Dan Bao

University of South Australia, Australia
Exchange to University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, China

你们好！我是包震旦，我是南澳大利亚大学的硕士生。我是学术研究交换去上海理工大学。

If you can read the introductory paragraph then you’re doing pretty well and are ready for the Endeavour Cheung Kong experience! My personal experience began in 2004 when I was selected to represent Australia for a Chinese Government sponsored programme where over 250 students across the globe gathered in Hong Kong and China to gain a 3-week insight into modern developments. After seeing the vast potential in China and gaining further exposure through multiple conferences in Asia, I started to work towards my vision of furthering my understanding of the Chinese culture, business practices and lifestyle. The Endeavour Cheung Kong Research Fellowship provided the platform to transform my vision into reality. This is a truly an empowering experience, and I share with you my journey.

Having worked in numerous countries in my professional career, I was accustomed to language and cultural differences and the sudden change of environment was relatively easy. Shanghai is a bustling metropolitan city and having visited there previously on numerous occasions, this enabled a smooth transition into my time as an Endeavour Cheung Kong scholar.

My programme duration provided exposure to the warmer months in Shanghai (usually June until August), as I have frequently escaped the winter months of Australia to be welcomed by the summer months of China. However, as the end of the calendar year approached, the seasons changed and it enabled me to be reminded of the cold winter conditions. The weather from December to February is the coldest (typically 5-15°c), but it certainly is no comparison to the waist-high snow that I endured during a previous secondment to Japan (up to minus 15°c!).

Being spoiled with the luxury of close commutes to and from home/work in previous roles, Shanghai was a unique experience in that respect, mainly due to residing in the city centre and the research laboratory being located two and a half hours away by public transport! This resulted in having to wake up at 5.30am and coming home at 10.30pm on most days, but it proved to be a wise strategic decision as client sites, language classes and general facilities were closer to the city centre. I also proved to myself that I was able to wake up on time and catch the bus - this was a personal achievement as I never imaged I could do this, day after day!!!

In my experience, Shanghai was/is and always will be a second home. It certainly helps if you can speak the local Shanghainese dialect, Mandarin and also English. By having a firm grasp of Mandarin, it enables a competitive advantage in social and professional activities, it also certainly helps to overcome the language barrier and adapt to the local environment. Like many people who find themselves in an expat/exchange environment, it is very easy to mix with fluent English speakers only! However to truly appreciate the cultural diversity and change in cultural environment, extra effort is definitely needed to extend oneself. I took this opportunity to lianxi wo de putong hua, in both verbal and written contexts. If you are still wondering what that meant (written in pin-ying without phonetic emphasis, as opposed to being written in simplified Chinese characters), it meant that I practiced my Mandarin – a lot!!

Being a basketball fan for nearly 2 decades, I couldn’t stay away from the game in Shanghai and you will be certain to find ballers’ wherever you go. The sports centres across the city are filled with keen enthusiasts; and the next Yao Ming or Yi Jianlian are waiting to be discovered. If basketball isn’t your cup of tea, there are ample social activities – especially if you are located in the city. For the shoppers, an entire week could be spent (window) shopping for Louis Vuitton in renowned areas of Xu Jia Hui, Nanjing Road, Plaza 66 (and the list can go on and on) …

For the tourists, sightseeing is also plentiful, with key sites of interest being the Pearl Oriental Tower (as featured in the movie Mission Impossible III), Shanghai Aquarium, Pudong new development area, Century Park, local markets and a 1-2 hour train ride away from other cities outside of Shanghai. A stand-out memory is having my father visit from Australia and seeing his wide-eyed smile at dinner on his birthday!

For the food connoisseurs, an entire year could be spent on sampling the large variety of food – from foie gras at a 5-star hotel, through to a Mongolian wrap at a side market. However, caution must be given to those with a weak stomach, including (especially) myself, as I experienced bouts of upset stomach/food poisoning. After spending some time getting acclimatised to the local food, the average person’s stomach will be ready to sample the large variety of cuisine in Shanghai. A great place to visit for fine dining with a great view would be M-On-The-Bund from the renowned Australian restaurateur, Michelle Garnaut. However, I do highly recommend visiting People 7 on Fumin Road, as it’s a unique blend of Chinese-Japanese fusion with an entrance and washroom that will leave your guests completely stumped!!! One of my favourite cuisines is Dim Sum (Yum Cha) and I was fortunate to live across the road from a mouth watering restaurant near Plaza 66 – half price menus in the evenings helped even more! I can’t resist any form of mango dessert, or sweet chilli king prawns in crackling hot plate noodles…

During my time in Shanghai, I contributed to the research of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in the Computer Engineering laboratory. Daily tasks involved supervising postgraduate students, providing advice/consulting with clients and undertaking research. I also saw the unique opportunity to gain exposure to the other development projects within the research centre, and seized the opportunity to be involved in Security consulting and Search Algorithm development. Both projects involved liaising with the clients, the former being the Shanghai Municipal Government and the later being Microsoft Research Asia Shanghai (MRSA). The economic growth and development of Shanghai is enormous and MRSA were in the process of establishing the largest R&D facilities in the hemisphere, overtaking Beijing which is currently the MRSA R&D headquarters. This was certainly an eye opening experience to be involved in large scale follow-the-sun development, consulting and project management.

As a result, the professional experience, networking contacts and industry leading technology insight has lived up to my expectations and I am very satisfied looking back on my accomplishments in such a short time. This has culminated in the co-development of SOA research papers and also providing quantitative data in the development of new algorithms for the Microsoft project. However, Shanghai is such a cosmopolitan city with numerous activities happening, so undertaking research alone was not enough to satisfy my desire and appetite for cross industry exposure.

Volunteering for the Special Olympics was also a unique experience, as Shanghai hosted over 7,000 athletes from 169 countries for the Special Olympic Games. This opportunity allowed further interaction with local Shanghainese, the expat community and to be part of the 40,000 plus volunteers. In addition to the events, I liaised closely with visiting professors from the US who were on secondment to Shanghai. This resulted in opening opportunities and further developing 关系 (guanxi – the art of relationships) and increased my understanding of the business culture within China. It also provided opportunities to understand the perspectives of key members in the Australian-Chinese expat community in Shanghai, mainly being the Australian Consulate General and also the Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce. Leaving ‘home’ and relocating to a foreign country is a significant decision and interviewing others allowed an understanding of their unique perspectives and the reasoning behind the decision making process.

A city that never sleeps has city dwellers who never sleep, and I must have been one of them, as during my spare time I undertook weekend MBA classes. This also provided another avenue of increasing my social and professional network, as I was surprised to be the youngest MBA student in the classes. This experience added fuel to my fire of further education, and also reinforced the importance of guanxi – from my relationships developed from previous conferences, students of top tier MBA schools in the US develop this same type of guanxi. Which now leads me to my next future vision within the finance industry, as a large partition of my close friends are in this industry and I personally have an interest in financial modelling – strange but true. Through a contact at MBA class I was recruited to develop quantitative models for the Shanghai market and provide correlation with the Hong Kong market. This exercise provided the fundamentals of fund management and a practical insight into risk and exposure to Contract for Differences. The knowledge I gained for emerging markets and BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) will be a platform for my next vision …

Stay tuned folks…
Carpe Diem…

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