My first trip to China

Introduction

The Chinese government has chosen to protect its citizens by banning Facebook so I have had to save up all my thoughts until I get back. Perhaps this requirement to consolidate my thoughts and edit them before publishing them, rather than spewing them into the world is no bad thing (though I am not sure that making the world a more thoughtful place was necessarily the Chinese government’s objective). So instead I have had my first attempt at a blog entry on my trip.

I have been in the city of Tianjin for the last week as part of a study exchange based at the local Tianjin University, we also spent 2 days doing the tourist thing in Beijing. Many people have written about that being a tourist in China, so I won’t say much other than the following:

The Summer Palace in Beijing

• The Beijing metro is very easy to navigate, impressive and cheap (20p to go anywhere!). It is also very popular at peak hours the best description would be: “rugby ruck”. Even at other times it is not for the claustrophobic. 
• If you visit make time for the Summer Palace.

About Tianjin

View of modern Tianjin on the night river cruise

Tianjin a is city I had never heard of before, partly because it may be eclipsed by its nearby neighbour Beijing and partly because I may not have paid enough attention in school geography lessons. However, when I was at school the population was only 8 Million so maybe it did not rank highly on the global agenda. Tianjin is quite large even by Chinese standards but it is not unique. Today it has 14 million people, stretches for more than 60km and has the 2nd highest level of regional GDP growth in the China. There are skyscrapers under construction wherever the eye can see.

Things I would have posted on Facebook

Some are funny, some will only be understood by the people who were on the trip and some are hopefully educational for people who might visit themselves. Importantly this collection of thoughts is based on only one week in a very large country of 1.43 Billion people. Therefore extrapolating general conclusions or following my advice is at your own risk:

1. Placing your iPhone in the kettle to add depth and reverberation to the sound during a hotel room party has an inevitable and predicable outcome (this leads to lesson 2)
2. Finding a local store that sells rice is more difficult than you may have thought 
3. The nice lady who puts her business card under your hotel door is not advertising 24 hour haircuts. According to a local expert who felt it was important to my education, her terms of business, explained on the card include a tax receipt. In hindsight  if we had kept all the cards, the group could play “Top Trumps”.
4. The person who delayed the coach on the first morning was the last person we expected it to be and wearing sunglasses in a lecture does not hide the fact you have gone to sleep.
5. The Chinese don’t distinguish between breakfast, lunch and dinner in the same way

   

   Hotel Breakfast
   The fried egg which became part of the breakfast after the
   problem was discussed with the hotel after 2 days

   western people might.  The food seems very similar in style at all meals possibly becoming more elaborate through the day. Only the hardiest traveller can cope with rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Therefore going out for a croissant at the local Starbucks will become more and more appealing. 
6. What Chinese people think you want, may not be what you had in mind. It was explained to me that opinions may have been formed from the media and especially films. The following example may illustrate the point: The hotel we stayed in did not have a bar but we asked the reception staff for suggestions, emphasising our desire for something local, preferably in walking distance. The nearest bar was apparently a 5 minute taxi ride and a plentiful supply of hotel notepad pages were duly written out with instructions for taxi drivers (see lesson below). The bar was a loud nightclub with overpriced beer, acceptable but not quite what I wanted after 20 hours of travelling. 3 days later we discovered there was a much better wine bar directly opposite the hotel entrance across the street.
7. Taxis are cheap, a ride across town may only cost 20yuan (£2.25), as such they are driven hard and fast. The horn is used regularly and vigorously, swerving in and out of lanes is normal. However, we did not see more accidents than I might expect to have seen in the equivalent time on British motorways or in British cities. Be warned that you pay separately for the fuel and therefore the price on the meter at the end of the ride is not the whole cost. Typically another one or two yuan (<£0.20) extra is required, however, as the taxi driver may not speak English this can be difficult to resolve therefore the procedure is as follows:
1. Hand over the money shown on the meter
2. Continue to issue 1yuan notes until he seems satisfied (stops muttering and starts smiling)
8. Given the communication problems it is important to have your destination written down so that you can show a taxi driver before the journey starts. The Hotel reception desk will have business cards, take one and keep it with you in case you get lost and need to get back. The taxis did not have satellite navigation and therefore if the driver gets lost he may start trying to persuade you to get out (I assume that was what he was trying to say though I am not entirely sure). In these circumstances: be a dumb tourist, sit tight and make it clear that the only way you’ll get out is at the correct destination. Faced with obstinate passengers, the driver will get out and ask, don’t be alarmed if this procedure is carried out with the car left in the middle of the road.
9. Crossing the road – Visitors should treat the green man as an indication of relative safety rather than absolute i.e. when the green man is showing it is safer to cross the road but not necessarily safe.
10. Spitting – this is perhaps one of the less attractive aspects of Chinese life. Spitting is conducted both in the street and indoors, spitting on the floor of a bar seems accepted behaviour. Similarly blowing the nose does not involve a tissue, this is carried out in a bowing position with the head tipped upwards, carefully aiming at the floor and away from clothes with careful ceremony.
11. Talking with the group of Chinese students many communication problems were overcome and most English words or phases could be eventually explained. However, two concept were not successfully communicated:
• Asbestos - As I believe much of it is mined in China this leads me to the conclusion that in 10 years time there will be a great business opportunity consulting in asbestos training, consultancy and surveying.
• The English attitude to food and unwillingness of many people in England to eat a wide variety. In particular, I totally failed to explain that some English people don’t eat mushrooms because they don’t like them. The example mushroom on the table during this conversation was not one of the more unusual fungi which we had to taste before determining whether it was a mushroom or seaweed. The mushroom in question was a closed cup “common garden” white mushroom. I don’t know what business opportunity is in this
12. Chinese people do not eat anything – I discovered this whilst I was sharing an experience about being offered Sea Slug by a customer of Chinese origin when I was in the USA. One of my new Chinese friends reciprocated with a story about being offered giant sea snails (apparently the size of a tennis ball), after one mouthful and he retreated rapidly to the bathroom. Also Chinese people will typically only eat dog in the winter it is apparently not a summer food. 
13. Photographing people does not require their permission. It is acceptable to block the path of people in the street and take their photograph. A group of westerners seemed to require extensive documentation for reasons we never understood. The best tactic was to join the game and photograph them back, at least they would then talk to you. If Chinese people approach you on the street with a camera being waved, they may want to take a picture with you rather than you take a picture of them.

    

    When presented with a camera phone it took a while to determine that these girls wanted to have their photo taken with me, I don't know why to this day.

14. TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is not dismissed in the way Homeopathy might be regarded by well educated scientifically minded westerners. Our Chinese friends were very much of the view that any ailment should be treated from all angles, mix the conventional with the TCM.
15. History is very important to Chinese people.  Some get upset that westerners have not taken the time to study Chinese history,  we did try to explain that many westerners were not simply ambivalent to Chinese history they were probably ambivalent to history in general, this concept was clearly a difficult one to understand. Therefore if you need to impress your Chinese boss (more later), I strongly recommend some study. If you choose to ignore this advice then at least read the following:
• Chairman Moa is still regarded by some as a hero
• Do not mention the war - The Second World War as we call it is viewed differently. The Chinese call it the anti-Japanese war. The greater world conflict and the involvement of the western allies “helping” the Chinese is not part of history as they understand it. This war is still highly sensitive and fortunately my Chinese friend is still talking to me after I strayed into this area.
16. Chinese people like to drink hot water, therefore it is very important to clarify whether you want cold or hot water when asking for water.
17. Wine – When Chinese people talk about “wine” in English, a better translation would probably be “distilled liquor”. The strength of “wine” should ideally exceed 52% alcohol by volume. Wine as a native English speaker would use the term, is considered to be a drink for girls. Just to reassure my mother in case she reads this, I did not learn this lesson by painful experience
18. Even numbers and those ending in 8 are viewed to be auspicious by the Chinese and therefore this list needed 18 entries if it is about China. The lesson is don’t stay up until 4AM philosophically discussing the world if you need to be on a coach at 0830, however, I would not have got anywhere as much insight for this blog without it.

The political situation

It would be impossible to discuss a visit to China without talking about politics. Unlike a tourist trip or a business trip, I got the opportunity to talk to Chinese people about the way they are governed. Chinese people understand the differences between the so called democratic political systems and their own. I was reassured that if you want access to Facebook in China it can be achieved, the block was widely supported by people and viewed more in terms of a trade barrier in retaliation for the US government not letting in Chinese made cars. Whilst the government attempts to hide some things from their people, these efforts are seen as clumsy. The Chinese nation is a collection of 56 major ethnic groupings, disintegration and the potential of ethnic conflict is of great concern to Chinese people, they regard their current political system as a price worth paying to ensure stability. It is possible that this is just the “official” story or maybe they have been brainwashed. However, the explanation did seem consistent with my understanding of the Chinese culture and history.

Cartoon street signs merit a section in their own right

The things that people notice in a foreign country may not be the things that you expected to notice. One of my observations of Tianjin (which I photographed more than any other) were the overhead road signs. Some of these show that the roads in China have the same problems as elsewhere and some show some are uniquely Chinese issues.

Conclusions

My lasting observation was that that Chinese people are not as different and alien as we may believe. However, when I shared this observation with my new friends they passionately disagreed emphasising that I may not have properly understood the deep cultural differences, in particular the need for collective harmony in Chinese culture versus the western emphasis on individual fulfilment. As we talked more though, I think we all started to realise that we share many of the same social problems and desires to make the world a better place.

The collective view of our group was that it was inevitable that China will be the number 1 nation by most measures at some point in the future though I can’t predict whether it will be 5 years or 20 years. There is a drive in China (including a government strategy) to make the country more internationalised, with a particular emphasis on learning from the western business education to improve the professionalism of business. I suspect they under estimate the relative inferiority of China. They are advancing fast with a belief that they have a long way to go, if this level of change continues I am pretty sure my boss will be Chinese along with many other westerners who may not be seeing this coming. A number of our group shared this view with our new friends, all of whom regarded this as surprising, they emphasised that we should not judge the nation by the cities of neon lights and an ever growing number of skyscrapers, many Chinese people still live a much more basic life existence in rural China.

I am not sure what will happen with respect to China and the world in my lifetime but I can be sure there will be more integration and that I can’t ignore China. I would encourage everyone to learn more and visit if you can. I should probably start learning Mandarin to play my part in this new world, however, attempting this in parallel to completing my MBA is unrealistic. I would like to join QQ (What Chinese people use instead of Facebook)  but unfortunately this requires reading Mandarin.