China Live : Two Israeli gals in Dong Guan

China Live, written by two Israeli girls living in Dong Guan (located at the Guangdong province in southern China), is a rare insight into how Israelis experience China. Having followed the blog for quite some time now, and after having met the two, I can recommend those who can read Hebrew and are into China and Chinese culture to make this a regular read.

The blog was recently featured in Ynet, so here’s a quick translation from Hebrew of the  Ynet recommendation:

“We’re all used to hear about China in a somewhat negative context, but bloggers Hila and Lital, two Tel Aviv gals in their 30s, have been trying for over a year now to change that and expand the Israeli Hebrew readers by offering a taste of their everyday China.

In their blogs, China Live, they tell about their extraordinary decision : “We travelled to China to learn Chinese, teach English, find a good job and get rich quickly but mainly because we wanted to broaden our horizons, experience a different lifestyle , learn about Chinese culture, travel and see the world, while occasionally missing  our little Israel…

In this blog we write about our lives in China also so that everyone who knows us can keep track of what we’re up to but mainly for ourselves. So that we have an excellent souvenir and a place to express what we go through every day”.

Recently, the two have upgraded their blogs, changed the name and redesigned. All previous content was imported so we can enjoy their amusing observations of China : driving culture, cost of living, fashion, gender issues, and even life without Facebook. Charming.

Also, a quick translation to one of their recent blog entries, to give you a small taste -

Superstition? irrational worshiping? strange holidays? crazy festivals? the Chinese are experts at that. On the 15th of the 7th lunar calendar (this week) is the Chinese festival of ghosts and all the worshipers hurried to purchase paper money from hell to burn while visiting the graves. Sounds strange? that’s only the teaser… ! […]

Those fake paper bills look so innocent and colorful that we didn’t consider even for a second that if we buy a few and decorate our office with them it will bother anyone… how wrong we were… […]

The moment we took out the paper money the girls in our office turned silent. Jessie immediately muttered “No, no, bad luck! Bad luck! Very very not good!” and Amy just stared at us in complete shock asking that we find a different place for those.

It seems that we share alot of the extreme cross-cultural experiences and it’s somewhat amusing to read some of my own experiences in southern Taiwan relived by the two in southern China. Though we might disagree on the way we see thing in China and our interpretation of the Chinese people and culture, there’s no doubt their posts are funny, interesting, and do a great job of exposing everyday China to the Israeli audiences.

Go check’em out.