I'm very lucky.
I've had the opportunity to travel to China. Not too many people can say the same.
And to be honest, I do like it here. Beijing is awesome, Chongqing is a lot different than Beijing, but also a lot dirtier, but still different enough that it was worth coming here. It's also a really cool place.
There are a lot of great things about China. The people are the nicest, friendliest people ever. It isn't uncommon for someone to volunteer to be your tour guide around the city, take you all over, have lunch and dinner with you, and have it all be on their dime.
But still, their are the moments, where you just....want to harm someone.
The other day is a perfect example.
We were enjoying our free time in our apartment, very quiet, some chill music on. China is super loud, so these moments are few and far between, and we cherish them.
We ordered some water, didn't think it'd be a big deal.
It turns out ordering a jug of water is just the biggest deal ever.
So, Chinese delivery man enters with jug of water and starts shouting in Chinese at us, we all kind of say, "we don't speak Chinese, we speak English" in English.
So in order to communicate with us he decides that he needs to yell louder.
Again, our peaceful, quiet, humble apartment just turned into this super loud shouting Chinese man. Again, we say, no chinese, we speak english.
He's still yelling, and apparently very perplexed that we don't understand him.
We give him the empty bottle, money, try to play a quick game of sherades in order to show what we would like, which just so happens to be the jug of water in his hand, nothing is getting through.
We are all sitting here, not speaking chinese, yelling in english, to just go away. We no longer care about our hydration, just leave us to our peacefulness.
Any right minded person, who's message isn't getting across in this situaiton would obviously just yell louder at the foreigners who don't speak his language, this will surely get the message across.
This went on for a good 5 minutes. It eventually ended in a phone call to...someone, we assume his boss. Him telling us what we did wrong...in chinese and him abruptly leaving.
Thank you very much, language barrier.
So, here's the things about China that I'm not so fond of.
1. It always sounds like they're shouting. A friendly conversation may as well be Ross and Rachel debating if they were on a break or not.
2. Everything smells like China. Which smells kind of like a Chinese Food Place in Canada. Just recently my clothes have started to smell like China, it was a sad moment.
3. You randomly get whiffs of poop. Why does this happen. Babies in China don't have diapers, they have slits in the bottom of their pants. So if you stay here long enough, you will eventually be blessed with witnessing a mother holding their baby in the squat position as it pees, or poos, whereever, whenever. It's just fantastic.
4. Grocery Stores - These little gems are pure chaos. These are the loudest most annoying places in the entire world. I think it's national law that the temperature in each grocery store must be 10 C above what is comfortable. The best part is, there are people with microphones attached to them, shouting at you to buy whatever food, and the amp has some sort of echoing sound effect. My father, would walk in, and walk out 2 min later, of that I am sure. It's crazy, and I hate it more than anything else in China. Not to mention, there's nothing remotely english in the entire store, except for the half shelf American section which has 2 brands of cereal I've never heard of and the rest is Chinese products trying to look Western.
5. The pollution is the obvious one. Our city, Chongqing, is one of the main cities that the Government has starting pouring money into and renovating, which means alot of constrution, rubble and dust. The sky is always grey, I've seen the blue sky once since I've been here, and I haven't seen the Sun yet. I was fortunate enough to have a girl take me to the countryside where there's lots of forests...it was the best. Thank God for trees. My lungs had a mini celebration. It's not like it's hard for asthmatics though, it's just.....thick.
Go outside, and put your head in a tree and inhale. I will be jealous.
Things I do love about china however, are the people are super friendly and hospitable like I've never seen, the fact that anytime you're in a motorized vehicle it's a crazy life/death situation and on top of that, the food is awesome. There are alot of things to see in China, and if you're not into that whole scene, the shopping is cheap, and bargaining is tons of fun.
So anyways, I complained, even though I really don't have much to complain about.
I'm over it.
Cheers.
P.S. I just heard a car honk it's horn for literally 10 sec straight.
That's No. 6.
But I'm kind of used to the honking car thing by now.
I've had the opportunity to travel to China. Not too many people can say the same.
And to be honest, I do like it here. Beijing is awesome, Chongqing is a lot different than Beijing, but also a lot dirtier, but still different enough that it was worth coming here. It's also a really cool place.
There are a lot of great things about China. The people are the nicest, friendliest people ever. It isn't uncommon for someone to volunteer to be your tour guide around the city, take you all over, have lunch and dinner with you, and have it all be on their dime.
But still, their are the moments, where you just....want to harm someone.
The other day is a perfect example.
We were enjoying our free time in our apartment, very quiet, some chill music on. China is super loud, so these moments are few and far between, and we cherish them.
We ordered some water, didn't think it'd be a big deal.
It turns out ordering a jug of water is just the biggest deal ever.
So, Chinese delivery man enters with jug of water and starts shouting in Chinese at us, we all kind of say, "we don't speak Chinese, we speak English" in English.
So in order to communicate with us he decides that he needs to yell louder.
Again, our peaceful, quiet, humble apartment just turned into this super loud shouting Chinese man. Again, we say, no chinese, we speak english.
He's still yelling, and apparently very perplexed that we don't understand him.
We give him the empty bottle, money, try to play a quick game of sherades in order to show what we would like, which just so happens to be the jug of water in his hand, nothing is getting through.
We are all sitting here, not speaking chinese, yelling in english, to just go away. We no longer care about our hydration, just leave us to our peacefulness.
Any right minded person, who's message isn't getting across in this situaiton would obviously just yell louder at the foreigners who don't speak his language, this will surely get the message across.
This went on for a good 5 minutes. It eventually ended in a phone call to...someone, we assume his boss. Him telling us what we did wrong...in chinese and him abruptly leaving.
Thank you very much, language barrier.
So, here's the things about China that I'm not so fond of.
1. It always sounds like they're shouting. A friendly conversation may as well be Ross and Rachel debating if they were on a break or not.
2. Everything smells like China. Which smells kind of like a Chinese Food Place in Canada. Just recently my clothes have started to smell like China, it was a sad moment.
3. You randomly get whiffs of poop. Why does this happen. Babies in China don't have diapers, they have slits in the bottom of their pants. So if you stay here long enough, you will eventually be blessed with witnessing a mother holding their baby in the squat position as it pees, or poos, whereever, whenever. It's just fantastic.
4. Grocery Stores - These little gems are pure chaos. These are the loudest most annoying places in the entire world. I think it's national law that the temperature in each grocery store must be 10 C above what is comfortable. The best part is, there are people with microphones attached to them, shouting at you to buy whatever food, and the amp has some sort of echoing sound effect. My father, would walk in, and walk out 2 min later, of that I am sure. It's crazy, and I hate it more than anything else in China. Not to mention, there's nothing remotely english in the entire store, except for the half shelf American section which has 2 brands of cereal I've never heard of and the rest is Chinese products trying to look Western.
5. The pollution is the obvious one. Our city, Chongqing, is one of the main cities that the Government has starting pouring money into and renovating, which means alot of constrution, rubble and dust. The sky is always grey, I've seen the blue sky once since I've been here, and I haven't seen the Sun yet. I was fortunate enough to have a girl take me to the countryside where there's lots of forests...it was the best. Thank God for trees. My lungs had a mini celebration. It's not like it's hard for asthmatics though, it's just.....thick.
Go outside, and put your head in a tree and inhale. I will be jealous.
Things I do love about china however, are the people are super friendly and hospitable like I've never seen, the fact that anytime you're in a motorized vehicle it's a crazy life/death situation and on top of that, the food is awesome. There are alot of things to see in China, and if you're not into that whole scene, the shopping is cheap, and bargaining is tons of fun.
So anyways, I complained, even though I really don't have much to complain about.
I'm over it.
Cheers.
P.S. I just heard a car honk it's horn for literally 10 sec straight.
That's No. 6.
But I'm kind of used to the honking car thing by now.
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