The struggles that I mentioned in my prior posts are nothing comparing to how much fun this has been so far; or to all the lessons that I am learning here. For me the best part of this program are not the what you learn from the lectures in class but all the indirect leaning associate with this awesome experience.

For example while working with my group sometimes I find myself frustrated with our differences. Despite the language not being a big issue here (because everyone in this program speaks “enough” English) it still really hard to work with people with completely different backgrounds, who have different life and professional values. However, I constantly remind myself that situations like this will be the same in the “real world” and I will have to find a way to work around our differences if I want to accomplish my goal. Thus, I can’t even imagine how valuable getting to have some experience on cases like this can be for my carrier.

I know that all the struggles mentioned might sound silly because I should expect the language barrier and all the others culture shocking differences. Honestly, I did expect it but EXPECTING and EXPERIENCING are two completely different things. With all this in mind, I can’t help but be thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.

We still have many days before the end of this program but I can already see how much it will enhance and add value in my professional carrier. This experience is proving to me that no matter how much research you do and how well prepared you think you are the best and only way to fully understand something is by living it.

This is my first time traveling to another country besides USA. I say besides USA because nowadays I live in the US but I am originally from Brazil. Prior to come to China I did a lot of research and thought that I knew what to expect and was prepared to experience the culture differences. I thought that wouldn’t be too hard for me to overcome the cultural differences in China because I had done it before when I moved to US 6 years ago. Well, I was wrong and I quickly realized it when I had to order a coffee by pointing at the picture and hoping that the coffee would taste good (I could not read what was in the coffee because the description was written in Chinese of course).

The struggle # 1 (BUT FIRST COFFEE)
I don’t consider myself to be a picky eater so I thought that I would do fine in terms of food here in China. Again I was wrong, even the coffee served in our Hotel for breakfast is really different and I can not get used to it. I don’t really like instant coffee but over here I am having no other choice but to drink it. In fact, I bought a box of instant coffee and I have it every morning. As you can see in the picture below I am so happy for finally having some somewhat normal coffee.

The struggle # 2
I am also having a hard time to eat Chinese food for every meal every day. Again because I don’t considered myself a picky eater I thought I’d be fine eating Chinese for every meal. However, even though I eat basically everything (meat, chicken, pork, steak, veggies and noddles etc), I think that the seasonings used over here and the way they cook the food is really unique. I feel like the smell of their food is everywhere all the time which is making me have a hard time to adapt to the food. Please don’t get me wrong, most of the food that I tried here is really delicious but I can not have it all the time. Most of the days I try to only eat Chinese food in one meal and for the second I try to eat the snacks I brought or I go out for food. We (the students) actually found a yummy pizza place walking distance from our campus and we go there often.

Ps: Back home I normally don’t even eat pizza but over here my resources are limited so I am eating it often.