The Lighter Side of China: Only In China

The Lighter Side of China began as a series of blogs written by author Scott Kronick that chronicled the experiences of living in China as an expat. Originally published on theBeijinger.com back in 2012, they have now been compiled into a book of the same name published by ACA Publishing Ltd. and available for sale at The Bookworm and online retailers amazon.cn, dangdang.com and Tmall.com.

To celebrate the publication, we are reposting a selection of Kronick's blogs. In this article, Kronick shares with us some anecdotes that can only be summed up with a shoulder shrug and a sheepish grin along with the phrase, "Only in China."


One of the greatest delights of living and working in China are the unlikely opportunities that would be pretty much impossible if you were living anywhere else in the world. What sort of things am I talking about?

Things like receiving a crate of live Shanghai hairy crabs as a gift from a friend – and what ensued when it was delivered to our apartment.

I worked with the ayi to open the crate so that we could transfer the crabs to another container to keep them fresh. Well, the new arrivals were anxious to explore their new surroundings. They escaped from their net and proceeded to populate my apartment. I was successful in chasing down 29 of the 30 crabs and only in the middle of the night, when I heard some scratching under my bed, did I find the last refugee. It was an unusual experience, an “Only in China” event, and it gave me a new definition of finding crabs in the bedroom. This certainly would not have happened if I was still living in New York or Flint, Michigan.

I also suppose our knowledge of dinosaurs would be different if I was still living in the United States. We have a friend in China that offered to show our kids a real dinosaur bone. “Of course my kids would love to see this,” I replied. While we were away, he kindly dropped off the bone at our house. Or should I say bones? When I returned from work, there was a one-meter long dinosaur skeleton sitting in our living room. Only in China!

In 2010, through a partnership that my company has with Tsinghua University (we sponsored a “writing on the road” program), I was lucky enough to travel to Nepal with the freshman journalism class. Well, during the trip, the professor who was leading the group invited me to visit with the president of Nepal at his office. We had a 60-minute meeting, during which I shared my views on how I felt he should run his country. Having been there for three days, I was naturally an expert. Not much has changed in Nepal since my visit. I often wonder if I should have been more persuasive in my arguments.

Speaking of rubbing elbows with political leaders, I did have the opportunity back in 1997 to help figure out how former President Jiang Zemin might be perceived as a kinder, gentler leader by the American public. After a series of brainstorms that generated ideas such as having President Jiang shaking a labor-union worker’s hand in Detroit or visiting the Harlem Boys Choir, we did identify a wonderful idea. We suggested he ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange – and a few months later, he did just that. The symbolism of a communist leader ringing the opening bell at the center of capitalism in the United States was fantastic. It was a rare opportunity to help make history. “Only in China!” I thought to myself.

While I used to be a better than average soccer player, I have never needed protection from the public because of my soccer skills. But that is what I got, along with 18 other expatriate players in the early 2000s, when we were met at the toll booth on our way into Tianjin to be escorted to the Olympic Center Stadium, where we would be playing a match against the Tianjin police. As we walked onto the field, we were introduced in front of approximately 20,000 spectators. None of them were cheering for us, with exception of our ten-member cheering squad – and three of the fans consisted of my wife and two children. Well, we lost the game about 8-0 and later found out that the 20,000 spectators had been forced to come watch us. I suppose this was double punishment, for both us and them. Watching 20,000 Chinese spectators get clobbered by a bunch of old Westerners certainly brought about some “only in China” emotions.

Certainly there have been many more. At a dinner a few years back, I was seated next to a man named Liu Huan. When I asked him what he did for a living, he said that he was a folk singer. In fact, he was at his peak of fame, having just performed for the handover session, and Mr. Observant, moi, was asking him a barrage of questions to figure out what his day job was. At this time, he was equivalent to the Michael Jackson of China.

Then there was the time I was invited by the Beijing Municipal government to offer a training program on how to dine properly in the Western world. Since an increasing number of Chinese officials were traveling overseas with their spouses, we were asked to conduct a session on proper dining etiquette in Western restaurants. When I told my mom about this, she nearly had a heart attack. “Did you decline the training?” she demanded. “Is there such a thing as malpractice in your business?” For the record, I did bring along one of my staffers who had grown up in Greenwich, Connecticut and knew the proper way to dine.

Actually, when I mentioned this column to my mom, she shared a doozy of her own. Years ago, at a children’s store in 798, she was doing some shopping for my nieces and nephew. At the check-out, she asked for a bag to put the gifts into. The bag was beautiful: colorful with hearts, complete with pictures of various Chinese children. My mom was touched by its pure beauty. As she left the store, she noticed something very interesting. Inside each of the hearts printed all over the bag was a short sentence in bold capital letters. It read: “I f*&%ing love you.” She took one look and cracked up. I told her, “Only in China.”

Photo: EvanSheline.com