Day 21: Shanghai Baosteel Group Corporation

Day 21: Today we had our first business visit to the Shanghai Baosteel Group Corporation (AKA 上海宝钢集团公司 or Shànghǎi Bǎogāng Jítuán Gōngsī), which most people just call Baosteel (AKA 宝钢 or Bǎogāng). The trip was not that long, but the employee who showed us around the company definitely taught us a lot. To sum up what he said, Baosteel is a state-owned iron and steel company and is a major steel producer in the world. Due to advances in technology, the company had to lay off many workers, but the company still has approximately 15,000 workers. He said the company itself also works hard to protect the environment by making sure to replant trees as the company expands, which has helped the resettlement of different forest animals, especially deer! We got to walk into one of the workshops, and like the man mentioned, it was hard to spot many people in the workshop because machines did most of the work, and people were really only needed to control the computer systems. Because it was rainy and pretty chilly outside, the heat in the workshop definitely felt nice, and we had to wear hard hats, which meant lots of selfies. As we walked along the walls of the workshop, we got to see the process of steel being produced, which was really cool to see up close. We drove around in our bus for the rest of the tour as we got to see the different company ports on the Yangtze River (which Chinese people actually call 长江/Chángjiāng , or the "Long River"). If the weather had been better, apparently, we would've been able to see the famous Chongming Island (AKA 崇明岛 or Chóngmíng dǎo) from Baosteel. Bummers. Like I said, the tour of the company wasn't that long, but I felt that I had learned a lot in a short amount of time. The employee giving us the tour seemed very proud of his work with the company, which was awesome. I always mention that you should visit the places I visit in China, but I'm not sure whether or not you can just casually visit this company. I guess these company visits are major advantages of being in this program abroad! Also, we technically were not allowed to take pictures in the workshop, but thanks to our professors, we got permission to take pictures and videos - another major advantage! I took a lot of videos, but unfortunately, due to the slow internet here, it won't upload, so I had to take screenshots of the videos to upload as pictures!

  

  

After getting back from Baosteel, we had group lunch at the hotel, and my roommate and one of our classmates left for their flight to Taiwan to explore Taiwan for a weekend! Very exciting for them, right?