Living in China I have time to listen to a lot of podcasts. The most recent one that I listened to was an episode from Michael Hyatt’s, This Is Your Life, series.
If you haven’t listened to it before I definitely recommend. It is a great podcast.
Well, this episode that I’m talking about was about learning how to be a great follower. It was a particularly interesting episode considering that most people are teaching others how to be great leaders, not followers. Though I enjoyed the entire show there was one thing that specially resonated with the challenges that I have been facing in my life right now.
There are some aspects of Chinese culture that I’m really having a difficult time dealing with. I actually talk about all of them on an earlier post. Okay, okay, maybe I rant about them. So, since I said that I wouldn’t be a complainy pants on this blog, on the following post I talked about how being angry doesn’t solve any problems and it only hurts yourself. The thing is that I was still shining a light on the negative aspects of my experiences with China. So, on the podcast, when Michael said, “you have a choice on what you notice, you can choose to notice the bad or you can choose to notice the good and you can comment on either thing” a chill ran up my spine and I got goosebumps all over my body. I felt like the Universe was conspiring to get me to remember and internalize this lesson.
I thought, this is exactly the lesson that I’m trying to relearn. Even a podcast is telling me to do it!
So, I decided to come up with a game. The game is simple. For every time that I notice something upsetting that happens I have to take notice of three things that are nice, pleasant, or beautiful about it.
So far this strategy has really worked in my favor. My feelings of disgust, anger, and frustration no longer ruin my day because by playing this game they don’t last very long.
The truth is there are many, many, things about Chinese people, about Chinese culture, that are good.
For example, number one, the majority of Chinese people are so friendly and very eager to talk to, or help out, a foreigner.
Two, China is actually a really safe place to live in.
Three, if you’re a foreigner your opportunities in China are abundant.
I look forward to continuing to play this game. It is not everyday that people get an opportunity to live abroad, especially in a country that has made many notable advancements and revolutionized in such a short period of time, so I definitely must make the most of my experience here and I think this game may be the best way for me to do so.
daily challenge
how I’m dealing with China’s smoking culture
This afternoon, at the nearby park, I saw a Chinese man pushing his baby’s stroller. He was spending some quality time with his young son and the sight of that warmed my heart, but only for a moment. As soon as I saw the cigarette I froze. When the man took a puff and the cloud of smoke floated over the baby’s head all the love that I previously felt turned into ice-cold anger.
Furious thoughts about the man started invading my head. He doesn’t he care about his child. He is such a terrible person that he doesn’t mind to smoke around his little kid. What a horrible man, he is affecting the poor baby’s whole future — specially his health! Stupid man!!! Then my thoughts started going back to all of the other times I saw Chinese people smoke without regard for anyone around them.
It happens all of the time. In restaurants, inside malls, stores, cars, elevators, stairwells, and it doesn’t matter if people are around, or if those people are children or pregnant women, the Chinese men will still smoke!
Fortunately today my inner rant didn’t last for as long as it usually does. As soon as I realized the angry dialogue going on in my head I made the decision to stop it from going any further.
Who was it helping anyway? The Chinese man was oblivious to my inner frustrations and disgust. And I was only hurting myself by continuing to feed the angry thoughts. So I started to rationalize. After all those men that smoke everywhere must not know any better…
I hope that one day they will learn to be mindful of where they smoke and of the people around them. For now, feeling angry towards those people only hurts me.
So, for the thousandth time I realized again that it’s so true what they say: if you hold anger inside you only hurt yourself.
I really hope that I can remember this the next time, and every time, those feelings start to come up. For now, I am so glad that my entire day wasn’t ruined by my own doing.
The thing about China…
At this point I’ve lived in China for a little over seven months. Thankfully I was able to have a break from all of the craziness of China during the recent Spring Festival holiday break.
Okay, okay China is actually not all “crazy”. There are many, many, great things about China. In fact, my first experience with China was nothing short of magical!
However coming back it was harder to feel much of the same magic that I felt the first time around. This time it was so tough to leave my loved ones again. This time loved ones included things like fresh air and so many other Western comforts, like clean and quiet streets.
The thing about China is that it really is a beautiful place. It is full of unique landscapes and history. Sadly though, most Chinese cities and rural areas are extremely polluted.
Many of you may already be aware of the air pollution problem that China faces. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. The rivers and lakes are super trashed too.
There is an incredible amount of people that just litter anywhere. Chinese cities (at least all of the ones that I have been to) actually have trash cans everywhere but Chinese people don’t seem to realize their purpose. Even if there is a trash bin just feet away people will opt to just drop their trash right on the floor — or in the rivers or lakes.
This type of behavior makes it seem like Chinese people don’t care for their land, for preserving any natural environment.
The lack of care goes beyond how Chinese people treat their land. Not only is there an incredible amount of land and water pollution, noise pollution is a huge problem as well.
Fireworks go off day and night. Any day or night, without any warning. It simply doesn’t matter if it’s one am and most people are trying to go to sleep, or if it’s seven am and people are trying to stay asleep!
Fireworks blasting off throughout the day aren’t the only noises that permeate China. Car, moped, and bus horns are the music of the streets — except they are not pleasant to hear. Chinese vehicle horns are so jarring that you’ll soon end up with a headache, or just feeling completely annoyed and upset with the unpleasantness of the sound.
As if man-made things aren’t enough to clog up your ears, Chinese people are so loud! This is especially true when they talk on their phone. It’s really not the funnest thing to listen to others conversations — even if you don’t understand a word of what they are saying.
Alright. Okay. So it’s right about the time to do a disclosure now.
Of course not every person in China is this way, but these behaviors do seem to affect a great majority of the Chinese people. It is such a great amount of people that fall into this generalization that (as a foreign visitor) you absolutely cannot walk outside of your home or hotel, for even just fifteen minutes, without experiencing any of these things.
All in all the littering and noise pollution can be something tolerable. Fireworks don’t really last for too long (usually no more than an hour). The honking I’m sure that as annoying as it is has saved many lives. Finally the loud talking can easily be escaped by simply popping in some headphones. As for the littering there are actually people who’s sole job is to pick up the trash on the streets and sidewalks. So eventually most of the trash gets picked up.
Yes, most of those things can easily be tolerated with some awareness and lots of patience.What is not so easily tolerated are the following two things:
One, the loud hacking of throat gunk followed by spitting wherever it’s most convenient — so anywhere. Really, there are puddles of spit everywhere. Out on the streets on walkways, inside buildings, even busses!
The second thing that holds no boundaries — and is just as intolerable as the first — is the peeing and pooping in public. Throughout my time here I’ve only seen a handful of men openly pee on the walkways, and (so unfortunately) one pooping. Fortunately I haven’t seen more, but I’ve seen plenty of turds. Super gross, I know!
The thing is that these Chinese people that do this type of thing probably don’t know any better. From what I have witness they learn this behavior from early childhood.
I’ve seen tens, probably hundreds, of little children openly peeing and pooping on the sidewalks — even children old enough to hold it — with their parents right besides them holding them up to pee or poop if they aren’t old enough to do it themselves.
So, if you ever visit China and notice that people squat everywhere instead of sit on any floors, sidewalk, or steps it is because every inch of every walking surface is plastered with throat gunk, urine, or human waste.
But please only take this post as informational material and don’t let it deter you from ever visiting any Chinese city. As I mentioned earlier, the thing about China is that it really does have many great things to offer the foreign visitor. It actually is kind of a magical place. Just be aware of these things so that you are prepared to handle them when you do visit — and perhaps maybe don’t stay here for as long as I have.
Getting a Chinese bank account…
There’s a bunch of posts online that will tell you about how to get set up with a Chinese bank account. I found some of them useful though most of them just complain about how getting a Chinese bank account can be so difficult, so I’m here to break that trend.
Getting a Chinese bank account just takes patience. That is to say, if you don’t speak Chinese then you need to bring along your big supply of patience when you head over to open a bank account, but really aside from your passport and the cash deposit that is all you need to bring.
The Chinese are really friendly and accommodating to foreigners. I opened my first Chinese bank account at CCB (China Construction Bank) using my very limited Chinese speaking skills, and Google Translate on my iPad. I think the process was way more grueling — requiring of patience — for the representatives but they were very nice about it. Oh yeah, I say representatives (plural) because if you’re not in a big city like Shanghai, Beijing, ChengDu, or even Xiamen, or Shenzhen then foreigners are very foreign and they’ll gather up a crowd.
Going back to opening a bank account, there is a bunch of paperwork that the representatives will help you fill out. It’s all in Chinese so you gotta be extra careful and have them explain everything — one should always be cautious about what they sign, right? There will be more than a handful of forms that you’ll have to “sign” — actually you just write out your name, a real signature will not be accepted. The Chinese rep. will stamp your documents and give you copies in the end. They will also need to make a copy of your passport and visa page that you will then have to “sign” so that they can file it away.
I ended up getting another bank account at ABC (Agricultural Bank of China), I am still happy with CCB I just wanted to check out this other option. The reps at ABC were even more helpful since one of them spoke pretty good English. The steps were similar to what I did at CCB. Both banks have Chinese only forms to fill-out, they both require to see and photocopy your passport, they both have an annual fee of 10 yuan, however CCB charges 30 yuan for their Debit Card and at ABC it was free. Though that might be because at ABC I also got, and paid for, online banking (30 yuan). In order to online bank at both of these banks you need to buy a special USB that you need to insert into your computer each time that you log-on to the bank’s website, so that you can log-on to your account. It’s suppose to be an added security feature — for me it’s an added hassled, but oh well. I got the online banking for ABC because they actually have their online banking website available in English, CCB does not.
And that’s pretty much it… In the end I spent about 2/3 hours each time I opened a new account. So it takes a while, but it’s not something that you have to do over and over again. Once you have your debit card you don’t really ever have to go back to the bank. You can deposit and withdraw money at the ATM — which is great because the ATM is in English. You can also withdraw money at any other bank’s ATM for a 2 yuan fee (within the province/city that you opened your account in). Oh, and one last thing, you can withdrawal money from foreign ATMs, if you’re abroad, as long as the ATMs have a Union Pay logo, the fee for that is 1% of the withdrawal amount plus a flat fee of 12 yuan at both ABC and CCB — it may be different at other banks.
Surya Namaskars, aka Sun Salutations
The popularity of Sun Salutations has taken a firm grasp on Western culture. If you haven’t started practicing daily Sun Salutations by now, you better get yourself a Yoga mat ASAP! The sequence of poses that are included in Surya Namaskars offer many great benefits to the people that practice. This series of postures is proven to bring vitality to the practitioner! In-fact, Sun Sals are referred to as a “concentrated Yoga potion” in the book The Complete Yoga Book by James Hewitt, meaning that many great benefits of Yoga can be attained just by practicing this series of postures. So, if you wanna try them out for yourself, here, I offer a quick guide:
Side note: begin by doing two cycles everyday, traditionally it is advocated to do twelve cycles each day — but you can work yourself up to that in due time (I myself am starting with two cycles each day, this new year, and adding two more each month, so by June I’ll be up to the desired twelve!).
Starting posture: Mountain Pose. Stand up straight, palms together to the right of your heart with feet firmly rooted on the ground. Make all four corners of the feet, and all of the toes, charge at the ground with energy. Let that energy flow all the way up, past the crown of the head
Position two: slight back bend. Bring hands up over the head and reach them up and back, with a slight backward bend.
Position three: forward bend. Bring hands forward to reach down, or touch the floor. If possible* keep the legs straight, lift up the thighs up, and bring the face to the knees. *If your body doesn’t want to take it that far then listen to it and bend your knees as your body requests.
Position four: hands on the floor and one leg back. Moving out of the forward-bend bring one leg back, grip the floor with the fingers and toes, and lift the head up.
Position five: Wheelbarrow Pose, aka Plank. Bring the other leg back to meet the first. Support the entire body on just the hands and toes. The body should be in a straight line from the crown of the head to the heels, while the arms are pushing the ground away.
Position six: Eight Parts Posture/Sastangganamasker. Tightening the abs while lowering the chest to the floor. Then let the knees and forehead touch the ground, but keep the butt raised and elbows high.
Position seven: Cobra Pose/Bhujangasana. Bringing the pelvis to the ground, let the tops of the feet carry the weight as the arms straighten. The shoulder should be down and the fingers and the palms should be pushing the ground away.
Position eight: downward dog. While pushing the ground away in Cobra Pose, use the core muscles to lift the hips high — stomach should be pulling back in towards the spine. The head comes loose between the arms and the legs are straight. If the heels can touch the ground then great — if not, that’s okay too.
Position nine: keep the hands on the floor and one leg forward. Lifting the head and chest forward bring one foot between the hands.
Position ten: forward bend. Bring the other foot to meet the first between the hands and lift the hips into a forward bend.
Position eleven: stand up straight and slight back bend. Bring the hands up, stand up straight, then continue to reach the hands up and back, into a slight backward bend.
Final position: Mountain Pose. Lower the arms and stand up straight, palms together to the right of the heart and feet firmly rooted on the ground.
This completes a cycle of Surya Namaskars.
This series of postures is simple to do yet super beneficial. It is designed to tone the entire body, and bring youthful suppleness to the spine. It is recommended for anyone and everyone that wants to maintain a healthy and fit body well into old age!
deydreaming 