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5/30/2005

I woke up at 6:15 and this was the latest thus far, which was an indication that the effect of jetlag had lessened. When I walked back from the Canteen it started to rain. This morning we were supposed to go and visit Pfizer, for which both Dick and I were “bosses,” however small. The original plan was to take bus to a light rail station then would be picked up by the Pfizer people. But the Thunder storm altered the plan. We took cabs instead of bus. It took us about 2 hours to get there.

Lu Hong, the HR manger received us. She spoke fluent English. She made a brief introduction on Pfizer in the general and Pfizer China. This is mainly a production facility. The headquarters provide them with compounds and formula. They would get necessary material internally within Pfizer worldwide. They produce drugs and store them in a warehouse. The entire process goes through a tight QC before sending the drugs to all markets but the US. During a Q&A session thereafter, among other questions, I proposed an IT related one. How did you sync the IT operations given that your operations were so geographically diverse? It was too technical for a HR manger to answer this question, obviously.

The SU students wanted to go Pizza Hut for lunch. They finally caved in. My prediction was that sooner or later they would want to have western food although they fervently insisted that they want to eat Chinese food all the way. I was amazed that it took nearly a week for my prediction to come true..

There was a volleyball tournament in town. The first game was between Team China and Team Japan. Given the tension between the two countries, the tickets were hard to come by. Some resourceful girls in the class managed to get the last 12 tickets remaining. Cindy couldn’t go to the game and she asked me if I wanted her ticket. I was really delighted to have such an opportunity. I played volleyball for my university and for fun for long time in the US. I had been always a volleyball fun. I was rather impressed by the gold performance of the Chinese women’s team in the Olympics in 2004 and felt in love with Feng Kun, the setter. She always had smile on her face no matter how tight the game was. It would be rather a rare treat to go to a game in person.

After having dinner with some girls, I rushed back to my room to make a phone call to rearrange a 7:30pm appointment. After flossing my teeth, I went out of the building to meet up with the girls who were already there. We walked over to the bus stop and headed to Dalian University of Technology (DUT). In front of the gym the girls wanted to buy cheer leading supplies including Chinese national flags but did not want to pay the full price. They hustled the vendor to agree to reduce the price to a level I was not sure if the vendor would make any money out of this deal.

The game was exciting but China dominated. The Japanese put up a good fight but their efforts came out short. China won 3-1 convincingly. After the game, I was separated from the group. I was walking to the bus stop by my own before three girls from the group showed up. We got to the stop but Bus stopped running. It was hard to catch a cab because not too many came this way. After a few attempts, we finally managed to get one and came back.
Some of SU students wanted to go to a Karaok bar. I debated and decided to stay in and go to bed early. I watched some tango dancing on a DVD I brought with me before I became too tired. I turned off the lights and passed out instantly.

posted by Unknown @ 6:06 PM