Things that I always wondered about

You know how Americans always get tattoos of Chinese characters that are often written wrong, upside down or don't have an appropriate or logical meaning? Well in case anybody was wondering, Chinese people wear shirts and have other paraphernalia that has bad English on it. Women's dress shirts and club/going out shirts are the most common. A common pattern is big block letters arranged vertically on the shirt saying, for example, "ORANGE PEARL BRIDGE MUSIC." Also my pencil case says, "Keep a good mood!" which does indeed keep me smiling during Chinese class!

Yes, Chinese babies do poop and pee on the street, even in Shanghai.

No, Chinese people do not eat dog meat. At least not that I know of... Dogs are pretty common household pets.

Chinese women want white skin so much that they walk around with umbrellas on sunny days. I thought that they did this to keep cool, but apparently not according to the Chinese roommates on campus... And even L'Oreal and Clinique have numerous advertisements for skin whitening cream.

If there is a holiday during the week, everyone goes to school and to work on Sunday. National Day (think 4th of July) is on this Thursday and so my whole family went to school and work yesterday (Sunday). One of my Chinese teachers even went to campus because she thought we had class and no one told her otherwise. We probably should have had class, but CIEE probably figures that if they ever made Americans go to school on Sunday, we'd be up in arms.

Tai chi is a wrong transliteration from Chinese. It's actually called Tai Ji Quan, which literally means shadow boxing. I'm currently taking a Tai Ji class every Monday and Wednesday for an hour and I have to give props to my parents who have been doing Tai Chi/Tai Ji for years now. It's fun but challenging!! at least for me, the world's most uncoordinated person. I've included a picture of my friend Kira during class last week.

Thanks for reading!! Since I can't see the blog anymore (sad face), email me if you are wondering if any other stereotypes about Chinese people are true or false. my email is stynen@gwmail.gwu.edu.

DISCLAIMER: yes, China is an extremely diverse country and saying a generalization about China is like trying to generalize Americans: it's impossible and can never be true all the time. these claims are from my observations around Nanjing.