Posting on behalf of Deborah Rutherford, Operations Leader for HOK in Canada’s Corporate Accounts Practice and President of ARIDO.

December 7th –  Embassy Visit & Forbidden City

The Opera House

Today we went to the embassy and met with the trade commissioners, Marc and Shirley, who gave us a presentation on business in China. They have never had an interior design delegation before, so they tailored it more to the construction industry and architecture consulting services. It’s only been about 10 years since you can buy property in China (not including the land which the state owns and leases to you), so people are not that familiar with ownership. Quality is an issue – everything has to look good on the surface, but people are not willing to pay for things like energy efficient features, if they are not visible. This may change if the government brings in more legislation around sustainable design in order to save energy and cut down on coal usage, which accounts for about 70% of energy used in China and contributes to air pollution. Some of our delegates talked about their experiences working in China or trying to get work here and they had many useful suggestions or comments. The whole session was very valuable and it was good to have the personal connection with the trade commissioners. 

Deborah in from of the Forbidden City

We then went to see the Forbidden City. It is immense and there were so many beautiful stone patterns in all the different squares. The buildings had the most gorgeous Chinese red colour as well as some unusual yellow roof tiles that were reserved for royalty, the two colours in the Chinese flag. It was a great place for seeing inspiring Chinese motifs. We stepped over all the foot high thresholds as we went from one square to another so we wouldn’t have bad luck. I heard a story that the last emperor had them all removed when he was a boy so he could ride his bike around the grounds and not have to stop. I assume that he must have had a mountain bike in order to contend with all the uneven cobblestones.

Soldiers chanting

I rarely buy souvenirs and never bargain, but I bought some silk bags leaving the site; the street vendors and beggars were more aggressive than any I’ve ever seen. They wouldn’t stop and kept lowering the price whether or not you wanted their stuff. Some of them followed us for a few blocks trying to make another sale; one woman hung onto my arm for much of the way and I would have been pretty disturbed if I wasn’t there with a bunch of other people (my own secret service protecting the President).

TO BE CONTINUED…