Hutongs

Today I am going to the market to see if I find anything cool. Last night I went to an Indian restaurant with friends in HoHai, which is this bar/restaurant/club area surrounding these two lakes. We ate then walked around the area for something like two hours. We walked around some of the allyways, which are called HuTongs, and I enjoyed that a lot. I often feel like in Beijing I am in Chinese Disneyland, not really China. Last weekend in pingyao I felt like I was really in China, talking with old shopkeepers on the winding narrow streets filled with junk shops. It is interesting walking around the Hutongs simply because i feel like I am walking around the courtyard of a family's house often times; their doors are open, you can see their living room, kitchens, bedrooms, everything. I have been told that in China people do not have to same concept of privacy or property as they do in the US. It is hard to explain exactly how it is different, but Chinese people men just walk around the streets without shirts on all the time, people spit everywhere, people's houses are completely open and close together in these allyways creating this effect that none of them just live in one of the huts. It is a really different living environment.

But back to HoHai, in HoHai Chinese people aggressively come up to us as a group and start asking us in bad english "Are you American? Do you want to come into our bar" (there are so many bars they need to promote themselves somehow). I use to say in Chinese "No, thank you" but last night one of my friends just started saying back to them in Chinese "I'm not American! I'm Chinese! Can't you tell?" That was extremely affective at getting them to leave us alone, so I think I am going to start using that.

That is one of the things about China, when i am walking around little kids will point and say "Wai4guo2 ren2" which means "FOREIGN PEOPLE." Now I just point back and say "Zhong1guo2 ren2" which means "Chinese people!" and the little kids either start laughing or get very confused. Another thing i noticed, does not matter what you look like, if you are white, Chinese people assume you are American and if you are Black they assume you and African. They do not really have a sense of a multi-ethnic cultures. For example, a lot of my friends here are American but their parents are Chinese. When they tell that to Chinese people, the term the Chinese people is "hua2 yi1" which means you are Chinese, but grew up in another country. Basically they are still Chinese, they are not really American. My friend Lucy will say "no, I am American, but my parents are Chinese" and Chinese people will ask "so why aren't you Chinese?" She will respond "because I grew up in America" Chinese response: "But you are still Chinese." It is quite strange.

Anyways, I know anyone in my family who reads this blog knows about the shutterfly page Lyn set up (no i cannot take credit for being organized enough to make my own shutterfly for my trip). But anyways, I will be trying to pictures of last weekends trip to Datong us soon. The like is http://chateauxyadeau.shutterfly.com/camilaschinatrip