The People

The first thing we reacted on when crossing the boarder between Russia and China was how much the people changed. A couple hours earlier stern Russian boarder controll officials had scared the crap out of us, and now suddenly these Chinese girls (aka boarder controll officials) sat on Ruut's bed, playing with our magnetic-cube toy, reading Ruut's anatomy book and smiling. Shock.
(This did however not stop them from finding our hidden copy of the Lonely Planet: China, and make us rip out the map... Taiwan and Tibet weren't marked as parts of China)

The people in Beijing are also really okay with themselves, and not ashamed of anything, down to every bodily function.
It's okay to stare as openly as you please or to spit, burp or cough in anyone's face. For kids, wearing special pants which are open between the legs (they use this instead of diapers, so the kids get potty trained faster) it's even okay to do what ever needs to be done wherever and whenever, as we wrote earlier.
All of this is in one way really relieving: you don't have to stress if it's okay to do so or so, just do it. Stare back, poke at anything you like, be yourself. Well, to some extenct. I think Sophia and Ruut will stop me before I start spitting on our dorm floor.

Since Finland is a rather empty country when it comes to people, we are all really keen of our personal space. And we usually have a lot of personal space. Well, in Beijing there live about.. 18 million people, and here nobody seems to have any personal space, nor does anyone seem to need any personal space. So most of the time, when walking on the streets, the Chinese will just walk into you, even though they could have avoided doing so. The first day this was weird, "stop touching me", but now we rarely notice. Bumping into everyone is the norm.

Something that we haven't got quite as used to, is that if you're standing maybe half a meter away from a sign, reading it, the Chinese have no problem to all just go stand infront of you(or putting their head on your shoulder to read it). Apparently you weren't standing close enough, but luckily we can see over the heads of most people, giants, as we are.

All in all the people are extreemly laidback, see little difference between 'public' and 'private' (a good example of this is the fact that not many Beijing-ers have a toilet, so public toilets are everywhere, and for many people public toilets are their only toilets, when at least in Finland we all enjoy having our own 'private toilets') never rush (they walk so slowly!) friendly and helpfull.

If they've seemed unfriendly it's only because they do not speak English, everyone who does speak English has always been exteeemly keen on helping. And when one starts helping, everybody wants to help. So ask for directions - soon three strangers will stand infront of you talking to each other as if they were best friends, all doing their best to help you. Or be offered a seat in the metro but decline since your rinkka is too big to fit the seat... and all the passangers on the subway will soon laugh and joke about it as if they all knew each other.
In southern Finland everyone is always minding their "own business" and not doing so is seen as rude. I could imagine situations like this happening in Northern Karelia though... but this is a huge capital city, and people all act like relatives and friends!

The friendliest people are however the "art students". We had been warned about "English students", but Art students are the real pest. They approach you on the street, speak English very well, and seem genuinly interested in you. This means you have to have a long conversation with them everytime (what do you study, what are you doing here, where are you from) until they get to the point (I'm an art student, come see our art, in that building, for free) Apparently it's most definitely not free, and if you don't pay in the end, they threaten with the police. Thank god we were always in a hurry and declined even before reading the warning text about "art students" on our hostel wall.

We haven't once felt unsafe walking the streets of Beijing. It gets dark really early (6 pm'ish. At 7 it's already dark) and all the sights and activities close at 4.30 or 5.30 pm. But even though we somehow always end up walking the streets in the dark (yesterday night being an extreme example of this, but even just normally... looking for a dinner place, returning from the internet cafe, shopping, taking a walk..) we don't feel unsafe or threatened, everyone has so far left us alone, and we haven't even felt the need to fear the opposite.

We haven't gotten pickpocketed either, even though I admit testing this when in the Forbidden City and it's surroundings, by keeping a couple bills quite visible. But no, nothing was stolen.
As we read in the Lonely Planet, there aren't that many beggers, except some arm- or footless cripples around popular tuorist traps. Why are they missing an arm/foot? What can I do to help them? Gosh, I admit, although I feel bad doing so, that I'm happy we aren't headed to India. I honestly feel like crying everytime.