Life and Travel in China

You probably don't know that you can transport a refrigerator with an electric scooter?! And I already know it's possible - I saw it last night. I'm not talking about a very small fridge, just a 1.5 meter one. Can you imagine this in Poland? We come to the home appliances showroom, choose a refrigerator, the salesman asks if it can be delivered, and we say - I won't take it now. We go out to the parking lot with the staff, they look for our delivery vehicle, and we stand proudly next to our scooter - "Please load it here and tie it with this string."

Few people in Poland know the history of the Zhen Hua ship from Shanghai. At the end of 2008, near Somalia, they were attacked by pirates, just like "Sirus Star" with a Polish captain on board. The difference, however, was that the Shanghai ship was partially prepared for the attack. In their home port, they organized various flares, water cannons, gunpowder bombs, etc. They were attacked by three boats, the shipowner said that they could surrender and stay, that they would cover all the losses and they would talk about a ransom. However, the Chinese captain decided to defend himself. The entire crew joined the fight. The pirates boarded the ship, but could not get into the compartments where the crew was barricading themselves. I guess the pirates also ran out of courage and ammunition. After five hours, the fighting stopped. The Chinese threw a few cartons of cigarettes and shoes on board for the pirates to just go away. The Somalis were resigned, took their small "loot" and sailed away. The Zhen Hua ship returned safely to Shanghai, and the captain became the hero of the entire Chinese fleet.

DID YOU KNOW THAT... in China there are practically no swear words used in everyday speech. There are no typical Polish interludes such as f..., f..., etc. Their language is simple, but not coarse. It doesn't matter whether we mean the statements of a university lecturer, a doctor, a miner, a taxi driver or a worker... they have no practice in dirtying the language. There are, of course, curses that they use in the event of a fight, but translated into Polish, such insults would make someone smile rather than offend anyone. Well, how to react when someone insults us with the phrases "Your mother..." or "You are a bad egg" or "Turtle egg". Interestingly, they have many substitutes for offensive terms. For example, in some circles a prostitute would be called very disgusting in Poland, in China it is usually "chicken" or "lady". They used to call the male penis "JJ" or "younger brother" for short, but in Poland we have a more explicit term, unfortunately.

A few weeks ago, my wife told me information from the Chinese media that the government, local governments and local authorities in China are giving up some privileges, of course due to the economic crisis around the world. One of these 'cuts' will be the lack of coupons for free massages! I'm not joking at all, but such privileges are available to people connected with the government, working for the state in various administrative offices. Can you imagine that? In Poland, people would tear apart officials who went for massages for money from the budget. The authorities in the Middle Kingdom are provided with thousands of privileges: free fuel, vehicles for their own use (the latest Mitsubishi, Toyota, BMW - mainly off-road vehicles), apartments, hotels, trips, full board... We can only regret that we were not born as the child of a Chinese minister or some police inspector, ha ha!

I recently read that the city of Shenzhen (mainland China) will receive special vouchers for shopping in Hong Kong. Notice how Hong Kong treats the Chinese? Just ten years ago they considered themselves better, smarter and more cultured than the average Chinese from outside the British colony. A few years ago, they were still afraid of the influx of Chinese beggars, the poor and prostitutes (they now use the services of the latter group very often). When the specter of crisis appears in Hong Kong, tourism revenues drop - then Hong Kong issues visas to everyone and gives vouchers so that people from China can fuel their economy. And with this population, even if someone buys a bottle of water in Hong Kong or grilled octopus, it is also a big profit. What about people who buy phones, cameras, computers? If I were the Chinese, I would be offended at Hong Kong right now, but they are delighted with access to Hong Kong and are creating huge queues at the border.