There are some things that textbooks just can't teach. One of them is just how many people there are in China. I get reminded of it everyday I ride the bus, go to the beach, or buy rail tickets.
My bus route has service every 5 minutes, but even so, there never an empty seat. The aisles are so full that you have to squeeze through to get from the front to the back of the bus. There is nothing like being packed in a bus full of 100 people for forty minutes everyday to and from work. Oh, also there is no air conditioning, so you can check "go to the sauna" off the to-do list. My shirt is already soaked by the time I get home.
The beach isn't much different from the bus. I was browsing through the Xinhua News Agency website the other day and stumbled across a picture of locals at the beach. The water was packed body to body. At first I couldn't believe it when I saw the picture, but then I checked out one of the beaches here in Qingdao and realized that it was about the same, packed! Area to spread out is impossible and privacy is forgotten.
Rail travel is just about the same. Two weeks ago when I went to Beijing, I realized that buying rail tickets is not like Japan. Pre-booking tickets is a must. In Japan, it is okay to buy tickets hours before riding the train. Not in China! Most often you have to buy tickets a couple of days or a week in advance, sometimes more. Movie theaters are the same way; you might have to take a trip to the box office to just to buy movie tickets. Otherwise, the only seats that are open are showings in the morning.
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