Day 3 and 4
26. - 27.03.2018
Xi’an, Monday March 26th,
2018
Morning: Terracotta Army
After our first night in Xi’an, our bus started at 8:15 a.m. to our first “official” trip to the famous “Terracotta Army”.
On our way to the museum, a guide told us a lot of interesting information about the city of Xi’an, as well as about Chinese culture in general and the country itself. So, we learned, that the city was the former capital of China and over 2,000 years old. Based on this, a funny fact was, that today, Xi’an with its 8.6 million inhabitants, is one of the smaller cities in China. Another interesting piece of information was, that the Chinese language contains over 50,000 signs. According to the guide, to read a newspaper well, people need to know approx. 1,500 signs. That is why Chinese students also need to know phonetic spelling, in order to differentiate between equal-written words (like “ma”). Anyway, we recognized that it is still a more difficult language than German…
Arriving at the museum, the guide led us through the memorial. We found out, that the army is a burial offering for the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di and symbolises his personal elite army, which should also protect him in death. Those approx. 8,000 soldiers are 1.86 m tall on average and usually for the most part destroyed. Therefore, restoration is very difficult and time-consuming.
The site was found by farmers in 1974, as they wanted to build a well and gained world cultural heritage in 1987. After exposing the several chambers, they built three great halls to protect the soldiers from damage.
Today, people think, that the actual site was built by 700,000 workers over approx. ten years. It was finished by the death of Qin Shi Huang Di in 210 B.C., which means, that construction started within the lifetime of the Emperor. Also interesting is, that the actual grave is not opened yet. Archaeologists want to do this later, as only one quarter of the site is opened until now.
After this impressive experience, we fortify ourselves at the local museum-restaurant with a Chinese buffet. Before heading to the bus visited XUPT, we had the chance to buy some souvenirs in local shops or to enjoy the good weather underneath beautiful cherry trees, full of blossoms.
Afternoon: University of Posts & Telecommunications
After the impressive tour at the Terracotta Army, we made our way to the Xi´an University, one of the partner universities of the Darmstadt University of Applied Science.
We were warmly welcomed with this board:
Prof. Dr. Schellhase gave a lecture on intercultural differences in Global Marketing, as well as student behaviour in China and in Germany. It was a very interesting insight into the differences between the Chinese and the Germans.
Following Prof. Schellhase`s lecture, Prof. Chen also gave a lecture on doing business between Germany and China. In addition, he revealed the cultural differences between China and the Western countries.
Evening: Hot Pot -
Dinner
Of course we had a lot of hunger in the evening from the university visit. You may guess what we had to eat? Right, Hot Pot! It was really yummy!
Hot Pot is traditional Chinese food which contains a variety of East Asian foodstuffs and ingredients, prepared with a simmering pot of soup stock at the dining table. It is much like “Fondue” in Germany.
Xi’an, Tuesday March 27th, 2018
Morning: Company visit Yeahmobi
Our second day in Xi´an started at 9.45 a.m. after having a very good breakfast in the hotel. After a 45 minute drive with our green tour bus, we arrived at the first company in Xi´an in the Yanta district. The company Yeahmobi was founded in 2011 by Peter Zou. The headquarters is based in China, but they have also some offices around the world, such as in Germany, Japan and in the USA.
Yeahmobi focuses on Data driven mobile advertising. With their vision “Flatten the world with technology”, they want to connect companies with customers globally by the use of the internet.
They concentrate especially on supporting Chinese companies to do their business outside China.
The company offers two different segments: Advertise and Monetise.
In the segment advertise, the company offers a huge network connecting with experts in the field of marketing. Moreover, they support the improvement of advertising through the use of social media and ads for the defined focus groups. Yeahmobi also offers their customers the use of a special programme to search for potential users.
In the segment monetise, the company optimises the ads, which are shown in the customer`s apps. For example, while the customer is waiting for the downloading of the app, one option would be to entertain him by showing an interesting video, based on his interests, until the download is finished.
Yeahmobi has customers all around the globe, such as Google, Facebook or Alibaba. In total, the company supports their customers in more than 240 different countries. All over the world, over 400 employees, with an average age of around 31 years, are working for Yeahmobi, five days a week. The employees in the office in Xi´an are working in an open space office on every level. As you might see on the picture above, many people have brought some decoration for their desks.
Noon:
After taking lots of pictures, we got back onto our bus to have a good lunch.
Surrounded by many trees and different types of plants, we sat at three round tables. After a while, the waiters and waitresses started bringing a lot of different dishes, which were placed on the rotary plate on every table, so that we could all share the dishes.
Xi’an, Tuesday March 27th, 2018
Morning: International Trade & Logistics Park in Xi´an
In the afternoon, we visited the “ITL - International Trade & Logistic Park” in Xi´an. The Chinese government launched the initiative “One Belt, One Road” in 2013. It includes the revival of the ancient Silk Road, which led from the land of the rising sun across the ancient Orient to the Occident.
This mega-project involves building an intercontinental infrastructure network between China and another 64 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. The concept of the Chinese sees a huge economic zone between the three continents, with the plan that two-thirds of the world's population will participate in this project. The plan consists of two main transport routes. One is the Silk Road Economic Belt over the “land route” and the other one is the 21st century Maritime Silk Road over the “sea”.
The park was introduced to us in the visitor centre. It includes the construction of an autonomous city built for international trade, which is a free trade area. Not only international companies are to be housed in these large facilities.
Moreover, a Container Terminal has been built for freight trains, and also living space for the employees, which only cost around 60 Euros per month for rental.
Since this plant is still in its 5th year of construction out of 8 years of construction, various leisure facilities, schools, kindergartens, shopping malls and hospitals are planned to be built in future to make the city more attractive for the employees and their families.
After the video about the park was shown, we finally got a look into the real park. For this we were driving through the park in our bus, to have a look for e.g. the Container Terminal, which was very interesting for us.
Get some impressions…
Evening:
And after the very long, long, day…
… finally, we dined with our newly won Chinese friends. Our farewell party in Xi´an - and we had a lot of fun!
Some Chinese specialties were served. And some of them were very strange for us.
After the dining, we became more and more creative. The idea was to present a kind of Chinese dance. The rehearsals took a bit longer, but we see the result in the video...