Asia Magazine #17

asiamagazine2011 NO 17 A MAGAZINE BY CHALMERS STUDENTS IN ASIA

KOREA FREE ECONOMIC ZONES

AN ENCOUNTER WITH SKF ASIA PACIFIC

SINGAPORE - THE NEW BIOTECH HUB IN ASIA

Chalmers International Taiwan Office

DISCOVER ASIA!

asiamagazineWHAT IS CHALMERS INTERNATIONAL TAIWAN OFFICE?

Chalmers International Taiwan Office (CITO) was opened in March 2003 and is the result of a bilat-

eral exchange agreement between National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) and Chalmers Universi-

ty of Technology. CITO is strategically located at NCTU, near Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park.

PURPOSE

- Increase awareness at Chalmers about the development in East Asia, with focus on Taiwan.

- Support mobility of students and staff between NCTU and Chalmers.

- Enhance Chalmers’ visibility in Taiwan and the neighbouring region.

A part of CITO’s mission is to enhance opportunities for Chalmers students in Asia.

To do this we search for internships, master theses or other cooperation.

If you are looking for assistance to grab the opportunities in Asia, don’t hesitate to contact us today!

THE CHALMERS ASIA MAGAZINE

The purpose of this publication is to increase the awareness of Asia among the students and the

staff of Chalmers. The articles are written by the Chalmers’ exchange students within the world

wide prorgramme in Asia.

EDITOR OSKAR I. STENRIKER

[email protected]

DEPUTY EDITOR ANDERS MATTSSON

[email protected]

ART DIRECTOR KRISTOFER JOVANOV

[email protected]

CONTACT

ADRESS CITO, National Chiao Tung University,

1001 Ta-Hsueh Rd., Hsinchu 300, Taiwan, R.O.C.

WEB www.asia.chalmers.se

PHONE +886 (0)3 573 73 69

+46 (0)31 780 41 55

FAX +886 (0)3 573 74 69

asiaContents

asiaReport4 SINGAPORE - THE NEW

BIOTECH HUB IN ASIA

7 ELEVEN DAYS IN MYANMAR

9 KOREA FREE ECONOMIC

ZONES

12 HIKING IN HONG KONG

14 A FOODIE’S GUIDE TO

HONG KONG

16 AN ENCOUNTER WITH

SKF ASIA PACIFIC

18 WAY UP HIGH AND

DOWN BELOW

21 CREATIVE ASIA

23 THE LONG ROAD TO

EMPLOYMENT

24 GO SWEDEN IN SINGAPORE

26 AGE IS NOT JUST A NUMBER

28 GROW YOUR MOLE HAIR AND

CHANGE YOUR NAME

30 VOLVO CARS EXPANSION IN

CHINA

34 CHALMERS ALUMNI IN ASIA

asiaOffice2 ASIA LETTER

3 ASIA STAFF

36 ASIA APPLY

fter a month long holiday due to the Chinese New Year, we all re-turned to reopen the office and

start the operations of the spring semes-ter. Most of us, including myself, chose to travel throughout South East Asia where-as a few others went to explore mainland China.

Luckily the horrid tsunamis that fol-lowed the great earthquake in Japan did not reach the shores of Taiwan. However, one could not easily escape the sorrow for the enormous losses of the Japanese people and during our semester here, the daily news has of course been focused on the situation in Japan.

Looking past the tragedy in Japan and the anxiousness that followed, our stay has been most pleasant and full of activity!

In early March I had the pleasure to rep-resent Chalmers at the Asia Pacific Asso-ciation for International Education (APA-IE) Conference and Exhibition of 2011, held in Taipei. The APAIE aims to increase international academic collaboration. To-gether with Dr. Perrusquía and the As-sociate Dean of International Affairs Dr. Jia-Lin Tsai we managed to provide a very successful session where we covered everything from how our unique partner-ship with NCTU all started, to where we are now with overseas offices completely run by students. During the session I no-ticed how eyes lit up among the crowd and afterwards people were queuing to have a chat before the next session was bound to start. Many from the audience were of course curious about our costs, considering our model as something they might adopt. To be viewed as an example for others was indeed a pleasant experi-ence!

Like our audience at APAIE noticed our office holds great potential and the net-

work we are creating here, by making new friends, will indeed only continue to grow in value. With the help from web based communities like Facebook we will be able to keep closer contact and man-age a greater network of people. In a cou-ple of years many of our friends will be important players in the corporate sec-tor. Since the office has been operating since 2003 this fact has been proven al-ready, with many alumni that have already reached high positions in international companies all over the world.

Add a few more years and some of us might be there too. The people I have got-ten to know here are not only talented and ambitious but also adventurous and increasingly aware of their opportunities. In addition to that they are what I would call “Goa gubbar/tjejer” (really nice guys/girls).

During the fall semester we were partic-ularly strong in regards of efforts aiming to improve academic collaboration and cultural exchange. This semester we shifted our focus towards ex-panding our corporate network. Upon writing this many of us have recently returned from our last mission abroad. During this semester only, we have been rep-resenting Chalmers in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Tianjin and Tokyo. We have also increased our presence among com-panies in Taiwan. To fa-cilitate closer relations with representatives from many Swedish companies in Taiwan we

recently joined the Swedish Trade Coun-cil.

In addition to work and studies, there are endless of nice spots to explore in Taiwan. With only little time left our crew are planning to make the most out of their stay here, including myself. Time flies so fast though. Soon enough it is our turn to hand the keys to the next students, I think many of us will feel surprised over how quickly this year has passed, perhaps this will be proof for how much fun we have had during our stay.

All journeys eventually come to an end, but just to give room for new adventures! Yet I know that many of us have prom-ised to come back, some being drawn to the nature or the culture and the warmth of the Taiwanese people. A few might also return for the love of a very special someone.

A

2

asiaLetter

2011-06-05 Martin Johansson, Head of Office

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Martin Johansson

Head of Office

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management.

Email: [email protected]

asiaStaff

Jon Borgas

Deputy Head of Office and Treasurer

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.


Oskar I. Stenriker

Editor in Chief of Asia Magazine

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Management and Economics

of Innovation.


Kristofer Jovanov

Art Director of Asia Magazine

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Product Development.


Linus Hallberg

Co-Responsible for Corporate Relations and IT Responsible

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Wireless, Photonics and Space Engineering.


Josefine Älmegran

Responsible for Academic Exchange

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Quality and Operations Management.


Anders Mattsson

Deputy Editor of Asia Magazine

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Integrated Electronics System Design.


Johan Wikefeldt

Responsible for the Alumni Group

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management.


Johan Annell

Responsible for Corporate Relations

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.


Marcus Larsson

Responsible for Academic Exchange

Holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Supply Chain Management.


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The environment is crowded with modern architecture far from what you’re used to in Sweden, and the fact that every corner of the city is clustered with construction sites seems to make the promise that Singapore will be an ever changing society. At the same time, the tropical trees and wild fauna embrace the city. In essence, what you get to experience in Singapore is the great mixture of proximity to biological wildlife and top-notch tech-nology. Biology – Technology – Singapore... That combi-nation has a deeper meaning for some of us engineers, namely that Singapore is one of the most promising countries in the world when it comes to the expansion of the biotech-industry. In this article, you will gain an insight as to what makes Singapore special in this as-pect, and what future the city might hold for you…

When I applied for my year of exchange abroad, I didn’t think too closely on what was going on in my prospective location of study. Thoughts went here and there; a new part of the world to get to know, travels, tropical climate… Though, when I came to Singapore, it didn’t take long to figure out that Singapore is greatly expanding in many industries. This especially holds true for the life science sector, which includes areas like bioengineer-

ing and biomedical technology.

Singapore is a small country, in fact only an island with an area a bit smaller than New York City, and is inhabited by approxi-mately 5 million people. The country has recently established a strong track record as a global manufacturing site in Asia in a range of different industries. On the pharmaceutical, bio- and medical technology side, investments have been made in more than 50 commercial-scale facilities by leading companies. But Singapore also stands out when it comes to research and devel-opment (R&D) in this industry.

One key advantage that Singapore holds compared to Sweden (which usually is regarded as having a reasonably strong life sci-ence-sector) is that the government is highly active in establish-ing a stable industrial climate. One reason for this is the fact that Singapore doesn’t have any natural resources, and its economy more or less completely relies on exporting refined imported products. To stabilize its economy, the city-state needs to attract many foreign companies to invest in R&D and manufacturing facilities, which it has done with undeniable success. But how? Well, simply by offering something that many other countries don’t.

Singapore - the newbiotech hub in Asia

Text & photos: Alexandra Bergman,

The National University of Singapore

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In 2000, Singapore decided to launch its biomedical sciences initiative. This for example included big investments by the gov-ernment in Biopolis - an integrated research and development hub that co-locates biomedical public sector research institutes with corporate labs. The campus was conceived to provide space for biomedical research which could promote collabora-tion among the institutes under its roof. It opened in 2003, and the complex is still expanding. The newest parts will open in 2013, and total amount of funds spent will then be S$700 million (≈ 3,5 billion SEK).

Today, there are in total around 30 research and medical insti-tutes in Singapore amongst which there exist tight linkages. This has created a bionetwork where research data and information can be efficiently generated, shared and analyzed between clini-cal and discovery science teams. Singapore renders this scien-tific and clinical excellence essential in fuelling the growth of the commercial biomedical science sector. In comparison, Sweden has not made any significant government investments in R&D facilities, and on the whole the funding for research is low. At the same time, the number of employees in the Swedish biotech industry has been stagnant the last 10 years while business in Singapore is continuously growing.

For semester two at National University of Singapore (NUS), I joined a graduate module in Advanced Tissue Engineering, and for a project I got paired up with Jean-Yves Dewavrin, a 25 year old, French PhD-student. During our work together, I got to know that he was an engineer with a major in biotechnol-ogy (corresponding to the same program I am undertaking at Chalmers), that he had worked at a biotech company in San Francisco, California, and actually ended up in Singapore mostly out of coincidence. His story intrigued me, and I decided to interview him.

How and why did you end up in Singapore? -At the end of my contract in San Francisco I left to go back-packing in Asia. In between I visited some of my friends from engineering school whom had already started their PhD in Sin-gapore. During my 6 months of backpacking, I came back to Singapore quite often to visit them. They told me about their PhDs, I got to know the city better, and also got interested in PhD programs here.

-Without much conviction, I was randomly browsing the list of NGS (NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engi-

More than 41, 000 m² of biotech-business is going on at the floors of the different build-ings that together constitute the integrated research campus Biopolis: Chromos, Helios, Centros, Genome, Matrix, Nanos, Proteos, Neuros, Immunos and Amnios.

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neering) supervisors until I saw the project of my current su-pervisor. I just put my finger on the screen saying “Wwoooww THAT is cool, I want that!” I contacted the supervisor, and that’s it. There was no specific vacancy; I just made sure to get ac-cepted in the lab.

How would you say France and Singapore differ when it comes to the biotech-sector? -They differ a LOT. France has a long background with medicine and biotech, but I believe it does not help start-up companies enough. Biotech is growing in France, but slowly compared to other heavy industries. On the other hand, Singapore one day decided to become a big hub for biotech and injected billions in it. Singapore does its best to attract foreign biotech companies to set up on the island. What is your research on? -I am working in Tissue Engineering, and I have two separate projects. One aims at creating an autologous 3D extracellu-lar matrix in vitro, meaning growing cells in 3D (hydrogel) and pushing them to replace the artificial hydrogel by their own matrix. The other project aims at differentiating glial cells from specific progenitors isolated from peripheral blood. What is your general take on Singapore? Would you recommend peo-ple to come, live and work/do research here?

-I think it is a great place for research, located at the heart of Southeast Asia and filled with people from around the world.

Doing a PhD here, a few years full on, 100% science and a little bit of free time to travel around – it’s good. Singapore attracts brains from abroad with good money; they choose people with great ideas and give them a lot of money to make these ideas real. As a result, there are many labs working in hot fields with good ideas, which brings huge dynamic to Singapore, which is nice to enjoy for a while.

There are also some more general characteristics that draw companies to the small country of Singapore. For example, ad-vantages come in the form of a strong legal system and a stable political system, a favourable tax environment and the fact that Singapore houses one of the biggest harbours in the world (fa-vourable for production export); all factors that can help drive global company expansion. Furthermore, Singapore has a central location in Asia with excellent connectivity to other countries.

On top of this, Singapore also holds traits attractive for the individual: it’s considered to be one of the countries in Asia with best quality of life, and it also provides a multicultural yet English speaking population (this becomes an apparent advantage after you visit a country like China) combined with open immigration policies.

Talking from my own point of view, Singapore is a very easy country to adapt to; it’s comfortable, small and easy to get a grip of, while it still provides much culture (and don’t forget the amazing variety of food!). Why not try it out to be your first home in Asia?

View from Marina Bay, Singapore

Collagen (tagged in red by immunocytochemistry) pro-duced by human lung fibro-blasts.

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”If you are a journalist, editor, publisher or writer, consider becoming something else for

your trip to Myanmar or you’ll likely be rejected.” This is what we read in Lonely Planet regarding visa applica-tion to Myanmar. So as editor and writers in Asia Maga-zine we decided to take extra precautions upon apply-ing for visas and therefore erased our names, pictures and contact information on our Asia Magazine website. We also heard rumours that you’re not allowed to bring your camera into the country, which made us both feel uneasy with our system cameras. However, when we fi-nally entered the Union of Myanmar embassy in Bang-kok the reality was different to what we had imagined.

We were not the only ones wanting to go to Myanmar, but instead there were a lot of people doing their applications, and the line for collecting visas stretched all the way out on the street. There were people from many different countries and in different ages, and one of the most striking things was the amount of old sixtyfiveish plus backpacking travellers. No one seemed to have any problems getting their visa, and neither did we.

With our visas in hand we left Bangkok behind us, heading to-wards Myanmar’s largest city and former capital, Yangon. Flying from Bangkok is the most common way to enter Myanmar, since entering over land is heavily restricted. Landing in Yangon was

Eleven days in Myanmar

not really what we had expected. For sure the airport with its golden exterior was exceptionally well maintained, like a facade hiding something, but there were no military to be seen and the passport control went smoothly without any complications.

However, during our taxi drive into the centre we started to understand that this is not just another Laos or Cambodia. The car was completely missing any interior except some worn out seats, and despite being a right driven car it drove on the right side of the road(!). And the centre of Yangon was no different: old cars everywhere, all men wearing a skirt-like traditional wear, longyis, and all women had their cheeks smothered in a beige creamy makeup, thanaka. It felt like entering another world, a place where time had stood still since the fifties. Yangon is also the city in East Asia with most remaining colonial build-ings which enhanced the feeling even more.

We stayed a day in Yangon to take in the city and discover what it had to offer. We spent some hours strolling around the crowded streets and the first question that arose was: What were all these people doing there? There were people every-where. Maybe the streets functioned as a marketplace, because there were food stalls everywhere, shops were skirted along the streets and you could even get your phone calls made from the Myanmar phone booths – a desk, a catalogue, one or a few old time phones and a lady operating the stall. As students from Taiwan we are familiar with beetle nuts, a South East Asian op-tion for chewing tobacco, but never before had we seen usage

The sun casts its last rays before sunset on some of the Bagan Temples in central Myanmar

Text and Photos: Oskar I. Stenriker & Johan Wikefeldt,

NCTU Taiwan

of such extent as in Yangon. The walking lanes along the streets were literally red from all the extract the users spit out.

Among the crowds in downtown Yangon there are not many Westerners to be seen, but if you make your way to the Shwed-agon Paya, a huge gold covered stupa which can be referred to as the heart of Myanmar, you will find all of them at the same place. Shwedagon Paya has been a symbol for Burmese identity in more than 2,500 years and every true Buddhist in the coun-try tries to make a pilgrimage here at least once during their lifetime.

Yangon was a very interesting and unique city to visit, no doubt. However, we had Myanmar’s real trump cards in front of us: the plains of Bagan with thousands of temples and Inle Lake with its floating gardens and villages – the two actual reasons why most tourists come here.

We flew north to Mandalay, and from there travelled by boat along the Ayeyarwady River. During this journey we really got to experience the genuine Myanmar. Except a small seating area for us few tourists, the boat was packed with Burmese people sitting on the floor with piles of different goods and produce next to them. Some only freighted it, while others took the opportunity to sell to the other travellers. There was also a spe-cial corner for monks and novices on their way to visit fellow brothers in other cities. At various stops along the way, oxen were pulling wooden trolleys full of goods to and from the riv-erbanks and women were wading out towards our boat, selling local food such as samosa (pirogues) as well as the bananas they kept on their heads. After nearly 20 hours on the river we finally reached the shore of Bagan.

Bagan, dating back to the second century, used to be the capi-tal of several ancient kingdoms in Myanmar. During its glory days, especially the 11th to the 13th century, the kings built their temples on the huge plateau here. In total, there are more than 4,000 of them scattered on the Bagan plains. In contrast to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, it is not the mystique of each individual temple that is so breathtaking with this place, but instead the possibility to overview such amount of temples at the same time. We explored the temples of Bagan by bike, which really al-lows you to do it in your own pace and to use the more remote goat paths.

As in most tourist spots in Myanmar, Bagan is subject to a US$10 government visitor fee, which you are supposed to pay at your hostel. However, when trying to pay this with our seem-ingly fine dollar bills we were rejected because the bills were not crisp. ”In your country money is money” the porter said and explained that the banks of Myanmar do not accept non crisp US dollar bills. The irony of it all was that the local cur-

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Korea FreeEconomic Zones

On the shuttle bus from Seoul’s International Airport, we realize that we have landed in a country with a sto-ry to be told. We quickly lose count of all the cranes and bulldozers working on new bridges and preparing empty plots of land. In the shadow of China’s boom-ing economy, there are large efforts to transform the already mature South Korean economy to face tomor-row’s challenges, a key part of these efforts is the estab-lishment of Free Economic Zones.

At the end of the Korean War in 1953 Korea was divided into two parts, both of them being impoverished, non-democratic and dependent on foreign aid. Through reforms, successful in-vestment and transformation of the economy, South Korea de-

veloped into a healthy democracy and the world’s sixth largest exporter.

Traditionally the economy and especially exports has been dominated by large domestic conglomerates such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG who are involved in a wide range of businesses, from shipbuilding and car-manufacturing to consumer electron-ics and insurance. Until quite recently direct foreign investment in Korea has not been encouraged and the market has been difficult for outsiders to enter. In the Asian Financial Crisis 1997 the South Korean economy was hit hard but has since then recovered. The crisis may have been an important reason for policymakers to reconsider Korea’s model for growth and the role of foreign investment.

In order to attract foreign investment the national government decided to cooperate with local authorities to establish six Free Economic Zones, each with different focuses on which indus-tries to develop. The Free economic Zones offer cheap rental of land, loosened regulations, streamlined bureaucratic procedures and tax incentives for foreign investors who meet certain cri-teria. The zones are also supported by large improvements in

Text & photos: Linus Hallberg & Johan Annell, NCTU Taiwan

We spent a day cruising around in a small boat. Out on the lake, fishermen were trying to get their daily catch with special local fishing techniques, standing on one leg, rowing with the other and throwing the net with their hands. There were entire villag-es built up on poles out in the lake and next to them, vast areas of plantations of vegetables floating in the water. Lake Insle is a place both for sceneries and cultural experiences of a tradi-tional way of living in central Myanmar. The whole area turned out to be very peaceful. Hence, as the last stop of our journey, it was a good place to recover from the stomach problems we had incurred, before flying back to Yangon and Bangkok.

Finally, when looking back on our eleven days in Myanmar, we are very surprised how open the country really is and how convenient it actually was to travel around it. You always hear so many things about Myanmar in various media, just like the quoted Lonely Planet text, which makes you think it is a very strict country. However, now afterwards our picture of it is dif-ferent. Nevertheless one fact still remains, never before have we been to a place so different from the outside world than Myanmar. We are very happy that we have had the opportunity to experience this unique country. It was with both fascination and wonders whether it ever will catch up with the rest of the world, or remain in the 50s, that we left the country for the modern Thailand of today.

rency notes, the kyats, were hardly readable and trashed like hell. Issues concerning money are not a new phenomenon in Myanmar. In 1985 all 25, 50 and 100 kyat notes, existing at the time were declared invalid. The deeply superstitious ruler Ne Win replaced them with 15, 35 and 75 kyat notes due to his 75th birthday. Only a few of the old notes could be exchanged for the new ones, which left millions of people nearly destitute. However, that was hardly the end to it. Only two years later Ne Win changed his mind again, this time replacing the 35 and 75 notes with 45s and 90s. The reason to it is said to be his obses-sion with the number nine. This time, no exchanges of old notes were allowed at all, which led to protests, eventually resulting in the ousting of Ne Win a year later.

From Bagan it is a twelve hour bus ride to Insle Lake, which we had the fortune to experience from the roof of a bus. Even if the planks were hard against our backs, it was nice to lie in the sun watching the magnificent landscape passing by as we climbed the serpentine roads to the highlands of Myanmar. At Insle Lake, the people live in close relation with the water, using it for fish-ing, irrigation and even as a place to live. We stayed in a little vil-lage beside the lake, connected to it with channels. It was a nice feeling to sit in the morning sun at the roof top balcony of our hostel, eating breakfast while watching the street and channel come to life below us.

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infrastructure such as expanding ports and railways to handle future growth. To accommodate foreign professionals and their families, the zones have English as an official language and en-courage the establishment of foreign schools, universities and hospitals. The free economic zones are also developing recrea-tional facilities such as golf courses, amusement parks, casinos and beach resorts targeting foreign residents and tourists.

The concept of special economic zones, with different regula-tions from those in the host nation, is an old idea originating in free ports, which have long been present in Europe. One exam-ple is the Italian free port in Trieste, established in 1719 and still operating as a free port. Free ports facilitate trade by allowing goods to move between different ships or undergo some pro-cessing without having to pass through customs. Today Special Economic Zones are a common tool for governments who wish to attract foreign investment and to concentrate modernization efforts to create clusters that can help the country develop. The most famous success story may be Shenzhen, which in the eighties was a minor city that became the first Special Economic Zone of China and has since then grown to a major metropolis and centre of manufacturing, trade and finance.

A major difference from China is that Korea already is a stable democratic developed nation on par with Japan and most European nations, thus the motivations and goals for free economic zones are dif-ferent. By better utilizing existing strengths and acquiring new capabilities Korea hopes to maintain competiveness against de-veloping countries and avoid economic stagnation.

In the south of South Korea lies Busan, the second largest city which is a centre for Korea’s automotive industry and the world’s leading shipbuilding district, with a global market share of 51.5%. The port of Busan is already the world’s fifth larg-est port by volume of transported goods and plans to expand from today’s 18 berths to 30 berths by 2015. Together with neighbouring city of Jinhae, Busan is home to Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone (BJFEZ), a zone focusing on logistics and manu-facturing.

A competitor, inspiration and partner for the BJFEZ is Singapore which has used its strategic location to become the world’s largest container port and attracts commerce and finance through business friendly policies. The ports of Singapore and Busan are competing for trading volume to Europe and North

Paul Lanari from Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone

Authority explains their future vision using a

model of the area.

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America, but Singapore is also a large trading partner and will be operating a part of the port in Busan. The location of Bu-san makes it well suited for consolidating trans-pacific shipment from Chinese and Japanese ports to USA. There are also hopes for a future connection with railway networks through what is now North Korea into China and the network of high-speed trains that are being planned across China and Russia to Europe.

Although plans like these stretch far into the future, much has already been done. We met with some Swedish companies, both inside and outside of the FEZ, to learn more about their busi-ness in Korea. One of the earliest manufacturing investors in the BJFEZ is the Swedish parts manufacturer SKF, who since long have a presence in South Korea, selling imported SKF goods and manufacturing goods both for export and the domestic market. In 2007 SKF Automotive moved into a newly built factory in the Free Economic Zone, where they enjoy tax breaks, proximity to customers and good prospects for future expansion of the factory. Busan is the center of Korea’s automotive industry with companies such as Renault Samsung Motors, Hyundai Motors and GM Daewoo Motors. SKF produces hub bearings, which are integrated solutions ready to be mounted in cars. Even though the domestic demand is huge, the majority of the bearings are exported, primarily to North America and Europe.

Apart from being a large market for industrial goods, Korea is also a mature market with strong demand for foreign pre-mium consumer products and new green technology. We met with the Swedish company Scandinavian Biogas who provide expertise and take responsibility for treating organic waste and turning it into biogas. Attracted by the Korean government’s

dedication to tightening environmental standards and high de-mand for biogas, they chose South Korea as their first foreign market and started production of biogas in partnership with the city of Ulsan in 2009. The company is satisfied with the invest-ment and hopes to soon be improving production at other sites in South Korea. To help finance the project, Scandinavian Biogas originally planned to borrow money from Swedish banks since the company is based in Sweden where previous projects are good references to prove the viability of their technology and business model. It proved hard to reach an agreement because of the risks associated with lending to a project in a country which Swedish banks have little experience and knowledge about. Instead, Scandinavian Biogas negotiated loans in Korea, which meant they had to put in extra effort convincing Korean bankers to lend to a previously unknown foreign company.

One of the possible benefits of the economic zones may be mit-igating problems like these, since new investment and a larger presence of foreign residents will give South Korea more public-ity and create synergies when there are more connections with the rest of the world. The development of the zones started around year 2000 and development is scheduled to be finished by 2020. Some investors, such as SKF and DHL, are already in place, more are on their way, and the BJFEZ Authority is contin-uously marketing their value proposition directly to a selected group of multinational companies. The zones themselves are also being used as physical advertisements for investing in Ko-rea. For example Busan is not only upgrading its infrastructure with the port and new bridges but is also, like other confident economies, planning to build a landmark skyscraper to put the city and Korea in the global spotlight.

Johan Anell and Linus Hall-berg at SKF factory in Busan

people of Hong Kong to get out more, breathe some fresh air and enjoy the splendid views that surrounds them all year long.

As such a big part of Hong Kong consists of pure nature, the people are provided with spectacular views of green encrusted hills and a fantasy-like archipelago. And spread around the hills are plenty of trails and country parks to enjoy some good hiking in. When in Hong Kong, either if you are in the skyscraper filled Central or extremely crowded Mong Kok, it is impossible to miss these green dragon-like respirators.

Hong Kong has eight big country parks spread across the whole region. Each park offers specific flora, fauna and walking trails. There is a wide range of trail options – some are more suitable for shorter day trips or for people not looking for any bigger challenges, while others are more fitting for people with more outdoor experience or those who look for good physical ex-ercise.

Aberdeen Country Park, that is situated on the southern part of Hong Kong Island, is one of Hong Kong’s oldest parks. It offers fairly easy and short walking trails with beautiful sur-roundings. The longest trail in Aberdeen Country Park takes at most one hour to walk.

At the foot of Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island lies Pok Fu Lam Country Park. Like most of the other parks, Pok Fu Lam has green hills and refreshing air. Those who choose to hike here will be rewarded with scenic views over Hong Kong Island, the canal and the skyscrapers. The Native Tree Walk, which is a

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The first thing that meets your eyes when you arrive in Hong Kong, either if you do it by air or land, is people. People in huge numbers. This is not a strange thing – a large number of skyscrapers implicate more humans in smaller areas. However, something that is a bit more peculiar is that a region with such great numbers of skyscrapers like Hong Kong would hold such extensive wildlife, so many hiking trails and such beautiful natural landscapes.

The density of population in Hong Kong – 6,460 persons per km² – may not tell you much. But if you compare this with Sweden’s 23 persons per km², you begin to understand how densely populated Hong Kong really is. And if you then bring up the fact that Hong Kong is the fourth most crowded region in the world, and that less than 15% of the area in Hong Kong is developed, you start questioning how the people in Hong Kong in reality manage not to stumble upon each other all the time, everywhere. Now the curious ones might start wonder-ing what happened with the rest of the 85% of the area of Hong Kong – what does it look like and what do they use it for? The answer to these questions are simple – if not developed, it must be pure nature. And what it is mainly used for is helping the

Hiking in

Hong Kong Part I

Hong KongText and Photos: Elisabeth Liljeblad, The Hong Kong University of

Science and Technology, Hong Kong

13

part of the longer Peak Trail, starts next to the Peak. It is suit-able for those who are interested in the native trees and plants in Hong Kong, or people just looking for an easy non-strenuous walk a bit outside and above the hectic city center. The park is particularly crowded during weekends as well as in the morn-ings and afternoons when the heat is not so palpable.

Tai Tam Country Park is situated on the southern part of Hong Kong Island and offers great views over the sea along the trails next to Tai Tam Reservoir. For those interested in the mili-tary history of Hong Kong there are remains from WWII, like bunkers and other military constructions. If one wants to climb Hong Kong’s highest mountain, Kam Shan Country Park in north Kowloon is the place to begin at. The park is one of the first in Hong Kong to offer the people of the region lush green forest trails. It has several different types of trails, ranging from fairly easy to difficult.

Lion Rock Country Park is perfect for those looking for great workout in terrain and beautiful environment. Though one should be careful of the monkeys dwelling here – they are fear-less and will gladly steal your lunch from your hand or your bag.

West of Hong Kong Island lies Hong Kong’s biggest island, Lan-tau Island. More than half the island is a part of the Lantau Country Park and provides numerous of different types of hiking. One can for example test ones stamina on Lantau Trail, or look for butterflies, birds and enjoy wandering by the beach in Chi Ma Wan peninsula.

Situated in northern Hong Kong is Pat Sin Leng Country Park (The Eight Fairies). The park has an extensive range con-sidering difficult levels – everything from easy trails to the most difficult ridge walks Hong Kong has to offer. The park is said to have the most difficult trails in the region because of its fre-quent ascents and descents. If you are in the area on a clear day, you will be able to see all the way to the mainland Shenzhen.

In New Territories lies Sai Kung Country Park. The park not only offers panoramic views and great nature, it also holds a mu-seum of traditional Hakka lifestyle and a special marked nature trail called Pak Tam Chung, which gives the interested insight to the ancient village life. The park has numerous beautiful beaches and a delicious archipelago. Sharp Peak, which lies in Sai Kung East Country Park, has scenic views from the top and is best suited for experienced hikers in good physical shape. Each and everyone of these eight parks gives its unique contri-bution to the outdoor activities and the reduction of the stress in Hong Kong. Despite the fact that the first thing that meets your eyes when you arrive in Hong Kong is the large number of people, the second thing you see, if you gaze a bit upwards, are the green inviting hills. There is no question that Hong Kong is very special considering the fact that it combines both ”huge city” and ”sublime surroundings” without any of them extinguishing the other. The beautiful nature together with the people and skyscrapers makes Hong Kong an interesting and inviting place to visit – especially for those who enjoy hiking. So, next time you visit Hong Kong, do not forget that there is much more than shopping to experience.

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You can eat any kind of meal at any time of the day in a restaurant somewhere in Hong Kong. Breakfast with toast and congee at eight o’clock on a friday night shouldn’t be a problem. Hong Kong is a city of hard workers, who spend most hours of the day at the office, which leaves little time for cooking and eating in their minimal apartments, pos-

Hong Kong Part II

This retro 1950s-styled cha chaan teng has a wonderful feeling about it. Inside, the walls are covered in tiles and paper slips with items off the menu. Between the patterned melamine table tops and the glass covers, you can read the menu. The ambience is all in this place, it’s fa-

mous in many guidebooks and is said to have been used as a set in many Hong Kong films set in the time period. This naturally makes the place popular with tourists.

The food at Mido can sometimes be dis-appointing. If you are looking for culinary delights, go somewhere else. In the morn-ing, coffee with french or normal toast is

a good option and later in the day I’ve enjoyed the baked rice with pork or one of the curries. It’s also a good place to try the traditional Hong Kong drinks, such as milk tea, lemon tea, yuanyang (coffee mixed with milk tea) or lemon with Ribe-na. Mido is on the intersection between Temple street and Public Square street, near Yau Ma Tei MTR station.

Mido café

This is one of many small restaurants serving Hong Kong style comfort food. Congee, noodles or glutinous rice balls are served, but my main reason for visit-ing this place is the congee. Congee is a kind of rice porridge which is cooked for a long time, making the rice smooth and soft and before serving, vegetables, meat or fish are added. Congee is popular in many parts of asia and they all have their

A foodie’s guide to Hong KongText & photos: Tom Baylis, The Hong Kong

University of Science and Technology, Hong

Kong

sibly causing or resulting in the tiny kitchens. Most people will enjoy their meal in one of the 12,000 restaurants spread around in Hong Kong.

Just like most other major cities, Hong Kong has restaurants with food from all over the world. You can easily find Italian, American, Japanese, Korean, Indian or Russian food, just to name a few. The most exciting places are the ones frequently visited by local Hong Kongers, which serve a mix of British and

western food together with the local Chinese and cantonese dishes. The formidable mix of tea and coffee, known as yuanyang is a typi-cal example of the fusion. Hongkongers real-ly love food, and luckily eating in restaurants every day doesn’t have to be as expensive as you might expect. Prices range from 10 Hong Kong dollars and upwards. Different restau-rants can have huge differences, depeding on condiments and location, a bowl of noodles in soup can be priced from $25 to $150!

Nathan Congeeand Noodles

own style. In Hong Kong, and at Nathan Congee & Noodle, it is really smooth and topped with ginger and chopped spring onions.

The congee at Nathan Congee can be served with just about any type of con-diments, ranging from pigs kidneys, frogs legs or abalone (expensive sea snails) to the more easily digested fishballs or shreds of beef. Another good bet is the fresh fish and lettuce. To get some extra texture you can add bits of doughnuts (unsweetened) to the congee. Visitors in Hong Kong usually miss fiber in their diet and small places like this serve steamed

vegetables in the form of chinese broc-coli which can help. Just be prepared for the generous topping of oyster sauce. The food is served with an unlimited supply of chinese tea. Nathan’s Congee and Noo-dles is on Saigon Street off Nathan road close the Jordan’s MTR station.

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Mak’s NoodlesSome people praise the beef brisket here, others say the portions are too small, but I like the small bowls of wontons and noodle soup. Wontons are tradition-ally a kind of dumpling filled with a mix of prawns and minced pork, the skin of the dumpling forms a thin tail making the whole wonton in some way resemble a goldfish. At Mak’s there’s only prawns in the wontons, which makes them extra tasty.

Dim Sum is probably the most famous food from Hong Kong and the Guang-dong region. Dim Sum can be translated to “point to the heart” and traditionally consisted of lots of small snacks (often steamed) served together with tea. Tim Ho Wan is famous for great dim sum and for being one of the cheapest restaurants ever to get a star in the Michelin guide. The chef is the old dim sum master from the luxorious Four Seasons Hotel near the IFC on Hong Kong island who want-ed a change from the large hotel kitchens.

The trick with Tim Ho Wan is the queue,

you have to get a ticket number from the lady outside, she’ll write down how many seats are needed and give a rough esti-mate on how long it’ll take. Waiting time ranges from an hour to three, but you should come back regularly and check of-ten since things can change fast. Walking around the area can be interesting, mar-kets and shops are everywhere and Mong kok’s shopping possibilities just a short walk away. While you’re waiting you can check the menu and select the dishes you want, my personal favourites are the char sui bao (pork filled buns with a sweet topping), chiu chao style dumplings (meat, vegetables and peanuts inside) and the glutinous rice with preserved meat inside.

Tim Ho Wan is found on Kwong Wa Street, a few minutes from Yau Ma Tei MTR station in Kowloon.

Good coffee is quite a young concept in Hong Kong and is dominated by the large chains; Starbucks and Pacific coffee. Coco espresso is a small, independent shop which serves coffee with personality.

They have great espresso, lattes and plain long black coffees but little space to sit, so be prepared for a take away. Come to Coco for a proper, modern, and friendly

cup of coffee, which is a good indicator that Hong Kong is a modern city just like many others.

Tim Ho Wan

Coco espresso

The staff are mostly middle aged men, all dressed in slightly oversized white shirts, who are quick to seat you, take your or-der and nearly throw you the free glass of tea. After enjoying noodles and wontons either order seconds or ask for the bill and pay at the door. The restaurant is on Wellington street 77 in central which is usually a street you eventually come across since many good restaurants are here and it really fills up during lunch hours.

Coco espresso is on Queen’s Road 197, and can be reached from Sheung

Wan MTR station.

Singapore is located in South East Asia with an esti-mated population of 5 million. During my hectic week there in December 2010 I, together with my colleagues Marcus and Josefine, had the privilege to visit some of the major Swedish subsidiaries. Each visit was more ex-citing than the other. However, one company gave me a remarkably positive impression and the experience I received during the visit will last in my memory for a long time to come. The company I am referring to is SKF: A leading global supplier of products, solutions and services in the fields of bearings, seals, mechatron-ics and lubrication systems.

The taxi dropped me off in front of the entrance to the fa-cility. I entered the lobby somewhat early in the morning and the receptionist kindly asked me to wait for my contact person in the conference room. As I sat there, I anxiously organized my questions for the interview since the last weeks of intense studying had not granted me that opportunity. A couple of min-utes later he entered the room; Mr Gordon Goh, Maintenance Product Manager in SKF Singapore. The introduction was formal and brief like any other interview I had previously experienced. I began by explaining my mission as a representative for the Chalmers International Taiwan Office and stated the purpose of my visit. He listened intently and took his time to make some notes. As I started by asking him questions about his previous experiences, I couldn’t help but notice the relaxed atmosphere and that the so much anticipated tension in the interview was

Time: 10:00am, 12th of December Location: SKF Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, Changi South Lane, Singapore

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An encounter with Text and Photos: Kristofer Jovanov, NCTU Taiwan

Mr. Gordon Goh at his working place in SKF Asia Pacific Office presenting some of the company’s major achievements

SKF Asia Pacific

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absent. The questions I had previously rehearsed in the lobby seemed much less relevant. Ten minutes later I had partially skipped my list of questions and devoted myself more in creat-ing a discussion rather than asking pre-rehearsed questions. Mr Gordon Goh struck me with a positive energy I had seldom witnessed and explained how proud he was to be part of SKF and that each day brought new challenges to his work.

-This company is very successful at what it does. However, we cannot afford to sit back and relax at this current position. We must be observant and seek new opportunities to expand and maintain the distance to our competitors. There are tons of new products that require the utilization of bearings and seals, and we want to be there to provide our customers with not only our prod-ucts, but service and knowledge as well.

How are your relations to the Head Quarters in Gothenburg?

-We uphold very good communications with them and receive frequent visits. SKF Singapore is very important to the overall business of SKF and it is therefore vital for the communications with the HQ to be in optimal condition.

He continues…

-The Asian market is growing very rapidly, and in that SKF Asia Pacific (as it is actually called) plays an even more vital role. SKF is distinguishing itself from its’ competitors by not only offering its products to the buyer; we furthermore strive to offer our custom-ers the best possible service and thus uphold good relations with them.

Bearings are used in many various components and machinery. My primary thoughts of areas that include the application of bearings are the automo-tive industry, windmill manufacturing and factory components such as spindles. It must be a consider-able advantage for companies who offer products who can be used in many sectors.

-Of course! One of this company’s main advantages would be our diversity. Our technology can be applied in various fields of engineering. This is a great benefit, especially in times of eco-nomic crisis. If one market, let’s say the automotive, suffers a downfall in the economy, we can still make profits in other mar-kets and thus compensate for the loss.

Following the interview Gordon kindly escorted me to a shopping mall where he bought me a traditional Singapo-

rean dish: Kaya toast and coffee. The discussion contin-ued about SKF, but at this time with a more personal profile.

In acknowledgement of my genuine interest in the company (most of which I had gained dur-ing the interview itself) he was kind enough to send me an invitation to their annual company party, which was held on the day before my de-parture back to Taiwan. I gladly attended the fes-tivity where I had the pleasure of meeting very interesting people in the Asia Pacific Branch. I was just as fascinated sharing my thoughts with common employees, as I was with the top exec-utives. The atmosphere was joyful, the food was delicious, the shows were magnificent and all of whom I met treated me very respectfully. Their hospitality was something out of the ordinary and I felt that this company would undoubtedly satisfisfy my needs of an excellent working en-vironment if I were to one day work for them.

The ferris wheel in Singapore has SKF’s contribution added to it by the gigantic central bearing sup-

porting the entire structure.

Kristofer Jovanov and Mr. David Bishop, Head of SKF Asia Pacific, at the annual company party

Waking up at 2 am, it is damp and freezing cold in the dorm at 3,200m altitude. I am just about to make the fi-nal 900m ascent to the top of Mount Kinabalu. The high altitude has affected me and given me a light headache. When we start the climb an hour later, it is pitch dark, the only light available coming from our headlamps. At 5.30am I have reached the top, and my reward is a fan-tastic view in the light from the first rays of the rising sun. This will be the end of two weeks on amazing Ma-laysian Borneo before I am getting back to school after the winter break.

Southeast Asia offers a lot between “heaven and earth”. Here are some of the worlds best and most diverse dive sites, along with fantastic and often very accessible mountain climbing. The Malaysian state of Sabah on the northeastern tip of Borneo gives you the opportunity to try both and much more. Apart from climbing and diving, you can for example go on a river cruise on the Kinabatangan river, spotting the endangered or-angutang, crocodiles and pygmy elephants. For trekking, take a cheap flight to neighbouring state Sarawak and the Gunung Mulu national park.

Making a trip to Mount Kinabalu offers a stunning view from the top at 4,095m. Be prepared though, the climb is demanding. Quite a few people attempting the climb decides to stay in bed at the top lodge instead of going for the top, suffering from ach-ing muscles and limbs or altitude sickness. On the other hand, if you are fit enough, making the climb in just one day instead of two like most people is a lot cheaper. If you are looking for the ultimate challenge, attend the Kinabalu Climbathon, a race from 1,866m to the top and back down again. The male record is 2 hours and 33 minutes, slightly faster than my present record of 29 something hours.

Also in the state of Sabah lies the diving heaven of Sipadan. Rid-ing on a statement from the late world famous diver Jacques Cousteau, this dive site close to the Indonesian border claims to be one of the best sites in the world. Travelling by bus from the Sabah capital Kota Kinabalu across the state to Semporna is a rather depressing journey though. What used to be all rain forest is now palm oil plantations as far as the eye can see. After the ten hour bus ride I start to realise the magnitude of this problem. One effect of the deforestation I witnessed is that on the rivers. With the original vegetation gone, the shores can no longer hold together and a lot of mud is being released into the

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Way up high...

...and down below

water, making it brown. This in turn makes it impossible for a lot of water living species to survive. For further reading, the palm oil industry on Borneo is covered in more detail in the article “Does your shampoo cause deforestation?” in Asia Magazine no 14, which is available on the CITO website.

Scuba diving on the other hand is a lucrative industry that very often also can have a positive effect on the environment. For divers, the number one rule, except for to never stop breathing, is to “see but not touch”. Diving also makes you more aware of the fragile environment under the surface. More important-ly though, the economical benefits from the tourism industry make governments as well as locals in these countries more prone to preserving the dive sites. The best and most popular dive sites are those that have the most of marine biodiversity. For example, fishing using dynamite is not uncommon among fishermen in countries like Malaysia and the Philippines, a habit that is now successfully being banned from popular dive sites. Naturally, it is in the interest of the local tourism industry to keep it that way, so it is a win-win-win situation – for the divers, the locals and the environment. As for Sipadan, all resorts here were closed in 2004 and there is a limit of 120 divers here per

day in order to protect the environment.

Finally arriving at the island of Mabul outside of Semporna, my expectations were set high. I was not disappointed. During three days of diving, whereof one at Sipadan, I met intimately with lots of sea turtles, beautiful Lion fish, evil looking Moray eels, thou-sands of barracudas at “Barracuda point” and countless other species and kinds of corals. Although the end of february is still the low season for diving here, partly due to poor visibility, this was a fantastic diving experience for me. For remembering the trip, I am glad to have been diving with my two new Singapo-rean friends Izar and Norhendra who shared their underwater photos with me.

Southeast Asia truly offers some of the best diving in the world, at competitive prices. Apart from getting cheap dives, living costs on land are low. For example, a three day certification course in Malaysia costs about 1,700 SEK, compared to 4,500 SEK for the same course in Sweden. The biggest company is PADI, which offers standardised courses all over the world. This means that taking their course in Thailand gives you the same knowledge and training as doing it in Egypt or Greece.

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Text & photos: Anders Mattsson, NCTU Taiwan

The highest summit in South-East Asia called Lows Peak meauring 4,095 me-ters above sea level. A breathtaking scenery!

Travelling in this region you are never far from a dive site. Being a certified diver when visiting countries like Thai-land, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines will definitely enrich your experience. On the other hand, just going snorkelling may sometimes be just as rewarding. If you get tired of exploring the under water world – look for the nearest jungle or mountain to go for a hike. So when planning a trip to Southeast Asia, remember to bring the following essential equipment: Mask and snorkel and good hiking boots.

Anders scuba diving and exploring the beautiful waters close to Sipadan Island

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Underwater photos by Izar Ahmad & Norhenda Ruslan

Historically the western countries have had the leading role regarding technology and innovation in the world, with the USA and Germany in the forefront. Little at-tention has been given to the developing world includ-ing countries such as China and India. People are get-ting more and more aware that the world as we knew it is changing, but few may know to what extent.

This topic is discussed thoroughly in the book “The Develop-ing World” written by the Swedish author Fredrik Härén. The book is a result of observations gained from visits to more than 25 countries and interviews with people from areas stretching from Turkey to China. Asia Magazine has met Mr. Härén to talk about the topic.

In the book you are claiming that Asia knows both Asia and the West-ern world, while westerners only know the western world. What’s the impact of that fact and how should it be changed?

-It’s quite dangerous. Consider this: Who has the ability to de-velop the best products – the one who knows the whole world, or the one who just knows half of it? We have to be more curi-ous and think more globally to be able to compete.

What made you write the book?

-At the time I was giving lectures in Sweden about creativity in developing countries. It did not make sense for me to speak about things I had not experienced myself. I met a professor from India who told me: “We Indians don’t want your boring jobs, like sewing footballs or assembling cell phones. We want your fun jobs: your research jobs, your analytical jobs, your de-sign assignments and your developing departments. Thanks to the Internet, we can look at what you’re doing and compare it to what we’re doing, and we’ve suddenly realized that there isn’t such a great difference between you and us after all.” This made me understand that something was happening in Asia, and I had to see it with my own eyes.

During the time the book was written Mr. Härén travelled for 10 months to find out what was really happening.

Creative Asia - An interview with Fredrik Härén

For whom is the book written?

-The book is written for people in both developing and de-veloped countries. For those living in developing countries, the book should be viewed as empowering, to make them under-stand what they have, that we do not. For those living in de-veloped countries, I hope the book is a wake-up call to make people realize what is really happening. The response from the audience when I am lecturing on the subject of the book is quite different depending on whether I am in a developed or devel-oping country. In the developed countries people get irritated, chocked and disappointed about their own neglectance. In de-veloping countries people get really excited and say: “WOW, I haven’t thought about it in that way”.

What do you think drives creativity?

-I think doubt is the driving force of creativity. It is commonly stated that doubt is negative for creativity, but it is when you doubt that you start to question whether or not there is a bet-ter way to do things. Another important characteristic is con-fidence – to believe in your ideas even if others do not share your optimism. Developing countries are often driven by things such as inspiration, fantasies, dreams and sometimes even re-venge, saying “it is our turn”. The importance is in having some-thing that drives you. The sense of being second is also a driving force in many developing countries. In western countries it is more common to protect what you have, rather than focusing on improvements.

Text & Photos: Rickard Segerdahl and Ivar Nilsson, Nanyang Techno-

logical University of Singapore

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How creative is Sweden?

Sweden is actually quite good. I think it is because of our low self esteem and doubtful minds. Swedes are often asking them-selves “how are others doing this?”, “can this be done in a better way?”, “is this really correct?”. I think the countries who should be worried are those who are developed and have too big egos.

How should Swedish companies respond to the upcoming competi-tion from Asia?

-Swedish companies should not think Sweden, it is an anti-quated way of thinking. It is no longer about Swedish, Chinese or American companies – it is only about companies, where you work with the best people regardless of geographic back-ground. Companies like Volvo, SKF and IKEA are not Swedish companies anymore, they are global companies. It is a change of paradigm, understanding that companies have to think globally in the world today. This is something that both companies and governments need to apply.

What do you think will be China’s future role in the world?

-I think it will be China against the rest of the world. In the western world, companies privatize to be able to compete on the global market. China’s strategy is the exact opposite. China’s mining industry for example is run by the government, while the rest of the worlds’ is privatized. In 50 years, when we will

have gigantic problems with supplies of natural resources, then China is the winner. China is extremely smart, and the rest of the world has no clue. To be able to compete against China, the rest of the world has to go global in a broader sense than today.

Speaking of going global, what is your attitude towards university student exchanges?

-I think it should be compulsory, even though Swedish people are relatively good at working and travelling abroad compared to most other countries. One year abroad should be mandatory instead of military service now that it is abolished. If I could, I would legislate, says Fredrik with a laughter.

About Fredrik Härén

Fredrik Härén is a Swedish author and speaker within business creativity and lives part-time in Sin-gapore and part-time in the Philippines. His career took off when he founded an Internet consulting firm in the beginning of the IT boom, which he later sold 1999. Until recently Mr. Härén has focused mainly on business creativity, writing books and giv-ing lectures within the subject. Härén

• has done more than 1,000 speeches, key notes and training sessions in more than 25 countries

• was rewarded “Speaker of the Year” in Sweden 2007

• is the author of the management book “The Idea Book” which has sold more than 200,000 copies

Fredrik is now releasing his new novel “De ickesyn-liga”.

See Fredrik Härén in action on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/interestingorg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0jDJ-wsMYI (In Swedish)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohHNONAbheE (In Swedish)

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How is it to work in Japan, and how does one apply? During our time as students at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, we were amazed by all the hard-working students often studying until late at night. We wondered if this continues when they graduate and start working. To investigate this we have interviewed two students in the process of job hunting and spoken to a salary man in Sendai.

Japanese university students start job hunting early. Usually, they begin collecting information about interesting companies and attending seminars from at least February one year before graduating in March the following year. Satoshi Mieda, final-year master’s student of Human Interface Design at Osaka Univer-sity, says that while he started to actively look for a job in Febru-ary last year, he did join a few company seminars in January and even December. Even this might be a tad late, however; “If you join the company in April 2012, you have to start in November 2010”, says Architecture and Building Science master’s student Takeyoshi Sasai of Tohoku University.

From the onset, job hunting proceeds according to a very fixed schedule. Sasai explains that generally, after collecting informa-tion about companies that seem interesting and registering their personal information on company web sites, students at-tend company information sessions. There, the students can ask questions and narrow down the companies they are interested in. Next, the actual application and selection process starts with the students mailing in their curriculum vitae and personal let-ters. Most companies will not accept applications outside of the official application period, so students have little choice but to follow this schedule set up for them.

The actual interviews are in general themselves very struc-tured and designed to step by step cull the herd of prospective employees until only the cream remains. As explained by Sasai, it is common that students have to go through three or four interviews of different types for a single company, sometimes ending with a personal talk with executives or the president of the company. As examples of the sorts of things asked about at the interviews, Sasai and Mieda name research areas, interests, motivations, strengths and weaknesses; in other words, not too

different from what one would expect at a job interview almost anywhere. Salary is not discussed at the interview, but is more or less fixed according to the job position and the size of the company.

Apart from the interviews, most companies also make appli-cants write specialised exams to test their actual skills and knowledge. In the case of architects, adds Sasai, students are however rather expected to show their portfolio and models as examples of previous work.

Tough as the job-hunting period may be, the students are not completely on their own. There are many sources of help, ex-plain Mieda and Sasai, not least the recruiters. When prepar-ing for an oral examination, for example, a company employee helped Mieda check his presentation slides and offered advice. Of course, the university teachers and career support centres will help the students through all the process, and there are companies specialising in providing aid for job-seeking students.When asked how difficult it is to find a job, Sasai says that it is “so difficult. If you mail your personal history and motivation letter to thirty companies, you might get an offer from one or two”. Mieda, however, gives another impression, saying that he thinks that it is not so difficult for a national university graduate, especially with a master’s degree, since they often have recom-mendations for employment that weigh heavily in the selection process. Of course, this difference in perceived difficulty might reflect nothing more than the current situation in the Japanese architecture and IT sector, respectively.

After an often long and hard period of job hunting the newly employed has another tough period ahead. The intense com-petition on the global market has gradually forced companies to change the employment period of their workers. An often lifetime employment has turned to a more result-based em-ployment. During the 1960s companies recruited directly from the universities, but now global competition and low population growth has opened up the borders for foreigners to compete for the elite jobs. For example, now many companies are re-cruiting Chinese expertise. In 2002 a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare counted the number of foreign nationals employed directly by domestic corporations to 141,285, a rise of 8.3% from the previous year. Even though Japan’s unemployment rate is the highest ever since the post-war era, there are still many surprisingly unique jobs outside the academic sphere. For example the many traffic security guards that even assist the traffic light at the crosswalk (and many times confuse both the pedestrians and the drivers), the man sitting

The long road to employmentText: Rickard von Haugwitz and Isaac Strandell, Tohoku Institute of

Technology, Japan

23

in the street holding a traffic sign to keep it from falling down, or the two girls standing next to a crowd holding a garbage bag. The Japanese people are used to this work ethic, however. No matter how simple a task seems to be, they will always do their job with the utmost seriousness and quality, and almost always with a smile on their face. Even so, Japan’s economy demands changes, the job market is rapidly undergoing structural changes and effectiveness becomes more and more important. Luckily, Japan’s ability to adjust to new situations is traditionally very good. After the Second World War Japan’s cities and economy were in ruins, but two decades later they had risen and be-come an important economic super power. Cities were rebuilt, and now the average lifespan of Japanese buildings is around 30 years, which means the cities are constantly changing.

But how is it to work in Japan? We interviewed a salary man who had studied in Italy on the differences between the coun-tries: “The work conditions in Japan are almost the same as in Europe. We normally have a 40-hour working week and benefits

like insurance, paid holidays, unions and so on. The biggest differ-ence is the short vacation - we have in general 18 days off, and we normally get a bonus once every half year of approximately 1.5 months’ salary.” Women have a little bit harder time making a career because of the Japanese tradition for women to stop working when they get their first child. This is slowly changing however, and many women get half-time jobs or start working again when the child reaches first grade. Normally, the monthly salary for women is around 250,000 Yen and for men around 300,000 Yen.

In the global economy, Japan has a strong workforce with some advantages that will be hard to compete with for the rest of the world. Japanese people have in general a good work ethic, are well educated, have good attention to detail, good civil order and a rich culture, are flexible and have better English profi-ciency than they tend to think themselves. So for the newly em-ployed academic and the foreign expertise there is definitively a bright future ahead.

Even though the distance from Sin-gapore to Sweden is ten thousand kilometres, for a Swedish travel-ler in Singapore, home is never far away. There are places for most matters like running important er-rands, eating Swedish food, listening to Swedish speeches and connect-ing with other Swedes through so-cial networking groups around the country.

As in most countries in the world, you can also find the Swedish embassy in Sin-gapore. This might not be the first place you visit for pleasure, but when you need their services you are really glad to find them. They can among other things help

you with issues regarding renewal of passport or driving license and when it is election period back in Sweden, you can drop by and place your vote.

For eating Swedish dishes, there are two main places. One of them is the Swedish furniture giant, IKEA, where they among other dishes always serve Swedish meat-balls with potatoes and lingonberries. As all IKEA’s article names are the same worldwide, you couldn’t feel more at home when walking around among all the Swedish signs coloured in blue and yellow. Last stop, just before the exit, is a Swedish shop where they sell some tradi-tional Swedish food and candy.

The second place for having a taste of Sweden is a café and bistro called Fika. They serve typical Swedish food and desserts, but in comparison to IKEA the menu is much bigger and the surround-ings much more pleasant. It is furnished with white small chairs and tables and couldn’t be reminding more of a small,

cosy little Swedish café. For enhancing the Swedishness of the café it is mod-estly decorated with some Dala-horses, moose and other prop which takes you back to Sweden.

If the mentioned food couldn’t damp your hunger for Sweden and you want to meet Swedish people to socialise with, there is an organization called Young Pro-fessionals which probably is just what you are looking for. YP is a social network with the vision to make sure to keep the Swedish traditions alive in Singapore and

GoSingapore

Sweden in

Text & Photos: Aron Caselunghe, Nanyang

Technological University of Singapore

24

they are doing so by hosting a lot of dif-ferent events. Besides celebrating the very Swedish holidays like Christmas and Midsummer, they are hosting all kinds of events all year round. Mostly it’s about casual, relaxed get-togethers like after work, barbeque parties or beach hang, just for meeting other Swedes and having a good time. The participation is varying, but at the more attractive events there are up to 80 people coming. Most of the members are Swedish or Scandinavians, but it is open for everybody to join.

YP is a non-profitable organisation which consists of five driving spirits with Kata-

rina Wahlstedt in the lead as chairman. The organisation was started around ten years ago by some guys who informally created an e-mailing list and arranged some gatherings for Swedes in Singapore. Today the group has around 400 mem-bers and has a close collaboration with SBAS (Swedish Business Association in Singapore).

Katarina has been involved in YP since 2006, after her first year in Singapore. She normally works as a sales and marketing manager and has to devote several hours each week for YP. She thinks it’s a pleas-ure working for YP and meeting other

people. She remembers her first days in Singapore, not knowing anybody, and would love to help other people getting their start in Singapore easier by meet-ing other Swedes.

As Young Professionals on the one hand is a network platform of a more casual nature, reaching for young-er people between 18–35 years, SBAS on the other hand has more profes-sional objectives, providing

a forum for discussing economic, industrial and commercial mat-ters. They are among other things arrang-ing speeches, with different spokesmen of interest. On one occasion Carl Bildt was there giving a speech.

Still another place for meeting other Swedes is the Swed-ish church. Besides

the weekly church service every Sunday they also arrange some ac-tivities. For example they have a choir that performs once a week and every Sunday evening there is a barbeque. It doesn’t mat-ter if you are living here or just a backpacker passing by, everybody is welcome. If not for praying or join-ing any activity you can still go there for eating some Swedish pancakes or if you just need someone to talk to, the priest Göran Wiking

is always there for you. They also provide with day-care for children.

To sum up, you can live as much Swed-ish as you want to in Singapore without putting in too much effort. Most Swedes have probably not travelled half around the world in order to eat Swedish meat-balls, but it’s always nice to have the op-tion to once in a while feel like home. All other nationalities can just feel happy about having one more alternative of re-ally good food and the possibility to learn more about Sweden.

25

26

Text & Photos: Daniel Bark,

Age is not just a

In a Confucian society obedience towards seniors is crucial. It’s necessary to be polite to your older brothers and sisters and never argue with parents, teachers or the boss. If you are rude or disrespectful to your seniors you can expect heavy penalties, even including physical punishment.

This explains why Koreans when they meet for the first time are eager to ask about each others ages. It’s basically to find out what kind of relationship should exist between them and to assign who is the older brother or sister. After setting up the relationship both parties know how to behave in a proper way to prevent to be disrespectful. As soon as the age gap is at least 1 year, the seniority relationship exists. However if two Koreans are born in the same year, then their relationship is as friends and they treat each other equally.

So if you are a junior there are some rules to keep in mind for you to show respect. For example the junior have to talk to the senior in a polite way and calling the senior his/her first name is not allowed, instead titles are used.

Use of the language - Hangeul Korea’s official language is Hangeul and was invented during the mid-15th century by King Sejong. The purpose was to create a language that was easy to learn and to use for all people in all classes of society. Originally the Hangeul was called Hunmin-heongeum, which means “proper sounds to instruct people”.

The first impression of South Korea was that the capi-tal city Seoul was like any other megacity such as Lon-don or New York. Any time during the day the subway is crowded, people are stressed and rushing on the streets below the skyscrapers rising up into the sky. But when you get to know the Koreans it will become apparent that the cultural differences from Swedish lifestyle are enormous. The biggest cultural contrast is that your age is very important in Korea and the first question when Koreans meet for the first time is not, what’s your name? Instead they ask: what’s your age?

Today Korea is a developed and advanced country and it’s ranked as the 11th biggest economy in the world. The economic and technological development have been outstanding since the Korean War ended; however the culture hasn’t been changed in the same pace. Sometimes when I spend time with Koreans it feels like I am 20 years back in time.

The Korean lifestyle and culture is influenced by Confucius. Confucianism is a social philosophy, interpreted as guidance for the people to achieve a harmonious society. Not everyone fol-lows the rules of the Confucianism, but this is the main reason that makes Koreans different from Westerners.

numberKonkuk University, South Korea

Seniority rules: 1. Language

2. Titles

If you are a man and calling a senior: Romanization

Older brother Hyung Older sister Nuna

If you are a woman following titles are used: Older brother Oppa Older sister Eunni

However if you are calling your parents, professor or boss both genders uses the

same titles: Mother Omma Father Abeuji Professor Kyosonim Boss Sajangnim

27

As previously described there are a lot of rules in Korea. For westerners it can be pretty hard to understand their culture and to become a part of the society. But if you are willing to go to Korea with an open mind I am convinced there are many useful things you can learn and appreciate from their culture.

Unlike Chinese and Japanese Hangeul is made of phonetic let-ters. In the beginning there were 28 letters, but currently only 24 letters are used. Among the basic letters there are 10 vowels and 14 consonants. The Hangeul’s vocabulary is formed by mak-ing combinations of vowels and consonants to create words.

The Hangeul is very unique because the language consists of different degrees of politeness. Depending on the situation you have to choose if you should speak in an informal low way, infor-mal high way or be formal. If you talk to your professor or boss you have to use the most polite form while if you are talking to your junior or friend it’s sufficient to be informal. The structure of the language is that the verb is always last in the sentence. By adding different endings to the verb different styles are created.

Titles When calling a person in Korea it’s custom to use titles if the person is a senior or professor. Using the first name is con-sidered rude. Also, it’s not acceptable to call your parents or grandparents by their first name, instead specific titles are used. However when talking to people in the same age or juniors you call them by their first name. Depending on if you are a man or a woman you will use different titles when you call an older

brother or sister. Here are some examples of titles:

28

Common sights in our daily life in Taiwan are long growing mole hair and students’ habitual act of filling their bottles with 47-degree hot water in the middle of the summer. Those incidents no longer draw our attention. Neither does their outspo-kenness regarding people’s appearance, such as compliments about blue eyes and tallness and comments such as “You have baby?” when wearing an over-sized sweat-er. After almost nine months in Taiwan we have actually started getting used to many of these significant cultural differences. Still, we perceive new phenomena every day and the society we live in never stops surprising us, which is a fact we definitely like about living in Taiwan. Instead of just finding these things odd we would now like to find the roots of these extraordinary sights and incidents in our daily life. There-fore we decided to unravel this world of superstition and cultural differences which are probably ancient. Aren’t they?

To find out more about these beliefs we sat down with our Mandarin teacher and asked about her thoughts on this.

One of the first superstitions we experienced upon our arrival in Taiwan was the big fear of the number four. The fear is rooted in the similarity of the word for death (死) and the word for four (四), our teacher says. However, this explanation is being uttered with a hesitation that makes us grasp the genuine seriousness of this word. Soon we noticed that some of us live on the fourth floor in the fourth apartment, which presumably brings twice as much bad luck. This doesn’t seem

promising, does it?

-Oh, no. You don’t have to be afraid! Don’t worry about it. This doesn’t apply to you since you don’t believe in it, our teacher tries to convince us, not as convincing as we wish her to be though.

In other words; this is the perfect apartment to rent to foreigners without any need to give a dis-count. All of a sudden we realized their particu-lar interest in renting to us. The fact is, now that we are aware of this belief, we sometimes bear that in mind. Does that mean it affects us though? Moreover, we have heard stories about foreigners renting apartments close to graveyards, since also these places are considered to bring misfortune.

According to our perceptions it seems as if Tai-wanese people have a strong belief in living in a certain way to get a longer life. When we ask our teacher about this matter she mentions a couple of things. The previously mentioned long growing mole hair and heated water are according to her definitely two ways of extending your lifetime. More accurately, she mentions, that the water should preferably have a temperature of 36-50°C. Additionally, the bottle of heated water can be used as a combined fat burner and heater, since keeping your belly warm reduces stomach fat, she says. One remarkable attribute Taiwanese men above the age of 30 might wish to have is red ears with protruding hair, since this indicates longevity.

If you are stuck in bad luck there is a rather radi-cal solution to help this out - change your name. This can be done by visiting a fortune teller who picks a fortunate name. However, this can be a pricey experience, since most expensive fortune tellers are believed to be the best. Our teacher mentions amounts such as 10,000 TWD (approx-imately 2,000 SEK) each. What’s more, the act of

Grow your mole hair

- How to get a long and fortunate life in Taiwan

and change your name!

Text and Photos: Josefine Älmegran and Marcus Lars-

son, NCTU Taiwan

29

changing names can be confusing for acquaintances, since the whole family often change their names at the same time in or-der to bring luck and fortune to the entire household.

Last summer we left Sweden after celebrating the idyllic Swed-ish midsummer and arrived in Taiwan just in time for the Taiwan-ese equivalence - the midsummer Ghost Month. Fortunately this was something we were unaware of at the time, but we have learned more about this later on. The Ghost Month begins on the first day of the 7th month in the lunar calendar (i.e. in July) when the gates to hell open and the ghosts enter the real world. During this month there are some recommendations of how to act to keep on good terms with the ghosts. We asked our teacher to tell us more about this. -This is the only free month of the year for the ghosts and we don’t want to piss them off. Therefore we want to help them by giving them food and money. Hence it’s common that people visit temples to offer food. She also tells us about the, to some extent, standard ritual which is to put burning incense sticks in bowls of food. This is, by the way, the reason why you should not put chopsticks vertically in the bowl of food while eating (trust us, we have tried). When she mentions this tradition, the thought of trying not to waste any food appears to us and we gently ask what really happens to the food since the ghosts, in our minds, are physically unable to eat.

-Oh, of course we don’t throw away any food, we never do. When the incense has burned down one third the ghosts have finished their meal and we eat the food ourselves.

Well, that is a bit comforting to hear, we admit. Still, to us it feels peculiar that the very same bowl of food can be eaten twice.

What about pointing at the moon?

-No no no, you shouldn’t do that; it will give you bad luck. I have experienced it myself once. When I was a kid I pointed at the moon despite my father’s warnings and the day after, I had a scar behind my ear. Ever since, I have avoided pointing at the moon.

When speaking about nighttime we have also heard stories about whistling in the night…

-Oh. That’s no good. You shouldn’t do that, especially not in the Ghost Month since this will attract ghosts.

Among the recommendations of what to avoid doing during this month she mentions not moving from one’s house, get-ting married or taking wedding photos. In our minds this seems as the perfect month for wedding photographers and removal firms to take the annual leave, since business most likely will be poor. By the way, being able to have five weeks of paid vacation, as the case is in Sweden, is not standard in Taiwan. Hence they might need to take better care of themselves and seize all these ancient methods to get a longer and more fortunate life.

So don’t forget to grow your mole hair, stay away from the num-ber four, drink heated water, keep on good terms with ghosts, keep your stomach warm, get a fortunate name, avoid pointing at the moon... And thousands of other superstitions.

- How to get a long and fortunate life in Taiwan

Volvo Cars expansion in ChinaText and Photos: Martin Johansson and Jon Borgas,

NCTU Taiwan

30

In the beginning of this year, Volvo Cars opened its sec-ond headquarters and made public their plans to build a green field plant in western China. These expansions are part of Volvo Cars growth strategy in China, pros-pecting a future increase of sales in this developing economy.

We went to mainland China to meet the people who are cur-rently working with Volvo Cars expansion in China. To get a bet-ter overview we visited Volvo Cars in three key cities: Shang-hai, where the brand new headquarters is located; Chongqing, where Volvo Cars currently produces S40 and S80L; Chengdu, where the new plant will be built. Our first stop was at the Volvo Cars sales office in Shanghai.

Volvo Cars China sales office, Pudong, Shanghai

The river Huangpu cuts through Shanghai and divides the cen-tral city into two areas. Puxi, the area west of Huangpu Riv-er offers a great amount of restaurants, shopping and nightlife while Pudong east of Huangpu River is a young but massive financial district combined with endless rows of high-density residence housings. Here in Pudong, Volvo Cars operates a sales office that supports Volvo Cars retailers in all parts of China. We met Ulf Modig and Andreas Gustavsson.

Ulf has been working in the office a bit more than a year while Andreas recently arrived here. They describe the Shanghai market and their working environment as very energetic and exiting. Working close to the customer both Ulf and Andreas of-ten face different situations requiring the use of their expertise in a variety of ways, in order to provide the new Chinese cus-tomers with highly satisfying solutions. They both mention that routines and a struc-tured workplace sometimes are difficult to maintain, a fact that the adventurous might find appealing. Ulf and Andreas seem to like the unpredictable Shanghai and Ulf, who has been working in several other countries,

compares China with Japan where surprises were much rarer. Impressed by Andreas’ and Ulf’s enthusiasm combined with the very central location of the office we get the impression that this is indeed a very interesting place to work at.

Andreas Gustavsson and Ulf Modig at Volvo Cars sales office in Pudong Xinqu, Shanghai

31

Volvo Cars new HQ, Jiading district, Shanghai

Northwest of the Shanghai city centre lies the Jiading district. The area is a fast growing hub for car manufacturers and their suppliers and it is here the brand new Volvo Cars headquarters is located. Lars Nyborg, Vice President of Product Development, recently arrived joining several other expatriates and local em-ployees at the new complex in Jiading. Together they are building the new organization using the main headquarters in Gothenburg as a model. The new headquarters will thus hold functions such as research and development, allowing Volvo Cars in China to develop new models.

During a walk around the complex together with Lars we meet a lot of new local employees oc-cupied by various tasks. The organisation is grow-ing rapidly and we ask Lars how a company can deal with hiring many hundreds of people within a short time frame. Lars answers that it is of course not the easiest thing to do but the fun lies within the challenge. Many large companies are looking to hire the same group of well-qualified engineers and the increasing competition to hire experi-enced labour makes expanding even more chal-lenging.

Strolling around the complex one can but imagine how it will be like in one year. We believe getting the chance to work with such a large scale pro-ject would be very exciting and we ask Lars if he

has any advice for us young engineers or engineering students. Lars explains that getting to such a position as his is mostly due to a series of fortunate events. One cannot easily plan ones carrier step by step. Lars adds that one can be more or less prepared for the future possibilities by being energetic, aware and look for what you think is fun to do and what gives you energy in your everyday life.

Lars Nyborg in his brand new office at Volvo Cars’ new HQ in Jiading, Shanghai

Volvo Cars in the misty mountain city of Chongqing

Chongqing in western China is possibly the largest municipality in the world. Covering 82,300 km2 and housing more than 32 million people the region is directly governed by the central government along with Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. Strategi-cally located in the mountains where the Jialing River meets the

Yangtze River the city served as the war capital of China during the Japanese aggression 1937-1945. Now Chongqing is a part of the central governments plan to increase welfare and develop-ment in the inner parts of China promoting a high degree of investment in the municipality. In this huge city westerners are far more rarely seen than in Shanghai and during our sightsee-ing strolls downtown not too seldom we become an attraction ourselves.

32

Volvo Cars in Chongqing is part of Changan Ford Mazda Au-tomobile Co., Ltd. or CFMA, sharing production with Ford and before also Mazda in the same facilities. Within the car industry joint ventures, where the Chinese company is the larger owner, is by far the most common model of business agreements and necessary in order to operate within China. The Chinese incen-tives for this type of joint venture set up, except for power and control, is the field of intellectual property rights. This set up should help the Chinese to catch up with the developed econo-mies of the west even quicker, regarding technology. This being a fact might have made manufacturers a bit more careful in their approach. However, since China now has surpassed the United States as the number one largest car market in the world, manu-facturers cannot easily turn down these growing opportunities.

Ford started a joint venture with Changan in 2001 and the production of the first Volvo car in China, the S40, started in Chongqin in 2006. Today not only the S40 is made here, but also the S80L, a longer version of the S80 customized for the Chinese market. We met Volvo Cars’ Chongqing Program & Op-erations Director, Jörgen Håkansson. Jörgen has been living in

Chongqing for many years and tells us that he has learned a lot during his stay here. He tells us that he has adapted more to the hierarchical Chinese way and stresses that it is important for us as foreigners to understand and adapt to different environ-ments. In addition to cultural differences the average age of the employees in CFMA is particularly low. The Chinese workers in the Chongqing plant are young and inexperienced. However, Jörgen adds that their inexperience is compensated by their ability to adapt quickly to new situations.

After our meeting with Jörgen we met up with Peter Olsson from Volvo’s manufacturing unit for a tour around the plant. Pe-ter tells us that many of the Chinese Volvo customers do not drive the cars themselves. Having their very own driver they might be more concerned with the backseat riding experience. Nonetheless, the customers who drive their cars on their own are more concerned about the comfort of their passengers, perhaps being their parents or other family members. These are some of the reasons why Volvo Cars launched the modified S80L which has 14 cm of extra backseat space.

The city of Chongqing hiding in the mist on the far side of a vast car park

33

Chengdu Car City: Where Swedish premium quality meets with Chinese cost control

Chengdu is the capital city of the Sichuan province in southwest China. Just like Chongqing, Chengdu is also a city in great de-velopment. In some aspects the city can be regarded as more international than Chongqing, thus being one step closer to cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong. The city is totally differ-ent from Chongqing in terms of surroundings and city planning. Compared to mountainous Chongqing with at least nine big city centres, Chengdu is a flat city sitting on the fertile Chengdu plains, and has one distinct centre which the city landscape radi-ates from. At the heart of this centre stands a tall statue of Mao Zedong proudly greeting the people. Like Chongqing and Jiading, this city also aims to become a future large-scale car manufac-turing region. In the southeastern parts of Chengdu there is an area which in Chinese is already named the Car City, where the local government is aiming to boost the region into a car manufacturing clus-ter. It is here Volvo Cars’ new plant will be built.

Upon arriving to Volvo Cars’ office the future plant spot is nothing but a vast area of mud and rubble. Within a few years however there will be a big plant covering these fields and these barren lands will be the workplace for thousands of peo-ple. We met with the carefully handpicked team of engineers whom will start up the plant. John-Erik Hermanson, Plant Director, expresses the thrill of starting up a plant from scratch. He adds that Volvo Cars has not done this since the mid sixties, when Volvo opened a plant in Torslanda followed by another plant in Ghent. Except for the plant in Uddevalla, factories worldwide have

been more or less modified from a present structure. This large-scale project truly demands expertise and one of the employees admits that they are really good at what they do. Still, there lies a challenge in working across the cultural barriers that might be formed from both nationality and previous corporate cultures. The team consists of Swedish and international Volvo veterans but also new Chinese employees. One of the Chinese managers highlights that many of the Chinese engineers are also new to Chengdu, coming from totally different provinces in China. He also tells us that he chose to work for Volvo Cars because of the great growth potential of the company and adds that many Chinese senior engineers like himself have experience in setting up plants, since this is what the Chinese companies have been doing a lot in the recent past. As a result, Volvo Cars will benefit from the lower costs of manufacturing in China while providing top quality premium cars for the growing demand.

Volvo Cars vision for China

Earlier this year Stefan Jacoby, President and CEO of Volvo Cars, announced that Volvo Cars regard the Chinese market as the second home market and a very important part of the plan to build a successful future for the company. The investments Volvo

is doing in China that we were witness of clearly agrees with this. Volvo’s sales goal in China for 2015 is 200 000 cars. During all our visits to Volvo Cars in China we were warmly received by determined and striving employees, it will be up to these people to prove whether this goal is achievable or not. We wish them all the best of luck!

Volvo Cars Chengdu plant construction site

No matter in what country you are in the world you can almost always be sure of one thing: It contains Chalmers alumni. In China, Chal-

Daniel Hahn, Sales Manager China at Oriflame

Background: MSc in Mechanical Engi-neering from Chalmers and a BSc from Gothenburg University. Was the first Head of Office of CITO year 2003.

Stay in Shanghai: 1.5 years at Oriflame, 6 years in Shanghai.

Oriflame is one of the largest direct sell-ers of cosmetics in the world, today ac-tive in 62 countries. As a direct seller Ori-flame uses independent sales consultants, ordinary people selling Oriflame’s prod-ucts for a provision, instead of traditional resellers and salesmen. One achievement Daniel made was the successful launch of the Oriflame’s Wellness products in China. With Wellness Oriflame expanded their reach from only cosmetics to also include nutritional products. Today Daniel is responsible for the sales in China with a team of around 70 people.

About living in Shanghai: The great amount of expatriates in Shanghai makes getting friends and acquaintances easier

Van Hoang, Country Manager East Chi-na at Swedish Trade Council

Background: Master of Science in Me-chanical Engineering from Chalmers and MBA from NCTU in Taiwan. Was the first

student of the exchange between Chalm-ers and NCTU year 2002.

Stay in Shanghai: Since 2007 at Swedish Trade Council Shanghai when he moved from Swedish Trade Council Taipei.

Swedish Trade Council helps private companies with the Chinese market, but also with government matters and state affairs. They are capable of helping Swed-ish companies from evaluating the Chi-nese market all the way to establishment

Chalmers Alumni in Asiamers has an alumni organisation called Chalmers Alumni Associa-tion China (CING). When being in Shanghai in May 2011 we had the pleasure of meeting three young Chalmers alumni currently working in China.

During the latest two decades Shang-hai has had a rapid growth and evolved into China’s financial centre. The oppor-tunities here seem wide spread and the alumni we met are all working in differ-ent fields and positions. Below we pre-sent those former Chalmers students, their work, what they think about living in Shanghai and finally their advise for stu-dents interested in working in Asia.

Text and Photos: Martin Johansson and Jon

Borgas, NCTU Taiwan

in Shanghai that in Sweden.

Daniel’s advise for Chalmers-stu-dents wanting to work in Asia: Daniel thought students at Chalmers should be more aware of the carrier opportunities that exist. Many students are lacking clear career awareness and Daniel thinks Chal-mers students should be better in helping each other of obtaining this.

Daniel also mentioned there are no shortcuts to success; the only way is hard

work and to not be afraid of making mis-takes. Some might be lucky in the short term, but in the end it is the hard work-ing that will be the most successful. If you want to work in Shanghai you should consider taking a local-contracted job with a low initial wage, this could be your way into the Shanghai market and a very advantageous experience in your future career. Another possibility is to prioritize working for a Swedish company sending out expatriates to Shanghai.

Current CITO meeting CITO alumni at Oriflame’s sales office in Shanghai.

34

in China. The trade council in Shanghai is important for connecting Sweden with China, which is shown by many visits from royalty, government and senior ex-ecutives from Sweden, including the King and the prime minister of Sweden!

About living in Shanghai: Very dynam-ic, a lot of things happening all the time.

Van’s advise for Chalmers-students wanting to work in Asia: To study abroad is an advantage, as well as learning new languages. Personality and commit-ment are important. It depends on the company which personality that fits; top grades are not everything. If you want to work in Asia for a Swedish company your

Elin Lidén, General Manager at Preci-meter

Background: Bachelor of Industrial Engineering and Management at Chalm-ers. Chinese language studies one year in Shanghai.

Stay in Shanghai: 2.5 years at Precime-ter, 3.5 years in Shanghai.

Precimeter is a Swedish based com-pany that creates solutions for aluminium processing companies all over the world. Elin was hired to set up Precimeter’s rep-resentation office in Shanghai 2.5 years ago and today she has one employee to help her with the daily tasks. In Shanghai they work with a variety of tasks such as sales, technical support and services. As being responsible at Precimeter Elin is able to travel a lot in China when doing business, and so far she has been in 20 of China’s provinces.

About living in Shanghai: As respon-sible for Precimeter in China she can

work in Sweden should fit with the work in that companies’ operations in Asia.

schedule her time very freely to fit into her personal life. For instance, the day we met Elin her co-worker was home to celebrate his son’s birthday. Being a west-erner but also female gives her a lot of special attention from customers, making her a very familiar face in the aluminium business. As she is often going on busi-ness trips she also gets to meet a lot of Chinese and going to many customer din-ners.

Elin’s advise for Chalmers-students wanting to work in Asia: Try finding a company in Sweden that’s operating in China or is planning to go there. Small companies have a lot of possibilities; so do not only focus on the big giants. Do not limit yourself to cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong, as there might be more possibilities in places in you have not heard of yet.

Van in his office with a great view over modern Shanghai.

Elin showing us Precimeter’s products at her office.

35

Still not convinced? Search for “NCTU - En sån riktigt god skola” on YouTube

National Chiao Tung University.

Chalmers International Taiwan Office– Part of Chalmers’ World Wide Exchange Programme

asiaApply

36

The economies in East Asia have showed a remarkable devel-

opment during the end of the 20th century. Japan has become

accompanied by China among the world’s economic giants. The

region is interesting, dynamic and challenging. Among those with

technical education, an increasing portion will have contacts in

the whole region from Singapore to Japan within their profes-

sions. With this in mind, Chalmers has developed a special ex-

change programme based in Taiwan, giving students an oppor-

tunity to study in and gain experiences from these economies.

The exchange programme is located at the National Chiao Tung

University (NCTU), which is the foremost technological uni-

versity in Taiwan. NCTU is specially profiled within electronics

and information technology. However, in cooperation with the

neighbouring National Tsing Hua University, the exchange cov-

ers all engineering programmes at Chalmers. Courses held in

both English and Mandarin can be chosen.

Parallel to the studies at NCTU the students maintain the Chal-

mers International Taiwan Office (CITO). The work at CITO in-

cludes arranging representation events for Taiwanese students

at NCTU as well as visiting companies and representing Chalm-

ers throughout East Asia.

Contents of the Programme:

– Intensive course in Mandarin, 6 weeks in July - August at

NCTU in Hisnchu, Taiwan.

– Full academic year of engineering or architect studies at

NCTU.

– Maintenance of the Chalmers International Taiwan Office at

NCTU.

– Company visits throughout East Asia.

For information on how to apply, visit www.chalmers.se

Hsinchu, TaiwanNational Chiao Tung University

Hong Kong, ChinaThe Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

SingaporeNanyang Technological UniversityThe National University of Singapore

Tokyo, JapanTokyo Institute of Technology

Sendai, JapanTohoku University

Studying at Chalmers does not limit you to Gothenburg,

Sweden. Through many exchange programs Chalmers

students are given the opportunity to study at a range of

Asian universities. Likewise, students from many different

countries are invited to study at Chalmers in Sweden.

Seoul, South KoreaKonkuk University

Shanghai, ChinaTongji UniversityEast China University of Science and Technology

Beijing, ChinaSino-Swedish Centre

CHALMERS IN ASIA

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

SE-412 96 Gothenburg, SwedenPhone +46 31 772 1000

www.chalmers.se

Asia Magazine #17

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Transcript of Asia Magazine #17