So...it's March! Almost 6 months since the first day I stepped on Mainland China.
Guess it's time for me to write some comments about what I've know about China. What is my China experience? Right, more than what I expected.
One thing I had never expect before is the huge culture shock.
I had some hard time because of those terrible attitudes from some of local people. Like I mentioned earlier, there are always advantages and disadvantages to live in Beijing, I think Beijing is quiet an internationally city with lots of opportunities and a very unique combinations of western and oriental culture. And its a big city full of ancient Chinese culture which is impressive.
But somehow people here don't have nice personality and good working attitude. It's like you have to be mean to people to gain their "repect", otherwise people will just treat you like shit.
Somehow modern China society are too complicated with no boundary, some people are totally selfish and rude. They don't care about others, they just care about how to take more money from your pocket even in a bad way, thats very scary for me, sometimes I really don't know who will I be able to trust over here.
Lasttime when I had this complain, my British boss Robert told me about one thing; he said that, one good thing about stay in China is he learned the most in his life by the experience that he had in China.
"Once you can survive in China, you can pretty much survive in anywhere of this world except Africa." He said.
For some reason, life in China is not as easy as in the States for me, it actually force me to grow faster. It's bizzard but it's ture. After seeing those greedy, aggressive or self-irrgant people around (Including people from everywhere, Mainlander, Taiwanese, Westerner, etc.) I need to build and hold my own values and be aware of those values I disagree with may influence my own values.
Because of that, I think last year in US was too easy and comfortable. But I think this year in China could be a big challange for me and shape myself become more tuff and indepandent.
In many parts, China is almost another world. Like the culture in US is a "Welcome Culture." US culture is open to everyone from everywhere, in some points, that means US has NO original culture, people said it's "Immigrant Culture". Every outlander can step in easily without changing too much. But take Europe as an example, the culture is not that easy for the "outsider" to survive in a short time because Europe has so called "the European culture" which may defend those outsiders' own tradition and take years to absurb or get used to it.
What about China?
For me, China is an unusual country. It's completely different than those western countries, or those "westernize" countries. China is a growing place mix with different race, bizzard political system and unsteady economical situations. It's mixed but messy. In this land, people have to be greedy, because the government have no ability to protect every single person in this country. Imagine this the one and only Communist government have to taking care billions of citizen and millions of foreigner in the same time. Furthermore, the gap between wealthy and poor is dramaticaly huge. 10% people own 90% wealth and vise versa. It's not hard to imagine people have to fight for their life, struggling by how much they can save per month. Because, if you are poor, you are poor. There is no better welfare system to help you.
I've asked many of my "outlander" friends, except those crazy martial art fan, super Chinese culture fan or Asian fan. They confessed the life in China is not the best. They came here becuase of the business, either they got better offer than in their own country or they were major in Chinese language. At least that prove I am not insant to have the feeling in my mind.
However, there is still many parts of Beijing that I like. For example, 9 of 10 days are blue-sky sunny day; over centuries ancient palace just right in the town; Chinese love me as their long-lost Taiwanese lil sister, Many cheap, fake, easy-damaged DVD and free online movie watching website, no trouble to carry or drink whatever alcohol bottle on the street and one time metro ticket only cost 2RMB (which is 30cent usd, the bus only cost 6cent usd) etc....
Far as I know, this is Beijing, China, the place I am staying right now.
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