Shanghai and beyond

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It was hard work and a great adventure. Travelling from Kunming (south-west) to Shanghai (almost 60 hours with the train) at Chinese New Year is a challenge comparable to buying christmas gifts on the three last saturdays before Christmas in Germany in a row.

But as you see, I made it! No shower for three day's but happy not only to arrive but also to meet extrodinary nice people like Zhenzhao, a chinese student from Wuhan who helped me getting a seat in the more than overcrowded train and helped me to buy the third last ticket to Nanning close to Shanghai. Otherwise it would have cost me three days in the cold of Wuhan doing nothing but freezing. He got so excited about his german visitor that he forgot his luggage in the train. But he wanted to show me his university, the best restaurant in town, wanting to invite me of course. So he organized friends to show me around his university (made him more happy to organize this, then finally getting back his luggage, was my impression though) and took care of me the whole afternoon until I finally got on my train. Why do those things never happen in Germany?;-)

Shanghai is definetly amazing. The skyline is growing and growing. They build more skyscrapers on one squaremeter in Pudong New District than all over Germany, to be honest. So is the spirit in town. People want make money. If you're not comfortable with this, Shanghai is not your city. If its ok for you, Shanghai will be your City!

I met some really nice guys there, Adam and Timothy, from Hongkong and Australia. We shared a good common spirit and it was really sad to finally leave Shanghai after almost three weeks. But I didn't leave with empty hand. On the Shanghai Garment & Textile fair Barbara, Timothy, Adam and me bought for cheap or even got samples for free of cashmere coats,
motobikejackets, hats and scarfs, pretending to be wholesalers from Germany. I know this was cheading, but it was good fun;-)

And it was a good opportunity to wear my tailored suit from Mai, the best tailor in Shanghai with the little disadvantage of not speaking a word of English. So it took some 5-6 testings until the suit was finally finished. Gut Ding will Weil haben!

Of course, I visited a market from the biggest customer from my company at home, OBI, the big hardware chain from Germany. Eventhough the markets look the same as in Germany, the mentality of people makes a big difference. The loosing face culture and not taking any responsibility for anything just a little out of the employees working area makes it a great challenge, running an OBI market in China. Good luck to you, Simone!

Leaving Shanghai for Ywu, the trading capital of China was another deep impression for me. I was sitting in a train with 6.000 female workers from the very far and very, very poor northwest of China, looking for work in the wealthy East-China. Can you image 6.000 girls with the hope to find a job, mary a nice guy or at least just a survive, in a train from
Schleswig-Hostein to Bavaria. Do you find this mobility among the 5 Million
unemployed in Germany?

After 3 great month in China, Nanning in southern China was my last stop before leaving the country to Vietnam. I tell you, I had tears in my eyes. China is a great country with more than great people and I recommend everyone to go there, the sooner the better!

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