pintant…

In China I tried to keep my eyes open as much as I could. I also have my camera handy all the time to try to take pictures of things that I see and that I don’t want to forget.

A few things that I observed and that I haven’t seen much in other places…

Chinese sit to take breaks in a squatting position
I saw many people using their phones or just resting in a squat position (almost sitting on the floor). I can’t stay in that position for long time, but it seems that the Chinese can.

I have the theory that they are used to that position a bit more than Westerners because they have quite a lot of toilets that are only a hole on the ground (without a toilet seat) so they are more experienced in making this position.

A Chinese woman said to me that she knew some Westerners that had to take breaks when using the toilet! Like a few minutes squatting, then standing up, then squat again!

On the underground: Chinese use mobiles
I saw many people using their phones on the underground… but I realized when I was back in London that Chinese don’t read newspapers on the underground! They don’t seem to have anything like “Metro” or “Evening Standard” (free newspapers). Also, some people read books but I’d say that there are fewer than in London.

They walk backwards (for exercise)
Every now and then, specially in parks, I saw people walking backwards. I asked why: they think that it’s good for the health, specially if it’s on a slope.

I tried it and I have to say… I liked it! I could feel that I used different muscles than walking forwards.

My recent trip to China was all very good… and I had two good surprises due to some misconceptions.

I liked the food
I was in China for 2 full weeks and… I liked the food! Actually, I didn’t get bored with the food. One reason is that I was very well guided to the very big variety of food that they have there.

I had two misconceptions:
a) I thought that almost all the food was based on rice and noodles. I thought that during 2 weeks I would have to eat rice or noodles every day… and it’s not the case. They have lot of food without rice and noodles are common but there are options
b) I thought that lot of Chinese food would be spicy. I don’t particularly enjoy spicy food and I didn’t fancy eating spicy food for the whole two weeks. I ate some spicy food but it was easy to avoid, and actually it wasn’t too spicy, even by my standards.

After discovering the very good Chinese food in China food I learnt that London China town has lot of Cantonese food because the first immigrants were from Hong Kong, since it was easier for them to come to London than mainland Chinese.

In that 2 weeks I almost didn’t repeat any dish! This is quite amazing!

They are much cleaner than I thought
I knew that Chinese people spat. I knew that some Chinese restaurants in Barcelona got closed because they were not clean enough. I knew that Chinese restaurants are usually cheap (why so cheap? Bad food? Bad process?). And that Chinese restaurants cut the meat in very small pieces (suspicious, is it because the meat has low quality and they cut it small to hide the bad quality meat, compared with a cut of steak?). Because of all this inputs I expected the hotels to be dirty, and the restaurants to be filthy. I was very wrong.

Staff in restaurants used gloves, fast food chains used masks to avoid contaminating the food while talking across the food. In some places the glasses and bowls were wrapped in plastic to avoid getting dirty while on the table. The hotels were very clean. I have no complain at all!

It’s true that, in some very cheap places where I could see how they prepared the meat, I saw things falling on a dirty floor and being put back again to cook. But that was in very cheap restaurants, almost street food.

Regarding the meat being cut in small pieces: besides creating some more work places, it’s more energy efficient to cook meat cut in small pieces than in big pieces (like a steak). Now even this makes sense! And, of course, it’s chopstick friendly!

Recently I came back from China. I stayed there 2 weeks, about one week in Dalian (because of a friend) and another in Beijing. It has been an eye-opening experience: I had many misconceptions of China for different reasons -I’ll explain in another blog post.

I bought a Beijing’s guide and I really recommend it. It’s “Top 10 Beijing” from “Eyewitness Travel”. It has Top 10 lists: Top 10 to see, Top 10 per zones, Top 10 restaurants, Top 10 museums, etc. and the guide is easy to navigate (it has some mistakes but nothing big).

The guide has “Top 10 things to avoid”. I liked it and I thought that it was quite clever and funny, but after being there I would take it with a pinch of salt. Let’s review what the book says and what my experience was.

1.- Students of English
The guide says that so-called “language students” on the street are con-artists (“scammers”) and they try to invite you to have tea… and they have a deal with the tea-shop owner so they over-charge you (to hundreds of £ or €).

No English student approached me, but talking with some Chinese friends they know some foreigners that had this problem. So it seems good advice!

2.- Queuing
The book says that Chinese don’t do queues well.

My experience: they are not perfect queues… but in all the time I was there only once (to enter Tiananmen square) I had to really push back while queuing. The queues are much more compact than English queues (no “personal space”). But, if you come to my zone in London and observe the “queue” to board the bus: it’s a disorganized group of people blocking the whole pavement. They don’t usually move when other pedestrians want to just walk through. As a fun note: the queue is perfect on the same bus route but at the other end, near Waterloo station.

3.- Taking Offence at Spitting
The guide book seems to indicate that everyone spits all the time. Yes, they do spit, but not as much as I thought. I didn’t need to jump to avoid any spits. And, again, I’ve seen people in London spitting or even peeing on the streets.

4.- Rush Hour
The book says that Beijing’s traffic is bad and rush hour should be avoided. It’s bad, but it didn’t affect me much: I could still get on the underground trains easily. In the morning I used the underground a bit after the rush hour. But yes, the traffic looked very bad.

5.- Art Students
The book says that art students might try to sell over-priced “art objects”. It didn’t happen to me: no art student approached me. Probably they approach people better-dressed than me. If I were an art student con-artist I wouldn’t approach myself!

6.- Guides
The book says that some tourist guides are very bad (that they don’t give much information, etc.). I have no experience here… someone approached me but I said my polite “No, thank you” and they didn’t insist much.

7.- Visiting Sights on National Holidays
I avoided Chinese New Year to avoid the problems mentioned in the book. I was told that the Great Wall and other places are overcrowded.

8.- Sweet and Sour Chicken
I didn’t see any “Sweet and Sour Chicken”, but probably it’s in some tourist restaurants that I didn’t go. It’s common in Chinese restaurants in my hometown near Barcelona and I think that also in Camden Town in London.

9.- Public toilets
The book says that they smell bad. They smell like… public toilets! (would you expect them to smell like flowers? No, right? no surprise then). And they are free. And almost everywhere! (even in underground stations). In London one needs to pay and quite often they still smell bad and they are hard to find.

10.- Taking a taxi without the Right Change
The book says that “Beijing taxi drivers hardly ever seem to carry any change”. I asked some Chinese friends and they said that they do have change. The book is written by a foreigner so my guess is that maybe some taxi drivers tried to not give change back to him.

Something that usually happens to me: when I read some lists like the “Top 10 things to avoid” or similar: I tend to imagine that the situation is worse than it is. If it says “they spit” I think that everyone spits on my feet all the time. And yes, they do spit but not that much!