Day 16: Coca-Cola Crazy

Q: What's red on the outside, sweet and black on the inside, and gives you gas in your insides?

A: Coca-cola! Otherwise known as Coke or 可口可乐 in China.

First of all, I really must hand it to the Coca-Cola company for translating their name into Chinese with the end-result of 可口可乐, which means Tasty and Joyous in Chinese. Similarly, Pepsi Co. has also done the same with the result 白事可乐 which means Joy in Hundreds of Occasions.

Second, I really commend Coca-Cola Co.'s Vision, Mission and Purpose statements, which they put up in the middle of the reception hall, so that anyone who enters, especially their workers, are reminded of their duty to give their best to uphold their existing World Class standards etc.

Their strict guidelines and policy on standards can be seen when touring the building and we can look down into the bottling floor from the viewing gallery. Despite there being hundreds and hundreds of bottles moving through the conveyor belts every minute, the workers never fail to stop the machine and remove bottles that are empty or have defects such as not filling to capacity etc.

Anyway, to summarize the tour, we watched a video about Coca-Cola's origins and history in China as well as its legacy, then we went to see the bottling process, followed by a mini-museum of sorts about Coca-Cola and its affiliated brands such as Fanta and Sprite. But the one thing on everyone's minds (and hands) was...

FREE COKE!

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to keep the bottles as a souvenir. Regardless, the bottle with or without the coke quickly became the prop-of-choice of everyone taking pictures.

Not forgetting, we also had our first OIE presentation! I think we did well, but I was also very surprised at the standard of presenting of some of the LSCT students. Truthfully, I think we can learn from them even though most of us are seniors.

Reflection:

Coca-Cola, an internationally recognizable brand is what it is today because of their determination to produce quality products, and of course with good marketing strategies. Likewise, as students and as people, we need to keep striving for excellence, with or without marketing, because it is part of our responsibilities and morals, to keep doing the right thing even if it goes unnoticed and unrewarded. Like one of the NE messages I keep quoting from, No One Owes Singapore A Living, which also forms the basis of our principle of Meritocracy, we must all work towards excellence on our own because no one else is responsible for our own effort and results.