LIFE IN CHINA

Well, this post is for Chinese people.

Lately I realized that you're almost the half of the world population, so I have some questions that I would like to know about you.

do you think that living in china is great?

What do you think about your government?

According to what I have read, China will become the most powerful country in less than 10 years, even more powerful than US, so what do you think about this?

What do you think about wars??? Do you agree with North Korea that is testing nuclear bombs?

Well, that's all by now, but I still have other questions that I'd like to ask you, thanks in advance. 

Hey bigmama, yeah it's an interesting topic.

I really like everything that's related to China (or I guess it is because the way I see it in the movies), I like their houses, their clothes, the martial arts.

So I'd like to ask my next question, as I said I like the martial arts movies and there I've watched some "real chinese history" movies and there act guys who are "masters" of martial arts and they alone are able to beat up a lot of rivals. So my point is, can you really find guys like those in China??? Did they really exist???

And also I'd like to know what's the average stature or height of chinese people, cuz I live in a coast city where a lot of ships arrive and I've seen a couple of chinese persons also where I work some investors from China have come, but all of them were about 1.60 or 1.65 mts.

What about the great wall, do you still use it? what for? what's your favorite sport? do you eat foreign food?

That's it by now, but be sure I'll be back with more questions. Regards. 

Hey bigmama, yeah it's an interesting topic.

I really like everything that's related to China (or I guess it is because the way I see it in the movies), I like their houses, their clothes, the martial arts.

So I'd like to ask my next question, as I said I like the martial arts movies and there I've watched some "real chinese history" movies and there act guys who are "masters" of martial arts and they alone are able to beat up a lot of rivals. So my point is, can you really find guys like those in China??? Did they really exist???

And also I'd like to know what's the average stature or height of chinese people, cuz I live in a coast city where a lot of ships arrive and I've seen a couple of chinese persons also where I work some investors from China have come, but all of them were about 1.60 or 1.65 mts.

What about the great wall, do you still use it? what for? what's your favorite sport? do you eat foreign food?

That's it by now, but be sure I'll be back with more questions. Regards. 

Thank Joeywang for your being here as the first Chinese guy to get back this topic, your command and usage of English is excellent and I do not think you could have any excuse not writing something here. Also Chamo, I like to read your threads in Ebaby, you are putting your meaning across very well. Congrats.

Angie, or bigmama, I am glad you posted the message you emailed to me here, so non-Chinese guys are invited to join this discussion, and good to see this discussion is getting lively.

Zars, thanks for your interest in China, and lots of good questions, and I guess we need a group of Chinese persons to get you back to satisfy your curiosity. LOL.  Your English is remarkable, I have been reading some postings, so very impressed by your English language skills. 

Chamo has answered your question about how long on our English learning, something I need to add, at my age group, due to then education system or something like that, after the graduation from the universities/colleges, most of us were dumb when we were required to speak English (except the English majored students, of course).  So any further progress completely depends our individual effors.  It's my job that has been compelling me to improve my English level in the past 8 years.  Being a project leader in a HK-invested company, daily emails with the coworkers and the cusotmers are all in English, and this job pressure has been motivating me to seek more.  But not lucky as you, I do not have one English-native speaker as my boss, so my spoken English is still not so desirable.  Any good suggestion?

Back to war topic, Joeywang gave some comments already, and if possible, you can input two key phrases, "Yasukuni Shrine" and "Japanese army prostitute", and search more information, then you will know the hurting to Chinese, Koreans, etc is not just a PAST TENSE as you thought. 

Zars, Good question about KungFu, just one small mistake out there, Jet Lee is an amazing Chinese action actor, and the gal, whose name is Zhang Zi Yi, is absolutely a young Chinese actress,  I do not know why you thought they are foreigners. Even Jackie Chan is a HK guy, HK is a part of China already, isn't it?  anyway I think it is kinda hard for you to tell them and other Asians apart, just like I can not distinguish between a British guy and a NZ guy, LOL.
 
I'dlike to say something about Jet Lee, a well-known KungFu star.  He was born in Beijing, and he was absolutely born for KungFu, his talents let him to win five all-around championships in National Martial Arts successively in the five years before he started his show biz, you can say that's a miracle.   His first movie was SHAOLIN TEMPLE, also the first action movie in China, which brought a craze for KungFu in teens and youngers.  Some teens even ran to ShaoLin temple without telling their parents, just wanted to be a KungFu guy.  Compared to Jet Lee, Jackie Chan's action is not real KungFu, good-looking and with lots of stunts. I'm intending to derogating him, I like his movies too, and I know lots of his fans, especially among the foreigners. 

SO, as to your question, "if is there a real guy like that, alone is able to beat up a lot of rivals?" the movie scenes are sure exaggerated, but dare I say it, it is not a problem for Jet Lee to beat up 6 to 10 rivals!

In China, there are professional KungFu guys and amateurs.  Professionals often start to practise since kids, they show up in various martial arts games, also do teachings.  These outstanding professionals or masters, you can think they are the KungFu guys.  The amateurs just like this art, do that for being healthy both physically and mentally.  Maybe foreigners thought it is KungFu, but we would not call it KungFu, when we are not good enough to beat up others.  LOL.  We just say we are practising taiji boxing, or another genera boxing.

Most of Taiji amateurs are the old people, they are retired and have enough time, sure also young KungFu lovers and middle-aged, like me, haha.  The guy in black pants in the photo is my master, he is taking teaching Taiji as a career, and his father is a famous Taiji master who has been teaching Taiji in Singapore and Tailand.  My master came from a KungFu village (Chenjiagou, Hunan province), the origin place of Taiji.  The local ppl there has been practising Taiji for generations, no matter 4-year-old kids or the 80-year-old ladies.  It is pretty interesting to imagine the scenarios how they played with the harrow and plough and hoe when they just left the field.  Big changes have happened out there, nowadays that county has become a place for martial arts learning and all Taiji lovers have been crowding there, you can see foreigners are among them as well.
 
KungFu is a cultural treasure, and good news is Chinese government is making efforts to keep it from losing, and I bet soon we will see the kids and teens play KungFu in the classrooms with swords, knives, sticks at hands. 

http://ent.sina.com.cn/v/m/2006-10-01/20591271101.html

You can see the show of the finals of the first China Kungfu Star this year if this site page is available on your computer.  It may arise your interests to Kungfu, hehe.

Zars,and another part of answer here to the average height of chinese people.

As far as i know,ppl from South China are usually a little shortter than those from the north,and the old are currently much shortter than the young.Take our north part for example,the 20s, the average height of men is about 175cm(My cousin is 182cm in height,and my younger brother 178cm),the average height of gals of my age here is about 163cm(just like me).Actually,ppl here are not that short as u saw,wink.



Glad to see more interesting questions and excellent answers.Good luck!

Thanks both for replying.

It is quite interesting to know how your culture works, well I already knew they were from HK but I thought it was a different country than China.

I agree with you about the difference between jet lee's movies and yackie chan's, and personally I like the first Jet lee's movies, the ones that talk about Chinese histories.

I tried to check out the website, but it shows everything in chinese and I don't know it, thanks anyway.

Other thing that I like about china is the clothes, the silk. I'd love to go to China some day.

And how's the security in China? in the most of the biggest cities there's a serious problem trying to combat the organized crime.

I'd like to see some landscapes of China, the great wall.

About height I'm 1.84 mts, but the "standard" here is about 1.70 to 1.75 men and 1.60 to 1.70 women. 

Well, my next question would be, which customs still rules in China??? for example I've seen in movies that if you wanna get married, your parents and friends must approve it, or in other movies that the parents tell their son whom to get married with.

Zars,

Referring to marriage, parents will give some useful advice to their child, like what kind of person fits him better. I think that's a responsibility of parents, also is a good way for them to show their deep love to their child. Sometimes love and excessive passion make one blind. We need calm and objective suggestions from our parents and friends. Marriage is an important thing in life, no one expects that it is going to be proved wrong in the remainder of his life.

Of cause, love is a private thing, I think most of Chinese people choose their spouses freely. In my family, my parents, even my grandparents married totally because of love. Although I have no intention to marry in recent years, my mother told me "find your ideal partner by yourself." So you know, parents' suggestion is only a reference for their child, not a burden or rule. What do you think?

By the way, so glad to hear that you like silk. China International Silk Fair is going on in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China these days. In China, both Suzhou and Hangzhou are known for the high quality of silk. The history of producing silk in Hangzhou has lasted for almost 4700 years.

Welcome to China, and realise the country by your own eyes and feeling.:)

Chamo

To sherry: Thanks for your praise, your English is so perfect, I should learn from you!

Best wishes to all the friends!

Hello,zars and all the friends here.this is indeed an interestin topic.yeah,it's pretty strange only few ppl reply to it.i was born in the south of china,and now i am in the north studying on a college campus.

as sherry said,there are some problems in our country.but everybody knows there is problem everywhere.so we should not just focus on the problems here.i love my country and i'm proud of it.our ancesters have lelf us with so long a history and culture ,which not only attract we chinese but also so many foreigners.however,as china is getting more and more attention from the world,it has been a thorn in many ppl's eyes.

just several days ago ,i read in the sydney morning post that a teacher in shanxi had thrown one of  his students out of  the window.i think it is really rediculous.we've never heard of anything like that.obviously,they made up the whole story.so what i want to say is that sometimes the media isn't worth your belief.

as for the sino-japanese relations,i think it can never be  reconciled unless the japnese admit all the sufferings they brought to we chinese ppl.there is no point to deny that many classmates and i hate them.i've watched read a lot about the ww2.and everytime i'll be furious.how i wish i were born that time so that i could fight in the front .history is just history,but we can't forget what've happened to our compatriots.

zars,the great wall is really great,you can visit it if there is a chance.at first they built to defend themselves againt the enemy.but now it has almost be a symbol of china.

nowadays more an more ppl prefer foreign food.maybe it is a fashion now.

if u have any other question,just post them here.we'll be glad to reply.

In my oppinon ,China will be more powerful. look at the development of economic,but her still need the effert of all her people.