Ernest was looking forward to representing his company in china. once he had arrived, however, he felt differently. for one, the chinese were insulted when he wanted them to sign a contract; they thought it meant he didn't trust them. it was much more crowded than he thought it would be, transportation within the cities was much more difficult than he was used to, and the availability of the foods he enjoyed was very limited. what is ernest experiencing?

I would say that Ernest is experiencing culture shock with regards to his initial experiences in China. The behaviour of his clients to his request for a signed contract, the cities being so crowded and transportation being difficult within the cities and food he liked being hard to find are all aspects of this. However, if he persisted he probably would find ways of dealing with these things and discover how to develop trust with his clients, find transportation that suited him and with searching and asking find at least one or two places that had the food he liked. From my own experience, I had a job in El Salvador and suffered culture shock re how aggressive the drivers were so I learned to be aggressive or at least assertive in my driving and thus had more success in this respect.