User:Eckhard Goessl

Looking back at 5 years of expat Net-“WORKING”

Looking back today at the last 6 years and summing up some of the activates and events done here in Ningbo, it looks like a peace of history to me. But how little it is, considering the history of China in 5000 of Ningbo.

This Story is following 2 foreigner that stay in Ningbo for more than 6 years and are the witness and initiators of many developments in the Ningbo expat community.

When Eckhard and Evelyn came to Ningbo, it was not the beginning of the expat networking in the city. However it is the part they had been witnessing and what this story wants to talk about.

Who are they? They are Eckhard and Evelyn natively  form Germany. However coming to Ningbo was a different story comparing to most of the other expats living here in the city. Eckhard and Evelyn left Germany about 20 years ago and had a journey taking them through Nigeria, Cyprus, India and Hong Kong before finally they had the chance to come to Ningbo. Why do we mention this? During this time Eckhard and Evelyn had a lot of situations and opportunities to learn and understand that the live out side of Germany is so much different and that each country and each society has its own standard, which we had to some extent to adapt to.

Eckhard and Evelyn have been down the road of homesick, anger, disappointment, worrying about their lives because of poor safety, nearby war, going to bed with an empty belly because there was “no eatable food” around and some other situation that might be to drastic to mention here. For most of you this sound familiar and you might have gone through this stages or will go through it sooner or later.

If you can’t change it adapt to it story…..

Let’s see the following story which in fact happened quite similar when Eckhard and Evelyn did decorate their house...........

Let’s see the Story of the Mason by Jian Shuo Wang on July 11, 2006 written under the topic “West Meets East”

Three years ago, I re-modeled my apartment. I hired a mason, who helped me to install floor tiles and wall tiles in the kitchen.

The guy was a 40-year-old skillful mason. We couldn't get along very well. He didn't show any respect to me, was rude when talking with me. He did crazy things like laughing at me when I asked about the schedule, or using my room as it was his.

"How can you behave like this!" I didn't understand at all. "How can someone in the service industry survive without knowing anything about 'service', and 'respect'?" I complained to Wendy: "This guy knows nothing about how the world works".

I tried to educate him about what is customer service. Obviously, the attempt failed miserably.

I didn't want to continue to hire him, and he didn't want to work for me. Finally, the guy who introduced him to me asked him to stay and suggested me not to change a mason in the middle of the work - for quality purpose. The argument continued, until one day, I found the secret.

The Secret

I consulted with my friend. He suggested me that his behavior indicated one thing - "He needs some money".

I talked with the mason the second day, and gave him 50 RMB. I said: "Thanks for the good work. Here is the 'red bag'". He smiled.

After that day, he changed to another person - polite to me, worked harder, and seemed to be very considerate to me. The good relationship continued to the end of completion of the project.

His Rule or My Rule

This experience is still vivid in my mind after 3 years.

It was me who didn't understand the rule - the mason's rule. I adopted the mason's rule and got what I wanted.

What I didn't understand at the very beginning was, the mason had his rule, just as I had mine: "Pay me the extra money, and I work harder for you." The rule was simple and straight forward. The challenge was, no one except my friend told me about the rule.

I Follow Your Rules, or You Follow Mine?

When there is a conflict, there is a choice. Choice is on both sides. If I insist my rule (a mason should be good to his customer), I could go to B&Q, and pay 4 times higher than directly hiring him. This way, I feel good, but in terms of $$$, I lose.

At the same time, if the mason insists his rule, and doesn't follow the customer's rule, he remains a poor mason forever.

I am still smarter than the mason, right? I got what I want with little money, but he gave up his future just for small money.

The whole world is made up of smaller worlds running by different rules. There is not always be the right rule or the wrong rule.

It is all about the difference. In a modern word, it is called "diversity". For some of you this story of Jian Shuo Wang will sound just too familiar. When Eckhard was invited by a Ningbo based big company to join the team for developing their products, sales team and marketing as consultant, for a better positioning of the company in the global competition, he was entering the plane to fly to Ningbo without having any idea what was expecting him in Ningbo City. When he did ask some friends and colleagues in Hong Kong about their ideas and experience of Ningbo, they had not many good things to say. It was comment like: “small city with nothing else to offer than industry and a port”. The other said; “I fly in to do my job and get out soonest as there is nothing else to be done in Ningbo”.

Obviously Eckhard had to admit that this did not really put up his good spirits when sitting in the plane and flying the 2 hours from Hong Kong to Ningbo. When arriving he entered a city with rain for the first 3 weeks and the feeling of living life in a bathtub.

So why to mention this? Just because some of you might still have the same feeling when you come to this town, having heard the same stories and just arrive in the rainy season.

Sitting in his hotel room and looking in the rain Eckhard knew that it was time to take some action and look for the first possible way to get contact to other foreigners.

In the beginning of the first week in Ningbo he went to the office of the CCPIT, which at that time was still located in their alt office in Goulo. Eckhard just went right away to their China International Chamber office where he got in contact with Mrs lse. She was in charge for handling the affairs for the German China relationship and has good German language skills. After a short chat she recommended to pay a visit to the Ningbo Club for the Culture of the German language. The people meet every 1 and 15th of the month at the 28th floor of the Bank of China building opposite the church at Tian yie Sqaure in the center of Ningbo.

Eckhard went there and met again Mrs Ilse and several other Chinese and German people, which some of them will become good friends of Eckhard and Evelyn over the following years to come.

For those that did not yet hear about this club please finds a short explanation as follows.

The club is a joint project of the sister city of Ningbo, Aachen in Germany, and the University of Ningbo in sponsorship of the Ningbo City government, Bank of China and Aachen Bank. The main initiator of the club, Mr. Proemper had the idea to create an environment, that could attract more young people in Ningbo to learn the German language, as well as getting Chinese and German people together for a cultural exchange based on language.

This was the ice breaking moment for Eckhard as he had found my anchor point to start communication with other foreigner, Chinese people and official organizations.

However that club itself did not provide enough diversity to establish a strong base for multicultural interacting. Still whenever possible Eckhard and Evelyn take the time to visit the Club and see old friends and meet new people with common interests

A few days after he visited the club for the first time, Eckhard moved from the hotel in his apartment in DHG near Carrefour. In the past he had learned to prefer closed compounds to live in, as they have not only a better infrastructure when it comes to water and electricity, but also provide more safety and support, when needed.

Moving into the flat was accompanied by some strange kind of accident, which took some time to overcome and start laughing about it.

When moving in, Eckhard went to Carrefour to buy the gas heater for the water, which was in fact the easy part of the operation “ warm water”. When the heater was delivered and installed things were getting to become strange. The gas heater company had sent a well trained person, as they said, from Shanghai to connect the heater to the gas and water supply. No problem you might think, but welcome to China, even this things can go wrong. Having finished the installation and when opening the gas and the water tub, strange enough nothing was happening. Not water and flame, but the noise that something was flowing. What did happen? When connecting the pipes, the expert mixed up the water and the gas connection and, as the water pressure is higher, the water was running now into the gas pipe.

Luckily not the other way round. However this wired situation started another point of networking with the people around Eckhard and Evelyn. As the water was filling the gas pipe, the gas cookers in the apartment of my neighbors stopped working. They cook with gas and not with water which was slowly but steadily filling the pipes. It was dinner time, so you know that this is about 6pm in Ningbo, and suddenly several nervous watchmen start walking up and down in front of the house and looking for the reason of the diapering gas.

The gas expert walked out of the house and reported that we, yes he did say the “we”, are probably the cause of the problem. Meaning himself including Eckhard and Evelyn. Following this event they had a long evening in front of them. Many people coming, the landlord, the gas company, the watchman, police, another watchman and all the time the door of the apartment was open. Open for the mosquitoes to come in and also, here we come to the networking, the neighbors also used the chance to have a look at this strange foreigner, which was keeping them away from cooking their dinner because of missing gas supply. Eckhard had some mixed feelings of guild, as it was his gas heater causing this trouble, but on the other site the clear feeling that it was not him that did install it.

Later in the evening Eckhard might have been the talk of his street (8 houses), as all of them did have no gas supply for at least another day. The next day the gas was still not back and a team of fire service men, gas company staff and police came to the house to file the report and to start evacuating he gas pipes from the water. It was a painstaking work to be done. About 10 worker were pumping the water by hand from the gas connection with an instrument looking like a reverse working bicycle pump. Finally there were happy face and the armada left ,with gas supply being back to normal. Later the day Eckhard met many Chinese in the compound with a friendly smile in the face and a “ni hao “on their lips. They knew the story, so they did also know him.

It took only a few days after moving into the apartment, when Eckhard and Evelyn met Mitch, who was living in another part of the compound. He was running a factory in Ningbo together with his Chinese wife. One day when Eckhard and Evelyn met Mitch, he mentioned that there is a gathering of foreigners at the Australian school and asked if they would like to join in.

Eckhard and Evelyn did and made their first contact with Denise Bradford, who was the head of the school and had created it with her own efforts and funds. This way she was able to provide a platform for the education of the foreign children here in Ningbo. At that time the situation of schools was poor as well as the chance to get any decent medical care in town.

Denise and the surprisingly big group of foreign parents attending the meeting did discuss many topics related the problem of living and working in Ningbo. Soon Eckhard and Evelyn realized that there is some situation that need to be improved.

After the meeting they were sitting together with Denise. She took some time and explained the special situation of Ningbo and that here everything was still new and in the making. This was the first time that Eckhard and Evelyn heard that the modern development in Ningbo just started in about the year 2000. This was the time when the New, BIG Ningbo was finalized and the population grew almost over night from 500,000 to 5,000,000 people. To avoid any misunderstanding, this was not done by getting outsiders into the town. This growth was done by combining several existing districts to one city. You might imagine what challenge this is giving to the administration still by today.

Denise had organized some people in a group that was called the Ningbo Family Association. Mainly consisting from her school parents and close friends. The family association later was one of the pillar that was building the NEA, the so called Ningbo Expat Association. However it is useful to know that all this endings of Associations in China, created by foreigners, are just name structures for making it sound good. You might be well aware that there was no  possibility at that time to create a legal framework for such an association similar to European or anglosachsian countries. Anyway they had decided the name and stared gathering in the offices of the BIN bank in Ningbo city center. The manager was kind enough to support the expats team and also he also did well understand the needs of an information platform for communication exchange.

After several meetings in the bank and discussion going on, Eckhard and Evelyn did approach our lawyer with the idea to search for legal ways to make an Chinese law acceptable association. However this was still to early in the development and they were not able to succeed In this process that time. But Eckhard and Evelyn did succeed in creating a line of events and get together which are the base for the today’s Ningbo Expat Wednesday dinners. They remember well their first expat dinner in a small, garage style restaurant near thier living compound. Where about 10 people had been sitting around a steaming chicken hot pot. The taste was rather basic but so was also the price of 23 rmb per head and belly.

From this time onward the foreigners started to gather regularly and moved around to different restaurants. The Ningbo Expat Dinner as born. The only really known bar in town at that time was the LBB with our Canadian friend Mark. It was just the place to meet people and Lao Waitan was still in the making.

Mark had just changed from his teaching job to run his bar. The bar was really something at that time, with a warning at the door that ladies should not wear high heeled stiletto shoes as otherwise they might break  through the wooden floor. One evening Evelyn did not follow that advice and did break into the floor, causing some smile in the faces of the bystanders. One of the other peoples Eckhard and Evelyn met in Mark’s place in this early days was Doc Matt. He was a doctor from Canada and did establish  a  cooperation with the Ningbo hospital number one,  as psychiatrist for foreign and Chinese patients. Recalling his comments from that days he mentioned that quite a number of foreigner are coming to see him regularly as they has problems in their daily live, workplace and more often even in their relationships. This was not restricted to the intercultural relationship between foreigner and Chinese, but also between couples that have come to China and not being well prepared for the different way of love they will be facing here. Actually it as non that many companies that did send their staff for a short or even long term stay to China and did completely lack the responsibility to, at least basically, prepare the employees and family about the situation there. Matt was approached by many foreigners that found themselves lost in the Chinese medical care system. It is so much different from most countries and even more different for people coming from central Europe where medical care is the key point of governmental services. You could hear stories from foreign really getting lost in the aisles of the hospitals as they were sent to pay bills, get medicine or other services without any one explaining them how and where to do this. Mat t said one day, that for Chinese staff in the hospital it is just their system and they had to assume that everywhere in the world it is the same and that everyone should know it. Matt stayed for some time at the hospital before he moved to Hangzhou.

In the following years, one of the following highlights for the foreign and Ningbo community was the opening of Lao Waitan. Finally there was the place where you could meet the people. Or was it not the place??

Eckhard and Evelyn wanted to find out and jointly they did arrange for the first Expat x-mass party in Ningbo. It was organized together with the Bourbon street pub. The owner had already become a friend of Eckhard and Evelyn, when they started to go the MCD music pub. Only a few of you will remember the place, as it was later “cut” into small pubs and discos which did not really have anything in common with the previous club. It was also than when the whisky with green tea stated to become a popular drink in the discos. The x-mass party was a great success and here Evelyn and Echard met the first time Cheery, the news maker from the Ningbo TV English Channel. On several following events the relationship depended and she supported the expat group whenever possible.

Meanwhile the dinner evenings had grown and sometimes about 30 people were regularly coming to the event. This weekly get together was becoming very popular in the community, as it also did provide a good way to get around in different locations, taste different food and meet new people as not everyone like the same thing. The dinner became also a great mixer between Chinese and Expats and formed even the base of relationships ready for some marriages. One June day, it was celebrate Evelyn’s birthday, Eckhard and Evelyn did have the spontaneous idea to organize a BBQ in their garden. Right on the spot about 35 foreigner and Chinese friends and newcomers did show up and had a great time. German potato salad, sausages, beef and pork steaks were moving fast into the bellies of the invited guests. Later over the years Eckhard and Evelyn will have several more such BBQ parties in their house, meeting many people and making new friends.

Whenever Eckhard and Evelyn did meet people we exchange their name cards and did so build the first database of the foreign community in Ningbo. The website www.ningboexpats.com was up and running since June 7th 2003 and the first time the community was able to communicate this way. For the ones which are not afraid of the old news, the site is still up there and running, but it is not updated anymore after the official dissolving of the NEA in 11-2006. To be able to provide reliable information and communication, Eckhard and Evelyn did make contact with related people representing the backbone of the official information source, to get the approval for this. The interest at the site was growing fast, especially Helloningbo (July 2005) and Ningboguide (May 2005) were not yet born at that time. Also Ningbo did not have any other English language communication provider.

Denise did create the Ningbo Survival Guide, which today would just fill 3 pages of the Ningbo guide magazine with life supporting information. But it showing is, what is was available and happening in Ningbo at that time. The thinking of how to get the basics organized, find a place to meet, school for the kid and a lawyer or doctor for situation none wanted to get in. Monthly meetings were started to get more and more organized and for Eckhard and Evelyn it was a little difficult to understand the British style of interacting on a community board. The motion, the nodding and moving and so one. Today this is common in the process of the COIC Foreign Expert Committee activities.

At that days things did develop really fast and one day the community had to learn that the TAIS The Australian International School as merging with huamao school to form a new education unit. This time also a new international school came up in the city and Beilun got the Access academy. Changes in the structure of the NEA happened and finally it was dissolving itself as an organization as Eckhard and Evelyn were the only 2 active members left staying in Ningbo.

Meanwhile the second website, which was independently running from NEA, was growing fast in popularity and took over the “talk” as communication platform. The Ningbo Expat Wednesday Dinner had meanwhile developed into a regular social event and by the help of the internet and the newsletter, many newcomers made their first contact with foreigner here in the city during this dinners. Remembering the “difficult task to meet other foreigner and make local contacts” Eckhard and Evelyn faced in the beginning, it has now become almost convenient to click into the web site and walk into the dinner.

The history, if we might call it like this despite the comparingly short period of 5 years existence now, of the dinner had several highlights. There was the 100th, 150th and 200th anniversary dinners, the charity dinners and birthday dinners that made the life more enjoyable.

After the great China flood, Evelyn and Eckhard decided to right away dedicate the following Wednesday dinner to the support of the flood victims. The lucky draw evening event was able to raise 10,008 Rmb which were donated to the China charity found. Later Evelyn and Eckhard learned that this was the biggest amount ever that foreigners had donated as one sum to a Ningbo Charity organization.

When we talk about relationships, I mean all types of it. Short term bar chats and long term relations “ending” in marriage.

Many foreigners and especially men are overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness of the Ningbo society. It is quite easy to fall in love with a charming Ningbo lady and forget the cultural differences. However it might come soon to the point when such differences show. Most of the Nongbonese young people are still brought up in a quite traditional way that might not “well mix” with our western understanding of relationships.

Nevertheless in 2008 at Ningbo’s wedding office 127 mixed couples were registered in the city. Let’s wish them all happiness forever.

In early 2007 Eckhard went back to the CCPIT office together with some friends to do another approaching attempt to create a legal organization under China law. Finally they had succeeded to form the COIC Foreign Expert Committee. This was done to present the possibility to get us organized as a committee under the umbrella of COIC / CCOIC/CCPIT. This organization was therefore officially recognized and able to report the needs and requirements of the members to the channels of the related governmental department. Naturally by its nature, the foreign expert committee can only represent a fraction of the foreign community living in Ningbo. However the aim and structure is to be a multicultural organization, open for all nationalities outside of China. As the result of this quite complicated process taking several years from the first idea until its official launch this was the first time that in Zhejiang province such a committee was created and permitted. The memorandum with outlining the functions was given to us, which made us a freshly founded committee with legal rights and obligations.

Since the first board, formed by 9 foreigners took office, the committee is growing and developing to be a essential link in the communication chain between the foreign community and Chinese officials.

In December 2009 Eckhard and Evelyn did resign from their post as Chairman and Vice Chairlady. Thus was done to enable new elections of the board and pass the development of the organization to the next generation of Expatriates. The board did praise the efforts and achievements of founding the COIC Foreign Expert Committee by Eckhard and Evelyn as the initial members and creators. The committee also is involves in charitable events and supporting an education project in the rural area of Ningbo. Other events are seminars for business people with different related topics.

This task was demanding as they had to spread the word that finally such a committee was created to the benefit of the foreign community. Slowly but steadily the Committee, which as expert committee is restricted in its mission and vision, is growing slowly and so might grow its influence. And here we are today. Ningbo has an active and to some extent buzzing expat community. Many things are still lacking of development and the culture live for the western influenced culture is limited to a small time of the year when the Grand Theater is having the related performances.

When doing a more detailed analyzing of the community it is obvious that the structure of the expats in Ningbo is much different from those in other big cities. Ningbo is in most parts dominated by SME size industries which did not sent over CEOs and CFOs to Ningbo. Neighboring Shanghai is the place were the mother companies have been set up and where the CEO, with the spending power and bigger budget, is living. That is the city were the school infrastructure can develop and the hospitals can be run profitable. Even the taxi service is more professional and reliable.

Talking about taxis in Ningbo. When Evelyn and Eckhard came to Ningbo the taxis still all were the same red color. Most of them had been run-down VW Santanas with a very typical smell of seafood. All over China and in the memories of many foreigners that did stay here in Ningbo, the “birdcage” taxi is a famous synonym for the Ningbo taxi. With the word “birdcage” most people mean the badly welded metal separation between the driver and the people on the backseat. Most of the separations are a real threat to the safety of the passenger and probably also to the driver, considering the broken pipes and wirings done in-between. Besides that if you are a little bit more tall than average person, you barely can get a proper seating area in the VW Bora, or also called mini taxi, version. Getting out of such taxi also makes your new shoes look crappy after short time as the sharp edges on the lower part will knife into their surface leather. It is surprising how such constructions could ever survive any safety inspection of the car. May be they are considered as not just being a part of the car or as some kind of tradition. Even there is a much more safe and space providing version of the separation which is widely used in Shanghai taxis, the Ningbo taxi companies like to prefer the heavy one. Probably they might even save some money with the Shanghai version. Another “tradition” in Ningbo is the so called switch time. A really great invention. As logical and useful as if there would be a regulation saying that all restaurants must be closed during lunch and dinner hours. At switch time, which starts about 16.00 and lasts until 18.00, suddenly almost all taxis disappear on the roads. Like a magic wizzle calling all drivers into one fixed location. In fact it is like this. In the above mentioned time the drivers have to report to their administration base for settling the accounts and switching the drivers working shift. This definitively a relict from the previous days when Ningbo was a village and only few people working in offices and nearby district factories. Once Ningbo was just around the today’s city center and everything was located in walkable or in a bicycle distance reach. But today this is a menace that is creating even more problems resulting in traffic jams and blocked street with heavy air pollution. Many Ningbo residents decide to have a car or use the car at a time when you should use the public transport like a taxi. When Evelyn mentioned this topic to some Chinese person, he gave her the surprised answer, that taxi in China is considered as private transport and only little regulated by the administration. An other mentioned, that Ningbo is having quite soon the alternative of light rail, underground and other urban mass transport coming up, that will make it of little interest to invest into taxis. We will see and further on plan our daily schedule depending on, if and when taxis are available. It is just funny when you talk to people that did travel China and tell you that the first thing they remember is the birdcage and the switch time in Ningbo. On the other hand Chinese travelers returning from overseas remember that in Germany the Taxis are AUDI and Benz or in USA the Chevrolet. It might be a good study object for the university to set up a long term survey about social aspects of public transport including taxi while considering the environmental and social effects on Ningbo.

In 2005 the foreign community made an online survey with several topics that they consider that Ningbo could learn from other countries. It was called project Ningbo 2011. The short documentation was forwarded to the governmental office and might have given some ideas and suggestions about possibilities to make Ningbo more modern and advanced. Thus did show that several expats do really consider the time they spend here in Ningbo as part of their live and as part of a multicultural society.

Another topic that is of great importance to many foreigner that stay in Ningbo for longer terms and with families is the medical service. In the past years Ningbo Bird company did sponsor a medical expert, who came each week from Shanghai to Ningbo, to support the foreign community in medical consultation. For many foreigners in Ningbo it was the only way to talk to a doctor in a language that is more familiar than Chinese. Medical care is essential to well being. In most cultures the doctor is one of the most trusted person, as you might feel that your live is depending on his knowledge. However since the pull out of Sagem as partner of Ningbo Bird, the situation is not the same. The community might face the problem that the foreign doctor might be a thing from the past.

However over the past years Ningbo government has made strong efforts to improve the medical care for foreigner and did invest into the construction of the “foreign medical service center” which will go into service by 2010. This events and situations is showing us the cycle of life and it is also showing in the relationship between the cultures. There are times of good understanding between almost all of us and days when things that can go wrong, they just do go wrong.

Partly this experience and the feeling of a quite big number of  foreigners which stay just here for a short time in the town, might be the reason of the fatalisms and lethargy of so many foreigners. It might be ok for the pub owner and bar owner in Ningbo, which by the way many of them have really a difficult time, but on the other hand does not build any cultural understanding within the society. Bar gossips and missing understanding of the diversity of cultures result in misunderstanding and conflicts, creating a wrong picture about the intentions of the expat community.

In the past the Ningbo University in their different campuses was traditionally the ears and eyes of Ningbo to the “outer world” mainly because of the language skills and the direct contact to foreigners like teachers. This has changed in some ways and an opening process has started. But the mixing process is slow and the foreign community is split. It is obvious that a teacher with 5000 rmb a month has a different life style and entertainment expectation than a middle range manager with 30,000 a month. The Ningbo night life is reflecting this in the people attending certain places and events. Looking at Ningbo today and Ningbo 6 years ago, it shows that the mixing between the income levels has decreased. Many teacher stay on the campus or go to the lower end bars because that is what they can afford. Interesting enough Eckhard had a talk with some management staff in Nottingham Wanli University and found that only very few of the teachers are really socializing with the foreign community or with Chinese citizens outside of the campus. They are in fact one of the closed communities in Ningbo.

Closed communities are quite typical for the Ningbo expat community and most likely you are getting more aware of it when you do the active socializing. In the first thought it is contradicting, but when you are involved into the community work and networking, you suddenly realize that there are many nationalities that are here organized in groups. We have seen the official statistics of people living in Ningbo, but you don’t see the people on the street. The Indian community once had a gathering place in the Indian Kitchen in Embassy restaurant complex, some of you might still remember, which later moved into Lao Waitan and is literally disappeared now, Only a name plate is recalling the former existence of the restaurant. But you realize that also the Indian community is almost invisible now. The same with the Korean community, the Japanese community and to some extent to the Taiwan community. May be it is that the Asian communities blend more into the Chinese society by appearance, but still the cultural mix that is not happening the same way. From the past we know that certain East Asian communities have much more cultural restrictions and language problems than western foreigners, but still it is an interesting challenge to get in touch with more communities to see the diversification.

Ningbo has become big over night. Strange enough this has separated the city’s communities into sections and not more unified. There are the Zhenhai communities, the Beilun community and some other smaller locations around where foreigner live. Distances that are normal to travel in Shanghai and are done often 2 times a day, seem to be endless for many here in Ningbo. Going from Beilun to the city will take about 50 minutes, almost in no time comparing to one Hour Shanghai traffic jam. However for most, meeting for a coffee in downtown area is not possible because it is too far away. It is really fun to hear for people that had been living in other big cities that really made it a day trip to go downtown and by a new shirt at the only shopping center available. I am talking about Mumbai or Lagos. But there it was exiting and you had to do it, so it was done.

As mentioned before, in Ningbo are many foreigners that are here because they had been sent by their company. Sent here to make money for their company and a living for themselves. Also several small business that are working hard to supply goods and services to overseas customers. For many of them, the social and business networking among the foreigner is of little use and their job is such tiring that they really prefer to have a beer and some do not even do that.

It sound like a bad joke, but is reality. Several times I have met other foreigner in places where you normally don’t like to go and had a chat. For example at the hospital, I met a middle aged American that did not know about Lao waitan, 2 years after its opening. He did just know the LBB bar and actually did not like to go there because, in his opinion, only students are sitting inside. I must admit that he was obviously not a very social person and networking did obviously not mean anything to him, at least with foreigners in Ningbo. For many “long time stay foreigners” here, they time did stop. They still live in the old days of  Ningbo 2002 when it started to become a city. Looking back to the milestones in the development of the expat community in the years 2004-2009. The life did change for many foreigners by having a much better housing and shopping infrastructure. New places for communications had been created and will be created in the time to come. The structure of the foreigner did not change much when it comes to the positions working within a company structure, as also the social need have been the same.

The establishing of several local websites over the past few years has made it possible to get and send information. This might be an important one or just for being part of something to talk about. Organizations of whatever structure in self initiative of the foreigners have broadened the horizon of the intercultural understanding and communication. But it has  also some downsides which show from time to time and send shock waves through the community or at least parts of it.

The short lifetime of the Hello Ningbo magazine brought some diversification into the Ningbo Foreigners news world. It did nicely try to combine the Beilun and Ningbo communities in additional activities with Ningbo Expat. It was not the only publication that disappeared we had InTouch, City to City magazine and one or two other magazines popping up and diapering again. As said, a coming and going that gave the Ningbo Guide magazine a special position in the information chain here in town. It is like the yellow pages for foreigner in English and Chinese language. The second one you need, when you pull out the address from the magazine to show it to the taxi driver, who again does not understand where you want to go. I do not expect English speaking drivers in Ningbo, but some at least know the city landmarks even they are from outside. Other Milestones in the expat live where the open-air concerts in lao waitan organized by foreigners as well as by locals. This did bring a little bit of change to the monotony of Ningbo Culture live. When going into the concert hall or the Grand theater, you will seen only a very few foreigner mingling with the Chinese people and enjoying the cultural life. This might be based on the age structure and different cultural background, but also at he missing information about such events in advance. Also a few only know the existence of Southeast China Business Weekly English news paper, which again is more like an insider tip to know that it does exist. Craig, Eckhard, Evelyn and some members of the foreign community are using to opportunity to write a story for the English news on a regular bases.

You can get the newspaper at many news stands on each given Sundays. Obviously this article did miss many things in this review but it is the way that Eckhard and Evelyn did experience and to some extent influence the process over the last 5 – 6 years.

People are coming and going. Some are bonding to Ningbo, others are just floating by. Some will have memories about Ningbo and other will not even remember the area code of Ningbo after short time. Many care about the place and people to make at least some temporary friends, some think it is a waste of time to get into any relationship at all. However some find the love of their live and have to realize the that cultural difference have to be overcome on all sites.

The networking and relationship building with in communities is an important matter that need to have a variety of communication platforms, events and organizations. No one should belief that putting all eggs into one basket will be the right way. At the end of the day it will break all eggs and it is of no ones benefit, especially not to the one of the expat community. Giving credit to all that have supported and are supporting the process of supporting a multicultural and harmonious society is an essential part of this story. Many more have contributed and not mentioned above, but they are important to all and will be supported in their efforts. A community is living from the diversification of it members and each one is important in its own way. It is the innovative and active people that bring the ideas and action and it’s the community which brings these ideas to life. It is Ningbo Life and it is the life of the people living here.

The progress is going on... update will come... NingboExpat (talk) 00:34, 16 March 2010 (UTC) NingboExpat (talk) 00:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC) NingboExpat (talk) 04:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC) www.ningbolife.com www.ningboexpat.com proprietor of site NingboExpat (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)