Because olive oil is too mainstream...

I recently stumbled upon this video which has put me off Chinese food even more than before.
Do not watch this if you are planning on eating anything within the next 30 minutes.

From Laowai to Laowinner

What is a Laowai?

It's not uncommon for me to be walking down the street and suddenly hear the word laowai shouted out followed by some finger pointing in my direction. The term laowai refers to a foreigner or an "alien", some may consider this term condescending, however whether it is used in a derogatory manner or not does depend on the tone or context. The bigger cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou...) don't tend to have as much finger pointing, as there are quite a few laowai's in those areas. However in Changzhou, I can walk for 30 minutes in town without encountering another fellow laowai. I have had my picture taken by complete strangers and get quite a few odd stares(more so by the older generations). Thus, the more rural the area, the greater the finger pointing and staring.

Put your belly on display

If you wish to truly infiltrate the Chinese culture, you have to adapt to local fashion. Men over here tend to pull their t shirts all the way up to their nipples during the summer or hot days. It's mainly the larger men that tend to do so (probably easier for the t-shirt not too fall down). One step to becoming a laowinner is to adapt to these local customs and proudly put your beer belly on display whilst walking around like a boss.

Spit often and spit hard

Hrrrwwwwwaaaaaa Splaat

Spitting is far from being considered rude over here, on the contrary it is a common belief that it is healthy. Furthermore when you spit, you need to make sure that you spit good, in order to evacuate all that unwanted crap that's living in your throat. It makes sense in a certain way, however it takes real skill to shamelessly do so in the middle of a crowded street. The key technique for this one is to make sure that the noise of your throat clearance can be heard by pedestrians on the other side of the road, the spitting part is merely you revealing your latest conquest.

Learn to squat

You're not going to be able to spend the whole year over here without having to use a turkish toilet. It takes real leg strength to use one of these, however it may be considered more hygienic than our western toilets. Not having a seat does make it extremely hard to pull out your smartphone whilst you're doing the deed and start playing some doodlejump. Furthermore, the drainage systems are so small that all toilet paper(yes, used toilet paper) is chucked into a bin next to the toilet rather than in the toilet itself. You can risk chucking the toilet paper down the toilet in an attempt to maintain a reasonably smelling bathroom, however you might become best friends with your plumber if you were to continuously do so. 

Master the chopsticks

I lost quite a bit of weight during my first week in China due to my incompetence with chopsticks. I mean, how exactly were the chopsticks invented? 

"Hey guys, i'm getting bored of eating, I mean, we eat 3 times a day, let's spice things up a bit..." 

"Hey I know, let's get two tiny sticks, balance 'em between our fingers, and see how fast we can eat this whole bowl of rice til the last grain" 

"Great idea, eating is going to be so much more challenging and fun from now on!"

At least, that's what I'm guessing was the reasoning behind the first use of chopsticks.

Regardless, I still struggle with chopsticks, I sometimes get finger cramps after long meals. I get a few weird looks in restaurants when I'm caught spearing a dumpling after multiple failed attempts of trying to grab it the conventional way with the twigs. However, you do get a certain sense of satisfaction when you clear your plate with the chopsticks and without the help of those wonderful, convenient and ergonomic tools known as the spoon, knife & fork.

For anyone seeking to improve their chopstick skills, I would suggest locking yourself in a well lit room and staying until you manage to catch a fly with them.

China's WTF Factor

The main cultural differences between the UK and China

There's quite a few strange things over here, however I've managed to categorise the main cultural differences within 3 different categories quite conveniently supporting the WTF acronym.

Weather: It's not so much the case anymore, but I arrived on the 20th of July at the peak of the heat wave, during which a Shanghai man supposedly cooked some bacon and eggs on the pavement. It wasn't so much the scorching sun that was hard to adapt to(mainly blocked out by the grey skies), it was the humidity. Impossible to survive without air conditioning and after 5 seconds of walking outside you would be under the impression that you just jumped into a swimming pool fully clothed.


Traffic: Pure madness. I only have to cross one intersection to get to work every morning, despite this fact, I treat every breakfast as my last. I've seen pretty much everything, scooters carrying goats and whole families, cars driving down roads the wrong way and grandmothers speeding past cars on turbo boosted electric wheelchairs. Road signs have no significance whatsoever over here, there's only one rule, the biggest gets priority. They do nonetheless have cameras on top of traffic lights taking pictures of people to verify that seat belts are being worn. I can't imagine how tedious it would be flipping through 1,000+ pictures a day of people sitting in cars to check the seat belts.

Food: After having lived in France for 10 years, the first time that I actually ate frog was last month in Shanghai(after our host told me to guess which meat it was, which I reluctantly agreed to). I'm quite picky with my food, I don't like seafood or spicy food. So this is probably the hardest adjustment for me and has resulted in me mainly eating at KFC, MaccyDs or Subway (whom know what sandwich to start making as soon as I walk through the door as I eat pretty much every lunch there). There is a saying that the Chinese eat everything with 4 legs, apart from the table. This saying has so far proven to be extremely truthful. I have witnessed chopstick fights during a meal over who gets to eat the fish eyes. They sell chicken feet as crisp packets in corner shops. Whilst walking through Shanghai I also saw some kind of scorpion brochette being sold by a street vendor. I am sure many will disagree with me in regards to my lack of nutritional curiosity (and I don't blame you, as I said above I am picky) and I mean no disrespect to the Chinese bravery in the face of food, but I do feel as if there are many things in this country that are being inexplicably orally ingested, which should not be. I miss my steak & ale pies and salt & vinegar crisps :(

Living in Changzhou, China

Where am I?

I've been over here for about 2 months so far, i'm living in a city called Changzhou, just East of Shanghai.

The city of Changzhou doesn't have much going for itself in terms of touristic attractions (apart from its dinosaur park if you have young children). However, its location is pretty convenient as it is within an hour or two from cities such as Suzhou (the little Venice of China), Nanjing (where the rape of Nanking occurred), Shanghai (well, shanghai...) and Hangzhou (has a huge lake and is surrounded by some lovely temples and mountains).

Arriving in China

As I had never traveled to Asia prior to this, I didn't really know what to expect from China. The first thing that surprised and affected me the most was the fact that it is extremely rare to find English speakers. Once arrived at the Pu Dong airport of Shanghai we were trying to contact the individual whom was supposed to pick us up. However, using Chinese phone booths and buying a Chinese sim card wasn't as easy of a feat as one would expect. Even the people at the tourist information desk only spoke 1 or 2 words of English. I've only really got myself to blame in this situation though as I was the one in a foreign country armed with only a handful of words in their language:

• Nihao = Hello
• Xie xie = Thanks
• Wo bu dong = I don't understand

My Chinese has since evolved and I can proudly say that my Chinese cursing is second to none(but I still can't ask for bananas from my local supermarket).

The second shock was how developed everything was. Before coming over, I had this image of China having men running around carrying people in carts everywhere such as the guys on the right here (slight exaggeration). But as a matter of fact, the cars on the roads were all decent, quite a few BMWs and Mercs driving around and it's not uncommon to see the odd pink Bentley continental or pimped out Audi tt drive by.

I jumped on the tube to the other end of Shanghai to catch my train and was amazed by the fact that wifi was available throughout the whole line, something that we have yet to achieve on the London underground. Needless to say, the dates at which the two systems of transportation were built are decades apart, but it was not something I was expecting.

Once arrived at the station, Ticket lines were extremely long and I had to display my passport in order to purchase a train ticket(apparently this is to avoid mass purchases from one individual whom will then resell the tickets at a greater price). Queuing is something that is embedded deeply within the British culture, however the way they queue in China is quite different. You literally have to have your belly touching the person in front of you in the queue, if not some sneaky Chinese man will come along and squeeze into the slightest gap of opportunity you give him. 

Another baffling difference in culture between the English and the Chinese is that over here they do not wait for you to get off the train/tube/elevator/bus before jumping on. It seems quite backwards to me because it just lengthens the duration of the stop seeing as it slows down the whole process of disembarking -> embarking. At first it angered me, but by now I have embraced the madness and treat every disembarkation as a rugby scrum.

On the train itself, it was quite noisy, there seems to be some kind of resistance against the use of headphones in this country. Everybody was watching movies on their ipads with loudspeaker on. Some passengers had brought this spiky fruit called durian on the train with them, which was releasing some of the worst odors. If you're ever given the opportunity, do not eat that fruit.