A day in the life

Where to start, where to start… China. Beijing, China. Mostly north-western Beijing, near the area known as WuDaoKou, where universities rub shoulders like my elbows in a Beijing subway car at rush hour. We, the delegates of IMUSE, have spent the last days shuttling around this area getting to know the many facets of China and of each other. We meet in the lobby of our hotel, the Green Tree Inn, progressively earlier each day before getting on a bus (we tried going in groups on taxis, but most everyone (especially American delegates) failed to account for the morning traffic) and sitting in traffic for about 40 minutes as we head to Tsinghua or Peking for a morning of lectures and discussions. Depending on the day, we lunch in Tsinghua cafeterias or on our own. After lunch we may have more lectures or we may go to a company visit. The lectures have been about a wide array of topics, from Sino-US relations to Law to Energy. The company visits have been to a business consulting group, Hejun Consulting, where we split into groups and gave a bilingual presentation on whether a business should expand to the US/China or not (my group, CHJ Jewelry, won!), and to ENN Corporation, where we learned about its  innovation in the field of energy, from solar to natural gas. The lecturers have been university professors, some of them quite famous, such as He Weifang, a scholar who wrote on constitutional law and proposed a new constitution for China, which resulted in his being sent to teach in Xinjiang for two years.

Overall, the conference has been intellectually and socially stimulating and tiring (especially when combined with jetlag). I have met people from all over China and the United States, and even a delegate from Germany and another from Argentina. Actually, let me back up for a moment. Not really from all over the US. From about 9 states in the US, confined to ivy leagues beside one delegate from Carleton College and myself. The German delegate is from Oxford. There is still pretty good diversity among the delegates, but personally I find myself mostly drawn to the Chinese delegates rather than the other American delegates. While there is diversity among the American delegates, for the most part they (we) show the diversity of white and Asian upper-middle class privilege, from the ffrat-y tank-top wearer armed with a smile and a compliment for authority figures and an ego fit-for-three to the Duke college student who has trouble moving her clothes between her houses and goes for weekend trips to Miami and New York. That is not to say this isn’t a smart group of people. These people are very smart and driven. They (we) are also young and naïve, full of them(our)selves and their (our) assured bright future.

The Chinese delegates are, at least to my inexperienced eyes, a different sort. They definitely represent the Chinese upper-middle class, but, for the large part, they are much less full of themselves. Many of them are older, around 24 or 25, and working on Masters or PhDs, so they have had more time to mature. Also, since the main language of the conference is English, they are immediately somewhat humbled by having to use a foreign language.

I have gotten to know several delegates fairly well, and I am looking forward to continuing doing so over the next days. For now, I will get back to IMUSE and Beijing.

 Break time at Hejun consulting

 Group picture on "Explore Beijing" day

 Exploring Wangfujing, a street full of all sorts of snacks and souvenirs

 Correctly guess the flavor we chose for Ryan's (who took the picture) and my first hookah experience, and I'll sing a song of your choice in your honor during my next karaoke outing!

--- Note: I initially wrote this on August 17, but lack of internet access has left it unpublished until now. We arrived in HK today, which I will write more about later ---