China is funny
May 21, 2024
Last month, I visited China for the first time in eight years.
For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about how funny everything was. Maybe there’s another word, but that’s the term that kept coming back to me.
Maybe it was the seemingly random architecture and planning. It was as if they just parodied the worst parts of America with tons of cars and ten-lane roads with massive crosswalks. But then there are these huge blocks(?) of apartments with nice parks in/around them.
Maybe it was hearing the conspiracy theories that my uncle learned about on Douyin (Chinese TikTok). They were basically like white supremacy ideas, but for Chinese people (e.g., humans originated in China, and Chinese people are inherently smarter than other races).
Then, maybe it was watching my younger cousin berating my uncle for believing the grifter on Douyin that spewed these ideas. My cousin also talked about some of the weaknesses of the Chinese government, which caused great disappointment to my uncle (which he admitted to me as we bought some lottery tickets).
Maybe it was the massive plaza (广场) that you could only access via underpasses where a bunch of old men were scattered about playing saxophones and trumpets. This was actually so ridiculous. When we asked a man why there were so many out there, he hypothesized that it was too stuffy inside their apartments.
I think the humor of my time in China came from the idea that humor is the “subversion of expectations” and from the immense contrast I saw.
On one hand, I was surprised at how developed China had become—it’s now extremely clean, perception of safety is super high, half the cars seem to be electrical vehicles, public transit is clean and reliable, and they are building literally everywhere. It’s honestly impressive what can be done when there’s a desire to make places better, and there’s a lot of people to actually do the work (cheaply). I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that Chinese people weren’t as brainwashed as I thought they were (seems like young people use VPNs or just can get info online).
On the other hand, I was also surprised how stagnant the culture was. I think China is still pretty poor. I saw some habits that really annoyed me like: tons of smoking, shitty air quality (it’s improved but even NYC air feels fresh compared to even smaller Chinese cities), and people just pushing instead of lining up (and other general lack of manners). Most of the music and cultural references seemed to be based on Western media (a lot of ringtones are still American songs, heard some Taylor Swift blasting in a park).
Of course, there were parts that weren’t as funny. My grandparents are aging, and I felt like the language gap hindered me from having real conversations with my relatives. Many times, I could just sit there passively and smile and nod because I couldn’t understand a lot of the conversation.
This has probably been one of the most exciting trips I’ve been on in a while. I can’t wait to go back.
Thanks for reading :)
Last updated April 17, 2025