Top Ten Things You Must Do to Experience China
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2005
1
13
21
Trip End
May 15, 2006
Dalian, China
Thursday, August 25, 2005
1. Buy a bootleg DVD while the movie is still out in theaters. If you're lucky you might even get caught up in an undercover police raid.
2. Push and shove your way through a chaotic line at McDonald's or on packed bus of sweaty, smelly people. There are lines at the grocery stores and other more modern places like shopping malls; however, if you leave too much space, someone is likely to cut in front of you. This phenomenon is likely to have been caused during the Cultural Revolution. During that era, masses of people crowded food distribution centers in order to receive their communal rations. A lack of available resources and an abundant population left many Chinese to fight over the bare minimum.
3. Try eating a delicacy that you have never eaten before. This menu might include silkworm, chicken hearts, dog meat, snake meat, scorpion and more. In Dandong I ate dog meat for the first time. I guess my curiosity killed the cat, or shall I say the dog?
4. Watch a movie at a two-star rated movie theater. Inside these theaters it is quite common to hear people talking in their normal speaking voice or having a conversation on their cell phone.
5. Take the taxi, bus, and motorcycle taxi at least once. Taxi drivers honk their horns religiously as they comb through busy streets. During the busy hours, buses are filled with people packed in like sardines. If you don't make your way towards the exit, you might miss your stop. Motorcycle taxis are quite an interesting alternative. Get on a motorcycle and strap yourself behind a man you barely know and he will take you anywhere you want to go.
6. Jaywalk across a cluttered street filled with unyielding taxis and motorist. Be sure to stay in between the lanes as speeding cars pass by you. Jaywalking in China has become more popular than the Macarena.
7. Smoke Chinese cigarettes until your lungs are as charred as a Shanghai skyline. (Note: Due to its rapid development over the past two decades, China now has six of the top ten most polluted cities in the world)
8. Play cards, mah jong, or Chinese chess until 2 in the morning on a sidewalk underneath a dimly lit streetlight or a smoke-filled restaurant. Be sure to cuss real loudly and act upset as you slam your cards on the table.
9. Taking a number two while squatting down in a restroom, preferably with a lack of ventilation or stall doors. Interestingly enough, Chinese people prefer to do their duty this way at public facilities. They believe that sitting on a toilet seat that has been used repeatedly is unhygienic. And we thought we were the civilized ones.
10. Get married, have one child, and spoil the crap out of your kid.
