Understand

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People
China is a very diverse place with large variations in culture, language, customs, and economic levels. The economic landscape is particularly diverse. The major cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai are rich and modern. However, more than half the population, some 800 million rural residents, still live as peasants, farming with manual labour or draft animals. Many of these men and women live in severe poverty. A Chinese government estimate as of 2005 had 90 million living on under ¥ 924 ($112 US) a year; 26 million were under the official poverty line, ¥ 668 ($81 US) a year.

China has recently experienced a huge economic explosion, and many rural residents (over 200 million by some estimates) have moved to the cities to become migrant workers, or sometimes businessmen. This has created a two-tier social structure in most cities. On the one hand, there are the more sophisticated urbanites, and on the other, their more rustic cousins. While the two sometimes have roughly equal economic footing, the latter group often tends to behave in a manner that many people (local or foreign) find inappropriate. However, these behaviors are usually benign in nature. The lesson is this: keep an open mind; if you do this, you'll find that behind the idiosyncratic and sometimes plainly unrefined and coarse manners, people tend to be warm and friendly.

Things you can expect from many Chinese people are:

Spitting: in the street, shops, supermarkets, hotel lobbies, hallways, or even in restaurants and hospitals. Traditional Chinese medical thought believes that it is unhealthy to swallow phlegm.

"Hello": Numerous calls of "hello" just about anywhere outside of the big cities (and even there, occasionally).

lǎowài (老外) literally means "old (and thus respected) outsider", a colloquial term for "foreigner"; the more formal term is wàiguórén (外国人). Calls of "laowai" are ubiquitous outside of the big cities (and even there, occasionally); these calls will come from just about anyone, of any age, and can occur many times in any given day.

Staring: Common through most of the country. The staring usually originates out of sheer curiosity, almost never out of hostility.

Loud Conversations, Discussions or Public Arguments: These are very common and sometimes take place at inappropriate times and/or at inappropriate places. Full-blown fights involving physical violence are less common but do occur with a fair degree of frequency. If you witness such an event, do not get involved.

Pushing, Shoving and/or Breaking Queues: This often occurs anywhere where there are queues, particularly at train stations.

General Disregard of Local and/or National Laws especially "No Smoking" signs.

None of these behaviors are considered acceptable by the majority of well-educated Chinese. However, they are so ubiquitous that you are better off trying your best to ignore them, with the possible exception of someone getting in front of you in a queue (unless the person has a very legitimate reason to do so).

Some long-time foreign residents say that over the past few years these problems have been getting considerably worse in many major cities, Chengdu...