During a news conference of the just-concluded 20th CPC National Congress, Wang Gang, head of the publicity department of Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China shared the practices and progress that Zhejiang has made during the past few years, in pursuit of common prosperity and to advance the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is home to 15% of China’s population and contributes around a quarter of the country’s GDP. This megalopolis encompasses Shanghai and provinces like Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui and has been increasingly becoming the economic powerhouse of China.

In recent years, more and more foreigners coming over here to pursue their career dreams. How do they feel about this Chinese megalopolis and their life within this region? We interviewed Podareva Anastasia, a Chinese-Russian bilingual translator currently living in Shanghai and an alumna of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.  

Podareva Anastasia, a Chinese-Russian bilingual translator and poet

"I feel like the place is of great convenience to the people living here since this place has great advantages of location, climate and culture. I really enjoy it," said Ana during a telephone interview with InZhejiang.

Anastasia stayed in Zhejiang for her bachelor's degree and Master's degree at the Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and became a translator soon after her graduation. 

She fell in love with the Chinese language when she was a high school student. As recommended by her Chinese teacher, Ana decided to go to China’s South to pursue her Chinese dream. When mentioning the Yangtze River Delta, Anastasia thought of three words -- location, climate and culture.

From her perspective, YRD is possibly the best place for doing economic activities and entrepreneurship. During her stay in Hangzhou, Ana told us that she had been impressed a lot by the entrepreneurship and the cultures here. In addition, the strong vibes of doing global trade in YRD have inspired her a lot. With the help of her friend, Ana was recommended to a Russian company that was once recruiting a Russian-Chinese translator and a brand promoter.   

Her employer company is now doing cross-border trade between Russia and China. The perfect location of YRD and the strong logistics system have shortened the transportation budgets and time on the road, according to Anastasia.

"The Yangtze River Delta region is really convenient in terms of logistics and transportation. It helps our business a lot," said Ana.

Another thing that kept this foreign girl stay here in the Yangtze River Delta is the culture.

In her free time, Anastasia would do some paintings and write poems. Currently, Ana has got her own painting studio and received many poetry rewards from a variety of competitions.

"I think the Yangtze River Delta is an important origin of many Chinese spirits and the Chinese civilization," she said, adding that cultural integration and cultural variety here are really impressive.

"For an amateur artist like me, I feel like that I can do a lot of cultural things here, such as poetry, paintings, museum-going, concerts, music, etc,” she said.

Both as a translator and a brand promoter of her employer, Anastasia has been going very well with the local community of the Yangtze River Delta region. In the future, she indicated that she wanted to contribute more Russia-China cooperation and bring more good Russian goods to local Chinese customers.

"I hope that in the future, we can do more cross-border business and I hope to do more things to promote the Russia-China friendship."

Author: Ye Ke

Editor: Ye Ke