Everyday life in China

The last few weeks I've been thinking about what makes everyday life in China different than in America.  Pretty much everything.  It's amazing how different things are to me, and how normal things are for Chinese people.

NOISE

As I layed down to take a nap with Declan today, I realized how quiet it was.  How is it that in a city of 8 million people it can be quiet?  Here's what I came up with.  First, I live on the outskirts of town and not right in the city.  Next, I live in a gated compound where few people have cars.  Most people ride electric motor scooters (That you can't hear even when they're right behind you.  So, you have to be really careful.), bikes, or walk.  Also, there aren't many kids in our compound that aren't school age.  The Chinese kids have long school hours and even go on weekends sometimes.  The expat kids are involved in a lot of after school activities. The men work long hours, and the women keep busy working or playing outside of the compound.  There is a lot of construction in our compound, but from what I understand, there is a mandatory quiet time in the afternoon for an hour or two.  When the workers do work, they don't use power tools.  No drills, power saws, or large construction equipment.  They use screwdrivers, hand saws, pulleys, and bamboo scaffolding.  Lawn mowers are rarely used, most lawns are "mowed" with a weed whacker.  Those are the main differences I could see in the noise level at naptime in America vs. China.

FASHION

The fashion here is always fun to analyze.  The best way to sum it up is there is no fashion.  You can wear pretty much anything you want and it's acceptable.  

A lot of women wear nylons that look kind of like knee highs, but they only go to the ankle.  This is a hot item in the summer.  Many women wear these stockings with their sandals.  The only good use I've found for these stocking is wearing them under your dress boots.  They're perfect.  I'm not planning on doing the sandal thing with them.

Another summer fashion is the way the men wear their shirts.  When the men get hot, they do not take their shirts off.  Instead they pull them up around their chest and let their tummy hang out.  You see this everywhere.  At first it was really weird.  Now it's just a part of everyday life.

Women in China rarely have low necklines.  Instead, they wear short shorts and short skirts.  Sometimes they'll wear tights like pants, just a shirt and tights.  

The Chinese women love their heels.  They wear all kinds of crazy colors.  They wear them with bows.  They wear them bedazzled.  You could make a whole Dr. Seuss book about Chinese women's shoes.

The older women wear unmatched prints.  They might have a zebra print pant and a gray shirt with pink bows on it.  I don't understand this fashion statement.  In fact, half the time it looks like they're wearing PJs.  So, they probably have the matching pieces at home in their closet.   

During the winter they have special clothing as well.  They have half sleeves that go from their wrist to their elbow that cover their coats.  They will also wear aprons over their coats.  There are a couple of reasons this makes sense in China.  Number one, stores are not heated during the winter (or air conditioned during the summer).  So, the Chinese people basically wear their coats all winter, which would mean washing their coats a lot.  Which brings up number 2.  Not everyone has washers, and few people have dryers.  So, washing your coat often would not be practical.  Washing the sleeve covers and aprons is a simple solution to this dilema. Another solution to this dilema is pajamas.  People will wear quilted pajamas like clothing during the winter.

GROCERY SHOPPING

Grocery shopping is quite the event.  So many things are unrecognizable, and I can't read the labels or ask someone what they are.  Or things are seasonal, like ice cream.  The Chinese people do not understand why anyone would want ice cream in the winter.  So, as soon as it gets a little bit cold, the grocery store near us pulls all of the ice cream from the freezer section.  In this past year though, the Chinese grocery store, Suguo, near us is carrying more and more "western" (American and European, not cowboy) items.  I can remember how excited I was when I found sour cream and onion pringles in Suguo.  I don't have to eat tomato, shrimp, or some other weird meat flavored pringles anymore.  Another exciting find, is when they started carrying baggies, paper cups, and paper plates.  They only have dessert size plates right now, but I'm confident they'll have larger ones soon.  Another exciting thing was when they started carrying canned/bottled peaches (and a couple of other fruits).  They don't have canned items in the grocery store typically.  So, this was very exciting.  Some other exciting products that I have discovered in Suguo this last year are Hormel deli slice ham, cheese (on occasion), a yogurt that will work as sour cream, tampons, milk that's not way to creamy, fruit roll ups, sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar, marshmallows (not like in America, but marshmallows never the less), and cold cereal that I recognize.  Some of these products were here when we moved here, but a lot of them are new.  It is nice to finally find things close to us that make you feel at home. 

So, these are just a few examples of everyday life in China.  My new normal, I guess.  Although a lot of it still doesn't seem normal, but at least more of my life is starting to feel normal instead of being all foreign.

Alauna