Cultural Notes, part 2

好久不见！It's been a long time since I last updated, as I have let myself become accustomed to my new life here. As of yet I do not have anything profound to say, but after encouragement from certain family members I will "UPDATE THE BLOG!!!". As I don't have any particular points to make, I will carry on from my post in Hong Kong, just pointing out some of the 'strange' things that I have seen here, that perhaps are different from back home, which may or may not be of interest!

Here is a short video of my walk from the bus stop to my house that I literally recorded on my way home, for this post, I will refer back to this to quickly show examples of some of the stuff you can see on just an average day in Hangzhou (or any other major Chinese city, I would imagine.) Apologies for the shaky camera, I should go into directing Hollywood thrillers, clearly. Also, my captions don't fit correctly with the embedded video. If you are curious about my thrilling commentary, go to the actual video :)

1. Crossing the road

Crossing the road here is not at all the same as it is in the UK, or like it was in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong everyone has to stick strictly to the rules, drivers and pedestrians alike. I learned this after getting told off multiple times for starting to cross the road before the green man, even though there were no cars in sight; apparently policeman can jump out of nowhere and give you heavy fines. In the UK, drivers tend to stick by the traffic laws pretty well, other than some chatting on mobiles and occasional speeding, and pedestrians wait for a green man to cross, or just until there are no cars around. So what about China? Well here it seems like there is an annoying cycle of rudeness. Drivers are always in a hurry to get places, and very often ignore lights completely, which means that pedestrians have to just take action and walk straight onto the road and signal cars to stop for them, otherwise you cant cross the road, often! And of course, this annoys the drivers and makes them even less happy to let you cross in front of them. As maybe you can see in the video, there is a green man when I'm crossing, but cars and bikes are still going, one car also tries to turn onto the road into me. Fun stuff. You just have to keep walking confidently and hope that theres so much traffic about that no one is able to drive quickly anyway!

2. Street Cleaners

Those neon orange fairies, they do a good job! Suffice to say, the Chinese public isn't very good at putting rubbish in bins, so the old recycling men and street cleaners are really needed to keep everything looking decent. Seriously, I've never seen so many street cleaners in my life... clearing up leaves from the roads and pavements, picking up rubbish, emptying bins.. they do a good job. And, although there are no recycling bins in Hangzhou, from what I've seen, you get a lot of old men and woman who seem to make some money by collecting plastic bottles or cardboard scraps, presumably to sell it on to someone who can recycle it, which seems like an OK solution, at least some people can make money out of others mess.

3. People on bikes wearing their jacket backwards

Ok so this is one thing I haven’t quite figured out. Often when I see someone who is riding a bike or scooter in the city, they will wear there jacket backwards, ie. with their right arm in the left sleeve and vice versa, so it looks like a straight jacket. I still don’t have a reason for why this is so popular... perhaps it keeps the jackets less stretched, if they would usually hunch over when driving, or maybe it stops the front of their shirt from getting dirty from kicked up dust? The answer is still out there...

4. Health and Safety is a waste of time

Another thing that may strike you as unusual is the apparent lack of health and safety! One thing that really freaks me out is guys doing welding on the street corners for small shops, about half a metre from all the sparks, no googles or anything, just bare eyeballs and probably no shirt as well. Chinese people are tough! This was just a quick photo I took a while back of some guys up on scaffolding, about 4 floors up mind you, with no hats or anything. Well I say, we wouldn't have that back in the UK! Or maybe I'm just a wimp!

5. Food is cheap

I mean really cheap, in my opinion. It is perfectly reasonable for me to survive on less than 50元 a day (~£5/US$8) and often I do on much less. In the video I pass one of my most frequently visited restaurants, a Lanzhou style pulled noodle place where you can eat a massive plate of noodles, veg and meat for between 9 and 15 rmb. That is just crazy to me! One thing that really illustrates the price difference is simply the price of Coca Cola, here 3.5元 (~35p) and in the UK it can be more than £1 for the same sized bottle. I have a couple of friends from european countries who do not see such a drastic difference, so maybe more than anything this just tells you how much food in the UK costs!

6. 你是哪里人？

As someone who doesn't look Chinese, one thing that may take you by surprise is how many people will just randomly talk to you. Of course, most of these people only know 2 english phrases, hello and bye bye, but they will use these whenever they see a westerner, apparently! At least once a day, usually more, I will have random people calling out hello to me (especially bored people in shops who want to sell something), and usually they seem happy to have me reply hello back! As most people's english isn't up to any conversation, they will usually ask a tester question in Chinese, usually "Where are you from?". If you can, in fact, reply to this then they seem very pleased. Your average man on the street will expect very little from your Chinese, and you will often get a lot of praise for speaking just a little, but they are also not very used to dealing with foreigners, so sometimes won't know how to slow down or use simpler words if you don't understand too well! My favourite moments, however, are when you can hear two people, often a mother and child, discussing where they think you are from, (if you are white this will inevitably be the USA). I often join in their conversation too, telling them that I'm actually from the UK, which gives them a surprise!

7. Drying Clothes Everywhere!

I see this especially around where people live, such as my street or around the dorms at campus. Chinese people seem to love to dry their clothes in the sun, so they will hang their washing wherever there is space, on their balconies, or on railings or washing lines on the street in front of their house. May be from the lack of gardens, I don't know, just struck me as something thats very common here, which I dont see at home at all.

8. Trees take up the whole pavement
One of the things I actually really like about Hangzhou is that most streets are lined with trees! One draw back, however, as you can probably see in the video, is that often they will take up half of the pavement, which makes it a little tricky when there are lots of people around! But I'm going to take all these trees as a positive thing, hey, at least they provide jobs for the leaf cleaners too! :P

To be continued...