My alarm went off at 5:40 am and I quickly prepared to leave the hotel. Garrett and I met with Professor Lyles, who was very kind to awaken so early to see us off. We had a very quick breakfast, gave her a hug goodbye, and climbed into the taxi. On the way to the airport, Garrett looked toward me with puzzled expression. I quickly began to understand why. A roar from the left rear tire grew louder and the driver turned on the emergency flashers and pulled off to the shoulder. Garrett and I were both worried about making it to the airport on time as we were cutting it a bit close on time. The driver scurried around the car, flailed through the trunk, stood in the road while using the jack, and was back on the road in 7 minutes! Garrett and I parted ways, said a quick goodbye, and headed to different ends of the terminals.

The flights have been uneventful so far with a quick changeover in Tokyo and some painful entertainment during the flight back to Minneapolis. I was shown the same episodes of Trading Spaces Family, some other shows, and a thinly disguised infomercial about teeth. Are you kidding me? The next movie was Mooseport. How horrible must a movie be for Northwest to play it on a flight?

I’m looking forward to getting back home because I miss my wife Nicole and it’s been much too long since I’ve seen her beautiful face. However, I am missing China as well. Not nearly as much, but the growth, excitement, and opportunity in the large cities in China is unlike anything in the US. Will I be back? I’m sure I will. Will I be working there? I’m not sure. It would be a major commitment and would require me to leave a lot behind. Not seeing friends and family would be very difficult. Leaving our pets behind would be sad. I’m sure Nicole and I will discuss it more over the next year. There is much to much to consider to discuss and consider in this forum.

In the Minneapolis airport, I met-up with six Cummins employees on their way back from a meeting. I’d been up for about 27 hours at that point, needed both a shave and a shower, and was starting to have trouble forming sentences. Not really an ideal situation for talking with director and executive director level co-workers, but I made the best of the situation and talked about interesting portions of my trip as much as possible.

Doug and I got up early to see Li off. It was so sad having the first team member depart because we’d grown so close over the past few days. Just before she got into the cab, she gave Doug and I a hug. It was an extra long hug, which made it more endearing. Everyone in the group missed her during the day – and not just because she was such a great interpreter.

We had meetings with the Indiana Department of Commerce, Bakers and Daniels, Pacific World Trade, Visa, and Alison Transmission. Baker and Daniels impressed me the most and Alison impressed me the least. Edward Williams of Daker and Daniels had a quote that impressed me the most. “I didn’t want to be a lawyer in the 1800s that saw all of the opportunities and growth in the West and still decided to stay in Philadelphia.� Jun went with us and drove half the team; they had some difficulties finding all of the destinations.

We met at the VIP lounge upon arriving to the hotel and exchanged pictures. We have about 750 MB worth! Dinner wasn’t necessary because of all of the snacks. Brian, Garrett, and I finally visited the Sauna for some heated relaxation therapy – highly recommended the day after the wall. We’d talked about “Sauna� so many times at 21stCentury; it was nice to finally indulge. Afterwards, we headed to the hotel bar and met up with new friend from Bakers and Daniels again; he bought us drinks and provided us with some very interesting conversations. We headed back to our rooms, looking forward to a day that would allow us to sleep late.

We were tourists for the day. We awakened early, loaded into our van, and headed to the great wall. Sally from Grayline Tours (formerly Panda Tours) was our guide and was very professional and informative. The ride to the wall took about an hour; we visited the Ba Da Ling section. There were two sections, one that was flat and crowded and one that was steep and less traveled. We chose the last one and had a fairly decent workout getting to the top. The scenic views were amazing. The “independent merchants� were absolutely annoying. I didn’t buy anything but everyone else did. The locals were selling “100% cotton T-shirts� made of polyester and “100% silk scarves� make of nylon. The prices started very high and dropped to about 1/10 of the initial level. Doug purchased some post cards from someone on the wall and received 20 Bot instead of 20 RMB as change. The Bot (if that is even what it is) is worth about 1/100 of an RMB. So, he lost about $2 US and had a great story tell, because he was scrutinized when he tried to buy beer in a restaurant. But I couldn’t believe how motivated the locals were to climb all the way to the top of the great wall every day just to sell junk to tourists. The climb alone shows determination; the gorilla sales techniques shows their desperation for income.

We napped during the ride back to Beijing and then saw Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The history and stories about past emperors were interesting. I was surprised by all of the homeless families in the tunnels under the road ways. <>

We headed back to the hotel afterwards and everyone took another nap before heading to Da Dong’s Peking Duck restaurant. It was great food; I wished we’d had that type of food in Dalian. Afterwards, in the hotel bar, we met a partner from Bakers and Daniels, the law firm in Indianapolis. We weren’t that far from home after all.

Everyone was up at 6:00 to check-out and leave for the airport. I got about 5 hours sleep and I think that was the most of anyone in the group. We arrived in Beijing without incident. It was such a relief to get into the Traders Hotel. Unlike the 21st century, which is “pending 4-star approval� (a.k.a. 3-star), Traders truly earns the ranking. The air conditioning works well and everything is spotless. All of use decided to pay the extra $30 per night for the upgraded rooms, which brought the cost / night to roughly 3 times that of the 21st Century but you definitely get what you pay for.

Brian was exhausted and it was nap time for him; the rest of us went shopping at a couple of the markets and I spent the whole day looking for gifts I thought my wife would like. I bargained everything to about ¼ the original asking price. I’m not sure if I got the best deals possible, but I definitely paid much, much less than was possible in the US.

Everyone met with Daniel’s better half for dinner. It was quite an experience, with dancing women, martial arts demonstrations, a woman with a snake, and whole-restaurant dance party at the end of the meal. We were dancing on the tables on which we had just eaten but only pictures can do the experience justice. (The music was so loud that my right ear is intensely ringing.) Brian and Doug were both stars of the show, performing dance moves and push-ups on stage during the meal.

After dinner, everyone went to the Hard Rock Café. All of the students were ready to go back to the hotel but Professor Lyles suggested we go out after dinner and we weren’t going to let our professor show us up. The four marrieds danced in a circle while Doug scoped the women. We arrived back at the hotel at about 12:30, later than expected but we’ll still be able to get at least 7 hours before heading to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City tomorrow.

The presentation was complete, I had nothing to do, but I still woke-up early. Li, Brian, and I practiced a couple of times but we were getting experienced and the practice became boring. We had a late breakfast and meet in Brian’s room (our team room) for one last time. It was sad knowing that this phase of the trip was coming to an end. We performed a tremendous amount of work in that room but also had quite a bit of fun and really grew into a team in there. It was sad starting to break-down the large table we were using before returning it to the stairwell in which we found it.

I took a nap during lunch because I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. The presentation went well; Li and I were well-prepared and it showed. The management met to vote on the best group and we were not surprised to be the first group called. A part of that is due to us being so well prepared and the rest is due to us traveling half way across the world. I felt embarrassed when all of the Hong Kong students were congratulating us because I had a clear advantage: I was speaking in my native tongue. True, Li translated perfectly into Mandarin, but I was receiving some of the praise as well and I had no language barrier to overcome.

Afterwards, we everyone met for dinner at the Korean Barbeque restaurant at the to of the Dalian International Hotel but we were quickly finished and the meal wasn’t exceptional. Still, I had a great time talking to Wilson, Sharat, and Samuel. Afterwards, a smaller group went out to the same Augustus bar that we visited earlier in the week. I learned the Chinese dice game, played it for a while, and then decided to talk with John for a while. We’d spoken several times but never really gotten to know one another. The music in the bar was much too loud and I was ready for an early departure. I could tell that Li, Profess Lyles, and Professor Yan were ready to depart as well and were receptive to the idea when I approached them.

On the way to dinner, Garrett spotted something we all hoped we’d never see. The crazy driving was scary to those in cars and we were always fearful that a pedestrians would be severally injured. We were pulling up to a stoplight and noticed that a van was pulled over to the right hand side of the road. As we stopped, we noticed a woman in front of the van on the ground. Her ~8 year old son was lifting her upper torso from the ground but she was not moving. Garrett started to get out the taxi driver started yelling at him so he got back in. The driver of the van was on his cell phone. We were all hoping that he was calling an ambulance and that the woman was merely unconscious. I closed my eyes and prayed that this was the case.

Day 11: Thursday the 22nd

The presentation is basically complete at this point but we all basically wasted the morning creating slides that were suggested even though I knew we would not be within our time limit if they were included. We practice our presentation again but didn’t make any notable changes. It was basically Li and I practicing our coordinated swap between English and Mandarin with Brain advancing the slides as necessary.

The food at the hotel and the restaurants has been of very high quality. Unfortunately, we had experienced about every creature and flavor Chinese seafood had to offer several times over by this point. We wanted something different and Pizza Hut sounded like a perfect solution. Daniel and his son Harry were back in town and we met them for dinner there. Pizza Huts are nice in China! The restaurant was large and nicely appointed; the pizza was as expected (we skipped the trout pizza). The salad bar was one-serving-only and we were surprised how much food the Chinese customers piled onto their plates. One girl created a 8-inch round circle of cucumber slices and stacked them lego-style about 5-inches high, taking about 10 minutes to do so!

Garrett, Brian, and I were up late printing our presentation and I didn’t get to sleep until after 12:30. I felt nice to be almost finished.

Day 10: Wednesday the 21st
We split-up the final slide preparation process. I built the main presentation, Garrett took the lead on the direct internet booking model. Doug made several slide on bundling. We frantically work all morning and declined a presentation to Professor Chan just before lunch and deferred it to after lunch. We worked frantically, skipping our meal, and started finalizing and collating. About 15 minutes before our presentation, everything was combined and we suddenly had a presentation! The planning and structure that I had started the previous day came together and we had some very solid analysis and strong recommendations. Our presentation with Professors Chan and Yan went very well. There was basically agreement that reinforced the work we had performed. There was a bit of questioning our methodology by Professor Yan until we showed the detailed regression analysis. The questions quickly ended and we were told “good job�. While the Hong Kong groups practiced their presentations in Chinese, we made some minor fine-tuning changes. We returned just after these presentations finished and were the first to present during the English language presentation/critiquing process. I presented by myself and we received very minor and somewhat forced recommendations for our presentation because it was clear that we had performed so much analysis and had clear, data-based recommendations. We were not surprised because we knew our presentation was strong. What did surprise us was the strong criticism of some of the Hong Kong groups. Content, layout, public presentation skills were all sternly criticized. It became that my past experience in preparing and presenting information was a major strengths that some other teams did not have. In fact, there were many strengths within our team that became apparent. Li’s ability to speak English, Cantonese, and Mandarin fluently was a huge asset for both the interviews and the presentations. Here Mandarin is better than that of most any other student. Brian has a great attitude, keeping everyone motivated and involved; he did a great job of identifying any background work that was being ignored and quietly starting it. Garrett can take anything and put 110% into it. He started with a idea to identify profits gains from direct internet booking through the hotel website and ended up with a comprehensive model that included many facets and complexities. I pasted his graphs and created a couple of slides and that is all I needed to do for the section. Doug did a great job keeping everyone laughing, helping us integrate with the Hong Kong group, and drafting the bundling section. I don’t think any other group came together and highlighted individually strengths the way ours did.

The translation of slides into Traditional Chinese characters began at 8:30 that night. For the first time in 3 days, I was free of any responsibility. I invited Garrett to share a beer with me. Doug and Stephanie walked by and were asked to join us. The four of us stayed up until 3:30 in the morning talking about life, dreams, and goals. It had been a long time since I had last done that with anyone. I was great to get the perspective of 2 guys I was just getting to know well and a girl from Hong Kong with a new and diverse perspective. We talked about future career and life goals, (I was unanimously counseled to look into starting my own business now rather than later), the longest time we’d spent alone, and our childhoods. Garrett and I both talked about how great our wives were and how lucky we were to have them. It was interesting to hear that Stephanie, a young and independent Hong Kong native, valued and was looking for many of the same things. The more we talked, the more we realized the less-different we were. The cultural backgrounds are different, but the individuals are surprisingly and amazingly similar.

Day 9: Tuesday the 20th
Where did the day go? I spent the entire day analyzing data and making the actual first presentation. This presentation barely followed the outline that was presented the day before because the data was showing a much more clear direction. I switched frequently between the spreadsheet and the presentation, trying to form a strong strategy to go about identifying specific recommendations. I became one-with-the-chair in the team room. I barely left it for a couple of meals and stayed there until almost midnight, when Brian kicked me out.

We were very thankful to have our own dedicated room. First of all, it was much cooler that the war room and the 8th floor – the heat was unbearable in there with 25+ people and the inadequate air conditioning system. An assistant manager of the hotel was confronted about the heat situation during one of the question and answer session. The explanation was rather humorous: the low pressure of the air outside the hotel pulls out all of the cool, conditioned air. A more accurate explanation would have been that the electricity supply infrastructure is over-taxed and that the hotel has to limit energy usage (this is what we learned from the paper). It interesting that such and advanced city still has such basic problem as energy supply and potable water. Regardless, the team room allowed us to work together, briefly joke around when we needed to do so, and strengthen the bond between team members that was first apparent after the “change of direction� meeting the day before.

Day 8: Monday the 19th

Today was when we first started our presentation construction. Garrett came up with an outline and I included some of the data (in table format) from the detailed financial spreadsheet that was built the previous day. We were asked to present what we had so far to Professor Lyles. It was somewhat lacking versus what I desired to present but this was not inappropriate for the situation. We did not fully explain the detailed data that we had in the spreadsheet, including a comprehensive income statement and monthly occupancy levels over a two-year period. Thinking that we did not have enough to fill our presentation, Professor Lyles suggested that we conduct more interviews and construct a decision matrix for price determination. This came across as a major change in direction for many of the team members. Li, who had conducted most of the interviews, was very concerned about conducting even more interviews asking different questions to different people after spending the past three days doing so. Brian and Doug were visibly upset because they were worried that all of our previous work had been invalidated. Garrett, who is used to working in a large corporate environment, reacted the same way as did I: no big deal. Drastic changes in direction are a frequent occurrence within our daily work lives. I immediately had a one-on-one meeting with professor Lyles and explained the detailed data that was available to us and what recommendations we were expecting to be able to make. It turned out to be a misunderstanding of how much work had been accomplished and the decision matrix, while still important, did not need to be the primary focus of our report. The team split-up and focused on different areas. Li lead the interview process with the Sales and Marketing management and staff while I lead the data reduction and analysis process.

Because I was out late the previous night and because of my early awaking, I was very tired that night. I skipped dinner and spent time working on the spreadsheet.

Today I felt like we really came together as a team. We met for a late breakfast to start our day (it is the weekend after all). We discussed our strategy for the day. We weren’t’ deciding which pricing strategy to follow, we were working together to determine the best meeting location for our team. We could either meet in the war room with all of the Hong Kong students or we could go off on our own and start to formulate our strategy. I had talked to a couple of the Hong Kong groups and sensed that they were unsure of their direction, so I suggested that we find an empty room and conduct our work there. As it happens, Brian is extremely neat and organized, so he invited everyone to his room. Garrett found a table in the fire escape stairway and we brought that into the room to finalize the setting. This turned out to be a great idea because the team was alone and had the first chance to start to bond and give individual input to what will become our final presentation. Different strengths of each group member showcased and a very strong strategy was frame-worked together.

Although this was the most productive of the days, it wasn’t all business. There was a fair amount of joking that helped to bring everyone together but not so much that it stopped productivity. We later learned that during our separate team meeting, the other five Hong Kong groups gathered together and shared status reports. Because of the individual meeting we had with management the day before, we feel that we are well ahead of the other groups. Because we missed the impromptu meeting, our professor assumed that we were behind. Once we learned of this doubting of our productivity, the team became a slight bit defensive and grew somewhat more tight. We felt like we were very prepared for our meeting with all three of the professors later that afternoon and, afterwards, felt confirmed by the results. We have a solid plan to develop a productive strategy for our host.

After our meeting, the team summoned a taxi and traveled to one of the main convention hotel competitors downtown. Li explained that we were students wanting to investigate the convention facilities and were given a brochure and told that we could tour the facilities. One of the Hong Kong groups presented a business card from their office and said they were looking to book a convention for 2 dozen people – they were given a guided tour of the facility. We said “hello� when we saw them but quickly realized what they were doing and pretended not to know them. The most apparent aspect of the two hotels was the true 4-star rating. The lobbies were much more elegant and the conference facilities were much larger and more elegantly appointed. The service, however, was not nearly at the level of our host. Our host claimed that they differentiated themselves by their high attention to detail and helpful staff and our research confirmed that.

After the competitive research, the entire delegation met at the top of the Dalian World Trade Center for dinner at a very upscale and modern buffet. The buffet was so vast that it curved around and occupied three sides of the building. One of my favorite foods were being served in unlimited supply: beer. I joked with the team that I was going to have only beer and dessert. This only turned out to be a joke due the fact that I didn’t have dessert. With no main course, the beer was very effective and I more that made up for the previous night of diminished consumption. I started walking between tables of the 5 other teams, made some toasts, took some pictures with Brian’s camera, and had a long conversation with the “service innovation� group. This started our as a business related discussion but I was invited out to “beer street� (or Beal street, or something similar). I returned to my table, we had a serious discussion about the day, and then we talked about joining the Hong Kong group. Li and Brian both said “sure� but I doubted their sincerity seeing as how neither of them drink alcohol. Garrett and Doug were obviously wanting to go out with the others. Sure enough, when we reached the ground floor, Li and Brian jumped in the cab heading back to the hotel. Last night, Brian, Li, and I were all early resigners from the banquet while Doug and Garrett stayed out late. Tonight, I showed my duality and joined Doug and Garrett and the Hong Kong group.

Our evening was every eventful. We decided on a Jazz bar and went in to mostly empty bar with recorded music. Eventually, live music started. I talked to a number of students and finally decided to start talking to the Hong Kong professor whom was brave enough to join us. As we were talking, I head a champing cork pop. I got up, turned around, and saw the guitar player on stage and a audience member starting to fight. I looked at these two guys (who weren’t even punching each other) and walked over to breakup the fight. I (and perhaps my mild alcohol consumption) decided I could probably take both of these guys, so I wasn’t too concerned about intervening. Staff at the bar separated the two before I got too close. I suddenly realized that everyone else from IU and Hong Know was along the bar wall, away from the scuffle. I decided it was wise to join them. Apparently, an audience member wanted to share his beer with the band. The sax player backed away but the guitar player took offense at the intrusion onto stage. The campaign bottle opening was the audience member starting to shake and spray his beer just before the music immediately stopped and the “slapping� began. The Hong Kong group decided to leave the bar so we walked outside. A waitress followed is quickly and I saw her showing a check and knew that she was asking for money. I instinctively reached for my wallet but I very quickly realized that a negotiation process had begun. I very quickly walked away, realizing that an American face would hamper their negotiation capabilities. Garrett realized this situation at least as quickly as I did. He and I stood ten feet away and laughed as we watched Doug trying to follow the situation while his right hand was on his back hip pocket, ready to pay. About a minute later, he realized what Garrett and I had quickly figured out: our presence was not needed. The negotiation paid off because we didn’t have to pay for our drinks.

We then went to a second bar across the street. We were all ushered up to the third floor where a live performance was about to begin. There was a general invitation by the singer and Doug was quickly on the stage performing Hotel California. Since it was all American songs in English being performed, it was much more accommodating to my tastes than the banquet the previous night. The very loud singing somewhat hampered conversation but many discussions still took place (however, my ears are still ringing). All three of the Americans were invited on stage by the lead singer to perform YMCA. I at least knew 4 words of this song: Y M C A. I also knew the motions. What more do you need with a great accompanist? (I guess I did know two other words to the song: young man, which I used appropriately). Upon returning to the table, this sparked a discussion about homosexuals in China. Yes, in exception of some theories, they do exist. The American treo was asked back for another song: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Finally, a song I knew the word to! My friends Kevin, Nathan, and I used to sing this song in the car after the movie Wayne’s World was released. The lead singer wanted an operatic presentation as I feel somewhat confident that I acceptably provided the bass. This was the most significant reaction from the crowd of the night; the Russian quadrant of females had cigarette lighter burning in our honor! We were asked to stay on stage for yet another song by Queen: We are the Champions. I faked knowledge of the song somewhat well.

My performance must have been very strong. The lead singer stated that the quadrant of Russian women was returning home tomorrow. A slow song started and a 40+ year old Russian woman approached me for a dance. Due to cheering of the group, I accepted the dance. Although no one else saw, she was more aggressive than was appropriate. A while later she brushed by me as she went outside but I begged the Hong Kong ladies to save me. They were not accommodating and instead said they would auction me off the Russians. No one should doubt the entrepreneurial goals of the Chinese. Luckily, it was all in jest and we soon thereafter departed the bar and headed back to the hotel (without being followed).