Between me and China there’s a love-hate relationship. This place can give me the best and the worst days altogether, packed in the same week. Sometimes I curse its guts, sometimes I feel like it is home. It’s a paradox, but actually this paradox-like feeling defines my experience here: it’s all about contrast, and this is how I would define this culture. You can see contrasts everywhere around: luxurious tall glass buildings, fancy malls and expensive clubs and bars, but walk a bit more and you wake up surrounded by slums and poverty, dirty streets and crazy smells. It’s the place where you can walk inside the fanciest coffee bar and the second day in the poorest, creepiest hospital. But I’m not bitching. Ask me to choose between eating in the fancy restaurant or the dirty food street, I would totally go for the dirty food street, God knows what they do to it, but I swear the best taste I got was from the food they sell there. And I hate the fact that one day I’ll go back home and there will be no dirty Chinese food street where I can eat. For me that thought is really disturbing. Also, I’m proud to say I never got any stomach sickness from eating there, or any problems whatsoever. I guess all the spices and hot peppers already killed any hopeless germ or virus that tried to survive.. But let’s continue talking about contrasts: it’s the place where you’ll see a poor-looking woman, half bald, countryside clothed, entering a mall and buying two pairs of shoes that cost as much as your salary for one month. China is full of these newly rich people, that were born and brought up in a poor, modest environment, but through ways I don’t completely understand got filthy rich almost overnight. It’s the place you heard about that they eat dog meat, but where you’ll see people treating their dogs like their children. I’ve never seen so many people appreciating dogs so much. Ask a Chinese, what’s his/her favorite animal, I bet 90% will say dog. Actually I want to bust this myth, in my experience, eating dog meat it’s not a common thing in China. It’s just a province here where people eat all kinds of crazy things, dog meat included. These customs would rather disgust any average Chinese, actually all the people I met here don’t like or agree to this idea, and they’re as disgusted and intrigued as I am. They also have their own volunteers and organizations that go over their heads trying to rescue cats and dogs from this cruel fate, paying from their own pockets, as they get no official support, because the government does not care to make it illegal. It’s also the place where you’ll be treated so nice or as you’re some movie star, just because you’re white and a “waiguoren” ( 外国人 - foreigner) and for the exact same reasons, other times you will be despised and treated like shit. The place where, as a girl, you’ll find the cutest, strangest, weirdest, coolest outfits and accessories, for a quite low price, and yeah, low quality as well. And yes you’ll buy them, because they’re so cute or so cool, and you’ll match them to your ZARA/H&M outfits, and your fashion sense will twist and you’ll start to look like a Western/Asian hybrid, completely losing your original identity and appearance. You’ll proudly wear some outfits on the streets of China, only to go back home for holiday, and be ashamed for buying and bringing that cheap plastic fiber stuff with you. And vice-versa, back to China you’ll start thinking your new Bershka/Pull & Bear outfit makes you look too slutty, daring or boring and you’ll toss it at the back of your wardrobe and never wear it again. The place where wearing an extremely short skirt is normal, where you won’t get a bad eye or any pick-up lines for wearing it, but wearing something semi-transparent or a décolleté would give you the biggest slut stamp. Where you can be 30 or 40 years old and not too old to wear bunny or teddy bear cute pink coats, but way too old to get married. The place where almost any worldwide known brand loses its name’s identity, only to be known for its Chinese name. Ask for a Budweiser or a Carlsberg, for Hello Kitty or Rilakkuma, you’ll only get strange looks. Because here Budweiser is Baiwei 百威, Carlsberg is Jiashibo 嘉士伯, Hello Kitty is Kaidi Mao 凯蒂猫 and Rilakkuma is Ke Ai Qingsong Xiong 可爱轻松熊 (meaning “cute relaxed bear”). It absolutely makes no sense to me, the reason why they twist these names or why people think they can’t remember or pronounce the original name… except some brands like LV, Chanel, McDonald's or KFC. Here Chanel is some sort of god… but well, this is another story! Although big and developed enough, I live in one of the poorest province’s capital city, therefore my experience might differ from what you would get in an average city in China, where people might be more educated or had more contact to western culture. I think maybe my stories will bother some of the readers, especially if they are from this country, but I would like to assure you that by no means do I consider my country to be perfect, an example, or completely superior, and by no means I intend to impose. I’m sure many foreigners living in my country or other countries have felt frustrated, bothered by local customs, behaviors, or found different ideas to be absurd, experienced racism or xenophobia, misconceptions and preconceived ideas. I myself was not aware of many negative or positive aspects of my own country, before meeting and talking to foreigners living there. And to tone things down, I would like to honestly admit, that with all its ups and downs China is among the top 5 countries I would live in. And that while someone would have to force me to eat almost any common/traditional Romanian food, I am willingly eating almost any Chinese food, as long as it doesn’t contain meat (I’m vegetarian). I absolutely love Chinese food, and now I can no longer imagine living my life without it! I’ll be posting whenever I can, or whenever something interesting happens. If you have any similar experience, please share it or if any questions, feel free to ask. No rude or hateful comments will be accepted! The reason why I decided to start this blog is because I want to share my experience with other people that might be interested, and also because over the years I want to remember all the funny things that happened to me and my friends in China. So, welcome to China!
