Cultural Hangups

Coming to China has meant a bit of culture shock, as you would expect. For one thing - smells. China has some serious aromas and odours in the mix. Some of them are good, some of them...

One of the things to contend with has been the language. In the centre of Shanghai you can get away with speaking little or no Chinese, which I think is a bit of a shame, but hey. In ChiFeng, where my hotel was, this was not so much the case. My use of the language was a pretty peaks and troughs affair. From successfully asking for some coathangers for my room, using nothing but Mandarin and charades-quality miming, to accidentally asking a woman in a convenience store to sell me 20 of her cheapest goats - I was aiming for cigarettes but said 'yang' instead of 'yan'. On the plus side the staff at the store seemed entertained as they all stopped working to watch this odd 'laowai' mangle their language.

Not long after that I accidentally tried to buy some poor guy's groceries from him. I said hello and asked how he was and he gestured his bags towards me. I thought he was telling me he wanted to me to buy them so I offered him some money. It was only when his mate came out of the shop as well that I realised I'd been trying to have away with this guy's dinner. At least I was offering a good price...

In general though, my efforts to speak Chinese have been rewarded with many huge grins, laughter, appreciation, bits of advice and, quite often, downright confusion and surprise - not a huge number of westerners actually try to use the language it would seem. So I'm determined to keep on trucking - regardless of the accidental purchasing of farmyard fauna.

If only they'd sold these, I might have got away with it.

The other thing that has been a real adjustment is the price of things over here. Since coming here I've bought a pack of cigarettes for 20元 , which is about £2, and dinner for 7元. The dinner came from a tiny local place near the train station which had a big sign declaring that it had 'passed its hygiene inspection.

Who needs a smiley face?

Dinner consisted of beef and noodles in broth and loads of coriander. I was delicious and, happily, was never seen again - which was a definite concern. The staff were pretty surprised when Derek and I wandered in, especially seeing as Derek is half Cantonese but doesn't speak Mandarin, meaning I ordered for us both. On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at a bakery for dessert and I got short changed. I was just about to say something when I worked out that the difference was about 10p and that if someone felt the need to swipe that, they could go ahead.