After making the students sit through four hours of my class covering two statistics-centric topics on Thursday, I had to do something to make it up to them (and to maintain their sanity!). So the whole group boarded nine or ten taxis and headed towards the local TGIFriday's for our weekly taste of America. Of course, the whole process took much longer than it should have because these taxi rides always require a good amount of negotiating and gesturing before we can receive a beckoning hand summoning us to board the vehicle. The attached pictures are some action shots from the chaos. A few taxis made some unintended detours (aka, the scenic route), but eventually everyone showed up. The hostesses ushered us into a hastily-prepared party room either for our comfort or to sequester us from the rest of the guests. (It was probably a little of column A and a little of column B there.) With that, we commenced our feast on appetizers, burgers, steaks, and desserts. It was a glorious feast that can only be enjoyed so much if it is consumed as such a welcome change from the endless lazy-susans full of Chinese food. A taste of home once a week is never a bad thing for the road-weary traveler.
Today's class in the morning was a whirlwind introduction to the Manufacturing Planning and Control process. After navigating the manufacturing alphabet soup of S&OP, MPS, MRP, BOM, and RCCP, we broke for lunch. At 2pm we came back together for our last lecture by a member of the Beijing Jiaotong faculty. The topic this time was Human Resource Management in China, and the highlight of the lecture was when the professor showed some clips from the movie "Modern Times." After that, the students got together and planned their activities for their first Friday night spent in Beijing.
Tomorrow the group is headed to some Beijing tourist staples: Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. Stay tuned for some great pictures from the homes and residences of the last Qing Dynasty emperors!
Best,
Professor Drake
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