China Dispatch: Alex Marks has landed

Tower Investments exec checks in with first in series of notes and observations from Tennessee's trade delegation to Middle Kingdom

Email | Print By Alex Marks

Editor's note: Gov. Phil Bredesen and several dozen business leaders have embarked on a trade mission to China. Alex Marks, senior vice president of real estate and development company Tower Investments, is a member of the delegation and will be updating NashvillePost.com readers about the trip and what is going on behind the scenes. Check back here and at Post Business in the coming 10 days for more color and insights from the world's most populous country.

It's an honor to be selected to help represent Tennessee on a trade mission to China. As one of nearly 50 delegates, I will attempt to provide Nashville Post readers with some view points from the private sector about doing business with China. I will also provide my prospective of the culture, tourism and dialogue we're engaging in with both fellow Tennesseans and our Chinese hosts.

This being my first trip to China (and to Asia), I had many questions about what to expect. The State ECD office did an excellent job on planning the trip and creating an agenda which helped detail the 10 days hour by hour. We will be traveling to four cities: Beijing, Xi'an, Hangzhou and Hong Kong. The visa process was fairly easy, TN ECD took care of all it all for us.  All I had to do was jump on a 14 ½-hour flight via Chicago and be prepared to learn how Tennessee could increase trade with China, a task I very much looked forward to.

After flying over the North Pole, Russia then Mongolia, we arrived into Beijing on a sunny Monday around 3 p.m. The airport appeared to go forever – probably 3 times the size of Chicago O'Hare. Upon getting off the plane, we had to go through three separate checkpoints – including a temperature reading station that was on high alert due to H1N1 – customs and baggage claim. I met up with others from Tennessee, we boarded a van then headed about an hour via rush-hour traffic into our hotel in the heart of Beijing.

The streets were packed with foreign cars, taxis, bikes, rickshaws and the occasional horse drawn cart. The skyline was filled with hundreds of buildings from four to 50 stories tall. You could tell that the infrastructure had been recently updated for the 2008 Olympics. Most signs are in both Chinese and English and, as we got closer to downtown, the city got much cleaner and greener.

Street lights included signals for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. The travel into town quickly reminded me that there are 1.3 billion people in a country about the same land size as the U.S. and there are 20 million just in Beijing.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I met up with my brother Dave and his wife Colleen, who had arrived a day early and had toured the area. Dave handles many of our industrial properties, include large buildings in Jackson, Dyersburg and Morristown. While he can be a tough lease negotiator, he met his match on the streets of Beijing.

While walking to Tiananmen Square, he was approached by a 'college student.' The student befriended him and walked by his side for 2 miles while stating that he was going to visit the U.S. Before they were to say their goodbyes, the student asked Dave if he wanted to go inside a store to see some of his paintings that he'd painted to pay his way to the U.S.

To cut the story short, Dave ended up getting scammed into buying a few paintings in which he later learned he paid way too much for. His experience was a good lesson for the many others who arrived after him and whom we had good laughs with.

We ended our first day by mistakenly taking a taxi to a Russian district and having Chinese cuisine in a Russian restaurant. No one spoke any English. Upon leaving the restaurant, a woman approached me carrying her sleeping infant son in her hand and asking me for something I couldn't translate. It was a bit disturbing, as I wasn't sure that if I gave her money I'd own a new child. I already have two (twins) on the way, so I quickly jumped into a taxi.