Bleh

Yes, I am talking about class, the reason that I have come to Asia this summer. Without it I wouldn't be here, yet with it i feel that i am not really here. Odd how that works. I am surrounded every day by Americans who not only have American views but in many ways they seem closed to anything else. Seems odd that they have chosen to fly half way around the world to eat pizza, drink Budweiser, and hang out with their classmates from NH when they could be doing exactly that for half the cost back home. Needless to say China is cheap for Americans to travel in. You can easily pay much less than a dollar for a meal if you want noodles or rice. On the other hand you can spend easily as much as you do in the States which seems to be what most people want; what else were they thinking when visiting Outback Steakhouse that had no steaks but charged the same for a burger?

At any rate they are my classmates and i love them one and all. They all have their unique quirks and make interesting, although often disagreeable, comments during lecture. Speaking of lecture we have had 4 professors thus far: Hennessey, Wang, Wong, and Orcutt. I believe that we have one more in the China Legal Systems class that will start when back in Beijing. For the time being here in Xian classes are great.

Bing Wang is the head IP Law professor at Tsinghua University which is a premier university in China and where we are studying. Pierce Law has had an arrangement with them and a summer IP institute here for 10 years or so. Cool? Yes, they are also partnered with Harvard, Stanford, and Boston University to name a few. Mainly an engineering and electronics school their law program is coming up although nobody yet says it's the best China has. Luckily, law is a new thing over here, especially IP law, so it is ok and there is time for improvement. He is an esteemed professor and filed the first patent application in the country on behalf of the university back in 1995. This is when they first introduced patents. As you can see they are slightly behind and although now their law is fairly robust the enforcement of the law is what lacks. Prof Wang has a tendency to read word for word from his ppt slides and smile about it all when in reality it does get a bit tiring. He teaches China IP and this is the only 2 credit course so we have 20 sessions with him while only having 10 of each of the others.

Hennessey has been coming to China for about 22 years he says and knows Mandarin pretty well. Enough to speak to the Chinese students in the middle of class with a phrase for something that he is lecturing on. He loves doing this and always has a big smile on his face afterward. His class is world IP and about all of the international treaties and conventions that may or may not apply to China as well as the US and all other countries. It's ok but now over. Coolest day was talking about geographical indicators and how the Greeks have just won a war over the Danish for exclusive rights to the name Feta cheese. This along with most types of liquor, including Bourbon, are geographical indicators and have many many rules and it is one of the main things that the US and EC fight about.

Mary Wong is our Singaporean professor who has practiced everywhere, worked for the government, influenced conventions, been on panels, and is really really into copyrights. Cool class and she is full of energy talking about Google Books, Grokster, James Joyce's estate, the creative commons, Danger Mouse's Grey Album, etc etc. Very cool class since it is so up to date and quite interesting to hear the views of my classmates on the subject. There are about 10-15 Chinese students from Tsinghua Law that come to class every day and they never speak during class but have some interesting ideas when spoken to outside of class. None of them are going to be IP lawyers which is interesting and also interesting that if you want to be a judge you do that early in your career, before becoming an attorney, and make the decisions without hearing arguments. Odd, but Mary is cool and fun to talk to.

John Orcutt is a former investment banker from Boston. He's a cool guy and certainly opinionated in just about everything. Luckily his opinions are researched and well articulated as to assume agreement from the class. He teaches foreign direct investment in China and talks about companies from around the world coming here to set up shop. Less than i would have thought are doing it and about 75% of the money is coming from Hong Kong. It's basically an economics course and whether it's worth it to protect your investments here, whether to set up R&D here, effects of piracy, and the governments position on the whole thing - tending away from the "public" companies. Good guy and a lot of the Pierce kids think he's the best or one of the best at their school. So far 3 American profs and one Chinese. Mary Wong is pretty much American although never passing the bar in America she seems to know quite a bit. Classes are in dungeon like rooms in both cities but at least in Xian they are in the hotel so for those who don't like to get up in the morning they can wait as long as possible before having to go. Dope.