Dress Codes

I think it is fair to say that China in comparison to the West is less liberal. I’m sure my family and friends know the various ‘fads’ I’ve been through, different clothes, hair colours, piercings, etc. You don’t get that much in China. Everyone is more or less the same. But that’s OK. It doesn’t matter what people look like. People can dress however they want. Difficulty comes when it is blistering hot outside, even in March and it is frowned upon to show skin. I’m unsure what part of the skin that it is that is causing offence and surplus staring. It’s either the shoulders or the chest, not cleavage, just the upper chest. If it is not that correct time of year you must sweat out the Chinese temperatures! Well, they must. If we’re hot we’re taking off the layers!  

Staring!

We get stared at. A lot. A LOT a lot. China is a very closed off country. Until recently it wasn’t easy to get in here. They have many visitors from outside Asia but nowhere near the numbers many other countries around the world experience. 

At first it was very difficult to deal with the constant and very blatant staring but since we’ve been here so long…it’s still just as strange! I wonder what makes them stare at us so much. I have narrowed it down to 3 possibilities.

1.     There simply isn’t a lot of westerners here, especially smaller major cities like Nanjing. It’s maybe the equivalent of us seeing an albino in the street. They are few and far between. They want to get a good look while they can. One lady spoke to me in a clothes shop and I believe what she was trying to say was that I have a large nose. No offence intended I’m sure, although it is pretty big, but our face structures are extremely different to theirs, our noses are massive compared to their little curvy buttons. This is most likely the reason why they like to stare.

2.     They think we’re celebrities. I’ve come to a possible conclusion that the majority, if not the only western/white people they see are movie stars and pop singers so when they see us, the assume we COULD be famous.

3.     They think we’re hideous. Like I mentioned in the previous point, they mostly see westerners in the movies or music videos. Beautiful glamourous people who are visually perfect. This is what westerners are to them. Then they see us. Our pasty white skin, bleak dress sense and funny voices. Not quite Julia Roberts. So the stares are simply looks of OH MY GOD! WTF! 

Government controlled media.

I’m not to sure if this one is positive or negative. 

 Everyone who knows me knows I’m a huge film fan. I love to go to the cinema and watch DVDs, you name it, if it’s a movie, I’m in! We tried to go to the cinema once here to see Disney’s Bolt but unfortunately it was only in Chinese and it was bloody expensive. The equivalent of £8! I’m used to my old £2.50 on Crazy Tuesday down Dublin Road, thank you very much or at least half price on Orange Wednesday.

 Therefore, we haven’t seen a film in a film theatre in months. A conversation about movie screenings in China was sparked with our friend Thom where he informed us that film in China often have sections edited out before screening if it contains material that the Chinese government do not want their citizens seeing. Things like nudity, sex, drugs or anything political. Violence however, you can have all the violence you want and with no certificate. I could take my niece and nephew to see the newest, darkest, most violent cinema releasing in China. (I wouldn’t though, I felt bad when I let Harry watch The Mask once, too many Tommy Guns.)

 Just the other day Nicola and I were discussing the safety of the streets in Nanjing with Dumpling, a 20 year old girl who we work with who has lived in Nanjing all her life. Spawned from her not needing Nicola and Alex to escort her home the previous night because it’s totally safe here. In the UK I don’t feel safe walking to the end of my street never mind walking through the busy streets of a sleepless city. Can it really be safe for a girl to walk through these streets at night unaccompanied? They never hear anything bad happening to people in the newspaper, so it must be OK. But the newspapers don’t report crimes like these in the papers, or that’s what we’ve been told (obviously we can’t ead the papers here). Perhaps there’s a lot of crime in China but people are sheltered from it. Or perhaps there’s not a lot of crime because it’s not constantly pushed in people’s faces all the time like in the UK.

 On a lighter note, I’ve heard of news articles reporting how Avril Lavigne was banned from performing in an Asian country (which one it was escapes me) because her stage moves were considered to sexy for their audiences. I love Avril but really? Come on. She’s no Britney Spears or Alicia Moore! Sexy moves. HA!

 And I do believe Oasis were due to play in Shanghai in April this year but they were banned because…….

 "According to the show's promoters, officials within the Chinese Ministry of Culture only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet Benefit Concert on Randall's Island in New York in 1997, and have now deemed that the band are consequently unsuitable to perform to their fans in the Chinese Republic on 3rd and 5th of April, during its 60th anniversary year."

Crazy.

Sunny fun in Shanghai

Grass. Bench. Crisp Sandwiches. Puppy. Done.

Bicycles

Before I came to China, I had absolutely no knowledge, or interest in China, or any of Asia really! I’m more of a west European or American girl. I had nothing against China or anything, just never caught my attention. Through this ignorance I came to China with what I like to think of as a completely open mind. I had neither high expectations nor had I any prejudices.

From living and working in East China for several months, it has allowed me to find the things I love about this culture and things I hate. These discoveries have also highlighted things I love and hate about where I’m from. (I’ll say the whole of the UK because I’m not in Northern Ireland enough anymore!)

Since I have this blog outlet, I thought I’d take some time to comment on particularities of the everyday life I’ve encountered here. Things that are positive and I think should be introduced in my country as well as negative aspects which make me want to go back home ASAP!

This is in no way an argument for/against the way Chinese people live, everyone to their own as my mother always says.

I shall begin with a positive! Bicycles!!!

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing. Apparently. I don’t know. I do know that there is a hell of a lot in Nanjing! The roads in China are extremely wide, correction, the main roads in China are very wide, all others can barely fit the popular Buick through! In addition to 4 to 6 lanes for cars and buses there is an extra lane on the outer edges of each main road. Fairly decent in breadth and all. This is for the millions of bicycle users that get from A to B everyday.

Can you imagine if so many people took a bicycle to work in the UK instead of taking their own car or jumping in a taxi. I guess people don’t cycle cause the roads are so busy and it wouldn’t be safe to get in amongst all that traffic but if there was a special lane of notable size for cyclists then maybe they would, but if you took away a lane for vehicles and gave it to bikes the congestion would be even greater, but not if everyone ditched the car for the bike. Too many ‘buts’. We should think about it though.

Why do so many people use bicycles in China anyway? Just to beat the morning rush? (Which is dreadful by the way…being stuck in a jam-packed, motionless, heat omitting Nanjing bus at 8am every weekday morning.) My figuring is that most Chinese people can’t afford a car of their own. In fact, I often see a family of three, instead of getting into the family Buick they hop on the family scooter. Dad drives, mum on the back, child in the footrest bit. In addition, everyone lives in apartments here. Where do people park their cars? There is no driveway or garage. Also, even if they could afford a car, could they actually afford to run a car? I don’t have one but I hear it’s very expensive. Most people here, if they don’t physically cycle, they have an electric bike, motioned by a battery, which they can just plug in and charge up next to the TV at home. 

So through poverty, the Chinese get a bit of exercise and help the environment that little bit extra. We have the privilege of being able to choose if we want to drive of cycle. We choose heart attacks and global warming almost every time. Brilliant.

Nanjing Weekend

This past weekend Nicola, Alex and I had a relaxing weekend back in Nanjing. Well, I did, Alex and Nicola were super busy singing karaoke and playing arcade games in town. Because my weekend was just eating and watching movies I have nothing to post! But check out Nicola's Blog to see what they got up to. 

By Ono.

Shanghai Nights

Our first week in Shanghai is almost past and on Sunday, or one day off in the week (same working hours as Nanjing L no perks) we all went downtown into central Shanghai. Since I don’t have Matt here to be my guide around Shanghai, as he has a freakishly good sense of direction and a mini map etched into his brain of everywhere he’s ever been, I paid extra EXTRA attention about how to get to the train station and through the train station into Shanghai so that if we ever want to venture out on our own we can without having to rely on the Chinese people all the time.

Since we live on the outskirts of Shanghai we have to get a bus to get the metro into town. At the metro station there was a woman selling puppies…and a man selling RABBITS! I miss Nayi so much but I have to resist buying another rabbit!

We had briefly been through central Shanghai on our first business trip here back in December but this time we got to see a lot more. We also noticed how many westerners there are here. 

Losers.

A lot more than in Nanjing but even though our kind were more popular here, it didn’t stop every other native staring. Although, I must admit, I stare at white people here too! by the end of the day I was so sick of westerners! All I could think was that they were just petty tourists, not soaking up an experience like us, however, I’m sure they were, lots of the them looked quite at home. I liked us being the only ones but in Shanghai, suddenly we were special anymore. I felt like Leonardo Dicaprio coming back from the beach into mainland Thailand! (Note to parents: ‘The Beach’ is on my DVD shelf, watch it to understand this.)

We met Jackie Chan! 

We got  some taxis to take us to a different part of the centre that is more like the Confucius Temple in Nanjing. 

How cool is this? Dragon Gate.

Lots of little stalls with various items; old coins, Chairman Mao memorabilia, fans, shoes and crap. 

Warren buying house shoes. 12 Yuan. Bargain.

My favourite type of place that is native to China. Amongst all this clutter I finally bought what I’ve been meaning to get in Nanjing. An art stamp carved with my name in English and Chinese characters for stamping my art pieces. It’s a very popular tourist souvenir but I will actually use. I want to get another one that doesn’t simply say ‘Gillian’ but that has a little motif or logo that will act as my signature on my art.

Chinese markets like these, like any market really, have some lovely items, worth buying even if they are popular souvenirs or real finds, but then you really do get the crap…

 He is selling baps with faces drawn on!!! Whaaaa?

There was a man selling a ‘Chinese Bamboo Sax’. It did sound pretty cool. He was a great character when he played. Unfortunately I only caught the last note of his show!

We grabbed lunch in some crazy busy place that was like a massive over-glorified canteen. Everyone was moving so fast and there was so much to choose from but mostly non-vegetarian, so I just grabbed a couple of things, some noodles and some tarts and moved on. I was raging when my bill was totaled to 23 Yuan!!! When I found Alex, he told me that he paid 55 Yuan for his!!! Not happy.  

On our last visit to Shanghai we were taken to a place called People’s Square where we could look out across the river and some remarkable architecture.

 Shiny!

This time we went to the other side of the river to experience the buildings. We found a Starbucks, sat down with our coffees and Nicola’s perfect Tuna sandwich and watched the sunset over the Shanghai skyline.

 Warren, he has The Cool.