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CCP:Chinese Cultural Practices

I’m on the road south from Qingdao to Nanjing – thankfully a much more interesting ride this time, I’m quite enjoying it. I’m staying in yet another no-name, identi-kit town, where no Westerners ever come. I sit in the restaurant, eating my noodles, and in the background I can hear people practising saying “Where are you come from?” Finally someone has the courage to come and ask me. I reply “Xinxilan” – NZ in Chinese, no point saying New Zealand, people don’t know it. That’s either all they want to know, or (more probably) know how to ask, for they then go and sit down again, and I hear whispers of “xinxilan” being passed around to anyone within 50m who wants to know. Ah, China.

But anyways, I’ve being meaning to write something on various Chinese cultural practices – things that the Chinese do, that amuse me, and/or I don’t really understand, nor probably ever will. I would like to stress though, that I am thoroughly enjoying China, and nothing here should necessarily be taken too seriously.

  • Spitting. This is a big one, so I should get it out of the way first. Despite what you may read in the LP, spitting is conducted by almost everyone, pretty much everywhere. Outside, sure. Inside, at a restaurant table – no problem. At an Internet cafe – why not? You work in a bank, behind a desk in full view of customers? No reason for you not to try and bring up a lung in front of the customers. Like others, I have wondered where this practice arises from – does it go back a long way, or is it more recent? Is it for some health benefit that I’m unaware of? Is it some way of coping with the pollution? Possible. Whatever, I can assure you that waking up to the sound of 5 men busily trying to out-spit each other is not the most pleasant thing.
  • Staring. Another biggie. From what I understand, this used to be much worse, and in places like Xi’an and Beijing it’s not really an issue. Anywhere else though, I frequently get large groups of people staring at me, sometimes open-mouthed. Thankfully not drooling like some people in Uzbekistan…Children are either fascinated or scared by me, pointing and (sometimes) screaming. Mothers run and get their children, to look at the “laowai.” People working at the side of the road call out to all their friends, to make sure they don’t miss a chance to stare at the funny foreigner. For some reason, different towns have quite different feels. Sometimes people just stare, but in other towns people gather round. E.g. last night in a small town, a large group of men interrupted their mah jong game to gather round, fiddle with the bike, and help me find a hotel. All very friendly, and completely understanding my inability to speak Putonghua.
  • Who needs nappies when you’ve got…well…everywhere to crap? I’ve seen more bare babies backsides than I ever thought I would in my whole life. Small children here have crotchless pants, and just go to the toilet wherever they happen to be. Mothers hold them up, recalling Thubron’s nice line about holding them “proudly steady.” For some reason they tend to avoid gutters, bushes, etc., preferring to make a nice little pile of poo in the middle of the footpath.
  • Team bonding. Now when I worked at Vodafone, they were all into funky/trendy/zesty ideas, but thankfully the HR department there never tried this one. Early in the morning, shortly before opening, some businesses get their staff out on the footpath, doing team exercises – I’ve seen China Mobile staff with a long skipping rope, others doing various calisthenics…all just a bit strange for me.
  • But that’s not to say that doing group exercise routines in public places is bad. You often come across tai chi groups in the morning, or sometimes ballroom dancing in the evening. Stranger ones involve doing ritualistic movements with a sword, or a ball and racket, where the objective seems to be to keep the ball on the racket, while twisting it about, around your body, through your legs, etc.
  • Going to the supermarket can be an experience in itself. Most stores have vast teams of workers, doing little of discernible value. They follow you around the store, and point out various items for you to buy. I must try getting one of them to hold my basket for me. The other day they were so excited to see a foreigner, that I had 10 people following me around the store. One young man was so excited he ran up to me, grabbed the item I was holding, and said “How much?” Dunno mate, you work here, not me. But then when you get to checkout, there’s only one girl there, no-one else doing the packing. The bags are hidden under the counter, and she must swipe all your items, then start packing them. You get some outraged looks if you try and start packing things yourself, and the bag is snatched away. I’ve given up trying now, I just stand there and let things take their course. I’m in no hurry. Which is just as well, since there is invariably a delay at checkout. I’m not sure why, but there is always some sort of problem. It’s not like the Turks, or Central Asians, where the concept of a checkout and queue is a complete mystery (they try going through backwards). A classic one is where everything is swiped, the total is rung up…oh no I can’t afford all that, take that one off. Except they can’t do that. The whole sale is cancelled, everything comes back out of the trolley, the food the baby has started eating gets yanked off it, and everything gets swiped again. I am not making this up.
  • Paying for items is also a challenge. It is very, very, very rare for the person who served you to also be the one you pay. In a department store, you will be given a ticket to take to the cashier. You pay them, then trek back to wherever your items are, stopping for sustenance as required, hand them the receipt, and they give you the goods. I once walked for 5 minutes, and queued another 10, just to pay $0.50 for a couple of pens. It was a bit strange trying to work this out the first couple of times, now I don’t even blink. I was a bit shocked in Hong Kong where I got something from a small chemist, and the man who served me also wanted me to pay him. Outrageous! There’s people out there need jobs, you know! It gets more amusing in smaller stores, where you have to walk 3 metres over, pay someone, then turn around and pick up your goods.
  • Driving. I’ve mentioned this before, but drivers in China simply do not have any concept of what safe driving involves. They are all absolutely convinced that their horn gives their car magic properties, and simply blowing it will automatically give them the right of way, and make it safe. Sadly, every day I come across the result of where both cars blew their horns. If only they could afford an Audi or black VW, as they automatically have right of way over all other vehicles. Of course, the head-on collisions between Audis indicate there may also be a problem with that theory, but never mind, China has its top scientists working on the problem (all those not involved with the Lunar orbiter, anyway). Development is underway on a 196dB horn, the most powerful yet!
  • Throw-away society. There is a complete absence of quality control, and so many things have all sorts of bells and whistles…but only last a few uses. Like the shower I had that had a radio, multiple lights, massage heads, all sorts. Except for hot water. And none of the other things worked properly. One of the neatest things is the dodgy food stalls, where rather than wash the plates, they just stick a plastic bag over the plate. After you’re finished, they just throw the bag away. Presto! Clean plate. Students/bachelors take note. Now you can look like you have proper crockery (for when Mum comes around), but still not have to do dishes.
  • Fireworks – of course, being the inventors, they have a pretty incredible array. But there’s still something strange about sitting at the side of the road, watching a truck go by, with workers throwing hundreds of double happies over the side, making a huge roar along the road. Right now it sounds like light arms fire outside. In one town it sounded like something heavier – a whoomph, was followed 10s later by a dull boom. No-one even blinked.
  • The packaging revolution. I’ve never seen such incredible levels of packaging, for so little product. A classic example might be a box of biscuits, where the biscuits are individually wrapped, then placed on a tray, then stuck in the box. And under no circumstances should the contents ever, ever match the photo. That’s why I now tend to buy international brands, or things in clear packaging. One good thing is that all packages will have a small nick in the side, so that you can get them open easily. Otherwise some packages would not be openable without the aid of pliers and a cutting torch.
  • Jobs for the boys. And girls. If something can be done by 2 people, why not hire 5 instead, and have most of them standing around doing nothing for most of the day? I watched a group of men digging up a tree stump the other day. One was swinging the pick and doing all the work, the other four were…watching. Oh and the driver – of course you need a dedicated driver – was just sitting in the truck, waiting to take them back to wherever they come from
  • Women are tough. Real tough. Women here do everything – all sorts of hard physical labour, breaking rocks, roadwork, tough field work, everything. I wouldn’t want to mess with them. At least here the men also do some work in the fields, not like some countries, where women do all the field work, while men just sit around drinking vodka.

I would like to emphasise how much I am enjoying it here though, and the Chinese people continue to amaze me. They are so full of life, and have so much energy, incredible for people who have had so much done to them. In some things, like their night food markets, they really know how to live.

I’ll add some more things as I think of them out on the road.

3 replies on “CCP:Chinese Cultural Practices”

Hey Lindsay-boy!

Your stories are incredible. I have always wanted to ‘do’ China and your stories aren’t changing that a bit. It’s strange, but you start thinking that the whole staring-at-foreigners thing wouldn’t happen anymore as the world gets smaller and smaller. I just want to get on a train thinking: “Get off at the squiggle sign, change to the other squiggle, and finally, get to squiggle.”

Shayne

I found your blog through Heather Burge’s journal. I am an American working in Jiangsu province. Every CCP you mentioned is true in my part of China also. It is amazing for a country this size how uniform people are. The disposable culture as you mentioned is very distressing. I try to do my part, when eating out I bring my own metal chopsticks and plastic container for leftovers, and always a canvas bag for shopping rather than using plastic. I get wierd looks but maybe it will change 1 person’s thinking.

Yeah, it does get a bit depressing seeing how much gets thrown away. Trying to leave a store without a bag can be very tough – and if I’m buying a couple of beers, then they usually want to double bag them.

Shayne, after a while the characters aren’t too bad. I find them easier to deal with than Arabic or Mongolian script – well, easier to compare to what you’ve got written down anyway. I’ve learnt quite a few, sometimes just what they mean in English, sometimes just what the sound is. But speaking/comprehension is still fairly hit and miss.

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