Back and In One Piece
May. 10th, 2005 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanBut not without weathering a host of disasters, as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
takadainmate and cienna are well aware. I'm going to try and do a day-by-day run through of my trip once I get my pictures online, but first, it's time for the China Culture Shock Post.
The Good:
China is as hot as Japan, but with no humidity. Ah.
Trees. The Chinese have yet to start paving over nature. The roads are tree-lined, and there were flowers and little gardens all over the place.
The food. It's cheap, flavorful, and the portions are huge. Japanese food is subtle, but I sometimes long for such things as garlic, spices, and coconut milk. China provides.
The prices - are what one suspects the clothing, entertainment items, printed material, transportation and electronics are actually worth.
The culture - everything I thought was cool about other parts of Asia is really just those areas' respective riffs on Chinese culture. My bad! That said, the temples, palaces, and gardens were absolutely stunning.
The Beijing subway - anywhere you want to go for three yuan.
The public restrooms - I was expecting to be fully disgusted, but they are pinnacles of cleanliness compared to their Japanese counterparts. Women in Japan pretty much urinate anywhere on the floor in public bathrooms, and it's foul. Chinese women can aim. Or perhaps they just have more consideration;)
The airplanes - We flew Chinese airlines exclusively. There was so much leg, arm, and body room on these planes that we thought we'd been bumped up to business class. Nope, it was economy. They don't stiff you on space like Western airlines do.
The numbers - I found myself automatically handing out mostly correct sums to the people I was doing business with, despite having no knowledge of Mandarin. This is because both Japanese and Korean borrowed Mandarin numbers into their languages, and as long as I wasn't concentrating too heavily, I could understand what was being said to me for sums up to the mid-hundreds. It was cool, but slightly unnerving at the same time.
The Bad:
Rudeness. Chinese are fucking rude. Chinese in Shanghai are unbelievably fucking rude. I have never hated any place on earth (including my bumblewoods bible belt hometown) as much as I hate Shanghai.
The air pollution - say what you will about Japan, it really does have clean air. The air in China was so heavy with smog you could barely see half a mile ahead of you from bridges or tall buildings.
The traffic was unreal. It is as chaotic and each man for himself as Malaysia's, only there are far more vehicles on the road in China.
The delays. We flew all but one of China's airlines on this trip - about five flights in total. We never made it onto a flight that wasn't delayed for at least one hour after its scheduled departure time.
The restoration - every site we visited was either shut down completely, or 70%+ of it was covered in green tarpaulin. My guess is that all the tourist sites are undergoing renovations before the Olympics. Still, it's shitty to pay full-price admission only to discover that you can't actually see most of what you've paid for the privilege of seeing. Of course, they don't notify you about the sites' statuses before you pay.
The odd:
One of the first things I noticed about China was the lack of English conversation schools, which grow like weeds in every other Asian country I've visited. Whether this has to do with China's government, educational system, the relative quality of life it can provide to foreign teachers, or a combination of the above, it was immediately noticeable by its absence.
English reversion - While in Korea, I automatically spoke Japanese to most of the people I approached, despite my best efforts not to do so. This didn't happen in China, at all. It may have something to do with the fact that Korean sounds so much closer to Japanese than does Chinese.
The currency - Although it's standard throughout the country, I received markedly different sets of bills and coins in Shanghai versus those in Beijing. The money seems to stay in local circulation, which is odd.
The kanji - again, I do not think they mean what I think they mean. It was interesting trying to figure out what kanji like 'castle' and 'desk' meant in context where they obviously did not mean 'castle' and 'desk.'
That will be all.
takadainmate and cienna are well aware. I'm going to try and do a day-by-day run through of my trip once I get my pictures online, but first, it's time for the China Culture Shock Post.The Good:
China is as hot as Japan, but with no humidity. Ah.
Trees. The Chinese have yet to start paving over nature. The roads are tree-lined, and there were flowers and little gardens all over the place.
The food. It's cheap, flavorful, and the portions are huge. Japanese food is subtle, but I sometimes long for such things as garlic, spices, and coconut milk. China provides.
The prices - are what one suspects the clothing, entertainment items, printed material, transportation and electronics are actually worth.
The culture - everything I thought was cool about other parts of Asia is really just those areas' respective riffs on Chinese culture. My bad! That said, the temples, palaces, and gardens were absolutely stunning.
The Beijing subway - anywhere you want to go for three yuan.
The public restrooms - I was expecting to be fully disgusted, but they are pinnacles of cleanliness compared to their Japanese counterparts. Women in Japan pretty much urinate anywhere on the floor in public bathrooms, and it's foul. Chinese women can aim. Or perhaps they just have more consideration;)
The airplanes - We flew Chinese airlines exclusively. There was so much leg, arm, and body room on these planes that we thought we'd been bumped up to business class. Nope, it was economy. They don't stiff you on space like Western airlines do.
The numbers - I found myself automatically handing out mostly correct sums to the people I was doing business with, despite having no knowledge of Mandarin. This is because both Japanese and Korean borrowed Mandarin numbers into their languages, and as long as I wasn't concentrating too heavily, I could understand what was being said to me for sums up to the mid-hundreds. It was cool, but slightly unnerving at the same time.
The Bad:
Rudeness. Chinese are fucking rude. Chinese in Shanghai are unbelievably fucking rude. I have never hated any place on earth (including my bumblewoods bible belt hometown) as much as I hate Shanghai.
The air pollution - say what you will about Japan, it really does have clean air. The air in China was so heavy with smog you could barely see half a mile ahead of you from bridges or tall buildings.
The traffic was unreal. It is as chaotic and each man for himself as Malaysia's, only there are far more vehicles on the road in China.
The delays. We flew all but one of China's airlines on this trip - about five flights in total. We never made it onto a flight that wasn't delayed for at least one hour after its scheduled departure time.
The restoration - every site we visited was either shut down completely, or 70%+ of it was covered in green tarpaulin. My guess is that all the tourist sites are undergoing renovations before the Olympics. Still, it's shitty to pay full-price admission only to discover that you can't actually see most of what you've paid for the privilege of seeing. Of course, they don't notify you about the sites' statuses before you pay.
The odd:
One of the first things I noticed about China was the lack of English conversation schools, which grow like weeds in every other Asian country I've visited. Whether this has to do with China's government, educational system, the relative quality of life it can provide to foreign teachers, or a combination of the above, it was immediately noticeable by its absence.
English reversion - While in Korea, I automatically spoke Japanese to most of the people I approached, despite my best efforts not to do so. This didn't happen in China, at all. It may have something to do with the fact that Korean sounds so much closer to Japanese than does Chinese.
The currency - Although it's standard throughout the country, I received markedly different sets of bills and coins in Shanghai versus those in Beijing. The money seems to stay in local circulation, which is odd.
The kanji - again, I do not think they mean what I think they mean. It was interesting trying to figure out what kanji like 'castle' and 'desk' meant in context where they obviously did not mean 'castle' and 'desk.'
That will be all.