My chinese experience

I was in the southern province of China, on the island of Hainan. It is a developing economic zone with great potential. On the software and web development side, their expertise (and price) is quite impressive... but the details of that will be another post.

I wanted to list some of the observations I made there. I don't know if these observations count for all of China, or just the Hainan province I was in, but it gives you a good idea about the fun little differences we share.

SOCIETY
- They are good people with sometimes horrible bad manners (Watch the impromptu spitting)
- Absolutely the craziest driving I have ever seen - no look lane changes, father crossing a very busy highway (à la Frogger) holding the hand of a 4 year old behind him, on-coming chicken games between cars...
- Walking away while bartering is a surefire way to win
- TV is boring: 100 channels of Chinese soap operas, American Idol knock offs or period pieces. Only 1 channel in English, and its controled media
- English is incorrect translate
- The world is truly flat : Investor from Singapore, CEO is from Taiwan, VP Biz Dev from Canada, project manager from Scarborough and the graphic artist from Germany ... all in Hainan.
- Chinese is a friggin' complicated language
- Whatever it is you are smelling while walking down the street, don't ask
- I saw one blond woman here.
- At the end of dinner, they don't give you candy... they give you cherry tomatoes.
- KTV - or Karaoke TV - is an endless source of fun and entertainment (why is that not here ?)

PRODUCTS
- Hainan redwood is rare and expensive
- Silk is cheap
- Beds are hard, very very hard (your wooden floor in your living room is softer)
- Pizza Hut is a luxury product
- There are no Starbucks, but don't worry, the virus is coming shortly
- Tech gadgets are 1 year ahead
- Peanuts in shells taste different
- There are more special effects in a cell phone commercial than in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie
- You get a 5 course meal for the price of a McDonald's trio.
- Fresh sugar cane is a great substitute to coffee
- When I buy clothes here, I'm an XL size (those of you who have seen me are on the floor laughing right now)
- Every piece of the body of the pig is comestible. And I mean every piece...
Aside from eating every part of the pig, I ate fish tripes, eel, frog and ox tongue. And it was all tasty.

FINALLY
The international language is NOT english. It's sign language, impromptu pictionary and... thank you.

Montaigue said that getting out of your normal confort zone is good for you, well, he's right.