CRI听力:A Danish Man's Family and Life in Beijing

Tomas Bratt is an analyst at Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company. He met his Chinese wife in Denmark. He was offered the opportunity to work in Beijing three years ago. After serious consideration, the couple decided to move here.

"I think after looking at different possibilities we saw that Beijing has a lot of different international schools, very high standard. We saw the infrastructure was there we could wish for. Beijing was a choice because Novo Nordisk has office here in Beijing. Beijing is also a good city for someone coming to China, because people are a little bit more used to international people from different countries. And there's a lot of things to experience in Beijing."

Bratt's daughter is nine years old and attending an international school in Beijing. She studies Chinese for one hour every day. Her mother tongue is Danish but she is now quite proficient in Chinese.

Bratt says he and his family do not travel much when in Europe but here in China, they have tried to visit as many places as possible. They've been to Xi An, Kunming, Sanya, Guangzhou, Guilin and are planning to visit more places. He says he enjoys the safe and friendly environment in China.

"I think also people are very friendly here. I feel actually when I go in the streets I feel much safer than I do, especially when I was in the United States. But also the larger city Copenhagen, I would be more in my guard. In China I feel, it seems to be very safe. I like to go out and see people. Unfortunately, I don't speak very good Chinese so I can't really interact with the person on the streets so much. But still it's fun to go out and experience people, what they do. Chinese I think, live their life outside. So if you go out you meet a lot of people, you see a lot of people everywhere."

Bratt gets a bit excited when discussing Chinese food. In contrast to Denmark, he believes that China offers abundant choices for dining out.

"We go out to eat a lot, because we are in China, in Denmark it's not so common to go out to eat. We usually make food at home. But here in China you have much more possibilities. I think the Chinese food is one of the best experiences here in China, because you have so many different kitchens almost one from every province, and we really enjoy the differences in food from different regions. We also try to eat spicy food, even if it can be tough for the stomach sometimes but it's a really fun experience."

Bratt notes however, that Beijing's air pollution now presents a major concern. He hopes Beijing could solve that problem in the near future.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.