A few things I've noticed

So here is one last quick update as I leave Hong Kong today to fly to Kunming. Here are a few tid bits about China that I find interesting......

- The men in China grow out their fingernails really long so that people know they do not do manual labor
- Almost all Chinese women dress really nice. For example, when we were climbing Yellow Mountain, I saw a woman wearing high heels and a sequin top. Granted, she definitely took the cable car but still. Even women in the country are wearing nice jackets and leather boots. When Peter was in Mongolia, he met a sheep hearder who had one nice Armani suit and wore it everyday with all of the tags still on it.
- The driving is ridiculous. At the end of the night in Nanjing, we took a 20 minute cab ride home WITHOUT STOPPING! He would fake turning right at red lights and then curve back straight and run through. Also, I was on a city bus and the traffic was bad so the bus just hopped the curb and started driving on the sidewalk. I'm glad no one was too busy listening to their ipod to get out of the way.
- Babies are always wearing 15 layers of clothing, but then they have a slit on the bottom of their pants so they can do their business anytime, anywhere. Parents just hold them out on the sidewalk and let them do their thing.
- There is no tipping in China.
- There are almost never shower walls. The entire bathroom is the shower so when you take a shower the toilet and the sink get soaking wet. Some sinks even just drain onto the floor and into another drain on the opposite side of the bathroom.
- You can order almost anything you want at any restaurant as long as they have the ingrediants.
- Chinese people don't generally go out to bars. They either do KTV (karaoke) or just go out to eat and drink as part of dinner.
- There is no deoderant here.
- Chinese people are loud. Way louder than Americans.
- When you go to shows (operas, etc), Chinese audiences talk, eat, read through everything.
- Chinese people do not cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough. This includes the little girl with a cold who slept on the sleeper bus next to me and kept coughing and sneezing into my neck.
- entire families can get around on one scooter
- when an older person gets on the public bus, someone always gets up and gives them a seat.
- the taxis here are so inexpensive it's amazing. A 30 minute cab ride will cost somewhere between 3 and 4 dollars.
- the little girls always have their hair pulled back into multiple pony tails and buns. It's so adorable.
- I've been drinking a lot of hot soy milk here and i really like it. They add just a dash of sugar and it's just delicious.
- When people ask me if I like spicey food, I need to stop saying yes.
- On bus trips that are not overnight, there are always constant action movies playing or this awful soft rock Chinese music. There is no relaxing.
- I really have not met many Americans traveling in China.
- Chinese people are generally very conservative in their dress. When it's hot, most people are still wearing pants and sleeves. Even during water splashing festival where everyone in my opinion should have been in their swimsuits, people were fully clothed in regular shirts and jeans even though they were getting soaked.
- Chinese women consider something called a double eyelid to be very beautiful. It's when you can see crease that most women apply their eye shadow under right under the brow bone. They even have a plastic surgery for it.
- Chinese women are very serious about their umbrellas when the sun is out. First off, China is so crowded, so it's a hundred times more obnoxious when the entire crowd is carrying umbrellas, especially because they are shorter than me so the umbrellas are always at face level.


There are so many other interesting things I'm sure I'll remember later.

Here are a few things I miss.....

- coffee
- bread
- cheese
- soft mattress
- thick pillows
- blue skies/sunny days
- privacy
- regular toilets w/ toilet paper and paper towels included
- raw vegetables
- the feeling of knowing for sure i'm not being screwed over
- doritos
- boneless meat
- fabric that isn't saturated with cigarette smoke. In general, just having no smoking areas
- the english language
- people telling me the temperature in farenheit
- friends and fam

That's all for now. Tsai Jian!