Things that shocked me when I left China

culture shock is a phrase that is used to describe the feeling of sensory overload that many people experience when they visit or move to a new country and of course when we first came to China this certainly applied to us but after many years the things that initially shocked us started to become routine the construction noise faded into the background we got used to the mind-blowing spicy dishes and we learned how to quickly navigate the vastly different work culture with all its quirks and customs after a few years China goes from a holiday destination to the place that you live and then something rather strange happens when you eventually return to the place that you once called home they call it reverse culture shock things that seem totally normal to you when you're growing up now seem downright weird why is this food all so beige and the people you once called friends just don't look the same as you remember because it's so old what happened with Matilda oh and your family members will get bored of you constantly telling them how much better things were back in China full disclosure though I'm not actually back in my home country of the UK whereas I very much amp I've in fact moved to Auckland which is where my brother lives and my parents will be for the next six months it's obviously more of a western leaning country so whilst I've experienced some good old Rivers culture shock I've also observed some Curious cultural differences from the UK in a way it does in fact remind me of the UK most people speak English the food is very similar and the scenery around Auckland reminds me of our Rolling Green Hills but then you see an exotic bird and you remember where you are what is happening New Zealand it is meant to be summer right now it is January and it's absolutely pouring it's very very windy here it's like I'm back in the UK we haven't been to the South Island yet but Jack is coming over in February and we're going to explore the whole country together I'm so excited because I've heard it's absolutely amazing and I'm ready for the scenery to be a bit more dramatic in the UK I would describe the landscape perhaps more as quaint rather than dramatic I mean it can still be quite beautiful but it's not like China where often when we were traveling we're out in the countryside felt like we were on another planet foreign [Music] in China it was quite rad to hear other people speak English to kind of in a language bubble but now I'm definitely experiencing some sensory overload as I constantly hear people Babble away in my native language honestly it's bloody irritating I just cannot tune other people out that means that when I come to crowded places I just end up being forced to eavesdrop on other people's incredibly mundane conversations to be honest that is why I only come out when the weather's kind of like today so there's a lot less people out and about and I don't have to listen to them talking absolute waffle although they'd probably say the same about me wouldn't they what is nice this is quite a large Chinese Community here in Auckland so I often hear people speaking Chinese which gives me this warm homely feeling inside now as we were in China for a fair few years I spent a lot of time and a lot of energy trying to learn the lingo to be honest I'm absolutely terrified that now I'm back in the UK I'm just gonna lose all of my language learning progress um as in my experience it's actually a lot easier to lose your skills than it is to gain them in the first place we've made it pretty clear in our videos that we have yet we will be traveling back to China especially now that it's opening up but I really don't want to go back and feel like I know none of the language again when we left I was absolutely terrified that I wouldn't keep up with my Chinese learning after all I've come back to the UK for the first time in three years and I'm pretty busy you know got a social life once again but I found a little hack every morning I open an app called Rosetta Stone and I crack on with a little bit of Chinese for half an hour or so super easy fits nicely into the routine and rosette Stone were also kind enough to sponsor this video now previously I was using a Dusty old textbook to help me learn Chinese and my God was it boring I much prefer using a rosette Stone app because it's way more interactive it also has a Daily Progress tracker so I know exactly what I need to be doing and there can be no excuses you hear that no excuses I think my favorite feature of all is the fact that it actually helps you practice your speaking because I've noticed when you step outside of China that is the first thing for me to go plus who wants to carry around textbooks all the time when you can easily whip out your phone and do a quick lesson whether you're at the beach at the park or waiting for a friend waiting for a friend Molly okay good girl or waiting for a friend oh Hi friend hey Molly so whether you're heading back to China this year and you want to brush up on your Chinese or perhaps you want to take the first steps on your language learning Journey then I recommend you give Rosetta Stone a try or Rosetti your little beauty I wish I started learning Chinese a lot sooner to be honest once I did manage to pick up a bit of the language it allowed us to travel to far more interesting places and have far more meaningful interactions along the way and it's not just Chinese you can learn 25 different languages on the app this year we're hoping to travel to a few different countries one of them being Italy which is where my great-grandparents are from I've made it my goal for this year to learn as much Italian as possible if you guys click on the link below then for just 179 you will get a lifetime subscription to all of the languages on the app which is a huge exclusive discount I think it's really useful to learn a little bit of the language wherever you travel to it also helps with the culture shock because you can speak to the locals and learn more about their culture people really appreciate it when you try to speak to them in their native tongue even if it's just to order food or buy a ticket on public transport and speaking of public transport we have a large community of Chinese expats in my city and I just can't stop thinking about what they must be thinking when they see the state of this country's infrastructure I'm honestly appalled at just how bad they've let public transport get in this country it's just totally totally being allowed to rock when I lived in the center of Beijing a city with 22 million people you could easily walk cycle or take the metro anywhere that you wanted to go but my brother lives in the suburbs here so it's kind of hard to get places unless you have a bus pass or a car luckily after the first few days of adjusting I start feeling like I was stuck in the suburbs and I got myself a bus pass I got insured in the car and I got a SIM card so now I have everything I need so I can explore but maybe that's because I'm from a provincial town of just shy of a million people and not the capital city I actually went down to London to visit my brother this past weekend yeah the public transport is definitely a lot better there it's got a very impressive tube Network although I've got to say I think it was properly built a long time ago when the population was a lot smaller and it's not necessarily best place to handle busy rush hour it's also pretty expensive too how much have you spend in the day on a Metro would you say I think it's about it's slightly under 10 pounds it maxes out yeah absolute spinning mate yeah oh that's steep I tell you [Music] so nice to be able to drive around place and place in China there wasn't really much point because we lived in the center of the city here though it's so convenient and a bonuses they drive on the left just like the UK we are definitely a lot more reliant on cars here in the west I'd say that whilst in Beijing having a car is kind of a status symbol almost here in the UK is an absolute necessity especially in the cool British winter luckily for me though it's summer down here in the southern hemisphere although you might not be able to tell it's absolutely pouring it's very very windy here it's like I'm back in the UK but that hasn't stopped me going to the beach every opportunity that I can I'm not enjoying the mosquito bites or sunburn though even though it was a lot hotter in China the ozone layer is much thinner down here in New Zealand so my pale skin is getting burnt to a crisp no Zone burn for me but one thing that absolutely burns my eyes is the sight of toilet roll down the toilet you can flush it down your drain and it won't even destroy your pipes isn't that just utter utter Madness yeah I keep reaching for the bin every time I go and speaking of toilets they're all sit-down toilets here even in public places oh my squatting game is going to be weak after being here for so long I'm still keeping in practice but to be honest I have been trying to avoid public toilets as much as possible because it really freaks me out thinking about just how many people's dirty bottoms have touched that Bloody toilet seat cleanliness is not an issue in New Zealand this country could well lay claim to having the finest and most abundant selection of public toilets in the world they're clean they have toilet paper and they have soap which feels like quite the luxury and whilst we're on the topic of fluid watch this foreign straight from the tap without even boiling it yeah you might not constantly homesick my heart aches for China for Beijing and for the life that we built there luckily I found an Asian supermarket and honestly I nearly cried because it felt like home it was so nice to see things that I used to enjoy in China here in New Zealand but with a much bigger price tag baby yeah I know it's like I'm back in Beijing lemon spicy hot pot is like my favorite flavor of Christmas you think that's expensive then you should come to a British Supermarket Nico honestly the prices have gone up so much the UK is currently undergoing like a heavy heavy bout of inflation and a real cost of living crisis and honestly everyday goods are just so much more expensive than the last time we were home this used to be 37p now it's a swapping 90p fortunately the British diet is quite simple so most people can survive by eating copious amounts of bread I have just absolutely lost count of how much basically food I've eaten in the past month or so man what I would do for a spicy Sichuan dinner right now my do I miss flavor it's cardboard [Music] that's better well get yourself down the Chinese supermarket Jack and get cooking for your family to be fair though we didn't really cook a lot of Chinese food when we lived in China because well why would we we live in China there's so many amazing chefs and it was much easier and cheaper to just go to a local noodle joint for lunch noodles I need to master making noodles from scratch fast because honestly this is the kind of crap that people eat in the UK people will pair them with some like nasty stir-fry sauce like this I managed to find a pretty legit restaurant here where the owner and the chef were from Tong Ting so I told my mom for some bubble tea some sexual noodles and some tasho a little spicy very spicy the lips are starting to tingle and I can just feel this numbness on them so flavoursome but wow the cake that was amazing but it was a little expensive than in China to be honest New Zealand is expensive every time I go to the shop or the pub I'm constantly checking the prices that's not the weirdest thing that I've seen in the supermarket you see here in New Zealand people like to walk around Barefoot now I'm not just talking about at the beach in the street as well people walk around with no shoes on oh my God that is hilarious no you certainly couldn't walk around Barefoot in the UK and I think if you did you'd probably step on a broken bottle maybe a hubcap or at the very least end up with incredibly muddy feet whilst walking around the streets a toolkit of streets is absolutely mind-blowing to be walking around Suburbia once more just so different to China yeah in the UK you find a lot less of these identical apartment blocks that you find in China but what you will find is like identicate housing estate but here in Auckland it's totally different maybe it's just the area that I'm in but all of the houses are completely different they're so unique and they are huge I would love to see inside some of them I still reckon I prefer the China Vibes though at the end of the day the energy that you find in Chinese cities is just unlike anything I have experienced elsewhere I agree but it's interesting that many years in China has made us through the UK completely differently we kind of anticipated this happening so before we left China we filmed a series of comparison videos where we film half in China and half in the UK and we talk about many of these topics but before that we've got a Shanghai and Chengdu series coming out throughout 2023 so make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any of our videos also leave us a comment letting us know what different culture shocks you've experienced around the world it might even Inspire us to make a whole new culture shock video yes finally some blue sky do you know what that means it means I'm off to the beach to learn some Italian don't forget to click the link below to start learning your new language and for a lifetime subscription for only 179 with Rosetta Stone bye thank you

Channel: Nico

Views: 115,571

Keywords: reverse culture shock, living abroad, culture shock, chinese culture, going to china, what shocked me about China, Shocking things about China, China is not what I expected, Foreigners views on China, Foreigners on China, Foreigners in China, Living in China, First impressions about China, What I learned about China, shocking China, Things you didn't know about China, Different things about China, Things about China, China Vs UK, China Vs New Zealand, leaving China

Id: co3HGY4CKjo

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 30 2023