I've hit the 6-month mark and it's time to finally look back at my experience living in China so far! Usually I’m much better at writing reflections. In Chile, I wrote weekly (although didn’t publish them). But while in China I’ve been focusing on making posts about where I’ve been – informative posts, really – and have gotten a little caught up in what I “think” the blogging community expects from me. Building a blog is hard. Sticking to writing what you really want to write about is harder. But I think it’s time to sit down and take the time to write about what’s been happening, and how I feel, on living in China. And now, with the coronavirus in full swing, I sure have time on my hands: what better way to utilize it than to jot down thoughts and reflections I’ve had?
In the interest of honesty, there may be things on here that make you cringe (best to skip the section on pooping, if that’s the case). Or things that you may not agree with. But what's so interesting about an experience that’s only filled with smiling pictures and gushing thoughts about the beauty of China? Not everything has been perfect, but there’s certainly been a lot that I’ve enjoyed. However, I have had to filter certain things due to my job contract (hence the gaping absence of talk about work) and because, well, I’m in China. Buckle up, throw out the notion that I’ll write linearly, and get ready for some TMI.
On Chongqing
I didn't know how to feel about Chongqing for the first few months. Its gritty streets, perpetual dreariness and sweat-dripping summers didn’t woo me in at first sight. Surprising, right? Who doesn’t want to walk outside for 15 minutes and worry about visible butt sweat?
Chongqing is a huge city - 30 million they say, but that includes surrounding rural towns as well. 18 million seems to be more accurate. It’s not exactly the hippest city, and it certainly isn’t a hub for foreign tourists. It’s situated on the banks of two great rivers: the Yangtze and the Jialing. They don’t look foreboding, though: instead, all their murky waters seem to do is blend into the grey backdrop. The city is built into rolling hills, and steps greet you at every turn. Come to Chongqing if you want jacked calves or enjoy getting lost. Seriously. Pedestrian underpasses are common, and you twist and turn underground, coming out at some unknown point, blinking rapidly to see if you’re going in the right direction. Is that a different grey apartment building, Soviet-style, or the same one I saw a minute ago?
Chongqing really started to develop during World War II. Japan had started to invade China’s east coast, and so China made the decision to move their capital to Chongqing, a city in the West, far removed from the coast line, but still accessible because of the convergence of the two rivers.
By the ‘80s and ‘90s, like so many other areas in China, the population started to explode. No wonder everyone still walks so slowly here: in many ways it still functions like a large town. Take a public bus west, through Shapingba district, and you’ll be back in rural land quickly. Turn around, and you’ll see the rapid encroachment of the city. Construction is everywhere.
If you Google Chongqing (or Bing it like we do here in China ‘cause Google isn’t an option), you’re likely to see the downtown part of the city, right on the shoreline of the two rivers. The downtown area is lit up with fancy buildings, a weirdly-shaped theater, boats that can take you out on a ride, and some overly-priced (but still cheap) rooftops bars: but the rest of Chongqing looks less like a futuristic metropolis and more like an old industrial city.
Downtown Chongqing at night
I’ve found there’s something about industrial cities I quite like. I did move to Milwaukee, Wisconsin at 18, after all. It’s one of the reasons I chose Chongqing as well. So although the perpetually grey skies may not be the cheeriest, there’s a raw, don’t-give-a-shit attitude that exudes from Chongqing people, and perhaps even the city itself, that I quite enjoy.
And if you do ever visit, what may sound like arguing probably isn’t. That spitball that someone just hacked up isn’t aimed at you. There's no silence while on public transit: headphones are rare; watching videos on phones is not. Waiting lines are sometimes more like a jumbled clusterfuck of whoever can push through to the front (good luck on the metro during rush hour). And someone wearing leggings is going to be looked at weirder than someone wearing a matching quilted pajama suit. It just is what it is sometimes.
On Food
Chuan chuan, similar to hot pot. You grab a bin of raw meat and veggies on skewers and dunk them into the boiling broth.
Spicy beef noodles
Welcome to the land of oil and spice. Intriguingly, the chili pepper wasn’t introduced into China until recent history. After mentioning this to my colleagues, one of them went on an internet quest to see what in the world people ate here before the Chili pepper: according to her, it turned out to be mostly boiled veggies and other flowers for spices. However, it has become a staple now: most dishes are a combo of hot (chili pepper) and numbing (Sichuan pepper), plus a hefty dose of oil.
I love spicy and I’ll deal with the oily, so food here has been a win. Hand-made noodles are delicious. Eggplant is one of my new favorite foods. I’ve never seen so many different types of mushrooms. And, although bony, both rabbit and frog taste delicious. It's also all about the sauce.
Restaurant after restaurant boast hot pot, a Chongqing and Sichuan specialty. It’s simple enough: you get a cauldron of spicy oil that slowly heats on a burner at your table. You order raw meats and veggies and dip them into the boiling broth to let them cook. You order some cheap beer to wash down the incredibly spicy food, and make toasts throughout the lively affair. And if you don’t have a fiery butthole the next day, I don’t believe that you ate hot pot.
On Pooping
Well hello there
I love that I can take a crap in a public restroom here and not blink an eye. One of my favorite things about China is that natural bodily things are just that: natural bodily things. I’ve seen turds left on squat toilets and seen a few parents holding their children over a garbage bin while they poop. It isn’t always pleasant, but at the same time it sends a very simple reminder for people in the Western world that grew up learning to hide these things: we all shit, and it shouldn’t matter where it’s done. Women squat down and miss the hole sometimes. Women fart when they poop, too, and you know when someone in the stall next to you ate hot pot the night before. It’s incredible. Do you know how good it feels to be a woman and not give a rat's ass if someone in the stall near you hears that you’re pooping? Do you have any idea how liberating that is?
And a word on squat toilets: they’re great. Y’all don’t know what you’re missing.
On Mandarin
A night view of Chongqing
Mandarin has grown on me, but it definitely isn’t the easiest language. It invites extra levels of challenge to the learner: do you prioritize speaking (Mandarin or Chongqing version), reading, writing or all of the above? I remember my days in Morocco, when I scorned those “too good” for learning the local dialect. I try to learn everything, but my focus has been on speaking (and I have a pretty dope Mandarin tutor). For some reason when I don’t understand people they try and write the characters for me – very sweet, but laughably useless. Living in a world where you’re basically illiterate is quite bizarre.
Menus have become the bane of my existence. I pick out the few characters I know, or just randomly point and choose. Serve me up a side of whatever you wanna give me, please.
I have an elaborate method of trying to find the metro or buses that take me to where I want to go. I use an app that’s only in Chinese called Amaps (Google Maps is atrocious here), so I type in the pinyin form of my destination (romanticized spelling of Chinese words) and convert that to what the first character options are – usually a complete guess, but I’m hoping they’re right (I’d say maybe 60% of the time they’re right). Then I see where it is on the map, compare to an English map or just make an educated guess based on distance, and decide if it’s the right place or not. If it is, I follow the directions to the bus stop and get on my merry way. Complicated and time-consuming, but it rarely fails me.
Most foreigners just choose to use Didi, a ride-hailing service similar to Uber that can be accessed in English. Many don’t bother to learn any Chinese. Some say it’s too hard. Some admit that they don’t care to learn. Others cultivate a bubble for themselves that doesn’t require them to learn. And the worst of the worst become so entitled that they expect Chinese people to know English, and become increasingly frustrated when they can’t communicate in their native tongue.
Having foreigners’ privilege in China is enough to give you a great experience: the last thing you need to do is be an insensitive jerk.
On Expats in China
Eating all of these peppers of talking to an expat in China at a bar for an hour? It's a toss up
Oh, my favorite topic besides arguing in favor of squat toilets. Expats in China are the worst. This doesn’t mean I haven’t met cool people, or made friends, or that all of them are shitty, but it's still true. Especially the men. I’ve derived up many a theory with my limited group of friends here, but there're two factors that are at play: money and power. Money is obvious: foreigners can move to China and make boatloads. So that means some people come here without any real love for traveling in China, or learning the language, or anything like that: it’s about the moolah. Which gives you a different breed of people.
On to power. Foreign (usually white) men that choose to live in China are, probably for the first time ever, cool. They’re respected. People bow down to them, don’t question them. They can finally find a woman. Some of them have made China their home for 10, 15, 20 years. There’s nothing wrong about choosing to live in China: but there is something wrong with their arrogance. Put simply, suddenly socially awkward men who were never looked up to are now in a position where they are. And it goes to their heads right quick. Stay away from old expats that make uncomfortable, awkward jokes.
On Hiking
Me, everytime I go hiking in China
Remember the mention about steps? Yeah, they come back into play when it comes to hiking. Dirt paths aren’t nearly as common as steps are. I don’t think my calves have ever been as sore as they’ve been throughout living in China.
You’ll also see people wearing absurd clothing and shoe choices when it comes to hiking. A full suit? No problem. Heeled boots? Keep it up. Skirts? Briefcases? Whatever you want. But boy do they persist. Your grandma might be out there doing that hike, and she will get to the damned top, no matter how long it takes. I respect that.
“Free” hikes aren’t as much of a thing here, unfortunately (except there were quite a few options in Guilin and surrounding areas). You see, hikes are normally part of a bigger purpose to get to a temple (or, more likely, temples). Upkeep is necessary, and so fees are generally charged before entering.
I think I’ve consistently hiked the most in the past six months than I ever had before. Weekend hiking trips are pretty regular at this point. So although I may occasionally grumble about admission fees, it’s worth it to at least have the options. And it’s never JUST a hike – there’s music, playgrounds, accommodations, food options, temples, cable cars, you name it. Don’t fight it, just go with it. This is what’s expected here when something becomes a tourist attraction.
Give me all the steps!
On the Coronavirus
Yes, the coronavirus has made big news. I’ve seen the memes, the bottles of Corona beer with a face mask strapped to them. Those aren’t so bad, just jokes. The doctored videos of Chinese people eating live mice or somehow pulling a full bat out of a soup are less innocent.
There’s still a lot we don’t know at this point, including where exactly the virus is from. It doesn’t seem to be too dangerous, especially for young people without pre-existing conditions. A 92-year old man was able to survive it! I swear, if the coronavirus takes my life, I’ll just be an embarrassment now. 92-Year-Old Man Tougher Than 27-Year-Old Foreign Wuss. I can see it already.
Our daily lives have been restricted a lot, and will continue to be as such until China is sure that the virus is under control. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in Wuhan, a quarantined city. Or anywhere in Hubei Province, for that matter. They’ve been hit hard.
Chongqing borders Hubei, and so there are legitimate fears that the virus will continue to spread throughout this province as well. The most recent efforts put into effect are to continue to try to limit the number of people out and about, especially since the holiday has officially ended. For districts that are designated as potential hot spot zones for a spike in the number of infected, many communities have been encouraged to implement creative ways to keep people off the streets. My such community has decided to make it so for the month of February (or until further notice, I guess), only one person from each family unit is to be allowed to leave once every two days. The idea is that people should only be leaving for essentials: food, basically.
I’ll be teaching remotely for at least the whole month of February. Training has, of course, been rushed, but we’re steamrolling forward because we have to get back to teaching, after all. I don’t know the numbers on how many jobs have chosen to work remotely for a while, but I know they’re high. The biggest remote work experiment so far. Could this open up new possibilities? Maybe. All I know is I was hitting 12,000 steps a day easy, and now I’m clocking in at 8,000 or so.
On What's Next
At this point, I barely know what's going to happen next week. As usual, I have no idea what's going to happen next, or what opportunities will arise. For now, all I know is I'm learning, exploring and growing. Even if I will be stuck inside for awhile.
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