China Part 2: Internships and Intestines

Once I had been in China for two days, I went into my placement, at a law firm called King and Wood Mallesons, for the first time. For the law nerds amongst you, King and Wood Mallesons is a top law firm in China, established in 1993. It merged with an Australian Firm, Mallesons Stephen Jacques in 2012 and with UK firm SJ Berwin in 2013 (SJ Berwin is temporarily known as King and Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin, which is a mouthful, but eventually the SJ Berwin element will be dropped completely). This makes it the first global law firm to have their headquarters in Asia. They have over 2700 lawyers, including more than 550 partners in 31 worldwide locations.

Spiel over.

Anyway, on my first morning, I was supposed to go in about 9 (and I left in some seriously torrential rain) when the PA staff called me and said my supervisor wasn't in the office. So I finally got there about 11ish.

The building is brand new – part of a giant shopping centre with lots of luxury brands - and on the 16th floor. (Interestingly, I later noted in the lift that this building has a 13^th floor and a 13A, but no 14^th floor. I assume that this is because 4 is considered an unlucky number in Chinese culture – its pronunciation sounds a lot like the word for death – but it struck me as a bit ironic, because, obviously, in our culture, 13 is considered to be unlucky, and yet this tower block had two 13^th floors!)

View from the Office

It was a spacious office, with lots of glass and chrome and all very modern and whatnot, which was sort of what I expected, but after that, I found lots of and lots of differences to what I had anticipated.

When I got there, the receptionist is wearing pink trainers, jeans and an Adidas t-shirt, as were some of the lawyers. Very loud gobbing was common (and I’m sorry, but I can never suppress a shudder when people do that, no matter where I am. It’s rank) and when I came back from lunch everyone, and I mean everyone, was napping at their desks, with the pillows they had brought in specifically for this purpose, which the other intern said was totally normal. Random men would occasionally wonder in and try to sell their wares. In fact, the office atmosphere was probably the biggest culture shock to my system during my time in Chengdu, although I did manage to adjust fairly well (I think).  

But they were all very nice, which did make life considerably easier.

By 4pm, though, I still hadn’t been given anything to do – and my advice is, if you ever go on an internship like this, you have to be proactive and keep asking for work, or you won’t any and therefore you won’t get anything out of your experience. Eventually, I got sent a legal brief on the PRC rules for doing foreign investment in China which I read through, found quite interesting, and sent my supervisor a bunch of questions about it.

Anyway, in the process of reading this digest, I googled - well, no, the Chinese firewall is reluctant to let Google load very often, if at all, so I had to use Bing instead - an organisation here called the National Development and Reform Commission of the Peoples Republic of China. Bit of a mouthful, I know. This is its list of departments: 

…The General Office, Department of Policy Studies, Department of Development Planning, Department of National Economy, Bureau of Economic Operations Adjustment, Department of Economic Operations Adjustment, Department of Economic System Reform, Department of Fixed Asset Investment, Department of Foreign Capital and Overseas Investment, Department of Regional Economy, Department of Western Regional Development, Department of North-eastern Region Revitalization, Department of Rural Economy, Department of Basic Industries, Department of Industry, Department of High-Tech Industry, Department of Resource Conservation and Environmental Protection, Department of Climate Change, Department of Social Development, Department of Employment and Income Distribution, Department of Trade, Department of Fiscal and Financial Affairs, Department of Price, Bureau of Price Supervision and Anti Monopoly, Department of Laws and Regulations, Department of International Cooperation, Department of Personnel, Office of National Economic Mobilization, Office of Key Project Inspectors, the NDRC Party Committee, Bureau of Retired Officials, State Bureau of Material Reserve, State Grain Administration and the National Energy Administration. 

Seriously. For one commission. And is it only me or do several of them look the same? 

Point is, learning a little bit about how China really operates while I was there ended up being quite interesting, seeing as I've been completely ignorant of it before now.

On my second morning, things didn’t start out so well, because the way I was shown how to get to the office the day before took me through the shopping centre, which wasn’t even open when I tried to take the same route  and I ended up getting lost.

King Kong Panda climbing the office
*not really. He was part of the rooftop sculpture garden

Still, when I eventually got there, word had spread that there was another intern in the office and I got a few things to do – for instance, one lawyer came and found me and emailed me a Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Venture Contract to look over and proofread) – and I got asked to collaborate with another intern, who’d already been there for a few weeks already, on a presentation about Chinese Investment in Europe.

One good thing about working here was that all the employees and other interns were really welcoming and friendly, and we went out for lunch with them a fair bit, usually to places I would never have found on my own and which are clearly local haunts. This meant that a lot of my ‘authentic’ food experiences were done in the course of my internship, rather than by me alone.

There are eight culinary traditions in China, and Sichuan cuisine is one of them. Chengdu was actually declared by UNESCO to be a city of gastronomy in 2011, in order to recognise its style of cooking. According to Wikipedia, (and I would agree with this assessment), the most prominent traits of Sichuan cuisine can be encapsulated in four words; spicy, hot, fresh and fragrant.

For instance, on one occasion, we went somewhere where I tried bamboo for the first time (not bad, although it seemed to meet with mixed reviews amongst the other volunteers) and Chengdu Hotpot, which is a specialty to this area and can't be found anywhere else in China, or so they told me. It also lives up to its name. I swear there were about 50 chillies crushed on top of this dish alone, ignoring the amount that had been mixed into the sauce. Chengdu is a region that likes its spice! It was full of flavour though, and the spice numbed my mouth as opposed to setting it on fire, which was not what I’d expected. Anyway, once I got over the spice, I actually quite enjoyed it.

Another benefit of going to lunch with the people from the office was that, of course, they all spoke Chinese, which made ordering easier.

Or at least, mostly easier.

On another occasion (which I’m still a bit traumatised by) someone said we were going to get chicken. Fair enough, I thought. A dish turned up in a big bowl with loads of sauce and vegetables, so it was hard at first to tell if anything was different. I ate a piece of the ‘chicken’ and I didn't like it very much at all. It was very chewy and just… not pleasant. About five minutes or so later, I picked another (bigger and much more suspicious) piece up – I was paying for this, after all – and was looking at it dubiously, when I was informed that what I was actually eating was not chicken, but Pig Intestines.

Anyone who knows me can, I’m sure, picture the expression my face at this announcement. Happily, there are no pictures. 

But… I was in China, where this kind of thing is not uncommon, and I decided that if I really wanted to call myself a traveller, I couldn’t and shouldn’t be a wuss. So to give myself credit where credit is definitely (in my opinion) due, I took a deep breath and I did actually willingly eat the bigger (and upon further examination, much more intestiney-looking) bit. Honestly, I’m not sure I've ever been braver!

The problem is, it was no less gross than the first time, and this time I actually knew what it was. My brain was alternating between screaming at me, “How dare you willingly eat pig intestine?!” and repeating “It’s just pork, It’s just pork, It’s just pork” like a mantra the whole time. It was all I could do not to hurl while I forced it down. I actually thought I was going to at one point, but luckily I didn't embarrass myself. 

Well anyway, this put me off my lunch a bit quite considerably. After that I stuck to the potato and lotus roots. Much less risky. 

I made sure to have KFC that night. Call me a heathen, but a nice, safe chicken burger sounded like a good way to restore my… culinary equilibrium, if that’s even a thing. Something like that. 

Back in the office, I continued to proofread and research and generally do internshippy things which I don’t need to describe in detail here. In fact, the only other thing I should mention in this post is how lovely my supervisor was when I approached him begging for a day off so I could go exploring.

…In BEIJING!

Next Time – China part 3: Hostels and Hiking

Vicky xx

PS. Today is my parent’s silver wedding anniversary. Congratulations Mum and Dad, I love you both so much xx

China Part 1: Food, Flights and Feeling Foreign

I promised I’d blog it, and here I am. I should mention is that it proved to be rather optimistic to fit a month’s worth of stuff into one post, or even two - I’ve split it all up (and this post is still going to be long and meandering, so I hope it’s readable). There’ll be several instalments before I wind this blog up for good at the end of the month.

So. As you might already know, I spent the last month in Chengdu, China (I got back yesterday). Chengdu is the capital city of the Sichuan province, in Western China, bordering Tibet. Originally, I was supposed to be going to Shanghai, and I was disappointed at first when it was changed to Chengdu. But as someone pointed out to me when I got there, Shanghai is, for all intents and purposes, a very western city, with lots of skyscrapers and western food. The reason a lot of people haven’t heard of Chengdu is because it’s a very liveable city, and not particularly touristy, like Beijing and the like, which means that I got to experience a lot more of real Chinese life and culture than I would if I had been to Shanghai instead. Now I’m back, I’m glad things ended up the way they did.

Who can resist a good 'I'm going travelling, look at me!' photo? Not me, apparently. 

Including the connection in Doha (I flew with Qatar Airways, who I’d recommend. They were actually very good, with lots of legroom and they served edible meals in strange abundance), it was roughly 15 hours to fly from Heathrow to Chengdu, and happily it was not at all stressful. I landed in China at about 3pm on the Tuesday afternoon. My first impressions are a bit vague… it was very humid outside (and continued to be for the rest of the month. But then, it is rainy season). Second – Chinese immigration officers are slightly frightening. Third - the toilet at the airport was just a hole in the floor, much to my dismay. And fourth - the clocks don’t change in China. So one of the first things that I noticed through my jet-lagged haze was that it got dark early. Pitch black, by 9pm, which was very weird for a while.

I got shown my apartment, in the Tongzilin area of Chengdu (where I found out that we were one of few apartments who actually had Wi-Fi. WIN!) By the time I’d been there for 6 hours or so, I’d bought a Chinese simcard (and phone, because idiot here didn’t bring the spare mobile I used in Paris with me), walked around being shown where the metro and the supermarket was (directions which I promptly forgot) nearly got run over and was given a travel card for the metro.

As a short aside, while I’m mentioning the metro - and driving, and transport generally - traffic regulations in China seem to be less 'laws' and more 'guidance'. It got pretty hairy at times, and you had to be very careful when you are crossing the road, even when there is a green man, because apparently the motorcyclists/moped people have apparently universally decided that red lights don't apply to them. Sometimes, I’m fairly sure that they’d happily travel the wrong way up the street. All the public transport is state operated: there is a metro in Chengdu, but it is very limited because it’s about as new as metros can get. There are only two lines operating so far, the youngest of which opened 2 years ago, and I think there are plans to build at least six more by 2020. To get in, though, you have to put your bags through a security scanner. It's like going to the airport every single time, which can get a bit tedious, if I'm honest. 

Anyway, back to business. After all of that, I suddenly realised that I was starving. So a few other volunteers and I went searching for somewhere to eat, and I had my first authentic Chinese meal. I’ve never felt more foreign in my entire life. At least in European countries the letters are familiar, but here, you couldn’t even make an educated guess. We pointed at a few pictures, looked blankly at the waitress who was trying vainly to help and hoped for the best (and luckily, everything turned out to be edible, so that was a win). We ended up with two types of noodles, some rice, two portions of what dumplings and some kind of soup, which you drank out of the bowl. I successfully wrestled my way around the meal with chopsticks (although the next few times I used them after that, I was a total fail, so chopsticks really were a bit hit and miss for me. I’m blaming my left handedness. Never mind the fact that thousands of Chinese people are probably left handed too), and then I discovered the delights of the ¥/£ exchange rate.

Our meal (for 5 people) came to ¥53, or roughly £5.30. A pound each. Seriously! The basic rule of thumb is that if you delete a zero from the Chinese sum, you have the equivalent in pounds. So ¥10 is £1.

And everything is cheeeeaaaaaap.

Later in the week, I took a journey on the Chengdu metro over 6 stops (roughly the distance of, say, Oxford Circus to Liverpool Street on the central line, and it cost me 34 PENCE.)  The day after that, a meal for 11 people cost £30 altogether. A 40 minute journey in a cab cost £4. I kid you not; China is an affordable place indeed - for westerners. I'm under no illusions about how different it is for someone on a Chinese salary and actually had some interesting discussions on the topic during my stay.

Anyway, after that, we went to the supermarket - Carrefour, funnily enough, but nothing like the French version. There’s a distinct lack of croissants for one thing, and the meat counter is very alarming for another. It’s all dumped – no wrapping – in a large fridge, open to the elements (and flies) and people will pick up bits of meat with their bare hands and poke and prod it for a while before deciding that actually, they don’t want it. It smelt terrible. (Needless to say, I didn’t frequent the meat counter). Also, you can buy live fish for food. They hook them out of their tanks in a net and then slam them to the ground to kill them. Charming, no? There were also turtles in similar tanks and I’m really hoping that they didn’t end up with the same fate as the fish!

Meanwhile, the yoghurt aisle had descended into something reminiscent of Romford Market, because there were a lot of people yelling about (presumably) yoghurt into microphones..

I forced myself to stay awake and be sociable that night in an effort to go to bed at a normal hour and make my body clock adjust, but I was super tired for a few days. (Someone told me that it takes a day to recover for every hour of time difference. I haven’t a clue if that’s true or not, but I’m taking that excuse and running with it). And after I did eventually go to sleep, I woke up the next morning stiff as a board. Chinese beds are hard. Like bricks. It didn’t even dip when I sat on it. Anyway, after unpacking and doing all of that kind of thing, I went to a barbecue put on by the Projects Abroad staff.

On the way there, we walked past a park, where there were loads of Chinese people playing with what looked like a large metal spinning top, and to keep it spinning they hit it with a large metal thing - it looked (and sounded!) a little bit like a whip. And there were also loads of Chinese people just dancing - like properly dancing, the waltz or some such thing - around the square to music. It was quite surreal actually. At the BBQ itself I met some of the staff and some other volunteers, and had a go at making my own dumplings (which I was terrible at), and the next day I was shown how to get to my placement (which as I mentioned, I’ll be posting about separately, for purposes of not making this blog post an epic novel).

At the weekend, I had to attend a 'cultural class' - basically a crash course in not mortally offending Chinese manners while I was there and some basic mandarin so I wasn’t completely helpless in every single situation! Unfortunately, I forgot most of it almost immediately – it was very intense. I think the problem was that the teacher tried to feed us way too much information in an hour and a half, so I didn’t have time to commit anything to memory before we moved on.

What else? (I am aware that I’m rambling but you try putting a months worth of happenings into a blog post worth reading!) We decided to have a bit of a gathering in our flat that night, and went to Carrefour to pick up a few things (including Cucumber flavoured crisps, which for the record, are vile) and saw some Tibetan monks casually doing their grocery shopping. Obviously normal – Tibetan monks need food as much as anyone else, but for some reason this struck me as seriously odd. Culture shock, I suppose. In a pleasant contrast to Paris, and home for that matter, everything opens late on the weekends here - properly late. We're talking 23:00 for Carrefour, even on Sundays (I guess, because it's an officially atheist country, although I could be wrong about that.)

Also that weekend, Noemie from my apartment was invited by a colleague to a barbecue. She took us all along, and it was an experience in and of itself.

Now, in the street, it has to be said that some Chinese people can be appallingly rude. Although you could say that of many other nationalities too. And I suppose in all fairness it should be pointed out that there is an exponential culture difference, which apparently extends to what behaviour is appropriate in public (hint: it would be completely frowned upon here). People spit - a lot - they shove, shout and pint, and for young children, everywhere is a public toilet. Seriously - their children do not wear nappies, and they have conveniently placed holes in their trousers so they can go wherever and whenever they please.  Usually on the street - sometimes you'll catch a parent holding their child over a rubbish bin instead, which is marginally better I suppose. Still, I question how they are ever potty trained.

Having said all that, at home, things are different. Their hospitality is second to none (that I've ever experienced, anyway). They mentioned it in our culture talk, but here, I saw the proof. People they invite into their homes are honoured guests. During this barbecue, we offered to help but she wouldn't hear of it, we were constantly plied with food and drink, she spotted my mozzy bites (of which, sadly, there were many) and went dashing off looking for something to put on them, and then when we left, she apologised for not looking after us properly! Anyway, we had a lovely time, played a million rounds of some game that I vaguely remember playing in Drama class at Crofton, and I tried some more authentic Chinese food.

One dish, which I did not try, was chicken feet. It turned up, and although I already knew that the Chinese weren't picky about what part of an animal they eat, I was still a bit like, Oh my god. That is literally feet. Battered feet in a bowl. I'm sure it tastes fine, or they wouldn't eat it. But I just could not bring myself to put a chicken foot in my mouth. Sorry.

Once we made our excuses and left, Noemie and I headed into the main part of Chengdu to have a look around. We started in Tianfu Square, which is a large public square overlooked by a giant statue of Chairman Mao. He has his hand in the air, supposedly waving to the people, but one of the Projects Abroad staff told me that it's a local joke that he's actually just trying to get a taxi and is having no luck haha. 

Give up, Mao! You're not going to get a cab!

Then we walked to People's Park, which is one of the most insane, crazy places I have ever been. How can I explain this? I've never seen anything like it before, and nothing I can say will really give you a decent picture of how nutty this place was, but I’ll give it a shot.

Every pathway, nook and cranny had been filled with makeshift tents, of a sort, erected very close to each other along the pathways, and in each tent people were gambling, dancing, being terrible at karaoke or singing (marginally better than the karaoke crew) and putting on performances for small crowds of people. People would go up to these singers on the stage and give them flowers, presumably plastic ones, which were conveniently placed in buckets at each corner closest to the audience. And because these tents were so close together you only had to walk about a metre in one direction or the other before the tune would change completely… Honestly, it's not something you can really make clear in words alone!

I’m not even really sure that you can tell what it’s like from that montage that I made from the videos on my phone, although on the first clip, you can clearly hear the guy who is singing in the second clip, and in the clip at the end, where people are dancing, you can definitely hear the opera woman who preceded it. Essentially, it’s big, it’s loud, it’s uniquely Chinese and it’s completely and utterly insane.

There are also several teahouses in the park (I'm really not a big fan of Chinese tea but I did have a proper Chinese tea experience before I left) and a really cute boating lake, which my brother said looks a bit like Central Park, and (here is where I show how culturally ignorant I am) loads of classically Chinese... Structures? Shelters? I don't know.  

And also, much to my bemusement, we ended up being a bit of a tourist attraction ourselves. I’ve already mentioned that Chengdu isn’t very touristy, and you don’t really see many westerners around. I was always getting stared at on the metro, and we got stopped several times in the park so that people could take photos of (or with) us.  Which is a bit strange but quite funny, really.

That pretty much sums up my first week in China. It’s a bit rambly, but actually, China is a bit rambly, so maybe that makes sense.

Next time – China part 2: Internships and Intestines

Vicky xx