Mandy October 25, 2024
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Hi everyone, welcome to Mandy Mandarin. Today, we’re going to. Actually, we’re not going anywhere today. I’m going to sit in front of my sofa and talk about the traveling tips.
You can use WeChat to pay for everything, I mean literally everything. You go into a shop, use your WeChat Pay, and you can use WeChat to order. You scan the QR code in the restaurants and order, and you can use WeChat to call a taxi, pay for the subway and the bus.
And here is one thing that I think is really cool. WeChat can be a very good translator. There are many different language versions of WeChat. So how to use WeChat as a translator? Here is a new function I would like to introduce to you. You can take a picture of it, then send the picture to yourself on WeChat, and then you long press the picture and choose translate.
Google, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. They are banned in China so you need a VPN to log in to those softwares. Google map is not available in China because Google is banned in China. So as a replacement you can choose Baidu app or Gaode map.
Trip.com is for you to book the ticket like entrance ticket, high-speed train ticket, book a flight, book a hotel, etc. You can use Dazhong dianping, or Xiaohongshu to figure out what to eat, what’s fun to see.
China is a very big country, so the climate in the north part of China and south part of China can be very different. Make sure which city you are going to and check the weather forecast before you go, so you won’t wear the wrong clothes, because you don’t want to melt in the very hot Guangzhou in June. A bit of Cantonese culture here. Wearing slippers is a huge thing in Guangdong(Canton) cause our summer is way too hot. So a lot of Cantonese(like me) love to wear slippers, these are the slippers that I have. I have them in different styles and different colors to match different clothes and it’s very common to wear slippers to go to the bank or some fancy places.
In general, most of the Chinese people in China can speak Mandarin and their dialect. For example, like Shanghai people, they can speak Mandarin + Shaghai dialect and me as a Cantonese I can speak Mandarin and Cantonese.
Uh, then what about English? So in general most of the young people in China can understand and speak some English. In our generation, we have to study English in school, it’s compulsory. But there are some very good English speaker and there’s some very bad English speaker, because English is not so popular in China. We don’t use it every day. But in general, in the big city it’s easier to find good English speaker. If it’s your first time to come to China, I would like to recommend you to travel in the big city, because it’s easier for you to get help from English speakers, unless you have a Chinese translator with you. Besides English, in the big city you can find Spanish speaker, French speaker, Arabic speaker and so many other different speakers. Because in the big city there a lot of people work in international trading, international finance, and so on.
Don’t be surprised when people want to help you so much. For example, you just ask for the direction. They are not only telling you how to go there, but also they lead you there. There’s a Chinese idiom called 助人为乐(zhùrénwéilè, meaning be happy to help others) this kind of hospitality is like already in our nature. So when you ask for help, people would love to help you if they have time.
If you can speak Chinese, people will be super super happy about it, because you can speak Chinese which means you respect our culture and you study hard on this. Once they know you can speak Chinese they would keep talking to you in Chinese.
Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and these are the cities that you might heard a lot from the news and among them, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou are all very old cities where you can see very modern architecture and traditional architecture but Shenzhen is a little bit different. Shenzhen is a very young city, which is around 45 years old so most of the buildings over there are very modern. Of course there are a lot more beautiful cities worth visiting, like Xi’an, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Luoyang, Guilin and so on.
Not all the Chinese food are spicy and not all the Chinese people can eat spicy food Cantonese like me I can’t eat spicy food if you invite me to eat this hot pot my mouth will bleed and I will end up in hospital. There are different special food in different regions for you to discovered. And yes, we do eat meat with bones, like we eat chicken feet, duck feet, duck head, chicken head, rabbit head and so on. And yes, we eat internal organs, in Guangdong we love ox internal organs, it’s like our special dish.
In the big restaurants, it’s easy to get chopsticks, spoon, fork and knife. But in the street food shop, it’s very common that they only offer you chopsticks and spoon. So if you don’t know how to use chopsticks so I have 2 piece of advices for you. First is you bring your own forks with you like you can have those portable forks and secondly you train yourself how to use chopsticks you can start from these learner chopsticks and you can do some practice like this (shown in the video above). We drink plain hot water. If you go into a restaurant and they offer you hot water in the very very hot summer, don’t be surprised, it’s very common. If you don’t like hot water, you can ask them for some ice water.
It’s easy to fly from one big city to another big city. But if you’re going to smaller city usually there’s no airport. In this case, you will need to take the train. Let’s say high-speed train. Personally if I can choose the airplane or the high-speed train, I will definitely go for the high-speed train, because it’s very stable and it’s fast. There’s WiFi and 5G signal on it, so you won’t get disconnected when you’re on your way. You don’t have to go to the station 2 hours before it set off, you just need to go there at least 10 minutes ahead. But I will still suggest you to arrive in the station 30 minutes before departure time. Here is a map of the high-speed train railways(shown in the video above). Actually you can take the high-speed train to quite a lot of places.
If you want to drive in China, you have to have the Chinese driver license, which needs quite a lot of certificates to prove that you’ve lived in China for a certain time and a lot of other stuff, so it’s not that easy. If you want the road trip, you better have a Chinese friend and let the Chinese friend be the driver. So just now we were talking about from city to city. As you are in one city, usually there’s bus, there’s taxi, and it’s easy to get there’s subway everywhere. And as for the public transportation, they are pretty cheap.
Another piece of advice, try to avoid the rush hour especially in the big city. So usually the rush hour is in the morning, 8:00-9:00 in the afternoon, 5:00-7:00. In some cities, you have to go through the security check to get into the metro station. There are a few things you’re not allowed to bring into the station like knife, fire lighter or flammable liquid. Sometimes if you bring the water with you and you are going through the security check, they’re not sure what liquid it is. They will ask you to drink the water in front of them or you put the water in the machines. So they will test it to make sure this is water, this is not flammable liquid, then they will let you go. So please don’t feel offended if they ask you to stop and check something in your bag because they are doing their job to make sure everyone is safe in the station.
Even though Covid is long gone, but you could see there are still quite a lot of people wearing masks on the street. There are a lot more reasons behind it like if it’s flu season, they don’t want to get the flu or they’re allergic to something in the air or from the trees or they just didn’t wear makeup. Yeah, that sounds like something that I would do. In our culture, wearing a mask is not something that we should be ashamed of. It’s more like an act of protecting yourself or protecting others. For example, if you’re sick you don’t want to pass your flu to other people.
In our culture, we usually nod our head or smile to react to a stranger and we shake hands. Sometimes hugging and kissing are what couples do, not what friends do. Of course, it’s not all Chinese people can’t accept hugging or kissing. What I’m trying to say is in general, people prefer to nod their heads, smile and shake hands.
We don’t have tipping culture, don’t leave your money in the restaurants. If you leave your money on the table, the waiter and the waitress might be surprised and worried, because they would think you forgot your money there. They don’t want to take your money because it’s like an act of stealing. They’re not sure you leave it there on purpose or by accident.
So if you want to say thank you for their service or appreciate their work, you can say to them with these words(shown in the video above).
In China, you are allowed to drink on the street as long as you don’t make any trouble. As for smoking, you can smoke outside. If you want to smoke inside, usually there’s a smoking area inside for you to smoke.
Last but not least, if you have an emergency in China (hopefully never), please remember this number 110. This is the number of the police station. They can help you if you have an emergency. They will help you to connect to the hospital or help you to find people, etc.
Okay, that’s pretty much about today’s video. If you have other questions, please leave your comment down below. I will try to answer as much as possible. If you’re traveling to China this year or maybe next year, I hope you will have a wonderful holiday.
