The Royal Danish Embassy

 Friday the 16th of March.

            Today we went to The Danish Embassy in China, which is situated in a beautiful and exciting part of Beijing. We arrived at the embassy at 10 o’clock in the morning where we were introduced to some kind trainees from Denmark. At the embassy we were going to have an interesting lecture presented by the trainees. The lecture was about China and contained themes as; culture, politics and economics. Afterwards we went to one of the only places in Beijing where you can order different kinds of traditional Danish food. The reason why we chose this restaurant for our lunch was because of the fact that it was located nearby The Danish Embassy and because a major part of the class was missing traditional Danish food.

Today, it is our last day in Beijing and therefore we are going to celebrate our very successful trip to China, which has contained a lot of great experiences and impressions.

Will be continued… 

Novo Nordisk - 15th of March

The day started early, we had to be up and ready to go by 07.10 am. We got picked up by our bus and drove for 3 hours to get to our destination, Novo Nordisk Company in Tianchi. At Novo Nordisk there was a Chinese man and a Danish man, Lars Andersen CEO, who told us about what Novo Nordisk was and their production of insulin and other products. The presentation lasted for about 2 hours and afterwards we had lunch in their canteen, where we could get some western food, which was nice for a change. After lunch we drove for 1 hour and took the fast train from Chinchin to South Beijing. From there we could do whatever we wanted. Some went out for shopping and other took the metro home to relax and get ready for tonight’s plans. We’re going to a real Chinese restaurant where we are having peking duck with round table. Afterwards we will probably stop by our usual bar, Helen’s, where we can get a taste of the local beer.

Wednesday the 14th of March

We met in the reception at 9-o-clock, and went to the bus, with our guide Herbie and took the bus to the three temples we were going to visit. The first temple was The Dalai Lama Temple, which is a Buddhist temple close to Beijing. At the temple we saw the bell tower and the drum tower. At the drum tower there where a big bowl, which we were told was to cook food in, once a year at the 24th of December. It is the priest who cooks the food, and when he and the highest ranked monk have finished eating, the gates to the temple will be opened for the public of Beijing, and everyone can get in and have a pot of soup. Today the Chinese people use the pot to throw coins in, and make a wish. We then entered the three temples, and in the last one we found an 18 meter high statue of Buddha (wooow, omg!), that was curt out of one piece of wood. After that we went to The Confucius Temple, where we saw an old empire school, where only the best students was allowed to study. The best student were allowed to marry the royal daughter.

After that we went to see the Confucius temple, just 30 minutes away. When we got there, we first saw an old royal school for the best students at that time, on the other side of the street was the temple. Inside the temple we saw a lot of beautiful statues, one of them was a statue of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, he was the founder of the Confucianism which means a lot for the Chinese.

The last temple we saw, was the Temple of heaven, it was very beautiful and it was 3 times bigger than the forbidden city. After that we finished the day at the pearl marked and went home to the hotel after that.

Tuesday the 13th of March

Tuesday 13th.

Today we visited the Danish window manufacture Velux’s Chinese department. We were picket up early 7.40 by the bus, and afterwards the trip went to Lang Fang one hour from Beijing. We were going to get two lectures by Christian Topp Olse (CEO) and Jan Engberg Sørensen (Production manager) where they were going to tell us about how a company works in China compared to other countries. It was very exiting to hear about the challenges that followed in the establishment of a company in an unfamiliar society. The class was divided in to two, and the first part started out with Christian Topp Olsen and the second part was shown the production department by Jan Engberg Sørensen. The two groups switched lecturer after an hour, and that was followed by a lovely lunch that contained traditional Chinese food in the cafeteria with the employees. The day ended at two a clock, where we were driven home by the bus.

Sunday the 11th of March

Sunday was our third day in Beijing. We went up early, ate breakfast and took by bus to the Great Wall - a place we had been looking forward to visit. When we arrived two hours later, the weather was perfect for a walk on the Wall. after about 1 hour with a beautifull sight across the mountains we had to move ón, and go back to the bus. Half of the class decided to get down by a slide while the rest walked.
Back in the bus our next stop was the olympic City where OL took place in 2008. The City was very modern and clean - very different from our hotel in the Hotong area.
At 5 o'clock we went home, and after a day together the class splitted up. Some decided to go visit a shopping place called Wangfujing, others went to a restaurant with chinese food. Later the class met at our usual café "Helen's" where we drank some beers, and had a great time together. To some up a really great day with a lot of new experiences showing different sides of Beijing.

Saturday the 10th of March

The second day took its terrific start with breakfast at a small restaurant just across the street. We were promptly introduced to our guide Herbie, who had an astounding and hilarious habit of calling our group "Herpies". After a short bus trip we arrived once more at the Tiananmen Square, which was once more a sight of magnificent beauty to behold. After hearing about the symbolic meaning of the numbers 5 and 9 in Chinese culture from Herbie, we walked through the Square and arrived at the Forbidden City. Herbie had earlier explained that the city possessed 9999.5 rooms, because 9 is the "biggest" number and because only the god of the heavens was allowed 10.000 rooms (the emperor was the son of this god and was thus allowed to approach this number). While the many tales that have been told marred the sheer magnificence of the city, it was still breathtaking. After a walk and a half, and a minor case a, we arrived at the end, and although an opportunity to peer into the wardrobe of an emperor presented itself, few took it. We exited the now tourist attraction and walked a short while to a bus that was waiting for us (the same bus that took us to Tiananmen Square earlier), which was a relief after the harshness of yesterday’s grueling walk. We arrived at the lunch place Herbie had prepared for us. We witnessed a peculiar phenomenon in Chinese cuisine - a table with a round plate of glass that can spin independent of the table. A nice meal of authentic Chinese food, with a very nice serving of sweet and sour deep-fried fish, later, we were ready to depart to the dragon empress’s summer palace - another place of almost mythological fame. At the dragon empress’s (Dowager Cixi was her name) summer palace, where she resided for a great part in her life, we saw the various attractions. There were numerous Buddhist shrines used for praying etc. and the world’s longest corridor, which actually is registered in the Guinness World Records. The place was very traditional and was home to a number of seemingly odd traditions. An example is the need for women to step through the gates or door-openings with their right leg first and the opposite for men. Herbie explained all the various traditions in detail to us. To conclude it was a great day with a lot exciting new things and experiences.

Friday the 9th of March

Our journey to China

On March the 8. our whole class – 2.e - packed our bags and heated off to China. We all met up at Copenhagen airport where we were flying from to Beijing. From Copenhagen we had to fly to Helsinki – Finland, where we had to transfer to our final destination – Beijing. The trip went smoothly without any complications. We landed in Beijing at 8 am – Chinese time – which is 7 hours ahead off Denmark. Almost every one of us could not sleep on the flight because of the time difference. This meant that we all were very tired when we arrived. We were dropped off a bit from our hotel because the bus could not drive us all the way because of the very narrow allies. At first our hotel looked like a rundown courtyard. But when we came inside we were pleasantly surprised! After we all had unpacked we met up back with Jackie and Morten. From the hotel we went by foot to Tiamens Square where we went on further to the park Morten and Jackie wanted to show us. In the middle of the park was a big temple that was raised in honour of Dahli Lama’s first visit to China in the 1900’th century. At the end of the day we all met up back together to go find a place to eat. Eating together as a class was the perfect end to a very long day and an even better way to start our China adventure together!

Monday the 12th of March

Monday the 12th of March

We have been to Beijing Middle School 2 today. Beijing Middle School 2 is a large school in the center of Beijing situated in a Hutong-area close to the modern center of Beijing. We met our Chinese partner students, of whom we have emailed with. We arrived at the school about 9 o’clock, and followed the lessons with our Chinese students until lunch. We had lessons with the entire Danish class after lunch, and we learned about calligraphy and fine Chinese arts – and even got to try it ourselves.

Afterwards we parted ways. Some of us went to a market where we got a good experience of how to really bargain.

PS: See if you can spot Andreas Rekling among his fellow countrymen

Programmet for turen

Programmet for 2e's studietur til Beijing - senest opdaterede version

	FORMIDDAG	EFTERMIDDAG	AFTEN
Torsdag 08/03/2012	Afrejse København-Beijing. Vi mødes i Terminal 2 i Kastrup Lufthavn kl. 10.45.	København – Helsinki: Finnair AY666. Afgang kl. 13.15. Ankomst 15.50 (Rejsetid 1t35m. Mad og drikke kan tilkøbes)	Helsinki – Beijing: Finnair AY51. Afgang kl. 18.00. (Rejsetid 7t55m. Morgenmad og middag inkl.)
Fredag 09/03/2012	Ankomst kl. 07.55. Bus transfer fra lufthavn til hotellet. Indkvartering: Far East Hotel 113 Tie Shu Jie Xuan Wu 100050 Beijing	Gåtur i Beijing centrum: Fra vores Hutong-område via den Himmelske Fredsplads til Bei Hai Park	Fællesmiddag
Lørdag 10/03/2012	Mødes kl. 08.15 i receptionen Afgang 8.30 med vores engelsktalende guide, Herbie, + chauffør. Den Himmelske Fredsplads og Den Forbudte By	Frokost (er betalt)og tur til Det Kejserlige Sommerpalads	FRI
Søndag 11/03/2012	Mødes kl. 08.15 i receptionen Afgang 8.30 med vores guide Herbie. Den kinesiske mur - Mutianyu	Frokost (er betalt) og stop ved Det olympiske Stadion – ”Fuglereden”	FRI
Mandag 12/03/2012	Mødes kl. 07.30 i receptionen Skolebesøg - Beijing Middle School no.2	Skolebesøg: Beijing Middle School no. 2, 15 Neiwubu Street, Dongcheng District	FRI
Tirsdag 13/03/2012	Mødes kl. 07.40 i receptionen Besøg på Velux, Langfang. Vi bliver hentet på hotellet 07.45. Rundvisning i produktion samt oplæg om markedsoverblik.	Frokost (er inklusiv) i forbindelse med besøget på Velux kl. 12.15. Afgang med bus kl. 13, hjemme på hotellet ca. kl. 14.30.	Fællesmiddag – Peking and.
Onsdag 14/03/2012	Mødes kl. 08.45 i receptionen Afgang kl. 9 sammen med Herbie. Besøg ved Himlens Tempel.	Frokost (er betalt) og besøg ved  Lama Tempel og Confucius Tempel.	FRI
Torsdag 15/03/2012	Mødes  kl. 07.10 i receptionen Privat bus til Tianjin hvor vi besøger Novo Nordisk: 10:30- 11:25: Rundvisning i produktions-afdelingen. 11.30 -12:15: Oplæg ved og samtale med Project Vice President Lars Arnoldsen.	12:15- 13:00 Frokost i kantinen. 13.15: Bus retur til Beijing, hjemme på hotellet ca. kl. 16	Fællesmiddag
Fredag 16/03/2012	Mødes kl. 08.45 i receptionen 10:00-12:00 Besøg på Danmarks Ambassade i Beijing. San Li Tun, 1 Dong Wu Jie 100600 Beijing, Kina	FRI	FRI
Lørdag 17/03/2012	Hjemrejse Beijing-København. Vi mødes i receptionen kl. 07.30 hvor vi afhentes af vores bustransfer til lufthavnen. Beijing – Helsinki: Finnair AY52. Afgang kl. 11.35. (Rejsetid 8t50m. Frokost og snack inkl.)	Ankomst Helsinki kl. 14.25 Helsinki-København: Finnair AY 663. Afgang kl. 17.00. (Rejsetid 1t35m. Mad og drikke kan tilkøbes)	Ankomst København: Kl. 17.35.

Mod øst!

Så oprinder dagen hvor 2e (samf-erhverv-studieretningen) drager mod øst til Riget i midten! Turen går med Finnair fra København kl. 13.15 via Helsinki til Beijing, hvor vi lander kl. 07.55 fredag morgen lokal tid - dvs. kl. 00.55 natten til fredag dansk tid - måske en smule groggy?

Under overskriften Globalisering og kulturmøde har studieturen fokus på at søge svar på følgende problemstillinger: 

– Hvorfor er danske virksomheder tilstede i Kina – hvilke muligheder og udfordringer oplever de? Og hvilken betydning har/får Kina for Danmark og danske virksomheder?

– Hvordan påvirker globaliseringen og den vestlige kultur det kinesiske samfund? Og hvilke kulturforskelle er der tale om, og hvor væsentlige er de? (Ungdomskultur og syn på uddannelse, opfattelsen af Menneskerettigheder, politiske styreformer, familiemønstre, kønsroller, religion, byudvikling )

– Hvilke perspektiver giver Kinas økonomiske vækst for den globale magtbalance (USA-Kina-EU) - og hvordan ser kineserne selv Kinas rolle i verden?

Eleverne vil løbende blogge om deres oplevelser og iagttagelser i forbindelse med studieturen - såvel de faglige som de mere personlige. Kommentarer og spørgsmål er meget velkomne!

Velkommen til 2e's blog i forbindelse med studieturen til Beijing i marts 2012.