A Guide to the Underground

If you are from a town that doesn't have a subway or if you have never experienced a Chinese subway, here is a guide for you on how it works (as of 2019). 

*As a disclaimer, the Chinese people call the underground system a variation of English words such as metro, subway, or tube. Just know they are all the same thing here. 

1. You will need a ticket. You can go to a machine and get a one way ticket. The screens are able to turn into English. Just click what stop you want to get off and pay. Be aware that the machines have different payment methods. Some only take coins while others can take bills, credit cards, or Alipay/WeChat pay. 

You can also choose to go to the ticket counter. You can request to get a reloadable plastic metro card. There is a fee for buying the card and then you also need to "charge" the card with money. This can take up to 20 minutes to do and the lines are always long for these windows. They may request to see your passport. 

If you need to reload your card there are machines outside of most metro stops that you can use. Place your card inside the machine, pay with your credit card or Alipay/WeChat pay, wait for the machine to charge your card, and you are done. They are similar looking to the image below.

Image from https://www.smh.com.au

2. Now you have your card, yay! It will look like this. 

Image from chinahighlights.com

Now you will have to go through security. You will walk through a metal detector and your bags will go through an X-ray machine. 

3. To get through the gates you scan your card digitally. Just place the card on the blue circle above the green arrow. A screen will tell you how much money is left on your card. The doors will open and you walk through. When you scan the card you MUST be behind the post. Otherwise the subway gate thinks the gate is blocked and you can't walk through. 

4. Wait for your subway to come. In China they have plastic/glass walls and doors to wait behind as a safety precaution. The doors will open as soon as the train comes. People will push and shove you to get on or off the train. You have been warned. 
I will say "jay gwa" when I get past people, it means excuse me, which makes me feel less of a jerk for pushing past people. 

5. While on the train in China you are free to talk, eat, and drink. Other countries like Japan and Thailand this is not allowed. In the Czech Republic you can eat on the train but talking should be kept to a whisper. That means on a Chinese subway you can and will get people playing music out loud, talking on the phone, and eating noodles on their commute. It can get hectic. You are expected to give up your seat to elderly, pregnant women, and people with children. However, the courtesy seats you see on trains in China serve more as guidelines than rules. You can sit down in the courtesy seat if you wish, but are expected to give it up as soon as someone needs it. 

6. Getting out of the subway you will need to insert your card into the post if you have a one way ticket. The post will "eat" your card and the gate opens up. If you have a reloadable card, scan the card on the blue circle once again and the gate will open. Easy peasy!

This has been my guide on how to use the Chinese Underground. This is the same as it is from Shanghai, Beijing, to Ningbo. Good luck to you. 

How to Didi

Most countries in the world are getting more into Uber and Lyft driving services. However, if you are in China then you have to use Didi. Here is a how to guide on Didi. 

1. Change the settings from Chinese to English. Click the person icon in the top left hand corner and these options will pop up. If it is Chinese and you can't read, merely click the gear icon. 
                                                    
The second box says language. You can choose only English or Chinese. 
                                                     

2. Attach your payment. Click the person icon, My Wallet, and this window will pop up below.  
                                                      
Choose payment method and this window will come up. 
                                                  
You can attach your WeChat, Alipay, or credit card to get this to work. 

3. Type in the orange dot area where you want to go. You don't have to choose where to be picked up as a GPS will automatically figure that out for you.
                                                      

4. Choose the service you want, Express, Taxi, Premier, or Luxury. 

Express is the cheapest and you can even choose Express Pool where you can go with other people and make your ride cheaper. Taxis are more expensive but if no Express cars will pick you up, taxis almost always will. Premier cars are nicer vehicles but with this option you can choose to be dropped off or picked up from airports more easily. Luxe is short for Luxury cars and offer "first class service" but this is so far only offered in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. 

5. Get in the car and go!

6. Payment is automatic once the driver drops you off. If a taxi driver you get from the app asks for payment, just tell him to check the app. They get confused by Didi at times. 

To reserve a car do the following steps. 

Click on reserve above where you choose where to go on the bottom of the screen. 

1. Choose a time and day to be picked up. 

                                                 

2. Choose where to be picked up. Do this by clicking the green dot and typing the location. 

3. Choose where to go by clicking the orange dot. 

    

4. Click "confirm" and wait for a car to choose you. FYI cars tend to cancel these often. Or your timer of 10 minutes may reach zero. If this happens you have to go back to step 1. 

5. Be ready for your car at least ten minutes before the time you reserved for, they always come early and are always grumpy if you aren't there early. If you are late, the car will cancel on you. They can also give you a bad rating for being late.

6. Payment is automatic!

Once you have a car ready to go, you have the options below to choose from. If you feel unsafe you can click Police and an officer will call or reach you soon and it will also message your emergency contact. You can call the driver or message them as well. If you can't speak Chinese you can choose one of the automated messages. 

The automated messages you can choose from will translate easily. If you try to type in English, an error message will come up so you have to write in Chinese. 

I clicked "Add a Quick Message" which gives you a chance to make a custom automated response. My quick messages say that the drivers should only message me and not call as I can't speak Chinese. You can see those in the picture below. Just letting you know, they still try to call. It's annoying. 

Didi requires that you go into the safety tab of the app and learn about how to report dangerous drivers or scam artists. I highly recommend doing this as well. 

When you are done with a ride click the person icon and then "My Trips." You can leave a 5 star review for your driver and can send them up to a 10 RMB tip if you wish. The drivers also rate you but I have yet to figure out how to see my own rating. 

Didi is a good app overall but as soon as you leave China it is impossible to use. Didi advertised to Chinese citizens that they could hail Uber or Lyft if they travel overseas with their app. I have been overseas with Didi and it has NEVER worked. It also refuses to work in English and tries to revert back to Chinese whenever I'm outside of China. 
If you are in China you will be forced to use Didi but once you are out of China you are forced to use a different ride share app. It's annoying to switch, but hey, that's China for you. 

I hope that this has been helpful for you all! Good luck with your own Didi adventures. 

There is Only Peppa

Parents of young children complain that their lives seem to be overtaken by children's television. When I was a kid it was definitely Barney and Arthur that was on all the time but the new generation of kids really like Peppa Pig. In China, the kids and even the adults love Peppa. 

She is everywhere. Balloons, t-shirts, bags, on the sides of cars, and people even get tattoos of her!

"This is not the first person of our community to tattoo this on their body."

This Chinese Lunar New Year is the zodiac sign of the pig which means that she is even more widely found. It gives businesses a chance to sell twice as much stuff for New Year's, as long as the famous pig's likeness is on it. 

I asked some people here why Peppa is popular. Most of their answers revolved around the fact that they thought she was funny, in fact Peppa is a meme here. Many people showed me the video below as to when they became obsessed with her. 

If the video doesn't work for you I will give you a summary. Peppa Pig can't whistle and is disheartened by this, so she decides to call her friend Suzie Sheep to make herself feel better. Suzie tells Peppa she doesn't know how to whistle or what it is but when Peppa explains it, she gets it correct on the first try. Peppa immediately hangs up, leaving Suzie asking the phone over and over if Peppa can still hear her. 

The other explanation I have heard is that they simply think Peppa is cute and colorful. I agree she is colorful but I often have thought of the cartoon as ugly. It also annoys me to no end that her nose seems to be perpetually at the side of her face while the rest of her features are in the center. Maybe that is just me. 

Spongebob and Transformers are also very popular here but now whenever I go outside now there seems to be only one consistent thing. 

There is no Spongebob or Transformers anymore... 

There is only 

Peppa. 

Cats are Money's Best Friend

The phrase, "Dog's are a human's best friend," is the same in English as it is in Chinese. Dogs are seen as loyal and smart which is befitting of a human. If you go to any restaurant or store in China or Japan what you will see is not a dog but a cat waving you to enter. 

These cats are originally from Japan and called Maneki Neko or the beckoning cat. The left paw up means "welcome guest" and the right paw up means "welcome money/fortune" and both of them up is a welcome to both. The signs they hold up generally are statements about welcoming fortune and they will hold gold coins at times as well. These statues also serve as piggy banks. Maneki Neko are usually wearing red collars with a bell. This is believed to have been a popular way for Japanese cat owners to keep track of their animals back in the day (Pho, B. 2017). 

The cats can come in various colors but mostly they are white. They can be calico shaded, all gold, all black, or have spots in various colors like blue, red, and pink. Each color represents a different meaning. Calico cats are rare in Japan so it is supposed to bring more rare luck. Gold represents fortune and black is supposed to ward off evil. Black maneki neko are commonly carried by woman to ward off scary dudes! Blue cats are supposed to bring protection to families. Red is commonly used to represent luck and ward off evil. Pink cats are supposed to invite love (Pho, B. 2017). 

Where did these cats come from and why? No one is exactly sure but there are many folk stories floating around and even these stories have different variations. There is a story that a poor store owner took in a cat and fed it and the cat returned the favor by sitting in their window and waving customers in, making the store owner rich. Another story is that there were a group of samurais in a rain storm when a cat waved them into a temple where they finally could rest. The samurais were so grateful that they gave the temple a ton of land and often visited the shrine. The last story is that a woman was so poor she had to sell her cat to feed herself. The cat visited her in a dream and told her to make statues of itself to sell. The woman then became very profitable from selling the cat figurines (Pho, B. 2017). 

How did this Japanese cat get so popular in China? My answer is that I'm not sure. I can't seem to find any definite answer online as to when and where the cat gained popularity in China. Chinese culture is very ingrained in the idea of luck and wealth so it could be that some Chinese people learned about the beckoning cat's powers and were eager to get their own. You can find these cats not only in Japanese and Chinese stores but you may spot them in Chinese and Japanese businesses in the USA. Keep your eyes peeled for them. 

A dog may be a human's best friend, but if you looking to increase your piggy bank, cats should be the one you befriend. 

Source

Pho, B., Dang, D., Pan, E., Youn, S., Chirk, R., & Condon, T. (n.d.).  Maneki Neko: The 

Beckoning Cat. Retrieved January 27, 2019, from http://www.anthropology.uci.edu/~wmmaurer/courses/anthro_money_2006/maneki.html