This day was a very relaxed one. We had a lot of recuperation time in the morning because we were originally supposed to go to Hangzhou for the day, but instead we had the morning off before a tour of a high-tech company outside Shanghai in the afternoon. The tour was really interesting although I didn’t understand much of what was discussed at the meeting (economics and high-tech things). What I did find incredibly intriguing, though, was that the company had a very strong Buddhist element in the running of the company. We got to see their own Buddhist shrine (which, if I remember correctly, displayed several pictures of prominent Buddhist monks coming to visit the company), and we also listened to them speak at length about how the core principles of Buddhism deeply influence how their company is run in terms of customer relations as well as how they treat their employees on a daily basis. I didn’t get to ask if their employees are all Buddhist – although I doubt the answer would be yes. I didn’t understand exactly what their products were (we were given a fancy booklet listing and explaining them all, but it was in industrial jargon that I couldn’t even begin to comprehend), but it was still a fascinating visit. The ride over to the company was interesting as well, because we drove through a part of outer Shanghai that was entirely under construction. Most of the places we had previously visited were already highly developed areas, so it was neat to see evidence of Shanghai’s rapid expansion.
