Quirky Things You See in China

I traveled to China fourteen times between December 2004 and April 2019 spending a total of six years exploring the country and meeting the people and I was constantly amazed by the differences between life in Canada and life in China. Those differences were easy to see, so I began to photograph them just for my own amusement and that of my friends and family. As I noticed patterns and trends, I recorded my thoughts and watched for photo opportunities to illustrate them. Eventually, I began to think that I should share my insights with others as well.

Having been a chemistry teacher for 31 years, I was comfortable with writing down my thoughts and presenting them to other people so, by 2015, I felt I was ready to begin work on a book, but what should it contain and how should it be presented? When I pulled all my material together, I realized it might be fun to talk about many of the amusing habits, customs and other quirky things I had been observing as I traveled around the country. I had many wonderful encounters with kind and generous strangers and even met a Chinese woman in 2009 I married only a year later.

Apart from politics, there is an entirely separate world at work in the daily lives of the people who are friendly and very curious. They provided me with many funny and heartwarming anecdotes as I observed their behaviour and customs. I learned to appreciate their amazing resilience and work ethic relative to the secure and comfortable life I am living in Canada.

I have included over 1150 photos out of the 150,000 my wife and I have accumulated over the years and I hope you will find them enjoyable, amusing and stimulating. China is a wonderful place to visit. I hope you will enjoy what you see and read in ‘Quirky Things You See in China’ and perhaps visit that incredible country sometime soon.

David C. Banks