This is Serena. Born in China, she…
OMG YOU HAVE CORONAVIRUS
Nah I just got out of 2 weeks of self-quarantine at my house in Melb yesterday, I’m kewl. If I wasn’t a permanent resident here I would have had to go to another country to do my quarantine.
Did you live on Uber Eats during self-quazza in Melbs?
The Chinese community have banded together to help each other. So if you’re in self-quazz, they leave a bag of food at your house every few days – you never even meet the person. Once you’re outta quazz-town, it’s your turn to volunteer, go shopping and leave food-bags for others quazzing. Here:
Free bags are the best. I heard everyone quazzing in China is going cray?
Yes because it is so boring so they’re doing weird things like:
- go fishing in their home aquariums and catch their pet fish
- play hooky for money, like its a casino
- one guy ran a marathon in his apartment: 42km around the house
- video or podcasting their lives. One guy did a live stream asking people to watch him while he slept because he wanted to know if he snored: 10million people watched.
At 2.5yrs old, you went to the first boarding school for kindy kids.
There were 20 of us, we had a day and a night teacher. The Chinese work-week is 6days so I would go home for Saturday night – Monday morning though sometimes I didn’t recognise my mum when she came to get me. I learnt how to:
- Wash my socks
- Pull down the bunk beds from the wall
- Make my bed
- Brush my teeth, bathe and dress myself
Hand-balling a toddler, your parents would have been happy about the one child policy.
I really wanted a brother so I begged my mum like properly BEGGED her. She gave me the trade-off: lots of presents over 2 years, OR one gift and a brother. I chose a uni cycle.
LEL.. wait so your parents had two kids?
My brother was a secret baby. During the pregnancy they were freaking out about where to give birth and how to get a birth certificate. In the end they were discovered and had to pay a fine. So they tell my brother they bought him from the government.
What happened at high school in Aus?
I begged to go to school in Australia and my convincing skills are 200% so they let me go to school in Melbourne. I gained 15kgs in 4months because they served 6 meals a day. I’m so enthusiastic about food, it’s like heaven, so I can’t stop eating. When mum first saw me on holidays, she couldn’t stop laughing “You’re holding two eggs in your mouth” .
What should Aussies should try when they go China?
- Thousand Years Egg: a grey and green duck egg soaked in lime. Lots of Western people try it but they always vomit
- Chicken embryo – it’s very nutritious and you can eat it if you’re pregnant
- Fermented milk made from ground soy beans – it’s a traditional Beijing breakfast but it tastes disgusting
- Dog… Um, no
Whats fashionable in China at the moment?
I work at at GAO Group International, an Aussie company specialising in Asian digital marketing.. so I know trends:
- No one has cash in China anymore, in fact people will laugh at cash. You need to have WeChat Pay for everything – tickets, cabs, markets – we just do everything on phones. Even homeless ppl don’t have cash, if you want to give them money they give you their QR code.
- Some galleries are simply made for social media. There is no art, just weird looking installations where you’re meant to take photos. And there are specific ones designed for people to take photos in landscape, and other galleries for portrait mode (below).
- it is fashionable to NOT drink coffee at Starbucks – people just go there to hang out or have meetings or play games. Funny.
- Lipsticks are the craziest thing in China, if you don’t have 50 lipsticks you’ll be shamed in a group of girls – The Forbidden City even started to sell lipstick (it sold out immediately).
- Podcasting is massive and the most famous guy in China is a podcaster who just tries on lipsticks. He once tried 300 colours in one night and now he is the most powerful influencer in the country. Whatever lipsticks he recommends sells out immediately – in China AND in Europe.
