A few days later

Hiya!

Now I've gotten a bit more settled in and even been to Guangzhou Ikea! See the photos further down. It was great to get all the small things one needs to set up a home, things like towels, dishbrush, clothes changer and a basic chair named Rickard! It's been a few busy days with meetings, medical check (which I survived!) and shopping tours. Yesterday evening was the first 2-3 hours I had to myself, I spent most of them talking to Rebecka using Skype but also had a walk around the area in which I'm living. It's quiet and more like a park than a busy city. I live outside the city centre but I actually prefer it here since it's closer to school, the teachers' bus takes us directly to school in 15 minutes while it the other teachers' bus from the centre takes 35 minutes. In preperation for the asian games there's a metro buing built quite close to this area so using that it will only take my 15 min to the city centre in comparison to 40 minutes on the bus now (20 in a taxi which costs 35 kr).



Speaking about Ikea, it was fun to notice that Chinese people come to Ikea to rest in the sofas and sleep in the beds, I've also heard that Chinese people often go on a date on a sofa in Ikea! See photo below:



This is the chair Rickard:



Looks like this: http://www.ikea.com/cn/en/catalog/products/10159363

As I'm getting settled in I starting to realise that I really like China so far, people here are not as I expected them to be. As I thought everyone would be a slave to the "communistic" goverment and western ways would be shunned, but it's not at all like that. People really like to enjoy themselves here, there's dancing on every square, the laugh a lot and have a lot of western values and goods. i have found stores of H&M, Jack & Jones, Selected, Apple, etc etc so my stereotypical image of the suppressed people of China didn't survive very long.

So far, the weather has been really good, sunny (and hot!) and bordering on 40 degrees, as I thought it would be rainy and a lot of tropical storms this time of year I'm surprised.

I'm trying to get to know my do's and don'ts in China and some of the things I've learnt is that one should not put your chopsticks in to your rice so that the stand like a pole since that means death, I've also learnt that the number 4 is avoided at all times since the chinese symbol for 4 is similar to death. Another thing I've learnt is that in China you don't tip, not even taxi driver as they will chase you down the corner for one CNY/RMB! I quite like that!

That's all for today, I will try to blog tomorrow as well.

Take care and 注意安全!

//Richard

Kommentarer
Postat av: sven

Härligt att höra att allt fungerar mer än perfekt och att du trivs och mår toppen.

Härligt också att märka att de västerländskt stereotypa uppfattningar som råder kring egentligen alla de avlägsna länderna i orienten är just "stereotypa" och snabbt kan raderas till förmån för en mer varierad syn på folk och seder.

Kram

Måffar

2010-08-05 @ 00:27:35
URL: http://www.silve,info
Postat av: Richard

Så sant som det är sagt!

2010-08-05 @ 15:28:14
Postat av: Camilla J

Hej Richard!



Jag brukar besöka din flickväns blogg och blev genast intresserad när hon tipsade om din. Det kommer bli ett sant nöje att följa den och lära sig mer om Kina. Jag älskar Do 'n dont's redan!

2010-08-09 @ 13:56:45
URL: http://www.reloo.com
Postat av: Richard

Hej Camilla!



Alltid kul att ha flera som följer. =)

2010-08-10 @ 16:29:19
Postat av: Alexandra Allard

Vi följer dina öden och äventyr med stort intresse, och vi är riktigt sugna på en utlandstjänst! Synd att Riitta är för gammal och att jag är fast i småbarnshelvetet. Vi kommer gärna och hälsar på. Just nu är allt en enda röra. Inga scheman och många elever som behöver hjälp. Ha det bra. Vi tänker på dig.



Varma Hälsningar

Alexandra och Riitta

2010-08-24 @ 15:01:05

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