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I’m not going to lead into this with some lengthy introduction (I plan on writing some future blog posts about “How I First Came to China” for some of that), but I do want to say this:
NONE OF THE THINGS I mention in this article or subsequent articles on the matter are intended as criticisms or somehow “calling China and the Chinese out as doing something ‘bad!’” That is not my intent here at all. These are simply differences in day-to-day life that stand out to me as an American and individual – I judge them as neither “bad” nor “good.” It’s just the way things are over there – or at least the way life has been presented to me in the community I live in, and I have perceived it, over here – and that is that.
I should also note that I am specifically talking about Coastal Central Eastern China here – specifically in and around the Suzhou-Kunshan-Shanghai Area. This is where I live, this is what I can comment on first hand as a foreigner living here.
No greeting cards, no business cards
Greeting cards are not a “thing” here in Eastern China. I have heard reports that they were a thing at one time (historically); however, all traces of a “card culture” are gone today. The same is true for business cards – you just don’t see them. After living in the Shanghai Area for 5 non-continuous years at this point, I saw my very first hardcopy cardstock business card only at the beginning of June 2020, and I still haven’t seen another one yet!
The country (at the time of this writing in the Summer of 2020) runs almost exclusively on WeChat (or, again, to qualify, at least Eastern China does – I really cannot speak for the Western Portion of the country at all). Want to collect the business information from an individual or business you love? Add the individual or business on WeChat! Want to wish your colleague at work happy birthday? Businesses and organizations just don’t do the whole “sign a group card and give it to him/her” thing like is much more commonly seen in North America. Here in Eastern China, there will probably be a work-related WeChat group that you are in where everyone will post “Happy Birthday” in the group.....it’s the same/similar to Facebook; however, here in China, with WeChat it just stops there – boom, done, no physical card.
Aspirin is a controlled substance
This one took me a loooooong time to figure out. Now, granted, when I say “controlled substance,” it is not some strictly controlled “you cannot buy, own, sell, or possess it for any reason” kind of thing....it is still OTC, but it is behind-the-counter OTC (you have to ask the pharmacist to give it to you), only sold as low-dose (81 mg), and, as far as I have been able to gather by asking citizens, citizens can only buy two of the standard packs they sell it in here at a time using their National Health Insurance Card.
When I very first came to China to live and work in 2012, I remember coining the phrase, which became my motto to live by: “You can’t buy aspirin in China!” – and I sure as heck couldn’t figure out a way to get it! The most effective headache medicine I had ever come across in my life was now inaccessible to me.
Come to find out, none of my foreign colleagues used pure aspirin like I did anyway, so they didn’t have a clue either. I VERY CAREFULLY guarded my small stash – a 100 pill bottle I had picked up at my local Rite Aid back in Washington State before jumping on the plane to come to China that August......and boy did I need it worse than ever! The pollution-related headaches I got almost daily my first year in Shanghai were something fierce! When leaving Washington, I figured: “Eh, I’ll just buy another bottle when I get there [to China].” Ha, ha! Boy was I wrong!!!
Now in 2020 you can buy regular strength (325 mg) aspirin from private, individual non-pharmacist sellers through TaoBao, so I am guessing there is not necessarily a restriction on importing it (also, my second year living and working in China in 2013 I did bring two of the giant 500-pill Costco bottles of full-strength 325 mg aspirin into the country and wasn’t stopped by incoming Customs).
The thing is, there is no (or at least very little) demand for it. In fact, when my wife’s family, who are all Chinese, found out I use aspirin for headaches, their jaws hit the floor! “Holy cow!!! Such a severely DANGEROUS DRUG!” was her family’s reaction. Her family – including my wife herself (she was – and still is – one of the most intense in the family about it) – gave me some intense pep talks and honestly and intently tried to get me not to take aspirin ever again, saying my stomach would rip apart.
Her whole family seemed genuinely astonished when I calmly explained to them that I was well aware of the possible stomach bleeding side effect and that the possibility of stomach bleeding associated with aspirin is, in general, a well-known possible side effect in the West and that it is also well-known that children should never consume aspirin, yet aspirin is still sold OTC to adults unrestrictedly in stores in the U.S. and many adults in the U.S. use it (and I’m not just talking about just the “low dose” stuff!).
Stay tuned for future posts of Things That Blow My Mind as an American Living in China.
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