My thoughts so far

I am on the bus right now on my way to Dragon Boating and want to just share a little more of my opinions thus far. My blogs have been a little more of just an account of what I've done and I think it is about time for me to share my cultural paradigm shift.

The first thing that I am sure you are wondering is the food in China. Well I actually expected a HUGE change from the Chinese food back home and the food in China. I am pleasantly surprised to see that not true. Apart from some differences in the seasonings used the food tastes the same, just a little spicier. The meat we eat is a little different, a lot of lamb and the fish you eat here looks back at you (they serve it with the fish's heads on the plate). We did try a McDonald's one day in Beijing and it was not the same as home. I had a grilled chicken sandwich and it really did not taste like chicken. My guess is it was lamb but who knows. I am hoping that we will have the opportunity to go and eat bugs. I have heard stories of people who have visited China and they all have stories of eating scorpians and cockroaches. I promice that as soon as I try them I will let you know.

Now to another interesting topic, the language of Mandarin. The language does not contain an alphabet, instead, it is comprised of 40,000 and most people only know about 10,000 of them. The characters have no sound to them so the only way to say it is to memorize all of the characters and their noises. We have had some mini lessons in the bus with our tour guides on the language. The only words I have really learned are:
Ni Hoa - Hello
Zia Jian - Good Bye
Ni Hoa Ma - How are you?
(Ding) Hoa - (Very) Good
Boo Hao - Bad
Xie Xie (pronounced shey shey) - Thanks
And a few other random phrases
Now the hardest part is really the prononciation of these words. All of the words are said very short and abrupt. The characters are also very interesting. Even though you may have no clue how to say the word you can guess their meanings with a big imagination. For example the character for man looks like a wishbone with a spine and two feet. I am still not a Chinese expert at all, but, I am starting to understand it a little bit more.

Additionally, the Chinese people are very intriguing. The first thing about them that is funny is that they love Americans. We have had probably 50 Chinese people so far run up and ask to take pictures with us. Also as I said in my blog yesterday, they really love their country, their government, and their ruler (Mao). It is weird for us to see first hand the way that people embrace Communism. The etiquet and manners here are also very different. Walking through the streets, it is common to see a Chinese man with his shirt up to his armpits on a hot day. There are some other odd customs are spitting in the street and very interesting toilets. Most toilets are very opened, often with a shared sink and sperate toilets seperated by a straw divider. Now the toilets are very interesting as well, there are some Western toilets which are normal, but, there are also one called squaters. They are basically like american toilets but they don't have a bowl or tank; the seat is on the floor with a hole to do your business in. Now there is no way to sit on these so you must, as the name states, squat and aim hoping to be successful. There is ususally a little splash and it takes a lot of leg muscle to stay standing. It is very cool to see that while humans are all the same species we have very different customs.

I'm sure that there are many other things that you want to hear and learn about so please comment on this post and let me know what your curious about. I hope this answers some of your questions and I look forward to answering hundreds more.

Dung hui zai shuo (talk to you later)!