May 22, Sunday

 Hutong

 

 Bell tower

 

 Drums

 

 Final leg

 

 Gifts

 

 Hackey sack

 

 Rickshaw

 

Rolex still working



May 22, Sunday

               We boarded the bus at 9:00 am from the hotel for our final day in China. We traveled for 15 minutes to the old city center of Hutong. Located in the Hutong center were two towers. The bell tower to the north and the drum tower to the south. In ancient times the bell tower would ring the 63 ton bell each morning. The bell was heard throughout the entire city. Each evening the drums were played in the drum tower to call people back into the city. We were able to climb to the top of the drum tower for a performance. To the top of the tower was 69 steep steps. We dreaded each step as our bodies where very sore from climbing the Great Wall. After the show we took a rickshaw ride through the village. A rickshaw is a small cart for two people pulled behind a bicycle. To conclude our morning we ate lunch at a local family’s house. They family cooked a traditional Beijing meal. This meal consisted of rice, green beans, stewed beef, potatoes, and our favorite - carrot balls. The food was delicious! In this house lived three generations. In our spare time we were able to play hacky sack with the locals. They were much more skilled than we were but they were happy to play with us. We then boarded the bus and headed to the airport for our 13 hour flight!

               Overall we have had a wonderful experience in China. We have learned a lot and gained new friends and experiences that we will take into our future. One thing that we found interesting throughout the entire trip is the fact that each company we toured is new. All production farms we visited were built within recent years. This shows how fast and quickly China is growing and adapting to the growing populations. As young students in Agriculture we are blessed to be a part of this important time in history.  

Kyle and Whitney

P.S. See you soon family and friends!

May 21, Saturday

 Victory

 

 We are The CHAMPIONS!

 

 Patient and gift

 

 SDSU and ISU

 

 All Blue and Gold

 

 Bird Nest

 

 CAU supper

 

 Femur Head Hospital

 

Great Wall



May 21, Saturday

               Our morning call wasn't as early as the days before, which was a good thing. We joined up with 24 students and 4 faculty from Iowa State University today so that was a lot of fun. Our itinerary today is jammed pack with tours of the Beijing Emperor Special Hospital of Femur Head Necrosis, the Great Wall, Olympic Stadium- Bird's Nest, and China Agricultural University. Today is our last full day and we plan to make the most of it! 

               Our first stop was at the Beijing Emperor Special Hospital of Femur Head Necrosis. Through connections with their patient Ty Eschenbaum, South Dakota native, we were treated like royalty and were able to learn more about their impressive healing treatment on femur head narcosis that uses traditional Chinese medicine.   

               Femur head narcosis is the deterioration of the femur head which is located at your hip. The femur head is responsible for the majority of leg movement. The most common type of treatment for this disease in America is hip replacement.  

               There are four types of treatments used at the hospital based off of an herbal supplement mixture and acupuncture. The doctor determines this mixture based on the patient's condition and rely greatly on the use of x-ray to compare progress as all treatment is done on the outside of the body. The founder of the hospital, Dr. Huang developed this specific treatment and the type of x-ray that produces better pixelated images and colored images that can show bone growth better than x-rays used in the United States.  

               The hospital has treated over 20,000 patients from over 41 countries since 1993. Besides femur heads, they can also treat ankle and shoulder joints. The efficiency rate for this treatment is 97% and they have even had artificial joint companies come visit them, because their treatment practice is decreasing the need for artificial joints.  

               Next we took an hour drive to the Great Wall. On our way to the Great Wall, we got a briefing on the history behind it.  The oldest part of the wall is 2,700 years old, which made the first construction start in the 7th century B.C.  All the different sections of the wall combine to make almost 13,000 miles long.  With Mother Nature and time taking a toll on the Great Wall, only about a third of the original wall is easily visible now.  The contrition of wall was built by many different dynasties throughout its history.  The section that we saw and hiked up was rebuilt by the Ming dynasty.   

               The construction of the Great Wall was done by three different groups of people.  This consisted of soldiers, laborers, and prisoners.  Laborers were mostly peasants that were forced to work.  Prisoners that worked on the Great Wall worked in 4 year periods.  The work was hard and the conditions were not any better.  It is estimated that throughout the history of the Great Wall, roughly 700,000 people died while working on it. 

               When we arrived at the Great Wall, we had two choices.  We could either go up the steeper and more strenuous route, or we could go up the easier route.  Most of the group between us and the Iowa State students decided to be adventurous and try out the more difficult route.  Both groups headed out on their respective stairways and quickly realized that the engineers of over a thousand years ago were not exactly the same as they are today.  The steps were very uneven with some being only 2 inches tall and the next one being 18 inches. 

               The harder stairway proved to be more difficult than anyone in the group had predicted.  After the first 100 foot climb, our groups quickly realized how difficult the climb was going to be and how out of shape all of us felt.  We had to stop several times for "photo breaks" so we could all catch our breath before reaching the top.  After several photos and some pretty sweet/sketchy climbing by Andy Rausch, we realized that almost everyone from SDSU had made it to the top while only 1 Iowa State student made it.  GO JACKS!!   

               The trek back down was still very steep and definitely made a few people feel uneasy, but everyone made it down mostly alive and in one piece.  We rewarded ourselves with some cold water from the market and proceeded to buy some pretty cool souvenirs before we left. 

               Next we went to a cloisonné pottery shop and got a brief 20 minute tour of all of the 6 steps in making these beautiful vases. We then continued to a great lunch with the Iowa State students.  

               Following lunch we took an hour drive to China Agriculture University where we met with students that picked us out of the crowd by our "American" names they were give. We got to know one another and then sat down for a briefing by Dr. Li who went to K-State with our very own Dr. Thaler. He built the Animal Science Department from the ground up and now they have a 600 sow farrow to finish research facility, and better research facilities than just about any Animal Science Department in the US. We then got a tour of the campus by our Chinese friends and had the opportunity to learn of bit more about them as an individual and about the campus. We continued to have a fun filled supper full of amazing food and toasts. We had a wonderful time hearing about project these individuals we conducting and many of us got their contact information for the future. 

  On the way back to the hotel we got to stop by the Olympic park for a short 20 minutes to see the amazing structures that were built for the 2008 Olympics. Although we are extremely tired and are ready to come home, we intend to have an extremely fun night, exploring the night life of Beijing. It has truly been a once in a lifetime experience but we can't wait to see our loved ones once again. Hope you have all have enjoyed our updates as much as we have and we will see you soon!!  

Sincerely,

 

 Kiera, Darrin, Tony

May 20, Friday

 Artex

 

 Hand welding

 

 JD in China

 

 JD sign

 

 JD women

 

Press

 

 Product testing

 

 Tractors

 

Welder

May 20, Friday

We started off the day bright and early at 7 in the morning by taking a 4 hour bus ride to Tian Jin.  The bus was really quiet this morning as most of us were taking a nap.  After we arrived at Tian Jin, we stopped at a John Deere engine factory.  The factory currently has 157 employees working there. The Tian Jin factory currently has the capacity to produce 50,000 engines annually but is only producing 10,000 annually due to demand and emissions regulations. The factory is broken up into seven different sections.  The first section is the materials warehouse.  This is where all the engine parts are stored before the engine assembly.  The next section is material staging.  This is where all the parts a gathered before they are assembled.  After material staging is the assembly section.  This section is in charge of assembling the engines.  The next section in the factory is testing cells.  Here the engines are tested to make sure they are functioning properly.  After the test cells section, the engines go to the paint and final trim section.  This is where the engines are painted.  After painting they go to the shipping section to be shipped off.  The last section of the factory is the axel section.  Here they assemble axels.  The factory currently produce 40 engines and 2 axels each day.  It was interesting to see how John Deere incorporates AGV's (automated guidance vehicles) to move the engines throughout the factory as they are being built.   

Our next stop in Tian Jin was at the Artex Barn Solutions factory.  The factory can process 20,000 tons of steel materials annually. Fifty parent of Artex finished products get exported to countries around the world.  The other 50 percent is sold within China. Three hundred containers of finished product are sold to over 40 countries throughout the world.  Some of the products Artex produces are free stall gates, head gates, calf zones, and barn fans.  This past year Artex has started to incorporate robotic welders into their manufacturing process.  These robotic welders help to save labor costs and to improve the consistency of each weld.  The factory that we visited did not do any of the galvanization process in-house.  This is due to the difficulties of getting permits to perform the galvanization process.  It was very interesting to see how they transform raw materials into the finished products.   

This evening we met with a group of ag students from Iowa State University for supper. We split off into groups of about half and half SDSU and Iowa State students and talked about what they had seen so far on their China trip. We were all able to try some Chinese hard alcohol called Baijo while we had dinner. This concluded our twelfth day in China.

May 19, Thursday

 Five motorcycles

 

 Acrobats

 

 Inner temple

 

 Jacks Forbidden

 

 Mao

 

 Sampling tea

 

 Smog

 

Temple of Heaven



May 19, Thursday

Howdy from Beijing! 

Today was our typical "American Tourist" day in Beijing.  Not having any agriculture related stops, we got the low down on the City of Beijing. 

Rolling out of bed bright and early, we were on the bus by 7am headed to the famous Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City to beat the rush (crazy tourists) that come in the middle of the day.  These historic places in the middle of downtown Beijing are an important part of China's ancient and modern history. 

Sitting on more than 110 acres, Tiananmen Square can host over half a million visitors at a time.  It also houses former Dictator Mao's tomb as well as a Monument to the People's Heroes and the Zhengyangmen Gate.  It is surrounded on either side by the People's Congress of China building and China's National Museum.  It was kind of cool to see who had the most curious Chinese people that would ask to take a picture with the weird tall white people from America.  Being the tallest guy, I think Corey got featured in the most snapshots. 

Crossing the street, we headed into the first gate (Tiananmen Gate) of six gates entering into China's Forbidden City.  This city was home to the royalty of the Quin and Ming Dynasties from 1406 till 1924.  Taking over 300,000 workers to build, it was under construction from 1406-1430 A.D.  It was called the Forbidden City because the common people were never allowed to enter its gates until 1925 when it was opened to the public.  It was home to over 3,000 royalty and concubines at a time, with an astounding 8,704 rooms.  This 180 acre city (in the middle of a Beijing) takes over 50,000 workers to staff.  We were all blown away by the history, detail of architecture, and size of this palace.

During lunch at a local restaurant, our tour guide (Michelle) switched hats for a couple minutes and made a delicious dessert of fried apple toffee, which finally hit a note with the sweet tooth we have as Americans.  I think we've all been missing the sweet desserts that we usually enjoy back home.

After lunch we headed to Yi Xin Tea House where we got the low down on how to make real Chinese tea.  Fun fact - there are over 3,000 different types of tea in China, and they are used for everything from liver and eye health, to morning and night tea and even for curing hangovers.  Needless to say, even with the six types that we got to sample, our taste buds went on a roller coaster ride of bitter to sweet and even tangy.  We all left the gift shop with a handful of different boxes of tea to take home to share. 

Following tea time, we made a quick stop at the Temple of Heaven, which was historically used to present sacrifices including oxen, jade, and silks by the Emperors to "The Heavens" to ensure that the Gods would grant them a good harvest of crops.  We enjoyed doing some bartering on knick-knacks and hats from street vendors and playing Chana's version of hackey-sac with the elderly that gather in the temple park to enjoy their day. 

Following the temple visit, we 'swung' by to catch an acrobatic show in a local theater. From the fie motorcycle riders in the cage to the dancing ladies stacked nine high on one bicycle, I think it's fair to say that we were all flabbergasted by the performances.  Wow! What flexibility and body strength!

Next we rolled on down to the Pearl Market to try our hand at more bartering and dickering on gifts for our family & friends (and mostly ourselves).  Basically, the Pearl Market is like the silk market that we visited yesterday - cheaply made products with name brands slapped on them (like Oakley sunglasses, Bose speakers, Coach purses, or Rolex watches).  The listed price is about what you would pay for the actual name brand products, and your challenge is to dicker the price down to about 1/6 of the price.  We definitely got a chance to work on our bartering skills with the rather stubborn shop owners.  We were told to never feel bad for the price we got goods down to, as they would never sell it to you for a loss.  Needless to say, after spending more than we probably budgeted for, we headed off for a local cuisine specialty for supper -- Peking duck. 

Now, Peking duck is basically China's version of a duck burrito.  The whole duck is filled with soy sauce and cooked until the sauce has penetrated the whole duck.  The inside is moist and the outside is crispy.  It is then masterfully carved, and placed into soft wheat tortilla like wraps with cucumber and onion slices and hoisin sauce.  The finished meal is nothing like the wild waterfowl duck we're used to eating back in the states - you actually enjoy eating it.  Overall, the Peking duck supper is probably one of the top 3 notable meals from the trip so far. 

So, getting our fill of tourism today has us all looking forward to more agriculture visits tomorrow, with John Deere and Artex Farm Solutions on the itinerary. It's crazy to think that we only have two full days left in China! 

Signing off from Beijing.  Yi huier jian (see you later)! 

-Reba and Andy

May 18, Wednesday

 Air quality app

 

 CP info

 

 CP layer

 

 CP

 

 Egg packaging

 

 Feed lines

 

Pioneer

May 18, Wednesday

Greetings from China,  

               Today was our full first day in Beijing. Beijing is a very large city with a population of 20 million people in an area that is four times the size of New York. Our first stop for the day was at the DuPont Pioneer Chinese Headquarters located in the Central Business District of Beijing. The lead marketing and sales director, Adrian Gomez, originally from Mexico, discussed with us the operations of Pioneer in China. Erica Wang, the technical agronomist was also present to answer questions.

In China, Pioneer is only allowed to obtain one license for selling seed, that product is corn. Throughout the country approximately 38 million hectares of corn are planted each year. This is the sole reason Pioneer focuses on corn rather than the other crops within their company. The seed is completely produced locally throughout the Chinese provinces. There are 13 research and development locations along with 4 production facilities, these are comparable to what we would see in the United States.

One of the issues Pioneer faces in China is the selling of counterfeit seed. This occurs when people either mislabel seed as a Pioneer brand or steal Pioneer's hybrids and sell it for their own profit. This is controlled by very detailed packaging and labeling such as barcodes and secret codes only to be detected by black light. This is to insure the product is what the farmer is paying for.  

Different from what we are used to in the United States, the amount of seed needed for each farmer is typically smaller. Therefore, the bag sizes only amount to 4,000 kernels per bag. Although Monsanto and Syngenta are large US competitors located in China, the largest competition for Pioneer is the local seed markets. On the other hand, northern China is home to some larger farmers that would be comparable to the United States where as the southern part you will find the smaller farmers. The most popular diseases and pests found in corn are Northern and Southern Corn Leaf Blight along with corn borer. Agronomists in China recommend a spring application of fungicide for larger farmers but it is not economical for smaller farmers to apply.  

Our second stop for the day was with CP Group, a diversified agriculture company from Thailand that is very large in China and 13 other countries. This is the largest laying operation in Asia and the world with a high interest in biosecurity as we were required to enter a disinfectant chamber for 30 seconds before setting foot on the farm. Mr. Yang led the tour through the site that we visited which was their egg laying farm that consisted of 18 laying barns with 167,000 chickens in each barn. With a total capacity of 3 million laying hens on the site they collect around 2.3 million eggs daily. CP Group works with a cooperative leasing 5,000 acres from the local farmers, the poor population, and the disabled for 20 years. This allows for small farmers, the poor, and disabled to obtain a sustainable income to support their families.  

The technology at CP Group is phenomenal. The use of robots to detect temperature in barns as well as the temperature of each hen allows them to have the highest efficiency amongst their laying hens. There is no use of antibiotics and disease is controlled by vaccines, ventilation and the biosecurity measures mentioned above. The breed of chickens at CP Group are Highland Brown and Lumen Brown, these produce brown eggs which are the consumer preference. After 52 weeks of laying the hens are slaughtered and used in soup that is beneficial to pregnant women in the Chinese culture. They are also used as crocodile feed which is located at this site also. The chicken manure is used as organic fertilizer which is applied to the peach farm located on site.

Dr. Gary Stoner, the vice chairman of CP Group also provided some perspective on agriculture relations between the United States and China. He gave us advice about how important critical thinking is. For example, when comparing Chinese and United States numbers in terms of export, production, and yield it is important to take into account the per capita and how it can distort the graph. A large concern in the United States and the world is the decreasing of China's GDP. Dr. Stoner mentioned that we should not be alarmed as this is expected to happen and the overall trend line is still increasing. As far as regulations on GMO importing, Dr. Stoner believes that China will eventually have to accept GMO corn because of the increase in population.  

The day ended with going to the Silk Market. This consists of many different silk products as well as electronics, purses, kids’ toys, and common souvenirs. It was set up like a shopping mall but the fun part was that all prices were negotiable. It was fun hearing who got the best deal and who came home with the most unique items. We were able to obtain some personal items - Sam bought some silk scarves and Scott bartered down the price on some pretty sweet Legos!

May 17 Tuesday

 Fresh poultry

 

 Black chicken

 

 Blood

 

 Burning hair

 

 Meat

 

 Peeps

 

 Pig head

 

 Pork

 

 Scooter

 

Spices