Hangzhou, Continued

Friday, January 9. Our group started out at 8:20 in the morning. We visited the Wanxiang Group Corporation. This is one of the top 500 companies in China. It supplies automotive parts such as universal joints, CV joints and bearings. It also has a division for Solar Energy. It has ISO 9001 designation. It is producing an electric bus line. The estimated annual growth rate of revenues for this company has been 25% for the past ten years. http://www.wanxiang.com.cn/product/index.asp http://www.wanxiang.com/group.html

We then drove out to the Moganshan Economic Development Zone to see the Luoshe Development zone piano factories. This area is about 30 miles from Shanghai and as an agricultural zone is a source of produce for the city. The village began to develop in the 1980s and found that many families wanted the one child to have piano lessons. Village leaders decided on a strategy of manufacturing pianos. We visited two of these factories. They produce for domestic consumption and for export to Japan. Over the years they have developed specialized expertise.
We also visited a factory that produces specialized wood products. It began as a source of wood for the piano makers and branched out into floor products, doors etc. They no longer export to Home Depot but sell to specialized distributors in the U.S. http://www.dqedz.com/en/Infrastructure.html

The party leaders of the Moganshan Development Zone invited us to a wonderful dinner on Friday after we toured the factories. The dinner was served in the banquet hall of the local western-style hotel with a a five-storey atrium lobby.

At this type of banquet, large round tables that seat twelve people with a large lazy susan that takes up most of the table are used. Appetizers were set on the lazy susan. Dishes were then brought in and announced in Chinese and placed on the lazy susan. Each diner uses chopsticks to select a bite of a dish as the lazy susan is rotated. The kitchen serves exotic meats and specialized dishes. Some of the meats we have had at these dinners include eel, pigeon, duck, turtle, and of course pork, beef, and chicken. As we were being seated, it was clear that the party officials were being seated at one of the tables with our tour leader. Several of my fellow professors pushed me toward that table saying “You can eat with chopsticks -- you go over there.”

The leader of our group of professors is Chen Ji, a Senior Lecturer of Finance at the University of Colorado, Denver. He has organized all the visits, hotels, transportation, and food. He said that he has been leading these trips for over fifteen years. In the past it was impossible to visit more than one factory at a time because it took so long to get from place to place. The improvement in roads and infrastructure enables us to get to four factories in a day. In fact we were an hour early for one appointment.

We have used toll roads named the A5 and A8. These are set up like European highways with eight lanes each with a speed limit. The kilometers per hour were 100 - 90 -60 -60 for each of the lanes going from highest speed limit on the left. Signs also warn about “Rear end collision. Keep space.” At several places markers show Zero meters, then 50 meters, the 100 meters. Presumably for drivers to better estimate space between cars.

Our current hotel is the Sofitel Westlake Hangzhou. We again have the amazing breakfast. Ladies show you to the elevator, push the button for you! Fresh roses are on the tables. They have again supplied a transformer for me to charge the laptop. That is a great relief!