PACIFICRIM

What I gained most from traveling abroad

The course, Conducting Business in the Pacific Rim, has brought to life for me cultures and economies that I could have only imagined up until this point. The class saw a developing economy in China and developed economies in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia.

Traveling abroad has been such a privilege for me to have. I valued every minute that I spent abroad and in each new country, because I knew that I may never visit these places again. Yet, when I talked to my peers abroad, I knew that they did not have the same sentiments. As business and accounting majors, most of my peers felt that they might be in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, or Australia again in the near future on business travel. Few took as many pictures as I did during our meetings and travels. Why? They felt privileged – and as such, they believed that their future travels would make up for not having taken pictures to remember what we saw. Yet, many of the places that we visited, such as Guangdong province in China and the Perth area, are growing at rapid paces and will likely not look the same as they did when we visited them. Even if I do get to come back to the areas we visited, I will be able to compare my past pictures and memories of interactions with individuals to the new ones and be able to see the growth in black and white.

Yet, I won’t say that traveling abroad made me cynical or judgmental. In the same light that I traveled with some privileged students, I also interacted with a number of very humble human beings. Particularly in Hong Kong and China, people are very gracious for the small things and anything you can offer to them. Just being in China seemed like a treat to many Chinese; buses full of Chinese children would frantically wave at us, excited to see western faces. When I bought something from a merchant in Hong Kong, s/he treated us like his/her best customer and was honored to have our business. It is no surprise that westerners are finding it a pleasure to do business in Hong Kong and China; its people are some of the most pleasant I have ever met. They have challenged me to set a new standard in business and personal interactions with others in the future.

Why I would or would not recommend this trip to other students

My winter term experience is unlike any others offered at Elon. I am thoroughly satisfied in having chosen the experience that I did and feel privileged to have made the connections that I did in three different countries. It is no surprise to me that our trip was very competitive and had a long waiting list. The trip gets better and better every year for the students who choose to partake in it.

There were, of course, positives and negatives to the experience. In order to get a fully positive experience, I will recommend that those who apply for the trip have certain characteristics.

First, you should have an interest in business. The course is very business-centered, and you will regret not doing as many cultural experiences as other courses if that is what you expect from this course. I would recommend that you have a major or minor in a business-related field. Since I expected heavy business interaction from the get-go, this focus was a positive for me.

Next, you should be prepared to save heavily for this trip – or apply for many scholarships to cover the cost of the trip. It is the most expensive of the winter term trips, and there are a lot of extra costs. You will spend between $1,000-$2,000 US on average in additional costs, because all of the places you visit have high costs of living. Luckily, I had anticipated this and was able to cover for additional costs as well as the cost of the trip.

Third, you should expect a culture shock, as you would when visiting any new place – but not as much as other places, because the places you visit have been westernized for the most part. For example, it took me a while to adjust to the food in Hong Kong, but if I had wanted to I could have gotten American-style fast food in many locations in the city. They are big fans of McDonald’s and KFC. I never had to eat there during the course of the experience – which was great, because I was able to experience styles of food that I could not get in the United States. I also am a vegetarian and enjoy running every day, and I was able to keep up with those habits. (In Hong Kong, our hotel had a gym; if it had not, it would have been near impossible to run on the crowded streets.)

Finally, you should anticipate that there will be alcohol everywhere – and prepare for this as best as you can. I do not drink at all, so this was one part of the trip that was extremely difficult for me. For example, we went to three wine tastings in one day in Australia, and I got little to nothing out of the experience. However, being surrounded with alcohol for a long time helped me to develop my convictions and gave me confidence in my own will power. Even under extreme pressure from virtually everyone on the trip, I stayed true to what I believed before and after the trip. If you are someone who does drink alcohol (like the majority of Elon), you have the potential to enjoy this trip greatly. However, there is a lot of temptation to go beyond your limits. You should be prepared to set a limit and stick to it, for your sake and for Elon’s sake. It would be terrible to be brought up on an honor code violation or to embarrass our school in any way, shape, or form.

How I developed my leadership skills as result of this experience

From the moment I was selected to take part in the course, I knew that developing my leadership skills would be a priority for me. I jumped at every leadership opportunity offered by the professors – namely, developing and maintaining a class website and serving on the leadership council. I was successful in updating the website on a regular basis, to the satisfaction of the class’s family and friends. As a member of the leadership council, I was charged to pay attention and be active and involved in all of our course discussions. I would also be one of the people to ask questions of the presenters, especially if no one else in the class was being active. Therefore, I was charged to set an example for my peers and create a standard of excellence which everyone was charged to follow. This helped me to get a great deal more out of the course than I might have otherwise, even though I had already planned to be an active participant in the course.

Interacting with leaders in every place we went helped me to polish my leadership skills by observing what I admired about each leader and what I felt they were doing incorrectly (though I never told them so). I was also able to learn a lot about the leaders of each country, indirectly, by where they put their money and where their national priorities laid. Also, interacting with individuals outside of our class meetings helped me to see where the general sentiments of the government lied.

Before the trip, I was especially curious about the government of Singapore and how the people felt about it. Singapore has been regarded as a miracle by many in western society; as a nation barely over forty years old, it has transformed itself from a third-world city into a first-world trade and financial powerhouse. From interacting with the people on the streets and those in office buildings, I felt that Singapore occupied a position similar to the United States (which may be true because it does a lot of trade with it). The people have seen some great times in the rise of their nation, but they are not sure how it can get better – or where it will be in, say, ten years from now. Minister-Mentor Lee Kuan Yew is still healthy but is at a very old age, and he and other government leaders are worrying for the nation’s future. They believe that there is a brain drain within Singapore and that future leadership will not be on par with what the country now has. In this case, the dominant party, the PAP, may not be able to rule as well as they have in the past and opposition parties may come to rise. From what I have seen, the success of the PAP is due to the success of the nation as a whole; why vote out a party if they are doing unprecedented things to better the country? Perhaps this lack of competition is what is creating the drain in the nation. The education systems and trust in the financial systems are second to none. Even though civil servants are paid very well in Singapore, perhaps the lack of competition and resigning oneself to the inevitable – that the PAP will win again – is why Singaporeans are not as optimistic as those in other nations we visited. As a result, one of the greatest things I learned from the perspective of leadership is that, in the long run, lack of competition in leadership will catch up to a group or society.