"Nee-how, dai jin" (hi and goodbye)

Yikes. It has been a loooong time since my last writeup. Part of that time I have been in China on vacation with the fam. The 13-day trip was eye-opening and fascinating, as I saw some amazing stuff. We started out in Beijing (the first day was the coldest, rainiest day of the trip), flew southwest to Xi'an ("she-an") to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, then west to Shanghai. Our tour group consisted of about 28 people from my parent's town with a median age of 50, so my lil' sis and I were the youngest of the group. Some of the highlights from the trip was seeing the Great Wall of China (Badaling portion, just 1 hour north of Beijing), Terra Cotta warriors (even more amazing than what you see on the History Channel), Temple of Heaven (the symbol of Beijing), all the preparations for the 2008 Olympics, the gorgeous modern architecture of Shanghai, and of course, the culture. I felt pretty worldly before the trip, having traveled around the U.S. and a whole 2 times to Europe and once to Mexico, but this experience was completely different. It was interesting to see the modern Westernization of the cities, yet there were haunting reminders that I was in a Communist, third-world country. You would see a flurry of Starbucks and KFC's, yet with staunch soldiers standing outside them, making their presence known. Our bus would drive by huge shopping centers, only to pass by run-down "Hutongs" (old village complexes) and people hauling vegetables on the back of their bicycles. It was quite surreal.

Secondly, I always thought I looked kind of different, or more American, to most Chinese. So it was odd to me to be approached so much and greeted with a "nee-how" ("hi") and "blah, blah blah blah blah" in Mandarin. When they figured out I couldn't speak back to them, they had a funny look on their face and giggled. Maybe many of the Chinese have never met anyone who looks like them and doesn't speak the language! It made me feel that fine line between "American" and "Chinese" that comes up at times, when I have a mini cultural identity crisis. When I don't know how to define myself. I look like these people, but I don't speak the language, eat the food, or live their life. It made me think "should I be like them? should I be able to fit in better than most?" And does that identity borderline even exist? Hmmm...heavy stuff.

Anyway, the next 10 entries are notes from my travel journal. Hope you enjoy!