China comes to Sheffield
The Sheffield University Confucius Institute is celebrating 10 years of their Cultural partnership with the City of Sheffield and the people of South Yorkshire.
During a week of events the highlights were the
The third Business Seminar in the City Hall on Tuesday 23.9.14 called ‘Bridge to China’
Part of the MADE festival and supported by a letter of support from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg read by councillor Roger Davidson.
This event pulled together the business community in Sheffield headed by
Nick Patrick (International Trade Manager, SYITC): who spoke about his passion for overseas trade and how people can overcome their fears in his talk ‘’ From Sheffield to Shanghai’’.
The academic key note speaker was Bradley Barnes (Professor of International Management & Marketing, University of Sheffield: He delivered his research on Utilising Guanxi (loosely translated meaning networking) to leverage export performance in Sino-Anglo Business. This generated a number of requests and questions from the business and education elements of the audience and was extremely well received. Other speakers included
Linda Rosen from Business Development Manager, CBBC & Mr Junchao Zhang (Assistant Director of Research, CBBC China): Together they covered the topic ‘Approaching China: Opportunities and Challenge’. Again this generated a tide of questions which they dealt with around the massive amount of support that is available to business starting to trade with china. Linda is based in Leeds and Junchao is based in Shanghai.
Stephen Fish (Director of Career Service, University of Sheffield): introduced The GREAT Ambassadors (China) Scheme which will be rolled out later this year.
Miss Ma Kun from Sheffield Confucius Institute delivered a very funny lecture on the best way to act in a business environment and how the Chines way differs from the conventional western way in her lecture ‘’ Chinese Business etiquette/ Business Metaphors’’. She has the potential to do stand up with her very sharp wit and take on these important issues.
Professor Ran Tian (Deputy Director from BLCU) delivered the Opening and closing Speech and Paul Kilner a Tutor from Sheffield Confucius institute oversaw proceedings with a slick Sino style and polished delivery that bodes well for future Chinese events he will be delivering in the coming weeks.