7 things you learn about the non-China world while living in China

- A well-ordered traffic system isn't as important as you might think. Oddly, one of the things that scared me the most about the more recent Die Hard where Timothy Oliphant organizes a fire sale is that--oh man!--the traffics lights would all be screwed up. Then you come to Asia and see that, despite traffic lights working most of the time, people don't really care about them and a surprisingly number of people aren't dying because of this (at least by my last count).

- Parenting skills are not innate. You take for granted that, despite also carrying on some of the baggage from the generation before, your parents are utilizing a set of skills and knowledge in raising you than Among more affluent families China is still coming up the curve in areas like, especially during Spring Festival, not letting children play with high explosives.

 - "Hot mess" is also a business model. Constant change leads to constant preparation for opportunities that present themselves every day. Oftentimes, we develop services that we're selling before most folks inside our shop even know this is something our company does. Once we have customers, then everyone plays catch-up. It's a fun, if not ulcer-inducing model. If I had a nickel for the number of times, on 3 minutes' notice, I've been told I'm going to do something I could not have fathomed doing before that moment... New arrivals at our organization are constantly blown away by how quickly situations change and how one has to adapt on the fly. Those that cannot don't last long.

- Fashion makes absolutely no sense. The English-gibberish tshirts sported by young people in Beijing are silly--but are they more silly than paying $125 for a hooded sweatshirt because it says the word "Hollister" on it? "But the quality is excellent..." Not that excellent. As I've heard from a lady, there is something about Asian women that sometimes enables more aggressive fashion choices to work out well for them. As some folks from Shanghai will observe, Beijingers dress a bit like they just grabbed whatever was closest in a pitch-black closet that morning and ran out the door. What's more amazing than dressing like this is that sometimes it leads to outfits that, to fashionable people, "make sense." (So I've heard.) Don't get it.

- Weird food is relative. You're teaching the terms "often, sometimes" and "never" in a class about food. In asking about "foods you often eat," student flatly responds: "doves." More interesting than the student's response is how unfazed you are with their constant dining on the international symbol of peace: you just had one last month in Shenyang. at a curbside dove joint where the wait staff would twist their heads off in front of you (proof of freshness) and grill them up chuanr-style. Could have had a shot of blood on the side. You passed.. Maybe weird food isn't relative.

- We're all just animals. You can't help but realize this when you see how unapologetically open people are about spitting, farting, urinating, and defecating in public or semi-public. In the elevator today an otherwise coy and unassuming woman let go of a sharp, short burp that made me jump. Better out than in, I suppose. Just as the book title says, "everybody poops." Everybody also does everything else that involves expelling body gasses, liquids, and other semi-solids.

- Economics trumps politics. The residue of the Cold War, the lingering sense of a great Communist menace that many think they perceive (particularly in the US) is absolute horsewash. China is more rabidly free-market capitalist than the US was even in the days of the robber barons. Ever since Deng Xiaoping proclaimed, "To get rich is glorious," China has been a place where the "honor's in the dollar." Many politicians get into the game, not because of the power and influence they yield (usually not much), but because the chances for kickbacks and bribes that occur at different bureaucratic bottlenecks.