lana2017-scstudyabroad

Lana Rose Piwoni Second-year student International Business and Global Supply Chain & Operations Management (GSCOM) Major University of South Carolina Hong Kong, China Academic Year 2017-2018 International Business and Chinese Enterprise - USC Cohort The Chinese University of Hong Kong

[lana2017-scstudyabroad]

Sophomore year struggles

Hello friends, I’m back to talk about my sophomore year classes. I struggled with a few business classes during my freshman year (looking at you, accounting and microeconomics), and sophomore year has of course brought new and harder classes. 

To fulfill both my IBCE and USC business core requirements, I have to take two Chinese courses and three business classes. Thankfully, my amazing advisors at USC know exactly what I need to take and pre-register me at CUHK, so I had a really easy time getting my classes for this semester. 

This semester, I’m taking:

CHIN 2233, Communication in Context II

I think this class is comparable to the 300 level of Chinese at USC, and it’s also the class that comes after the four classes I took this summer. 

CHIN 2243, Business Chinese

In this class, I’ve learned practical Chinese for a business setting, like introducing myself in an interview and making appointments for meetings. 

DSME 2030, Operations Management

I’m majoring in Global Supply Chain and Operations Management (GSCOM), and this is my first exposure to this subject. It’s interesting but kind of difficult, and sitting through a 3 hour lecture on Monday mornings doesn’t make it any easier!

MGNT 1020, Principles of Management

This is another business core class, but my professor makes it funny and also talks about management from a Chinese perspective. One of the most educational parts about studying abroad is hearing foreign professors perceptions of America, as well as learning in a classroom where I’m the minority. 

MKTG 2010, Marketing Management 

Marketing is the one class that all USC and CUHK IBCE sophomores take together. Our professor is very passionate about the subject and the class involves a huge marketing project where we create a hypothetical product and market it to CUHK students. 

All my classes except Chinese are 3 hours long, but only meet once a week, which is very different from what many exchange students, including me, are used to in America.

I like all of my classes, but the Chinese ones keep getting more difficult!

Next semester, I have to take Managerial Accounting, Macroeconomics, and Finance, along with two more Chinese classes. 

In other news, I found out the dates of my finals, and it turns out I have a month off of school in December, so I’m coming back to USC to see some friends before I go home to Florida! It’s really hard to believe that I’ve been here for five months, and in two short months I’ll be back in the States :)

[lana2017-scstudyabroad]

A full month of classes in Hong Kong!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated this blog; one week turned into another week turned into a month, but here I am. 

Here’s how the last month unfolded:

After returning from Inner Mongolia, I packed up all my belongings and dragged them down a gigantic hill to another CUHK dorm called C.W. Chu, where I lived for a week during orientation with the rest of the exchange students who had just arrived from all over the world. It was a long week of living out of a suitcase, advising, and presentations about safety and rules, but I did help some new people find their way around campus, remembering what it felt like to arrive in May and have no idea where I was. 

I moved into my permanent hostel (dorm), International House 3, on September 3rd, and met my two roommates, Pauline from Switzerland, and Akari from Japan. They’re both third year students, and they’re also studying at CUHK for the whole academic year like me. 

On September 4th, classes started. I’ll do a separate post about my classes, but I’m taking three business core classes to fulfill requirements for USC, along with two Chinese classes, one Business based, and the other an intermediate grammar and vocabulary course. Classes at CUHK usually meet once a week for around 2-3 hours, but I don’t mind it because I only have one 9:30am class on Mondays, and no Friday classes!

The rest of September and the beginning of October have been relatively uneventful, just going to classes, hanging out with friends, and doing a bit of exploring. I did spend some time worrying about my mom and house down in South Florida during Hurricane Irma, and I’m thankful there wasn’t nearly as much damage as expected!

I also tutor English a few times a week, and I started volunteering with the Splash Foundation, a foundation started by some HK expats that offers free swim lessons to foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong.

I have a lot of ideas for posts in the future, and I definitely won’t let another month go by! 

Love from Hong Kong!

There are about 500 exchange students this semester! I’m somewhere in there :)

This is a picture I took at the New Asia Reflection Pool on the first day of school, overlooking the Tolo Harbor next to CUHK. 

[lana2017-scstudyabroad]

Inner Mongolia: IBCE Orientation Trip!

(From now on, I will refer to “Hong Kong” as “HK”)

Every IBCE batch (yes, we’re called batches) goes on a trip to somewhere in Mainland China before our sophomore year at CUHk starts to bond with each other and learn about Chinese business. For my batch, Batch 8, we got to go to Inner Mongolia, which is one of China’s five autonomous regions.

The 14 of us from USC and our 20 CUHK counterparts managed to show up at the airport at the crack of dawn on August 20th, and thus commenced our orientation trip. This was actually the first time that everyone got to meet each other, and while I didn’t really know what to expect and I thought it might be awkward, the CUHK students were some of the kindest, well-rounded, and cool people I’ve met in Hong Kong. Together, I think the 34 of us make a great group, with a good mix of personalities and interests. 

One of the best parts of having the CUHK students on the trip though was their knowledge of Mandarin Chinese, because they were able to translate for us throughout the trip. Even though I know enough Mandarin to get by in daily life, we would have been lost without them.

Sunday was all traveling, with a flight from HK to Beijing, Beijing to Hohhot, and then a bus ride through Hohhot to our hotel. I met my roommate for the trip, a Hong Kong local named Ingrid, during our layover in the Beijing airport, and we became pretty good friends during the short six days. 

IBCE essentially has a director and administrators on both the USC and CUHK sides, and our professor from USC, Dr. Hudgens showed up in Hohhot for part of our trip! He actually lived in Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia) for a few years, so it was interesting to hear his perspective on how much the city had changed. We also got to meet the new director of IBCE on the CUHK side, Simon. 

The orientation trips are comprised of 4 or 5 business visits, a team building exercise, and some cultural excursions. During our 6 days in Inner Mongolia, we visited: 

Yili Dairy Company, China’s biggest dairy producer, where we got to see the farms where they raise and milk the cows, and the milk production plant, where we got to try a few of their thousands of products.

The Bank of Inner Mongolia, where we sat through a very formal meeting (all in Chinese) about the bank and how their clientele differs from bigger banks and serves local farmers

Inner Mongolia University, where we learned about the university, which was established for minorities, and got to talk to students and compare university life

A Rare Earth Exhibition Hall, where we learned about the massive amount of mining of rare earth minerals in Inner Mongolia, and how the mining affects the environment

A machinery company, which makes huge equipment to transport coal and other minerals and their byproducts

The last two companies were in Bautou, a neighboring city to Hohhot that’s even bigger. 

We also got some free time on a few days, so I explored both Hohhot and Bautou a bit, practiced some Chinese, and tasted some traditional Mongolian Hot Pot, which is a huge communal bowl of boiling flavored broth that can be used to cook anything from beef to cow stomach to vegetables. On one particular night, some friends and I decided to go to a hot pot where no one in the restaurant spoke English and we ended up with the spread pictured below, including congealed pigs blood, cow stomach, and a few other random animal parts, all because we randomly picked things off of the all Chinese menu. 

In between those two cities, our tour took us to do teambuilding exercises, where we all put on matching camo shirts and face paint and did trust falls and a few other activities, and after, out to the nearby grasslands where we got to stay in a traditional Mongolian Yurt and experience a bit of the nomadic Mongolian Culture. 

Staying in the yurt was hands down my favorite part of the trip, and the grasslands had a beautiful sunset and great stargazing. On the night we stayed in the yurts, there was a bonfire at the yurt camp we were staying at, and all of us from USC were treated like celebrities and asked for pictures all night, because many of the people there had never seen a person who was not Chinese. This also happened on the street in Baotou, and during our cultural excursion to the desert, and it was always unexpected!

Overall, our orientation trip to Inner Mongolia was my favorite part of my IBCE experience this far. Even though we got stuck in a crusty airport hotel in Beijing on our way back because there was a typhoon in HK, spending a week with both old and new friends was am enjoyable way to end the summer and transition into the new school year!

[lana2017-scstudyabroad]

Summer in Hong Kong: A recap

As promised, here is my post recapping my summer in Hong Kong! 

(For any picture captions, I’m going to use italics because tumblr doesn’t have a caption option.)

I arrived on May 25th. three days before I could move into my summer dorm, but my mom’s cousins actually live and work in Hong Kong. I stayed with them and they showed me around during my first few days, which really made Hong Kong feel at home from the beginning. 

My first Saturday here, we went to Lamma Island, right off the coast of Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong “proper” includes three regions (Hong Kong island, Kowloon, and New Territories) and two big islands (Hong Kong Island and Lantau Island), but it’s also surrounded by around 260 smaller outlying islands. Geographically speaking, Hong Kong is an archipelago, which surprises many people who don’t even realize part of it is an island!

Nancy and Robin both live in Hong Kong because of Robin’s job, and they were great hosts for my first few days! 

Lamma Island views

On May 28th, I moved into my summer dorm at Lee Woo Sing College, one of the newer dorms on CUHK’s campus. Unfortunately, it is near the top of the large hill (read: mountain) that CUHK is built on, so I quickly learned how to use the campus bus system to get from the University train station, located at the bottom. 

My summer dorm room, unfortunately before I decorated it

Hong Kong is linked by a large rail system called the MTR, which is fast, convenient, and pretty much always on time. CUHK has it’s own stop, and you can be pretty much anywhere in the city in 30-45 minutes. 

May 29th was my 19th birthday, and it was also the day we were scheduled to meet with some students from CUHK for lunch. My cohort, IBCE, is made up of 14 students from USC and 20 from CUHK, so a few of the CUHK students met up with us for lunch and a tour of campus. During the lunch, everyone sang happy birthday to me while a bunch of Chinese people looked on, marking one of hopefully many of my birthdays in Asia :)

My birthday celebration! 祝你生日快乐！ 

Our first day of summer Chinese class wasn’t until May 31st, and May 30th was the Dragon Boat Festival, a public holiday in Hong Kong, so we took our first group trip to a part of Hong Kong called Stanley to watch the races. 

Ferris wheel on Victoria Harbor

IBCE Batch 8 has 6 girls and 8 boys (also rest in peace olivia’s purple hair)

The beginning of a great year!!

The 24 inch pizza joined the family 

The next two months of the summer consisted of four different Chinese classes. In June, we had class from 9:30am-4:15pm, with a break in the middle, and then in July we had class every day, but one of the classes was MWF and the other class was TWTh, so we had a bit more free time. 

While the classes were challenging, especially the ones in July, I still had a lot of time to explore Hong Kong, and it went by so fast! After classes were over, some of our group went to Thailand, but I stayed in Hong Kong to relax, watch some Netflix, and explore some more. My friend Lydia and I also made a trip to Macau, essentially the Las Vegas of Asia, which is only a hour boat ride away from Hong Kong. 

Stay tuned for some photos of the rest of the summer!

Hong Kong is covered in beaches!

Victoria’s Peak at night!

Even In Hong Kong, Saturday’s are still for the boys

Our afternoon class from June, with our amazing grad student teachers Bill and Doreen!

Yoshinoya, a quality beef bowl establishment

Third time (and counting) at Victoria’s Peak

Second time hiking across Lamma Island!

24 inch pizza strikes again

How many times will Lana visit the Peak?

That one time we hiked Hong Kong’s second tallest mountain, Lantau Peak

The Big Buddha, Part 1

Fireworks celebrating the 20th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China on July 1st, 1997

Just a casual giant chicken tender

Nan Lian Gardens in Kowloon, a peaceful respite from the busy city

Quick day trip to Macau to see the remains of the Portuguese colony that was there until 1999

A fourth trip to the Peak? Definitely

The sunrise at the New Asia College Pavilion of Harmony reflecting pool

I can’t fully express this incredible summer in Hong Kong through only words, so I hope the pictures did it justice. In my next post, I’ll talk about my trip to Inner Mongolia and CUHK orientation, but it’s getting late, and I have my first day of class tomorrow!

[lana2017-scstudyabroad]

Hello from Hong Kong!

Hello everyone! I’m Lana and I am a sophomore at USC studying International Business and Global Supply Chain and Operations Management (GSCOM) with the International Business and Chinese Enterprise (IBCE) Cohort. Because I’m a part of this cohort, I’m required to study abroad for two summers (one in Hong Kong and one in Taiwan or Beijing) and three semesters (my whole sophomore year and first semester senior year. You may have never heard of these cohort programs but there a five of them all over the world!

I’ve been in Hong Kong since May 25th for my first summer abroad at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), taking Chinese classes and exploring the city I get to call home for a year. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for three months already!

My semester starts on September 4th, and over the next few days I’ll be attending international student orientation and moving from my summer dorm to my permanent dorm on campus. 

I’ve been keeping up with my friends back at USC starting the new school year, and while I do miss them and USC’s beautiful campus, I’m so excited for what the next nine months will bring. 

I just wanted to write a short introduction, but over the next few posts I’ll detail my summer at CUHK and our IBCE orientation trip to Inner Mongolia where I got to stay in a yurt!