Does anyone know? I think they would be great to have... Would anyone like to join me in persuading italki to put spell check in this discussion text box? What do you think?
Thumb up if you agree!
Does anyone know? I think they would be great to have... Would anyone like to join me in persuading italki to launch language based or country based chatrooms? What do you think?
Thumb up if you agree!
I am currently in China. All I can say is that you can't quantify another culture in a text box like this. If you want to know about China... GO! What I can tell you about is what to expect when you get there...
If you come from an industrialized "Western" country these might be your biggest shockers (as they were for me)...
1. People can and do drink the tap water but I, my stomach, and my traveling companions would highly recommend that you don't. There are little bodegas EVERYWHERE that basically sell the exact same things… so picking up a bottle of water is not difficult.
2. Don't expect clean food, clean kitchens, clean eating utensils, clean bathrooms, clean tables, clean taxies, busses, hospitals, streets, air, ... you get my point? The bigger the city the more likely you are to find clean amenities (I have spent a lot of time in the "boonies" so forgive me if I sound biased). Also don’t expect soap or tissue (in the bathrooms, restaurants, doctors’ offices, etc.). DO expect people to defecate in the streets (children and adults alike) and everywhere else (parking lots, subways, gas stations, staircases … many times within close proximity to a restroom!!!). Poverty was the most striking thing to me. So many people I saw lived in absolute poverty and squalor… it was heart wrenching. Garbage was everywhere and oftentimes on fire… If you saw a nook or cranny, chances are there’s garbage stuffed in it – perhaps because there was not any obvious waste-management system in place that I could see. Stray dogs were everywhere and raw sewage could be smelled daily.
3. The majority of people I have spent my time around have had an average level of education somewhere around middle school (by their own admission). That is not to say that China is deprived of an intelligencia... you are just not likely to find them walking around on the street.
4. Politics in China is a strange mix of biased historical interpretation and propaganda (that is not to say politics in general is not muddled...). If you wish to talk politics with anyone, don’t expect to do it in public or get into any real debates. All of my discussions of politics (e.g., Chairman Mao, Japan, Taiwan, Tibet) have ended in illogical rants OBVIOUSLY influenced by state sponsored propaganda. Expect a great deal of irrational hate/prejudice towards Japan/Japanese and Malaysians/Malaysia. One unprovoked statement about Japan was as follows “Japan is America’s bitch”. It was after this statement that I gave up on engaging in any political discussions with people who were not professors.
5. Expect a bad TV viewing experience (though I don’t watch TV to begin with, it was helpful to practice my Chinese) with shows that are, of course, propagandic in nature. Shows range from bad jokes, bad plot lines/twists, bad acting, bad humor, bad everything (B TV…). Not like it’s not expected anywhere else on the planet… but expect biased news reporting and blatant pro gov. propaganda. Massive censorship (I suspect part of the reason TV (and movies) is so bad) in everything you read, watch, hear (and say) and expect a strange internet experience if you are incapable of using Chinese websites. The majority of bad guys in a myriad of TV shows and movies were Japanese or connected to the Japanese in some manner.
