China's to Love

First Impressions of China

I've been in China now for two months. I teach English at a university in Xian (shee-ahn).I cruise around China, and I cruise around Xian. Xian, in China, is like where Kansas City is in America. But more hot in summer and lower humidity year-round, like Salt Lake City.
I really love China.I'm having a good time just hanging out, seeing all the pagodas, and mostly, seeing the people. I'm drawn to the little kids, just like little kids everywhere, cute, playful, friendly.
City traffic feels perilous, but works
I love the food. But hate some.
I laugh with a hardy interest at the English language mistakes, spoken or written.

Transportation

I've come full-circle on traffic in China. On the surface, its chaotic. Then, there's something underneath that works.
Chaotic? Oh, brother! Pedestrians run for their lives. Bicycles vie for street position with cars, busses, come perilously close to one another. Three-wheel bicycles, utilitarian, pack huge loads.
Main roads in the cities are three lane, with occasional freeways. Yesterday I was in a taxi, cruising a one-way lane. Coming at us, surprise, at the right curb, I saw ten or twenty motor bikes and bicycles, single file. Close to head-on collisions, I gasp. My taxi driver, ever calm, moves left a few feet and whizzes by.
Driving seems so rude, here. Autos at merge points butt in, come scarily close. Yes there are fender benders. And the pedestrians, an unending stream, press across roads at every point, standing between lanes as cars, seemingly unobservant, whiz by. I saw a man in front of my taxi take a single step to get out of our way, and nearly step in front of another taxi, coming faster on our right.
There's more, but after riding around town in busses and taxis, I see something deeper: China pedestrian and vehicle traffic works. There is a spirit of 'me first,' which I experience often in America. But here, 'me first' seems to be more like, 'lemme through now and we can all get where we want quicker.' It seems to work. I experience almost no traffic jams. Drivers, not 'courteous,' plough on through, making the system, overall, effective. I think of ants I watched once. They just move past one another, carve out their own path, and keep on truckin.
I'd hate to be in charge of improving China traffic practices. Like maybe making them drive like in Los Angeles. You'd hafta retrain millions of drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians. No. Billions. And, maybe, just maybe, you'd have bigger traffic jams.

Mops, Cell Phones Everywhere

Its really a small point. But I find it fascinating to see unique cultural differences. One, for example is that I see a Chinese mop everywhere I go.
I see a mop on most porches. I saw a mop laying on a window ledge. I saw another hanging in a tree, handle down so it would poke you in the eye. I stepped on a tourist bus, and on the first step to the left, there was a mop.
Chinese mops look to me just like American mops I've met: Dirty, stinky, untouchable.
And, cell phones. I guess there's a law in China: You gotta have a cell phone. Actually there are old-timers without cell phones, and remote villages without cell phone service. Cell phones are cheaper in China than in the US. Just about everybody I meet packs a cell phone. Students carry a cell phone before they pocket a comb. Everybody 'instant messages' one another. Some use one thumb to communicate, others can punch numbers and letters, high speed, with two thumbs. Bicyclists talk on cell phones amidst traffic. A three-wheel pedalist, loaded with goods, dressed in rags, talked on a cell phone.
China leap-fogged. It happened in the last five, maybe ten, years: They jumped from an archaic land line telephone network, where about nobody could communicate, to state-of-the-art wireless communications where everybody is talking to one another at a furious rate.

Restaurant Food

First, its deadly to walk into a Chinese Restaurant if you do not have a person in your party that speaks Chinese. The waitress will be courteous and bring you something it turns out you don't like. If you are without a person that speaks English and Chinese, I'd suggest you carry a pictured menu of your own. I have one. Its five pages of meal pictures, with English descriptions and with Chinese characters. You can point and the waitress can see and read the Chinese. If they don't have it, you will hear 'mayo.' No. As of this writing, you can print this from beijingtraveltips.com.
I'm certainly not gonna tell you the best restaurants in China. That would take a book. Let me just mention that I enjoy Chinese restaurant food.
Its just the right kind of food for us chunky Americans: Heavy on green vegetables, light on meat. No desserts. No syrupy drinks.
Actually, I like more meat, so I order an extra meat dish. My favorites are Kung Po Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork/Chicken, Shredded Pork in Beijing Sauce. I enjoy cucumbers here, served in a tasty vinegar-spice dressing. And, almost every vegetable dish is superior to any American vegetables.
There's some foods I shy away from. My students, poor, eat Chinese dumplings, a white-flour poofy ball with seasoned mutton inside. Nuthin good there.
Negatives? Sure. Frustration mounts when you cannot find a napkin. Chinese don't serve drinks, certainly not iced drinks. Many restaurants have no forks or spoons, just chopsticks. The only lesson you need on chopstick use is this: Hold the lower stick stationary. Move the upper stick with your thumb and forefinger. Its easy. And, slurp. And, lean over the table. That's Chinese style. And, don't worry about other people at the table putting their chop sticks in the same food you're eating. It would be tough to get sick from this practice.

Food Snacks

I figured China's food snacks, which you see when you're walking through the airport gift/goodies shop, would be packaged in brown paper and cellophane, like I experienced in Mexico or Honduras. But, not in China. Food packages in China are bright, fancy, colorful. Just don't try to open them.
The package material, thick plastic and foil, is as tough as rip-stop nylon. These small food pouches are not made to be opened by humans. Well, maybe human teeth. But watch it. Bite hard on these bags and they bite back.
Consumer packaging in China appears to reflect the kind of packages they use to ship food products internationally. I guess they hafta keep safe from sun, sea and sand and insects.
Good bags? Well, tough bags. On the other hand, zip lock bags haven't made it here yet. So, every bag of nuts or candy you open has no way to re-close it.
Did you say candy, Paul? Chinese don't know much about candy. Not like us westerners. Course, we've got the beltline to prove that. I'd give $5 right now for a Hershey-with-Almonds. Yup Chinese candy is strange stuff, and some dried meat is packaged deceptively like little candy tufts.

Take out food

Here at XISU, Xian International Studies University, take outs in the Teacher's Cafeteria are merely placed in a small plastic bag, twisted at the top and tied into a knot. It seems unwieldy, risking a spill. Actually it works.

English On Packages

And, the English words on packages! Its recreational. At first take, I laugh at the way English words talk to me from their packages.
I bought a package of pistachios in the Xian Airport. On the back it says flowery words, 'May the breeze bring you the tenderness and warmth from me. . .' And ends with 'You still you are here. At the bottom of my hear.' What?

Chicken feet

My favorite packaged food is chicken feet. I buy them for only pennies and give them to my visiting American friends.
English Signs In China
A sign on an inclined walk at Forbidden City warned, “Don't Fall Down.”
At the rear of an administrative building at Imperial Palace in Beijing., two signs on the tall doors of a fenced propane cylinder storage area, warned tourists. The first said “No Smoking,” clearly understandable, while the other warned, “No Stay!”
Nearby I saw an attractive display of huge landscaped boulders. Piled about twenty feet high, they covered a wide area. Meant only for tourist-viewing, a sign instructed, “Perilous Hills, No Climbing Please.”
Also at Imperial Palace, an unimproved landscaped incline that invited tossed waste, displayed a sign that implored, “In order To keep Fit, No Spitting Please. No Throwing Waste.”
In the gardens of the Visitors Center at Three Gorges Dam, I crossed a man-made stream with rocks placed for a foot path across the stream. A small wooden sign laying on the stream's edge said, “Stride Carefully”.

Yup, China's to Love

China. China? China hot. China cold. China humid. China dry. Palaces and pagodas. Modern cars and old three wheel bikes. Cell phones and old mops. Little kids. Good food. Funny English signs. I could tell you more, but China? Its to love.

c2005 P. Tripp