My China – Introduction: why, how and knowing what, I went.

Again due work, I had been in China for month and a half in March 2005.

Of course it was an incredible chance to meet Chinese culture face to face from an unusual perspective, as far as I was there working in normal working time, so, I had to live, for example, the experience of rush hours traffic . But let´s do it step by step!

I won´t tell the whole story, that would be so long, so I´ll do it “by chapters” in order to also have the freedom of writing about other experiences in other places in between, without leaving you with doubts about how a China´s episode had finish.

Introduction

Well, I should admit Asia wasn´t one of my favorite destinations. I really can´t explain why, due I really admired things of Asian countries and cultures, so, I´m not saying I wouldn´t like to go there, actually I would love to go back to China and also to go to Japan and Thailand; just that if someone asked me to do a list of the countries I would love to visit, Asian countries wouldn´t be the first ones.

So, when my boss told me I should go to China, I was quite surprised and excited. When he told me I should go for more than a month… I was like a child with the first bicycle… on one side quite excited and wishing to go… on the other hand really scared! Would I be able to be in a so extreme different culture country, along, for more than a month? Then he told me I should go to open the office in Shanghai and to help the one that will open the office in Beijing… I got in panic! I started to think what exactly I knew about Chinese culture (something so basic if you want to do business with a culture that is different than yours)… and I started to discover that most of the things I thought I knew about China was about Japan! :& For example: paper walls or Geishas… So my real knowledge about China was: Confucius, Chinese food (that everybody says what we have in our countries is whatever but not the real Chinese food), Mao, how they became communists (but learned with small related scenes in movies) and that they all have black hair and almond eyes.

I started to investigate a bit more about Chinese culture, but most info I got was about tourism travels. At least I learned that they respect a lot the authority, they work so hard not taking care about the day of the week or the time and that everybody (out of China) was concerned about the urban legend that says that China will be in the close future the new world power. Ok, that wasn’t really a lot, but that was the only information about China culture I had with me when I travelled there.

The special complication came when just few days before travelling to China, I started with a lot of pain in my arms and finally the doctor detected me arms tendinitis… so, I had to have my left arm immobilized. :(

The adventure started at the airport… in Madrid! As far as it was an intercontinental travel and I would be there for a month and a half, mostly working but I´ll also will try to do the most of tourism as I can, plus the fact that it was winter there; I was carrying 2 bags, 20 kilos each. That´s what I knew was normal for an intercontinental travel… BUT! That wasn´t the case! I was allowed to take just 1 20 K. bag with me! :( So… there I was! In the middle of Barajas Airport, at 5.00 in the morning, with my left arm in a slim and 2 bags completely open trying to decide what would be really worth to take with me and what to leave! Thanks of God Curro went with me to the airport… otherwise I have no idea what would I do with the bag I had to left! (Taking the other bag with me would cost me 1000 euros!!!!) and how to move the things with just one hand!

Well, being at the plane, flying over the Alps… the view was that marvelous that made me think it just can be a good omen!



I had been 2 weeks in Shanghai, 2 weeks in Beijing, 3 days in Xi´an and 2 more weeks in Shanghai. Quite a lot of nice experiences to share! :)