“My China – Living Inside the Dragon” , livre ebook

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288 pages

English

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My China – Living inside the Dragon is a compelling memoir that details the author’s fifteen years of living, working, and travelling in China at a pivotal time in the country’s development. Readers will find this work to be as insightful as it is entertaining.
Living in China away from large expatriate communities, both through business activities, in private life and supplemented by travel around much of the country, the author was exposed to the wide-ranging variety of Chinese culture and its differing geographical influences. These included the ways and the lifestyle of the Chinese people, with those personal observations and opinions reflected in this book.
This critique is widely varied in content from daily routines to a view on the more sophisticated aspects of society with all its complexities, seen through the eyes of a foreigner. Containing credible personal views including extracts from detailed personal diary notes written during this extraordinary period of China’s truly historic growth and evolution. This transformation period during the early part of this century (2002-2017) laid the foundations for its current wealth, successes, and a platform for its continual drive towards achieving its future ambitions.

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Biography

Autobiography

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Publié par	AuthorHouse UK
Date de parution	21 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781728374321
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

“My China – Living Inside the Dragon ”

Jeremy Bazley

AuthorHouse™ UK
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403 USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK) UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 (+44 20 3695 6322 from outside the UK)

© 2022 Jeremy Bazley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/19/2022

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7431-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7430-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7432-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022913475

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Synopsis
My China – Living inside the Dragon is a compelling memoir that details the author’s fifteen years of living, working, and travelling in China at a pivotal time in the country’s development. Readers will find this work to be as insightful as it is entertaining.
Living in China away from large expatriate communities, both through business activities, in private life and supplemented by travel around much of the country, the author was exposed to the wide-ranging variety of Chinese culture and its differing geographical influences. These included the ways and the lifestyle of the Chinese people, with those personal observations and opinions reflected in this book.
This critique is widely varied in content from daily routines to a view on the more sophisticated aspects of society with all its complexities, seen through the eyes of a foreigner. Containing credible personal views including extracts from detailed personal diary notes written during this extraordinary period of China’s truly historic growth and evolution. This transformation period during the early part of this century (2002-2017) laid the foundations for its current wealth, successes, and a platform for its continual drive towards achieving its future ambitions.
The Author

Jeremy Bazley
Jeremy Bazley was born in England, later studying in Aberdeen, Scotland, and London Business School. A former national league basketball player, he entered the paper industry and progressed to senior executive positions in the UK industry, working for international companies serving global speciality markets. As such he has traveled to nearly fifty countries.
In 2002 he went to work in China on behalf of a UK based entrepreneur managing a joint venture with a state-controlled company making high quality cigarette paper for the huge Chinese market. His responsibilities were to be expanded to include directorships in a variety of companies in four different Provinces.
These activities brought him in contact with all aspects of life from the brushes with corridors of power in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, local government powerbases, the modern mega cities and to the starkly comparatively less affluent rural countryside.
He was awarded China’s Friendship Gold Medal in 2005, “the highest award that China was able to bestow upon a foreigner ” for “ outstanding contribution to China ” in the presence of Premier Wen Jia Bao.
He was to remain living and working in China until early 2017 when he returned to the UK to live.
Contents
Foreword
Part 1 My Introduction and Early Days
Chapter 1 My China
Chapter 2 Around China
Chapter 3 My Chinese Adventure Starts
Part 2 The Way Things Were
Chapter 4 China’s Drinking culture
Chapter 5 Food and meals
Chapter 6 China’s Leisure and Relaxation Industry
Chapter 7 Doing Business
Chapter 8 Government
Chapter 9 Cheating and corruption
Chapter 10 Security and the Police
Chapter 11 Nationalistic Traits and Observations
Chapter 12 My Friendship Award in Beijing, Media, and Others
Chapter 13 Education
Chapter 14 Buildings, Developments, and Infrastructure
Chapter 15 Environment
Chapter 16 Counterfeiting
Chapter 17 Driving, Cars, Bikes and Roads
Chapter 18 Hospitals, Medical Attention and SARS
Chapter 19 China’s Toilets
Chapter 20 The Family
Chapter 21 Language
Chapter 22 Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) and Fireworks
Chapter 23 Information Technology
Chapter 24 My Personal Life Changing Events
Part 3 The Travel Experiences
Chapter 25 Jiaxing
Chapter 26 Beijing
Chapter 27 Shanghai
Chapter 28 Tales from My Travels - Provinces and Regions
28.1 Anhui
28.2 Fujian
28.3 Gansu
28.4 Guangdong
28.5 Guangxi
28.6 Hainan
28.7 Heilongjiang
28.8 Henan
28.9 Hong Kong and Macao
28.10 Hubei
28.11 Hunan
28.12 Jiangsu
28.13 Liaoning
28.14 Shaanxi
28. 15 Shandong
28.16 Yunnan
28.17 Xinjiang
28.18 Chong Qing
28.19 Sichuan
28.20 Hebei
Epilogue
Foreword
April 2020 and I found myself like so many others, at home, self-isolating in rural southwest England due to the coronavirus lockdown. Out of the blue I received a package from China, a box of face masks to protect me and my family against contracting the virus. This came with a letter from an old friend in local government expressing care, appreciation, and support, this being three years after I left those shores. It was a truly kind gesture during extremely troubling times in recognition of my past contributions and was indicative of the Chinese approach to life through ‘friendship’.
This virus started in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, and it was apparent that this virus was not only having a major effect upon the world, with its associated natural cull, but consequently the associated effects upon the global economies that it will most likely change the future for so many of us in so many ways. The short term was scarily uncertain for all! This is effectively the pseudo “war” of my generation and the two subsequent generations given the impact that yet is to fully unfold. It was a global shock and wakeup call that will result in future re-alignments in attitudes and the way that things are done.
China almost inevitably, was coming under criticism, both from the politically motivated media in the West and for other reasons directly related to the handling of the virus, transparency, and credibility of the statistics relative to number of coronavirus cases and deaths being recorded there. Global scrutiny is on the rise and conspiracy theories as to the virus’s origins and motivation abounded.
I found myself staring out from my study over the rural countryside reflecting upon my prior life in China, truly a world apart. I went there in May 2002 to live and work for a UK based company managing a joint venture manufacturing company in the city of Jiaxing in Zhejiang province, in eastern China. Its location was 80 kilometres from the vast and dynamic metropolis of Shanghai, one of the most exciting cities on the planet. Born in Britain I had not lived and worked abroad before, although through travel I was not naive when it comes to overseas cultural differences having visited forty-eight countries, flown 1.63 million miles, on 826 flights through different 175 airports to date.
Wind back to January 2002, forty-four years old, and I was looking for a job having parted ways with my American employer some nine months earlier. Until then I had enjoyed a career as a senior executive in the international speciality paper industry, working within corporations from a relatively early age. The opportunity arose to work in China and the lure of witnessing China first-hand during an historic moment in the world’s development was too much to refuse, a life changing and cultural experience for my family and me. After some serious family soul-searching I decided that I would go alone, my three children remaining at school in the UK.
I accepted the job without a prior visit, although there was a quick verification visit in April that year, just prior to starting full time in May. My intention was to work two years there after a six-month trial, and consider it from there onwards, a career steppingstone. In the event my experience lasted fifteen years, despite deciding to come home after four years. Indeed, I resigned, but persuaded to stay, and that decision was to change my life in more ways than was potentially imaginable.
During that time China morphed itself into the second largest economy in the World and chasing down the number one spot, re-inventing so much of its lifestyle. It developed at an incredible pace in front of one’s eyes, and the world started to see the impact of ‘China’s Century,’ after the prior century which undoubtedly belonged to the USA and the century or two before that belonged to Britain. Even now I do not believe that most of the world is ready for or understands the extent of what is happening in China despite extensive coverage globally, some of it emotive and alarming in nature.
The personal consequences were not all good, resulting in the painful break-up of my first marriage and this of course was never a part of my plan, nor to live at distance from my family long term. I was later remarried, to a wonderfully delightful Chinese lady and subsequently had anoth