From the Seven Castles Blog comes 130 signs you’ve been in China too long. I won’t re-publish the whole lot here, but instead I encourage you to head over to Seven Castles and read them all for yourself.

Here are a few that I found myself guilty of:

9. You buy a round trip air ticket in China.
11. You start calling other foreigners Lao Wai.
22. Your body no longer needs dairy products.
27. You have to pause and translate your phone number into English before telling it to someone.
34. You see some real cleavage and think WOW!
35. You ask fellow foreigners the all-important question “How long have you been here?” in order to be able to properly categorize them.
62. Firecrackers don’t wake you up.
67. You (male) wear white socks with your business suits.
76. The shortest distance between two points involves going through an alley.
113. You draw characters on your hand to make yourself understood.
117. You aren’t aware that one is supposed to pay for software.
119. You get offended when people admire your chopsticks skills.
121. Your collection of business cards has outgrown your flat.

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Liu Xiang has more to worry about than just Usain Bolt next month…

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One of the things that struck me when I initially came to China was how many wrinkly old men were walking around with far younger - and not-so-wrinkly - women on their arms.

While this happens, of course, in all cultures, it seems that China is far more accepting of sizable age gaps than most western countries are.

Here is a video that I just found on youku which show many famous couples, most of whom are comprised of a very old man, and a much younger, beautiful woman. I should note that not all of these examples are Chinese, there are some foreigners in there as well.

Who knows? Maybe the fact that this video is popular reflects a change in Chinese attitudes towards this situation? Is a ten or twenty year age gap more curious than it once was?

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