Is China hard work?

[hakkaboy]

Do Chinese people realise just how many foreigners find living in China to be a daily ordeal?

Edited to remove pointless discussion.

[adrianlondon]

The trick, I assume, is to decide that China isn't for you and live somewhere else

I assume, of course, you're not a citizen of China with no other passport.

I travel precisely because things are different. Yes, after a while I get homesick but the last thing I want is people (like me in that situation) making the host country appear just like home, because it screws it up for future tourists. At that point, I simply go home instead.

Seeing Tesco abroad annoys me, for example. But hey - I'm easily annoyed :-)

And as for them slow walkers - go to Singapore for a few days and then return to China. You'll think people are running.

Or get a bike and cycle at 3mph and feel the same way ...

[gougou]

I agree with some of the points your making - however, I'm loving it!

[MarkKang]

It's a different culture; you won't change it.

Or, get a management job at Carrefour or Metro and have at it.

But really, relax. Dwell on what you like about China.

[yingguoguy]

I'm guessing you've had one of those days hakka where it all gets too much

I had one of those days a couple of weeks ago in Nanjing station. I find train stations the hardest work. You know how you put your bag on the x-ray conveyor belt and then the person behind you pushes past because, obviously, their bags are going to come out first. The way they insist on checking your ticket four times on any one journey. The way that the staff push drinks trolleys up and down the trains constantly even when your squeezed in like sardines. I lost it completely after having walked around the station three times trying to find the taxi rank being approached by hotel touts for hotels I can't legally stay in. "No I'm the same s%dd%ng laowai in a bright red jacket you tried to sell a rolex to two minutes ago"

On the other hand it costs 1 pound 50 for a two hour train journey and the trains generally run on time. Back in England I'd just be freezing my bits off on the station platform waiting for a train that never comes and paying 20 times the price for the priviledge.

I love China but that doesn't mean my fist doesn't clench involentarily everytime someone spits, a driver sounds his horn for no apparent reason, or an art exhibition leach attaches themselves to me in Wangfujing.

[mr.stinky]

how about we get a new category specifically for rants - stuff that drives you nuts?

you can add these:

1. half dozen schoolgirls walking abreast on the sidewalk. slowly.

2. without looking, person jumps out of doorway into pedestrian flow, only to make cell call.

3. beggars that stick their plastic bowl in your crotch, and follow you for 2 blocks.

4. army sergeant on guard duty, whispers 'hulloo' everytime you pass the gate.

5. teeny tiny tables and chairs (i'm 6-2)

6. hitting my head on the roof of the freakin' bus.

7. awful translations. at kunming zoo you may 'frolik the peackock.'

8. won't give no for an answer.

9. woman distracted by flashing lights leaves cart at base of escalator and walks off.

10. dammit, stop staring at my crotch. (well, ok, maybe a little...)

11. cell phones in cinema. same person getting 25 calls during film. letting the stupid

ringer music play until the end, then answering.

12. 300 vendors at one location, all selling the same 6 models of mp3 player.

13. hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

14. guy in our residence setting off a brick of firecrackers every morning at 5:36.

nothing major....just little annoyances.

[gougou]

You're not the first having that idea: http://www.chinarant.com/

[mr.stinky]

very interesting, but it seems more for people that have been here way too long, are

becoming disgusted with the country, and maybe with themselves for staying.

i'm not suggesting a forum for hard-core bitching, more like seeing the humour in the

strange situations. annoying, yet at the same time intriguing.

[Quest]

Everything takes much longer to do, and people often seem obtuse. [外国人：Where can I buy X? 中国人：We don't sell it. 外国人： Yes, I can see you don't sell it. That wasn't my question. Where can I buy X? 中国人：We don't sell it. 外国人： Yes, I know. What other shops sell it? Where can I go? 中国人： You can try a shop that sells X. 外国人： Do I look like a ****wit? Of course, X can be bought in a shop that sells X. Where are there shops that sell X? 中国人： Not here. 外国人： Where can I go? Is there a shop near by? 中国人： You can have a look and try to find one. 外国人： (on the verge of throttling someone) Do you know where they sell X? Can you give me the address to show a taxi driver? 中国人： (finally clicks) Yes, you can try XYZ market at this address....] Even a simple thing like buying something in the shops always threatens to become a major drama.

What did 外国人 say in Chinese? Did he ask right? Did he have an accent? Did 中国人 understand what he said? If I was 中国人, and I did not understand what 外国人 said, but I heard "X". I would have said the same thing "we don't sell it".

The key Western supermarkets in Kunming have run out of many items on display in the shops...没有 or 卖完了is accepted by Chinese as a valid excuse for the non-availability of goods.

That's usually the same reponse I get here in the US, "we've run out of stock, come back in a few days." Rain checks are not mentioned until I ask. Why is that not a valid excuse?

You can check your nearest Bestbuy before school semesters start, and ask to buy a PC. 4 out of 5 PCs on display are sold out, and you'd hear the same response. Or, if you've ever spotted a hot rebate offer on a Harddrive or some electronic gadgets that was supposed to be valid throughout the week, try to go after Wednesday of the week and good luck if they still had them in stock.

Walking along the streets is simply a torment, jammed behind hundreds of Chinese walking as slowly as it is physically possible to do. "What's wrong with your legs?", I long to scream.

I get the same feeling here in America when I drive to work/home everyday.

Even sitting in a restaurant can be a trial of nerves. BRING THE RICE WITH THE OTHER DISHES.

Rice is not served unless you ask, because not everyone eats Rice when they eat out. But, when you ask, it comes out immediately because they always "stock" it.

[Ferno]

You're not the first having that idea: http://www.chinarant.com/[/quote}

that site is great

[gato]

Rice is not served unless you ask, because not everyone eats Rice when they eat out. But, when you ask, it comes out immediately because they always "stock" it.

It would be funny if they tell you 卖完了 when you ask for rice. I find Beijing traffic and pollution the hardest to adjust to, personally. The rest is no big deal, especially as your Chinese improves.

[owshawng]

If you changed "China" to "Australia", that's pretty much how a lot of my fellow expats from Taiwan, Hong Kong, US, and UK feel about life in OZ.

[hakkaboy]

!!!

[adrianlondon]

oo - Confucius societies discourage inventive and independent thought. Discuss.

[Quest]

BUT - you just have to live in China to know that you are brushing shoulders with very many intellectually challenged people.

hakkaboy, I had lived in China long enough (over 10 years) and had to deal with all kinds of people. My impression of China and the Chinese there is that, everyone's so cunning and socially trained. Competitions are fierce everywhere, you have to have some smarts to survive. 卧虎藏龙之地，被吃掉了也不知道发生了什么事。 My impression of American born Chinese... some of them may be scholastically smart, but they'd probably get eaten ten times before they know it in China. It's just a difference in culture, nothing to do with IQs.

Back to that shopping experience, if they understood what 外国人 said fully, they would have given him the directions he needed. Or they could be annoyed and didn't want to answer. It has nothing to do with IQs. It's like sometimes I think my parents are dumb, they can't learn new ideas, but in other areas they are so much smarter than me. They were trained in different areas in a different world.

But in fact Hong Kong, Japan and Korea are high IQ societies. So what is going on? And before you give me the PC BS, I have to give it to you straight: most Hong Kongers do not think much of mainlanders, and that is why Hong Kong managers are so hated in the mainland. People in Hong Kong are aware of the differences between them and the mainland - boy, are they!!

Hong Kong's ideas and culture are more inline with the West, and people there are generally more polite and more educated. Customers are always right, treat your customers like you treat the king, are new concepts in China. Not too long ago, everyone worked for the government and everyone earned 36 a month no matter how well they performed in their job. Customers were pests that gave them work not profit. I was complaining how Beijing didn't do half as well as Guangzhou in that regard, after my trip there, but I said to myself, yea just give them time.

I am just trying to bring up different perspectives. I remember this other guy that complained how HK kids have no sense of fashion, and their hair look ugly... and yea he probably didn't want to know what the HK kids think of him...

Neverthless, that video on chinarant is hilarious, these people probably never had a lesson in physics, but still it doesn't mean they have low IQ.

[Pinpin]

If you wanted to you could rant and rave about any country.

I lived in China and yes at times I found it very frustrating. I couldn't understand why everyone there thought it would be so much better to live abroad. In China or at least where I was in Fushun in Liaoning province, everyone was so friendly. I don't think the quality of friendships that you can find there are as good as any other friendships that can possibly be made in England or in the USA.

Materially you would be better off but at the expense of losing other more important elements in your life.

I can understand that things don't make sense there, all sorts of stupid things happened while I was there and I don't think I could ever live there again because I know something different, but then you could write a whole list of stupid things that happen in England or the USA or wherever that wouldn't happen in China.

When it gets too much it really is time to go home. It was educational and a real eye opener. I went there to see what it was like and I realise that all the stuff they say in the media about China is rubbish. It's not a secretive country at all. How do you keep a secret in an overcrowded country of 1.2 billion, where students have to sleep 10 to a room, and there are no doors on the toilets.

As for that website, how disgusting. What would Americans say if there was an equivalent for America? Isn't that like ant-Muslim websites being set up.

[Lu]

Personally, I think living in any country that is as different from your own country as China is is hard work. I learned to see the differences as a good thing (me, on day two in China, a bit exasperated: 'Everything is different here!' My friend who has been around the world: 'Yes, isn't it fun!'), sure there are some annoyances, but they are not the main thing. If you don't like life in China, if you are annoyed all the time, and can't get over it, there's only one solution: leave. The country is not going to change just because some laowai don't like this or that.

[yingguoguy]

It's unfortunately in the nature of open forums to attract idiots, and ChinaRant is no exception. Some of it was offensive, but a fair amount of it genuinly reflects the ex-pat peception of life in China.

As for that website, how disgusting. What would Americans say if there was an equivalent for America? Isn't that like ant-Muslim websites being set up.

Have you ever spent any time at the China Daily forums, it scores highest for racism, sexism and general bigotry (both by Chinese and Laowai) of any web-site I've ever visited.

And this is my favourite example of how the simplest question about something like a roast dinner can erupt into a three-way racist slagging match within two posts.

I don't know about American's but as a English man I wouldn't be too offended if something similar was set up by Chinese living there. We know our food is bad, the trains are late, we have drunken louts fighting and vomiting in the city centers at night, and our hospitals are crumbling, but then we refinded complaining into an art form. The typical response of Chinese people to these sorts of posts is "If you don't like it why don't you go home.", the typical response of English is (to paraphrase Basil Fawlty) "I know it's terrible isn't it, but look on the bright side; you can go home, we're stuck with it."

[gougou]

The country is not going to change just because some laowai don't like this or that.

No, but the country is changing because of some laowai's. About a hundred years back, that was however not incited by ranting but by demonstration of superiority.

(Granted, demonstrating superior weapons, amongst others, might be more of an argument than demonstrating politeness...)

[ddjiii]

You know, everyone has days like that, when the culture shock or the homesickness kicks in and you find yourself screaming to yourself (or others) WHY CAN'T YOU DO IT THE (RIGHT/EASY/OBVIOUS) WAY. It's natural. But it's not China, it's you - Chinese people have the same reaction when they visit the west. What's really freaky is when you go back home and you have reverse culture shock, and what you grew up with seems strange and unnatural.

It's not China that's hard work, it's living in a culture different from your own. Culture shock is not just a phrase, it's very real. I've seen people get pretty messed up.

And you should be having other days when everything seems fresh and exciting, and you are making a real connection with people and the place, and your life is expanding. They'll come. And if they don't after a while, maybe it's time to leave.

Personally, I think it's a good idea to blow off steam with people who understand (a friend and I once made a list of all the possible meanings of "hello" when said by Chinese to a 老外 , from "look at the strange people" to "I'm behind you with a tricycle full of junk and can't possibly stop") but it's not a good idea to dwell on the stuff that makes you crazy.