on the plane: sat beside smelly ppl who don't talk (chhinese ppl... oringlaly sat beside this really nice lady from missouri, but then i switched seats with someone as a favour, and so no more talking to nice lady from missouri)... food was crap, good thing i brought some. US customs is dumb. really really dumb. o'hare sux. and i just don't like going thru the states period.
Overall opinions of trip:
1. I'm proud to be Chinese, but only our history and old culture. I will never say i'm from mainland. if asked, i'm from Shanghai. cuz Mainlanders suck. at least the hicks do... but the hicks outnumber the urban dwellers by a lot, so mainlanders, in general, suck. no manners. no idea of society, of working together, of working fairly and uncorruptly - the complete opposite of most of society here. individually, they MAY be nice. then again, they might try to weasle money out of you no matter who you are or how rich/poor you are.
2. the next pandemic/epidemic will come from china, just watch. i'm NOT talking about the avian flu. I got sick in china, and my parents both got REALLY REALLY sick in china. chinese ppl don't need a prescription for antibiotics (except in shanghai and beijing), so they buy antibiotics over the counter for absolutely EVERYTHING, no matter if it's a virus or bacteria they've got. also, every single person is a mini-doctor, and will prescribe u a list of at least 10 drugs u should go buy at the drug store everytime u're sick. yup. even for a tiny little cough. it's so stupid.... so, basically now, if a bacteria invades ur body, it most likely is multiple-antibiotic-resistant ... i.e. if u don't go get a drip at the hospital, u'll suffer for a really really long time, or u'll die. so don't get sick in china. bring lotsa echinacea.
3. rich and poor gap = HUUUUUUGE. and u're born into it. if u're poor, u'll likely remain poor forever. high school, PUBLIC high school, costs money. and of course university too. high school is at least 10,000yuan (avg salary of a shanghainese urban dweller = about 2000yuan/month. so 5 month's salary. and shanghainese salary is the second highest in the country, btw). also, if you don't have connections, u're soooooooooooo totally screwed for the rest of ur life. the ONLY way u'll MAAAAYBE get out of the hole is if u're either the smartest kid in ur province (national tests), or if u luck out and the military accepts u... but even the military is really hard to get into. it's like the only country that doesn't need to conscript! hahahaaa!!!
4. military personnel get soooo many perks!!!! it's incredible. their cars don't need to stop at traffic lights or obey ANY traffic rules whatsoever. they get free, or really really cheap houses, etc. their medicare is completely free, and they get shitloads of money for doing next to nothing. it's great if u're the granddaughter of a retired military person, but i think i would be uber jealous if i wasn't.
5. they've absorbed all the bad things of "western" culture, but none of the good. we're apparently really open about sex, so now they are too - there are "one night stand" bars where ppl go just to have a one night stand. etc etc... but our ppl are mostly nice, and kind, and will apologize if we step on someone's foot by accident, and we don't hoark and spit in public spaces (most of us) - but they still do. and yet, they're soooooooooo incredibly PROUD of the fact taht they're so "westernized" ... so proud that it's disgusting. and yet so wrong!
6. chinese girls, i.e. girls around my age, are freaking psycho. ALL of them want to be pale like paper. and most of them are considering one type of plastic surgery or another. i'm darker than most boys in china - isn't that crazy?!? cuz i'm not even that dark!!!! so, basically, i'm this big fat dark farmer girl who's gonna have a heart attack or stroke any second. yup. ... daniel asked his coworker at one point what she looks for in a guy (and she represents most of the chinese girls in shanghai): the guy, supposedly, MUST have a car, a house (apartment, etc... i.e. place to live). and get this: no debt. riiiight. firstly, a guy like that, would he even want you, you vain sob?!?! but that's how most girls in china think - and hence a lot of 'em have never had a boyfriend. oh well, tough luck for them. ... unless u're really really really pretty, most guys like that would NOT liek u!!! so suck it up and downgrade ur crazy psychotic standards. cuz there's prolly less than 10,000 boys in shanghai that fit that criteria, and about 2million shanghainese girls. (total pop of shanghai = 20mill... say 10million females, and about a fifth of them between 18-40 - guestimates). i'm sorry, but i don't think the numbers add up. Oh, and why don't you just go out and work then huh?? why don't u buy a car and a house and have no debt? why expect the boys to do all the work, and u none??!?! (another part of western society not absorbed: independence!!!)
7. media control is crazy. everyone here's heard of the tiananmen square massacre. some ppl in china haven't. they don't even know exactly when it happened. they know it's June, 1989. but here, the chinese ppl here called it "liu si", i.e. June 4. in china, they don't know the details, they don't know when it happened. they don't know anything. also, i can't check my blog or anyone else's blog while in china. i can update, but not check. many sites are blocked, and even in the Hyatt in Hangzhou, it wasn't really the CNN channel, it was the CNN Asia channel. it wasn't really the cNBC channel, it was the cNBC Asia channel. anything controversial cannot be found. ... altho in some ways, i think it's good (i.e. porn sites are blocked), but in some ways i think its reach is far too wide. in order to use internet pubs, u MUST provide ID, and not just driver's license type of ID, but the ID that identifies your absolutely everything (it's this special chinese ID). when i go, i need to present my passport - and they took down my passport number. they say its to identify ur age (under 18, can't use internet pub), but driver's license or student ID can also prove that. but no, they NEED that one special type of all-emcompassing ID. one good thing about the lack of human rights tho is that drug traffickers, murderers, rapists, etc are killed. ya, ya, i know, some ppl are against capital punishment, but i'm for it. if u're a first degree murderer, i think it should be one strike and u're out. if u decide to traffic drugs, one strike. the only drawback - if u're framed, u're Guilty until proven innocent. ... sux to be them... but in general, it makes for a safe contry with little or no gun wars and minimal murderers.
china's history is grand. chinese ppl go back thousands and thousands of years. good for us. but its modern day ppl suck ass. family and friends aside, the people of china are asses. everyone's always willing to pick a fight, everyone thinks that they're the best and that everyone else from everywhere else isn't as good as them. everyone's also tres tres racist - making fun of black and brown ppl alike, when they've never even met even one single black OR brown person in their lives. a lack of understanding of another culture breeds hatred for some reason in china. everyone thinks alike, there's no independent thinking, no individualism, no independence period. nothing. if u don't look like them, then u're stupid or fat or a hick or u're just plain ugly and nasty and will have no friends. if you don't act like them, same as above. unless of course, u're white, then u can be excused. they treat everyone else like garbage, and nobody ever let's the old, disabled, pregnant, or child carrying mother sit down. I'm the only person i've seen do this, and i rode public transit A LOT. it's everyone for themselves, in this homogeneous monotonous society. ... right now, leehom is hot in china and everyone loves him. next week, someone else would be. in '98, everyone loooved ZhangXinZhe, now nobody likes him and everyone thinks he sounds girly. i said that in '98, but no one listened. in '02 i said i loved leehom, and nobody liked him. in fact, ppl made fun of me. now look what happened?? everyone cheers for the same teams in soccer, everyone likes the same stars in the same tv dramas. everyone does the same things, and wears the same things as well. everyone buys the same brands of shoes and clothes and bags, and no one has their own style. at least not everyone looks the same yet. YET.
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