England vs China

This is from the perspective of an Englishman living in China and I'm sure others will disagree but this is just from my experience of living in China for the past 4 years! :D

China's positives:

Price - Life in China is very cheap, you can rent a decent apartment from 150 pounds a month! At least coming from England it seems really cheap as food, drinks and pretty much everything is much cheaper while you can make the same salary which means it's possible to keep a lot more money at the end of the month. Instead of living in England where I would usually be broke by the end of every month!

Convienience - Life in China seems pretty convienient to me, as there are so many people they need to keep on top of public transport so you never have to wait more than a few minutes to catch a bus or train. Even if it's to busy you can always wave down a taxi or message a didi (China's Uber).

Safety - People are normally very nice to foreigners and in the four years I've been here I've never felt like I've been in any danger which I can't say for a lot of other places I've been to.

China's negatives:

Population - There are just way to many people in China which causes most problems.... Because of the population you have problems like over crowded transport, I've been in the subway when it's been really busy and they have metal barriers where they stop people and move you through and I just felt like cattle haha over population also causes a lot of noise, it's hard to find anywhere quiet really. With little foreign numbers in the population it causes people to act a bit strange when they see you too, probably because they have never seen or rarely see foriengners. They usually point directly at you and yell out 'foreigner!' in Chinese or 'American!' even though I'm from England haha people stare at you all the time so you have to get used to it! :D

Money - Money is everything in China, people will pretty much do anything for it which leads to sloppy and unproffessional work, people will see I'm a foreigner and bump their shop prices up so usually I have to wait outside while my Chinese girlfriends goes to buy stuff because she gets angry. It can be annoying to know people are trying to rip you off for everything.

Pollution - Of course pollution was going to be in the list. I was pretty shocked when I arrived here at first and four years later I still struggle to get used to it!

Compassion - People are extrememly close to their families but outside of that not so much. There are a lot of homeless people but everybody tells me not to help because they are liars and really they are rich people who sleep in 5 star hotels everynight (which seems nuts to me). I'm pretty sure they're not but even if they are, giving a sandwich or a little bit of cheap food to somebody isn't much so why not just help out regardless as you would a friend. There is also a lack of compassion for animals, there are so many homeless dogs, dog meat markets with dogs crammed into cages together shaking in fear and crying out for help, I've seen it first hand and heard the dogs being killed but couldn't watch. Pets also aren't treated as part of the family as in England but just pets. People seem to hit pet dogs all the time even if they haven't done anything wrong (maybe it's a dominating power thing, I don't know) and there not watched very carefully as I've seen alot of dead dogs on the roads from cars and careless owners. I have a dog here and would never walk her outside without a lead as the roads are always hectic but I'm usually the only one.

Just two days ago my girlfriend said her and her family were going to eat chicken for dinner so they would get me some tofu as I'm vegeterian and when I looked in the bag there was a live *&%#ing chicken there! It happens all the time though, in the markets there are animal body parts hanging up everywhere with blood everywhere so I don't like to go in. I think if every country had there meat on show like this there would be a lot more vegetarians but Chinese people don't seem to mind it as being vegetarian isn't really a thing here haha

But again, I'm not complaining, I love life in China, I just want to share cultural differences and share my experience! There are negatives but every country has them! My life's pretty sweet and I plan on staying here for a few more years before I head back to England! There are alot more positives and negatives I want to talk about but I don't want to cram them all into one post so I'll do part two at a later date! Cheers!