(estimated reading time: 10-15 min)

This is not a lengthy article in which I contrast the US and China on notable socio-political topics. Instead, this is a (mostly) lighthearted post where I share some facets of daily life that are done differently between the two countries—mundane stuff I didn’t know about until living in the US and the awkward moments I went through when discovering these differences.

More context on my background: I was raised in a Mandarin speaking environment, but started learning English from a young age and went on to attend schools that place a lot emphasis on foreign language education. Before 2019, when I came to the US for my undergraduate education, I had not lived anywhere other than my hometown, and my exposure to US pop culture was limited to my Hollywood-movies-and-TV-series addiction during middle and high school.

  1. Mac and Cheese
  2. Häagen-Dazs
  3. KFC and Pizza Hut
  4. Duvets vs Comforters vs Blankets
  5. Bamboo Sleeping Mat
  6. Last vs This vs Next Monday
  7. Number Gestures
  8. Have a Good One
  9. San José
  10. Please Spell Out the Letters
  11. Why Do You Have an English Name
  12. Playgrounds
  13. Class vs Year
  14. Sports at School
  15. Money Taboo
  16. Accepting (or Not Accepting) Compliments
  17. What to Brag About
  18. PCPs and Hospitals
  19. Masks
  20. Spending Money on Gacha Games


Mac and Cheese

I had never had mac and cheese before I came to the US. In fact, I didn’t even know the mac in mac and cheese is short for macaroni. During my first semester of college, I went to our school’s cafeteria, saw mac and cheese on a menu for the first time, and immediately associated it with McDonalds’ Big Mac and thought it’d be a burger. I even asked the server if my order was wrong after being presented with a bowl of wildly unexpected and foreign food - they stared back into my eyes as if I were crazy.

Häagen-Dazs

One of my most distinct memories of living in China is my parents buying me those mini Häagen-Dazs ice-cream cups, which were considered a luxurious treat because one 3.6-ounce cup cost 30 CNY or ~5 USD. You can imagine how surprised (and ecstatic) I was to discover that they cost about a buck here (late 2010s).

KFC and Pizza Hut

I knew chain restaurants in different countries often end up offering localized dishes, but I was so disappointed when I found out that the KFCs here do not offer 九珍果汁 (“nine treasure juice”), a type of fruit drink containing nine different fruits (orange, apple, pineapple, passionfruit, banana, mango, white grapefruit, papaya, lemon). I’m also surprised that I haven’t seen any boba tea shops here borrow that idea yet, because it tastes so good.

The Pizza Huts here are a bigger letdown. I grew up frequenting the ones in China, which were a popular choice for casual yet good quality “western style” food and considered a higher tier than fast food chains. I was absolutely obsessed with their spaghetti and a fried shrimp dish that’s similar to the shrimp tempura you can find in the US, but very juicy and usually sliced in the middle and laid flat.

The branding and marketing approach of fast food restaurants in general also seems wildly different. Those in China frequently have limited-time collaborations with other brands, offering collectibles for spending a certain amount of money; such events have usually gained good traction.

Duvets vs Comforters vs Blankets

In Mandarin, the character 被 can refer to comforters, duvets, or quilts (or even blankets if used loosely). People prefix 被 with different words to make it more specific, for example 空调(AC)被, 蚕丝(silk)被, 羽绒(down)被, et cetera. For some reason, the English translation I have always associated with 被 is blanket, so I’d ask hotel staff “can I have an extra blanket” when I actually wanted a duvet or comforter. I was very confused when I finally went to a bedding store in the US and saw all the foreign words.

Bamboo Sleeping Mat

On the topic of bedding, among the things I wish I had brought with me when I moved to the US, what I missed the most was a bamboo sleeping mat (凉席) - it’s a game changer in the summer when you don’t have central AC.

Last vs This vs Next Monday

In Mandarin, “last Monday” (or any other day) always refers to the Monday of the previous Mon-Sun period. Similarly, “this Monday” always refers to the Monday of the current Mon-Sun period, and “next Monday” to the next. For example, saying “this Tuesday” on a Wednesday refers to the day before, “this Thursday” refers to the day after, and “next Tuesday/Thursday” refers to the Tue/Thu after the current Mon-Sun week ends. At least in the region I grew up in, this definition of last/this/next seemed universally agreed upon: even if you say “next Monday” on a Sunday, people will know you are referring to the following day.

During my five years living in the US, “this Monday” (or any other day) has usually referred to the upcoming Monday. But according to opinions online, there does not seem to be a consensus among US English speakers, and the amount of ambiguity depends on how close the current day is to the nearest Monday.

Number Gestures

This may seem obvious in hindsight, but I didn’t quite realize that the number gestures I used in China don’t make sense in the US, I once tried to signify six to an American friend by holding out my hand with only the little finger and thumb extended and was met with stares of confusion.

Have a Good One

While visiting the US during my high school years, I called the hotel front desk one evening and at the end of the conversation tried to wish them good night. I was going to say “have a nice evening,” but after the first three words, realized that it was too late to be called an evening; tried to say “have a nice night” instead, figured it sounded weird; wanted to resort to “have a nice weekend”, but it wasn’t weekend yet. So I just froze. The staff just chuckled and said “have a good night.”

I later discovered the phrase “have a good one” and have been using that since.

San José

I had never heard of the city San José, in English, Spanish, or Mandarin. During my first year, I had a flight to San José, and at the departing airport, the TSA agent examining my passport asked me where I was going. I said, confidently, “San Jose” (like rose with a “J”). He nodded and handed back my passport without saying anything. I didn’t realize I pronounced it completely incorrectly until much later.

Please Spell Out the Letters

Once, when traveling to the US, I was on a call with an airline representative figuring out some refund issue. (The series of events leading up to that call is a whole other story.) During the call, I needed to tell them my reservation number, so the representative asked me to spell out the letters. Homophones are very common in Mandarin, so having to specify the exact character is a common need, but I couldn’t immediately think of how to do so in English. At the time I wasn’t familiar with the NATO phonetic alphabet, so I was struggling on the phone like “uh…L as in love? P as in panda? Q as in…question mark?”

Why Do You Have an English Name

I have been asked a couple times “why did you choose an English name, instead of just using your name in your first language?”

I will answer this question from the perspective of a Chinese person who grew up learning English in a classroom setting: a lot of us chose our English name in our first English classes, so we are truly used to being referred to by that name in English, and many naturally choose to continue using that name when in the US. Plus, of course, some people just don’t want to deal with mispronunciations and such.

As far as I know, this is fairly (if not overwhelmingly) common for students learning English in China, since using English names creates a more immersive learning environment. I was first assigned an English name in primary school, had some fun in middle school by switching to my favorite fictional character’s name, and in high school (deciding to be less unhinged) settled on Joanna.

For myself and many of my peers, learning and speaking English was both a subject we wanted to get good grades in and a skill we wanted to have fun exploring. Considerations about preserving your linguistic identity or how you represent your ethnicity to others weren’t really on anyone’s radar until actually living in a foreign environment.

Playgrounds

I was taught in English classes that 操场, which refers to the track and field area in a school, translates to “playground.” It always sounded kind of weird, but I have literally never seen an authentic English textbook (for Mandarin speakers) that says otherwise.

Class vs Year

If someone who went to a typical (i.e. non-international) Chinese K-12 school says “we were classmates” or “we were in the same class,” they likely mean something different than what this implies in the US. In Chinese K-12 schools, students within the same year (年级) are divided into smaller groups, referred to as classes (班级) in Mandarin. Under most circumstances, each class stays together throughout their years at a given school, and students very rarely transfer between classes.

The size of a class depends on the region and school, but for reference, my high school had around 300 students per grade, each divided into six classes. 50 students per class was a pretty average number back then, but in recent years there have been regulations pushing for smaller class sizes.

Each class has a head teacher who manages administrative work for the students and usually also teaches a subject. Each class is assigned a classroom in which the students stay throughout the day. Teachers go to the classroom to teach their subject, and students in the same class share the same schedule. For example, in a given year there may be six classes and three math teachers, each of whom is assigned two classes to teach.

The traditional Chinese K-12 curriculum doesn’t divide subjects into separate courses based on content (e.g. algebra vs geometry vs calculus). Instead, the students’ year determines what areas a given subject will cover. For example, there might be one math course that covers Algebra 1 and Geometry in grade 9, Algebra 2 and Precalculus in grade 10, etc. This is a made-up example, but that’s the general idea. Additionally, the same teacher usually teaches multiple years of the same course, so students get to establish a multi-year relationship with their teachers and vice versa.

Sports at School

Although watching US TV series had already given me a sense of it, I still drastically underestimated how big high school and college sports are in the US. My impression about sports in typical (i.e. non-international) Chinese schools is that, while plenty of students like sports, they are not encouraged to dedicate a lot of time to it unless they are obviously very talented.

Money Taboo

Every culture has its own taboos, but one of the things that surprised me is that money is a taboo topic in the US. Having grown up in China, I’m very used to people openly discussing or inquiring about incomes, spending, how much their houses are worth, etc. Even now I sometimes need to remind myself not to ask direct questions about money, even though “how much did you spend on your Japan trip” sounds like such an innocent question.

Accepting (or Not Accepting) Compliments

Chinese culture is considered high-context, which means it values indirectness and subtlety in communication. I could go on about the differences in interpersonal relationships, social norms, and interactions in higher vs lower context cultures, but my favorite daily-life example is how we accept compliments.

While saying “thank you” can be appropriate depending on the context, the most socially proper response to a compliment is to deflect it using a phrase like 没有没有 (“no, not at all”), 过奖了 (“you spoke too highly of me”) or 不敢当 (“I don’t deserve your compliment”). Traditional Chinese culture values humility in this way, but modern day conversation expects these responses more as a courtesy, and they do not necessarily imply modesty. In fact, you can deflect compliments in a way that makes you seem improperly self-important—one of my core memories from high school is a group of hyper competitive students habitually giving and deflecting compliments to one other (“This is so impressive of you!” “Not nearly as impressive as you are! I only got a 99 out of 100 on the math quiz today”).

Similarly, the socially proper way to accept a gift involves first rejecting it, or at least showing that you would feel bad for accepting it, before actually taking it. The same applies to offering to pay after a meal, too.

What to Brag About

The desire to show off may be universal, but there are certainly big differences in socially acceptable ways of bragging.

For example, I’ve only ever seen my Chinese international student friends post screenshots of their grades in college, or post collages of all the job or grad school offers they’ve got (and only on Chinese social media, too). On the other end, I’ve only seen American students post sassy photos with their fraternities and sororities.

PCPs and Hospitals

The idea of PCPs was really foreign to me. While I’m aware that a lot of people in the US do not have PCPs, and more and more people in China are getting PCPs, I wasn’t even aware of this concept until I came to the US.

In the urban areas in China, the most canonical way of seeing a doctor for non-emergent reasons is basically a walk-in system: you will go to a nearby hospital’s outpatient department and get registered first (挂号), which involves collecting your personal and insurance information, paying a basic fee, and being put on a waitlist for the correct department. You’ll then head to the waiting room and wait for your name to be called.

Usually, for the initial visit, people would choose a “normal” appointment (普通门诊), which involves a brief check with any next available doctor in that department, after which you may be given prescription which you can bring to the hospital’s on-site pharmacy. You may also be asked to go get some tests done onsite first, and go straight back to the doctor who saw you once the result is out; the turnaround time for most normal tests is relatively short, and you can cut the line when you are going back to the doctor for a wrap-up.

If the initial checkup suggests that further attention is needed, you may be redirected to get an “expert” appointment (专家门诊), which is a slightly longer, uninterrupted time with a more experienced doctor for an in-depth examination and review of test results. Still, “expert” appointments are usually in high demand and require waiting. If you want to see an even higher-tier doctor for even longer, you can also get a “special” appointment (特需门诊), which is truly an appointment in the sense that instead of being put on a waitlist and waiting, you can reserve a time slot.

Of course, the higher-tier appointment, the more expensive the registration fee is, and the less may be qualified for insurance coverage.

Masks

Wearing a mask when you’re sick (or just to hide your face from the sun or strangers) and using umbrellas for shade is still much more normalized in China.

Spending Money on Gacha Games

Gacha games are (predominantly mobile) games that center on spending in-game currency to obtain chance-based rewards. The model was first popularized in Japan, then became big in China and Korea, then spread overseas and has become a pretty popular subculture in the US (thanks to the pandemic and Genshin Impact).

The in-game currencies are obtainable in limited quantities by playing the game, or in unlimited amounts by swiping your credit card. Nowadays, most Chinese gacha games publicly announce reward drop rates and have certain guarantees (“you automatically get this rare item after a maximum number of attempts”), mostly due to regulations, but at least when I was into gacha games there were many popular Japanese games that did neither.

Among Chinese gacha game communities, spending money on microtransactions is encouraged, and the more you spend, the more qualified you are to comment on the game. While not spending money is considered understandable, players who don’t spend money are discouraged from voicing their opinions (especially negative ones) or showing off the rare items they’ve got. In fact, there’s an internet slang phrase 白嫖 (literally: get sexual services without paying) used in the gaming and idol communities to refer to such people, which connotes that if you are enjoying the service, you have the responsibility to support the game financially, and if you don’t, you waive any right to complain or to flex.

I was surprised to discover that here, the stance on spending money on gacha games is completely the opposite: it is usually the people who spend money who are considered either spoiled or immature/financially irresponsible. Not only is taking advantage of free resources considered wise, the idea that “if you don’t spend money you don’t get to have opinions” doesn’t seem to exist at all.

I’m sure this observation could spin off into a whole conversation about attitudes towards money and spending habits, but that’s not within the scope of this blog post.


Special thanks to Max Slater for editing, Steve Lu and a very mysterious Alex for providing feedback.