The nation's favourite hobbies

Quick question: If someone asks what your hobby is, what is a valid answer? Reading? Watching films? Playing a sport? Yes, yes and yes. Listening to music. Yes. Sleeping? Er... is that really a hobby? Well, it is what many Chinese people claim as their hobby. And to be honest, after living here a while that reply doesn't surprise me. People sleep anywhere and everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are or what time it is - its always a good time for a nap. Asleep in the street. Asleep in a shop. Asleep at work.

I like the neatly-placed shoes

I've been in shops where the shop owner was asleep, and couldn't be bothered to get up and serve me. Many small shops even have little beds behind the counter for ease of napping.

One guy was so fascinated by this that he put a website together based entirely on photographs of Chinese people asleep in unusual locations, which you can find here.

The other best way of wasting time, if you happen to be in China, is chatting to people on QQ (basically, an Asian-version of MSN). In you aint napping, you're chatting. If you aint chatting, you're napping. In offices and shops all over the PRC, that is what's happening right now. Chatting on QQ is actually the favoured method of contact for many people. Sometimes if you call a business to make an enquiry, they'll tell you to find them on QQ instead, then put the phone down. Not entirely sure what the advantage of this is (hey, why say in 20 seconds what you can type in 10 minutes?...), but, as it says on the QQ homepage: "In China, QQ is not just a way to communicate—it's a phenomenon, a part of culture, and a daily necessity".