The relatively unknown city of Zhuhai, located on the southern coast of Guangdong province in China close to Macau and Hongkong and according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences the most livable city in China, is growing and by growing we are talking about a totally new level.
The best possible example for Zhuhai´s growth and potential to move a step closer to the biggest cities like Shanghai or Beijing is the new International Tennis Centre which will host the WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai in November 2015. The first stage of the Centre´s development including 5â000 seats and 5 other match courts including a 1â000 seat court and 12 training courts will be completed by September 2015. This enormous $84  million construction will set a new benchmark for China because of its complexity and for Zhuhai because the city will gain worldwide attention.
The first event, announced by the Women´s Tennis Association (WTA), will be held in November 2015 and will repeat annually until 2019. The new tournament will be called WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai which is a singles and doubles competition offering $2.15 million in prize money. According to WTA Chairman & CEO Stacey Allaster:âThis brand new event combining great players, a fantastic new stadium, and the magnificent location of Zhuhai is a formula that will make the WTA Elite Trophy a successâ.
According to Lydia Long, Zhuhai Vice Major, the city is deeply grateful for making Zhuhai´s dream of joining the WTA family come true. Zhuhai is a beautiful, romantic and dynamic city which is more than happy to warmly welcome the best woman tennis players and tourists from all over the world in order to experience the greatness of Zhuhai themselves.
The Tennis Centre is designed by global sports architects Populous which is a global collective of architects, designers, technical experts and industry veterans. Their aim is to create places where millions of people unite. The firm is also well-known for designing the Wimbledon Centre Court´s moving roof and the recently completed Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne. To win the Zhuhai Tennis Centre Populous took part and won a high profile international competition.
Written by Kevin Kowalczyk | Intern at InternChina
Sources:
WTA: https://www.wtatennis.com/news/article/4202219/title/wta-elite-trophy-to-debut-in-zhuhai
10 Things about China that “Westerners” Envy – Part II of II
KTV
Who doesn´t like singing in the shower? In China karaoke reaches a new level. Everywhere you go you find KTV where Chinese as well as foreigners sing, eat, drink and have fun together. If you haven´t experience KTV before, it´s worth to go to China and see it yourself.
Note â Karaoke in China is a bit different from the drunken yodalling in the west. Chinese people can actually sing and they take it pretty seriously! Warm up with some scales before you go.
Streetfood
Street and food sounds like two different pair of shoes but in China this is common practice. Everywhere you go you will have little streetfood ârestaurantsâ where you can find everything from fried chicken feet to the best noodle soup you can imagine. Be open for everything and you will probably taste some of the most delicious food in the world.
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Beer in bags
Tired of opening beer bottles? Why not just buying plastic bags filled with the amount beer you would like to have? Sounds hilarious? In Qingdao, China you can find fresh brewed beer filled into plastic bags, just don´t forget to ask for a straw so you can directly enjoy the taste of the freshness.
InternChina TOP TIP â Can´t finish a bag in one go and struggling to put the bag down without spilling the beer?? Get a coat hanger, put the large hole on a door knob then hang the beer bag from the hanger hook! đ
The magic moment when cheese is 1/2 price in the foreign supermarket
Finding cheap cheese in China could be one of the hardest challenges in your lifetime. But there is this magic moment, the moment which conjures a big smile on your face, the moment where you see the cheese for half of the price in a foreign supermarket. But be careful, big queue´s of foreigners which nearly fight for getting a little peace of the cheesepie, so be prepared and bring a lot of patience with you.
Everything is hard but nothing is impossible
How often do you hear the sentence âThis is impossibleâ? In China there is a different mindset. Even if the challenge looks like the most impossible task the world ever faced, Chinese people find a solution for it. It might be not the best solution but it works and it´s better to have a solution that works than standing in the desert without any water.
Written by Kevin Kowalczyk | InternChina
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10 Things about China that Westerners Envy – Part I of II
Traffic Light Countdown Displays
Chinaâs traffic lights display the number of seconds left for those who are crossing or waiting to cross the street. Many foreign countries do have this, making it more inconvenient for pedestrians.
A Big Place to Explore
If you haven´t been to China before you rarely can imagine how much land China really has. Taking a bus or train from the south to the north of China doesn´t just take a couple of hours, it takes a couple of days, of course depending on where you are going to. I just remember my friend which said: âLet´s go to Shanghai by train and have a great weekend thereâ. My answer was: âIf you want to spend the whole weekend in the train I´m inâ.
Chinese lunch and dinner
Haven´t been invited to a typical chinese lunch or dinner yet? Then you definitely missed something. It´s not only delicious it´s even more and there will be such a variety of all kind of different food on the table that you will have problems about with which you start trying. But the best about it is to share all the food with others which makes it a really unique experience.
Taobao
Forget Amazon, forget ebay and everything else what you are used to in western countries youâre your online shopping experience. Whether you are looking for a human hamster wheel or rather a spaceflight, on Taobao you can find nearly everything.
Some facts:Taobao Marketplace had more than 5 million registered users as of June 2013 and hosted more than 80 million product listings. For the year ending March 31, 2013, the combined gross merchandise volume (GMV) of Taobao and Tmall.com combined exceeded RMB 1 trillion.
Music matters
Running along the beach while enjoying the sunshine and the fresh smell of water and one second later a guy with a bycycle drives by with a big music box on the front of his bike. Yes in China music matters and whichever public place you will be at you´ll find someone listen to music and yes, chinese people even share the music.
You will also find lots of free dance classes in the outdoors in squares and parks, where you can just join in and learn some new fantastic moves, even if the moves are old fashioned and surrounded by pensioners.
Written by Kevin Kowalczyk | Intern at InternChina Office Zhuhai