22 Jan Getting settled in China
Hi everyone, I have been in Shanghai for about 2 days now and I am finally starting to really settle in! So far it has been such an amazing experience exploring a new city that I have never visited before and meeting so many new people all at once. I arrived in Shanghai on Friday the 27th of December at around 6:30am Shanghai local time. Before booking the tickets Absolute did recommend arriving between 9am-12pm. With hindsight, it probably would have been better to get tickets that landed around about that time, just because I (and a few others who were also on the same flight) ended up waiting in the airport for about a good five hours. Though having said that, arriving at the airport earlier did give us an opportunity to get to know each other and make some friends early. At around 11:30am a small group of people and our luggage was packed into a bus and we were sent on our way to where we would be staying for the next month.
The welcome dinner was at a tea house which offered several different kinds of tea along with Asian cuisine, served buffet style. This was a great opportunity get a basic baring on the area surrounding the apartment and to have a bit of a wonder in the streets with the group. Essentially however, this was a socialising event, for the new interns to meet each other and the existing interns, and also to have a bit of a chat to the Absolute Internship staff.
Our first weekend in Shanghai continued in a similar fashion. Saturday began with all of the interns gathered together for a power breakfast to go over the orientation. A quick lesson in Chinese business and culture training was also given at the orientation. This was basically a quick summary of how and why Chinese people do business differently from westerners and what you can do to avoid offending anyone and settle issues diplomatically. In terms of doing an internship in China and perhaps one day working in China or with Chinese business people, this quick tutorial was perhaps one of the most critical times during my time in Shanghai to really pay attention and make note of what was shared during the talk. Coming from an Asian background I can understand how sometimes even the smallest actions or inactions can cause offence, even if offence was not intended.
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