1.03.2012
Hiatus...
9.30.2011
Pandas!
Soooo while in Beijing, we went to the Beijing Zoo to see those black and white bears that like to eat bamboo and are occasionally good at kung fu. And it was a similar feeling to seeing snow for the first time. Because it's something I've seen thousands of times on TV, computer and books but had never ACTUALLY seen. But I concluded that they are definitely cute.
I wasn't too impressed with the condition of the zoo however. The exhibits seemed dirty and not taken care of, and there was even some misidentification of popular animals like tigers and lions. It's possible that the zookeepers had put the wrong animals in the wrong exhibit. One exhibit had signs with information and pictures of lions, however the exhibit was a couple of tigers. Its weird because I have even seen a couple of English books (made in China) teaching the word "Cheetah" but with pictures of leopards. And when I asked a friend about it she didn't know they were two different animals. In her defense though, they don't have Animal Planet here.
I was also surprised by seeing all these adults and children all knocking and pounding against the mirror of pretty much every exhibit. I know kids do that because they are young, and haven't fully developed the ability to look from another person's viewpoint or imagine how others feel. But an adult should know that banging against the wall of an exhibit where an animal lives is wrong. Don't do it! But anyways..... let's not turn this into a "blah blah feelings blah blah emotions" kind of blog...
Beijing markets
yummm... sheep penis
One of my favorite things about China are the night markets and food stands. Most Chinese people I've met don't enjoy going to clubs or bars(and going to the movies or karaoke can get a bit expensive), so this is an alternative night life which everyone can enjoy. People can just sit down, eat some barbecued fish, pork, beef, lamb, chicken, frog, scorpion, crocodile, dog, cat, snake, crayfish, crab, sea urchin, starfish, worm, etc... and drink some beer or tea. I might be forgetting some of the food you can find at these places, but probably any animal or vegetable imaginable you might be able to find. In Hanzhong a student actually told me about a shop where they sell dog meat and that his mom makes a great dog meat dish. Here in Nanning the food selection is pretty different from Shaanxi, as Nanning has a tropical climate and is near the sea. I tried crocodile at a big food street here in Nanning last week (not bad, like chicken and fish put together if I had to liken it to something). Another student told me she tried rat tail at another food stand near our school... riveting!
9.28.2011
Forbidden City 2 紫禁城
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. You can read about it on wikipedia or a less reputable source if you want. There is something interesting people have told me about here, they are called eunuchs. Which is a guy who is castrated. Seems like the emperors of these palaces often employed eunuchs to be their servants. But "employ" is probably not the right word, I assume they were slaves or prisoners because I can't imagine many people doing this willingly. So when these slaves and prisoners were to become a servant of the emperor, they had to be castrated. According to the most reliable website ever (wikipedia), at the end of the Ming dynasty there were about 70,000 eunuchs working for the emperor. Some of which served in the imperial palace. Emperors found eunuchs to be even more reliable than other government officials, because without the ability to start a family and/or have children, they were less likely to try to seize power and start a dynasty. Intriguing...
