Observations in China

I'm near the midpoint in my study abroad program, and I've been in China long enough to have started noticing things about Chinese culture that are unique to say the least. There are the obvious observations (it's HOT, it's HUMID, I can't breathe...), but there are also some things that most people wouldn't be able to pick up on without being in China for an extended period of time. I've listed some of the more interesting ones below:

• There are Blue Sky Days, and there are Clear Sky Days. I assumed that they were the same. And when you experience your first Blue Sky Day in Beijing, It will be the same thing. The ability to have the sky be a color other than dusty gray equals clear. However I've noticed that this is not necessarily true. The last couple of days, Beijing has been fortunate enough to have the sky be some shade of blue, for at least the morning hours. This is a lie. If it's not blue all day, then the smog just hasn't overtaken the sky yet. The mountains visible in Beijing's horizon are my indicators as to what kind of day it actually is. On most non-cloudy/smoggy days, they are visible at varying levels of clarity. Some Blue Sky Days they are foggy in the distance, but on Clear Sky Days the mountains are a striking feature in the distance that is absolutely beautiful. Today was in my opinion the most clear sky that Beijing has had during my time in China. There were summer clouds in the sky, but in the distance the outline of the mountains was so clearly distinct I thought for a second I was back in the Pacific Northwest.
• Beijing isn't humid. By Portland, Oregon's standards, Beijing is a tropical hell where humidity awaits you outside your air conditioned room. While in my opinion, it is incredibly humid, everyone in China, along with the other international students from the East Coast and Florida all disagree with me. Beijing is more humid than many places in the United States, but it is quite agreeable by Chinese standards, and is apparently really, really dry according to my friend from Florida. 
• Chinese people have one of two expectations of the language skills of all foreigners. 1) Your Chinese is impeccable, or 2) You speak zero Chinese. In the case of the first assumption, I've had experiences where Chinese people will immediately begin speaking dialect Chinese at me, with little regard to the look of confusion on my face. With the second assumption, the Chinese people will blatantly, and often rudely, talk about you very loudly while standing next to you. The best thing you can do to these people is to interject into their conversation with a comment in Chinese. It's hilarious to throw them off, and will usually stop them from gossiping about you. 
• China has no observable traffic laws. Similar to most other developed nation, there are traffic signals, crosswalks, and painted lines in the road. In China, these mean nothing. The light is red? You can still go, just make sure to honk the whole way through to warn oncoming traffic you don't care. Crosswalks mean nothing. Pedestrians walk wherever, whenever. Buses will NOT stop if you cross the street. They WILL hit you. Be warned. However, the worst of all offenders in China are the motorbikes. They drive on the sidewalk (which is perfectly legal in China, along with parking on the sidewalk), honk at anything that is near there vicinity and play chicken with buses, cars and people. 
• Beijing is HUGE. It is so huge in fact, that Beijing has no "downtown." Beijing IS downtown. There is no progress in building height like in many cities. Every single building is a skyscraper. I actually can't think of any buildings I've recently seen outside of campus that are not multi-story. Also, the city is expanding vertically and horizontally at a rate that makes my head spin. Cranes and construction is EVERYWHERE. New apartment complexes, office buildings, malls and arenas are in constant demand; Beijing is more than happy to accomodate those requests. It's often difficult for me to describe how big Beijing is, but someone in my program helped me put it into words. Every city in the US has a recognizable skyline. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA, New York, even Shanghai has a skyline. Beijing has no skyline. There is no part of Beijing that is a true "downtown" area that could be a skyline. Because Beijing is one big downtown area, it's impossible to take one big picture of the skyline. Plus, once you developed the image, it would be out of date. Things change so quickly here, it would be unrealistic to even attempt. If that isn't enough, on most days, it's impossible to see beyond the nearest couple of skyscrapers just because of the level of air quality. 

• On the topic of construction in Beijing, Beijing has some crazy weird buildings. The two craziest ones I've seen are the IBM building and the CCTV (Chinese NBC/ABC/CNN combined) building. 

The IBM building. 

The Digital Beijing building. It was the IT center for the Olympics, which is why it was designed to resemble a microchip. I call it the Tron Building. 

Now, before I talk about the CCTV building, let me talk about Chinese fireworks (you'll understand why shortly). They are UNREAL, in the really cool, but totally unsafe way. But as long as people are careful, there is no problem. China has huge firework displays every year at New Year, with little to no problems. Here is a quick video that sums up Chinese fireworks when used incorrectly:

Now the CCTV building. On fire. 

Whoops. Literally right after it was finished, some Chinese New Year fireworks burned a significant portion of the building down, and the building next to it (also a part of the CCTV complex) completely to the ground. Apparently in the excitement of building a building so cool, the engineers forgot to add a sprinkler system. Nice. The fire occurred in 2009, and everything has since been rebuilt. But the company will forever be mocked by all Chinese people. Here is what it looks like now, and looked like before that little incident, and during construction. 

• Another observation, which was kind of obvious, but still shocking, is how incredibly cheap everything is here in China. For example, I visited a friend in East Beijing last weekend, which was about an hour subway ride away. I was forced to take a taxi back (subway stations can close whenever the guards want to go home, not the actual closing time of the station). From East Beijing to my house in Northwest Beijing, it took around 40 minutes, and ended up costing 42 kuai. I was distressed, but after doing the calculation, it cost $7. Ha! Not bad! I can eat lunch every day for 8 kuai, including a name brand drink, which equates to $1.20. When I return to the states, I will be sooo distressed with how much things cost. China is so inexpensive to live in. In fact, it's easy to become stingy. I already get upset if I have to pay 15 kuai for a meal, even though that's less than $3. There is American expensive (foreign stores and companies), and there is China expensive (everything else). I've adapted so well to this kind of monetary level. 
• Chinese babies don't wear pants. Well, they do, but not the kind American babies do. In China, because diapers are American expensive, most families cannot afford them. This has been a cultural phenomenon for so long, that baby clothes sold in Chinese stores now just don't bother to sew together the crotch. If a child feels the need to relieve themselves, they just squat and do it right there (sidewalk, shopping centers, restaurants, etc). I have seen more baby genitalia then I ever, ever needed to see.

Those are my observations as of now. The long weekend is next weekend, and I'm trying to finalize my plans. Hopefully it will be fun!