Damn you tones, damn you all to hell!
Well, I didn't end up spending one night in Guilin. I took an hour bus to a smaller town called Yangshoe. I wasn't feeling well later in the day after I made my last blog entry, plus,I just had an intense urge to get out of the city. Yangshoe was amazing in a number of ways. It has the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen, and is about the size of the city of Santa Cruz, or the U-District. What was truly bizzare was that I had been traveling for 4 days in China, struggling to talk to people, and eating very ethnic food. When I got to Yangshoe, it was like entering an amusment park in the states that was made to look like China. Everyone spoke English, there was western food, and everyone was really nice. After four days, it was a shock to come across a town that was completely westernized to attract tourists. While the city itself was a little annoying, just outside was amazing. I walked to some villages and had a great time. The funniest thing about Youngshoe was the fact that there were so many western tourists, and they were out numbered by Chinese tourists at least 10 to 1. This seemed pretty normal until it was explained to me that most of the Chinese tourists come to hang out with westerners, because Yangshoe is one of the few places in China that you can be garunteed to find them .
I ate soooo much cheese in Yangshoe. It made me so happy. I also found the second best hamburger I've ever eaten in the world. It was a very close second.
I left Youngshoe, and took a 21 hour train ride to Kunming. The train was pretty disgusting, hot, and unconfortable, but part of the adventure. Kunming isn't HUMID!!!! Yay!. Also, it is my favorite city so far in China. I ended up traveling to Kunmig with an older Korean woman who I met in Yangshoe. She speaks a little English, and a lot of Chinese. She helped me nail some important phrases and was good company on the train. I'm running into some major barriers with the tones. There are 4 tones in Mandarin, and 9 in Cantonese. Thank god China's official language isn't Cantonese.
I don't know how long I will be in Kunming, maybe 2-4 days, and then I'm off to Dali (Old City). I am expecting to lighten my load by a significant measure in the next week when I send half the stuff I'm lugging around home.
Points of interest:
There is an increase in sqautting of almost 800% in China over America. By sqautting I just mean the physical act of sqautting.
The culture here in relation to garbage is akin to that of a basball stadium, or to a lesser extent, a movie theater. People just throw everything on the ground. Chinese culture seems to have accounted for this by employing armies of people with simple handmade brooms. The real problem with this is that people here don't stop littering when they go someplace that doesn't have an army of street sweepers. I've watched a number of people throw trash such as plastics bags, and styrafoam containers onto gorgeous wilderness. It's hard to know what to do when you're a forienger and you see that happening.
Thanks for all the comments, and thank you mom for sending them to me via e-mail seeing that China has kindly blocked me from viewing it.
I ate soooo much cheese in Yangshoe. It made me so happy. I also found the second best hamburger I've ever eaten in the world. It was a very close second.
I left Youngshoe, and took a 21 hour train ride to Kunming. The train was pretty disgusting, hot, and unconfortable, but part of the adventure. Kunming isn't HUMID!!!! Yay!. Also, it is my favorite city so far in China. I ended up traveling to Kunmig with an older Korean woman who I met in Yangshoe. She speaks a little English, and a lot of Chinese. She helped me nail some important phrases and was good company on the train. I'm running into some major barriers with the tones. There are 4 tones in Mandarin, and 9 in Cantonese. Thank god China's official language isn't Cantonese.
I don't know how long I will be in Kunming, maybe 2-4 days, and then I'm off to Dali (Old City). I am expecting to lighten my load by a significant measure in the next week when I send half the stuff I'm lugging around home.
Points of interest:
There is an increase in sqautting of almost 800% in China over America. By sqautting I just mean the physical act of sqautting.
The culture here in relation to garbage is akin to that of a basball stadium, or to a lesser extent, a movie theater. People just throw everything on the ground. Chinese culture seems to have accounted for this by employing armies of people with simple handmade brooms. The real problem with this is that people here don't stop littering when they go someplace that doesn't have an army of street sweepers. I've watched a number of people throw trash such as plastics bags, and styrafoam containers onto gorgeous wilderness. It's hard to know what to do when you're a forienger and you see that happening.
Thanks for all the comments, and thank you mom for sending them to me via e-mail seeing that China has kindly blocked me from viewing it.
posted by Robert at 6/23/2005 10:14:00 PM
1 Comments:
in my mandarin immersion class were several native cantonese speakers, all of whom were having considerably more difficulty with the language than the native english speakers (who were having quite a bit of difficulty, so that's saying a lot). one of them told me that that this was due to the fact that the way you move your mouth while speaking cantonese has no relation to the way you move your mouth when speaking mandarin, yet the words have a vaguely similar root. (like if you were learning a language where "i like pie" was still written as "i like pie" but was instead pronouced... "ay lunk pay" or something.) also, not one of the 4 mandarin tones is anything like any of the 9 cantonese tones. cantonese tones, i've been told, are far more subtle.
Post a Comment
<< Home