8 Days in China – Part 1: Changchun

Ling has asked me several times now if we would want to go to China for a holiday. And each time – without fail – she’ll get a look of abject horror from me! Yep that sounds funny from someone who’s Singaporean Chinese. I think it has to do with all kinds of bad vibes about things that are from China. Whether it’s their state of traffic, their nationalistic posturing observed in online media, or Made-in-China products which Ling has a lot of opinions on. Even for those of us who are technology enthusiasts, the general sense is that we’d sooner always rather buy something that’s not MIC if we had a choice.

Admittedly, a lot of it is prejudice. So, when I was to join a business contingent to China where we’d be traveling to three cities (Chang Chun, Beijing, Shanghai) for just over a week, and almost immediately after we returned from Telunas, Ling heard no end to my whining! She knows I’m responsible enough to still prepare for the trip (i.e. business presentations) properly, so she knowingly chuckled and took all I said about the coming hot weather and the smog, the awful city traffic with a light heart. She, alongside Matt, guessed correctly that all said and done, I’d probably enjoy the trip.

Which is what happened, though there was a lot of work to be done during the trip! Now that I’ve returned too, I think my sentiments about China have softened. The hospitality shown to us from to us by our Chinese hosts was nothing short of amazing. We were driven everywhere chauffeur-styled during our business visitations, and every lunch and dinner with them was a ten-course or more banquet, and there were a lot of hosted lunches and dinners. Some of my reservations of the country still remain though. Over the next few posts, I’ll blog about my impressions of each city I visited, some of the sights, interesting things I saw and the like. Not the business aspects or work aspects of the trip though as this is still a personal blog.=)

The first city we were at was Changchun, whose Chinese translation 长春 literally means “Long Spring”. Days were indeed very long in the city – the sun rises at 4 AM ish. The city has 3.5 million population, and is located on the far Northeastern corner of China, and close too to North Korea. The weather was reasonably cool the several days we spent there. In fact, one colleague remarked that the air quality in Changchun was very good compared to what we’d be facing later in the other cities (I only realized how true it was later).

The city’s main industry line is in automobile production – including military tanks – and doesn’t figure significantly in any tourist’s radar given how far it is from the other more tourist-y cities like Shanghai and Beijing. SQ doesn’t fly to the city, so we had to take a connecting domestic flight from Beijing. The city has quite a bit of a rustic laidback feel, though – according again to my colleagues – it has seen a rapid transformation in the last 5 years from a somewhat backwater city to something that’s approaching what China’s tier one cities might had been 20 years ago. There were numerous high-rise apartment blocks of 20 and more stories everywhere I turned my head. And interestingly, the blocks which have been completed are still vacant – and were built in advance preparation for the city’s growth.

We stayed at the HNA Redbuds Hotel. It’s rated as a five-star establishment, though I didn’t think it was quite up to that mark if international standards are used as a yardstick. The room at least was suitably spacious and basic amenities were all there, but the hotel felt… old with its well-worn carpeting and rather drab room décor. The breakfast selection was very large at least if somewhat average in taste, though the morning I tried it there were a lot of other Chinese businessmen about there already, including one who plonked himself down on my table even though there were plenty of other free tables.

Our three day stay in the city was pretty much focused on business activities only, since there wasn’t very much to do after the nightly dinners our hosts brought us to. Beijing which we went to next couldn’t be more different – more on that in the next post.=)