「What is your biggest pet peeve in China? What makes you rage?」
Reddit user neonrabbit1 posted this question which drew hundreds of responses in the thread. Expats and non-expats: feel free to add more. Non-expats, let’s just feel good if we』ve never done any of these to anyone.
1) I loved most everything and I tolerated the spitting, shoving, terrible queuing, etc. until I went to the Beijing zoo. The zoo was alright but the people were atrocious and it was the first time I really, really raged. Someone threw his drink onto one of the bears, and then threw the bottle at the bear and I just lost it and screamed at him.
So many kids were shoving and banging on the glass and the cages, not to mention peeing and shitting on the sidewalks, EVERYONE was feeding garbage to the damn fat sick animals that were surrounded by huge DON'T FEED US IT MAKES US SICK signs. I even screamed and smacked the hand of an old man who wouldn't stop slamming this little bird cage so the bird would look at him for a picture. It was horrible. (TreePangolin, USA)
2) Another thing I hate is that I get offered a higher price for everything just because I’m not Chinese. And this sucks, but I don't really rage, I've just accepted it and now happily throw down people's cheap crap and walk away with a firm 「tai gui le.」(TreePangolin, USA)
3) Watching a child try to find a trashcan for the stick from his popsicle, show the stick to his mom after he can't find one, and watching her absently take it from him and toss it on the ground by his feet. Yes, reinforce that habit, please. (jollysaintpete)
4) The foreigners who are too cool to talk to other foreigners. (adgre1, USA)
5) If the number of Chinese people on a escalator is equal to or greater than three, at least two of them will be standing side-by-side and making it impassable. Or there's the douche who stands square in the middle and blocks it all by himself. (my-throwaway-name)
6) When I open a door for my girl friend and all the nongmins (farmers) on the other side try to barge through like cattle. I usually drop my shoulder and barge on through with maximum damage. The other thing that makes me rage is how Chinese people don't know how to PUSH supermarket trolleys. They drag them behind them so they swing about and crash into people. (moominpappas_hat)
7) How is it possible to do that much drilling in one apartment? Are these migrant workers following me around China and constantly drilling in my neighbor’s apartment? (Cmiao, UK)
8) The f*king umbrellas poking my eyes out! I had a great idea once when I was drinking a cocktail with a tiny umbrella in it. I would walk down the street with this tiny umbrella attempting to cover my large laowai head. When some ignorant slut with no respect for anyone else barges through with her umbrella I would chase her and poke my little cocktail stick umbrella in her eye. I sobered up and realized this was a stupid idea. So now I act like Moses parting the umbrella sea walking down the road. (Cmiao, UK)
9) The cinema. What's the point in paying to sit in a darkened room and eat chuar, play games on your ipad + shout down your phone? Honestly, kindergarten kids are better behaved than Chinese people in a cinema. (let_the_monkey_go, UK)
10) I hate how you practically have to argue with the manager for them to change just something small on your food. I went to McDonald’s one time and I had to explain for like 5mins that I wanted them to add cheese on my burger. They kept saying "No we can't. It has no cheese". I'm wondering WHY can't they just add it?? It's McDonald’s for crying out loud. (m_in_china, USA)
11) That pisses me off to no end. At KFC a while ago, they had ice cream sundaes with oreos in it. They apparently ran out of the oreo-less sundaes. I just told them to put the chocolate sauce on the ice cream, and just don't put the oreos on it. Nope, they couldn't do it. (Manggo)
12) The worst subway fools are the ones with bags bigger than you've ever seen before who are at the front of the rabble to get on the train, then plop their bags down after taking one pace inside the train. Leaving 20 people behind to scramble over them. Then they don't get off for at least 8 stops so every single person getting on has to climb over their comedy sized bags. (let_the_monkey_go, UK)
13) I remember giving Chinese friends some bad news about a sick relative and being greeted with some really uncomfortable forced smiles and giggles. (Hopfrogg)
14) Where you pass some random person and they whip out their phone and take a picture of you so they can go put it in their stash of laowai pictures. Sometimes they don't even pretend to check their phone. They just straight up take a picture. (magictalkingsquirrel)
15) Pollution. The little spoiled children. Food poisoning. Lack of germ theory. Not re-racking the weights at the gym. Lack of office communication. Crotchless baby pants. Bureaucracy. (eveninghope)
16) Street vendors setting up shop in places where thousands of people are trying to get by. These cunts get right on my nerves. (loller, China)
17) PEOPLE CHEWING WITH THEIR MOUTHS OPEN AT MEALS. (largehill)
18) I can’t stand it when a group of locals take up the entire sidewalk while walking buddy, buddy in straight a horizontal line moving forward. (Falkniven)
19) Drivers and stop signs. I live in Chengdu, and I swear that the stop sign shaped things on the side of the road don't actually mean stop. I loathe it when I'm walking across and intersection with no lights and a car comes speeding up and starts honking at me like I should be more considerate of his feelings when I started walking first. (SquarebobSpongepants)
20) Probably the most annoying thing is getting talked to like a 4 year old by everyone I know, even though they know I can speak Chinese at a pretty proficient level. As long as we're not talking about nuclear physics, I can pretty much keep up and understand in any situation. (theamazingdesigner)
21) Weibo pictures and laowai "fame." Picture of me from a minor event ended up on weibo, "look at lovely laowai came here all the way from America for this minor event." (moominpappas_hat)
22) Biggest? That CCTV-News spot they always use. I can't stand hearing Yang Rui's line: the world is more integrated than ever.
23) People talking on their phones above normal volume during meetings. (GueroCabron)
24) The fact that 24/7 you can find a TV show with Chinese killing Japanese soldiers. (lebowski70)
25) Just the smoking really. I hate smoke. My favorite guy is the one who waits until he is IN the elevator to light a cigarette. (fidelity)
Want to read more responses in the thread? Click on the Chinese characters 閱讀原文 at the bottom of this post.