Beijing – Week 1

I’ve now been in Beijing for a week and what a week it has been. I find it difficult to describe what it is like to be in Beijing. From the food stalls on the footpath, cheap clothing, bartering, fried food of all kinds, smells both good and bad, smog, history, economic and political power; are but some of the things Beijing has to offer. Even just flying in I could tell this was going to be an adventure.

The CRCC team (Jason and Gogo) here in Beijing are very helpful, interesting, fun to talk to and supportive. Gogo even helped me try to get my EFTPOS card back from a bank, who’s ATM had confiscated it. Plus they also organise weekend trips, so on Saturday I am off to see the Great Wall which I am very excited for.

One of the best things about the CRCC programme is that I am with a group of students or recent graduates who generally haven’t been to China before and also speak limited Mandarin. Because we are all in the same boat everyone bonded instantly and we get on really well. We go on adventures together such as sight-seeing, going out to dinner, and even hitting the town on some nights. There is usually someone who wants to go get dinner at a new restaurant, try some new cuisine we can’t pronounce, or possibly even try some suspect street food. The food in China is delicious just full of flavour. I try to order the more traditional Chinese food or at least less westernised. The local food is both cheaper and generally tastier than dishes adapted to western culture. On the first night I ended up eating fern root noodles with chilli; they were delicious so hot and fresh.

On the first weekend I went with a few of the other interns to see Tiananmen Square. On the way we got lost trying to navigate the buses for the first time. But then we were rescued by a local called Anna. Such a lovely lady she showed us the way to Beijing and then actually joined us in walking through Tiananmen square, through the forbidden city and up into Jingshan Park. At the top of the hill was a lookout back over Beijing where we could see everything we had just walked through. She ended up being our personal tour guide, translating for us and showing us around. There is a picture of us at the look out. I have also attached a photo of a couple of the interns Sean and Amulia in traditional robes. Afterwards Anna told us that Sean was wearing the robes usually worn by the princess.

I have been doing the Language course so cannot really vouch for the internships yet. But from what I have heard everyone is pretty happy with their internships, some are already going on evening functions and sitting in on international meetings. The language course I am doing is interactive and enjoyable; already I am getting more and more confident in speaking mandarin. It is however difficult in adapting to the different tones and grammar structure. Whenever I try to practice in real life with strangers it can be hard going, I often forget critical words or get muddled. But most people are pretty patient and try to figure out what you’re trying to say. Even if it is just “I want a coke”.

One crazy aspect of Beijing is the road system. There seems to be no order, buses, cars, trucks, bikes, motorcycles, mopeds and walkers all go all the time. Somehow no one seems to crash or hit anyone. At first when we tried to cross the road no one was quite sure when to cross, because even though the lights are green for walkers cars will still turn right, but after a while you get used to the system and just start to judge when a car will slow for you to walk and when they won’t. Basically if you don’t want to die on the road, join a group of locals as you cross and you’ll be fine.

From a local New Zealander’s perspective it is completely different to home. Beijing is obviously bigger, busier and brighter. The city is also calmer, full of culture and a centre for diversity. You cannot compare Beijing to New Zealand; Beijing is a place on its own level. One of the main reasons of coming to Beijing was to be part of a culture and way of life that is different to my own. Beijing has certainly exposed me to that, but I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface and I look forward to new experiences and adventures in the weeks to come.

The post Beijing – Week 1 appeared first on CRCC Asia.

First Week in Shenzhen

The first week was incredibly overwhelming! Maybe it’s the adjustment from another time zone, the working culture or just the weekend finally catching up to me. In the first week, I’ve spent 3 days travelling to various factories all around the outskirts of Shenzhen with the company’s Quality Control personnel, several factories being up to 2.5 hours away via public transport (That’s more than half your day gone in just travelling alone!) Their working ethic is quite different with some similarities to back home, with the major difference being their “lunch break” from 12 to 1.30pm. Lunch is usually fairly quick but it is also quite customary to take a nap in the remaining time. It was definitely surprising to return to the office with all the lights out and finding colleagues sleeping at their desk, in the board rooms, or even pulling together a few chairs and lying across all of it! They believe this to be a key element to boost productivity (I am not one to complain, I’m finding it be very useful and effective. Will definitely recommend it back home). The Chinese nationals do however work 6 days a week, and alternate with a colleague every second Saturday.

One of the social aspects that is very different from Australia is definitely the driving! It’s like organised chaos here! Everyone seems to drive as they please, where 2 lanes really means 4 lanes, and it’s okay to ‘cut people off’, everyone uses the horn in overtime, where a simple ‘beep beep’ means ‘watch out, I’m coming up behind/excuse me’ while a ‘beeeeeep’ would definitely appear to be ‘what are you doing?!” Surprisingly, I’ve seen very few accidents occur. The scooter/electric bikes however flood the streets as they’re cheap and very convenient for short travels (as well as very fun to ride!) I find myself trying to hailing for a bike at every opportunity I get as it only cost about $2AUD to travel to work (as oppose to the 15 minute walk).

The food doesn’t stray too far from home with the exception that Chinese people seem to love oily food (even if it isn’t deep fried!) but I do love a bit of cheap greasy street food for lunch. Overall, it will definitely take some getting use to, as I’m still trying to settle into a proper routine.

 

The post First Week in Shenzhen appeared first on CRCC Asia.

My First Few Days in China

Having travelled before my nerves about visiting a new country weren’t that high and what could be considered ignorant expectations towards the language barriers were conversely through the roof. I was ill prepared for a month in a very foreign country but my excitement seemed to mask all of those issues.

I found my fellow interns and guide, Gogo, at the Airport and off we set to settle into our accommodation and home for the next month. The roads are packed and road rules are optional but this all added to the fun of landing in my new city. We arrived at our apartment complex in the 798 district which, like the rest of what I’d seen of Beijing so far is monochromatic in colour but vibrant in life and culture. After dropping my stuff off in my apartment – a three bedroom apartment looking out onto the main street of 798, I ventured out to get some lunch at a near by mall. Local life, while less traditional than in other areas I’d seen on my drive into the city, was in full swing. I sat at the bar like counter of a noodle/soup food joint and tried to navigate my way around the menu completely in Chinese. With no luck, the waitress gave me an english menu (still in mandarin but with more photos) where I pointed at what I wanted. Lunch was certainly no disappointment – though maybe for the waitress, as she seemed very unimpressed with what I’d ordered and how I ate it (mushroom broth, a single serving of dumplings, and some vegetables all to be put in the hotpot in front of me, simmering away until it over flowed onto the counter). This brief but petrifying encounter cemented my first experiences of Beijing; a wonderful city, firm in their ways of language, culture, and etiquette, with a distinct difference of social personalities from many other countries I’ve visited.

The next few days were as exciting and daunting as the first. Friday was our introductory day with a few outliners about the internship, a brief mandarin lesson, lunch, and then a trial bus run to the areas where we’d be working. Everything is definitely made easier by having a group of interns and I was lucky enough to be with a great bunch of people who were all equally hilarious, down to earth and supportive. That evening we all went out with some of the interns who’d been in Beijing a few months already. Beijing nightlife is like no other. The clubs are loud, smokey, fast, and definitely furious.

Jump forward a few days, and skip over a few details of an Embassy ‘Shiny’ Party I attended on my first weekend as part of my internship with the Embassy of Malta, the wonderful experience of wondering around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city, crunching down on some scorpion as a means to get the taste of donkey dumplings out of my mouth, and you have me sitting in front of my laptop suffering from a sadness that only comes with travelling. In just seven days I’ve met some truly amazing people, and explored tiny little pockets of Beijing – petting a Lama in the Christmas decorated scenes of the International district was definitely not what I was expecting when I applied – and it seems like I’ve been here for years. Everything is going too quickly, and as much as I want to take everything in so I will remember it always I’m in a mad frenzy over wanting to do everything right now! The sights of Beijing seem to be half in technicolour of the dazzling blue sky I’m looking over now, and the dreary fog ridden days of the last week but in all honesty the ups and downs of the skies, sounds, and smells, give my experience a constant change of physicality that is really thrilling.

 

The post My First Few Days in China appeared first on CRCC Asia.

My First Week in Shanghai

I arrived on Thursday night with two other interns. Unbeknownst to all three of us, we had all been on the same flight flying from Sydney to Shanghai! Perhaps, I did have an inkling of an idea, as the other two were basically the only young non-Chinese people on the flight.

Towards the end of my flight, 1 hour before landing in Shanghai, I started talking to the man next to me, who was a businessman from Australia – his company in Australia supplies aerial parts which are manufactured in China, thus he informed me that 11 hour flights twice a month to Shanghai for him were a life commonality to ensure the quality of his company’s products were of the highest quality. We discussed business in a Chinese context, and I of course asked him for career advice for the business sector. The one thing he stressed in China was that it’s not what you know in China it’s who you know i.e. regular restaurant outings with your business partners were a part of your job.

Taking his advice going into my internship, I can definitely see some credibility to his words. The Chinese business workplace is all about relations. On my first day I received next to little no work, starting to take it personally, I confided in the guy who sits next to me in our office, a fellow intern who is Chinese. And he schooled me in the way things work in China, well at least in a legal Chinese context.  He told me that my first few days would be a bit slow with work, as I was new here, and colleagues weren’t familiar with me, and so I had to slowly gain their trust. He and other interns assured me that it had been the same for them when they started.

Regardless, as the days passed by, work has started to come my way. One thing that excites me is working in a multilingual office. I am interning at a German-Chinese-English office, so as you can imagine I have to hide my extreme excitement when I overhear Chinese lawyers speaking German, (I may be considering taking up German now!).

My office is located in the financial hub of Shanghai, new Pudong District, let me tell you, getting to work and getting home from work, despite the sardine canned bus trips are my favourite times of the day because I couldn’t imagine a better metropolis skyline to experience. I spend every second I can, without being run over by rogue cars and buses, looking up at the skyline of Shanghai as I walk. There is something grand about being dwarfed in comparison to skyscraping buildings at every degree of your bearing. My office is extremely close to the infamous Oriental Pearl Tower accompanied by many other tall buildings. The building I work in has at least 20 elevators, that are split into different floors that they travel to and every morning as I walk past, the Starbucks in my work building tempts me with their pricey 30RMB coffees and food when I could much rather buy two sushi triangles for a total of 7.5RMB from the convenience store in the building’s basement car park floor. I am yet to give in to the Western extravagance of Starbucks in China, but I still have just less than 3 weeks to go of interning in this grand skyscraping building, so we’ll see whether I give in.

 

The post My First Week in Shanghai appeared first on CRCC Asia.

A Week in Beijing

I cannot believe that this week has gone so fast!

It is surreal to know that I have survived this whirlwind of a week. I have listened to and retained a mountain load of new and important information, visited numerous places, learnt the basics of a new language and met some amazing people.

On Thursday 3^rd December I arrived in quite late and was very relieved to see Stephanie (the representative form CRCC Asia) waiting for me, and the other interns arriving at around the same time, at the designated meeting place. I was relieved to discover that the apartment complex that I will be calling home for the next couple of moths is clean, professional, secure and in a great location.

Friday was an action packed day were we learnt the basics of China and Chinese culture, were shown our bus and train routs to work or language school and met all the interns at a traditional Chinese banquet just across the road from our apartments. The sky was clear, the air was clean and the sun was out! (I’ve attached a photo in case you don’t believe me!!)

Since then we have had a mixture of great weather, while we visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city, as well as the first ever code red air pollution day in the history of China as wee navigated the transport network and attempted to make our way to language classes and other exciting destinations such as the Nanluoguxiang traditional hutong markets, the International bar district and the super modern 789 Art Zone. Smog masks were a must!

All these experiences and adventures were made enjoyable and positive with the help of my surrogate family of fellow CRCC Asia interns and the staff here in Beijing. No problem it too great for them to help you solve.

I have loved my first week in China and am eager for what the following weeks will entail! Xai Jian!!

 

The post A Week in Beijing appeared first on CRCC Asia.

One Week in Shanghai

My first week as an intern in Shanghai has actually been really great. Working full time in an accounting firm back home meant that I came here not only to experience working life in China, but also to connect my firm with potential Chinese investors. It is very convenient for me that the company I work with specialises in assisting high net worth Chinese investors invest in property overseas. The company is only a year or so old and they are looking to expand into new markets – it is really perfect for me to be working here. My first task as an intern is to prepare and present a power point slide to my colleagues and bosses about life and investment in Australia. I have been given the full week to prepare this and it is a 40-50 minute presentation. Having only ever done a 10 minute individual presentation before, I am very nervous, especially because of the language barrier. All of my colleagues speak English quite well but it will still be difficult to explain certain concepts and ideas to them.

My colleagues are lovely – it is a small firm of 4 employees and 2 partners and they go to lunch together every single day. The company pays for lunch which is an added bonus, and I get to interact with my colleagues a lot which is lovely. They have made me feel very welcome in my first week, buying me a reindeer Christmas hat and always asking for forks at restaurants so that I don’t have to struggle with chopsticks!

I really like Shanghai as a city so far. It is vibrant, lively, and something new is always around the corner. The other interns are also great – we are mostly from Australia so our friendship was almost instantaneous. We usually get dinner together at various local places near out hotel every night, go out for drinks at “Ricky’s” or watch movies together. There are no cliques forming and everyone is very cool and open.

Using the public transportation system has been interesting – I take 1 bus and 2 trains to get to and from work every morning and evening. It is not a long way despite having to change lines a few times. Peak hour in the morning and evenings is crazy, there are a million people everywhere and if you don’t push to get onto a bus or train, you will never get anywhere. In saying that no one here seems to take anything personally and everyone understands that we are all just trying to get somewhere in a really busy city. I feel like after the first 3 days of getting to and from work alone I am used to the amount of people on the trains and buses. After experiencing that it isn’t hard to believe that the population of Shanghai is almost the same as the total population of Australia.

I feel like I am settling in very well and I am enjoying my work so far. I am nervous about my upcoming presentation because there is pressure both from this company and also from my firm at home. I will be proud of myself if I can connect to the two by the end of my time here in Shanghai.

The post One Week in Shanghai appeared first on CRCC Asia.

Week 1 in Shanghai

Imagine you are hurrying to work. You are wearing three layers of not nearly warm enough clothes, gripping a heavy handbag guarding your laptop, and hoping your scarf is keeping you warm whilst secretly attempting to stop you from breathing in the China pollution. You are racing your way through the trail of people also heading to the metro station, becoming accustomed to the pushing and shoving and ingraining it into your daily commute to work. Welcome to work and winter in Shanghai.

It has been exactly one week since I flew in still wearing summer clothes with my overpacked suitcase. Being Chinese myself, no one batted a second eye as I grabbed my suitcase and walked out of the airport, into unknown territory. The Mandarin spoken around me was simply noise in my ear – I was as foreign as any Australian who had never been to Shanghai before. An uber ride later with my third cousin whom mum had introduced to me the week before, I was standing in the lobby of a hotel which I had no clue where and handing over my passport to check in for the next two months.

A week has gone by now. I can now hold a simple conversation in Mandarin. I have tried over ten different food places. I know the metro system almost off by heart. I have been to the other side of the river and successfully bar crawled with a friend from Australia. Ricky’s after work has become a nightly thing (Ricky’s is the sports bar literally opposite our hotel – this clearly has pros and cons.) In saying all this, I still have yet to figure out the sim card in my phone and maybe learn the bus system. But it is alright, I have seven more weeks to do that. Imagine what I will learn by the end of two months if this has only been one week.

Tomorrow is day four at work. I have been fortunate enough to be paired with a marketing company that drives my passion and genuinely lets me add value to its goals. Yes, the commute to work almost takes me an hour and a half, but no, it does not bother me and the day goes quickly because I am doing something I enjoy. The three days at work so far, I have been assigned different tasks each day and have tried a different place for lunch each time. It is safe to say, I enjoy work!

But as usual, the daily work routine goes something like this – wake up, get ready, leave, travel, check in with my supervisor, work and then head on home. But do not be fooled. Underlying this somewhat repetitive process, every day I am seeing new things, experiencing new sensations, getting lost in unknown streets (both actually and metaphorically), and finding out more intricate details not known before about the other interns in the program.

The camaraderie amongst the fifteen of us is certainly special – it is perhaps the most exciting and rewarding experience of the program. We are all so different yet so similar when speaking of career aspirations and ambitions. We are all passionate, strong-minded and intelligent people, where our desire to be more than the best we can and our willingness to tackle head-on, the challenges Shanghai presents to us, will no doubt make this entire experience unforgettable and truly extraordinary.

Bring on the next seven weeks!

The post Week 1 in Shanghai appeared first on CRCC Asia.

Mandarin Lessons

My first week in Shenzhen. My first week in CHINA. Wow. I cannot stress how amazing this week has been. Today, though, was a special day, a unique day; I had my first real moment of frustration.

Pizza Hut in China!

I was leaving my first session of Mandarin class (I am taking the one month intensive course which I HIGHLY urge everyone to take, now) and was headed for lunch. Now, the past few days I was able to get by by simply pointing at pictures and laughing off my obvious Mandarin mistakes. I must emphasize how amazing, patient and charismatic the Shenzhen people are! Anyway, I was able to fulfill my hunger by pointing at pictures, BUT today I decided to go to one of the restaurants on the first floor of my Mandarin school building. I confidently go into a restaurant thinking “pictures and smiling”, but no. No pictures, a lot less smiling.

Chinese dessert

Everything was in Chinese characters. Even the prices! And the place was packed. I sat down, trying hard not to give up and a waitress came along handing me a piece of paper that looked like a menu that I had to hand over to the cooks at the bar. I immediately went blank and asked if she knew English. She nodded her head, smiled and LEFT. This was both the cutest, funniest thing that I could have witnessed and thee most frustrating and scary moment. NOW WHAT? So, I got up, followed her and asked if she had chicken dumplings (in Mandarin because I had just learned how to say dumplings earlier that morning), but apparently my accent sucked and she did not understand a word I was saying, and again, she left me standing in the middle of other hungry people walking to the bar to hand their menu to the cooks.

I did not give up, though. I walked up to another waiter, and he was able to point out at the Chinese symbols that meant dumplings. I was so happy!!! Unfortunately, they only had pork dumplings and to my luck I do not eat pork. So, all of that effort for zero food and a half-defeated me! Oh well. I kept walking along the first floor and found another lunch place that I was extremely excited about; it was a type of make-it-yourself soup. To my left of the shop there were some baskets with CHICKEN dumplings, meat skewers, veggies, noodles and some other delicious/extravagant looking Chinese food. I saw other customers grab a bucket and start picking and placing ingredients into it. So, I did the same. I eventually got my soup and it was delicious. It was a type of miso broth with all of my chosen ingredients. I swear to you, I loved this place so much it will definitely be one of my go-to places for lunch.

My miso broth noodle soup

 

So, in the end, it worked out perfectly. Good food and learned lessons. Thank you, Shenzhen and your people!

The post Mandarin Lessons appeared first on CRCC Asia.