After the Chinese New Year this year, I received a notice from my tutor, hoping that I could participate in the monograph writing Ergonomic Office Chairs. I was very happy to participate. Our writing team members come from Zhejiang University, Hefei University of Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and other universities. Each team was assigned a corresponding writing task, and I was responsible for the writing of one chapter.

I participated in an online kick-off meeting in February and in the next five months, a total of 4 meetings were arranged in Anji, Hangzhou, Hefei and Shanghai. The above blog is about the switch position design of the hotel where I stayed in Anji on a business trip in March.

Everyone gathered in Hangzhou in April. I had not been to Hangzhou in more than 7 years. I took the high-speed train to Hangzhou East Station and the return trip from Hangzhou West Station. I also took Hangzhou Metro for the first time. This time I went back and felt that things had changed a lot near the campus. The Baochu Road section closest to the West Lake was very sluggish in business, and many storefronts had been closed. Due to limited time, I did not know what other areas in Hangzhou were like. Walking on the sidewalk, I found that public bicycles could still be ridden in Hangzhou. There were also many shared bicycles. Hello Bicycles, Qingju Bicycles and Meituan Bicycles could be seen everywhere. There were also many people riding on the road. Unlike other cities, there were very few motorcycles. There should not be many cities that have the above four types of bicycles now. There are many classmates and friends who are working in Hangzhou now and I have not seen them in many years. It is really rare to meet one of them this time. The campus has not changed much. Figure 1 is a sculpture in the rain that I randomly photographed while walking on the road that day.

Figure 1 a sculpture on campus in the rain

We all had a gathering in Hefei in June. I had not been to Hefei for many years. This meeting was arranged at College of Architecture and Art at the Emerald Lake Campus Hefei University of Technology. This was also my first time going to the campus. The Emerald Lake near the campus has a very good view. Figure 2 shows the morning view by the lake. On the morning of my trip to Hefei, I also went to University of Science and Technology of China to get together with a junior high school classmate whom I had not seen in 31 years. He worked at School of the Gifted Young USTC and we talked a lot about it. When passing by a coffee shop on campus, he confidently said that the coffee there was the best among the coffee shops in colleges and universities in the province.

Figure 2 the Emerald Lake Hefei University of Technology

Everyone gathered in Shanghai in July. The last time I went to Shanghai was to attend an academic conference in 2019. This meeting was arranged at School of Design at the Minhang Campus Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It took about 5 minutes to get to the school building from entering the campus by car, which shows that the campus is very large. Figure 3 shows the newly renovated ceiling inside the building, which is quite distinctive. It is worth mentioning that there is a large coffee shop on the first floor of the building. Nowadays, many colleges and universities have such coffee shops in their junior buildings. Some are run by students themselves, and some are outsourced to others. The coffee culture has penetrated deeply into colleges and universities. Of course, on the afternoon of the day I went to Shanghai, I also met two classmates whose work units were near Xujiahui.

Figure 3 the ceiling inside the building of School of Design Shanghai Jiaotong University

The formal manuscript will be handed in in a few days, and now the final revision task needs to be completed in accordance with the requirements and specifications of the publisher.