they eat/drink such expensive things. it costs me .8rmb for a huge delish baozi i can conveniently get at a vendor. it would have costed me 200rmb for the mental health assn dinner i was going to eat at a nice italian restaurant. mind you, it's for "networking" purposes. our next meeting is at some fancy coffee joint that will make starbucks coffee look like it's worth the latte prices. expats are wasteful.
the expats here LOVE convenience. which then makes us lazy. dave and i are starting to become that way. you have anything and everything delivered. we can get our meals and groceries delivered. i never have to set foot out of this apartment, except for work. we eat mealbay daily. and we've recently discovered that carrefour, a "hypermarket" delivers! although they do a crappy job at it. expats are lazy.
you already know my take on ayis. i've survived over 30 years in the US without a local maid. do i REALLY need one now? can i really not clean my own toilet? maybe, but i can certainly see the appeal. it's getting to the point where everyone else has one, why can't we? expats need to clean up after themselves.
people have "drivers" here. at our workplace, we have 3 drivers who can take you places thruout the day. as much as i enjoy that, i actually prefer to take the subway back home. there is something about using my 2 feet (and breathing in that smog). there are tons of public transport here b/c there are tons of people! subways, buses, trains, even taxis are more economical than "drivers." do we really need chauffeurs? expats are entitled.
i don't know if these expats come from wealth back in their native lands or after moving here they began living like this b/c other expats are or they can afford it now but there just seems to be a sense of waste and entitlement here. plus, it's not THAT cheap if u add everything up. things aren't that much cheaper, depending on what u buy. i think that is a misconception. i can also see how it can become hard to save up money b/c you end up spending what you earn thinking cost of living is cheap. that can be a trap.
i also noticed on a side note, the expats that tend to stay here for a long ass time are the ones that married a local spouse who probably doesn't want to leave. that doesn't necessarily mean the expat likes it here but i haven't heard one say they didn't even if they felt that way. probably a coping mechanism. and they get pretty good at chinese. and they are usually male. or sometimes they convince the local spouse to go back to their home country but only for a while b/c usually they end up back here. or usually one expat significant other comes b/c of the other one and they stay for awhile then leave screaming. that would be my story. :)
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