Post Mortem

You may find that my notes are not incredibly deep - most of them are jotted down during bus rides between tourist attractions. There is also a lot of mention about the forced shopping, and some griping about the tour, a huge source of contention with our entire group of travelers. I will never take another trip through EF Tours, and I don't recommend it for anyone over 22, but it's by no means a reflection on China itself. Just want to put that disclaimer down - other than the smell of the toilets, I loved every single thing I experienced in China. And I absolutely loved the people, which kinda took me by surprise.

Growing up I had an image of the Chinese as kind of a cold, rigid people that were very precise and not incredibly welcoming and after my little trip to Korea, I was expecting a certain amount of unfriendliness and a certain amount of disregard.But, I found the complete opposite to be true. People in China were so much more welcoming than I imagined - and so eager to help and to learn. People seemed genuinely interested in meeting visitors and learning about the United States, and loved to get the chance to practice English. I figure it's kinda like Iowa - they don't get too many tourists, so it's nice to hear about all these foreign places.

There are definatly some problems in China, just as there are problems everywhere else, but it really is an amazing place, with amazing people and unbelieveable history. It's no suprise to me that China is taking over the world these days in business, they are brilliant, driven and eager to get what they've been missing through the communist years. As the new generation starts to take over it will be interesting to see how they change their world.