Home›Forums›General Discussion›Weird Cultural Differences
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otchengdu.
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April 24, 2012 at 8:48 am #18540April 24, 2012 at 8:48 am #18637April 24, 2012 at 5:16 pm #18640
cantoloper
Participant– couples popping each others spots in restaurants (oldschool romance)
– the glasses with no lenses (sneaking suspicion this may be a worldwide epedemic)
April 25, 2012 at 2:00 am #18642Rick in China
Participant@Ray – That has nothing to do with why we dating 😀
@cantoloper – glasses with lenses was really popular in Japan a while ago – it’s migrated to many countries, including HK/Mainland China. Definitely an epidemic. I think it saves girls time doing makeup or something. For popping spots, wtf? you mean popping zits *in a restaurant*? that’s disgusting dude. Stare at people until they get uncomfortable and leave….altho if they’re popping eachother’s zits in public I don’t know if anything could make them uncomfortable 😀
April 25, 2012 at 9:05 am #18643April 25, 2012 at 9:29 am #18644Rick in China
Participant@Ray: Eh.. didn’t mean to imply sensitivity. I don’t really care if it were implied 😀 Lets try this response: hang on, I’ll PM you my list of hot, young, rich, well travelled, and open to foreign relationship girls with associated phone numbers soon! Wait, I’ll publish it here for everyone’s benefit!
April 25, 2012 at 11:31 am #18645Steven
ParticipantWhere is it?
April 26, 2012 at 12:54 am #18647cantoloper
Participant@Rick. I’ve seen the spot popping 3 times now, each time teenagers in hole in the wall noodle type restaurants
re: the glasses, thanks for the background… worrying. It’s gone away now but last year there was a craze for very small hats (esentially a hair slide with a glittery small hat attached to it and worn at a jaunty angle). I think this originated from Japan and Korea and gone away now, irrationally infuriated me when they were around though.
May 1, 2012 at 10:16 am #18714Steeevyo
MemberBrendan,
Cool story.
I arrived from Hong Kong Sunday night.
There were two flights to Chengdu one with significant delay which I was booked on (Hong Kong Airlines) and one which was cancelled (Air China). It was all due to bad weather conditions in Hong Kong.
So at 11.30pm the guys from the Air China flight prepared to spend the night at the airport find out that the Hong Kong Airlines flight is flying to Chengdu that night and get really upset. They start to suspect some kind of conspiracy favouring the Hong Kong over the Mainland airline or whatever. So they are really upset. Some of them start yelling at the HK Airlines staff standing at the counter of our gate .
Then some people from my flight start laughing and gloating, five minutes later at least 30 people from both groups are engaged in a serious fist fighting (some put off their shirts) hair pulling (the females) screaming session. At Hong Kong Airport mind you. It was a very sad to watch. And it delayed my flight another two hours.
So then finally arriving at 3.45am in Chengdu (instead of 11.30pm) I find myself assaulted by taxi drivers trying to get me into town for 150 Kwai + to which I point on their meter which most of them refuse.
I end up simply sitting in one of the taxis with my luggage on the backseat and yell at the guy to start driving and dont start yelling until he turns the damn meter on. He is super pissed at me of course and drives me home at an average 40kmh on the airport expressway.
All was not well with my general impression of Sichuan that day.
May 1, 2012 at 3:50 pm #18721cantoloper
ParticipantQuote:Here’s another weirdie – a local friend recently told me that some Chinese will eat eggs boiled in the pee of a baby boy as it is meant to give them strength and purity or somethingTo extend- when pregnant looking at pictures of handsome baby boys to ensure that you have the same
-when pregnant not drinking tea, adding soy sauces to your dishes or eating chocolate to avoid coloration of the skin
… saw the spot popping again today, teenagers, on a park bench
May 4, 2012 at 3:00 am #18749Brendan
ModeratorSteevyo, I would have loved to have seen that had it not meant a delay to my flight. It’s another fine example of complete absence of logic.
Meanwhile, while some of these images have done the rounds long ago, I thought I’d post this. Some of the first few are gold…
May 4, 2012 at 7:10 am #18754Steeevyo
MemberHere is what I could capture after I stopped staring in disbelief.
May 7, 2012 at 11:18 am #187847
ParticipantI guess this would qualify as a cultural difference: “Entire high school class on IV drips while cramming for exams”
May 21, 2012 at 10:05 am #18964Vic
Participant@7: insane!
October 5, 2012 at 8:38 pm #22115Eric
Participantso you know how we knock out live fish by smacking them right?
china throws it on the ground then sell them.
i think its time to queue up the lonely island song.
October 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm #221317
ParticipantI don’t know if it’s a cultural difference, or just individual assholes, but it seems like a lot of people have no compassion for disabled people & feel no shame at staring at/laughing at/mocking them.
I went to the Great Wall at Mutianyu yesterday & there was a teenage girl with Down’s Syndrome walking the wall by herself (her parents had gone ahead) & she was going very slowly being very sure of each step. This jackass stood there watching her walk up the steps & was laughing his ass off & then when another group of people were coming down & I suppose wondering what he was laughing at he started imitating her.
That’s probably the first time I wish I knew enough Chinese so that I could curse someone out.
October 9, 2012 at 12:15 pm #22190Yan
MemberReally? are your guys talking about culture difference or ugly things they do?
November 6, 2015 at 2:29 pm #48787greenarcher
ParticipantI spent the last year working for a Chinese company with Chinese bosses and Chinese clients. So far these are my observations….
1. As mentioned here before, 对不起 is such a big word. They do not say it unless they did something extremely terrible. Sometimes even a really bad deed can only bring out 不好意思。They don’t say 谢谢 a lot either. It’s like whatever good you did was either necessary and they deserved it.
2. Just like baking cakes and concocting certain chemicals, it seems they can only accept a certain temperature. Often times they will either feel too cold or too hot. The thing about breeze is funny but I feel it’s more than that. A lot of them hate the coldness of an airconditioning system too.
3. They also have a low tolerance to foul odor like the new car smell but they are OK with the smell of no bath for a couple of days or the smell of smoking inside the car.
4. Speaking of no bath, they are used to wearing the same clothes for a number of days. I handle a lot of tourists and there are a number of them who do not bring any extra clothes during a 3-4 day trip.
5. Cash is still king though they are finally learning how to use credit cards.
6. They use chopsticks to eat french fries.
7. They find KFC chicken oily but Chinese dishes swimming in oil is OK.
8. They won’t express dissatisfaction in front of you. Even when hungry, annoyed or discomforted, they will still say they are OK.
9. They live for 面子。They would rather die than lose face. Everything they do is for their “face”.
10. If it is expensive, it must be good. If there is a line, it must be good.
11. Money = power. There is a sense of entitlement that comes with being wealthy. Sometimes it gets very annoying. Most will not experience this while living in China, I just so happened to work for a lot of rich Chinese.
12. When they say you should visit them in their house or hometown, more often than not it’s only out of courtesy. They don’t expect you to give them a call for real.
14. I laughed at the “call him uncle” after a few seconds. I think this is being polite. Same way we call older folks 阿姨 or 叔叔。
15. Fashion-wise there is still a stark difference between China and the west. They may be wearing Prada from head to foot but will still look like a Mainlander.
November 6, 2015 at 5:07 pm #48790Rick in China
Participant15. Fashion-wise there is still a stark difference between China and the west. They may be wearing Prada from head to foot but will still look like a Mainlander.
This is the oddest truth that I can imagine would pop out in this thread.
November 25, 2015 at 10:09 am #48982greenarcher
ParticipantHas anyone figured out why they have “hair washing” services? Why can’t they wash their own hair while taking a bath?
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