Thursday July 13, 2017
All throughout the day, I’ve had this strange feeling as we completed our daily seminar classes and I couldn’t figure out why. These specific classes were dedicated to one of our sponsors, the ones who fully funded us to come to a place I’d thought I’d never explore, China. As we sat through two intriguing presentations about the Wanxiang group’s creations and how they built the company from the ground up in 1969, it finally dawned on me that we were spending our last day in Hangzhou. The presentations that the Wanxiang group had for us really went into depth on what the company does. The company dips their hands in many forms of business to earn money and increase profits. Iron batteries, auto parts, agricultural sciences and renewable energy are only some of the things that the company manages to do each fiscal year. One thing that really stood out to me was the simple fact that they are creating all of their vehicles’ engines out of batteries, so basically all of their cars are battery powered. They recently released a sports car (KARMA) into the market, which stands at a cool $130,000 price tag. Hopefully, I make enough money to acquire such a vehicle as luxurious as that one day.
As dinner approached, I was hungrier than I expected. I thought that the feeling that I had were hunger pains. I ate and laughed with my fellow ambassadors until I was asked to go up and speak on the behalf of the student ambassadors and the members of the Urban League. Then it hit me, I felt the same feeling that I had at the beginning of the day. It was bittersweet. I am excited to be visiting Shanghai tomorrow, but I am not too excited to be leaving people I made bonds with. This was a night where the student ambassadors sat here with a heavy heart, knowing that we have one last day to spend with our newly found friends. I have enjoyed our time with the Chinese student ambassadors and the people of China for allowing me to experience their culture for what it really is. We have traveled up the Great Wall together, visited the town of the Song Dynasty and shared laughter with people that I’d never thought I’d meet. I am grateful for this opportunity and I hope that the American student ambassadors as well as the Chinese ambassadors will always have a strong bond from continent to continent.
~Ishmael Rashaun
Today, we ate breakfast at the hotel; I only ate corn and toast. And then we went to visit the Wanxiang Group, they are one of our group’s sponsors, their support allowed us to come to China. We participated in two presentations about the Wanxiang Group and I learned that one out of every two cars in America has a product in it from their company. We went to the factory to see where they make their products. They said that America is one of their best markets to sale their products. We had lunch at a restaurant and then my mom surprised me with chicken and vanilla ice cream from KFC. We had a farewell dinner because we are leaving Hangzhou to go to Shanghai in the morning. We had a good day today, we are still up and we are most likely going to sleep soon. I have one last thing to say Zai’jian Hangzhou!
~ Dwayne Coleman Jr.
