40 Foreigners

Hello,

Mainland china is definitely an interesting place. Marcus, my friend from university, and all of his friends here are really taking care of me in Jing Zhou. Today i went to his class (he teaches english here at the university) and talked with all of his students. They asked some pretty funny questions.


this is a field in china. every day starting at 6am and going on all day, chinese university students walk the field alone reading english. it kind of has a creepy feeling to it.

I think the strangest thing here is that people really stare--really really stare; for anyone that wants to feel what it is like to be a famous person, come to china. Marcus said there are about 1.2-1.5 million people here...and about 40 non-chinese. A lot of people have never seen a foreigner (in person) in their entire life. imagine going 50 years and never seeing anyone different than you, and then i come riding by on a bicycle. that has to be weird.


the scariest thing here, by far, is trying to cross the street. there are crosswalks but they are more for decoration than function. you just start walking across and the cars will find a way around you (also, there are no driving lanes either).

the food is interesting but very good. tonight marcus and i are going to one of his friends house where her mom will be cooking. so it will be super authentic chinese food, and word on the street is that it is going to be on the spicy side.

this has got to be the cheapest place i have been on the trip so far. internet here is about 12 cents an hour.

I'll be here with marcus for about a week and then christmas in italy!

Happy Christmas!!
have a good day

your friend
chad