Today's experiences in China was a good mixture between cultural visits and professional development. At ATKearney, it was very interesting to learn about the differences in supply chain between a company doing business in the US vs in China. I couldn't tell why, but I was extremely fascinated with how China handled their cashflow and when they received payment for their services. In the States, you usually pay prior to receiving a service and can file for a refund if you were unhappy with it. In China, you can order a product online, have it delivered to your house with 24 hour shipping for free without having to pay for it until it has been delivered and you are allowed to inspect and are satisfied with the product. It presents some interesting challenges to do your business this way because it really puts a constraint on your cashflow and makes it hard to predict when you will have money. The speaker mentioned that many companies were facing this complex issue and she added a quick blurb saying that Chinese consumers are very spoiled. There's a lot of competition here so consumers benefit from all of it.

The second half of our day was spent exploring the city and going on the boat tour. I loved seeing the differences in building styles over all of Shanghai. It felt like we were through history a bit when we were floating down the river. It was really nice seeing a mix of Western styled buildings from when it was a British colony and seeing Chinese style buildings and some buildings with Japanese influence. It sounds like the bottle cap opener building was a very sore and sensitive topic in Shanghai during its development. Supposedly, the street that it is erected on is called the dragon and is the heart of the city. A Japanese firm wanted to build a sword-like building right at the "throat of the Dragon" and the Chinese that it really disrespected the people and was meant to show off Japanese strength. To give a little background, there is a lasting resentment from the locals towards the Japanese for their years of imperialism and war during the 1900s. The building had to go through several redesigns. The first of which was a circle at the top of the building, but the people felt that too much resembled the Japanese sun. They settled on a square at the top of the building. The tower now resembles a bottle opener and is often at the butt of jokes with the locals. They now look at the tower and laugh at the "stupid Japanese bottle opener"