【Starting from the year of 2017, the Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, together with district governments, has started hosting the "Internationalized Shanghai Promotion Series" to demonstrate the achievements and future planning of each district and enhance the exchanges and cooperation between Shanghai and the world, so as to helpShanghai become a global city of excellence. After the first event series was held in Yangpu inthe first half year, the second event series, with the theme of “Internationalized Shanghai: The New Development and Attraction of the New Jing'an,” took place in Jing’an District—the heart of Shanghai. Eastday.cominterviewed some expats living and working in Jing’an, who talked about what they think of the new district, especially after its merger with Zhabei District.】

　　Angel Hentschel at Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

　　Angel Hentschel, born in 1988, is half German and half Filipino, grew between Singapore and Philippines, went to college in the Netherlands, and he moved to Shanghai in November 2013 because Shanghai was changing fast and he wanted to be part of that.

　　When he first got in Shanghai, he lived with his parents for about one year and a good friend of his family was the general manager of Jing An Shangri-La, offering a job to him, partly based on his language skills including French, German, English, Tagalog and Spanish, and now he is the western operations manager of the hotel.

　　Last year he moved to Jing’an, saving much time it took on the road. Mr. Hentschel sees many foreigners traveling by bus like Bus 71 which is convenient and very well connects several areas, which let him take nearly just ten minutes to get anything he needs to go through in his daily, like food.

　　He is also surprised by that one of every five guests is foreigner, and most of them are Chinese who can well communicate with him in English.

　　He thinks the new district is very clean and compact. Outside the residence which is very close to his working place there are three trash cans in different colors, efficient to keep it clean.

　　He said,“The warmth of the local people also impresses me because it doesn’t happen all over the world.” People, most of which are Shanghainese, usually make effort to say “Hi” to him and ask about their pets playing together when he takes his dog for a walk with his girlfriend in the open concrete space near where he lives. They speak very slowly and patiently if finding he cannot speak Chinese or understand.

　　What differs else in this district is that younger people walked very fast on the road, especially on the way to work or home, while people are more relaxed in Singapore and Philippines, according to him.

　　Also, Mr. Hentschel expressed, local people changed from years ago – they follow the public rules like getting on and off the bus respectively across the front and back doors and waiting for people to get off before getting on the metro. He’s glad that the government has been aware of and fixed things like this.

　　The article is arranged by Shanghai Jing'an District Tourism Bureau.