China...More or Less

A few years' ago, I used to write travel guides.  One of them was the Scotland Guide.  In that book I wrote a section called Scotland...More or Less.  Taking a "page" from that book, today's post is about China...More or Less.

In China, you'll find...

More...

Young women walking arm-in-arm and/or hand-in-hand. Much like innocent first graders, it is very natural for these women to include a hand of fellowship in their friendships.  In class, I often have my students come up to make a presentation with their partner -- usually the person they are sitting next to. About 30% of the time two young women will walk up to the front of the class holding hands, or hold hands during their presentation, and/or on their way back to their seats.  It is beyond precious and is very sweet to see.

People! Believe it or not, China is physically roughly the same size as the United States -- in fact, it is a smidge smaller (5.98 million square miles vs 6.25 million square miles), yet
their population (1.4 billion) is a little over four times greater than the United States (325 million)!  We live in Jinan, a mere village compared to many of China's cities -- they have five cities over 20 million.  Jinan is 7 million.  FYI -- New York City, the largest city in America, has 8.6 million people. Jinan is the same size as Los Angeles and Chicago -- combined.

Affordable and efficient bus service. One thing we were pleasantly surprised to find was the fabulous bus service in Jinan.  We can get about anywhere we want to go on a bus, and rarely have to wait more than five minutes for a bus.  And the buses are unbelievably inexpensive -- a round trip ride in this city of 7 million costs about 45 cents. And as a bonus, they are all powered by natural gas, so they keep pollution down.

And if buses aren't available or don't quite meet your needs, taxis and/or uber drivers are plentiful and inexpensive.  One of our friends took a 35-minute (~20-miles) taxi ride the other day and it cost about $7.50.

Electric bikes! Watch your step in China.  We were warned that electric bikes are everywhere, and that is an understatement.  Many of the "walkways" are shared with electric bikes speeding within inches (okay -- maybe a foot) of pedestrians.  Don't make any quick, sharp turns, or you'll likely end up as a hood ornament...it is particularly concerning because you cannot hear them at all.  I would guess electric bikes outnumber regular ol' bikes by about 10 to 1, or maybe even more.  Here's one of the (many) parking lots at our university:

Politeness...particularly to foreigners.  Oh my goodness!  If I have one more older woman insist I take her seat on the bus, I will lose my mind!  (Younger men and women do it too, but many of these women I am speaking of are probably a decade older than me.) Until a few days' ago, I would politely refuse and insist they keep their seat even though they can be quite insistent.  But Bonita and I have made a very good friend of one of the instructors at the university, a Chinese woman.  Bonita mentioned that to her, and she said, "Oh no -- he must accept their invitation, or he will offend them.  It is very offensive to them not to accept their invitation."  Bonita tried to explain that in America I am always a gentleman and offer my seat to women, to which our friend Hong replied, "But he's not in America now.  He is in China, and he must accept their gracious gestures."  Sigh...yesterday we went on an outing and it happened again, so I accepted an offered seat.  But I kept a keen eye out for new passengers boarding and jumped up and offered my seat to one of the elderly folk.  A woman (about my age) sitting across from me, who saw me accept the invitation to sit down, and then give my seat up as soon as I could to another older woman gave me the thumbs-up sign, so I guess I did good.  :-)  Here is a sign that is on all the buses...I guess to most Chinese older women, I appear to be a semi-decrepit old foreigner, and I fall into the first category :

But -- let me hasten to say they are very polite to other Chinese as well, always jumping up for the elderly, injured, pregnant women, etc., etc.

Smiles and laughter.  I think I had this preconceived notion that citizens of Communist countries were oppressed and terribly unhappy.  That has not been our experience at all!  The Chinese people with whom we are rubbing shoulders are happy and quick to smile and laugh.  Here's a picture of a third of one of my classes...aren't they absolutely adorable?  I meet with my classes only once a week, so with 290 students, it's tough for my ol' brain to remember all the students' names.  However, I had each student complete a student information card the first day of class, and included a picture of each student on their card.  I use those as flash cards to refresh my memory before each class, and I can usually get all but two or three of each class correct -- those few I routinely mix up.  I feel bad when I do that, but will keep slogging away!

My list of More... could go on and on, but let me get to the Less...

Less....

People smoking, particularly women.  We have been here just shy of two months, and I have seen exactly two women smoking.  Men smoke, but it just seems that far fewer smoke than in America (and tons fewer than in the European countries I am familiar with).

Piercings and tattoos.  I have not seen any piercings since I have been here, and Bonita has seen only two.  I know that seems to be a fad that is waning in the US (thank goodness!), but it really isn't very popular here. I have seen maybe two or three tattoos since I have been here.

Make-up and jewelry on women.  These items are almost non-existent here.  In fact, Bonita has found it difficult to find nail polish here.  I have 290 students, about 250 of which are women.  I would say no more than one in ten wear any make-up at all, and maybe one in thirty (if that) wear earrings. And they are simply beautiful. (Notwithstanding my comment on the difficulty Bonita is having finding nail polish, I do have a number of young women who wear nail polish.)  Case in point: none of the students in the picture above is wearing make-up and only one, maybe two are wearing earrings.

Wedding rings.  I know a fair number of Chinese people who are married, and none of them wear wedding rings.  Not a cultural tradition in China, I guess.  I wouldn't be surprised to see that begin to happen with this upcoming generation, however, as they really keep their eye on American culture and fashions and adopt western ways quickly.

Foreigners.  By foreigners, I am talking about European-looking people like Bonita and me!  Even though Jinan is a city of 7 million, it is not a large business center for international corporations, tourism, etc.  So we see very, very few "foreigners" (as the Chinese people call us) other than other China Teachers Program teachers.  A few weeks' ago, Bonita and I were at a restaurant and were shocked to see two foreigners sitting at the booth next to us.  We heard them speaking English first -- they were two 25 -ish year old young women from South Africa, who are here teaching Kindergarten.  They are two of only four foreigners I have seen as we have been out and about in Jinan.  Other population centers have many other foreigners in them...but not a large number percentage-wise.  We still have people ask to take selfies with us.  And we have noticed more than a few who have been surreptitiously snapping our pictures.  I feel like a celebrity! :-)

Litter...and the Internet.  I have been amazed at the lack of litter in such a large city. Part of it is because there are many older men and women who work for the government who are each assigned a block of a street to keep clean.  These septuagenarians+ have these large, hand-crafted brooms made of sticks that sweep, sweep, sweep all day.   The brooms really are very effective.

And for me, access to the Internet has been devilishly awful.  I will go two days with the Internet being relatively uninterrupted, then two or three days without any Internet.  My sweetheart, on the other hand, seldom has Internet problems.  Sigh...it appears to be the burden I am destined to have while here in China. Note: the Chinese government censors / blocks many websites, including Google [and apps like gmail, which I use], Facebook, YouTube, etc. Supposedly if you have a Virtual Private Network (VPN) from outside China, you can access these websites.  When I can even get access to the Internet, that works pretty well..but when I can't access the Internet....well...

So there you have it -- China More or Less.  And since I didn't put an inordinate number of photos with the prose, here are a few from our adventures:

                                             Little beauty mugging for us in western China...

   Little boy on a bus in Jinan.  The peace sign is a popular thing for Chinese to flash during photos!

Sunset silhouette in Yar City (aka Yarghul or Jiaohe) in western China.  Yar is a mud village from the Tang Dynasty and some of the "buildings" date to 450AD.

       Sunset in Yar City, taken by our friend, Rebecca Allen, another China Teachers Program teacher