Thank you for your interest in my blog and for your comments. I wish you all the best and stay in touch, Martin
Sanjiv Suri, Zátiší Group:
We are rich if we don't need much and poor if we need a lot.
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Let me inform you that I safely arrived home, after spending several days on vacation in Guangxi province (Yangshuo, Xingping and Longji: see pictures and short description in the Gallery). I do not plan to publish 'lessons learned' on this web site but please reach out to me individually if you want to hear more about my experience from Corporate Service Corps mission and stay in China. Thank you for your interest in my blog and for your comments. I wish you all the best and stay in touch, Martin Sanjiv Suri, Zátiší Group:
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Your favorite blogger will take five days of vacation in China. His plan is to go from Shanghai to Guilin and get lost in river Li area. He want to climb Moon Hill, visit Yangshuo, old town of Xingping and then move to Longji, in order to admire Dragon Bone and terraced fields. Please follow his blog: if he finds good internet connection, he will share photos with you. Thanks and stay in touch!
#ibmcsc china Symbols are very important in China. Circle, for instance, is symbol for harmony and happiness. For something what is complete. We completed our CSC China 27 circle today, by running the closing ceremony: symbolically, at same place as we had the Kick Off meeting four weeks ago. It was very emotional event and appropriate conclusion of our mission. I accomplished several remaining tasks today: I purchased Puer tea (cake pressed into the shape of circle) and participated in calligraphy lesson (courtesy of Mrs Shen from Beitang Jiu Se). Speaking about symbols, master of calligraphy painted four words for me: Dancing Phoenix Flying Dragon. Phoenix is a symbol for woman, dragon should symbolize man, dance is symbol for beauty, while flying symbolizes success.
Every projects has its end (Pradeep was very clear on that point, during his Project Management workshop!). Tomorrow, we will be 'back to normal' but I am sure that we will stay in contact. Anna, Chrissy, Joana, Karin, Seda, Charlie, Kelly, Nico, Pradeep, Sreekanth and Yaqub ... thank you for enriching my life. I got plenty of new ideas from you, and at the same time I learned a lot about myself. I wish you safe travels and all the best in the future. Thank you again! #ibmcsc china The day was eventful and very busy. We delivered our final reports with tactical and strategic recommendation for Beitang Jiu Se. Our document was appreciated and received with great thanks. Afterwards - and unexpectedly - Mrs Shen shared presentation summarizing Beitang Jiu Se positive experience with IBM CSC volunteers ... with words about respect, humanity and love. Very touching moment ... it was the highest reward we could get and I feel really proud and happy. Afterwards - and again unexpectedly - we received a song from Michael and Crystal (our translators) - also about love. Those are the gifts which you can not buy.
Finally, ABV hosted a dinner for all CSC participants and NGO's. Camera shutters quickly clicked as everybody wanted to have photo with friends, in order to preserve his or her memories. But even without photos, I will never forget this month. Thank you, friends in Wuxi and friends in IBM !!! #ibmcsc china The Chinese have an interesting habit. Every evening at approximately 7 pm, people are dancing with a passion. Of course, not everywhere and not everybody, but I know two places close to our hotel where you can witness it. Another evening activity is sort of aerobic exercise in the streets. Unfortunately, I have not seen anyone practicing Tai Chi yet ... I would say that Tai Chi is morning activity. Let me check and let you know later.
#ibmcsc china Here are the application you should consider when doing business in China:
Search engine (similar to Google): BAIDU Online shopping (similar to Amazon): ALIBABA Professional social networks (similar to LinkedIn): DAIJE and TIANJI Email (similar to Gmail or Hotmail): QQ (aka QZONE) Instant messaging (similar to MSM): QQ, WeChat VOIP telephony (like FaceTime or Skype): QQ and WeChat Social networking (similar to Facebook): RENREN Social networking (similar to Twitter): WEIBO (from Sina and Tencent) Photo sharing (similar to Instagram): NICE (also available in QQ or WeChat) For booking flights, hotels, trains or tours: go to CTRIP.COM (works very well in English and on mobile). For Chinese vocabulary, city guides or maps: visit App Store or Google Play. To access your favorite sites and applications, buy VPN connection before your travel (I use StrongVPN but sometimes it is very slow). Good luck and stay in touch! M. #ibmcsc china We moved into the final week of our stay in Wuxi. Everybody is busy working on deliverables and preparing for final meetings with his/her clients. We will have our Farewell Party on Thursday, and official Project Report meeting on Friday. Yesterday, I sorted photos from last three weeks and prepared folder for my colleagues, in order to preserve our memories. Here is a collage which I made for our final presentation. Rather don't ask how many photos I made in total :-) #ibmcsc china
You can buy & eat dumplings literally on every street in Wuxi. Sorry for my ignorance - I call them generally 'dim sum' - but the correct name should be probably 'jiaozi' dumplings. By the way, similar dumplings are eaten across the whole Asia ('momo' is the name used in Nepal). Jiaozi dumplings may be divided into various types depending on how they are cooked: boiled, steamed or pan fried. Common dumpling meat fillings include pork, mutton, beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp, which are usually mixed with chopped vegetables. Popular vegetable fillings include cabbage, onion, leek, celery and garlic chives. Apparently I fail to achieve my personal target of 500 dim sums eaten during stay in Wuxi but I am trying hard and getting close! Finally something for foodies :-)
#ibmcsc wuxi Suzhou is probably the most interesting place in Jiangsu province (Wuxi is part of Jiangsu). For my Saturday's trip I chose Suzhou instead of Nanjing ... as my guidebook advertised classical gardens, silk and beautiful women! First, let me share my experience with high speed aka bullet train. Impressive! Trip from Wuxi to Suzhou took twelve minutes, so I did not have time enough to enjoy comfort in the 1st class. Don't make me wrong, I did not request 1st class ticket, it just happened this way because of lack of my Chinese. The ticket price was 29 RMB i.e. 2 RMB less than my favorite latte macchiato in Lotus Cafe. By the way, taxi from hotel to the railways station took also twelve minutes and cost 21 RMB (7.6 km). Suzhou is 2500 years old city on the Grand Canal, and is well known because of several classical gardens which are protected by UNESCO. Long story short: I visited two most famous gardens - Humble Administrator's Garden and Lion Grove Garden (photos are posted in the gallery) - I had a great time and enjoyed Suzhou a lot! #ibmcsc china
For all NGOs which we support here in Wuxi, we prepared and delivered a workshop 'Data Management for Social Work'. It was my honor to welcome all participants, show several examples about how our life changed in last years and introduce our agenda which was divided into two halves. Sreekanth educated participants about structured and unstructured data. Charlie facilitated a game about effective data management. It helped Sreekanth to explain (sometimes hidden) value of the data. After the break, Chrissy and Nico engaged participants and orchestrated activity focused on data management challenges. Sreekanth presented how analytics can change data into information needed for making correct business decisions. Finally, Pradeep summarized lessons learned. Participants discovered that they can be much more effective if they implement standardized database management system, as they will grow their services in the near future. Let me thank to Joana who helped me to build my very first presentation in Keynote. I am really excited about possibilities which Keynote provides. See some examples below (and gallery for more photos from the workshop). #ibmcsc china
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