First 3 months in China

Let me start with introducing my self, I am an Indian, professionally Process Consultant (six sigma Black Belt) who got a job offer from a Shanghai based company to work on to improve processes of their client in Shanghai. When i told this to my parents, reaction was China..why what will u eat there..how will you sustain, people(from India) usually go to US, UK but China..nnnnaa..Even i was confused..but offer was good, not v good in terms of money but the exposure and as a value add, yes it was worth making an attempt. So i made up my mind, ok i will go, which was not easy ..Once, I was through with this another issue popped up, one more company offered my 70% of what i was offered in Shanghai and were also ready to send me to UK for 3 months to compensate, but after lot of confusion and discussion i decided against it as it was a BPO..
To cut it short I was finally going to Shanghai.

Now, I started exploring China, to be precise Shanghai on internet as it was not of any particular interest before that..This is what I gather of Shanghai in my 1 week of research, remember it was before I was on board Singapore air, Delhi to Shanghai.

One of the costliest city in world, best city of China, more like Mumbai in india, crime rate was low compare to other international cities, language will be a problem, one of the best airport in world, business city of world with lot of skyscrapers..and indian knowledge of china - they are small, hard working, stubborn, dominating, not friendly, difficult to strive there.

But let me tell you Shanghai and China its not as we see them in India..

This is what I can tell you about Shanghai from Shanghai,

About Infrastructure: It is rightly said they have have one of the best airports in world, international airport at New delhi is very small as compared to what they have in Shanghai, in fact in terms of infrastructure they are very advanced, the government here has invested a lot in infrastructure, not only in major cities like Shanghai but even in small towns, even public transport, traffic management, day to day work, its smooth not as complicated as in india, I cant find a car in India without a scratch but here one scratch means a big thing.. They have excellent and still expanding Subway(metro in india) covering Shanghai. Taxi service covers whole of Shanghai, simply day to day work in not complicated.

About people: they are very friendly, they do everything to ensure that they are able to help you even majority do not understand English, although you may some time feel little annoyed but overall its not an hindrance. They don't cheat and not as often as you see in India, at least i have not seen. They are not stubborn, they are polite, but in general they speak loudly and some time it annoys me but its a different culture all together, while eating, lot of noise during chewing, personally it annoys me but some in India have same habbit.

About food: if you love Non veg and Sea food you will love it here, In india i occasionally had Chicken, but here i have tried everything pork, chicken, fish, beef, prawn, crab, small octopus look like thing also, and recently I saw a dish it was like gel but that gel like thing was made up by freezing blood of Chicken and duck, i was not able to try that..and after 3 months, I have finalized on following food- chicken, fish, vegetable, tofu (paneer without fat) as priority dish :). In vegetables they have stems of sea plants, v healthy, generally Chinese food is low in fat as compared to india food. We do have some Indian restaurant and we go their occasionally as we cook food at home, it reminds how difficult it was finding out wheat flour and then getting a 5 kg pack..:))

Overall it's a great place and indian democratic government needs to learn a lot about how to build up infrastructure as this is what drives economy and standard of living, for example, in delhi, we get exhausted by the time we reach work place and home because of traffic and jams and small issues..which is loss of national energy...

Also last but not the least, women are safe here, no teasing and they wear what they want( in terms of fashion they are v advanced), not like india, where everyone is worried about women in their family, however not realizing doing the same act on street. Bottom line its safe...

I will keep on adding my experience over here

Appreciate your feedback and comments, this is my first blog ever...