New Office for Interns

As part of The ODM Group expansion strategy, we have recently acquired an office in my home city of Zhuhai. It is a very beautiful place, to my right I can see some beautiful forestry:

Interns in Asias Office View!

And straight ahead of me I can see a breathtaking view of the sea and Gongbei's skyline:

Intern in Asia coastal view!

I think you are hard pushed to find an office that has views like this!!!

Hong Kong Identity Card

I just went to Immigration Tower in Hong Kong to apply for a Hong Kong Identity Card (like the picture below). Before applying, making an appointment either online or phone is recommended. This prevents long queues at the reception. Surprisingly though, there wasn't any queue for the walk-ins just now. The reception officer will verify your appointment and give you a queue number.

Hong Kong Identity card

I waited about 20 minutes before I was called in to submit my application. The officer at the booth verified my details on the form and asked for both my thumbprints. Upon confirmation, she scanned both the application form and the vital details of my passport onto her computer. (Scanner like something below, looks professional doesn't it?) The last step was to take a photo of me, in the booth itself. (Very different from Singapore's procedures, where they allowed photographs to be submitted).Almost every booth on that floor had a camera to facilitate applications for identity cards, which I believe is a security measure. The one in the picture of the identity card is the one who physically applied. They even let you have a few tries for photo-taking and let you take your pick! (Singapore had instant photo-taking booths though.. To ease long queues)

At around 1.30pm, I had to wait again for an interview by immigration officers in their respective booths. During the wait, there were a few internal announcements by the immigration staff and one of it was included my queue number, by extension, me! I initially thought there was something wrong with my application, but look what I've got in the end!

Hong Kong Identity Papers

This was a similar form I got from the immigration officer I've seen! When it was my turn to see him, he requested for both my thumbprints, for verification purposes. (Proves how careful HK Immigration is..)

Overall it took about 1.5 hours, rather fast I must say! I can now bring my HKID instead of my passport along the streets and enjoy faster immigration clearance across HK borders!

For more information, visit the HK Immigration website!

VPNs a must for interns in China!!

When you get to China most websites like Facebook and Youtube will be unavailable for you as it is blocked.

To get around this you can pay around £60 for a years subscription to Astrill (recommended), a VPN (Virtual Private Network) that is pretty much guaranteed to work anywhere, anytime.

An Intern need in China

Or you do not need censored websites so much, you should try Freegate, it does the same job as Astrill except free. Note: it can be temperamental as it battles against being shutdown most days.

A must in China!!

Getting a VPN is especially useful if you are working from your own computer as often websites used for work can be blocked, leading to hours getting stressed at your computer!

Business Cards

Today I received my very own business cards, I did some internships before, however they were not client/factory facing. The process of accepting and receiving business cards in China is a little different to the rest of the world:

1. When presented with a business card, you should always accept it with two hands shaped like you are praying.
2. Secondly you need to thank the person for the card
3. Study the card in a very obvious way- make sure you look at every detail on both sides of the card.
4. NEVER just put a card directly into your wallet. You need to read it as a sign of respect.
5. NEVER write on a business card, you might as well slap the person who gave it to you- there is no difference between the two in China
6. Once you have studied the card carefully put it into your wallet and present yours to the businessperson
7. They will now follow these previous steps

The ODM Groups Business Card

And that is everything you need to know on business cards in China- Good luck!

Typhoon Nesat delays shipping and interns!

Last week I tried to get a ferry from Zhuhai to Hong Kong, unfortunately it was in the mist of typhoon season, a very tricky journey. After arriving at the ferry port it took me around half an hour to realize that they were not running due to the level 8 typhoon warning in Hong Kong. So instead I decided to get a bus to Shenzhen and go to Hong Kong by land.

It did make the trip a lot longer, but I did get to see some very interesting places. As we pulled out of the ferry port we drove along the coastal road, and outside it literally looked like something out of a disaster movie:

Hong Kong was pretty much closed down once we finally got there- always be careful of traveling in China when there is a typhoon warning as public transport is often delayed and full.

China- A Country Running at a Thousand Miles an Hour

I have now been in China for a month, and feel that it is time to do a kind of review on the Chinese lifestyle etc. There is one main point to this- explaining the speed of China.

GDP Growth has grown year on year at an average at 10.5%, this can be seen through the whole culture in China, primarily through the language. Unlike us English speakers, there is no messing around with the Chinese language, everything is direct, everything is logical. There is no room for ‘likes’ or ‘maybes’- or either are or you are not.

Secondly the speed can be seen through production- when I first got my place in China there was a petrol station being built- at that time it barely had the roof on, and my friend said that production was started 2 weeks before. Today when I walked past it, it is almost finished with only final finishing touches to be done. If we were in England that would takes months of planning. When you look around Zhuhai you realize this- that 25 years ago there was nothing- and now look at it:

Zhuhai- Pearl of the Ocean

Finally this can be seen through the eating habits- some people may think that the Chinese people have bad eating habits- I do not believe this- it is just another illustration of the extreme time efficiency in China.

National Day (Golden Week)

This year the Chinese National Day holiday was on the 1st October until the 7th October. This holiday can be confusing to foreigners as the holiday is one day- National Day, however most of China has holiday until Friday the 7th.

The holiday itself is only 3 days long, but the government decided that it would be better to have the full week off than 3 days. This means that everyone goes back to work on Saturday the 8th and works the weekend.

The holiday used to be about speeches and military demonstrations, but after the Chinese economy expanded, it is now used for people to go see their relatives.

National Day exercises

Note that in holiday week travel is near on impossible. Every bus that you see will be packed to its brim and there are virtually no taxis. I had to walk for around 40 minutes until I found an unlicensed taxi, and they charged me around 5 times the usual amount and we got lost 5 times. This was going 3 miles up the road.