What are the things you think you must do if you travel to or live in China?

[Tara Braska]

Just very curious about what are the things if think you must do when travel to or live in China ? And what is the reason. For me if I were a foreigner I think I would go the metro and see how crowed it is in the rush hours. Because I know that China has a huge population, so I wanna get a chance to see how is the feeling living with this big amount of people. I remember when was in New Zealand, I am really curious about what does people use in the local Chinese restaurant to eat, chopsticks or forks, and found out most of them don't use chopsticks, just like Chinese people eating steak using chopsticks in Western restaurant.  

 

Curious for other people’s answers.

[skylee]

Leave.

[tysond]

It's a very big question.  You will of course see crowds of people everywhere.  

 

See natural sites.

Catch high speed trains.

Explore Beijing's hutongs.

Go to parks and see how people spend leisure time.

See a face changing show.

Eat hotpot.  Eat xinjiang food.  Eat Beijing roast duck.  Eat noodles.  Eat baozi.    Eat on the street.  Eat in restaurants.  

Ride a bicycle around town.

Ride a motorbike to the great wall.

Catch a slow train and get a sleeper.

See Beijing opera (one with subtitles).

Go to museums.

Go to art areas (798 in Beijing).

Go to a market and buy food.

Go to a clothing market.

Go to an electronics market.

Drink baijiu.

Use a squatter toilet.

Just don't follow anyone who asks you to go to a tea house or an art show with them.

 

Personally, I've been trying to prioritize seeing the UNESCO world heritage listed tourist sites, but there are so many.

[Steingletscher]

Personally, I've been trying to prioritize seeing the UNESCO world heritage listed tourist sites

The UNESCO sites are a mixed bag. Sure, many of them are amazing, but tourism has destroyed them. Many of them were "restored" beyond recognition; the entrance price very high; and the number of tourists that come turn it into a circus inside the dead atmosphere of a museum. Definitely go and see the Great Wall, but avoid Badaling. And the weekend and any holiday, unless you would rather see crowds; then do go to Badaling.

But with a country has huge and varied as China is, the list is endless. I just met a guy today who rode a motorbike 500 km in one day right through the Taklamakan desert. The way he described driving through it was totally surreal.

 

Go into the Tibetan areas and talk to some of the monks. At Seda (色达), you can also see a sky burial. If you really want, you can live in a monastery for a while (that is, if you are not in the TAR, and it isn't March).

Go to a Chinese club where everyone just stands around trying to look cool drinking and playing on their phones and bored looked prostitutes dancing on a platform next to them; then laugh at the absurdity of how they all look.

 

When a friend comes from home, take him (or her) to a nice dinner filled with strange looking parts of the animals and wash it down with bottle of baijiu (the best pairing being of course 二锅头).

Go to Jiuzhaigou, but ditch the buses, and hop a fence and camp in the backcountry. A friend of mine did that for a week after talking to one of the local shopkeepers in the valley who showed him where to go.

See Xinjiang before it changes anymore.

Get invited over to someone's hometown for the Spring Festival. On the eve, spend hundreds of kuai on fireworks.

[edelweis]

Use a squatter toilet.

Use a public squatter toilet with a hole in the floor and knee high stall walls

[Tara Braska]

 

 

Use a public squatter toilet with a hole in the floor and knee high stall walls 

Never though the squatter toilet is so attractive to foreigners, haha. 

[imron]

Use a public squatter toilet with a hole in the floor and knee high stall walls

Use a public squatter toilet with a hole in the floor and knee high stall walls, looking out 3,000 metres above Tiger Leaping Gorge.  Most scenic toilets in the world.

[Kenny同志]

 stall wall

 

兩個蹲位間的隔板（墻）？

[anonymoose]

Why not try the squatter toilets that are just a long trough without stall walls.

[Basil]

At least Roman toilets were arranged in a semi-circle so you could sit and have a natter at the same time. Chinese public squat troughs are just depressing cow sheds.

[edelweis]

It's not that the toilets are especially interesting, it's more that they are strange and add to the feeling of displacement - especially the lack of privacy. I remember using such public toilets in a small street in Beijing, fortunately when I came in there was no one inside but as I was pulling my pants up afterwards a few Chinese women came in and stared at the foreigner (me), very awkward

 

Note: there are some squatter toilets in my home country, it's not difficult to find them in very old homes, and in the countryside, as each 'town hall" - even if it's just the main hamlet of a group of hamlets - must provide some public toilets,  and many built a few squatter stalls more than half a century ago and never cared to upgrade them. But they usually have a neat porcelain floor receiver with plumbing and flushing and perfect privacy... actually for young town people it must still feel quite exotic to use them now that I think about it  . But now the law requires providing toilets for the handicapped as well, so the old public squatter toilets may soon disappear...

 

Anyway, as a newcomer speaking not a word of Chinese, everything is an adventure in China - from taking the bus by yourself to finding and using public toilets.

[Melanie1989]

I've not had the pleasure of visiting China yet, but may i ask a rather embarrassing question to those of you who have?

 

If you're using the squatting toilets for a while......not for a wee.....do your legs and feet ever go numb? I am worried as i have IBS anyway, but also once i was squatting on my own toilet, trapped (there was a spider on the floor, i was barefoot -i know how pathetic that sounds, but well...) and waiting it for to move enough so i could run past it. I ended up being on there for about half an hour and i nearly fell over when i got off cos my legs were so numb.

 

With my IBS i'd be rather embarrassed if that happened somewhere like a Chinese squat toilet.

[anonymoose]

Well, it's certainly not as comfortable as sitting. But given how dirty some of the public toilets are, you wouldn't want skin contact with any surfaces (ie. the seat) anyway.

[Basil]

Sometimes legs go numb, it's also related to leg strength as well. 

 

Best to think of the positives: the pressure of your leg against your abdomen cleans out the appendix, lessening the risk of appendicitis, posture is similarly more evolutionally efficient.

 

As all those who eat 人肠 at hotpot restaurants testify, this leads to healthier and cleaner innards. 

[Melanie1989]

Hehe, thanks! I've been told to plenty of squats for back issues anyway, so hopefully it won't be a problem.

[aone]

Depending on the role you are going to play

- Observer and/or thinker?  There are so many things which will draw your concerns

- Tourist? Then do what tourists do

- Guest? Just enjoy the hospitality 

- Host? Welcome home~ 

[StChris]

Ha ha, speaking of scenic squat toilets, can anyone beat this view? It was taken at a monastery a few hours drive from Lhasa. I actually had quite bad 拉肚子 that day, so didn't have time to dwell on the lack of privacy (there must have been a couple of hundred pilgrims doing the rounds that day, but luckily I managed to finish up before attracting the attention of any Tibetans).

 

I have a pretty strong stomach, so have only got diarrhea a handful of times during my travels, but each time has left a strong memory, long after many a temple has been forgotten. It's strange, the things you remember...

 

Oh, and don't worry about the photo, it's not "real". Just like the raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima photo, it's just a restaging for the sake of capturing the moment for posterity.

[StChris]

[StChris]

Don't be fooled by the gorgeous blue sky. It was November or  December at the time and the wind was very cold. Ah. happy days...

[Tara Braska]

 

 

I would say this is the most beautiful toilet I have seen before.