Throughout our lives we are told how important first impressions are, that we can only make one, that a good first impression can be the difference between success and failure. First impressions shape our view of another individual, a place, a company a restaurant and in our increasingly globalised world, a country. I’m in the rather peculiar situation where I have the opportunity to have 2 first impressions of China. The first as a tourist in 2008 and the second in 2011 upon moving my life to the other side of the world. Coming to a country to live and work will naturally give a very different first impression than if you were to come to that same country as a tourist. My first impression of China came in Hong Kong from the man who would be our tour guide for the next month. After meeting him and the rest…