ONLY IN CHINA...

Everyone warned us: China is a... special place. So we kind of knew, but still had no idea just how different Chinese culture is from... well, all others. All of these statements aren't specific to China, or isn't happening in the whole country, but these were the things we encountered so many times we started to see a pattern.

Read and be aghast:


1. PEOPLE STARE like crazy. If you are white, latino, african, a mixture of all... i.e not Chinese, many people stare like you were really an alien.

"That white girl is taking photos of me..." 

2. ...Following on the same theme, I think there is not many places in the world where you "accidentally" are in the background of peoples selfies as many times as you are in China. We tried to go out of the picture when we saw someone in front of us taking selfies - only to have the lens following us until the photographer wasn't even in the picture anymore...

But who can blame them? We are beautiful...

3. Welcome to a world where not even the simplest English words are known, like food, bus or help. at least nowhere of the parts of Hunan province we visited.


4. ...But even so, people are very very eager to help you.


5. Only here will you be approched by people saying "I saw you, I think you are beautiful, I want to be your friend!" and mean it sincerly.

One "where do you come from?" and we got ourselves three excelent guides. 

6. ...Or being handled a kid and be asked in Chinese to smile more for the photo this stranger is just taking of you. And, even more hysterical, then other people who doesn't know either me or the kid start to take photos of us as well. Why do you want a picture of not only a stranger foreigner but a stranger kid on your phone?


7. Did you ever hear about the spitting? You know the sound of someone dragging mucus up all the way from their stomage? You're welcome for the image.


8. WE SAW A KID TAKE A DUMP ON THE STREET. ON LIKE... A NORMAL STREET WITH SHOPS AND BUSES AND TREES AND STUFF. And it wasn't like an orphan outside of society or something. His mother stood right next to him.


9. Speaking of kids and hygiene, WHY does kids have a big tear between the buttcheeks of their trousers? PLEASE SOMEONE TELL US.

Also, these baskets are for carrying children. ...WHY? 

10. And speaking of public... dumping, we saw countless of men take a whizz alongside the streets. Again, PUBLIC big streets. Aren't there laws for that?


11. AND SPEAKING OF PEE, why does elevators smells like someone has done exactly that in the corner?


12. I saw a lot of women private parts while visiting public bathrooms in China. People doesn't really seem to mind, and often you could see women sitting and pooping on squat toilets with an open door while playing candy crush.


13. Every block in Beijing is one kilometer long. Jonathan was about to loose it when we were dragging our suitcase "only one block more" in Beijing heat after 24 hours on a train.


14. (Hopefully) only in China do people think it's a good idea to serve dog as a course on a restaurant. (We didn't happen upon that, but we did eat some strange colored meat so who knows...)

But China did provide us with some marvelous 5 ¥ dumplings 

that was so utterly delicous we came back four times to the same place ...

15. The policy to only have one child. It was recently changed to "if you're an only child, you can have two kids yourself" but still. The government decides about your future family.


16. Not the only country to have this, but certainly one of few: the Google and Facebook-ban. Sure, Facebook could be used to start a revolution, but Google? It's basically only the finder of the sites that can be bad for grown adults to see (like porn. Adults should really not be exposed to sex or god knows what can happen...); but we aren't suppose to shoot the messenger.


17. When people are waiting on the streets or in public places, they have a tendency to instead of leaning against a wall sit in squat position.


18. They also tend to intake that position when it's photo-taking-time.

Picture borrowed from this page.

19. The misspelled, misleading, misplaced but absolutely hilarious texts on T-shirts, like "You iss very love dreams for ever you" or such, or just the more straight forward "Pervert" spelled all over the boobarea of a fourteen years old girl. "I'm a phlastic toy" on a little boys back was also a favorite.

Only place in this world where this T-shirt is in style 

20. After a while, you know there will be language differences. So you start to be extra clear.And then you get responded with "Yeah. I understand!" and you back off, thinking you were prejuice and that this person is actually understanding you - only to get your latte without any espresso at all when you thought you were clear with wanting it SUPERstrong... #Coffeeaddictproblems


21. We didn't pass one town or even smaller city that wasn't under a massive build-boom.

Tiny Zhangjiajie on the map is really BIG CITY Zhangjiajie in reality

22. Did we mention the line skipping? They actually doesn't have a line system to begin with, more like a massive deathrace since if there is a line, even a fenced one, people will still push and push and sneak their way passed when it's humanly impossible to push more.

A somewhat civilized line. Until we actually came to the ticket booth... 

23. The weirdest thing might be that when you are in front of a ticket sale booth window, you have to be quick as hell just to get to pay your tickets, because people will use the exit ile of the line to skipp their way through, put in the money and get their ticket before everyone. No, this is not the wierdest part - it's that the people selling tickets just doesn't care and let it happen.


24. We didn't even knew so many people could be on the same planet, let alone in one country. People. Eveeerywhere. No kidding.

101 on how to take pictures in China: 

 1. Be taller than everyone else 

25. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think this product would sell very well in Europe...

SPF130. ++++... 

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That's about the surface of what we experenced and was confused with in the land of the dragon.
If we have forgotten anything, or if you have a personal experience to share about China, we wan't to hear about it in the comments!