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Shanghai International Women’s Forum

September 28th-29th 2012

ACFS members, Mt Barker Mayor Ann Ferguson and Murray Bridge Councillor June Phillips, joined a professor from a Qld University and a retired magistrate from W.A. as four Australian women invited to a Shanghai International Women’s Forum, held in that city.

Both Ann and June had committed to the recent Oriental Express train journey in early September so they decided to remain in China until the conference, spending time in both Beijing and Shanghai.

Commuting from Beijing to Shanghai was on the bullet train, which left every half hour.
The five hour journey (once a 24 hr journey) cost around $130 Aust for a first class ticket was an amazing experience. The Beijing Railway Station is several times larger than Adelaide airport and has white marble everywhere, including the platforms. There were at least fourteen bullet trains waiting in the section of the railway station from which we departed!

The Conference and accommodation was at the Grand Hyatt, Shanghai, the third tallest building in the world.

The view from our 65th floor accommodation overlooking Shanghai was extremely spectacular, particularly when it lit up in the evening as we overlooked the Pearl Tower with its revolving restaurant and The Bund waterway.

There were approximately sixty invited guest speakers and over three hundred attendees from all around the world for the two day event. Guest speakers included the woman instrumental in the development of China’s aircraft building amenities.

There will be Chinese manufactured Airbus’s coming off production in less than three years and we were shown a video of the test flight of a new passenger jet that has been developed.

This plane differs from current construction, its engine is attached to the body of the aircraft rather than the current conventional method of attaching the engines to the wings of the aircraft.

Another guest speaker, from South Korea, informed us of how Koreans were undertaking measures to ensure that their cities were women and child friendly and safe. It was educational and enlightening that Korea was so more advanced that we imagine.

The large volume of guest speakers, on a variety of topics, saw the conference divide into several sessions over the two days.