Friday, May 16

               A very early morning here this Friday morning.  We got on the bus at 7:00 am to go to the Soybean crush plant.  This is a 2-3 hour commute depending on traffic, but we were on the road early enough that the traffic flow was quite good.

               On the road, we had a lot of time to look out the window.  Bushes and small shrubs are between every median and larger trees on either side of the road.  This made it somewhat difficult to see the farms on the other side.  However, some breaks in the trees allowed us to see some of the farmland.

               In the area we were traveling, there was a majority of tree farms.  I'm assuming this is why China has such a large amount of fruit available at every meal.  We also saw some corn and other small row crops growing as well.  The farmland appears to be all connected and huge because it is between growing seasons, but sometimes you will spot a different crop being grown and you then notice that all this land is divided into small parcels. The villages are small and appear often alongside the road.  It seems like every village has a fish pond with three to four aerators in the pond.  I'm not sure why they need aerators, but it appears as though the fish wouldn't survive without them.  We haven't seen much livestock but a few sheep and donkeys.  The city we are traveling to is Tian Jin (30 million people).  In this city there seems to not be as much buildings for businesses, but there are many massive apartment complexes' as far as the eye can see.  It is truly a sight to see and brings into reality the true scale of how many people are leaving the farm and coming to the city. 

               Our first stop on our Friday trip was to Jiu San Group Tian Jin Soya Science and Technology Company which is a soybean crushing plant. This soybean facility was opened in 2004 and began production in 2005.  Other branches can be found in Hong Kong, Brazil, Chicago and other places.  This soybean plant crushes 5,000 Metric Tons of soybeans per day which produces 1,000 Metric Tons of soybean oil and 4,000 Metric Tons of Soybean Meal.  This all translates to crushing 183,000 bushels per day and runs 24/7. To put this into prospective, this facility is twice as large as the plant in Volga, SD.  All together with all branches, they can crush 850,000 Metric Tons per year.  At this company, they have 16 storage bins each having the capacity of 5,000 Metric Tons per bin of Soybeans with 1/3 of the Soybeans being from the United States.  Also, when crushing beans and making products, they use up to 500 Metric Tons of water per day, but they recycle a large amount of this water and use it again.  This company is very proud of their awards to conserve water. 

               This facility can create, label and package their own product on site.  They have two production lines in which the smaller production line runs 24/7 and can fill 6,000, 5 liter bottles per hour and pack 1,500 boxes.  After boxing the product, they fill trucks, up to twenty a day, and send out to their customers.  All in all it takes 2-3 hours for them to crush the bean, bottle it, load it, and ship it from their facility.  Other facts that we learned is that non-GMO oil is 50% more than GMO.

               After a quick and much needed subway sandwich in the park, we drove to a John Deere engine factory.  This engine factory has only been producing engines since 2012, but the CEO of John Deere visited China in the 70's to look at investment opportunities, and soon began investing in China.  This factory was incredibly high tech and clean.  Our tour was given by a man named Troy Schlotman.  He is originally from Kingley, Iowa and came to China 3 years ago to be the quality manager at this factory.  The purpose of bringing American members of the company to China is to set an example of the expectations of the factory. 

               We also toured the factory floor which is 21,000 meters sq and it was amazing.  It was full of computers, tools and automated machines that helped workers get their product built faster.  At full scale assembly, they can produce 200 diesel motors in just 1-2 days but unfortunately, we were there on inventory adjustment which means they produced to their demand so the assembly line was not running but we still got to see it for ourselves.  It started with Automatic Guidance Vehicle (AGV), which is an automated robot that takes the engine from the start of assembly line to the end of shipping.  They have their own path they follow and make it a lot easier to move parts and the motor around the factory.  The first part was some assembly followed by a TDC machine, or a Top Dead Center machine to take measurements and make sure it runs right.  After main assembly, it gets tested in the test cell stage.  After passing that, it goes into chamber that caps holes, washes, masks, paints multiple colors if needed and at the end, heats it to keep the paint to the metal. 

               All of these engines are tier 3 engines which is a scale of how much pollutant goes into the air.  China has a tier 2 law but John Deere is preparing themselves for when they go to tier 3.  As a reference to the United States, we use a very effeciecience clean burning Final tier 4 engine which is enforced by law to use.  The motors they make are small motors as well.  They make 75-135 horsepower motors and can build a 3, 4 and 6 cylinder motor to meet consumer standards and needs.  This facility makes engines for drivetrains, small tractors, loaders, excavators and will soon be making axles for 4-wheel drive loaders.   

               The reason John Deer is in China is because soon, farms need to become much more productive to feed it.  To do this, the farms will need to consolidate so there is enough land for a tractor to be an economically viable option.  As China becomes more urbanized, more people will leave farms, leaving less people for hand labor and a rise in mechanization. 

               We ended the night by attending a hot pot supper.  We had beef, mutton, fish, shrimp and an assortment of vegetables and spices.  There is a pot of water filled with spices and food and a flame underneath it to heat it up.  We then dipped the mean or vegetable inside the pot for about a minute to cook it and then eat it.  We also dipped it in a spice dip after cooking it for added flavor.  Once again it was a lot of food, pop or water and a great time talking with the students at the table.  Also, as we rode home, we had the opportunity to learn to count to 36 (to make sure we hadn't left anyone) in Chinese and it was somewhat difficult but many of the students had a general idea towards the end.  It was a great day and we are looking forward to tomorrows events.

May 15 photos

May 15

May 15th - Olympic Village, Femur head Hospital, Great Wall, Cliosonne Factory, China Ag University

               We began the day by stopping at the 2008 Olympic Village. We saw the 'bird's nest' and the 'water cube', the buildings where the Olympics were held. We will see these again, but we got to take pictures from a distance today. From there we went to the Femur Head Hospital, where they practice old traditional Chinese medicine to cure femur necrosis. This would be equivalent to natural treatments and therapies in the states. We visited patients who were receiving treatments of acupuncture, stretching therapies, massage, herbal remedies and steam/hot water baths. We were able to bring our cameras in and take pictures of the different treatments, and in fact some patients were taking smart phone pictures of us. They presented a slideshow of successful treatments, and told us their success rate is 97%. An average treatment is 2-3 years and would cost $7,000 U.S. dollars. This equals 40,000 yuan (the Chinese dollar). The staff at the hospital were extremely hospitable and exited to see us. They met us outside with video cameras and great excitement.

               Next we went to the Great Wall. We were told it would take 3 months to travel the Beijing portion of the wall. It is 4,000 miles in total length. No one really knows how it was built, but we visited the section that has been preserved the best. This portion was built in 1402 AD. The steps of the wall varied in height, some sections were more steep than others. All of us would be ok if we don't see stairs for a few days. I'm sure we would all agree the views were worth the climb. Near the top of the wall there were 'love locks', padlocks that young couples or newlyweds will lock onto the wall and throw the key off. The lock signifies good luck for a relationship.

               A cloisonné factory was our next destination. They make intricate copper art work on plates, vases, and various decorations, that are then painted with enamel, heated, and sanded down to a  beautiful smooth piece of art. Then we went upstairs for a typical Chinese meal. There was an abundance of different foods, on a lazy Susan, on our tables. Today we were served fish and shrimp with the head still attached. Some brave souls ate the eyes from the fish head.

               China Ag University was eager to welcome us to our next visit. MAFIC is the name of their program. The ag students gave presentations on their research projects and gave us a short tour around their campus. Before supper, we participated in games of Ping-Pong, hacky-sack (shuttlecock), and basketball. The Chinese students exceled in each game. They prepared a very good meal for us. Some of the things we saw at supper were pigs feet, pig stomach, and root vegetables. We all made some new friends, and had conversations about the differences between our home lands. We promised to keep in touch through email, and said our goodbyes.

Sam Jensen, Janae Mogler, Danielle Marquardt

Day 1 photos

Day 2 photos

 Horse group

 

 Pioneer and gift

 

Pioneer class

Day 2

The day began with breakfast at the hotel restaurant Cheena, which had a variety of foods including eggs, toast, vegetables, fruit, noodles, and rice.  We then boarded the coach bus and headed to the Pioneer Headquarters.  Will Marsh and Mark Cool provided us with a background of Pioneer's work in China.  China Pioneer uses some hybrid corn seeds that are blue in color and come in a bag that is about the size of a bag of chips. Each bag contains about 8,500 seeds, enough to plant 2 mu (1/3 acre).  Average farm size is 1-2 acres per family. They use a blue color on the seeds that is difficult to replicate because of the polymer used.  Counterfeit bags which look like they contain Pioneer seed but actually do not are a common problem in China.  Piracy is another common problem in which people will use the parent plant to grow their own hybrid seed to sell.  Unlike the United States, China does not do soil testing, but they do spread urea on the fields, often at rates 4x more than the corn needs. Pioneer in China works only with corn.  While China's population is not booming, China's middle class is.  Because of this increase of the middle class population, demand for animal protein is greatly increasing, which in turn increases the demand for corn to use as animal feed.

To go along the same lines as Pioneer, Dr. Richard Han from the US Soybean Export Council talked to us about the soybean industry. China imports about 80% of their soybeans. This means that about 1 in 4 rows of US soybeans are exported to China.

We ate lunch at a local restaurant, No. 6 Restaurant, where we celebrated Jacob's 21st birthday with birthday cake.

From there, we went to the Beijing Equestrian Show Facility and met Shirley. The facility housed about 130 horses used for dressage and jumping. The horses were mostly warmbloods and of high value. The ground in the practice arenas was unlike what is used in the US, and contained sand and pieces of fabric which felt like fleece.

We then traveled to the Silk Market, which is essentially a big mall where you can bargain with the seller to get the right price that fits for you.  We had to bargain using a calculator and type in what we wanted to buy it for and the seller either did not like it or you compromised until you got the right price.  Most of us ended up buying things like North Face jackets, Coach purses, and tailored suits.

We finished the day at a buffet featuring both Chinese food and pizza!  We need to load up on pizza because tomorrow we climb the Great Wall.

Day 1

               The time finally arrived for us to fly off to China!  We had been waiting and preparing for this trip since the semester started this January.  It was safe to say most of us could not sleep the night before due to so much excitement and anticipation about finally leaving for China. But after all of the preparations and packing we were ready to go!  We were off bright and early to meet in Sioux Falls for our flight leaving at 6:00n am.  When we finally arrived in Denver, CO it was a sprint to our next flight to San Francisco, CA. After landing in San Francisco we had short period to get some food to eat before getting on to our major flight to Beijing for 12 hours. During this 12-hour flight we got to experience some tight quarters, interesting food, and lots of excitement and anticipation. The time officially came and we arrived in China at 2:45 pm their time.

               When we arrived in Beijing, we loaded up on a bus to take us to the hotel that Governor Daugaard was having a reception for Chinese partners interested in business opportunities in SD.  While on the way there, we learned many different little facts about China and Beijing:

               There are over 19 million people in Beijing with only 1/2 million of them foreigners

               There are about 7,000 taxis in Beijing

               To say "very good" in Chinese is "ding ding hao"

        Governor Daugaard and a SD delegation are visiting China in order to promote trade and business opportunities between both China and South Dakota.  It was a great opportunity to meet with business leaders from both South Dakota and China, and also see and listen to what the Chinese people thought of South Dakota.  After an hour at the reception, it was time to get back on the bus for our hotel, and to hopefully a good night’s sleep before our first full day in China tomorrow.