Food, sacred in China
1. Have children. You may know that from Nĭ hăo, which literally means “are you okay?” and is understood as "hello!". But if we look at the two characters that form the concept of "good", we find the union of the characters 'woman' and 'children'. Namely, In Chinese, having children is good. . Some would call it cultural violence.
two. Have you eaten? . The truth is that Ni hao is not said as much as we think, since many people prefer to use the rhetorical phrase "Have you eaten yet?". Although it actually translates as "How are you?", the literal translation shows the constant Chinese preoccupation with food.
3. Prepare, study, review. These are the three steps that every Chinese student has built into their heads. Many children go to school one or two hours earlier before classes begin to prepare for the lessons. Like here, come on.
Study and study, and then study
Four. naked marriage . This is the name given to newlywed couples who cannot afford to buy a flat. There are more and more cases, and for families it is a cause for dishonor . One of the most famous soap operas bears this concept by title.
5. Being busy. In China it is very bad to say that you are not doing anything, or that you enjoy your free time. Work is closely linked to culture , and therefore they will always answer you with "I'm very busy", even if they are on vacation.
6. Paul Frank. Did you think that Hello Kitty was the queen of Chinese souvenirs? Well, you're wrong, because the cartoon star is undoubtedly Julius the Monkey, a monkey with a smiling face and a little expressionless endlessly appearing on t-shirts, bags and hats. The inventor of it is Paul Frank, a designer who has struck gold in China.
The monkey that sells more than Hello Kitty
7. Egg with tomato. It is the great gastronomic dish of the country. Forget the rolls and rice three delights. if you want to try authentic chinese food You can't miss out on Xihongshi chao jidan, a very easy-to-prepare dish loved by millions of Chinese.
8. eat rabbit . Although from here it seems inconceivable to eat pets such as dogs or cats, the Chinese find it very strange that in Spain we eat rabbit . What has this animal done to us for us to put it in the oven?
9. Ask the age . The Chinese have a unique way of knowing the age of their interlocutor. They won't ask that question of "how old are you?", but they are much more sophisticated. As they have memorized the years of the Chinese horoscope, with the phrase " Which sign are you?" they know your age in a matter of seconds . As 12 years pass between animal and animal of the horoscope, the margin of error is quite low.
10. The drama of the tones . It is one of the most complicated things in your language, and it is that each word can be read with up to four different tones (plus one that is neutral) . The typical example is "ma", which depending on how it is pronounced means "mother", "sesame", "horse", "scold" or can indicate a question.
eleven. hot beer . Well, rather than hot, they serve it at room temperature. This custom, quite unpleasant for our taste buds, is the norm in the Asian giant. Also they are the kings of craft beer , with hundreds of varieties made in each town and city.
beer is better hot
12. But not everything is bad. Although this seems very difficult, Chinese is a really easy grammar language. It does not have singular or plural, it does not conjugate verbs, it does not differentiate between masculine and feminine. and they do not have verbs neither in the past nor in the future. That is why the Chinese find it so difficult to stop speaking Spanish in the infinitive.
13. A mobile for foreigners. In China mobile numbers are bought, and you can pay from cents to real fortunes. The reason? No one wants to have the number 14 on their phone. – most foreigners have it – because when it is pronounced it sounds like “you die”.
14. great superstitions. The same goes for floor numbers and building stories, where the 4 (which sounds like “death”) often disappears or is sold at a much cheaper price. If you ever think about buying a flat there, the 4th 4th will be the cheapest of all.
fifteen. Social networks . The Chinese are good at copying, and perhaps for this reason they have various social networks that they mimic the western ones . His Facebook is called “Renren” (person, person), his Twitter is Weibo, with more than half a million users, and his Messenger is called QQ, known for its friendly penguin logo.
Chinese twitter is called Weibo
16. gifts are returned . Giving a gift to a Chinese is not necessarily a positive thing. By doing so, we are telling the person that sooner or later they have to give us another item of the same value. That's why, many leave the label with the exact price next to the gift.
17. …And they don't open. Gifts are also not opened in front of the person giving you the gift. It is considered rude , so don't be surprised if you give a gift and the Chinese in question sneaks it under his coat.
18. Haggling is a way of life . Especially in the market, the Chinese love to haggle. They can spend a lot of time arguing with shopkeepers, in a game that normally does not reduce the price of what we want to buy but that it adds things. Instead of an apple for ten cents, for example, we get an apple and two bananas.
19. Watch out for the winks. There are two things that make a Chinese very nervous: one is that we stare at it and another is that we laugh nonstop . Neither is interpreted positively in the country, especially in smaller cities. If you want to generate a tense situation, bet on winking at someone and see the reaction.
In China, no winks
twenty. Future names. Although when they arrive in our country they change their names to "Antonio", "Gonzalo" or "Pedro", Chinese names tend to be very poetic. In fact, children are given what the family wants them to be when they grow up. Diametrically opposed to Spanish women's names such as "Angustias", "Soledad" or "Dolores".
twenty-one. They migrate by area. Many of the Chinese who live in our neighborhood know each other from before: families and entire towns emigrate to the same place in another part of the planet, and travel together to end up living in the same areas.
22. The first satellites . The image of the student in front of the tank in Tian'anmen Square, which by the way is still banned in China, is due to a serious mistake by the high command. Confident, they closed the journalists in a hotel, which was one of the highest in the city. These used one of the first satellites to send images to foreign media , and that is why we have received images from above, from above.
*You may also be interested
- Chinese for beginners: 11 things you will learn there
- Martín Berasategui and Chinese food
- 100 things about China you should know
- Ten authentic Chinese dishes (and three delights are not rolls or rice)
- Hong Kong with children