We began Saturday with one of our later starts for the trip. On Saturday, we left around 11:05, which gave us plenty of time to sleep in before we headed to the China University of Political Science, Changping University. After getting off the bus, I went to go use the restroom in a nearby building. This building housed a few basketball courts, which were being used to play volleyball and badminton, which I learned throughout the trip were incredibly popular in China.
Once I got back to the area we were dropped off, Alexander, a student at the university took Zach and I to the local dining hall to get some food. I walked around for a little while and ended up getting spicy ramen with beef, which was amazing for dining hall food. After getting food, Alexander took us over to a local shop to get some excellent watermelon juice, after which we headed to the classroom. Professor Wolohan provided a presentation on the history of American football, which was aimed at informing the Chinese students of the basic history of the game, while also giving them updates on the trends of today. Once Professor Wolohan’s presentation concluded, we were supposed to do a case study with the local students, in which we evaluated how well flag football would translate to the Chinese market. For this exercise I partnered up with Dalton, and was paired with Vivian, Alexander, and Chaoran Gong, who were all students at the university.
Because of how crowded the university was, the students took us to a library/museum where we ended up sitting on the floor to discuss the topics. We went back and forth discussing information, where Dalton and I would help relay what we knew about football, and in turn, the students would help give information about the Chinese market and we looked to see how they related. After about an hour of this, we created a presentation, listened to the other prepared presentation by everyone else, and then laid out why we think that flag football may be successful at a lower level, but not professionally.
We said goodbye to the local students and immediately headed to our next activity which was attending a local Beijing FC soccer match. After going through multiple security checkpoints, we made it into the stadium and on our way to the seats. The seats presented a great view of the pitch. A group of us went to get food in the stadium, but were disappointed by the lack of options, and the options that were present. I got an okay beef roll, which was about the only thing that looked appealing. The game itself was fun to watch and was 1-0, for the majority of the time after a relatively early go-ahead goal by Beijing FC. I watched until about the 65th minute, until me and Zach were too hungry and left the game to go to a local shopping area and get some food. We stopped at a Shake Shack, got some food, and ended up taking a taxi back to the hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment