I am Canadian

Today I took a flight with my aunt from Chengdu to Guangzhou, and by the end of this 3 hour trip I really felt compelled to write about just how differently Chinese people behave compared to western citizens.  This is a commentary about how people behave in general, not just on the airplane.

Firstly, spitting is common, common to the point where in damp weather you cant really be sure if its spit youre walking in or if its a slowly drying puddle. Also, smoking is allowed almost everywhere, but people make no effort to read the signs that have "PLEASE DONT SMOKE ON THE BUS OR TRAIN" printed in huge bold characters.  Not only that, but they make no effort to blow their smoke towards the window, they blow it directly in your face for you to choke on.

Another thing that really bothers me, and probably a lot of other foreigners, is the unwillingness to hold onto your crap and throw it into a garbage bin.  Frequently you'll see people walking along the street eating a snack, and then proceed to throw the wrapping on the floor when theres a garbage bin less than 6 feet away.  Shuang even saw some woman riding her scooter on a boulevard throw a freaking plastic bottle into the middle of a road once she was done drinking it.  And another instance was on Mount Emei where people just left bags of garbage on the side of the road (which is a great way to protect your world heritage site for the future...).

Aside from the whole keeping clean part, theres the lack of patience issue that plagues the nation.  People will push and shove and trample you to be the first to get onto a shuttle bus (that doesnt leave until everyone's on) just so they can be first.  And then theyll trample you to try and be the first to get off (when the bus will wait for everyone to get off).  They really dont have any concern for how theyre bothering the people around them.  On long haul bus rides, there will ALWAYS be someone that yells into their cellphone for at least an hour.  Seriously, what the fuck, first off you don't need to YELL at your phone, its made to be spoken into. And secondly SHUT THE FUCK UP WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS TRYING TO SLEEP.

A similar thing happened on the airplane today, i was pretty impressed by people automatically lining up to check-in at the front desk in the departures hall.  But once on the plane, all hell broke loose.  People will push and shove people out of their way so they can 'rush' to their seat. And then once you've landed the pilot announces over the intercom "welcome to guangzhou, please stay seated until we arrive at the gate" EVERYONE gets up and opens the luggage cabins.  I really don't understand why youre in such a rush to get your crap and stand in the aisle uncomfortably before the plane has ever been anchored to the terminal. I even spoke loudly in chinese that theres "only one fucking exit at the front", so why are you tools in the last row standing up and trying to make your way ahead of 25 other rows?  The captain also said something about please dont turn on your cellphones until we give you the all clear.... and then you proceed to hear nokia, motorola and LG tunes fill the cabin.  Sometimes i really just want to yell at the people to calm the fuck down and take a seat cause theyre not going anywhere.  In Japan its even frowned upon to talk on your mobile on any form of public transit, whilst the people here have never heard of using your 'indoor voice' at 3 in the morning on a bus with the lights off.  

Another comment, chinese domestic products are terrible, their TVs are cheap and so bad that i can build a better CRT with a guide from the internet than the shit they produce here.  Apparently people have to be concerned about fake products to the point where even toothpaste and shampoo is suspect.  The chinese brand cars have advertisements touting how superior they are to imports, when in reality theyre even worse than american cars.  Im pretty sure when a medium sized sedan costs the equivalent of 10000CAD, its going to be a pile of shit.  Even while i was in Vietnam/Thailand and also in the beyond-poor countries of Laos and Cambodia, Chinese motorcycles (and other products) where synonymous with cheap, unreliable and terrible whilst Japanese and Korean goods were synonymous with quality, expensive but well worth the investment.  Vietnamese people are willing to pay 4-5x the price of a chinese motorbike (plus a crazy tax) for a japanese one... just cause they know it will still start in 6 months time.

That's not to say everything in China's terrible... just people's behavior, and their scammy products.  Otherwise, the food here is amazing, minus the suspect seafood i had today thats probably been dead for a while now...