Back from Shanghai

Stef — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:42:51 +0000

I’m back from the ‘Doing business in China’ MBA classes at Shanghai Tongji University. The classes were very interesting and helped me get a better understanding of this huge country. Food was good and incredibly cheap, while the landscape in Shanghai is simply stunning with huge contradictions. The Chinese cell phone market seems very very promising (as any market there, I guess) with already 800 million users. I think we’ll have to translate relevant parts of the Funambol Forge to Mandarin soon

Of course I couldn’t resist taking the magnetic levitation train to the airport from Shanghai. Here is the video (the train goes only at 300km/h because it was too early. Later fares travel at 457Km/h).

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Post tags: china, funambol, mba, mip, polimi, shanghai, trip

China doesn’t do NATO phonetic alphabet

Stef — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:51:15 +0000

I’m going to Shangai next month for the “Doing Business In” class in my MBA course. It’s going to be my first full immersion in Asia and I’m very happy. I’ll be spending some more days of vacation after the classes at Shangai’s Tongji Business School.

The Chinese consulate wants the confirmation of the hotel booking on official paper of the hotel (the printed email is not enough), so this morning I had to call China. Spelling my name on the phone was my first cultural experience. With “westerners” I end up using the NATO phonetic alphabet, with 100% success rate so far. Unfortunately the lady on the phone, who spoke very good English, didn’t know NATO phonetics (doh! why was this a surprise?) and the Fs were quite difficult for her to grasp. It’s going to be a very fun trip.

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Post tags: china, hotel, mba, reservation, shangai, trips

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Back from Shanghai

China doesn’t do NATO phonetic alphabet