For those who don’t know, for the past three weeks I was on an International Summer School in Beijing. I’ve learned some Chinese, made some new friends and learnt that everything is spicy. However, I’ve also learned some fairly arbritrary things.
1) Pants are optional
It seems like the haute couture in China is to go pantless. The adults do not seem to have caught onto this just yet, but infants all across the city, especially near bus stops and sidewalks, seem have the latest fashion knowledge. Either you get the total bottomless look or the slit-in-your pants look. This even seems so convenient as diapers are so last season, and much more expensive! You can even do your thing on the street with no mess. This new fad screams convenience and style.
2) Sell your food on sticks
Again, China, seem to be on the pinnacle of genius. They sell almost every kind of food on sticks. From melon slices, to corn, to lamb chops, to scorpions, to doughballs, to glazed fruit to even the obvious cotton candy. It makes munching things easy and you just litter the stick everywhere you go. So, next time you consider starting a vendor business, adapt your food so they can fit on sticks. It’s bound to sell like hot cakes on sticks.
3) There is a thing such as flyer-free
Being a tourist and a foreigner in Beijing, gets you some odd, yet extremely welcoming perks. We all know the dreaded flyer person lurking behind every corner or standing in the only path to your destination. It seems inevitable to avoid the random flyer. However, in Beijing flyering-people are smart. They realize you won’t understand Chinese and, bless a higher deity, they don’t stick the thing in your hand. Freedom!
4) The best present is a hooter
If you ever consider giving someone a present in China, get them a hooter for their car/bike. They will love your for it, for it’s the most overused item in the whole of Beijing. They toot their hooter so much that one becomes desensitized to it. Thus, when someone really needs you to get out of the way, you ignore their alerts, right until you almost get run over! So, if you get a hooter, get one that is unique and distinguishable from the drowning of hooters.
5) Being inefficient is good
Somehow, Beijing, with their 18 million people population manages to operate. It amazes me how they can function, but I’ve found the answer! You have to be inefficient! The steps across the bridge are so small that it’s really inefficient to walk each step, but too far apart to skip a step. Yet, somehow every day people walk on them. The queues at popular tourists are also extremely inefficient. At the Forbidden City, after you buy a ticket you have to go through a really tight metal fence queue the same way you came in. Thus it leads to shoving and pushing all the way back. There are many more examples of inefficiency that I could highlight, but I don’t need to, because we all know that China will be the next superpower. So governments all across the world! The key to growth is in inefficiency!
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