Our Life in China: Always expect the unexpected in 2016

Unexpected Life in China

The story takes place in central China, in the most populated province, in the biggest city of this province, Zhengzhou (ZZ). An approximately 10 million inhabitants city for maybe 1 000 foreigner at the time we were there. (Living 2014-2017, business trip 2018, 2019).

My colleague from Beijing didn’t like much our meeting in ZZ, as or them it was the countryside and a farmer land where people where uneducated and where dealing with daily stuff as well as business things was harder and different.

It’s true that it wasn’t always easy, but it was lots of fun and a real adventure. We have so much nice souvenir and now are missing China. Not only the experience is great but there are so many things to see there.

Mapping the day

Where to stay in Zhengzhou

After we left China, I went back there for a few business trip, here is where I liked to stay:

• (€) Sofitel Zhengzhou International
• (€€) JW Marriott Hotel Zhengzhou

Opened and Closed

We used to live in the city center of ZZ, in a neighborhood called “Manhattan”, everything was handy and nearby. After a while, we started getting comfortable and get to have our habits! We had our favorite shops, restaurants and so on…

But we quickly came to realize that this was quite hard in China as in the blink of an eye or more in one night a place could completely disappeared. That can happen with new places as well as old ones.

For one year, one of our favorite restaurants was a Tibetan place located in what we called the “night market”. We were going there once a week or so, but one day it was just closed and never opened again. There wasn’t anything, no message nor words, it was just closed.

We had Walmart and Carrefour nearby, and used Walmart as our main supermarket for almost two and half years. To get there, it was simple, we just had to pass an electronics shops mall and go up through the escalator to get to the second floor. One day, the barriers where down and Walmart had closed for good.

But this could also happen for small businesses, there was a small local in the corner of our building, in 3 years it was at least half a dozen different shops.

It popped out of nowhere

The featured picture is a great example of that everything can happen! One day, this eBike (electric bicycle or scooter) graveyard appeared in the corner of our district. And it was right on the corner of one of the biggest intersections of the city!

It stays there for a few days and was cleaned up as quick as it appeared!

Rebuilding? Easy Peasy!

Chinese are not afraid of anything and will managed their way around.

For a few months, they completely closed one road. Well no problem, we will just reroute somewhere else. It rains, it is flooding! No problem, we will just put stuff in it to go around.

What we learn in the end was to be open minded, and can’t control what’s happening around you, so we could only accept it.

Unexpected China: What’s coming next

Other things that you may encounter are:

• People asking you to take picture with them
• The water cleaning truck
• Tons of eBike
•  Great parties and incredible people
•  Various type of food
•  A sea of people
•  Crazy colored cars
•  Amazing landscape
• An amazing and huge history
•  Crazy toilets!
• Funny translation
• And so on…

But that’s coming up on another post! Have fun :)

Water cleaning trucks

Due to pollution, resulting from vehicles, factories… dust from constant constructions, road works… big cities in China are facing major problems.

One result is that the air contains lots of particle and the dust/dirt level is really high. Whether it is in your apartment, in the malls or the roads, your daily life is followed by pollution.

One of the solutions used against that, is the water cleaning trucks. There are so far two types that we were encountering on a daily basis in Zhengzhou:

1. One spraying water in the air
2. One throwing water on the ground

The second type is the most devious of all, as it will give you a free shower if you are nearby standing or on an eBike.

Cleaning the ground

This type is the most common, we were encountering it every day. The truck throws pressured water on its sides. This way the complete road is covered with water. This aims to mix the dust/dirt on the ground with water. That way when cars or e-Bike drive on it, the dust doesn’t fly off to the air. But instead it creates mud that stick on the ground. That’s one of the reasons you would see car covered with mud in big cities such as Zhengzhou.

Another bad aspect of it, is that if you are on an e-Bike driving and a truck passes you or if you try take over it, there is a high chance that you would get wet! Unless you are at a intersection or a stop. At this moment, the water flow stops.

To know that such a truck is coming is a child play, trucks are equipped with speaker and have their own dedicated song. So, if you hear a Christmas song in the middle of the city, watch out.

Cleaning the air

This type is the less common one but can still be seen, they are mainly used in summer to refresh and cool down the air and decrease the pollution in the city.

They work the same way as the other type but the risk of getting showered for free is greatly reduce as it only sprays water.

In case of major political meeting such as G20 or other major conference, those trucks are used even more to really cleaned the air. In addition factories will be shut down to decrease drastically the pollution level and have a clean blue sky.

Nonetheless, pollution is decreasing fast in China and now more and more big cities are cleaner and cleaner.

Crazy Colors: Fancy Chinese Car

First of all, this article is more about the picture than the story, so we will keep it short.

One surprising thing in Zhengzhou China is that you come across crazy expensive car. But that’s not what is astonishing. What is, is the color they have. Those colors can’t even be imagined back in Europe and over the years living in EU, we never came across such cars.

For exemple, a blue Panamera, a shining metallic blue Audi R8, a pink 4×4 Mercedes and so on…

The shinier the better, while back home it would just mean lest buy back value of the car. In short, it wouldn’t be an original one.

Yet, a cool thing is that some of them are just sticker colored! Ouff

Quite different but normal there

But not everyone has the wallet to buy an expensive car. So you can also see Winnie the Pooh car which is a local car with stickers. Or even a Hello Kitty car which is a new beetle with stickers as well.

Furthermore, some are not afraid of showing how much they miss nature in this huge city and have it right on their dashboard!

And while we may not be at Las Vegas we sometimes come across Limo!