5 things I'm going to miss about China

In two weeks I will have said goodbye to my 'new home', and will be back in my 'old home'. In the lead up to my departure I've been focusing on the things I'm excited to be reunited with back home; an oven, avocados, a washing machine, cereal, non-sweet bread, a blender, a soft bed, soap in bathrooms, a shower cubicle (in China showers are usually just a shower head in the middle of the bathroom), English language, clean air, the library, friends, family... I could go on and on but that's not what I want this post to be about. I've realised recently that although it's great that I have a new found appreciation for all of the things I've missed, I haven't spent much time thinking about what I'm going to miss about China. There are definitely times when it feels like I won't miss anything, but I know there will be things I'll look back on nostalgically when I'm back home.

So here is a list of what I'm going to miss about living in China. This is not just a post for other people to read, but also a bit of a brainstorm for me and an exercise in appreciating the present so this list might be a bit all over the place but thank you for your attention nonetheless.

1. Street food - Street food in China is amazing! In Xi'an there is the Muslim District which is one of my favourite places to sample lots of different delicious foods and drinks. I prefer not to eat meat which limits my options, but luckily tofu is very popular in China and there are so many different types available. My favourite street foods in the Muslim District are fried baby potatoes (炸小洋芋), 'fried' yoghurt (炒酸奶), and fried tofu with spring onion and chili (炸豆腐). I'm only just realising now that these are all fried but yes welcome to Chinese food haha. In other parts of the city I love the fried noodles (炒面) you can buy on the streets, and the breakfast wrap with egg, lettuce and a fried cracker thing (煎饼果子) which I like to buy in the mornings. Oh and you can't forget the fresh hot soy milk!

Muslim District at night

2AM Fried Noodles

2. Public transport - I can only speak for Xi'an but the public transport here is fantastic. The metro currently only has 3 lines, with a 4th opening at the end of this year, but even with the 3 there are currently I find I can get to most places I need to. The metro is very fast and also cheap, ¥2-5 depending on the distance you travel. 

For the remainder of the city, buses are very convenient. There is no set timetable but they come in such frequent intervals that there's no need for one. The longest I've ever had to wait for a particular bus is probably 10 minutes which is incredible! In New Zealand I could easily wait an hour! If you thought the metro was cheap the buses are even cheaper, usually just ¥1 (20c NZD) with the rare one costing ¥2. The only downside to the public transport here is that it does get crowded, and I mean very crowded! There have been many occasions on the bus where I'll be squished up face to face with a random stranger trying to avoid eye contact and counting down the minutes until I can get off. In these situations there are times when I've had to get off the bus a few stops after my intended stop because if you're not standing right at the exit it's near impossible to get there especially when I don't speak the language. Usually I just take this as an experience and don't stress too much, but I suppose that's also because I've never been in that situation when I've been running late. On the flip-side this over-crowdedness  means that when the bus suddenly comes to a halt because a scooter has appeared out of nowhere (a very common occurrence) no one goes flying through the windows because even with the force of the bus stopping suddenly there's no room for anyone to shift. 

Morning traffic (featuring pollution)

This is the driver's camera in the bus, you can see the crowd of people and he was still letting people on at this point

3. Taobao - I suppose most people have heard of Taobao but if you haven't it's the most popular online shopping website in China (according to a quick Google search it's actually the biggest e-commerce site worldwide!). It's amazing, you can buy anything on Taobao from clothes and books to exotic animals and food. A new favourite past-time of mine is scrolling through my recommended items on the app and discovering new bizarre products such as the screenshots below. I don't always just scroll aimlessly though, I've also been known to make the odd purchase (or 2 haha). There's so much competition between sellers on Taobao you can get things much cheaper than you would do in the shops. Shipping is incredibly fast too, the longest I've ever had to wait is 3 days!

              

This creature

A mane for your cat

A chin rest so your child doesn't
ruin their posture doing homework

4. Friends and Colleagues - Of course this is a given but I feel like I need to write it anyway to avoid looking cold and heartless haha. I've met some wonderful new friends in China, both Chinese and other 'foreigners'. Hopefully I'll be seeing them again at some point in New Zealand or back in China!

My colleagues 

5. Being seen as 'special' - This one is very 2-sided and it almost doesn't belong on this list because right now I can't imagine missing this as the stares and attention 'foreigners' receive here on a daily basis is draining and incredibly annoying, but because it has become such a normal part of my life here I can't see myself not noticing the absence of it back home. I highly doubt I'll 'miss' it but I think it will feel strange to be considered just like everyone else once again, and to know if someone is staring I need to take a look in a mirror.

One of the many times random people have asked for photos

I'm sure there will be more things I'll miss or just notice in a neutral way when I get back home but for now these are my projections. Let's see what happens when I return home! 

Now that my departure is inching closer and closer I'm getting quite nervous. Even if I can project certain differences and things I'm going to miss, it's hard to project how overwhelming it'll be when it happens all at once! Soon after arriving here I wrote a post about how life here isn't totally different to back home, and the main processes we as humans take part in aren't different but within those processes there are so many differences that affect day-to-day life I do think the change will be quite intense at first.

Zhangjiajie - Avatar Mountains

Over the May Day holiday I flew to the south of China to visit Zhangjiajie, in Hunan province. I stayed in Wulingyuan at a hostel within walking distance to one of the park entrances, this area was really idilic in itself and a much nicer place to stay than the alternative which would have been Zhangjiajie city. I spent 3 days at Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, and the 4th and last day at Tianmen Mountain. I went alone but met some other ESL teachers (from England and South Africa) in the hostel along with a lady from China, so the first three days were spent climbing a new peak a day with these new friends.

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

The main attraction in Zhangjiajie did not disappoint! Coming from New Zealand I didn't expect to be blown away by the views, but I can honestly say this was the most beautiful place I've ever been. It's completely different from any scenery I've seen before, and it's one of those places that photos do no justice to at all - you really have to be there and see it to take in all of the beauty. My two favourite peaks were Tianzi Mountain and Tianbo Mansion.

The climb up Tianzi Mountain was quite strenuous especially as we were planning on taking it easy that day and just exploring some of the low lying areas. By mistake however, we started climbing one of the tallest peaks in the park! We kept thinking we had to almost be at the top because we were seeing Chinese people coming down wearing beautiful clothes without a trace of sweat on their faces. We should have questioned though how there were all of these people coming down, and barely any going up. When we reached the top we realised the peak was also accessible by cable car and most of those people we had seen walking down, were only doing the descent after taking the cable car up. It was definitely worth the climb though and each lookout point we got to on the way seemed increasingly more beautiful than the last. When we reached the bottom again we got on a bus to go back to the hostel in Wulingyuan and a man asked us if the water was cold, we were so confused until we realised we were so soaked in sweat he thought we'd been swimming in the river!

Tianbo Mansion is on the other side of the park and from there the views were even more spectacular because you could get a 360° view. It was quite difficult to get to this lookout point as it wasn't a normal climb like Tianzi Mountain. There were rocks to squeeze between, ladders to climb and paths very close to the edges.

Although those were my top two walks and viewpoints, the other tracks didn't disapoint either. When climbing the Shadao Channel we came across a big black and yellow snake sliding across the path! Safe to say it sped us up and the second half of the climb went a lot quicker. On a cuter wildlife note, there were lots of little monkeys throughout the whole park scuttling around!

Another point of interest was the Bailong Elevator - I tried to avoid using any of these gimmicks while in the park but after climbing the Shadao Channel we found we didn't have enough time to leave the park by closing time unless we took the elevator. It actually turned out to be quite an exciting ride and the view was yet again quite breathtaking. It's an elevator built into the side of one of the mountains which runs down into the actual mountain - they claim it's the world's highest elevator but in China most things I've seen seem to have some kind of title so who knows if that's actually the case haha.

Tianmen Shan

 

 

I spent my last night in Zhangjiajie city so I could go up Tianmen Mountain early the next morning. Another title elert here - the cable car up the mountain is supposedly the longest in the world. I opted to take the bus up the mountain and cable car down. The bus ride itself was quite spectacular, you travel up a rode known as the Road of 99 Bends and it certainly was windy!

When you reach the top of the mountain you're immediately faced with the Stairway to Heaven which is a staircase of 999 steps leading up to a huge hole in the rock called Tianmen Cave (also the highest hole of it's sort in the world - because it's China and everything needs a title). If you then continue up on the escalator which is built into the mountain (!!!), you come to the actual peak where most of the cliff-hanging walkways and the glass walkways are. The views from the cliff-hanging walkways were amazing because it was as if you were really wthin the view, not like you were standing at a viewpoint like usual but as if you were floating there. The glass-walkway was a fun gimmick but nothing special, the view was much more interesting over the sides than down upon tree tops

Overall Tianmen Shan was worth the visit but after the 3 days at Zhangjiajie National Forest Park it was very underwheming. The crowds were intense and there were so many gimmicks that took away from the actual beauty of the area. Although there were also crowds and gimmicks at the National Park, it was much easier to avoid them - many of the walking tracks were empty as most Chinese touirsts seem to find the cable cars more attractive and you can get around without using the elevator or passing by too many touristy shops if you plan the day out well.

China isn't so different afterall

I've now been in China for 2.5 months and although I have seen and experienced many things I'd have never expected, the single biggest surprise I've realised reaching this milestone is how normal my day-to-day life actually feels here.

So first just a little bit of background. I graduated from university at the end of last year and before beginning the Master's degree I plan to pursue I thought I'd head off on one last adventure. That adventure came to fruition with me signing a year's contract for a job teaching English in Xi'an, China.

Before moving to China I saw the country as another world, so far away and so different from everything I knew. I think that's how most people who have never lived in China see it. The censored media, pollution, mass production - those are just some of the aspects of China which seem so extreme to us in the West. 'Made in China' is written on most things we buy, China isn't a place we go it's just a place our things come from, somewhere we're so detached from yet rely on so much.

When I decided I was going to come to China a common reaction my decision was met with was "why?". Usually when you announce you're taking the leap into something new, the reaction of your friends and family is one of pure excitement rather than of questioning your motives. I lived in Italy for a year when I was 17 on a student exchange and I remember the excitement everyone shared with me before my departure, people weren't questioning my decision they were congratulating me on it. But this time it was different.

Although my friends and family asked me why I was going to China they were still supportive of my decision, no one tried to stop me or told me it was a bad idea they were just curious as to why I would want to come here when I could go anywhere, or go nowhere for that matter. Strangers were a different story though. Fair enough they don't know me, they don't need to show support and that's totally fine but when someone walks into your doctor's office two months before they're off to China for a year you'd think you'd refrain from going on and on - in great detail  - about how dirty the country is (to the point where it was time for her next patient and I'd barely had any time to cover what I'd intended to). As I said though I also shared some of these perceptions about China, it was just interesting to hear how intently others also believed them.

Although the reactions of my peers were different to what I'd experienced in other circumstances, they weren't unexpected because I had been asking myself the same questions that they had been asking me. In saying that, I was excited to come to China and prove those ideas wrong, but surprisingly I sit here now at the 2.5 month mark and I don't think they are wrong. Even though I said I'm now living a normal life here, that doesn't mean that those big ideas were misconceptions. For example, many places here are very dirty compared to the West. The school I work at has visible grime on most surfaces, and the toys we use in class all all tinged black. We have a lady who is employed to 'clean' the school but that solely consists of her mopping the floors. The floors are sparkling but it's a pity they're the one thing our hands don't touch. I'm not saying this as a critique of their culture, not at all - the argument exists that we oversanitise in the West, and I think that's probably completely true. That doesn't stop however, me noticing this difference between the two societies having grown up where I have. What you believe to be 'normal' is merely what you're used to, so it's impossible for me to not notice these things as they are different to what I've been taught and observed growing up. Those 'norms' are hard to shake.

Here, young children wear open-crotched pants so that they can go to the toilet whenever they please - whether that means being held over a bin in the subway (actually saw this), or crouching down on the concrete street (again, seen it!), this is quite shockingly different to my internal norms. A similar difference in norms exists when it comes to any bodily fluid - forget blowing your nose into a tissue and washing your hands, here it's common to block one nostril while you blow the boggers out of the other right onto the street in front of you (imagine walking down the street, glancing to your side and seeing a long trail of boggers hanging from a man's nose as he's mid blow - yup really seen it). These things are all natural sure and how we handle them is only cultural, so again I'm not banging on the Chinese culture but you have to admit these things are all quite difference to what you'd see on an average day in a neighbourhood in New Zealand, or Australia, or the USA or any Western country.

So what I'm mostly surprised about is how I can live such a normal life here even though I notice these quite extreme differences in norms on a daily basis, which only provide supporting evidence for those ideas I had before coming to China. What I've realised from this is that we are all human at the end of the day and when it really comes down to it we all go through the same processes we just deal with them in slightly different ways depending on our norms, which means that nothing is completely alien.

I wake up, take a shower, have breakfast, go to work, have a lunch break, come home, have dinner, watch TV, head to bed. Every one of the processes I'm used to in my life back home is still there, nothing is missing and nothing has been added. The differences are merely within the smaller steps which these processes are made up of. When I arrive home in China I don't walk down the driveway in the fresh air and through the unlocked front door, I enter a building from a dusty street and head up an elevator to arrive at my front door. I live in an apartment building like most Chinese, but at the end of the day that process is still me returning home from work and ending up at my front door. The overall process, reason behind it and end result are the same - the steps are just slightly different.

I think this is why life here is so normal. There are differences, some of them very surprising but at the end of the day China is not a different world like many of us believe in the West. I have only been here 2 1/2 months so who knows maybe this perception will change, but for now I'm glad I have this down in writing for me to review if anything changes.