Note from Blog host — another example of East meets West through business and trade: China Tour Online.com says of Pizza Hut in Shanghai, “Good dining environment and palatable pizza with tasty side dishes. It is always crowded during dining time, you need to wait in line. The recommended food include pizza, roast chicken wing, clam soup and cakes.”
WeninChina.com says, “Pizza Hut entered (China) in 1990 and has steadily grown to 520 restaurants in 2011.”
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Guest Post by Bob Grant — publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption, an international online magazine.
(Note: The photos included with this guest post are from my collection. Click on Originally Published to see more from Bob Grant.)
One of the aspects of my trips to China, that I truly enjoyed, was seeing all of the flowers, greenery, and gardens along the way. I wanted to specifically mention this fact, and state, the photos you might have seen of typical Chinese landscapes are true.
In fact, there were many more beautiful sights – of plants and flowers – than I had anticipated. I saw them in cities – in the country – in hotels – in restaurants – in offices – and other places too numerous to mention. Our office was in southern China – with a tropical climate – so there were flowers and greenery there any time of the year I visited.
As you go farther north, in China, there are the four seasons; however, even when it was too cold for outdoor plants there were many indoor ones wherever I went.
I do not enjoy planting or maintaining plants but I certainly like looking at them. The growing scenery I saw in China always gave me a feeling of tranquility.
I had once thought about buying a condo in Shenzhen so I could stay longer when I visited. One of the condos had a small patio (this was a multistoried condo building) and each patio came with a beautifully planted garden with flowers, plants, and trees. It was a place where I would have enjoyed going every evening and just sitting. It was covered so I could have enjoyed it in most types of weather.
Because I never stayed in the Western type hotels – rather staying where my Chinese associates stayed – I was treated to a unique insight on how some of the Chinese population lived.
Some of the hotels – where I stayed – were literally right next to apartment buildings. I could actually look out my window into those apartments.
I can’t say that I saw anything “personal” in nature but I did get to see how some Chinese decorated their apartments and balconies. I could also see the gardens many planted on the rooftops of their apartment buildings. Staying in those places certainly gave me even more appreciation of the Chinese people in that I saw a side of their lives that most “Westerners” would never see unless they stayed in places where I stayed.
I will always have fond memories of the many beautiful things I saw growing in China – it is a picture that will remain with me forever.
Note from Blog host – If you plan to do business in China, I recommend visiting the China Law Blog first.
Continued March 4, 2012 in Americans working in China – Part 13 (a guest post) or return to Part 11
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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About iLook China
Note: This guest post first appeared on March 17, 2010
Greg Morency is a general management executive who has 25 years of global experience in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) and B2B sectors, including ex-pat assignments in England and China. In September 2006, Greg, along with his wife and three children, moved from Illinois to Shanghai, China, where he established, managed and led Tate & Lyle’s Asia Pacific business unit. He and his family have just returned to the US.
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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