Now ye're talking - to an Irishman in China

cloudatlas · 05-02-2020 10:46am

Do people really swallow the propaganda on t.v.? I mean there are so many Chinese students where I live in the U.K. that recently for the most part when I've noticed a shop closing an Asian shop has opened. The young Chinese are becoming more and more educated.

What is the biggest western misconception(s) about China?

beertons · 05-02-2020 11:05am

Stay safe. My friend just flew back from Bangkok via Russia. A man on the plane got sick, they were all scanned with some infra red thing and put in quarantine for 24 hours. Missed their connecting flight to London. He works in graveyards, so doesn't have much contact with the living here.

Have you taken to their cuisine or do you pine for the stuff back here?

I'm in China, AMA · 05-02-2020 12:12pm

pc7 wrote: »

Stay safe, hope your girlfriend is too, must be a big worry not being together. Great you’ve your dog for company. Very interesting AMA. Are you worried about food running out?

Thanks, hopefully she'll be back this weekend.

No not worried about food running out. I was a bit worried at the start of last week, but places seem to be getting deliveries now. I went to the supermarket earlier and it was pretty well stocked. I had to sign my name, write my passport number/phone number and have my temperature checked in order to get into the supermarket, which was a bit mad :pac: Still very few people out and about.

cloudatlas wrote: »

Do people really swallow the propaganda on t.v.? I mean there are so many Chinese students where I live in the U.K. that recently for the most part when I've noticed a shop closing an Asian shop has opened. The young Chinese are becoming more and more educated.

What is the biggest western misconception(s) about China?

Chinese people who have studied abroad, and I've worked with a few, are generally more 'westernised', to certain extent. Obviously I'm speaking about Chinese people who have studied/worked abroad and then returned home. It's a mixed bag in terms in terms of how they perceive their own country after returning. Some are aware of the differences and just put up with the government/propaganda, get on with their day to day lives. Some still think the CCP is the best thing since sliced bread.

A former colleague of mine went to high school and university in the US (rich parents), so in total spent 7 years there. We had an American apply for a teaching job who stated in an email that he didn't want to teach in China, he wanted to teach in Hong kong. My colleague lost the plot, started cursing the guy saying this guy is a idiot, Hong kong is part of China, we are not hiring hm. When my other colleague in the office (British guy) told him he was overreacting they almost came to blows. So yeah, there's a reason it's not good to talk about these issues unless you know the person very very well.

Biggest misconception, that's a tough one. I'll probably have to name a couple.

1. The food. Absolutely nothing like Chinese takeaway/restaurant food. It can be difficult people who are really fussy eaters, I've seen this first hand from people visiting from home. Though plenty of western options available these days.

2. China looks like China from the movies. I've had seen a few people being disappointed by this. China cities are concrete jungles, there's very few temples, pagodas or old Chinese style architecture. You can find these things, but they are in no way the norm.

3. Western brands, particularly luxury brands, are not cheap in China. If anything, they cost more here.

4. China is a communist country. I've answered this previously, it's not.

There's probably much more, but when you live here for a while you start to overlook/get used to a lot of things. I'll have to think about that one in more detail.

beertons wrote: »

Stay safe. My friend just flew back from Bangkok via Russia. A man on the plane got sick, they were all scanned with some infra red thing and put in quarantine for 24 hours. Missed their connecting flight to London. He works in graveyards, so doesn't have much contact with the living here.

Have you taken to their cuisine or do you pine for the stuff back here?

Thailand has the second highest number of cases outside of China I believe, and they haven't stopped travel to China yet so I guess they're just being cautious. Sucks for your friend though, I know lots of people who were on holiday in various SE Asian countries and are currently stuck there.

Love the food here, when I do eventually leave I will miss it dearly. I cook western food and I gorge myself when I visit home, but when I'm here I eat Chinese food a lot of the time. So much great food.

liuqirae · 05-02-2020 12:41pm

How do you feel about the way China is portrayed in western discourse. I'm Chinese - and Irish - and I accept that many of the criticisms are justified. However at the same time I think that it can be unrelentingly negative. Do you see positives in China?

And another question, what vpn do you use? every time I go to China I have troubles with my vpn.

A last question, what province are you in? I am from Hunan

I'm in China, AMA · 05-02-2020 1:47pm

liuqirae wrote: »

How do you feel about the way China is portrayed in western discourse. I'm Chinese - and Irish - and I accept that many of the criticisms are justified. However at the same time I think that it can be unrelentingly negative. Do you see positives in China?

And another question, what vpn do you use? every time I go to China I have troubles with my vpn.

A last question, what province are you in? I am from Hunan

I feel that sometimes both the media and individuals fail to make the distinction between the CCP and the regular Chinese people. China has made the headlines quite a lot in the past year, for the wrong reasons. For example, the Hong kong situation. On reddit, you would see plenty of people commenting 'f**k China'. If you support Hong kong or Taiwans 'fight for independence' (if you want to call it that) , that's perfectly fine, but to label an entire nation based on the actions of their government is just idiotic and uninformed. So yes, some of the criticism is deserved, but in most cases that that criticism should be solely aimed at the CCP, not the country itself or the people. For me, living here is like living everywhere else, there are positives and negatives. Thankfully for me the positives far outweigh the negatives.

I lived in Hunan for a year, in a really small c'ity' about an hour from Changde and 3 hours for Changsha...Lixian. I love Hunan, especially the food. 辣椒炒肉, still my favourite Chinese dish. I love how they always use fresh chilis in Hunan dishes, I really hate dried chili. Fenghuang and Zhangjiajie are two of my favourite places I've visited in China. I live in Shaanxi.

I use Astrill. I've tried all the most popular ones, Astrill is the best for me. Even if the government are attacking the VPN's when there is a big conference on, just switch to to stealth mode.

liuqirae · 05-02-2020 2:13pm

Thanks that's a super dooper reply. My family is from Hunan, further south than Lixian, closer to the guanxi border, but yea salt of the earth folks and frikken good food. For me its a privilege to be there once a year. People are super friendly and nice like more than you could imagine. Like I said before I recognize the negatives too - china can be problematic. But I am glad that you see the positives that are there too. Thumbs up from me

P.S. Thanks for the Astill recommendation. I was on tunnel bear last time and it didnt even work.

P.P.S. Where abouts in Ireland are you from? I'm from cork.

irish_goat · 11-02-2020 5:19pm

I'm in China, AMA wrote: »

I buy Luckin coffee every morning, it's super convenient. I order ut on my phone while I'm on the the bus to work, and it's sitting there waiting for me when I get there. But 2 coffees, get one free Works out much cheaper than starbucks.
.

Sorry...it's sitting where?

I'm in China, AMA · 12-02-2020 4:02am

irish_goat wrote: »

Sorry...it's sitting where?

Haha sorry, sitting on the counter in the store. For Luckin Coffee you must order and pay on the app, you can't just walk in and pay in cash, for example. So you choose which store you want to collect your coffee from (they're all over the place), order and pay for it, and when you arrive at the store your coffee is waiting for you. Scan the QR code on the app and off you go. I'm terrible for waking up late though so half of the time I get it delivered to the office instead of picking it up

ardinn · 12-02-2020 4:08am

Its been a while since questions were asked - how is the situation over there now?

volchitsa · 12-02-2020 4:21am

I'm in China, AMA wrote: »

Haha sorry, sitting on the counter in the store. For Luckin Coffee you must order and pay on the app, you can't just walk in and pay in cash, for example. So you choose which store you want to collect your coffee from (they're all over the place), order and pay for it, and when you arrive at the store your coffee is waiting for you. Scan the QR code on the app and off you go. I'm terrible for waking up late though so half of the time I get it delivered to the office instead of picking it up

So is your name scrawled on it in Chinese characters when you pick it up, and is that difficult for the locals, or do Europeans in China all pick a Chinese name to use the way the Chinese pick an English name to use in English?

(Yeah, I know that's a totally frivolous and unimportant question these days, but I guess I'm really that superficial!)

JCX BXC · 12-02-2020 4:31am

How do you type Chinese characters on your phone? Is it difficult/time consuming to type in Chinese?

Yurt2 · 12-02-2020 4:42am

JCX BXC wrote: »

How do you type Chinese characters on your phone? Is it difficult/time consuming to type in Chinese?

Not the subject of the iAma but I'll answer this one.

You input the word you want to say in romanised letters (Pinyin) and the input software will give you a selection of characters to choose from. One pinyin input will give you multiple options, so you need to be fairly good at recognising characters, but not painfully so. It usually gives you high frequency characters first and you get pretty good at picking out the right ones.

It's also predictive so let's say you type the first or second character in a three character word, it usually will prompt the correct word most of the time.

It's fairly intuitive and I can't say it's all that hard to type Chinese on your phone / keyboard after a bit of practice once you know a critical mass of characters.

In fact, young Chinese people have gotten pretty bad at hand writing characters as they do it so infrequently nowadays.

volchitsa · 12-02-2020 4:52am

Yurt! wrote: »

Not the subject of the iAma but I'll answer this one.

You input the word you want to say in romanised letters (Pinyin) and the input software will give you a selection of characters to choose from. One pinyin input will give you multiple options, so you need to be fairly good at recognising characters, but not painfully so. It usually gives you high frequency characters first and you get pretty good at picking out the right ones.

It's also predictive so let's say you type the first or second character in a three character word, it usually will prompt the correct word most of the time.

It's fairly intuitive and I can't say it's all that hard to type Chinese on your phone / keyboard after a bit of practice once you know a critical mass of characters.

In fact, young Chinese people have gotten pretty bad at hand writing characters as they do it so infrequently nowadays.

So basically they can only use a smartphone or a laptop if they can already use pinyin which was actually for non Chinese? That sounds very complicated, like if we needed to learn Cyrillic so our phones could then transcribe for us into Roman letters.

I'd have thought touch screens would mean they could actually draw the characters on the screen, but maybe there's a problem with that.

But couldn't they use voice recognition these days? Or does that not work well for Chinese?

Yurt2 · 12-02-2020 5:11am

volchitsa wrote: »

So basically they can only use a smartphone or a laptop if they can already use pinyin which was actually for non Chinese? That sounds very complicated, like if we needed to learn Cyrillic so our phones could then transcribe for us into Roman letters.

I'd have thought touch screens would mean they could actually draw the characters on the screen, but maybe there's a problem with that.

But couldn't they use voice recognition these days? Or does that not work well for Chinese?

There's an extension I use on my regular smartphone Google keyboard input to do so, likewise with a laptop.

There are options to draw characters and the system will pick out the characters for you but I find that cumbersome and I frequently get the strokes wrong. A minority of Chinese smartphone users would use this method of input for the same reasons. There are also probably voice recognition inputs used but I've never seen that to be honest.

The difficulty of Chinese is overplayed. Once you recognise the tones and get adept at replicating them (some people are better at this than others) and put in a bit of effort to recognise let's say 500-700 high frequency characters, and just keep speaking as much as you can, you're well on the way to learning Chinese to a decent level. There's next to no tricky grammar to get to grips with, and even if you slightly bungle the tricky bits, you'll still be understood.

Other Asian languages like Japanese, Korean or Thai are much more difficult I feel.

If you take classes, trained Chinese teachers are typically excellent and systematic, they'll have you up and running in no time.

An example is Des Bishop. He went he'll for leather at it for a year in his documentary, and was able to do stand-up on national TV after about a year. His Chinese wasn't super duper, but it was very functional.

I'm in China, AMA · 12-02-2020 7:16am

ardinn wrote: »

Its been a while since questions were asked - how is the situation over there now?

Things are still pretty much at a standstill. If anything, it's gotten more restrictive. Most communities have given residents a pass that allows them to leave the premises every once a day or once every 2 days...2 days in my case. I'm allowed to walk around the complex and collect deliveries at the gate, but that's about it. Seems to be the same for a lot of cities, though the decision to implement it (or not) lies with the local government, rather than it being a nationwide rule. Anyone returning to a city from another province or abroad is subject to a 14 day quarantine at home. My girlfriend returned from a holiday in Vietnam last weekend, she is not allowed out for 14 days.

I've read some western news articles about Chinese people starting to go back to work, that is not the case for 90% of people. Those who can work from home are doing so, otherwise everything is still closed. There are many foreigners here who visited home or went to in places like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia etc. for the holiday who are still either stuck there or have been told to extend their stay. There are quite a few teachers who work for our company in that situation, but we've started doing online classes so they can still work while they are away.

So yeah, 3 weeks now of being stuck at home :rolleyes:

volchitsa wrote: »

So is your name scrawled on it in Chinese characters when you pick it up, and is that difficult for the locals, or do Europeans in China all pick a Chinese name to use the way the Chinese pick an English name to use in English?

(Yeah, I know that's a totally frivolous and unimportant question these days, but I guess I'm really that superficial!)

No need for a Chinese name. Food deliveries (including coffee), online shopping etc. will just have your English name printed on it, as well as your phone number. For Luckin coffee, there's a receipt next to your coffee when you pick it up. That will have your name and order number on it. They generally don't ask you your name in Starbucks here like they do in other places, unless the person serving you speaks English.

I'm in China, AMA · 12-02-2020 7:26am

JCX BXC wrote: »

How do you type Chinese characters on your phone? Is it difficult/time consuming to type in Chinese?

I think Yurt! pretty much answered that spot on. It's very easy to type in Chinese as long as you can recognise characters, as each 'word' (when typed in Pinyin that is) will have multiple different meanings depending on the tones used. Though as mentioned it's predictive which makes that easier. I have a Chinese phone so it's very easy for me to switch between English and Pinyin keyboard. Overall, probably sounds more difficult than it actually is.

Hotblack Desiato · 12-02-2020 11:37am

Can you see characters largely going by the wayside eventually, and people mostly using pinyin?

Gloomtastic! · 12-02-2020 11:41pm

Do Chinese people keep pets or do they just eat them? :eek:

Yurt2 · 13-02-2020 7:17am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Can you see characters largely going by the wayside eventually, and people mostly using pinyin?

Unlikely, dispensing with characters would mean the written word would lose a lot of subtlety and playfulness with double entendres. The Chinese poetry and literary tradition would also be the less for it. As annoying as Chinese characters are for the learner, they lend the language a lot of depth. Chinese people are rightly proud of the continuity of their language from antiquity to now (even if it mostly persists with bastardised simplified characters, which many purists dislike).

I don't know how the Vietnamese language evolved when they dispensed with Chinese characters, but I suspect it wasn't for the better. Korean, like Japanese, used to be heavily infused with Chinese characters. Now that aspect of the language is mostly lost, even if a lot of Korean vocabulary is Chinese derived, there was a spillover effect and the spoken language lost a lot of its classical flavour.

sheepondrugs · 14-02-2020 1:24am

hi,

Is every state in China on lock down? i.e are the far western states quarantining people?
Is the Airport open?
What if you have a family emergency or something like that and have to leave China?
are there guards outside your building?
how are you passing the time?

Are the Chinese government/authorities giving regular updates about the situation?

sorry about all the questions. Great AMA, take care of yourself.

(My sister is teaching in Sth Korea , she had just returned there from a trip abroad and was put on 14 day quarantine- but not nearly as restrictive as in China by the sound of it).

I'm in China, AMA · 14-02-2020 5:23am

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Do Chinese people keep pets or do they just eat them? :eek:

Quite a lot of Chinese people have pets. Yes, Chinese are known to eat a larger variety of animals than most western countries, but to be fair so do Vietnam, korea etc. It's a misconception that a lot of Chinese people eat dog, just not true. Yes, some do and there are certain parts of China that are more 'renowned' for it, but the vast majority do not. The only restaurant I've been to that had dog on the menu was a buffet restaurant in a small with in Hunan province. One of the dishes on display was dog and none of us realized until we saw one the chefs walking into the kitchen with a dead dog in the bag. That wasn't pleasant, as I'm pretty sure I ate some of it. Horse meat noodles at a food stall in Guizhou province was another time I ate something without knowing what it was.

Frog is quite common, as is turtle to a certain extent, but that depends on where you go. Donkey meat is also popular in certain parts.

sheepondrugs wrote: »

hi,

Is every state in China on lock down? i.e are the far western states quarantining people?
Is the Airport open?
What if you have a family emergency or something like that and have to leave China?
are there guards outside your building?
how are you passing the time?

Are the Chinese government/authorities giving regular updates about the situation?

sorry about all the questions. Great AMA, take care of yourself.

(My sister is teaching in Sth Korea , she had just returned there from a trip abroad and was put on 14 day quarantine- but not nearly as restrictive as in China by the sound of it).

I'm not sure about all provinces in China, as every province has administered it's own version of 'lockdown'. Hubei, of course, is completely shut down. Shaanxi, where I am, is semi locked down in the sense that I can go out, but only every 2 days. There's also nothing open apart from convenience stores and supermarkets. And I've heard from people I know in other parts of China that it's similar for them. Every contact I have on WeChat who has posted something (100's) is stuck indoors.

The airport is open, albeit with more cancellations There are still some taxis around and private drivers who are taking people to and from the airport.

If I had leave, for whatever reason, that wouldn't be a problem. I guess the problem would be finding a suitable flight.

Yes, there are about 8 or 9 guards outside our building. They are always there, but usually spread over the 3 different entrances. No only one entrance is open, so they're all concentrated there. You cannot leave or enter without showing a 'pass' that has your passport number and building/apartment number on it. They write the last date you left the premises on the pass, so if that is less than 2 days ago they won't let you out. It's fine, there are 3 convenience stores inside the complex and I can still order groceries for delivery if I need something in particular. Delivery guy just hands them over the gate.

I am working from home, so that takes up about 7 hours of the day and forces me to wake up early as I have to clock in via my phone. Though today I clocked in and then went back to sleep for an hour

Other than work, just walking my dog, reading, binge watching tv shows/movies and lots of cooking.

There's a number of large WeChat groups with hundreds of foreigners in them, so any important updates are usually gotten pretty quickly. I guess the only updates that really matter at the moment, for me anyway, is when people can/should physically go back to work and when this 'only allowed out every 2 days' bo**ox is lifted. I guess the 2 will have to coincide though.

Yeah it's the same for anyone returning to China from abroad, 14 day quarantine. My girlfriend just returned, so she is literally stuck in the apartment for 14 days. If she is quarantined, makes no sense that I'm not, but I'm not going to complain.

Hope your sister is not too bored

pc7 · 14-02-2020 10:54am

Great your girlfriend is back and you the company. Are the embassy in touch with you at all?

AMKC · 16-02-2020 1:15pm

Hello,

Did you have the opportunity to come home at all? Were you tempted?

How worried were you when you first heard of the Coronavirius or as its called now Covid-19?

I'm in China, AMA · 18-02-2020 4:31pm

AMKC wrote: »

Hello,

Did you have the opportunity to come home at all? Were you tempted?

How worried were you when you first heard of the Coronavirius or as its called now Covid-19?

Sorry for the delay.

No I've been here the whole time, never considered leaving, mainly because I have a dog. To be honest I never felt in any danger, as long you take the proper precautions there's not a whole lot to worry about. The fact that everyone is under a semi-quarantine gives you extra comfort.

Nobody was worried at first, it was just a localized outbreak in one city. It wasn't until maybe the 24th that people started to take notice and take precautions. In my 4 years here I've never once worn a mask until the 24th of January.

The good thing is that things are starting to look up. Outside of Hubei, the number of new cases is significantly down, and even down overall. The bad news is there are people losing their jobs left, right and center. Quarantine has it's upsides and it's downsides.

Gloomtastic! · 18-02-2020 8:11pm

It must be having a considerable affect on the Chinese economy by now. Read today that we’ll start to notice it next week when the ships don’t arrive here carrying what they normally do.

You say people are losing their jobs. Can you expand on that a bit with more info please.

up for anything · 20-02-2020 12:19pm

Hi OP, if you wouldn't mind could you do a quick update on your situation and the general situation regarding work and new cases? Are you getting the same information from the Chinese authorities as we are here and does the information they're giving out gel with what we are told? Please and thank you. I hope you, your girlfriend and the dog are doing well.

iamstop · 20-02-2020 9:43pm

Interesting AMA. Didn't realize how much they had shut down and restricted.

Just read this article about how the virus has made China cut their CO2 emmisions by up to a quarter! Crazy.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-has-temporarily-reduced-chinas-co2-emissions-by-a-quarter

So the question is, do you notice any improvement to air quality? Is it bad normally?

I'm in China, AMA · 22-02-2020 4:48am

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

It must be having a considerable affect on the Chinese economy by now. Read today that we’ll start to notice it next week when the ships don’t arrive here carrying what they normally do.

You say people are losing their jobs. Can you expand on that a bit with more info please.

Many companies have let people go, including the company I work for. It really depends on the industry, but the reality is if a company is not making money then it can't continue to pay all its staff every month. Some have been put on unpaid leave, some have been let go.

Companies are cutting costs wherever possible. Small example, but phone allowance in our company has been cut. Granted, it's only 200 RMB a month. Also, no bonuses are being paid and no new staff can be hired.

up for anything wrote: »

Hi OP, if you wouldn't mind could you do a quick update on your situation and the general situation regarding work and new cases? Are you getting the same information from the Chinese authorities as we are here and does the information they're giving out gel with what we are told? Please and thank you. I hope you, your girlfriend and the dog are doing well.

No real change to be honest, though things locally seem to be getting slightly better. One of the districts in the city I'm in have had the 'allowed out once every two days' rule lifted, so I expect that to be city wide over the next few days. There are plenty of WeChat groups with updates, so any local news from the government is shared pretty quickly. New infections are going down outside of Hubei, and a handful of cities have lifted all restrictions.

Word is that they expect everything to be back to normal by mid March, end of March at the lates. Only time will tell if that actually happens. I'm still working so that keeps me busy. More than anything, I can't wait to go outside whenever I want

Once every 2 days is a royal pain in the a**.

iamstop wrote: »

Interesting AMA. Didn't realize how much they had shut down and restricted.

Just read this article about how the virus has made China cut their CO2 emmisions by up to a quarter! Crazy.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coronavirus-has-temporarily-reduced-chinas-co2-emissions-by-a-quarter

So the question is, do you notice any improvement to air quality? Is it bad normally?

Haven't really noticed to be honest, probably as I haven't been outside as much. Air quality in the northern half of China is generally 'bad' during winter. Usually comes in spells, few bad days, few good days, not constant by any means. Why is winter worse? North of a certain geographical point in China (people say the Yellow river), heating is mandatory and government controlled. When I say mandatory I mean it must be installed, you still have to pay to have it turned on. Heating megacities with millions of people takes a lot of energy, and a good portion of that is still done with coal. There is a noticeable change in air quality from November to March/April. So while emissions may be down, heating is still on.

JoeFritzl · 24-02-2020 11:13am

Can you actually eat a dog in China?

up for anything · 24-02-2020 2:50pm

JoeFritzl wrote: »

Can you actually eat a dog in China?

Joe, you need to get out of your underground hidey-hole more often. There is such a thing as Google and the OP answered the question a couple of posts above yours. See the quote below.

:D

I'm in China, AMA wrote: »

Quite a lot of Chinese people have pets. Yes, Chinese are known to eat a larger variety of animals than most western countries, but to be fair so do Vietnam, korea etc. It's a misconception that a lot of Chinese people eat dog, just not true. Yes, some do and there are certain parts of China that are more 'renowned' for it, but the vast majority do not. The only restaurant I've been to that had dog on the menu was a buffet restaurant in a small with in Hunan province. One of the dishes on display was dog and none of us realized until we saw one the chefs walking into the kitchen with a dead dog in the bag. That wasn't pleasant, as I'm pretty sure I ate some of it. Horse meat noodles at a food stall in Guizhou province was another time I ate something without knowing what it was.

Frog is quite common, as is turtle to a certain extent, but that depends on where you go. Donkey meat is also popular in certain parts.

Now ye're talking - to an Irishman in China

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