Hi
Jim
Since I moved to China, I haven't done much work on my Web pages and
other online projects, partly because I've given more priority to my
offline activities, and partly because I don't have access to Blogspot
any more. Now Geocities, where I had all my Web pages, has shut down.
I might put some of them back up somewhere else, maybe at Tripod.
I might not get back to my Internet projects for many more months. The
first one I might want to revive is reading people's blogs and
learning how to encourage and support them in whatever good they're
trying to do.
diamondsouled
How's the food?
Must be a very interesting experience!
Cheers
Larry Rowe
Jim
restaurants. When we eat out, we go to Starbucks, Applebee's or some
other western restaurant. At home we have Chinese meals with a lot of
noodles and rice, some vegetables and tofu, and sometimes fish, pork,
chicken or duck.
One interesting experience for me has been trying to learn the Chinese
language. Another has been trying to figure out the bus system. I
learned to use the metro easily, but the buses are a different story.
NUR
> It still turns my stomach to look at the dishes displayed at local
> restaurants. When we eat out, we go to Starbucks, Applebee's or some
> other western restaurant.
Yanks are the same everywhere. Total cultural philistines!
W
Jim
It isn't that I don't like Chinese food. I just don't like the Chinese
food in China!
John MacLeod
>
> Since I moved to China,
Jim
Shanghai.
John MacLeod
the North. SH is just tooo big and busy for me.
Jim
> We spent a couple of years in shanghai. I think I preferred my time in
> the North. SH is just tooo big and busy for me.
Big and busy is right. I've seen dozens of places that look like Times
Square, and I haven't seen a tenth of it. The traffic is often
crawling, and sometimes completely stopped for five or ten minutes.
We've been in the west for a week or two, twice, south of Urumqi in
XinJiang. That's our son's wife is from, and where her mother and
father still live.
NUR
Then why go to China at all? The local food is part of the fabric of
the society you are visiting. If you were going to dine at Applebee's
and Starbucks, you should've stayed in America and not gone to China.
It is a cultural insult and a blatant display of ethnocentrism that
you go to China and then complain about the local food while going to
the establishments you already have in America. This is a classic case
of the same white-man Western missionary but now in a Bahai suit.
W
Jim
> > It isn't that I don't like Chinese food. I just don't like the Chinese
> > food in China!
>
> Then why go to China at all? The local food is part of the fabric of
> the society you are visiting. If you were going to dine at Applebee's
> and Starbucks, you should've stayed in America and not gone to China.
> It is a cultural insult and a blatant display of ethnocentrism that
> you go to China and then complain about the local food while going to
> the establishments you already have in America. This is a classic case
> of the same white-man Western missionary but now in a Bahai suit.
>
> W
Our son moved here a few years ago, and he's been wanting us to come.
We had thought about coming after we retire, but then he found a job
for Patty, and we read some things about the importance of China that
made us want to come now. I'm very glad we came. Building a harmonious
society is an explicit goal of the Chinese government. Daniel's wife
is Chinese, and it means a lot to me to be part of a two-culture
family learning to live happily together, especially American and
Chinese, in view of the divisions between our two countries. This is a
perfect environment for me to work on all my ideas about community
service and development, with my family, and on the local, national
and international levels of community life.
What I said about feeling repelled by the food displays at the
restaurants was not to complain about the food. It was meant to say
more about me than about the food in China. I hadn't thought about how
insulting it might be to talk that way, regardless of my intentions.
Your point is well made.
I've always enjoyed the Chinese food we have at home, cooked by
Daniel's Chinese wife and by her Chinese mother. We've also enjoyed
many of the meals we've had with them in Chinese restaurants, here in
Shanghai, and in their home town in the west of China.