A story by Matthew Ohrvall
The Chinese sure do know how to live. They help people in need: we had a lady from our group fall on the ground and about 5 Chinese people helped her up. They are also some of the rudest people I have met. They push, shove, yell, pull, cut, spit, and do all sorts of other type of things that you could live without. There were a number of times when we saw some Chinese people do these kinds of things. We would be walking on a side street and have to watch out for open doors where people would spit into the street at random. Or we would be trying to cross the street or get onto the subway and be literally shoved forward until the person behind us could get around us. They walked in front of us like we didn't exist and would stop suddenly in the middle of the street knowing full well that we were right behind them. They talked to us/at us like we were stupid and futile because they knew that we could not understand their language. One time a lady was trying, a little to hard, to sell us her good out of a basket on the side of the street and when we told her “no thanks” she yelled a string of Chinese at us to which all of her friends burst out laughing. We were pretty sure it wasn't anything nice that she was saying to us. These are just a few things that we noticed while we were in China.
The culture in China is way different from the way of living we are use too. The people around us have what we like to call “southern hospitality.” We say “please” and “thank you”, “excuse me”, and “may I help you?”. There were times when we would walk into a store and someone would come up to us and they would say in Chinese essentially “what do you want?” and then shove random stuff in your face. That’s not how I want to be greeted when I walk into a store to purchase items. If it was a larger store or if the items in the store were higher priced then almost inevitably we would have one of the associates follow us around and stare at us the entire time we looked around the store. We could be sure if they were just trying to be really helpful or if they thought we were going to steal something. Either way it was really distracting to have someone a couple feet away staring at you when are browsing.
I also learned that the Chinese people like to eat. Eating is one of the best ways to get a Chinese person to like you. If you offer them food then you are good to go, even just noodles. Food like in any country all over the world is a great equalizer. They also enjoy the simple life (whether by chance or choice we are not sure), but they are just as stuck on their cellphones as any other American or Western person. They are allowed to enjoy the Internet but only in full few of the government. The government blocks most of the websites that would be considered social media or normal websites for us in the US.
The last thing that I learned about the people in China is that they like the tourist. The local shops really like it when you help their business just like any other small business would. On our second night in Beijing we were able to stop at a fruit stand to pick up some goods with the rest of our group. The woman that was running the fruit stand was so overjoyed with all the sales that she was getting from us foreigners. It felt good spreading that happiness.
I have definitely learned that we are extremely blessed in the USA for what we have and the freedoms we experience. I felt sad when I saw some of the limitations these people have put upon them either by their environment/surroundings or by the government. I will continue to pray for the people of China and hope that Jesus allows them to experience the freedom we can experience openly.
That's all! Thanks for reading.
The Chinese sure do know how to live. They help people in need: we had a lady from our group fall on the ground and about 5 Chinese people helped her up. They are also some of the rudest people I have met. They push, shove, yell, pull, cut, spit, and do all sorts of other type of things that you could live without. There were a number of times when we saw some Chinese people do these kinds of things. We would be walking on a side street and have to watch out for open doors where people would spit into the street at random. Or we would be trying to cross the street or get onto the subway and be literally shoved forward until the person behind us could get around us. They walked in front of us like we didn't exist and would stop suddenly in the middle of the street knowing full well that we were right behind them. They talked to us/at us like we were stupid and futile because they knew that we could not understand their language. One time a lady was trying, a little to hard, to sell us her good out of a basket on the side of the street and when we told her “no thanks” she yelled a string of Chinese at us to which all of her friends burst out laughing. We were pretty sure it wasn't anything nice that she was saying to us. These are just a few things that we noticed while we were in China.
The culture in China is way different from the way of living we are use too. The people around us have what we like to call “southern hospitality.” We say “please” and “thank you”, “excuse me”, and “may I help you?”. There were times when we would walk into a store and someone would come up to us and they would say in Chinese essentially “what do you want?” and then shove random stuff in your face. That’s not how I want to be greeted when I walk into a store to purchase items. If it was a larger store or if the items in the store were higher priced then almost inevitably we would have one of the associates follow us around and stare at us the entire time we looked around the store. We could be sure if they were just trying to be really helpful or if they thought we were going to steal something. Either way it was really distracting to have someone a couple feet away staring at you when are browsing.
I also learned that the Chinese people like to eat. Eating is one of the best ways to get a Chinese person to like you. If you offer them food then you are good to go, even just noodles. Food like in any country all over the world is a great equalizer. They also enjoy the simple life (whether by chance or choice we are not sure), but they are just as stuck on their cellphones as any other American or Western person. They are allowed to enjoy the Internet but only in full few of the government. The government blocks most of the websites that would be considered social media or normal websites for us in the US.
The last thing that I learned about the people in China is that they like the tourist. The local shops really like it when you help their business just like any other small business would. On our second night in Beijing we were able to stop at a fruit stand to pick up some goods with the rest of our group. The woman that was running the fruit stand was so overjoyed with all the sales that she was getting from us foreigners. It felt good spreading that happiness.
I have definitely learned that we are extremely blessed in the USA for what we have and the freedoms we experience. I felt sad when I saw some of the limitations these people have put upon them either by their environment/surroundings or by the government. I will continue to pray for the people of China and hope that Jesus allows them to experience the freedom we can experience openly.
That's all! Thanks for reading.
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