I have been living in China for a little over 1.5 years and I have understood much of the much secretive and claimed ‘Communist’ Political system that I have to accept, globally, people only have stereotypes about. In these 1.5 years, My most preferred ice-breaker with people I meet for the first time, is their political opinions towards the government. Sometimes, It can backfire but I have known the boundaries of its sensitivity.

During my experience here, I have talked with many students, working professionals, CEOs of a few companies to even a few Baristas. One common feeling which remains same in each of these interactions is the sheer positivity towards their government.

Wait, What?

I have been to 20+ countries in over 5 continents and the political perception of people towards their government intrigues me. I have had such conversations with many, all over the world. But, I haven’t experienced as many people being positive about their government as in China. So, This comes as a shock to many of my friends overseas. Some, even call it brainwashing.

I read more about it & I discovered that India & China are leading the Global Trust Levels in Business and Government. You can check it out HERE.

In many of my conversations with my friends overseas, It is common for many of them to openly criticize their government and its policies. Most of these conversations just end with, either ‘I am sick and tired of this system’ or ‘the next government will be better’.

China’s political system remains a global controversy & It was important for me to understand the reasons behind it. So, I decided to write down some of my experiences.

Before, I move on, I have a disclaimer - This is a neutral perspective coming from a Global Citizen, not an individual of 1 specific country. And, I have one request, try more to understand than to be understood. For once. I did the same and have been doing the same for over 1.5 years.

Last Month, I saw many of my social media feeds going viral over Donald Trump’s victory. I think the topic of ‘Our Political System :o itself, for us or for some specific people’ has become even more important and urgent topic to talk about. Against the popular perceptions, the chinese political model has taken my interest to new heights. Here are some of its highlights -For

1. Democracy or No Democracy - The biggest myth of the chinese the same in many countries. The much acclaimed ‘Largest Democracy in the World’ - India, has the same system where people vote for the member of parliament who in the end choose the prime minister of the country (the equivalent of the Chinese president). The point is - It’s democracy. Yes, It can be questioned. But, on a scale of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, it’s a ‘Yes’.its political system - ‘It’s not democracy’. Well, it’s wrong. People in China do vote for their local councillors who in the end are supposed to choose the bigger leaders in the political arena. It is true that many people don’t know about this process and how it works as the process is not transparent and some people just don’t care. It’s also true that a layman can’t vote to choose the president of the country. But
2. Earn a voting right - If you want to play a role in the National Politics The Communist party. It’s important to understand the ‘one party system’. People need to be a party member in order to vote for the Chinese President.party i.e. or vote for the Chinese president. Then, you have to be a Chinese Communist party member. China is a Democracy but has only one
3. Single Party System - Yes, ito a single party rule. But, wait, Singapore has a Single party rule too since no other political party or coalition of parties has been successful in winning enough votes to form a government. An extremely efficient democracy based on popular perceptions. So, One party ruling the country is not unique. And, China is not an exception here.
4. Being a party member - The next question is, how to be a party member? In order to be a party member, a person needs to be influential enough to earn a right to vote in the presidential elections. Although, the exact number remains to be a secret but I read it online that the Communist Party of China has over 87.79 Million Members (24.7% Female) till June 2016.

Well, that was the Chinese Political system that I have understood till now. But the important part is, What is my opinion about it? So, here are my experiences when I talk with people about it.

1. Democracy or No Democracy - In one of my conversations with Terry, A Bar Tender in Beijing who had won many awards for his work. He learnt Bar tending to decide the result of the elections but in reality they don’t. Look at what they did, They did Brexit and now are suffering. Democracy works in a Board Room, in an office when a company/team is deciding, basically within a group of 10 people or so, deciding something about their work since the team is supposed to work in one direction but not a country". Well, he proved me wrong in the conversation of ‘People having a say in deciding the election results’.different in reality it’s not even 0.1%. Let’s look at a UK, when I was studying there, UK has a population of 60+ million, when they vote, they think their vote will make a matters but them believe in this delusion that their vote vote making from a school in the UK. He says "'Democracy is a delusion’ because people are made to believe (by the media, current government) that they have a say in the bigger political system. But, in reality, they don’t". He gave me some data, he said "You are Indian, right? What’s India’s Population? Really big, right? How many people do you have? 1 billion or so? Tell me, how 1 person in 1 billion people can have a say in the political system which has over a billion people. You don’t. You are just made to believe and asked to
2. Earn a voting right - In a recent conversation with one of my colleagues Charles, he said "We grow up in a world where we are told that education is everything. The higher you study the better your future is or the more successful you are going to be. Now, let’s combine democracy with it. In this case, people who have won a noble prize/ A scientist/ A person with a PHD are supposed to be the most successful people. Can you equate them with a person who never been to a school?" My answer was no. He replies "Exactly but’.democracy what happens in China". Well, he proved me wrong too in the conversation of ‘Only People make the decision in a thats that’s what democracy does. You see, everyone has only 1 Vote in a Democracy. How can we argue that a person who is not even educated will have enough decision making ability to vote for the right person. How can you treat them equal. It’s not possible. That’s why you got to earn a right to vote by proving your ability to vote and
3. Single Party System - In a recent conversation with Marc, one of my friends who lives in my apartment, we were talking about Brexit. He said, "Brexit is a joke. First they always a long term plan. That’s the reasons China has grown so much in the last 30 years." Well, he proved me wrong on the topic of ‘Having multiple parties in a political system’ too. a) and the new government cancels the plans of the previous government? But, In China, there is democarcy of global concept means that tomorrow it can have more space for more people. The government wants to do that. But, if there was a second political party then they will come here and not let it happen. It stops the economic growth and a country’s overall growth. What if tomorrow the government changes (referring to homeless but it because the opposition parties will lose out on their vote banks if the bill is passed. You just can’t move on in a multi-party system". He was referring to the Gun Rights Bill in the US House. "Look at a China, you see that building (referring to a 45 floor building from the window), tomorrow you may see a higher building there. That higher building doesn’t mean that the people living there are now going to be enough but things will move on, and won’t be stopped. Look at the US, the government works for years and years to make a bill and then the opposition party rejects it. Not because the bill wasn’t good Atleast voted and then they realized, Oops, we did wrong. Now, can we vote again?" He was referring to the survey of more than 50% of people wanting to vote again on Brexit, in the UK. He went on saying "If there is one party then they will do what they think is right. Plus, there is nobody else to oppose it.
4. Being a Party Member - During a casual meet up with some of my friends from the previous company I used to work for, they started talking about one of our colleagues who recently became a Chinese Communist Party Member. I asked "Isn’t it unfair that only limited people have a right to vote?" Well, that turned out to be a trigger to have a 3 hours long conversation. I asked them, how do you exactly become a party member? One of them replies,

For some reason, Quora Editor gives me problems to write long answers. You can check the original post here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/w...

This is just a stream of thought response based on my experiences this summer. I had a great time, but I like to analyze things and was actively looking for differences.

I traveled to Nanjing this summer and stayed for just short of a month. Other than finding the humidity unbearable, I was fascinated by the mix of old world culture and futuristic society. In some ways with the street vendors and the open markets I felt like I was back in the 17th century, but everyone has smart phones.

Most of the buildings are new, but not well maintained (except for the nice shiny downtown). Kids played outside like I did back

in the 1980s. Everyone where t shirts with English writing on them which they probably don’t understand.

The more urban centers feel like something out of minority report or blade runner but with less dystopia and much more materialism. Capitalism is the name of the game here. From the street side food sellers to of course the large enterprises. The worst service came from state controlled places, everyone else was always eager to get the sale no matter what.

The pollution wasn’t as terrible as I had expected, but I’m sure it has been worse. There are no rules of the road, at least not enforced - and the right of way goes to cars, the Scooters, then bicycles, and finally pedestrians. But at least they warn you. I haven’t decided if that chaos results in better drivers or worse, but I decided it was safest to look in all directions everywhere when walking because the sidewalks are as likely to have scooters as the bike lanes (much bigger and separated from the main road).

Where I was, I might not see another white person for days. I was quite conscious of it. It was intimidating and exhilarating, everyone tried to say hello in English, several times they wanted to get a photograph with me.

Law enforcement was very local and comment, but felt more like unarmed security guards. Not intimidating and generally let everyone mind there own business - not authoritarian at all. I did see some police or guards with AK-47s, but that was only once.

Public transit was amazing - buses, subways, trains. Easy to use, frequent and though crowded, they seemed the best way to get around.

the shear number of KFC restaurants. The Chinese love their fried chicken. Starbucks is common too, but just as expensive as in the US. Most of the restaurants are local mom and pa shops. i was aware the food in China is nothing like the Chinese food in the west. I think I had more tofu than rice. It was good, but my western stomachs could not tolerate the idea of tripe.

As for food - most of it is fresh. Even Walmart had live animals (fish, frogs）that you can buy for food. Drinks are room temperature or warmer, it is looked at as being barbaric and unhealthy to drink cold drinks by most people I encountered. The cold soft drinks were still warm for my taste. Chocolate is very limited - mostly just snickers bars.

Shopping in malls was similar to America, but there is way more staff. It is like it was before the vast cuts for efficiency in the 80s. The prosperity is very visible. The way things are sold is different. Groceries that are sold by weight are weighed at one of the many stations in the store, instead of the til. Buying clothing didn’t seem so different. At least they were air conditioned. 38 degrees Celsius and 85 percent humidity are not pleasant for a Canadian such as myself. Interestingly enough, when entering these AC palaces of survival, the doors are large thing plastic strips that you just separate like vertical blinds.

Of course you can’t visit a city in China without talking about the crowds. Yes it is crowded, but where I was it was never such that I was frustrated. Also, being taller than most people, I could easily see over everyone's heads. There is a very obvious difference between younger generation that have only know prosperity - more western in appearance, more materialistic, willing to hold hands, than with the older generations who grew up in villages and received little education. Their appearance and health seems very different. One beggar women actually grabbed my arm aggressively expecting money. Violently. It was weird.

Anyone who could afford to buy a home several years ago when they were dirt cheap, may own several now - and they sell for a huge amount. There is a lot of hidden wealth - it was like what I would have expected from the gold rush days.

There are so many more things. It was my first chance to travel overseas. I plan on going back. The people were nice, the speech does sound aggressive - it is not, just the nature of the language sound. I went out for dinner with others often and they were all exceptionally accommodating and friendly. Oh yeah, and Canadian dollars go really far there. 30 dollars got three of us a nice dinner in a decent restaurant in downtown Shanghai.

I definitely noticed a more pronounced class-ism though. Not by culture or race, but on education and family status. It seemed heavily ingrained in the culture - a certain disrespect for those of lower education such as farmers or vendors. It’s probably changing - some of those old farmers are pretty wealthy - sold their farms for a lot, and now just sell watermelons. Oh yeah, so many watermelons. Cheap, delicious. Mmmm. Stinky Tofu - smells like shit - tastes great.

I felt much safer there than anywhere else I have lived. At night, I never felt like that shady person was planning on stealing my wallet, or going to rob me. Their just seems to be less desperation, and harmony is a strong part of the culture. There were some places that had a bit more of a slum like feel, but not so intimidating as Hastings in Vancouver.

Though there is plenty more, I will leave by mentioning the great firewall. It was annoying. The people there are well aware of it. They do complain. They complain about the government openly. They have as many beefs as we in the west, but the tremendous growth in prosperity and the culture gives them less incentive to put up a fight. There is definitely propaganda. On the level of nationalism we see in the US. They think they know about the outside world as well as most Americans who haven’t traveled abroad think they do. Their knowledge is just as incorrect. They know about Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Cultural revolution, Tienanmen, but don’t bring it up, and some thought it was all justified, others think it was terrible, and destroyed much of their heritage. If anything - in Nanjing, people really don’t like the Japanese government, and I can’t blame them considering what happened.

That’s enough.

(edited for spelling mistakes - I typed the entire thing on my ipad ugh)

Author with the statue of well known artist in the West Lake, Hangzhou, China

Background: I am Canadian citizen and soon in a few years it be close to 50 years in this country, I am from the east Indian heritage. I have had worked in the Canadian dairy/food/flavor industry from managerial to executive positions. I had a good run in this profession for about 30 years and took very early retirement to chase my own dream in another line of work and it has been 15 years and hopefully I keep counting for a long time.

In addition I have two master’s degrees one from u of Punjab India in dairy science and the other from u of Guelph Canada, in food science.

My Chinese connection: I was born in a small town in Indian region of Punjab, our primary school teacher used to tell us that our neighbor China is very civilized country, in fact when most of the world was living in caves they were studying astronomy. They invented several things which contributed to the advancement of the world.

This fired my brain (imagination) and sowed the seed about China/Chinese, also being Indian due to Buddhism and neighbor we saw China very friendly and very good country in the mid 50s. Our relationship with China became sour after 1962 conflict, and China then was very closed country, visa was impossible, and travelling from India was not a joke though my family was reasonably okay. Regardless, my teacher described the word picture and from a tender age of 5 used to imagine the beauty and very nice country of our neighbors.

Then I migrated to Canada, but my dream did not die, and then in Canada I had nothing but positive interactions with Chinese, as my professors, class mates, coworkers, neighbors, friends, reports and now business dealings.

Finally I made my first and then second trip and now several are in the planning to go back to China. My ultimate goal is to see/explore this country from one end to the other, so far my health allows it, I want to keep exploring this great country,civilization and people.

I am very thankful to Chinese authorities to give 10 years visa without any restriction on visits, with maximum stay of 6 months. My Canadian citizenship might have helped to grant such a nice visa, also my Nexus status might have contributed to positive decision.

I am law abiding citizen: when in Rome do as Romans do, I am standing, in Tienanmen square, however I was very scared I had heard that security is very tight in there. Regardless, I was free to move around with total freedom. No one bothered me, and I had very nice visit to the Forbidden City.

Now the answer to the Question: Simply breath taking beautiful, unbelievable mega country with no substitute on the earth for me. Salute to China and Chinese for such a huge leap. It is totally different what media had played and the impression people have, in my books not even close what so ever. I am no fear to go back again and again, and even live there. My teacher 60 years ago or so was not wrong, he was in fact very conservative, in firing my imagination of this great country.

I started with very positive attitude towards China and Chinese, and I was totally blown away the with greatness, politeness, cleanliness, discipline, personal safety, law and order and shear grandeur of land mass and huge population. I already had in my mind but after the visit I am 100 percent decided that my grand kids must learn Mandarin, visit the country several times, and see the length, breadth and height of this continued civilization of over 5000 years. They must learn from it all positive things of hard work, discipline, fine arts, architecture, above all one of the best food in the world. One life may not be enough to try all the cuisine, variety and food culture of China, therefore they should start very early. What more tribute I can give to this great country and people that I wanted to enroll my American born grand kids, with endless choices to live and study anywhere they want, but if I had a say, I want them to go to school in China at least for a few years, where they must learn first hand, what is called hard work and studies, and ying yang of the proper balance in life.

Sure China/Chinese have problems but who does not?

Sure China has mega problems which country does not but I am very sure China/Chinese have a long history fighting and solving their problems, they have resilience and come through. I know I know I know, I will hear ‘ freedom of speech, slave labor, poor quality, pollution, still lot of poverty, dirty wash rooms, people spitting on the road, ……………………………….this list goes on….. sorry not to mention Google and Facebook, are not available there, but they will just fine without those two luxuries in life, I learned to live without it, and did just fine….well may be a little withdrawal symptoms in the beginning and got over it. Well, Beijing roasted duck and dim sum helped a lot sooth that pain.

Please let us check our own back yard first are we as squeaky clean as we portray?

My answer to all those : I have lived here in the west soon it be 50 years, and let us check our own back yard, in my view we will find lot of things which are not as glorious as we portray.

China has seen lot of ups and downs, such as Mongolian and Manchurian regimes, some of the modern time injustices which included, physical , financial, respect, and humiliation and lose lot of wealth, it is called 100 years of humiliation which included losing HK, opium wars, favorable settlement to other countries , after the fall of The Last Emperor, one visit to Nanjing museum will open your eyes. Well guys now the Dragon is wake and it is not imaginary anymore, as Phoenix has risen from ashes. Say Hello(nihoma) to the new very powerful guy on the street in modern times, he was very powerful in the ancient time, but he is back now.

We could think about poverty, slums, homelessness, corruption, frauds, drive by shooting, drugs, sex scandals, and the list goes on,………in the west also. Is democracy that great…….really ?? if it is, the question should be: will it work for massive country in land mass and population in China? let the political pundits decide….I may have my ideas…..but they are not qualified.

A word of caution to myself:

I decided long time ago, that I will look only positive things in people, living and non living things, write about it so that I may leave some legacy for my grand kids, or who so ever find some merit in it.

You want to visit China : please go with very positive attitude, leave the pre conceived ideas in your own country and you will only see beauty in everything (well almost in everything), but no one is perfect, let us say “ Glass is more full than empty) and as the old saying goes wear green glasses you will see everything green.

Now let us start with changed impressions after the visit one by one:

China is very safe country:

After the visit/s based on my observations, experience, and confirmation by my host who is born and brought up Suzhou guy, China is literally free of violent crimes, petty thefts and other low level crimes may be there but I was not too concerned. I saw young girls working in the night shifts by themselves, and walking freely in the middle of night to their home/or night shifts, travelling in the public transports.

Women are power houses working shoulder to shoulder with men:

I have seen women involved in every walk of life, they are handling the baby in the crib and watching the small shop/stall at the same time with flare, grace and politeness. Bargaining like a very wise small business person, at the airport they are sitting at customs, immigration and other official duties, handling the business without getting flustered with total politeness and respect. To me it looked like most likely Chinese respect their women from heart, I did not see any sign of disrespect or looks. I saw hundreds of school girls dressed in school dresses with load of books on their back more heavy than their tiny body’s could carry, showed me that Chinese are very supportive of their daughters for going to school. In my view China has become so powerful because the women are sharing heavy burden of house hold and outside jobs.

Very healthy, smartly dressed teenage school girls, enjoying equal opportunities to get education.

Tiny adorable kids have equal opportunities to enjoy field trips and education

Women working shoulder to shoulder with men in every walks of life,

Women are power houses in China, they are working shoulder to shoulder with men.

Women are power houses they seem to be very hard working and productive in the progress of China.

Once you visit China you realize it is not homogeneous country:

No all Chinese are not same, there are 56 recognized minorities with their own culture and main majority is called Huns, they make 90 percent but there there are further classifications.

Bravo, still they all live in relative harmony ( at least I have not heard, any mass scale and riots), Sure there may be some issues with some ethnic groups, and I under no circumstances will make a comment, because I do not have any real knowledge of the issues, or qualification to say.

I visited famous Muslim Quarters in Xian and found hustle bustle and tremendous amount of life.

Author and his wife Sue visited world famous Muslim Quarters in Xian they found the market very nice, tourists and locals were shopping and eating and walking through the streets. These muslims are settled in the area for about 1000 years,

Bravo Chinese and China. These Muslim Chinese are called Hue people of China.

Muslim Quarters or Street as it is called, in fact there may 100s or 1000s of restaurants and snack shops

World famous Muslim Quarters.

It is not Beijing and it not Shanghai, the biggest city in China, it is Breath taking city Chongqing, I found out on this trip, it has over 30 million people.

Breath taking Chongqing, sky line, Yangtze River flow with all its might.

Author with his wife enjoying a moment of Chongqing beauty.

Chinese natural beauty can knock as they say anyone’s socks off ( at least they did mine) some of the natural beauty will stay with me for ever: Part 1, as we go I will post more spell bound places.

Here are some natural beauty of this country:

Following three pictures are taken by the author on the Coast line of Yangtze river between Chongqing and Shanghai.

Who Says Chinese do not smile, that is a myth, when you go there you will find they are real people ( well almost all of them) they smile a lot.

I know this is very sensitive topic to discuss, but for me it is very important to shed more light on this misconception, Religion in China.

I have heard before going to China, that most of the Chinese are atheists, well I was pleasantly surprised, in fact most of the Chinese have found real meaning of the religion and God, because most of them talk about Karma, reincarnation, honesty, hard work, no theft, family values and good deeds. To me they found the ultimate truth they do not have to go any religious place to learn anymore.

However what I saw the devotion of some devotees in Buddhist temples it knocked me over, I will not be the same.

Here are some pictures of Grand Buddha of Ling Shan, this is 88 meter Buddha statue the largest statue of my lord, and other is bathing of baby Buddha ceremony, I never ever seen anything like this, I and my wife sue visited this temple two times still not enough, I could stay there for ever.

Grand Buddha and Baby Buddha of Ling Shan

Ultra modern state of the art mass transportation at reasonable prices.

I never ever realized length breadth of their subway systems in Shanghai subway lines are becoming world model, and who can compete with this monster speed of 431 Km/hr. Here pictures of this train, which covers 30 km in 8 minutes at a reasonable price, these are real pictures taken by my wife Sue and I in Shanghai.

China’s pride and joy, Maglev train, which attains maximum speed of 431 km/hour and covers 30 km in 8 minutes down town Shanghai to the airport. Well done China/Chinese, fastest train in the world.

Chinese love and affinity for gardens, beautiful landscapes, greenery, water falls, lakes , lush trees and tranquility, are praise worthy, and I learned lot of lessons.

The west lake Hangzhou,

The country is humming with manufacturing activity and as you see ship loads of finished products, raw material traffic, produce and other goods are moving.

A great lesson for me in the hard work, devotion and determination.

Ship load of new cars being transported via Yangtze River.

Truck and trailers are humming the national highways with raw, finished and produce through ultra modern highways and toll booths.

Chinese have total mastery of foods, they know arts, science and business end of the food industry ( in my view Chinese did to food industry what Henry Ford did to Auto industry)

Chinese have now the world monopoly of this industry, they have cut down lot of middle men which is a major factor to cut down the cost of prepared food that it does not make sense to cook at home any more. Chinese food has taken over the world by storm, reasons fast/hot/relatively healthy/ meet every pocket from man in the street to the emperor/queen of a country,.

When in China you will never go hungry, there is food for every one with a few yuan in his/her pocket, Chinese can feed an emperor/queen and man in the street with a few yuan in his/her pocket. If you are hungry in China is has to an extreme bad luck.

Following is a snap shot of some of the places where author and his lovely wife ate, including sitting on the streets of Beijing/Shanghai/Xian and eating it some of the most delicious foods in the world.

Chinese street food has mind boggling choices, Chinese food vendors are hustlers ( in a good way) they are determined to make you buy their food.

China was the world leader and in my view will stay world leader in Silk production for ever:

Chinese history proves it China was the world leader in silk production and that is why ancient Silk Route was developed, after these visits in my mind China will keep this monopoly for ever.

Here are some pictures of some steps to Silk production and show room.

Some steps to produce world class silk in China, silk worms feeding on mulberry leaves.

Silk Cocoons

Silk show room in Beijing

In my view most of the Chinese people are very hard working, strong will to live, and I strongly believe, they have found true God through Karma.

Here are some pictures of their resilience, will power, most of them very happy, content with cards fate dealt them and they have found true happiness of contentment. This motivated me to work more harder and it recharged my batteries.

Rather than bitching, complaining, and finding bad ways to make a living, these are the true “ Karam Yogis and Yoginis” which my scripture described in the holy book of The Gita, (Hinduism) FYI, Buddhism is off shoot of Hinduism. Lord Buddha was born Hindu Prince. I saw that spirit where ever I traveled, great work ethics in their blood per sure ( for most of them, exceptions are and will be there)

I observed that most of the Chinese people are very physically active, and in good physical shape.

One of the most impressive things was their dances, in the parks, and I believe it is a good exercise, socializing and getting out your stress.

These are my general observation, Chinese people are very proud, some may have physical handicap but their self pride is in tact,

Following two pictures are great source of inspiration to me, I class them entertainers and not beggars, they my personal inspiration. Bravo hats off to your dignity , pride and this will linger in my mind for ever.

Chinese people are too proud to beg, they may have physical handicap but they spirit and dignity is in tact. I do not class him beggar, I class him, an entertainer, and my inspiration.

Chinese people are too proud to beg, they may have physical handicap but they spirit and dignity is in tact. I do not class him beggar, I class him, an entertainer, and my inspiration.

Chinese seniors are respected and taken good care off, most of them will die in the arms of a grand son/daughter or loving son/daughter/daughter in law.

Stay tuned more to come until then : Ding ding ho,

The more I learn about China, the more I realize I don’t know and never will know. That being said, I still have a clearer insight on life in China than I did when I first got here three year ago.

Chinese Language

Everywhere you travel, the dialect is different. While the nation shares a common written language, there is a huge disconnect with spoken language among all Chinese. Every province, and in some circumstances even every city, has its own spoken dialect. The only way for some Chinese to communicate is through written communication since they often don’t understand each others‘ Chinese. That’s why there’s a need for Mandarin (普通话)—a standard language that unifies all of China.

As a foreigner in China, Chinese people don’t expect you to be able to speak Chinese. Of course, if you do speak Chinese, even just a bit, they’ll be elated to hear that you’re making an effort to learn about and integrate into Chinese culture. Study for a little while and you’ll blow the minds of locals, especially in smaller and rural areas. It’s quite fun to have a conversation with an older Chinese man or woman because they seem so stoked to be speaking with a 老外.

Driving

At first when I arrived in China the driving looked like absolute chaos. It still does, but I’m not surprised by anything anymore. Driving on the wrong side of the road in front of police officers, making U-turns right when oncoming traffic is heading your way, changing lanes without looking or signaling. It’s all the norm, so other drivers know to look out for it.

People use their horns liberally, and nobody gets easily offended by anything. In the States, people take driving way too personally. Chinese drive slowly, but they cut everybody off and honk at each other and nobody thinks twice about it. If someone cuts you off, it’s not their fault; it’s your fault. You allowed enough space in front of you for them to pass. That’s the driving mentality. Everyone plays by the same messy rules, so it works out.

Food

Don’t be afraid to try street food. I’ve eaten tons of Chinese street food and I haven’t fallen ill. The only time I got sick was when I accidentally drank tap water, resulting in a two day fit of explosive diarrhea.

Seriously though, eating the food of this country is one of the best parts of the immersion here. If you miss out on that, you’re missing out on an integral part of what it means to visit or live in China. There is so much variety in the food that I miss it so badly when I leave this country.

Jaded Foreigners

Sad to say, but many foreigners who visit China don’t really like Chinese food, complain about air pollution, blab about ways that the west is way better at this and that, etc. The expat community here is a bit jaded, especially the ones who’ve been here for a few years or more. My advice: don’t listen to foreigners who moan about China; they’re just dealing with some internal personal issues in the wrong way, by taking it out on the Middle Kingdom.

Conclusion

These are just my opinions. I’m not an expert. I’m just a guy who lives here. Thanks for reading.

Oh boy ! This question is special.

Even before visiting china, I knew China wasn't just a suppressive communist regime with child labours in giant factories. But the media wouldn't portray it otherwise.

It took a lot many trips to the embassy to get me a travel visa but every single trip was worth it.

And here's a little secret the Chinese wouldn't let you in on.

“It's the most beautiful country in the world”

It surprises me is how little they promote tourism internationally. All one pictures of when thinking of China is the Great Wall or the Terracotta Army. But guess what, I didn't visit either. All the places I’d been to were full of domestic tourists and I stuck out like the odd one almost everywhere. (I'm not complaining though, but more in that later) I only got a month’s single visit visa. And I spent all of it in the southern part of China. So let me give you a brief account of my amazing experience in this mystical country.

PEOPLE:

Just mentioning that people are kind would be such a gross understatement. People are very warm and always greet you with a smile (Not just the formal touristic greet but the genuine humble smile)

I was always short for change while traveling and there wasn't once an occasion when some passerby didn't pause to help me. And the help wasn't just instructional or with giving me a change. A lot many of them just put their money, got me a ticket, handed it to me and left with a smile.

I didn't have the change to get into a bus in Guangzhou once and was putting in 10 yuan instead but the bus driver stopped me and put in his own money instead, asked me to just settle down.

When I was Changsha, I didn't know the metro route and was struggling to figure out with the route map. A woman hurriedly came to me and asked her young son to help me out. He was a school student, probably still learning English. With the little that he could, he stood there, looking into my Apple Maps travel route suggestion and keyed in those details into his phone and started searching. It took him a good 10 minutes to help me sort out the route but he made sure (despite the language barrier) that I got the travel route right. When they proceeded to leave, the mother gripped her son’s shoulder as a sign of appreciation for his help. I could see the humility in her eyes and I couldn't have been more humbled by her gesture.

I went to a makeshift food outlet in Shenzhen run by a family (the family probably lived in the establishment) simply coz they endorsed “Halal” on their board. It was a Friday afternoon and I could bravely order a beef stew. The order ran up to 30 yuan. While I waited for my order, the chef pointed her children to say ‘Assalamualikum’ (Muslim greeting) to me. I found this amusing as the kids looked at me with a gaze and surprise and anguish. I extended my hand to greet them and they reluctantly did. Although there were no grounds of communication, I improvised on Google translate and had a good conversation with them. They were Hui Muslim family running a makeshift restaurant. The women ran the kitchen while the men waited and kept the books.

After our talk, I wanted to tip big and pulled out my wallet to pay. But they flatly refused. They said, it being a Friday, they wanted to do me good as I'm far away from home. Their gesture moved me.I pulled out my wallet and hurriedly handed the kid a 20 Kuwaiti dinar bill. I told them it would be a memorabilia from a visitor and I'd always remember them in my prayers. Looking at the small designation bill, they didn't protest much. (Little did they know!)

There are several other P2P stories about how awesome Chinese are to their guests but I guess you get the picture.

NOTE: The Chinese police deserve a special mention as they're the warmest towards a foreigner while being dead strict against their own citizens. (Had a first hand experience when I jaywalked on a busy road)

So, if you're planning on visiting China, expect the warmest of people there and keep your heart open.

Here are a few pictures for a good measure.

We became good friends (coz he spoke English) and I kinda would've been lost in Zhangjiajie without him. He explained a lot of historical and cultural facts from here which otherwise would've lost on me. The tourist guides make shit up (his words not mine!) and he gave me a detailed account of the area’s geography.

This woman was delighted to see a ‘black guy’ amidst the mix and just wanted to click a picture for memories. I can't even remember the number of times people walked up to me asking to click pictures (felt like a celebrity !!!)

Well, that was about some of the people. Now let's get down to the one thing that caught me by surprise.

FOOD

Being a Muslim, I had very few culinary options, although there's no complaining about the wide variety of food this country has to offer. Then, being an Indian I'm too spoilt for food options but over here, they were a step ahead of us.

Special mention for the Hunanese (Boy ! Don't they cook amazing food) cuisine.

I couldn't have asked for better food than what I got in China. Even though I had to stick to fish and prawns, I'd indulge in other food as soon as I could find a restaurant serving Halal food.

Hunanese Fish.

Dried fishes. (It was quite spicy)

Cold Mutton pieces with peanuts? (I’m sorry I forgot the name of the dish)

Sichuanese Mutton Pot (with sprouts and a ton of other spices. I guess they had some bamboo in there as well)

Spicy Crab (There's no civilised way of eating this. My hands were dirty as I crushed the crustacean in my mouth and my nose ran like flowing river coz of the spices. With my mouth and nose dribbling with juices, I gobbled every last bit of it)

Mouth watering anyone ?

Alright, here, how about I give you some street food !!!

Quail eggs !!!

Oysters !!!

Crab!

I wish I could taste the deer kebabs and I had a strong craving for Yak burgers but my religious duties held me back.

NOTE: Chinese fruits deserve a special mention here. Fruits in China are the cheapest in the world. I mean, 2 yuan for a kilo of apple cheap. If you're into fruits, your daily food expenses would drop drastically.

So, that was about the food. Let me fill you in on another important factor. And I guess this is probably one aspect the Chinese are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND ENGINEERING

So, you know most of the stuff that you buy comes from China. Well, ‘cheap’ isn't the only reason that companies flock there. There's incredible innovation in Chinese society even for the most basic of tasks.

Specially their Civil Engineering accomplishments. They've built some of the most amazing dams, star gazing structures, bridges, aquariums, Opera House, Temples, Tall buildings, water canals - You name it.

And then you have the Infrastructure. The infrastructure is second to none in the world. I was amazed at the number of bullet trains they run, their precision, punctuality and over all service.

The overnight trains too are almost always on time. Are clean, well ventilated and are damn cheap. (Europe could take some lessons here)

Edit: This is going to be a lengthy answer I started writing on a whim. Need more time to frame it well. (Thanks for the appreciation in the meantime)

I had a lot of prejudices about China before visiting. I am a European who travels a lot to USA, so I have a very Western-centric view. Everything changed after China, basically, most prejudices are gone:

1. Prejudice 1) China is a developing country - FALSE

I don’t know what a “Developing country” means anymore, but in the most populous areas China is clearly much more developed than Europe and USA. It has the newest roads, bridges, tunnels, metros, trains, trainstations, airports, airplanes and more. Infrastructure is amazing, and it definitely doesn’t feel like a “developing country”. Compare that to New York’s decade old, slow and noisy subway and bumpy roads.

That’s Guangzhou, just another Chinese city (ok, it’s one of the main ones, but it’s not famous like Shanghai or Beijing to foreigners).

2. Prejudice 2) China is dangerous - FALSE

People tend to think of Chinese people as “sneaky”. I don’t know where this comes from. I was surprised to not having had ANY SINGLE dangerous or awkward situation in China during my 10 days trip quite far inside the country. It’s extremely safe and people are extremely honest. In Europe at night, in cities like Paris, you don’t feel very safe. Things happen and crowds of single men gather to intimidate random people. In Italy and Spain you get your bags stolen and stuff. In China, it’s not even close. Everyone was extremely honest with us. There were situations where people could have easily screwed us without much effort, but they never did, not even the taxi drivers. Chinese people are amazing.

3. Prejudice 3) China is dirty - MITIGATED

Ok, this one is not very straightforward. China is extremely polluted and in big cities you can SEE the pollution with your eyes. Also, Chinese people spit in the streets and it’s very common to just spit your guts out. It’s quite horrible for foreigners. But was is surprising is how GREEN China is when it comes to vegetation. They pay extreme attention to beauty and city parks are just mindblowing. Everywhere it’s green and beautiful and big. It’s a huge contrast between how the air is polluted and how the parks are beautiful and clean.

4. Prejudice 3) China is messy - MITIGATED

Depends on the cities. Big cities are well organized and everything works well. Chinese are the new Japanese. In smaller cities, traffic is chaotic but still, everything works and is well organized. So China is very reliable for tourists, if you organize yourself well because you’re going in a country where almost no one speaks english. (Although now they had at least 1 person in every major trainstation and national park who spoke perfect english, it’s just random people on the street don’t speak at all).

5. Just for pleasure

There’s also Zhangjiajie, one of the most beautiful places on Earth, simply put.

Bottomline: China is amazing. It will become the next world leader by replacing the USA, eventually, I have no doubts about that. Most Westerns have an absolutely wrong view about it on many levels. Chinese are smart and willing enough to deal with their major problems like pollution, it’s only a question of several years.

EDIT: About number 1, China is a “Developing Country” - FALSE

Some people pointed out in the comments that China is clearly not developed in a lot of its regions when you get away from big cities. While this is true, I have a very nuanced view on this. First of all, from statistics perspective, China is the country which managed to lift the biggest number of people from poverty to middle class in the shortest amount of time ever.

Now, let’s consider the size of Chinese population: 1,35 billion. That’s a lot. But how much “a lot” exactly? Well I made a little comparison. So China 1,35 billion ppl = European Union + Russia + Ukraine + Belarus + Turkey + USA + Canada + Mexico, and there you’ll arrive close to 1,3 billion people. So it’s all the Western world + some countries around it. Among those, there is poverty in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, Mexico, USA countryside, and several estern EU countries. I’m saying this because obviously we must take China as one country, but let’s realize what 1,3 billion people is. Because of this fact, when in the West we read news like “Chinese high-speed train derailed and XX people died” or “Chinese mine collapsed and XX people died”, well, it cracks me up when most of the people go “Oooh, China, once again, look at how bad everything is”. Wow… if we were to consider all the problems that occur in EU + eastern Europe + Turkey + North America + Mexico, and we were to report them like one country, then we would have much more problems than China in that sense. For example, we had many trains derail like in Spain killing over 70 and France killing 11 recently, but nobody said “Look what happened in the West, how bad their trains are”. We’re having big numbers of terrorist attacks in EU, gun violence in US and general violence in Mexico. Russia is a rogue regime with huge poverty in most areas outside of Moscow. Etc. Etc.

So I’m applying the same principle to Chinese poor regions: yes there are, of course, extremely poor regions, and there will always be. Anyway people are more and more attracted by cities, so less populous regions will have trouble to remain afloat in any case. But it’s a too big country to solve all poverty problems so easily, so let’s take this into account. It’s already impressive what has been accomplished so far.

1. China is Diverse. Having been to various islands of Japan, Japan seems more like a monoculture than the United States. I had always thought of China as a single unified place. But, China seems more diverse than the United States and is certainly different from Japan. The people of Xi'an are not the people of Beijing and Shanghai is much different from either. Attitudes, dress and interests vary widely. I am not just talking dialects.
2. The Chinese work hard. Several times in various cities I caught people napping on the job. These people did not appear to be lazy. They appeared to be exhausted.
3. China is modern. The high speed rail, subways and architecture of China put America to shame.
4. China is liveable. An American could move there and have a better standard of living. Salaries are lower, but the cost of living is much lower. I heard ExPats talking this way.
5. China surprises.

• As a Caucasian, I was surprised that most of the ExPats I met were African American.
• As someone who likes the Oakland /Berkeley area, the Shanghai region feels similar. Edit: Silicon Valley might be the closer analogy.

Also, you get a sense for how much history China has. It makes Europe feel new.

I view it as my home.

Yes, I indeed am calling the place my home. I would love to move there in the future, go to a university within the country, learn the language fully in an intensive immersion course, and then get a job, preferably one that isn’t seen as the usual place for a foreigner to work in the country.

Now, why do I view the place as my home?

1. Moral values

You see, there are many views that the Chinese hold that Westerners either hold to a much lesser extent, or don’t hold at all in some cases. The main case that I would like to point out is friendship.

You see, here in the western world, we often take a look at friendship, and place a high value on it, which is understandable. However, at the same time, these friendships can be quickly disposed of if people are not able to keep in contact for whatever given reason, if they are long distances apart, or if they get into a feud. From what I’ve seen in my personal community, these friendships are often never restored, and grudges are tightly held.

In China, Binzhou, Shandong specifically, I saw many people ask me to be friends with them. They were really excited to see a foreigner, and a good many of them wanted to practice their English with my group and myself. They immediately asked us for our QQ numbers, something that we never heard of beforehand, and when we told them this fact, they would just give them to us.

Now, as you read this, you may be thinking to yourself “Yeah, that’s because you’re white”, and you’d be partly correct unfortunately. However, I saw everybody conversing with everybody. Nobody in the class was left outside of conversations, and the same was done between our Chinese “buddies” during the tour of the area. These buddies were students selected to be with us for the entirety of our stay at the school, and they became quick friends with one another though they claimed to have met each other beforehand.

Oddly enough, the same was done with our group. We were a bunch of students that rarely conversed with one another at school, if we ever did. We became very close-knit, making the trip an even better experience.

After the trip, however, we quickly grew distant once more, and stopped talking with one another. The case was made worse after we all separated in high school. However, something I found really odd was how I still maintained my friendships with those that were in Binzhou after downloading QQ back home. They are extremely polite, always lend a helping hand, are always willing to try out your advice, and never leave, no matter how long it has been.

My closest friends, and yet they are so distant.

2. Progress and Modernity

When we were in Binzhou, there were buildings being built everywhere. Right next to the school, behind our hotel, on the “outskirts” of the city, everywhere. High rises were being built in huge complexes, and any slums that were left in the city were due for demolition for new projects in the near future. We were told by the students that the people who lived in these slums would be moved to some of the new apartments for a chance at a new and better life. This was also being done at a much faster rate than anything I have ever seen in Canada, despite the same promises being made here.

It wasn’t a case of rich live here, poor live there, as I have seen in many communities, including my own. It was a case of we’re all in this together, so let’s help those that need it, and do it ASAP. This is something I hardly saw in Western societies.

Also, everything was so new. I loved this fact, as a good amount of the buildings that I saw in the community that I lived in were high rises that did nothing but shoot straight up into the air with no design to them. Just concrete pillars with windows. Meanwhile, in Binzhou and Beijing, this was not the case, and a good amount of the buildings were constructed within the last ten to twenty years. Nothing plain. There was always something to look at.

3. Recreation and Nightlife

The trip to China made me realize how much I loved the hustle and bustle of the larger cities. There were always people doing something anywhere. The old couple that gladly danced together in the park, the group of friends in their 60’s playing a perfect game of hackysack, people playing cards wherever you went, and people playing music for tips. People were always using parks to their fullest potential, whereas in my city, many of the parks are just used for picnics and nothing more.

There was always a place to eat, always something to do at night, and always something to see and/or buy on the streets. The lights filled the sky every night, and I was the one who got the best view of the night sky from my hotel room.

In the end, I felt like I belonged. A place that suited my liking of a busy environment, people that valued friendships so much that they’d be there no matter what, and a place that was willing to change the lives of many by giving them a new and better chance at success.

The country does have it’s flaws just like everywhere else in the world, but in my opinion, it’s among the best place to be.

I have been going to China for nearly 15 years now.

I will admit, on my first visit, I had many preconceived notions about the country and the people. Yes, I feel that there is still often a Cold War, “Us versus Them” mentality that lingers with the media when discussing China. The days of Mao suits and millions of bicycles are gone.

If I had any advice for first time visitors, it would be this:

Do not believe everything you see on TV about China (Western OR Chinese).

Much of the media has an agenda when discussing China. China is geographically huge. It is incredibly diverse. There is no simple statement along the lines of “How do Chinese…” or “Why is China…” possible.

It is only when you go to China, see it, experience it, and interact with Chinese people that you begin to realize that the country is incredibly complex and complicated. China is a nation of opposites. Huge, modern cities exist side by side with rural villages. Politics and business intermingle. Large provinces are culturally distinct from each other. Just think of the challenges the government has faced in modernizing such a huge, geographically and culturally diverse, nation.

Things are different. Not better. Not worse. Just different.

This concept seems to be something that many Westerners, particularly those who visit China for business, have a difficult time grasping. Things are done the way they are done… Just because. It is often a different way of thinking.

The image many Western companies and managers have of China is “Copy, copy, copy”. It is true, to a certain extent, but that is not the entire picture. Certainly, China is still the manufacturing capitol of the world. It is also an enormous market. This is something that is often neglected by the media. With my company, we did not go to China to manufacture there. We went there to SELL. And did quite well at it. Case in point. General Motors manufactures quite a bit in China, but it is also a huge market for GM. Take away access to that market and I would guarantee that GM shares will suffer… a great deal.

To illustrate the difference in thinking, I used to work for a company that manufactures propulsion systems for high speed ships. We held large training sessions for Chinese shipyards, our customers. In a room of 200 students, everyone would be paying attention. Lots of questions. However, all were along the lines of “How do you do this?” “How do you do that?” In many sessions, rarely, if ever, was the question, “Why do you do this?” asked.

How come?

These were not “dumb” students. Any one of them could pass a written examination.

It is a question of value, and educational background.

Engineering schools in China tend to focus on rote memorization. An instructor lectures, you are given a book, and you memorize the information. You take a test. VERY seldom is independent thought or research encouraged, or rewarded. It is not valued. There are cultural reasons behind this way of thinking. You are not supposed to question those of higher age. Or higher status. You rely on those people to tell you the truth to get along in life.

This mentality exists not just in education, but in the workforce, and the government. Add politics into the mix, and in China, politics is always present. Perhaps hidden, or behind the scenes, but always there.

Another example in shipbuilding. I had a project where there was a problem with the gearbox coupling. The technician went aboard, and simply replaced the coupling. He saw that the shaft was not mounted correctly, which is what caused the failure. Yet, he said nothing.

Why?

Quite simply, he was doing what he was told to do. He was not asked for his diagnosis as to “Why?”. A minor problem resulted in a major expense due to nobody saying anything. There is no upside to the worker for telling his boss there is a problem, but there is a big downside to him if he tells his boss, questioning authority, and he is wrong (he will lose his job).

China has had remarkable growth over the last three decades. It is still growing. Still changing every day. There has probably never been such rapid change in the history of the entire world. The population is smart, resourceful, and culturally very much goal-oriented (whatever that goal may be).

There is still a long way to go.

The way things are done has helped China grow the way that it has grown. There is now a middle class. There is now traffic. There is now the crime that comes with income inequality. There is modern healthcare. China has received the bad that accompanies the good.

It is now up to China as to how to meet these new challenges.

Nonetheless, back to the original question, regardless of what you may think you know about China, those perceptions WILL change, good or bad, once you actually visit.

I completely changed my view of Chinese women.

Like many foreigners, I somehow believed that women in “the West” were more liberated than women in Asia. After moving to China, I experienced a kind of culture shock upon seeing large numbers of Chinese women in scientific fields and positions of leadership. At my host university, the new Communist Party secretary (an important post) was a woman in her thirties, i.e. quite young. I met more female engineers, physicists, and chemists in three years in China than I have during thirty years in the West. I even saw female workers doing road repair and hauling rocks in Yunnan, the kind of hard physical labor that is almost exclusively done by men in the West.

This is in spite of the unapologetic sexism that still exists among many Chinese people — like the guy from Tsinghua University who took me out on a date, only to tell me that he expected to make all the important decisions if we got married. Not to mention the fact that all of the country’s top leaders are men. Yet I quickly learned that Chinese women are not the shy, retiring flowers of western stereotypes, but strong and often outspoken.

For the first time in my life, I experienced what it was like to take it for granted that I would receive intellectual respect. I was occasionally disrespected for my ethnic origins or my perceived status, but no-one ever questioned my intelligence and ability to think rationally on the basis of my gender.

These experiences not only transformed my understanding of China, but also the way I viewed my culture of origin. I realized that progress is not linear. We are not more “advanced” than other nations. I also realized just how much unconscious sexism there is in western universities and workplaces, how normal it is for westerners to talk down to women as somehow less cogent than men. I came away from the experience with more confidence in my intellect and a greater respect for Chinese culture, humbled to realize that my assumptions were wrong.

(Me with a Chinese soldier, 2006)

Well, before I came here in China I was as brainwashed as anyother foreigner having heard from what is being told by people who never had first hand experience of visiting China and the media hoax around the world. However, once I stepped in here, my perception about China assuming they would have been living in subjugation, poverty and in many problems really changed. What I noticed is Chinese are well disciplined, modest and hard working people who happen to be very nice to foreigners and seemed to serve me with great hospitality. I realised China has developed so fast for the last 30 years, economy has increased, industrialisation is expanding and whatever we happen to see most likely to be coming from China. They strive and do their best in almost every walk of life and the result today is in their favour letting Chinese people to have good life, better future with name and fame. Today, there are more number of billionaires in China than USA, is all because of their dedication and punctuality towards their goal oriented life since they have learned alot from their past.

The most important thing people around the world hold a presumed notion about, is that “whatever is made in China we instantly put forward judgemental comments as if China itself is the name of manufacturing low quality products”. But reality is totally different, I have happened to see many kinds of quality products from electronics to garments and sewing niddles to piece of a paper. China is industrially widespread in all kinds of manufacturing products again depending on what you can afford. Quality comes with price, pay the price, get the quality is straight forward thing that someone holding something in brain can understand for sure. How come we expect good quality for something that is of $100 and you wish to get it for $10? I think we should be thankful to China that based on our financial affordability range, they are making products to help us enjoy almost same benefits, which I believe no other country has balls to do with such a massive production for almost all kinds of things we use in our daily life.

I visited China in 2015. I didn’t fall in love with the country but I certainly didn’t dislike it.

The best moment of my trip was driving back from the Wall back to Beijing (btw, if you ever buy a guide for Beijing and China, buy this one: Lonely Planet Beijing (Travel Guide): Lonely Planet, Daniel McCrohan, David Eimer: 9781743213902: Amazon.com: Books!). In the bus, everyone wanted to take a picture with me. Then, they started to teach me Mandarin and as I was getting a kick of it, I repeated everything out loud.

I made many mistakes as one would expect, but eventually I said a long sentence and everyone started to clap and give me a thumbs up. People clapped so emotionally that the bus driver said that either everyone stopped or he would stop the bus.

Ahah, epic. My mates took some pictures on the bus, as they enjoyed it at least as much as I did:

Also, I found Beijing a modern and clean city. I found the Chinese to be welcoming and helpful. I liked the food, but I would not have it on a daily basis.

Four months in, and living in China is not at all what I expected. As an American who does not speak Chinese, I expected more struggle and confusion, more culture shock, more...difference.

My husband and I are in Nanning, in the southeast--just 100 miles from the Vietnam border. Yes, there's an active vibe here--but also a laid-back one. I was surprised to discover that siesta isn't just for Spanish-speaking countries; it's a thing here, too. From noon to 2 p.m.-ish, the campus where I teaches virtually closes down as do many businesses. I'm beginning to get into the afternoon peace and quiet. I even nap now and then, not my usual forte.

Yes, of course, there are big differences between China and America. But they aren't hard to handle so far. The language, for example. I have not had the time (okay, discipline) to focus on learning it the way I'd like. Still, my husband and I can jump in a cab and say the right phrase to get us home. Translator phone apps help. And we are learning tricks, like collecting business cards, taking pictures of the fronts of buildings, or having someone write down our destination in Chinese. Just show the card or picture to the cabbie, and you're off. And there's always body language and contextual charades!

People enjoy interacting with us. They love to stop and ask us questions (Where are you from? Do you like China?) and take pictures. Yes, sometimes all the attention is a bit unnerving. Like when strangers crowd around you, wrap their arms around your waist and take a selfie. And another and another...until you have to smile and say xie xie (thank you) and sidle away.

Sometimes I'm just standing somewhere talking with a friend, and out of the corner of my eye I see several people snapping our pictures. It's only fair, though. I often take pictures of charming strangers. No double-standards here.

I thought this attention was all about my whiteness...until I met an African American guy who has lived in China for 5 years and said it constantly happens to him, too. In a city of 8 million people where 7,999,900 have straight black hair and are of a smallish stature, a tall blonde or an even taller black guy with a bright white smile is a total trip.

Living on campus is great. With its food courts and canteens, two farmers' markets, sports fields, basketball and tennis courts, many apartments and dorms, it's like a city within a city. Everyone who works for the university--students, faculty, and staff--lives here, including retired employees. There are people of all ages around, including elderly and children. And on campus are schools (from preschool through middle school) for the kids.

The Chinese love exercise. On my way to class in the mornings (a five-minute walk), I see retired people playing volleyball and badminton. There are big sports fields here where people play on the equipment, kick balls around, practice Kung Fu, walk, jog, stretch.

In the evenings, groups of (mostly women) gather to "square dance"--which is more like line dancing to a boom box that's blasting anything like traditional Chinese music or pop songs.

People ride bikes and motorbikes everywhere, which adds to the feeling that China = movement. All motorbikes here, by law, are electric. This has the pleasant effect of keeping down air and noise pollution. Some days are hazy here, but for the most part, it's pretty clean and green.

Even though they exercise a lot, how most of the Chinese people are so slender is a mystery to me, given the abundance of great, inexpensive food--especially noodles and dumplings. I also love all the readily available fresh fruits and veggies at open-air markets. The passion fruit, purple dragon fruit, and small creamy bananas are to die for.

We have not yet bought meat or fish at the open air markets. Perhaps our western sensibilities just aren't ready to pick from the mountainous slabs of raw meat, or to face a woman pulling a fish from a bucket of water and clubbing it to death for our dinner. Usually we get already-cooked chicken and duck at the fantastic deli in the grocery story.

Early on, we were invited to a mid-Autumn festival meal, where everyone participated in making pork dumplings. All the food was delicious--except the snake, which according to Dave was too spicy. I couldn't get past the fact that it still had the skin on. More suitable for boots than appetizers, if you ask me.

Okay, snake is one of my exceptions to my proclamation of "delicious food." Other exceptions include duck and chicken feet (you see them everywhere) and insects-on-a-stick.

In contrast to what people had "warned" me about--that Chinese students are not creative--the students are writing inspired poetry, creating extraordinary video poetry interpretations, and taking lots of creative leaps. In my literature class, they love to perform scenes from the book.

For the most part, the students are eager, kind, and thoughtful. "Class discussion" isn't what I'm used to; they don't like to talk unless called upon. However, when I structure discussion and activities using my bag of tricks (such as letting them write or talk out ideas with a partner before talking to the whole class), they get into it. They also love games and role playing.

The only thing I don't think I will get used to is calling students by their chosen English name--when they are Hamburger, Watermelon and Xylitol. (I've learned that many Chinese people who speak some English prefer to use an English name so that non-Chinese speakers won't mispronounce their real name.)

It's the connections with people that have been the most rewarding. I believe that if more people traveled (with a warm, open mind) there would be no more war--because we would KNOW we are killing people who are valuable, individual souls with loving families who, just like us, want lives of peace and happiness.

We've gotten really close to Tina, our student assistant. When Tina's bike disappeared, we knew this was an opportunity to buy a useful and meaningful birthday present for this young woman who has done so much for us. At first she refused, saying it was too expensive. But I pulled out all the stops, telling her the dollar was strong, it wasn't expensive for us, and we would be extremely sad if she said no.

To get to what everyone calls Stolen Bike Street, Tina perched sidesaddle on the back of my husband's bike. I mentioned she looked so at ease on the book rack, even as we swerved in the traffic madness and hopped over speed bumps. That's when she told me that when she was young, her family was poor. They had no car, just a bike. Her mother did not like leaving her and her brother, who was an infant, at home. So she would put the baby in the basket, and Tina sat on the back of her mom's bike. (She added that her parents eventually started a profitable business and now have a car.)

After the purchase of the bike and the eating of lunch, Tina told us she had something she wanted to say, launching into what seemed to be a prepared speech about how much we mean to her. She had barely begun when tears started streaming down my face. She thanked us for being so friendly, for never losing patience when she's trying to figure out something. She recounted the fun experiences we've had, and said, "You have taught me thing about life." And she was especially touched when one day I told someone she was like our Chinese daughter. She really is. Truly, I love her with all my heart and am amazed China has given us the gift of her.

I visited my fiancé in Beijing in the spring of 2014. She had spent over 3 years studying Mandarin and had lived in Harbin and Nanning as well. We traveled only to Beijing and Shanghai, and only for two weeks, so my answer is limited to some quick impressions of urban life. Although, I was able to dine with a large party celebrating the birthday of a local artist, I had lunch with a prominent monk at the Temple of Eternal Happiness, and dinner with a member of the Communist Party (who will remain unnamed) that my fiancé was living with at the time.

Being a somewhat experienced person of travel, I anticipated some discomforts and many cultural differences. I had a rather negative view of China prior to our departure, but this has softened quite a bit. However, I would not want to live in a major urban area of China anytime soon.

While public transportation is great, it's packed; nothing prepares you for the cramped bustle of a Chinese train! This is to be expected of course, but you never understand how dense a train ride can be until your nose is buried in the armpit of a 70 year old Chinese man while little ladies crowd around you staring.

I loved the availability of food, it's everywhere and it's delicious. We ate mostly at cheap hole-in-the-wall locales and loved them. Food is cheap, dumplings are plentiful, and I packed them in! I can still taste the pickled chicken feet and mushroom appetizers.

We ate at a Pizza Hut just to keep with our tradition of comparing fast food style cooking in other countries (we ate at one in Kuta, Bali as well), and were treated like royalty in the fanciest Pizza joint I've ever seen.

While Starbucks was readily available in a lot of places, finding a good, sweet dessert was difficult! My fiancé jokes constantly that when you find a good-looking cake, it probably has a sausage in it….they just missed the mark a bit on this particular culinary delight!

Unlike some of the other reviewers here, I will say that the pollution was terrible! Newscasts updated us daily that the air was nearly unbreathable and people should stay inside. That was probably my biggest complaint.

We made friends everywhere we went; Chinese people are very warm and hospitable, not to mention curious about caucasians who can speak their language. On a bus to the Great Wall, we befriended a few young Chinese guys and spent the day with them.

I never took so many pictures with strangers as I did in China. Random women would run to me—to the dismay of my fiancé—and exclaim the word for “handsome man,” (phonetically, it sounds like shy-goo) then take pictures of me….I can't say I didn't love it! The notion of privacy and intrusion into personal space is much more lax than many places.

I was surprised at the work/life balance of many people I met and heard about. A six day work week is common and people are very career focused. Even street cleaners take enormous pride in their jobs; clean, flawlessly pressed uniforms adorned their frames daily. I was also surprised when we came upon huge skyscraper-like apartment complexes on the outskirts of Beijing. They seemed like holding areas for people who commuted into the city to work and not actual neighborhoods. Many of them had only a few small stores to sustain thousands living there between work and sleep.

Amazingly, the reforestation efforts I saw were feats unto themselves! Stretching from Beijing to Shanghai, I saw thousands of acres of saplings with attached guide posts planted on impossible-to-climb slopes and rock outcroppings. This is truly a testament to the ability of Chinese society to reclaim areas of environmental devastation. It represents a massive public works project spanning years of efforts.

Finally, I'll warn those interested in traveling to China to never discuss politics with hosts….even when asked. I made the mistake of responding negatively to a question of how Americans perceive Communism, and it just turned into an insult that I didn't mean!! I even followed up with a blatant lie, “Oh I think it's great, but some people don't like it,” and that did absolutely nothing to quench the fire set by this faux pas. I don't know if anyone else has had the same experience, but if you're confronted with unfamiliar Chinese Communists, just smile and act like everyone loves them!

I had a very American-centric view; that is to say, I really didn’t give a ton of thought to China, which is kind of crazy. I see Americans now perceiving China in a way that’s hard to articulate but I think totally wrong. Let me give it a shot.

Americans are scared that China is going to ‘take over’ America in some meaningful way. Unless it’s important to your ego that the USA be the ‘greatest country in the world’, this is meaningless. Might China’s economy beat the USA? Sure. Might they be a military force to be reckoned with? Yep. But they are not our enemies unless we make them. I only once encountered any form of anti-USA sentiment during my 4+ years there, and it was mostly just splash from anti-Japanese sentiment. Almost everybody I met thought of America like the kind of wacky fun cousin. We make fun movies and are kind of crazy sometimes. America is a 200 year old country. China is essentially a continent.

So the thing Americans miss is 5000 years of contiguous Chinese civilization. We’re forgetting that our biggest city is around 8–9 million; a small town in China. You’ve never heard of the names of Chinese cities of 9 million, because they’re everywhere. There are vast swathes of China that are populated by Muslim populations, including ethnic groups with blue eyes. There are tropical islands, and millions of miles of tundra. Cities have their own unique dialects, and I don’t mean how southerners say y’all - I mean distinct languages with only minor cosmetic similarities.

So I guess I’ll say the biggest mistake I ever made about China, or misconception that I corrected, is that China is any one thing.

When I told people I was going to visit China, they usually said: ‘ you will probably not be able to interact with the people, they are very reserved and introverted, especially the older generations. ‘

Well, they weren't. We saw spontaneous festivals happening in parks in which older people sang and danced Chinese folk songs. Everybody, young and old, joined in. One time a small kid came up to our friend and asked him to dance with her.

Many people smiled at us, waved at us and wanted to make pictures of those funny tall tourists. No man ever harassed me, they only said ‘hi’. Most people didn't speak English but everybody was helpful. Especially the older generations were very friendly and open. There was only one girl who tried to make us pay double for a drink, but she was an exception.

The only thing I didn't like was the way some animals are treated. For instance, in a restaurant you could choose your food from an aquarium with dying fish and a drowning frog. I couldn't look at it.

Got this link in the email. China, all over, will be better than USA in another 30 years. Long ago,like in 1983, China Government wanted to improve to the next generation. It was tough. Luckily I was a part in that from USA that implemented Basic Industrial Ecosystems. And today, you see the growth.

The catch is, in 1984, I tried to sell that to India, but they did not want it…simply because they did not think, China will make great with it. And same thing happen to USSR then too.

That is how cookie crumbles on Earth. Any way, China will do great…after all I was there in the growth path… It took a village …you know…

“You do not speak a word in Mandarin, how will you survive there?”, “Take an umbrella with you, they do not have bathroom doors you know!!”. Two of the remarks I heard from my Singaporean friends after I decided to have a two weeks trip to China.

China has been always an enormous presence to us. Being from Bangladesh, China and Chinese culture influenced us quite a bit. Even more so in Singapore. Back home we learned about communism that is practised there, heard Maoist insurgents causing havoc at neighbouring countries. Had “Chinese” food at restaurants. In Singapore we hear how “PRCs” are unruly and ill mannered. They will not help people in need, like the footage where a child was run over and no one came to help. Contaminated meat, milk. Cheap and fake electronics and designer labels. A remarkable history and the great wall. And people. These were mostly the mixed bag of feelings we had before we landed there.

However, the country felt distinctly different from the image we had in mind. We travelled from Beijing, Xi’an, Jiuzhaigou and Chengdu, and were truly humbled by a lot of it. Yes, most people do not speak English, but it did not hamper our travels. We got around fine. People helped us a lot. We were being stared at but thats something we did not complain. Public transport was good. It felt incredibly safe, despite not speaking the language.

Much of the country we saw was clean. Specially the parks and historical monuments. Felt sorry for back home and India where we saw countless pieces of trash lying around every imaginable tourist spot. Yes the air quality in Beijing and Xi’an were questionable, but that is a common case for most fast developing countries. Bathrooms did have doors, although some preferred not to lock them, leading to some embarrassing situations (for us, not the person inside).

Overall, the feeling we got was that China is a huge country moving at a considerable pace. We failed to observe most of the negative traits we heard about the country and the people. It was a great trip for us and we look forward to going back for more.

It is more complicate, Because China is too big to visit all of it once , each part of China is so different and variable. I know lots of people studied in china or lived in china.The result and impression they give is influenced by which city they have stayed. I from the south of China, which is hot in Summer and cold in winter .My Spanish teacher quit his job to move to the north of China just because she can't stand the weather and climate. I can totally understand and I neither can take the weather.

When I was like 8 years old, I lived 2 years in the province YUNAN，located in far of southwest of China and borders Vietnam, Laos and Burmas.I spend the most wonderful 2 years there.There are the most pure culture, fresh air and incredible views . I talked with some foreign who have been there once，just love so much like I do.

After the years I spent in China, I am both less impressed by and less worried about China. I also recognize the country as being far more diverse than I originally realized, even among the Han majority.

While I remain fascinated by the place, and I maintain an academic appreciation for many aspects of China,… I also learned to see through the many facades present throughout the Sinosphere. I came to understand the difference between cosmetic development and real development. I also came to realize that Chinese civilization and my own civilization aren’t that different - it’s just that we’re so wedded to the notion that “East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet”, thus both Chinese and Westerners (in my case) have a tendency to think and speak as if China and the community of Western nations are essentially different planets.

There’s much I like about China, and there’s much I don’t care for. I choose to enjoy the good (in my view) while understanding why I don’t like the bad (in my view). When the conversation demands respectful honesty, I provide it.

To put it succinctly, while I welcome increased investment between the U.S. and China, I also understand why, when Haier first opened a plant in the U.S., the Chinese managers they brought in proved very unpopular, and were soon sent back, replaced by U.S. managers.

What I loved:

1. The food. So much more than the limited Cantonese so common in the West.
2. The energy. China is a country that is going places and you can feel it. People just seem to go for it! The ‘can-do’ attitude is better, even, than America.
3. The history. So much has happened in China, and we really do not celebrate this enough. Great to see that the Hutong’s are now being saved (after so much was knocked down), and incredible to be able to walk along the great wall, or visit the jade palace.
4. The architecture. There are some seriously cool buildings!
5. The contrast. You really build out the contrast between the cold Mandarin North with its more substantial food and the warm Southern Cantonese with its amazing sea food.
6. The shopping. You can find some really interesting stuff if you make a bit of an effort. One of our favourite things is a bowl decorated with the socialist hero’s of the 60’s.

What I did not like:

1. The smog. We did not see the sun in 10 days in Beijing…
2. The communication style. I guess this is my own fault as my Mandarin is very limited, but I found the Chinese ‘directness’ quite intimidating at times. Shanghai was nice, but in Beijing, some communication bordered on aggressive. We were almost attacked at the Great Wall because we refused to spend 15 RMB for a drink.

What I missed:

1. The nature. There are some beautiful areas that I would love to visit… we, unfortunately, focussed very much on the cities! Ah, well next time.

The myths busted:

1. Its way more ‘free’ than I expected. I really did not feel that it was some ‘horror police’ state. The complete opposite, in fact. In some ways, notably economic, it is more free than most countries.
2. China is not a poor, third world state. It has a lot of poor people, sure, but the opportunities to go somewhere are impressive, and a lot of people seem to have a lot of money.
3. Its size… I always knew that China is big. But I did not appreciate quite how big… You need to visit and travel to appreciate the size.

China is well worth a visit. And vital to build an understanding to what will likely be the most important country in the world over the next century.

quote

It's orderly, but more crowded than the Tube, says Boris Johnson of Beijing's subway, http://www.scmp.com/news/china-i...

Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who is on a high-profile visit in Beijing this week, took a ride on the capital’s notoriously crowded subway on Tuesday and said he found it even more “crowded” than the Tube in London. “It was not the peak hour ...

unquote

hey

I noticed that there’s always a deep misunderstanding, might be culture difference, between English speakers and Chinese. I want to contribute for eliminating this gap.

Here is my non-profitable website: Real China is Here , which delivers promised-to-be-real and latest China news, from medias in China. If you want to have a better understanding about China without spending a week traveling in China, check this out :P

(Of course you are very welcome to visit China)

All the articles have been translated. Since I am the only one running this website, it updates weekly. :D You can also subscribe, all free!

Note: Website might take several seconds to load, but trust me it will show up :P

I think the main stream media has a strong influence on the “image” people build regarding countries….i feel there’s a lot of bias portrayed.

For eg: if the media is talking about India, they will show only the slums while describing modern cities like Mumbai, they show cattle crossing the roads. They never show the modern skylines or the highways….

Like wise, when they show New York, (which is a beautiful city, and i love it for its people!), they show all the glitter and glamour and do not show the underbelly!

Any Asian society is seen through this narrow prism and portrayed in the mainstream media. In the US specially, women were hardly seen in the political arena till Lady Clinton’s recent appearance, how about basic facilities like maternal leave for the working woman? these issues were dealt with in Asian countries much before the US did introduce….I had an experience of working in the US, and was pleasantly surprised to hear my colleague inquire if we see wild animals roaming about the roads! It’s the image projected even in movies like the Indiana Jones…series.

I guess you realize the beauty of the country only after spending some quality time with the people…and after all beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

The one and a half months that I spent at Shanghai during third year university’s summer break taught me how important it is to not judge a country based on first impression or preconception.

I was quite reluctant to leave after hearing horrible stories about China. In addition, not being able to speak somewhat fluently in Chinese frustated me during the first two weeks I was there.

I felt lost and helpless. I found it hard to communicate with the locals. I was scared of eating out or exploring around because of the difficulty of understanding their language. I guess that I was really down because I originally thought the fact that I spoke some Chinese would be helpful. For me, the language barrier made it extremely hard to connect with the land and the people.

However, one day, out of nowhere, I felt the click; like Shanghai was accepting me for what I am and I was all of a sudden in sync with it. I worked really hard at language classes during the day (and revised the lessons at night). It feels like the hard work paid off and the desperate wish to belong there came true.

I started to order food (yes, that is often your first test) and talked to the locals with less troubles. I explored Shanghai and visited other cities nearby. My confidence built up and you couldn’t imagine how happy I was when they understood what I said or when I got what they were talking about. It started to feel like summer (just kidding, summer there felt like a 40C++ oven).

I just returned from my first trip to China. I did find it very enlightening. Years ago, I had taken a day trip into China, while it was still impossible to visit. At that time, it was a very primitive experience and you truly felt the communistic under-pinnings. This time, I spent 2 weeks there. It was amazing. I drove and saw many parts of China. There were still the farming and more rural areas, but the large cities rivaled the most modern cities in the world. And while it may have a top down communistic structure, it felt very capitalistic too. Beautiful stores, restaurants and cultural activities.

What I thought about after visiting China was how far they have come in the last 20 years. And when governments talk about trade wars and such with China, they should be careful. China has advanced in many ways, beyond many of the other Western nations and it would be detrimental for countries to not have a relationship with China. It would be a loss to the Western nation too. China will be a huge force as we move forward and the world needs to work with China.

Also, while i would never want to live in a Communist Country there is much we can learn from this nation, too.

It was one of the best life experiences.

The moment I stepped foot in Beijing I began to fall in love with China. The people were so friendly and inviting, we would get called from the street just to have some tea and chat. Being from the UK this type of hospitality is unheard of so it was an eye opener for me.

The denseness of China and the different lifestyles that people lead there had me thinking about how small us westerners are in the world. We tend to think that the centre of the Earth is in western societies. Yet it felt as if the western world didn't exist. It was very surreal.

What was interesting to me was the fascination with westerners, especially with black people. When travelling with my girlfriend (who is mixed race) they would stop us on the street just to take pictures with us. Eventually they would only stop my gf as they probably thought she was more interesting than me lol. They would touch her hair and marvel at it.

One thing that struck me about Chinese culture is this notion of losing face. The Chinese in areas of service such as in restaurants etc. do not like being complained to for bad service on their part. My food arrived cold and I complained, only to be greeted by a very annoyed waitress. Although the food is amazing generally! Just don't order anything too adventurous sounding. I did and the thing nearly crawled out my plate. I ordered prawns. They were still alive. Yuck.

Oh and if you’re ever in China, get a McSpicy burger from McDonalds. It is one of the best burgers I've had.

My fascination with China and Chinese culture has existed since I was about 17 years old, but sadly, for most of those years, I only had exposure to Chinese in other lands (US, Canada, Philippines, Germany, France, Singapore, and so forth) and not their own. I had seen just about all of the Chinese movies (that were dubbed into English), was a frequent visitor of Chinese restaurants, even had some records / CD’s of Chinese music. But no first hand experience, until 2015.

When I met my (now) wife, who is Chinese, my true education in “all things” Chinese began with me having to unlearn most of what I thought I knew about China. In the two years since we first met (online), I have been unlearning / relearning non-stop - and that has culminated with my traveling to China in November of 2015.

She met me at the Beijing airport and we toured Beijing and the surrounding areas; I was able to sample real Chinese food (not “American” Chinese food). Next we traveled on the high speed train to Xi’an to tour the antiquities there. I couldn’t help but notice that the antiquities aren’t the whole story of Xi’an, which has a rich history of its own. From there we traveled (by airplane) to Wuhan (her home city) to meet her family. Wuhan was a delight, not just because it’s her home town, but because of the river and the lakes that surround the city.

I was blown away by how much China has accomplished with respect to providing for its people. China has done a better job, and faster, than many other countries have done with respect to their rise in the standard of living. The projects that have been completed, the projects that are underway, all point to a rapid assault on the ‘status quo’.

She has even got me watching popular Chinese series - one of my favorites is “Langya bang” with Hu Ge.

There is so much I want to see, and so much more I want to experience in China.

Efficient, nearly first-world in many places. People who are mostly good natured and surprisingly tolerant of intermediate-level Chinese. Excellent, world-class infrastructure, increasingly competitive consumer goods, but above all else, the sheer scale of the place - Tiananmen for example is just vast. Also incredibly safe, albeit with a small degree of anti-foreigner violence being swept under the rug.

I’m immensely impressed with Chinese modernity after visiting many times, and the country improves with each visit (Chinese have a good capacity for being introspective in this sort of practical way).

This may come across as a bit surprising, given the stereotype of the westerner gushing over “ancient Chinese wisdom”, but Chinese History is a little different. I do not find Chinese art or traditional architecture to be particularly compelling or interesting, or even very beautiful when compared to Western art and architecture. In short western aesthetics are far more beautiful and varied, compare Barcelona to any city in China.

When I came to China, I thought I could shop cheap clothes, but in fact, the clothes sold in the mall is as expensive as luxury brands in the US even though it’s not a well-known brand. To buy cheap clothes, you need to go online like TaoBao or Tmall. The biggest sale is on 11 November. Luxury brands there are can be 3 times more expensive than in the US. Better buy luxury brands in Hong Kong than in China. Don’t buy branded stuff through TaoBao, JD, or Tmall. More than 60% are fake. The taxi drivers drive like on a race track, better take uber. In a smaller city, the taxi driver can just pull over without asking a permission from you and ask people in need of a ride whether they are heading in the same direction—here you expect to pay less, but apparently not, the same price. This was my first time sharing a ride with someone I don’t know of without my permission. I felt insecure because I didn’t know who this person was. Sometimes even when the driver fetches 2 people who don’t know each other from the same place and heading in the same direction, you need to pay the same price so the driver got twice the price. In some cities, you even need to bargain to take a cab, because they don’t want to turn on the meter. Don’t buy movie tickets straight from the theater, buy it from mobile apps, like WeChat—its like one-third of the price.

The problem with a short visit is that China is huge and as foreigner you are much less likely to see the parts of the country that reflect poorly on china.

If you only visit first tier cities, only take the (arguably excellent) high speed railway network (which is too expensive for many poor chinese) and visit touristy places, you can be forgiven for coming away with the impression that China is a thoroughly modern place, well developed, relatively affluent, urbane and worldly.

If you ever ended up taking a grotty, dirty and likely unsafe local train from some 4th tier city into the serious countryside, desperately poor, with no running water, with a whole in the ground for sanitation, with only dirt tracks leading to the village, well, you might have a different view.

China is a country of extremes and krass contrasts. These desperately poor villages where farmers can no longer even make a decent living provide masses of cheap labour force for the sweatshops (yes, they still exist) and the massive construction china has seen in the last decade plus.

Those poor people also live around the glittering mega Cities, in accommodation that would rate unfit for human habitation in any developed country, doing menial jobs if they can find them. But you are unlikely to see any of them, except while working on a building project or perhaps begging after having been crippled in an industrial accident.

For now perhaps 1 in 10 chinese people lives in the new cities, live lives we recognise, in prosperity. The rest, they are poor and will likely remain poor and their children will likely not have a chance of a better life either. instead more likely their farm land (pretty worthless anyway) will be stolen from them to make room for more high rise buildings where only one in 3 flats has someone living in.

Combine this with the constant political oppression of anyone who dares to speak out, the censorship pervasive in all aspects of life, the environmental pollution, the lack of even basic food safety. Take in all of this and you may see modern china as a place that does have these glittering modern cities, but they were build at a huge cost to the majority of people in china.

The only saving grace is that compared with the times under Mao and even through the 80’s, even the poorest are not quite as poor as they used to be. If the chinese leadership would rise to the challenge of lifting these people out of their misery and poverty, China would be a different place, a truly developed country.

For now it will a long march to get there, much longer than that famed one in 1934.

I taught English in Nanjing in 2004, and visited a few small towns and Beijing. Things might be completely different now, as China was changing very fast.

1. China is a nation of hospitality. Americans are friendly, but the Chinese take being a host to a professional level.
2. It is a nation of flexibility and negotiation, for better or worse, while America is much more focused on rules and planning. There’s a lot of haggling in China.
3. Because there’s a larger gap between the poor and the wealthy, there’s more emphasis on appearance to emphasize status.
4. China is more fragmented than I expected. One of my friends told me how her room mate in college spoke Mandarin Chinese (Pu tong hua) but wouldn’t speak to her till she learned the local dialect.
5. People in Nanjing were very friendly. Perhaps part of that was that I was such a novelty as a foreigner.
6. China is very dirty. I wouldn’t feel safe using the hospitals if I could avoid it. The pollution was awful. The food was questionable. Tasty, but questionable. The cheaper stuff was actually better than the expensive stuff, with some of the best food being tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants down a back-alley that one of your friends just happens to know about. People put a lot of effort and skill into making sure the food was fresh. Restaurants displayed fish tanks or chickens in coops out front to emphasize the freshness of the meat. A restaurant mate requested to see the fish that she was going to be served. A friend didn’t want his fish deboned because it meant more people would be touching it. You could only eat fruit with a peel that could be removed. I had to skin all my apples or I’d be sick. The air was so filled with pollution I didn’t want to exercise because it meant breathing more. And Nanjing is actually a lot better than most Chinese cities.
7. One day, we took our class to a ‘hard weapons museum.’ I expected a lot of rah rah patriotism. I was utterly astonished when most of the pieces there were American hardware. From America, China seems like such an economic juggernaut. In China, America was viewed as the guy to beat, like they were playing catch-up.
8. Chinese didn’t seem to travel internationally very much. I was probably the first foreigner a lot of people had seen. In contrast, when I lived in the Philippines, despite not being a particularly wealthy country everyone (in Makati, at least) had a cousin in New York, a brother in Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
9. Privacy is not that important for the Chinese. I’m pretty sure they were reading my email.
10. You’re allowed to sleep at your desk if you’re on break. This seemed wonderfully sane.
11. Alcohol is less stigmatized. ( I think ) I got a free bottle of baijo ( like vodka) with a purchase. I didn’t know it was happening and it got slipped in with my groceries. When I got to school, I assume it was someone else’s, so I left it to one side. It was by my desk for several days and a number of people commented. If it had been an American school, I’d probably have gotten a lecture. I ended up giving it to one of the more talkative teachers and explaining the situation to him in hopes he’d help clear up the rumors and restore my good name.
12. The Chinese work extremely hard. But I knew this before I went, from stories my father told me. (He’d been head of R&D for a paper company and went over in the 90s. The Chinese mill had been built from documents that they’d somehow scrounged up for a 1950s plant. He suggested a boiler that they could add as a modernization, and they had the thing finished when he came in the next morning.)

I experienced quite a shock when I went to a summer course at BLCU in Beijing a few years ago. In Israel, we generally view China as a quickly developing country, where technology is ubiquitous and people are mostly educated, except for the countryside. I definitely did not expect the lack of sanitation and general conditions in a large city like Beijing. This is not the fault of the people or Beijing, but my own fault for holding such incorrect ideas regarding China. However, I think this experience helped me understand China better.

Foreigners will see us Chinese people not like the stereotypical weak, yellow skinned, intelligent, and modest dominant Asian ethnicity, but as a strong, proud people. Many Chinese people are yellow skinned, but working in the sun tans them. Also, Chinese people are not weak and skinny. A Chinese woman could probably match even with an American man. Also, many Chinese people are slightly overweight and fat: this is seen as a good thing, as the Laughing Buddha was fat as well. We are not modest people; heck, my mother has called out the Northern Chinese as greedy, selfish people, and this is true to some extent. Even my family can be selfish and greedy at times. But the one thing everyone must be thinking ‘But Lawrence, Chinese people are smart right?’. Well, yes and no. See, some parents can’t afford to pay for their kid’s education. But if they can there are two large possibilities: A. the kid drops out to help his family or B. they graduate high school, go to college and get a job. Honestly if an American goes to China, I recommend Hong Kong, as people there are pretty nice, some speak English, and it isn’t as rundown, dirty, and underdeveloped in certain places like the rest of China is. But at least we aren’t North Korea.

There’s one thing that I remembee the most about China. It was when we were travelling on a long distance bus ride across the country. I think the whole trip was more than 1 day of continuous riding with short stops in between for food and WC.

I just can’t forget the WC scene. They don’t have any kind of separation between people who wanted to take a shit and people who just needed to pee. Unexpected, I walked into the narrow WC and witnessed the horrid scene of rows of people both squatting with their pants down and standing, urinating and defecating furiously so as to get out fast, the smell of dozens piles of poop being produced at they same time mixed together with that of urine and sweat and body odours. And it was summer time. I rushed out as fast as I could. August 2013. I sure as hell can remember that! :( Even now I still fail to understand why they have such toilets. Save money? Or because it’s OK in Chinese logic? Or because shit and urine both stink anyways? I swear the scariest thing ever to me was still seeing shit coming out for the assholes of a bunch of people at the same time while others peeing like a boss around them! :(

personally.. I had so many stereotypes in my mind.. especially knowing a lot of Chinese here in Toronto and thinking I knew Chinese by what I saw in “China Town”.

When I went to China for the first time I was very impressed but the newness of traveling to China, staying in hotels.. and the general overall excitement and being in my own head and stereotypes really prevented me from really seeing China. It was the second trip which changed me, I had more time to really open my mind, throw away my perceived ideas and I truly got to see the country - and that was just a small part of China. But what I did see was a country that is full of pride, cities that are truly world class with world class technology all of which has been designed, built and maintained in China. I saw a young and vibrant city, a long and historical culture and wonderful people. This confirmed my thoughts/feelings that we are all truly one.

I would strongly suggest taking a year off and going to China - you will be changed. When all we hear is negative news and news about terrorist attacks and refugees filling our media we become narrow minded and xenophobic and thus immobilizing North America while the rest of the world, particularly China are building a solid foundation for the future.

I found a stereotype I always felt to be ridiculous to be sadly true. Sorry, but, Chinese drivers are horrific. It’s a severely crowded country that just twenty years ago had less than a million cars in it. Now, it’s full of people fresh to the experience of driving when they grew up with bicycles being the only form of transit for most. It shows.

I have been to China over 30 times. One thing you soon learn is that it is in fact the world's most capitalist country. They are only communist by way of beurocracy.

They as a people drink too much, smoke too much and swear too much……much like us.

One simple thing just blew me away - that they smile. Growing up in an era when the Chinese were portrayed almost as grim faced automatons in grey Mao suits, waving the Little Red Book and blindly obeying its edicts the delightful shock will stay with me for ever

It’s very interesting to find out how China looks like from foreigners. I was born in a little town close to Shanghai, i only visited a few cities in China, i haven’n been in Beijng, Guangzhou neither. I get a lot of information about China from the net and from my friends. I read reports about the poorest people in China, but it feels so far away from me. Also, when i look some answers here, the China they see looks so different.

The bad part of the internet is the life here isnt what it real is. Still 53% of the whole population dont have access to internet now. Their voice wont be heard here.