I had the opportunity to take a business trip to some city called “Wuhan”, in the Hubei province, just above the Hunan province, where some really spicy food comes from (OK, that’s how I relate the location of this new city in China. It’s actually located roughly in eastern central China). I had never even heard of this city until I realized I was going there for a recruiting trip at one of the local universities. Turns out this city is three times the size of Shenzhen, with a metropolitan population of thirty million. Jeez.

Inside the Shenzhen airport:

Three colleagues and I (two Chinese and two American) went to the Shenzhen airport around 12:30 to catch an hour and a half flight to Wuhan. Being as busy as I’ve been at work, I had no time to grab lunch, so it was fortunate that there was a McDonalds in the airport (as little as I like McDonalds, it’s a big relief from constant Chinese food). I bought a cucumber burger and the boned equivalent of Chicken McNuggets (when you order chicken anywhere, you can be assured there are bones included). Tasty.

On the flight, I remember looking at the heads of all the passengers in front of me. That sight particularly struck me for some reason – lots of homogenous heads of black hair. The flight was simple enough and upon arriving, we met the friends of one my colleagues who kindly offered to drive us to the university where our hotel was located. The flight was only an hour and a half, but the drive into the city is about the same amount of time. On top of that, the friends weren’t exactly sure the best way to get out, so we ended up driving about two hours to get to the hotel.

I liked this billboard: Chinese business men reach new heights of success (check out the “Beijing 2008″ insignia):

The drive was entertaining. The weather was Seattle-esque this time of year – cold, rainy, and foggy. We were on a modern highway in the sticks. After an hour, I began wondering just where this city was. We passed several small villages with tightly packed brown brick-and-mortar houses connected with narrow dirt paths. There were a few yaks hanging outside of a few houses. Slowly, the villages seemed to connect together as we approached the outskirts of the city. I found this part fascinating. The scene was abject – completely colorless except for brown, people standing around little stoves, or squatting and smoking, and trash. Occasionally, I’d get a glimpse deeper into the back streets and could only see more of the same. It was hard to get some decent pictures being in a moving car, but here are some:

Of course, again, the traffic was entertaining as well. My experiences as a passenger with my college roommate helped prepare me for China. More than one time, I’d hear the blaring horn of an approaching vehicle. I’d turn my head and look out the front window to see a huge bus barreling towards us…in our lane. The horn basically meant, “I’m here and in your lane so watch out.” We’d just calmly move slightly right as the bus narrowly missed us, all the time the bus driver was still leaning on the horn.

The buildings slowly grew taller and appeared more frequently.   I then noticed in front of us was a huge suspension bridge that we were approaching.   Then I realized, we were about to go over the Yangtze river.   I felt a strange sense of awe crossing such a large and famous river.   I wanted to take a picture but never had a good opportunity.

Finally at the hotel, we met Sally, the HR girl in charge of organizing the recruiting events. She’d had some food waiting for us. It was basic, but welcomed:

Here’s the food…I’m holding a fried meat popsicle:

A few moments later we were on our way to the auditorium. There were maybe three hundred students here. Matt gave a presentation on our office and each of us talked briefly about our roles. After a Q&A, we collected resumes and headed back to the hotel to go through them and pick out the ones that we wanted to talk to the following day. This took us until about 11:30PM. Sally then had to schedule and contact the students.

The next day, we met with the students in our hotel rooms. Interviewing Chinese people is so different from people in the US. I’ve done lots of observing and note taking here, but to summarize, they are very smart but express few original thoughts or desires. I spent about 30 or 40 minutes on each interview. Sally weeded out about half of them based on their ability or inability to speak English. At the end, I probably talked to eight candidates.

One of the girls who was hired for the day to manage the schedule and candidates was especially interesting. She approached me in between interviews and confessed to being nervous having never spoken to a native English speaker before. What really struck me was when she told me she didn’t like her English name, “Lily”, and she asked me if I would choose another name for her that was “more complicated” but still began with the letter “L”. Well, I felt honored. I still need to do that; I got her email address. No idea what I’ll pick.

(l-r) The student audience, the first cuts (going through resumes):