We had our second Chinese culture lecture today, focusing on Chinese philosophy. Claudia discussed four major schools of thought: Confucianism, Legalism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and showed how many ideas from each are incorporated into the everyday life of most Chinese people, especially in Chinese folk religion. I thought it was interesting that many Chinese people incorporate different parts of each philosophy and religion into their own everyday rituals and practices. This seems a lot different than religious practices in the United States: people who are religious in the US tend to practice one religion only. I also enjoyed hearing about Chinese folk festivals like Spring Festival and delving a little bit more into the world of feng shui, which seems to factor in a lot to Chinese architecture. I really like how much attention to detail and balance feng shui calls for, and I don’t really see this much detail and care in everyday living in the United States.
In the afternoon, we took our first company tour of CapitalBio. Our tour guide was sometimes hard to understand and spoke quietly; this emphasizes the difficulties that may occur when working in international engineering. When working with other international businesses, there will definitely be a similar language barrier, and this trip is helping me learn how to both understand and communicate with others who struggle with English as well as compel me to learn basic parts of other languages of countries I may work with in the future, especially China.
The company building was very symbolic and was designed with feng shui principles, illustrating what we learned this morning about how aspects of Chinese religions are incorporated seamlessly into everyday life. The entrance to the building featured a sculpture with square blocks holding up the round CapitalBio logo, which represented the heavens being held up with the earthly foundation of CapitalBio’s work. Other symbolism included the pond outside, which was shaped like a heart and a liver to reflect organs that some of CapitalBio’s products work with. Like feng shui in everyday houses, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such attention to detail and symbolism in company buildings in the United States.
CapitalBio designs products related to diagnosis of diseases and treatments, including biochips, machines to make biochips, scanners, kits, and other similar technology. Though I don’t understand much of the engineering and science behind their products, I was interested in how they were able to design products to fit many different sizes of labs. For example, we were shown three different microarray scanners – one large one suited for hospital lab research, one medium one for smaller lab use, and a third smaller one for personal use. This shows the company’s versatility in the market. I was also surprised to learn that although other companies throughout the world produce similar products, many companies collaborate on products and have their own niches, so competition between the businesses is not a large focus.
When we were touring the company facilities, our tour guide pointed out the company dormitories, complete with cafeteria and fitness center. These facilities were designed for international workers to have a place to stay, since their families still lived in other countries. This shows a concern for individual workers on a personal level that I wasn’t expecting.
After the company visit, Rachael and I traversed the night market near the U Center by our hotel. This had a somewhat similar atmosphere to the market at Wanfujing Street, though it sold more clothing like the wholesale market. I enjoyed the open-air feel – I felt less pressure to buy clothes here, and it took less time (and less confusion) to go through the entire market.