The Chinese are famous for being big picture thinkers. Where we westerner consider the detail the Chinese care very little for the details. This frustrates us foreigners especially when it comes to Chinglish. 
Even the major banks don’t check the English on their signs and documents. We say “Why on earth don’t they just ask a native speaker if it looks OK?”.
It doesn’t take long and wouldn’t cost much to do this but the Chinese don’t think it’s important. We can understand it after all and that’s all that matters in their eyes. At the last house I lived the family redecorated my bedroom in anticipation of arrival.
Before I moved in I was keen to make one condition and that was that I had wired internet access. My computer is very old and has no wireless card so this was vital. On the day I moved in I entered the room and saw the lovely new wallpaper, big bed and desk and chair.
I was very grateful. Then I opened my laptop and plugged it in, reached down to get the network cable and found that they had drilled a new hole through the wall from bedroom one where the socket was, into my room and pushed a cable though so that I had wired internet.
Needing the TV in bedroom three they had then drilled another hole on the other side of my room into the next bedroom. I was very grateful but I looked at the route of the cable I saw that they had attached it to the wall with big strips of sticky tape.
The freshly decorated wall was spoiled by this long line of shiny cheap plastic tape already starting to peel off. That’s when you remember the book you read before you came out to China – the chapter which says that “To the Chinese, detail is unimportant”.
They are big picture thinkers. I was reminded of this a few days ago when I went for a massage from my favourite blind man down the road. On the way out of the building I saw something I had never noticed before – a stuffed peacock.
It looked a bit sorry and I’m sure when it was first stuffed its plumage looked a lot brighter. As my eyes moved from its beautiful tail feather to its head I saw that the staff had stuck its head on with lots of sticky tape wound round and round its neck and holding its head up much like African tribeswomen wear necklaces.
However, the most surprising use of sticky tape came the following day as I walked to work. 
It is not unusual to walk past security vans outside banks guarded by men in bullet-proof jackets holding loaded shot-guns. I watched as the bags were lobbed unceremoniously into the back of the van and door slammed shut.
The guards jumped into the van too and off they drove. It was only then that I noticed that the side window of the security van was held on by sticky tape. The tape didn’t just hold it closed, it held the window completely!
I suppose you don’t need to have as secure window on your money filled van if you have several gun-touting hard men inside!