1. People in China don’t call it China. They call it ZhongGuo or ZhongGhua. Zhong means middle. See the character on the left how its a line going through the middle of a box? That’s Zhong. Now Guo is a little more tricky since two characters mean Guo. The gif below will assist you. Most people prefer the Guo that looks like a mouse stuck in a maze. Now Guo means kingdom so Zhongguo means “Middle Kingdom” or maybe “Central Kingdom”.
They call America MeiGuo which means “Beautiful Kingdom” or “Beautiful Country”. What about France you ask? Fag’guo. Not even joking.
2. Most people in China are pretty friendly to foreigners but say “HALLO” to you all the time which gets a little annoying after 8 months. I’ve noted that when i’m dressing sharp or snappy I get more HALLOs then when i’m not.
3. Sprite is called Xue Bi ( Schway Bee) and Coke is called K’o K’ou K’o Le which means, roughly “let your mouth be happy” and also sounds like, well Coca Cola. 7-Up is qi qi (chi chi) and means 77. Beer is piujiu (pee-gee-oh), but usually you can just order Tsingtao (Ching Dow) as it’s really the finest beer around.
4. Breakfast options in China are limited. You have stuff that they eat for other meals (noodle soup, rice, etc) and then you have like bing bread– some bing bread is good, some is awful– depends on what’s inside. I’d say its sort of like a flat, dry exteriored piroshki, but more chewy. Ask whats inside before committing. They will run you about 1 yuan each (15 cents). You can also get dumplings, buns, etc. Many people eat hardboiled eggs too.
5. Add Oil. If you’re feeling beaten down or depressed people will you to Ka-Yow (cantonese) or Jyah Yo (mandarin). This means to add oil or gasoline. As far as Facebook in Hong Kong goes its probably the most often used comment. 加油! Add oil la! Oh yeah, they say “la” and “ah” and “ar” a lot too. Basically its a word particle that means nothing on its own but when added to something it sounds nice. For example “how are you la?”, or “I miss you la”, or “what you doing ar?”. You get the idea.
6. Generally, Chinese people don’t like ice or cold drinks. I know some who drink Tsingtao warm. Water is usually hot, sometimes warm, almost never cold. If you’re in a restaurant and you request ice water (baizah bing kuai shui, is how I say it, prob a better way) chinese people will look at you. Look at him, he loves that cold drink in his mouth. As such, finding like a bag of ice isn’t easy. If you need some for cocktails or something go to a restaurant, be sure to have a Chinese person tell them you want ice for drinks, otherwise it may be contaminated.
7. Chinese People Cover Their Mouths When They Use A Toothpick. This is sort of an asia-wide thing and is widely reported but when you consider that Chinese are pretty ok with most other personal grooming (or lack thereof) it’s a bit discordant. There’s spitting out a bad taste from your mouth and then there’s an old chinese guy hawking up a loogie from deep inside his soul that probably has particulates from the Qing Dynasty.
8. Don’t Drink The Water. Well duh. Andy your tips are getting pretty lame here. Hey asshole, I wasn’t finished… even some bottled water is not ok to drink. The amazing thing about the human body, if you’re sensitive to your own body, is that you’ll know almost immediately that it’s not good. There’s one that comes in a fancy bottle called Watson’s that is regularly contaminated. I drink a sip of this and immediately my stomach turns over.
9. That’s fuckin’ teamwork. Chinese girls will often share the load by carrying a plastic shopping bag down the street with each one holding a handle. See the photo below for reference. It’s cute and I tried it once and it does make it easier but sometimes creates awkward confrontations with oncoming pedestrians.
10. Chinese girls also hold hands. They’re not lesbians. Chinese guys sometimes walk around with their arms around each others neck, and are also not gay. It’s possible that some of them are gay and are taking advantage of this being culturally okay but there’s really no way to even quantify or investigate that, but certainly it does happen.
11. Chinese “Great Wall” Brand Wine is foul. Really. Probably some of the vilest stuff i’ve had since this one time I went camping, left the ice chest with a few beers outside for 3 afternoons, came home at night and saw the chest, removed the beers, refrigerated and drank it later that night. Great Wall wine tastes like how windex smells.
12. People in China love the number 8. The reason is that eight is pronounced Bah, which sounds like Fa, which means Wealth or Prosperity. Also they love 88 because it resembles this character: 囍, which means Double Joy or Double Happiness, which is a kind of happiness that is only possible at a wedding. To add to this, it’s also the name of a popular brand of cigarettes. A pack of Shuang Xi’s (囍) vary in price depending on which variety you want. My friend Felix smokes the 6 元 per pack (84 cents) ones, but if you’re feeling fancy you can spend up to 30元 per pack. I spoke about developing a Quadruple Happiness brand (囍囍!!!!!) that will practically make your head pop off with happiness to Felix and he didn’t think the idea was funny at all.
13. Chinese People Like or Don’t Really Get This Blog. But they are never angered by it or offended, and I don’t aim to be offensive but sometimes I joke around. Most Chinese people I know who’ve read this blog are just like “Why write about China? What’s the big deal?” . They think, oddly, that I’d write about America since I know more about that.
14. Workers often wear sportscoats and slacks to dig holes. I don’t understand it really. Also, the bike taxi guys wear similar outfits. So do beggars– if not that outfit they wear the Mao jacket with matching pants. Mafia guys wear athletic warm-up clothing or sorta 1980’s gay clothing. Office girls dress like prostitutes. Prostitutes dress like office girls. Hong Kong business guys dress like American yuppie casual (The North Face, Eddie Bauer, etc). Girls in front of massage parlors wear furry jackets and traditional dresses. The girls at the bowling alley wear track suits. All girls wear what would be described in the coastal US as “Granny Panties”. Guys wear briefs or gross underwear-in-a-tube type things. The other day I saw this old white guy wearing a fancy, ornate Mao jacket with his Chinese wife/girlfriend inside of a KFC. I had a series of wtf moments like… gone native.. posterboy for old gross foreigner..poser… pervert… KFC??
12. Most office buildings have hotels built into them. Oh cool, for visiting businessmen. Yeah but they rent them in 3 hour blocks.. oh cool, in case someone wants to stretch out a little, rest their eyes a little... Yeah, something like that. There’s one in my office building and I see nervous couples and unbothered hooker and customer duos all the time. Last Thursday this kind looking old Chinese guy was heading up with a 21 year old and a bag of snacks– like fish crackers and stuff.
13. Time Passes Strangely. 3 months in China for me felt like 6 or 9 months— in a very neutral way; not good or bad. The best way I can describe time passing slow here is just that your life is more dense. You learn a lot. You get mad a lot. You are happy a lot. You’re confused a lot. Now that i’ve been here for 7 months I feel like i’ve been here a year. I think living in such a foreign place just wakes you up. You pay closer attention to everything. Back home I was so familiar with everything that I just slept through life most of the time.
14. Chinese Culture is hard to define. “How’s China?”, people ask me. It’s, uh, China I say. American culture is also hard to define, until you’re not inside of it. Then it’s easy. Don’t mind what those snot nosed, scarf wearing, suburbanite tramps say after returning from Europe— Americans do have a culture. If you don’t think America has a rich, positive culture you’re just not apart of it or don’t understand what the word culture means. You probably think it means old buildings, exclusionary behavior or dressing like an asshole.
Many of your observations also apply to how I remember Malaya, back in the transitional 60s. Back then we had the comforts of modernisation but mostly the country was still in an era of colonial culture. I remember my Dad being served warm Tiger beer, which was almost undrinkable and our host promptly filled his beer glass with ice which made it worse. Tricky etiquette right there.
I thoroughly detested the imperious attitude towards the ‘locals’ displayed by visiting white honkies. Mostly Brits but the Americans and Anzacs weren’t much better. My folks were very worldy and treated everyone with respect, how they brought us all up too. In Malaya there was a distinct gap between the work ethic/attitude of the Chinese [1/3 of the pop] and the Malays who were much more ‘laid back’ although we didn’t use that word of course. It tended to mean that the Chinese earned their living by being industrious while the Malays more by working for a boss. Pineapples were 5c Straits. A hooker could be had for $2 [pretty one for $3. I loved it.
Great information David. Tiger beer is not the greatest.. however Red Horse down in the philippines is great with ice.
I think many foreigners who come to asia are an odd bunch, and I maybe have a little of that in me (having an interest with odd, unfamiliar things and a lack of interest for familiar things) but a lot of them are people who can’t hack it in their home country and/or are disliked there.
These are the ones who won’t look at you on the street, because they’re like thinking “what are you doing here ruining my exotic journey”. They sicken me, and in a large part carry more pent up disdain for the locals and local customs than the ones who are obnoxious about it. Deep down inside, the guy in the Mao jacket at KFC probably thinks he’s much more advanced than the people here.
The consensus here is that hookers are 150RMB ($22) so it looks like things have multiplied by 10 since you were here.
1. Calling America beautiful is purely a phonetic co-incidence. America the continent (in Cantonese: ah-mei-lay-ga), cannot be abbreviated to Ah-continent, because that’s the name for Asia. So America the country and continent were called Mei-Guo (country) and Mei Chau (continent).
France in Cantonese is Fah-Lan-Sai, Fah-Guo is just the abbreviation.
3. The Chinese name for Sprite (when it was introduced in HK) means Ice-Green, which encompasses both phonetic and literal translations. In some places, it is translated see-bit-lay (yes, certain, benefit).
Chinese name for 7-Up is 7 happiness, which rhymes with UP.
6. “baizah” looks incomprehensible, little glass? Why not say “please give me” (tsin gay wuo)
9. That’s common with Ukrainian girls too. (I lived there for 7 years.)
10. Ditto number 9.
13. You should write a blog in Chinese language about ugly Americans.
14. “Office girls dress like prostitutes. Prostitutes dress like office girls.” Sometimes I had that feeling in Ukraine too.