Life after China
I have to say it’s been a bit weird coming back home after 4½ weeks spent in China. I managed to pack a fair bit in with the help of 10 flights, 15 bus rides, 20 taxis, 2 tuk tuks, 1 ricksaw, Skytrain (Bangkok), 1 bike, and 1 horse. China is worlds apart from the reality we know in Northern Ireland and initially everything was looking rather plain and ordinary here on my return, plus it’s flippin’ freezin’ here! My horizons were broadened on my trip and my universe got bigger. China is a place I didn’t necessarily always like or understand, but it’s utterly fascinating, I would go back to explore more, and we had few dull moments. In fact I think we felt at times that nothing would surprise us in China ever again! One particularly surreal moment was when we were walking along the bank of the main river through the city-centre of Chengdu – quite a picturesque spot – when suddenly I spotted what appeared to be a dead pig floating in the water – how bizarre is that?!

Here’s a little collection of my favourite observations of China’s Cultural Oddities:

• Umbrellas – the Chinese are obsessed with getting enough protection from the sun as well as the rain. You can even get a nifty contraption to fix to the handlebar of your bicycle so that your umbrella can be attached and put up whilst you cycle. Ingenious eh?
• Male ventilation system – if a guy is feeling the heat a little too much, he’ll simply walk around with his T-shirt pulled halfway up his torso to cool off. Some of the taxi drivers we had also seemed to like driving with their trouser legs pulled up to their knees.
• The Chinese have a fascination with small pocket-sized pug dogs. Cute yes, but I’d be scared of accidentally tramping on them!
• Spitting – it’s perfectly normal in China to clear out your phlegm (ie. have a good ‘hoik’) whilst walking down the street, in fact wherever you are and with whomever. Better out than in I guess! This can also mean that you don’t need to carry tissues to blow your nose with. Environmentally friendly maybe but definitely not hygienic. It’s quite bizarre that the Chinese are so open about spitting (although in bigger cities they’ve started introducing fines to try to stamp out the practice), but yet they are careful to cover their mouths with their hand whilst picking their teeth!
• Chinese bin-lorries drive along the street playing loud music, namely the tune of "Happy Birthday".
• Young people seem to enjoy drinking their beer in shot glasses.
• Men seem to like having long fingernails. Definitely not a turn-on.
• Women like wearing ankle-length popsocks and will think nothing of wearing them with a short skirt.
• Children, instead of wearing nappies, wear trousers with a slit so they can go anytime anywhere. And their mothers toilet train them by whistling.
• It seems to take 3 people to do the job in China that 1 person would do here. One of the banks I went to a had 3 cashiers on duty, some other office staff, 2 security guards and a guy who told you which window to go to. Guess it keeps unemployment figures down.
• Menus – what you think you’re ordering may not necessarily be what you’re getting. We spotted some particularly choice items on various menus during our trip: cow spine, fryer, twice fried chicken fat, ants on the hill…funny enough we decided to leave those delights for the discovery of others.
• Meals are made fresh to order so you need to be prepared to wait a while, and you won’t necessarily get your meal at the same time as those at your table. Hey I guess fresh is the way it should be.
• On the streets of Chengdu we noticed fixed exercise equipment for the use of Joe Public and you see people, especially first thing in the morning, doing their exercises – sit-ups, pull-ups, in the stepper/walker etc. Brilliant! Mind you I don’t know if it would take off here!
• I guess the big cities are so cramped that any open space is there to be used by everyone, and they certainly use it well. We really enjoyed watching people do Tai Chi or dancing in the park or in a courtyard or square.
• Traffic lights come with countdown timers so you know in how many seconds it’s going to turn green. Now I like that!
• Beeping - when on the road in China you constantly hear car horns – every time drivers overtake another vehicle, they sound the horn, apparently they’re taught to do that in their driving lessons. No such thing as a quiet drive!

Chinese toilets deserve a chapter all of their own, I wonder if there were any Chinese representatives at the World Toilet Convention in Belfast this week? Somehow I doubt it! Well in case there weren’t I have decided to establish my very own Debs Erwin Chinese Toilet Awards 2005:

• Best Squat Toilet – Highfly restaurant, Chengdu – toilet roll provided (a rarity in China) clean, tasteful, everything you needed including soap and paper towels and it didn’t cost a single mao.
• Worst Squat Toilet – the public toilets on the way to Haba, complete with maggots, needless to say, we held on and found a bush further up the road! Close second is the one in a shop beside Lamu’s where there was a sign which stated: "No S****ing in Toilet" – Kind of reduces your options somewhat, especially if you’ve got a case of Delhi Belly.

Melanie felt that I deserved a Special Merit Award for having Most Original Dreams on pretty much a nightly basis – one night I dreamt that Anthony Worrall Thompson (English TV Chef) was giving me a massage, hmm, maybe that was a nightmare! And on another night I dreamt that Bruce Forsythe (English TV entertainer) was helping me to fill out job application forms…?????

Hmm I don't think life will ever be quite the same!

(And as you might have noticed on the Burnout Blog, that's a good thing!)