With 80 GHz through China

This time, our 80-GHz tour took me to the heart of China – to Baotou and Changchun, to be exact. 

Baotou has approximately 2.1 million inhabitants and is one of the most important industrial cities in Inner Mongolia. The city is mainly known for its mining and extraction of rare earths. Approximately 70% of global demand is produced here. Rare earth elements are needed in large quantities for the production of smartphone and television displays as well as for the magnets of high-performance electric motors, e.g. for electric cars. The extraction of the raw materials produces waste, a mixture of slag and aggressive acids, which is stored in an artificial lake about 10 km outside the city. This has a huge environmental impact. So I was sort of expecting to see a lot of unpleasant things there. But when I arrived in the city, I was very surprised: awaiting us was a very well developed infrastructure, a beautiful, modern airport and a fantastic superhighway to our 5-star hotel.

As the seminar was planned for the afternoon of the next day, we had plenty of time to set up and prepare everything. The 60 participants came from different regions of China. Some of them had had a very long journey of up to 11 hours by bus and train.
A colleague had to translate, because many of the participants could not have followed an English-language presentation. Since the Chinese PowerPoint version was also used, it was quite good that by now I was nearly able to give the presentation from memory. ;-)

The participants especially liked the numerous demonstrations. A highlight for them was clearly the one at the end, when we measured the level in a beer barrel and displayed the results on a tablet PC via Bluetooth communication. Many took the opportunity to taste a German beer and make a selfie or group photo.

The next seminar took place in an awesome hotel with a very large seminar room for our 70 participants. Unfortunately, a huge lamp made of many glass plates hung directly above the table where we were doing the demonstrations. The lamp looked great, but our radar sensor picked up strange echoes that we first had to account for. ;-)

In the evening a dinner was held in the seminar room – on round tables with all kinds of different dishes, as is common in China. There were no chicken feet, jellyfish or snakes, so I was able to enjoy everything. ;-) Chinese liquors and beer were served, as well as different juices.
At such events in China, small groups always go to the hosts to clink glasses. It is then customary to drink the glass completely empty. After a while that becomes increasingly difficult. What helps, however, is that the beer has only 2.5% alcohol and the liquor is poured into very small glasses – fortunately. The event then ended quite abruptly at 9 p.m., which was good.