Last Day at Work before Take Off

Do you know the feeling that the more you try to prepare the more you feel unprepared? Well, I can tell you, this is definitely the situation I am in right now.
When trying to look for useful presentations that could be of interest for the companies we will be working for during the weeks to come, I get lost in "too much information". At a point I stopped to download "interesting stuff". We will find a way at the time we know our clients.
The other topic is "learning Chinese". Believe me, I did not try to be over-ambitious. I tried simple things. Like pronouncing the city, we are going to, Shijiazhuang. People look at me as if I was kidding, when the tones leave my mouth so very reluctantly and it sounds something like 'schitschischuang'. The expression on my face when I say it is something in between complete despair, wonder and embarrassement. A completely different language.
A nice colleague of mine taught me to say "I am from Austria" in Chinese. This is something like 'wo shi ao di li ren'. (same expression on my face, same very unchinese sound).
When I really gave up on my Chinese was, when I learned about the different tones and ways to pronouce them which is leading to different meanings. I came across the sentence: 'Mama qí ma, ma man, mama mà ma.' Which means: 'My mother is riding a horse, the horse is going slow, mother is upbraiding the horse'. Come on!

... to be continued. All the best to you all, Sue

It's the thought that counts...

     “Clock sounds like ‘end’ in Chinese, so don’t give a clock as a present,” I was told.
     “So what would make a good present for my Chinese acquaintances?” I ask my Chinese friends and family. A condensed version of the conversations goes something like this…

     “You should get I love New York souvenirs.”
     The next person says, “Those trinkets are not useful, you should get something that they would use.”
     Then one proposes, “Vitamins, Chinese people love American vitamins.”
     “Good idea,” says another, “but it might also indicate they’re in bad health. What about American ginseng, it’s the best ginseng out there.”
     I say, “I don’t know if they like that health stuff. I really need a generic gift for any age or gender.”
     “Chocolate,” says another friend. “Chocolate is universal”
     “Chocolate is a good idea” they agree, “but really I think vitamins are better.”
     “OK. Chocolate it is!” I decide. ”I know this great New York artisan chocolatier, Jacques Torres. They’re a bit pricey, so the smaller gifts are just plastic bags.”
     “Chinese like nice packaging. You should get See’s.”
     “They don’t sell See’s in New York.” I respond.
     “Get Lindt, it’s pretty and well known in China.”
     "But Lindt is Swiss, not American. And you can get Lindt in China.” says another friend. “Try Ghirardelli, you can package it nicely.”
     “No white or blue boxes, it means reminds them of death.” Another reminds me. “Also no denominations of four, because the word ‘four’ sounds like death.”

     So in the end, I purchased two boxes of Jacques Torres artisan chocolates, two boxes of Ghirardelli chocolates, and packaged sets of 12 Ghiradelli squares in auspicious red boxes with gold ribbons. I definitely feel like there's been a lot of thoughts put into these gifts, I hope they count.

-Andrea

Ok... here we go....

Only a few days left before leaving home and heading for China. So much to do in the last office days and hopefully all is set for packing.

Somehow you get the strange feeling that you are either totally unprepared even though you have been working on your assignment for almost 3 months now and/or that you will miss to pack something extremely important to take along. Guess some people will call that travel fever.

Back to work now to get everything in my job settled before I leave and looking forward to the last team preparation call today!

- tom

Welcome to the IBM Corporate Service Corp China 13 Team Blog

 

I was trying to think of a good way to explain the Corporate Service Corps (CSC) for those who are not familiar with it, when I saw an excellent blog post by Prasad Raghunandhanan, who went to Ghana in 2009.  As he simply puts it, "IBM Corporate Service Corps program is part of the Global Citizen’s Portfolio initiative announced by CEO Sam Palmisano in 2008, to develop leadership skills while addressing socio-economic challenges in emerging markets."  The CSC experience spans six months: three months of virtual preparatory teamwork, one month overseas and two months post service. IBM has deployed over 1000 employees from ~47 different countries.

Our team includes 11 people from various functions (consulting, IT, finance, marketing, sales).  We will be meeting for the first time on May 7th in Beijing, and then traveling together to Shijiazhuang, China to meet our clients. 1-2 IBMers have been assigned to each client, however we will be living and working together as a team.   We look forward to the projects and experiences, which we have only heard about these past few months.  

We would also like to show our appreciation to IBM's partner organization, the Australian Business Volunteers (ABV),  for organizing our program.  

-Andrea