400000 Chinese Coming to the USA Every Day

6/22/2010 - Daniel Tedesco is a student at Drexel University, founder of the Global China Connection Drexel Chapter, and now is the Marketing Director for the GCC Central Management.  Daniel is spending his summer as a student ambassador at the USA Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, where he assists more than 400,000 visitors to the pavilion daily.





THE CHINA BUSINESS NETWORK: Hi, this is Janet Carmosky of The China Business Network. I’m interviewing Daniel Tedesco. He’s an international area studies major at Drexel University, and this particular summer – 2010 – he is a student ambassador at the USA pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. So, Daniel’s going to tell us what it’s like. You actually work there, at the USA pavilion, and most of what I hear about it is that it’s insanely crowded. There you are, all day every day. On a scale of one to ten, or on any other scale you want, what’s it like? What are the crowds like?

DANIEL TEDESCO: Hi Janet. On a scale of one to ten, the crowds are probably a 37. Every day around 400,000 people come in. The USA pavilion is the second most popular pavilion, next to the China pavilion, so it’s always incredibly crowded. Every day the USA pavilion tries to pump through about 35,000 people, and that’s about – on average – 500 people every ten minutes. Every ten minutes 500 people get pushed into the first room, and there’s four rooms in total. So at any given moment there might be 2,000 people in the USA pavilion. It’s pretty crazy.

TCBN: And what exactly do you do, and how many student ambassadors are there assisting in this massive flow of people through four rooms?

DT: In total there’s 160 student ambassadors from all across the US. We’re the first group, we're here from April until August. It’s a group of about 75 students. My job in particular is to rotate through the different rooms and different areas where they need help interacting with guests.

TCBN: I haven’t been there because I’m not nearly as fortunate as you; I’m stuck in my office in the United States this summer. Paint me a picture for all of us listening who are not able to be there – there’s a Committee of 100 display about the Chinese in America, I know that, and AmCham Shanghai has sponsored a lot of seminars and programs about doing business in China. What else is going on in those four rooms? What seems to be a hit?

DT: I don’t want to give away any surprises. I think the most interesting thing is just that the people that come are really a cross section of China today.

TCBN: There’s not a lot of international people from all over the world coming?

DT: There really aren’t that many people from around the world. I would say 95% of guests in the park at any given time are Chinese citizens. It’s really an overwhelming amount of Chinese citizens, but it’s really interesting for us as American students to interact with this cross section of China on a day-to-day basis. A lot of what we do are introduce the different programs in the USA pavilion, so we get up there and – all in Chinese – introduce ourselves every ten minutes to a group of 500 people, and try to keep them entertained and happy after waiting in line for three hours in the sun.

TCBN: And humidity!

DT: Yeah, and doing it in Chinese. It’s definitely really an exciting experience.

TCBN: It’s a great experience for you. I think it will probably stay with you the rest of your life. So you’ve got this great opportunity to be in Shanghai in the summer. I know you’re also an officer of the Global China Connection (GCC), which is my favorite student organization. Are you organizing any activities for the GCC in Shanghai, or any activities that are about what you’ve done for this summer that you’re going to bring back to Philadelphia and to the GCC in general when you return?

DT: Actually this is the first summer where we’re really setting up long-term committees to whole different programs and reach out to different organizations in different cities around China, Shanghai being one of them. But GCC is, as you know, an entirely student-run non-profit based out of Columbia University in New York, with 40 chapters around the world. Really what we’re trying to do is trying to get Chinese and non-Chinese students to interact while they’re students so that when they graduate and become business leaders and political leaders they have these resources and connections with new friends and an understanding of how each other thinks.

So this summer in Shanghai our committee is devoted to creating connections with different universities and bringing together the GCC members we have here, as well as all the Chinese and non-Chinese students we can reach out to; bringing them together for different social events and professional development events to get to know and engage each other on the personal and professional levels.

TCBN: So, Gavin Newton Tanzer, who is the GCC founder at Columbia Chapter, is in Beijing all summer through the fall. I know the GCC is doing a big conference at Peking University July 31st. Eric Glyman from the GCC Harvard chapter is doing a series of events there this summer, and here you are – I guess you’re representative of the Philadelphia aspect of it, or the overall GCC imprint, and how to start making some progress tying up with Chinese universities. How broad is your mission this summer?

DT: Eric and Gavin and I, and David Zhu –

TCBN: Right, David’s down in Shenzhen and Hong Kong right now.

DT: Well, he’s in Hong Kong creating a committee there. We’re not representing any specific chapter while we’re here. I think one of the most interesting things about GCC is that we’re one of the first student organizations that’s not just one university in the US or some other country, connected to one university in China. We’re creating this larger network, so people from all different universities can come together. One of the things that’s really cool about the committees we have in China this summer is – maybe there’s someone in our chapter from Toulouse, France, and someone else who’s in the Yale chapter who happens to be here this summer. They might normally never get a chance to meet, but since they’re both in Shanghai this summer, they have the opportunity to get to know each other. Since they’re both interested in China’s development, they both might end up working here and doing bigger things together later on in life just from this connection. And that’s really representative of the big things we’re trying to accomplish with GCC.

TCBN: The China Business Network is what people who aren’t students can join, or what you can join when you grow up. I would say we have almost identical missions. It’s quite great to be able to cooperate with you guys. So hang in there! Enjoy the humidity, the heat, the crowds, and this amazing experience you’re having. I’m sure a lot of us are jealous of you and wondering how come Daniel Tedesco gets to be a student ambassador of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo? Where was the form that I didn’t fill out?

Have a great time. Send us some pictures, or whatever you have. We love to hear from you. Anything else to say before I release you back into the Ye Shanghai, the Shanghai Night?

DT: Huanyin lai dao meiguo.

TCBN: "We welcome you to visit America," for those of you who don’t speak Chinese. I’m sure you say that several thousand times a day. Thank you so much, Daniel, for being with us. Have a great night.

DT: Thanks a lot Janet. Talk to you later.




Daniel Tedesco is an undergraduate student at Drexel University studying International Studies, Finance and Chinese. He has 3 years of experience holding executive board positions within a number of student organizations on campus. He co-founded Drexel University's GCC chapter, and has since begun working with GCC’s Central Management.  See more on his profile.