This morning, we had our third Chinese culture talk with Claudia. We discussed Chinese modernization, many aspects of which I had read about before, but some of the talk was a completely new perspective. For example, though I’ve often read about the One-Child Policy, it was really interesting to see Claudia’s perspective on it, as a child who was raised in the time of this policy. I had learned about the infanticide in the country so that families could raise boys, but I had never heard about the “little emperors” phenomenon in the cities with spoiled only children. I also was interested in the college culture here, especially the College Entrance Examination; it seems in the United States that we’re trying to move away from an exam being the deciding factor in getting into a college, while in China not only is the exam the largest factor, it is actually harder than most college classes and exams.
I was also interested in Claudia’s views on the materialism that is prominent in China as a result of modernization and Westernization. Many Chinese want the same standard of living as people in Western countries, though they have much smaller salaries. It was amusing hearing Claudia discuss the desires of Chinese to own expensive, brand-name things like designer purses, while our group has probably spent a fair amount of money buying fake designer bags.
In the afternoon, we visited our second company, Tsinghua Solar. This company produces solar water heaters, using glass tubes to directly transfer heat from solar energy to water. This process is a lot more efficient than using the photovoltaic cells that I usually think of when I imagine solar energy because the solar energy heats the water directly without being converted to electricity. China has the greatest use (by far) of these solar collectors – the photovoltaic cells are more popular in countries like the United States and it’s cheaper for industries to use energy from gas. This company visit was more helpful than the Capital Bio one, but there was still a bit of a language barrier, and most of the visit consisted of a PowerPoint, while I would have liked to see company premises or products for a longer time.
For dinner, Rachael, Jay, and I went to a Korean barbeque right next to the street our hotel is on. It turns out that this style of restaurant involves seeing your meat cooked on a grill in the middle of the table, which was entertaining, although we weren’t sure exactly what to do. I enjoyed eating the Korean side dishes we were given, which used different spices than most of the Chinese dishes we’ve had so far.