Shanghai - Brian Reinke and Michael Nemmetz

So, this is written a bit posthumously, but I think I can cut through the deep fog of my jet lag and relive my experience for the blog.  I have work for a Marketing class I should be preparing for tomorrow, but I'd rather reflect back on one of the best weeks of my life.  Specifically, here, the latter portion.

The hotel we stayed at in Shanghai was in a bowed skyscraper where the lobby, alone, was 25 stories above ground.  We truly felt like the corporate executives most of us are aspiring to be.  We ate amazing dinners of traditional chinese food every night.  I'd be lying if I said that we were always in the mood for seafood that still looked alive, big pork dishes, and desserts of red bean soup, but that was what we had wanted in China and we got it.  The culinary experience was one of the most challenging and fascinating aspects of our trip.  For a week, it was fun.  We tried new flavors, textures, and presentations that I never knew existed.  We all learned how to appreciate or at least act with appreciation when we ate food of a very different culture.  After our 25th fish ball, we learned how to just put a smile on our face and try not to offend our table guests who have probably had to choke down something strange like a cheese curd when they have come to visit America.  As much as I wanted a burger for dinner by the time we were in Shanghai, I know I gained much more from living the Chinese cultural food experience for days at a time than having a familiar meal.

The most memorable, official "learning" experience we had during our time in Shanghai was a visit to a major factory for Kohl's.  I think the most interesting and eye-opening part of the visit was how nice the factory actually was.  The entire facility was clean, people were well dressed and smiling, workers were socializing, and the equipment all seemed easy to use and fairly new.  I'm sure that there are plenty of factories in China that aren't nearly as nice as the one we visited, but I was so glad to see what kind of a place Kohl's and Li & Fung align themselves with.  As a future Kohl's employee - in the Marketing Strategy Department - it made me proud to see Kohl's was not only ethical state-side, but in their overseas operations as well.  It was impressive the see the number of individual clothing items (one SKU) that were made at a time.  There were many SO brand pink shorts being manufactured at the time we were touring, and I can't even estimate how many individual pairs I saw - thousands.  It was a strange feeling seeing a brand - SO - that I had worked on in Milwaukee during my internship at Kohl's filling racks in the finishing stations of a factory in small town China.