Beijing Local Custom Tips by Gard

We soon discovered that coughing up great wads of spit is a natural part of the everyday life in Beijing. I’m not sure if people cough and spit because of the air pollution or because they have a lot of dust being blown in from the deserts in the north. It seems like there is quite a lot of downfall in Beijing. I read somewhere that an average big city gets about 8 tons of downfall pr square kilometre but Beijing gets about 18 tons. Well, I can tell you that it is noticeable…some days when I blew my nose the tissue ended up kinda dirty…I shall not go into more details :-)

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It is fascinating to see how traffic varies from country to country around the world. I’m sure that it is possible to write an entire book on the subject of driving patterns in different countries :-) China was certainly different than other countries that we have been to. Not only do you have to keep an eye out for other cars…you also need to keep an eye on all the pedestrians and cyclists. And let me assure you: there are quite a lot of bicycles in Beijing :-) The motorists and cyclists seem to have achieved some form of harmony because the cyclists seemed impartial to the somewhat dubious drivers next to them.

The Beijing drivers seem to think that the mirrors in the car are not for practical use. Cars change lanes without any hesitation (or indication) and it seems to be the car behind that needs to keep an eye out for this. Another fascinating thing is the use of the horn. After many rides in taxis I have reached a conclusion that there are at least three reasons for using the horn: the reactive horn use (you pulled out right in front of me and you are blocking me); the preventive horn use (don’t try to pull out in front of me…I’m coming with great speed and there is no room for you); lastly general horn use (there is so much traffic and I can’t change lanes or overtake any cars).

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It should be pretty common with western tourists in Beijing these days. But in the Forbidden City, a guy came over to me and said something about taking a picture. I thought he wanted me to take a picture of him and his friend but it turned out that he wanted to take a picture of me and his friend. Another day while I was walking in a shopping mall I saw two girls and one of them had a camera. All of a sudden I was in the background of the picture and I tried to hurry up because I didn’t want to ruin their picture. But then all of a sudden the girls shifted position and once again I was in the background of the picture. So I went over to them and asked them if they wanted a picture of me and they said yes. So I ended up taking a picture with both of them :-) But the question is: are western tourists still so rare that Chinese wants to take pictures of them?

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