Clever Chinese

As my readers are aware, I have been to China on several occasions and taught English at a university.  I have been chastised by some folk in Australia, as they appear to have a strange idea of what life in China is like.  I understand that there are issues with having all/most of our manufacturing is done in China, I understand that there is concern about the purchasing by Chinese conglomerations and people of property and businesses in Australia, especially as they understand that we cannot purchase property in China (although recently a small change has been made to that regulation in Beijing).

 There are so many negatives pointed out to me - and I tend to laugh.  If they haven't been to China or seen what I have, they can have an opinion, but based on what I see in China, I often consider their information to be wrong.  I do know of course that China is such a huge country that there is a wide variety of things that differ from one area to another.

I often refer to my "love/hate" attitude to China and have written about it on this blog.  I love Chinese people, for the most part, I love the way they preserve much of their history and that they have such a huge history. I see them as amazingly clever - you only have to research the discoveries made by Chinese over the years.  I could go on and on. 

I hate the way they pollute their amazing country, I dislike the corruption that is often quite evident there, I hate the way they discard their rubbish with little apparent plan how to deal with so much rubbish from such a huge population.    Again, I could go on and on, about things that offend me, (spitting, lack of courtesy as I know it).  Oh, my.

Recently I have learned a few things that have impressed me.

Personal hygiene - well, I don't know a lot about the Chinese way, but I do know they think we Aussies are weird having a shower every day.  I find it weird how they use their plastic bowls.  One for washing the face and one for washing feet.  They do wash themselves every day, but with far less water than we use in our long showers. They have a shower every week.  There's a lot written about how showering/bathing every day is not good for the skin.  In a country that has a shortage of water perhaps there are several reasons to use less water and have less showers.

Roads - I am so impressed with roads in China.  Of course, with such a huge population they have to have quality road systems.  The apartment where I stayed was right beside a ten lane highway.  
There were three main lanes in each direction, and on both sides two lanes of what we could call a service road, and there was walking paths at least on one side of the road.  One thing that also impressed was that from within the apartment I hardly heard any traffic noise, which is surprising considering how often Chinese drivers use their car horns!





Rivers - I was amazed when I saw how big rivers were in China. How wide they were!  Have they always been that wide?  I suspect perhaps not.  I know that thousands of years ago, Yu The Great, supposedly tamed the rivers and reduced the flooding  You can read some of the story here.  It is something that I would like to study further, and perhaps get some Australian governments to look at the way the Chinese do it, so that we can tame the flooding here, and help save a lot of water from going back to the sea, and perhaps making it more useful for our farmers.

There is also an impressive list of inventions by Chinese over the years.  Read here for more info.  And they are still inventing things. 

I am hoping to share in Australia, the invention of how to open the Australian native Macadamia Nut, easily.

Very clever people, the Chinese.






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