The 10-Day forecast on Weather.com didn’t have much to offer except temperatures in the 40s for highs and 20s for lows.  I guess I might still be buying that compactable down coat that can compress down to the size of its own pocket from Bushwhackers after all!

http://www.pbs.org/e2/episodes/105_china_trailer.html

Beijing – High Oct.30th predicted to be 61F/Low 49F.
Hangzhou – High Oct.30th predicted to be 68F/Low 60F.
Dalian – High Oct.31st predicated to be 50F/Low 43F.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangzhou

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalian

A good personal example:  I have never been without a computer.  My first one was a Commodore 64.  I spent hours in my bedroom programming a little guy to dance.  Back then, this took more than a couple hundred lines of code for what seemed like one squat and kick from the guy as he moved back and forth across the blue screen.  He was very much a one-trick pony.  Ah, I miss those blue screens and pixelated characters sometimes.  (Gimp is fun to reminisce–and freely available.) Things are too “real”-looking now.  But I digress…

We got the Internet early as well in my home.  So, when you spend your formative years with the Internet, the shift doesn’t feel like such a monumental change, because the increments are constantly occurring.  I learned in chat rooms and user forums about advancing technology.  And it was advancing…like an army with swords of slashes (/) and semicolons (;) and tags <place image, color etc. info HERE>.  I was learning things on the Net from people all over the world and so it didn’t seem strange to find my company asking people from those same countries to work on projects for them.  Nothing seemed amiss or shift-y.  It just seemed like an awfully natural, logical progression; one of which I didn’t give a second thought.

I bought the book and the audiobook.  I thought about downloading it from iTunes, but it was an impulse buy from Barnes and Noble.  I wasn’t really even going to purchase the audio, because I had the book.  Sometimes I just want the CD in my hands, too.  That really hasn’t changed so much for me.  It feels like I purchased something real, not just bits of audio data.  You know?
That’s why I still buy all of these books required for all the China courses, too.  I still enjoy a tangible book, especially when it costs an arm and a leg.  At least someday, if the flat earth goes through a nuclear apocalypse, I can burn it to keep warm.

I had requested the new syllabus with updated flight information, but I’m not seeing it in the revised copy circa September 28th.  Wondering why the people flying back from Beijing on United are not included in the last item, as we wil NOT be flying back from Dalian and need ground transportation.  If it is indeed going to be set up for us, I would like to see it on the syllabus for reassurance.

Tickets are purchased, passport, Visa application (with Rachael’s help) and extra photo (came with passport, needed for Visa application; others may have to get new passport photos and at short notice) hopefully to be in to Jana in the Peoria office by October 1st.

Just be ready for a little frustration on the student end, everyone.  Previous cohorts didn’t even know until a month before the exact dates of the trip, so I still consider our cohort lucky.
EDIT: Rachael and Jana have stated that certain information on the Visa application will be filled out by the processors.  Regular Visas are what we are applying for (Question 1.9), and the processors have our Chinese contact information (Question 4.7-4.10).  Also, we need to submit our travel itinerary from TravNET or a copy of our E-Ticket as well as the Visa application materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Is_Flat

Another required book for the UIS course is Revolutionary Wealth.  I haven’t ordered this yet, but hope to this weekend.  Here is the Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Wealth

There are also additional books on the UIS list that are not required.  I’ll look into those next post.

I have purchased all of the following books for the “China Business 102″ course offered at my workplace:

• De Mente, Boye Lafayette, Survival Chinese: How to Communicate without Fuss and Fear – Instantly, Tuttle Publishing, Boston, 2004

A review follows that concerned me.  I still bought the book, though.

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A16NM08XAMIKCT/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp

• Strother, Stuart and Barbara Strother, Living Abroad in China. Moon Handbooks, Berkeley, CA, 2006, reference for planning a trip to or live in China.

• Seligman, Scott D., Chinese Business Etiquette: A Guide to Protocol, Manners, and Culture in the PRC, Warner Business Books, New York, 1999

• McGregor, James, One Billion Customers: Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China, Free Press, New York, 2005

• Pye, Lucian, Chinese Negotiating Styles, Quorum Books, Westport, CT, 1992  

The last is an expensive book.  New I think it costs around $90-100 and used I found it for $40 + $3.99 shipping.  The instructor says that it won’t be necessary for this module, but a subsequent one is focused mainly on negotiation.

I would also recommend Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  My brother has a copy that I intend to borrow and read (finally!).

From the National Geographic Website

Fellow UIS Students:

Hello! Nin hao!  (Neen How)  I have the opportunity to travel to China with Cohort VIII.  As part of preparation for my trip, I enrolled in a China Business 102 course at my workplace, which I  joined in late August 2009.  (I will share everything that I learn in class with you.  If anyone wants copies of the material, I can send you PowerPoints and links.)

I also have the pleasure of working with a Chinese citizen here at work.  Her English name is Elaine and she is one of the pricing analysts who started work in our group in late 2008/early 2009.   I also recently learned that my cousin and his wife are adopting a little boy from China!  Congratulations to them!  I know that they will also be visiting early 2010 to bring him back to the U.S. to be a part of their family.

Going back further, I was first exposed to the Chinese culture not from a mainlander, but from a student teacher from Hong Kong who taught in my 1st grade class.  (Yes, this is going back much, much further!)  Other than that, my experience with China has been mainly from music, film, literature, documentaries and martial arts.  Having actual contact with the country or its people has been very limited up until a few years ago.

So let’s get started!

I will mark the posts  “China: Part I, II, II, etc.” and put them in the “Business in China” category.  This way, if any students are potentially interested in the trip, I will give you a no-holds-barred, true account of what it is really like to do this trip as part of your MBA program.  I will try to be as honest and forthcoming as possible, while keeping an open mind.  I think that Cohort VIII felt that we weren’t given a whole lot of information, so I hope that this helps.

Thanks for reading!

Bullwhip effect – inventory oscillations become progressively larger looking backward through the supply chain

Centralized purchasing – purchasing is handled by one special department

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) – a supply chain initiative that focuses on information sharing among supply chain trading partners in planning, forecasting, and inventory replenishment

Cross-docking – a technique whereby goods arriving at a warehouse from a supplier are unloaded from the supplier’s truck and loaded onto outbound trucks, thereby avoiding warehouse storage

Decentralized purchasing – individual departments or separate locations handle their own purchasing requirements

Delayed differentiation – production of standard components and subassemblies, which are held until late in the process to add differentiating features

Disintermediation – reducing one or more steps in a supply chain by cutting out one or more intermediaries

Distribution requirements planning (DRP) – a system for inventory management and distribution planning

E-business – the use of electronic technology to facilitate business transactions

Event management – the ability to detect and respond to unplanned events

Fill rate – the percentage of demand filled from stock on hand

Gatekeeping – screening returned goods to prevent incorrect acceptance of goods

Information velocity – the rate at which information is communicated in a supply chain

Inventory velocity – the rate at which inventory (material) goes through the supply chain

Logistics – the part of a supply chain involved with the forward and reverse flow of goods, services, cash, and information

Outsourcing – buying goods of services instead of producing or providing them in-house

Purchasing cycle – series of steps that begin with a request for purchase and end with notification of shipment received in satisfactory condition

Reverse logistics – the backward flow of goods returned to the supply chain from their final destination

Radio frequency identification (RFID) – a technology that uses radio waves to identify objects, such as goods in supply chains

Strategic partnering – two or more business organizations that have complementary products or services join so that each may realize a strategic benefit

Supply chain – a sequence of organizations – their facilities, functions, and activities – that are involved in producing and delivering a product or service

Supply chain visibility – a major trading partner can connect to its supply chain to access data in real time

Third-party logistics (3-PL) – the outsourcing of business management

Traffic management – overseeing the shipment of incoming and outgoing goods

Vendor analysis – evaluating the sources of supply in terms of price, quality, reputation, and service

Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) – vendors monitor goods and replenish retail inventories when supplies are low

Break-even point (BEP) – the volume of output at which total cost and total revenue are equal

Capacity – the upper limit or ceiling on the load that an operating unit can handle

Capacity cushion – extra demand intended to offset uncertainty; =100% – Utilization

Cash flow – the difference between cash received from sales and other sources, and cash outflow for labor, material, overhead, and taxes

Diseconomies of scale – if the output rate is more than the optimal level, increasing the output rate results in increasing average unit costs

Economies of scale – if the output rate is less than the optimal level, increasing the output rate results in decreasing average unit costs

Outsource – obtain a good or service from an external provider, (make or buy?)

Present value – the sum, in current value, of all future cash flows of an investment proposal