Using the window as a trash can

Chinese people have, just like all of us, a lot of good AND bad habits…

Some good ones are:
Their friendliness, their eagerness to always offer you a meal (I love people that start a sentence with: “have you eaten yet?” I mean, can someone GET any more thoughtful?!), their openness and their closeness to smile and laughter. My Chinese friends are all great people that I am really happy I’ve had a chance to get to know!

But then there are, of course, those Chinese that have some rather bad characteristics. Some old habits. Some things that I find it very hard to get use to, like:
• The constant spitting
• The pushing (in shops, when getting on and off the metro/bus)
• Cutting lines (makes me FURIOUS! Wroooaw! *should be read as a lion roar*)

But worse of all the worse habits are, undeniably, THROWING GARBAGE BAGS OUT OF THE WINDOWS!!!

This is something I simply cannot excuse with being an ‘old habit that is hard to get rid off’. How hard can it be to collect your garbage in a neat little bin bag, and then carry it down to the public trash can? Well, apparently VERY hard, because a lot of my neighbours can not be bothered with it. Instead they throw their trash out of their window… and yes, both from the 7th and the 17th floor…

So what does this mean in real life then?
Well, for starters, it means that our yard is not a safe place for staying dry. Once, me and a friend where standing on the yard, chatting, when a large bin bag suddenly landed 2 cm next to my friend, splashing all sorts of juices on him. NICE ONE!

Another time, we where hanging our white sheets to dry on the bars outside our window (due to lack of space people hang their laundry to dry on bars outside their windows, there are no shared laundry washstands on the yard) when a bag full of old food hit the sheet. Obviously that was the first and the last time we tried to use the window bar for drying laundry.

I should mention that this is obviously not a habit that is common amongst the younger generation. But I don’t see why the older ones cannot learn how to carry their trash bags down. After all, they’re not prisoners in their flats.

(Thinking about what I would do if a garbage bag would hit my head when I was walking on the yard makes me scared)