Reviewing the country: China

Good morning everyone!

At this moment, we just got on our train that will bring us to the border of Tibet (West China). Once we are there, we will have to look for a place to spend the night because tomorrow, a bus will take us over the border to Tadzhikistan. As you guys can probably imagine, we will be spending the whole day on this train because it is actually a very long trip.

To kill the time, we have decided to provide you of a round-up of our experiences regarding China. It is impossible to give a specific review about China because we have seen way too much. Though, we will try to express our most important feelings about China, treating different subjects.

The cities in general
Generally, we can state that all the cities we have discovered have mostly the same elements but in different proportions. Hereby we mean that there are industrial, economic and touristic aspects in every city. A remarkable thing that we have discovered that there still is a difference between Eastern and Western China. Eastern cities look more like our Western society. The streets are very busy and the booming of economy of China is omnipresent out there. There are still some authentic Chinese districts but they are in the minority. The cities in Western China and Tibet look way more authentic and old than in the Eastern part of China. There is also a lot of unspoiled nature over there and the people seem to have a more relaxed mentality.

The people
Physically, the people are incredibly small. In our little country, people measuring more than 1.85 meters are the most common thing in the world but here in China they are a rarity. That’s one of the reasons why Chinese people all look pretty similar. The people here also seem to be very disciplined. We have passed quite a lot of time here but we have never had any noticeable conflicts. People seem to respect the law in here. The incredibly chaotic traffic is the exception that confirms the rule. There don’t seem to be any traffic regulations in here. People just drive quickly and dangerously but it seems to work out pretty well.

Nature
To be honest, during the first part of our China trip we didn’t see a lot of beautiful nature. As we mentioned before, cities were the most important over there. Also, within the cities there was hardly any nature. The ‘West Lake’ in Hangzhou was nice though. The beautiful part of China, when it comes to nature, is to be found in Tibet en Western China. There are more mountains, there is fresh air and a lot of green.

Culture
We are tending to believe that culture in China is all about religion. We have seen a large amount of different temples and cathedrals, you simple couldn’t look next to them. The most important religions that we have seen here are Taoism, Islam and Buddhism. We are not saying that there is no art, humour and stuff like that in China but it’s just subordinate in comparison to Religion.

Food
The food was generally really spicy in here but that was nothing more than we expected. Also, we have also visited McDonald’s a few times because we just need some fries and some hamburgers now and then. We can give you guys one golden advice when it comes to food in China. Never ever order a dish in China of which local people say it is spicy because it’s unbearable!

So that was our little review. Now we will try to get some more sleep on our train. We will probably be back in a few days to describe our adventures in Tadzhikistan.

Cheers!