Building partnerships in china – Week 7

It has been a while since we have posted a blog (sorry about that), but BOY do we have some exciting news for you!

We are now in week 7 of the minor program building partnerships in China and we have been very busy. We can proudly announce that both Putri and I can speak and read a little bit of Chinese and that we both have successfully passed the first Chinese language test! We have also done a lot of research about some of China’s history which we had to do for the course Geography, History & Politics. Now why is this important?

Well, as you may have already guessed, China is a completely different culture than here in western Europe. This cultural differences are based on the geography, history and politics. What we as western people might think is normal, could be considered very rude to a Chinese person. This means that we have to be very careful about our approach. The Chinese/German artist Yang Liu has illustrated a series of stereotypes based on the different cultures which gives us a clear view on how different the Western culture is from the Chinese culture. For instance ‘’The boss’’ (Yang Liu, 2007). Image 1 shows the Western culture in blue and the Chinese culture in red. This is an excellent example of the huge differences are and shows us to show a certain level of respect to the boss of a supplying company.

Speaking about suppliers, we have 7 confirmed meetings. These meetings include current suppliers, a lawyer, an ocean freight transporter, possible new suppliers and last but definitely not least, we will go to the 2019 Men’s pro tour in Shanghai on May 18, 2019 (VPS, 2019). By going to this event we expect to experience an awesome event, meet local skaters and the local skating community.

For the next weeks we will be busy learning for upcoming tests and we will continue setting up new meetings. Hopefully we will find the next big thing in electric mobility.

That’s it for now, we hope to soon inform you about our mission again!

Kind regards,

Putri and Evert.

Resources:

Yang Liu (2007). The boss [Image]. Accessed on March 19, 2019, from http://bsix12.com/east-meets-west/  

Vans Park Series (januari 23, 2019). Vans Park Series Announces 2019 Pro Tour Season. http://www.vansparkseries.com/posts/9295/vans-park-series-announces-2019-pro-tour-season