{"id":17057,"date":"2012-06-28T21:25:34","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T13:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=17057"},"modified":"2017-02-25T19:33:06","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T11:33:06","slug":"8-days-in-china-part-1-changchun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2012\/06\/28\/8-days-in-china-part-1-changchun\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Days in China – Part 1: Changchun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ling has asked me several times now if we would want to go to China for a holiday. And each time \u2013 without fail \u2013 she\u2019ll get a look of abject horror from me! Yep that sounds funny from someone who\u2019s Singaporean Chinese<\/em>. I think it has to do with all kinds of bad vibes about things that are from China. Whether it\u2019s 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\u2019d sooner always rather buy something that\u2019s not MIC if we had a choice.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, a lot of it is prejudice. So, when I was to join a business contingent to China where we\u2019d 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\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

Which is what happened, though there was a lot of work to be done during the trip! Now that I\u2019ve 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<\/em> of hosted lunches and dinners. Some of my reservations of the country still remain though. Over the next few posts, I\u2019ll 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.=)<\/p>\n

The first city we were at was Changchun, whose Chinese translation \u957f\u6625 literally means \u201cLong Spring\u201d. Days were indeed very long in the city \u2013 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\u2019d be facing later in the other cities (I only realized how true it was later).<\/p>\n

\"\"
Changchun city – rapidly developing city with office blocks and commercial buildings.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Gardeners tending the lawn at the Institute we visited.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The city\u2019s main industry line is in automobile production \u2013 including military tanks \u2013 and doesn\u2019t figure significantly in any tourist\u2019s radar given how far it is from the other more tourist-y cities like Shanghai and Beijing. SQ doesn\u2019t 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 \u2013 according again to my colleagues \u2013 it has seen a rapid transformation in the last 5 years from a somewhat backwater city to something that\u2019s approaching what China\u2019s 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 \u2013 and were built in advance preparation for the city\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

We stayed at the HNA Redbuds Hotel. It\u2019s rated as a five-star establishment, though I didn\u2019t 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\u2026 old with its well-worn carpeting and rather drab room d\u00e9cor. 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"
HNA Redbuds Hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Breakfast at the Hotel. Good range, so-so taste, unwanted company.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
This is what it looked like for every one of those lunch and dinner events our hosts brought us to.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Serving tea is an art form.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The Chinese restaurant in the city where our hosts brought us to dinner on the second evening. Interior decor reminds me one of those traditional inns.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our three day stay in the city was pretty much focused on business activities only, since there wasn\u2019t very much to do after the nightly dinners our hosts brought us to. Beijing which we went to next couldn\u2019t be more different \u2013 more on that in the next post.=)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ling has asked me several times now if we would want to go to China for a holiday. And each time \u2013 without fail \u2013 she\u2019ll get a look of abject horror from me! Yep that sounds funny from someone<\/p>\n

Read More 8 Days in China – Part 1: Changchun<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[534,531],"class_list":["post-17057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-china-2012","tag-e-m5","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/2012-china-OMD07123-day2-changchun-lunch1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}