Day 4 - Guangzhou leather wholesale market

This was the first real eye-opener of many of us in the trip.

Many of us came into the place with the mentality that we are there to shop, much to our surprise, and disgust in some cases, that it is not to be.

We were seperated into groups where there is at least a guy amongst the guys for safety reasons.

Most of us came back to the assembly area empty handed, as well as disappointed.

Many of the vendors there simply aren't interested in doing 'business' with us simply because they know we are not there to do business, but to shop.

In other cases, because we were all dressed in our blazers, some of the vendors were rather intimidated by our presence as we were travelling around in big groups of at least 7 people per group.

3 major incidents that took place in that place were:

1. When Edward and I were in one stall, the moment we went in and picked up a wallet to see, the staff hauled us out of their store and close their doors, and switched off the lights and drew the curtains.

It was only when we walked around the bend when we realised why, there were police patrolling in the area, and that stall, along with at least a dozen others, had something to hide. We could only think its bootleg goods.

2. A couple of us walked across the street and there was a stall we managed to strike a deal whereby we buy at few belts at a predetermined agreed upon price. But when the girls picked out their belts and were ready to pay, the stall owner hiked up the price. We got upset and walked away, with the lady hurling vulgarities at us.

3. Just before we left, Tiffany and a group of girls were ready to buy a few wallets (or was it bags?) at a stall in the complex, after they agreed on a price, Tiffany went aside to collect the money from those who wanted to buy while the vendor went to another outlet to get the bags. It was then when someone heard that vendor telling other vendors while smiling, "今晚请你们吃饭!" It was then they realised that the vendors were trying to make a quick buck out of us, they quickly left the compound before the vendor returned.

Day 4 - Lunch-in with Mr. Nee

Mr. Nee is the Regional Director of IE Singapore's branch office in the South China region.

During the session, he gave us an overview of the role of IE Singapore in international trade as well as the history and purpose of the entire organisation.

IE Singapore has 500 staff in 37 offices across the world. 7 of which are in China, with one office in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Maccu, with substations in Qingdao and Dalian.

We also learnt that Guang Zhou accounts for 1/4 of China's foreign investment, and 1/3 of the country's foreign trade.

The biggest lesson we all walked away from the session was, as what Mr. Nee told us, that we can have all the money in the world, but if we don't have the brains or the motivation to work and make things work, we'll never succeed.

And he also told us to bear in mind that we should always retain our values as who we are as a Singaporean and as a person.

His advice for Singaporeans thinking of investing overseas? "Don't lose your values, principles and sense of integrity.

Day 4 - 72 Stones Memorial and Wu Yang Park

We visited two local tourist attractions today, the 72 Stones Memorial and Wu Yang Park. Nothing much, we just took a couple of photos at these places.

Xiao Deng said that the 72 stones memorial was called as such because it is the tomb of the 72 Martyrs during the Chinese Revolutionary War.

It was also in this place that I started to feel that things were out of place. Just that I couldn't quite place my finger on it. The problem comes in when people read too much into things. I'd like to think that I don't have to constantly look at my back, worrying about when and where something will stab me in the dark or what have you.

From left top: Dickson, Yong Wei, Keiza, Wen Song, Sherly, Pei Xuan and myself, the one below is Ying Hui. This was the beginning of the coming uncomfortable 8 remaining days. And it is still kinda hard to let all these past me by...


Wu Yang Park was the place where all of us took our first group photos with our cameras, starting with the guys:

Top (Left to Right): Guan Hong, Nicholas, Wen Song, Yong Wei and Benson
Center (Left to Right): Dickson, Ying Hui, George, myself and Edward.
Bottom row: Zhi Wen

The girls took the photos for us, and Benson always seem to always have the most interesting of poses. The guys next helped the girls with their group photo;


Top (left to right): Winnie, Tze Kee, Denise, Vanessa, Evelyn, Keiza, Sherly, Pei Xuan, Wei Xuan and Joyce
Bottom (left to right): Yiling, Elizabeth, Baoyi, Stephaine, Andrea, Rong Xing, Tiffany, Carol, Mingli, Jasmine, Christine, Xin ni and Glenda

Hmmm, and where are the tutors all these while?


And what is Mr. Kam looking at?

I have no idea where were Ms. Ng (Ah-Bu) or Mr. Wong though.

Most people boarded the bus rather quickly, I was one of the last to board the bus because I was waiting for Rong Xing and Elizabeth (as usual... Haha). They were buying some snacks or something, and admist the rush, they brought the wrong one.

And Rong Xing, being herself, even tried bargining at the packet of snack she brought... and she failed to cut it to a lower price. Haha.

We next proceeded to our only lunch-in of the trip, we were supposed to have 2 or 3 of such functions.

Day 4 - Zhu Jiang Brewery Group Ltd

Our first visit of the day was to the Zhu Jiang Brewery.

Established in 1985, Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery Group Ltd is a large state-owned enterprise which is deals mainly in beer and its relative products such as label, carton, crate, etc. It is now a RMB$5 million per year production. It currently has 9 production lines in all of Mainland China.

Much of the production line is automated, as such, not many staff needs to be in the production line. This is evident as Zhu Jiang Brewery currently only has 2,800 workers spread across its 9 production plants.

Production begins with the milling of the four main ingredients used for the brewing are:

Hop (啤酒花),

Malt (麦芽),

Barley (大麦) and,
Rice (大米),
This machine that fills up the beer bottles with beer can fill up to 48,000 freaking bottles of beer per hour, which will make up to approximately 350,000 bottles of beer per day. That's like 13 bottles per second!

At the end of the tour, we were reach given a complimentary beer, which didn't (naturally) taste as good as Carlsberg or the beer we usually drink in Singapore (though Tiger sucks as well).