It's Tuesday morning 11 september, the alarm sounds again way too early. There are two interesting companies on the programme today, so everyone has to fix their breakfast fast and has to be ready at 8 a.m. in the lobby. Of course we have to suit up again. Together with Wouter I hit the road for a nice breakfast. At one of the restaurants near the hotel we are lured in by the owner. We can't resist because of our sleepy heads. After some pointing and broken Chinese we get tea and dim sum for just 24 yuan (also known as 'money' or 'pingels'). Quite nice, but my stomach thinks differently. A long visit to the toilet that morning is the result. Just to be sure I get some coke to kill everything which could make me ill. The rest of the day I'm OK.
Today we visit the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also known as CASIA. At Casia we get a short introcution and a tour of the different departments. The institute is focused on robotics and video processing and therefore the results of the research is very cool to see. The first stop is a presentation about an automatic video surveillance system. With this system it is possible to determine the number of cars on a road, detect if someone is climbing over a fence, or when someone is leaving a suspicious packages somewhere. The concept of a tracking system with multiple cameras is also proven. With this system you could for example determine from which gate an asylum arrived on Schiphol. Unfortunately, after some more questioning, the system is not very robust, e.g. if you change clothes the system does not recognise you anymore and sees you as a new individual. But anyways, it looks cool in the presentation. The second stop is the iris recognition system. They created here a system where they can do iris recognitions on the medium long distance. This means you don't have to stand in front of a machine and look through a lens. Iris recognitions are very usefull, because they are very characteristic for individuals and difficult to falsify. The problem is that this technique requires full cooperation of the user. This is not a problem for an access control point, but for anti terrorisme surveillance it is. The system we are seeing here could be a solution for this. Our hostess guides us fast to the next stop: the robotics department. It is quite a messy lab, but there are two setups which are ready to be demonstrated. The first one is a ping pong robot. It's quite a construction which can move a ping pong bat in three directions. It looks quite impressive and the idea is of course super cool, but what you don't see is the amount of computational power and thinking power required. Around the table there are three cameras positioned which determine the position and the path of the ball. This data is processed super fast to determine the position of the robot bat, such that the ball can be played back. We are very impressed, when the researcher gives a demonstration of the project. However, when I try it myself I immediately see the limiation of the device: because the bat can't rotate, it is impossible for the device to play the balls back which are near the edges of the table. At the other side of the small lab, a container with water is situated where a robot fish is launched forth. The fish swims like a real fish by wriggling his body: there are no propellors or blades. On some movies we see a similar model which has given a fish skin and swims between other real fishes. At first I have some trouble to determine the robot fish between all the other fishes. This is especially because of the moving focus of the camera. For fun I ask whether I can take a picture of the fish in a cliche pose. The tour is finished and now we have about an hour the time to talk with some Chinese students about cultural differences. The level of English differs a lot and therefore it turns more into an interview. My questions and the answers I get don't seem to match with each other. That's quite unfortunate, while the original setup was quite nice. The lunch was so good, that everyone forgets this and everyone is happy and good to go when we head to Lenovo.
When we arrive at Lenovo, it seems that the bus dropped us at the wrong reception. We are even at the wrong building! The people at the reception immediately arrange that we can go with a shuttle bus to the right building so that we don't get a delay in our programme. Once arrivedĀ at the right building we are welcomed by two enthusiastic employees who speak English very well. You can clearly hear that they are schooled in America, not only because of their thick accent, but also of their way of doing. The tour they give is through a specially build museum where we get to hear the whole history of the company. They are very proud that they are the biggest Chinese sponsor of the Olympic Games of 2008 in Beijing. Even THE olympic torch is located in the museum. Although, that's what they say. Just to be sure, everyone gets on the picture with torch. After we played with their newest gadgets we also get to see heavy duty equipment, which is used by the military when they go to the desert. The host and hostess get a little bit nervous when some people threaten to throw with it or do a spill test with a bottle of water, even though they claim the devices can withstand those tests. The tour is closed with a talk about the company, which takes way too long and is only moderately interesting. It looks like a play with as theme an anti-advertising against Apple and Blackberry. When we give a big applause when the host is quiet for a moment, he gets the hint and the talk is over. On to the hotel.
This evening we want to eat Peking Duck. We got an address of a restaurant from our hotel where 'the best duck of Beijing' is. We want to see and taste that of course. Once we arrive we are guided to the top floor and at the end of the hallway we get a room where normally only 18 people would fit in. After some effort all 25 participants get in. A bit cozy and noone can get to the centre of the enormous round table. Tom and Maurits study the menu and contemplate about how much we want from everything. I help them communicate our wish list to the waiter. With amazement about the amounts we want she nods friendly. Just a moment later we know why: once we all had enough, the table is still full with plates of food and new portions are still coming. The check is less damage than expected (1800 yuan which is about 225 euros for 25 persons) and a big part of the food gets packed in doggy bags to be used for the next morning as a breakfast.
Together with Wouter, Jelle and Rowan we decide to explore the street where we ate. It gets darker and dilapidated, but we don't feel us unsafe. Therefore we just walk further. At this place we learn that we have payed too much for our beer all week long. The street price for 0,6 liter is about 4 yuan (0,50 euro). On our way back we walk along multiple souvenir shops, where I buy the Red Book of Mau Zedong. We also find an original copy of a real fake-iPhone for 780 pingels, but leave that one behind in the shop. Instead we visit the nice looking Helen's Bar: a rendezvous for backpackers. After a beer, Jelle decides to get a haircut that evening. Wouter, Rowan and I stay behind and enjoy the many strange stories scribbled by previous guests on the walls and ceiling. Among others we find a greeting from a study trip of Amsterdam dated on 2009. When we meet Jelle again, he has a short head and also a good story to tell. The hairdresser turned out to offer also 'other services' besides trimming and washing. Jelle decided not to make use of these services, so we return cheerful to our hotel, because tomorrow we have to get up again very early.
Freek van Capelle