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China Elevator Stories
"I Studied Abroad in Sweden"
I chat with a 30-year-old Chinese woman in Tai’an.
19/04/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
It’s April, 2025. I chat with Ning, a woman from Tai’an. She’s 30 years old.
(Click here if you’re interested in Tai’an: Tai’an Old Street.)
Since she speaks English quite fluently, I ask her, “Did you study in the US?”
She replies, “No, I didn’t. During my studies, I studied abroad in Sweden.”
“I see. How did you like it?”
“I enjoyed living there. Actually, I also stayed in Sweden as a child—my father was doing his PhD there, and I attended primary school in Sweden.”
“That’s amazing. Can you speak Swedish?”
“I don’t speak it much anymore, but I used to be fluent as a child. I was actually better at Swedish than at Chinese—it was like my mother tongue!”
“I understand. Where did you live—did you live in Stockholm?”
“No, we were living in Malmö.”
I then ask, “Do you have kids?”
She replies, “No, I don’t.”
“I see. Are you married, do you have a boyfriend, or are you single?”
“I’m not married. I had a boyfriend until recently, but we broke up.”
“May I ask what the reason for your breakup was?”
“Whenever we had a conflict in our relationship, he refused to talk about it. I believe conflicts should be discussed and worked through, but he always avoided the conversation.”
Have you ever been in a similar situation?
This is part of the series ‘Conversations with Locals in China,’ where I share conversations with Chinese people on my blog.