Advanced Business Chinese class explores 2019 Appliances and Electronics World Expo

On March 16, students in the Advanced Business Chinese class went on a half day field trip to experience and investigate the different products and marketing techniques present in the 2019 Appliances and Electronics World Expo (AWE) held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. Due to conflicting personal preferences, the class did not go as one group. Rather, students chose to go by themselves or with friends at whatever time of the day they liked. Once students reached the expo center, they had to take a selfie with their received admittance badges to prove attendance.

Besides being an interesting learning experience in general for the students, the main purpose of this field trip was to observe and collect the pictures and information required for the completion of a presentation for the class. First, students were expected to participate in the Electrical Kitchen Appliances Food Festival held at one section of the exhibition. They were to pose with the food and then later present their opinions about the benefits of having such a festival. Then, students were supposed to fulfill several requirements related to a brand of their interest. Once they picked a brand to focus on, students were to describe the peculiar aspects of the brand’s display of products, examine and experience one of the brand’s new products, and finally to ask a salesmen two questions about the product. The whole process required documentation through photographs or film. Additionally, students were to examine and take pictures of a product they believed was most high tech. Last but not least, students were to explore the whole expo with its multiple exhibition buildings and identify the most attractive marketing technique, the dongxian, and the areas for future improvement.

Overall, the expo was decent. It certainly contained some recently developed and creative electronic products, like Panasonic’s new core training chair, but the exhibition as a whole did not include displays of the most significant high-tech developments in robotics and artificial intelligence. For the general public and for students, however, it may still largely be a meaningful and informative experience. Several noteworthy companies, such as Siemens, Bosch, A.O. Smith, Huawei, and LG did showcase their variety of useful products, from refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, juice blenders, and washing machines to phones, computers, and surveillance gadgets with some artificial intelligence. The products given AWE awards were also shown, such as LG’s 88 inch 8K resolution flat screen TV that won gold.

Featured Image – Students pose with their badges in front of the exhibition center to prove attendance – Photo courtesy of Cynthia Cheung

By Gracier Dai