What Fortune Cookies Don't Tell You

Living in Beijing is weird. Awesome and weird. Most days I flipflop between humiliated and euphoric, depending on how my conversations in Mandarin go. Home may be on the flipside of the world, but walking in this city I sometimes forget I’m in China. After all, this is a city like others I know—with a great public transportation system (Boston and DC should be ashamed), shiny new skyscrapers, McDonald’s, Starbucks, H&M and Ikea. In my neighborhood, even the stuff I was warned about—like losing my personal space, rampant spitting on the street, and babies wearing pants with a slit cut in the bottom instead of diapers—are not ubiquitous phenomena.

Ok, maybe the spitting is.

All that said, after three months here, the oddness of watching the third and first worlds coexist hasn't worn off—it’s a perpetual reminder of where I am. Tuktuks share the street with Rolls Royces and Audis, city workers sweep the sidewalks with old-world bamboo brooms in front of high-end modern malls, and the absence of safety measures we take for granted in the US is obvious—picture a three-person family on one scooter, the baby wedged between the adults, and no helmets on scene. About a month ago I watched city workers use a backhoe to dig a massive hole in a narrow street jammed with pedestrians. With no cautionary cones, netting or tape, people walked within inches of the hole and the (spastically operated) machine and nobody flinched.

Construction in the street. Hard hats are for sissies.

Another thing: you can buy a hefty, super delicious snack from a cart on the street for less than a dollar while standing in front of a restaurant that serves $11 western-style appetizers that are probably lame renditions of the food we know—I’m still hunting for a decent bagel.

All 7,000 miles between here and home really stand out when I have to talk to someone. How much is that zucchini? What’s the Mandarin word for zucchini? Now I’m just a stunned white woman pointing at a vegetable and trying out Mandarin nouns that might mean zucchini. Sometimes, when I’m alone, I relive the high-flying moment when, at the grocery store, I flawlessly asked if I could use a credit card and understood the clerk when she said yes.

What’s interesting is that even conversations in English can be baffling—the words make sense but the concepts are alien. Rather than unpack those big cultural differences that explode my brain, I made a list of the small stuff that caught me by surprise when I got here.

At the store/supermarket you must have your produce weighed and stickered before you go to the register to pay. There is typically an attendant who mans a scale for this purpose. Yes, I have gone to the register without doing this and it was embarrassing.
Supermarkets don’t have baggers—most shoppers bring their own bags. If you don’t have a bag you ask for one and pay for it.
When crossing the street, you must look both ways, regardless of which way traffic is supposed to be going—scooterists and bicyclists often drive the wrong way and are treacherously silent on approach.
Red lights are more suggestions than commands, and sometimes you have to walk into the street with cars coming at you in order to have a shot at crossing at all. A terrifying game of chicken ensues, during which you should ice the oncoming cars with a murder-stare and keep walking like a boss. Sometimes you have to run for your life.
Horn honking is liberal, but not in the “screw you, bastard!” way. More in the “hello hello I’m coming up behind you/you’re about to hit me” way.
Prices are often negotiable here. I am a bad, bad bargainer. Vendors sometimes laugh at my Mandarin.
Service staff at restaurants are apathetic across the board. Unlike the US, where feelings/personality are part of the experience, servers here don’t have time for that. Need something? Wave your hand and yell “fuwuyuan!” (foo-woo-you-ann, which means "server") Nobody finds this offensive, and if you just sit quietly and hope someone comes to help you, a la the US, you may never eat. This is my favorite part of Chinese living.
Napkins are not deemed important here. If you need them at a restaurant you usually have to ask for them, and then they’re just kleenex or paper towels cut up into tiny squares. Relatedly, using your hands to eat is perceived as dirty. Also relatedly, public bathrooms usually don’t have toilet paper in the stall. Sometimes there’s a big roll by the door that you’re supposed to hit up before entering the stall, but I always forget this step until it’s too late. It’s usually smart to pack some in your pocket or bag just in case.
Iced/cold drinks are not big with the local population, so you have to specify if you want a cold beer versus a warm/room temp beer. Even then, definitions of “cold” are different between Chinese and Americans. The other day we had lunch at a restaurant that chilled their bottled soda and beer in the decorative fountain outside. Good company for the koi.
Fortune cookies aren't a thing here—in fact, Wikipedia claims they were first served by a Japanese man in California. China had nothing to do with it.

Seafood at the market, because I can't stop taking photos of it.

Little lifestyle differences—maybe more than big ones—make me wonder what it’s like to be a Chinese visitor in, say, Ohio. Sure, it’s sometimes tough being a foreigner here, but at least menus have pictures on them and signs all over the city are in both Mandarin and English. Relatively speaking, I’ve got it good.

That's all for now, more brilliant cultural analysis to come.

One more thing: