Ah, Teambuilding

As part of our MBA curriculum, we all had to participate in a 'team building' trip. We took a wed and thurs off of school and headed up to the Great Wall for a 5 hour up-hill hike to a guardtower. A couple days before we left, we were given a briefing on what to expect...we we divided up in teams and had to work as a team to make it to the top. We were going to be given backpacks and water bottles and we needed to carry everything we needed for the two days on our back on the hike. They also stated that dresses and heels would not be appropriate for this trip. This advice, of course, was for all the froo-froo Chinese girls that make it a daily habit of wearing party dresses to class. Additionally, each group had to come up with a performance to be presented to the class after the hike.
Anyways, we had to wake up at 6 to get to school by 0750. We hopped onto two large busses and made our way to the Great Wall. Three hours later, we made it to our first stop: a dirty, gritty country bathroom. It was truly glorious. Below is a picture of all of us girl waiting for our moment...

Due to the need for brevity, I didn't take a picture...but basically the inside of the bathroom was completely concrete with two holes in the floor. You could clearly see that the holes were more like a excrement laden slide that ended in a common pit. in the very few times I glanced down, it was very clear that the combination of urine and feces was supporting some kind of life form--not only maggots, but some bigger creatures too. They were also making a decent bid for freedom through the hole I was trying to pee down. Needless to say, it was obvious why I didn't linger to get a picture.

The next stop was the bottom of our hike. Cliff and I were divided up into two different groups...Cliff took the camera for this trip, so below is a picture of his group:


We struggled up the hill for several hours. Our group had to stop a couple times, because a couple of our team mates had some difficulties getting up the slope. It started out with about a mile of roughly paved stairs, followed by a half mile or more of dense brush, then some very steep grassland area. After 3 hours, we made it to the top to this view:

Actually, our main goal was to get to an ancient watch tower. On the way up, Cliff carried the backpack of one of the girls in his group. Nicole is a really sweet girl and she was very thankful for Cliff's help:
Here is a picture of a couple girls from my group...we were the "super happy power go go team, yeah yeah yeah" team. Basically we couldn't decide on our team name and combined then all together.


Here is Cliff and I on the top of the watch tower:


and a couple of international girls from our class:

Add a couple of guys from the class:


Which eventually equalled all of the international students from the class:


After the hike up, we thought that the walk down would be a breeze...we were wrong. It took another couple hours to walk down. We took a different path, which was complete overgrown. By the time we got to the bottom, I was exhausted. We hopped on the bus and made the trip to our hotel for the night: the days inn great wall. We ended up overshooting the exit, which added another 40 minutes to our trip. We finally arrived, hungry, dirty, sweaty and grumpy. After a very quick dinner we started our presenations. The first group did a parody of snow white...you can see the starring princess below


Cliffs group spelled out letters with their bodies...


The next group did a cheerleading dance...

My group did a dance to YMCA, but instead mimed the letters B-I-M-B-A. As you can see, we didn't really have alot of practice...we're basically all signing different letters:


At the end, we all got the entire room to stand up and sing with us...it was great, we only had to perform for less than a minute.

Afteward, we were given the run of the hotel...so, we decided to go bowling. We bought a ton of beer, rented some shoes and went at it. This is the best form I can muster...unfortunately, it doesn't equal big points on the board...

Instead, i just tried some trick shots, like this between the legs try...


Cliff did well enough, but was mostly a social butterfly, flitting between our lane and the other lanes.


of course, it all had to boil down to drinking--specifically baijiu. Below is our friend John, with the before picture:


and the after effects:

After a very late night, we woke up very early for a short management class. Next we learned that we would be treated to a special field trip: a wine tour at the Great Wall Winery. We were given a detailed tour of the entire wine making process at Great Wall. We were also given some basic wine education, as most of our Chinese class mates were not that familiar with wine (as it is a new libation in China).


Below is picture with one of my teammates, Daisy:

They also took us to the tasting room...


After the tour had completed, we were led to the company dining room for lunch. On each table was a bottle or red an bottle of white wine and some snacks. The company president talked for about 15 minutes about the company and their acomplishments. i got the feeling that we were being recruited. In typical Chinese business fashion, lunch soon became a ridiculous drinking debacle. After awhile, it was clear that the company president was not pleased with us. it may have been when a couple of our classmates started drinking the wine out of the bottle. Thank god I had alittle too much to drink the night before, otherwise I'm sure I would have brought shame on the BiMBA name.
After getting usher out of the dining room, we were loaded into the bus again for one last stop. We drove anothe hour down the rode and stopped at Great Wall's vineyard. We were given a short tour and a box of grapes to take home with us--it was so great! overall, we had a great time with our class mates, but we're glad to be home again....

KTV Madness

We;ve been slogging thru our first couple weeks of class...Business Statistics and Business Management. Statistics has been a bear, but I'm lucky that I have such a smart husband, because he has really helped me out with this class. His mind works in some sort of sick, twisted, mathamatical way, and I just don't get it. For example, cliff can spend most of the class editing pictures on his computer or screwing off, while I'm scrambling my brain trying to get it together. All of a sudden, I see his head shoot up, his eyes squint and his head tilt (like a dog watching TV) and he'll raise his hand to ask question. More often than not, it will sound like an intelligence, well-thought out question about something that I've never really thought of. It's alittle frustrating sitting next to him, when its so easy for him to understand something that I'm struggling with, but he's always helped me with a happy heart, so I consider myself lucky.

Our other class is Business Management, which is supposed to teach us about being a good manager, which should help us to be a great leader. We've had three classes thus far...our professor, who is also the dean of the school, has been 30 minutes late for two classes and cancelled the last one at the very last minute. I would think this kind of track record in the business world would lose a contract for you...perhaps he's never studied leadership by example? Since he cancelled our Friday class, we (like the students we are) decided to go out on thursday and celebrate. One of the most common forms of partying in asia (especially here) is karaoke. It is so very different than the version in the US and I love it. I was first introduced to it in Taiwan and it is an all night affair, as there is no closing time or last call here. You and all of your closest friends rent a private room, order a vat of beer or other drinks, pick out your favorite songs and sing with your friends. You have your own songlist, sound system and microphones. Outside the room is a large buffet room to keep the alcohol levels in check and each room has a private bathroom. Pretty great huh?

next to me is Stacy, from Taiwan...she and all the Taiwanese classmates really, really, really like to sing...

Cliff and I with Stacy's husband John...
John and Cliff belting out "I'm a Barbie Girl"...you can see the words on the screen...it was hilarious.
The ladies, belting it out...the middle girl, maggie, is also Taiwanese...

Like any night out, eventually it boiled down to a drinking game, which was pretty fun...lots of dice and lots of laughing...

Cliff, as you can see, had a great time...


We were proud of our accomplishements that night...


Short post to show you some of our class mates and the fun we're having...off to study for our statistic class...

We've been busy...sorry

All, sorry its been so long since we've posted, but school started on Monday, so we've been working on getting our mind right, so our game is tight (Zach). We received all of these pre-MBA emails about classes and assignments, class members contact information, etc...its been alittle intimidating. Of course, since we are all 'superstars' in our former lives, the intro emails were proceeded by a flurry of replies stating that X email was no longer valid or there is this book that someone found really helpful. The main point of these emails was meant to showcase one's job title and association with Microsoft, Boeing, Google or something like that. i said that Cliff should put "Free-lance Rocket Scientist" under his name. Top that.
So, class started on monday will a long parade of speeches give by the dean of Vrlick Management School (who will issue our diplomas)...he spoke about the history of the school and how their new partnership with BiMBA was just the start in their quest to climb the worldwide MBA rankings. Then the dean of BiMBA spoke about leadership and how were were all going to learn to be leaders and not just managers. Apparently they bring out officers from WestPoint ever spring and we go running and do some push-ups with them which, in turn, will make us leaders. Cliff loved that part.
We actually started our business statistics class that day, which is an interesting and challenging (at least for me) course. The first half an hour, the professor talked about academic integrity and how being ethical is part of being a leader in business, that they have ways of catching us cheating and don't try it or think of it as a challenge to find better ways to cheat. This is an interesting prospect here in China, as cheating I don't think is culturally looked down upon. For instance, reportedly there is some underground network of students here that after taking the GMAT will post the questions and answers online, so most of the students taking the GMAT will have seen every question given to them on the test at least once before. Students will do the same with essays. Moreover, you can pay for someone to take the test for you too. There is a guy in our class that got a 780 (out of 800) on the GMAT...but his english is really, really poor. How's that work out? Also, because all chinese education up to this point (including college) was about rote memorization...memorizing concepts is more important than understanding them. So, our Chinese class mates don't have alot of critical thinking training. That's not to say they can't do it, but it's not encouraged, like in the west. This is where the 'international' portion of the class comes in. I get the fact that its our job to help our chinese counterparts to be more forward thinking and to take more initiative, rather than be part of the collective. In turn, we get experience working with China's next generation of movers and shakers. Its a pretty good trade...but I digress.
I've found that the class falls into several catagories...those who are true Chinese (born and raised in the mainland...may have some international work or travel experience), those from HK (with alot of international and english experience), other chinese speaking asians (from Taiwan, and a couple from Singapore), and the rest are none Chinese speaking foreigners. I'm proud to say that my chinese is the best of all the non-native speakers, but I'm also reminding of how poor it is when I talk to some of the other Chinese or Taiwanese Americans.
As I said before, we are taking Business Statistics, which Cliff is brilliant in, and Business Management, which is a more nebulous subject, so I feel very comfortable doing. Getting back in the 'study saddle' has been alittle humbling...especially since everyone has work experience and has done something with their lives already. We are still all in the polite stage of team building (thank you AF 101), but it is apparent that we've all joined a cerebral sport, and like anything game, it will be a competition. the good thing is that Cliff and I have become used to being less than forthcoming about our jobs and past accomplishments since we've moved to China, so hopefully we can fly below the radar in this respect.
The good thing about school starting is that we can finally start building some friendships with Chinese people...before we were kind of stuck with other expats, but now we have opened up our circle of friends. We even went on our first class outing this weekend: A trip to Prince Gong's temple. The Prince Gong's Mansion or Gong Wang Fu Museum is located in the western part of central Beijing, north of the Shichahai Lake. Consisting of large mansions in the typical siheyuan laylout and gardens, the Prince Gong's Mansion is known as one of the most ornate and extravagant residence compounds in all of Beijing. The original plan was to head there with our classmates, then have dinner and drinks. Below are some of the pictures Cliff took:


Here is an entrance to one of the buildings with our class mates Tori in front of it.

The guy on the left, Tony, organized the trip. During our walk thru the palace, the guy on the right, Darren--who is from Taiwan, and I had a great political discussion. I was surprised...there are two student from Taiwan in our class.


Above is Oscar who is from Venezuela. Unsurprisingly, we and I have also had some great political discussions, like the fact that Russian and Venezuela are having a joint naval exercise coming up. I bet you the US Navy loves that one.

Here are two girls from Taiwan...the on the left is in the class and the one on the right (who is also Taiwanese) is the wife of one of the guys who is Chinese American. She is a really lovely lady and really beautiful. By the way, do you get the fact that China is slowly, patiently and quietly integrating the Taiwanese into the fold?










Cliff, demonstrating the power of the good ole USA....

And some goofing around...
Here's part of the group inside Prince Gong's mansion...

And the big group picture at the front gates of Houhai...

After the tour we went to dinner at a great Hakka place. The food was good, but it turned out that we were to become the loudest, most obnoxious and drunkest table in the entire place. It turned into the typical Chinese business dinner, in the respect that we all toasted every new introduction, every great saying, every common opinion. The waitresses were laughing at/with us and all the other tables were duely intimidated. It was glorious. After a lot of beer, we moved on to a local rooftop bar with a smaller, more intimate group. We stayed there and waxed poetic until about 130 and then decided to move on to a club.
Cliff and I had ridden our electric bikes down to Houhai and we needed to drive them back home first. When we got to the bikes, we realized that Cliff had lost or dropped his keys and that the lock on our bikes were gone. Thank god the second bike lock was still locking our bikes together. I walked up to the nearest police officer (they're everywhere) and asked if he had seen any keys or locks, because ours had been stolen off of our bikes. He proceeded to inspect our bikes and ask for ID...since we don't carry our passports with us, I had to give him the only ID I had...my military ID. He copied down some information and radioed something in...suddenly there were about half a dozen cops, including one with alot of flowery things on his shoulder boards, and a camera crew at our bikes (don't know why there was a camera crew hanging around--maybe we will be on a Chinese version of COPS). The cop (will the shoulder-flowers), wanted to take an official statement, but we said that it would be no big deal to catch a cab home to get a spare set of keys for the electric bikes. He insisted on driving one of us home instead...which was kinda nice. So, Cliff got loaded onto the paddy wagon and with lights a-blazing, sped home to get another set of keys and sped back. He said that the cops were running red lights and cutting people off to get him back to our home. This is our first run in with local law enforcement and I was very surprise with how helpful they were and how seriously they took a foreigner in the bar district at 2am.
One more great experience to chalk up here in China.