One fourth of the project group (XYZ, Hanna, and Elina) arrived in Beijing on Friday morning, 9.55 local time.
AirChina served up dinner. The air trip took 9 hours. Direct flight from Arlanda to Beijing International Airport.
We took a taxi to the hotel we would stay at, which was a 5 minutes-walk away from Tsinghua University’s East Gate (though we are holding our Sweden Day close to the North Gate). I talked to the taxi driver with my somewhat staccato Chinese. When I told him that we were from Ruidian (瑞典, Sweden), the first things he mentioned were Yijia (宜家, IKEA)，Woerwo (沃尔沃, Volvo) and Ailixin (爱立信, Ericsson). He actually knew about Sweden! (And what is even cooler is that two of these are the Gold Partners for Project China!)
He told me quite interesting stories. One was about IKEA. IKEA had a store in the more central part of Beijing when they first opened up. The response from the Chinese was huge. Too huge. There was always a traffic blockade outside the store because of the crowd of people outside. The decision makers had to find a solution, and that was to move the store to the suburb. I heard it’s still quite popular. Swedish budget furniture is well-liked by the Chinese.
At the hotel, we met up with Yuchen, the project manager for the Sweden Day Committee at Tsinghua, which consists of a total seven members. She showed us around the neighborhood and told us very briefly about the plan for the next coming days. It will be a tight schedule, but we are so looking forward to it!
Cute Yuchen eating a bowl of Chinese porridge.
Henry will arrive tomorrow!
Now I’m going to sleep, need to fight the jet lag. The time is now 00.12 in China, officially Saturday.
We’ll keep you updated!
Ganbei! (Cheers!)
/XYZ
