With love from China..

A guy working in IT sector of a company based in Shanghai recently posted his observations. This guy is from India and he has previous international work-exposure like working in US. These observations are his personal view-points.

General observation:
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1. Though the roads and signals are well structured like in the US, the driving is like in India. Taxi rides can be compared to auto rides in India. You need to hold your belongings and your life in your hand. You can never predict which side it’s going to turn.

2. 99% Chinese girls are very slim. One can’t guess women's age here. Their face is so wrinkle free that even old women look like they are in their 30s.

3. “Province” is the equivalent of “State” in India. However, Shanghai and Beijing are like Union territories in India. They don’t belong to any province.

4. 90% of the people here in Shanghai don’t believe in god. It seems only some of the older generation believe in Buddha. It’s hard to see any temple (Buddha temple) here.

5. It’s a government rule that people can have only 1 child. If the first one is a girl then under some specific circumstances (if they are rich or if the parents are well educated) they can have another child. If you are in private company and are rich, then you can have more than 1 kid.

If you are a govt. employee and if you have more than 1 kid , then you will be punished with penalties, your salary will be reduced and you will face more pressure in work.

6. There is no arranged marriage concept here. They believe in "Freedom to choose their partner".

7. In restaurants, they serve some tea in a small cup instead of water, though it tastes like warm water only.

8. You can see vegetable vendors outside in hand-pulled carts like in India but buying from them is a trouble for foreigners since they charge almost 3 times the price and it’s difficult to bargain without knowing Chinese.

9. When giving gifts to someone, you should give gifts in sets (i.e., dishes), but never in sets of four (a number associated with death). You should Avoid white, which symbolizes death of parents, and black, which symbolizes tragedy or death.

10. There is only 1 English channel for the whole of China. That broadcasts mostly news and some culture/travel info. about china.

11. Women here are so concerned about their skin, they take umbrellas even when it is cloudy. They feel Japanese women are more fair then them and probably want to compete with them.



Office environment:
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1. There are no spoons in the coffee area (There is no pantry/canteen at all) since people use chopsticks only.

2. People are very punctual. The office is full at the stroke of 9 in the morning. Same is the case in the evening. You can’t find a soul in the office at 5 past 6 in the evening.

3. Native guys bring small pillows to office and have in the chair. First we thought it was for sitting comfortably. But after lunch, at around 12.30 almost everyone sleeps, not just dozing off seeing the monitor, they press Ctrl+Alt+Del and comfortably lean in the chair and sleep. It seems it’s a practice here. In offices in rural areas they sleep for 2 hours or so. Our firm's Associates have been requested to use the conference room for “sleeping” since clients may visit sometimes.

4. Even in office, we don't speak normal English. Most of the native folks can't follow. We need to stop and pronounce word by word with actions. Most of the time we end up writing it down for them to understand.