A small town in China with just 8.3 million inhabitants..

Zhengzhou is the Capital of Henan province. When I arrived here at 7 AM, tired and hungry, my first thought was; Why the hell did I choose to come here?

The city isn't a pretty place.... to say it in a kind way. Industrial, would be the right way to describe it. 

Most of this town seems very old but I also saw about 100 construction sites in only one day, so it is probably going to change soon. 

Some parts of the city looked like ghettos and I thought maybe I should travel to another city soon. 


But now I can say I am happy that I came here. This is a real Chinese city. I had not really this feeling when I was in Beijing and Shanghai. 

A lot of foreigners and western influence. McDonalds, KFC, Rolex, Tissot, Armani, H&M wherever you look (seriously - no joke!). The fast-food-joints can be found in this city as well but otherwise there is not much western influence at all. 


When I went to eat something after a few hours of sleep, I saw the difference. This city is unbelievably crowded, people everywhere and all of them staring at me. And there is a good reason for that; I'm white and here are absolute no Caucasians here. And I'm also blond with blue eyes which makes me even more special here. 

I walked today about four hours in the crowd and I could not find one other foreigner in what felt like 10 million Chinese people. 
For a short period of time it felt nice to get that much attention, but it gets annoying quite fast.


In clubs, people come and give me free drinks all the time. At my hotel one girl just stood next to me with open mouth, so I stared back and the reaction after two seconds was a "Ah hey Niiihaoooo!" with a big smile. 

I could tell a lot more stories like this but then I wouldn't have anything left for when I'm back. 

After a few days it became annoying, especially when you sit in a restaurant eating, and everybody watches you like an animal in the zoo. 


I think it was the right decision to choose China as my first destination. The culture shock is not as extreme to me, as I spent some time, working in under developed countries in Europe.


The biggest differences for me are the odours and behaviours of people. The Chinese are spitting everywhere, they cough without hand in front of the mouth, people walk on the street within fast traffic and the car-, taxi- and also the train-drivers honk all the time. 

The smells are sometimes extreme, like if you sit in a bus next to some farmers (negative) or walk by street food places (positive).


I found out that even the young population is barely able to speak any English. But to be honest, its not that big problem at all to get around and communicate.

The Chinese government and also companies here are now hiring foreigners without any teaching experience or knowledge to teach English and tackle this problem.  But as my description should tell you.. They are not the best teachers.

It was funny because I even met Germans and Brazilians who were teaching English here with their beautiful accents. So you see the standards are pretty low. They don't even need to know Chinese. If you want to stay in China for a few years, this is the perfect way, and you can learn the language.


Something I wonderd about in Beijing and Shanghai was the fact that the security personnel in the metro has no authority at all. They show everybody to put their bags into the X-Ray-Machine, but if you dont do it they still let you pass. 

And this is something which would be important for public safety. Once a security guy tried to hold a women back to scan her bag. She just screamed at him and started beating him with that bag. Then she just walked through the entrance without security check. Some people here are crazy. She should try that once with a Swiss official.


Today I leave for the Shaolin Temple at the holy Song Mountains, and tomorrow I have a 24 hour train ride to Chengdu in front of me. Yeaah! 




Soon I'll leave China.. Looking forward for the warmer temperatures, so I can enjoy being outside again. Unlike now.