You know you’ve been in China too long when…

Posted on May 6, 2013 in Fun Stuff | 0 comments

 

• Putting leftovers directly into a plastic bag seems normal
• You can’t access your own blog
• Steak with rice sounds just fine.
• You start referring to yourself as ‘laowai’ or ‘foreigner’
• You have to pause and translate your phone number into English before telling it to someone.
• Someone ‘draws’ a character on their hand and you understand.
• You see nothing wrong with standing on a white stripe in the middle of a highway while cars whiz past you at 90kph
• You know words in Chinese for which you don’t know the translation in English.
• You convince yourself that it doesn’t matter how dirty the cooks’ hands are, cooking will fix it
• You start to buy an XXXL T-shirt in a store when you returned home

• People ask you how young you were (几岁) when you moved to China

• You start shaving your eyebrows and stop shaving everywhere else

• You think American clothing is very plain

• Everything you are wearing was purchased in China

• You don’t know the conversion between CNY and USD

• People ask you where you are from and you say the Chinese province/city where you live

• Your English has a Chinese accent

• You can speak at least one other dialect aside from Mandarin

• You drink powder coffee

• You can’t understand why the waitress brought you a fork and knife instead of chop sticks

• You send back ice water for hot water

• You throw out your self tanners and carry an umbrella in sunny weather

• You talk about movies and music in terms of things that are popular (in china) and things you heard are popular in America

• You like ankle hose with sandals and a skirt

• Your favorite beer is named after a place in China

• You think all occasions should be celebrated with baijiu 白酒 and beer

• You think Great Wall wine is high class

• You add 7-up 七喜 to your wine

• You married a Chinese person

• You consider not buying diapers for your children

• You play ping pong and badminton on a regular basis

• You hear someone say “laowai” and look around not realizing he/she is talking about you

• You can’t remember how to drive a car

• You think a balanced meal must have rice, noodles or mantou

• You like rice for breakfast and eggs for dinner

• Your Chinese friends ask you to bargain for them

• You don’t look before you cross the road

• You talk to strangers while you are using the bathroom

• You have never heard of any of the new English songs at KTV

• You get excited about mid-autumn festival but forget about Halloween

• You write the date yyyy/mm/dd when you sign your name on English documents

• You think of months in terms of 1-12 instead of Jan-Dec

• You drink gan mao cha 感冒茶 (南方) or banlangen 板蓝根 when you have a cold

• You think women must be married by 30

• You don’t think it’s weird to speak to other westerns in Chinese

• You have a stock pile of deodorant and other western luxuries (because you don’t know when you’ll go back)

• You talk about the China before there were so many foreigners here

• You remember China before Starbucks

• You know why Qingdao beer is spelled TsingTao and think it’s odd other people can’t pronounce it

• You know what CAN, PEK, TAO mean

• You make fun of Chinese people who speak funny Mandarin
• fish hanging up in your living room draining the blood out of it into a dish doesn’t seem so strange anymore.
• The footprints on the toilet seat are your own.
• you know the first couple questions every Chinese will ask you.

• You press both up and down life buttons
• You aren’t aware that one is supposed to pay for software.
• You feel cheated if you don’t receive a full head and shoulder massage when getting a haircut.
• You regard it as part of the adventure when the waiter correctly repeats your order and the cook makes something completely different.
• You are not surprised when three men with a ladder show up to change a light bulb.
• You look over people’s shoulder to see what they are reading.
• When shopping at Carrefour some laowai stares you down for catching you looking into his basket while you wonder to yourself what laowai’s eat.
• You have a pinky fingernail an inch long.
• You start to watch CCTV9 and feel warm and comforted by the governments great work.
• You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules.
• You start calling other foreigners Lao Wai.
• You think no car is complete without a tissue box on the rear shelf and a feather duster in the trunk.
• When looking out the window, you think “Wow, so many trees!” instead of “Wow, so much concrete!”
• Someone doesn’t stare at you and you wonder why.
• Firecrackers don’t wake you up.
• You wear out your vehicle’s horn before its brakes.
• Chinese remakes of Western songs sound better than the originals.
• You realize that smiling and nodding is Chinese body language for, “Go away; leave me alone.”
• You think of “salad” as diced apples in mayonnaise
• Your handshake is weakening by the day.
• You compiled a 3-page list of weird English first names that Chinese people of your acquaintance have chosen for themselves.
• You and a friend get on a bus, sit at opposite ends of the bus, and continue your conversation by yelling from one end to the other.
• You cannot say a number without making the appropriate hand sign. And you can just use one hand instead two hands to give the number like chinese
• You start recognizing the Chinese songs on the radio and sing along to them with the taxi driver.
• You feel insulted when you enter a restaurant and only three waiters welcome you.
• Your friends can’t understand why you haven’t memorized your QQ
• You eat soup with chopsticks
• You get on the bus and sleep right away.
• You enjoy wearing flip flops on all occasions.
• You get your haircut on the sidewalk.
• You have grown used to the picture quality of pirated VCDs.
• Badminton and ping pong are your main forms of exercise.
• Thanks to karaoke, you know who has the most singing talent in your building.
• You use the word “Ayyiieeaaahh” every few sentences to convey surprise, pleasure, pain or anger.
• You watch an american movie on HBO, with sub-titles, and try to read them.
• You talk louder than is necessary.
• When you can’t imagine a meal without yi wan mi fan! (a bowl of rice).
• When you go back to your home country and you find it odd that when going out to a restaurant, you don’t have 5 wait staff welcoming you at the same time.
  You find it strange when everyone’s food at a restaurant is brought out at the same time.