This what I wrote to people weeks after arriving in China, and in the parentheses () are my comments that I am writing now as I write this post.
7 interesting things about Living in China:
A thought I had. People in the US always talk about how with China’s one child policy. The young won’t be able to support the old. The problem with this is I don’t think they consider how much more this generation, in terms of money has. I mean where it might take 5 people to support a retired couple in the past, there might only need to be one to support a retired couple now. (Another thing that I noticed was the giant migration of workers from the country side to the cities. 
The children in the cities would send money back to their parents who stayed in their small villages. In many situation the grandchildren would stay with the grandparents as the parents worked in the city in order to support everyone as they stayed at a lower living cost)
I went to the electronic mall to buy a translator and I was amazed at everything I saw. There was one booth that sold every type of software that one could buy in the US in a knock off Chinese version for 2 bucks or so. I mean everything: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Windows. I saw a couple of electronic things that I don’t remember seeing in the US before I left. For 800 US dollars you can get this phone here that is: touch screen, 8 gig hard drive, 5 mega pixel camera, with all the other toys one could think of. (The phone thing now is nothing special, but the software is even better. I went there to get a book on how to learn Dreamweaver one time and in the book was a free copy of the program. I then looked around are noticed all the “How to books” for all the programs came with a free version of the software and many of the “How to books” were actually copies of originals as well. So for about 2 Dollars one could get an instructional book with the software. )
Here, I have noticed that people refer to their best friends as brother or sister also, when you ask someone to introduce you to their friends, they always say their roommates. (I notice the longer I was here that people were very hesitant to introduce someone to people. Also, with people not having brothers or sisters they would just call best friends brother or sister. I would meet people that would refer to a couple as their brother and sister only to then realize the three people were just really close friends and one was a couple, but no blood relations)
Jokes here are pretty funny. So far the ones I have heard consist of, “How do you do put an elephant in a refrigerator? Open the door and let him in.” Another favorite one seems to be to say a person’s name and then say nothing when they respond. I actually find this humor pretty funny to be honest. (the best part is no one understands sarcasm. No one. I would have conversations with foreigners and my Chinese friends thought we were going to fight and then we would burst out in laughter)
It is very easy to get upset at all the money foreigners throw around in Beijing. I know foreigners that have VIP memberships to all the posh clubs here. (This may not mean much but the drink at these clubs cost the same as a club in San Francisco, and this is a third world country). (It is amazing the difference in life style that many of the foreigners have. It is common for a table to spend on a meal the same amount as their waitress’s month salary on a meal.)
I am pissed at the program I am doing. It is because I feel that I am not getting the support that I believed I would be getting when I got here. I am still doing well because I am a pretty motivated person, but I feel that I am just in a bit of a better place, so I don’t feel that I’m getting my money worth. (I got lucky. the program I went through later closed down without telling anyone. Many students lost all their tuition and teachers their salaries.)
I noticed that even numbers are considered lucky so all jackets and things have to have an even number of pockets. (I just read this and don’t remember this, I think my Chinese teacher told this to me.)
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good, it is beautiful.
