By: Anbar Aizenman, Rowan McEvoy, Cindy Wang

We’ve reached the top!! After almost an hour climbing, 6 group members reached the top of Juyongguan (the steepest part of the Great Wall!)

Although we were exhausted from climbing the Great Wall and visiting the Ming Tombs, we visited different electronic shopping malls in Beijing. Our plan was to focus on the main Chinese phone brands. However, during our field work, we found that the domestic Chinese phone market is shared by many different brands and each domestic brand has its own app store. This discovery might shift our future research focuses. We also discovered that high-end shopping malls in China don’t sell phones, even the high-end brands like Samsung and Apple. During our visits in Beijing Zhongguancun (Chinese Silicon Valley), we found that there are many fake or stolen phones sold in regulated shopping malls. Hence, the Chinese phone market is much more complicated than American market and is extremely dispersed among different consumption groups.

C.A.R Group with a student from Capital Normal University. We really appreciated help from the Capital Normal University students. They are the best hosts ever!!!

After several days of touring and field working in Beijing, we are headed up to Hebi today. We took a 3-hour Gaotie (bullet train) to Hebi. This was our first time in Beijing West Station. Beijing West Station looks like a typical Chinese train station, with crowds and yelling. However, we enjoyed our time on the bullet train. We were amazed by the northern Chinese plains and agriculture industry. Around 6 o’clock in the afternoon, we finally arrived in Hebi. Unlike Beijing, the capital of China, Hebi is a relatively small city in Henan province. But to our surprise, Hebi has a well-protected landscape and huge amounts of tall buildings. Most importantly, they have amazing Chinese food, like pork belly bun, peking duck (Yes! They have it in Hebi!), chicken noodle soup and delicious desserts! We look forward to exploring this small unique city in China more in the following days!

We enjoyed our first dinner in Hebi! It was amazing!!!

Regarding to our group project, we found many individual retailers on the street in the downtown area on the way heading to our hotel in Hebi. Hence, we already have a generally vague plan on our works in Hebi. We hope to visit more electronic areas in Hebi and have a more comprehensive idea about the Chinese phone market!