Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I greatly like writing them and less like leaving my notepad in Wuhan with at least three finished posts that i cant remember to rewrite. But now we are in Beijing, Annett the master klutz managed to flick her glasses off her head with her own finger, smashing the lens which we have to wait 4 days to be replaced. But it turns out the roads and train are still closed because of the weather, so we have no choice but to wait it out or buy a 200eur flight. I think we’ll do a little of both.

Anyway:

1. China’s freaking huge

Hands up who didn’t pay attention in geography class (raises hand) . Its mindbogglingly huge. China’s that playground kid who does share his toys, is there any possible reason why a country should be this big? I know you and the Mongolians have been noisy neighbours in the past, but why not show them a little love baring in mind 90% of their country is uninhabitable anyway due to the cold. Or give me a little land down near Thailand so I can open my long planned ‘Pieland’ the worlds first pie encrusted country. As ask any English man, nothings as good as when its in a pie.

Just crossing a small fraction of China the colossus is mind-numbingly painful. Want to hop to the next city? No problem sir, you can take the train that will just take 76hrs. I’ve heard of long-distance trains, night trains, china has going to rob you of your entire youth trains. They’re not journeys, they’re full blown pilgrimages.

2. Labour costs are looowwww in china

No wonder everything in the world is made here. There’s an astounding amount of people employed to manage a task here. Do you really need 8 people to run that hotdog stand? I see you’ve had to add a layer of hierarchy and employ a manger wearing a slightly better uniform just to keep track of whose turn it is to rotate the hotdog next. I’m not an economist but is it wise to have your staff outnumbering your product? I used to have a only shop in places where the customers outnumber the staff rule in Europe. Here that would mean I could shop in my bed, and the shower.

To put things in perspective I was told that the average wage for a hotel worker where we were staying in Xian was 600rmb, or 60eur a month. At that rate you can see why they have so many staff everywhere, human labour is a negligible cost.

3. Its cold in winter

I’m not sure how it is normally, but Annett and I arrived full of optimistic smiles and tshirts smack bang into the middle of the worst Chinese weather for 50years. The country has ground to a halt. Imagine China is so hungry every-ones about to eat their own fingers, then someone announced there’s a train sized loaf of bread just pulled into the train station, then you’ll have some of the idea of the chaos that awaited us at Xian train station, it felt like the city was being evacuated. Today was a warm record for our trip so far, 0′c and our first glimpse of the sun in two weeks. Our minibus skidded twice in a circle on the motorway back from the Terracotta Warriors, we luckily missed the central reservation but passed at least 5 cars who weren’t so lucky. This bus I managed to get a picture of managing to miss its bridge:

I’ve experienced brain freeze whilst eating ice cream, but here you can randomly get it walking down the street. The result is momentary bewilderment and a questioning of why the hell you came to China in the first place when there are so many places not located in the frozen section of the world supermarket.

4. Chinese people are lacking in our idea of interpersonal skills

Who just burped in my ear? Ah thanks guy behind me in the queue, but I didn’t order any dessert. As I said in the bus post, these guys are a torrent of odours and saliva, if there’s a hole that something can come out of it will with great frequency everywhere you go in China, there is no notion of privacy here.

5. You haven’t driven until you’ve driven in China

The whole country’s one big banger race. Its just a destruction derby and don’t worry innocent pedestrians you can play too! The red/man green man guide is just a system to help line up the pedestrians into groups to make it easier for passing buses to mow them all down without having to swerve. When driving the horn is your voice, your lover, your battle cry it can say anything from “good day sir”  to “coming through” to “get out of the fucking way” to “i’m going to kill you skinny white man, oh yeas I am, just watch me!”. Car doors open only to allow car drivers to spit more easily, as taxi drivers don’t appear to ever get out of their taxis judging by the smell and trash, except maybe to kill or mame fellow drivers not following the horn blowing rules.

But even more amazingly, in some sort of chaos theory, anarchic way it sort of works. Everyone is expecting the unexpected at all times, and they can react to the ever changing mess of cars and pedestrians wriggling around in-front of them. Nothing quite grinds to a halt despite the tidal wave of people at every street corner waiting to come crashing into the six lane wide road the second there is a glimmer of space.

6. The food is actually not that bad.

Sure if you want to you can swim out the “here be monsters” deep end of Chinese cuisine, to find such delights as sheeps face, fish head, dog etc etc. But actually sticking to menus that have pictures I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the food, perhaps a year of German “chinese food” has helped in lowering my expectations. We only made one mistake ordering “crude chicken” from one English menu. I hoped it was just the translation that was crude, but oh no jackpot time, i’ve had ago at guessing the recipe:

1. Take whole chicken (dead or alive)

2. Fry chicken

3. Add Spit, belch and fart as required for flavouring.

4. Fry some more (actually a lot more)

5. Remove and throw against wall

6. Scoop up shattered chicken parts and serve

I held my first whole fried chickens head in the grip of my disbelieving chopsticks. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t have the balls to eat walters head  (he has a face, so its only right he have a name), or even feet. But I did pick away at what other part of walters body scared me the least.

7. Chinas not an easy place to travel in

- You want to host the Olympic what now? hahaha I thought you said Olympics for a minute there! I have absolutely no faith that they can manage the olympics, from what I’ve seen from the bus nightmare they can barely manage a bridge. They speak the least english of anywhere I’ve ever been, most of the time asking for help will result in people just laughing in your face. Their interpersonal habits would only win a medal in the “least welcoming to the western world” event. There’s just no space here for the estimated 6m people who will come to Beijing for the Olympics, at present they have 600,000 beds available. Its the heart of off-season here, sometimes we don’t see a westerner for days yet the basic things like booking train tickets, finding taxis, finding anyone who can help us with anything, negotiating the purchase of orange juice is bafflingly difficult. Chinese people are not unfriendly, but at the same not exactly all hugs and kisses either and I’ve lived in Germany for a year, I’m comfortable resting my head on a cold shoulder.

8. I still really like it here and would recommend it.

Its hard. Its nowhere near relaxing.  You wont make friends for life. The weathers harsh. But everything here is an experience. Usually a hard experience. But isn’t that what we signed up for? This place is a riot, its endlessly surprising, challenging, shocking, entertaining and for rare moments when it shows its real face to you, when the sun is shining even breathtaking.

I’m glad we did it first, everything will be easier after backpacking in China, I just hope it doesn’t feel too easy.