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My grandmother just got back from a two week trip to China. And for hours and more hours we heard about the trip. No joke- it took a full 60 minutes for her to tell us about the plane ride. But I realized that I didn't know much about China. I learned a lot of little interesting facts. And now you can, too.
1) Chinese is a nationality, not an ethnicity. There are a number of ethnicities in China but the largest is Han. The Han are restricted to one child per couple but couples from the smaller ethnicities are allowed up to two children so that they don't die out.
2) The Great Wall of China is 4,000 miles long. It took 900 freakin' years to build. Good grief!
3) The Staten Island Dump and the Great Wall of China are the only man made fixtures that Lance would be able to see from space.
4) Most of the Chinese people do not have religion. There are some Christians and Buddhists but that is not encouraged by the government. The holidays that are celebrated are national holidays. In fact, there are two national holidays where everyone gets a full week off from work. The number of people in the streets for the celebrations made Times Square on New Year's look as busy as Montana.
5) You can go to an Italian restaurant in China. And, if you stay at a hotel, you can get bagels and lox.
6) Singapore was once a part of Malaysia but eventually broke away and became independent. (This is completely unrelated to China but we had a loooooong debate about the history of Singapore over coffee. You want to come to dinner at my parent's house now, don't you?)
That's all I can remember right now but, if you want to know more, I'll give you grandma's number. I'm sure she'd be thrilled to find more people to tell about her trip.
1) Chinese is a nationality, not an ethnicity. There are a number of ethnicities in China but the largest is Han. The Han are restricted to one child per couple but couples from the smaller ethnicities are allowed up to two children so that they don't die out.
2) The Great Wall of China is 4,000 miles long. It took 900 freakin' years to build. Good grief!
3) The Staten Island Dump and the Great Wall of China are the only man made fixtures that Lance would be able to see from space.
4) Most of the Chinese people do not have religion. There are some Christians and Buddhists but that is not encouraged by the government. The holidays that are celebrated are national holidays. In fact, there are two national holidays where everyone gets a full week off from work. The number of people in the streets for the celebrations made Times Square on New Year's look as busy as Montana.
5) You can go to an Italian restaurant in China. And, if you stay at a hotel, you can get bagels and lox.
6) Singapore was once a part of Malaysia but eventually broke away and became independent. (This is completely unrelated to China but we had a loooooong debate about the history of Singapore over coffee. You want to come to dinner at my parent's house now, don't you?)
That's all I can remember right now but, if you want to know more, I'll give you grandma's number. I'm sure she'd be thrilled to find more people to tell about her trip.
