[Note: Read a more chronological account of Day 13 on calpolymbatrip.com]

Still in Suzhou, we would make a short business visit before we boarded the bus and headed back to Shanghai. We had a train to catch in the late afternoon that would take us overnight to Beijing. Another overnight trip that would put us in a new city early in the morning — my disorientation was sure to continue.

In addition to a great deal of culture and history (the gardens as well as a number of temples and other cultural destinations) Suzhou also sports an industrial park that has a curious twist. The park is a special partnership between the provincial government and the government of Singapore and sprawls over 288 square kilometers just outside of the downtown portion of the city. The logistical structure of the park is very innovative, both from a literal transport/logistics standpoint, as well as in terms of the special assistance and benefits businesses can realize by locating in the park (check out the MBA blog entry for more details about the park). We were treated to a rather informative presentation from the park’s director.

I took a lot of photographs outside the headquarters of the industrial park and have some thoughts about what I saw (check out the photo captions below). It was definitely a little surreal standing in the massive courtyard of the park headquarters, watching an insect die, and seeing the rest of the landscape rather barren of activity…

After a quick lunch, we were treated to an important modification in our planned schedule. During our last night in Shanghai, our group connected at the dinner hosted by Alex Smayda with Jason (I regrettably do not remember his last name), an executive with NatureWorks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cargill. I was very interested in the sugar-based plastics the company produced (as opposed to the petroleum-based plastics that we see everywhere) and was very grateful to have had the opportunity to hear Jason’s presentation. We also heard from a representative of UNIC, a plastics extruder and pellet manufacturer that is working with NatureWorks to produce PLA plastics in China. Alex Smayda, through recent developments, sells PLA plastic coat hangers (using UNIC and NatureWorks) to Wal-Mart. …It’s all starting to make sense (I hope!).

The UNIC factory was somewhat toned-down from what I would have expected. It appeared to be more of a warehouse than a factory, though there were several rooms of workers emptying plastic pellets into machines. We experienced similar ventilation complications in one of the rooms, as we had at previous factories, but to a much lesser degree. You could definitely tell that you were breathing plastic fumes of some sort (either particles or fumes from a heating process), but there was far more ventilation than in our previous encounters.

Later that evening, our second overnight travel experience proved to be just as fun as the first. The night train from Shanghai to Beijing really gives you a glimpse about life in China, though I imagine we were traveling with a relatively privileged subset of the population. The cabins throughout the train were quite nice and upscale — my understanding is that the more regularly used trains are bit more uncomfortable (e.g. no cabins, more people, older cars, etc.). Suffice it to say, our two small-quarter, four to a cabin with bunk beds experiences couldn’t have been more different. The first was quirky, dirty, and gave little confidence that we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the canal all night due to technical glitches (we were being towed the entire way, after all), yet probably indicative of how most travel is like for the majority of the Chinese population. The second was upscale, clean, relaxing and very western, but probably enjoyed by only the middle and upper middle class. Both experiences were phenomenal and much appreciated.

TAGS: China | MBA | Cal Poly | Suzhou | Shanghai | Beijing | NatureWorks | Cargill | UNIC

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