How’s life?

I can’t believe it’s nearly two months since I arrived in Beijing. But if you have a routine, time passes quickly. From the first days here, most of my time here has been spent at university classes, studying or attending mandatory events, which I actually appreciate. Starting a new life with no fixed schedule is way more difficult. This way, I had an easy time getting to know people at classes, courses and events. Two months into Beijing, I feel pretty much settled (which is certainly not the same as feeling at home). So is live really that different here?

I feel like there’s no simple answer to that question. First, I’m certainly biased since I already know a good deal of Chinese. Coming here without any knowledge of the language, China is an immense challenge and a culture shock. Whereas in France or Spain, even if you don’t know the language, you’re still be able to 1. read/translate and 2. find people who will be able to help you if you talk English, here you’d be virtually illiterate and deaf-mute.

Language-barrier aside, there a plenty of new things you have to get used to, but then again you’re wondering how fast that process is actually happening. These things include:

1. Smartphone for everything

Still thinking Europe is developed and China is a developing country? Welcome to reality, where I reserve a table, call a taxi to the restaurant, select dishes, send my order and pay without anything but my smartphone and a single app. I can also wash my clothes with an app. I can ride dirt-cheap bicycles at every street corner with an app. I send money to all my friends with an app. I pay my metro ride with an app. I exchange business contacts with an app. Basically, China – or at least its developed coastal cities – are very close to the point where your smartphone replaces every single item you’re carrying in your purse right now. Sure, you’re gonna argue data privacy and police state, and this is indeed a problem in a country where everything is controlled by a single ruling party, but then again, to me these arguments often sound like a lame excuse of rich countries who became too comfortable and lazy to try out new things.

2. Taxi for anywhere

I actually try to avoid this – it often feels decadent and unnecessary to me (and I don’t wanna get the reverse culture shock when forking out 30€ for a 15-minute taxi ride in Berlin). But the truth is, Beijing is so big that despite its relatively good public transport network, it often just takes too long to get somewhere. Furthermore, everything stops running at around 11pm. At the same time, 1km in a taxi costs around 0,28€, making it really hard to opt for other options. Even for Chinese people, this is a good deal – way better than for us in Germany. It also gives you the chance to talk to and not understand Beijing locals mumbling about things.

3. College Life

This is of course rather specific for my situation, you probably wouldn’t live in a student dorm if you came here to work. I’ve been through this before, and even though I like the German model with most students having their own (shared) flats throughout the city more, dormitories have some appeal to them. From a practical perspective, there’s nothing like leaving your room and entering the classroom 5 minutes later. It’s also a lot easier to meet up with university friends spontaneously. And since we’re being spoiled with single rooms, privacy is not a big issue either (my last dorm experience was sharing a small room with a co-student in Taiwan, something I don’t really have to repeat).

4. FOOD

A very positive change indeed. As an ardent worshipper of Asian cuisine, this is heaven. Authentic Chinese food comes in an unimaginable variety (we’re talking about a huge country with over 1 billion inhabitants after all) at ridiculous prices. For that reason, and because cooking in a common area without your own pots and pans is annoying, I don’t do any food or drinks myself here (except coffee, because the Chinese notion of that usually includes too much sugar and too little espresso). The social importance of food and eating in China is a lot higher in general, with having dinner together being everyone’s favorite pastime. If you’ve never experienced real Chinese food (definitely not the one you’re getting at a “All-you-can-eat” buffet), try googling “Hot Pot” and see if there are places nearby serving it.

There are two things that I find a bit unnerving, and these will probably stay with me during my time here. One is Beijing as a city. It certainly has its interesting aspects – history, politics, the small Hutong alleys in its center – but for the most part, Beijing is a gigantic pancake with congested roads. It’s as pedestrian friendly as a formula 1 racetrack and getting somewhere not your neighborhood is a big mental effort. The concept of public space is quite new in China, more so in its ever paranoid political center Beijing, where the city planning up into the 20^th century was deliberately carried out so that there would be no places where people could gather (and possibly scheme or revolt). While other Chinese cities slowly try out things such as public green areas or pedestrian areas (that usually resemble open-air malls), Beijing seems to remain true to its modern-era roots, which are big streets and enclosures. While the latter luckily is a rare sight in Europe, Beijingers love to enclose just about everything. Gated communities obviously, but why not enclosing the university? Hell, why not enclosing the PUBLIC park? I’d really like to know the reason, contemporary China is a fairly safe place, so security is not a major concern. Maybe it’s just reminiscing the Great Wall? Anyways, it gives the city the look and feel of a very efficient but dead place where public space is merely the necessary vehicle to take you from your office job to the shopping mall.

The second thing has to do with the people here and again, I was prepared for it so I’m not too surprised. Good things first, I like the people here and haven’t had problems with locals at all, many of them are in fact super nice. That being said, making friends (in the sense of building a meaningful relationship) with Chinese proves to be extremely difficult, and not just because of the language barrier. I can say that because I know foreign born Chinese people who speak the language perfectly and still struggled to connect with people when they were staying in their parents homecountry. I’m sure there are exceptions, but generally speaking, foreigners hang out with foreigners or with Chinese that have had strong western influence in their lives, e.g. studying or living abroad for a while. This is quite sad but probably unpreventable given the vast cultural gap. Through language and deliberate isolation, most Chinese live in a huge, fluffy bubble, full of cheesy pop ballads, food and TV dramas and mostly devoid of things that we would call mature or earnest, like political debate, complex movies or art in general. I know I’m walking a thin line, especially in big cities like Beijing all this is available even without having to circumvent state censorship, and in the West there are also tons of people who don’t care about the latter things. Proportionately however, I’d say there are huge differences. Generally speaking, the Chinese perspective on the world is pragmatic and materialistic. Why wasting your time pondering politics when you can’t change them anyways? What matters is personal success – traditionally defined as getting a well-paid job, a befitting partner and the best education for your kids. I assume that this will change, as it did in other countries who were becoming wealthy, but that is a matter not of years but generations. In the meantime, we can consider ourselves lucky that many German brands count as status symbols for which Chinese are willing to pay crazy amounts of money just to show that they can afford them.