Yeup, I've now lived in Guangzhou for 8 days, and have now completed my first full working week! Hurrah! My work is quite enjoyable (aside from the odd awkward loss in translation now and then), and the people here are very pleasant to me - even when I get my Chinese mixed up terribly.
I even manage to wake myself up 2 hours prior to starting work everyday (apart from when i'm horrendously ill, i'll get to that later...), I often arrive at work before anyone else.
Overall this week has been one of my craziest, but I feel I’ve
adapted to life relatively well here – but not without any struggles. It’s safe
to say that I’ve begun forming opinions on life in China and how it differs
from England; some aspects are fantastic, others…a bit more difficult to get
used to. So I thought I’d make a list –from bad to good (as to not end on a
sour note).
What I struggle to get used to in China
1. The amount of people
In Hong Kong I didn’t really sense the population problem –
but here is very different. The streets aren’t too bad (apart from lunch time)
but the metro is absolute insanity. I’ve never been stuck in human traffic for
30 minutes before (outside of queuing in Disneyland). Everyone pushes and
shoves, and cuts in front – but I can’t complain about that too much, because I
think a bit of contact with strangers isn’t so taboo here as it is in the UK;
where we try to keep at least 2 foot from each other to avoid excessive apologies
to one another.
At the end of the work day I don’t really feel knackered,
but as soon as I decide ‘I’ll take the metro to a location I haven’t visited
yet’ my energy is depleted, and I dread the next time I decide to be
adventurous (which is every night).
2. Food Hygiene (in some places)
This definitely isn’t a cultural thing because Yinzi is
definitely the most cleanliness obsessed person I know, but some restaurants in
the locality are clearly not well kept and seem to get away with it. I’ve experienced this first hand with
the food poisoning I got the other night which I’m still recovering from. I’ll
not moan too much or go into any horrific detail, but most restaurants here are
perfectly clean – and now I know of the few I should avoid at all costs.
3. Noise
Everyone here uses their car horns, it’s usually my wake up
alarm. It’s beginning to become just a background noise now, so I’ll get used
to it eventually. But there’s also a lot of shouting, especially in some
restaurants – however I think it’s my conditioning which is to blame; us
British folk seem to be much more noise-conscious than most other countries, I even
found the USA to be quite loud and here it’s much less distracting when I don’t
know what the people are saying.
Finally, What I love about China
1. The Cities at Night are stunning
Tonight we went to Zhujiang New Town which is an amazing
part of the city – it’s like the area was designed by a regular boring
architect who was slipped some psychedelic drugs on the last day and tried to
paint the city with rainbows. Even in my area which is quite old and unclean on
the streets, there’s still so much vibrant colour and flashy shiny things at
every corner of my vision. Every street you look down it looks like everyone
left their Christmas lights on. So every day when I finish work I look forward
to exploring another portion of the city at night, I’m thankful that my job at
least still allows me free time during my favourite hours in China. I’ll
definitely go for a night time stroll whenever I feel down or stressed – even if
it requires going on the dreaded metro.
2. The Prices
I can buy a full KFC for £1.20! Yeah, I know I should be
talking about local cultural dishes, but it never ceases to amaze me… As much
as I don’t like taking the metro it can get me to the other side of the city
for about 30p, and it takes me to shops where I can get a 6 foot Christmas tree
£6! – Christmas came early in China!
Here if I want something then in most cases I can get it
without concern. They even give out coupons on every corner; I have like 60
coupons for getting a coffee for 15p! My only concern is when I begin
travelling to distant places and tourist landmarks that I’ll buy too much and
have to take it all back on the metro…
To conclude life is going pretty well here in China. It’s
tiring at times due to how fast everything moves here, but I’ll adapt to the
flow eventually – and when I return to Sheffield maybe I’ll never feel stress again!
My experiences definitely make me appreciate how laid back and peaceful England
is, but has also made me appreciate how a fast-paced lifestyle can make a week
feel like a lifetime of experiences.
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