Differences

I thought I would share some differences I have noticed while living here. Please note that this manily applies to the areas of Xi’an that I have visited.

• clothing: very conservative
• no shorts, hats or sunglasses
• no belly-showing shirts
• cell phones are very popular here (cell phone stores can be about the size of a trader joes store); no one has the wireless earpiece
• grandparents take care of the grandkids while the parents go to work
• no diapers: infants wear pants that is missing fabric around the crotch so the kid can squat and go anywhere.
• older people: large numbers go to parks to tai chi, dance, sing, play an instrument, play badmintion, knit or exercise
• isolated culture: only see non-asians at touristy areas for the most part – it is possible for me to be the only white person in a sprawl-mart type of store
• spitting: everyone does it and they do it everywhere
• street lanes: more of a suggestion – people drive into oncomming traffic to pass or stay in between lanes so when traffic slows they can pick the better lane
• education: the ed system here is focused on memorization; they might know 20,000 english words, but they won’t know how to put the words together in a sentence.
• there are taxis and buses everywhere in the area where I am staying. I am not brave enough to get on a bus cause I have no way to determine where it is going, but they are everywhere.
• EO/AA does not exist here; the hire and give raises based off of there own discretion
• connections are very important here to get a job, a good price, etc
• people ask your age here – it is not taboo to ask
• people wash their clothes and line dry. For washing, they either do it by hand on the sidewalk or in a washing machine
• there are no parking lots; instead the sidewalks are very wide and people park on the sidewalks
• the refrigerators are very skinny – think of the width of the little dorm room friges and then make it twice as tall
• cell phones plans do not exist – you pay by the minute (or at least this is what one of the staff members told me)
• credit cards/atm cards are not widely accepted – mostly cash only. In a way, I like this because you cannot spend more than what you have.
• the college students from english corner seem to know about as much about what is going on in american politics as an american would (bush, iraq, iran, etc). I think it is safe to say that the opposite (american student knowing chinese politics) is not true. The college students cannot understand why this is so. Some students told me they listened to air america to get their news
• smoking is still prevalent: doctors, ems, taxi, anywhere and everywhere
• at english corner I have been told that I look like brad pitt and jean reno; in america I have been told that I look like mr. bean. This is a big difference.