(1) Summarized Reflections of Week One

Day 1: Link to Day 1's Journal
Chinese culture in Singapore & China is very different. I noticed alot of difference one touching down in Wuhan.Firstly, the way they speak in chinese is very different from Singaporean's chinese. Secondly, when coming together to dine, they only uses a pair of chopsticks and nothing else. To that, I feel very ackward as I'm used to use a spoon to eat small amount of rice left in a bowl. Thus, by learning how the cultural differences is surfaced, I'll have no choice by learn to adapt myself with it.

Day 2: Link to Day 2's Journal
I learn about negotiating skills is very important in China. Especially in terms of getting the product/service you want, one have to be very clear in one's speech and statements. An experience I had, in the conversation between our WUST lecturer, Lisa, and the mobile shopkeeper, I can feel that they are very direct in their negotiating speech. They state clear and precise information of what they want. However in the end, there's an conflict evoked as the shopkeeper isn't really paying her fullest attention to Lisa. Lisa described numeral times clearly that she wanted a prepaid card that enable us to call overseas. To that, the shopkeeper kept saying yes, yes, it is possible. In the end, it turned out to be no, we couldn't make calls back to Singapore. Bought nearly about 100 of that partial-useless prepaid card. She's really into it! Bottomline, in this unique experience I've learnt that when one dealing things/business in Wuhan, we've to be very sure of the things and details we want and make sure that the other party is fully attentive! Furthermore, if one's buying a bulk, sample one first instead.

Day 3: Link to Day 3's Journal
Today Mr. Tan explained to us the reason behind all the laidbacks that we've experience in our dorms. compared to what it's stated before we came. The laidbacks were the missing washing machine & the inconvenient internet connection provided. The main reason is because that Mr. Tan doesn't meet-up face-to-face with the person-in-charge of WUST, discussing the plans in detailed. However he did it through a middleman and thus, information translated to and fro wasn't that clear and specific in details. Yes, we do have internet connection & a washing machine. Internet connection is locate at a shared classroom and the washing machine facility is located at one of the shops outside WUST. And we thought that it's all in our dorms. before we came! However, this has no one to be blamed for but personally, I think it is a good experience for me whereby in coming in discussing of short/medium/long termed duration activities, it is better for one to go down personally first to discuss face-to-face with the person-in-charge. Furthermore, I've to learn to handwash my own clothes too! I think it's fairly a good experience though. What's good is that Mr. Tan & team actually got us an internet connection in our dorms.! It's a good day when we went shopping and came back with internet connection fixed, and I want to thank Mr. Tan & team for the backup plans.

Day 4: Link to Day 4's Journal
In shopping centre, the receipt is very important. It is the departure pass for the customer to leave the supermart. Furthermore, not all shops own a POS system, whereby after picking the item from the shop, the shopkeeper will take note and prepare a handwritten receipt for customers to pass to a counter to process payment. Thus it is very different where Sinapore has all-in-one in a shop whereas in China, after processing payment, customers will have to make another way back to the shop to get their retained item to end transaction.

Day 5: Link to Day 5's Journal
Today, canteen 2 was very crowded during lunch period, especially in the vegetable rice stall. Thus, we decided to go and find out how may we start to buy food as the crowd is everywhere around the stall! Upon standing there for awhile, I can feel at my back that people started to push abit by bit, making me to raise my plate above my head. Hearing from my friend "Bringrong", he said that they experienced the locals cutting his queue. Thus I felt that one have to persistent when in China, but not overdoing it as Chinese still promotes harmony among each other.

I believe by now after going through nearly a week in Wuhan, experiencing from 2 situations in negotiating and in canteen ordering food, I've studied and learnt that in my opinion, chinese people in China are very persistent. They will not give up easily whenever they face any situation. Taking today's situation for example, we all are hungry and because of the unorganized queuing, there is not standard way of ordering food. Thus, some of them will try every means to get the food as soon as possible by squeezing through the crowds.