Greenheart Travel

Tag: cultural differences

  • Differences in Determining Temperature, Age and Weight in China

    Differences in Determining Temperature, Age and Weight in China

    by Afia Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

    叶飞飞Yèfēifēi

    Ni Hao Friends, Family and New Friends,

    Day 6 in Beijing was a very chill Saturday in Beijing for me. I stayed in with the boys, played with them a bit and helped them to practice their English. They are great.

    I’d like to use this quick post to talk about a few more cultural differences between home in the United States, and life in Beijing. Yes, the list of differences continue, but I’ll make these brief.

    Temperature:

    When Chao told me one day, “Yeah it’ll be about 22 degrees today,” I literally was like “wut!?” *insert shock face here*.

    But we both realized that their ‘22 degrees’ here in Beijing meant about ‘71 degrees Fahrenheit’ back home in the States. The temperature here in Beijing is told in Celsius.

    Weight:

    They have a weight scale here in the BEIT Office, Greenheart Travel’s partner company’s office. So of course I casually hop on the scale to check my weight. But after seeing the number I’m screaming like “Ahhhh, no way!”

    I figured I’d lose weight in China because the eating is healthier here, but not this much weight! Then I had to ask, “Chao and Bella. Please tell me, is weight measured here in lbs?” And they’re like “yeah.”

    I say “No way, p-o-u-n-d-s, pounds? l-b-s, pounds?

    And then they clarify, “No, we use jin.”

    Now it made sense. It seemed like I had lost a drastic 10-12 pounds in my short stay here so far. However, it was more like 3-5 lbs, but not too far off my normal weight at home.

    The difference between jin to lbs seems to fall within 10-20 lbs or so. So the conversion looks like this:

    • 100 lbs is 90 jin.
    • 200 lbs is 181 jin.

    Age:

    The way age is recognized in the States differs from how it’s recognized in Beijing.

    In the states, when a baby is born, he is 0 months old. Then the baby is x months old, like 6 months old or 10 months old. After one year passes, on the first anniversary of the baby’s birth, the baby is then considered to be 1 years old.

    Not the case in China. In China, the moment a baby is born, that baby is considered to be 1 years old. On the baby’s first birthday, the baby is now considered to be 2 years old.

    So yes, the differences here are pretty neat. I’ll continue to take note and keep you all posted as I do.

    Until next time,

    叶飞飞
    Fifi

  • Learning About Money, Love and the Unlucky Number 4 in China

    Learning About Money, Love and the Unlucky Number 4 in China

    by Afi Yeboah, Greenheart Travel Homestay Teacher in China

    Day 2第二天 Dì èr tiān

    Ni Hao Family and Friends. It’s me again, 叶飞飞Yèfēifēi (affectionately known as Fifi in America), and this is my blog post about Day 2 in Beijing, China.

    To continue where we left off, I was headed to orientation with Greenheart Travel’s partner company, “Bridge For Education & International Travel.” I am participating in their “Homestay in China” program. Upon settling in the meeting room, one of the first things I noticed was how they serve tea in Beijing.

    Chao He, my B.E.I.T. representative, explained to me that they don’t add anything to their tea in Beijing. No sugar, honey, ice or milk! What’s served is just the hot water and bag less tea leaves. Hot water is also served with every meal, as opposed to the way cold beverages are served with meals in the U.S. Interesting stuff.

    tea and orientation

    So Chao and her colleagues gave me a really great “Post Arrival Training” book, which went over a lot of important cultural aspects of China, but I will briefly cover two.

    About the Money:

    Chinese currency is called “Renminbi (people’s money). It is abbreviated as RMB. Yuan is a unit of Renminbi, and the smaller denominations are called jiao and fen.

    1 yuan = 10 jiao = 100 fen

    As far as spoken Chinese, yuan is called kuai and jiao is called mao.

    When shopping, they tell me to divide the RMB amount by 5 to get the approximate USD amount. Meaning, if something is priced as 100RMB, its about $20 bucks or less back home.

    china-money

    (The actual conversion right now is 1 US Dollar equals 6.46 Chinese Yuan, according to Google.)

    No Love?:

    As we continued to talk about cultural differences, one of the most memorable differences was their expression of love.

    In Chinese class in high school with Mr. Zhang, and even my Mandarin courses in college with Wang Laoshi and Lee Laoshi, I remember learning the phrase “Wo Ai Ni”, which means “I love you” in Mandarin Chinese.

    However, I probably won’t ever hear “Wo Ai Ni” here in Beijing! Chao and Bella from B.E.I.T. explained to me that in China, you rarely say “I Love You,” not even to your parents.

    I said “Bella, do you ever say I love you to your parents?” Laughing, she says “No, never!”

    Boy, I was shocked. In America, I say “I love you” to someone every single day. In every conversation with all of my family members and even with my close friends, we exchange our “I love you’s” at the end of every single one of our conversations.

    Chao explained to me that in China, people only say “I love you” to their parents during very special occasions, maybe on Birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and wedding speeches. The reason being, China is a country where the people don’t like to show their emotions.

    They don’t openly display their affection; they tend to keep it all inside. Although they may have love in their hearts, typically, they won’t verbally express it. I thought this was fascinating.

    Unlucky Number 4:

    When we were leaving orientation to get food at a local mall, I noticed something else. The elevators in China skip the number 4. (They also use the negative dash symbol to indicate their ground and basement floors.)

    The number “4” is considered to be unlucky in some parts of China, and therefore omitted in some Chinese buildings. Why? Because in Chinese, 4,四 is pronounced “sì” which sounds a lot like the Chinese word for death “sǐ” 死.

    IMG_4933

    Cool. So on our way to Phoenix Galleria, 凤凰汇, I spied a 7-Eleven which I was amazed that they had here. Even more amazing was the fact that the gallery had an H&M. If you know me at all, you know I love love love to shop, so I can’t wait to go back in there. We managed to grab food from the food court and I had the most delicious Chicken and Rice dish.

    chinese-food

    People continue to ask me how the food is here and I must say it hasn’t been too bad at all. I’ll talk about more about it later.

    We left the mall and Bella and I took the Metro to the Historical Hutongs, which are narrow streets and alleys filled with shops, commonly associated with Beijing, and are considered to be an important cultural element in this city.

    beijing

    Finally, Bella takes me to meet my host family and I get to see where I will be living. I interact with them more in Day 3 in Beijing, so I will discuss it all in my next blog post. Stay Tuned!

    Until Next Time ☺

    叶飞飞Yèfēifēi