Life in China

Living in China can be both fun and challenging. The excitement of learning about a new culture can be tempered by the pitfalls of learning to navigate it. But guests in China quickly grow to appreciate the people, the environment, the food and the culture and find themselves with a love and longing for the place whether they stay or leave.

The Chinese People

Chinese people have a fascination with foreigners and generally love to talk to them. The fascination is so great that there are game shows on television where foreigners who have learned Chinese win prizes for answering simple questions. They love to know about your culture and teach you about theirs and they are very proud of their nation.

Often you will find yourself being asked the same questions and hear the same statements:

• “Can you use chopsticks?”
• “What do you think about Chinese food?”

Relationships in China

Chinese people are very good at looking after those that are close to them and feel a great sense of obligation to their family; often more so than to their spouse. They highly value education, prefer saving over spending and will lend and borrow money among friends and family in preference to commercial loans. They love to play games, take walks after dinner, drink tea and eat seeds with friends. They are very compliant, community minded and noticeably less individualistic than the west.

Pollution in China

Most people who visit China are surprised at how polluted the cities are. The output from factories and constant building work create particles that blow across the cities. Things have improved with the help of government schemes; such as forcing all taxis to use compressed gas rather than petroleum. However the pollution will often affect the weather and it is not uncommon for the sun to be blocked out by the cloud cover.

Travel in China

China is a vast country and well worth exploring as it has a range of scenery from alpine forests on snow capped mountains to deserts. Chinese people prefer things to be in order and you will often find stairs running all the way to the top of mountains. During the holidays we encourage teachers to visit other cities, to see the great wall to climb mountains and enjoy everything that China has to offer.