There’s nothing new about saying “China’s changing fast”. Every Sinophile for the last 25 years has been saying that, and they’re right.

But what gets me is that I’ve got this front-row seat to it all. And frankly, it’s a bit exciting.

Now, my generation – growing up in the technological revolution of the 80s-90s – undoubtedly experienced changes to the world faster than any generation before them, and this is likely to just compound for generations to come.

Even then though, you had a “generation” (y? z? which are we on now?) to deal with it. You had parents that didn’t understand all that Internet mumbo-jumbo. Wizkids. A divide of sorts.

To say things in China are “different” is somewhat akin to saying the Great Wall is “long”. But it’s not the difference of China that got me thinking the other day while I was walking my dog. It’s how fast the country is becoming the same, but not in that McDonald’s hegemony that cultural anthropologists are most concerned about.

Rather, the same in all the ways the country has been physically and emotionally unable to be until now.

• I was in the park and saw a bunch of kids pull up on their bikes and (after sticking about ten locks on each tire) run off into the trees together – to conspire, play fort, do math homework, or whatever kids that age do.
• Just shortly before the walk I was at a (typical Taiwanese-”American” style) coffee shop and grabbed a coke. It had a stay-on tab, which the Shanghaiist reported on last week.
• Last weekend I was at friends playing poker and PlayStation, eating Doritos and drinking a reasonable Chinese Cabernet.
• This morning I poured my coffee out of a freshly opened box of UHT milk, and the spout had been improved so as not to spill the first quarter of the box all over my microwave.
• I’ve been watching the news about all the Carrefour/CNN/Olympic malarkey, and reading comments on this blog and others where Chinese have chimed in on what used to be topics us Westerners would preach to the choir about. And I’m not talking ultra-nationalist (read: ultra-brainless) reactionary comments – but thoughtful, debate-expanding and prospective shifting conversations.

These may seem like some rather random and discombobulated things, but each in its own way has made me realize that much of the issue in the West and the recent conflicts between Chinese and Western media, is because many of us (as in Westerners) don’t realize the level of change happening here. We can say “China is changing fast”, hell it’s the catch phrase of every China business book written in the last decade, but we don’t have the facilities to understand what that actually means.

We judge the terms “fast” and “change” by our own societal perspectives, and as nations that have endured a relatively minor amount of change in the past century, it’s a challenge to really understand what rapid changes in a country that has yet had a chance to just “settle in” and enjoy the rewards of being a large modern nation.

Whereas CNN, Cafferty, and his ilk, are struggling to understand that this isn’t our grandparents’ China with Maoist slogans everywhere. It’s not even the post-Nixon, ‘to be rich’-Deng China of our parents – when I look around me, I realize this isn’t even the China I came to just three and a half years ago.

We grasp at the landscape and attempt to use that as a measurer of sorts. We see the massive amounts of construction and think, “Wow, that building wasn’t there yesterday, things sure change fast here.” And we use our inherent mistrust of change to condemn it. We step back and say, “China, you’re coming up too fast now. Slow down. Watch the environment. Watch your issues.”

I say, watch those kids playing together in the trees. Not everything about China need be a warning.

Though I still plan to post my wife Maggie’s impressions of Canada, that involves sorting photos and recollecting exactly what we did while away – time consuming endeavors. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some of the things I was somewhat surprised to find out people just don’t know about China.

1. By and large people in China wear the same clothes as the rest of the world: This one comes from a comment made to Maggie at her Welcome to Canada party. An attendee (notice the lack of naming names) point blank asked Maggie if she had bought the clothes she was wearing in Canada or in China. After a hesitant “In China, why?” from my wife, it was revealed that the asker simply assumed that Chinese wore distinctly different clothes. I’m curious to know if they had images of Shaolins, Manchus, or Maoists in mind.
2. Chinese food in North America is generally Cantonese or domestically fabricated: This one came up quite a lot as Maggie’s complaints of missing food from home grew louder and louder. I had to explain to friends and family that 90% of Chinese food found outside Chinatown is likely to be what is generally classified as “Cantonese”, as in from Guangdong and/or Hong Kong – both of which, though quite populous, are only a small part of the whole country. The reason for this prevalence of Cantonese food in Western nation is that traditionally the majority of Chinese immigrants came from this area.
3. China speaks Mandarin not Cantonese: Closely related to #2, this is another common misconception among Neverbeens, and for all the same reasons. While China has an endless number of local dialects, of which Cantonese is one, Mandarin is the de facto Chinese language, and incidentally the No. 1 spoken language in the world – though the guy giving you chop suey, chicken balls and fortune cookies is not likely speaking it.
4. Chinese don’t use ovens: This one came as the biggest surprise to me. I’m not sure why I assumed every Neverbeen knew that 99% of all Chinese homes are missing the most beautiful of baking boxes, but time after time I found myself listing to gasped “But, but how do they make bread, bake cookies, roast turkey!?!” Well folks, 1) they steam it. 2) they buy them in a box or at a Taiwanese bakery, and 3) Turkey? Strictly for export.
5. Communism is a farce: Most definitely the most overly-confused issue for Neverbeens as relating to China is the conflicting reports of capitalism running amok in what is the world’s largest communist state. Now to set the record straight, China is – in no way, shape or form – communist. State-run monopolies are at a minimum, there are no mass socialistic programs (Canada’s health care and welfare systems are more inclusive), and free enterprise is (somewhat annoyingly) rampant. It’s 100% capitalistic, but under a one-party, authoritarian system. The blame for this confusion should not be put on Neverbeens though, but rather on the shoulders of China’s government and their misnomer of a name – perhaps its time to update the name to better reflect the times in which we live – might I suggest the Cool Party of China, and you’ll not even have to change all your CPC embroidered ping pong polo shirts.

Well, there you have it – my list of things I noticed were the most common unknown or misunderstood bits of China for the Canucks I ran into. Got any to add?