My trip to China ended with an eleven-hour flight back to Vancouver. We flew first to Hong Kong and then connected our flight to Vancouver. I arrived into Vancouver on 29 March. So as you can see, it’s already been 4 days since I ended my trip. I told myself to release the journal that I kept on the road, but my other half brain told me to hold. Yes, something went wrong here. What I kept in my journal does not match what I expected that I would write.
It seems that my trip to China brought me second cultural shock. I visited China four times since I left the country five years ago. Excluding the last visit, the previous three were either business type or out of family emergency. So, I should I say that this last visit was a real visit. And it brought me a reversed cultural shock, which I tried to deny but failed.
Shock One - Traffic Chaos
Believe it or not, I was pretty scared when crossing the road. It seems that the traffic signals in the city where I stayed didn’t really mean anything. People crossed the road when the red light was on, and so did the drivers. I had to drag my dear wife and my brave boy whenever we went across the roads. “Do as the Romans do!” I told them. The real question is “What happens when the Romans don’t?” I have no answer to that question.
Taking a taxi was another unique experience to me. I never realized it was so unique until I revisited the city. Here in the city that I lived, the drivers (not only the taxi drivers) were the “bravest” and the most --- drivers that I had ever seen. Almost none gave signals when making left and right turns. Miraculously, I didn’t see traffic accidents while I was there.
Shock Two - Sense of Privacy
I don’t mean to say that there was no privacy in China. But, what I experience in a notary public office made me wonder what privacy really meant to many people there. One day, I went into the office. Seeing people revealing their quite personal stories in front of many others made me uncomfortable… “Do as the Romans do” I told myself. So, I waited patiently and tried to avoid the sound coming from the person in front of the line. Then, I sensed that someone was peering through my shoulder and stared at the paper that I was holding. “Do as the Romans do” I murmured quietly. Moments later, my brother came and we discussed at the corner of the office with the documents open on the desk. Almost immediately, I saw a man was staring at the documents. His staring lasted (about 3 minutes) till I politely reminded him that it was a personal document and … My mouth dropped seeing him exploded at me, reminding me that it was a public place and he started just the desk not the document.
This incident made me remember what I went through when I visit doctors while I was living in the city. Whoever visited doctors knew that doctors questioned their patients in front of all the other patients or listeners. Quite embarrassing sometimes, I should admit, when you have to involuntarily take the intimate information of someone else, which you really don’t want to.