Beijing - Week 3/4

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I’m compressing week 3 & 4 simply because week 3 was pretty boring apart from visiting an overpriced flower market. As last Friday came to an end, so did my first month as a member of the working force in Beijing, so I thought a review of my acquired love-hate relationship would be most appropriate.



Starting off on a positive; I got paid, and better yet, it qualified as minimum wage in most respectable developed countries, so I didn’t need to contact the union… not that there are any in Beijing.

And to bring equilibrium to this, I must mention the bad, the very bad… I’m sick of the ‘pleasant forest harmony’ song that gets repeated over and over again in the lobby of my office building. This prompts me to get from the entrance door to the elevator in as short a time as possible. I used to eat my breakfast on the couches in the lobby, but couldn’t tolerate it anymore so had to resume this morning activity at my desk. It was kind of like water logging but instead of your head dunked in water it was slow torture with someone’s interpretation of wind pleasantly blowing through a forest being played and slowly creeping to into the back of your mind and annoying the hell out of you. Adding on to this, what equally ridiculously annoys me about my building is the speed of cashiering at the supermarket, or should I say lack of…. It’s like these cashiers have lost their soul, and are personally taking it out against the system by going as slow as humanly possible in order to create giant queues that cause major inconvenience towards society that end up in full blown uprisings. Pretty sure glorious father of the republic Mr. M, would not approve.

Besides those two minor glitches in they system, I have very much enjoyed interning in Beijing. More so the ideas/work culture cumulated from being in an office environment than the actual work.

A collective agreement from many in my position agree that there isn’t a whole lot interns can do due to privacy issues, and especially when there is always going to be someone who can operate better in their native language compared to a foreigner reduces the chance of even more work. However, I have had work fortunately and have also learnt the unwritten laws of the office place, e.g.

Person A walks past person B’s desk. Person A is not totally familiar with Person B. So a smile and an almost voiceless mouthed ‘Hi’ is most appropriate in between a forced smile. However if paths are crossed again in the next 2 hours both parties shall not partake in gestures acknowledging the other party as mentioned above, as to avoid overloading. Instead it is recommended in this instance that both parties act busy and happen to be too busy the second time to notice the person in whom they exchanged gestures of acknowledgement less than 2 hours ago. To define the term busy, it is suggested to do but not limited to do things like:

1.) Looking at your phone as if to see if a text message has surprisingly arrived

2.) Looking/gazing into the distance as if thinking hard about ones work.

3.) An ideal is when carrying something and keeping ones eyes focused on it, e.g. cup of tea while passing the danger zone, until a safe distance of 5 meters has been gained before assuming regular head position.

On top of this working experience one of the best things is that I get to have lunch with my family’s driver that I could never have done before due to the language barrier. I have got to thank my recently acquired Chinese skills for this! I got taken to restaurants and cafes where real 老北京(Old School Beijingers) went. There was a lot I got taught, most interesting and amusing was being lectured on the relationship between northern and southern Chinese men. Some facts included: Men from Shanghai, work cook, and clean, and take care of the children. Men from Beijing drank, smoked, and gambled their time away. Men from the south spoke with a nai nai xiang (feminine) accent, and in Beijing they walked around with their chest out and possessed what can only be described as machismo. I feel enlightened, but had a feeling it was a little one sided, but nonetheless rather entertaining.

Well that’s been my first month… now one more to go!

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