I think in order to tell about my experience in China, I need to give some context surrounding life in Hong Kong. Gathering from the many bizarre inquisitions or generalizations I have received from friends back home it's clear to me that people think I live in either rural China or Japan. I am constantly fielding any one of the following questions: Do you eat dog? Does everyone wear little pointy straw hats? Does everyone have a rice field? Does everyone spit there? Has anyone ever seen a foreigner there? It's not dissimilar to the stereotypes of horse riding and cow raising I have to correct having been raised in rural Texas. (NO, I didn't own cows and I can't ride a horse.) Fair enough, technically on paper, I guess I do live in China, but it's not what you think.
Hong Kong is an incredibly evolved city whose literal face continually changes and is molded by the effects of capitalism on a daily basis. What is here today, will be gone and replaced with new luxury lofts tomorrow. The city is highly influenced by its former British colonialism and has a subtle air of country club sophistication to it. Out of the 7,000,000 people that call Hong Kong home, around 55,000 of those are of European decent. Those 55,000 have brought with them a piece of home: eateries, restaurants, specialty food and clothing stores, wine bars, gym facilities, schools, etc. All which have played part in establishing a strong foreign community, therein, making it fairly easy to feel at home in a foreign land.
Although one certain style is hard to pinpoint in Hong Kong since everyone seems to be from every corner of the universe, the dress is mostly very neat and fairly chic. One of my favorite games is guessing people's nationality based on their clothing, I've gotten pretty good! People in the MTR (subway, metro, underground) are numerous and in a hurry. As with any metropolis, everyone ignores one another and quietly goes about their day for the morning/afternoon work rush.
The quality of air in Hong Kong is not the most fresh I've ever experienced in life. According to the AQI (air quality index) as of 12:00 this afternoon, Hong Kong had an "unhealthy for sensitive groups" rating of 101. That indicates the amount of pollutants found in a certain amount of air, for example: in sunny clear San Diego the AQI is a low 46. In NYC's it's surprisingly low at 55.
It's really no wonder the pollution is elevated here, Hong Kong has plenty of unregulated carbon dioxide spewing vehicles that traverse it's roads and oceans alike: buses, cars, mini buses, taxis, ferries, junk boats, shipping junkers, cruise ships, etc. It is, in fact, host to the largest shipping hub on the planet and has multiple ferries carrying commuters to the various outer lying islands, hourly. The toxicity of the traffic on the ocean is just as bad, if not worse than on land. The growth of commercialism and population comes at the expense of the earth. This is apparent in the light haze that sometimes hangs around Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is very comfortable for Westerners, while simultaneously retaining a very delightful Chinese lite side to it. Sitting here in a hostel in Mainland China, I do very much mean Chinese lite. Hong Kong is not a Chinese straight up on the rocks, it merely has drops of Chinese diffused into its cultural martini. Yes: everything is in Chinese (Cantonese), everyone speaks either Cantonese or Mandarin and I have experienced "weird" things like: shirtless men smoking cigarettes while butchering meat in the open air, aged women pushing weighted carts of flattened cardboard boxes for great lengths, dogs doing their business while owners wash it away with bottles of water, and the many oddities of the dried fish/squid/sea urchin/mystery meat market.
Experiencing all these Chinese lite characteristics of Hong Kong fooled me into thinking I'd be totally prepared for a visit to mainland China. I'm terribly embarrassed to say I was pretty off the mark on how prepared I was. Here are the following ways in which I was thrown off guard.
#1 Noise and IRL Pollution
I was listening to lowfi beats in my head phones when the DJ turned the volume 180 degrees to the right and switched to Led Zepplin as I entered the scene of my first public transport ride in Xi'an. My MTR car was packed with permed up, floral print wearing, late 60's, jazzed about life ladies. It was like walking into an unruly court room where defendants, jury members, and judges alike were yelling utter nonsense and wildly gesticulating, all while flaunting the most intense grandma style hard floral patterns.
After a few rides in the MTR, my tensions relaxed as I realized I happened to have hopped on the single most crazy train coming into Xi'an. For the most part, everyone seemed to be chill - I happened upon the sole geriatric train in the city that gave no fucks about noise level. There were chili bowl cut as fashion statements, and I'm here for it. Love the Beatles. The only thing I had a hard time getting past was the pungent body odor I regularly got slapped in the nose with. I do mean odor. It was a very interesting mix of gas fumes, sweat, garlic, and stale cigarettes with a slight tinge of beer.
The traffic in the city itself was absolute insanity. It was such that, I gave traffic in Xi'an a gold medal in both categories of noise *and* actual pollution.
The volume of the traffic in Xi'an was intense and constant. The thousands of vehicles that sprawled the streets vehemently and liberally utilized their horns. I have to say, although loud and annoying, the honking was incredibly useful in determining the proximity of a vehicle. No one actually gave a damn about following any traffic laws in general. I often found myself next to a honking car taking a short cut via the sidewalk. (My favorite was when the driver would gesture or look at me like I was imposing on him. BY BEING ON A SIDEWALK.) I also witnessed mopeds, bikes, cars, etc going against traffic, or using pedestrian crosswalks/sidewalks to get from A to B. That was fun.
#2 Staring, Spitting
I have to say, I was quite pleasantly surprised and pleased about the manner in which I was stared at in China. Nothing prepares a girl more for being lustfully stared at than having lived in Spain. However, the staring I experienced in China, was neither lustful, nor solely by men. It came from a sense of shock, surprise, or awe from...everyone. People of European descent are few and far between in Xi'an and it only makes sense that a single blonde bobbing around millions of black hairs can be quite unusual. I loved the children's reactions the most. Their raw unadulterated emotions were blatantly displayed on their faces which encompassed either pure elation (clapping, laughing, waving) or pure fear (crying, running, shock).
Speaking of children, I have to say I wasn't prepared for the level that Xi'an society has taken upon themselves to make defecating in public incredibly easy and acceptable for kids. A lot of kids, essentially, wear pants with no crotches that have the ability to split down the middle so that it's easier to use the bathroom wherever they please. Seriously. It's incredibly efficient if you're two and you need to pee, regardless of location. However, it's incredibly shocking if you're a foreigner and you witness a child peeing in a museum.
Peeing is not the only form of fluid release the population of Xi'an is fond of doing in public. I can't even tell you how many times I had to dodge snot and or spit rockets. I'm not even sure these people naturally produce that much phlegm, but they definitely made their biggest efforts to decorate their streets with it.
#3 Squatters
Squatter toilets were just not really on my list of things to mentally prepared myself for while visiting China, but they should have been. For anyone who is confused, I'm talking about the toilets that are just holes in the ground. The ones that require immaculate aim and control. There are in a few places that still have squatter toilets in Hong Kong, but they are always accompanied by western toilets and sanitized/cleaned regularly.
It was a horrible horrible joke that someone played on me that the only method of waste excretion in public was via squatter toilet. They're horrible. I don't care if they're more natural for bowel movements, they're horrible. They smell like piss and they're slippery wet with piss.
Maybe I'm just bitter that 95% of my own piss ends up on my ankle instead of the intended target. It's never cool feeling like an amateur.
#4 Smog. Dirt.
I was not prepared for the level of air pollution. Do you remember in the beginning where I talked about Hong Kong having an AQI of 101? NYC 55? San Diego 46? Xi'an's AQI blew all of them out of the water with having a rate of 434 and "hazardous" as of this morning at 11AM. The light haze in Hong Kong does not hold a candle to the brown blanket that veils Xi'an. It is all encompassing and incredibly hard to ignore.
The sad thing is walking around the city knowing that what I am seeing would be completely different if the smog were not present. One can't help but focus on the fact that it's not cloudy outside, it's just the way China looks now, or the fact that there are inches of dirt/pollution covering every surface that doesn't disappear after a hard rain. And.... I get it....China is in fierce competition in a new global/dating market where young, fresh, emerging countries are dominating the market. Unfortunately, They're just ruining themselves and let's be honest, the rest of the Earth.
Saying that, I'm not ignorant to the role the Western world plays in all this. China produces all this disgust as a result of a demand of cheap labor on finished material goods, mostly exported to the West. China is providing a service that no other country is willing to take on themselves financially. Factories get by with a lot: low wages, long hours and terrible working conditions for their workers, along with minimal regulations for environmental standards for factories in their carbon emissions. All of which comes at a price: The pollution gets so high people have to stay inside treated air environments, skipping work or school like it was a snow day. Lately people have been entering raffles to win bags of "fresh mountain air" since the air in their city is so heavily polluted. People regularly commit suicide, as it would be seemingly easier to die than work another 36 hour shift putting I-Phones together. Factory workers have even literally worked themselves to death, expiring on factory lines and going hours unnoticed.
Will I be returning to Mainland China? To keep things simple, probably not. I had a really good learning experience, but I also work too long of hours to take vacations that add to my mounting stress rather than take away from it.
