News on the Chinese Adventure

This last month was a lot of fun and very crazy but this doesn't mean that I have lost the focus on China.

The first thing I want to do is to congratulate Adam Lane, he is the current MCVP CSR in Mainland of China (MoC) originally from UK, and the whole CSR Team in MoC.

Adam has come to an agreement with the UK Embassy to finance the AIESEC CSR Activities in China from May 2006 until June 2008.

The funds come from an initiative from the UK Government named Global Opportunities Fund which purpose is to promote action on global issues on areas of strategic interest for the UK:

• Counter Terrorism
• Climate Change and Energy
• Engaging with the Islamic World
• Reuniting Europe
• Economic Governance
• Sustainable Development

Currently Adam is scheduling the activities that must happen in the next year and I am trying to give some inputs and feedbacks. It is not easy since I am not 100% familiarized with the current reality yet.

On other China issues I found out that the closer Embassy of China is in Mexico. The whole visa procedure costs around 100 USD and I will get the turist visa, meaning 30 days permission... Apparently the business visa is much harder to get and it requires personal presence. We'll see about that :)

The ticket is around 1500 USD and it goes Costa Rica - Los Angeles - Hong Kong - Beijing. I am still trying to close the ballast business to be able to buy it.

I am also building some kind of Crazy about China Network - I wonder if this can be used as Issue Based Experience :) - that includes Romanians, Costa Ricans, Colombians and a funny Brazilian chick...

Anyways, I expect to get everything ready in May to be taking off the 1st or 2nd week of June, just before my B-day :)

My only worry..., I have not time to learn about the culture... please, somebody help me!!!

Thinking in Chinese!
Juan