousness (义) in Confucianism. Needless to say, we all had a great

trip and we all learnt a lot!

Tsing Hua University

There are many things that impressed me. The first is Tsing Hua University. Study in such a large and

beautiful University is a good experience. I also ride the bicycle inside the University which made me feel I

was studying in Tsing Hua. Furthermore, having dinner with Tsing Hua MBA representatives was good.

They shared their experiences and their study life in Tsing Hua. The have plenty of extra-circular activities

even they are busy with their homework and projects. I think we can hold more activities such as

entrepreneurship, exchange programs and visit more MBA schools in different universities.

The lecture held in Tsing Hua University about the economy was attractive. Professor Hua has a lot of

experience in many provinces in China. His views

and prediction about Chinese economy are

valuable, China benefits from this economy crisis

and how China can do. It shows that China is

getting stronger and stronger and attracts many

foreign investors. One thing that I concerned was

that the impact to the Chinese traditional culture

from the west. I understand that there are

advantages in western culture and if we learn and

bring in those advantages like legal system and

some management systems, it benefits our

competitively. However, too many western

cultures may not be good to us. Just like Hong


Page 44

Kong, many people forget about the traditional Chinese central thinking. Most people forget about the

humaneness and righteousness in Confucianism. They can do everything to achieve their goals without

considering others both in business and personal life. I think China will get both advantages from western

and Chinese cultures.

CEOs meeting

I remember the night having dinner with CEOs. Our table was having dinner with two professors. They

shared their views of management and the current situation in Chinese company. One story that I

remember the most was about a bamboo furniture manufactory. They hire the young people who are low

educated as craftsman. The manufactory supports their employees to pursuit the degree of making

bamboo furniture. After their graduation, the company holds a party for the graduate students and their

family. Also a gift is prepared for each of their parents. We all asked if the employee has to sign contract

with that company to commit the period of working or not. The answer was “NO”. That company allows

their employees to go to other companies and welcome their employees to go back. Most of the graduate

students are not willing to leave and very happy to work in the company. It was so touching and it

showed the humaneness of the company and the righteousness of the employees. It is one of the

management styles in China, a warm and family style company. However, some companies only pursue

benefit and exploit the employees especially the low educated workers. I hope the companies understand

that they are not only doing business but also they have the social responsibility.

Moreover, the sharing from three CEOs was so impressing. Their experiences and hard-working in their

business are valuable and we cannot hear from other place. We learnt about the characteristics of being a

CEO and a successful businessman. They are passionate to contribute to the society, having a deep

relationship with the employees and insist their dream. I remember one of the senior employees had

cancer with telophase but he insisted to work until the last moment. The loyalty of this employee is

respectful and I am sure without a humanity employer, his attitude towards the company and his

employer would not be like that.

Company Visit

Another good company with Chinese Traditional culture is GreenTec. Their mission is

人类社会的一切努力都是为了改善自身的生存环境。只有自觉生态文明才能引领循环经济,延续人

类的生存发展。倡导 “ 人适天和 ” ,追求生命的超越 ; 创造绿色明天,实现 “ 天人合一” !

Their mission is related to Taoism, talking about “ 天人合一”. Their mission concerns about people. It is

not only Chinese, but also about the people in the world. They would like to improve the life and the living

environment and they believe that it benefits the economy as well. With their high mission and

commitment, their staffs are very energetic in working. I really esteemed their director Mr. Jiang (姜), he

worked from a very small working place twelve years ago and now is having a large factory with complete

and advanced equipments. I think every staff pays effort at every single stage to achieve the good result


Page 45

as today. In the other side, the traditional Chinese culture of filial piety can be seen. His son is influenced

by his father and has the same mission to work for the company and the world. It is very rare in this

generation.

Olympic Game

Another amazing person is Dong Mei. From zero to an excellent Beijing Olympic game, everybody paid a

lot of afford on it to show the brightness side and the new development of China. Dong Mei has such a

passion to work for our country. Working from a volunteer to an important role in Beijing Olympic game,

Dong Mei experienced plenty of difficulties and went through a long long journey. She is a witness of this

historical moment and her humanness to the

country and people is respectful. Furthermore,

the story about the Beijing Paralympic Game is

awesome. All facilitates and equipments of the

Olympic game were changed to suit those

disabled and fit the requirements of the Beijing

Paralympic game within 24 hours. This was an

incredible and large work. It improved facilitates

for disabled in Beijing city and others Olympic

cities in China and spread the message of taking

care the disabled all over the country. It shows

the humanness to the disabled.

Alumni Gathering

In the whole trip, I like the dinner with alumni the most. The restaurant was very nice, very comfortable.

Those alumni shared their working experience and life in Beijing. Most of them felt that Beijing was better

than Shanghai, because of more traditional culture in Beijing. I like the environment in Beijing too except

the transportation. It is because there is always traffic jam. The sharing from those alumni inspired my

thinking. One sharing from an alumnus, Hilson, was very touching. He said I was like his daughter and he

showed his daughter picture to us. Because of his working, he did not have much time for his daughters.

He felt regret and finally he said “I love you” to his daughters in front of many relatives. He encouraged us

if you loved someone, you had to say it. I agreed with him as I do not have chance to say these words to

my father anymore.

Appreciation

Last but not least, I would like to say thank you to Professor Fu. She organized a very good trip for us so

that we can visit so many companies and meet a lot of amazing people. Her arrangements on every meals

and the hotel. More importantly, I learnt a lot from Professor Fu. Her passion in education and her kind


Page 46

attitudes towards everything. She shared the story of “海底撈” and the cradle of the Communist Party of

China. Her humanness to everyone and to the country is regardful.

After the trip

Lastly, the presentation after the trip was touching. I learnt a lot from those presentations by our

classmates. Talking the old date to the current situation of China, although plenty of changes over few

thousands of years, the core Chinese culture still exists. I hope we can keep those good cultures and pass

to next generation.


Page 47

Fung Sin Cheung, Edmund

One World One Dream, The Beijing Olympic Games 2008

The summer of 2008 was found as the most extremely hot season in Beijing since any Chinese History

records, it was hot not because of weather temperature, but it was so hot inside every people’s heart at

Beijing during the Olympic Games Weeks. Not only the Olympic Officers got excited about the event, but

also foreigners, national visitors and local Beijing people were also putting high expectations to visualize

such memorial event which just organized at the prime age of China. China has been getting prestigious

status on many international aspects, like economic, political, aero-technological, etc. Since early 2008, I

have been longing for any chance to visit Beijing to experience any bit of the Olympic spirit and joys from

our nation since it was such an amasing event around the globe. Our nation hoped to organize an

Olympic a hundred years ago, and our dreams finally came true in 2008.

Joining this trip in 2009 let me visit the Olympic Venues: Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, and also allowed me

to gain fuller picture and more insights from the sharing of our guest, Ms Dong Mei, who had been

working at the relationship unit of the Olympic organizing committee. This brought us to the backstage of

the Olympic and helped us to understand more about the real challenges behind the scene. We have

learnt a lot to the fact that it was not easy to accomplish such gigantic task but mainly due to our national

passion among people to striving for success. The coordination, mutual respects and human sympathy

among all the parties were so vital. The management skill was an Art and was really a great lessen to

everyone.

We had interviewed with several university students of Beijing who had been appointed as volunteers to

serve athletes arrivals at airports and also provided assistance to visitors at Olympic venues. We have

observed a lot of changes and improvement in Beijing City and also the citizen’s behaviors.

CU Alumni & Local Beijing Lives

The dinner dialogues with our friends of HK expatriates who had been working at Google China, and an

international CPA company revealed much of closest personal comments on Beijing living environments.

We were also impressed to have contacts with many CU alumni in Beijing, who have been moved or

stationed there for living and working for sustainable years. They really shared us with the latest job

market and economic environment of Beijing and some other major cities. I was so impressed for their

courage and passion to contribute themselves to developing our nation since so many years ago. They

served as good learning models to us who have mobilized plan to expand their careers and horizon to

China.


Page 48

H1N1 Human Swine Influenza Control Measure

H1N1 was a contemporary disease found to be evolved from pig to human in 2008, I would like to take

this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to the well-planned controls and measures from our

university and also responsive actions of our MBA office.

Since the first H1N1 case was found in Hong Kong on 1st May 2009, we had noticed the virus was

originated from American continent. Hong Kong and Beijing were also found to have “imported”

infections from the foreign visitors at their international airports and began to implement body

temperature checking on arrival flights with quarantine procedures to any suspected visitors. I had

worried if there would be any delay to our planned trip or any possibility to be affected by any suspected

case on our flight when we arrived in Beijing. I appreciate much for the prompt actions from our

university Committee on Health Promotion and Protection, and also the communication efficiency via our

MBA office which let us understand that we are being taken care of and precautionary and contingency

measures had been already established well for any of our trip. Luckily, our trip got so successful and

fruitful without any impact from the H1N1.

Hear-to-Heart Dinner Talks with CEOs

We are so delighted to have dinner and close discussions with 3 prominent CEOs from PRC organizations,

namely Nightingale and Daoxianghu Hotel (稻香湖景酒店). This event was found to be the most unique

occasion we must treasure to our trip and I believe we could hardly find another opportunity to get this

connection from other study trip. My heart and mind were deeply moved by the passion of those CEOs

and they have been striving towards their goals on contributing to the people and to the country, but not

to only the organization itself. All CEOs had demonstrated themselves to us their success are all managed

by “Heart” and “People Relationship”, not merely evaluate performance by financial figures and not

thinking and doing things with costs and benefits as priority. This really served as a big contrast between

many common western management philosophies which always setting “Specific”goals and Key

Performance Indictors “KPI”all along the company missions. This led me to re-visit my learning from

western scholars and become very interested to know more about the Chinese culture and philosophies.

Adaptation of Western Style Enterprise in China – Google

Just after we left from Beijing for some times, Google’s service was suspended by the PRC government,

and imposing Green Dam to provide information screening to every computer in the territories. During

our Google visit, everything of Google’s development in China seemed very smooth and this US giant was

so proud and confident to conquer the internet advertisement market with ease. However, this Green

Dam issue proves the common misunderstanding of foreigners to our Chinese culture and perceptions.

Many successful foreign enterprises are still learning and require better interface between foreign and

Chinese environment. I trust this has been creating golden opportunities to all of us in Hong Kong and

also to those geniuses in major cities in China. Facing the global financial tsunami, China is getting


Page 49

stronger and stronger in relative position to other developed countries, and this portrays enormous

career development to the coming MBA graduates.

Finally, I would like to share my feeling of proud and excitement when attending the National Flag-raising

Ceremony at Tian-En Men Square early in the morning on 11th July 2009. Most of our friends and

classmates had got up very early at 3:00am and waiting to witness the ceremony until 6:00am. I am now

very proud of myself to show the ceremony video to my families and got much satisfaction out of this trip.

Thanks to Professor Fu and all the working parties to make this event so successful and fruitful!!


Page 50

Ho Ka Man, Kaberlina

A Perfect Ending for My MBA!

This business field study was my very last MBA course. The study trip was impressive, inspiring and full of

laughter, earmarking a perfect ending to my experiential MBA course!!! Through the lectures, company

visits and site seeing around the Beijing city, I sensed the strength of our homeland and the experience

enriched my knowledge in the way of doing business and lifestyle in China. Most importantly, I was

inspired by the three CEOs on how a person can make a difference on his/her own life as well as others’

life. I am also happy to have developed friendship among the classmates, alumni and all other people we

have met.

Sensing the Powerful China

1. Fruitful Lectures

It’s so precious to have the chance to attend lectures by

professors from the Tsinghua University. Professor Hua’s

insight on China’s influence to the world economy was

impressive; Professor Liu’s sharing on Chinese media and

marketing was fruitful whereas Professor Gao’s lecture

on Chinese firm strategies was intense. Without a doubt,

with such high quality of education force, the youngsters

in China are in bright future and I believe they would all

be well equipped to show their talents to the world.


Page 51

2. Valuable Company Visits

The golden opportunities to visit the most representative companies in China including stated-owned

enterprise, Shou Gang and other innovative companies like Hanergy, Google, Taiyanggong, Greentec and

CICC in Beijing were treasured. I was so grateful to realize lots of talents educated overseas, like Mr.

Sunny Oh of Google and Mr. David Li of CICC, are coming back to China to develop their careers because

they can see the potentials of China. Besides, the advanced technologies developed by Hanergy,

Taiyanggong and Greentec were also proving the intelligence of Chinese. Energy resources and

environmental protection are two of the hottest topics around the world, with what I observed from the

company visits, I had strong belief that China would become one of the most powerful global leaders.

3. Impressed Infrastructures

As a civil engineer, I’m really impressed by the infrastructures works in Beijing city. The highways are well

constructed and the transportation network is well planned and under promising development. Some

structures like the Water Cube, the Bird Nest, the CCTV building and the National Opera House, are simply

gorgeous!!! Hardware development is the foundation to support the development of a city. In the sense

of this, China has shown her ability and strength to the world through the construction of all those

fantastic hardware.

The Most Impressive CEO Forum

Among all the insightful events, I was most inspired by the three CEOs. Their passion and enthusiasms to

implement their life values as a life-long mission in the company have not only brought them the

successful career but also influenced people around unintentionally. I believed being a successful

entrepreneur, besides managing the profits, it is even more vital to manage people, the ever most

important resource in a company.


Page 52

From the sharing of the three CEOs, I could feel their passion to life, enthusiasm to work, persistence in

implementing their life values and mission regardless of their ups and downs and their dedication to the

company, life and family. I was so overwhelmed by their ability to WALK THE TALK. Their success didn’t

come with ease. It is always easy for us to dream, to set high aims and goals, but when encountering

obstacles, not everyone has the persistence and devotion to live out the dream and strive for it.

Besides all those credentials of a successful entrepreneur, I also realized that the CEOs cared about the

employees and people around by treating everyone as the closed and valued ones. I loved the quote “疑

人不用, 用人不疑” - if you have doubt in someone, you should not employ him/her, otherwise, you

should trust the employer. I always think that people are the most precious asset to a company. No

matter how advanced the technologies/delicate process a company processed, without good people, the

company could never outstand itself from the industry.

Establishing Friendship

Extending my social network is one of my goals for taking the MBA course. During the trip, I had

developed friendship with other MBA students. I firstly met some Year 1 classmates through working on

the group project. By the time I landed in Beijing, 28 of us from different years and study mode, enjoyed

the 5-day lectures and visits together, chit chats and laughs were always around us. We also went for

orchestra show, body massage, the morning ceremony at Tiananmen and the Great Wall at our leisure

time. Although we only spent a few days together, a bonded and warm friendship was nurtured. It was

also very nice to meet graduates from Tsinghui University who are energetic and full of visions; the alumni

from CUMBA who have the courage to take adventures in an unfamiliar place; and particularly those

inspiring and brilliant executives & entrepreneurs met in the CEO forum and during company visit.


Page 53

The End Leads to the Start of My Next Adventure

Although this business field study was my last MBA course, the end of course has broadened my horizon

to my homeland – Mainland China. Both the chances of attending lectures and visiting companies in

Beijing are so rare and valuable that we all learnt the fruitful knowledge that is unable to learn in Hong

Kong which further made this field trip irreplaceable

and indispensable.

During the visit at Shou Gang, I spotted a slogan

written by Mr. Deng XiaoPing which stated, “學習是前

進的基礎” – Learning is the foundation to move

forward. I like this motto very much as it has

highlighted the importance of continuous learning and

keep moving forward. I have a strong feeling that the

end of my MBA course would lead me to the brand

new start for my next adventure.

Last but not the least, I would like to show my gratitude to Professor Fu for her full dedication, caring,

passion in education and valuable sharing to all of us. Of course, the unlimited support and happy sharing

with all the classmates have made my trip an extraordinary one. THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO ALL OF

YOU!!!!!!!


Page 54

Lam Tze Kin, Eagan

Beijing – The City of All Times

Tiananmen, The Great Wall, The Summer Palace, The Forbidden City, Tiantan, Tsinghua University, The

Bird’s Nest, The Water Cube… The list of “must-go”

destinations is endless. Beijing is a unique city of

history and modern, traditions and innovations,

relaxation and excitement. It has been nurturing the

Chinese culture for thousands of years. Its position is

irreplaceable in the history of mankind. Today, it still

continues to surprise the world every day, and takes

up the leading position in this world of crisis, anger,

and competition. There is no other place in the world

that is so important in the history of all times.

Longing for the Trip – Beijing, I’m coming!

Shameful to mention, as a Chinese, I had never had a “real” visit to Mainland China before this trip. I had

been to Xiamen and Shanghai a few years ago, but only stayed there for a few hours respectively for

business. I did not have chance to have a deeper look at my motherland. Therefore, this trip was the first

time I had a true experience of China.

In the past two years, I heard a lot about Beijing because of the Olympic Games 2008. I began to have

more understanding about our capital city. On the other hand, because of the hotel development projects

of my company, I had many contacts with my counterparts in Beijing. However, all these only gave me a

very general idea about Beijing – a big city, advance in technology, people are nice and helpful…I expected

to learn more through my own personal experience.

The Day Finally Came!

1. Beijing Capital International Airport

“Wow!” This was my first reaction when I stepped into Beijing Capital International Airport. The design

was really impressive. It was modern and very spacious. It made use of the natural light to minimize the

energy consumption. The auto-operating train connected different parts of the airport efficiently. The

professional services provided at the airport enabled passengers to leave the plane and collect their

luggage very quickly. Health checking officials, immigration officers, and airport services staff all


Page 55

expressed their warm welcome to every passenger. It has been said that Hong Kong International Airport

is the best airport in the world. However, I think Beijing Capital International Airport is not in any way

behind it.

2. Olympic Village & Olympic Memories

The Bird’s Nest and The Water Cube have become the must-see destinations in Beijing after the Olympic

Games 2008. The state-of-art design and facilities symbolize the new milestone for the world’s

architecture. They are also the remembrance of our successful Olympic Games.

As shared by Ms Dong Mei, every Chinese should be proud of the country for the success of the Olympic

Games. I can say it sets the new standards for this international event. Not only because of the smooth

process throughout the event under the fear of attacks, and not only because of the best results ever

achieved by our Chinese athletes, but also because of the personal qualities we have demonstrated to the

world. The tremendous efforts being put in the past eight years, and the cooperation of the whole nation

have created this truly memorable experience to every people – an outcome that astonished the world.

The determination, the “If you think you can do it, you can do it” spirit, the efficiency, the creativity, the

detail orientation, the warm hospitality, the dedication… we can never forget. See the Volks Wagen and

Audi taxis in the street (incredible!). Smell the clean and fresh air. Enjoy the improved services in hotels

and tourist destinations. The efforts we have made has brought us long term benefits.

Situated inside The Bird’s Nest, I recalled what I saw

from the television about the incredible opening and

closing ceremonies, the joyful and disappointing

moments of the athletes, and the encouragement and

friendship among nations. I cannot miss the most

memorable moment – when Chinese athletes Hou Bin

lighted the Paralympics flame. He sat on his wheelchair,

and climbed himself up to the top of the stadium with

his bared hands. This is the determination and

perseverance that creates the magic, and everyone can

do the same.

3. Tsinghua University

As an MBA student, visiting Tsinghua University and meeting their MBA students are of course the

highlight of the trip. Tsinghua is a renowned university not only in China but also in the world. The campus

is very large and peaceful. It nurtures the new generation of our nation. We were warmly welcomed by

their MBA students. They were so friendly, and answered every question we raised with patience. The

future of our nation will be in their hands.


Page 56

The most interesting part of the campus visit was the canteen! It was so large and provided a large variety

of food. Can we have one like that at our CUHK campus?

4. The Great Wall

The Great Wall is one of the most important historical

architecture. It demonstrated the intelligence of our

ancestors. Imagine with the technology of few thousand years

ago, they built this masterpiece which up to now is still the

only structure that can be seen on Earth from the Space. So

amazing!

Of course, it was sad that we paid for it – I mean human lives.

It is the evident of a dark period in the Chinese history under

the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Many people sacrificed

themselves to satisfy his sense of achievement. However, it also demonstrated the perseverance of our

nation.

5. McDonalds

You may want to ask – why I have to mention my experience at this fast food shop in Beijing? Well, it is

because the experience was so different from what I have in Hong Kong.

Since I woke up a bit early on one day, I decided to go out and experience the city myself. Eventually, I

went to McDonalds for breakfast. Unlike what we can see in Hong

Kong during rush hour, where people running and yelling, people there,

both the staff and the customers, were very relaxing (yet, the staff

were still efficient). I felt that I could enjoy my breakfast very

comfortably.

When I was having breakfast, I saw a group of students having a

discussion. The group consists of Chinese as well as western students.

They expressed their opinions freely during the discussion. I heard

western people speaking mandarin, while Chinese people speaking

English, and they understand each other very well. In this environment,

I felt that oriental and western culture could be shared in a very

comfortable way, and more importantly learn from each other. A

country or a nation can never be strong unless people continue to


Page 57

improve themselves by exchanging with other countries, recognizing the diversifications, and accepting

different opinions.

6. Others

There were so many memorable moments during the week in Beijing that I can hardly mention them all.

The jokes created by my poor mandarin (I will learn more!), my first taste of 二鍋頭 (nearly made me get

drunken the first time in my life!), food hunting at 簋街 (who say Hong Kong is a food paradise, please go

and see!), music appreciation at The National Centre for the Performing Arts (Hong Kong businessman can

hardly find time for that), hot pot at 海底撈 (the best hot pot experience I ever have! And a good business

model for restaurateurs!), midnight karaoke at 錢櫃 (where I discovered my talent in singing!)… I can

never forget all these special moments with my fellow classmates.

China – The Future

Needless to say, Chinese people have continuously demonstrated our ability and personal qualities. We

are proud of the achievements we have made. However, there are still many things to learn. There are

also many places in China yet to be developed. As a developing country, we still have a long way to go to

enhance our international status.

I am sure with the increasing freedom and accessibility of information enjoyed by the general public,

China will only be even stronger in the future, and continue to shine on the international arena.


Page 58

Lee Tsz Yeung, Michael

Background

The story starts like this. During my preparation of the China Trip, I came across an article from the

internet that surprised me. It was a photo from NASA taken from the Space Shuttle over the East China

Sea and on the lower atmosphere, a corridor of anthropogenic haze was discovered (see the arrows in the

photo below). The corridor is around 200Km wide and probably much more than 600Km long (the visible

length over the sea). It is believed to be a mixture of industrial air pollution, dust and smoke. NASA

reports the pollutant was found weeks later in the cost of California, polluting the atmosphere and may

be accountable for global warming. Miles of chemical wastes were flowing in the sky from China. That

really raises my interest in looking at how China nowadays is working on environment protection and

more interestingly is, why China is being blamed for producing so many pollution worldwide. Should we

be fair enough to say by squeezing down the cost to be competitive as one of the lowest cost

manufacturing country in the world, China has no focus on environment concern? Should saving the

planet be a global issue where every human being on this planet earth should be responsible for?


Page 59

It is interesting, our group finally change our project topic to historic and heritage preservation because

we find more than one group is working on environment issue. We believe this is a very interesting topic

because heritage preservation is another form of environment protection.

This is not the first time I visited Beijing as I have a regional marketing job and travel in Asia extensively.

My impression of Beijing is not emerged heavily as a financial or manufacturing city like Shanghai or

DongGuan in Southern Guangdong. Therefore, my expectation for Beijing is different. Beijing should has

her own and different story to tell. Moreover, this is the first time I travel to Beijing as a student to see

things differently. Prior to the trip, I heard pollution in the air, the rush of building up the infrastructure

and catching up of the Beijing public to learn English for the Olympics. I agree everyone is well aware of

the negative sides of Beijing. This should make this trip interesting as I can be more focused on the

positive sides of this capital city.

I arrived at Beijing on a relaxing Sunday afternoon. The Beijing Capital Airport was awesome and very big,

much bigger than the Hong Kong International Airport. It was so huge that our intra-terminal train passed

through one of the terminal that was not yet opened. I see there is a plan for future expansion which is

very true when I look at how the Hong Kong Airport is now building a new boarding terminal to meet the

increasing demand. Beijing Capital Airport definitely has a Master plan that looks into the future.

Moreover, on the departure day I also discovered the Beijing Capital Airport had individual immigration

facility in each different terminal to avoid and diverted the big crowds from the main terminal. To my

surprise, passengers could even rate the service of the immigration officer by pressing a button in front of

the immigration desk indicating the level of service delivered after the officer returned your travel

document. I was very impressed on the level of customer satisfactory is measured in such detail which I’d

never seen such system in the rest of the world. I even heard one traveler giving a thumb up on such

arrangement and realized later that he came from a service centric country, Japan.

My Taxi driver brought us on the city highway and without any travel congestion, we entered the city

seamlessly. From the outlook, I discovered the city was crowded with very modern and beautifully

designed new buildings. Groups after groups of world class architectures could be seen on the way as we

moved along the city superhighway. A few days later, when I had a chance to walk around the city, I had

to say I felt no difference walking downtown Tokyo compared to places like Xidan or in Paris when we

compared the Avant-garde China Telecom building to the new Arc De Triomph. Later in our trip, I even

found out that the people, the culture and the history were all just fascinating.

The Trip

Our trip did not start off nicely in a raining morning. I said it was a heavily rained Monday morning. Our

guide, Jimmy, had been very kind escorting everyone to the Olympics Village under heavy rain where I

saw the Cubic Water and the Bird Nest first time. These were impressive constructions with a

combination of modern technology and beauty. I was excited to witness how modern technology and

design helped to save the environment and create the new Olympics world records. Take for example the

Cubic Water, new technology was used to increase the water depth and leave the first and last lane

unused to reduce wave re-bounces. The Bird Nest was impressively huge. I was impressed later I found


Page 60

out the steel structure was in fact, provided by the company Capital Steel, when we visited the company.

Imagine the Olympics opening and closure ceremonies were held right here in this giant stadium. The Bird

Nest itself was a witness of time. A witness of China today capability to communicate with the rest of the

world, demonstrating her intelligence and the beauty of ancient Confucius philosophy of Lǐ (禮) and yì

(義). The greatness and openness of the Chinese culture to accept and integrate others culture were all

well demonstrated. I even heard that the success of the Beijing Olympics ceremony had left London, the

next Olympics city, a big headache!

Jimmy was such a wonderful guide and through his enthusiastic and passion, he was so committed to

showing every visitor his story of the new Beijing. Jimmy’s inside story on how the city helped to preserve

a temple inside the Olympics village area, the whole Cubic Water had to move 100M away from its

original location with no choice.

This helped to avoid demolition of the temple as well as reconstruction of the Central Axis emerged from

the Forbidden City. (A picture below shows the Central Axis) At this point, I was impressed an ancient

temple had a higher priority over a multi-million dollars Olympics modern construction. This was a true

example of high level of respect to our historical asset.

One observation on our way back to our bus was the technology used in laying down the foundation

material of the road system outside the Bird Nest and the Cubic Water. According to Jimmy, a special

recycle material was used to build the road where it could absorb the pouring rain and provide a dry

surface for the pedestrian to walk safely without slipping. The water was then collected underneath and

returned to a recycle system for other use. (A picture below shows one side of the road at the back used a

special material to build for people to walk is so dry compared to the front which built for vehicles) No

wonder I cannot see any sign of flooding or pools of water under such terrible downpour and I was

amazed the design of the Olympics venue had went down into such great details, thanks to the modern

technology. Later on the same day afternoon, I appreciated so much if the same technology could apply

to the Tsinghua campus while I had to walk under the pouring rain which made my body soaked. The walk

in the campus was neither short nor easy – it reminds me of a long and difficult road in front of a greener

China tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(Confucian)


Page 61

After a whole day rainy day, I saw a very blue beautiful sky on Tuesday. Who said Beijing had no blue sky

and air quality was not good? I lived with a clean and blue sky in Beijing during the rest of my trip!

Visit to Tai Yang Gong was also impressive. It was an electricity power

plant built in a residential neighborhood. I was impressed how Tai

Yang Gong lived with her neighbors in harmony. I saw residential just

across the street! I am not an expert on environmental technology

and how Tai Yang Gong utilized modern technology to generate

power was a difficult topic to me. However, I understood it was a

new technology with a higher cost and its efficiency suppressed its

cost. My observation concluded Tai Tang Gong had taken

environmental protection to a high level. Not to mention the noise level was greatly reduced to a sub-

human-auditable level but the whole power plant was surrounded in such a nice way resembled an office

with lot of greens and decorations like a man made Great Wall on top of the cooling tower. I could only

hear the low frequency noise generated from the machinery so closely nearby when I physically stood

outside the machine building. The whole power plant was very clean and beautifully crafted, very

different from the traditional dark, unorganized and noisy factory impression I had. I felt so excited such

large scale infrastructure could be so well planned and built to meet not only its primary purpose as a

Power Plant to serve the Olympics but also became an important component perfectly integrated into the

environment. The whole plant was definitely a smart energy design by shorten the distant to transmit the

electricity to the end users, resulted in reduce energy lost during transmission. Friendly Tai Yang Gong had

gained its acceptance in the city and I could not see any fault that deserved any criticism in Tai Yang Gong.

Capital Steel gave me a strong feeling on contrasting history with tomorrow and in continuous

improvements.


Page 62

Thanks to our guide DanDan, I learned so much of the history of

Capital Steel from the day established to today as it stands as a giant.

The factory tour gave me so much into the past, where many historic

events took place physically there, all inside Capital Steel factory. The

high temperature furnace, the melting iron, the transportation

system and the workers inside Capital Steel are pieces of history and

puzzles to a full picture of Capital Steel today. The challenge Capital

Steel faced during her development in the past, today and towards

tomorrow when concern over a “Greener world” globally in the future was never ending. The question of

“What is a Capital Steel worker should be” reflected exactly my feeling towards this famous SOE. The

passion, the feeling and the loyalty resembled in emotional mix along the passage of time. The workers in

Capital Steel had mixed emotions towards the move as one can understand. They wanted to work

continuously in Capital Steel. Mr. Zhang, the factory head who met with us recalled how an old worker

who just passed away recently had contributed his life completely towards the company. He worked until

the last moment of his life. I could feel his passion was as hot as the melting iron from the furnace. His

dedication was a true reflection of what a Capital Steel worker should be. Capital Steel is now facing a

challenge in time – A challenge for a change. Moving to a remote island far away was not easy for

everyone and change is inevitable. However, I was delighted to see Capital Steel was willing to take the

move and commit the concept of environment first on future Capital Steel planning development.

Visit to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall (BPEH) www.bjghzl.com.cn

During our conversation with Dong Mei on

city planning criteria for the Beijing Olympics

village, she recommended an invaluable

source for understanding Beijing City

planning was the BPEH.

Due to its closure by 5:00PM, we only have

around an hour visit to the BPEH. However, it

was amazing how Beijing had put City

Planning first in her development. I was

surprised to see City Planning was not a new

concept to the ancient Chinese intellectuals

but was started hundred years ago in many

different dynasties. The concepts of the Central Axis and Fung Shui had deep rooted in Chinese mind

where a balanced, harmonized equilibrium between human and environment concept was adopted long

time ago. On the third floor of the BPEH, the whole city of Beijing was resembled in front of us in

miniatures. A model of the whole city with details on the different sectors of the city provided a bird-eye

view of the city was spectacular. I was amazed the modern Beijing Master City planning for the future

had also been so detailed and it had been categorized into four categories: Transportation, Environmental

Protection (even includes sound pollution as well!), Water and Building Energy Conserving Area. More

impressively, Beijing had reserved dedicated land in the center of the city for the BPEH. One can see huge

http://www.bjghzl.com.cn/


Page 63

effort has been put in preserving the heritage and education on the public to understand the history of

the past.

After thoughts

I believe I see things very differently in China after the trip, compared to my impression years ago during

regular business trips to the mainland .Thanks to the special arrangement, I had the opportunity to talk to

different people such as the Tsinghua students in this trip. They were true hearted and enthusiastic

individuals who take very special care of us during our half day visit to the campus. Their escorts under

the rain, their hospitality to show us different sight-seeing spots inside the campus and the many dishes in

the student canteen were touching. Their desire to reach out and exchange information with us, not only

limited to academic but every aspects of the world was encouraging. It is interesting to know that most of

the students are not local but come from different parts of the country. Their different views on looking

at Beijing as a capital city and how Beijing undergoes changes for the world are fascinating. The Tsinghua

students encounter left me a very sweet memory of the trip.

The passion of our lecturers is also impressive. They are dedicated, committed, logical in thinking and also

very knowledgeable. (Remind me our dinner with Miss Jiang from Beijing Nightingale on her sharing to be

focus, reiterate, thankful, review and use systematic and logical thinking in our daily life) They are open

minded and willing to share their knowledge with us. The communications were always in two ways. The

capability to apply successfully the western civilization and concepts into “Chinese way” effectively is

important in achieving a win-win solution. There was so much I learnt throughout the trip, much boarder

than the syllabus stated. I was impressed on how different China nowadays compared to the past in terms

of knowledge sharing and exchange. Some of the conversions and discussions could be so direct and to

the point but always accompany with a warm heart underneath.

China definitely underwent changes to align with the rest of the world, realize she is struggling to protect

the oldies and the history. Chasing Western philosophy that may not necessary helps is not a sound move.

The question becomes how the Chinese can identify where an appropriate line should be drawn. The

Olympics definitely is a catalyst that successful speed up the momentum of the country towards

modernization. During our visit to Google and CICC, I saw stories of top overseas educated individuals’

willingness to contribute what they had learnt to China after they returned home. From the class of

Chinese media and marketing by Prof. Liu, I learnt the new Chinese generation boldly expressed and

reflected their opinions extensively by leveraging the power of the internet and mobile communication.

Look at SKII and Carrefour cases for example. Look at how a single careless mistake of using the China

symbolic Dragon in a creative Paint advertisement can draw public’s attention that results in

dissatisfaction. Chinese nowadays are much willing to express their viewpoints directly without

reservation and with modern technology, creating an enormous power that we should not overlook,

especially when an element of nationalism is involved. I was proud how much we loved our country.

As a conclusion, I would like to quote an answer from my question to Prof. Hua Ruxing in China

environmental protection during our visit lecture to the Tsinghua campus. Prof. Hua answered. “It is quite

a difficult topic. We are still learning and education is needed to carry on to next generation.” Today, I see


Page 64

China has made her move towards protecting the environment, not only on the visible level where we can

witness so much have been done but also the momentum raised in every Chinese’s heart. Ranging from

large corporation like Hanergy to small medium company like GreenTech, China has taken her every little

step towards a greener country. On one side of the city, Capital Steel is quietly moving her factory to a

remote island with new manufacture facilities aimed for zero pollution. Somewhere close-by inside the

city, Tai Yang Gong has proven to be an excellent example how Green energy can benefit our living

environment. China has showed commitment in protecting the environment with significant examples.

The seed has already been implanted. Of course, there is still a long way to go and a big room for

improvements. However, I believe, in time, we will see more successful stories and bigger steps in China

taking her role as a leader in environmental protection of the world.

Remember the picture from NASA taken over East China Sea? It was taken more than 10 years ago in

1996. I am looking forward to China to take a similar photo by China ShenZhou showing the world China

has committed and successfully exceeded in protecting our environment.

Finally special thanks to Prof Fu and Haina Zhang for making such memorable trip comes true. Without

your help, I will not be able to make so many new good friends in this trip as a third year student knowing

no one in the class prior to the trip. Also, I was touched by the action of Prof. Fu filling tea in the class.

Personally, I do not feel comfortable because it contrasts the Chinese traditional way of respecting our

predecessors (前輩). However, I was shocked, and also I can speak for the rest of the class, on how much

Prof. Fu is committed to teaching us and so much have been done to make this trip delivered in quality,

when I paused and sip down the cup of tea just filled. Once again, thank you very much Prof. Fu.

The End


Page 65

Li Sum Yi, Yvonne

It was a memorable trip to Beijing; it was a valuable experience in CUMBA. We stayed in Beijing for 5 days

and we have made lots of accomplishments throughout this trip.

Being the first time to Beijing, I was surprised that the city was much cleaner than I thought while the

people are very nice, too. It was the very first day when I already realized I hat got too many

misunderstandings towards Chinese cities. A good impression started me off for my 5-day Beijing learning

journey during Jun 7 to Jun 13.

People I met in Beijing

During the trip, we were able to meet a lot of people from different backgrounds. Each of them has

his/her story and this made the trip very interesting and fun. The meeting with Tsing Hua University MBA

students was a very memorable event. The school tour and the lunch with them allowed me to know

better about MBA school life in China’s first class university. Their sharing in finding jobs and their

experiences were valuable experience during the trip. They are very passionate and kind. They touched

me the most as they were all willing to share their time with us, I felt welcomed and warm especially

when our meeting day on Jun 7 was indeed a rainy day.

The professors who taught us during the 5 days trip including Professor Hua, Professor Liu, Ms Dong Mei

and Professor Guo provided us a very good overview to the related topics. Professor Hua was passionate

about Chinese economics and his passion could be felt during the lectures. He showed us the macro view

of the world economics and pointed out how China’s position in the future. It was a very interesting

lecture and I was delighted that we were having the class in Tsing Hua University. The topic was very

important for me to know how much more can be done for China development. Professor Liu who

delivered us the lecture “China Media and Marketing” gave us very interesting case studies. Her real life

examples enabled us to know the real marketing practice in China and she also demonstrated that doing

marketing campaigns in China one would need to have a lot of considerations including the understanding

of Chinese culture. Being a marketer in Hong Kong, China certainly has a very different style in marketing.

The examples mentioned in SK-II reminded me that customer shall always be respected, especially a

foreign brand outside the home country. An arrogant brand would never succeed in the market even its

product has a premium quality.

Nevertheless, the people we met during the company visits were very kind and passionate. Although

taking care about 30 of us consumed lots of time, energy and required lots of arrangement beforehand,

they were all passionate to show us their companies. The CEO gatherings particular impressed me as we

seldom have chance to talk to senior management in Hong Kong. Their experiences and sharing of their

success certainly benefit me a lot.


Page 66

I was very honorable to meet Mr. Fu who has tried many different things throughout his life. He used to

be a worker, a reporter, a CEO, a consultant…etc. He is willing to try new things and he did not hesitate to

take responsibilities. He is passionate in his work and his attitude is what we should learn. He is also very

kind and generous that he is willing to share his experiences and I believed meeting with him has inspired

my thoughts.

I also have to express my thanks to Professor Fu and Kathy because they tried their best to accommodate

our needs and arranged a marvelous trip for all of us.

The trip in Beijing this time allowed me to know more about China as I never been to Chinese major cities

before. The perception of an old city was wrong and Beijing left me a very good impression. While

meeting with different people living and working in Beijing, I felt the energy and potential in China.

Company Visits

Apart from the lectures, the company visits are also remarkable. I was impressed in GreenTech and

Capital Steel. These companies are large and I felt that their employees love their own companies. I was

especially impressed by GreenTech because it was started from a small company and the achievements of

the company were actually huge after such a limited number of years. I could feel the passion and fire

inside Mr. Cheung and he was so proud to introduce his company to us. “People is always said to be the

most important assets of a company” is what I recalled in my mind. The workers must be very pound to

work in GreenTech as the company involved in so many country projects in infrastructure and has

contributed so much to China.

The visit in Capital Steel opened my eyes as this state owned company had an enormous scale. The entire

steel production process was very new to me and I was impressed by the facilities there. After more

understanding to the company, I found that Capital Steel was just like a small community in Beijing and

workers treat it as their home. The culture developed in Capital steel is the management role model

which managers nowadays should learn.

Structures and Buildings

The trip was packed with lectures and company visits. I was impressed by the architectures of Bird Nest

and Water Cube in the Olympic Village as they are giant structures that are well design. The commercial

buildings I saw in Beijing are all modern ones. They are tall and trendy which are extremely eye catching.

Other marvelous structures included the National Theater and the new China Central Television (CCTV)

Tower were also unforgettable ones.

Besides, being the capital of China, Beijing is also a city which combined ancient and modern. There are

lots of historical buildings including the forbidden cities, summer place and great wall. With the old

culture meets the modern civilization, Beijing itself is a very special city for China development.


Page 67

Marketing

Having worked in the Marketing field, my experience to China has opened the door towards

advertisement and observed that there were several types of promotions. During the trip in Beijing, I saw

there were lots of huge outdoor billboards and MTR display advertisement boards. Besides, sales

promotion including the most preliminary stage - price cut and lucky draw promotions could be found in

lots of retail stores. Sponsorships events were common when I went to restaurants, shopping malls and

entertainment areas.

During he lectures, Professor Liu showed us some failure cases of international brands in China and

illustrated some examples and the correct attitudes foreign brands should have. China is a very

interesting place for marketer to build branding because Chinese are more conscious in price rather than

intangible names. By understanding more about the culture and gaining more experiences, successful

marketing campaign could be seen in the near future. Nevertheless, we all knew that China is still under

development and apart from its fast growth; there are lots of things for her to adapt, learn and improve.

It definitely will be an exciting market for everyone.

My thoughts and feelings

China was always a place that I hesitated to visit. I always got a wrong perception and I just admired

foreign countries too much that I forgot the goodness of my home country. I felt like I needed to

experience myself how the home city likes and hence I joined the tour in CUMBA. I felt excited before the

trip because there are lots of people telling me that I am going to see a well developed city. After the trip,

I was glad that I was being the witness of myself as Beijing is far better than I had imagined.

I felt strongly towards the people I met in the trip. The passions of the CEOs and the CUHK alumnus I met

during the trip inspired me a lot. People I met were patriotic to China, they had kind thoughts that they

would like to assist to build a better China, creating more opportunities. Some of them are very successful

businessmen and some of them studied in Hong Kong, but this made no difference for their passions –

trying their best to contribute and share their experiences and vision with our people in the home country.

Being patriotic to one’s own country is important because this is the only way to help ourselves become

stronger and wealthier.

Apart from the academic sharing in our trip, I also enjoyed my time with all my MBA classmates. I traveled

together around in a lot of famous scenes including the Water Cube, Bird Nest, Forbidden City, Summer

Place, Great Wall with my classmates. It was a unforgettable trip which I learn more about China, my

home country.


Page 68

Li Wai Chung, Owen

Prologue

I used to think that this Beijing trip would be a highlight event in my MBA life. I am a year two evening

mode student. This trip could be a way to celebrate graduation. However, I was a bit disappointed in the

beginning. This was because most of my classmates and best friends had joined the trip last summer. I am

the only year two evening mode student in this trip and feel like a stranger in the group initially upon

receipt of the list of roommates. Well, I told myself, though without friends I already knew, that is not the

end of the day. Anyway, the purpose of the trip is to get to know Beijing and thus China. I may also get a

chance to make new friends in the trip. I was with such mind set when I began this trip.

My First Impression

The last time I was in Beijing for business was almost seven years ago. I was not able to really get to know

Beijing during those days. This time, I arrived at Beijing on my own in the evening on Sunday. The Beijing

International Airport welcomes me with a surprise. It was really up to international standard and large in

scale. Being designed by the same architect of the Hong Kong international airport, The Beijing one was

even more impressive in the night time, quiet but lively. I then deliberately took a shuttle bus and then a

cab to get to our hotel. By taking the bus, I could have a look of Beijing at night. The bus passed the Water

Cube and Birds’ Nest Olympics stadium, as if greeting me with a message that this is a symbol of new

Beijing, remarking how China proved herself to the world in 2008 that the Olympic Games held is such a

success. The significance of the success is that it also symbolized that China is ready for anything to lead

and to surprise the world again.

Places, People and Experience

Throughout the visit, with Professor Fu’s tremendous effort, we were able to visit to a variety of

companies and contacted different people. These events and the dialogues all enabled us to understand

China in both breadth and depth; such arrangement is unique and irreplaceable. I would elaborate my

personal reflections in terms of the places, the people and the experience in the Beijing trip.

Places…...

Beijing, the capital of China, is a collection of the physical evidences of the development of China, both

historical and cultural. One always associates Beijing with relics like Imperial City, Great Wall or Temple of

Heaven. During this trip, I could have a closer look at Beijing from other dimensions. Firstly, there is also

the contemporary side of Beijing. I am an architect and thus architecture in Beijing appealed to me. All the


Page 69

curtain wall buildings in various bold forms in the CBD, together with the CCTV building and the Olympic

Games stadiums are all self-explanatory examples that reflect how open China is to accept new ideas and

to develop it into reality. The sophisticated metro network is also a fundamental element for a well-

developed city. All these prove that the hardware for a contemporary international metropolitan city is in

Beijing here already. Of course there is surely room for development so that the existing city fabric can be

modified to merge with the infrastructure required for the development pace of Beijing such that

problems like traffic congestion and pollution can be resolved.

Visits to Taiyanggong, Greentech and Capital Steel also captured my attention. On the one hand, I can

have a feel of the heat and industrial setting of Capital Steel, which reminded me that secondary industry

is still vital to a country, apart from the rapid development of financial industry. Taiyanggong and

Greentech demonstrated how China is willing to work towards a better tomorrow in terms of

environmental consciousness. Green issues had been specially paid attention to as a global issue. China is

determined to develop in harmonious pace or even advance at the level of that of the whole world.

People……

Throughout the trip, we met different people. Some of them are returnees, left China previously but came

back. Some of them had been fighting all their way for a better tomorrow and a better China. The

dialogues between us is inspiring and as if trying to bring a message for me.

When we visited CICC, we met David Lee, head of the Risk Management department. He worked well in

the Wall Street for 20 years, but seeing China as an opportunity, he returned and worked for the

development of financial industry in China. We visited Google. The marketing manager is another

returnee, from his appearance and accent, I can tell he had been in the States for very long. He returned

and worked for an international company which grasped the opportunity to develop in China. Not only

those who shared with us, but I can tell there are plenty of staff members in these companies who

worked there are either returnees or energetic local people. All of them are vivid proof that people of

different age groups returned to work In China after making effort to go out because they can see the

future in our country.

In addition, with great thanks to professor Fu, we got chances to meet the young Tsing Hua MBA students

and visit the campus. Last time when some of them came to HK and had dinner in Shatin, I was with them

and took them to LangKwaiFong with our schoolmates. They are energetic, optimistic and sincere. They

are the pillars of our country and form a strong competitive force in China

Dinner with the three CEOs at Daoxianghu also benefits us a lot. Through their sharing, I can then learn

from another perspective about how they struggled, and how to develop the attitude to fight for a better

environment and future, to advance and improve. I sincerely treasure those sharing because I know

someday when I looked back, I can further understand the deeper meaning and respect them more.

Another even is dinner with CUMBA alumni. They are not people so far away. They are Hong Kong people

and studied in the same school with us. They are of different age groups and gave me a vertical section of

the feelings and experience of Hong Kong people in Beijing. New comers still struggle to adapt to work


Page 70

harmoniously with local people, to get to consider from their perspectives as well. Middle age people with

a decent job found themselves well settled down, just have to travel a lot to take care of family members

in Hong Kong. Retired people even do not want to come back to Hong Kong……

Experience……

I deliberately stayed behind for a few days so as to get myself to relax from work and also get to know

more about Beijing. I went to National Opera House for an orchestra performance and went to 798 as

well. In there, I can see the budding artists showing the public their talents, showing how freely they want

to express themselves, to reconcile themselves in terms of the inflow of the information from the world

and the heritage they had been inherited. This is something good for Beijing, better than Shanghai. Beijing

is not only developed as solely a financial and commercial city. But its historical and cultural richness is

even more attractive. The co-existence of all different elements makes this city a unique place.

During the trip, I also went to Tiananmen Square to see the flag raising ceremony. Waking up at 2am is

never an easy experience. However, upon waiting for around three hours, witnessing the whole progress,

I surely would say that it is worthy to attend. That was an experience that I had not come across in Hong

Kong. At least, I started to feel that I am part of the country in a more vivid way.

I went to the Great Wall with classmates on Saturday and to the Imperial City on my own later on. This is

my first time to be there and again, once I stepped on it, feeling the steps are real, feeling the historical

relics as if being part of history as well. These relics are proofs of the power of our country in the history.

After all these years of developments, I believed that our generation is lucky enough to see how our

country re-gains its position as the leading country in the world again.

Message for myself and Road Ahead……

I take China concentration in the MBA course, through which I aimed to get myself to know more about

China. I work on China projects currently and do some travels to China occasionally. Even that is the case;

I find that this trip can still bring me lots of inspiration and experience about China. This trip is essential

for all of us to get ready to face the challenges ahead.

Now that I can see China is really such a huge market and with lots of opportunities. Dialogues with

different people equip me with a better understanding of the experience to work in China. What next?

I am about to start a new page in my life. Believe it or not, what a co-incidence that I get an offer to

station in China upon completion of my MBA course in August. I work on China projects and understand

that it is a trend as well as a must to station in China in order to have a better understanding of the

operation in China, and hopefully more chances for advancement. Even understand that logically, still I

am full of hesitation. I have to leave my parents, I am the only son and that is something painful. I have

lots of friends here in Hong Kong and terrific social life and networking, but it seems that we can only

transform into friends on-net in the future. I may have to choose to form my own family in China if I take

the offer. Well, well…...as if gives up a lot. I am going to station in big cities like Beijing or Shanghai,

instead, it would be Shenyang, starting in mid-September 2009. The weather could be tough and thus the


Page 71

construction duration would be longer due to cold weather. The project is big and I may have to stay

there over 10 years to see it completes if everything proceeds smoothly. Well, of course, I would then

gain a lot of invaluable experiences to take up this challenge. The Beijing trip helps to build up the

confidence for me to take up the challenge and reinforces me the idea that we have to fight hard for a

better future.

Last but not least……

Life is like this, full of unexpected. I used to think this trip as a celebration of an end to my MBA life with

my classmates, end up; I went alone but knew more friends. It was almost the last page of my MBA life,

end up; it led to the new page in my life, to work and live in Shenyang.

The trip served for me not only a glance of China, but I enjoyed every moment to have dialogue with

people and thus helped me to understand life in Beijing in a much different perspective.

Professor Fu, Great thanks to your effort to organize the trip for us. When we look back someday in the

future, this is certainly a very important part of our life. Thanks and all the best!

I have to stop here; do wish me good luck for my new life in Shenyang!


Page 72

Lui Ching Man, Esther

There are indeed lots to share from the Beijing trip as it is not a pure academic and business exchange

tour but also a trip that I learned how Chinese leaders do their business and being a great person. Some

principles that I heard throughout the trip refresh my beliefs for life. This trip is just like a retreat that

revitalizes me from busy working and study life.

Among all the company visits and lectures, I have a strong feeling

that China has truly developed to a more internationalized country.

With the help of Olympics, Beijing people’s quality (from taxi drivers

to CEOs), environment protection (relocation of Capital Steel, huge

investment by GreenTech), city appearance (cleanliness of roads,

buildings), business environment (CICC entering into global financial

market), architecture (lots of remarkable historic buildings yet full of

contemporary state-of-the-art buildings like Olympics Stadium &

Water Cube) have improved a lot when compared with 5 years

when I firstly visited this capital. I could see the whole country is determined to open to the western

world; every sector is switching on its engines to grow larger and stronger with the goal to contributing to

become a “large & influential country” in the world.

Behind the scene of rapid development of a country where wealth is

pouring into your pocket and opportunities are prevalent for you to

seize, what attitude you should have while pursuing your career?

I find the answers from the three CEOs we met in the DaoXiangHu

Hotel. Their way of doing business and treating people do inspire me a

lot. It could be generalized in 4 words (which are also used in our

presentation).


Page 73

打拼精神

Still remember one of the CEOs mentioning that she will evaluate what she has done every day. She is

willing to share information with her colleagues and help them without a purpose. Although it is difficult

for many people, she does gain respect and pride by her colleagues to work for her. A great leader should

not be afraid of getting brilliant subordinates; he should rather give abundant opportunities for those who

are capable to move up. Only by this way could your

people learn from you and be loyal to you. Even

though they leave your company one day, you

should feel happy for them as they are capable to find

somewhere else suitable for them. The philosophy of

general management is the leader inherits the

ability to distinguish highly calibre people and train

them up to become future leaders – succession

planning for company, society and eventually the

country.

Aside from being a good leader, one should always be passionate to their jobs. I remember another CEO

has once mentioned her selection criteria for a job. The first one is your character. If you are an outgoing

person, you will be suitable to doing people-related jobs. Oppositely, if you are a rather introversive

person, low people contact works will suits you more

like research, auditing etc. One’s personality eases you to

work efficiently as you need not train up yourself in order

to cater for the job requirement but simply act like

yourself to get the job done. The second criterion is

interest, which also means your degree of passion you

have for your job. I always find it true. If you do not like /

love what you are doing, you won’t input effort into the

job, you eventually will get bored and create a

feeling of inertia to get lazy.

面面俱圓

Mian mian ju yuan sometimes is right to attain people’s recognition as it means you won’t make enemies.

However, I find this quite difficult to do so. If I identify someone not good, I cannot pretend to be good to

him/her. But being mian mian ju yuan do helps you a lot. You could solicit important information that

could help with your work from your friends. Your road would be much easier if you have others’ support,

especially in China where relationship does count. I recall a Tsinghua professor telling us one thing during

the dinner session – do not mind being taken advantage by others as they may help you back one day.

Who knows?


Page 74

為國營商

Doing business for your country! Another memorable advice shared by another CEO – Life is short, but

effective life is even shorter. We should do what we really want to do in our lifetime. Like the CEO who

helps the farmers in rural area of China. He has found his dream and

being passionate to pursue it till now. That is what I admire him the

most. I need to figure out what I want to do that makes me happy and

satisfied. What I am doing now is purely in commercial sector, mainly

contributive to my company to make money. I was given lots of

chances to talk with top management to share their vision for life when I

was a management trainee of my company. They somehow

inspire me what to do next. Being addictive to move up the ladder

or do something different? I think I still need time to figure out. The CSR

conference held by CUMBA is a good example for all students to take

as reference. Sometimes people should not only focus on making money,

but should do something make you happy. Happiness cannot be bought by

money!

One CEO share with us his vision of life is not built on economic

efficiency to society but how much you contribute to society by

helping the needy. That motivates him to invest a lot to help the

farmers. Another impressive example is shared by a Tsinghua

professor at a dinner session. He attended an annual conference with

many Chinese enterprises to exchange their success. A construction

company (TecSun, or 德胜 ) that builds villas in Suzhou by employing

farmers as workers. Their management philosophy is to train up

the technical skills of farmers, don’t forget there are a large number of

non-educated farmers in China, and enable them to be the best self and

create the best villas for customers. This company is a truly social

enterprise to conduct the business by turning those farmers who

cannot find skillful jobs elsewhere into the main workforce. It even opened a school to train up its

employees and provides them with proper benefits. When I listened and watched the professor’s

description, I could see his eyes are shinning. He is very proud of this company and hopes to see more of

these kinds.

人間有情

The chairman of DaoXiangHu Hotel has been taking care of her colleagues for many years. Even though

the hotel is hit by weak demand and faces closure before, she still insisted on operating it so as to

maintain a living for her people. She has gained much respect and won allegiance from her people to

continue operating the hotel to sustain the downturn. Another impressive memory is that when one of

her senior managers was diagnosed to suffer from cancer in recent years, all employees were sad for him


Page 75

and took care of him in return. This is Ren Jian You Qing!

Luckily, he found out later it was a wrong diagnose at the

end. I could see people relationship / friendship is more

valuable than money / jobs positions to them. When you

need support, your friends will appear in front of you to help

you. When you are sad, they are also the first group to

comfort you whereas money could not heal you.

To sum up, I believe the four attitudes would be acted like

my life mottos when pursuing my own achievements in

future, no matter how hard the situation would be and how challenging the tasks are.

Another highlight in the Beijing trip is Mr. David Li of CICC. His speech about the company strategy gives

me lots of insights for my work.

David’s Leadership Model:

1. Learn from success – Only by learning from others’ success could you know which approach could lead to success. The essence is to identify the factors behind somebody or some projects’ success!

2. Sit back & think – Thinking what you could learn from the key success factors distinguished in first stage. You must think whether those approach suitable for you and your company, analyze the impact of adopting this approach to your workplace and predict if this approach would also lead to success for you.

3. Learn the constraints & design the best strategy – Do not forget to observe your / your company constraints before applying the approach because same approach may be worked at some place but not at the other place. Try to fine tune the approach according to the limitations of your company and design the best strategy.

Last but not least…

I have strong feeling of Chinese patriotism in Google and CICC company visits.

He shares with us the reasons for his return from working at Wall

Street for nearly 20 years is because he is a patriotic guy. He feels

sorry for leaving China for a long time and when he comes back to

China some years before, he feels like he is a foreigner without

knowing the inherit meaning of various Chinese historic buildings

and local culture. That is why he determined to come back and be

a real Chinese. He also brings back his rich international financial

experience to help Chinese investment bank to be in line with

global standards.


Page 76

Google China – Steve Han, Business Development Director

I have been hearing that many wealthy Chinese families raise

their children in western countries but they will most likely

come back to work in China in order to contribute to their home

country with their foreign mindset, knowledge and

experience. Steve Han is a good example to illustrate the trend.

He is raised up in US and has been penetrating in IT industry

thereafter. But then he determined to back to Beijing to

seize opportunities and indirectly pour his western business

practice to China. He is energetic and willing to take up challenges,

is a devoted management.

The returnees stimulate me to think for being a Hong Kong people, how could I grasp this golden

opportunities to indirectly contribute to my country? Professor Hua has

hinted us at his lecture that only Hong Kong collaborates with China

could she grow larger in today’s global competitive world. What we

have is people, soft skills and well-established system, we could actually

provide professional advices, build up a sophisticated supporting

backstage for China to move up to international platform. We should

make use of our comparative advantages to facilitate our counterparts

to achieve our common goal and attain win-win situation.


Page 77

Mak Ho Pong

The idea of joining the China trip happened a year ago during the Outward Bound. Everyone from our

team felt so bonded after four days of extraordinary advantage. We were all looking forward to having

another chance to reunite again. Our year-three teammate, Michael Lee, suggested that we should join

the China Trip the year after so we could re-experience the fun we had during the Outward Bound.

Michael told us that his classmates always recommended this course and said that the experience you

would have from this trip would be a one of a life time experience. We were so excited and registered the

course last September.

After a year of waiting, finally came the time for taking off. However, instead the moment of joy, the kick

off of the China trip became a taste of bitterness. All of my Outward Bound classmates dropped the

course, except Michael, because of their leave applications were rejected by their supervisors. All the

excitement that I was expecting in the last ten months turned out to be a great disappointment. I was

thinking of dropping the course, too, since I felt I was the abandoned one. However, everything changed

after the first class gathering in April.

After a warm welcome by Professor Fu, the idea of quitting the class vanished. Professor Fu’s introduction

of the class had corrected my mindset for the course. Instead of paying too much attention to who was

taking the class, I realized I should focus on what kind of experience and knowledge I was going to gain

from the trip. After Professor Fu’s presenting the course outline to us, I realized that the one-week trip in

Beijing was quite substantial. During the week, we would not only get some first-hand academic

information about China from the local professors, but also would have close encounter with students

from Tsinghua University. Besides, we would also have a chance to visit the head quarter of international

enterprises like Google and local mega manufacture like the Capital Steel. I was so glad that I did not drop

the course at the end.

The delightful China trip started with a tour to the National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest) and the National

Aquatics Center (the Water Cube). I have seen these two buildings on TV for so many times during the

Olympic Games. However, it was a completely different experience when I was inside the buildings. I

believe all the athletes in the world will die for to have a chance to race in here, even he/she is the last

one to cross the finishing line. When I was in the Bird’s Nest, I could almost hear the audience screaming

and cheering for the athletes from their own countries during the Olympic Games. I could almost see Li

Ling walking in the air with the torch in his hand. The memory of the Olympic Games was coming back to

me like a rerun of a classic movie. I was so proud that my country had hosted the most spectacular

Olympic Games of all time.

The tour of the Olympic Games did not end after the visit of the stadium but extended through the

memory sharing session with Miss Dong Mei. She told us some ‘behind-the-scene’ stories of the Olympic,

which were as interesting as the performance and fire work you had seen during the Olympic opening

ceremony. I was an assistant director for a movie a few years ago. It was so difficult for me to coordinate


Page 78

a scene with just two hundreds of people. After listening to Miss Dong’s elaboration, I was amazed by the

number of people which were involved in organizing the Olympic Games. What stroke me the most was

that a lot of these workers were volunteers and students. One could tell it was the cooperative works of

people from all levels of the Olympic Committee that made the event became so successful.

Besides the National Stadium, the Tsinghua University is another major landmark I wanted to visit in

Beijing. It is always my dream to study in one of the most reputable universities in China – the Tsinghua

University. The colonial style buildings, the bike riding experience on the campus and the friendly faces I

encountered, these were all the things I treasured during my stay in the campus. At dinner time, students

from Tsinghua told me a lot about their lives and their MBA program. They also told me history and

stories about Tsinghua University. I was so surprised that although we were living in two different cities

with such different and distinctive backgrounds, we share so many common goals and dreams about life.

To me, people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the model of great leaders. The companies that they

manage are international enterprises which generate billions of dollars every year. However, these CEOs I

met during the China Trip had shown me a different perspective about leadership. The value of a leader

shall not be measured by the size of the company that he/she is managing or how much money the

company can make. A respectable leader shall be the one that cares about the people around them,

which can be the customer that they work for or the colleagues that they work with. To make the world a

better place, it does not always require a great leap in technology or giving millions of dollar to the poor.

All you need is to pay extra attention to the people around you and care about them. One of the major

characteristics of a great leader is not afraid of giving and always having faith in life. These three CEOs

have taught me a lot about how to manage by heart.

One of the major disappointments I had during the China Trip was the visit to Google. I was absolutely

dissatisfied by the talk given by their manager. As the company which produced one of the most powerful

search engines in the world, I could not believe the manager from Google could only give me information

which I can easily find on the internet. However, this dissatisfaction with Google was erased by the great

time I had during the company visit of the Capital Steel.

Before visiting the Capital Steel, I heard lots of great things about the Capital Steel from the senior year

students. However, the actual visit still created a great impact on me. First of all, I was astonished by the

physical size of the company. It is as big as the size of a town. It not only has factories, but also residences

for the workers and even a lake within the building compound. Secondly, the machines that are used in

the company are extremely unique. The heat that the furnace produced can go over a thousand degrees

in order to melt the iron ore. Even when I was standing twenty meters away from the furnace, I could still

feel the heat as it was generated by the sun shine above us. Although the Capital Steel in Beijing is going

to close down in a few months, it is also going to have a new beginning. With a major equipment upgrade

and a better logistic arrangement with all the factories located in the same area, Capital Steel can surly

become one of the world major steel manufactures.

Besides the above mentioned, the visit to the Green Tec, Hanergy, and Taiyanggong, together with the

lectures given by Professor Gao, Professor Hua and Professor Liu had made this China Trip an

unforgettable experience. Although I had been to Beijing five years before, it has evolved a lot since then.


Page 79

It is truly a city where the east meets the west, and the traditional buildings standing side by side with the

modern construction. The unique characteristic of Beijing will still stand tall even comparing with any

major cities in the world. It is a city with a strong sense of Chinese culture yet full of surprises of new ideas.

With the beautiful blue sky which the government had spent so much effort to improve its quality, I wish

that this China Trip will not only last a week but forever. The journey which supposed to be a reunion of

friends became an unforgettable memory of a life time.


Page 80

Ng Man Fai, Catherine

Time flies. The Beijing Business Filed Trip finally ended. I miss the trip so much and to be honest, I did not

want to go back to the battle field in the office the next day. However, when I ponder further, the

purpose of the trip is to let us apply what we have learnt to our career, as well as life. I was then re-

charged with the energy to return to office, with a smile on my face.

However, the reality is that tight schedule and heavy workload continues everyday. Human is human, and

sometimes, I feel exhausted and helpless. It seems that human is human, and I am limited.

Approaching the end of my MBA life, and grasping this opportunity, I should reflect on myself… Thanks

Professor Fu for asking us to write on our own reflection. I hope I can re-organize my thoughts. Let me

rewind to the start of the trip…

It starts on a good morning. Everything was smooth starting from the airport. I was very tired as I worked

over-night on my previous night. However, from the very beginning, I trust and believe it would be a

good trip. I like the Tsinghua experience from which I became friend with a student, David. He said he

would come to CUHK for an MBA semester. I immediately said that when he comes, he must look for me

so that I can meet him in CUHK. When I visited him in Tsinghua, he welcomes me. When he comes to my

university, I must accompany him. It is not obligation, just an extension of friendship. Friendship can

start everywhere, as long as you want to keep it. It does not matter with whether he or she has different

personality or location with you.

The journey continues. Our whole class attends lecture and visit companies together. After class finish,

we went to sight-seeing and had dinner. I was happy that my relationship with my Year 2 classmates has

greatly become closer. Throughout the 2-year MBA life, I have less opportunity to work with this group of

classmates. I am glad that in this Beijing trip, I become good friend with them. I feel the happiness and

warmth. I gradually make friends with Year 1 classmates too. All are very nice. Throughout the journey,

we all have a common goal, that is, to learn, participate and enjoy.

The company visit of Google and CICC has enlightened my vision. I understand how an international

company like Google manages PRC staff. For example, as Google is the company having a creative culture,

it will allow staff to utilize their creativity. Therefore, Google will not use strict discipline, but rather it

allows staff to freely plan their time. They can go to do sports in the gymnasium if they wish to recharge

themselves.

I also enjoyed our visit in CICC. I met the Human Resources lady. She organizes the visit and welcomes us.

We talk about each other’s role and share with each other’s human resources experience.

I believe the episode of the visit is the dinner with CEO in the hotel. We have the honor to dine with Fu 總.

He told us his exciting career history. He started as a teacher and then he worked for different industries

until finally he became the CEO. His devoted nature impressed me. He never asked his boss for better


Page 81

salary. He advised us to observe the environment and learn to make inferences and draw relationship

between things around us.

I also learned a lot from 李總, the CEO of the hotel. She cares and manages her staff well. One of her

staff has worked for her for many years. However, he has a serious illness, but he insists on working in

the hotel. Her love of her staff makes everyone working for her devotedly. When a classmate asked her

how to handle stress, she told us that we should believe that the sun will always come out and tomorrow

will be a better day. Although I have heard this many times, this advice further reminds me when I feel

unsure and fragile. I need to try my best to solve problems. After this, the good times will return again.

The encounter with CUMBA alumni is also meaningful. The alumni lady, Diana, is working in the Peninsula

as Learning and Development Manager, is so committed to her job. She chooses to work in Beijing to

widen her exposure, at the expense that working here is hard.

Life and working is tough. Everyone has his or her own challenges and problems. The most important

thing is we need to be positive and believe that nothing cannot be solved! Patience is the virtue that we

should hold on. In case there are not any solutions at the moment, we should believe tomorrow will be a

better day!

I feel relaxed when I went sight-seeing with my classmates. We explored, talked and took a lot of photos.

Our laughter made me feel warm, and I hope that although the trip has ended, the laughter will remain

and cheer me up whenever I feel lost. When we traveled to the Arts Gallery, 798, I felt relaxed to explore

the pictures and crafts. I realize that arts is as important as business, it helps us understand the nature

and human.


Page 82

After this trip, I believe that as a CUMBA student, we should first believe in ourselves, we should find out

our shortcomings and improve. We should extend our life horizons, for example going out, asking

questions in our mind, be curious, and learn different things as arts, culture, music and traveling.

I really feel lucky to have registered in this course. This course has exceeded my expectation. I am glad to

have closer relationship my Year 2 classmates and to work with my team on Green Energy. I hope that

our friendship will last. Thanks Professor Fu for organizing such a wonderful trip for us! It marks the end

of my MBA course. I hope I can apply what I have learnt to my career and life!


Page 83

Or Shuk Kuen, Irene

The course of CUMBA Business Field Trip is organized twice a year. Those who attended often mentioned

how fun it was during the trip; however they did not tell us a lot on what they learnt from the lecture or

through their business visit. To me, I find that this field trip is not just a normal study or business trip, it

does give us some insight on how to make my own core values on work, life and society. During the trip,

we did attend a number of lectures, talk with different speakers, visit some remarkable firms and have

dinner with CUHK alumni members. All of this makes our trip more meaningful and fruitful in terms of in-

depth discussion regarding Beijing current situation on environment, government policies, living

standards and changes after 2008 Olympic. After the trip, it really urges me to think of my values and

consider finding a job in Beijing or China.

I am going to divide my sharing into three sections. First, I am going to share what I learnt from the

lectures. Second, I will talk about my experiences to visit one well-known firm in Beijing. Third, I try to

digest what I heard from the personal sharing of those successful people of Professor Fu’s friends.

Lecture hosted by Dong Mei

Among all lectures, the one presented by Dong Mei

greatly made me feel that how a woman could be so self-

sacrificing in a way that she used her 10 years golden time

to be one of members to align the arrangement with

foreigners for the Olympic Game in Beijing. She said she

found it was so hard to perform well on her role because

of resources limitation, time constraint and some ad-hoc

adjustment to make things better before the Game began.

She did not have enough sleep for the whole year. She

would still make the same decision to work as this role

even if she had to choose again. I believe the reason

behind on her strong passion on her job is that she, as a

Chinese, wants to do something to make this Game run

not only smooth, but also successful to show that China

can be as strong as those well-developed countries.

Although she knows China may have a lot of issues that

need to be changed or improved, she still prefers to be

one of the participants to make all Chinese’s dream come

true.


Page 84

From this perspective, I will feel a bit ashamed of Hong Kong people including me, because how much

time we really spend on our societal issues to make Hong Kong more prosperous, such as the goal toward

Universal Suffrage (普選), suggesting positive recommendation on our education or health system. Most

Hong Kong people are concerned of their studies when they are young; concerned for their work and pay

after their graduation, concerned their standard of living after their retirement and so on. Indeed, after

the trip, I really have a feeling that what we can do is to step forward to speak up in defense of those

minor groups or the weak. Otherwise, if we do not take any positive initiatives to make Hong Kong better

or protect our environment, I think our young generation will be the one to suffer the most.

Firm visited – Shougong Group (Shougong)

Because of 2008 Olympic, Shougong was instructed by Beijing government to shut down its plant in

Beijing in order to minimize the pollution problem in Beijing. This action to a certain extent lowered the

year-end income generated by Shougong. When we visited Shougong, we did hear a story regarding one

employee with long-service payment. He worked for the company for many years. No matter which role

he was assigned or what position he did, he still worked very hard. He treated this company as if his own

company. Thus his children also worked at Shougong. Even after his retirement, he was still helping

Shougong.

The above story really tells us what is loyalty and commitment to the company. One staff can work for a

company for his whole life, and his family members also follow their parents to work for this company. I

am thinking is this loyalty and commitment still exist in our or next generation. I really have doubt on it,

because we always look for a

better career path in terms of

better pay, more promotion, and

giving us attractive package. If a

company lower our salary or

downgrade our role, will we still

have the whole-heart towards

the company. I believe most of

us will choose to find another

opportunity rather than keep

working hard for the company.

Therefore, loyalty and

commitment are the words

firstly come up to my mind. Hope

one day I can fully digest these

two words and work like this

employee.


Page 85

Even after 2008 Olympic, Shougong needs to align its objectives with the Government to close down its

business in Beijing to keep the environmental protection last long. Shougong will move its plant to the

Island in order to achieve zero pollution and to be one of the contributors to make Beijing sky blue. To

conclude, we can find that everyone sacrifices one’s advantages so as to do good for companies, the

environment and the society.

Sharing session by Professor Fu’s three friends

After the whole night sharing with Professor Fu’s friends, I found that they had some commonalities. They

are all very keen about their core value. They are all very serious people not only to get the job done, but

also to use their utmost effort to achieve the best results to eliminate any regret in their daily lives. What

they did is not for their own interests, but is to do something to make China more prosperous. They

admitted that they were willing to make their choices everyday. Like Ms. Li who runs the hotel, she

worked very hard at her previous job with good performance. However, because of political reasons, she

was forced out of her job and start her own business – hotel management company. No matter how

difficult it was, she always insisted on keeping the staff paid and she worked with them day and night and

brought the small government training hostel to a five star hotel.

What makes Ms have this motivation to go through so many hardships in her life? I believe it is because

she found her own values. She runs business not only because of profit she gains, but also the dream she

wants all visitors find a comfortable place to stay in her hotel. She understands that only this value is the

key success factor to run her hotel business. We could find her tiredness during the sharing session, but

she was still willing to share her successful story. She fully demonstrates a good leader model for us.

To conclude, we not only have lots of self-reflections from the lectures and site visits, but also have a

great fun to see flag raising ceremony 升旗禮 in the very early morning with a group of our classmates.

Honestly this is not easy for us because we had to wake up so early, sleep only a few hours and then need

to attend class on time. Thus we are so proud of ourselves. In addition, we have a memorable time along

the trip with Professor Fu as she took a good care of us anywhere and anytime. As you can tell from the

photo below, she treats us not only like students, but also like friends too. I believe this is what we define

as a good leader who can teach us, play with us and give us direction in our lives.

Dearest Professor Fu,

I really appreciate all your great effort you did in the

past few days, and in many times, guide and wish us

be a good leader to make a difference in the world.

Thank you so much!!!


Page 86

Tse Chun Ho

Introduction

It was my great pleasure to join this course to have a recent outlook of Beijing City and also study in

Beijing. It was a valuable chance that I could attend several lectures in Tsinghua University and share the

successful experience of the CEOs of different China enterprises. In addition, after the successful

completion of Beijing Olympic, many people doubted that whether the amazing condition in Beijing City

can be sustained for long run. We could take this opportunity to examine the condition of Beijing to see

any great different between pre and post Olympic. The objective of this paper was to share my personal

reflection on the trip.

Blue Sky

It was my fifth times to visit Beijing. Before that trip I visited Beijing in between 2002 to 2006 for both

business and travelling purpose. The most difference was that I could observe the “Blue Sky” for a whole

week of the trip. Frankly speaking, I could not observe such blue sky for my last several visits. As we

know, Beijing Government had to maintain the “Blue Sky” during the Olympic by means of controlling the

vehicle flow (i.e. Alternative no.), stopping some polluted activities, etc.. Not only the Blue Sky had been

maintained in Beijing during the Olympic, the Blue Sky accompanied us for the whole trip almost a year

after the games are over!!

Infra-structure Development

A systematic public transportation system had been developed for the Beijing Olympic. Almost all of the

city area was covered by public transportation in order to improve the situation of traffic jam. In addition,

the Government had encouraged citizens to take Metro with subsidy in the ticket price (PS. Only one

dollar for whatever trip). However, one comment should be made is the distance among transit stations.

I had to walk about 15 minutes for transiting from one line to the other.

In addition, we had visited Bird’s nest, Water Cube and CCTV tower. I am proud of being a Chinese for the

fact that our Country can build such extraordinary structures within such a short period. I think most

foreigners would not have even imagined that China could build such structures twenty years ago.

Lecturer in Tsinghua University

This was my first time to attend the lecturers from the reputable Professors of Tsinghua University. We

had a wide range of lecture topics, from Marketing to Finance, from Economics to Government Policy.

They gave me some ideas to stimulate my thinking in the recent economic development in China and the


Page 87

strategy of China Marketing. All Professors were very familiar with their topics and they used some

simple examples to explain some difficult theory. In addition, the professors had presented some views

from the perspective that I never heard.

Exchange with Tsinghua MBA student

It was a great chance for us to share different insights for China economic development and career

prospective with Tsinghua MBA students. During the meeting with them, we had deep conversations.

We shared our career goal, the reasons why studying MBA and the views of recent financial crisis, etc..

Although there was only a few hours interaction, I realized that they showed a great passion towards our

Country and also are proud of the recent development of China. Definitely, I also had the same feelings

as well!!

Awareness of Environmental Protection

The importance of environmental protection had been raised a lot compared with several years ago.

Previously, I didn’t think environmental protection was a critical concern for a property or infrastructure

development project. However, with the several years’ development, Beijing citizen had cultivated a

culture of environmental protection. From the visit to the power plant, 太陽宫, we understood that the

City had stringent requirement to noise issue. The high standard of noise deduction measures should be

implemented in the plant and it demonstrated how important eliminating noise nuisance is to the Chinese

public. The nearby citizens’ feeling had been put in a top priority.

In addition, we visited Greentec Group (綠創環保集團 ), a company committed to deal with

environmental problems. It has carried out numerous environmental projects for the past ten years. It

was also responsible for the noise mitigation measures for maintaining a extreme quiet noise level in the

power plant, 太陽宫. It seems to me that with the rising trend of environmental awareness, the needs of

environmental project was inevitably increasing. The understanding of these new development and

research areas will be critical to proper China growth into the next level.

We had also visited Capital Steel who will be moved to rural area of Beijing to ease the environmental

concern of Beijing Citizen. Although Capital Steel had invested a huge amount of money for maintaining

the surrounding environment (E.g. maintain a lake and a park near to the steel plant), the steel plant still

had to move to countryside area of Beijing city. It was an unchangeable trend for moving heavy industry

outside from CBD of Beijing.

Entrepreneurship in China

The CEO forum was a valuable platform for us to learn the successful experience from those CEOs of

different successful enterprises. We could learn what the philosophy they followed and the correct

attitude for running business. Through the forum, I understood that we should not draw all our attention


Page 88

to short-run return, but more importantly, is the long run and also the benefit towards the country. In

addition, the other successful key factor was to show our respect to not only our clients but also our sub-

ordinates.

Conclusion

In the Beijing field trip study, I had a chance to share experience with Tsinghua MBA professors and

students. Through the trip, we had experienced different cultural impact. More importantly, I received a

new concept on the Chinese communists from different Professors of Tsinghua University and also

Professor Fu. I would highly recommend other CUMBA students to join this course in future.


Page 89

Wong Kok Meng, Joe

With distinguished lectures and visits to pioneering industries, the 5-day China Study Trip covered a wide

spectrum of issues. Together with the sharing of industry leaders, the trip opened up new perspectives for

me to understand the economy of contemporary China.

Overview on Chinese Socialism

This trip of learning embarked on a mind-blowing pre-trip lecture by Prof Wang Shaoguang. With the

ample use of statistics and pictures, Prof Wang vividly depicted the economic growth of China since the

early era of the Communist Party and revealed to us the Chinese style of governance. Under the backdrop

of current financial crisis, Mr. Wang’s message really came as a dawn to me. Considering the unique

history and characteristics of the country, socialism/controlled market is indeed a logical outcome for

China. In China, income disparity is the most imminent source of social unrest, which could be devastating

considering a 1.3 Billion population, of which over 60% are living under poverty. The recent turmoil in

Xinjiang Urumqi served as a timely illustration of how disruptive this affluence gap could be. Market

autonomy that encourages swallowing the weak by the strong simply tightens the tension between social

classes and results in various kinds of social injustice. Until a more even distribution of income becomes a

reality in China, government’s intervention over market is crucial to ensure growth in provinces falling

behind and to protect the fundamental welfare of the underprivileged groups. Therefore, our central

government had been boosting second-tier cities and putting forward policies beneficial to farmers,

hoping that the wealth of the country could be spread across the land rather than being confined to a

small bunch of people. Comparing to the absolute capitalism in western countries, I really found this

“Chinese Socialism” a more humane system complying with the Chinese context. Serving aptly as a

premier view over the Chinese economy, this 2-hr lecture ignited my genuine interest to further explore

the Chinese characteristics of economy in this trip to Beijing.

Swift Implementation of Policy

Indeed, throughout the trip, I found China was now developing her own genre while catching up quickly

with global trends. From Hanergy and GreenTec, I was appalled by the advance of their green

technologies as well as their wide coverage of research, while for Capital Steel and Taiyanggong, the

incorporation of anti-pollution plans was just impressive. All these had been a kind of revelation to me.

Not that these technologies were new, but I was stunned by the determination our country had put into

environmental protection and how fast it could harvest the results. What we were seeing during the trip

was such a contrast to the Beijing with dusty streets and grey sky a couple of years ago. This success

manifested a unique trait of China’s market: the swift implementation of policy. Under the planning of

Central Government, much controversial legislation was able to bring out its beneficial effects smoothly.


Page 90

Thinking about the environmental policies like “odd-even car alternation” and “halt of all construction

works” during the Olympic, each of them could itself be a debatable topic that took torturing process to

get legitimized under the “democratic” system. However, they were all put in place without many

obstacles in Beijing under the umbrella of the government. Regardless of this seemingly authoritarian

approach, one must agree with the efficiency such governance brings. Glazing across the blue sky and

breathing the clean air in Beijing, I started to see the wisdom in China’s central planning governance.

Patriotic market

While the influence of central government to the market is utterly significant, Chinese people themselves

also play a vital role in shaping the market environment. In Ms Dong’s presentation of the Beijing Olympic,

in addition to the thoughtfulness behind the plot of Olympic Game, I saw from Ms Dong a strong

patriotism, which to me was another unique facet of Chinese market today. Ms Dong, who devoted her

golden 10 years to Olympic Game without any grumble, is just one out of the many patriotic examples. In

Beijing, many people offered themselves as volunteers serving tourists even after the Olympic Game; The

CICC speaker, Mr David Li (head of QA group), also sacrificed his luxurious position in Wall Street to come

back to China to witness and be part of her tremendous growth. The recent blooming of Chinese

economy in the global arena definitely instilled a flux of confidence and pride as a Chinese among the new

generation. While this patriotism is conducive to our country’s growth in many ways since citizens are

more willing to offer themselves for the country’s best interests, it on the other hand poses extra hurdles

to investments. Such patriotic hurdles were also highlighted in Ms Liu’s presentation about marketing in

China. Many foreign firms had bitten their own arms for ignoring this important feature of Chinese

Hanergy (漢能) Capital Steel (首鋼)

Taiyanggong (太陽宮) Blue Sky and White Cloud (藍天白雲)


Page 91

market. Nowadays, anyone wading into the Chinese market must be very vigilant in their commercials or

promotions not to touch on the patriotic nerve of the Chinese.

Chinese Entrepreneurship

Apart from the macro-views about the Chinese market mentioned above, I also took a glimpse into the

micro-aspect of Chinese entrepreneurship through the session with the three CEOs. Before their sharing,

through Prof. Fu’s detailed narration of these CEOs’ extraordinary backgrounds, I was already very

amazed by how tough they had been to reach where they were today. From their sensational sharing, I

really felt their passion to serve the community and to bring betterment for people around, which further

shed light on the value of “Care” deeply embedded in Chinese management philosophy. All of the three

CEOs had been very caring for their subordinates. Relationship with staff to them is beyond merely a

contract, but a relationship of trust. Ms Li had a subordinate diagnosed for terminal illness and yet he still

made working for Ms Li as his last wish. The fact that all Ms Li’s senior managerial staff were willing to

quit their jobs to follow her to Daoxianghu was another touching story. Such trust might not result in

business decision of highest efficiency, but it certainly builds up teams of strong cohesion. From their

colleagues, they then extended their care further to the nation, like the CEO of Nightingale, whose goal

was to spread the Nightingale spirit across the whole country. From these exceptional leaders, I see the

embodiment of the Confucius idea: “推己及人” and “修身、齊家、治國平天下”. Comparing to the

mere focus of efficiency and profit in western ideologies, I recognized the superiority of Chinese

management philosophy in terms of humanity.

Beijing Olympic Marking in China Visit to CICC

Sharing with CEOs


Page 92

Reflection on My Own

With heaps of mind-blowing ideas, the trip definitely brought me with new understanding about China.

But to my very surprise, it also brought to me new understanding about myself. During the mingling

sessions with the Tsinghua MBA students, I exchanged views on MBA study with them. Regarding the

plans upon graduation, unlike me or most people I known in HK, whose goals were pretty much confined

to attaining a decent position in a multi-national firm, quite a number of Tsinghua students actually laid

their eyes on starting up their own businesses. In pursuit of their goals, they made lots of socializing

activities apart from their study to widen their horizons and to develop their people network. They held

strong conviction in their goals. To them, the opportunities were just teeming in China. The only matter

was whether they had well-equipped themselves to grasp the chance and get on the train. Thinking back

to myself, I suddenly realized how small I was compared to their ambitious goals. Without wars or great

depression in my generation, pursuit of stability and a decent living appears to be the only agendum in life.

With passion and dreams, the Tsinghua students reminded me a long forgotten question to myself: “Can I

still make a difference to the world?”

Summary

With a span of only 5 days, the course was much shorter than other ordinary summer-term courses, but

yet, the learning from it is no lesser than any of them. Though no textbook or examination, the trip did

inspire me to dissert our China’s economy and market from new perspectives, for which, I now realized

how much the public media had been deluding us about our own motherland. China is flying and I believe

the rapid growth will continue in the next decade or so. At the prime time of career, I should tap on this

growth trend and try my best to achieve great things.

Having these believes, I made a promise to myself after the trip:

“To really work on my Mandarin.”

Mingling with Tsinghua MBAs


Page 93

Wong Lai Yee, Jodie

Beforehand Expectation

I was longing for the Beijing trip for a long time with an excitement and expectation. The best way to

understand China is nothing more than having a real touch and experience in China. With great

eagerness to learn the latest Chinese development from the local perspective, to understand the

operation of enterprises in China, to have sharing with CEOs, local students and CUHK alumni, as well as

to explore the new Beijing with my own lens, I felt the trip was short but lecturers and company visits

were more fruitful than what I had expected. The trip was a great experience to me.

Learning from the Lecture – To understand and respect China

All professors from Tsinghua University gave us inspiring lectures that were significant to our

understanding of China in different aspects. Among them, I was much impressed by Professor Liu, with

her usage of vivid real-life examples, to explain the importance of local wisdom, group collectiveness and

herd instinct of doing business in China. In her lecture, I learnt how a marketing communication without

considering the sentiment of nationalism and respecting the Chinese culture could cause failure. Just like

SKII, what they said in response to the product safety and quality showed its perception, and its arrogance

aroused the anger from the public; while some large brands like Coca-cola used Tibet monk in commercial

demonstrated their lack of internal knowledge to China. Success of a foreign brand may be built over a

long period of time but can be easily ruined in a split second when scandals happened or came under

attack by the public.

Insight from Company Visit – Vision of better life tomorrow

After visiting Hanergy, GreenTech, Taiyangong

and Capital Steel, I was so impressed with the

advanced technology and development of

environmental protection in Beijing. It changed

my impression which gained from newspaper

that China developed its industries at the

expense of the pleasant environment in the

long-run. Hanergy not just aimed at developing

renewable energy but also advocating public

education on green energy; GreenTech focused

on noise control in a bid to achieving “harmony


Page 94

between human being and nature (天人合一)”; Taiyangong converged used heat to electricity power

while itself had high safety standard and four pollutants control to merge peacefully in the residential

area; and Capital Steel has been working hard on achieving zero pollutant discharge. They all showed

their determination and efforts in creating a better living environment. No wonder we could enjoy the

fresh air, blue sky and clean city in Beijing.

Touched by CEOs, Tsinghua students & HKCU Alumni

Love and Passion

My learning was not just being enhanced from the lectures and company visits, but also from the people.

There was something in common I found from most of the people I met which deeply impressed me – the

passion and love. Their passion and love to the country, to the family, to the job, to the ideals, and also to

other people.

CEOs – Passion to the industry and caring to the staff

From Ms Li, the Director of Daoxianghu Hotel 稻香湖景酒店, I could see her devotion to the resort and

her caring to the staff. She had a loft ideals that “把我管过的酒店變成自己心中的静土”, with this vision,

she overcame the difficulties and turned the loss-making hotel into the profitable resort. She also

showed her concerns to the staff, that was why her ex-subordinates at 西苑 hotel were willing to quit

their jobs and followed Ms Li to work in Daoxianghu. Her management by caring won the heart of her

staff and her passion in pursuing the ideals kept her moving.

Alumni – Love to the family, Say “I love you”

I was pleased to have Mr Hilson Ng at my table in the Alumni dinner gathering. Mr Ng was a professional

in insurance industry and now is enjoying the retirement life in Beijing. He loved to share his life

experience and philosophy with us all the time. The most touching story was about his family. Just like

many successful people, he has been

busy for his career in the past few

decades and feels guilty to his two

daughters. To him, saying “I love you”

to his daughters was vital but also very

difficult. It is not difficult to understand

that under the Chinese culture, we think

our parents or children do get the

message through our behavior rather

than our words, and that three magic

words made us feel uneasy. To us, even

we are the new generation, it may also


Page 95

be hard to say that to our parents. Mr Ng, out of pure courage, in the end said “I love you” to his

daughters in front of the relatives at a dinner, he felt relieved. He shared his story to encourage us to say

that to our beloved. It may not be easy, however, what about if you do not have tomorrow? Would it be

easier for us to say so? We always think that we have such chances in the future, but we never know. I

think everyone does not want to regret. Of course, love is an action more than a word, but I think such

small words still have big meaning to our beloved. I also rethink how much time I am willing to listen to

my mother.

Professor Ping Ping Fu – Passion to teaching

Our Professor Fu was eager to share everything she thought was meaningful and enlightening, for

instances the story of 海底撈 and the history of communist party stemmed from 井崗山. She also

ensured we would not miss something good or important. Insisting to ask the manager of Capital Steel to

tell us the story of a retired worker, fighting for the visit of Taiyangong power plant till the last minute,

picking different dishes for every meal, were just some of the demonstrations of her passion to the job

and also caring to us.

After thoughts

I still miss the days in Beijing even after coming back to Hong Kong for more than a month. I had a bike

riding in the beautiful campus and lunch in student canteen with Tsinghua students in Tsinghua University,

I felt like being one of them enjoying the

school life in top-class University. I

witnessed flag raise with national anthem

by live band and visited the magnificent

Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, I was proud

of being a Chinese. All these are happy

and unforgettable memories for me. I

really want to show my sincere thanks to

Professor Fu for her arrangement for

every single detail, also to Kathy for her

assistance offered and to my fellow

classmates for the fun they brought and

the learning they shared in the

presentations. Without you all, the trip

would not be the same.


Page 96

Wong Wai To, Oscar

There are many memorable scenes from the China trip, especially on people we met, places we went to

and, most importantly, Chinese culture we experienced.

People we met

Trip with classmates from different classes

We are from different MBA classes in different school year. Nevertheless, we truly enjoyed the trip

through attending lectures, visiting firms and several tour sites all together. This is a great opportunity to

know each other from other classes.

During the trip, we met several brilliant managers, who shared their valuable experience before and after

the Olympic Games, as well their personal career development. China has taken through a giant step

towards a “developed” country. Beijing is very clean everywhere, while citizens are very polite and

companies are well established.

Beijing shop managers are polite towards tourists. They are willing to answer our questions, as well as

serving us well when needed.

Nice professors, CEOs and Alumni

All these people we met are nice. They are all willing to share their valuable experience with us. Professor

Hua, professor Liu, professor Gao all expressed their confidence in the future of new China, while Dong

Mei shared her views on Chinese developments from the Beijing Olympics.

Apart from lectures, Managers and CEOs all give us speeches with rich contents. CEO Fu told us not to

open our mind and always accept new ideas by working in different industries. One crucial point is to

forget about money when choosing a job, while need to just put all of our enthusiasm to it. This is an

important working attitude, however, people nowadays seldom remember this.

Staffs from Hai Di Lao Hot Pot

Professor Fu highly recommended us to visit Hai Di

Lao Hot Pot. It is one of the famous hot pot

restaurants in Beijing. It was a small shop established

five years ago but expanded vapidly to have eleven

shops in Beijing recently. Some may question why it

can expand so quickly, especially there should be

plenty of hot pot shops in capital city like Beijing. The


Page 97

company strategy played an important role. The management cares not only customers’ need but also

staffs’, as well as their families. This give staffs the motivation; employees are happy to work there.

During our visit, we not only found the mutton was extremely delicious, but also got very good service,

which was even better than those from most of the famous hot pot shops in Hong Kong like Dao Heung or

Little Sheep. The company logo already shows much of their enthusiasm. “好火鍋自己會說話” simply

means good food taste and excellent services can persuade customers to come again. What a wonderful

slogan telling their mission!

Places we visited

Google

Among the companies we visited, we found Google was the most brilliant. The office design is a

mixture of eastern and western culture. Like the office at Silicon Valley, it emphasizes both work and life.

It has refreshment, amusement and gym room to provide staffs additional facilities. Traditionally, Chinese

corporations used to have harmonious atmosphere. But these corporations focus on business guanxi

more than personal requirements. So Google got to maintain this if it wants to be successful in China.

Google not only requires staffs to maintain good guanxi with business partners, but also cares very much

staffs’ life. Employees there feel like working at home and they can contribute as much as they can.


Page 98

Hanergy/Tayanggong power plant/Green Tec Corporation

Hanergy

Taiyanggong power plant

Green Tec Corporation

We have also visited several Chinese energy companies like Hanergy, Taiyonggong power plant

and GreenTec Corporation. Most of these companies favor china’s future energy development. Hanergy

specializes on developing new energy sources, while Taiyonggong and GreenTec business are mainly

improving pollution problems, by reducing wastes from coal during electricity plants and noise

respectively. This environmental protection trends shows China has changed a lot. In the old days, China

was classified as a dirty (serious air pollution and hygiene problems) and technology outdated country.

Along with the developments related to Beijing Olympics, this is no longer the case. Beijing has turned

into modern city and is very clean everywhere. She has started many research and developments on

improving the world and those bad perceptions should no longer exist. Therefore, we are really proud to

see China to have such a big improvement.


Page 99

Chinese culture

In additional to visiting, experiencing unique Chinese culture is the main theme of the trip. We’ve

visited various sceneries to feel it.

Flag raising at Tiananmen Square

The greatest scene experienced, without doubt, is to see flag-raising at Tiananmen Square. As a

local Chinese, we believe this is sort of glory to see it there. It is completely different from what we can

see in Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong. First of all, we got to wake up early enough to get a good

position in Tiananmen Square. It worth a lot to wake up at 2:30AM as we did because the flag raising was

held in front of Chairman Mao, our beloved leader.


Page 100

Apart from positioning, the timing for the flag-raising is much earlier there. The time for the flag-raising is

around 4:45AM, meaning there is chance to see sun rise as well. Comparing with the one in Hong Kong

(8:00AM everyday), it is about 3 hours earlier. It was a sunny day and the sun rise at Tiananmen

contributed a very beautiful scene. This brought us nice pictures cannot imagine before.

Finally, seeing flag raising there leave us much pride to be Chinese, especially China is becoming

more and more financially and politically important in the world. Being a normal citizen, we don’t have

chance to represent our country to participate international competitions. So we seldom find it is “proud”


Page 101

to see a flag-raising. But after seeing all those Olympic Games results, Chinese technology developments

and successful stories from CEOs, we can feel that “China can be really strong” now.

不到長城非好漢

Stone inscription of 不到長城非好漢 at Badaling,

Quote from Chairman Mao ZeDong

Long time ago, Qin Shi Huang ordered the building of The Great Wall to protect the empire from northern

invaders. The Great Wall was also rebuilt, repaired and extended during Han, Shui, Ming & Jin Dynasties.

It defended Chinese empires for so many years and, from time to time, most sections are already eroded.

So the Great Wall is mainly for tourists now.


Page 102

We went to Badaling of the Great Wall, which was the first section to open to tourists. It is about 3741

meters long while its highest point is about 1015meters above sea level. There steps are quite large so it

makes really hard for invaders to pass through.

It took us about an hour to reach the highest point, while there were many nice scenes during the process.

We earned the “pride” pretty smoothly, thanks to a nice weather. After all, visiting the Great Wall is an

excellent experience and a very good exercise! With the help of The Great Wall, others can hardly invade

China. And we hope Chinese people can work together to achieve more success in the future, just like the

Chinese soldiers did in fighting against external enemies in the old days.

Conclusion

As a whole, the China trip is composed of nice people, nice places and nice experiences. We have seen

our new China, with clean environments, enthusiastic citizens and great business opportunities

everywhere, pretty much thanks to development of Beijing Olympics. From now on, we should think more

about ourselves, our roles and our positions in China to face huge challenges coming by. Life journey is full

of opportunities, while how many we can grab only depends on how we act. Once again, thanks very

much to Professor Fu to arrange such a memorable adventure for us by selecting right companies, places

and wonderful guests.


Page 103

Wu Shuk Ling, Iris

The Glamorous Beijing

I landed on the small old airport the last two times I went to Beijing. This time, it was the glamorous new

Beijing Capital International Airport, which is comparable to the award-winning Hong Kong International

Airport. Giving that I was excited by the international standard of the appearance and facilities of the

new airport, I was also curious about what Olympics had brought to our Capital, Beijing.

The National Stadium (鳥巢), National Aquatics

Center (水立方) and National Centre for the

Performing Arts (國家大劇院) are brand new

landmarks that impressed me a lot. The artistic

and technological architecture stand out in the

Capital ancient buildings. They demonstrate not

only the capabilities of Chinese that we were

longing for decades, but also the determinations

of China to step on the world stage.

The sky was clearly blue and the roads were


Page 104

absolutely tidy. The road signs contain Chinese characters, pinyin, as well as English. Most importantly,

the Beijing citizens learnt to queue up wherever it was needed. It is always the capital investment able to

change the environment and appearance of a city, but can hardly change the socio-culture of people lives

in there. Nonetheless, the Olympics, the utmost effort of the Chinese government and the unity of the

nation had contributed to this great achievement.

Has China changed structurally beneath these appearance enhancements? I was given the opportunities

to find out the answer during the 8-day business field study trip.

The New China

Over the last few decades, China had gone through drastic economic reforms like the “Four

Modernizations”, joined in World Trade Organization, etc to speed up its economic development. Every

piece of China, especially the business environment, was facing the strong pull of international standards

and stretch of progresses. There was negative news that Chinese products failed to meet safety

standards repeatedly in the past few years. It was known that they were all about the continuously

changing standards in foreign countries. Nevertheless, I had never understood but was told in this trip

the serious effort that Chinese corporations had paid for a recognized status in world trade.

Professor Qu of Tsinghua University told us the work slogan of Mengniu, “勉強成習慣，習慣成自然。”

The statement itself had told us the enormous effort and the thirst for attaining progress and higher

standards of the corporation.

Another impressive circumstance told by Professor Qu was the staff training program of a construction

corporation, “A corporation offers construction training to every construction staff, who had low

education background, and awarded the professional certificates to the staff upon training completion.

This practice provides dignity and recognition to the humble group. It ensures not only the work quality,

but also enhances sense of belongings of staff and unity of the corporation.”

Ms Li, the CEO of Daoxianghu also taught us the customer oriented spirit. She treats and concerns all her

staff nice wholeheartedly, which in turn expressed by all staff to every customer. During the SARS period,

Ms Li treated the hospital doctors and nurses to live in her hotel without charges. Ms Li recalled her

memory, “We considered the hospital doctors and nurses working so hard for the public during SARS

heroes, but they were not able to return home with reason of isolation. We loved helping them, in order

to do our share in dealing with the disaster.”

I was impressed by the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs in developing their businesses. It was crucial to

meet international standards and success, but there would be many different ways to achieve them. The

most valuable virtue of ancient Chinese was to build up the success from within our heart. The Chinese

ancient idiom “修身治國平天下” elaborates the spirit appropriately and we have been taught a lot of the

real practices from the CEO and entrepreneurs we had met during the business study trip.


Page 105

The future of Us

Being a member of the nation, I was so proud of the positive changes of China. In the second thought,

shall we also contribute to the development and future of China, instead of being an onlooker?

In the lecture in the first day at Tsinghua University, Professor Hua expressed his view of the status of

China in the world economy, “We can only participate in the world economy, but we are not capable and

not recognized for taking the leadership role yet. We lack talents.” I was reminded something very

important for the success of Chinese development.

During our visit to CICC in the last day, Mr. David Li, the risk management department head of CICC told

us the reason of his return to China, “I studied in US since I was a child and had worked in Wall Street for

20 years. I was watching the tremendous growth of China in recent years. Some magazines forecasted

that China will continue its growth in the next 40 years. I want to be part of it.”

The president of GreenTec also studied overseas with subsidies of China government and came back to

China for supporting the nation development. In the short history of GreenTec, it had provided tailor

made sound insulation investigation and installation to the Olympic stadium and National Centre for the

Performing Arts, while oversea corporation refused to provide such solutions.

China needs talents and enthusiasm for promoting the ongoing development on our own effort, but

should not rely on foreign resources anymore. Can all of us also take the opportunity to play a role in it?

Over the dinner with CUHK alumni, I heard about the

aspirations of Hong Kong returnees for their career.

There are so many challenges and opportunities in the

current and coming China – apply patents and start up

own business, take a leadership role in nationwide

companies, expand business from Hong Kong to the

enormous China territory, etc. It had bought new visions

to my own career development, as well as the possible

contributions to the mainland China. It is time to get

ourselves well equipped for the coming challenges.

Lastly, I recalled the public speech given by Mr. Hu

Jingtao, the President of China government a few years

ago, “Some economists commented that China would

become one of the topmost nations within 10 years. I

believe it is untrue because we still have many rural

areas that are in poverty status.” With all of our effort, I

wish China can get rid of poverty in the very near future.


Page 106

The Endless Treasure

Apart from the inspiration attained from the entrepreneurs and changes of China I learnt during business

field study trip, I’m so glad to meet

and retain contact with fellow

Tsinghua MBA students, I believe it

will enhance my understandings on

Chinese business development in

the coming future.

Lastly, I enjoyed the great treasure

of strengthened friendships among

fellow classmates and the attentive

care from Professor Fu in this trip.

Thank you so much for all the

wonderful memories during the 8

days!


Page 107

Yang Huajun, Frank

New Energy Revolution

As the last student joining the China Business Study Trip, I think I am lucky. During the 7-day trip, we not

only visited some of the famous companies, but also listened to some good professors in class. We got

very memorable experiences, but the most important thing is that this trip drove us to think deeply from

what we saw and what we felt.

The communication meeting with the professionals from China New Energy Chamber of Commerce gave

me a dominant impression. Actually I have been concerned about new energy for a long time, because my

family business is producing spare and accessory parts for new energy industry. Now, I am going to

elaborate my thinking about new energy revolution.

1. The new energy revolution has already started

The statement of “Which country keeps ahead on clean-energy technologies, it will lead economic of the

whole world” by the American President, Barack Obama, has gained recognitions from many countries,

including China. There is a wide gap between China and other western countries in traditional energy field.

However, as a developing country, China took off in new energy field almost at the same time as

developed countries. U.S. government will invest 150 billion US dollars in researching alternative energy,

developing new energy industry in order to become less dependent on oil and reduce environmental

pollution. No doubt the new energy revolution is already under way.

Each industrial revolution, without exception, is related to energy-related technical progress. The symbol

of the first industrial revolution is the steam engine, which was used to replace the manual labor. The

second revolution is the electric power, which can be transmitted to large areas, so that people can

realize large-scale energy production and cost reduction. The Third Industrial revolution is the use of

computer and the Internet. In the context of dual impacts from the financial crisis and the energy crisis,

“the fourth industrial revolution” may be the new energy revolution. China's GDP unit energy

consumption is significantly higher than other countries’ and regions’, so China will actively participate in

the process of the new energy revolution. China can kill two birds with one stone. From the energy

revolution, China can solve the increasingly serious environmental pollution problems and the problems

of economic growth pattern. China must grasp this chance to exceed the existing developed countries.


Page 108

2. The new energy revolution took place in three areas

First, the supplies of energy sources are being changed from oil and coal to clean energies. Second, the

mode of energy transmission is being transformed from traditional power grids to the smart grid. Third,

the consumption patterns are being turned from using oil to using electricity, reducing energy

consumption of buildings and developing new energy automobiles.

a. renewable energies and clean energies

The current development of nuclear, wind and solar energy is very popular in many countries.

Nuclear energy

In 2004, China's 9 nuclear power plants were put into operation with installed power capacity of

7,000,000 kilowatts, accounting for 1.7% of China's installed power capacity and 2.3% of China’s power

generating capacity. In Zhejiang and Guangdong, in 2003, nuclear power all accounted for more than 13%

of their power generating capacity. Nuclear power has become an important source of the electricity

supply. On the other hand, China has plenty of space to develop nuclear energy.

The expected nuclear power industry development planning made by China's National Development and

Reform Commission may improve the goal of installed nuclear power capacity from 4000 KW to 6000 KW

by 2020, accounting from 4% of total capacity to 6%. In other words, China will build more than 60

equivalent of Daya Bay nuclear power plant.

Wind power energy

In 2008 the growth rate of installed generation capacity of global wind power is much higher than the

average growth rate over the past 10 years, reaching 28.8%. Wind power energy is expected to maintain

high growth rate in the next 5 years.

In 2008 China's installed capacity of wind power was 6.3GW, increased by 109%. The development target

of China's former wind power plan was 10 GW in 2012, but wind power capacity was already exceeded in

2008 with 12 GW installed. The development rate of wind power generation was much faster than

expected.

Recent energy revitalization plan disclosed that, by 2020, the proposed China's wind power goal was

adjusted to 100-150 million kilowatts.

Solar energy

In China, the installed power capacity of solar energy is 40MW, and is expected to reach at least 10GW by

2020 with the average annual growth rate of 30%. This benefit from the efforts of the government and


Page 109

the greatly decreasing cost of solar power generation. The cost of solar power generation declines 10

percent per year, beginning to replace conventional energy sources. China's production of solar

photovoltaic cells was 2000 megawatts in 2008, ranking first in the world and accounting for one third of

the world's total output. More than 90% total production was exported to other counties, with a

considerable competitive edge. Ministry of Finance announced the implementation of the “Solar energy

roof plan” to subsidize solar energy projects with 20 Yuan per kilowatt.

b. Smart grid

In future energy systems of the United States, smart grid is a very important platform. The U.S. power

generation, electricity transmission and distribution are established on a smart grid in order to improve

transmission efficiency and management of electricity power, at the same time, to seamlessly switch the

distributed power systems, including wind power, small hydropower and solar roof, in power grid. Smart

power grid in China is based on the “Information technology and ultra-high voltage transmission system”,

comprehensive reflected in the power generation, transmission, substation, distribution, scheduling and

so on. Smart power grid in China, above all, is a strong power grid. The core is ultra-high voltage

transmission system, which has features like long-distance transmission, high-capacity and low-loss

efficacy.

c. Energy saving of construction and vehicle

Energy-saving construction

U.S. started to emphasize the energy-efficient building as one of the key tasks of controlling greenhouse

effect. For example, U.S. embarked on a comprehensive renovation of the Empire State Building to

replace its glass with energy-efficient glass, improve air-conditioning systems and upgrade lighting

systems. The goal is to reduce 38% of its energy consumption.

China's construction industry built around two billion square meters of construction per year. However,

only 10% of existing construction reached real energy-saving standard. This part of energy-saving

renovation projects means 2000 billion Yuan of investment.

New energy vehicle

The U.S government has announced automotive energy-saving and emission reduction plans. Its goal is,

by 2016, to reduce the fuel consumption of new production of mini passenger van and light truck to not

more than 6.62 liters per 100 kilometers, reducing carbon dioxide emissions to one-third of an average

emission of current vehicles. The new energy vehicles will experience a rapid development. The same

story is being staged in China.


Page 110

3. Potential adjustments of government policy

Based on recent policy made by China’s government, I think China government emphasized particularly

the sources of new energies, but overlooking the smart gird. If the power isn’t transmitted via the smart

grid, even there are many new energy plants, like wind power plant, the electricity power can’t be

transmitted. Actually, in China, more than half of the existing wind-power plants are left unused, because

their unstable electricity power can’t be switched in traditional power grid.

Moreover, Chinese government paid more attention on nuclear energy. However, China lacks uranium

ore. This means, if China develops nuclear energy rapidly, we will suffer from rapidly increasing price of

uranium ore, and we need to pay more to other countries with rich uranium ore deposits. Therefore,

Chinese government should adjust its policies to develop new energy more efficiently.

Summary

In summary, I think new energy revolution give China a distinct opportunity to surpass the existing

developed countries. Taking advantage of new energy revolution, we can stimulate our economic and

protect our environment. But we still need to pay attention to balance some potential problems during

the industrial development.


Page 111

Yong Wai Ling, Winnie

Introduction

This business field study started on a rainy day that refreshed my memory of the first course – outward

bound which was under the bad weather of typhoon No. 8 also. The same emotion I felt that day as I felt

in the outward bound training. As luck would have it, the rain only lasted one day. Instead, it was crystal

clear the whole time I was there. This is the last course of my whole MBA program and also the right time

for me to think about what I have earned within these two years. Definitely, I have earned a different

experience thanks to this trip.

Academic Meetings

The lectures presented by Tsinghua Professors

and guest speakers provided valuable insight

into China’s current dynamic business

practices and economy. They all had unique

analysis and thoughts about the current issues

and how they will affect the future

development. They gave us forthright answers

on the issues presented. This attitude of

presenting an issue is a part of my learning

and will be useful on my work.

We went to Tsinghua University and met with fellow MBA

students; had chat sessions with them about Chinese

society and university education. It was really neat,

learning about them. I was influenced by their passion of

seeking opportunities to work outside their countries. Their

eagerness to develop their talents in their future jobs also

impressed me. I was encouraged of thinking how to

develop my ability in my job as an MBA graduate.

In their words, I could feel that they were very proud of

China. Although I did not have such a great emotion at this

moment, I was being impressed by China’s emergence as a

rising power and the new role in the world today.


Page 112

Companies Visit

During the study tour, we visited 6 organizations. It was the experience of a lifetime. I have learnt how

each company operates its business within the country and how each competes with the rest of the world.

It was one of the major highlights of the MBA learning and an eye-opener for me. This first-hand

experience helped me to see China’s dominance in attracting job markets and leading the way to the

future. Other than that, I was impressed of being a “首鋼人” during the visit of Capital Steel as it was hard

to imagine that a person could work for a company of his/her whole life. There should be some unique

attributes to attract people to stay a whole life. People worked there were proud of being a member of

the company. It is less so and difficult to find that in Hong Kong. Therefore, there will be a need to

cultivate this atmosphere for Hong Kong companies to improve staff motivation and morale, which is

especially needed to overcome the time of economic depression.

Dinners with CEOs and Alumni

It was a rare and valuable opportunity to have a dinner with Chinese CEOs who have established their

businesses successfully. I was excited that they were happy to share their experiences and beliefs that

inspired me to think about my career path. What I imprinted the most was quoted by Mr. Fu, “You should

have passion in what you are doing. You have to do what you want according to your interest and

character. Also, you have the time to try everything you can as you are still young.” With everything we

do, find a mission or a grand purpose beyond making money we can become passionate about. I believe

that passion gives me the intestinal fortitude I need to never give up. I was motivated to explore my

interests and how they became part of my jobs. Doing what I love also means doing something I can do,

something I am good at. Also, it was not too late for me to try as much as I could. And that I would like to

have a more fruitful life. By running the successful businesses, their ultimate goals are not as simple as

earning revenues but contributing to the society in different aspects. To me, money and senior positions

are still important at this stage. But I started thinking to do something for the society even though my

power is very limited.

From the alumni gathering I have gained

valuable information pertaining to a

personal and practical approach to living

and working in Beijing. It seems that I can

adapt living in Beijing. Therefore, I will

welcome an opportunity to work there

and gain more working experiences in

different cities. This would be a great leap

forward in my career development.


Page 113

Cultural Awakening

In my short week in Beijing, I witnessed a very vibrant, creative society that enjoys a high standard of

living, giving me a sense of artistry, scale, and warmth of the Chinese ancient relics and the beauty of the

land they inhabit. Even many of the newly constructed buildings have character and improve the skyline

as they seemingly tell their individual stories. Beijing used to be a great forest of mostly drab, medium-

sized buildings stretching off into the horizon. The city now has all the trappings of modern city with a

burgeoning middle class. There are beautiful and distinctive skyscrapers. The airport is extremely modern.

The Olympics left their imprint with an amazing stadium and much improved related facilities.

No trip to Beijing is complete without visiting the great triumvirate of Chinese mega projects: the Great

Wall, the Forbidden City and its recent equivalent, the Olympic stadiums. Each is breathtaking in its own

way. The Great Wall is nothing short of amazing. The clear air meant I could see the wall snaking across

the hills for miles into the distance. The Forbidden City is another mega-marvel. Both Bird’s Nest and

Water Cube that were just as impressive up close as they seemed on TV, and in the case of the Water

Cube, perhaps more so.


Page 114

Apart from sight-seeing, I experienced the

unforgettable service from Hai Di Lao also. The

service standard was higher than most of Hong

Kong restaurants even some upper class. The

continuous keeping of simile on each staff was

hard to come by without any motivation. Each of

them enjoyed working there and was being

energetic to every customer. I, doing the retail

business in Hong Kong, was stimulated to thinking

about how to motivate my sub-ordinates to work

as similar attitude as theirs in order to provide

excellent service.

Conclusion

The study trip was an awesome experience which provided opportunities to learn and understand about

the current business practices. This was more than a tour; it was a back-stage pass into the inner workings

of a society and people. I was not only inspired and motivated but also excited to get the next chapter of

my life started. I acquired many life-long memories. Along with the experience of the MBA program, the

experience in Beijing affirmed me what I want to experience in life. Amazing, wonderful,

outstanding….these adjectives plus many more can be used to describe my overall experience in Beijing. I

believe that this trip will greatly influence my future, as well as my career.


Page 115

Yuen Koon Chi, Christine

Introduction

In the 5-day study trip, I gained quite a lot of insights for both my career

and personal development. Although it was pretty exhausting and I feel

extremely tired after coming back to Hong Kong, I still found the trip

memorable and fruitful. I’m happier to get acquaintance with some of

the CUHK Alumni people who shared their valuable experiences with me

and more than lucky being able to keep contact with two of them until

now. All these friendships share a beautiful episode in my MBA study life.

Among those happy memories, I particularly have deep feelings and self-

reflection over a few topics which are very relevant to my career as well

as personal growth. They bring different ideas to me after the trip.

Communication through Advanced Technology Vs Personal Contact

Before the Beijing trip, I nearly forgot the warmth of communication through personal contact. People

nowadays are used to relying on electronic things like facebook, emails, MSNs, Skype, etc. for

communication. Everything has to be quick and short. If you don’t follow, it seems that you are outdated.

Starting from some time ago, I find people’s handwriting getting worse and worse around me. Perhaps it

is because they seldom write by hand after using the computer to write. People I met in this trip

reminisced about the joys and warmth of personal contact in old days. The direct interaction with

professors, Alumni people allows true feelings from faces and body language that is solid and real.

Somehow advanced technologies shorten but concurrently lengthen the distance among people. Hence

we should dare to insist on what we believe rather than jump on the bandwagon. I think courage is one

of the important traits of a good leader.


Page 116

For my career when we face external parties

On Day 2, Professor Liu’s lecture on Market Communication in China was very inspiring. From her one

after another real cases of foreign brands’ difficult encounters with consumers in China, I realized that

social-cultural trends, consumer power, sentiment of nationalism and media influence must be taken into

account in product or brand marketing. Toshiba, Carriefour and P&G (SKII) all paid for their lessons

learned. Timely communication with consideration of recipients’ interpretation is very important,

otherwise there will be big and bad consequence to the company.

While I was listening to Professor Liu’s speech, I felt delighted to find what I learned in class can

extensively be applied to my work. As a branch manager, I’m leading a team of frontline staff in providing

bank service. When we deliver messages to customers, responses from each of them can be totally

different. Reasons behind can be quite a lot. How they interpret what we want to deliver becomes the

key to success or failure. If our customers get disappointed or find the outcome contradict their

perception like the incident of SKII in China, bank bear the risk of not only losing that group of customers

but also leading to reputation damage. The cases mentioned by Professor Liu serve as kind of

constructive soul-searching tool for me in leading my team. Try putting yourselves in others’ shoes,

understanding what they feel based on their individual culture and background would surely build up

good understanding through effective communication for both sides.

For my career when we face internal counterparts

Another insight I got during the chain of company visits comes from Google China. Google China Staff are

allowed to decorate their own work area with most creativity. It is a workplace full of happiness, people

wearing cheerful faces. Although rules and regulations are inevitable in an organization, as a leader we

should never forget to encourage creativity and give support to our team despite limitation. It doesn’t

matter how big or how small it can be. Teammates are prone to be positively influenced by one another

and manage to “think-out-of-the-box”. It fully meets with the philosophy “No happy staff, no happy

customers” mentioned on CEO night in the resort hotel.


Page 117

When our teammates work out something creative or awesome no matter how trivial it is, leaders should

give recognition or encouragement. In the past few years, I have been proud of myself being a small team

leader but always encourage and participate in creative work, making work lives more interesting and

enjoyable for people around. I am happy Google China once again reinforces my belief and I will work

harder towards this direction.

For my personal development

A Chinese saying, “A Good Friend is like a Good Book”. I feel like reading through many good books

during the trip. I treasure the night shared with CEOs. I could not forget the sincere talk with the Alumni

people and I miss the moments shared with Tsinghua University students. One common point for those I

met is that they are all passionate about their lives. If chances are available, I really want to understand

them more.

Much of the sharing on the CEO night touched the bottom of my heart. Notwithstanding I learned some

of the theories in management books in the past, it became much more convincing on that night. It just

happened that I felt a bit lost because I would move to a new position in my company after the trip,

words coming out of the CEOs’ mouths turned to be enormous encouragement for me to step ahead. I

remember clearly that one saying, “When you have to shoulder a new responsibility, don’t bother

anything, just go straight ahead.” “Pressure increases while responsibility and power increase, don’t

worry because you’re not alone in your team.” These kind words comfort my soul.

I was so lucky that I sat next to several pragmatic businessmen on the Alumni night in the French

restaurant. Their sincere talk lightened my self-reflection again. I am grateful for receiving their warm

reply from my thank you email to them after back to Hong Kong. Hopefully our friendship will grow and

flourish.

One of the Alumni gentlemen, Mr. Deng reminded us that study trip might be short and intensive.

Remember to not judge anything by what you see or what you hear. Use your heart to feel what you

come across. I believe it is true. “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. It is exactly why I join this Beijing

study trip. This also applies to our personal life. Everything can easily be beautified in the contemporary

world. We have to feel it by our heart and be patient because it sometimes takes time to know the truth.

Another gentleman, Mr. Michael Ma is very nice and he introduced 易經 to me for further self

enrichment. I will surely share my insights with him when I finish it.

The round table dinner with President Jiang JingHui was also impressive to me on the CEO night.

President Jiang demonstrates how a successful Chinese lady should be nowadays. She is honest with

clear objective in life. She strongly proposes everyday self reflection and systematic way of thinking. She

told us we have to make choices everyday; select the right choice especially in key moments. I couldn’t

agree with her more. Making right choice is of paramount importance in our personal development. The

point is we may need to suffer a bit from wrong choices before manage to make right choice.


Page 118

Last but not least ……

Life is a journey. I always aim at filling colors for my journey. Heartfelt thanks to Professor Fu, all

schoolmates in this course and people I met in Beijing. They painted a wonderful brush in my journey

book.


Page 119

Happy Journey….June 2009

Documents

Personal Reflections Reportmbastudent.baf.cuhk.edu.hk/download/download_area/MBA6080A B… · 2008-2009 June 8-12 2009 MBA6080A Business Field Study – Mainland, China Personal Reflections