10 things I didn`t know about China

Samuel Gustavsson
Sep 9, 2018 · 5 min read

After living in China for more than a month I have seen a few things which I did not expect so I have compiled this list.

1) Dancing grannies

One of the groups outside my window

Every evening all year round older women get together in groups and dance in the streets for hours. I had not heard about this before I got here and I got goosebumps during my first encounter with this phenomena because it felt like a really good idea to hang out and keep in shape. In my neighbourhood (within a 200-metre radius) we have 3–4 of these dance groups every evening. Some more confident groups even have matching dresses and advanced choreographies and they do it in more public places with an audience while others, more shy ladies, meet up in darker corners and I have seen them use video tutorials to learn the dance moves. Men are unfortunately not welcome…

2) Camouflaged speakers

In parks, around school campus and the garden of my apartment complex they have placed speakers camouflaged as rocks that play music sometimes (I have not yet figured out the schedule for when they play music or not) so you walk around surrounded by Chinese music coming from several directions. I think it is a very nice idea and enjoy the music when it is on.

3) No vegetarians

Vegetarian noodles with ham on top

Many local restaurants have not heard of vegetarians here and have difficulties to understand the concept. Even if I tell them very carefully through my phone translator that I do not eat meat they often add some kind of meat anyway. Sometimes just some pork on top like a spice or they add chicken because they do not consider it meat since it is a bird or something like that.

4) English names

Since Chinese names are difficult to write and pronounce for foreigners they can choose — or their parents or a teacher choose — their own English name. Most popular are short and simple names like Mike, Echo, Sky, Jack, Sunny, Angela, Kevin, Olivia and Lily and some funny examples from my school are Cars (yes, in plural), Robot, Steam, Queen, MacQueen, King, Tiger, Chanel…

5) Shop combinations

Treatments inside the shops

They often combine products and services here in a way I was not used to. The cosmetic shops do treatments inside the shop next to the products. The music shops offer instrument lessons. The toy stores offer to babysit so it is like a kindergarten and the pet stores offer vaccinations and haircuts. It makes sense sort of but in Europe, we separate these things.


6) Pollution

Yep, I knew about it, but since I had not been here before I moved here I could not imagine how it was to permanently live in a polluted environment. The air is everywhere outside but inside we have air purifiers if we are lucky. Some days are better than others and the pollution weather is more important for us than normal weather when we plan day trips and so on. It also comes down with the rain so much of the food and water have pollution particles in them…

7) Naked male bellies

Young man showing his belly in a public place (West Lake)

Sure, I have seen this in Europe at times also at rare occasions and I agree that it feels good to get a fresh breeze on my six pack when I am sweaty but I was still surprised how common it is here for men to roll up their shirt in public places. I don’t see it often while shopping or in business contexts so it seems to be a thing for leisure walks. Similarly to the dancing grannies, I have impulses to join these trends every now and then but only do it in less public places.

8) Package deliveries

We order things online in China (even more than in Europe) so you end up getting several deliveries each week and at times several per day. Bigger, heavier things and the food is delivered to the door when you are home but smaller packages they put in a hive box within your apartment complex and send you an SMS with a code. You input the code in the hive and you can find your package inside the door which opens. I like it because you do not have to communicate (especially in Chinese) with the delivery man about which time you are home and it is located 30 metres from your building so I usually pick them up on my way back from walking the dog.

9) Living animals in children games

A game with living baby turtles

We were shocked to see that they have living animals in the indoor amusement parks in shopping malls. Children catch baby turtles in games, catch fishes in big aquariums and paint baby turtles backs. The whole thing with these huge loud game rooms almost made it to this list as well because I have never seen anything like it.

10) Mobile phone usage

Mobile phone charging station

Mobile phones are used much more in China than in other places I have been. We use the phone to order things, taxis, flights, trains, food… — you name it. And many people use them to watch tv, films and play games also so the normal battery time is often not enough. Many people use mobile chargers and you can find charging stations in different shapes and sizes everywhere.

Samuel Gustavsson

Written by

A Swede in China - - Education, Music & Life - - Head of Music @ International School in Hangzhou

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