My first encounter with China…

Right now I am lounging with a glass of “Great Wall” red wine in my hand overlooking the Haihe river at night time. I am in our apartment on the 28th floor of a building down town Tianjin and I count myself extremely lucky for the opportunity we have been given. Let me say it once and for all: I LOVE CHINA!

I have been here for little more than a month now and it have been very eventful. Since this is the first update, I will not go into details, but give you an overview of what is going on in our lives right now.

Work stuff
I have joined a fantastic team of passionate colleagues – both in my finance team as well as in the management team. People are competent and have welcomed me into the NNIT China family. One of the things I have noted during my first time working in NNIT China is that the management has succeeded in keeping a Danish work culture in the company with open discussions and a low power distance. This has made the transition very easy for me and I think that I have already established a good relationship with many of my colleagues.

For those of you who do not know the company – here are some facts about NNIT China:

• Currently 587 employees (up from only app 100 employees 3 years ago)
• Only general manager and myself are from DK – rest is from China
• Primarily working as subcontractor to NNIT Denmark and working on large customers such as DSB and Arla.
• Hiring 20-25 new employees each month

If I should mention one thing I have learned: Working in NNIT China is not so different from working in Denmark… only everything is happening much faster…

Private stuff
Danielle and I have had the ultimate test – being away from each other for 57 days. Quite an achievement, but not something that I hope we will experience too many times. I have spent the time alone trying to get familiar with the city of Tianjin as well as getting everything in place for when Danielle finally comes here (apartment, car, bikes, etc.). The city a great place and in spite of app 10-12 million inhabitants it still feels Chinese and there are almost no foreign people or tourists (good thing).

As mentioned before, I have been welcomed with open arms, which means that my calendar has been booked by badminton/tennis matches, dinner with colleagues, hiking trips to the surrounding mountains, etc… I have met so many friendly and welcoming people here and there are so many things to do that we are definitely not going to be bored the next three years 🙂

Anyway, this was just a short update before Danielle comes here – there will be many more to come with detailed descriptions of our life out here. Remember to check out the photos in the photo section.

On a finishing note you will get a small teaser for the updates to come.

The former head of finance in China had 2 favorite sayings:

1. In China everything is possible
2. Not all that glimmers in China is of gold

I very much like these two sentences as they embrace a lot of the everyday I experience in China these days, so they will be the topics for the next updates. Stay tuned…