Not a typical Monday

Combining a busy Monday with 35 jet lagged MBA students was entertaining. Our day began after a great breakfast with a visit to the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE).

The SSE's first impression proves to be a large empty room. As we quickly discovered the SSE is completely electronic not requiring traders to be present on the floor.

As you can see, leave it to creative WFU students to mount the first "take over" attempt of the SSE.

Following another family style meal at lunch and a trip up the Shanghai TV tower for some great unending views we travelled across the city to Lowe's Global Sourcing. It was in this Wilkesboro based company's office we had an interesting exposure to Chinese Culture, but before I can explain that I must take a quick aside.

Monday morning we awoke to the news that the Chinese State Council declared that the People's Republic of China would observe three days of mourning in respect to the lives lost and victims of the earthquake from last week. Now this meant that all Olympic activities were placed on hold, all cultural, and entertainment items were cancelled including television. In addition at 2:28 pm Shanghai time on Monday we would observe three minutes of silence.

At 2:28 our group was sitting in the Lowe's Global Sourcing office and an overwhelming noise of horns, sirens, and whistles arose from the street below. Traffic had stopped, people had stopped walking, and the moment of silence became a moment where everything truly stopped in country of 1.3 billion people. At last count the death toll was 34,073.

Through out the day I can honestly say I witnessed a China undiscovered to me. A place where transition is fast paced and the future is bright. As Scott at Lowe's said this "Experience has revitalized his passion in business."

Tomorrow (Tuesday): -Tyco