Things I’ve Only Seen In China

In China, there are a lot of things you’ll see and do that America just doesn’t have and doesn’t do - here are a few of them. These are probably true in other countries as well, but I obviously haven’t seen the whole world, so…..yeah, here they are.

- Ride an impossibly crowded bus with people literally pushing strangers out of their way in order to get on. I still hate this one every now and then. It seems very impolite to me.

- A country that actually likes karaoke and thinks it’s cool!!

- Students that like studying so much that they will sometimes blow off hanging out with friends to go to the library to study. Dude.

- People have no problems standing on a train or bus for hours at a time with no seats

- A majority of people actually like and genuinely prefer pop music to rock music!!!

- Older parents can legally sue their adult children for not financially providing for them

- People really like to eat cold dishes - many times preferring the 凉菜 (cold food) to the (hot food) 热菜.

 - Some meat and vegetable dishes that would normally be hot in America or in other countries are allowed to sit and get cold and are actually preferred that way. This one actually took me a little while to get used to.

- If you are a *ahem* larger person, then people will tell you ‘oh, I think you are very fat. I am so skinny’ just as a passing comment like ‘oh, you have a beard’ or ‘oh, i like your shirt’. It doesn’t sound like much, but I was genuinely shocked to hear that the first time it was said to me - it just never happened before.

- Boys wearing bright purple and pink is very common and NOT considered gay in the slightest.

- People don’t ever hug each other except when they are little kids or are together romantically (even then, it seems rare). Very, very strange for me. I have only hugged 2 people here - 1 of whom had been to America and gotten lots of hugs in America and missed being hugged (does that count?)

I’m really tired now, so I’m going to bed - if I think of any more, I’ll put them in another post. Here is the latest video:

Xi'an Pictures!! and stuff....

Holy crap, more pictures!!! Like the subject line says - they're from Xi'an. Great trip, great company, great food. Any of these pictures you can click on and it'll make it bigger :)

This is what I called in one of my videos "the poetry rock place" in the Tang Dynasty Paradise - tons of classical Chinese poems carved onto these stones

This is the Dayanta - what Chinese people consider the symbol of Xi'an.

This is an overview of part of the Tang Dynasty Paradise. It's a reconstruction of the Tang Dynasty's fabled imperial gardens, but made into a sort of theme park. It was pretty cool.

Everyone knows what these are :) 

Many of the warriors are broken and slowly being reunited with the original earth that they were made from.

A chariot dug up from the site - so cool!!! It's pretty big - though not quite life size.

One of the famous night markets in Xi'an - this one is just behind the Drum (Bell) Tower that you saw in my videos. The vendors sell a lot of Muslim food and Xi'an specialties.

Dunno....just thought this was a neat doorway

A building similar to the Drum/Bell tower, but not it.

This is the Drum/Bell tower. The night market is not too far from behind where I'm standing.

One of the amazing bronze works of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1406 BC). The Shang Dynasty bronze work was unsurpassed in its time and remained the standard for bronze work until modern times. The details worked into this are just incredible.

These, as you can see are sea shells. They were used as the first form of currency in China (I think so, anyway) and the character 贝，which means 'shell', still can mean money in some circumstances, even now.

This is a mold for the next form of money that was made, which were circular coins with square holes in the middle so people could keep them on strings. Pretty cool!

This is an example of a Tang Dynasty 三采马 (I think that's the right 采). It means "3 color horse" and is a classic image of Tang Dynasty China. I have a souvenir one that my friend bought me 

The sign said it was a mirror - but....I don't see any reflecty-mirror-ness...just really awesome artwork.

This is actually really important in Chinese history. It is the cover of one of the old Chinese Civil Service Examination tests. These tests were given to people who wanted to become civil servants and took 2-3 days to complete. The applicants wrote '8 legged essays' based upon knowledge of Confucian principles. It was used for hundreds of years for people who wanted to serve the government.

I'm going to a city called Jinchang, which is in Gansu, for the Wuyi Holiday - we have a couple of days off for that holiday and it just follows the "sports meeting", which is where students and faculty get together for three days of no class and compete in sports events and showcases of martial arts and parades and some other jolly good stuff, so all in all, we get 5 days off of school! China is great like that. We've already had one holiday and are going to have 2 more, and then the "dragon boat festival" is coming up - another holiday!

Much love, talk to you guys later!