Things I’ve Only Seen In China

In China, there are a lot of things you’ll see and do that America just doesn’t have and doesn’t do - here are a few of them. These are probably true in other countries as well, but I obviously haven’t seen the whole world, so…..yeah, here they are.

- Ride an impossibly crowded bus with people literally pushing strangers out of their way in order to get on. I still hate this one every now and then. It seems very impolite to me.

- A country that actually likes karaoke and thinks it’s cool!!

- Students that like studying so much that they will sometimes blow off hanging out with friends to go to the library to study. Dude.

- People have no problems standing on a train or bus for hours at a time with no seats

- A majority of people actually like and genuinely prefer pop music to rock music!!!

- Older parents can legally sue their adult children for not financially providing for them

- People really like to eat cold dishes - many times preferring the 凉菜 (cold food) to the (hot food) 热菜.

 - Some meat and vegetable dishes that would normally be hot in America or in other countries are allowed to sit and get cold and are actually preferred that way. This one actually took me a little while to get used to.

- If you are a *ahem* larger person, then people will tell you ‘oh, I think you are very fat. I am so skinny’ just as a passing comment like ‘oh, you have a beard’ or ‘oh, i like your shirt’. It doesn’t sound like much, but I was genuinely shocked to hear that the first time it was said to me - it just never happened before.

- Boys wearing bright purple and pink is very common and NOT considered gay in the slightest.

- People don’t ever hug each other except when they are little kids or are together romantically (even then, it seems rare). Very, very strange for me. I have only hugged 2 people here - 1 of whom had been to America and gotten lots of hugs in America and missed being hugged (does that count?)

I’m really tired now, so I’m going to bed - if I think of any more, I’ll put them in another post. Here is the latest video: