Taking on Beijing as an Asian American

It’s been four full days since my arrival in Beijing, and I’ve got to say that I’m enjoying every single second of it so far. I’m from Cupertino, California, and go to Penn State for college, but I flew in from Taiwan (I was there for vacation since May) and have never really lived in China for over two weeks. I’ve gone on tour groups with my parents while visiting before, and speak fluent Mandarin from conversing with my parents and going to Saturday Chinese school growing up (I’m first generation Asian American), but living here has been a different, but a better experience than the ones I’ve had so far of mainland China.

Our internship accommodations are spacious and amazing!

I’m hoping to become a forensic psychologist, and am currently interning at Jin Rui Law Firm since it’s beneficial to have a strong foundation in law. Here are some of my tips to tackling China as an American, or more specifically, as an Asian American:

First, the customs that are considered polite and rude in the America are different in China. I struggled with this the very first time traveling to Guangzhou; at the airport my mom and I were trying to figure out how to turn on the water faucet, and a lady behind us said “我来” or “I’ll do it”, and instead of helping us turn on the faucet like I thought she would, she pushed past us and used the sink herself. This time around, although things like that do happen, whether it’s in the restroom, restaurant, or subway, I’ve realized that there are simply too many people in China, so everyone is left to fend for themselves.

Second, the food in Beijing is more westernized, and a lot of it is what you’ve seen at Panda Express (minus the orange chicken and Beijing beef; I’m not very sure where or how those two dishes were created). Beijing is well known for the noodles (Northerners eat more noodles and Southerners eat more rice) and dumplings, so definitely try those out. There aren’t many exotic dishes you may find, but beware that Chinese people like to eat 臭豆腐 or stinky tofu as a side for meals, so if you’re ordering food at a restaurant and they serve tofu, they will most likely ask if you would like to add it on.

Lastly, be careful when crossing the road. Driving in China is a free-for-all, therefore pedestrians don’t have the right of way. Don’t listen to music when crossing, and try to follow locals as they cross. People walk whether it’s a red or green light, and there will probably be a lane of traffic that is turning at any given moment.

The view of Beijing

 

Overall, it’s been a wonderful start to the program, and I love how welcoming and accepting my colleagues and supervisor have been to me. I didn’t expect Beijing to be so big, so my commute to work takes about an hour and a half, but when I arrive, everyone tries to get to know me and show me around the area. I’m looking forward to settling into my company more and exploring different parts of Beijing more. That’s all for now, thank you for reading my first blog post!

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The wait is over…

After many months of excitement and preparation, I have finally arrived in Shenzhen for my Internship Program with First Chiropractic. Shenzhen, being one of the wealthiest cities and the first Special Economic Zone (SEZ), is home to a lot of young expats, giving the city an international, cosmopolitan vibe. It is an extremely modern city established about 30 years ago with a very fast pace of life compared to back home. During my first weekend I had the opportunity to taste a range of traditional Chinese dishes like the Gong Bao chicken (spicy chicken with peanuts) and Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings), while brushing up on my chopstick skills with the other interns.

Having a day off on Monday, I decided to kick off my adventure on a spiritual note by visiting the famous Hong Fa temple Hong Fa is built over a series of terraces with a scripture repository resting at the highest level. I took the chance to learn about the core values and beliefs of Buddhism and tasted simple vegetarian food.

After the first two days of introducing and establishing objectives at work, the long public holiday weekend of Dragon Boat festival arrived. The Duanwu Festival (Dragon Boat festival) commemorates the life and death of famous Chinese scholar and poet Qu Yuan. Occurring on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, it is celebrated as ‘Poets Day’. During this festival the Chinese families traditionally throw bamboo leaves filled with cooked rice into water and eat tzung tzu (rice dumplings). We took the weekend to hike up Mount Wutong with an altitude of 943m. It took us around 3 hours to reach the summit where we were rewarded with extraordinary views.

Despite being absolutely exhausted from the hike I decided to travel to Guangzhou, the largest city in south central China, for the long weekend. Here I visited Shamian Island, the temple of six banyan trees (Liu Rong temple), Yuexiu park, Guangdong folk arts museum and Guangzhou zoo to see the pandas. The Yuexiu park is a good afternoon hike and contains the Five Ram Statue, the symbol of the city. Shamian Island reminded me of home with its European style buildings and atmosphere. Shamian Island also appears to be a popular choice for wedding photography as we saw many couples posing in beautiful outfits. The highlight of the trip was the canton tower which had a spectacular view of the Pearl river and Guangzhou city at night.

That’s a wrap up of my first week here in Shenzhen and I hope to have a great time travelling, learning and enjoying the rest of my time here.

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A Shanghai Birthday

This week is my birthday! So, last weekend we celebrated by going to a few clubs on Saturday. Chinese clubs are something else. There is something inherently different about Chinese clubs. First, they play techno, even on hip hop night. So hip hop night means hip hop techno remixes. The clubs in America are pretty mediocre in comparison to the “American” clubs to which I’ve been. I’m actually turning 21 in China, which is complete with the irony of not being able to drink in my own country, but turning 21 in a country were I can already drink legally.

Though I’ve only been in Shanghai a week, I feel completely at home. The only thing I still have not mastered is the bus system and there are not apps to help with understanding it. The metro took me a couple of days to handle, but now I’ve gotten my subway legs and I don’t even need to hold on to anything while the subway is moving (if you haven’t ridden the metro in Shanghai you won’t understand why that is such an accomplishment)! Additionally, I found that they best way to embrace the culture is to “入乡随俗“ or “do as the Romans do”. Sometimes the hundreds of people in the metro may seem intimidating, but if you just do as everyone else does then it isn’t so hard. There isn’t space in the car? Fear not, and just dive into the car; space will be made. And it seems to be the case with everything here in Shanghai.

I think my favorite part about Shanghai has been the friendliness of all the people. Despite, it being a huge northern city, all of its people are incredibly helpful and friendly. For instance just this past weekend, we wanted to take a train to Suzhou, but we missed our train by a minute (literally), because my friends HAD to go to Starbucks… So, the ticketing lady let us catch the next train. However, when we got on the train, we didn’t know where to sit, because our previous tickets had reserved seats. A man and his wife came up behind us to get into the coach that we were standing in front of, who felt bad enough for our red and sweaty selves (we ran to the station). They spoke English well enough to help us tell the conductor our problem. The conductor told us to stand in the corridor. After around 20 minutes on the train, a few minutes before the first stop, the man found us in one of the corridors of the train and reminded us not to get off at this stop, but the next one! We thought it was the sweetest thing. And even on Monday, I was having issues ordering food and a man who spoke some English helped me place my order at a local restaurant. In the western countries I have been to, this has not been the case. I think the Shanghainese are appreciative of westerners trying to learn their ways, language, customs, and culture rather than getting annoyed with us like so many Western people do tend to do.

Overall, I would say Shanghai has been a success thus far!

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Shanghai: The City That Never Sleeps

Shanghai is literally the city that never sleeps. In the past few days I’ve been out late and up relatively early, and each and every time the city is bustling along its glossy walkways and crowded roads. Even though I am a not yet 21 years old (6 more days!) and have plenty of travel experience, traveling 20+ hours by myself was daunting. I think everyone should travel abroad to a country where they don’t understand the language. The experience is a unique one- the combination of excitement and panic between getting on your plane, going through customs security check, and looking for people you’ve never met who are supposed to be your guide through an internship you found on the job board at your school. Seeing the CRCC Asia flag among the hundreds of people waiting for their friends, families, and clients, lifted a tremendous anxiety and flashed through all the interviews and emails that landed me in this spot and in Shanghai.

Though it rained on the first day I arrived, Shanghai still provided its awes and wonders to my eyes and mind. The drive to the hotel made me reminisce about my pets, my family, and my life back home. Having been to China last summer, I thought I had a pretty solid grip on Chinese life. The people of Shanghai refer to themselves as “Shanghainese”, which implies they were different from those I had seen in Xi’an and Guangzhou. I quickly learned that Shanghai was home to its very own culture and world that melded between traditional Chinese and the modern West, to create a stunning and magical city.

As with any first day of an internship it is often difficult to find a place within the culture. I found that Chinese firms are not at all what I had expected. I thought that perhaps mine was an outlier, but it has seemed to be the case with many of my group’s internship experiences. I had expected an extremely professionally dressed and busy work ethic, but we have seemed to encountered the opposite of what we had expected. My office in particular is very casually dressed, and it is acceptable to take over an hour as a break, as long as you make up for it the next day with an under an hour break. Though they dress casually, the work ethic is clearly very high.

So far, Shanghai has been a really amazing and exhausting city. There has not really been much time for rest, but I’m not really sure that I want to have any downtime! Shanghai is such a cool city. I am very glad I chose to stay here from two months.

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A Week of Endless Strolls

I’ve been getting out of class at 12:30 and having to find things to fill my days as I’m the only intern I know of that is just doing classes. The Beijinger is a great resource to have for things to do around the city. Most of the events are hard to go to alone but the restaurants are best when alone. No talking to get in the way of eating. I’ve especially been hanging around the Hutongs near Andingmen. There are loads of small stores and interesting restaurants to find if you look hard enough.

I prefer this China to the one I find anywhere else, particularly the area near Wangfujing or the Commercial districts. I also ate my first cricket which I can say was a disappointing experience. The crickets also got their revenge on me the next morning.

I had my first practice with the Beijing Devils Rugby Club and I’m glad that I did. Rugby teams everywhere are essentially the same. A bunch of great people get together and beat the piss out of each other and then go have a beer afterwards. Almost all are expats too so they understand what it’s like to be new in a city like Beijing and are very welcoming.

I will say that whenever I find a quiet place that I really relish the experience because they are few and far between here. In many places, the hustle bustle of progress in Beijing never stops.  So if you’ve yet to leave for Beijing, make sure to appreciate the green, tranquil places.

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Acclimation

Things got much better this week, but also kind of blurry. The time has passed by faster . Life (surprisingly) feels much more routine now.

Life

I should’ve stressed this further in my first post: everything is infinitely easier with other interns here. In a world where you’re constantly drowning in an ocean of incomprehensible information, having English speaking people to lean on has put me much more at ease. If you’re considering doing this and are worried about being lonely: the difficulty of being unable to understand the environment is felt by everyone, and (in my experience anyways) this pushes interns to band together. I now know how to navigate the Shenzhen Metro and am consistently impressed by how efficient it is. Shenzhen is a huge city but it’s relatively easy to get everywhere. That being said, the amount of time it takes to get from area to area can really add up. In terms of picky eaters I am probably 98th percentile and as such this past week I’ve been surviving mainly on eggs, bread, milk, and Oreos. But if you’re concerned about starving, there’s a Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC all within 5 minutes. At lunch time I venture out and try Chinese food… So I’m definitely making progress.

 

Work

Experiencing Chinese business culture so far has been extremely interesting. Having worked in offices in the western world, right away I noticed several differences. Not negative, just different norms. People seem to be much more shy, but don’t let that fool you. In my experience people are worried that their English isn’t good enough and so they’re afraid to speak to you, but once you give them some confidence everyone is very nice. There is one thing though that has surprised me above all else: people taking naps. I’ve never seen this in the Western world but here it’s completely normal. Between 11:30 and 1:00 people generally get their food, eat, and then collectively pass out. Honestly I think it’s a great idea – I want to bring it back to Canada.

 

Travel

This week we went on a really cool hike up Nanshan Mountain. Saw beautiful Pagodas along with a breathtaking view of the whole city. Great
return on investment – barely an hour long hike for a stunning view. Not sure if this counts as travel but we also went to Coco Park which is the go-to place for nightlife here. Finally, we went go-karting which isn’t very Chinese but still a good time. In terms of actual travel, we (me and 3 other interns) leave for Guilin/Yangshuo in a couple of days. As strange as it might sound it seems like I’m once again leaving “home”. Crazy how quickly our apartments have grown on us.

 

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Different World

What happens when you take a 19 year old from Canada who doesn’t speak a word of Mandarin, has never eaten any Chinese food, can’t “cook” anything other than Nutella sandwiches, and drop him in Shenzhen?

I’m not sure, but I’ll share my findings with you as I experience them. But before I continue, let me give you some more background. I just finished my second year of a finance degree at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) and am interning at Oriental Harbor Investment Management (OHIM) in Shenzhen for the month of May.

I’ll split these posts up into 3 sections: Life, Work, & Travel.

 

Life

My first night here I decided to go to Shekou Wal-Mart (yeah, Wal-Mart really is everywhere) which is conveniently located barely 5 minutes away from my apartment. With my RMB in hand, I felt ready to begin my acclimation process with a seemingly beginner level environment. I figured I’d pick up some breaded chicken, fruit, and really anything I’d need to learn how to cook – how hard could navigating Wal-Mart be?

I had grossly underestimated my opponent – Chinese Wal-mart won the first battle. Defeated, I left carrying the only two things I felt I confidently understood: bananas and milk. (Disclaimer: my grocery shopping skills are non-existent). Even that was a struggle, I stood paralyzed at the checkout for several minutes as the lady tried to explain to me (as I later learned) that the bananas needed to be weighed and tagged. The Wal-Mart experience does a good job of encompassing the struggles I’ve had so far – everything has been more difficult than I expected.

That being said, things have started to fall in place and I now feel much more comfortable than I did that night. Our apartments are very nice, Shenzhen is incredibly clean and the architecture is beautiful, and the presence of other interns has made life much easier. I’ve liked nearly every Chinese dish I’ve tried, and have picked up a couple helpful phrases in Mandarin – mainly: “I can’t speak Chinese”.

 

Work

For those interested in Finance (as I was when researching the CRCC program), I’m working essentially in an equity research role at OHIM, a Chinese Hedge Fund, with the other analysts here. The building I work in is very cool, and my supervisor, who got his masters in the UK, is extremely helpful and engaging. My project was to either provide analysis on either a US stock, or try my hand at a Chinese stock, which if they had an office in Shenzhen I’d be able to go and visit management with my supervisor. I opted to go with the latter.

 

 

 

 

Travel

My travels so far have been limited to Shenzhen. The other interns and I have been to Sea World (no, not what you’re thinking) which is a trendy area with cool bars and a huge cruise ship, along with a really cool park for our community outreach event. The event was an interesting experience – we supervised children that we couldn’t really communicate with while making “leaf art”.

Everything about this internship experience is an experiment for me – including blogging.

 

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