I can’t believe it’s been a month since I got around to blogging! Life has been nutty here again…but I’ll have more on that in my next post.
Tonight, after realizing that I had bit of spare time, I decided to write a post I’ve been considering for a long time. This particular post was inspired by an old friend of mine who’s thinking of moving to China. I was giving her advice this morning and it got me thinking about all the crazy stuff that I’ve gotten used to dealing with living in this strange country.
So here it is…a list of all the stuff that you should know if you’re moving to China!
1.) The Food is Amazing…and Amazingly Weird….
Item #1 on my list isn’t a shocker. Chinese food is popular around the world, so there has to be something good about it! I love Chinese food and I doubt I’ll ever tire of it. There are many different varieties, depending on the regions of origin. In Sichuan province, you’ll get spicy hot pot, for example. On the east coast, you’re more likely to get sweet sea food. No matter where you go in China, the local cuisine is worth a try because WOW…there are some amazing things to eat out here!
Then again, when you say you’ll try a local delicacy, you might get more than you bargained for…
I think most of the world is aware that people in China will eat anything and everything. From chicken feet to pig face, and everything in between…nothing is off-limits in this country. I can proudly say I’ve tried everything that’s been offered to me since I got here (still no dog…that may be the one I turn down…), and some of it isn’t bad.
Strangely enough, I enjoy barbecued chicken feet. There isn’t a whole lot of meat on them, but they’re alright. I also like chicken tail a lot. They get nice and crispy on the barbecue. Organ meat has become far more normal for me to eat as well and I’ve become particularly fond of liver, though brain still grosses me out and chicken gizzards seem pointless and rubbery.
Most of it, however, I simply don’t ‘get’. I can understand how a starving person might think that pig intestines are the most delicious thing they’ve ever eaten, but for me…they’re kinda gross. There isn’t much meat in them, and every time I’ve had them…they always faintly taste like poop….maybe it’s in my head…but I swear I taste it. So I now avoid them when I see them on the menu.
2. Sanitary Standards are VERY Different in China
Currently, I’m teaching a Food and Nutrition class at my school. It’s basically home economics, but I mostly just teach the students how to cook. The biggest challenge for me has been teaching them about bacteria, food poisoning and basic sanitation. It isn’t as easy as it may sound…
There’s no hot water in our kitchens (a norm in China) and I had to teach them to boil water for doing dishes. When classes other than my own work in the kitchen, the dishes are left a bit oily because cold water just doesn’t clean that stuff off, and soap is often an after-thought…
Teaching them about meat safety has also been a huge issue. In China, meat is frequently left out, unrefrigerated and uncovered. Even in the western type stores, like Carrefour and Metro (if you are new to China, seek out those two stores! They are a must-have for anyone living abroad), you’ll frequently see questionable meat sitting out on the counters.
Similarly, the ideas about personal hygiene are different here. By the time you are finished your first (of many) colds here in China, you will grow very tired of people telling you to ‘drink hot water’. It seems to be the cure to everything here in China, while preventative measures, like hand washing, are never discussed.
There are also some pretty nasty habits here, that I have never grown used to. Spitting, for one, still grosses me out. People don’t like to swallow their saliva here, so they just spit it out. This is especially true in poorer areas (where people are less educated regarding the spreading of germs) and with the older generations. Similarly, Chinese people think that sitting on a toilet seat is dirty, so they will often hop up on top of the seat and squat over top of the toilet, when an actual squatter isn’t around. The result is usually that urine ends up everywhere (because sit-down toilets aren’t made to be squatted over), which, to me anyway, seems a lot less hygienic than sitting on a toilet seat!
3. Be Prepared for Pollution and Pollution Related Illnesses
Everyone knows that China has a pollution problem. It’s a topic frequently discussed out here, and Chinese citizens are really starting to pressure their government to regulate factories better for the sake of the air. In Canada, I’d never really experienced pollution before, and until I moved to Suzhou, I’d never really given air quality a second thought. Here, students actually know the names of the different air pollutants and what they can do to your lungs. For example, I had a 13-year-old girl tell me that the PM2.5 levels were very high one day, and that I should wear a special kind of mask so that the particles don’t end up in my lungs. PM2.5, she informed me, is the most worrisome pollutant because your body doesn’t have any way of flushing it out…the particles stay trapped in your lungs for years.
When I was 13…pollution was hardly a concept I’d ever even considered!
I don’t know a single teacher that doesn’t catch at least 1 or 2 terrible colds per term here. I was so sick back in March that I had to be put on oxygen after a short walk to the a nearby clinic. They put me on 5 different medications to combat the viral infection I had in my lungs and I was honestly really scared because I’d never had such trouble breathing in my entire life! Even pneumonia hadn’t been as bad as that lung infection was…
4. Things are Done Differently Here
If health hazards are shrugged off here, I don’t even know how to explain how people here feel about safety. Workers frequently wear minimal or no equipment went doing construction, and I don’t even want to think about the repetitive strain injuries that some of those people suffer. I’ve seen women in their 40s and 50s hauling broken concrete out of demolition sights in wicker baskets hanging off their backs…
And those are just some of the long-term consequences of having no standardized regulations for safety in the workplace. Sometimes the consequences are much more current…
In funnier instances, some things just don’t seem to make sense here. Such as:
- Our hot water tank being right above our washing machine…but our washing machine wasn’t connected.
- Escalators being built outside, instead of under the roofed area…causing them electrical damage every time it rains.
- Having air conditioners in every room at a school, but forbidding anyone to turn them on because the cold (or hot…they do heating in the winter) air is bad for your health…
- At the school, we use paper so thin that the students have dubbed it ‘toilet paper’. It’s done because they are trying to use less paper and save the environment…yet no one sees anything wrong with having between 20 and 30 flyers left in your e-bike every week
- The government telling employees to smoke more to boost the economy…
Well, that’s all I have time for tonight! It looks like this one is going to be a 2-parter! Come back soon to see the rest of my list which will include:
- Traffic Laws (and lack of traffic laws)
- Signs: The good, the bad and the incoherent
and plenty more!!!