"You never get a second chance at a first impression" is how the old saying goes, but returning to your adopted country after a stint away can be an exception. People have all manner of tales about their first steps onto Chinese soil, impressions that colour their view of the country for years. Many recall the magical feeling of being somewhere truly exotic; some will have tales of frontier border crossing from Vietnam or Mongolia, whilst others recount huge glass spires looming out of the mists as Chinese skyscrapers hover into view on the ferry from Hong Kong. All good stories. My first impressions of China were of an irate face-masked health official whisking me out of the Beijing airport immigration queue to accuse me of being a H5N1 carrier and national security risk, so by the time I actually got round to getting into China proper, I wasn’t very receptive to the magic.

I wanted a second chance, as it were, at my spoiled first impression. So, upon recently returning to the PRC from my first Christmas holiday in years, I got up, showered in my bathroom/kitchen/laundry-room/airing cabinet/storage room and set out into the streets with newly re-Westernised eyes, a notebook and what I hoped was a good attitude, to see what stood out. There was plenty:

1) Street Side Barbers
Scattered all over the country are thousands of these entrepreneurial individuals who quite literally set up shop on the street side. China Daily ran a small interview with a street-side barber in 2010 and the result is fascinating. They don’t exactly offer the newest of fashion trends, but if all you want is a quick de-furring (or a world famous nose-hair trim) for less than the price of a bottle of Tsingtao then this is definitely worth trying. There is nothing quite as surreal as sitting on a bustling street side as clumps of your own hair blow into the path of oncoming pedestrians. Definitely not in Kansas anymore…

2) All dressed up, now where to go?
Having come back from festive party season, I’ve come across a fair few girls in posh frocks and guys in bad blazers in recent weeks. Usually however, there is some sort of occasion (Christmas party, New Year gathering, club with a dress-code, etc) for cracking out the glad-rags. Back in China I encountered a great many impeccably made-up women (and a fair few men), all of whom would have put the smart folk back home to shame. However, I met most of them in the grocery store, balancing themselves on perilous high heels and distributing their weight between a giant Burberry handbag on one arm and a basket full of vegetables in the other.

Many reasons have been postulated on the topic of Chinese fashion sense – there is a ‘flaunt it’ mentality here, people are just better at it, a stereotypical Chinese man demands a particularly stereotypical Chinese girl – and I am in no position to offer an expert opinion, I just know that someone in a full-length ball gown in the Carrefour shopping for sunflower oil at 10 a.m. is not a regular occurrence back home…

3) Kaidangku
Moving on from the higher end of Chinese fashion to the (ahem) lower end. Arguably the single most talked about item of clothing amongst new visitors to China, the kaidangku (literally "open crotch pants") sported by youngsters here, are a source of endless appalled fascination amongst expats. The truth is however, the increasingly middle-class Chinese populace is turning its back on this traditional infants’ wear and starting to use disposable diapers by the truckload. I have met plenty of Chinese people who are more revolted than expats by some of their countrymen’s less than respectful attitude as to exactly what a city street’s function is. That said, in terms of a "wow I really am in a foreign country" moment, you cannot beat a wise grandmother holding the youngest member of her ancestral line bare-cheeked over a dustbin, whistling at the bemused child in order to speed up the act.

4) Motivational team speeches, in public
This would just never ever happen back home. Perhaps it is just a logical offshoot from the standardised group morning activities that take place in Chinese schools, but every day in China, expats are mystified at the sight of perfectly uniform rows of employees lined up outside their place of work having some officious looking fellow barking at them through a megaphone. While we may come to work on a Monday morning to a snarky "send to all" email from the boss, the Chinese go all out when it comes to management techniques. Hairdressing salons and KTV joints seem to be the most typical offenders, but I have seen restaurants, banks, gyms, football clubs and even a McDonalds employing similar tactics.

5) Wacky races
A green man does not necessarily mean cars will stop coming; a horn sound is not "I am alerting you to something wrong" but rather "I am coming through it is up to you to get out of the way". The lanes on freeways are optional, as is the direction in which you can travel (reverse is acceptable if you have overshot your exit); right of way means "I’m in the way, therefore I’m right," and so on. There is a great deal of stereotypes bandied about by expats to do with Chinese driving, so I tend to avoid the issue completely, that is until Peter Hessler of the New York Times explained it in such brilliant terms to make it seem blindingly simple:

"People drive like they walk. They like to move in packs, and they tailgate whenever possible. They rarely use their turn signals. If they miss an exit on a highway, they simply pull onto the shoulder, shift in reverse, and get it right the second time. After years of long queues, Chinese people have learned to be ruthless about cutting in line, an instinct that is disastrous in traffic jams…"
 

Related links
Fascinating, Pulsating, Illogical: Returning to the China I Once Knew
Leaving China and the Challenges of Returning ‘Home’
The Point of No Return: How Long in China is Too Long

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Keywords: first impressions China Chinese streets culture differences China returning to China driving in China