As a part of the Global Master’s in Management program, we spent our first year at London Business School and our second year – this year – at Fudan University in Shanghai. As we embarked on our second-year journey, we had the opportunity to travel on a 3-days weekend trip to the city of Jiaxing (two hours away from Shanghai). 

 

 

During this trip, we visited a few well-known companies – domestically and internationally – such as Lego and Wu Fang Zhai to learn about their products and production process. Moreover, we also get to learn that this not-so-reputable city is, in fact, becoming one of the most important technology and commerce hubs around the Yangtze River Delta. As it turned out, Jiaxing appears to be much more interesting that we all thought…

 

 

In this trip, we visited three companies – Lego, Wu Fang Zhai, and 36Kr. Lego’s factory in Jiaxing, built in 2016, is surprisingly the only Lego factory in the Asia-Pacific region. We toured Lego’s production line, getting to see how Lego is transformed from raw material into brick toys we see in Toy R’ Us stores. The most entertaining part is, however, taking pictures with a human-size Darth Vader Lego model. 

Our second company visit to Wu Fang Zhai also gave us an interesting lesson on the production process of zongzi or Chinese rice dumpling. We observed the entire production process, including meat cutting, rice washing, and filling packing. As a bonus, we also get to eat those zongzi for free! (Yum! Sadly, we couldn’t eat too much lunch after eating those filling zongzi). 

 

 

Last but not least, we visited  Xiuzhou National High-tech Zone Exhibition Hall  before ending our company visit at 36Kr. It is at  Xiuzhou National High-tech Zone Exhibition Hall  that we first realized the importance of this city of Jiaxing. 

This city is relatively new, and it is built specifically for economic development purpose. Jiaxing is divided into different zones for different economic purposes such as science, technology, medical, and education. 

Geographically, this city is blessed with its location in the center of three big cities: Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shanghai. In other words, Jiaxing is the connecting joint for these major cities, which explained why this city is attracting a lot of investment into its development. 

Kr36 is a prime example of a company embodies the purpose of newly developed Jiaxing. Kr36 is a company that provides resources and co-working space for tech start-ups that wish to grow rapidly. They want to create an environment where new ideas and new companies can prosper under intense competition by giving them the most suitable support. It is impressive how a city can be built on such a large scale and develop so quickly – and that is Jiaxing.

 

 

Besides from these knowledgeable company visits, there were also other fun and exciting aspects to this trip! During our free time, we went to have dinner at a local restaurant to try some of the most famous local Zhejiang dishes. Obviously, they were quite sweet (especially for someone who likes spicy food like me), but still delicious. 

The cultural part of Jiaxing also amazed us. We went to visit the water town of Yuehe. A small water town, but bustling with liveliness and rich with culture. The old walking alley took us back in time, as if we were walking in the dynastic period of China. The shops were decorated with red lanterns, giving colorful reflection to the water canal that flows through half-moon-shaped bridges. On the last day, we also visited a small lake called Nanhu, where we get to see Seven-Floors Pagoda, and old Chinese residence on a mini island. We had to cross to the small island on a wooden boat – another journey back in time. And that visit wraps up our trip to Jiaxing.

Do we know the city of Jiaxing now? Yes, we do. And so should you.