Exploring the Environment of China 2011
Xi'an – Culture Shock
by Derek Mechling
A visit to China is a new and exciting experience. That experience can even make you anxious when you think about being in a totally different country. 
You begin to think how would you are treated in America as outsiders? You also begin to think about all that you have heard on the news about tensions between the Chinese government and ours. All of these things on the surface seem a deterrent to visiting china but they could not be farther from the truth. When you visit china for the first time there is definite culture shock. I cannot think of a culture in the world that is more different than our own. In this case that is a great thing. The reason I decided to visit china was to settle a curiosity that I have had for a long time about how exactly different their culture would be.
When we first started to meet the people of china it became very apparent that they honestly cared that we had a good experience in their country. This was such a shock to me. In the United States most people would not think it's not even worth their time to even acknowledge tourist let alone go out of their way to make sure that they have a good experience. A great example of a Chinese citizens going out of their way to help others happen to a group of us on a free night in Xi'an when we were out exploring the city. We wanted to visit the south gate but could not stop a cab. We started to get frustrated so we decided to stop and ask a couple of guys that were roughly our own age if they knew how to get there. They spoke very good English. That is another shock about china most of the younger citizens spoke functional English.
Could you imagine if a Chinese student visited the US where virtually no one speaks Chinese? So in our conversation they told us the south gate was almost a mile away and gave us directions. After they left we decided that was much too far to walk with the amount of time we had so we would have to find something else to do.
While we continued to explore the two young men came back about 20 minutes later. They told us that they were happy to find us and that they had found taxi's for us and had already given the drivers the directions we needed to get to the south gate. This was unbelievable to us. That they would take the time out of their night to go out of their way to make sure we got where we wanted to go. That is the culture shock. It is described best by the interaction we had with one of the young men when we tried to thank him for his help. We told him how thankful we were for his help and all he said was "do not worry about it you are a guest of China." That is what it is like in china. From having random people coming up to you to say hello or even have people stop what they are doing to help. The people of china want their guests to have a great experience. They went above and beyond to make sure we were happy. Another great story about this generosity has to do with the Chinese students we met. When you are eating in China they just do not drink a lot of fluids. During meals they give you a little 6 oz. glass or so, which is never enough for most Americans. While we were dinning with the Chinese students some of us began to complain that we didn't have much to drink. 
Right away the students at our table jumped up to do something about it. These are people who are normally very shy and they could have cared less if there was something else to drink. The definitely didn't want to have to start a confrontation with the restaurant but they did it in a heartbeat for their guests.
The culture shock really happens when you start to compare the cultures. In talking to the Chinese students they hold America in very high esteem. A lot of the students have aspirations of studying in the US. So I began to think what they would experience if they came to the US. Would they have strangers stop everything to help? Would they meet people that would step out of the comfort zone to make sure they had what they needed? Would they even be able to find people that they could communicate their needs with? A lot of the answers bothered me because I don't believe that we could ever repay the hospitality that they showed to us on our visit. All I can say is during this visit you will have a great experience and if you are observant you will have to ask yourself a few tough questions about cultures. I do not know what the answers of those questions will be for you but I do know they will make you a better person just from being able to ask them.
