therambler

When I travelled to China last year I didn’t actually realise how much of a culture shock I would find myself in. I was naive enough to think that I already knew quite a bit about the Far East. I had made plenty of friends from China who had told me about the place and had already taken a few lessons in Mandarin.
But reality was far different to my perceptions and after only a few hours I realised that in fact the country and culture that I had stepped off the plane into was alien to me.
The main difference that is automatically apparent is the traffic in China. The city in which I had started my journey was Beijing and the roads from the airport to my hotel were not the type that you will find back in my home town of Exeter. Cars were dodging in between each other and everyone seemed to be in a rush, not least my taxi driver. I was struck at how bold the drivers were. If there was any space in which they could maybe squeeze their car past they would take it. Thankfully each driver that I encountered was skilled enough to make the squeeze without incident.
I would later have to learn that it wasn’t only drivers who had to be bold when travelling but also pedestrians. The vast amount of cars meant crossing a road was a nightmare and most of the time I would end up in the middle of the street with cars whizzing past either side of me.
When I did finally manage to manoeuvre myself to my hotel another difficulty prevented me from finally making it to my room. My arrogance again got the better of me and when I reached the reception I automatically assumed someone would be able to speak English. I was wrong. Cue 20 minutes of me trying to communicate with my limited Mandarin and a mixture of hand signals.
That’s the thing that I had to learn most when travelling in China. I needed to stop assuming things and instead start embracing Chinese culture. For example I decided to try different types of food. A newfound friend also showed me round some local venues. It’s safe to say that some things (particularly the food) weren’t to my taste but by trying everything I was never left thinking “what would that have been like?”
Any bad points were outweighed by the good points and after four weeks of travelling the new culture that I had ventured into was no longer unknown. All it took was for me to dive headfirst into it.