rom Urumqi, we started our Z-formation across China. We traveled east
along the old silk trading route to historic Beijing. It was snowing
and quite cold there so after shivering through the sites we plunged
down into the southwestern Yunnan province. In the south, there is a
definite label for foreigners and we heard it quite often.
ello Lao Wai" was a common greeting yelled as we passed by on the
streets. Literally translated it means, "old outside person" and is
not meant to be insulting or rude. Still, it is a bit unnerving to
have an older man point at us and tell his grandson, "Lao Wai".
It made us appreciate any local persons’ reactions to our camera shots
and curiosity, especially here in the south, where we experienced some
of China’s most interesting minority groups and culture.
e even talked
an older man who had met Nixon on his famous trip to China. This man
was surprised to find out that Nixon was no longer president and that
he was in fact, dead. We asked if he knew who Bill Clinton was and the
name drew a blank. WOW! We stayed as long as we could in these
minority towns until the end of our visa forced us to head east
towards the new China, Hong Kong.
wo months ago we wondered how we would fare in a country that, besides having a
difficult language to learn, had characters instead of an alphabet.
Some things were easy enough to figure out, like which character
differentiates the women’s bathroom from the men’s. It only takes one
mistake to realize the character that appears to have crossed legs is
the women’s!
n the spoken side, this language is difficult to
pronounce and pronunciation counts! One word can have five different
meanings based on the inflection given to it. On more than a single
occasion ,we have tried to communicate something simple in Chinese,
like "hotel" or "train station" to a cab driver. We always hope we
have it right, but after repeated tries we most often realize they
don’t understand us. So, we get out our phrasebook and point to the
word only to have them say "oh" and repeat back to us what we thought
was exactly what we had been saying all the long. Most people are
gracious enough to play along with us until we all understand. By the
end of two months, we could recognize characters and speak enough
Chinese to manage a few more things on our own and maybe even help out
other travelers.
rom Urumqi, we started our Z-formation across China. We traveled east
along the old silk trading route to historic Beijing. It was snowing
and quite cold there so after shivering through the sites we plunged
down into the southwestern Yunnan province. In the south, there is a
definite label for foreigners and we heard it quite often.
ello Lao Wai" was a common greeting yelled as we passed by on the
streets. Literally translated it means, "old outside person" and is
not meant to be insulting or rude. Still, it is a bit unnerving to
have an older man point at us and tell his grandson, "Lao Wai".
It made us appreciate any local persons’ reactions to our camera shots
and curiosity, especially here in the south, where we experienced some
of China’s most interesting minority groups and culture.
e even talked
an older man who had met Nixon on his famous trip to China. This man
was surprised to find out that Nixon was no longer president and that
he was in fact, dead. We asked if he knew who Bill Clinton was and the
name drew a blank. WOW! We stayed as long as we could in these
minority towns until the end of our visa forced us to head east
towards the new China, Hong Kong.
wo months ago we wondered how we would fare in a country that, besides having a
difficult language to learn, had characters instead of an alphabet.
Some things were easy enough to figure out, like which character
differentiates the women’s bathroom from the men’s. It only takes one
mistake to realize the character that appears to have crossed legs is
the women’s!
n the spoken side, this language is difficult to
pronounce and pronunciation counts! One word can have five different
meanings based on the inflection given to it. On more than a single
occasion ,we have tried to communicate something simple in Chinese,
like "hotel" or "train station" to a cab driver. We always hope we
have it right, but after repeated tries we most often realize they
don’t understand us. So, we get out our phrasebook and point to the
word only to have them say "oh" and repeat back to us what we thought
was exactly what we had been saying all the long. Most people are
gracious enough to play along with us until we all understand. By the
end of two months, we could recognize characters and speak enough
Chinese to manage a few more things on our own and maybe even help out
other travelers.
