Something Different

Beauty

In China, white skin is beautiful. Women carry umbrellas to shield their skin from the sun. They use creams to make their skin whiter. Big eyes are also very much desirable and curly hair.
People on the street tell me I am beautiful every day. Men I do not know ask me to take pictures with them, businessmen impress me with their accomplishments and invite me to dinner. People I have never introduced myself to know my name in my town. Oh, also, wherever I go, everyone openly stares. It used to bother me a lot that I stick out so much and people staring all the time, but now I just take it as something to laugh about as I cannot do anything about it.
 Random person while waiting for the Subway


Pooping on the Street

The bathrooms here are unbearable. They are holes in the ground, no toilet paper so you have to carry your own and no flushing of course so it smells very bad. Little kids, i would say maybe up to age 5 poop on the street. They have slits in their pants for ease of pooping. It is something I have not gotten used to yet.

Public Transportation

The subway system in Beijing is amazing. Trains come every couple of minutes and it is a fast way to get anywhere in the city. It is also very cheap 2 yuen for a ticket. It gets very crowded though during the morning and afternoon. By crowded i mean being pressed against people so you can't move your hand crowded. Buses are also good ways to get around. there are a lot of cars in Beijing but cars are very expensive to have and most people do not have one. Because only rich people really have cars, they are nice cars, BMW's are very common. Driving on the street is crazy! It is hard to corss the street most of the time and cars zoom in and out of lanes. Since the public transportation stops working at 10pm, a lot of people take taxis. They are very cheap compared to the US for a close to 2 hour taxi ride, we paid 100 yuen which is about 15 dollars.

Most people here ride bikes. Restaurants such as Pizza Hut deliver on bike. There are also plenty of people that will bike you places in their bike taxi.










Beans, Beans and more Beans

Before coming to China, I did not know how many purposes black beans can have. Here, you can eat cooked black beans, there are bean ice cream flavors, bean is in most cookie fillings. Also, most cookies here are not sweet at all, but contain peanuts, bean as I mentioned before or are just plain salty. There is a lot of jelly in all different flavors and sizes, people here prefer soft candy and jelly to hard candy I have noticed. For a drink, tea, milk tea or juice is very common. Coffee not so much.