Yesterday I was shocked to see that people do not stand up for others.
I was in the metro train heading to People's Square. We were standing in one station and the doors were already closing. Suddenly people in the metro train would stare outside of the windows.
What was going on?
Then I saw:
A man, maybe 40 years old had fallen to the ground straight with his chin onto the pavement. His glasses were screwed and his arms were at his sides. His whole body was shaking and really I suppose everyone around him thought he was going to die.
What really shocked me, was that all the people around him ignored him. They passed around him in a well defined circle, not even giving him a glance.
Others were merely standing (in a good distance away from him) and starring at him. But noone, not a single person came to him and helped him, noone called an ambulance. - it was none of their business.
They were probably afraid of him. Maybe he was sick and they could maybe infect themselves by touching him?
After a while he stopped shaking and stood up, still dizzy. He took his glasses, realized that they were twisted and... our train began to move.
I do not know what happened to the man after we left the station, but I felt infuriated to see that noone considered to help.
The people standing around him, were watching and waiting for the next thing that would happen to him. Will he be alright? Will he black out? Will he die? Why is he shaking? What kind of illnes does he have? Is it a heart attack? Can I get infected? Shall I help? Why should I help?
I can understand their worries. It is always a question of being selfish and being altruistic.
Every day we make the decision and choose one or the other side.
Especially in China this question is very prominent. There are sooooo many people in China, if you are not selfish how can you survive? What does it give you back if you are altruistic here? With its politic system, is it only possible to think for yourself in order to really exist?
What would you have done?
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
An honest post.
I feel bad for not having posted for so long.
These weeks have been pretty intense and I lived at the verge of life...
But the most important insight so far has been:
In Shanghai I am finding myself again.
Every day I meet someone and I talk to him about life, love and his view on the world. It surprises me how differently people can think about things and this helps me to reflect over my own principles and my perception of the world.
Here in Shanghai I get encouraged to pursue the things I truly love, and that those things do have a value. Before, I got convinced that drawing, painting, playing music and writing were not worth much.
It did not mean anything to the world I lived in. It did not get appreciated by the ones I loved. Instead other things like certain internships got highly valued and I was respected for these achievements, although their true inner value is only marginal to me and I am accepted and respected for the wrong reasons. I want to be respected for the talents I have and for the person I am and not for performing well in certain areas.
I think in our modern world with a redundant flow of information, we sometimes lose focus on the things we truly want, and pursue the goals which are generated by society. It becomes much harder to stay the person one is and not to try to be someone else.
Il faut toujours écouter de ce que le coeur dit...
Here in Shanghai I finally have the epiphany that some things of my past need to change and I am doing my best to do so.
Tu erst das Notwendige, dann das Mögliche und plötzlich schaffst du das Unmögliche
P.S.
I went to the wedding of my cousin (I've never met him before), here are some impressions.
These weeks have been pretty intense and I lived at the verge of life...
But the most important insight so far has been:
In Shanghai I am finding myself again.
Every day I meet someone and I talk to him about life, love and his view on the world. It surprises me how differently people can think about things and this helps me to reflect over my own principles and my perception of the world.
Here in Shanghai I get encouraged to pursue the things I truly love, and that those things do have a value. Before, I got convinced that drawing, painting, playing music and writing were not worth much.
It did not mean anything to the world I lived in. It did not get appreciated by the ones I loved. Instead other things like certain internships got highly valued and I was respected for these achievements, although their true inner value is only marginal to me and I am accepted and respected for the wrong reasons. I want to be respected for the talents I have and for the person I am and not for performing well in certain areas.
I think in our modern world with a redundant flow of information, we sometimes lose focus on the things we truly want, and pursue the goals which are generated by society. It becomes much harder to stay the person one is and not to try to be someone else.
Il faut toujours écouter de ce que le coeur dit...
Here in Shanghai I finally have the epiphany that some things of my past need to change and I am doing my best to do so.
Tu erst das Notwendige, dann das Mögliche und plötzlich schaffst du das Unmögliche
P.S.
I went to the wedding of my cousin (I've never met him before), here are some impressions.
Monday, March 15, 2010
restless weekend
don't have much time to write but i felt like sharing some pictures:
this was on the bus trip to TongLi, a Chinese girl had her "fun camera" with her. A cool thing, it reminded me of the old kodak camera, where you could get instant pictures out of it.
afterwards my family and I celebrated the 80th birthday of my grandmother. She is so cute, and so tough, too, she drank the most wine and alcohol that evening haha!
this was on the bus trip to TongLi, a Chinese girl had her "fun camera" with her. A cool thing, it reminded me of the old kodak camera, where you could get instant pictures out of it.
afterwards my family and I celebrated the 80th birthday of my grandmother. She is so cute, and so tough, too, she drank the most wine and alcohol that evening haha!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Legendary..
Yesterday was legendary... we were out until 8 a.m. whoa... that doesn't happen often.
The night started out with a party at J.'s place.
It was an awesome appartment on the 30th floor with a very cool view over the city.
I was pretty astonished when I opened the door to the appartment. At least 35 foreigners jumped into my view.
I have only been here for a week, but it already felt weird seeing all those German, French, Italian, American cramped into one place, talking in their various languages but Chinese... in fact all the Asian people at this house party were from France or in my case from Germany ;)
It reminded me of my ERASMUS days back in Paris. Man it's been one year... time's just passing by so fast.
We had a pretty good kick-start at the party and at 2 or was it still 1? -I don't remember to be honest we went to Mint again and partied until 3 or was it 4? ahhh I really can't remember!
Anyways here are some impressions from Thursday, the club is really cool, we even got the business card of the manager, so next time we can just contact him if we want to go to Mint
powered by our friends from citymoments.cn, who work couple of floors above our office
The part of the night which made the night legendary was actually after clubbing. So after having spent 2 hours in McDonalds again with all the migrant workers, who were sleeping in McD.
we had the crazy idea to go to the Bund with a cab. I mean why not right? It was 6:30 a.m., already getting light, and there is generally nothing else to do at 6:30 haha.
We were standing on a bridge to see Pudong with the Chinese Pearl TV Tower as there was construction work done at the Bund for the Expo2010.
But after standing on the bridge for a while, it got so cold that we came up with the idea to just randomly take a bus and see where the bus would take us. So after a long night we got a pretty cheap inofficial tourist city trip. I just looooove to do those spontaneous stuff!
That's how we winded up til 8 a.m.... I was glad when I fell into my bed.
i'm still tired. but it was worth it :)
The night started out with a party at J.'s place.
It was an awesome appartment on the 30th floor with a very cool view over the city.
I was pretty astonished when I opened the door to the appartment. At least 35 foreigners jumped into my view.
I have only been here for a week, but it already felt weird seeing all those German, French, Italian, American cramped into one place, talking in their various languages but Chinese... in fact all the Asian people at this house party were from France or in my case from Germany ;)
It reminded me of my ERASMUS days back in Paris. Man it's been one year... time's just passing by so fast.
We had a pretty good kick-start at the party and at 2 or was it still 1? -I don't remember to be honest we went to Mint again and partied until 3 or was it 4? ahhh I really can't remember!
Anyways here are some impressions from Thursday, the club is really cool, we even got the business card of the manager, so next time we can just contact him if we want to go to Mint
powered by our friends from citymoments.cn, who work couple of floors above our office
The part of the night which made the night legendary was actually after clubbing. So after having spent 2 hours in McDonalds again with all the migrant workers, who were sleeping in McD.
we had the crazy idea to go to the Bund with a cab. I mean why not right? It was 6:30 a.m., already getting light, and there is generally nothing else to do at 6:30 haha.
We were standing on a bridge to see Pudong with the Chinese Pearl TV Tower as there was construction work done at the Bund for the Expo2010.
But after standing on the bridge for a while, it got so cold that we came up with the idea to just randomly take a bus and see where the bus would take us. So after a long night we got a pretty cheap inofficial tourist city trip. I just looooove to do those spontaneous stuff!
That's how we winded up til 8 a.m.... I was glad when I fell into my bed.
i'm still tired. but it was worth it :)
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Boom Boom Pow, Yeah!, Drop it like it's hot
tonite is gonna be legen.... wait for it...DARY....
Man, i'm glad to be back in Shanghai. It is AWESOME!
So after a long day of work (>10 hours -.-) we went partying in the Mint Club. Whoa, what a feeling to stand on the 24th floor of a building next to People's Square, having a very prestige, elegant interior and little sharks swimming around you in an aquarium, ...and the best RnB remixed.
The DJ was actually pretty good, he was French, - well so i suppose ;)
he was feeling pretty superior over all those little >cute< Chinese girlies and he only played very old stuff, "i'm so 3008 you are soooo 2000 and late" oh yea black eyed peas were definately right! But at least he played it very well!
So at about 3, or was it already 4? We left the club and went to a 24/7 McDonalds - it almost felt like being back at Karlsplatz, Munich ;).
I think I was in bed by 5:30? Well work hard play hard, right Q.? ;)
Partying yesterday definately helped me to finally arrive here in Shanghai...
oh and just for you M., I believe if you would have started a blog back in January, your entry for last night would have been something along those lines:
"maaaaan, I feel sooo overwhelmed by those Chinese girls, they all want to get me into bed and then they want me to import them to Europe. no have no have!!!"
naww- im just kidding
oh well let's see how the weekend is going to be...
Man, i'm glad to be back in Shanghai. It is AWESOME!
So after a long day of work (>10 hours -.-) we went partying in the Mint Club. Whoa, what a feeling to stand on the 24th floor of a building next to People's Square, having a very prestige, elegant interior and little sharks swimming around you in an aquarium, ...and the best RnB remixed.
The DJ was actually pretty good, he was French, - well so i suppose ;)
he was feeling pretty superior over all those little >cute< Chinese girlies and he only played very old stuff, "i'm so 3008 you are soooo 2000 and late" oh yea black eyed peas were definately right! But at least he played it very well!
So at about 3, or was it already 4? We left the club and went to a 24/7 McDonalds - it almost felt like being back at Karlsplatz, Munich ;).
I think I was in bed by 5:30? Well work hard play hard, right Q.? ;)
Partying yesterday definately helped me to finally arrive here in Shanghai...
oh and just for you M., I believe if you would have started a blog back in January, your entry for last night would have been something along those lines:
"maaaaan, I feel sooo overwhelmed by those Chinese girls, they all want to get me into bed and then they want me to import them to Europe. no have no have!!!"
naww- im just kidding
oh well let's see how the weekend is going to be...
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Shanghai and first days at work...
powered by flickr
So guys, I decided to revive my blog as I am abroad again, so feel free to come back on a regular basis :)
Currently, I am in Shanghai for a research program, which I am conducting with my university and an online furniture start-up company, that is located in Shanghai. It is my third day here in Shanghai, I am still quite jetlagging, and we have shitty cold weather, but still I feel back home. :) It is just so nice to see my family again and eat yummie chinese food my grandmother cooked haha!
And it is definately a new and positive experience working for a start-up company. You get to have more freedom on what you are working on and how you are working on your project. We are currently developing an innovation community connected to Facebook - a very exciting project!
The work content and spirit in a start-up company encourages me to start my own company, cos I am actually having fun here, unlike during my internships in those big, well-known companies.
Sooo anyone up for founding a company with me? ;)
Besides, we have a very young and international team, people from Sweden, France <3, England, Germany and China, so we are pretty multicultural and it is fun spending time with those guys. Another thing is, I also met a German girl, I already met at a workshop in Frankfurt a year ago. What a coincidence, the world is definately small! :)
With her and all the other interns we will go partying tomorrow, so yea besides hard work (i am still in the office, already 10 working hours down ...) we are having a great time in Shanghai.
luv Christine
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