<p>I went to China (Biejing) over the winter break. I wanted to make a list of my observations and save them for the future.</p>
<li><p>Pictures cannot describe the enormous amount of people in the streets. </p></li>
<li><p>I’m Chinese but even I think everyone in China looks the same, especially in contrast to the diversity in the US. Everyone there wears black or brown coats, black or brown shoes, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>It is not unusual to see bicycles lined up in a row for 100 yards…and 3 deep.</p></li>
<li><p>You can usually tell the social class on the person by the color of their coat. Light, flamboyant color = well-off. Dark leather = average Chinese in China</p></li>
<li><p>There are almost more KFC’s in China than McDonalds.</p></li>
<li><p>A quick trip to one of the major shopping centers can expose you to two different worlds. I often kept thinking about Dicken’s famous quote “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Walking in a large mall with expensive cosmetics and Western brands, you are usually surrounded by people well-off. Walk out of the mall and you see people with wrinkled skin, baggy eyes, dark clothing selling chestnuts, fruits, etc. just to get by.</p></li>
<li><p>I was disheartening to walk out of a restaurant and be approached by two children (age about 6) asking for food, money. The mom looked poor. It was 10F outside at night. I wonder how long they were out there.</p></li>
<li><p>Malls in China are usually 6-10 stories high. You cannot believe the massive amounts of clothing, food, etc. that people are selling. Elevators are stacked right on top of each other. You can look up and see endless rows of elevators…almost like the effect you get in a mirror.</p></li>
<li><p>The Beijing train station is packed with people at night. Watching people move up the elevators are like 1000 ants moving into a 1/2 cm hole.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese restaurants have private rooms. Unlike here were you eat in one huge place, most restaurants in China are predominately hallways with private rooms.</p></li>
<li><p>Beijing is cold in the winter. 0-10F.</p></li>
<li><p>A large area in Beijing (about the size of Central Park) is closed off by a huge wall for Olympic development.</p></li>
<li><p>New York traffic is to Kansas traffic as Beijing traffic is to New York traffic. Yes it really is that bad.</p></li>
<li><p>Pollution is bad. Boogers are not green, but black in China.</p></li>
<li><p>The snow is not covered with dirt, but ash and tar.</p></li>
<li><p>People heat up their soda in China. They don’t like the carbonation.</p></li>
<li><p>Beds are made of wood in China. People sleep on wood. No matresses.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese drivers are skilled. Cars get within centimeters yet I never saw one car crash in China.</p></li>
<li><p>Drivers regularly cross the median line to pass other drivers. Even when the oncoming car is less than 100 yards away.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t cross the streets in China drunk if you want to stay alive.</p></li>
<li><p>All empty spaces between cars are filled with either people or bicycles.</p></li>
<li><p>Drivers in China have their finger on the horn button when they drive. The horn button is located where the turn signal is in Chinese cars…makes it easier to use.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese food in China is better than Chinese food in America.</p></li>
<li><p>A 1000 sq ft house in China is considered large.</p></li>
<li><p>People in China talk in a way that seems disrespectful in the US. It sounds impolite, but I guess that’s the culture.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s not uncommon to criticize the waitresses in China for slow service, bad food, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>No toilets in China. Instead, its just a depressed bowl and you have to squat. Oh, and don’t forget to bring toilet paper, cause many places, they don’t have them.</p></li>
<li><p>99% of tall buildings in Beijing have elaborate lighting at night.</p></li>
<li><p>Top floor of a mall usually has the food court. At least 20 different restaurants I saw and packed with people.</p></li>
<li><p>Almost all stores in affordable malls in China are owned by private families.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’re looking for good airline food, don’t fly Air China.</p></li>
<li><p>Beijing Capital International Airport is the most beautiful I have seen.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese translation of English tends to carry a gratuitous use of the word “the”.</p></li>
<li><p>There are NO obese people in China.</p></li>
<li><p>Qinghua University is impressive. But it has a weird smell.</p></li>
<li><p>I still get that paradoxical tremble when I see Mao at Tiananmen Square.</p></li>
<li><p>I would go again in a heatbeat.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That's very interesting cherry. My mother is from Hong Kong and hasn't been there since she was 12. I hope someday I can take her there again.</p>
<p>Of course Chinese food in China is better than it is here! It's like a million times better! </p>
<p>And even when you're not drunk, it's hard to cross the streets. They don't have pedestrian street lights. </p>
<ol>
<li>Beds are made of wood in China. People sleep on wood. No matresses.</li>
</ol>
<p>That's not a very good impression. Granted people there are poorer but A LOT of people have nice beds and mattresses.</p>
<ol>
<li>Beds are made of wood in China. People sleep on wood. No matresses.</li>
</ol>
<p>That's not a very good impression. Granted people there are poorer but A LOT of people have nice beds and mattresses.</p>
<p>Myabe you stayed at the different place...but of all the places I had been to, no one had a mattress. It was just wood, with a "thick" bedcover over it.</p>
<p>what are Chinese teenagers like?</p>
<p>I lived in China for 8 years and I've been back to Beijing like...six times lol.
The "thick" bedcover is many people's version of a mattress (and I think it's just as comfortable). But the sleeping on wood part makes them sound so impoverished!</p>
<p>I mainly think of two types of chinese teenagers--
the super studious nerdy ones
and the rebellious ones. </p>
<p>On average though, I think they study a lot more than we do here. It's so much harder to go to college at all, let alone a GOOD college. You have to test to go to community college!</p>
<p>I've never been out of the US so it's nice to hear other's impressions who have traveled to place far and away. though #37 isn't really an observation</p>
<p>I assumed they are more respectful to their parents because my mom says her children are worthless</p>
<p>chinese teenagers are like american teenagers, but dress more formally. If you go to China over the summer wearing shorts, you WILL be stared at with looks of disdain from girls immaculately forever clad in strappy heels and expensive dresses that only go up to about size two. Or in my experience, at least. ;_;</p>
<p>haha, yes they do go through a lot more crap to go to college. i didn't believe it was that bad because all the colleges look at really is the entrance exam, but my god, that exam. Full of weird stuff like:</p>
<p>a bear walks along and then falls into a hole. He falls at this amount of time and the hole is this deep. what COLOR is the bear?</p>
<p>thank god for the sats</p>
<p>similar to US tennagers. Most don't mind McDonald's and Pizza Hut and KFC, unlike the older generation. They are mostly into soccer and NBA basketball. They hang out at the malls (with g/f and b/f), dress more "hip", "modern" or whatever, but no prep style clothing. Schools usually don't provide food, and they have to go home and eat. Video games are popular, and they like western style music (Asian music that sounds western).</p>
<p>College admissions is a bear. A three day national test. That's it. It's the only factor that matters. Material is on math, science, language, and what Chinese call "politics" but we call "social science".</p>
<p>And the bad thing is that you choose which schools you apply to BEFORE you receive your test scores. And schools have their own cutoff mark. 1 point too low? Sorry, rejected.</p>
<p>Oh, and you can only apply to a limited number of schools.</p>
<p>Analogy is like taking an SAT on steroids. Then, before receiving your score, you choose which colleges you apply to. There are several categories, analagous to "reach, match, safety", and you can only choose a few in each category. Then, admissions depends on whether you beat the cutoff score or not.</p>
<p>
[quote]
chinese teenagers are like american teenagers, but dress more formally. If you go to China over the summer wearing shorts, you WILL be stared at with looks of disdain from girls immaculately forever clad in strappy heels and expensive dresses that only go up to about size two. Or in my experience, at least. ;_;
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow I didn't get that impression at all! People dress really casually (at least in Beijing) and especially if they have school uniforms, they dress pretty badly because those things tend to be ugly. </p>
<p>Also they have so much school! Only like 1 month of summer vacation.</p>
<p>yeah, but they have one month of winter vacation and a week off for chinese new years. still doesn't add up, i guess. </p>
<p>In the part of china i visited, all the men wore dress pants, shiny dress shoes, and button-down-collar shirts. My cousin kept making me try on all these ruffled white skirts with faux pearls attatched and intricate bead and needlework. oh trauma. i was about ready to hug everyone at the SF airport in t-shirts and sneakers, haha.</p>
<p>lol; I think men are just more feminine there, but where did you visit?</p>
<p>Just to clarify about the wooden beds:
It's not a poverty thing. People can afford mattresses. They just believe that a soft (aka saggy) mattress is bad for your back. They've got good posture there. It's also much, MUCH cooler and more comfortable in the summertime when you don't want a stuffy mattress under you.</p>
<p>by the way...
The food in Shanghai is a million times better than the food in Beijing ;)
The weather is also a bit more moderate, since it is on the coast. </p>
<p>College admissions there is pretty scary. What if you are sick on the day of the test? Then again, I think I might prefer their system, without all the recs (which in many cases just turns into plain old asskissing) and ECs and essays. It seems so much easier. Just take a test and you're in. It's much more of a "We only care about your academics, we don't give a damn about your personality, your legacy, your connections, your interests. Just give us your stats." Whether this is a good or a bad thing is debatable.</p>
<p>Some people get sick while taking the test because it's in mid summer and many test centers aren't airconditioned (and the rooms are crowded). But you do get to take the test again and again until you're 25 I think.</p>
<p>I went to shanghai for the first time last summer. I liked new shanghai but old shanghai, although it has a lot of culture, is just really dingy. At night though shanghai and the river is beautiful. I can't say the weather's that great, it's humid and tends to rain a lot during the summer, but Beijing has pretty sucky weather-- too hot in summer and too cold in winter and it's so dry that they have sandstorms. </p>
<p>I know that people there have good posture and the wooden bed thing isn't about poverty but the way the OP made it sound was just like "wow look at these people they can't afford mattress" at least that's how I took it. My grandparents have a MAGNETIC mattress and it's supposed to be good for your back but it's SO damn hard it hurts.</p>
<p>well, I didn't mean to imply anything about poverty. I was trying to emphasize the contrast (to the US).</p>
<p>Observations from my trip back to China 2 years ago:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Shanghai police ditched their commie olive-green uniforms and went with a more relaxed sky blue one. </p></li>
<li><p>Buses STILL completely suck.</p></li>
<li><p>The smelly sewage rivers, in Shanghai especially, have been completely cleaned up.</p></li>
<li><p>Many families have floor mounted air conditioning machines in the main family room, but usually don't turn it on to save money.</p></li>
<li><p>Chinese teens are getting hipper.</p></li>
<li><p>More fat little kids than 5 years ago, probably due to the ridiculous popularity of KFC.</p></li>
<li><p>VCD rules...not...</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Observations from my trip back to China 9 years ago:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Shanghai is really crowded, lots of bikers.</p></li>
<li><p>Lots of random people on the street selling food at extremely cheap prices</p></li>
<li><p>Watch out for pickpockets.</p></li>
<li><p>I kept hearing in the news that these random kids would die from "fake" foods</p></li>
<li><p>They like to cram as many people as they can in busses</p></li>
<li><p>I suck at Chinese, but I could keep up with my peers in math</p></li>
<li><p>Most places were really dirty</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Oh how times have changed. I really hope I can visit again sometime (maybe this summer?).</p>
<p>
[quote]
2. Lots of random people on the street selling food at extremely cheap prices
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I learned the hard way that if you lived in America most of your life, never come back to China and by pineapple on a stick from a street vender.</p>
<p>
[quote]
5. They like to cram as many people as they can in busses
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The One thing that hasn't changed at all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. Shanghai is really crowded, lots of bikers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Fewer bikes now, more exclusively China model Volkswagons roaming the streets.</p>
<p>
[quote]
7. Most places were really dirty
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ever rented a boat at that big lake in Hangzhou? Now THAT is waht I call dirty.</p>