This is Bill Ward, RAMA Collegiate Chair and Assistant Professor of Marketing for Alfred University, New
York, reporting from Wuhan, China. I am at a "Computer Bar" near the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan (CUG) where I am teaching International Marketing to Chinese students this week.
The Bar has over 200 terminals with Internet access, digital video cameras and headphones with built in microphones. Most of the students are playing multi-player video games. There is an ad for Gatorade and the NBA on the wall above my terminal. Basketball and the NBA is very popular in China, especially with students. All of my students know the Chinese NBA star Yao Ming. The students are very enthusiastic to learn about other cultures and international marketing.
Like students in the U.S., most Chinese students have never traveled abroad, so most of their understanding comes from Hollywood Films, what they see in the media and cliches that they learn from others. One of my colleagues is working on a research paper comparing global awareness of Chinese students vs. U.S. students. Although the paper has not been published yet, the findings show that both Chinese and U.S. students are equal in their poor awareness and understanding of other cultures and international issues so both countries have a long way to go in global education.
It is very difficult financially and politically (VISA permission issues) for Chinese students to travel abroad but they are very interested in seeing the U.S. and the rest of the world but it is not likely that most will get an opportunity. The Chinese students would like to travel to the U.S. but are also concerned that the U.S. is not as safe as China with all of the guns, violence (Virgina Tech and other school shootings) and racism that they see in the U.S. on the Internet and television.
All of the students have mobile phones, use the computers regularly and are also interested in music, fashion and film from the West. The students do not have cars as they are too expensive and the traffic, congestion and pollution in some of the major cities (Like in Los Angeles) is a major problem. The group I was traveling with from the U.S., France and Canada were eating lunch in Beijing and drinking Tsing Tao, a Chinese brand beer, and we noticed the Chinese at the other table were drinking Budweiser with their meal.
We have been experiencing the rich Chinese history, culture and heritage and they are experiencing more Western style culture and brands as privitization and a more market economy is opening China to the rest of the world. We also attended the Sixth Annual Wuhan International Conference on E-Commerce over the weekend. Scholars from eight countries and China presented research papers on management information systems and using the internet for e-commerce and global marketing.
Keynote speakers from Hong Kong, Germany and the U.S. presented cutting edge presentations on the future of professional supported open-source coding, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for inventory management and the different decision making styles of managers in the U.S., Japan and China. A scholarly research presentation can be challenging even for English speaking scholars, but overall I was impressed with the Chinese scholars presenting in English.
About 15% of Chinese attend University compared to 27% in the U.S. but due to their much larger population more total Chinese are speaking English and getting college educations than in the U.S. Their hard working ethic, including long hours and weekends, will make them a more formidable and productive force in the future.
A presentation from a professor who placed Chinese students in an internship with an accounting firm in New York City reported that their supervisors would give the students work that they thought would take two days and the Chinese students finished it in two hours. The company asked them to not work in the evenings and on the weekends but the Chinese students did anyway, with their desire to do their best for their employer, learn as much as possible and succeed.
I will be teaching the rest of the week and will also be visiting the Wuhan mfg. plant of the French Auto Company, Peugot-Citroen.' Wuhan an important gateway city to China for France and you see many French brand automobiles in Wuhan and China.
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