Monthly Archives: July 2013

Cultural Differences – Part 2 Technology

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One of the measures of the status or “development” of a country is the state of their technology – what they have access to and how they use it. As a tech guy myself, this is something that really intrigued me about coming to China. What intrigues me isn’t necessarily what they don’t have, as much as it’s how they use what they do have. Sure, there are some technological limitations, but the reasons for these limitations and how they handle the limitations might surprise you.

Cell Phones

What some people don’t realize is that cell phones have become an integral part of living on this planet, no matter what country you live in. Even Haiti – the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere – has a high reliance on cell phones. I would argue that cell phone usage is more important in other countries than they are in the USA.

Cell phones in China is no different. No matter how rich or poor you are, everyone seems to have a cell phone. You want a smart phone? No problem! They have them here – Samsung Galaxy 3 and the iPhone 5 are easily obtained here… but expect to pay the same as you would in the States for them! With the income differences, that can be a huge chunk of change! Or you can choose one of the hundreds of knockoffs running the Android OS for about $160.

Cell phone usage, however, is a little different here. For example, in China it’s much cheaper to send a text than to call someone. Some people even have cell plans that have very little voice time at all. You text everyone. Once your monthly allotment of texts run out, you can still receive texts from others (you’re only changed to send texts), but you won’t be able to send texts until you head to the store and add more money to the account.

What amazed me most about cell phone usage was how they are used for nearly EVERYTHING in China. Sure, we use our smartphones for quite a bit in the States, but do you take customer orders with it while working at a restaurant? They do in China. What about communicating with your boss, fellow teachers, and students? In China, you don’t rely on email for these tasks, it’s cell phones. There is no piece of technology that’s more crucial to the Chinese than the cellphone.

Computers, Printers, and Prices

The computer is pretty important to life in the West. When it comes to business, it’s also important in China. But for personal use you won’t find one for every person in the house. You’ll probably see one that people will use to watch videos, but that’s about it. Sure people have email here, but I don’t find it being used that often outside of work.

It’s not that they don’t have computers here – many people have computers. Most of them are still running Windows XP on REALLY old hardware, but they have them. (You remember Windows XP – that operating system that released in 2001 that has so many security holes by modern standards, won’t run most modern programs, won’t support above 4 GB of RAM, can’t use Internet Explorer 9 or above, … yeah THAT one!) It’s just that computers are so expensive here! Although the incomes here are dramatically less than in the States, after the exchange rate the cost of a computer is nearly identical! So the percentage of income it would take to buy a computer here is SIGNIFICANTLY higher! However, as incomes rapidly change here, and currency exchange rates change over the long term, I see this situation changing as well.

As far as the students, there really aren’t any “computer labs” on campus for students to use. Many of them hit up the Internet Cafes or a few select teacher offices to use computers. Typing up papers? I doesn’t happen. All homework is hand-written and turned in as such. Teachers realize limited access students have to computers, and don’t even think twice about the hand-written assignments. I’ve never seen a college student here type up an assignment.

With that being said, Bethany, as a teacher, will still type and print assignments, study guides, and other things for her classes. When she goes to print it off at school or even at home, we realize the main cost in China isn’t the ink/toner like it is in the States – it’s the paper! The $3 ream of paper apparently costs much more than the ink that’s printed on it. “Sure you can use the printer. Just make sure you bring your own paper from your office.”

Electricity

In many ways the same “cost per income” analysis is true for electricity. Our school takes care of our utility needs, but the average Chinese resident deals with a significantly higher “cost per income” to pay their electric bill – and most people don’t use electric heating/cooling units!

This becomes a big deal when it comes to student dorms. Here, the University has keeps strict control on power usage. They have to keep their costs down, so they turn the lights on in the entire building at X time in the morning, and turn them off at Y time in the day. The same happen at night – they come on at X time, and they get shut off at Y time at night. This is true for the whole building. Wasting electricity is a big deal here.

Our Technology

Coming to China, one of my biggest fears was limited technological access. To be honest, there is still a lot of access to technology. What the area might lack in computers, they make up for in cell phone usage. We have Internet access, electricity, and cell phones. The school even supplied us with a computer for Bethany to use. Granted, it is an older computer by our standards, and we did bring our laptops to China with us, but it’s the gesture that counts. So many of those fears were unfounded.

Sure, in this small town, our electricity may go out once or twice a month, and our Internet access may be slower than those in the States, but we have it. That’s all we really care about. Things may be different, but they work.

For long-distance communication, we primarily use Skype and the Magic Jack we picked up in the States before we left, as well as a few other technologies. Those two specifically have been huge blessing for staying connected to our families and friends. We even use Skype to attend church with our community of Faith in Kentucky! Magic Jack is nice because it gives us a Kentucky telephone number that is local for our friends and family to call!

While there are some strong technological differences between our cultures, I’m impressed with the ways the supposed-limitations are handled here. It’s neat to me to see the new ways that common technology is used, and how the culture handles the associated costs of technology.

As China continues to improve it’s infrastructure, the technology will continue to change and grow as well. It may take some time, but they are improving here at a very rapid pace. It is that rapid pace that will propel China through those “development” ranks. Is it too fast? Are they moving too aggressively? Are the people even able to keep up with the changes? That depends on who you ask. Whatever the answer, it doesn’t change the truth of the situation: China is developing quickly!

Cultural Differences – Part 1 Food

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Whenever you move from one location to another, the first things you tend to notice are the similarities and differences between the two places. More common than not, it’s the differences that tend to stand out. It doesn’t matter if you go from the city to the country, from the South to the North, or half way around the planet – there are always differences to notice. And, boy do we notice them.

Culture differences can be a struggle sometimes, because they usually involve how we interact with other people. It involves behaviors and sayings. It involves our environment, and what we buy and how we live.

Now, “differences” doesn’t mean “good” or “bad,” it simply means “different.”  Whether they are “good” or “bad” can be open to debate – and that’s not what this series is about. This is meant to be more of a factual, “Here is what we’ve experienced in our part of China,” declaration. And to start this first declaration will involve one of my favorite topics: Food!

Eating Habits

Every culture has different tastes and desires in food. The tastes of the citizens of China vary as greatly as the people groups. With 56 different officially recognized ethnic groups in China, there is no single set standard on what exactly is “Chinese” food. One of the joys this creates is that ordering the same dish in a different location can be a totally different experience! One experience that you should not expect, though, is for real Chinese food to taste like “American Chinese” food – these two are completely different, and have very little similarities (other than using rice and noodles).

Some areas of China rarely eat meat, such as in the south, whereas other areas of China tend to have meat quite often, such where we are in the North. Where meat is a staple for a most meals in American homes, meals here will always have rice, noodles, or a pancake – a kind of flaky flat bread made from flour, water, egg, and maybe a few other ingredients, but prepared very differently from a Western pancake – as a staple instead.

Another thing to understand is that the Chinese are a very health-conscious people. You could say they were “organic” long before it was cool in America. It’s not common to buy frozen or pre-made foods for meals, although the younger generations seem to be more open to the idea. To indicate that something might have been genetically or hormonally modified/altered/enhanced will completely turn them off to such a product.

Speaking of product turn offs, one of the biggest adjustments we’ve had to make in our eating habits here is ensuring that we don’t buy or order fish, unless we’re prepared to de-bone it ourselves. In China, the bones – and even the head! – are believed to be very nutritious, which may just be true, but it’s not something I’m willing to swallow (pun intended).

Restaurants

But, to be honest, ordering food at all can be difficult when you have trouble speaking the language, let alone reading it. Sure, we try to speak Mandarin Chinese, and we are getting better, but it’s certainly not a simple language – and it’s made more complex when the people group you live with speak a different dialect of Mandarin than you are learning. Yet, progress is still progress.

So, to remedy this language barrier problem, we tend to stick with restaurants that have picture menus. This creates an easy, point-and-order, kind of situation that makes everyone feel more comfortable.  To be able to walk into a restaurant, see a dish with noodles, beef, potatoes, and vegetables, point at it, and know this is what I’m getting is a nice feeling. Playing “Menu Roulette” is something that doesn’t always end up very well. Ordering “cold lambs liver” may be a unique cultural dish, but it’s not a dish experience that Bethany would like to repeat.

Shopping

One thing to realize, though is that we don’t often eat at restaurants. Most of the time, we cook at home with food we buy from the market. Oh, how we love the market!

Where most vegetables come with a rather high price tag in the States, buying vegetables in China is extremely affordable! For less than $8 USD, we are able to pick up a weeks worth of vegetables for lunch and dinner, where the veges themselves make up about 50% of the meals! A $1.50 bell pepper in the States costs about $.50 USD here.  A weeks worth of potatoes (being the staple ingredient about every 3rd meal) costs just over $2 USD.  Eggs are about the same price – about $1.50 USD a dozen – but I’m confident that ours were gathered up probably that morning or the day before.

Most of the foods we buy are the same or similar to what you can buy in the States, but there are some differences. One such food that we buy is a Chinese cabbage called “bok choy” 白菜. Bethany really enjoys mixing this into our meals to give us some healthy green nutrition. Simply being able to afford to cook with such a large variety of vegetables is a great joy for us!

Western Food

One of the other big cultural differences with food comes in how the Chinese understand Western food. In our town, we have three Western restaurants to choose from: One is a nice, sit down restaurant, one is KFC, and the last is Dico’s (a Chinese version of KFC). So there’s “Fancy,” “Chicken,” or “chicken”.

Now, the KFC menu in China is NOT like the KFC menu in America.  There main seller is not a big bucket of chicken. Instead, they primarily sell various chicken sandwiches. But they won’t be called “chicken sandwiches” here.  I’m not sure why, but anything that is placed between two pieces of bread seems to earn the label “hamburger.” So, KFC sticks a piece of chicken between two pieces of bread, and that now is labeled a “hamburger.” Sure, you can still order that bucket of chicken if you want – it’s in a small square at the bottom right of the menu – but I have yet to see any Chinese order it.

One thing to be aware of is that drink sizes are quite different. Most places give you the choice of a small 12 ounce cup or a medium 16 ounce cup. You can’t find a 20 ounce cup here. This might be different in other larger cities – maybe at a McDonald’s for example – I don’t know.  What I do know is that I haven’t seen it.

While there certainly a large amount of cultural differences between our countries, it has been a blast learning about them! Food is one of those things that not only divide people but also unite them. It’s through food and meals that many meaning conversations can happen. It’s through food and meals that personalities often come out the most. Jesus spent a lot of time speaking with and getting to know people through meals. As we continue to get to know  more and more students and teachers here in China, there will likely be a lot of love shown over food.