How does a different Culture affect your Life?
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I have lived in China almost five years now and been very lucky to have travelled to a great number of provinces from Beijing to Hainan. One thing that really strikes me is how tough the average Chinese citizen is, of course this is more a necessity than desire because there is no social safety net here as many other countries have. You see little old ladies carrying big bundles of wood or pushing a wheel barrow full of rocks and I cannot help but have some compassion and sympathy for them. In many other parts of the world all you hear is people complaining, “OHH, I cannot go to work….. My back is too sore….I did not get enough sleep, ON AND On it goes and the government handouts allow them to leach off of society. I wish these wimps could see what it is like here or better yet stick them in the shoes and if you do not get your lazy ass out of bed, GUESS WHAT? U just must die there.
On a brighter note, I have thoroughly enjoyed all of my time here. Sure there have been some upsy downsies but overall it has been a great experience and I cannot see myself moving back anytime soon. I love the food here, infact I have never felt better and the variety of fruits and vegetables is a health food addicts dream. Every time I go back home after a week or so my body takes on a peculiar sluggishness that I do not get from the food here. Perhaps it is food preservatives, additives or the manor in which they are grown. I eat almost anthing now, still a little freaked with heads and guts but other than that I am game and the hotter the better.
My biggest regret is not having started to study the language sooner. I always have an interpreter provided with my work, consequently I was a little lazy for a few years however I study almost every day now and my vocabulary as well as sentence structure is improving all the time.
If you are Chinese, how has your life been most affected by the western world and if you are a foreigner, what impact has living in China had upon you.
Peace Out
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by zero on -
I am a chinese,it was the Guilin trip last CNY that the three Italian man and two othere western girls who make me realize that how spoiled i am.personally,i dislike the spoiled word itself,cause i am not grown up in a being spoliled culture.but :
1,i finally didnt bring the suitcase by myself to climb the ladders,instead ,i give an old lady(who is living for holding suitcase for travellers)20 kuai;and on the way to the opposite side of the montain,i was always the last one....and after back home,i think it over,why they can do it themsevels while i cant ....i know,it is because of my body healthy..and they let me know the importance of body healthy and if u can do it urself,DO IT URSELF....
2,backpack is used to take empty bottles back to the garbage can in the city....
3,dont waste food.In china,we order as many dishes as we can,but always couldnt eat them up...it was a breakfast that a frenchman smiled at me:u didnt finish ur breadand ask the waiter for a bag to take it away......
4,travel more.life is too short to see all the beautiful views around the world.
5,learn languages as many as i can....they are average 32,fluent in 5 lanugages.i have 7 years left to be fluent in my french or maybe 3 years later,Italian.....
:)
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on -
WOW!! Good luck with your linguistic persuits. Apparently once you get a handle on your second language the 3rd..... become easier. My body is young but my brain feels old and is full of stuff I wish I could delete to make room for new info. Ha ha. We call it a "Doggie Bag" when taking food out, 90% of the time not to be consumed by humans but yours or the neighbors dog.
Luck to U Z
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Permalink Reply by Doll Lin on -
I believe as a foreigner even you live in china and learn chinese for 20 year your guys still can not understand chinese culture well.
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on
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Totally agree with you Darling er.... Doll Lin. U can read all u want and converse with whomever as long as you want, the fact remains that the only things we really have in comon are we all walk upright. West and East mind sets shall forever be completely different. I have one friend who went to school in Taiwan over 20 years ago, speaks fluent Mandarin and has worked for Chinese companies the last 10 years. Every day he says he thinks he may know how things will unfold in the office and every day he learns something new.
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on
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Thanks for the support Mel But pleez......... Don't be so loud. There is a grumpy old Ogre sleeping under the bridge and U don't want to wake him.
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Permalink Reply by IdahoMike on -
I've had a great time here these past 6 years. The thing I like most (in my experience, anyway) has been mutual respect. If you're nice and helpful to folks here, the favor is returned; sometimes in over-abundant amounts! No one takes advantage of me and vice versa. A big smile and a polite wave can go a long way here!
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on
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Agreed Mike
Some of my fondest memories are of Good'Ol Coeur D'alane. We went on family vacations there for many years, I can even remember when they used to have the hydroplane races there (well very vague memories but still dating myself) I hear the place is totally different now, sigh for progress
I have only met a few unfriendly eyes and totally agree, treat people the way u want to be treated
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on
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I will deal with you later U miserable old prick. I am taking my crew out for dinner and drinks.
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Permalink Reply by Rodney on
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The World According to Len
How I see things as a washed up wrinkled old sod who is totally jealous of foreigners who make more in 1 month than I do in a whole year because I have no skills or social graces .
My first two years in China were the toughest years of my life, my Chinese American partner and I each dumped 60,000 USD into a landscape design company in beautiful downtown Guanlan just outside of Shenzhen. We were full of piss and vinegar and somehow thought it was going to be a piece of cake because we were both very hard workers with a lot of talent. GUESS WHAT? It aint freaking easy to do business in China. Sure we did 9 pretty big jobs 1 highway landscape job, a few factories and the rest golf courses. Getting the jobs was not that tough and doing the work is always enjoyable but getting the last payment from these companies who were nice as pie initially became virtually impossible and the contracts we signed might as well have been used for ass wipe.
Whilst spinning our wheels in that direction we lucked out and got a pretty good thing going with one of the major design teams working out of the U.S. We had 6 CAD operators doing enough work to keep us floating but the initial losses were so debilitating that chapter 11 became a sad reality.It would have been very easy to turn into a BITTER PRICK (herinafter to be refered to as “LEN”) and think that all Chinese were a bunch of bastards..During that time I tried to study Mandarin but I lived with my partner and his wife who spoke Cantonese and a local dialect which totally messed me up and with all the business pressures it was all I could do to not turn into a “Len”.
So I ended up coming out of the whole ordeal with nothing more than a completely new understanding of the word devastation but I could not go back home a looser and undoubtedly turn into a complete” Len” wondering what could have been. I persevered and have developed some great professional relationships since then as well as being very good friends with 3 of my previous translators, I made sure that they were looked after and paid them extra out of my own pocket all of the time to make sure they made at least 3500 rmb a month because we all know how much fun a “Len”is to work with.
As far a mandarin skills go, I know many people who have been working in China a lot longer that I have and know maybe 30 words in total, #’s included. Is it easy to learn Hell NO! Do I wish I knew more HELL YA! I have a great repoire with every job I go to because, well I am not a ‘LEN’ and I can work like a dog to make sure that timelines are met and I take a great deal of pride in delivering a world class product.
To succeed in this world I strongly suggest being a Groovy Hippy and not a ‘LEN” because life is too short to be bitter and spiteful.
Peas and Beans
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