Like:
• Cheap foot massages – There’s something about a full stomach and a foot massage that will brighten even your darkest day.
• Cheap DVDs – When you can buy a DVD for cheaper than you can rent one back in the States, you see a lot more.
• No tipping – It may not encourage good service, but at least you never have to make a split decision or pay for bad service.
• The chestnut smell – I think this is the only good vendor smell in the whole of China. Whenever I smell it from now on, I will think of Shanghai.
• The Chinglish – On shirts, signs, everywhere. In fact, the World Expo 2010 count down sign even has Chinglish on it. I mean, you’d think when designing a sign on which they bolted electric lights, they would have checked the English first. So amusing. And then there were the great text messages from our dear friend Xu Bin. I used to read them aloud to Ryan like they were haikus. For example (word for word with original punctuation): “NI HAO! IMPICIT consulting; have a row; in formation; be disappointed; pleasantly surprised – maybe – set sb a task – promise of secrecy-sth embarrassing to mention.” Classic. And I’ll never forget him writing, “Auntie come your house washes and cookies.” This means the ayi (in Chinese it means aunt) will come to your house to cook and clean. I will miss Xu!
• The fabric market - Where else can you get tailor made clothes for 1/5 the price? Bring in a picture or something to copy and you can have it in any color.
• The Hongqiao market – Pearls, shoes, luggage, sunglasses, fake bags, you name it. And we got pretty good at haggling too. It can be fun when you make it like a little game. The vendors stay pretty light spirited with it.
• The friends we made here – far and away, the best part of being here were the wonderful friendships we made. Nancy, Wei, Sue, Xu, Steven, James, Molly, Jean, Michelle, Jenn, Christy and everyone else we’ve befriended here have been absolutely wonderful as a support system.
Loathe:
• The grit – There’s no where on Earth like China in terms of dirt. It’s just dirty in every way. Things that come to mind include:
- • “The China rag” – the Chinese have this rag that they use to clean everything. Dishes, the floor, the walls…My friend Steven once told me about a time that he was in a grocery store and the woman in front of him was buying chicken. The meat was in a leaky plastic bag, which she had set on the conveyor belt. There was chicken juice and blood all over the belt. The cashier looked at Steven and pulled out “the rag” and wiped it off. “No problem.” Who knows where the rag will be next?
- • Some dirty things that I saw first hand:
- • A man riding a moped down the street in rush hour, buses spewing black smoke, with a lamb carcass on the back.
- • A woman putting her bear-butted son on the subway seat across from me. You see, in China, they simply don’t use diapers. The parents cut a hole in the pants of the children and then let them pee or poo in the street.
- • The hocking and spitting. Anywhere you go, men, old women, beautiful girls – they all do it. They just hock a loogie and spit in your walking path without blinking.
• The discrimination – See above. Once, my good friend Jean, from Zimbabwe went to Starbucks and ordered a drink. When she got the cup, it said, “Black girl” in Chinese like it was her name. This same friend told me that she often makes babies cry. They look at her foreign face and cry to their mothers. It seems like we’re always being pointed or starred at. Or when Ryan and I go to Ajisen (the local noodle chain restaurant), they say, “2 laowai (foreign devils)?” That’s like the equivalent of us saying, “Two chinks?” at Denny’s.
• Bad Chinese pop music – The play it over and over at 50 decibels too loud. The chorus is always in English and the rest is in Chinese. “You are my superstar,” “When you touch me, I become a hero,” “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun,” “Everyone is number one.” What does that even mean?
• The repetition – See above. Megaphone messages, the same music over and over, toys that make the same noise. The Chinese are completely un-phased by it. It’s rather remarkable.
• The pushing/lack of common courtesy – When the doors open on the subway, people just push right through without letting people get off. If you aren’t aggressive and push back, you won’t get off the train. It’s the same with the elevator.
• The lack of volume control – It’s absolutely incredible how loud it is here. It’s not just the people. It’s the horns, the music, the mopeds…
• The scratchy grunt “Wei?” – This is what the Chinese say when they pick up the phone. It’s nothing like the smooth Italian “Pronto.”
• The way they say “uh huh” – “Uh uh uh uh.” Frankly, it sounds like they’re having boring sex. I remember being in the office, on an interview one afternoon and hearing one of the HR girls on her cell phone. I looked and across the cubicle to Molly and we both just cracked up.
• The lack of imagination at solving problems – There’s a way things are done and that’s it. Sometimes I think the Chinese could do anything they put their mind to. Think of the amazing road system they’ve built! But then at the same time, sometimes they can’t even ring up a pizza correctly.
• Pure sensory overload – Try going to Carrefour before breakfast. It’s enough to make you really dizzy on an empty stomach. There is music blaring, bright signs everywhere, women with megaphones promoting various products, people pushing into you, and to top it all off, a woman drops a huge bottle of vinegar on the conveyor belt right in front of you. No problem! They’ve got “the China rag” on hand.
• Above all, not being able to communicate is the most frustrating aspect of life here – after three months directing a cab is about all we can do. It limits our experience and makes us feel alone in the crowds of millions. I’m ready to be in an English speaking country again!
So there you have it. This list isn’t comprehensive, nor is it meant to be slighting against China or Chinese people. It’s just a compilation of impressions from our wild 3-month experience. As you all know, China has been an enormous struggle for the two of us and in almost every way, we’re glad it’s over. I do believe that if things had been different, we might not mind it so much. Had we both been employed or better prepared in our language skills or not suffered such crushing setbacks with the fire etc, we might be sailing along just fine. But that’s just not meant to be.
As we sign off from China tomorrow at 6:05pm local time, we’ll look back on these three months as the hardest, most challenging, most disheartening, most frustrating and least rewarding time of our lives. Yet even still, we’re holding on to our last shred of optimism that the lessons learned here will pay off later in life and that our brutally expensive experiment won’t be in vain.
As the French (the inhabitants of that wonderful country we miss so much) say, “C’est la vie.”
Stay tuned to our blog as tomorrow we embark on a 3 month journey through Asia and Australia. We promise to update more often and not write novels every time.
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