Pork is the number one choice of meat here. Pork dumplings do taste the best I agree. I eat more lamb here than back home. I haven't had ass(donkey) yet. Now my in-laws are worried about eating chicken from the bird flu, beef because a TV segment on how in Shanghai an the surrounding areas they were serving rat meat as beef. See they said beef not lamb here. But seafood is still safe. They don't worry about the lead. I'm not going to be come vegetarian over this.
At the store today I saw a seeding machine. Can you guess what it's for? If you guessed to grow bean sprouts you are correct. How about your very own disinfectant machine? Not what it sounds like, it's actually an ice cream machine!
The streets are littered with cars, but it's nice to see some I recognize like Ford, Buick, Pugeot, Fiat, Jeep, Kia, Suzuki. I was surprised how many Japanese brand cars there are, not liking the country and all. I'm still amazed at all the Japanese novelty items, but it's nice seeing something I can read!
They've been putting up tourism signs lately to encourage travel. The picture is of some Chinese mountains in a nearby province. I really want to go see them, that would be amazing. So I tell my father-in-law. It's not very easy to get to, so he said lets find out about a tour. After we looked at some packages I got really excited. So today I asked when we can go. He said it's too difficult to get there. I reminded him of the tours we looked at. Well they are not a famous tour company, we cannot trust them. Often you get to the bus and they request more money. I think he was hoping to discourage me. I still want to go.
But really dishonesty is common place? Is there no saving face? I can't even image that in Japan. It was so nice to go to an information center, get all the free travel brochures you wanted and to be able to roam where you want to. Here they don't want to help you unless you give them money first. Maybe their dishonesty stems from not having a Christian religion to influence society? Hardly anyone wears wedding rings. And every Chinese movie I've watched always has women dating married men. I was sent this article and it's what I've been talking about the lack of Chinese morals: http://www.naturalnews.com/040182_rat_meat_China_lamb.html
At school they've now asked that kids be taken inside(by staff) to go the bathroom instead of going outside in the summer. After the 3rd day in the row of Aidan having to go bathroom, they finally gave me a look. Well you asked for it.
I never thought of it as dishonesty. I mean I did until I came to accept that people there do not place the same value on honesty as we are taught in the US. I learned to think of it as avoiding trouble. And sometimes lying can save you trouble. There were many times when I pretended not to understand Chinese so as to avoid something. Also, things can be "ma fan =mendoukusai ", and people will lie to avoid doing things they will feel are inconvenient. "Mei you" is another good example (it can mean they don't have it or it can mean I am too lazy to walk over there and find out if we have it, so I can just tell you we don't have it and you will go away).
ReplyDeleteXiangShan is the mountains near Beijing (Fragrant Hills in English?). I think it is a pretty common tourist place. But yes, I do think there are cases where busses ask for more money, but I would not think that about something advertised. I think of that more for black taxis (which can be any color, but are not official taxis).
DeleteYes, I've experienced the "mei you", knowing they are too lazy to go check if they have my big size 40/250 shoes. At least they don't normally do that at our local supermarket. Then I just keep asking them about all different styles. I was just checking out the new sandals and they actually pulled out their list and showed me which ones came in my big size! I was very surprised and happy about this. Although very slim pickings on style.
I think I could get to the Fragrant Hills no problem if I wanted to go. Just a matter of finding the right bus at the end of the subway line. But no, the mountains I wanted to go see were Baishishan aka White Stone Mountain a Geological park in Laiyuan in Hebei Province.