Postcards Home from China: Globalization and business opportunities

On Monday May 11 at 9 a.m. nine UAA students and their economics professors, Qiujie "Angie" Zheng and Paul Johnson, were at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport preparing for their flights to China.

Their adventure, a class called Globalization and China Economy and Business, includes 15 packed days interacting with Chinese entrepreneurs, business executives, farmers and university students.

They'll spend time in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Zi'an and Wuhan. Side trips are planned to the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Terra Cotta Warriors. They'll view the modern skyline of Shanghai and cruise the Yangtze River.

Naturally, we were jealous. So to vicariously share their trip-even in a small way-we asked them if they'd consider sending us some "Postcards Home." The past two spring semesters, we had similar arrangements with UAA students working as legislative interns in Juneau for various state senators and representatives. Check those postcards out here. Professor Zheng was enthusiastic about this prospect because she is already requiring travel journals and a research project as a result of the trip.

Six plucky volunteers stepped up to the plate to provide the UAA community with some insight and adventures gleaned from their time in China. We will welcome missives from journalism student Wesley Early, accounting students Dominique Kurth and Ziaoli Han, May economics graduate Diana Nolasco, as well as fellow students Matthew Williams and Jacob Hawarth.

We expect the first post to a few days into their trip, written by Wesley Early about their experience at the Great Wall of China. In the meantime, let us introduce our blogging team. We are still connecting with a few of our scribes, but here are the details that we have so far.

Professor Qiujie "Angie" Zheng

Economics professor Zheng was the topic of a recent Hometown U column in the Alaska Dispatch News. She received Innovate seed funding to launch research on expanding reach for wild Alaska salmon in the growing middle class market in China. Professors Zheng and Paul Johnson from the Department of Economics and Public Policy are leading this tour.

I asked professor Zheng about her expectations for the traveling experience. Her response:

"I expect the study abroad experience will help develop future local human capital with global vision across the Pacific Ocean. I also expect to increase student awareness of the global business environment and models with a focus on the emerging market in China for Alaska local business."

The course is a three-credit economics upper division elective. Her original plans called for the UAA travelers to join a similar group from Purdue University. That plan changed when an insufficient number of Purdue students signed up, so UAA will make the trip solo.

Wesley Early

Wesley is an ambitious and hardworking journalism senior. We can tell he's ambitious because he's already had three years of Chinese language studies, all at Bartlett High School. His teacher there, Yan Wang, is also an adjunct instructor of Chinese at UAA.

But other choices he's made as a student and citizen tell you a lot about him. He was born in Harrogate, England, to a traveling family, and has also spent time in Germany, Australia and many states in the U.S. Besides his journalism degree, he is pursuing minors in economics and women's studies.

Why journalism? His career goal is to work in audio production or writing. He plans to throw his hat into the ring for an NPR internship after college. Why women's studies? Because being a guy, he'd never studied women academically and finds the coursework satisfying. And economics is because he's got a number of classes tallied up, so why not?

Wesley has worked his way through college, employed as a customer service supervisor at Kohl's.

And what about this trip to China? Wesley is eager to brush up his Chinese. "I can speak about as well as a 7-year-old," he said, which is admirable in a language so different from English. We expect the initial digital Postcard Home to be Wesley's missive, capturing his experience at the Great Wall.

Diana Nolasco

Diana, 32, graduated from UAA in May with her bachelor's in economics. She added this elective trip to her agenda, she said, because she believes very strongly in "the value of learning from and increasing our knowledge about other people and other cultures."

The trip is not the only big event for Diana this summer. She'll welcome family from her home country, El Salvador, for her wedding celebration on June 6. "We get home on May 26, and the wedding is a week later!" she said. Yes, she's busy.

How she got to UAA is an interesting story. Born in the major city of San Miguel in El Salvador, she wished to learn English and travel. So she applied for the appropriate visa when she was 23, and landed in Anchorage. She lived with a host family and started to go to school. In 2011, she finished up her associate degree, but was hungry for more learning. She said she selected economics because she gets along very well with numbers, and finds the focus on modeling and prediction very interesting.

Her soon-to-be spouse is in the military, so she expects to join him at his next duty station.

Dominique Kurth

Like Diana, Dominique falls into the non-traditional student category. After pursuing an environmental studies degree in the 1990s at the University of Oregon that she did not complete, she began working in the accounting field. She enjoyed it and she was good at it. But at one job, when company managers announced a 20 percent cut in wages due to the economy, she decided she wanted her degree.

Now, she is just seven classes away from dual majors in accounting and finance at UAA. She's aiming to finish up as a Certified Public Accountant. Along the way, she met professor Zheng, and as Dominique put it, "Things just clicked with Angie. She has a way of making business and statistics interesting. Plus, she's interested in our success."

She said that professor Zheng mentioned the possibility of a trip to China, and Dominique signed on immediately. "I even recruited for her," she said, talking up the trip with fellow accounting students. One of them, Ziaoli Han, from China herself, jumped on the bandwagon. Ziaoli even left for China a few days earlier than her classmates, since she was going home anyway.

The research project Dominique has selected is to discover how small businesses in China acquire financing for their ventures. This will work toward her finance degree.

Additional scribes

We are still catching up with students Ziaoli Han, Matthew D. Williams and Jacob Haworth to share a bit of background on their academic careers and why they were motivated to take this trip to China. We will add their details here as we received them. Each student has committed to at least one Postcard Home.

Written by Kathleen McCoy, UAA Office of University Advancement