Quora: What is it like to live in China for a Westerner?

Read Time:7 Minute, 28 Second

What is it like to live in China for a Westerner?

Former Faculty at Tsinghua University (清华大学) (2017–2018)Updated 5y

Originally Answered: How is it like to live in China for a western person?

The first thing you will miss is the syllogism, and the inductive and deductive reasoning of Western logic, which we have been taught from Prep A. This is not to say that Chinese culture lacks logic, but it is to say that their logic is at variance with Western logic.

Then you will miss the ease and facility with which you have been used to accomplishing simple tasks, such as ordering internet, or phone service, registering a car, vacating a flat, or opening a bank account.
You will thoroughly enjoy the fact that although there are distinct lanes, traffic lights, and all the fixings of organized transportation systems, they are totally ignored for a more fun, Disney-like, euphoric, death-embracing, bucolic way of getting around.
You will be most horrified and perhaps develop angina every time you go to rent a flat, especially when they ask for 3 months’ rent up-front, plus agent fee and deposit, each amounting to one full month’s rent. A grand total of 5 months’ rent before you can even see the place. Then you may toss your cookies when you see the state of the flat you rented, especially considering that the monthly rent is about half your salary.
Oh, but then you will quickly forget and cheer up by the very first night your pals drag you down to Bar Street (awh, don’t be such a prude, you know you’re dying to go, it is where all the foreigners congregate), because if you’re male, most of the Chinese girls there will literally throw themselves at your feet, and if you’re female, you’ll be happy that the male population is otherwise occupied and not aiming moistened breaths at your one good ear (the other one will be blasted out from the extra-loud music, and that could be because your lovely pals left you the seat right in front of the juke-box-like speaker).
Then the next day will set the tone for most of your remaining time in CN. You will toss your cookies, again (but this time for a different reason, hangover). And as time goes by you will find that you have more friends in the shape of toilet bowls than with humans figures, because you often find yourself hugging one, either from being hung-over, from food poisoning, or from the condition of some of the public restrooms you frequent because of your tiny bladder (Or your excessive liquid consumption! I was being kind in assuming the former)
Then you will quickly acquire new appreciation for Western toilets, which are usually stacked with toilet paper, running water, and soap. The three essentials of good bathroom hygiene.
After a few bathroom trips, though, you will begin to notice a significant increase in strength and mass of your thigh muscles, since you will by now become inured to squat toilets. You will also by now (unless your are deliberately slow) have learnt the unique art of vaginal pointing, and you will learn to pull up your pant/ skirt tails before limbo-ing down under. Peeing on yourself a few times will have taught you these valuable lessons.
A month or two into it, just when you started thinking that you are fitting in quite nicely, you will find that you often have difficulty breathing, and are occasionally feeling a bit under the weather. And during your random bouts of sobriety, you will begin to notice the lack of blue skies, and a constant fog that seem oh so ubiquitous. No, that is not only in your head, it is real. One glance at the AQI (API) online will affirm that you are in an area where the air pollution index is often quadruple what the US considers to be ‘breathably’ safe. But there is always the argument that China (well, the Beijing Municipality) has their own scale of measurement of the AQI, and this is how you will convince yourself that all your respiratory issues, your constant headaches, and your depression are really not related to the stratospheric air pollution or the lack of ability to eye-ball lovely blue skies.
And you will easily convince yourself to overlook such trivialities because the food will be so cheap and inviting, the life so engaging and worry-free, and the jobs so available at every corner (specially reserved for the ‘native English’ speakers). So you will sink again into that well-known Chinese complacency that present a constant invitation to desert Western life for the more blasé orient.
A few more mornings into it and some house hopping later, you begin to love your life, as you have by now found yourself a swanky flat, in some sky-riser; you order in often, because food is cheap and readily available until way past midnight; and you have discovered Sunday morning yoga! But then, by some strange inversely proportional way, you now start to hate your job, because you are convinced that you are smarter than everyone else around you. But then pretty soon, you begin to question the validity of that notion, as it slowly dawns upon you that your contract was written in Chinese, of which you don’t speak one lick, and the only part you knew was the part that had the number 2, to indicate a 2-year contract. And right around this time, some 3 – 4 months into it, you fall into an unhealthy fixation upon the plotting of an escape plan.
You reach for solace in your friendly social media compadres, only to find that Facebook, Instagram, and all those lovely comforting icons are not available, unless you devise ways to break the Great Wall,…uhm, I meant the Firewall. And this is the point when you discover VPN. Your Very Private Network…..or at least that is what you were hoping. But instead, it is Virtual Private Network. Same thing, right? Nope! Emphasis on Virtual. You will be sharing this with millions of others, who just like you, Rapunzel, are looking for an escape from the ivory tower. Now like an extra appendage, you have grown a healthy respect and nostalgia for the taken-for-granted ease of automatic connection to your Western home’s and everyone else’s internet and the omnipotent hotspot.
And it is right about this time of despair and abysmal depression that you are ready to take yourself out back and shoot yourself, just to gain relief from the misery. For during all the problems you have encountered, thus far, you have noticed a very distinct pattern. It has become poignantly obvious that the mounting frustration you feel at every juncture is directly related to the fact that you don’t have one bloody clue as to how to solve these issues, and every issue must be brought to a colleague, who will then call in a few other colleagues, and then the entire tribunal will have several meetings before you have word about whether or not your lights will be turned on today or in 2 weeks. And the reason why you cannot solve the issues independently is because you do not know the language. And you are aghast at how this tinsy, seemingly insignificant, yet painfully obvious detail had eluded you before, but now it’s right there, in your craw, stuck!
Then as you meander aimlessly in the direction of the woods, hoping to find a suitable tree to lean up against to break your fall, you remember reading in the employee’s manual that your medical insurance, which was provided by the employer, will only pay “if” they approve the procedure, and then they will only pay a part, and you may not see that ‘part,’ however slight it is, for the better part of a year. So don’t go shooting yourself just yet, as you will then be broke and shot. Not a good place to be, especially when you have no internet to tweet about it!
But then there is a good side to it all. If you do shoot yourself, after 5 days of losing work, the employer will graciously terminate your contract, with impunity. So then you will be shipped back home. But then depending on how badly you’ve shot yourself, you may be shipped back in a body bag! Oops! Oh well, pot-aye-to, po-tah-to, who cares, you got what you wanted right? To be outta there!