7. The Internet

I’m a freedom-loving American, so the whole idea of the The Great Fire Wall is a great annoyance to me and my values.  It also screws with my mind.  When I first came to China, Facebook still worked but Wikipedia was blocked.  I had never realized how much I actually used Wikipedia to find out random, unimportant information.  When Facebook was blocked, I thought “how can I live without this?”  Turns out it’s pretty easy and I’m considering deleting mine when I go home.  I do understand why certain sites are blocked, but it’s hard to understand the reasoning behind the blockade of sites like Dropbox.

While I’ve been able to wrap my brain around most of the stuff GFW blocks; the self-censorship on Chinese message boards, QQ, and sites like ChinaSmack is far more confusing to me.  ChinaSmack posts so many articles in which Netizens get so hyped up and critical over other people doing the most banal and trivial things, yet was shut down “for maintenance” during the big T-square anniversary in 2009.

8. People on the Internet

When I first found ChinaSmack, I was in awe over how stupid and racist the commenters were on that site.  I’m sure the people who run that site pick the most ridiculous comments to republish just to make it a good read, but they’re really not doing the Netizens favors by translating those comments into English.

Even on expat sites, commenters are so critical of each other.  Some foreigners actually get angry at other foreigners for making observations about China (good examples on Ericka‘s article about Women’s Toilets).

I’d like to point out that when I went back to the states for a week last summer, I realized that it’s not just expats on expat sites that are jerks or Chinese people on Chinese sites that are racist.  There are dumb commenters on every site.  I realized that before ChinaSmack I had just never read blog post comments thoroughly before. Go to YouTube and check out that Chocolate Rain video again.  That dude is still awesome, but you’ll still find some racist idiots commenting on how chocolate that dude is.

9. Spitting

When I first came, I was grossed out by it.  I’ve even met other expats who have assumed that people are trying to spit on them or just trying to be rude.  But after a few months here I realized something, there’s nothing like hawking a good loogie now and then.

10. Staring

It’s just not seen as that rude here.  It used to really annoy me when people actually stopped what they were doing to stare at me when I walked by.  For a while, it really pissed me off.  Now it just bothers me sometimes.

It’s not just foreigners that get the crazy-eye treatment either.  I was in Dalian’s Discovery Kingdom recently with a gorgeous Chinese girl.  I assumed that people would be staring at me since it’s a touristy place and those are usually the places that have the most turned heads because the people aren’t usually from big cities with lots of foreigners.  But people, both men and women, used the same stop-and-stare technique on her and she didn’t even notice!  It made me think, “maybe people aren’t staring at me because I’m foreign.  Maybe I’m just unbelievably hot.”  Thanks for the confidence boost (and beer), Dalian!

11. Same sex physical affection

I know I’m not the only person that came to China and saw all these guys hanging on each other and girls holding hands and thought “Holy crap, there are so many gay people here!” …Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  It took some time to learn that Chinese people of the same sex are way more touchy-feely than North Americans.

The constant need for girls to hold hands can be tedious, though.  Especially when you’re running late for class and the three girls walking up the stairs in front of you insist on all holding hands, creating a cute, yet obscenely annoying, barricade.  I once saw four girls on bikes attempt to hold hands with each other to the point that half of them were in oncoming traffic.  I guess their need to touch each other overpowered their need to not be hit by a car.

12. Littering

A lot of people throw a lot of crap on the ground and out their car windows and it sucks.  I have no idea how a people who are generally so patriotic can not care about making their country look shitty.  The creek near my campus is filled with bottles and trash and bags.  Even at Chinese zoos, people throw their rubbish into the animal cages.

It seems like it would be an easy fix too.  Just have some PSAs with some famous dudes saying “If you love China, throw your crap in a trash can”  Then have video of Mao crying on the side of the road because someone threw a food container out of his car.  It’s done.  No more littering.

13. Ghosts

A Chinese friend of mine once told me about a building in her hometown that had to be demolished because a few people died during its construction.  It turns out that despite the fact that this was some new, architecturally interesting, multi-million yuan business center, no one would buy space in it because they thought it was haunted by the ghosts of the construction workers.  The developer was forced to tear down the building and build the exact same structure on the exact same site.  I’ve also been told by multiple Chinese coworkers that many Chinese people would refuse to buy a previously owned apartment on the off-chance that the prior resident died in it.

If I come back to China, I plan to go into the ghostbusting business.  I bet I could make a ton of money as long as my colleagues and I don’t cross the streams (or do, depending on the evilness and power of the ghost at hand).  I’ll probably end up re-animating one of those Mao statues to fight off a bunch of demonic Terracotta warriors.

1. Making friends with people I’d have nothing to do with back home

I live in Shenyang, it’s not exactly overflowing with expats like Beijing or Shanghai, so I really can’t be choosey when it comes to hanging out with fellow interlopers.  The people I hang out with here are definitely not the same kind of people I’d choose to hang out with if I was in America, in fact, I’d go out of my way to not talk to (and probably make fun of) them.  There are so many people that I’ve met that look like total douchebags (by my own standards) that are super nice and totally cool.  China has made me realize what a total asshole I am when I superficially judge people in America (though it’s not like I plan to change any time soon).

2. The world is your bathroom

I went to a pretty big party school (let’s gooooo Mountaineers) so it’s not like I’ve never seen anyone peeing in public before.  My friend Ryan once told me that he never touched anything on our campus because someone else has probably pissed on it, including him (this is a dude that drunkenly relieved himself on the total gym in our living room at one point).  But Chinese people really have no shame when it comes time to pee.  I see people, even women, pissing all the time, practically everywhere.  And I’m not going to lie, I’ve done it more than a few times after I’ve been drinking or in the woods but never in the street at mid-day.  I guess many people are just brought up like that.  Most kids don’t seem to have diapers, just some pants with a slit from the crotch to the top of the butt and parents just let them go, almost wherever they please.  When I first saw 2 Girls 1 Cup, I told myself “Well, this has got to be the one and only time I will see poop being dispensed by a butt hole.”  I was so wrong.

3. KTV

Where I’m from, karaoke is just a one-night-of-the-week thing that some bars have, it’s not the thing to do all the time.  So when I came to China, the sheer number of KTV joints and the amount of people that absolutely love going to them totally surprised me.  I even get totally confused looks when I tell people I don’t like to sing.  That said, I love a good night out at KTV, though my friends who have to listen to me sing probably have a different opinion.

3a. English KTV songs

I also had no idea there were so many English songs that were internationally popular, yet were never hits in the US.  Even if a pop song isn’t number 1 in The States, I figured I’d at least be aware of it, I used to work for a music magazine, after all.  ”Big Big World” by Emilia is a good example.  Before I came to China, I had never heard that song.  Now it’s one of my go-to jams when I sing at KTV.  Also, who knew Westlife was so popular?  Not me.  Did you know they covered “More Than Words” by Extreme?  Every time I see the song on the list, I queue it up, only to be disappointed by some lame pop version, instead of the awesome, original, hair-metal version.

4. The NBA

When young Chinese guys ask me about the NBA, they’re always surprised and confused when I say I don’t follow it.  I mean, I know who Michael Jordan is, but other than the fact that Magic Johnson has AIDS and Yao Ming is Chinese, my b-ball knowledge is limited to NBA Jam for Sega Genesis (and I always played as Will Smith).  But dudes love basketball here.  It was surprising to learn that a country of people who are stereotyped for being so short would love a sport that is traditionally reserved for the tallest dudes and Muggsy Bogues (he’s on NBA Jam).

5. Rice is essential

I see rice as a filler.  It’s like bread at an Italian restaurant, it’s good, but the main course is much better.  There are so many great Chinese dishes and when you eat out, you always order a ton of food.  Why fill yourself with rice when you could be eating something that actually has a taste?  I’ve eaten with Chinese people that have actually gotten angry and refused to eat because the rice isn’t there yet, despite the fact that all the real dishes are already on the table.  This is something I don’t think I’ll ever wrap my head around.

6. Train toilets

There’s something about the sound of the train tracks speeding by that really inhibits my bodily functions.  I know it’s safe, but there’s something about standing or squatting over what is essentially an open whole in the floor going at 120km/hr over gravel that makes me uneasy.  I always invision a rock bouncing up and colliding with a place that no rock should I’ve collide.

Since the Google announcement last week, Chinese Googlers have traveled to Google China’s headquarters in Beijing to pay tribute to the search engine by laying flowers and lighting candles.  As more Googlers come to pay their respect, they’ve noticed that the previous visitors’ flowers have been removed by alleged “security guards”.  A local security guard has reportedly said that in order to lay flowers, people would need to apply for a permit from the relevant department.  Without said permit, Googlers would be conducting an “illegal flower tribute”.

The phrase “illegal flower tribute” is now a Chinese internet meme.  Though like many things on the internet, it’s blocked by numerous Chinese websites, including Baidu, Google’s biggest competitor in China.  The California based custom goods website Zazzle.com has already jumped on board with multiple shirts sporting the phrase in Chinese (非法献花) as well as a “no flowers” logo for the steep, steep price of $22.95 (157RMB) not including the international shipping that would be required for anyone around you to understand what your shirt even means.

What I take issue with isn’t the fact that corrupt officials have carelessly ruined these students’ lives for a quick payday (even though it sucks, there are shitty people everywhere).

Nor is it this section of the article:

The government’s answer, they said, was to reject any inquiry, place the graduates’ parents under police surveillance and repeatedly detain them. Last February, they said, five parents trying to petition the national government were locked in an unofficial jail in Beijing for nine days.

It may be insensitive on my part, but I’ve been in China for far too long to find this new or surprising or even all that interesting.  It’s just sad on multiple levels.

No, I take issue with two words.  Two words which seem to be the underlying cause of this entire issue: Manila envelopes.

Everyone in China who has been to high school has such a file. The files are irreplaceable histories of achievement and failure, the starting point for potential employers, government officials and others judging an individual’s worth. Often keys to the future, they are locked tight in government, school or workplace cabinets to eliminate any chance they might vanish.

Now, if I may be so bold, let me solve this problem with one word:  computers.

Computers exist in China, I’ve seen them (I’m also pretty sure most computers are even made here).  Chinese universities have computers, I’ve seen those, too.  Hell, I’ve even seen people use them.  There is absolutely no reason for vigilant, hardworking students to lose everything they’ve worked for because of some unnecessary need to have their records in a physical form.

I realize that there might be some antiquated, paranoid computer haters that might say that the Manila envelopes contain irreplaceable, signed documents by teachers, fellow students, and others; again, my answer can also be narrowed down to a single word: scanners.  Scan it, watermark it, make it read-only, encrypt it.  Boom!  Your irreplaceable documents just became replaceable.  File stolen?  Replaced.  Fire damage?  Replaced.  File missing?  Replaced.  Panda mistakes file for bamboo?  Replaced.

There are people at Chinese universities that can handle the technologically difficult tasks of typing information into a computer and scanning documents.  At my own university, the technical staff just installed new restrictions on the network that keep me from visiting morally the degrading and pornographic sites Wonkette.com and NPR.org, respectively.  Surely my I.T. guys and those at any university could use their computer powers for good, for example, by setting up a password protected database for the students’ grades at the very least as a backup in case the physical file disappears.

Sure, if some evil, greedy official wanted to access such files for his or her own personal gain, he or she could probably find a way to do so (evil officials are crafty that way).  But, by being able to gain access to such files, it can be assumed that said evil official would also know how to hit CTRL+C, thus copying the information without destroying the futures of the students who actually gave a shit.