as you may have caught on from my blog, i love china. life here has been flawless and easy for me. there is joy to be found in everything. especially the ice cream bars...
here are some things that are specific to china that i just really love :)
1. the weird yet sweet men that yell "HELLO!" to us every single day on the street. no matter how close or far they are, they will yell so that we will hear them. they yell hello, we say hi back, and then they giggle for 45 minutes. even when we pretend to get annoyed by it, we really love it. it happens a guaranteed 6 times if we go out into town. usually more than that though. they honestly act like giddy school girls after they yell it, but they are really 40-50 year old men that drive taxi's or work in some time of mechanical/electrical shop. so great.
2. two or three men that share one motor bike. here in china everyone uses bicycles or motor bikes. cars are in the minority here. i am not sure.. but i am going to take a guess and say that most guys in america wouldn't be tooo comfortable riding on a motor bike with two other guys, sitting all pressed up against each other and such? am i right? well here in china it is totally no big deal. they will rest their heads on the other ones back, hold on to their shirt..well except for when neither of them are wearing shirts. anyways, it is just something so normal and common here that would be pretty weird and awkward in america.
3. the people are willing and eager to help here. they will go way out of their way just to help you out if you need something. mandy broke her bike when we were riding it one night and these two nice men stopped, fixed her bike, then rode away not even saying anything to us. it was just second nature to help us! people are like that everywhere you go here. i am so completely in love with their kindness. i am able to learn from them every day.
4. people stopping dead in their tracks to look at you or take a picture. i do not know how many time each day pictures are taken of us... we are kind of used to it haha. it is the worst when they don't even try to be conspicuous about it. we will just be shopping in the supermarket and you will look over and see a man just standing their holding out his phone taking a picture. they don't even care that they are being super creepy! okay it is a little flattering being a little "celebrity" here, but sometimes it just makes me wonder where those photos end up.... i will never know...
5. we are given special treatment almost every where we go here... i feel kind of bad, but then at the same time i don't because they are sooo happy to treat us! sometimes we get discounts, get to cut in line, or they will just throw in a gift for us. it really is kind! but then on the other hand, some of the vendors try to jew us because we are foreigners...but they never succeed! we are pro bargainers.
6. they let their children pee and poop in the street. the babies have little pajamas with a hole from the front to the butt... and when they have to go they just hold their babies out and they go on the road. super gross....
there is much i could say about china, but this will do for now. this place might be smelly and dirty, but i love it. maybe even more than america... all that america has on china is the many varieties of food. i can only have rice and noodles so much before it gets old...
the water is unclean, the beds are rock hard, we sweat every second, and we hang dry our clothes, yet none of this bothers me. i wouldn't trade being here for anything else. i am trying my very hardest to enjoy and live in every moment. this world is so big...and i plan on seeing much more of it.
i bought a journal here this week, and on the cover it says: "The world is a book and those who do not travel only read one page."
