Gǎ Mèi

As I've already mentioned everyone here calls me Aga and my new friend, (and student) Lily, gave me a Chinese name. The one that is the title of this blog post. The first part comes from Aga (ā gǎ), and the second from "mèi mei" which means little sister. I like that name because it's pretty personal. Anyway, I first wanted to mention my blogs. Someone suggested that I make them shorter, but...actually this blog is as much for me as it is for the people that read it. It is like my diary and something I want to look back upon and remember China. So I will not be making the posts shorter. Sorry.

Something weird that I have noticed recently is how "normal" everything has become to me. If I were to look at myself from my eyes two months ago, I would be shocked at the things I see and some things that I do, but now everything is just normal. I guess it means I'm adjusting, but I liked when everything still shocked me. I get irritated by certain things here, but not as much surprised anymore. This getting used to China is making it harder and harder for me to tell good stories and explain my experiences. What some of my friends in the US might think is crazy and cool might just be NORMAL to me by now. Somethings that still surprise me a little will be mentioned later on in this blog, but here is a short summary of what is in this post.

Chinese children (their clothes, potty training)
The Guangzhou subway
My health
Zoo/Safari this past weekend

I need to mention, once again how much I love Chinese babies. My friends keep teasing me about how I should just adopt one now. They're all so fat and round! I love them! Once babies become toddlers, parents start potty training. Not with diapers though, but with pants with a hole in the butt. A hole?! YES a hole in the butt of the pants. I guess what they do is ever since the child is young, the parents make a pee-ing sound (shhhhhhhhh) and the baby recognizes it and pees when the sound is made in their ear. I don't know the exact details of this method, but I know diapers aren't really used. Looking back at all the kids I see here, only 1 or 2 have ever worn diapers. That means when the kid has to poop, it just squats, and pants don't get in the way... If you think about it, if every child in China wore diapers for a year, that would be a LOT OF diapers!!! (I also learned that in China 3 million cigarettes are smoked every minute) I have seen a few little kids squatting on the street ... I still think it's different when there is a baby who is wearing pants and it turns around and you see it's ass. Moving on to another interesting aspect of kids. I have seen plenty of kids here and most of them wear little sandals. Not regular sandals but squeaky sandals, so when the child walks around all you hear is squeak squeak squeak. I think this is so the parents don't lose their children, but who knows...

I need to mention the subway again. The more I ride it, the more frustrating it is. No one gets up for older people (today a girl my age was sitting down and an old lady had to SQUEEZE in and sit on the edge of her seat because no one would get up for her), everyone is out for themselves and when they enter the train, they don't let the people who need to get out, out! Sometimes I just give people dirty looks on the subway, but they probably think I'm just being some weird American.

My health

For the most part I have been healthy here with the exception of an occasional sore throat and cough. Those who know me know that I love Cheetos and chips, and prefer salt to sugar! In China I have been eating very spicy and flavorful food, because I hate bland cuisine. Relating to that, for the second time in two weeks I went to get a massage. The people massage your shoulders first, then your feet for 30 minutes, but your feet soak in VERY hot water and herbs while your back is massaged. The cool thing is that they have a theory that says that every part of your internal system is connected to your feet, so if your little toe hurts in a specific way, it might be connected to your lungs for example. I wanted to find out if there was anything wrong with me, and my masseuse said I had a problem with my digestive system, but I am overall healthy. They told everyone that they had a problem with digestion, but it makes sense, we're all eating food that we are not used to, so of course your insides aren't going to be working perfectly. Even in the US I thought I had digestion problems, but that's because I don't eat healthy food that often (and mostly eat spicy Cheetos). Nevertheless, they suggested I do not eat such spicy and flavorful food filled with salt, but instead eat more plain dishes. Hmm...am I going to eat this amazing tasting food all the time OR am I going to live off of plain rice and noodles while in China? Take a guess.

I decided that I am going to get acupuncture here at least once, along with a procedure that involves spreading oil on your back and somehow scraping it off with an animal horn (guā shā). Supposedly the second one hurts but feels amazing afterwards (the picture on Wikipedia looks horrible, but it says that a sense of relief is felt almost right after the scraping). When in China, do as the Chinese do (including practicing traditional Chinese medicine). The third procedure I know about involves glass bulbs which you put fire in and then stick to your back (they help your breathing and help with the changing weather and is also related to an ancient Islamic method having to do with releasing blood pressure:حجامة‎ Supposedly خير ما تداويتم به الحجامة), but leave marks for quite some time, so I don't know if I will get that done. That is called Cupping. Combined with oil, the cups and fire suck your skin into the glass bulbs, but the pressure is released once the cups are removed. When else would I practice traditional Chinese medicine if not when I am in China? Who knows, I might even learn something that I can take back to the US. At the massage place I saw that some older man had certain parts of his feet taped with white tape and Kenneth said that he had different herbs inside the tape. This lets your body and your feet directly absorb the medicinal herbs, and then they can help whatever you have a problem with. Something else that I need to look into is Buddhism. It would be nice to have a sense of calmness in my life.

I did go to my first temple in China on Saturday, and it was pretty amazing. Unfortunately (as with anywhere else) there were beggars in the front, so that ruined it for me a little. I am always disappointed to see this right in front of a place of worship like a Buddhist temple! I know that this is the best place for people to get money, but isn't a temple supposed to be sacred? At least they weren't inside the temple (probable because it costs money to get in. The money goes to the monks, so I was fine with paying to see the place). I took lots of pictures but by the time we got there many of the rooms where you pray to different gods were closed since it was so late. I heard the monks chanting and saw people praying...it was pretty peaceful and an amazing thing to witness. Religion has and will always interested me, no matter what the religion is. There were golden statues of big Buddhas, a statue for women to pray to and Chinese looking gods. A lot of incense was burned and there were many places to kneel to pray. This will be another topic I need to research and read about. Many things about life here are fascinating, such as Buddhism.

The zoo!

This Sunday a few of us went to the zoo, it was really cool, and the animals were much closer to people than in American zoos, but I was disgruntled about the treatment of them. We went to an elephant (Joanna I thought of you the whole time!) and a tiger show. Throughout the show, the animals looked so sedated and as if they HAD to work. I was pretty sad because elephants are so cute, and you could see they were just working. If you wanted to pay a hefty sum you could get your picture taken riding an elephant (I'll do that FOR FREE when I go somewhere in Africa where they have elephants...don't know which countries elephants live in though that you could see roaming around). You could also hold a tiger cub and get a picture taken with it, but the poor little baby tiger looked miserable. Something else I found annoying were the people who wanted to get the animals' attention, for example the Bengal Tiger's. It was behind glass but most people (children AND adults) were hitting the glass to agitate it when it was pacing around. I must admit I wanted the tiger to growl and scare the shit out of some of these idiots, but it didn't happen. That would have been funny though, because all the signs clearly say "Do not flat on glass" (I'm guessing the vocabulary in Chinese was correct, but not in English). Even in a huge zoo like this one, we were 4 out of maybe 8 foreigners...and when I say HUGE, I mean very, very big-it was like Great America! I took pictures of the tiger walking around, I touched a giraffe, I saw crazy colored birds, and most importantly, I had a great time, although it was overpriced for being in Guangzhou. I also saw pandas, koalas, zebras, etc. We took a little train for a while that was supposed to be like a safari and it kind of was. Giraffes, zebras, and other animals were freely walking around (if we had our own car we could have used it to drive around AND stop and take more pictures). There were also black bears and lions...as soon as my internet at home works again, I'll put up pictures! Next week is a holiday in China (well only 3 days: Sat, Sun and Mon, while it used to be all week) and we are planning on going to the beach around here or maybe we'll rent a cabin in the mountains north of Guangzhou, which would also be fun. Since the monsoon season has started, you never know when it will rain, so that's a little discouraging.

Lastly, I found out there are 56 ethnic groups (nationalities) in China and that more than 91% of people are Han. Lily's boyfriend is Miáo, so she said that if they get married and have kids they can have two children because his ethnic group is a minority (actually Miáo is an ethnic group in Guangxi where we went on our vacation a few weeks ago, and I took pictures of the women in the colorful clothes pestering us to buy something). I learn more and more each day about everything...so I ask a lot of questions.

On another note, I have learned that wearing a scarf can become handy here. I use it to cover up my mouth and nose when there is a truck driving by spewing fumes, or when someone sits next to me on the subway and they smell...bad. Let's leave it at that. Who knew a scarf could not only be used to keep you warm and be an accessory, but also a pollution blocker and body odor blocker?

厕所在哪

Long time, no post. I have been really busy at work and on the weekends. During the weekdays I usually sleep in then go to work around lunch time and hang out at my desk, then start working on my lessons at 1PM when break is over. From 11 30 till 1, the room is dark. Chinese people, or at least the people in my division of Midea, turn off the lights so it's easier to nap. One of my students told me he took his "siesta" and I realized that the Chinese culture of a break is similar to a Spanish siesta in the middle of the day. They have a long break to eat, sleep, and do whatever they want.

Since I have not written for a week or so, I want to first discuss how I'm turning more and more Chinese. I have been tempted to use English phrases that have been awkwardly translated (for example, "Thank you". Answer: "Not at all") I have caught myself making a peace sign for pictures quite often...ughhhh, so Chinese. Who knows what else I'll pick up this year.

Nevertheless, let's get to the good part: last weekend... On Friday night I went to Guangzhou and stayed with some other AIESEC trainees-Katia, Lismain and Natasha. We met up with Kenneth and Alex and went to some "foreigner" bar. I felt like it could have been any pub in the US. The guy next to us was from Boston, another person from Florida, some German guys...and so on. The we went to a club and there were also some white looking girls there, probably from Russia (I know I distinguish between foreign and natives here in China, but it's just so RARE for me to see someone who is not Chinese!). All of the girls started dancing and eventually the manager came over and gave us a bottle of champagne. I don't have to buy it, the club owner supply it... (Courtesy of Drake). Nice. Then we took a cab home and guess what came next? We had McDonald's delivered to the girls' apartment! YES DELIVERED! For free! We had to pay for the food, but not the delivery! How did we order it you ask? Kenneth speaks Chinese so we just told him what we wanted and he ordered it over the phone for us :) That was my first experience with REAL Western food in China, and I have to admit, I had to add lots of salt to my burger and my fries (not salt like we have in the US, but more like sea salt). The food was similar to McDonald's in the US, but I don't want to eat anymore Western food...but it tastes so good!

The next morning I had to wake up early and come back to Beijiao to teach (yes, I had to teach last Saturday, but I can't continue teaching from Tue to Saturday, so I was able to move my Saturday class to Monday. Woo HOO!) After class, one of my students and new friends, Lily, and I went to the market by my house, bought food, then went to her house so she could cook me dinner! Allow me to mention the fish she bought. It was swimming around in a plastic pail until she ordered it, and the vendor butchered it right in front of us, scaled it, cleaned it off, and put it in a bag for us. Talk about FRESH. She made me hot pot which was DELICIOUS! It took a very long time to prepare everything, but the end result was so good! I also tried sweet and sour pork that she made, which was also very good (it's not crispy and really fried here). She bought extra 金针蘑菇 (Jīnzhēn mógu), my new favorite type of mushroom, to throw into the hot pot and of course I devoured the food. During the dinner I asked what the big deal was about "white beauty" and I finally was given a concrete answer. It's our facial structure, eyes and nose. One of the girls told me that Chinese people have very flat faces and they want to have more distinct bone structure. As for the eyes, they like big eyes with long eye lashes. A typical Chinese nose is flat, while "white noses" are more pointed out I guess. Interesting observations. At any rate, eventually I realized that I probably wouldn't make the last bus to GuangZhou, but when Lily found out how much I was set on going back, she asked her friend to drive me. The ride didn't turn out to me too long (shorter than the bus!) and then I took another bus ride to Katia's apartment. Of course we went out again on Saturday night but this time to a club called Babyface, and this time this club was not full of non-Chinese. We actually ended up spending a lot of time with some people from Beijing (drinking a mixture of Hennessey, tea and water that was yummy). Later we figured out they were part of some Beijing gang or something because when we left Babyface we went to eat "barbecue", and a fight broke out in front of the club. I saw blood and a knife. I guess what happened was that the guys from Beijing were friends with the club owner and for some reason they wanted to fight another guy who was with a girl, and he pulled out a knife and was swinging it around. A couple of people ended up getting cut (including the girl who tried to stop the fighting). Not only that, but someone said they saw her getting kicked because she was standing in the way, trying to protect the guy with the knife. What the ....!!?!?!?!??!?!? We stayed out of the way. Anyway the guy with the knife got into a cab but the Beijing-ers stopped the cab and started hitting it with plants and soil ripped out from the ground...and then the police came. We left as the cops got there, but I took a video of part of this action. Kenneth said if they saw me they'd throw my camera into the Pearl River (which the club was next to). Whatever, that didn't happen, but note to myself: Be careful when you're filming fights. On a side note, the "barbecue" was actually an Arabic stand where they made lamb skewers with some sauce. Lismain's new boyfriend from Saudi insisted we go there. I spoke in Arabic to him as much as I could, and I might ask him to give me lessons. It would be nice to speak Polish, English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and ARABIC! Slowly but surely. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm learning Chinese...well I'm TRYING to, but I need to exert more effort for this task.

To continue, I received a gift from Lily's boyfriend yesterday and it was a pair of beautiful blue chopsticks from Beijing with little Beijing ducks to set the chopsticks on. Chinese people have a tradition of giving gifts, and I LIKE it! He also got my sister a gift. I'm not used to ALL this gift giving, but I definitely am not opposed to it. I have never met her boyfriend though. Lily says he is in the Chinese army and he works in Beijing. So does that mean he is Communist because he serves in the army? I think so...I sent him an e-mail to thank him, and he was really nice and told me if I ever need any help, Lily would help me. He also told me the chopsticks come with the two "Mandarin Ducks" because these animals are known to stay together, and if you give them to someone, it means they wish for you and your boyfriend to be happy and stay together. If you don't have a significant other, it could regard to your friends or siblings. On the note of helping me, Lily is going to help me today! She's coming with me to get my haircut! Since I don't speak Chinese, she will translate for me and I sent her pictures of what I want my hair cut to look like. I will also print some out and show them to the hair stylist.

I would like to mention Chinese "etiquette again". I have found out that people here do not really use deodorant, or guys at least. I guess the common consensus is that a girl should like a guy for his personality, and he should impress her with it, not with his scent. The girls here do wear some perfume though. Ok, well when it gets to be 90 something degrees here I think I will not like this no-deodorant opinion... The subway is air conditioned, but if you sit next to someone who hasn't showered in a while...I won't even go into detail. Katia told me that she knows someone who has never taken a shower. I was shocked at first, then I realized in old Chinese, rural villages, there is no running water, or actual showers, so when people come to bigger cities, they do not know how to use them. My view is if you can learn how to use a shower, please do. Please. Also let me mention the traffic in the subways. Once you get into the subway, it's like people turn into cattle. Everyone starts pushing and only thinking of themselves. Some people cut you in line, others take the seats that should be given to the elderly...it's very uncivilized.

Lastly, today one of my co-workers helped me translate basic phrases I have come up with which I might need or could be useful, and we wrote them into my notebook. A few times she went to Kingsoft (a program to put Chinese characters into Pinyin, or vice versa and translate them into English). A couple times she didn't even know the right character to use. So if for native speakers, it's not that easy to think of the Pinyin spelling then how is it supposed to be easy for people like me?!?!?! At least now I know how to say "Can I have the receipt" or "How much is it". Life is getting easier and easier! haahhaha! A lot of the time all of us just point and look confused, until someone figures out what we want.

Spicy Cheetos

Today I was sitting at my desk and my supervisor said my mom or someone sent me a package and it's downstairs! I went to the front desk and I saw a huge heavy box! This package deserves it's own blog post. I got a package with about 8 bags of chips and other things from Ayman! I already ate half of my first bag of spicy Cheetos...This is the life. Thanks Snookums

桂林 (Yangshuo), Guangxi

I made Ayman promise me to bring me a suitcase full of spicy Cheetos when he comes to visit. I think that should last me about 2 months. I have been eating all kinds of food here, hot food, cold food, spicy food, mild food, hot pot, salads, rice in pineapples, french fries (we went to a Western restaurant and ordered french fries...no one makes them like Burger King though!), but nothing fulfills my yearning for spicy Cheetos. It really IS an addiction. Two days ago I had my first class. A couple of my students (and co-workers) and I went out to dinner before the class, and we went to a DongBei restaurant. Dong Bei means north east, so it was a restaurant where the food comes from northeastern China. It was my second time at the restaurant and the food was delicious, once again. This time my co-workers ordered spicy seasoned beef (cold), pork ribs (which you eat with a plastic glove on your hand WITH your hands), Tofu strips that you make little vegetable rolls with (you take the tofu like a piece of tortilla and put in cucumber and other vegetables in it) and then there is some sort of dipping sauce (that was not very good in my opinion). We also ate a cold potato salad (the potatos are not cubed, but cut into thin strips and there are some red spicy peppers in there also), dumplings, and the best part- CARAMELIZED SWEET POTATOE (that you dip into water before putting in your mouth to make it hard). It was so good! I ate about 8 of those slices. I also learned a great new Chinese tradition. I started pouring tea for my coworkers and they both tapped their two fingers (pointer and middle) on the table. I asked them if it meant that they want some, and they said it means thank you. I am really going to be so Chinese-y-fied when I come back to the US. I'm going to look for Cantonese restaurants specifically! The point is, DongBei food is amazing! It's not oily like Southern Chinese food, and they use great food such as tofu and other vegetables....YUM.

So...that paragraph was written about a week ago, and now I am going to finish this post which will consist of a ton of new information! This blog will be structured like this:

1 MONTH IN CHINA!
Food in Guangdong
Easter Weekend Vacation
Speaking to non-Native English Speakers
Chinese minorities and Muslims in China
Bù yáo Bitch!

So, as you can see, today is my anniversary of 1 month in China! I have to admit, it all has gone by so quickly! It doesn't feel like I've been here a month! I go to work and eat and sleep and then the weekend comes, and I'm busy then, trying to get as much accomplished as possible, and before I know it, the week starts again, and I have to go to work! So this is life...

THE FOOD! The food in Guangdong (or maybe just where I live) is known to be delicious! When I left this province this weekend, I have to say I was less than impressed with the food I ate. I guess I am spoiled by the food here and the restaurants I go to here.

Speaking of my vacation, I went to Guilin, Yangshuo this weekend! I went with other AIESEC people who are here from Russia, Poland (!), Australia and Lithuania, and we all met in Guangzhou at 7 30am. Audre (she is new here, and I won't even get into her issues with AIESEC now, but let's just say she came here from Lithuania and does not have a job, due to AIESEC SYSU and her TN Manager, or they say "misunderstandings" between the company and AIESEC...right) and I had to leave Beijiao at 6am. We were supposed to have a cab come and pick us up, but of course it didn't come, so at around 6 25 we went to go find another cab that would take us 30 minutes to Guangzhou, where we would have to get on the subway and go to where we would meet the other people. Nevertheless, we were sweating and running to the tour bus, and we made it exactly at 7 30, maybe 7 31am. Thank God for Kenneth who is from Australia but is Chinese, because he got the tour people to wait for us. At least he could communicate with them! So Audre and I made it! The ride to Guilin was 6 hours...6 LONG hours. We stopped a few times before we reached the mountains. Guilin is a touristy spot known for it's nature and scenery. We could have gone and seen underground mines, but some of us skipped this part and instead walked around a little. Then we went to eat dinner and to our hotel room! I was ecstatic since I was pleasantly surprised by the room and the bathroom! Regular western toilets, not a hole in the ground! Then the girls took showers and the guys went to buy alcohol! YES people that drink! Finally! So we drank, played some card games...We played Circle of Death and Kenneth ended up having to drink the cup in the middle filled with Chinese beer, Rice Wine and some other stuff. Let's just say he was obviously intoxicated 5 minutes after! We went to the street where all the bars/clubs are, and the first was the best. The music was pretty good, and there was even a stripper! Not a stripper, but a dancer. Needless to say, she climbed the pole all the way to the top and did some pretty impressive moves. There was also a dance/song by a guy our age who was pretending to be an old, Chinese, hunchback man. He was cool, because his dance moves were intense.
The next day, we went to the rice fields, which were high up in the mountains. Warning to those who go to Chinese mountains: Close your eyes when you drive up, because the road is to narrow, and at the most A FOOT away from the ledge AND the drivers go way too fast. When we finally made it after our 3 hour drive, you could tell you were on top of a mountain. The air was crisp and fresh, and it was just so quiet. Obviously we had to climb up a little more, and we heard a lot of people speaking other languages such as German, Spanish, English. The rice fields are on top of the mountain and they look like patches of land that are on different levels (imagine stairs). Rice grows in water I guess, so it's beneficial to have the rice fields where there is a lot of precipitation. It makes me wonder, how do you pick the rice then get so much of it down from a mountain?! To some of these places it is impossible to get by car!
On the way to our next hotel room, we took a bus again, and of course I slept the whole way. [Sidenote- I’d like to mention that there are bathrooms here which are actual holes in the ground, at stops along the road. There are also no stalls…so imagine that!] The next hotel room was just as great as the one the night before, and we all took showers and then met up in Alex's room (guy from Mexico) and played some card games [I learned how to play Dou Di Zhu on the bus!] and some language games since we all speak another language fluently. We didn't go out the second night because we were too tired, and had to get up at 6am the next day. We also went on a river boat tour on the Li River where we say the Elephant Trunk Hill (a tourist and nice scenic site). After breakfast on the third day (Monday) we went to get Western coffee (haven't seen real coffee here yet!) and walked around the street we went out on, and bought some random Chinese jewelry. The vendors said (when I say said, I really mean there was a sign) it was from Tibet and that it was silver, but I highly doubt it especially since the bracelet I bought gave me an allergic reaction that I get to jewelry which contains nickel and other cheap substances. I did get some cool jewelry though. After shopping we hurried to the bus to make sure we would be able to make it home. I slept pretty much the whole 6 hours. The ride back was supposed to last longer due to traffic, but we made it back by 8PM, so Audre and I thought we'd be able to catch a bus back home! To our surprise, once we got to the bus station, we found out that the last bus to Beijiao left at 8PM, and now it was 8 30. This was the point in the trip where we started freaking out! Neither of us even had 80RMB left to pay for the cab, so I called Natalia to ask her what to do! Some guy who works at the bus station tried to help, but all he said was "I suggest you take a cab". WITH WHAT MONEY MISTER? Natalia assured me that we could share a cab with 2 other people and we'd split the cost, so it would only cost 20RMB each. (Ashley you would be laughing if you saw me trying to communicate and point etc with the cab driver, but he figured out we wanted 2 more people in the cab). I guess it's common for strangers to share cabs here if they're going to the same place. It saves a lot of money! So we made it home and the driver and the 2 other guys were talking about us in Chinese, but we had no idea what we were saying, except I heard some words I know, one of them being měiguó rén (American). One of the younger guys asked "Where you coming?". I thought he meant where are you going so I said "From Guangzhou to Beijiao", then he started saying something in Chinese, so I figured out he meant "Where are you from" and that's when I responded "Chicago". Our conversation ended there. So that was our little vacation over Easter and the Tomb Sweeping Festival. As it is said in history, it usually rains during the Tomb Sweeping Festival and it also rained this past weekend, so the sites weren't as fun to see. The way I celebrated Easter was by saying "Happy Easter". I should have thought about going to that Catholic Church, because I'm curious what language the mass is in and how they lead mass...this is a Communist country after all. Traveling 6 hours to a province near by made me realize just how HUGE China is (we were in a province just north of Vietnam!). The US is so small compared to here, so I might have a little difficulty planning my future adventures around China, but they have to happen!

Oh, one more thing. I finally got sick because of the weather change and I have a sore throat. Not only do I have a sore throat, but I have 4 bumps on my right palm. At first I didn't think anything of it, but then I showed my supervisor at work yesterday and she said I should go to the doctor. Great, the doctor in China, just what I need. So they had a car pick me up and I went to the Midea hospital (how you would imagine a small town Chinese hospital) and the doctor said (I had my translator from my Beginner's class with me) I must have touched something. To me it could be bug bites or something of that sort, especially since I have no REAL allergies. Also, my gums have been hurting me so it seems like maybe my last wisdom tooth is growing in? I have no idea, but this is not what I need right now! So I got a bunch of medicine from the doctor (penicillin being one of them) and they are all in Chinese...I am supposed to come back if my hand doesn't return to normal, but so far it looks the same and still moderately hurts.

Speaking to Non-Native English Speakers and Chinese Minorities

My English has slowed down a lot because I have only been speaking to non-Native English speakers (well with the exception of like one person!). My pronunciation has become more clear and I have refrained from using long and complicated words. When I get back to the US, people won't recognize my language! I am a fast speaker and now I have slowed down a lot. Another thing that I had learned last week was that there are a few minorities in China- the people of Tibet (an ethnic minority in China), the people from Taiwan, and the Uyghur people from Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The Uyghur people are one of the biggest minorities in China and are related to the Turkish culture and to Muslims. This is something I wrote down to read about, but thought it was interesting to mention.

Bù yáo Bitch!

Everywhere we went this weekend, there were people selling some sort of trinkets and would not leave us alone! There were old ladies who literally followed me from the market to across the road into the restaurant. Even after I said Bù yáo (No thank you/I don’t want it). I know this is common all over the world, but if I say no once, I will say no again! So I came up with this phrase if someone made me mad, Bù yáo Bitch! It has a nice little ring to it. The one time I’ve had a problem here is when a lady beggar came up to me in front of McDonalds and literally blocked my way in order to shove her tin bowl in front of my body so I would give her money. Talk about invasion of personal space!

I'd like to also mention the accent marks on Chinese letters. Those are the tones and there are 4 for each word. So imagine how hard it is to learn Chinese when ONE WORD (a pinyin word is a Chinese character)has 4 different sounds and means 4 completely different things! AND THE SOUNDS ARE ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH!

So, for now that is all I have to write about. Classes have been going well, work is great, and once agin someone is leaving me! This time Natalia is moving to Moscow :( on the 24th! At least I will have someone to visit there at the end of my trip to China. Russia and Europe! Here I come!