Images of China

Honking is less of a warning and more of an announcement:  “Here I am.”  There is a rhythm to the way people travel on the roads, the people, the dogs, the cattle, the motorbikes, the trucks, the cars.  (It was not obvious to me what the pattern was--but they did manage to avoid hitting one another.)

There’s no such things as wait your turn.  You just go.  Even in the airport, as the kids and I waited for someone to check that we had the right luggage--there was actually someone checking those tags--people just bulldozed in front of us.

  

There's a lack of personal space.  Whereas I'm used to a bubble of space around me that I consider mine,  people were always trampling on my bubble.  

There's not a concept of 'do not litter.'  It's more, "I'm done with this (tissue, milk carton, wrapper, etc.).  Let me get it out of my hands as fast as possible."    

There's a lack of water available for play--no jet skiing or scuba diving or canoeing or swimming.  The waterways we saw were dirty.

Bargaining (except in department stores) is the nature of life.  The seller goes high.  I go low.  We meet in the middle, theoretically both satisfied.

My husband said if he looked at things through the eyes of tourist, all of it was interesting.  That we should always remember to do that no matter where we are.  For, if one thinks about it, that's all we are:  tourists on this earth.

Finally, and I just realized this (duh), there really is no "China" or "Japan" or "America."  Well, perhaps there are outlines of those countries, but the content is always evolving.. always dynamic...ever-changing.  China especially so.