How bad is life in China?
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How bad is living in China ?
It is really bad :
Because I have some grey hair I am treated in the same embarrassing way every time I get on a city bus or on the subway …… younger people get up and offer me a seat.
Recently I had problems with a tooth. One morning I went to one of the dental hospitals. They did xrays and preformed a root canal in a 2 hours. It cost me 1/6th of the price of a root canal I had done 30 years ago in North America. Just terrible prices.
I am invited out to eat or to go to some celebration a few times a month. I never have to pay for the meal, while I am offered beer and cigarettes. I do not smoke so I decline the cigarettes but accept free beer.
Oh how terrible to invited out by the locals constantly. I have been to at least 25 weddings, more then dozen birthdays and half a dozen 100-day celebrations for babies.
There are 100+ channels on the TV, with a few in English as some western movies. The nightly news reports on all the major news around the world. I have internet access 24/7 and spent way too much time browsing the internet from Europe to North America. It is a terrible way to waste time.
I often visit my daughter who works 300km away in another Province. Being so far away, I am forced to take the train which takes 1hr 30 minutes to make the trip with 2 or 3 stops along the route. I could drive my car but that would make for a much longer trip.
The really bad thing in China is access to food.
- We have 2 farmers markets within 2 city blocks. These are markets where the farmers come into the city around 6-7 am every morning to sell that days fresh crop of fruit vegetables and meat.
- This in addition to 2 grocery stores and a Walmart in the area.
- Then on my small city block, we have 14 restaurants, open 7 days a week.
- There are even the evil food chains - KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Starbucks, plus all the Chinese ones etc
- We have the French Carrefour and Auchan super stores and the Germany’s Metro cash & carry stores.
- Worst of all, we have these applications on our smartphones (80% of folks own a smartphone). Where we can see menus of hundreds of restaurants in our area, order food and they deliver it to your door usually within 30 minutes.
If we need to go to the bank, we can not go 365 days of the year. There are about a dozen days a year when the banks are closed.
Schools are much more demanding on students compared to North America, with homework every night.
- However they do get a month off in summer.
- My daughters students spend some of their summer travelling. The US and Europe for some, others within China or to nearby places like South Korea or Thailand.
So far no one has noticed any difference due to the Trump Tariffs, but according to western media China is under some sort tremendous pressure. Or maybe there were talking about the tropical storm? In either case it was a lot of wind.
That is how bad it is living in China.
Please have pity on our oppression, as we say in my group of expats who live in China as well, some for over 20 years.
Of course we live a large city. The situation differs in rural areas as it does in most countries.
Very interesting Quora answers
