On May 16, 2016, I landed at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai. The plane arrived on time and Feng Tang and Yang Yang, my lab fellows, warmly welcomed me at the airport and took me to my apartment. It was about 6:00 pm when I reached my final destination. The next day, Feng Tang took me to Bofeng Jiang’s office, and from that day on she helped me to do all the initial documentation and then started processing my application for a resident permit.

[IMAGE: FARIDOON, SHANGHAI INSTITUTE OF MATERIA MEDICA, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES]

It was an amazing experience and honor to be the first foreign postdoctoral fellow in Professor Huang’s lab. My first day at the lab was unforgettable. I was quite astonished and happy to see the honor given by my lab mates. Before my joining, all the presentations were conducted in the Chinese language, but soon after my arrival, Professor Huang Wei made it compulsory for all the students to speak and present their work in English. It was a good idea for the Chinese students and an excellent opportunity to learn English. During the lab work and daily communication, I started to learn Chinese but I regret to say that I could not make it. The life in the lab was normal but whenever I had to travel outside the school and to buy something, the language was always a big hurdle. The online shopping and payments with Alipay and WeChat solved the problem of buying stuff to some extent. At the beginning, it was a little hard to be far from my family but after around four months my family joined me in Shanghai. We visited many places in Shanghai but unfortunately, my family and I did not get an opportunity to travel outside of Shanghai to further explore the great country of China. My wife and I were highly impressed by Chinese hospitality. Most of the time people gave up their seats for us on metro trains. My two sons got a lot of love from the people living around our apartment and working in the nearby shops. It was always an embarrassing moment for me when people met with us and were telling us something, and we did not understand them. The most impressive and loving person I have ever met in China is the manager of our apartments. He helped us on so many occasions and always met my children with a big smile on his face.

In short, I have lived in Australia and South Africa but the respect and love I got here in China is unforgettable. The only thing which prevented me away from completely merging into the culture, ideology and tradition of China was difficulties with the Chinese language. Finally, I would like to thank the Chinese Academy of Sciences for my fellowship, the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Professor Huang Wei and all my lab fellows for being such nice company in China.

Source: Faridoon, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica,

 Chinese Academy of Sciences