My name is Richard Waddell. I come from South Africa. I arrived in China in about 2017 in September. I had an invitation from a school here to become a principal of a kindergarten. One of the things that I've noticed in Chaoyang in the six years that I've been here is that it has more and more of international feeling to the place. It is very easy to go to the hospital if you have a problem. I've also noticed that many of the international schools around are catering to the growing expatriate population of Chaoyang.

When I first came to China six years ago, I came to Lidu. I mean, there have benches, they have grass and they've got more flowers all around the place. It was very very close to the Line 14 subway. I could take Line 14 and go south, and I could get to Wangjing, I could get to some shopping mall, I could even get just one or two stops away from Guomao. It was very easy to travel. Of course, Indigo shopping mall was very close by as well. And in fact, no matter where you were, if you came back on line 14 you could just get out into the mall itself.

I especially love cooking. I really enjoy preparing something for myself and didn't have to be from my own country. Chaoyang opened quite a lot of different supermarkets that cater for foreigners. This is a Greek cheese. It's made from sheep and goats milk and this one is really delicious if you cut it up and put it into a salad. I find sometimes going to a local supermarket like Jingkelong for instance. If you go to the local markets and the local supermarkets, the vegetables are fresh.

I do like painting. Very often I have ideas in my head of things that I like to paint. But coming to the park, I love the colours, I love the light and the dark and the shading and I get a lot of inspiration. I'm very lucky. Beijing has got a lot of parks in it and especially quite close to where I live. Always a lot of people and a lot of interesting things to see there. Even though we're in a big city, we are surrounded by green and nature. In South Africa, our country is very large  and we have a lot of open space, so very often we will go into the bush area. We have some parks,  but they're not always very busy.  So if you go to a park, you have to drive to go to a park.  But in China you can just walk.

You don't feel like a stranger in Chaoyang.  You feel very warm and accepted in this place. And in fact, over the years, I have made so many Chinese friends  that sometimes my social circle consists more of Chinese people from Chaoyang than it does of foreigners.  So I feel very much at home in Chaoyang.

Designer: Chen Jing

Planner: Li Tianxiao

Director: Zhang Wen

Cameraman: Gao Yu

Designer: Yu Xiaoqing

Special Support: Foreign Affairs Office of Chaoyang District People’s Government of Beijing Municipality