Middle Earth to the Middle Kingdom

Well, after hanging out with Ben, Gabe, and the hobbits last week, I took another trip, this time to China. It was my first time in the middle kingdom (China is Zhong guo in Chinese, which means middle kingdom, because China in the eyes of Chinese people is the center of the world) and I really enjoyed it. I met up with my sister who's teaching English there, and we went to a couple cities in northeast China, including Beijing.



We saw most of the sites in Beijing, although I was disappointed that the Maosoleum (that's what I call Chairman Mao's mausoleum- pretty clever, huh?) was closed. We did see Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, and we ate Peking Duck, which was fantastic. We also went to the Great Wall near where my sister lives, and we hung out with both Chinese and Korean people, which was fun. We could communicate and get around alright, but it required that my sister and I use the full extent of our limited Asian language abilities (mostly my sister).

While China was fun and interesting, I got the impression that most Chinese people were perpetually angry about something- but then my sister explained to me that all the yelling, arm waving and angry expressions are just how Chinese people communicate. For instance, this one time we were in a taxi I thought the taxi driver was going to throw us out of his cab or start hitting us, and I was asking my sister what we did to make the driver so mad, and she said, "Oh, he's just saying that he's not sure where it is."
Not that one way is better than the other, it's just that Chinese and Koreans act differently.
Also, Chinese food is so good.

P.S. I felt compelled to share this quote and picture.
"A man who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man." -Mao Tse Tung.
There you have it.