Work week 10 has been an eventful one to say the least. It all started with a chain of emails between me and a few representatives of the Hong Kong Beer Co.
For a few months now, my boss has been interested in collecting and researching waste generated from the newly-born craft beer scene in Hong Kong. If you know me, you know this is the perfect project for me. So, I eagerly jumped on the opportunity. I began last week by visiting a few prospective breweries in the area, and was attracted to Hong Kong Beer Co because of its small, microbrewery feel. So I payed a visit to tour the brewery with my parents and make some contacts with the company. This week, a few coworkers and I went back to collect over 65kg of spent grain waste from the brewing process and 10kg of raw grains from before the brewing had started. Out ultimate goal with this feedstock is to see how much biofuel we can produce from it. We will eventually set up a bench-scale process in the lab in which we can pretreat, hydrolyze, ferment, and distill the end products. This experiment will be a fun one, and one that I will primarily lead. I am very excited for the possibilities that lie ahead as I enter my final 3 weeks at PolyU.
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This week was very busy because of all of the networking. My professor Dr. Leu (at the head of the table in the picture below) invited environmental engineering professor Sumate Chaiprapat from Prince of Songkla University in Thailand to give a talk on altering water concentrations in organic waste treatment to reduce effluent water pollution. After the talk, the whole team went out for a nice seafood dinner where we mingled and ate for a few hours. It was a great way to meet new people, both professors and grad students. Also, I attended a seminar at Hong Kong University put on by environmental engineering professor Bruce Rittman of Arizona State University. He gave a presentation on Membrane Biofilm Reactors and how they can be used to treat water polluted with oxidized contaminants. I got the opportunity to meet Dr. Rittman after the talk and converse with him about his reactors.
The week is being cut short due to my upcoming trip to Thailand. I am leaving Thursday, June 28th and returning Monday, July 2nd. Even though the week has been shortened, it has been one packed with new opportunities and new people. This week tested me on one very important skill: attention to detail. I was tasked with preparing over 100 samples collected from one of our experiments for analysis. This is done by carefully centrifuging, diluting, and filtering each sample one by one. Needless to say, this was an extremely tedious task and one that if not done carefully, could be easy to mess up. These samples were taken from our lignocellulosic biomass fermentation experiment. The purpose of this experiment was to find the best conditions to ferment waste and produce the most amount of ethanol to be used for biofuels. The samples will be analyzed via High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPCL) and the results will be left for our interpretation, just like any other experiment. Once the results are analyzed, I will help to write the report too.
to Week 5 was my busiest week since I have been in Hong Kong. My current experiment is becoming more and more time intensive, requiring samples to be taken every two hours on the hour. This has lead to a few long evenings in the lab, as sampling must go on until 6pm. This is a high maintenance process, but will hopefully yield some pretty good results in the end. Also this week, I learned a few things about Hong Kong business culture. 1) Hong Kong people are very forgiving, even when you make a mistake in the lab. 2) It is okay to poke your nose in other people's business, because it could lead to fun side projects like the one shown below. 3) People in Hong Kong do not take very well to blunt or straightforward advice. In order for it to not be offensive, you must compliment and appreciate their work before offering suggestions or constructive criticism. Observations like this are important for me to traverse my way through the rest of the summer. It is small things like this that will help me learn bigger lessons in the long run. This week I was finally able to fall into an established work routine. My day starts with a nice morning walk or workout in the hotel gym. After my shower, it is time for my daily coffee and breakfast in the lobby. From there it is off to the MTR station to catch the train from Quarry Bay to Admiralty. Then I transfer from the Island Line to the Tsuen Wan Line and travel under Victoria Harbor via the cross-harbor tunnel. After one more train ride and a 15 minute walk, I arrive at the beautiful campus of Hong Kong PolyU. I usually start my day in the lab where I check on my experiments and finish any business from the previous day. Next is a few hours of office work and literature review. After lunch and tea (and sometimes a few games of ping pong), it is back to the lab again and then back to the desk. Around 5 or 6pm, it is finally time to go home for a nice shower and dinner.
I find my days becoming easier and easier as I continue to adapt to work life in Hong Kong. I am able to be more productive now that I have a daily routine in place. I believe it is important to create a routine for myself to follow so that I can become more integrated into the city. Besides, if I can overcome this obstacle in Hong Kong, I think I can overcome it in any big city in the world. This is a picture of PolyU's Yip Kit Chuen Building. This building is a good example of the campus' iconic rustic and modern style of architecture. These are more pictures of PolyU's campus. The first picture is a Hong Kong orchid tree (whose flowers can be seen on the Hong Kong flag). This week was eventful because I learned a lot about the Hong Kong business/professional culture. There are many subtle differences between American professionalism and Hong Kong/Chinese professionalism.
For instance, in Hong Kong, hierarchy is everything. It is unacceptable for you to approach your boss's boss unless they approach you first. You should approach only your peers and your direct report. Also, handshakes are a form of art here. You must apply the perfect amount of pressure to your counterpart's hand; too little, they may take offense, too much, they will surely take offense. The handshake requires slightly less pressure than an American handshake, but slightly more pressure than you would use to handle a loaf of bread or an egg. After a few tries, you will get a feel for it. It is respectful to use two hands when handing items from one person to another. Likewise, you should accept items with two hands to show mutual respect. The work day in Hong Kong is generally a few hours later than in America, with most people starting work around 9 or 10am and ending work between 7 and 8pm. This is probably to account for the long morning commute times for the majority of Hong Kongers. In order to compensate for the long work day, lunch breaks are typically longer as well, spanning from 1 to 2 hours. Since language barriers are not uncommon in most companies, English is the preferred business language. As a native English speaker, it can sometimes be hard to understand people speaking in their second language, and you must have a keen ear. These are just a few of the differences between American business culture and Hong Kong business culture. I am learning everyday and becoming more and more culturally aware in a business sense. It is fascinating to observe how another culture functions in a professional setting, and it is easy to see why Hong Kong is such a financial superpower in the world - everything is extremely efficient! When people work, they WORK. There is a very fine line between business behavior and casual behavior, and the two are never mixed up because it could be fatal to your job. This week I began my lab work. However, the lab work was accompanied by a large deal of literature review. I spent a large portion of the week reviewing research papers and gaining a fundamental understanding of the bioprocessing industry. I began my own research by designing an experiment to test different parameters of lignocellulosic biomass fermentation. The purpose of this is to find better ways to harvest energy from organic waste. Once my experiment is done, I will have a better understanding of the fermentation and saccharification processes and I will be able to join my colleagues on bigger and better projects. I look forward to what the rest of this semester has in store for me!
My first week of work at Hong Kong Polytechnic University has been a great one. I work in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at PolyU. Hong Kong is practically bursting at the seams and is running out of space to develop. This means that there are limited options for waste management. There is simply not enough room for waste incinerators, and certainly not enough room for a landfill. My department is currently conducting research to divert waste streams from the landfill and incinerators to make for a more sustainable city. The goal of this research is to create new biorefinery techniques that yield valuable end products from organic waste. The valuable products we are after are ones that can be used in biofuels and biodegradable plastics. A few years down the line, the ultimate goal is to create edible matter from inedible organic wastes. This will have the potential to solve world hunger and eliminate organic wastes completely. Until then, we will continue to lead the way in researching new biorefinery techniques. Hong Kong PolyU does a fantastic job of integrating beautiful green spaces into modern urban architecture. Plaques throughout the campus identify different trees and plants found throughout southeast Asia. The campus covers roughly the same area as the University of Cincinnati, so adjusting to the size has been easy.
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