Friday 18 January

The College forecourt and Quzhou suburbs across the river

Almost time to return to Australia, and it’s a bit sad. It has been a most interesting 5 months here in China.

I now have a much better appreciation of Chinese society and culture through the contact with teachers, students, tai chi groups and just living and working here. The Chinese are not a homogeneous people, but there are many commonalities and sense of a shared history that permeates the country (don’t mention the Japanese). They are intensely proud of their culture and country and appear to embrace the diversity of internal cultures more than I think they did in past years.

Children and Chinese scholars in
Fushan Park, Quzhou

Public parks and spaces are well used by everyone and there are more than I would have expected. Not in every suburb like Australia, but enough for people to gather and socialise. There is a tension though between development and pollution that has to be resolved, but the awareness is there, especially amongst young people of the need for a healthy environment. I can’t really comment on the political structure or planning controls but local governments seem to have quite a lot of power and seem unafraid to use it – and support from the national or regional government seems to make things happen.

The very popular 'Jinyun
Shao Bing' (缙云烧饼)  stall.
It is a local flat bread with
various ingredients and
baked in a charcoal oven

A big surprise is that the food has been much better than I expected. I’ve really enjoyed eating here as you have probably realised already if you’ve been reading the blog. Interesting, because Chinese food in Australia is one of my least favourites,

I think Chinese food in Australia is based mainly Guandong or Cantonese style which has been modified over many years to suit the Australian palate, or at least what passes for a theoretical Australian palate and our style of eating. Eating here is a social activity and most often done with a group of friends or as part of business negotiations.

There is a very broad range of food with a strong emphasis on vegetables – umpteen types of leafy greens, root vegetables and pickles. Meals often consist of many small dishes with a range of flavours, and rice is generally eaten at the end, as a filler.

Often a meal (especially banquets) may not even include rice or noodles. The theory that the Chinese will eat almost anything seems to be pretty true and there are still quite a few things I have resisted the temptation to taste.

The traffic system is completely different, as are most in Asia. Tooting, of which there is quite a bit, serves mainly to inform other road users of your presence rather than to show annoyance as we do, but it is also used for that purpose. Blinkers are almost never used, cars slowly head in the desired direction and unwaveringly continue until they are there. The level of patience seems quite high and no-one seems to get annoyed at another vehicle cutting in or holding up the traffic as it does some unexpected maneuver. The overall city traffic sped is around 40-50 kph so that sudden stops are possible – and frequent.

Who has right of way?

Drivers generally only obey traffic lights at major intersections, but scooters and pedestrians generally always ignore them. The rate of minor accidents though seems quite high, and I would see at least one accident every time was out in the city. 

On the highways there seems to be no convention about which lane to be in, so constantly weaving between lanes is the norm, tooting as you come up behind someone to let them know you are there – they may or may not then decide to move over and let you through, eventually. It’s not unusual for a small electric scooter travelling at 40-45 kph to hold up a line of trucks on the inside lane while a car tootles along at a leisurely pace in the outside lane well under the speed limit.

Chinese people are LOUD. They talk loudly anywhere and are not afraid of holding conversations through anyone standing in between. No problem about mobile phones either – apparently you have to shout to be heard at the other end. Outside shops and inside shops, no problem to have blaring music at almost ear damaging levels. Fireworks explode anywhere, any time of day, for people moving into a new house/apartment, a new business opening or just to ward off bad spirits for a  particular occasion.

This picture shows some the diversity of what s happening in
China today - hand carts to businesspeople, pedal power
rickshaws and electric scooters

As a developing country, the disparity between rich and poor is quite apparent. There are people scraping by selling fruit or other goods in the street, living in homes/shops  which look almost like refugee camps meanwhile the sparkling BMWs, Audis and Mercedes seen driving around are housed overnight in secure car-wash-come-lockup garages. There is a also large migration from the country to the cities in search of jobs and a higher standard of living and there are many apartment buildings are going up everywhere to house them.

I’ve found the people to be warm, genuine, friendly and hospitable (with the exception of drivers of various vehicles hanging around railway and bus stations touting for business – but that’s pretty normal). Everywhere I’ve gone I’ve generally managed to do what I needed to do even though the amount of spoken English is almost nil – as is my Mandarin. People have been helpful and generally seem pleased to welcome foreigners to their country.