Being back to a tropical weather for 5 days, i must be crazy to say yes to go to Shanghai with Ceci, where it is freaking winter and cold, much colder than Stockholm ever. Which is surprising.
Its the kind of wet cold, like when you put your clothes in the room, it ACTUALLY feels damp where you wear them, and it doesnt help where there isnt central heating in Shanghai...
But other than the weather, everything else was perfect! As Zoe used to put on her msn nick when she visited Taiwan on her cty visit, Eat, Eat, Exchange, its the same here with us
in Shanghai, its Eat Eat Sleep :), and we have photos to prove it, around 70% of our photos taken in Shanghai were of us eating or of food.haha, what to do, food is just
too yummy there!
All thanks to Miss Chung, Vanessa, an old school friend of Cecilia who hosted us at her apartment, became our ever funny tour guide and tough negotiater/survivor in the Shanghainese society,
this trip has taken on a special meaning for me. As Vanessa has worked in Shanghai for close to a year, she was able to fill us in on the thinking and lifestyle of the locals, rather than us just wandering
aimless in the extremely TALL, very modern and new skyscrapers and malls. Just another pt, is that both of us are truely impressed by what we saw in Shanghai, the development in this city alone
is enough to rival developed citys like Japan and New York. Everywhere you see, there are reflective, tall skyscrapers, with LCD screens, buses with TVs, metro with the cashcard system
and you can see how rich this city is by the amount of money thrown alone at Xmas decorations, its unbelievable. Pple you see are decked out in fashionable clothings and branded stuff too.
No kidding, you have to really go to this city to know what i am talking about,otherwise you would be as skeptical as i was before till i saw it for myself. As Aloke said when he visited China, this country is set to take over the world. There are 400 foreign companies being set up every month in Shanghai,,,and the development is not slowing down.
I keep wondering how do the Shanghainese adjust to such rapid development for the past 8 years or so, the city must be in continual construction of new buildings and infrastructure and how do their
needs and wants evolve correspondingly to the foreign influence ( fyi I see STARBUCKS everywhere, and there are malls according to ctys like HK mall and Singapore Raffles city as well) and cope with that.
As there are some parts of Shanghai that are not as developed and alike slumns and the pay that the locals are getting are pretty low according to the wants and needs of the young pple. Perhaps
preoccupied vwith the beautiful superficial layer of the city, it has neglected the development of its pple somewhat. Everyday when you go to the streets, you will definately hear loud shouting and arguements
happening, and this is what they call the characteristic of Shanghainese pple. Correct me if i am wrong, there just seems to be a general hunger to make money in everyone, that sometimes
it would involve over promising your customers, and there is a general reluctance of customer service pple to deliver to satisfaction even if they could. Guess education in this area take time, afterall
before the European cities became more civilised, their pple all enjoy a fair and equal standard of living, and less pple are left hungry.
Why does this trip have a special meaning to me?
Comparing Stockholm, Shanghai and Singapore, Singapore fits right in between, and I feel that the gap is not as big as i imagined, lifestyle and working environment in Singapore would suit me the best.
There are more lands and cultures and new ways of doing things in this world left to be explored.
And the inspiration i get from Vanessa from living in Shanghai, for being so positive and learning to adjust to the lifestyle of the locals even though its no easy task, its highly stressful i consider to
get argumental every single day :P.
So enough moping about missing sweden, time to look forward, though sweden will always have a special place in my heart.:)
