Back to China

Recently we visited China for an amazing time of reconnection with old friends.  We lived in Hefei, Anhui province in the 90s.  It’s not an expat or tourist city so our friendships were built with local colleagues and their families. 

These are the people who helped me to learn about culture –mine and theirs. 

Over three years of dinners and lunches, special celebrations and everyday life, we talked about families and work, leadership and management, parenting and children’s education, attitudes to money and saving, to health and wellbeing, to supporting family members and aged parents, governments and society, spirituality and religions.

In these conversations, my cultural intelligence was being built before I even knew the term.   

I had moments where my world shifted and I came to see things through different perspectives recognising that much of my knowledge to this point had been based on Western systems and research.

It has been amazing to reconnect twenty years later - in the same place, in person, and see the commonalities that still exist as we discussed work, (stressors, mergers, market changes, organisational adaptability) life (health, retirement planning, travels and experiences) and people (family, chidren's study, their partners, weddings and grandchildren). 

From #China to Sydney – some things change and some things stay the same.