Hey, everyone. Welcome to China.
Can you guess where I'm standing right now?
I'm either in Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai.
If you guessed Shanghai, you got it right.
Let me just tell you some interesting facts about this place.
It's the world's largest city with about 25 million people just in the city limits.
Now, I come from the city of Chicago.
I think, in the U.S.
But Chicago's only 3 million people. Think about that.
25 million people just in the city limits alone.
there's 35 million people here in the Shanghai area.
over 360 miles of metro tunnels under this city.
You need that if you've got 25 million people traveling around the city at the same time.
Let me just tell you another interesting fact about Shanghai.
It's the financial capital of Asia.
Some people think of Shanghai as the New York of China.
It's the favorite city for expats in mainland China to live and work.
and generally doing business internationally.
Two things you have to keep in mind.
One is you've got to be flexible.
I'm not even supposed to be here today in Shanghai.
I'm supposed to be in Qingdao.
let's take advantage of the time and see the town.
You just have to be flexible and expect changes to happen.
The other thing when you're doing business internationally is you have to be adaptable.
doing business in the foreign country.
U.S. than China and East Asia.
The culture is different, the food's different.
you're going to have a great time and you're going to enjoy it.
One important aspect of doing business in another country or culture is the food.
all the customs involved with the food is really important.
joint venture, or even just continuing a relationship. Let's eat.
So in this course, we're talking about global business.
there's a few themes that stand out.
especially as you're doing your project with Double Star.
One thing that's clear is scale.
not just the number of people.
like Shanghai, and you think 25 million people.
How do they have jobs for everyone?
How do they distribute food to all the people and all the places?
and how that impacts every single aspect of society and the economy and business.
everything is done at the huge scale.
between rapid change and ancient culture.
and yet you combine that with this ancient culture.
so many cultural artifacts that come from 2000 and 4000 years ago.
mixed with this ancient culture.
in some ways this melting pot of the old and the new.
and you're going to see that as you work with Double Star.
The old culture working with the new culture.
as well as ideas and how they do business.