Marc's Business Trip to China

I had a major milestone this week when I took my first trip to China (Shanghai). From a professional point of view, the opportunity to learn and work ‘on the ground’ (versus the Wall Street Journal) and to help Dell crack the Chinese market by spending time with our teams is one of the most important things I want to get out of the next couple of years. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about going on a business trip since perhaps my first trip fresh out of college to Chicago when I worked for Bain & Co (someone besides my parents paid for me to get on a plane and travel!>!>!)

I SAW VERY FEW SIGNS OF COMMUNISM IN CHINA – they are hopping with the latest cars, cell phones and capitalist aggression that you’d see in a New York stock pit. If India (Bangalore, Dehli, Mumbai, Hyderabad) is a Motel 6, then Shanghai is the Ritz. When you get out onto the street, there are the vendors selling knock offs like you might hear about (I bought some $4 Tiffany cuff links and some $1 toys for the kids – no, Jane doesn’t need more purses – my mom takes care of that in San Antonio). You can buy CDs, DVDs, etc all for ~$2 and all the cigarettes and Olympics items you’d ever need.


The city is massive – the tallest buildings in the world for miles and miles (30M people live there). It isn’t like there is a downtown, it’s just massive and tall everywhere, but not in a depressing way like I expected (“Ants Marching” as Dave Matthews might say), just a Chicago type downtown for as far as you can image. One afternoon I walked home from the Dell office to the hotel with Rudy (a colleague in Singapore from Indonesia) and Gavin (a Shanghai employee who is originally from California but has decided to move back to his parent’s native land). You can see them on this video in he beginning on the sidewalk.

Another fun part that I took some picture of was the stop in Hong Kong. Jane and I flew though HK when we came over, but it was always at odd times. Flying onto to the island during the day was a beautiful sight as the airport is surrounded by mountains. The airport itself has incredible shopping and the business lounge has an incredible restaurant and supply of beer.

Overall a great trip and I hope to go back soon if work requires it.