haonowshaokao

Meatbreak asked “How big does China seem when you’re actually in it?

Strangely enough, not as big as I thought. I live in a city of immigrants from all over China and they all seem to return home from time to time with little fuss. Something like 95% of Chinese are from the same ethnic group – Han – and while they have many different dialects they all speak Putonghua – “common-speech”, or “Mandarin” as we know it. For these reasons society seems fairly uniform, and I feel familiar with two thirds of the country though I’ve seen virtually none of it. Not only have I not left Guangdong province while I’ve been here, I haven’t been to the capital (Guangzhou) or even the next town (Zhongshan). My view of the country is therefore a little skewed right now. Once I’ve traveled across to Beijing by train, boat and plane I hope to have a more coherent picture of what is out there.

More questions are welcome – just leave a comment here.

handsofstone asked “What do they call Chinese restuarants over there? just “restaurants” or is there a special name?”

There isn’t a special name. Of the staggering number of places to eat in this city less than 1% are non-Chinese, probably significantly less. Not counting KFC or McDonalds I can think of six. “Western food” tends to be expensive, flavourless and artificial and I’ve given up on it. They just don’t have the ingredients or the cultural knowledge to make authentic “western” food, mainly because there is no such thing as “authentic western food”.
“Chinese food,” meanwhile, means as little here as “European food” means in England. There are as many differences between Sichuan and Cantonese cuisine as there are between Italian and German – it’s something like a whole continent of eatin’. The Chinese restaurants back home are about as authentic as the “western” ones here, or maybe even less so.
As for what you literally call them, restaurants are such a part of life here that you don’t really talk about them at all. It’s fair to assume that someone is eating in a restaurant for any given meal so you just ask “have you eaten?” and no more usually needs to be said. “Have you eaten?” is even usually used instead of “how are you”.
A conversation where you’d need to know the word for “restaurant” is one a little too complex for my level of spoke Chinese. Apparently a can’guan or fàn’guan is a “public restaurant” and a fàndiàn is a hotel restaurant. If only I could just glance at these words and remember them.
On the subject, this is just a little under the standard of translation I expect now, and even makes a little sense to me.
All this writing is making me hungry.

lonelydandelion asked “What does it smell like there? Oh, and what is the light like?”

The first part of this is surprisingly hard. In general, China smells a lot. Most cities are landlocked with traffic jams and factories and have thick smog. If I lived in Chongqing, for example, I would probably have lost my sense of smell within weeks of arriving. Other Asian cities smell of sewage, though this isn’t as bad as it sounds as you soon get used to it.
My city, on the other hand, is different. There are lots of parks, not so many factories, and the sewage is pumped directly into the Pearl River. Many other smells are blown away into the sea. All the same, there are a few I can identify – the fishy reek of the harbour and the market, the burnt meat smoke blowing over from the street barbeques and, of course, the disgusting odour that comes from occasional piles of rubbish in the streets. Mainly, though, I can smell food – Cantonese food, Sichuan food, Xian food, fried noodles, fried rice, steamed dumplings… The base level of most buildings includes a couple of restaurants and the kitchens aren’t hidden away at the back.
Smells are very evocative, and I’m still here. Once I’ve leave and come back I’m sure there will be a thousand others to add to this list. Right now it all just seems normal.
As for the light, it’s bright. On a hot day, with the sun high in the sky, I can’t walk around without screwing up my eyes. I suppose I should buy some sunglasses. As I can’t see colours properly the qualities of light are substantially different to me. There isn’t a great deal of contrast – no long shadows. It’s just light, then it’s not so light, then it’s fairly dark.

I want to write about life in China but I don’t know where to start.
Could you all please ask me some questions that I can answer at length.
All you lurking people – you can ask me something by leaving a comment here.