Wal-Mart China, dinner cruise and Jinmao Tower

First, we went to an area park and learned Tai Chi, from a kung fu master. It was a 45 minute lesson. Don’t know how I got stuck in the front row. Involved slowing moving your hands together, turning from side to side and “holding the imaginary ball.” It was very much like following a low intensity (very low) aerobic session. Lots of Chinese gathered around us to watch and I’m sure we were highly amusing.

Then, we had free time in the People’s Square, near the Shanghai Art Museum. Megan, Adam and I walked to Nan Jiang Road, which is the big shopping street near The Bund. Lots of jewelry stores, clothing, knickknacks, street vendors hawking fake luxury products from laminated cards and inviting you to their dodgy warehouses. We didn’t go. It was a street like Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis or Michigan Avenue in Chicago on steroids and many more neon tube signs.

After lunch, we visited Wal-Mart China for an hour. Very fascinating. The first floor was the supermarket. What was very different is that all the meat is exposed in dry ice cases, so that the Chinese can touch all the products. It was funny to see hanging chickens (with heads and feet) on meat hooks on an island display. The produce section was huge and very different from those in the U.S. Saw grapes from the U.S.A. It was strange to see “our” food in the International aisle. Lots of multi-national companies repackage their products for the Chinese market-either in totally new packaging with different sizes/weights, or in sleeves with Chinese words around the original packaging.

There was an elevator/escalator for carts (much like Target in the downtown Minneapolis). Clothing was pretty much the same. Music/video section was pretty cheap. I got a 2 CD pack of Steven Curtis Chapman, Jim Brickman and Coldplay for $5-8 apiece. You paid for that upstairs but had to go downstairs to pay for everything else. All the employees wore red jackets instead of blue like the U.S. The security cameras were everywhere and very obvious vs. our understated black camera globes in the U.S. There were workers everywhere, too, probably because labor is so cheap. I never can find employees at Wal-Mart in the U.S., the few times that I go there. I bought Team Cheerios and Nature Valley peanut butter granola bars. Wal-Mart had a huge rack of bikes outside the store and store buses that go into the city to pick up the local shoppers and bring them to the store. Competition is fierce at the discount department stores, and Lotus and Carrefour also bus shoppers. We ran out of time to visit Lotus Shanghai.

Went back to the hotel and then left for a dinner cruise on the river (near The Bund) wit the Executive MBA’s, who were visiting China. It was a perfect night—quiet, calm, and clear—at the night the waterfront is a marketer’s dream with all the neon lights of company names. There was a boat with ahuge video screen advertising products as well. Had dinner on the boat—it was okay, but not memorable. I was excited about the beef and it was more like beef jerky. They rarely refrigerate any beverages—coke, beer, water, Tang. Great views of the Shanghai skyline from here and it was lots of fun.

Afterward, we walked to the Jinmao Tower, which is the 4th largest building in the world. Cloud 9, the bar on the 86-87th floors was full and we would have had to wait for an hour, so Adam, Katie, Beth and I scrambled to the ticket counter for the 88th floor observation deck before it closed at 9:00pm. It was $500 Yuan ($1). View was spectacular and we got a lot of great photos. We walked to the TV tower, but it was closed. Walked through some street entertainment and an entrepreneur cooking and selling meat on the back of his bicycle. (For obvious reasons, I did not buy.) I often get the front seat of the cab, which is like getting on a Valley Fair ride with a seatbelt. Drivers are crazy but cabs are cheap at ~$3-4 for a 20 minute ride. Called it a night, because church is early tomorrow.