SINGAPORE TAIWAN JAPAN HONG KONG

The Story of Kick- starting a Country

The Taste of Sweden in Your Taiwanese Lunch

The Quest for Coffee in Tokyo

Gender Inequality in Hong Kong

BY CHALMERS STUDENTS IN ASIA ISSUE 26 FALL 2015

Welcome!In your hand you are holding the latest issue of Asia Magazine, a joint effort carried out by Chalmers students in Asia. The magazine is meant to be informative and entertaining regarding current topics of Asia as well as a source of inspiration for students curious about exchange studies. With this dynamic region in focus, it features articles on cultural, political, economical and social subjects. The magazine is coordinated and compiled by students at the Chalmers International Taiwan Office.

Chalmers International Taiwan Office, CITO, was opened in March 2003 and is the result of a bilateral exchange agreement between National Chiao Tung University, NCTU, and Chalmers University of Technology. CITO is strategically located at NCTU, near the Hsinchu Science Park.

The main purposes of the organization are:• To increase awareness about the development of

East Asia, with focus on Taiwan, at Chalmers• To support mobility of students and staff

between NCTU and Chalmers• To enhance the visibility of Chalmers in

Taiwan in the neighbouring region• To act as a hub at NCTU for Chalmers

students in East Asia• To further develop Chalmers’ cooperation with

Swedish companies in Taiwan and Asia

A part of the CITO mission is to enhance oppor-tunities for Chalmers students in Asia by search-ing for internships, master’s theses and other cooperations. If you are looking for assistance to grab an opportunity in Asia, do not hesitate to contact us!

What is Chalmers International Taiwan Office?

Editor in ChiefMalin Ansgarmalin.ansgar@chalmers.se

Art DirectorThure Wallerthure.waller@chalmers.se

Contact CITONational Chiao Tung University1001 Daxue Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan R.O.Cwww.asia.chalmers.se

Cover photo by Thure Waller

01

02Editor’s Letter

03AsiaStaff

04Chalmers in Asia

06CHINABy Bike in Beijing

09JAPANThe Quest for Coffee in Tokyo —By Any Beans Necessary

12SINGAPOREUrban Planning in Asia’s Densest Populated Country

14TAIWANThe International Language of Sports

16INDIAIndian Culture

19CHINAThe Language Barrier

22SINGAPOREThe Singaporean Approach on Sustainability

24JAPANSendai —After the Shock

26SINGAPOREThe Story of Kickstarting a Country

30TAIWANThe Global Game

32SINGAPOREFires Paralysing a Nation

34AsiaPhotos

38HONG KONGGender Inequality in Hong Kong

40JAPANSmall Town Perspective in the World’s Most Populous City

42SWEDENJoint Business Council 2015 —A Brief Review From a Student Perspective

44SINGAPOREVolvo Group in Asia Oceania

46TAIWANThe Taste of Sweden in Your Taiwanese Lunch

50INDIAIITD —The Hard Way to Success

52HONG KONGA Sustainable Future

54SINGAPORELee Kuan Yew

Contents

There are currently 41 Chalmers students studying in Asia within Chalmers World Wide programme. We are all curious in-dividuals who have seized a unique opportunity and accepted a challenge presented to us. With vast expectations and hopes mixed with anxiety for the unknown places we would soon call home, we recently stepped onto airplanes taking us to new ad-ventures. These students have contributed to this, the 26th, issue of Asia Magazine. I would like to thank them all for the creativity, thought and time they spent expressing their experiences in words and photos for others to take part of. As you might have noticed Asia Magazine has been given a new and updated look, all thanks to the hard work of our Art Director, Thure Waller. We think the magazine looks better than ever, hope you like it too!

The modern development of Asia has been astonishing. Through the economic advancement and the enormous population of the region the countries within it are now vital actors of our globalized world. The Asian market offers great opportunities. Knowledge and understanding for the Asian cultures pose a significant need for conducting successful business within the region. As exchange students we have come to know the everyday life of these cultures. The ten students studying in Taiwan can all recount numerous stories of a vibrant, colourful and dynamic culture and an admirable hospitality of our new Tai-wanese friends. However, adapting to a new culture is not al-ways easy. Living in a globalized community poses many chal-lenges but at the same time gives us opportunities to learn from each other, because different is not always wrong. Daring to challenge yourself and your perceptions through encounters with new people, places and situations will be rewarding and help you grow as an individual. Because as we all know; we can not learn from what we already know.

So take your time to read the magazine, it is a part of Asia, fragments from our everyday lives. Maybe you are in your third year of studies at Chalmers and thinking about applying to the World Wide Programme in Asia? Allow yourself to be inspired by the cultures of a continent and then ask yourself the ques-tion: are you ready to experience Asia?

Malin AnsgarEditor in Chief

EDITOR’S LETTER 2015/10/18

03

ASIASTAFF

Viktor WåhlbergHead of OfficeHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Quality and Operations Managementviktor.wahlberg.chalmers.se

Björn AgatonDeputy Head of OfficeHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovationbjorn.agaton@chalmers.se

Thure WallerArt DirectorHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in In-dustrial Design Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineeringthure.waller@chalmers.se

Johan RebnerAcademic Exchange and Alumni ContactsHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovationjohan.rebner@chalmers.se

Johnny TruongIT ResponsibleHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Communication Engineeringjohnny.truong@chalmers.se

Ebba MannheimerCorporate RelationsHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Managementebba.mannheimer@chalmers.se

Malin AnsgarEditor in ChiefHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Managementmalin.ansgar@chalmers.se

Linn LindfredAcademic Exchange and Alumni ContactsHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovationlinn.lindfred@chalmers.se

Erik MartinssonAcademic Exchange and Alumni ContactsHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Infrastructure and Environmental Engineeringerik.martinsson@chalmers.se

Marcus BexellCorporate RelationsHolds a Bachelor’s Degree in Indus-trial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovationmarcus.bexell@chalmers.se

04

Dehli, IndiaIndian Institute of Technology

SingaporeNanyang Technical University

National University of Singapore

Studying at Chalmers does not limit you to Gothen-burg, Sweden. Through many exchange programmes Chalmers students are given the opportunity to study at a range of Asian universities. Likewise, students from many different countries are invited to study at Chalmers in Sweden.

Chalmers in Asia

05

Hong Kong, ChinaCity University of Hong Kong

Hsinchu, TaiwanNational Chiao Tung University

Tokyo, JapanThe University of Tokyo

Sendai, JapanTohoku University

Shanghai, ChinaTongji University

Seoul, South KoreaSeoul National University

Beijing, ChinaTsinghua University

Tokyo Institute of Technology

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

06

There are nine million bicycles

in Beijing. That’s a fact,

it’s a thing we can’t deny.

Like the fact that I will love you till I die.

BY BIKE IN BEIJING

07

If I were to ask you which city in the world you associate with bicycles, the odds are that you would answer Am-sterdam. If you had asked me the same

question about a month ago I would proba-bly have given the same answer. After just I couple of days in Beijing I changed my mind, and I feel sure to say that Beijing is the capital of bikes.

Before I went to Beijing I booked a ho-tel close to Tsinghua so that I would have a short distance to school the first days before I found a permanent place to stay. I looked at the map and found a good hotel about four blocks away, which sounded perfect. The first day I was cursing over all the bikes and how dangerous it was as a pedestrian. I was also wondering when I would get to the univer-sity gates. It took me 40 minutes to walk four blocks to reach Tsinghua, and 25 more to reach my classroom.

When you arrive in a new country without nothing more than your luggage and a credit card you try to work out your basic needs like food and a place to stay. These were my priorities for the first days too. It just doesn’t feel right to spend 300 RMB (400 SEK) on a bike when you don’t know where to get your next meal or where to sleep the next night. After my third day in Beijing with no luck apartment hunting I was close to giving up. With apartment agents scamming students left and right, ridiculous prices and rooms with 5-7 peo-ple, it seemed impossible to find a good place to stay.

The turnaround came when I bought my bike on the fourth day. I figured I could at least go down in flames and ride my bike back to Sweden if it wouldn’t work out. With my new bike (a nice looking fixie-bike that falls apart if you stare at it) I managed to

get to classes in under 15 minutes, find the school cafeteria on the other side of campus (thus saving 80% on food expenditures) and meet with several more apartment agencies. One day later I had a nice apartment set up just outside Tsinghua and I finally managed visit all the teachers I needed to talk to for registering for courses. I was back on track!

By now you have already figured out that Beijing is a huge city, not only in terms of population, but also in distances. One block in Beijing is like three blocks everywhere else in the world. Since scooters and mopeds are expensive and have a limited range (since a couple of years back all scooters must be powered by electricity) bicycles seem to be the mean of transportation in Beijing.

At Tsinghua there are about 30 bike shops. On a regular day when the semester starts each shop sells about a bike every fif-teenth minute on average. Shops are usually open 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. The first week more than roughly 12.000 bikes were sold. At Tsinghua University there are about 40.000 students and about 10.000 employees and faculty members. About 95% of them have a bicycle. A lot of numbers, but what I am trying to say is that there are a lot of bi-cycles at Tsinghua and in Beijing. In one of my courses we did an estimation about the number of bikes parked on a regular day at Tsinghua. The park administration had it estimated to 100.000, even with clean ups going on continuously.

Tsinghua is about 3x3 km big and I es-timate it to be about three times larger than Chalmers Johanneberg. Imagine if 30.000 bikes where parked at Chalmers when you went to school tomorrow and 95% of all the people going somewhere were doing it riding a bike!

So far I have enjoyed my stay enor-

By Bike in Beijing

08

CHINA

mously, apart from the basic hassle of being in mainland China: the necessity of a good VPN (Software protocol so you can access Google and Facebook for example), that no one speaks English outside the classroom and that you never know what will end up on your plate. Tsinghua University is prob-ably the most famous and best university in China, all the presidents have studied here, so the odds are that the next one probably has studied here as well. The school is really good and most of my professors have PhDs from universities like Stanford, LSE and MIT. I can highly recommend Tsinghua, but make sure to read my upcoming survival guide before you go here, it will save you a lot of time and give you a recommendation for the best bike shop in Beijing!

WORDS AND PHOTOAnton SkoglundTsinghua University, China

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.antonsk@student.chalmers.se

09

THE QUEST FOR COFFEE IN TOKYOJAPAN

The Quest for Coffee in Tokyo —By Any Beans Necessary”Are you sure we’re on the right street?” is what I’m asking my new found Sin-gaporean friend as we’re venturing deeper into a cluster of low-rise neigh-bourhoods. The air is unpleasantly humid and I’m starting to feel impatient. Even though we’re in the beginning of October, it seems Tokyo has yet to let go of summer. The location is Omotesando, an area mostly known for its streets showcasing architectural marvel. Today however, we’re not here for the archi-tecture. Instead we’re on a mission to find a well-hidden coffee shop.

All of the sudden, I’m stumbling upon a square-framed sign with the words ”Omotesando Koffee” written on it in capital letters. An impressive line of customers can be seen behind a fence surrounding what appears to be an old Japanese home. As we’re entering through the gate, I think to myself; every visitor went through all this effort to arrive here, and for the same reason, to satisfy their coffee addiction.

Studying abroad means having to be prepared to leave a few habits behind. With a new culture come new habits. Knowing I would travel to Japan, an

East Asian country more commonly known to the West for its tea culture, I was well pre-pared to put my coffee addiction on the shelf for the time being. This might appear as no big deal to the common reader, but for me it would be quite troublesome. Not only am I from Sweden, one of the world’s biggest cof-fee consuming nations per capita, but I also have a history of working as a barista. I take my caffeine intake seriously. I was there-fore surprised and obviously euphoric when I read the news that coffee culture is in fact blooming in Tokyo.

The history of coffee consumption in Japan begins with Dutch settlers introduc-ing it to the country at the end of 17th cen-tury. Compared to the traditional green tea, it remained only a minor beverage. It stayed therefore nothing but a curiosity for centu-ries. It wasn’t until the end of World War II

that the tides shifted. Japan entered a phase of westernisation and along with it came Eu-ropean inspired coffee houses. This eventu-ally resulted in coffee becoming increasingly popular. The real boom however was by the synergistic effect of canned ready-to-drink coffee in both hot and cold forms, and the expansion of vending machines. Japan has been hooked on coffee beans ever since. During the last 40 years, consumption has soared, making today’s Japan surprisingly the world’s third biggest importer of coffee. To-day, a variety of coffee can be spotted every-where in Tokyo. Allow me to introduce some of the options.

The mentioned canned coffee is one alternative. It tends however to be either too sweet or bitter for my liking. It’s none-theless a good source of caffeine and I’ve re-alized that its accessibility can be a lifesaver at times. They can be found in almost any vending machine located on just about every corner of Tokyo.

When one has plenty of time, then

10

JAPAN

there’s the option of visiting the Europe-an inspired coffee houses, also known as kissaten in Japan. Generally speaking, these are easily spotted by their decor. Entering these cafés feels like stepping back in time to a Japan during late mid 20th century. The decor alone is worth the visit and can be ei-ther elegant or charmingly worn-out. The at-mosphere is intimate with jazz usually being played in the background. Guests however rarely make a sound. Compared to the lively conversations happening in most cafés in my home country, kissaten seems to rather en-courage silence. Another interesting notation was that every kissaten appears to be fami-ly-owned. I would therefore assume that the owners take pride in their coffee, considering they’ve served customers for decades. So far, it’s been proven true since I’ve yet to be dis-satisfied. Interestingly, the common brewing method is siphon, which is fairly uncom-mon in Sweden. It involves brewing with va-

pour pressure and vacuum resulting in clear and rich flavours.

Sadly, kissaten are slowly dying out and it’s the rise of coffee chains that is to blame. International coffee giants such as Starbucks have become the preferable choice due to having the reputation of being hip, espe-cially by the youth. Nowadays, coffee chains are everywhere in Tokyo. This makes it very challenging for kissaten to compete. Hence, many have been forced to close down.

In recent years though, a new coffee movement has swept over the city. Vari-ous number of independent specialty coffee shops have started opening up throughout the capital. Many of them even go through the effort of roasting their own beans. With so many to choose from, it’s hard to pick which one to visit. This weekend however, I finally decided to give a visit to Omotesando Koffee. It turned out to be a great decision.

11

THE QUEST FOR COFFEE IN TOKYO

After a week of exploring the coffee of Tokyo, I can finally conclude that I can truly satisfy my coffee addiction in this East Asian cap-

ital. Even though the more exclusive coffee shops might require some traveling, it can clearly be worth it. Obviously, I also have yet to explore them all. Coffee is definite-ly blooming here, and I’m looking forward to experiencing it during my stay. As I take another sip, I think to myself that I can now start worrying about what else I’ll miss dur-ing my exchange. That however, is another chapter to be told.

WORDS AND PHOTOSDaniel KrabbeTokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Achitecture.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban Design.krabbed@student.chalmers.se

Once we passed beyond the gate and stepped into a small courtyard, the first thought that struck me was the number of customers waiting in line. I ex-pected fewer considering the difficulty finding the shop. I begin inspecting the building from the outside, it appears to be an old tatami-styled home. We’re stepping inside and an interior is greeting us that is anything but traditional. While we’re standing in line, my eyes begin to wander and I’m noticing a re-peated pattern in the decor. Cubes are seen everywhere, from the framing that is encasing the espresso bar down to the signage in front of the gate. As we’re making our way to the counter, I’m noticing that the pastries are also shaped into cubes. Everything is so minimalistic. It even seems to be only one barista behind the counter. No other staff members are to be seen.

I finally decide to order both a hot and cold cappuccino as I’m still be-ing exhausted from the walk. While waiting for my order, I’m exchanging a few words with the barista, who actually turns out to be owner of the shop. I find out that his approach is a Japanese style coffee. A Japanese spirit is emphasized in contrast to most other coffee shop in Tokyo that looks for for-eign concept. I find this apparent in both decor and way of serving. Once our orders are done, we decide to bring them out to the courtyard. While we’re enjoying this intimate space, I’m taking a sip of my hot beverage. The foam is just the right amount and the espresso is rich without being too acidic. It puts a smile on my face.

12

SINGAPORE

When Singapore celebrated its golden jubilee on the 9th of August, standing in Marina Bay looking at the skyscrap-

ers it was hard to imagine how different the city scape looked fifty years ago and how it will look fifty years from now.

The fundamental consideration for Singapore’s urban planners is the country’s small physical size, with 5.54 million peo-ple squeezed into an area of only 682.7 km2, which is just a bit more than the metropoli-tan area of Stockholm. To yield more space land reclamation has been used, but there is a limit to how much more can be reclaimed. With such a severe land constraint, the bal-ancing act that is synonymous with urban planning becomes more challenging in a city-state like Singapore.

Urban planning in Singapore aims to optimise the use of the country’s scarce land assets for the diverse needs of both current and future generations of residents. It involves allocating land for competing uses such as housing, commerce, industry, transport, rec-reation and defence, as well as determining the development density for various locations. The way Singapore looks today is, to a large ex-tent, a result of the government’s implementa-tion of its urban development plans, the most important of which are the concept plan and the master plan.

The concept plan consists of a long-range land use and transportation plan that provides broad directions to guide Singapore’s physical development over the next 40-50 years. The master plan translates the strategic vision of the concept plan into detailed planning guidelines that will shape the physical development of Singapore over the next 10-15 years.

Singapore’s urban planning has its be-ginnings in the 1820s, when Sir Stamford Raffles implemented a land-use plan known as the Raffles Town Plan. Among its key features were a grid layout for the road net-work and a clear segregation of residential communities by ethnic group, for example the Chinese and Indian population. These neighbourhoods where the Indian and Chi-nese were placed still have cultural differenc-es form the rest of Singapore and are today known as Little India and China Town.

By the early 1900s, the city area had be-come severely overcrowded. In the absence of an updated town plan and with the lack of control by the British government, slums had sprung up in the older sectors of the city and in the outlying areas. A planning department was founded and was given the power to control the development of land throughout Singapore for the purpose of implementing the 1958 master plan. That is how Singapore truly began its journey towards the planned city-state the world sees today.

However, the government soon real-ised that the planning strategies embodied in the master plan would be insufficient to cope with the rapid social and economic changes taking place in Singapore. It therefore sought the help of the United Nations to formulate a long-term framework for urban development

Urban Planning in Asia’s Densest Populated Country

13

URBAN PLANNING IN ASIA’S DENSEST POPULATED COUNTRY

in Singapore. For the government, land-use planning had to address the two priorities of a newly independent Singapore: the provi-sion of adequate housing and the generation of employment opportunities for the people.

The concept plan formed by the UN envisaged the development of high- and low-density residential estates, industrial areas and commercial centres in a ring for-mation around the central water catchment area, as well as a network of expressways and a mass rapid transit (MRT) system to provide island-wide interconnectivity. Safeguarding land for the expressway and MRT networks early on meant fewer planning problems and less disruption to the public when construc-tion actually began. Similarly, the concept plan set aside land for the Changi Airport. The first expressway, Pan Island Expressway, and the Changi Airport Terminal 1 were completed in 1981 and the MRT network was opened in 1987.

The current policy of Singapore’s ur-ban planners is to create self-sufficient neigh-bourhoods and districts, which are then fur-ther assisted by four regional centres, each of which serves one of the four different regions of Singapore, besides the Central Area. These regional centres reduce traffic strain on Sin-gapore’s central business district, the Central Area, by replacing some of the commercial

functions the Central Area serves.The current concept plan is aiming to:

Despite good planning in advance there are some challenges Singapore is facing, especially with the limited amount of space, a growing interest of conserving of culture and heritage and a population that wants more independence from the government.

WORDSEmmy DahlströmNational University of Singapore, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Structural Engineering and Building Technology.demmy@student.chalmers.se

• Enhance Singapore as a home of choice by offering a wider variety of hous-ing locations and housing types.

• Strengthen Singapore as a magnet for busi-ness by developing new commercial hubs outside the city centre to give businesses a greater choice of attractive locations.

• Enhance Singapore as a vibrant and excit-ing playground by providing an extensive range of round-the-clock leisure opportuni-ties under a new island-wide leisure plan.

• Make Singapore a home to cherish by safe-guarding places of identity and heritage.

Illus

tratio

n: T

hure

Wal

ler

14

TAIWAN

Taiwanese students love sports. Dur-ing the day it is often too warm and humid to do anything more ex-hausting than walking, but as soon

as it gets dark, the campus explodes with different activities. Students can be seen jug-gling, playing basketball, swimming, jogging, you name it. Of course, as an exchange stu-dent, you want to adapt to the culture. Lucki-ly the Taiwanese people are very friendly and inviting, soon we found ourselves engaged in different sport clubs, even though none of us spoke Chinese.

There are no language barriers in sportsOur first practices were fun, but we encoun-tered a big problem. We realised that our coaches did not speak English. However we realised that this did not matter because there are no language barriers in sports. Even though we didn’t understand a single word, you get some idea about what you should do by following the coach’s gestures and tone of voice. If someone is pointing at you and yell-ing, then probably you are doing something wrong, but this has, of course, not happened to either of us.

Everyone is welcomeLike mentioned before, not speaking the same language is not a problem in sports. The coaches and instructors are very welcoming and helpful and even though instructions are in Chinese there is always someone who will help you with translation. Observing other participants is also a helpful in order to understand what you should be doing. The practice sessions serve as a great way of learning Chinese, so far we have picked up a couple of words:

The International Language of Sports

The most important point is that even though our oral communication is not optimal, we quickly realized that it does not matter be-cause we can communicate through the in-ternational language of sports, practice and have fun.

跑 Pǎo Run

跳 Tiào Jump

十 秒 Shí Miǎo

10 Seconds (Meaning 10 seconds left until pause)

游泳 Yóuyǒng Swim

两百 Liǎng bǎi Two hundred

好球 Hǎo qiú

Nice shot, nice pass, good job etc. (All you need)

15

THE INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE OF SPORTS

WORDSJohan RebnerNational Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.johan.rebner@chalmers.se

WORDSErik MartinssonNational Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in In-frastructure and Environmental Engineering.erik.martinsson@chalmers.se

*A fun fact is that the cost for participating in the kickboxing club is 300 NTD per year, which is about 75 SEK.

Our personal encounters with school sportsOne of my (Johan’s) great passions is work-ing out. So going to Taiwan I was a little bit worried about not being able to do sports be-cause of the language barrier. Arriving here I realised there was no need to worry. Now I practice with the university swim team and the kickboxing club. It has been great, not only because practicing sports is fun but you also get to know a lot of Taiwanese students who share a common interest.

Before I (Erik) started playing with the bas-ketball team I was concerned about the lan-guage barrier, but I decided to give it a try. As I first stepped onto the school basket-ball court I was greeted by the school team coach, he called one of the basketball players over to translate for him. He explained to me about the school team and how he want-ed me to have a great experience and make good memories, and I have been playing with them since then.

We both think sports is a great way to meet Taiwanese people and get to know them be-cause you share a common interest, an “ice breaker”. The Taiwanese universities have sports teams associated with them, similar to those that can be found in the United States. We think that it is a welcoming community and as an exchange student you should not hesitate, if you are interested, to be a part of it.

“...as soon as it gets dark, the campus explodes with different activities.”

16

INDIA

17

There is no doubt that there is a giant culture difference in India compared to Sweden and it is an amazing experience to visit this

country. India is often a country with ex-tremities. Over one billion people today con-sider India as their home, consisting of differ-ent ethnicities, social backgrounds and class. The wealth amongst people differs a lot, and unfortunately the very poor people are more commonly seen, but there are many privi-leged rich people at the same time. Also, Indi-ans with educational background speak good English and since childhood they are being taught the importance of English. Howev-er, Indian culture distinguishes significantly from Swedish culture in many of ways. What is really fantastic is that India always surpris-es you with discoveries even if you think that you have seen it all.

Indians are in general very warm-heart-ed and share their love in quite expressive ways. In fact, if you are close to an Indian, you will be overwhelmed by their affection and attention. You could easily observe this if you are guest to someone in their home. Guests in Indian families are treated as gods. During the stay they will make sure you have the most delightful and most memorable ex-perience. While visiting an Indian family you can also observe their close family relations with joint family privileges meaning that they all live together and share strong bonds with each other. Staying with family is more common and the Indians are closer to their parents in comparison to the western cul-ture. This is why it is often seen that an Indi-an residence contains grandparents, parents and grandchildren.

Regarding the Indian tradition, Indian couples are mostly not formed by their own will. It is common that parents arrange their

children’s marriage. In older times, parents did not ask their respective child for con-sent nor allow them to meet before marriage. However, with time the Indian society has undergone a significant change. Arranged marriages are still common, but these days the to-be bride and groom, are both asked for their consents. Parents match the horoscope of the couple for compatibility with respect to background of the families and their casts. In brief, Caste system is a quite intrinsic con-cept in Indian society, a stratification of the society on the basis of job done by people. When matching is over, the marriage is ap-proaching and the bride’s family has to stand for all expenses during the wedding and also give gifts to the groom’s family. The woman has to abandon living at her family to live with her husband, who continues living with his family. These are some reasons why a boy often is preferred over girls during child birth. Though these traditions have been less followed during the last decades. One of the principle reasons for such change is the influ-ence of western culture.

In India the relation between men and women differ and the separation of men and women is sometimes complex and hard to understand. For example women have a spe-cial reserved wagon in the metro, while other times the metro goes smoothly with a mix of men and women. Furthermore, girls are not allowed to swim in public wearing bikinis but instead have to use a special swimsuit, with no exceptions. At present, in some cases the schools are divided into separate schools for boys and girls in India, so in a manner, boys and girls are still to be separated. This is not the case for most of the schools though, and here at IIT Delhi everyone interacts in a, for me as a Swede, normal way.

Another fascinating thing is that you

Indian Culture

INDIAN CULTUREINDIA

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INDIA

never ever thank or welcome your loved ones. The strong bond between parents and children might be the reason of not thanking their parents. The main reason behind this strange visibly ungrateful act is that Indians actually feel that it is their duty to help out each other and being nice to loved ones. Be-ing there for someone whom you love is ac-tually not a big deal but your duty. Though, saying ‘thank you’ or ‘welcome’ is considered formal, to be said to strangers or to ones who are not close.

To believe in something is of great im-portance which all Indians do. Not necessar-ily the same gods but everyone agrees there is higher power. There are so many temples to visit and what often defines each temple is that one specific god is worshipped. A per-sonal favourite was the temple where a god was worshipped with alcohol. Spirits of dif-ferent kinds where sold outside the temple, in purpose to give it as a symbolic gift to the god in shape of a statue in the temple. Interesting

WORDS AND PHOTOSMarcus JohanssonIndian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Applied Mechanics.jmarcu@student.chalmers.se

“Guests in Indian fam-ilies are treated as gods. During the stay they will make sure you have the most de-lightful and most mem-orable experience.”

since the drinking age is twenty-five but still people of younger ages are encouraged to visit here.

My conclusion is that cultures differ a lot across the world and not least in India. Though India seems to become more and more influenced by the West and who knows what my article would look like in ten, twenty or thirty years from now. India is an incredi-ble country to see, experience and visit as one of their guests.

19

THE LANGUAGE BARRIERCHINA

Before I arrived in Shanghai I was quite confident in being able to use English for getting by, while learn-ing Mandarin was more of a hobby.

I had been told by friends and read on the Internet that Shanghai was the most West-ern-like city in Mainland China, allowing the possibility to live life just as I would have if I had stayed back home. What I had not re-alised was how small this part of the society was. It turns out that unless shopping at the most luxurious malls or eating at the most ex-pensive restaurants are your main activities, the chances of having an actual conversation in English here are quite slim. When you happen to meet Chinese people who know English, they usually know it very well and are happy to talk for as long as you like, but even within the university campus the occur-rences of English-speakers are rare. Suddenly, our English proficiency is of no use.

What does this language barrier mean for Swedes living in China? I met up with Viktor Andersson, who is pursuing a dou-ble Master’s Degree at the College of Design and Innovation at Tongji University, to ask him about his experience. Viktor had been in China once before, taking a four-week Mandarin summer course in Nanjing, but that was already five years ago. Regarding his previous language knowledge Viktor says: “I learned how to order rice, how to count and

ask about the price. That, and bargaining too, as we went to the fake market a lot. At the market it is possible to communicate just by numbers, as you are holding the thing you want in your hand”. Viktor describes the local people in Nanjing as very friendly towards foreigners. In Shanghai he finds the locals a bit less welcoming, something he attributes to the sheer amount of expatiates: “I think that many believe that we Westerners come here and take their jobs”. Even so, knowing just a bit of Mandarin can do wonders. Just by being able to say nihao (“hi” in mandarin) or tell someone your name, they tend to open up considerably, especially the staff in smaller restaurants or the residents of the penghuqu.

So how do you get around when the language-based communication is lacking? Normally we turn to using body language, but even that can be problematic in China, as Viktor has experienced several times. “The body language is different from the West. I have difficulties gesticulating anything, it won’t come across as I intended”, he says and shows me the gesture for “I don’t under-stand”; when he tried to use it, it mostly led to locals continuing to repeat the same sen-tences over and over in a louder and louder voice. Viktor’s advice to newcomers in China is to find a restaurant or grocery store where the people are nice, and start going there reg-ularly. It is best to take it slowly: “You try to

Most recent studies show that Sweden is considered to be one of the best non-native English-speaking countries in the world, and this is something most Swedes are aware of. Thanks to English being taught in pre-school, com-bined with easy access to native English-speakers on the Internet, many Swedes feel comfortable using English for both everyday talk as well as in business. However, with the ability to make ourselves understood in the majority of the world we might have gotten lazy with learning a third language. What do we do when English is no longer the go-to-language?

The Language Barrier

20

CHINA

learn what apple is and ask for that a couple of times, and then you change to… maybe bananas, or pears and so on”, Viktor tells me before we get down to the fruit shop in the penghuqu where the locals have gotten used to seeing him every day.

So just how much do you need to know not to feel as limited, and how much work does it take to get there? Andreea Viorela Jakab, who holds a

Bachelor’s in Chinese and a Master’s Degree in East-Asian Studies from the University of Bucharest, is in Shanghai to enjoy the culture and meet people, as well as to practice the everyday language. She tells me that it is hard to keep it at a high level when you are not in China. One of Andreea’s reasons for com-ing back to China after a three-year break is that Shanghai offers a mix of languages. “I speak the standard language but I want to understand Shanghai hua, the language they speak here in Shanghai. Dialects in China can be compared to all languages of Europe: they are extremely different from one anoth-er, and not even Chinese people can under-stand them.”, she says and explains that even by being fluent in Mandarin you will not be able to speak with everyone in China. This is especially true for the older generations that

also known as Putonghua or com-mon language, is the official spo-ken language of Mainland China since 1950. The Chinese written signs/characters are the same throughout the country.

Mandarin

“basic houses”, areas where res-idents who have not yet been evicted to make room for new high-rise compounds live; often home to the poorest but most wel-coming people.

Penghuqu

official term for “foreigners”.Waiguo ren

“foreigners”, formerly used in a negative way.

Laowai

21

THE LANGUAGE BARRIER

WORDS AND PHOTOFredrik BeckiusTongji University, China

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Interaction Design and Technologies.frebec@student.chalmers.se

have not had mandatory Mandarin classes in school. “Sometimes the local people use it [their native language] to be able to talk be-hind your back, be it good things or (rarely) bad ones, even if you know Mandarin”, An-dreea says and tells me that she often over-hear people talking about her in the streets. Laowai and waiguo ren are words to listen for when you are a foreigner in China.

The first time she was in China, four years ago, she studied in Tianjin after two years of Chinese Studies in her home coun-try. “When I first came to China I could write and read, but when I tried to speak they didn’t understand anything”, says Andreea and adds in a joyful manner: “I didn’t use any tones”. Tones are a critical part of Man-darin, one that most Swedes and Europeans are not used to. Although it took her a couple of months to get the spoken language going, before she left one year later, she could speak about everyday things quite unhindered. It takes much more exposure to grasp the lan-guage completely, as even the differences be-tween words used in spoken language and a newspaper article can be huge.

When you are used to being able to communicate in English, China does present some difficulties. However, even the most ba-sic knowledge of Mandarin will make a dif-ference. Reaching a level in which you can talk to strangers might take a bit more effort, but studying Mandarin during your stay in China will definitely make the whole expe-rience much more interesting. Experiencing a language barrier will, if nothing else, teach you to have patience.

22

SINGAPORE

Singapore is an impressive country in many ways, especially when you con-sider the transformation it has been through since gaining independence

in 1965. The rapid development the coun-try has undergone has been done with sus-tainability close in mind, which has led to a well-developed country with a low environ-mental impact.

The focus on sustainability and the en-vironment permeates throughout the city-state, the National University of Singapore (NUS) is not an exception. My field of study is sustainable energy systems, so this is some-thing that attracted my attention and piqued my curiosity. I decided to find out more about what NUS does to pursue sustainabili-ty and environmentally friendly development in Singapore.

My first experience regarding the sus-tainability focus of NUS was the Recycle Day. On this day, new students are encouraged to use items that old students have left behind. Since there are a lot of exchange students at NUS every year, the amount of things left behind is substantial. Rather than throw-ing these items away, students are encour-aged to hand them in to make it possible for other students to use them again. This is a very simple, yet effective way to encour-age students to make more environmentally friendly decisions.

Behind most of the ideas and cam-paigns such as Recycle Day is the Office of Environmental Sustainability, whose purpose is to continuously work to protect the envi-ronment and try to incorporate sustainability in all aspects of campus life. They have estab-lished an environmental policy consisting of eight paragraphs outlining the NUS vision

The Singaporean Approach on Sustainability

and they are offering guidelines on how to achieve their objective of sustainability and cultivate environmental sensitivity. One section of the policy guidelines regards the protection, preservation and enhancement of the campus environment and this focus is self-evident to everyone. All over campus there are a multitude of green areas that are beautifully and meticulously integrated.

Adding to the sense of detail and en-vironmental concern created by these topo-graphic aesthetic touches is all the new con-structions on campus. Everywhere you look there are renovations and new buildings be-ing built. The university’s objective is to en-sure that all of the new, and newly-renovated buildings are awarded the Green-Mark cer-tification. This certification is a way to rate buildings with regards to their environmen-tal impact and energy efficiency.

23

THE SINGAPOREAN APPROACH ON SUSTAINABILITY

NUS is quite a large school, and there is a lot of research being done across a wide variety of areas, including environmental sustainability. The data learned from this re-search is something the school itself can ben-efit from, when they implement said research in creating solutions for their own projects, moving forward.

During my time here, I have been im-pressed of the way NUS works with sustain-ability and how they try to encourage stu-dents to make more environmentally friendly decisions; everything from not using plastic bags at the grocery stores, to participation in different environmental awareness events. I came across one of these events in the begin-ning of my stay - the “No Waste Days Chal-lenge”. This is an initiative of the Singaporean government and there were a group of stu-dents informing other students on campus. The purpose of this challenge is to minimize

one’s individual waste for a chosen number of days, with the goal of increasing awareness of what one can do in everyday life to contrib-ute to a sustainable way of living.

There are a lot of things being done here at NUS aimed at making student more conscious of the environment, but there is one thing I find peculiar about NUS, and all of Singapore for that matter, and that is the temperature in the air conditioned areas. Don’t get me wrong, the AC is a vital part for a comfortable life in Singapore since it is very hot, but the temperature difference be-tween inside and outside is far greater than it needs to be. Almost every local student sits around in long pants and hoodies in lecture halls because it is too cold to wear anything less. For those of you that don’t know, the temperature in Singapore is around 30⁰ C all year, a climate that makes long pants and hoodies unnecessary. I could only imagine how much energy that would be saved by in-creasing the temperature of the AC, if only by a couple degrees.

National University of Singapore has a clear focus on sustainability and being environmentally friendly. The institution devotes a lot of time, energy and resourc-es to communicate this message to every-one involved with the school in any way. I have not been here for a long time but my impression, which is shared by many of my fellow students, is that they are doing a good job.

WORDS AND PHOTODaniel ErikssonNational University of Singapore, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Sustainable Energy Systems.danierik@student.chalmers.se

24

JAPAN

Take a look around you. What would you do if an earthquake hit you? When the ground moves fast enough to knock you off your

chair and hard enough to crack buildings like twigs, where do you go? Most likely you don’t have an answer, but for 13 year old Nana Sato the answer was obvious: get under the table.

The 11th of March 2011 Nana Sato was sitting in class with her friends. The time was 14:46 when the world around her suddenly changed. The quiet chatter of the classroom was replaced with the loud roaring of the most powerful earthquake to ever hit Japan. Like everyone around her she hid under the table, grasping one of the legs to hold still, but to no use. The quake was too powerful, and tables were smashed together along with everything not bolted to the ground. Cracks

formed in the walls and the lights went out. They would remain under their desks for 30 minutes until the quake had stopped com-pletely. When stepping outside they saw the destruction. Most buildings were damaged, some were destroyed. Nana remained hope-ful, because after all, earthquakes are quite common in Japan and the buildings are built to handle them. They were not, however, built to handle the resulting tsunami that was rushing towards the coast of Sendai.

The students and teachers decided to stay the night at the school. With the roads smashed and the power gone, getting home would be far too risky. The next morning everyone gathered in the cafeteria. Nearby restaurants gave them food and water, but it was not enough to keep from feeling hungry. The school was located inland, and was for-

Sendai —After the Shock

25

SENDAI — AFTER THE SHOCK

WORDS AND PHOTOSDaniel Chiniquy EngströmTohoku University, Japan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.chiniquy@student.chalmers.se

bat this they started moving vast quantities of sand and dirt to the coastal regions most affected, with the intention of building a sort of natural wall against the water. This process is ongoing, and even today many victims still live in their temporary housings.

Today Nana is 19 and is a part of the Tohoku University volunteer group, help-ing the victims of the earthquake cope with their new environment by providing support and stress relief. Ruined buildings can be rebuilt. Damaged power lines can be replaced. Damaged people are often for-gotten. I’m glad there are people like Nana who remember them.

tunately not hit by the tsunami. When Nana was picked up by her parents and travelled back to her house closer to the coast, she saw what the tsunami had done. Thousands dead, hundreds of thousands of people homeless. This was not an average earthquake.

Nana’s house was spared from dam-age, and her mother had prepared with food and water to last for a while. After arriving at home Nana saw her father go out right away to help the victims. She also wanted to help, so she accompanied her father to gath-er food and supplies to distribute them to the refugees who were now without homes. Be-ing only 13 years old at the time, she could not carry heavy debris or help the wounded, but she helped her father give out food to those who needed it.

A month after the earthquake tempo-rary housing was built to give the victims a place to live while their houses were being rebuilt on higher ground. The Japanese gov-ernment decided that they did not have suf-ficient protection against tsunamis. To com-

BEIJING

26

READYSETLAUNCH

27

READYSETLAUNCH

It’s my first week in Singapore, the week of choosing modules for school, and I’m trying to take it all in, trying to under-stand the way of Singaporean education

and culture. It’s that first week of both con-fusion and excitement, trying to put the first pieces of the puzzle of a new culture together.

The impressions from school are ex-citing. From friends, I hear about professors from Google and other renowned compa-nies. As for myself, the lecturer leading the crowdfunding course is a prominent design-er. In another course, we are to develop new ideas and future applications of the wonder material of graphene. I sense a way of be-ing innovative within the area of education, and it’s exciting.

The first days go by and I start under-standing Singaporean life, taking it in little by little, laying one piece of the puzzle at a time. During the celebrations of Singapore’s 50th year as a nation, it dawns on me that Singa-pore has truly accomplished something that few other nations have. The country has ris-en from a fisher’s village to a world leading economy in only fifty years. If China is the corporate big brother, Singapore is the small-er but peaking Kickstarter sister, having gone from zero to success in only half a century.

Most people say it’s due to hard work. As the weeks pass by, this hard work really becomes obvious. On campus, people staying nights in the study halls is a common sight. Work, sleep, eat, repeat. Work, sleep, eat, re-

“In this module, we will create a product and launch it for crowd funding. In short - it will be thrilling.” Did I just read that right? A course where I get to do what I love - develop and turn riveting ideas into reality - and at the same time have the chance of showing the world what I have created? And maybe earn money from it? I’m in.

The Story of Kickstarting a Country

peat. But is hard work enough when a coun-try is too small to have any natural resources, or has the lack of resources forced Singapore to think of new ways, to be innovative and creative? Is thinking of new ways a part of the Singaporean way of thinking?

As the weeks go by and more pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, the crowd-funding campaign is starting to take shape and we’re getting ready to launch. In my group, we’re launching a product to simplify carriage of laptop accessories. It’s exciting to learn from other successful projects, and try to find a way to shape our own story. As al-ways, after a while it becomes obvious that much more work lies behind a project than the first impression suggests. Even though it starts with an idea, a vision, that’s far from all it takes. What really makes a success-ful campaign is hard work. We spend many hours putting together press kits, trying to reach journalists, writing agreements with manufacturers and not least - developing and tweaking the details of the product.

When I ask my Singaporean group mates about Singaporean innovation, they tell me that Singaporeans don’t innovate, they copy what is already good, and they work hard. I’m perplexed - have I gotten it all wrong? Has this piece of the puzzle gotten in the wrong place?

When talking more to my Singapore-an group mates, watching presentations and reading the news, I’m starting to see it all

THE STORY OF KICKSTARTING A COUNTRY

28

SINGAPORE

with new eyes. Maybe innovation is not a key foundation in Singaporean culture af-ter all. Even though it started with an idea, a vision signed Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father who governed for more than three decades, innovation might not have been the main reason why Singapore rose from zero to success in one genera-tion. A vision was not all it took, but it was mostly hard work that did. Collaborative hard work in a society where everyone is striving for success. Work, sleep, eat, re-peat. Work, sleep, eat, repeat.

The semester is now coming to its end and many pieces of the puzzle are put together. More pieces will fall into place during the coming semester, but like in most puzzles, some pieces will always be missing. My group has finally put togeth-er everything we need, we’ve tweaked the

If you’re interested in Jakob’s Kickstarter campaign visit www.projectzag.com/crowdfunding.The developed product, “ZAG” is a uniquely combined gadget organizer and laptop stand that uses elastic bands in an original way to keep accessories safe on the go.

WORDS AND PHOTOJakob HedlundNational University of Singapore, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design Engineering.jakobhe@student.chalmers.se

last details, and we’re only one click away from launching our Kickstarter campaign. Alright, let’s go.

Ready, set, launch!

BY BIKE IN BEIJING

29

WORK, SLEEP, EAT, REPEAT. WORK, SLEEP, EAT, REPEAT.

30

TAIWAN

In 1949, Mao Zedong banned the game of golf in China because it was viewed as a right-wing pastime highly impact-ed by Western culture. Today, there is

still a ban that limits the construction of golf courses in the country due to environmen-tal impact concerns. Despite this ban, the number of golf courses has more than tripled since 2004, which indicates that in China, just because something is banned, doesn’t mean it can’t boom.

Almost across the entire continent, the development and growth of golf has been a top-down process. The sport has spread pri-marily because wealthy elites have taken to it. Golf courses have been built by developers as part of a scheme whose goal is to make prof-it, rather than by golfers coming together to find somewhere to play.

This could be the reason why golf in Asia has been known as an upper-class sport only accessible to a small percentage of the total population. And it still is. For example, a comparison between Sweden and China shows that there are 0.021 million people per golf course in Sweden and 23.3 million people per golf course in China. In most Asian countries, business is transacted on a more personal level than in other countries. It is not uncommon that business deals are sealed on the golf course, the American busi-ness magazine Forbes has even written an article called “19 Tips for Closing a Deal on the Golf Course”.

There has been a boom in the number of children playing the sport in major areas in Asia. An HSBC report suggests that one rea-son for the game’s growing popularity in Asia is that Asian consumers are turning to leisure activities as their economic wealth increases. Despite China’s limited number of golf cours-es, the number has tripled in less than a dec-ade. Recent studies show that the enthusiasm for golf is higher in China and India than in the US and the UK, which suggests that the growth of golf will be sustained.

Due to the overall golf expansion in Asia, many golf facilities have been built and new projects are under development. Despite Japan’s limited space, it is the big-gest golf country in Asia with its 2,400 golf facilities, which is more than five times as many as China, the second biggest golf country. However, the interest of golf in Ja-pan has decreased compared to the extreme boom in the 1980s when a great deal of golf courses were built. Instead of letting the lost space go to waste, Kyocera, a Japanese elec-tronics manufacturer, will be installing solar panels on the courses. The first project will launch in 2017 and produce enough power for 8,000 homes.

One of the biggest golf facilities in Asia is Mission Hills Golf Club, located in Shen-zhen, China. The facility includes twelve 18-hole courses, designed by players like Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Nick Faldo and Annika Sörenstam.

Asia’s economic growth in recent years has probably not been ignored by an-yone. This development brings new possibilities for the public, and one of these possibilities is the opportunity of playing golf. One cannot view Asia as a single market from a golf perspective. A continent of such scale and variety has many different characteristics across its regions, but there are trends that stretch across a number of different countries.

The Global Game

31

THE GLOBAL GAME

Eleven of these are championship courses, and one of them has hosted the tournament WGC – HSBC Championship, where the world top 50 were invited.

Apart from the golf courses, Mission Hills also features spas, resorts, the largest tennis centres in Asia with 51 courts, differ-ent kinds of golf academies, 5-star hotels and two club houses (one of them covers an area of 63,000 square meters). Mission Hills has also hosted a friendly football game between FC Barcelona and Mission Hills Invitation XI. Unfortunately, the Mission Hills team, captained by Sai Ho Cheung, wasn’t able to handle the Barcelona team with players like Andrés Iniesta, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Xavi Hernández. The score was 4-0 in fa-vour of Barcelona.

Golf is no longer a sport only accessi-ble in Europe and the US. Golf has in recent years boomed all over Asia with its astonish-

ing facilities. Furthermore, this continent is a great leading example of environmental ac-tions to be taken when the interest declines. Golf has truly become a global game, but the cultural differences between continents are clear. In Sweden, golf is primarily played with your friends, which is not necessarily the case in Asian countries where golf is related to business. This might be something Swedes can learn from, because it is better to be on the golf course thinking about work than to be at work thinking about golf.

WORDSMarcus BexellNational Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.marcus.bexell@chalmers.se

Illus

tratio

n: T

hure

Wal

ler

32

Haze is a regular occurrence, every year during the dry sea-son it affects major parts of Southeast Asia. The haze comes

from illegal fires mainly on Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo. The reason for these fires are that they are a quick and cheap way to clear land for palm oil, pulp, and pa-per plantations. The number of fires have increased as plantations expand every year due to a rising demand for palm oil, which is a key ingredient in everyday goods such as shampoo and biscuits.

The haze has been a problem since 1991 and many political agreements have been made, and broken, during the last decades. In 2002 all ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, except Indonesia, signed the Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, but the pollution problem is still present. In 2013 Singapore experienced a record high pollution level.

When the haze had just started in Sin-gapore my thoughts were that it was an ir-ritating problem that soon would be over. When the PSI-levels are between 100 and

Haze has become a recurring problem for Singapore in the last two decades. The haze consists of smoke originating from man made fires in Indonesia but looks like fog, which you can see in all countries around the world. It has a major impact on everyday life for the citizens of Singapore. Even though it only affects a limited period every year it is still an issue that Singaporeans have to deal with because of a greedy industry.

Fires Paralysing a Nation

SINGAPORE

33

FIRES PARALYSING A NATION

200, a healthy person is recommended to re-duce prolonged or strenuous outdoor phys-ical exertion. Most of the time that was the case but the levels have during limited peri-ods reached 300. In the beginning the haze was disappointing, but now three weeks lat-er I feel like the haze has limited my possi-bilities to have the active lifestyle that I want. Even though the haze only lasts for a limited time of my stay here in Singapore, I think it destroys some part of the experience of being here. Then, when I imagine living like this every year, I feel the frustration and power-lessness the citizens here must feel. How-ever, they possess the knowledge about the circumstances and can hopefully adapt their lifestyle better than I have managed.

So I ask myself the question is it un-healthy to be exposed to the haze? For many of the residents of Singapore the haze will not have any health impacts, at least not in a short term perspective, but the haze is a re-petitive phenomenon. It is not yet clear what effects the haze may have on an entire pop-ulation in the long-term. Exposure to the haze has a more significant impact on people with a number of risk factors. For example it is more dangerous for those who are very young or old, have pre-existing conditions, or an occupation that involves physical labour. People from these risk groups may be affect-ed by the conditions existing today.

So why does the production of every-day goods continue to affect the everyday life of people in Southeast Asia every year? The answer to that question is money. Although hefty fines and long jail terms are the verdict for starting a fire to clear land in Indonesia, the corruption is common and the law en-forcement struggles. The largest companies in the region have a Zero-burn policy, but many activists are sceptical that all firms stick to their pledges.

The best way to make this phenome-non stop is by continuing to demand palm

WORDS AND PHOTOSara LingegårdNanyang Technical University, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Management.saralin@student.chalmers.se

oil that is good for the environment. Only the buyers of the products can push the demand to change the way they are produced. Per-haps then it might be possible that Singapo-reans no longer need a daily reminder about the air quality. However, the problem is that not many people outside of the affected re-gion are aware of this problem. Therefore the demand is left unchanged and the burnings continue to cause haze in Southeast Asia.

“So why does the production of everyday goods continue to affect the everyday life of people in Southeast Asia every year? The answer to that question is money.”

34

ASIAPHOTOS

35

A city of possibilitiesShanghai, ChinaFredrik Beckius

BEIJING

36

37

ASIAPHOTOS

Blossom, depth and an unreasonably beautiful backdropKenting, TaiwanJohan Rebner

On top of TaiwanYangmingshan National Park, TaiwanThure Waller

38

HONG KONG

As a woman and a feminist I some-times encounter gender discrimi-nation in Sweden. In Hong Kong however, daily sexism is much

more tangible. In the enlightened community of the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) women face daily challenges due to their gen-der. Following the global trend, more and more of freshmen students in Hong Kong are women. This year 55% of new undergradu-ate students at CityU were female. However, ascending the academic ladder the number decreases to 25% of doctorates and 0% of all deans (Institutional Analysis Group, 2015).

On my very first lecture after arriv-ing in Hong Kong, the professor scrutinized the class and said something along the lines, “Good, last time I taught this class there were so many girls, and that was problematic as girls are so hard to control”. In chock I looked at my fellow classmates but no one else seemed upset or even concerned about what we had just heard. This followed by more sex-ist comments throughout the class. Luckily all my classes here are not this bad. This was an extreme case, but maybe not as extreme as one could wish. The university’s welcome ceremony consisted of 24 distinguished male faculty members and at the introduction of the master programme none of the female professors spoke a word. Too often, people address my male friends instead of speaking directly to me and at most lectures only male students ask and answer questions.

The women I have met in Hong Kong are ambitious, career seeking and academi-cally high achieving but are also expected to bear the traditional female role as a mother, wife and daughter, looking after the male members of her family. Even though many

continue to work, marriage usually means the end of a woman’s career. Of working age women living with spouse and/or child(ren) in Hong Kong only 43% are economical-ly active (Census and Stasistics Department HKSAR, 2015).

Development of women’s rights in Hong Kong differs slightly from Mainland China as Hong Kong experienced a west-ernization while China was influenced by Mao Zedong’s official ideology of gender equality. Also, due to the one child poli-cy families in China are encouraged to in-vest in their daughters while Hong Kongers still choose to educate their sons over their daughters, especially at postgraduate level. While in China there are around 33 million more men than women, in Hong Kong there are only 858 males for every 1000 females in 2014 (Census and Statistics Department HK-SAR, 2015). The transition from an economy based on manufacturing industry to a service market created many work opportunities for women in Hong Kong.

As a result of traditional household gender roles, a lack of day care centres and the fact that more and more women want to pursue professional careers, an increas-ing number of domestic helpers are hired in Hong Kong. According to data from the Cen-sus and Statistics Department of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2015), there are currently over 330,000 so called Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong. This is an increase by 29% compared to 2008 and a considerate part of the city’s popula-tion. Looking at official statistics in Hong Kong, data is always specified as including or excluding FDWs. Almost all FDWs are wom-en from Southeast Asia, mainly the Philip-

Gender Inequality in Hong Kong

39

GENDER INEQUALITY IN HONG KONG

pines and Indonesia. Every Sunday, their day off, these women can be seen around Central, sitting on big sheets of cardboard along every footpath, under bridges and in parks. They are eating, reading, painting toenails, playing games, sleeping and socializing. Most of them are escaping the homes of their employers, in which they are required to live by law.

FDWs are a particularly vulnerable group of women. Even though it might al-low more women to have a professional ca-reer, the exploitation of FWDs is distressing. Foreign domestic workers are excluded from the ordinary minimum wage regulations and can be paid a legal monthly salary of as little as HK$ 4,210 (GovHK, 2015), equivalent to SEK 4 480. According to investigations made by Amnesty International in 2013, one third of FDWs in Hong Kong earn even less than that. The report also claims an average of 17 working hours per day, and that many are “on call 24 hours”. More than half of FDWs do not receive their rightful weekly rest day and over two thirds have been subjected to physi-cal or psychological abuse by their employers. Most FDWs obtain their position through agencies who charge preposterous fees that

leave the FDW in debt for a long time. On arrival in Hong Kong it is not unu-sual that the FDW’s travel documents and contracts are confiscated, either by the agency or the employer. Many agencies even rec-ommend the em-ployer to refrain the FDW from leaving the residence dur-ing the first few months of the em-ployment. These

conditions can only too well be compared to human trafficking and described as a form of modern slavery.

This system does not provide the fe-male part of the population with a fair choice. Either stay at home or exploit other women to look after children and perform domestic tasks. In the end, women are always the los-ers in a patriarchy. I can only hope that in the not too distant future, people of Hong Kong, both men and women, will be more aware of the sexist configurations we meet every day, in our living rooms as well as pro-fessional workplaces and university class-rooms. Then we can work towards a society with more equal opportunities for everyone, despite gender.

WORDS AND PHOTOMaja SvendingCity University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Industrial Ecology.svending@student.chalmers.se

40

JAPAN

Small Town Perspective in the World’s Most Populous City

Depending on how you measure, Tokyo is currently the largest city on the planet and capital of the world’s third largest economy.

With its staggering 38 million people, there are more people living in Tokyo than all of the Nordic countries combined. Since the 1970’s Sweden has experienced a new wave of urbanization from the smaller towns across the country toward the main cities. Life in the city has always meant bigger opportuni-ties and a more diverse nightlife. In a glob-al comparison, there are no real big cities in Sweden. Even Gothenburg seems like a small town. After leaving my apartment in Lorens-berg this is my early experience of Tokyo, the world’s most populous metropolitan area.

In terms of size the urban area of Tokyo is about 20 times the size of the urban area of Gothenburg and it just feels endless. The city is connected with two separate subway sys-tems, several different commuter train lines and a big circular line that surrounds inner city Tokyo with trains leaving continuously in each direction every three minutes. It is as vast as it is confusing with different ticket sys-tems, but helpful when you want to explore another city district and takes you where you want to go. Even though each train is longer, wider and more space efficient than for ex-ample in Stockholm, they still get full during rush hour which will have you waiting a cou-ple of minutes for the next one, or the follow-ing, by standing in line.

In comparison with most other sub-ways I’ve experienced during my travels, the subway in Tokyo stands out as one of the most pleasant to use. Thanks to the Japanese culture’s disdain for crime and high regards for politeness and efficient police force, there

is no graffiti or vandalism anywhere, no beg-gars in the carts and no obnoxiously loud phone calls to be heard. You can instantly pay using coins at each station without having to worry about getting a separate card and each ticket is about half the price compared to Gothenburg. The same qualities go for the rest of the city as well. It’s remarkably clean everywhere, despite the fact that waste bins are rare, and people are almost suspiciously polite and well dressed. You can also see bi-cycles being parked where they would have been instantly stolen anywhere in Sweden.

The culture is also a lot more toler-ant than any other I’ve seen. Although most Japanese are like people in general, there is a more wide spread expression of distinct sub-cultures in Tokyo than can be seen at home. While I can’t help glancing, the Jap-anese seem to have been completely jaded with cosplayers, music related sub-cultures, crossdressers etc. As long as they don’t both-er them, they don’t really seem to mind. This phenomenon could be attributed to the large population where even the smallest niche-sub-culture can reach enough practices. The Japanese I’ve have spoken to about this de-scribed it as a reaction towards the strict rules of the workplace to have a more free-spirited spare time. Other attributes it to the freed will of self-expression for many young adults when they leave the school uniform system, which sometimes regulates down to short haircuts for boys and no make up for girls.

A great benefit of living here is the overwhelming amount of restaurants, bars and nightclubs. It is never far to the nearest restaurant and you can almost always buy a good meal reasonably priced at ¥500 (34 SEK) or even less, tip included. The open-

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SMALL TOWN PERSPECTIVE IN THE WORLD’S MOST POPULOUS CITY

ing hours of local convince stores and super markets are also generous with many being open until 24:00 or even 24/7 without being noticeably more expensive; they just rather have a smaller supply. Most other stores close about 20:00, which is still more generous than at home in Gothenburg, especially on weekends. This gives you the opportunity to run errands even though you stayed up the previous night. It doesn’t come as a surprise that the Japanese also use services like Am-azon, but those of us who realize that buying what you need in real stores is a lot more con-venient (unless you live outside the city), will find Tokyo to be a great city in that regard. There are still bookstores with several floors and ample amounts of second hand shops that replace “Blocket” and come in handy when you are looking for a bike for your one year stay.

There is a saying that you don’t real-ly realize or appreciate how lucky we are in

WORDSMattias PatricksThe University of Tokyo, Japan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Complex Adaptive Systems.matpat@student.chalmers.se

Sweden and how good life really is here until you travel abroad. Of course Tokyo and Japan is not Utopia, but the general question that arises during my first weeks here is: Where did we go wrong? The theme of this arti-cle has been about the benefits of living in a larger city, but the benefits of living in Japan are not limited to this. I’d argue that Japan is, together with maybe Switzerland, one of the best countries I’ve been to and an abso-lute must visit for anyone that is interested experiencing different cultures. It does live up to the hype.

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42

SWEDEN

The Taiwan-Sweden Joint Business Council Meeting (JBC) has been continuously held every year since 1986, making it the world’s longest successively held joint trade seminar. The goal of the these types of meetings is both to allow for a forum

where national officials can express inter-state formalities and get to know each other, but also to connect Taiwanese companies, Swedish companies and their respective governments to explore new business and R&D opportunities.

Having the theme “Smart Cities and Internet of Things”, the 31:st JBC featured talks discussing how the connection of digital devices to the internet further can benefit society, help people in their daily life and generate profit for companies. Presentations were held by compa-ny representatives from major Taiwanese and Swedish ICT businesses. One of them, Mr. Ulf Pehrsson, head of Government and Industry Re-lations in Ericsson, presented their progress of the 5G road map and gave the audience a taste of what a 5G, connected society, might look like. Dr. Lir-Fang Sun, Vice President of Data Communications Busi-ness Group in Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd, shared ideas on Chungh-wa’s work on cloud technology industry and pointed out the pros with such services and how it can reduce costs and improve growth of businesses. Another player in a future connected society attending the JBC was Foxconn, represented by Mr. Kuo-Liang, who gave a pres-entation on the future of their business and put special focus on the role of big data, rapidly becoming an important field where important knowledge can be gained.

In the smart cities perspective the main focus was placed on green energy. This was well in line with the formalities expressed early dur-ing the meeting by Taiwanese officials, stating that Sweden and Swedes seem to have a genuine commitment towards sustainability. One Green tech company that was given presentation time was Exeger, a solar cell manufacturer based in Stockholm. During a rather short and fast-paced pitch Chalmers Alumni Dr. Georgios Foufas presented Exeger’s flexi-ble and cheap solar cell technology capable of charging a cellphone or even a electric car in low light conditions. Another presenter was Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories from Tawian who discussed future possibilities of “Virtual Powerplants “ - smart combi-nations of energy storages at citizen level that appear as power plants in the electrical grid.

All in all the presentations held at the 31:st JBC gave us some-thing to think about when it comes to learning and what we are taught

Joint Business Council 2015 —A Brief Review From a Student Perspective

43

in academia. All over the world, in Sweden and in Taiwan, new technol-ogy is constantly evolving, collaborations are established and joint goals are there to be reached. As students we have to gain knowledge to ben-efit our society and make it better. However there are many skills left to learn after you graduate. In some cases, such as that of “Big data”, aca-demia could be quicker to present new material to students to match the international industry’s needs. In other cases, academia can’t pos-sibly try to teach the abilities needed. This is for example the case with the ability to build relations in international forums, whether it’s in a Joint Business Council meeting or in any other forum.

WORDS AND PHOTOKasper Westman Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering Physics.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Applied Physics.kasper.westman@chalmers.se

WORDS AND PHOTOChuan -Yen ChiangChalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

Holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Currently pursuing a Doctor’s Degree in Computer Science and Engineering at National Chiao Tung University.cychiang.cs99g@nctu.edu.tw

JOINT BUSINESS COUNCIL 2015

44

SINGAPORE

Who is Martin Persson?Martin started working for Volvo Trucks in 2004 after complet-ing his university degree in Marketing, and Chinese language studies. Shortly after graduation he moved to Beijing to look for job opportunities and to practice speaking Chinese. After a few months in Beijing there was an opportunity to start work-ing for the Volvo Trucks headquarter for Asia. This is where his Volvo journey began.

Martin works for the aftermarket department and is re-sponsible for Marketing and Communications. In total Martin has spent over 9 years studying and working abroad, mainly in Australia, China and Singapore. Today Martin is living in Singa-pore with his wife Mira and two kids Oliver and Noah.

What would you say benefits you most in your work from previous experiences?In 1998 Martin travelled to Shanghai to participate in an intern-ship with ABB Robotics division. He was a student at that time, and found Asia and the Chinese language very beautiful and also quite different from other languages. Did you know that Chinese language has got four different tones and the same word can have equally many meanings depending on how you pronounce it?

When Martin studied at Macquarie University in Australia he got to know many Asian students from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Singapore. Even though the Chinese language wasn’t necessary to make himself understood, it was a common ground to make friends with other Asian students. This was also the place where he met his wife for the first time, in 2001. Since then Asia has been an important part of his and his family’s life.

What do you feel are the biggest differences work-ing in Singapore compared to working in Sweden?Every day at the office, including online meetings, is filled with

I think most Swedish people know what Volvo Group does. However, you might not be familiar with Volvo Group’s truck business in Asia Oceania. The region, Asia Oceania Sales (AOS), is one of seven sales regions and accounts for around 7% of Volvo Group’s total truck sales globally. This equals around 14 000 trucks per year plus additional spare parts and ser-vice sales. A Volvo Truck can be up to four times the price of a Chinese truck brand, and the daily challenge is to show the fantastic benefits and features of the Volvo Group trucks.

Volvo Group in Asia Oceania

Do’s and don’ts in Singapore:DO!• Use title for people you

speak to such as Auntie and Uncle.

• Try the local mix of English and Chinese language called Singlish.

• Try the local food courts serving Hawker food.

DON’T!• Expect everyone to be in

exact time for meetings.• Bring the Asian fruit Durian

onto public transports. Lovely fruit, but very smelly.

• Feel you are not included if people speak their own language.

This is Martin!

45

VOLVO GROUP IN ASIA OCEANIA

accents from all over the world. French, Belgian, Swedish, Chi-nese, Indian, Australian, Korean, Japanese, Malaysian and Indo-nesian people, in turn their cultures become part of everyday life in this type of work environment. AOS supports more than 25 markets and the opportunity to travel to many interesting coun-tries is one of the major benefits of this job.

One of the main differences between working in Sweden and Singapore is the pace. In Asia everything moves quickly and there is less dependency on reaching consensus to move ahead. Decisions are taken and people move into action. The office in Singapore is also much closer to the markets, and it is easy to feel the business pulse. The work days here are a bit longer, but it does not feel like that. At the end of every day Martin finds that he wants to sit just a little bit longer to finish off the day’s work.

In your opinion what do you feel are the major challenges working at an international office? The global Volvo culture is very strong, there are many similar-ities working for Volvo Group in Singapore compared to other Volvo offices worldwide. In fact, the offices look quite alike and are designed to support a multi-branded environment. The Vol-vo culture is open and Martin says he can freely talk to anyone in the management team and express thoughts, opinions and ask questions. The biggest challenge in daily work is language bar-riers, and to some extent culture. It is important to really listen, be patient and try to understand things from other people’s per-spective. The way to communicate with customers for instance is different from market to market. Yet, Martin explains, we need to secure that communications for our brands are designed and delivered in a consistent and meaningful way.

Do you have any advice for students thinking about starting their career abroad?Taking the step to move abroad is not always easy, but in my ex-perience it is worth the effort. It is a great way to learn languages, get to know new friends and to experience the true local flavour of foods and traditions.

WORDS AND PHOTOEmelie BertlingNanyang Technical University, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Management and Economics of Innovation.emebert@student.chalmers.se

Martin’s best tips for working abroad

• Look for global companies with operations in many countries.

• Learn a new language, even if only basic level it can help you.

• Learn about history, cultures, people, and life situations in countries of interest.

• Study abroad and get to know exchange students from other countries.

• Be curious about people and their way of working.

46

TAIWAN

The Taste of Sweden in Your Taiwanese LunchWhen having lunch in Taiwan it is very likely that you consume your noodles from a lunch box produced in Sweden or Finland. The Swed-ish/Finnish packaging, biomaterials and paper company Stora Enso is one of the largest suppliers of carton board to the Taiwanese food and beverage market, and continue to increase its presence in Asia. So what is the reason why Stora Enso’s customers in Taiwan choose to purchase carton board from the other side of the world? And how will Stora Enso’s new board mill, starting up in China 2016, change your lunch experience in Asia in the future?

Stora Enso has for many years been one of the largest suppliers in the Taiwanese cartonboard market, mainly providing material for hot drinking cups, cold drinking cups, noodle cups and take away food boxes. When asking Olli-Pekka Back, General Packag-

ing Sales director for the Consumer Board division overseas, about the reasons why Taiwanese companies would choose a Scandinavian suppli-er for this, the main reason is the high quality of the board but also that Stora Enso has been able to meet the Taiwanese food safety regulations.

Stora Enso has established a strong position in the Taiwanese market and continues to grow in the region. Olli-Pekka mentions that one of the reasons for succeeding with long-term customer relationships is the continuous improvement of the products that they offer.

Stora Enso has recently made the largest investment in the company’s history, to build a new mill 40 km outside the city of Beihai, in the prov-ince of Guangxi, China. The new board machine will strongly increase the company’s presence in the Asian market. One reason for the invest-ment is that the demand for virgin fibre based (non-recycled) products has increased dramatically in Asia during the last years.

Stora Enso provides a wide product range with different alternatives for both hot and cold drinking cups as well as noodle cups. We have also been able to comply with the regulations by providing OBA-free products with no added optical brightener additives, says Olli-Pekka.

We are working hard on improving our material efficiency, for example in terms of source reduction. This means that the customer get more prod-ucts out of less trees. We have also developed our barrier coatings to pro-vide optimal protection and performance. Another reason for succeeding with strong customer relationships in Asia is our large network of sales offices in the region, he says.

47

THE TASTE OF SWEDEN IN YOUR TAIWANESE LUNCH

The geographical location of the new mill will impact Stora Enso’s cur-rent as well as new business in the region in different ways. First, the new board machine will supply the Asian customers, whom today are served by the mills in Sweden and Finland, shortening the delivery times substantially. Secondly, the mill will give a much better position for the company to meet Asian customers’ service requirements. Today, we need to plan the deliveries to Asia really carefully because of

the geographical distances but that will be much easier when we open up the Beihai mill. Our new location will also give us the opportuni-ty to provide our new and existing customers with excellent customer service, says Olli-Pekka.

We want to participate in the strong Asian growth in the virgin fiber based market. The speed of everyday life has created a growing market for foods and drinks consumed on the go. We also aim to introduce fib-er based products into many fossil based packaging end uses. There are many countries that plan to ban polystyrene and other plastics from their markets which creates new opportunities for our business. Also large glob-al brand owners get more concerned about sustainability and take own initiatives to replace plastic materials with renewable materials in their production. This further increases the demand of fiber based products.

48

To be able to feed the new board machine, an Eucalyptus plantation cov-ering 1200 square kilometres of land has been taken into operation by the company, an area equal to the size of the Hong Kong island. Though this might seem like a huge area, the plantation size is still almost 90 % small-er than compared to operating such a machine in Sweden or Finland.

The establishing of the new production site in China is currently one of the main focuses in the organisation and Olli-Pekka describes that the project has enabled many internal learning opportunities for the or-ganisation. The new machine will start up in the summer of 2016, but until then it will still be possible to catch a glimpse of the Swedish forest in every single of the seven thousand 7-eleven stores in Taiwan. And although the Scandinavian flavour might disappear in the future, euca-lyptus might actually go even better along with your noodles.

In the Northern hemisphere, one rotation of forest takes about 80–100 years, while in the Southern hemisphere the growth of a eucalyptus tree plantation needs 7–10 years. We can still obtain the same characteristics and quality of the board by using eucalyptus tree instead of the Nordic tree species, he says.

TAIWAN

Eucalyptus plantation operated by Stora Enso in Guangxi province, China.Photo: Stora Enso

PHOTOSStora Enso

WORDSEbba MannheimerNational Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Management.ebba.mannheimer@chalmers.se

Interested in job opportunities at Stora Enso? Visit storaenso.com/careers, or follow the Instagram account @storaensoworld for updates from Stora Enso around the world.

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THE TASTE OF SWEDEN IN YOUR TAIWANESE LUNCH

50

INDIA

My professor once told me that I do not try hard enough. I thought he was mad, or maybe I was stupid, since I only stud-

ied at 75% and I was studying 40-50 hours per week. Now I have realised that it was rela-tively little compared to other students in In-dia. When you wake up in the morning and go to school, you see people walking home and then coming back 4 hours later, if they even go home at all. I have seen people sleep-ing on tables so many times. It is very differ-ent from department to department, but the courses in Computer Science have around four assignments each and I would say each of them is as hard as one course in Sweden.

In India, people are struggling. Some are struggling with getting food on the table meanwhile others with getting a an employ-ment to be able to support their family. Here, there is no time to be lazy and studying is one of the safest ways to get a good job, although you have to be a top student to be totally safe. Since people are struggling, the competition in India is very hard, to join IIT you must do a test and only the top-students get accepted.

Students in India study very hard for this test, in 2014 1,3 million students took the test, and if you get in most of the parents force you to study there. It does not matter what

you want to study, you should do what gives you the best chances in the future. Whether this is bad or not is arguable, but one thing is certain, that it is very different from Sweden. In Sweden we are struggling to be popular, more than performing well at school. Being a good student is sometimes almost considered a bad thing, because then you will be seen as a nerd. This is not the case in India.

Many students do not think it is enough with studying at the best university in India. They want to go abroad for their master’s de-gree and Sweden is not a country they are considering. They want to go to the United States to study at Stanford or other compara-ble universities, otherwise they feel like they

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internation-al study performed once every three years for evaluating the knowledge of 15 year olds. Ever since its start in year 2000, the results have had a negative trend in Sweden, dropping from 512 points in the science test to today’s 485 points. Although India isn’t part of the PISA study anymore, it is well known that India is in progress of great development and that India is taking a big step into the scientific world. I am studying at Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) in Delhi and can see that there is a big difference in how the education is composed.

IITD—The Hard Way to Success

“In India, children can study from the age of 2 years old and then study so much that they do not have any contact with other children.”

51

“In India, children can study from the age of 2 years old and then study so much that they do not have any contact with other children.”

IITD—THE HARD WAY TO SUCCESS

have failed. Their picture of the future is big and their life today totally depends on their day tomorrow.

But is it really good to study this much? It might be good for the society in terms of development, but are people happier? In In-dia, children can study from the age of 2 years old and then study so much that they do not have any contact with other children. This is the childhood for many students at IIT, since it is the only way to get in and what they would call a success in life. In Sweden the children start studying at the age of six or seven and it begins with some hours per day and their free time is seen as their most im- WORDS AND PHOTO

Linnea AnderssonIndian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Algorithms, Languages and Logic.linneaan@student.chalmers.se

portant time.I do not think it is necessary to change

Sweden’s study routines, but we should teach children that having fun is not everything. When Indian people get free time they make better use of it than we do in Sweden. So if you are in the Computer Science department, India is a country you should study in if you want a real challenge and if you like to learn new things. Because although I study a lot, when I come back to Sweden I will have so much more knowledge.

52

Before arriving in Hong Kong I didn’t expect there to be any con-cern for the environment. In the middle of a bustling metropolis,

where the prize goes to the person with the top dollar, there couldn’t possibly be any thought of the nature.

In several aspects this statement is true, wherever you go there are huge air-condi-tioned malls and stores full of fashionable clothes, fancy watches and the newest elec-tronic gadgets. Parks and various green areas, on the other hand, are few and far between. However, the city is remarkably clean; it is rare that you will find trash just lying in the street, which comes as a pleasant surprise. While this might not be caused by public concern (the fine for littering is $1500 HKD), there’s still something being said about a ma-

jor city working to keep its streets clean.The most noticeable problem, by far, is

that of smog and air pollution, created largely by coal plants and heavy traffic. On bad days, when the wind blows down from the Chinese province of Guangdong, the visibility is less than 8 km and there might even be warnings not to spend too much time outside in order to avoid respiratory issues. While this may be a cause of concern, there’s a lot of work being done to improve the situation. Currently the majority of power is generated by coal plants, but there are already strategies put in place by the Environmental Bureau with the objective of reducing this to less than 20% in a seven year period.

Dependency on the import of goods and products is another issue that is worth mentioning. Since Hong Kong is a ser-

Hong Kong —A Sustainable Future

HONG KONG

53

A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

WORDS AND PHOTONiclas Ogeryd NordholmChinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Algo-rithms, Languages and Logic.ogeryd@student.chalmers.se

vice-based economy, there’s no notable man-ufacturing and if you find something in a store it’s likely that it came all the way from China, Japan or Singapore. Not only does this create a dependency on other regions and keeping healthy relations, the trans-portation of goods is also a major actor in creating traffic.

On the plus side, when it comes to public transport the situation is already quite good. If you ask a local, they will proba-bly tell you that the best way to get around Hong Kong is by using the MTR metro sys-tem, which carries a staggering number of 4.71 million passengers each day. It is both an incredibly fast and environmentally friendly way to get around. The negative side is that the electricity, as mentioned earlier, usually isn’t the cleanest.

“Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot being done about re-ducing electricity consumption and in the eyes of the people there’s no compel-ling reasons for them to change their com-fortable lifestyle.”

The majority of greenhouse emissions (68.2%) are created by electricity generation and this is probably the area where the most improvements could be made. Because of the hot climate, it’s incredibly rare to go inside a building that doesn’t have air conditioners running at full blast. The artificial indoor cli-mate coupled together with poorly insulat-ed buildings and storefronts left open to the streets leads to an enormous waste of energy. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot being done about reducing electric-ity consumption and in the eyes of the peo-ple there’s no compelling reasons for them to change their comfortable lifestyle.

This might sound incredibly jaded, but in reality, the situation isn’t much worse than in other places. Of course there are several areas where improvements could be made in order to reduce the environmental im-pact. However the carbon footprint of Hong Kong is already much smaller than those of western nations and it still ranks ahead of several of its highly developed neighbours, where both Taiwan, Singapore, and Japan are left in the dust.

There are also several initiatives created by the government in different areas. Stricter regulations for new buildings, an all out ban on new coal plants, whilst pushing for clean-er energy alternatives, and several schemes enacted upon the public in order to increase awareness and promote a green living. In the end there is a question that still remains, how will enormous service-based economies, such as Hong Kong, be affected by a push to-wards a greener world?

54

SINGAPORE

Illustration: Thure Waller

55

Illustration: Thure Waller

LEE KUAN YEW

Harry Lee Kuan Yew was born on the 16th of September 1923 in Singapore, at that time a city under the rule of the British

Empire. He attended Raffles College (now National University of Singapore), and stood out due to his strong academic results. How-ever, his education was delayed by the Jap-anese occupation of Singapore during the end of World War II and it was not until the end of the occupation that Lee could move to Great Britain to continue his studies. He briefly attended London School of Econom-ics, before moving to Cambridge to study law at Fitzwilliam College. After graduating in 1949 Lee decided to move back to Singapore to practise law, at the same time dropping his English name, Harry, to be known only as Lee Kuan Yew.

It was during his time in England that Lee got convinced that Singapore had to be governed independently from the rest of the British Empire. He co-founded Peoples Ac-tion Party (PAP) and when the country got full self-government from the British in 1959 he became Singapore’s first Prime Minister, a position that he would come to occupy for the next 31 years. Only a few years later Sin-gapore leaders chose for the state to be incor-porated under Malaysian rule. The coalition however, lasted only until the 9th of August 1965 when heated ideological conflicts be-tween the two governments made Malaysia

vote to expel Singapore. From that day Sin-gapore had to struggle as a country without any natural resources, with infected relations with neighbouring countries and a volatile mix of ethnicities, mainly consisting of Chi-nese, Malays and Indians. As Lee put it him-self in an interview in 2007: “To understand Singapore and why it is what it is, you’ve got to start off with the fact that it’s not supposed to exist and cannot exist. To begin with, we don’t have the ingredients of a nation, the ele-mentary factors: a homogeneous population, common language, common culture and common destiny.”

Few leaders have had such a big influ-ence on their country as Lee has had for Sin-gapore and even fewer can say that they have managed to bring their country from being a third world country to becoming one of the most prosperous economies in the world, in less than 50 years. The initial instability of the country and the complicated diplomatic situation gave Lee the opportunity to deprive his people of some of their democratic rights. Singapore has had free elections, however with a system that has made it very difficult for PAP to lose power and it was not until 16 years after the independence that the oppo-sition won their first seat in the parliament. Furthermore, in an interview in 1987 Lee said: “And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not inter-

Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps the most influential person in the history of Singapore, passed away in March of 2015. He served as prime minister for a majority of the country’s existence, founded the only political party that has ever ruled Singapore, led the country to independence and took Singapore from being a third world country to becoming one of the most prosperous economies in the world. His way of ruling has often been criticised but he surely will be missed by the people of Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew

56

SINGAPORE

vened on very personal matters - who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.” During his time at power he was critiqued for suppressing po-litical opposition, pushing for stifling press controls and taking legal actions to limit for-eign press coverage of the country. However, his model of centralized power and economic liberty has proved to be successful in terms of the economic growth and quality of living among his people.

Lee saw great urgency in keeping his government free from corruption. One way for him to achieve this was to attract talent by matching the salaries to those of the private sector, making Singapore’s government offi-cials some of the best paid in the world. He made sure that Singapore had sound finances while he pushed taxes down. He also intro-duced a housing program that made people who didn’t earn big salaries able to buy their houses. From the time he took over as Prime Minister until 2015 the per capita income has risen from $400 to $56,000, a rise matched only by a few countries in the world.

When Lee stepped down as Prime Min-ister in 1991 he continued his political career as the newly appointed position of Senior Minister. Later when his grandson took over as Prime Minister in 2004 Lee continued working as Minister Mentor until 2011 when he retired from politics. Some mean that the lack of political competition has given him the opportunity to make Singapore prosper while striving for long term goals though critics argue that the limitations of the dem-ocratic rights are intolerable. However, few argue against the competence that Lee pos-sessed as a leader and him passing away in early 2015 left many Singaporeans in great grief. When his death was announced on the 23rd of March 2015 almost 450 000 Singapo-reans showed up at the Parliament House of

Singapore to pay their respects while another 850 000 showed up at other community sites. When the public later were let inside the Par-liament to pay their respects the queue was up to 10 hours long and the police eventually had to urge people not to join due to safety concerns. Buses and trains stopped during the minute of silent on the 29th of March, the day of the funeral and the end of the week long national mourning period. Many people have opinions regarding Lee Kuan Yew but one thing is for sure, Singapore would not have been the same if it wasn’t for him.

WORDSAdam MyrénNanyang Technological University, Singapore

Holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engi-neering and Management.Currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Software Engineering.adammy@student.chalmers.se

of representation for Taiwanese students at NCTU as well as visiting companies and rep-resenting Chalmers throughout East Asia.

Over the recent decades the economies of East Asia have shown a remarkable develop-ment. China and Japan are two of the world’s largest economies and many more show great promise. The region is vibrant, inter-esting, dynamic and somewhat challenging. Among those with a background in tech-nical education professional contacts and cooperations with this region will continue to increase. Considering this, Chalmers has developed a unique exchange programme, based in Taiwan, giving students an oppor-tunity to study in and gain experience from these economies.

The programme is called The Asia Pro-gramme and is located at the National Chi-ao Tung University (NCTU). The university is among the foremost technical universities in Taiwan and is especially profiled towards electrical engineering and information tech-nology. However, in collaboration with the neighbouring National Tsing Hua Universi-ty, the exchange programme covers all engi-neering programmes at Chalmers. Courses held in both English and Mandarin Chinese can be chosen.

Wdents of Chalmers operate the Chalmers International Taiwan Office (CITO). The op-erations of CITO include arranging events

Chalmers International Taiwan OfficePart of the Chalmers’ World Wide Programme

How to apply for World WideYou apply for nomination to NCTU and all of the other universities in Asia through the MoveOn-portal before the 1:st of Decem-ber 2015. Attach a motivational cover letter in Swedish with your application. If you are student of Architecture or Architecture and Technology you also need to submit an addi-tional portfolio. Choose two universities but do not forget to find courses that match you master programme and check these with the coordinator of your master programme.

The selection of students to be nominated for the universities within the World Wide programme is based on the grade point aver-age and study pace of the applying students. The motivational cover letter is used to dis-tinguish between students with the same av-erage grade. In February you are informed whether or not you have been nominated for a university. If you are not nominated you still have a chance to study abroad by apply-ing to the second selection for the universi-ties that still have vacancies to fill.

Contents of Asia Programme• Intensive course in Mandarin, 4 weeks in July

to August at NCTU in Hsinchu, Taiwan• Full academic year of engineering or

architectural studies at NCTU• Maintenance of the Chalmers International

Taiwan Office at NCTU• Company visits throughout East Asia

Main Requirements for World Wide• You have reached your third year

of studies at an engineering or architecture programme.

• You have the minimum grade point average of 3.7 credits.

• You have finished at least 60 hp by the first of December.

For more information visit www.chalmers.se.

AsiaMagazine aims to be entertaining and informative regarding current topics of Asia as well as a source of inspiration for students curious about exchange studies. The magazine is a joint effort of Chalmers students in Asia.

Chalmers International Taiwan Office is the result of a bilateral exchange between Chalmers University of Technology and National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. The office is operated by Chalmers students and acts as a hub between Chalmers and East Asia.