1. PRODUCT RECIGNITION
Even though I was in China and everything looked different and I had no idea what kind of food or drink I was buying. I was surprised that just by looking at certain brand cues such as color or the way a package was designed, I was able to recognize what the item was even though the packaging had no English on it.
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| Coca-Cola and Diet Coca-Cola |
2. DANGEROUS DRIVING
“People drive the way they walk. They like to move in packs, and they tailgate whenever possible. They rarely use turn signals. Instead they rely on automobile body language: if a car edges to the left, you can guess that he’s about to make a turn. And they are brilliant at improvising. They convert sidewalks into passing lanes, and they’ll approach a round about in reverse direction of it seems faster”. (Hessler, 28)
After reading Peter Hessler’s book Country Driving, I was aware that driving and even walking in China would be more of a challenge than usual. The first encounter with traffic was walking up the stairs from the subway. Upon reaching the surface we came out right by Mao and The Forbidden City. In front of the Forbidden City was a road that was at least ten lanes across of pure chaos.
Then one night we had to take a taxi to dinner. Just the thought of being in a vehicle amidst the chaos was frightening. Especially the u-turn while oncoming traffic was racing towards us. I do admit that through out most of the taxi ride I had my eyes closed just so I wouldn’t have to see all the near death encounters with other cars. I was very excited when I was finally back on solid ground again.
3. SMOG FACTOR
Learning about all the smog I was worried that breathing was going to be unbearable. Some days the smog was worse than others, While in Beijing we actually had pretty nice weather. All days were sunny, but not like the sun that we experience here in America. You could barely ever see the sun because the air was always so thick with smog.
“Beijing, like Los Angeles, sits in a sunbaked basin that traps pools of air. There are also solutions. Big industrial plants are being moved out of town, and everyone assumes that when the time comes for the Games, the authorities will do whatever they have to - closing factories, banning private traffic - to bring pollution down to an endurable level”. (Fallows, 14)
4. BEIJING IS HUGE!
“There are nine cities in the United States with more than on million inhabitants. In Chine there are forty-nine. You can be traveling across China, arrive in a city that is twice the size of Houston, and think, I’ve never even heard of this place. This is how it is for many foreign visitors to Hefei (populations 4.2 million). (Gifford, 64)
5. STRESSFUL SUBWAY
Riding the subway was always an adventure. The subway is one of the best ways to get around the city for a very low price. There seemed to be a subway stop everywhere that we wanted to go. There always seemed to be a million people on the subway at all times. I think I saw more people underground in the subway system then I did above ground. Getting on and off the subway is a free for all. You literally have to rush on and possibly trample someone to guarantee that you can get on. Once on you cannot move, thats how many people are on the subway. If your able to sit down then you are a very lucky person.
I was always afraid that I was going to get separated from the group. Being abandoned on the subway, while everyone else made it off. By the end of the trip I feel like I had pretty much mastered the Beijing subway station. I was even able to navigate where to go, which can be pretty difficult when there is only limited English.
6. BEIJING ZOO
7. SCRUMPTIOUS STREET FOOD
8. THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Shopping in Beijing is super fun. It’s a whole nether level of shopping.
I was a little nervous about haggling at the beginning. But once I got
the hang of it I became an expert, maybe even addicted. There was
nothing that I couldn’t haggle down to a price that I found reasonable.
It was like playing a game, whoever could go lower wins... I always won.
I found so much cool stuff, that I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be
able to fit it all in my suitcase, but I did.
9. COST OF LIVING
When arriving in China I was at first concerned by seeing all the high prices, but then I realized that the exchange rate was amazing. It was about 6.50 yuan (or Mao's as we called them, since Mao’s face is on every single bill) to one US dollar. Most things I bought were under a dollar, like bottled water. The cost of living was just so cheap. As our tour guide Lily says, every Chinese mans dream is to have a Japanese wife, American house, with a Chinese cost. Money didn’t seem to have such a big effect on culture as it does in America. Everything is fairly affordable, and store owners seem happy. I loved buying things at such a cheap price, that I almost felt obligated to give them more money.
“I kept discovering on acceptable brand of beer that cost half as much as the beer I’d had the previous day. It was the Shanghai version of Zeno’s paradox: The beer became steadily cheaper yet never quite became free. I had an early surprise discovery of imported Sam Adams, for 12 yuan, or $1.50 per 335ml bottle, which is the regular U.S. size. The next day, I found a bottle of locally brewed Tiger, the national beer of Singapore, for 7 yuan, or 84 cents per 350ml. Soon I moved to 600ml “extra value” bottles of Tiger at 6 yuan (72 cents per 600ml), then Tsingtao at 3.90 yuan (45 cents per 600ml).” (Fallows 5).
10. CENSORSHIP
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| Photo Source |
“Until I installed a “proxy server,” which allows my computer to tunnel under and around the “Great Firewall,” I was amazed at the parts of the Internet I could not reach from China.” (Fallows, 19)
