Dear all,

As I am very busy looking for work and getting to know this fascinating place, I have not yet had the time to write up all my experiences.

I have spent an adventurous week under guidance of my Chinese friend Clara, meeting her parents, the city and her friends. When on my own,

I learn Chinese and look for a job. I have found three Chinese people whom I teach English and Dutch and they help me with my Chinese in exchange (otherwise it is impossible to learn the pronunciation correctly).

After now one week in China, I can say that I have been in a culinary heaven, I have had a first job interview today, I can say some basic sentences and counting in Chinese, and I find them overall very friendly, efficient, and hard working.

Although my decision to come here was taken almost overnight, the desire to come to China is a longstanding one and I am not disappointed so far. All that said and done, I still have to meet the "real" China. In many ways, I am merely spending time in a gateway area between an hyper modern world and what lies beyond: a rich ancient culture peopled by often desperately poor human beings. You get a whiff of it, when seeing the darker- skinned peddlers in bleak clothing in Shanghai on their old bicycles carrying all kinds of goods or cooking up the fried breakfasts and lunches that are eagerly eaten by the city dwellers. Those seem to be the very few people that still loudly spit in public.Or when in the morning, around 6 or 7am, you walk past the older people exercising by doing very simple aerobic movements, taichi, or when entering one of the many covered fresh markets, where near perfectlooking (and delicious) vegetables and live fish, chicken and ducks get sold.