Cultural observations: China

We spent only a few short weeks in China, but there were a lot of funny quirks about the place that I'd love to share. They're an interesting and innovative people.. and gave us a few giggles more than once!

Babies

Most Chinese babies do not wear nappies, they have a hole in the back of their baby pants and when they want to go, their mam or dad lift them over a bin and let them do their business! We’ve seen this in bus stations, on buses, in airports, wherever. Thinking about it, it’s environmentally friendly, low cost for the parents and means that potty training is a whole lot less stressful. I just felt sorry for the babies, they must get awful cold bums.

Couples

If you are a young and in love Chinese couple, you can show your undying devotion by… wearing matching shirts! And if you’ve got a little sprog you can dress them the same too! Everyone wins, especially the tourists who can have a good old sneer at you. And there’s no worry about colours running in the wash.

Toilets

Oh my god they’re awful. I didn’t expect to be shocked, sure I’ve been travelling in Asia for nearly six months, I’m pretty toilet immune. But these took the biscuit. At one bus stop, I queued up with lovely Chinese girls in floaty dresses (see next entry) to squat side by side (no partition) and pee into a hole in a concrete floor. Lovely.

That was the worst, but otherwise the toilets were squat pretty much everywhere (even in airports!), with varying levels of cleanliness. And elderly people who can’t squat carry around a little stool with a hole in it for use in the loos. I shit you not.

Fashion

Chinese women take huge care in their appearance and it shows. Floaty dresses, pastel colours, high heels, lovely handbags and perfectly coiffed hair. But even though they all look nice, there’s a distinct conformity and lack of individuality. I saw no Goths, no emo kids, no hipsters, nothing out of the ordinary. A subtle manifestation of the controlled environment everyone lives in? Perhaps.

Some of the older generations still wear plain dark clothing, communist style trousers and tunic, often a very stark contrast to the younger multicoloured generation.

Eating

As in most of Asia eating in China is an important social activity. Food is served in the middle of the table and everyone uses their chopsticks to pick morsels from each of the separate dishes. If you don’t like something, you can just spit it out onto the paper tablecloth that covers the table. Slurping, sucking and gulping are all perfectly acceptable.

Cold water and beer

Don’t expect to get your beer served cold here! The Chinese don't really go in for cold drinks, it’s believed they’re unhealthy. So water coolers are actually water heaters and dispense tepid drinker water.  

Doorways

In Chinese belief, doorways have huge significance, particularly the threshold of a house. You often see banners and murals and pictures adorning them, they’re very pretty.

Exercising

Every evening and morning the parks are full of people, usually elderly, dancing, doing tai chi or yoga. It’s great to see how active and social people are and must build a great community spirit.

Numbers

There are some weird hand signals for numbers in China. We had to use hand signals a lot as not many people speak English. To signal six, you close your hand into a fist, and then stick out your thumb and pinky and wiggle your hand. How this means six is beyond me, but that’s how they do it! Ten is also weird, you cross your two index fingers. It could have saved us a lot of confusion if we'd known this from day one!

They are the main ones I can think of, but in such a fascinating country there are undoubtedly other quirks and differences to home that I've missed. Picking them out is part of the fun when travelling in China!
Like you needed another reason to go...