Friday, May 1, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Article on culture
Dr. Londino
Article on Culture
As soon as we got off the plane, We could not help but be submerged into the Chinese Culture. No research or news could have prepared me for what I was about to experience on this amazing trip. The first thing I noticed in route to our hotel in Beijing was the amount of Buildings. It is like a steel heaven. This country is so densly populated. I saw from the outskirt of Beijing beautiful high rise apartments to shacks right outside our hotel in the middle of the city. Many of the streets are filled with Markets where you can by anything from designer brands to little souvenier trinkets. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, Pretty lady want a…
At the Markets and on the streets it amazed me how random people would look at us as a rare commodity. A lot of Chinese people, especially the older generation have yet to experience America and it’s people. People would walk up to you stare, touch you, pull your hair, and overall invade your personal space. At first this really made me uncomfortable but I got over it really quick. In China there is not much diversity when it comes to skin tone or non asian people so I can understand why we were a site to see.
The language barrier did not make it easy for us either. We relied on business cards to tell the cab drivers where to take us and calculators to purchase our new found treasures. I was also taken back when a cab driver handed me my tip back and would not accept it even when I tried not to take it. In this culture it is not customary to tip. Not only with cabs but in restaurants and bars as well.
This Ancient culture is unbelievable. Walking through the Forbidden City, The Great Wall, The Summer Palace truly opened my eyes to how old the Chinese heritage is. Thousands of years and pride is built into China’s City and it shows. The streets are very clean and well taken care of. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a man sweeping the side of a highway with a wooden broom.
Unfortunatley like New york, there are many homeless people walking the streets begging for money. What bothered me is, is that many of them were children doing the work while an adult watched them trying to guilt you into giving them money. One night it was about 4:30 in the morning, coming out of Shang Hai Night club, a little boy wrapped his entire body around my legs, like a kaola to a tree. It was so sad. I wound up picking him up and spinning him around. The smile I got from him was pure joy. So I gave 50 Yuan, so maybe I did get persuaded into giving him money. However I feel like he needed it more than I did.
The food here was very interesting as well. Markets filled with gourmet items like sacadas, scorpians, sea horses, baby chickens, dog and many more things I was not daring enough to try. I also was surprised to see items such as noodles and dumplings out for breakfast at our hotels. In China things they eat are much different in the United States. I wonder what they would think of our Chinese food.
I loved how all the streets were filled with Bicycles and reckless drivers. There was no true traffic patterns in some areas, which made for scary taxi cab experiences. I even saw a few cars driving on the side walk. Suprisingly I saw only one accident and it wasn’t in a traffic are like this, it was on a deserted high way. Go Figure.
With all my new exposure to the Chinese culture, it truly gave me a different perspective on how the United States is so different. We are very lucky to live in a place where all cultures have a chance to coexist without too much judgement. However I do admire the heritage and pride that is truly deserved over this ancient society. I am glad to be home.
Day 8 & 9
In the mornig we had to meet back at the hotel at 1230 to leave for Shang Hai!
With the time we had we before we left we did some shopping in another market!
We finally get to Shanghai and immediately we are taken to dinner in a beautiful hotel.
Day #9
The Jade Buddha Temple
The silk Factory
The Bund
Yu Yan Garden
Day #7
Today The Media students visited the Zheijing University where we had the opportunity to sit and speak with some of there Students! It was a beautiful campus. There media Depatment had a beautiful Set with great lighting and a blue screen. This is where Kevin and I did a pseudo broadcast! A little nerving for me to talkand improv in front of everyone but a wonderful experience. They then took us to see there control room where they had many large screens playing different tv channels all at once. After that we headed to there Sound and production room also filled with a sound board and screens directly in front of the sound board. After seeing there department we had lunch with the stuents in their cafeteria. I had the girls I was with pick out my food, because I wanted to eat what they thought was good. One of the girls informed me that the food in Hang Zhou tends to be sweeter then the other regions of China, and it was!
After the School we got to take a tour of Zheijing Television stations. We entered into a board room when we first got there where we were able to speak with the big wigs of the station. They taught us how the station is ran and how the company was ran. Here we also met anchors William and Angela who were very nice to take their time to show us around. We actually got to sit behind a professional set and also got to see their sound proof studio used not onky for Tv but musical performers as well!
We then had an intimate dinner at the stations restaurant with everyone we met from the studio! It was by far one of the most memorable days!
