The Inside Dirt About Dirty China

I hope everyone is enjoying some of the great stories I have to tell about China. If it wasn't for modern technology, I don't know how I would keep in touch with everyone. I'm really lucky to be able to log on whenever and tell you about my adventures. But, China isn't all fun and games right now. Actually, we've all been discussing some of the things we could really do without while we're here in China. First, the public bathrooms. Often referred to as squatters, these bathrooms are just holes in the ground. Porcelain holes, but still holes none-the-less. Mostly a problem for girls, the squatters usually don't have toilet paper and are sure to have waste all around the floor near the hole. It's really not that awesome to use, especially to someone who doesn't have the coordination and balance to use them properly. Some of the squatters are so rancid that the smell literally feels like it burns the inside of your nose. Sometimes, you'll be surprised to enter into a bathroom and find no walls between squatters. But this is of no concern for the Chinese, simply life.

Speaking of toilets, the potty training is quite interesting here in China. If you haven't noticed in some of my pictures, some of the children are wearing pants that do not have a crotch area. This is so that they can be potty trained easier. Simply lift the child over a trash can and let them go. Or, if you don’t want to lift them, you can certainly just have them squat and relief themselves. Usually it doesn't matter where they go and places include but are not limited to the train (in between the lower bunk beds while the parents just watched and mopped it up with a towel before it ran into the luggage), the train station (right next to the seats where we were sitting), or even randomly on the street. Most of the time, honestly, I think the pants are amusing. I mean, I can't help but laugh when I see a little kid run by and the next thing you see are little butt cheeks peeking out of the bottom. Or when someone is holding their kid and they turn around and you just see the crack of their behind resting on their parents arm. It is a little weird, a little unsanitary, and definitely different than the United States, but it is one of the most common sights among Chinese children.

The pollution in Beijing is far worse than any other city we've been to. Shanghai was mostly clear, Hangzhou and Suzhou were too small to have pollution problems, and Qingdao had the sea breeze to keep the air clear. Although Beijing really isn't that bad, the hazy days are few and far between here. Especially now that the weather has cooled off the haze has mostly disappeared. But that still doesn't stop the Chinese from developing some wicked coughs. Now, imagine that you are peacefully enjoying a walk down the street and from somewhere near behind you--from deep within the bowels of whoever--a long powerful hhhhhhaaaacccccckkkkkk disrupts your peace. You wonder what is that noise, just to quickly hear the spit land on the blacktop some distance away. Yeah. It's that bad. The worst is when you turn around and it is a woman. That really grosses me out. It seems that every man, woman and even child has developed this unbreakable habit to hoc a luggie wherever they go, whenever they need to. The cab drivers do it while driving, the chefs do it while they cook for you, and of course the strangers on the sidewalks all spit their hearts out, every day, all day. There isn't any escaping it and now I really don't bother to turn around to see what's going on. Sometimes, they noises are so loud, that I'll be sitting in my room, doing homework (naturally), and from outside my window, I hear a pedestrian spitting. I wouldn't quite compare it to birds and chirping crickets, but sometimes I fall asleep to the relaxing hacking noises from my Chinese neighborhood.

Deodorant is impossible to find. Ask Jimmy, he forgot it on the Silk Road trip and on our trip to Qingdao. It was pretty funny when we went on a massive scavenger hunt to find it in Jiayuguan. Walking into random shops, applying invisible deodorant and having the locals laugh at us and hand us a travel size of roll on with a mystery odor for Y50. Jim was forced to buy it and we're still not sure if it worked or not but at least it kept him from smelling. (Just kidding).

There is another slightly interesting cultural difference in China. This has to do with the younger social interaction. Walking around campus, down the street, or in the subways you'll see a lot of girls walking hand in hand, leaning on each other or holding each other around the waste. In China, this is perfectly normal. Girls often have these types of relationships with their best friends, it's not big deal and perfectly acceptable. Even so much that it isn't completely limited to girls. Guys can also walk around with their hands on each other’s shoulders or holding the forearm. It's a little weird at first, but it's apparent that they are just platonic. The sense of personal space is very small in China. Yet again, we have nothing to do but laugh when a Chinese friend invades our American "personal space" bubble. The Chinese just have their ways.

One last cultural difference before I head off to bed. American college students live in heaven compared to our Chinese counterparts. In China, the Chinese students have the same size room with not one roommate, or two, but 4 other roommates. If you do the math, that's 5 people living in the same room. I couldn't imagine the frustrations I would have not being able to have a single moment of privacy. It gets better. They have to be in by 11:00 PM. Weekends included. If they aren't inside, they might as well book a hotel room for the night because they'll be locked out. And the power goes off at 11:30 or something. Oh, and their bathrooms. They don't have showers in any of their buildings so the students at UIBE have to walk to the next building over to take a shower. I think they have squatters on every floor, but our friend Li lives across from them and says he can't leave his door open because they smell so terrible. If any of these things happened in the US, I'm sure college admissions would dramatically drop and there would be a student riot.

That's all I've got for now. I'll keep you guys up to date this week with what's going on. Tomorrow, I think we're going to go get some custom made coats from the Wool Market in Beijing. After that, we have to work on getting our visa changed so we can leave the country. We're trying to get to Tokyo and Hong Kong by the end of the semester but the visas are once again confusing all of us and giving us a headache so we won't know for sure what's going on until we actually get the visa.