Day 5 in China (John Whiting)

Today was an extremely jam-packed day!  We started off at the Li & Fung offices again to hear Deborah Vinson and Bruce Bergstrom speak to us.  Deborah talked about their merchandising training program where they took current employees and would train them to become merchants.  Bruce spoke about Li & Fung and corporate sustainability.  This was an interesting speech because Li & Fung does not actually own any factories.  They need to work with their corporate customers and factories to ensure that each factory follows the guidelines of not only Li & Fung, but each of the customers whose products are made at the factories. 

We then were on our way to Shenzhen.  It seemed like a completely different world compared to Hong Kong.  There was a lot less English, people drove on the same side of the road that we are use to in America, and there appeared to be guards almost everywhere.  Our lunch buffet was a little more American, but it was delicious.  After lunch we went to the Li & Fung offices where we heard from Kohl’s product design that talked about technical design and some of the brands at Kohl’s.

To see what retail was like in China we stopped at a store called Carrefour.  This was my first experience at this store and it is sort of a mix between Costco and Walmart.  Perhaps the most shocking and cool part of the store was their produce section which had live fish, chicken feet, jellyfish tentacles, and cut up chickens to name a few out in the open which was interesting to look at.  Nearly everyone on the trip bought some kind of snack whether it was blueberry, lime or cucumber flavored Lays or Peanut Butter and Chocolate cream Oreos… MMMMMM!

Obviously these snacks were not enough for hungry college kids so we went to eat at the Peking Garden restaurant back in Hong Kong.  We were all stunned as they took a large ball of dough and twisted it and slapped it against the table to create many strands of noodles.  The course this restaurant was most famous for though was its Beggars Chicken, which is wrapped in leaves and baked in the ground.  It is customary for patrons to crack it open with a hammer for good luck.  It was very juicy and had a unique flavor.