Where is the LOVE?

I really can not understand it, why chinese people are willing to get married without love. This is one of chinese habits which is hard to catch.

Why would you like to spend whole your life with a person towards who you do not feel love??
I grew up in the society in which it was one of the most important factor which  should taken under consideration before getting married.  If you love somebody, if you feel butterflies in your stomach, it gives you much more pleasure, you really want to spend your time with this person. For me personally, being with somebody without feeling something towards her is waste of time and i cant enjoy moments then, which in fact are the most important in our life.

But from the other hand, as one chinese person  told me, desire and love after some time will fly away. After some time, not love but the character of another person will be the most important, how this person behave, treat others, if you are creative together.

After some time i have realised that maybe chinese point of view is not so stupid. When you are in love, you do not realise many things about another person, you see only good things. Afterwards you find out how many things are hard for you to accept.

Being with someone without feeling love in China is something natural, many people do it. Most often parents are the reason why young people are getting married without love. They find the partner for them. In China young people listen to their parent`s will and are ready to be related to somebody who was choosen by them.

Today my fellow-worker told me that she will be married until next year. When i asked her how many times did they meet before and if she loves him, she said that they met only 3 times, she does not love him because she does not know him well and their next meeting will be just before their wedding!!

Crazy, right?

Small trip

Today i had a free day from work and because of it i was invited by one of my fellow-worker to her house, which is located in a countryside. I went there with other two people. It was another great experience, i saw many new places, i met new people(of course they did not speak english:P) and i had a lot of fun. After we ate lunch together with her family, we went to the STONE PARK. It is a very beautiful place, many old monuments, many playgrounds, museum, and wonderful scenery. This time there were no people there so it was even more interesting.

Some photos :

Hard to survive

Today i had some conversations with my fellow-workers about salaries and costs of living.
If you think that in your country people earn little, you should see how it is here in China, especially in such a small city (800 000 inhabitants).
Because in China there are so many people, companies do not care so much about salaries for their workers. Obviously, they can find many other people who can work, even for a lower salary.

Interesting is the fact that the poverty is not so visible in the street, people earn little money but still they go out, buy nice clothes, have expensive smartfon. This is still a mystery for me :D

It is said that average salary in China is 4000 rmb (more or less 660$) but for example in my hotel there are not many people who earn more!! Manager of the western restaurant earns 4000, after 4-5 years of working. Today i talked with one person from IT department. He has been working here for 4 years, he started with 1800 RMB and after 4 years he has only 3000!. My fellow workers earn 1200-2000 RMB per month. It is so hard to survive for this money and i think that this is the reason why young people are living with their parents untill their are married or even more.

There is no medium class here in Danyang. Either you are rich and you have a lot of money or you work for 2000 RMB and it is hard to live.

You don`t own your house

It is another thing which is completely different than in my country. Today my friend told me that in China, you are not the owner of the house which you have bought!

Your house, flat, property, belogns to Chinese government. Graciously you can use it but after 75 years, it does not belong to you anymore.

After this time the government will take care of this property and sell it again.

In China, if you want to buy a flat, you have to pay 7000-10 000 rmb per m2.  (it depends on the city and in which district)

I wonder what do you think about it?

Greetings ;)

Burned money

Hi :)

Another crazy tradition in China. Today when i was returning from the shop i saw people who are burning rubish in the street, i said ok these people are just crazy and they do not have something better to do. After this situation i had a chinese private lesson and i asked my teacher why they do it. And there is an explanation:
Today there is The little ghost festival in China. People celebrate this day by burning fake money. This fake money is for little ghots and ususally ghost means children who died. These little ghosts come out only once a year, today.

For this reason the city looks magic. Unfortunately i did not take a photo because it is said that i can bring by this bad luck to these people.

 

 

Loving day in China

The official conference with our boss - in the hotel,
there are more more or less 1000 workers.



 

Another cultural difference

In China, toddlers do not wear diapers. Very often young babies have just a hole in their trausers in order to pee everywhere. So today, after the gym i went to the restaurant to eat and what did i see? Father took baby outside the restaurant and in the front of it, took off his child`s trausers and let this baby pee on the pavement.

It is normal here.

:):):)

Greetings :D

Did you know?

Did you know that in China  number "4" is unlucky? It is because of the similiarity to word "death" in chinese. People here really do not like this number. For instance in my hotel, there are no rooms which have 4 in the begining of their number. So there are only 1,2,3 and 5 :D. Sound funny but it is true that noboby wants to live on the fourth floor.

So if you want to buy a relatively cheap house, look for one on the fourth floor ;)

It is almost one month since i have been here. It is a short time and at the same time long. It is short because i will be here still for couple of months and long because time pases very fast.

Everyday i learn chinese, i have already found chinese teacher, who helps me to improve my oral skills and i see that my knowledge is increasing.

I can ensure you all  that there is no better way to learn language than living abroad. Everyday i have to use basic chinese, otherwise many customers, people from other departments would not understand me, this is why i assimilate it so quicly.
The thing that i miss the most is our western culture, i think that i need a lot of time in order not to think like i am in Europe. If you think like this, you can become crazy. The differences are so big that trying to live like i used to live in my country is impossible. And the most important thing is that i have to learn how to be more patient. You can not even imagine how often i am angry because of something.
So what can i say for sure is that i learn here that noboby is the same and we should not judge somebody for his/her behavior. If i think that chinese people behave strange, surely they think the same about me and my behavior.

I would like to greet my dear aunt Basia from Warsaw, i hope you really like what i write here.

I would like to share with you another interesting fact about China. Today there is a Chinese Valentine`s day, so every in love couple celebrates it mostly while eating in the restaurant. Because it is a special day, i also decided to honor this date. I bought myself a real bread, ham, cheese, ketchup, prepared such a delicious sandwich and with a beer in my hand i watched a romantic comedy. Wasn`t it romantic?

 

If you are interested, read the story which i posted below.

 

Chinese Valentine's Day is on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month in the Chinese calendar. A love story for this day is about the 7th daughter of Emperor of Heaven and an orphaned cowherd. The Emperor separated them. The 7th daughter was forced to move to the star Vega and the cowherd moved to the star Altair. They are allowed to meet only once a year on the day of 7th day of 7th lunar month.

The story began from the good-looking poor orphaned boy living with his elder brother and sister-in-law. After his parents past away, his brother inherited the house and the land. The boy owned an old ox. He needed to work on the farm's field with the ox everyday. So he was called a cowherd. His daily life was just like in a Cinderella story.

The 7th daughter of Emperor is good at handcrafting, especially weaving clothing. So she was called a Weaving Maid. The Emperor likes her skill to weave clouds and rainbows to beautify the world.

 The ox was actually an immortal from the Heaven. He made mistakes in the Heaven and was punished as an ox in the Earth. One day, the ox suddenly said to the cowherd, "You are a nice person. If you want to get married, go to the brook and your wish will be come true." The cowherd went to the brook and saw all 7 pretty daughters of Emperor came down from Heaven and took a bath in there. Fascinated by the youngest and also the most beautiful one, he took away her fairy clothes secretly. The other six fairies went away after bath. The youngest couldn't fly back without her fairy clothes. Then the cowherd appeared and told her that he would not return her clothes unless she promised to be his wife. After a little hesitation and with a mixture of shyness and eagerness, she agreed to the request from this handsome man. So they married and had two children two years later.

One day, the old ox was dying and told the cowherd that he should keep his hide for emergency purpose.

The Emperor found the sky's not that beautiful as before without the 7th daughter weaving clouds and rainbows. He wanted his daughter's grandmother to find the missing daughter and to bring her back. While the 7th princess was flying to the Heaven with her grandmother, the cowboy wore the ox hide, took his children in two bamboo baskets with his wife's old fairy clothes and chased after his wife in the sky. The grandmother made a milky way in the sky with her hairpin, which kept them separated. The 7th princess was moved to the star Vega (The swooping - Eagle) in the Lyra (Harp) constellation. And the cowherd with his two children stayed in the star Altair (Flying one) in the Aquila (Eagle) constellation. The star of Vega is also known as the Weaving Maid Star and the star of Altair is as the Cowherd Star in China.

Changzhou

Finally after non stop working i made a first trip. With some people we decided to go to Changzhou- a city which is located 100 km from Danyang. In comparison to my city, Changzhou is large. It has more than 7.000.000 inhabitants. We decided to go there because there is a great THEME PARK.

Indeed it was great. Many attractions, and very cheap. (i paid 130 rmb for the bus and the entrance)

There were attractions for everyone- live concerts,  roller coaster, water park, museum of dinosaurs, and all of other things which you can find in every theme park.


But... the problem was, there there were too many people, in China generally there is a problem with this but if you EVER want to go to theme park, do not go during holidays, especially not during the weekend. We did not try nothing at all. Everywhere the line was so long that we had to wait more than 1 hour.

So finally we were just walking around, eating, drinking and looking at everything.

I also met some foreigners there, who stay there to work. Some girls from Russia and one guy from Ireland.

As always i put some photos.

at night everywhere there were shining lights

live concert

sooo many people

attractions

with russian girls

first time i ate crabs

at work :D

Blind date

These days passes so fast that i hardly can understand which day exactly we have, almost every day at work. Today i had the second chinese lesson, i am impressed how easily you can learn foreing language when you are in this country. Everyday i hear more words that i have already learned and sometimes i can even understand the context :D. The truth is that here in China, you MUST learn chinese. Especially in the place like DanYang (small city), not many people can speak english. Sometimes i feel really disconcerted when people around me talk only in chinese, but i stopped thinking that it is impolite, instead of this, i am trying to understand what are they talking about. But... still it is very hard:D

So, what is my goal now is to  grit my teeth and learn this beautiful language, even though after working 9 hours a day the only thing i would like to do is to have a rest.

Another interesting fact about chinese people:  BLIND DATE
Almost everyone in china has the same dream- find a good job, have a good salary and find a wife. Ok, you could say that everywhere is the same but here it is more complicated.

Parents must accept your future husband/wife. Here in China, parent`s opinion is extremely important. If they do not accept your girlfriend/boyfriend, there is a small chance that these people will be married.

I have a impression that here in China, feelings are not so important, people find another person, just to have baby and follow "the crowd"( i have wife, child so i am happy). In China there is no place for romantic, crazy love.

It is common that the first girl, boy you have- will be your wife/husband.

It was so strange and at the same time so fascinating for my chinese friends that i have had already few girlfriends.


There are many situation in which chinese people who ar more than 25 , taking part in blind date. In order to find a future  the closest person, and for them, it does not matter if you are beautiful or not, the most important is if you have a job, if you are a good person and how do you behave

Birthday party

In China interesting is how do chinese people celebrate birthday parties. Every 10 years (they do not celebrate 18) they are organising a big party - more or less 100-200. This party lasts for 3 hours but they spend a lot of money for it. Everybody receives a gift, professional singer is hired, a lot of alcohol for adults, cakes and candies. Everybody from guests is giving MONEY to birthday person.

As always - some photos :)

view from my hotel

ready for the anniversary

the birthday person

the birthda

Cultural party

Hello :)

Today i had another crazy and busy day :)
After work (7.30-16.00) i had an appointment with my chinese teacher, we were talking about details. We will see if it is ok, tomorrow the first lesson.

After this meeting i met with people from my department- we went to the Auchan shop in order to buy things for the small party. I decided to pay for everything, it costed 230 rmb - VERY CHEAP and we had a lot of food and drinks.

Chinese people are really "cultural". We started at 7 pm and we finished at 9 pm.
And they do not like strong alcohol - i have bought one bottle of sth like vodka but stronger ( we were 7 people, and we did not finish it. For me it is crazy :D


As always, im puting some photos :)

chinese people in my bedroom

famous alcohol (56% of alcohol)

food:)

my guests

view from my work

everybody is using motorbikes

Every evening grannies are dancing in the street ;D

Every day life

Hello :)

It is hard to write here new things because of work. I work almost every day ( 1 day off in the week) so it is hard to see something new.

I can explain you what exactly is my job: I am GRO- guest relations officer. The main task is to take care of foreign customers, who are visiting our hotel. These people are here mostly because of business. These days i met some people from England,Austria,Australia,United States, Germany. The second task is to help my department to improve their english, so everyday i spend some time with them on talking in english. The third is to SMILE :D ( you can not imagine how chinese people are happy when i say ni hao(hello) when they come to our hotel.

I wonder why there are no polish people :P


Finally i have found chinese teacher. Tomorrow i will have the first lesson- cross fingers for me !!

And also tomorrow i am inviting some people from my department for a small party ( i will check how much they can drink :D :D)

As always i am uploading some photos for you!!!


TAKE CARE :)

CHINESE OLD LADIES ARE DANCING EVERY DAY IN THE STREET :d

THIS GIRL TOOK ME FOR HER PHOTO SESSION

EATING...

EATING...

NICE BUILDING:)