Things China just does better

I have a lot of rants to do with China, so I decided it was time for a post about some things that China just does better than back home in Australia.

Playing

After work my Chinese friends usually ask me to  出去玩 (chuqu wan) However, when they literally translate this sentence into English and ask me whether I want to “Go out and play,” they subsequently ask me why I’m laughing. They get really confused when I say that children will “play” but everyone else just kind of…Hangs out. Chills. Has a drink or something. Which got me thinking…why is it unacceptable to ‘play’ back home, but here, I always ‘go out to play.’ ? And I’m not exaggerating either. Most of my activities here consist of games and sports. Like, after work we’ll grab a ball and muck around for a couple of hours. It doesn’t even matter that none of us are very good. Whereas I kinda get the feeling the only people who play sports back home are people who are actually somewhat decent at sports. It’s not really ‘playing’ it’s ‘practicing.’ I also run this theatre workshop in the office every Sunday, and it always surprises me how damn enthusiastic everyone is about playing theatre games.

The University is about five minutes from my apartment and at all times of the day there are people utilising every bit of space with their activities. It’s about 6pm and students are out practicing a  dance routine together, teaching each other kungfu on the basketball courts or even rollerblading (I am so keen to get myself some rollerblades and join in!) And that’s just the students. The infamous ‘square dancers’ come out at about 8pm and proceed to take over the school grounds. These dancers are groups of old (50+) women who gather and spend hours dancing together in a strange pop/aerobics/traditional Chinese fusion dance. I don’t know how they get themselves so organised, but anywhere you go in China, the ‘square dancers’ will be there. So, maybe the community has a bit of a problem with them (think: noise complaints, see: http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/stories/residents-buy-speakers-to-yell-at-noisy-public-plaza-dancers.html)  But I think they are absolutely wonderful. Because this desire they have to get together, be outside and be active is so healthy! The phenomenon of isolated, lonely, unhealthy retirees happening in the West can be combated with this sort of activity. It would be great if I could start dancing in the park for the old people back in my town.

Overall, we could definitely learn from the Chinese attitudes of being outside, in groups, having fun. It is my favourite thing about China.

Also, to anyone who says that Chinese people are generally ‘shy’ or ‘quiet’ I will laugh in your face, because there is definitely a lot more noise and enthusiasm on the streets here than I’ve ever seen in Rundle Mall.

 

A pretty standard afternoon on one of about 20 University courts (Photo: Emccall 2014)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not giving a shit about what others think

I went to a theatre performance the other day and was pleasantly surprised yet again by people’s willingness to laugh. I say that, because, I dunno, if I went to a theatre performance back home people would feel that they would have to keep the laughs to a polite level, make sure that everyone else was laughing too, so as not to show that they were enjoying it too much and thus risk looking like a fool. At this show, people were standing up and laughing, guffawing, my friend was actually slapping her knee and tears were coming from her eyes. All from a skit that went for about two minutes and was somehow mocking Titanic. But it’s something I love about a lot of people I meet here, they’re quick to laugh and smile and don’t seem to care whether anybody else found it funny or not. They always seem to be looking for the next joke.

Also, I’ll add to this category with sneezing and burping in public. I have never heard one of those weird ‘stifled’ sneezes here. If you gotta sneeze, you gotta sneeze. And burping cracks me up. On a public bus? No worries. Nobody turns around or gives the perpetrator that squinty eyed look of disapproval. Everyone continues as normal and it’s only me, the foreigner, feeling like a should be offended. But somehow I can’t bring myself to care.

Recycling

Ok, so overall China isn’t exactly leading the way with this whole environmental stuff. But at the grassroots level, I would have to say that people are always looking for ways to reuse things. They don’t seem to like throwing things away (although as to where those piles of rubbish are coming from…?) I  bought a little convector stove top for my apartment and I put all my rubbish in the box it came in to throw it away later on. My friend comes over and she asks me whether I’m just going to throw that box away, didn’t I have any use for it? I said that I didn’t, so she took the box and gave it to the landlady who accepted it happily. I also give all my bottles to the landlady and she uses them for various things.

Those are just small examples, but my favourite instances of recycling usually involve gardening. Since a lot of people around here used to live in the countryside and farm, they are very good at growing things in the most seemingly inhospitable environments. I’ve seen a construction site with piles of slag rock and dirt which have been planted out with seedlings in perfect rows. They don’t seem to mind that ‘one day’ their little gardens will be destroyed for the next apartment block. They’ll just keep planting. In buckets on the street, on the nature strip next to the road. It is all fair game. And it is beautiful to walk past these flourishing little gardens everyday, old women harvesting their veggies from down the road while chatting to passer-by’s, old men sitting outside their homes in the evening selling bunches of organic produce for one RMB a piece.

I think the thrifty culture of China persists to this day, strangely in juxtaposition to the rampant materialism which also is very visible here. It’s funny how hard people try to be ‘environmentally friendly’ back home (paying through the nose for organic produce and setting up complex recycling systems), but here reusing materials and eating your own organically grown vegetables is just a way of life. I hope this way of life can persist as more and more Chinese are moving (either forcefully or by choice) into the big cities.

Peace Y’all

Reusing an old suitcase for some plants is really quite common (Photo: Emccall 2014)