What's good about China?

Behind the scenes they treat North Korea's diplomats with scathing contempt.
Ya gotta like 'em for that.

Fresh vegetables sold on every other street corner

Pants come can 'unfinished' and the store keepers hem them up to your exact measurements

Street food

Street food (it's so good that I have to mention it twice)

No guns in schools

The only knives in schools are used to sharpen pen pencils

Great music

Winter forests without snowmobiles

Kids are respectful to adults

No Graphity, even in poor neighborhoods

Cheap massages, some incredibly wonderful people, great food, some of the most gorgeous scenery on the planet, lots of cultural opportunities (I just saw all the amazing concerts that will be performed in Beijing in October and was blown away - you won't find anything like that anywhere else in Asia)...that's just off the top of my head. Sure, I can list the negatives as well. But I have to say, each time I go back to China nowadays I love it more and more. I see tangible improvements, not only in terms of infrastructure and convenience, but also in terms of social attitudes, tolerance, maturity. Yeah, a whole hell of a lot of it still sucks, but there are enough unique pleasures to make it worthwhile, or at least not intolerable. I'd say the most important aspect is the people. I have some of my closest friends there. If you don't have some special relationships, people to talk to, I can imagine it could be at times a very lonely and cold place. When I lived there in 2002-3, I only knew a few (very few people). Now that I have a small community of friends there, it makes all the difference. That probably applies to anyplace you might live, but especially to China, where at times you can feel lost and alone in a vast sea of people. Relationships make all the difference, the difference between misery and optimism, between life and death. Luckily, there are lots of special people there, and whenever I feel down about the country or disdainful, I think about those special people whose lives have touched mine, and it all seems okay. Bette Midler was onto something when she said you have to have friends. That's more true in China than anywhere else. It's so easy to feel utterly alone there.

Pigsun doesn't live there.

I'm not sure whether to consider this interesting or ironic. We're being nice to China in this thread, so I'll go with the former.

What's all this about spitting? I've been wandering up and down the streets of Haidian all day (very lost) and I haven't seen anyone so much as dribble.

Haidan is popular with students, mostly the spitting is among the older population.

Plus it's summer. Wait until winter when the weather keeps the smog closer to the ground and the damp clumps it up more. Winter is whem the folem will really start to fly.

-Shudder- "never leave the day room."

Walking through a Hutong in Beijing and occasionally being invited to sit down and have a chat with old people and children.

Walking through beautifully landscaped garden in Hangzhou, exchanging gardening tips with the gardeners.

Talking a ferry trip down Lijiang enroute to Yangsuo.

Meditating at a quiet corner in the Temple of Heaven, preferably very early in the morning.

Not having to worry about whether the V-chip will pick up the language in whatever the kids are watching on TV.

Not having soaps interupted by "special reports" about car chases.

Being able to buy Chinese, Japanese and Korean DVDs in one place, without having to go to a specialist or order them off of the internet.

Guys on the street who will repair or stitch anything while you wait

Local dishes

People inviting you to meals at their homes after knowing you for five minutes

Sweet bean paste for breakfast

Being able to buy the dishes that your grandparents used to cook for you without having to go to an expensive Chinese deli.

This came from Chosen on another post . I think there MAY be a sliver of hope, however fleeting...

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,435188,00.h...

Damn, that is one hell of a story, canrun.

I don't want to be nasty, but if that happens too often you should consider moving. You shouldn't stay because you don't want to be one of those people that "couldn't cut it" or whatever. If you want to stay, stay - if you don't, consider moving.

I "like" China in terms of visiting - but I'm not going to move there. What would be the point?

The food

The cheap taxis

The investment opportunities

The flexibility and lack of stifling, dead rules in social, economic, and political transactions

The dynamism, growth, and to-hell-with-limits/rules attitude everywhere

The innocence among the youth (it's like stepping back into the '50s of the U.S.A.)

The great convos struck up with the taxi drivers

The juxtaposition of old, ancient, and antique with new

Cheap stuff.

Ah yes, the joys of corruption! How fortunate for the Chinese to enjoy the "flexibility" that comes from the absence of the rule of law!

So true.

Are you being sarcastic, t_co?

T_co obviously has never set foot in a Chinese Post Office.

They stifle me twice a week with dead social economic and political rules.

Xinjiang! Clean air, wide-open space, rivers clean enough to swim in, awesome fruits and vegetables...

The Opposite End of China
Korla, Xinjiang

It must be wonderful living in a part of China were the local river water won't burn a human down to their skeleton in less than 15 seconds.

Cheap stuff.

Fair enough. But...isn't it kind of telling that the best most of us can come up with revolves around prices? Not exactly the most convincing of reasons to stick around, Buddha...

Thanks for the concern. I've been here for years and have been clear about my choice. Mostly I'm overworked and in need of a vacation.

Thanks to everyone for pointing out the positive.

This is very sad. The title of this post is called "What is good about China", and the author said "I want to hear what's good about China and the Chinese." Cleary, the author must in real life have mostly negative experiences with China or the Chinese people (note, not just the Chinese government, but the Chinese people as well). And the author also must rarely hear about positive things about China or the Chinese people on this forum. So the author is very curious, and wants to know "if there is anything good about China or the Chinese people". This is very similar to post a thread called "What is so good about Hitler?". In his mind, it is only "normal" to talk about bad things about China, if you want to talk about good things about China, you must first "prepare" your talk and start a "special" thread about good things in China.

Is this the only post in this forum that's about "good things" in China? If there's another one, please tell me, thank you.

If we want to read nice things about China, we usually just go to the China Daily's message board (where it is mandatory). Saying nice things about China here is reserved for special occasions. It shows we care.

Or watch the weather on CCTV, where everything is always sunny.

Pigsun,

You have clearly never lived abroad or truly experienced another culture. Of course there are admirable things in every culture but when you live far from home in a totally alien culture the occassionally the real and percieved ridiculouslessness and stupidity of locals you experience every day can definately grate on you and can overwhelm the positive aspects of the culture you are living in. It is sometimes important to reach out to others who have had similar experiences to be reminded of these positive attributes and be reminded of why you chose to go to your host country in the first place.

Now, go masturbate to China Daily.

China is the smokers' paradise.

Chestnuts

Actually, that's kind of a negative for me. But in a related note, I do kind of enjoy the lack of safety regs and the non-litigeous society. For example, there are no guard rails at the Forbidden City or in natural beauty spots. The FC would look terrible if you tried to impose US safety standards on it. But in China, is you wander up and fall off of some platform, that's your responsibilty, nobody elses. That actually makes sense to me.

Yeah, it's great not living somewhere that isn't obsessed with health and safety and suing.

I know some kids who went to a sports camp in the West this summer.

There was a paved track that intersected the path between the dorms and the sports fields. It was used by about 2 delivery vehicles a day, and maybe 1 or 2 local cars taking a short cut. But because there were these handful of vehicles on it, no child was allowed to cross the road without a councilor supervising them.

This was a particularly rule stupid given that the average age of some of these kids was about 16. They were really peeved about being treated like babies.

It's a HUGE negative for me! Yet...my wife has a pack-a-day habit! Go figure... :?

Simple answer? Personally I think business opportunities (and some others on www.chinasuccessstories.com which is my blog) do too. The fact smoking is still somewhat in fashion is - for now at least - an attraction to me as well ;-)