Today started with an impromptu visit to Yili, a Chinese dairy manufacturer. The tour was very interesting and my biggest observation was how many pictures they had of their chairman relative to a comparable American company. There was a clear emphasis on who their leader was and that he was the boss. Next, we visited … Continue reading Zhangbei – 5/18 →

Today was one of my favorites of the trip so far. Although it was funny to hear them call Zhangjiakou a "small" city, I think today's experience were truly not something we ever could have done on our own. My favorite part of the day was when we had the opportunity to visit the schools. … Continue reading Saturday 5/18/19 →

Today was aimed at bringing us closer to the cultures of China and gave us the chance to experience some of the nuances of life in Zhangbei. In the late morning, after our visit to Yi Li, we spent time at an elderly home. We were shown how life can be for some families when … Continue reading Zhangbei Day: Cultural Immersion →

My day began at the YiLi factory, where we got a peek into the process behind the mass manufacturing of dairy products. They are able to produce 24,000 units every hour for a particular product. They also kindly gave us an AMAZING greek yogurt drink! I'll definitely look out for it at the next convenience … Continue reading Back to School →

Remarkable experience today as we visited various parts of ZhangBei. Milk factory was amazing from the beginning and provided the entire group with necessary calcium. Senior gome gave a refresher on life and its hardships, while also showing the fun side when there was a troublemaker. Also school was great as I made my first … Continue reading Day 4 – ZhangBei →

I grew up drinking Yili's milk products and I was so luck to visit its factory today. The production process looks pretty cool and the sample we tried was good. In the afternoon, we visited the Dezhi Middle School and interacted with a lot of 7th grade student. After that we went to an open … Continue reading Day 5 – Zhangbei →

Today we spent the day doing various cultural immersion activities. We started by seeing the Yi Li factory in Zhangbei. It was very impressive and crazy to think about the volume of milk and packaging that is processed in that factory, which is 1400 tons per day. Then, we went to the elderly home and … Continue reading 5/18 cultural immersion day →

Today started out with going to visit Yili. This gave me insight into an industry that I did not know much about. The biggest take away I had here was how big of a role automation had. For how many bottles were being produced, there were so few employees. From there we went to the … Continue reading 5/18 Post →

Wow today has been a day. A total culture immersion experience you can't get anywhere else. The highlight was definitely meeting the children of the grade school and the authentic Mongolian dinner. It was totally surreal to be sitting there, eating a wonderful dinner and watching live Mongolian performers demonstrating their culture to us. I … Continue reading Day 5 →

When I heard we were going to a dairy packaging factory I did not know what to expect. It turned out to be one of my favorite site visits! I found it interesting to see the process of a commercial food product being produced. However, the highlight for me was getting to interact with middle … Continue reading 5-18-19 Blog Post →