Jessie, Shanghai, China
“Don’t focus on differences, but at the same time, open your arms and accept that people are different”.
A glimpse of everyday life, thoughts about life itself, dreams & fears, past & future from Shanghai.
Read how two girls, one from China and other from Finland, connected thanks to Kimi Räikkönen!
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There are over 1,4 billion Chinese only in China, so how smart it is to talk about stereotypes?
Tiina says: “I feel remorse as I remember that talking about Jessie to my friends, I often referred to her as “not typical Chinese” and still today cannot clearly explain, what was my exact imagine of a typical Chinese and how on earth I was imaging this enormous country someway as a whole? Once a Chinese friend stroke back and asked me: “I have a friend, Jerome. He is French. As an European, do you know him?”
But anyway, Jessie was my first local connection while living in Shanghai and a good example of how we often have, even when coming from totally different worlds, more things in common than differences.
Thanks to Kimi Räikkönen, we easily found connection with Jessie! Jessie loves sport and is huge fan of Kimi Räikkönen. Jessie tells:” It was year 2005, Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka circuit. Räikkönen started from the 17th place but managed successfully to pass all 16 racers and won the whole race. It was just amazing, and since that I have been a huge fan! He is cool, not much words, just focusing on his job – I admire. And of course, he is also a good-looking guy!”.
It was year 2005 when Kimi was ruling the world of Formula 1, and headlines of the sport magazines, and his picture was (in a watch advertisement) in one of the top places in Shanghai’s main street, Nanjing Road. Once a month Jessie and I had an official sales meeting and always, just before the meeting, we met, had a cup of coffee and I updated all the important topics, including news related to Räikkönen, whatever Kimi had done during the past weeks (according to Finnish newspapers!).
This is how our connection started. Still after years it is easy to see how similar our life can be no matter if we live in quite different worlds. After reading Jessie’s story Mirka, who had never met Jessie, said how surreal it was to read about her everyday life and thoughts as it was so similar to any other single girl working in high-speed business. It is about working long hours, meeting friends, being just at home, travelling often and, in this case, loving sport. And about the fears that COVID 19 brough to us: since forever we have been told that whatever happens, there will always be jobs at Travel Business. And all of suddenly, literally in weeks, we started to realize that this could be not true.
But after all these years I still don’t know Jessie’s Chinese name. Jessie has always been Jessie for me. Often Chinese who work in international business environment choose a western name and print that also into business cards. The reason is simple: Chinese names are difficult for Westerns, we cannot learn them, we don’t remember them easily, we are not able to pronounce them, and we often even pronounce them wrong so that the whole meaning of the original name and idea changes (sometimes into vulgar or rude…). For us, who don’t speak Chinese, it is also impossible to know whether person is male or female only by looking at the name. So, the usage of the western name makes the communication and cooperation easier between Chinese and Western. “
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Meet Jessie from Shanghai, China. She is single and lives with her dad. Her dear mother passed away 3 years ago. “Living with parents is quite normal in China”, Jessie says. She is very close with her 20 years old niece, even closer than niece’s mother, Jessie’s 5 years older sister.
Before 31st Aug 2020, Jessie worked in business development for British brand cruise company in China. Unfortunately, impacted by COVID-19, Jessie left the company she had been served for 4.5 years because of redundancy. Now she needs to find her new direction.
Jessie and Tiina met long time ago in Shanghai where they worked together: Jessie in hotel’s Sales and Tiina in tour operator side.
EVERYDAY LIFE
Jessie’s normal Tuesday consist of meetings with the clients as she dedicates days from Tuesday to Thursday to sales calls and meetings in the office. After work she goes back home, takes a rest as talking all day long can be tiresome thing! Very best in everyday life according to Jessie is to wake up after a good sleep, have a smooth day, then afterwards a drink with her friends. Worst kind of day would be busy or boring as hell.
The virus has had an impact to what Jessie finds stressful: “before COVID 19 I would have answered that I get stressed when some work project requires constantly higher capability and knowledge than I think I have, but after February I have learn that when I have nothing to do, that can also be quite stressful!.”
A must, several times a year, is travelling with a friend. And if you travel to China, please consider Jessie’s tip: find a native Chinese, not a tour guide, but a local Chinese, to show you what the real China is! Don’t visit only the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, as many of those smaller cities like Xi’an, Chengdu, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Suzhou deserved to be visited.
During her free time, she loves to spend time with her friends, just relax watching TV and movies, reading and listening to music. Music gives energy and comforts: “recently the songs that have touched are Memories by Maroon 5 and Angel by Sarah McLachlan. I just lost a friend. She was a super-positive and sunny woman but died from breast cancer. Broke my heart.”
DREAMS & FEARS, PAST & FUTURE
What are your dreams?
“Living a very simple life in a sunny beach.”
What is your worst fear?
“Uncertainty towards my future. Because of COVID-19, I started to think what else, except my current job, I could do, and the terrible thing is that it seems that I can’t do anything else than something related to travel industry. I’m scared, I must admit.”
What is the most important advice you have received?
“Be true to yourself.”
What has been the greatest global invention of your time?
“During the last 10 years the biggest impact into my life has a smart phone. It has of course also negative impact to my life, but it makes my life more convenient and easier.”
Where would you donate your time/money to?
“To help women and children would be the best choice. Women play a key role in a family but most people in China, especially in those areas of poverty in China, always ignore value of women. People have been trying to change the situation for years but it’s a long journey.”
Has the position of girls/women changed during your lifetime?
“Changed among certain independent women, especially in 1st tier cities of China, like Beijing and Shanghai, many women started to live their own way, although still have high pressure around them but, they have a control over their own life. For women, the more independent they are, the higher position they could have. But still, it’s still long way to go.”
If you could, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
“Live boldly, don’t settle, push yourself.”
Where will you be in 10 years?
”Living more freely. More senior I am, the clearer I know what kind of life I would like to have: much more control to my own life.”
What would you say to a woman of your age who lives across the world?
“We may have a lot of differences, but we also have many things in common. Don’t focus on differences but open your arms and accept that people are different.”
When asked about Christmas, Jessie laughs:
“We don’t celebrate Christmas in China, however some people use this as an excuse to party!”
STORY
We are easy to be impacted by stereotypes towards certain nationalities. In our Chinese impression, stereotype of an Italian, could be romantic and many other things, but they have nothing to do with reality. There’s an Italian who changed my impression towards them. In 2018 I travelled to Italy together with my dad and a friend we booked a room through Airbnb. The apartment we booked belonged to a guy name Florian. We reached agreement very quick. The moment we confirmed the deal, Florian started to give me all kinds of tips about Rome and I was impressed already by that. Our flight time to Rome arrived in the middle of night and I worried about the late arrival, so Florian proactively offered help and rented a car for us. Before we arrived, I still worried if the car would come and, yes, it showed up. When we reached Florian’s apartment, it was around 1:30am already. He waited us outside of the building. After showing around his apartment, it was about 2am and Florian asked me if I’m still sober enough to talk. Honestly, I was tired and sleepy, but it was hard for me to reject his kindness and all the help, so I said yes. There, in the middle of the night, he took out map of Rome and introduced all kind of places we should go and visit and how to go there. He even drew several day- itineraries for us. I was so touched. After that, Florian added me on his WhatsApp and shared a lot of Trip Advisor’s restaurant links to me and told me if I need help to book table, I should just let him know and he would call them for us. He did keep his promises in the following days, checked every day how our day was going and did we need help with something.
I am a repeat Airbnb user and I’ve met many good owners, but Florian was the one of a kind. He was so warm and responsible, and he changed my previous idea of Italians a lot. This also made me realized that, don’t ever use stereotypes to see this world: people are different and diverse, shouldn’t judge anyone before you even know them.
During the past years, I heard many foreigners saying that I don’t seem like a typical Chinese. I’m a very typical Chinese, but maybe because I can speak English and as personality being very straight forward, it is helping my communication with foreigners. When we travel abroad, we often kind of broke stereotypes of the people we get to know and at the same time, we help to broke other people’s stereotypes toward Chinese. This is an interesting part of travel and I love it a lot.
QUICK ONES
Drink: coffee
Favorite food: hot pot
Delicacy: any Sichuan cuisine
Spice: must
Scent: wooden
Travel destination: Spain
Book: The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Movie: The Shawshank Redemption by Frank Darabont
Favorite public holiday: Chinese New Year
Artist/band: Adele
Evening routine: back home, do some exercises, have a dinner, watch TV series or movie, then go to bed
Favorite piece of clothing: T-shirt
Animal: dog
Scenery: sunset
Sport: I’m a sports maniac
Motto: Be true to yourself