Angkor Wat

I finally made it to one of the places that I always said i would go. Angkor Wat it is located in central Cambodia. I watched a program on the discovery channel about it when I was 12 and ever since then there is not other ancient ruin that I have wanted to go to more. For those of you who do not know it was created by the Khmer Dynasty an empire that ruled most of southeast Asia from Thailand to Vietnam from the 10Th-13Th century. They left behind huge temples that they built for Buddhist and Hindu gods. They built them for both because during the empires existence the main religion of the rulers switched from Hindu to Buddhist. Anyway they built some amazing temples that are scattered throughout the jungles of Cambodia just outside the City of Siem Reap. When I say they are huge i am not exaggerating Angkor Wat which is the largest of them is considered to be the largest religious structure in the world. It is absolutely enormous and beautifully carved stones are everywhere. As usual I lack the vocabulary to express just how amazing it is but if you are interested I would advise you to look it up on the Internet or come here on your own I am sure getting here would be much easier if you just flew anyway. This is also the place where you have the huge trees that have grown virtually on top of the ruins. It is truly magnificent to see these trees roots cover an entire wall and then on top of the wall see the tree go hundreds of feet in the air. I am sure all of you have seen pictures of this place at one time or another you just may not have heard of it because it is in Cambodia which is not exactly a tourist hot spot but that is all changing. Besides the incredible heat it is really something that everyone should see. I really enjoyed it but the only problem now is deciding where the next place that I have always wanted to go is. I am thinkin Manchu Pichu is next on the list.

Cambodian border

Man I do not know what to say about getting to Cambodia. It is really hard to describe. First we did not plan well we just heard it was easy to get here and looking back on it, it was pretty easy. We went to the bus station the night before we wanted to leave to buy our ticket and found out when we got there the town we needed to go to so we where not prepared but we stayed flexible. So we got up the next morning at 5 AM and went to the bus station. We got there an hour early which was good. We took a 4 hour bus ride through east Thailand to the Cambodian border and it was pretty easy no real problems. Then we got off the bus and got on Tuk Tuk that was waiting for us which we knew could take us to the border for 80 baht($2). Then they dropped us off at a travel agent to get our visa which was all good and we bought a ticket to ride in a taxi from the border to Siem Reap where Angkor Wat is. We thought we where Ok then we got to the border it is a crazy crazy place you have to walk accross it through customs. When you cross it into Cambodia you immediately realize you are in a third world country it is instant. The difference is ridiculous. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world and has a the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in the world and the most heavily land mined. It fought a 25 year civil War from the late 60's-early 90's. It was like night and day. So we got dragged to a place to wait for our car that would take us on. We waited for about an hour and finally got in a car with two random Danish guys who where not very talkative. The road from the border is the worst road that I have ever seen it is half dirt and half paved. The part that is paved has huge potholes the part that is not has never even seen a grader. So we drove 4 hours through some of the poorest areas in the world. It was really depressing. One thing that I thought was interesting was that it was as flat as it is in Kansas. It was the craziest trip that I have ever taken but we got here sage and sound and without too many problems so I guess I cannot complain althought a few times I did fear for my life.

Bangkok

Hello it is me I thought I would finish a few thoughts on Bankok. After we saw the kings palace we then took a tuk tuk to the largest lying Buddha in the world. If you do not know what a tuk tuk is let me tell it is basically a four wheeled motorcycle that you ride on the back of that you can fit 3 people in. It is alot of fun because they go really fast and you can feel the wind through your hair but the pollution in Bankok is so much that it almost makes you sick. It is also difficult to negotiate a good price with them since they do not have meters and you have to agree on a price before you start and give them exact change or else they will not give you any. So when we got there I must say the largest laying Buddha seemed to me to be unreal because it is made of gold and lying down inside a building. I took some pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like it was pretty fascinating. Then that night we ended up having a few drinks on Kosan road so after we got a little tipsy on the really strong Thai beer we went to a club where we met a lot of people but on the way to the club there where a bunch of Thia people trying to get us to go to the famous bankok red light district. So we started speaking to each other in only Chinese and no one knew what we where saying I think we had them convinced that we did not know anything else it was hilarious. Well that is all I have for right now there is more but I do not have the time I just got into Cambodia tonight and after traveling all day I am beat. I will trying and write again soon.

Khoasan Road

Hello all I am sorry I have not been writing much much I have been traveling the past week or so. I left Chengdu when it was 45 degrees and arrived in Bangkok Thailand where it was 85 degrees. We ended up on Koason road a famous starting point for travelers who are traveling in Southeast Asia. Just to give you an idea of who all is there while I was there I met people from South Africa, Australia, Canada, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, Germany, France, Brazil, you name it they are all there. We stayed in a hostel that had 3 beds in it and cost us a total of 12 dollars a night all it had was a fan. It was suffocatingly hot but a lot of fun. The food that the street vendors had was outrageous it would cost less than a dollar and you could see it cooked right in front of you and it was amazing. Pad Thai, Banana pancakes and Mango with Sticky rice are my favorites. I could not believe how many foreigners where there especially coming from China where there are hardly any foreign people at all. After the initial shock of the amount of travelers wore off we went and discovered Bangkok it is an amazing city with a lot going on. They had one of the most beautiful Buddhist temples you could ever imagine they are definitely way more colorful than the Chinese when it comes to there celebration of Religion. It was absolutely phenomenal.

Zoe's Bar B Cue

Well just so you know that I do not eat all of my meals at whole in the wall joints that cost under a dollar a meal. I thought i would tell you all about my favorite Western food restaurant. It is kidns of strange thing they have these really nice restaurants in some areas that serve western food and they speak English in them it is kind of fun to go to them every one in a while. The food is a little bit more expensive for example it cost about 26 Yuan($3.50) the food is pretty good but the reaso we love to go there is the service. There are about 7 girls in there waiting on about 10 tables. The are always smiling and happy to see you whenever you come in if you are every in a bad mood you should go there because you cannot walk out of that place unhappy. It is funny My friend Brian and I just started going there about a month ago but we already know all of the girls in there. The second time we where in there we asked them all what there names where and they all had English names and we told them ours and now everytime we go in there They always say Hi Brian Hi Derek before we get to our seats we have to say Hi to all of them. There are some people in our group who have been going there for 3 months and they do not know anyone. The main reason why I wanted to write about this is because of what happened last Saturday night when we went there. We where there and noticed that there was a new girl we had not met she did not even have a uniform yet so we asked her name but she did not have and English name so we asked her boss if we could name her. We named here mellisa because we thought it was a nice name. I always thought the first person that would get to name would be my children but it turns out it was a waitress in China who would have every thought.

Southwest University for Nationalities

Hello everyone I am back. I thought I would tell you all a little about the school that I am studying at. Actually I am not really studying at the school they are just hostinig the study abroad program that I am currently attending. It is a large school I think someone told me that it has around 50,000 students. The special thing about the school is that it is for the different ethnic groups that exist in China. There are over 90 different ethnic groups other than the dominant group the Han Chinese. Even though the Han make up 93% of the population. The other groups are Tibetan, muslim, Yi or any number of different kinds of people. The campus that I go to and have class in is very small and the buildings are all pretty old and are just cement buildings that are nothing fancy. But this last week I got a chance to go and visit the new campus with a friend of mine we call him Chinese Steve since we have 2 Steves on our trip already. He is ethnically Zhuang he is from Southeast China near the Vietnam border. He is a real interesting guy he speaks great English he said he watched Friends for 3 years to help him learn English. Anyway he took us to the new campus which they just built about 4 years ago and it is as nice as K-states campus they have two ponds on the campus. The main difference I can tell between a campus in America and one in China is that in China everyone has to live on Campus for all 4 years and even some of the teachers are provided housing and live on Campus this provides a very different kind of school atmosphere but like I said it was a beautiful campus. Just thought I would share this

Xi'an

For those of you who do not know about Xi'an I will try and fill you in with my limited knowledge. It was the acient capital of China at its peak it was the largest and most important city in the world. It was the capital of the great Han and Tang Dynasties. It is also the home of the Terra Cotta warriors. Which if you do not know is an entire army of over 9000 uniquily made clay soldiers. It was absolutely spectacular. I was warned that before I went that I may be dissapointed with it but I must tell you that I was not it was even more impressive than I thought it would be. I had goose bumps when I walked in. I know alot of you have probably seen pictures of it but I do not think they are able to captue the scale of how grand they are. If you ever come to China I would highly suggest you see the Great Wall and the Terra Cotta warriors. I just cannot say enough about either of them. Other than we went to the Famen temple which is believed to hold a bone of the Buddha that was sent there from India. We also visited few tombs of the great emperors of China. It is really quite bizarre because surrounding Xi'an you can see these piles of dirt everywhere out in the middle of fields I litereally mean everywhere and they are all tombs of some emperor or the emporors brother, mother or favorite concubine. I mean the amount of history in that place is extraordinary. The only problem was after the Terra Cotta warriors everything seemed anti climatic. I enjoyed the rest of the trip but it could not comparte to the warriors.

Train ride continued

The train was fun for about 6 hours then it got a little old. We were able to see a lot of the countryside which was in some parts were beautiful and others parts were depressingly dirty and poor. One funny thing that happened was around 8 oclock a guy came around selling flashlights ones that did not need batteries. He came on our car and gave about 5 minute sales pitch in Chinese and we did not pay much attention to him we just thought it was funny how he would selling them the way he was and was not just pushing a cart like the other people. Then around 10 Oclock the lights went out and that guy just happened to be in our car and about 15 of us bought a flashlight from him for 10 Yuan ($1.33) It was slightly humerous. Sleeping on the train was not quite as funny. It is kind of hard to sleep on first off there are people walking by and all sorts of things going on while you are trying sleep and second of all the train is moving constantly. Luckily though the do have little straps that come down that keep you from falling off the bed when the train stops which is does about 45 minutes at certain train stations. It was easy to sleep when the train was moving but once it stopped it would wake you a up and you would have to start the whole process of falling back to sleep again not too much fun but it i something I am glad I did once.

Riding the train to Xi'an

This weekend my group and I took a trip to Xi'an the ancient capital of China. It was the capital of China around 2000 years ago. It is about 450 miles from Chengdu roughly. Since this trip was not covered in our USAC tuition we wanted to save a little money so we decided we would take the train to Xi'an. It is a 17 hour train ride and it costs about 150 Yuan(20) which is a pretty good deal. It turns out the rail system in China is great and alot of people use the train to travel around the country because they do not own their own cars and flying is too expensive most of the time. The train was a lot of fun but it is something that i do not think I will make a habit of taking. We got what was called a hard sleeper and it earned every bit of its name. On one side of the rail car there were walls dividing areas where their were kind bunk beds set up 3 high against the wall. So six people would be in one area stacked on 3 beds and their was a little walk way for people to walk through the cart. I was say there where around 60 beds to a car. They had bathrooms at either end of the car that you could use at your own risk. The also had a dining car that was kind of expensive but not too bad. I think I am going to need to star another post. Check train ride continued.

Thanksgiving in China

Hello everyone sorry I have not posted very many new things on here recently but the truth is not much has happened until recently. Well as you know Thanksgiving was on Thursday and just because we are in China does not mean we cannot celebrate one of the most American of holidays. It was however difficult to get a turkey here though. In china most people eat Chicken or pork. So we had to special order our turkey from a local western food restaurant. We also had to have it cooked for us. Because in China most people do not use an oven. None of our apartments has an oven. Most of the time Chinese food is cooked on the stove top or fried in woks or things like that. We only had one microwave to use while cooking our Thanksgiving dinner. We ended up with about 5 different types of potato's So we had to pay the restaurant to cook and cut our turkey for us. Because we had to get two it got pretty expensive we got two turkeys cooked, cut and delivered with gravy for 960 Yuan($128). which probably is not too bad. We had all of the people in our program over and we invited some of our teachers and Chinese friends. It came out to 40-45 people. It was almost like being at the Burke family Thanksgiving just with out all the little kids running around. We ended up at the end of the night drinking beer and singing Christmas carols it was not quite like being home but it was pretty darn close. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I am still alive

Sorry to everyone I have no been very good at keeping up with my blog these last couple of weeks. That is because not that much has really gone on. It turns out that I am going to school here and I have had a final and bunch of papers due. The only thing that happened to me that was interesting was last weekend when I went to a Diwali celebration at an Indian restaurant here that was run by Tibetans who had lived in India for several years in exile. Diwali is one of the biggest holidays for Hindus so we went there and ate some pretty good Indian food and watched some Indian belly dancers. the only reason that I went is because I have made friends with an Indian guy who is from America who told us about the restaurant and the holiday. It was just a little bizarre to be celebrating a Hindu holiday in China with Tibetans and Indians in Chengdu. Other than that though I am sorry nothing out of the ordinary has happened. This fact slightly worries me because that means that all of this craziness that I see on a daily basis is starting to become normal now which is becoming a little frightening. Thing should pick up this week because I will be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday which should be fun and then we are going to Xian which is the Ancient capital of China and where the Terracotta Warriors are so be looking for that.

Tea House and Mahjong

Hello I hope everyone is doing well I just have few things that would like to share with everyone about my week. Although it was not as crazy as last week I still had a great time usual. It started on Friday afternoon after school got out it was a rare sunny day in Chengdu. So myself and 3 of my friends decided to go to the park to hang out at play some mahjong. So we went to a really beautiful park next to the river that goes through the city. It was 130 PM on a Friday and the tea house where we stopped to play mahjong, was packed. I could not believe it this is a very laid back city people definitely move at there own pace. I have figured out that in China you either work 12-16 hours a day or 3-5. I am not for sure that a real 9-5 job exists here. There is a huge gap between the have and the have nots. You can see it on the streets people are either driving a BMW, Audi, Mercedes or bycycle or the bus. Anyway we ended up playing mahjong and drinking tea at the park for five hours. It is an excellent way to waste an afternoon. Every so often we would have Chinese looking over our shoulders trying to help us. The enjoyed watching the foreigners try and figure the complicated game of strategy it really was a lot of fun. If you have never played mahjong I would suggest you learn it is just as much fun as cards or dominos.

4th International foods festival

This story I still cannot believe that this happened. The other day a couple of freinds and I were sitting in a restaurant eating dinner with our teacher. While we where there she got call it was from someone asking if she knew any foreigners who were free on Saturday. We said sure they wanted us to go around and try a few new restaurants and some of there dishes because they where the sichuan style restaurants. So five of us met up at 9 o'clock on Saturday to go test these restaurants out. We first went to the local news paper the Chengdu daily times. There we met some reporters and some other people one of them turned out to be a famous actor and the other a famous food critic. So there we where 5 hungover college students going to 3 of the nicest restaurants in Chengdu with a TV news reporter and 2 famous guys. When we would get to the restaurants the only people that would sit down would be us and the 2 famous guys to try the food. and there would be about 15 people standing around the table watching us and taking pictures. They tried to give us chopstick lessons and everything it was quite comical. Again there was not real reason for us to be there besides the fact that we where foreigners. It turnes out we did make the local news here at 7 O'clock because they filmed all of us saying in Chinese that we loved Chengdu and the food all of which is true but it was still funny. I do not know how this stuff happens but it seems like there is always something weird like this going. I still cannot believe this happened if I had not been there I do not think I would have believed it.

The New York City party

On Friday nigth we went to a party at a club that one of my friends was supposed to be working at. They hired him to work at this bar and serve drinks only he is not a bartender. The only reason they hired him is becaue he is white and he has blonde hair and blue eyes. They payed him 600 Yuan($80) to work for 2 hours. They told all of the Chinese people at the club that they flew him in from Philadelphia just for the party they where having to make it sound more legitimate. It was alright for us because he was able to give us some free drinks. He was not able to give us enough free drinks and it was way to too expensive of a place for us to be drinking in so we where going to leave. Then one of my friends started talking to the same lady that had hired my other friend to do the bartending. They had entertainment on stage all night like some bands and violinists. So my friend said hey if I get up there to dance will you get us some free beers. They told him that if he would dance for 1o miutes then they would give us 12 beers. So we where pretty excited. I was just sitting there talking to him and I said man I would dance for free beer and he said oh that would be great because I cannot dance for 10 minutes by myself. So I got roped into taking turns dancing at a club on stage by myself for free beer. It was a really bizarre experience becaue I cannot dance. Again they only wanted us to do that because we are foreigners. But hey it was fun and we got free beer so I cannot complain. That was not the only thing I got this weekend because I was foreign you really need to read the next story for that one.

Brazillian Bar B cue

I have a bunch of stories that I want to share with everyone today so I will start with one of the shorter ones. I ate at another interesting restaurant on Friday. It is called Brazillian Bar b cue but it has a chinese buffet inside with people dressed like old Germans. I could not make this kind of restaurant up if I wanted. You pay 30 Yuan ($4) with this you get pretty much all the meet you can eat and beer you can drink. The meat is anything from sirloin to pork to squid and the beer is brewed inside the restaurant. It only lasts from 11-230 so it is not like you can sit there all day and just drink beer but we tried. After we where done eating we still wanted to stay and drink beer so instead of just sitting there sipping our beers we decided to play quarters inside the restaurant for about an hour and a half. By the time we left there where about 10 people from wait staff around our table watching us and laughing at the foreigners it was quite an experience. It was only the first of a series of strange things that happened this weekend.

Karaoke

Hello everyone it is me again I had kind of a crazy weekend this weekend and I wanted to share part of it with everyone. I got a chance to do one of the most asain things there is this weekend we went and sang Karaoke last night. We where out celebrating my teachers birthday with her and some of here friends. In America going out and partying with one of your teachers is not something that is common but it China from what I understand it typical and perfectly Ok. With that being said it was again one of the most interesting places that i have been. I am not for sure if it was typical of all Karaoke bars in the states so i really have no frame of reference. It as on the top floor of a huge building and when you walk in there where people there to greet you and there was a huge snack bar there and it smelt like popcorn. It really did remind me of the lobby of movie theater. Then we went to our own room which could possible seat 10 people and we just sat in there and sang Karaoke for about 2 hours. The whole time we where in the room they kept bringing us drinks or whatever we waned and plates of fresh fruit like they seem to do at any Chinese bar. Now for those of you who know me know that I am not much of a singer but I had been drinking for a couple of hours before we got there so it did not matter in the end. They had a wide variety of American music so we where able to sing everything from Billy Joel to Johnny Cash. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I hope I was able to give you all some idea of what this was like because it very popular in China and other Asian countries.

Buying a bike

Even though I already have 2 news posts this week I did something today that I must tell people about. Brian and I have been looking for a good place to buy a bike around here for quite a while. We looked at new bikes and they where too expensive and we looked a old bikes and they where not good either. So we asked around until we finally got someone to tell us where we could buy good used bikes. This afternoon we went there and the bikes we got I cannot for sure say that they where stolen but mine still had some plastic on it from when it came out of the box. There where virtually the same bike as we could find in the new bike store but it was about 150 Yuan($20) cheaper. I am sure we probably still paid too much for them but what the heck we did it ourselves using our own Chinese skills so we figured all in all we came out ahead. We ended up paying about 250 yuan($35). As if buying the bike on the stolen bike street was not enough the street just happened to be about 3 miles from where we live. So we had to bike 3 miles in rush hour traffic all the way back home. Let me tell you, you have not lived until you have ridden your bike down a busy road during rush hour as fast as you can. I saw my life flash before my eyes at least 3 times. You had to dodge cars, people, other bikes, and scooters all at the same time. It was one of the funnest things I have done since I have been in China. Every street has a bike lane so that is relatively safe but the bike lane is even more crowded than the street since there are about 3 times as many bikes here as cars. For example one time while riding home today we came around a corner and there where was a bus stopped where we were supposed to ride so being the geniuss that we are we just road out to the middle of the street and went around them. That might not sound that scary to you but trust me it made me pretty nervous. Anyway the whole way home no one honked at us or yelled so we figured we did prety well. Because if you are anyones way here they will not hesitate to honk at you or let you know they are coming and that you better get out of there way. Anyway I hope I was able to express how fun it was to buy and ride my bike home to you but I have a feeling that I was not too successful I am getting tired and probably and I am basically rambling at this point. thanks for reading. Goodnight.

Interesting story

I just thought of something funny that happened this weekend that I wanted to share with you guys that I forgot to put in my last post. You may not think it is as funny as I do because you where not there but I will try and tell it as best I can. So one of my friends and I decide to check out this old antique market place that we had never been to before. So we get in a cab and head down to there we finall get there and my friend is up front paying for that cab and as he is doing that he is opening the door. I was watching him pay and trying to talk to the cab driver to make sure we had enough and that everything was Ok. Then I hear this loud thud sound. I was like what the hell was that. It turns out that as Brian was opening the door right when get all the way open at its apex a guy road by on his bike. The door knocked the guy over and into a car and an orange cone that happened to be sitting next us. It took about 10 seconds for me to realize all of this I was really concerned the guy was going to be mad but Brian just tried to help him up but he was just ignoring him acting like you did not need. Then we tried to say we where sorry and then the guy who Brian knocked over started having words with the cab driver so we just kind of walked off. We later learned that in China you are not supposed to help people up even if you caused them to fall down because by you helping them up it may cause them to lose face. Which is a whole other topic for an entire post in itself I will write about it and try and explain it if I can ever totally figure out the concept of the Chinese saving face it is very interesting. I thought that story was pretty funny but like I said if you where not there maybe you didn't just wanted to share i.

Small Businesses

There is not much new with me nothing really big has happened with me lately. There are a few things that I would like to share with you about small businesses in China. These can include anything from a small convenience store type place to haircut shop to restaraunts. Unlike in America small businesses are everwhere the streets are lined with all kinds of stores. There are some stores that i have no idea what they do in them others pretty normal but in general you would never find them most of them run the way the are run in the states. For example I had to get my first haircut in China the other day. First of all I had noticed that all of the haircut places where definately not the same as back home. There seemed to be about 5 too many people working in all of them and some of them would be open from 9AM-12AM really odd hours. The one we went was pretty nice but it was strange only the men cut hair and only the women would wash your hair. It was a very clearly defined difference between the work the men did and the women very interesting. It was not too bad though I just took a picture in and showed them what I wanted it turned out really well actually and I got a cut, Shampoo and conditioner for about 6 Yuan (75 cents). Another interesting store is what we call the friendly store it is a small store right next where we live that sells anything from ice cream to batteries to beer. The people in it are really friendly and they always try to teach us Chinese whenever we go in. The strangest thing about it is that the people who own it live there and work there all day. It is open for at least 14 hours a day and they are always there I have never seen anyone but them working there. The live right in the back of the shop just a Father, Mother and daughter. They are always friendly but I do not think they ever get to go anywhere it is really kind of sad. I hope this post was interesting to you not much has gone on lately but I just thought you may find this interesting.

Wuhan trip continued

The next day while in Wuhan we visited a place called yellow crane tower. This was beautiful pagoda tower. It is a design of an ancient tower that was located on the site but over the past 2300 years has burned down and been ravaged. There are many famous artists who have been inspired by the tower and the views that it offers. It is truly a magnificant building. After we visited the yellow crane tower we went to see where my teacher worked and she showed me her office and university. She is very proud of her school because not only is she an english teacher there but her parents where also teachers there and her husband attended the school so she was very excited to shot it too me. It was beautiful campus not that much different than a school in the states. The only difference is they have way more dorms for the students because they are required to live on campus all four years. The last day I was in Wuhan was fun we visited another famous university there and i got a lot of great pictures it was a really neat old campus. Then after that I made my first trip to a Chinese Walmart. It was really cool place it was entirely underground and to my surprise was not as different from a walmart in the states as I thought. The main difference was the type of food they sold there they had huge tanks of live fish and live crabs on display it was really bizarre at first but ther clothes where the same. They had DVD's, electronics and everything you would find in one back home. I really thought that was comforting and good to know. That was my trip in a summation I could have expanded more but I do not have enough. Thanks for reading and I hope something fun happens to me this week so that I can have another post for you.

Wuhan

This post is about my actual trip while I was in Wuhan. As I said before I stayed with my teacher at her home and really got to know how she lived and got to know her family. She was an excellent host I do not think I was ever hungry or wanted for anything the entire time I was there. The food was maginificent. I loved almost everything that we ate and I actually developed a taste for Tofu while I was there which is weird because I never thought I would ever like that stuff. Where do I begin the first day was packed with activities we visited a beautiful area called East Lake which was crowded because of the holiday but also a lot of fun. We took a paddle boat out on the lake and did a little sightseeing that way which was a lot of fun. The next place we went was a famous buddhist temple called Guiyuan temple which is one of the holiest buddhist temples. It was really beautiful I understand that it is kind of rare place for the area because it survived mainly intact through the cultural revolution. The next place that we went I feel really showed me the scope and the personality of Wuhan. We went to there most famous walking street which is basically and outside mall. The amount of people there was staggering I know that I say this alot but it truly is amazing. I have some pictures that almost grasp the number but not quite I have never seen that many people in one area unless it was a music concert or sporting evernt or something of that nature not just mall. The place that we ate at that night was one of the coolest places I have been to in China. It is a street in downtown that basically has huge outside restaurants. These are loud places with people talking and street vendors selling things and musicians going around to different tables asking if they could play a song for someone. The food here was excellent and the atmosphere was one of a kind. I really enjoyed it.

Trip to Wuhan

This week was the Chinese National Holiday. I took this oppurtunity to go and visit one of my old teachers from K-state. She lives in Wuhan and was just a visiting teacher last year at K-state. She was very kind to me and really encouraged me to learn Chinese so I wanted to pay her a visit while I was here. I told you about my actual traveling experience in my previous blog so I do not need to elaborate anymore on why interesting the plane ride as from Chengdu to Wuhan which is probably the same distance from Kansas City to Chicago. First of all Wuhan is a massive city again I cannot tell you quite how big this city was. It is actually a conglomeration of 3 cities the population is well over 1o million. It lies on the Yangtze river and has 3 enormous bridges crossing the river connecting all 3 of the cities. Wuhan is exactly what I pictured China being like before I got here. It is not as beautiful as Chengdu but it is massive and growing quickly. It had almost as many construction cranes as Beijing which is saying something. Wuhan is also and interesting place because it has always been a city that was defined by the river and the commerce that goes up and down it. In one area that is called the riverfront area where people go to be next to river. There are a number of old buildings all built in European style because in the early 1900's There where a lot of European interests in trading on the river. I actually have a picture of neat old building that had "National Bank of New York City" carved into the facade it was really peculiar and also very interesting. Anyway I just wanted to give a little introduction on Wuhan and while I was there before I talked about my trip.

Traveling in China

Hello everyone I am back. I just got back from a trip visiting my old teacher from K-state she lives in Wuhan which is about 600 miles east of here. Because I just spent the last part of the week traveling I thought I would share some stories about traveling alone in China. First off my best piece of advice I can give is do not fly on China eastern airlines. I have flown with them twice and neither of them have been a lot of fun. I flew with them on the way to Wuhan it was the worst flight I have ever had. There was a guy in my row who did not stop coughing the entire time and there where babies crying it was not fun. That was not the worst part though that is when twice while flying we hit turbulence that caused my stomach to have that sinking feeling like you are on roller coaster or on the Haynes lake road on. This was compounded by people on the plane screaming which made it more terrifying because I could hardly understand what anyone on the plane was saying. It was a rather interesting adventure. While traveling in China I have to use a lot of taxis. Which is an adventure in itself these guys can drive with any one that drives on a nascar track on Sunday afternoons. Places where you would never even think of trying to fit in these guys drive through it no problem. I have seen them make a left turn from the far right lane. If that sounds dangerous that is because it is. Trafficd lights are more like suggestions than actually enforcable laws. Even though I see this kind of driving every day I could probably count on one hand the number of accidents I have seen which is amazing. The scariest cab rides are the one where the driver is really getting into and weaving in and out of cars and really moving and then we get to a stoplight and he puts his seatbelt on. Which is fine but then when you are in the back seat you look for your seatbelt and you find that it does not exist that is when I tend to get nervous. Anyway I am sure this is topic a will return to later but I thought I would share some of the fun things that happened to me this weekend.

The rest of my week

Hello everyone just thought I would finish telling you what happened with the rest of my week. First of all this week has been really long we have had class everyday for 7 days so that we would get off for a week durig the Chinese national holiday next week. Wich should be interesting because from what I understand most of China shuts down and people use the time to travel all over China. I am going to go and visit one of my chinese teachers I had when I was a K-state she was just visiting last year at KSU and now she is back in China so I want to go and pay her a visit. She is one of the reasons I got into Chinese so much because she was so nice and helpful to me last year while I was trying to learn it. So I am really looking forward to seeing her. Anyway finally about the rest of my week. The only exciting thing that I did was attend a concert at my school. Everyone from my group got to go. It was really interesting it was like a pop music concert that was being broadcast throughout China on CCTV. There where probably 12,000 people in this soccer stadium. From what they tell us all of the people that performed where very famous in China. There where 3 acts that really stuck out in my mind. One of them was a 10 year old Chinese boy singing a song that was part Chinese, English and Spanish. If that sounds confusing that is becasue it was. Then there was an African American guy who sang and he also spoke perfect Chinese. The act that stuck out the most in my mind was when a "women" came out and started singing a traditional Chinese song. Then when they interviewed her on stage find out it was really a man dressed like a woman. Then to make that even stranger he went on to sing a duet with himself half the time singing like a women and half the time singing like a man. It was quite impressive the guy was very talented. Well that was the rest of my week. I may not post anything for a while since I am going on that trip to see my teacher but after that trip I should have plenty more to write about.

This week

Well I am sitting here kind of bored tonight already got my homework done and I have nothing else to do so I thought I would share what has been going this week so far. Well first off on Monday we discovered that in our apartment building there is a western food restaurant. It is the craziest thing there is no sign on the door or anything you just have to know about. One of my roomates accidentally rang the bell on the door or else we would not have any idea it was a restaurant. We went there and they have pizza, spaghetti and steak. In the background they played American Music it was really bizarre. Tuesday was the Chinese Mid Autumn day it is a festivel celebrating an ancient Chinese mythical hero I would try and explain it but I do not know the story that well. One of the traditions of the festival is that if you are away from you are supposed to look at the moon and think about your loved ones who you are missing. So we ended up having a little get together on the roof and a Chinese friend of ours told the story of the moon festival. Then we went around the circle and everyone talked abou who they missed the most and why. It was really quite moving. I said my parents. Then this morning the most random thing happened my roomate and I walked outside to go to school and around the corner we see a chicken running at us with two people chasing it. It looked like something that belongs in a movie. Very Very funny way to start the day. All that and it is only Wedensday. Tomorrow should be interesting we are all supposed to go to a special celebration with people from the Chinese Central Government and we are at a special table and 12,000 people will be there. The details are kind of sketchy but I should be giving you an update on it in the next few days. We never know what we are doing until the last minute anyway.

Mt. Emei

After our mostly sleepless night. We needed to get up early to see the sunrise so at 4 A.M. We went outside to meet our new Chinese friend who helped us get the hotel room. They wanted to help us find our way since they knew more or less where they where going and we had not clue. Just a little note to everyone I love Chinese people they are mostly very kind to foreigners especially ones who are interested in there culture. Anyway so there we where at 4 A.M. climbing a holy buddhist mountain in picth dark using our cell phones and cameras as the only light we had. I like to stop at these moments to put things in perspective. One of the girls I was traveling with began to have some trouble and we could not keep up with the first group of Chinese guys so we fell behind and quickly joined another group of Chinese students who where going our speed and helped us the rest of the way. It was really cool because they where trying to talk to us in English and we were trying to talk to the in Chinese very fun. So we finally made it to the top and it is still dark and we are just walkig climbing some stairs and then we see out of the mist a giant statue that is gold plated with four giant elephants facing in four different directions with a giant buddha on it INCREDIBLE. Since it was not sunrise yet we ended up eating a monks breakfast in one of the monastaries. We where the only foreigners or lao wai in chinese we took several pictures with our new friends. Then we went to go see the sunrise but it was too cloudy but I can see I was there at sunrise and made the effort. By the time we were done not seeing the sunrsie the Giant gold buddha and temple at the top of the mountain where open. It could have been because it was so hard to get to the top or something else but it was the most amazing temple I have seen in China or which I have seen over 10. It was similar in one way to the other ones and that is because there where people outside and in lighting candles and incense and praying. This is the time when you truly do feel like foreigner like you should not be there at all. You are a voyeur watching these people pray at this site on one hand you feel honored for them letting you be there but on the other you feel bad because I know that I do not know what it means to them. A very eary experience but one I am glad to have. I am sorry if these last couple of post where a little long winded and broken up but i wanted to say so much because it was a really special experience and I hope you read this and get a feeling for what it was like for me. I still left a lot of stuff out and someday i hope I can talk to everyone and fill in the holes. Thanks for reading this rambling mess it was really good for me to write it out here and tell you all about it. thanks.

Mt. Emei continued

My favorite part of the trip happened after the rest of the group went home and some of us who decided we wanted to see the top of the mountain stayed for an extra day to see the sunrise and buddhist temple at the top of Emei shan. First of all it ended up just being myself and two girls who are in my group but that I had not been particularly good friends with but we where the ones who wanted to go to the top. We took the bus to the top some others chose to hike up the whole mountain which too me seemed insane but I was impressed by them nonetheless. Anyway we ended up on a bus that we thought was going to take 40 minutes but it ended up taking us 2 hours. The bus only took us to within a 2 hour a hike of the top so even after we got there we needed to go farther we did know this before we took off but still was a problem. Since we thought we where going to get to this area in time to take the tram the rest of the way to the top. So when we got there we had to decidd whether we wanted to hike in the dark or stay at this old monastary looking place. We decided to stay and fortunately made friends with a Chinese college student who helped translate for us and helped us get a room. This room had three beds and the bathroom was about 100 yards away outside and the temperature at the top of this mountain stays at a constang 40 degrees. No heating but we did have a heating pad underneath our sheets. I did get some pictures that do a decent job of capturing the feel of this place. Oh and we had a mouse in our room that led to the girls I was with not being able to sleep but it did not bother me much because I was too tired. This place was really awesome but i am glad that i only had to stay there one night. There was water available so you could wash your face and brush your teeth but other than that it was not much. You can not be too picky when you are stuck on a mountain and you only pay 60 Yuan ($8) for a night. The best part was when we got to the top.

Mt. Emei

Mt. Emei is a truly amazing place I just left today and I already know that I want to go back. It is considered holy buddhist ground. It is covered with monastaries and breathtaking scenery in any direction you could possibly look. It was named a world cultural treasure in 1996. Right now though I am having trouble finding the words to describe the beauty of the mountain. It is in the middle of what I would call a rainforest it was cloudy and trees where everywhere slightly overwhelming for someone from Southwest Kansas. It was truly amazing you could go around a bend or climb a set of stairs and see a waterfall or a 1000 year old tree. I took a lot of pictures but I know they will not be able to do justice to the entire picture of everything that I saw. Incredible is the only word that I can use to describe it. There where amazing monastaries and temples which we got a chance to visit. One of the funnest things we did was visit the monkey sanctuary. This was oddly enough the most crowded place on the mountain. There was an area that was between to rock walls probably the size of a football field where there were wild monkeys running around loose and you could feed them and take pictures of them and with them. It was funny when we first got in the area we where upset because we could only see a few monkeys and they where far away then all of a sudden we walked past one on the suspension bridge. It was really cool but not the coolest thing that I did on the moutain. You must keep reading for that story because it deserves post all to itself. continued.......

The Hotel

The next part of the trip that I want to tell everyone about has nothing to do with the beauty of the mountain or the history that was there but it does give you an idea of how much fun I am having. The fun started at dinner where it just happened to be two people from our groups birthday. So we made a big deal out of it and had birthday cake while we where in the midde of this huge dinning room at 5 star restaraunt. It was something to see the Chinese people that where there where loving it but the group of French tourists I do not think enjoyed it as much as we did. It was funny because we ended up singing happy birthday to them in chinese while the Chinese people sang happy birthday in English which is strange but true. After that we all went to the hotsprings near by and almost drank the place out of beer. What are we supposed to do we are American college kids and it was Friday night. Anyway after that is when it got real crazy. We all wore our robes to the hot springs so after that we decided to go to "disco bar" at the hotel which looked like it was close but wasn't there just wasn't any one there. So there we where 10 Americans half of us in bath robes trying to convince them to open the bar. Finally we got enought people for them to open it up and we ended up dancing and drinking in our bath robes until they kicked us out at midnight. I do not think they like to encourage drinking here because of the mountains buddhist history. Anyway after the bar closed 3 other friends of mine 1 in his bath robe just like me went to go eat a late dinner with one of our Chaperone. Who we found out was a former child TV star in China. We then ended up doing one of my favorite things after late night of drinking which is talk politics till 1 in the morning. Oh and at the restaraunt i saved a fishes life after it jumped out of the tank. It was a night I will not soon forget.

Leshan

This weekend I took a trip and I will try and write about it and tell you all everything that I remember but I am sure that will forget something but I will do my best. The first place we went was to Leshan it is a town that is located about 150 Kilometers from Chengdu. We got there about noon and we got a on a boat and we knew that we where going to see a big budda but we where not for sure where it was at. The river was really strong and we noticed it was fighting the current the whole way. There were some large rocks on either side of the river but we did not think that much of it. Then as oddly as it sounds out of nowhere carved out of the rock is the worlds largest sitting buddha. Just like mount rushmore only I think it was probably bigger. It is 234 feet tall they say that you can feet over 100 people on a single foot. It really was quite impressive. After we saw the worlds largest Buddha we went to the base of Emei shan which of the past 2000 years because has become holy ground for the buddhist religion because of the many temples and monastaries scattered throughout the mountain. At the base we went to a beautiful temple called Fuhu. It was another amazing site that I took pictures of but they will probably not be able to do it justice. One interesting place we went to was a hall that had over 500 statues of famous students of the buddha. They all look different have different shaped heads and colors and are doing different things. While you are there you are supposed to pick you favorite one and count to the right the number of your age. After you do this you can go find that student and buy a card that tells you about him and that is supposed to predict your luck for the next year. It was a pretty interestng place and I enjoyed it. weekend trip continued....

I ate dinner with a cat today.

This post may not be very interesting to everyone but it is a major part of my life and I feel I should share it with everyone. Eating can be an adventure all by itself sometimes it is good and sometime is not. Sometimes you do not know what you are ordering all the time. Most of the time you just have to point. The menus are confusing even to Chinese people at least that is what our teacher told us. At first i did not like the food that much here I only liked a few things and I always felt hungry. Today though I realized I love this food it is awesome. For example at lunch today I went with a friend to a little shop with four tables in it and we ordered for orders of bao zi. It cost 2 yuan($0.25) for 6 of them and it is now one of my favorite things to eat. It is not my absolute favorite. My absolute favorite thing is Jiao zi from the little noodle shop or pork spicy dumplings 6 yuan ($0.80) they are amazing. My absolute favorite. I wish I could take this little noodle shop with everyone in it and all the food back home and open it up in Manhattan. The people do not speak any english but they do have an english menu so all you have to do is point to get what you want. That comes back to the title of this posting tonight at dinner me and a friend of mine ate with a cat at the table. It was sitting in a chair but none the less we ate dinner with it. It lives about 4 feet from the kitchen and it is tied to the table like you would tie a dog up. I think it adds to the atmosphere of the whole place. I may think it is disgusting in a month but right now I like it. Anyway that is a big part of my day.

Women's world cup

Hello everyone I just wanted to write a little bit about what I did last night. It was definately another experience that I will not soon forget. It just so happens that this year the womens world cup is being played in China and the United States ended playing in chengdu. It was really cool last night we went to watch the US play Sweden. Some of my freinds painted USA on there chest and we just stood there and yelled at the soccer match even though for most of us it was the first one we had been too. Anyway the Chinese people that where there thought we where pretty funny and they could not stop taking pictures of all of us yelling and sceaming it was quite entertaining for everyone involved. We entertained them and they entertained us. Some of us ended up staying for the second between North Korea and Nigeria. This match was very interesting it was between two teams that I never ever thought I would ever watch play soccer. There where a ton of North Korean fans there and they where cheering throughout the game. They had 4 full sized N Korean flags and i never saw them stop waving them the entire game. I was really surprised that there were so many of them there because I thought North Korea was a completly closed society. It seemed like the Chinese where cheering for the North Koreans more but they also cheered for the Nigerians quite a bit I think they just wanted to see someone score. Oh one more thing they love doing the wave here they did it almost constantly throughout the entire game. One side would start it and then the other side. It was quite entertaining on top of the game.

Inernet

I wanted to share my experience with the internet here and I hope it does not get my blog shutdown it shouldn't but who knows. Something that I have found interesting since I have been here are the restrictions on the internet sites. For example I cannot go on any .gov sites which make sense. On the other hand I cannot check my online banking from here either. The most interesting thing about internet sensors is this website. I am able to write on this blog but I cannot read it. They have blocked me from reading my own blog but I guess they just have to stop everyone from reading any blog. I hope by writing this they do not shut my blog down but it is a risk I am willing to take. There is another thing about sensoring that I have found interesting since I have been here. I am currently taking a Tibetan Culture and Society class and the first day we had asked about Tibets independence in class. They are an autonomous region within China. So we asked about it and the teacher never really answered us she just changed the subject. Then the other day our program director reminded us that Tibet is still a part of China and that we should kind of be careful about what we ask because she had found out about it. That was a strange experience to me and it is one that i am going to have to get used. I hope by writing this it does not shutdow my blog but i guess we will see.

Respect for immigrants

Hello everyone sorry I have not been able to write in a while I have been pretty busy with school and everything and I still have to go to my neighbors apartment to use the internet. Anyway my topic for this post is something that I have been thinking about since I got here. This experience has made me really appreciate how people can move anywhere and create a life for themselves. Especially if they do not know the language because I am sure moving from say America to England could be difficult but just knowing the language would make such a difference. Here I have taken some Chinese but not know enough to be able to ask for and get anything I want or need from a restaurant or store. Even eating lunch here can be a huge challenge. So for anyone who has moved from anywhere to a different place without fully knowing the language they have my deepest respect. I know there are a lot of immigrants in the United States but I never realized how hard of a time they had until I lived in a foreign country. It truly is amazing to me.

The Club in Chengdu

Hello all I just got back from a club in Chengdu. I have to tell you it was an experience in a half. I had never been to any place like it before. They definately do not have any bars like it in Aggieville. All they played was Techno music and the beer cost 30 yuan a piece. They did however give us some free beer because we where American. The strangest thing though was that after we where there for a while they brought over some fresh fruit on a plate. This seemed very odd to me. The other thing that I thought was strange was that at all of the tables that I saw the Chinese people sitting at there was bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch. I know that is my grandma's favorite drink but I had no idea that it was such a big deal in China. It was however a lot of fun because it seemed to me that the Chinese people did not like to dance but us Americans where out there dancing. Eventually though my group of 8 was not the only mei guo rens there "Mei guo Ren" is Chinese for American it translates directly as beautiful country I like to think of this translation as a wonderful compliment to America but I think it has as much to do with mei guo sounding like America . Anyway while we where in this club about 40 peace corps volunteers showed up. So oddly enough I ended up meeting my 2nd girl from Virginia this week. The other day I met another girl from Virginia at a local supermarket while i was tryinig to find out how to say to umbrella.

China Surprise

There are many things that have shocked me about China but here are some of the biggest. I know I said it before but I do not think that the amount of people can be overstated. It is people upon people upon people. It truly is mind blowing for a kid from southwest Kansas to handle. Another thing that has suprised me the most is how clean the streets and sidewalks are. I would say they are cleaner than most sidewalks in the states. There is always someone out there sweeping and cleaning the street or the sidewalk. This also could be related to how the amount of people they have. Because everyone needs a job. It is a very labor intensive society there are a lot of people working everywhere. The other thing is the health of the people and by that I mean the amount of pullution and there diet. First off the amount of pollution in Bejing is ridiculous. Someone told me that living one day in Beijing is the equivlent to smoking 70 cigarettes. You really can feel it after you have been there a while your chest actually does start to burn a little bit. The other thing that is shocking is what they eat sure they eat a lot of rice and vegatables but they also fry almost everything they eat in oil. Everything is oily. Another thing is they do not drink water at meals if they give you anything it is green tea. I have no idea how they stay hydrated at all because you have to ask for water at the resaurants and pay extra for it. It seems very strange to me. Anyway I am sure there will also be more of these so I wil pass them one when they strike me.

Only in China

I just wanted to share some of the many strange experiences that I and some of my friends have had while we have been here. Although I cannot even begin to tell you all of the experiences I have had I thought I would give you some of the things that have stood out in my mind. For example in Beijing at the major markets where you can literally buy anything you could possibly imagine ranging anywhere from a clay model of your face that was molded by and artist in 15 minutes or a full set of golf clubs. That is not even the most interesting part of the market the best thing is that they expect you to haggle for the price nothing has a price marked on it. So you have you have to ask how much something is and then they give a price wich you then say is too expensive that you have to cut in half. For example I asked them about a full set of golf clubs there intial offerwas 1100 yuan ($146) I haggle with them for a while and by the time I walked away they women said I could by them for 300 ($40). Another example of how well you can haggle is two of my friends where at he same shop standing almost right next to each other buying the same thing. One ended up buying it for 40 yuan while the other bought theres for 25 yuan. It is just to see how much they can get out of you. Another very strange thing I have noticed is how free they are too go to the bathroom where ever and whenever they need to. For example when we where in Beijing I saw a cab driver who had pulled over to the median of the road and was peeing in Beijing. Another time where at the summer palace where the emperor used to go on vacation. It is a very popular tourist attraction for Chinese and foreigners. While I was there I saw some parents that led thre kids on to the grass to do #2 right out in front of everyone. These are just a few of the many things that I have see I will share more when I can.

Chengdu

I have decided to quit tryinig to explain my experience in Beijing because it was too much to remember everything and it really has nothing to do with my life as it is now. So with that said I would like to explain a little bit about Chengdu firsts of all it has over 10 million people living in the city. It is so many people that even saying 10 million does not seem to do it justice. Every where you look there is just more and more people. I learned the other day that there have been people living here since 316 BC. So it is as ancient as it is large. Just like Beijing it has huge amounts of construction if you go down town you will see huge cranes working over the buildings although there are not as many here as Beijing it is still 10 times more than you would see in most large cities in America. Chengdu has a much different attitude than Beijing did though. It is much more laid back it is not uncommon to see people here sitting on park benches napping at noon. There are also more Tea houses here per capita than any other city in China. Another example is last night some friends and I had to grab a late dinner around 930PM. We ended up in a plaza area where there where several restaurants, tea houses and plenty of outdoor seating. So we ended up just sitting there hanging out and then I realized that it ws 1000 PM on a Monday night and there where people just sitting out there drinking and relaxing friends. It was really pretty cool.

Continued

Sorry about that I am having trouble running this blog it is in Chinese so I am not for sure what I am doing sometimes. Anyway the forbidden city is was amazing everything everything was over 400 years old. Some parts of it have been burned down and rebuilt up to four times. I have some pictures that when i get a chance I will upload on this site. I can not really write about all of this stuff and do it justice because I do not have the vocabulary. I am going to try to explain it the best I can but it will be difficult. Anyway I have to got I am writing this a couple of days after we went there because I just got the chance to get on the internet for longer than five minutes at a time. I will be writing more later.

getting here

Well it took me a while to get here I had some plane difficulty. My flight was delayed in Chicago. So I missed my flight to Beijing so there where 6 of us on my program that had to fly through Tokyo to get here but it turned out to be kind of a good thing because I got to know those 6 guys a little better and they have turned out to be some of my better friends so far so I guess everything worked out. The biggest problem was I was so tired because I had to get up at 530 in the morning to get my plane from Chicago and it was exactly 24 hours later when I finally arrived in Beijing. That included 18 hours in the air and 3 airplanes and airports.

Why??? Continued

Since my flight just got delayed and I have nothing else to do I figured I had time to finish my last post and talk about my personal reasons for going to China. I have always had a an interest in China and Chinese culture. Then while I was in the Air Force I had the chance to serve in South Korea. It really changed the way that I looked at the world. I found it fascinating how different everything and everyone was. Then when I started back at college I knew I wanted learn another language and I thought about it and realized that learning Chinese would probably be the most benefitial and interesting . Then I started taking the class and that is when I really got hooked. It was not just about the language and the challenge of learning it but it was also the Chinese people that I met. They where all nice, helpful and very encouraging. I have to say if it had not been for my two teachers that I had I would not be going to China. Then I began to learn more of the language and the culture. I knew I wanted to study abroad so after taking Chinese I decided obviously to go to China. I really cannot explain why I am going for two semesters instead of just the normal 1 semester. I tell people it is because I like the "go big or go home" way of thinking but it probably isn't that either. It probably just comes from my philosophy that every couple of years or so I have to do something that scares the shit out of me. Because that is what I have done starting with joining the Air Force and every time I have done that it has forced me to grow up and improve as a person and that has made all of the difference to me. That is the long and the short it probably more than any of you ever wanted to know but there it is. My next post should come from Beijing so please keep reading.

Why??

I want to address a question that I have been asked about 100 times over the past couple of months. Why do you want to go to China? I thought I would answer this in my blog. China is fascinating to me. Because of their economy/government and the culture. First of all they are officially a communist country who has the fastest growing economy in the world. It is estimated that by the end of 2007 it will pass Germany and become the 3rd largest economy in the world just behind Japan and the United States. The idea of beinng communist wiht a market economy seem very contradictory but they are directly connected. The government knows that to maintain power they must keep the peasents happy because every major revolution in chinese history has started with the poorest people. So there thinking is that if they keep the economy strong then the people will be happy. I recentlly read one estimate that the Chinese would have to create 24 million jobs next year just to keep up with all of the people moving to the cities from the countryside. This is one motivation why the current communist party in control of China right now needs to keep the economy booming. That is one thing that fascinates me about China. The other is the culture it is 5000 years old. It has had so many invaders and emperors and westerners who have tried to colonize it but it still has maintained its identity as Chinese. The language both the writing and the spoken language although very difficult for a native english speaker is very intriguing. There is no alphabet and the language includes 4 tones. That does not just mean that you can say one word four different ways and it still means the same thing. It means that you can say one word 4 different ways and it will mean 4 different things. It makes it frustrating but also rewarding. I just hope that I can someday learn how to speak it fluently but that will take alot of work and is one of the many reasons I want to go to China. This are just few reasons why I want to go there are still more.

Preparing to leave!!

It is less than 3 weeks before I leave for my two semesters studying abroad in China. I get more excited everyday. Right now I am just trying to get everything figured out before I leave.
I am trying to sell my truck, get my scholarship money, get the correct textbooks and a million other things. I will not be posting to much before I leave but after the 26 I will try and post as often I as I can so please check back at a later date.