frugal wrote:
Do you like living there?
China, like everywhere, has its pluses and its minuses.
The pluses include:
1.) My children are safer here than in the United States. Heck, my whole family is safer in China than in the United States! No one is going to barge into a movie theater in China and shoot the place up. Likewise, no one is going to barge into my children's school and shoot the place up. I hear about the violence back in the States and it makes me not want to go back there to live right now. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE America, but gosh I hope I don't go back there to live until both my sons have graduated from high school and I no longer have to worry about school violence.
2.) The food here is to die for. "Chinese food" in America... needs the quotes I gave it. Because it's NOT Chinese food. Not even close.
3.) I love the Chinese people. No, not the hackers, but I don't see them, anyway. Chinese people are VERY curious about Americans and very friendly toward Americans and see everything Americaesque as being a net positive. They ALL want to go to America. Yes, every last one of them. I'm very glad to have gotten to know what China is like. It calms me, especially since most Americans are SO fearful of China. China couldn't conquer us if they had to; they don't want to, anyway, so there's not point in us worrying about it. I read news stories about things like that and I'm glad to be grounded in reality.
4.) Did I mention the food?
5.) I love being able to see the real China. It is changing so fast (rapid pace modernization) that the way it is now will never exist again. It is a privilege to be able to see it before it's gone forever.
6.) And also: I LIVE IN CHINA. My sons have taken Mandarin in school by native-speaking teachers. You can't top that, you know?
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Negatives:
1.) The air. My GOD, the air. Americans cannot fathom what the air is like here. Remember the pictures on 9/11 of Ground Zero and how the air was all cloudy because the buildings had just fallen? That's the air almost every day here in China, but it's even brown sometimes. I don't know how in the world China is still doing this - you would think the people would rise up and take action. I suppose they can't?
2.) Most people don't use diapers for their babies and toddlers. Yes, you read that right. You'll be walking down the street and the babies or toddlers will be doing their business on the sidewalk, in full view of the world, sometimes even being held in a toilet-position by grandmothers or mothers. It's very odd. They also do that in grocery stores, shopping areas, and public transportation.
3.) Spitting. Everywhere. Phlegm clods on the sidewalks that you try to not step in.
4.) The biggest thing has the right of way, which is the opposite of what it's like in America. In America, the cars yield to smaller things, like bikes and people. In China? The cars will mow your rear end down. Even if you're walking on the sidewalk. Because sidewalks are NOT like American sidewalks - in China, sidewalks are for driving on, too! And for parking on.
5.) I live in fear of a member of my family getting very ill or injured. There's no 911, there's no health care infrastructure, and something normally no big deal in America could kill you here. Like, say, an appendectomy. Also, I seriously hope we don't end up with antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. I hear it's out there, and stuff like that really worries me. Also, if a bad flu hits (swine flu/bird flu/whatever-animal flu), everyone in China is gonna die, because this place has NO sanitation. Singapore outlawed spitting and littering and all of that because of the Chinese folks who would visit there.
6.) Squatty potties. God help me. A Chinese toilet is a hole in the floor that you straddle and then squat over to do your business. Google it if you don't know what I'm talking about. Not so bad for you people with penises, but Lord have mercy I was NOT raised to perch myself on my heels and aim for a hole in the floor. Chinese ladies were raised from babyhood to do this, so they can pull it off magnificently even with super-high stiletto heels on. I CANNOT. No, not even wearing tennis shoes. Before China will EVER enter first world status, they will have to deal with the spitting, the air quality, and the toilets.
7.) Everyone smokes, and they smoke everywhere. You'll be in a restaurant and everyone around you is smoking. I'm all WHY, PEOPLE, YOUR LUNGS ARE ALREADY DEALING WITH THE AIR POLLUTION! but they're all smoking anyway.
8.) You've already heard about my internet woes (China's Great Firewall and VPN killers and all that), so I won't complain about it again here. But that stuff's a bummer, because I'm not trying to, like, take down the Chinese way of life, I'm just trying to see a picture of my girlfriend's new baby on Facebook. Alas.
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This makes it look like I hate China. But really, I don't! I swear. It's very fascinating! I guess I just found it easier to write about the negatives than the positives.
(Trying hard to not screw up handling the money that my husband and I have traded untold life-hours to earn...)
