This is a little late, but I figured better late than never! For those that don't know - I made the move to China! I am in Beijing studying at Tsinghua University. Colloquially, Tsinghua is known as Qinghua and will thus be referred to as Qinghua such forth.
Things I have learned since being in China:
1: Come to China with a Chinese friend. It makes life easier. I had my friend Tiancheng to help me get from the airport, get an apartment (this to
ok awhile), get a phone and just get situated in general.
2: Chinese food will make you sick at first. However it is possibly the most delicious thing in the world. I love hot pot.
<-This is 非肠猪 (intestines).(We thought it was ji [chicken]...we were wrong.) The fuyuan (waitress) laughed at us.
And that would be the face I made after trying it. ->
3: You can't drink the water. What is this, Mexico?
4: There are no road rules. Aka Chinese people are terrible drivers and you may think
you will die many times because of this.5: Bikes = life. If you live in China, get a bike. At my university you can't even drive, but there are thousands of bikers. (see photo)
6: Bring Peanut Butter. No explanation needed.
7: People are helpful when you ask them questions about learning the language. I ask the street vendors by me on a regular basis what things they sell are called. I learn a lot. "Zhe ge shi/jiao shenme?" (这个是／叫什么？）
8: People will always try to screw laowai (foreigners) out of money. Deal with it, accept it, or call them on their bullshit.
9: Haggle. You can pretty much haggle for anything, and never take the price that they give you, especially if you are a foreigner. We were in houhai (a kind of touristy place) and were at a bar and were able to haggle down the prices because they were tai gui le (really expensive). It worked.
10: Expats (expatriots - foreigners) are good resources. They provide all sorts of help, nice hang out places with vpns (virtual private networks to break through the great firewall)(this is also a call out to my favorite place Lush), magazines which tell current events and services for foreigners, and are just nice to hang out with when you are a bit homesick.
11: You will learn to tune things out. People honk here. All the time. ALL THE TIME. At first it drove me crazy. Ok, It still drives me a little crazy, but not as much as before. People here are loud and it's just a very loud culture.
12: China loves white people. For example, you could get paid to stand outside of a shop and attract new customers.
13: The exchange rate is 6.5 kuai (Chinese Yuan) to 1 dollar (USD). I normally divide by 6 just because it's easier for me to figure out how much things are. Food at my school is anywhere from 6-12 kuai (1-2 dollars) or can be up to 30 for a meal at hot pot (around 5 dollars).
14: Come with a vpn. (VPN= virtual private network) China blocks a lot of google services and google voice is a great tool to use to talk to people from home and you can use these with a vpn.
15: Explore. I just wander around and find new places. There is this great alleyway with an amazing cheap restaurant and really cool shops and things to see near me. China is entrenched in history, a lot of dirt, and really cool things.
16: You learn to love dirt. China is by far the dirtiest place I have been in the world. You just get kind of used to it. It's not bad for you...
17: Forecast: Smoggy. My favorite thing to read is that the weather forecast (tianqi yubao) saying that it will be foggy. When it says that it will be foggy it is really saying that the smog is bad.
18: Chinese love to party. And by this I mean two things. The first is that bars and clubs are always packed everyday of the week (not just Wednesday, Friday, Saturday) and ladies night on Thursday usually means free drinks and free entry for girls across Beijing. The second is the chinese equivalent of cheers - Ganbei (干杯！). As my friend Kai told me, it essentially means that when a guy says this, he immediately has to finish his drink or he will lose face. (Girls can just sip though...).
19: Chinese school is much harder than American school. I am in class around 4-6 hours a day. However I spend much more time studying, practicing and learning than I do in the United States. I have tingxie (dictation quizzes) and tests every single class. When they say preview, they mean memorize. You start to automatically memorize everything, but you learn so much more. If you read something (a dialogue perhaps), you will be expected to recite the whole thing from memory mere minutes after learning it.
20: Most Americans you meet are Mormons. I have not yet been asked if I am a mormon, which is surprising. Also the fact that there are many mormons here is surprising, because China does not like missionaries and there is a strong dislike/distrust of organized religion. Many missionaries have been deported for trying to convert people.
21: Everyone gets a week off in October. This is called National Holiday. From October 1-7 no one (except tourism people I'm assuming) has work, school, or what not. This coincides with my birthday! yay! and I am going to Inner Mongolia with Luke and some friends.
There are many more, but these are the ones I can think of for now. I love China. It is possibly the best experience of my life so far.
Zaijian! 再见！
HEY! This is awesome. I'm going to read it every chance I get. I could take the picture of you after eating the intestines, blow it up, and wallpaper my entire new apartment with it. I see that you're not entirely alone and Luke went back to China at the same time as you. He's good if you ever need someone to carry you home shitfaced hahahaha. My 21st is this weekend, and your birthday follows shortly so I'll be sure to dedicate a shot to you when I go out, something with tequila I'm sure.
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