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It's love at first sight for specialist lived in Beijing

CHINADAILY · 公众号 · 时评 · 2024-11-20 17:34

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In early November, Lucia Anderson returned to China, where she had spent more than six years living in Beijing, to undergo training for two months for her new job with BYD in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

Anderson joined leading EV maker BYD Brazil as a senior specialist for intercultural training, a position she called "my dream job "for "building bridges to connect China and Brazil" when she announced it on LinkedIn.

"I am hired to give cultural trainings for Brazilians to better understand China and for Chinese to better understand Brazil," Anderson said, adding that her job also requires her to train Portuguese teachers who prepare Chinese to work in Brazil.

BYD has made a big investment to build a manufacturing complex in Campinas, northeastern Brazil. It's expected to go into operation by the end of this year or early next year with an estimated annual production capacity of 150,000 units in the first phase.

▲ Lucia Anderson (right) during her last day of class with her students in June as a Portuguese lecturer at Beijing Normal University in Beijing. Photo provided to China Daily

"It's going to be a very, very big factory. We are expecting to have between 10,000 to 15,000 employees. I know for China it's not too many, but for Brazil it's a very significant number," Anderson said.

Her extensive involvement with China came as an accident, Anderson said. She joined IBM in Brazil after college and three years later decided to gain some international experience.

"I applied for more than 60 countries. China was the first one that offered me a position. I went to China not because I was interested in China. I just went for a work opportunity. But as soon as I arrived, I fell in love with this country," Anderson said.

After her 10-month program with a Chinese pharmaceutical company in Beijing, Anderson decided to stay and landed a job as a Portuguese specialist for Xinhua News Agency for two and a half years.

The job allowed her to learn various aspects of China and she became obsessed with Chinese language and culture. To better understand it, she got into a master's program in Chinese language and history at Communication University of China in 2010.

By the time Anderson finished her master's, her stint in China had turned into a stay of over five years. While pursuing her degree, Anderson became obsessed with another dream: studying at Peking University.

She worked as a cultural consultant between China, Brazil and the United States for a few years from 2012. In 2016, she got accepted into a joint PhD program at Peking University and State University of Campinas in Brazil with a focus on Brazil-China relations.

She went back to Beijing for her PhD, but the pandemic interrupted her plan to return to Brazil right after graduation. She ended up taking a job as a Portuguese lecturer at Beijing Normal University, a position she held until she returned to Brazil in July this year.

In total, Anderson has spent about 13 years in China's capital and considers herself almost a "Beijinger".

"I came to China to stay just 10 months. I liked it so much that I ended up staying a lifetime," Anderson said, speaking to China Daily from Shenzhen.

It's easy to fall in love with China, she said. "I love Chinese food so much, and I like all the different cuisines and the variety of them."

Another thing she likes about China is the sense of security. "In China I walk alone in the evening. I love this feeling of being safe. Even in Europe and in many parts of the US, it's not possible to feel as safe as I feel here."

"I love Beijing. I love the parks. I love the temples. I love walking and exploring the hutongs."

Anderson said she loves the friendliness of Chinese people and has made many friends with them. She recalled that one time she took a taxi and had a very bad cold. The taxi driver stopped the car and asked her to wait. Minutes later, he brought her a grapefruit drink from a store and told her that vitamin C would help her get better.

"I was really touched by his gesture. He showed me the kindness and generosity of Chinese people."

Relations between China and Brazil have grown commercially, diplomatically, culturally and linguistically, Anderson observed, and teaching Portuguese at a Beijing university gave her some unique perspectives.

"There is a long tradition of teaching the European version of Portuguese in China, but the market needs more Brazilian Portuguese speakers," Anderson said.

Chinese students who learn European Portuguese find that they have to relearn the Brazilian version of Portuguese to adapt to the market.

"So now we are seeing a change that more and more universities are teaching Brazilian Portuguese," Anderson said. "For sure it is due to the increased partnership and exchange between China and Brazil."

Demand for Portuguese language has also grown in China. "When I started working for the university over five years ago, around 40 universities offered Portuguese. Now there are more than 60."

There is also a big and growing demand for knowledge of Chinese language and culture in Brazil, Anderson said, and all sorts of programs on how to do business with China are popping up.

"I have observed that some people came to China for two or three months and they went back saying they know about China," Anderson said with a tone of disapproval. "China now is very popular in Brazil and people are more aware of the importance of the country."

Through her job with BYD, Anderson hopes to help Chinese people learn how to work in Brazil and how to deal with Brazilians, and conversely, she wants to help Brazilians know more about China.

"I want them to know how things have a different way to function in the two countries so in the end we can cooperate and learn from each other," she said.

For example, time flows differently for Chinese and Brazilians, Anderson said. Chinese have a sense of urgency and they want things to be done fast. "But in Brazil, the time is different. Usually there is a flow to the process and things take time. Some Chinese have difficulty understanding that."

On the other hand, Brazilians have a hard time understanding Chinese sometimes because Chinese people are not used to saying "no" directly, which can confuse Brazilians, Anderson said.

"I think we're doing a good job trying to better understand each other. It takes time but we are on the right path."

Reporter: May Zhou