Day 9- 12th March (Visit to the Steel Factory)
As we returned back to the hostel late the precious night, I pulled myself out of bed early this morning at 645 to prepare for the outing to the Steel factory. The school arranged a coach bus to fetch both MDE and ECE students there.

The entire factory was huge and there was this bad smell when we first reached. I doubt it is good for the health of those working in the factory. We had our helmets on for safety purposes as there are rules and regulations too in the factory.
We were led by an experienced worker who has been working for 30 long years at the plant. The machineries are made in Japan but the factory is run by the Chinese. Raw materials enter through a pipe and the manufacture of steel will take place in a burning hot furnace which is connected to it.

The furnace.
There are a few of these furnace, so that more pieces of steel can be manufactured at one. After the process, the manufactured steel will move out of the furnace and will be rolled on the rollers from station to station where it is processed further. The furnace is opening.
The just-manufactured piece of burning hot steel from the furnace.
The different stations include pressing and washing. In the pressing stage, there will be 2 rolling pins look-alike that will be forcing the steel down hence making it flat. There is also another bigger ‘rolling pin’ which will give pressure to the ones below. Next up is the washing system. (the big green one at the top) This is an extra pair of 'rolling pin' for replacing the existing ones (the 2 at the bottom) There is another section to wash the impurities of the metal away making it as clean as possible.
These 3 wheels regulate the the speed of the rollers that the metal will lie on.
The duration of the steel from the furnace to the rolling and storing take only ONE MINUTE!
Loading the steel up the truck.
The workers separating waste steel and wanted metal.
Rolling up the strip of metal in process.
After the machine has rolled the whole strip of metal up.
This is the conveyor belt that will bring the processed and rolled up metal to storage.
This is a whole strip of processed and pressed metal.
We stayed at the factory for quite some time as much explanation was made. So we managed to catch a glimpse of the process when the steel exit the furnace to when it is rolled up and stored.
This is the management area, which control the operations of the entire process.
This is the first test rolling hot strip.
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The tour around the factory last for about an hour plus. Returned to school only at close to 12 and we rushed to have our lunch at the canteen since it is the most convenient. Went back to our rooms to have a rest before attending our first IS lesson! It is about China’s history :/ The starting was alright and I did pay much attention. However, as the lecturer speaks more and more, it began to become dry as I individually do not really like studying history. During class :)
Lesson ended early, at about 4 and we all headed out in search of a thin mattress because Charmaine and I have bruises at the side of our thigh due to the hard bed! :( But there was none. I guess we got to bear with it again tonight, till we find one!

Reflection
So quickly, a week has past and the weekend is here again! The trip to the steel factory was good I can say as I’ve learnt quite a bit about the manufacturing process. Furthermore it can be considered as a once in a lifetime experience as I think it is not easy if one wants to enter a steel factory just as a visit. Steel may just be purely a piece of metal. However it takes a lot of work and effort to create this piece of silver plate. The Chinese are rather cautious and considerate in terms of meeting special requirements. They do have machines or systems that are used in the different seasons due to the different weather conditions. Also, they have several backup equipments so as to ensure that the process will still run even if one system fails. I think this is a rather important element to all manufacturing companies as this will ensure that there is no loss of sales or waste if resources when any system breakdown. The manufacturing of steel is indeed a very tough and tedious job though it is mainly controlled by machines. This is because there is a need to watch over these machines (A LOT OF MACHINES), making sure that they are running well. Also, certain task that cannot be achieved by using the machine has to be done by Man. Despite the harsh working condition, I still notice many female workers (mainly middle aged) in the factory. I was surprised as I thought all I will be seeing are male.

The second part of my reflection is on the China History lesson which I did not pay much attention in :/ There's too much about China that i can learn, seriously. There are 23 provinces altogether: Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Sh‘anxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang! There are 5 autonomous Regions: Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and Ningxia. Also, 4 municipality: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing and 2 Special Administrative Region!