Ellen Cappellanti : Visits To Steel Mill, Olympic Village Memorable
Editor's Note: Ellen Cappellanti of Charleston is the chair of Jackson Kelly's Business and Commercial Law Section. she has been on numerous trade missions, usually in her capacity as a member of the board of directors of Sen. Jay Rockefeller's Discover the Real West Virginia Foundation. This is her second trip to China.
BEIJING - Some of my more memorable experiences from this trip have been a visit to a steel mill, a fashion show and the 2008 Olympic Village.
We visited the steel mill Saturday when we were in Taiyuan. It's owned by the Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group Co. and is apparently the largest in the world. It has four blast furnaces.
The mill employs 20,000 people, yet everything is automated. All the testing of the steel is done by robotics. The assembly line is automated. Several people on the trip have been in a lot of steel mills, and they said they had never seen anything like it.
Some of us went to a fashion show Monday morning. We were invited because one of the key executives of Shenhua Coal Group and his wife went to school at Southern Illinois. She's a professor at Rafffles Design Institute, which we understand to be the most important school of fashion design in Beijing.
This is fashion week here, and the school sponsors a competition featuring its most gifted students. There were 20 students in the competition and an international panel of judges who work for fashion magazines all over the world. There was huge media coverage.
It was a runway show like you would expect to see in Milan or Paris. A professor said the students were instructed that their designs should be practical but also creative. So the clothes were supposed to be things you could wear. I don't think I could wear anything that was in the show. But the clothes were incredible - very edgy. You could see the elements of things you would like. You could see where people get ideas for things. There was a lot of layering, a lot of leggings and a lot of flowing fabrics.
You can get fabric at very reasonable prices here. The students are on student budgets, but they're getting some pretty incredible fabric and making remarkable enhancements to it.
The female models were all probably 5 feet 8 or 5 feet 9 inches tall, which is tall for this country but probably short by American standards. They were thin but probably a little more muscular than American models. People here walk and bike a lot. They seem to be more toned.
West Virginia first lady Gayle Manchin was recognized as a celebrity at the show. She actually awarded one of the prizes. The students mobbed her afterward. They wanted an autograph, and they wanted to have their picture taken with her.
Watching this fashion show was like turning the pages of Vogue magazine.
The Olympic Village contains some remarkable architecture. All of the world's best architects are designing buildings in China, but especially in Beijing as they get ready for the 2008 Olympics. I've never seen so many cranes in my life.
The subway system encompasses 200 miles and is being expanded by another 300 miles.
I've seen an estimate that there are 3 million vehicles in Beijing, and it is anticipated there may be 5 million during the Olympics. So on Day One, only people with licenses ending in even numbers will be allowed to drive. On Day Two, those with odd numbers will take their turn. They had a four-day test of this system this summer.