Winston wrote:A female friend of mine from Singapore told me this about Beijing.
"I'm still in Beijing now. And getting very disgusted with their unhygienic habits 
. Shanghai may be a better place to visit."
"I just didn't like how spitting is a culture in Beijing. It is just very unhygienic. Don't you think so? Just reminded me of how SARS came about last time."
"I would say the people in Beijing are not that clean. You could smell funny 'scents' inside the subway, and my host did mention that they are not very fond of showering. Double gross. That's Beijing that I experienced. Kinda make me not wanna go to China again."
Are Chinese cities really that dirty? To what degree?
DISCLAIMER: I have not been back in Beijing since 2007. Your experience today may vary.
By SG standards, Chinese cities are dirty. People spit and litter, public restrooms are smelly and often without stall doors. Parents let their kids piss in the bushes. Prior to the 2008 Olympics, Beijing actually rounded up all the old taxi's and sent them to other cities, and enforced training for taxi drivers not to spit out the window -- they were instructed to spit into a cup instead. The subway cars feel aged and have exposed fluorescent light tubes (no covers), but is still better than Paris subway. >_> On Beijing subway you might dislike someone's BO, in Paris the homeless sleeps in subway stations and piss behind the vending machine (no public restrooms).
The tap water in Chinese coastal cities is "hard". Upscale hotels have their own water filtration and softener systems. Unfiltered tap water can be harsh on your hair and skin if you're not used to it. Beijing can be dusty, so after walking around outside, if you take a white washcloth and wipe your face with it, you'd find black marks on the towel where you used to wipe your nose. Depending on the person, some Chinese do not like to use the shower, preferring to take long baths instead.
China's waste management is not very good, there's a lot of uncollected trash, unauthorized dump sites, and inadequate landfill capacity. But much of the solid waste can be recycled or used for waste-to-energy conversion, and it's a big money. Chinese cities are keen to cash in and many American Waste Management companies have been going to China for past few years. Once the profit motive sets in, I think the trash management will be less of an issue.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2 ... 531103.htm (WM actually collects my trash here in Irvine)
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/01/26/ ... ese-trash/
Like most other places, there's a different standard to your experience, depending on how much you pay. For example, a foreign student at BeiDa University pays $2400 RMB per month and stays in a 2 person dorm room that's nice and clean with AC, gym, entertainment rooms, etc:
Versus local Chinese students pay $700 RMB per year (not per month) and stays in 4 person dorm rooms that's crowded and dirty:
