Posts from — August 2008

Hi everyone, I decide to have a guest blogger today. If you have been following my blog her name is Fidelia and she is my early monring lead. And below is her story.

Well, it’s a beautiful day outside…starting to drizzle and actually had to come in to work today at 6am! That’s my general routine since I got on the Coca-Cola team for the summer.
My name’s Fidelia, and I’m from Cameroon. I just got my medical degree in Internal Medicine and Surgery July of this year in The Peking University Health Science Center after a 6 year study period.
Several questions may have arisen at this point:
1. Why would Fidelia choose to study in China?
2. Why would Fidelia choose to study Medicine in China?
3. Why would a Medical doctor be working for Coca cola in the summer? etc

Okay, I’ll try to answer those questions as best as I can. [Read more →]

HI,

Coke China designed an experiental marketing bulding called the Shuang Center. Shuang is a word in Chinese meaning The sensation of Physical and Emotional Refreshment. We got to take a VIP tour of this building. It is roughly the size of an attraction you would find at Epcot. It has about 4 major attractions and it is so well done it is incredible. The first room shows pictures and artifacts from the various Olympics. The Coca-Cola Company is the oldest sponsor of the Olympic games and has been a sponsor since 1928…so there is a lot of wonderful memoriabilia in this room. Next room is a short movie on the history of the Coca-Cola company. Next room shows Sustainability. This is a big exhibit that talks about what the entire company is doing and has several exhibits showing this. My favorite is a siloutte of a tree with cut out bottles hanging from it and then on th eground is all sorts of cut out bottles. On these bottles and they are paper like in nature are several athletes signatures from all over the world. Their signature on the bottle signifies their commitment to recycle their Coke bottles during the Olympics. [Read more →]

How is that for a weird title. I forgot to type about tickets yesterday because I was so busy going on about opening ceremonies. Tickets here in Beijing are pretty inexpensive if you want to go see a sport. I have an xpat on my team – his name is Rob. An XPat is someone who wasn’t born in China but now lives here. Actually Rob is a temporaty Xpat. He is just graduated college in the US and came over to work the Olympics – he has friends here and wanted to practice his Mandarin for 6 weeks and then will head back tot he US and in November start his first job out of college living in Manhattan. OOOHH to be that age again. Rob bought a bunch of tickets to events and the averaged in price from $7.00 weightlifitng; canoeing to $44.00 probably finals to Track and Field. [Read more →]

LIKE HOW WONDERFUL was that opening ceremony? About 75% of our staff to go to the opening. THey said it was absolutely amazing being there. Although it was wicked hot in the stadium because there is no venalation. If you looked closely at the athletes you could see where they were all dripping in sweat. Our staff said there were several people who were lying down on the sides of the street with heat exhaustion.

For those of us who stayed behind. myself being one of them because I had to get the after party set up…we did a pizza party in the ballroom where Coke is doing their hospitality. Not a bad place to be because we have it all decorated with different types of seating a million coolers (I should know as I am filling them) and several TV’s plus a big movie type screen to watch. So it was fun having the local staff as well as the Coke staff sitting altogether to watch. What was the coolest was seeing the absolute pride of the Chinese staff as they were watching what their country was producing in terms of the opening ceremony. [Read more →]

Opening cerimonies are offically over in Beijing. They were truly beautiful. Everything was very thoughtful. Today was hectic as getting the guests out to Olympic Stadium was a Chinese firedrill within itself. BOCOG kept changing the route and how people were getting in and out and the timing..but FINALLY they got it down to the wire.

Today my folks worked so hard that I gave them ice cream from the ice cream bar in the hospitality room. This was so cute because they were thrilled…why? because they got to eat the ice cream from a cone. In China they have the ice cream bars like you get a Nestles but not the type of ice cream that is scooped. So for them to have scooped ice cream is a big deal. The first words out of their mouth’s were can they have 2..I said sure..why am I to deprive these very skinny tall gals of calories. [Read more →]

Spent some time in the back hallway today talking to the staff. I asked them all about how many brother and sister’s they have. The Chinese family is can be very simple and yet complex. The government has restrictions on how many children each family can haveif you live in a city. In days gone by many Chinese families didn’t want girls they wanted boys and many US families came over to China to adopt baby girls. Well, that isn’t the case – some women when they get pregnant do a sonogram and if it shows a girl then they have an abortion. This is slowly turning around. Why? Because there is a shortage of women in China.

Other stat’s our tour guide the day we went to the Great Wall said if you have more than 1 child then the government fine is $5000.00. I am not sure I agree with that as that is a lot of money. But if you live in a farming community then you aren’t fined for more than 1 child because the extra hands are needing for doing the farming. [Read more →]

One of key responsibilities while I am here it to manage the Coke product and the coolers while I am here. One would think this is somewhat of an easy task..OOOHHHNNNOOO product deliveries can only happen now until after midnight. The hotel alone has over 25 coolers with 20 different type of Coke products. So to get this all into the hotel afte rmidnight get coolers set up and stocked was a very long night..and this is a couple day process. Plus in true Coca-Cola protocol these products have to be pre-chilled in the back before being moved to the front for guest consumption. So far the most popular products over here is by far just plain ‘ole Coca-Cola and Minute Maid Orange juice. Then next comes the Nestea tea products. For obvious reasons they have a healthy variety of tea. I have found myself drinking more hot tea since being over here. I find it is soothing after a large meal to drink a cup of tea. Although you can definitely taste the difference from drinking it in the States. [Read more →]

Morning to me and night time to you folks. For East coast we are exactly 12 hours ahead.

Coke did a very smart here thing – they set up 2 internet type phones for people to call home for basically free. This move alone has saved a ton of money on cell phone bills. For me I use my Skype to call back to the States.

Our host country of the Olympic games is still very strict with communications of the journalists outside of China. Some of the rumors that we have heard is that everything is getting sensored. Many folks here have had their computers blacked out if they send emails or stories that our host country do not like. All emails when they are being sent are checked by satelite and if the email contains words that they government has deemed inappropriate then the email doesn’t get through. [Read more →]

I think I have told the majority of you about Wan Tu who resides in Boulder Colorado. She is who I report to and is the lead on this program overseeing all F& B. Wan is an amazing person in many ways but a couple in particular. Obviously she speaks fluent Mandrin as well as perfect English. What is so hard about this is she is doing a lot of crucial translating. There have been some many and still are hurddles to cross and many times Wan is very involved so she can translate plus her knowledge of the Olympics. For those of you who have never worked with translation is – it is really exhausting switching back and forth between the languages and keeping your concentration on the integrity of the conversation. Wan is amazing with this. She toggles back and forth like it is nothing and never makes you feel stupid because she is having to translate. Her parents are first generation Chinese. In another blog I will talk more about Wan…but the other thing that is interesting about Wan is this is her 20th Olympic Games. Not necessarily for Coke although she has been with KO as a contractor doing the past few Olympics. [Read more →]

GOOOD MORNING!! what is totally amazing about today is that it is sunny..not like sunny like we see in the states but very sunny compared to Chinese standards. You can even see somewhat of the sky.

I don’t have a lot going on today other than fine tune what I am currently doing.

I think I mentioned that we have 6 Chinese students for our staff that begins next week. Two of the of these 6 are what they call X Pat’s meaning they are not born and raised in China. One is actually from the states and his name is Rob and the other is Fidelia who is getting married todoay. She is from Africa. [Read more →]