First of all, apologies for not posting last week as I was galavanting around Mainland China, playing in hotels and unable to connect to any fun webpages as I completely forgot that pretty much everything is banned in China. Somewhat conveniently, this ties in beautifully with this post..
Okay, a brief summary of events here. Although Hong Kong is technically back in China's hands after the Brits had 99 years of reign, we have this whole 'One Country, Two Systems' thing going on. This is pretty much where Hong Kong gets to do what it wants without having to conform to China's laws and regulations. Basically this means we get to do a hella of a lot of things that they don't. This also means that mainlanders, (as we like to call 'em) have to apply for a visa to live and work in HK.
There are many reasons for this (I can't even begin to go on about this, my fingers would fall off there would be THAT much to type...!) but let me just outline the most prominent one below..
This mystery trip into PRC is the first time I've been in over 10 years, and I can't really say I'm in too much of a hurry to return. Why, you may ask? Sure, it was stunning; I liked how unlike Hong Kong, there is actually space to move and breathe. There was grass and trees, it was picturesque and breath-taking.. I can probably come up with a few more generally pleasing adjectives to describe the scenery and carry on.
However, I can come up with a whole lot more negative adjectives to describe the culture, or more specifically, the mainland Chinese mentality. I mean, I've had the odd encounter with them before, but pretty much nothing could've prepared me for what I experienced on those fateful two days.
Now, as previous posts have suggested, I'm quite particular in terms of manners and general politeness (although I officially became a Hongky on Friday.. After three long months of keeping it in, I finally let my anger out and tutted at someone who was walking to slow. And then glared. Walking etiquette is important!) but I was just appalled. There was just no order, in anything!
Now I'm quite the fan of queuing. It works, right? You want something, you wait patiently for your turn, jobs good. Nah, totally pointless in PRC. They just push and shove you out the way (not too gently either!), because whats the point in queuing when they can just march right to the front and not wait?
They litter. They pee in public. And what is with the squatting? Why does everybody squat?! It's just a general lack of respect not only for others, but for their surrounding environment too.
For example, I was having lunch in a pretty busy restaurant on Saturday, somewhere in Guangzhou. (Don't ask me where, I don't have a clue.. I'm not really too sure where Guangzhou is actually..hmm.) When suddenly, a tour bus load of mainlanders arrive, obviously hungry but with no tables available to accomodate them.
The normal situation would've been for them to wait patiently either in reception or outside, and wait for available tables. Right? I'm pretty certain that's what I do when I have to wait for a table normally.
The actual situation is that I found myself surrounded by people, literally right over my shoulders, watching me eat. This is pretty intimidating, and unbelievably uncomfortable. Feeling pretty awkward, we decided to just finish up quickly and leave, and I swear I hadn't even finished lifting my left butt cheek off my chair before someone had decided to sit down. Who does that?!?!
Its the lack of respect, integrity and general decorum within the PRC mindset that has negated my viewpoint on China as a whole. Its shocking to think that it only takes ten minutes to cross the HK-PRC border, yet the culture is so vastly different.
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