China 14 CSC Last Update

This past Sunday, the China 14 CSC team took the bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing. Upon arrival into Beijing we had an opportunity to spend one half day at the fabulous Summer Palace and was truly an amazing experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace

The Summer Palace is the largest and best preserved imperial garden in China. Its Chinese name, YiHeYuan, translates as "Garden of Nurtured Harmony" or "Garden for Maintaining Health and Harmony." The Summer Palace is surrounded by a large lake. While there the team took a 1 hour boat ride where we were able to relax and view the beautiful scenery. On this excursion the team spent approximately 4 hours walking about at a leisurely pace so that we had an opportunity to see everything there was to see. Am happy to report that on this visit was able to accomplish climbing all the way to the top.

On Monday, my sub-team delivered our final recommendations to our clients; they were very pleased with the outcome and grateful for all the guidance we provided them over the last few weeks. After our presentations, the general manager of the chemical company took his executive staff and our sub-team to a magnificent seafood restaurant where we dined in a private room and enjoyed a wonderful dinner.

Tuesday, we went to visit the IBM Tianjin office and had a one hour meeting with the branch manager. Their office is very small where approximately 36-40 IBMers work in total. We had an opportunity to share the mission and goals of the Corporate Service Corps.

Yesterday, we delivered our final recommendations to the watch company. They too, were pleased with all the help the team provided them. Last evening, the CSC team went out to celebrate our accomplishments and had dinner at a German brew house followed by 2 hours of Karaoke.

This afternoon our team had a 1 hour meeting with the DOT executive team to wrap up and discuss lessons learned so that they can be passed on to future CSC participants. This evening we plan to take our interpreters out to a Korean barbecue dinner as a thank you for all the hard work and assistance they provided us this past month.

Tomorrow is a "free" day to do whatever we would like and Saturday morning will be headed back to Atlanta (am really anxious to see Jasmine and Nikki, my 4-legged kids).

This assignment frequently pushed me way outside of my comfort zone but that is what this program is all about - to see how well you adapt and react to situations that you might not be comfortable or familiar with.

In closing, this has been such a wonderful experience and feel that I have become more culturally aware on so many levels. I have also established friendships with my CSC teammates and know that I will stay in close contact with my interpreters as well as some of the wonderful women from the incubator group. (I have actually adopted one lady as my extended mom). The people in China have been warm, friendly and very genuine and hope that one day you have an opportunity to visit this great country.

I look forward to speaking with / seeing everyone next week.